Our Giants Are Bigger



Human beings, but super-sized, giants have been around since the times of ancient mythology. In various mythologies, gigantic peoples are featured as primeval creatures associated with chaos and the wild, and they are frequently in conflict with the gods, be they Olympian or Norse. These creatures may range in size from around 7 feet (the average size of the tallest Real Life humans), to truly colossal proportions.

The most common perception of the giant is the big, dumb brute who grinds people's bones to make his bread. But literal gentle giants are also featured in both legends and modern stories, who are somewhat friendlier (and sometimes smarter) than the stereotype would imply. The evil types may be antagonists in their own right or serve as Giant Mooks (pun intended) for an Evil Overlord.

In Real Life, the profusion of Giants in mythology is usually attributed to memories of childhood, when adults tower over you, and also the rivalry between young men and old men. Outside of mythology, when explorers have characterized the inhabitants of a newly-discovered land as "giants", it was usually because of a difference of only a few inches in height.

This is Older Than Feudalism. Not to be confused with The Giant, who may be a big wrestler, but isn't nearly that big. See also Smash Mook, Giant Mook, Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever.

Really huge giants, in any real-world context, would fall victim to the Square-Cube Law in short order, but the vast majority of such beings tend to exist in fantasy universes that cheerfully disregard such things as the laws of physics in favor of creating a good story.

Anime and Manga

 * Mazinger Z: In New Mazinger (an one-shot alternate story published in The Eighties), an explosion transports Kouji Kabuto to an alternate dimension inhabited by giant beings. The human beings were sixty-foot-tall and just so big as Mazinger-Z (in fact, when Kouji saved one princess, she though Mazinger-Z was an armored knight, and she asked him removing his helmet to see his face). They were mostly good-natured and intelligent, although their technology was at a Middle Ages level, and they were in war against a race of monsters.
 * One Piece giants vary greatly in size, from Jaguar D. Saul being maybe thirty feet or so tall to the likes of Oars and his descendant Oars Jr., who are about three hundred feet tall. Apparently, there are entirely different types of giant and Saul considers it something of an insult to be considered one of the other kind. So far the ratio is 5 good giants to 1 evil giant, who also happened to be a zombie. And, apart from Oars, they do not seem particularly stupid or intelligent.
 * It should be noted that Oars was controlled by part of Luffy's soul while he was a villain, but he did die by going into the cold wearing only a loincloth.
 * Then there are plenty of characters who are not actually giants, but are still ridiculously huge compared to other humans for no apparent reason, such as Whitebeard, Gecko Moria, and Magellan. Word of God is that this is simply how height naturally varies among humans in the One Piece world; the same with how much the size of giants varies.
 * This size comparison should help to understand the size of the character, with other giants in the foreground (making the size diference to actualy be even bigger) , one of whom is circled in red.
 * It seems that he may very well be
 * To simplify things, in the One Piece World, you have normal humans as we know them that are around the 5 foot to 6 foot height (Luffy, Nami, Zoro, Sanji, Robin, and pretty much the average people seen around the world; this category is the most common ), big/tall humans around the 8 foot to 15 foot area (Brook, Akainu, Kizaru, Aokiji, Crocodile, Doflamingo, etc. ), really big humans around the 18 to 25 foot tall area (Gecko Moria, Kuma, Whitebeard, etc. ), Non-Elbaf giants around 50 feet or so tall (Jaguar D. Saul), Elbaf giants around 70 or so feet tall (Oimo and Kashii, as seen above) big demon-like giants that are several hundreds of feet tall (Oars, also seen above, and Little Oars Jr., his descendant), extremely big demon-like giants who may very well be thousands of feet tall (San Juan Wolf), and lastly fishmen/mermaids that are big due to their fish-race that vary between all categories (Shirahoshi is about as big as an Elbaf Giant whereas Wadatsumi is about as big as Oars).
 * In Bleach, Sajin Komamura's Bankai takes the form of an enormous samurai with a titanic sword for its weapon. It has an amazing appearance, but a critical weakness: it's designed to defeat the opponent in a single hit, and if such is not done, vulnerable to defeat - and any damage it takes is simultaneously inflicted on Komamura.
 * Shintaro Kago's Super-Conductive Brains Parataxis features a race of colossal humanoids cloned from fossils and known as Surdlers. To be used as Humongous Mecha for civilian and military purposes, they are extensively modified -- their organic brains are swapped out for computers, their faces and genitals replaced by cybernetic implants, and occasionally, additional limbs or extra torsos are grafted on to suit the tasks they are built for.
 * Shintaro Kago's Super-Conductive Brains Parataxis features a race of colossal humanoids cloned from fossils and known as Surdlers. To be used as Humongous Mecha for civilian and military purposes, they are extensively modified -- their organic brains are swapped out for computers, their faces and genitals replaced by cybernetic implants, and occasionally, additional limbs or extra torsos are grafted on to suit the tasks they are built for.

Card Games

 * Giants are ubiquitous in Magic: The Gathering. In the main setting of Dominaria, they're just generically big, tough bruisers, though other settings go into their culture a bit more.
 * In the Ravnica setting, giants are mostly soldiers for the Boros Legion, though some outcasts find a life as grunts in the Gruul Clans.
 * Giants in the fairy-tale world of Lorwyn are ancient and mystical, yet still can be clumsy and whimsically dim-witted. Giants sleep for years or decades at a time, dreaming deep dreams, and when they awake they take on new names and purposes in life based on what they dream. Some ride absurdly large goats with wings.
 * In Lorwyn's Bizarro Universe, Shadowmoor, giants sleep even longer, to the extent that trees and turf start to grow on their bodies and they become part of the landscape They're pretty cranky when they wake up, rampaging throughout the countryside and smashing and devouring everything and everyone they come across.

Comic Books

 * Seeing on how it's based off Norse Mythology, The Mighty Thor usually finds himself squaring off Frost Giants (the "Jotuns") or any sub-races like Storm Giants or Mountain Giants. Intrestingly, in the older books, Giants looked like 25 feet Gonk-ish, brutish humans but nowadays are more like huge Orcs.
 * Hank Pym can utilize Pym particles to grow to giant size, at which point he takes the name Giant Man or Goliath. At first, he was only able to go up to ten feet, but he's managed to go bigger. Modern portrayals show his normal giant size being somewhere around 25 to 30 feet.

Literature

 * In Gene Wolfe's The Wizard Knight series (dulogy? bilogy?) we first meet the Angrborn in the first book, The Knight, as massive men taller than trees and very destructive. It isn't until the second book, The Wizard, that it is properly explained that these are only half-breeds, and the real Angrborn are far larger. They in turn are dwarfed by their ancestors, the Giants of Winter and Old Night, who still dwell in Skai.
 * Also has the Ogre Org, who isn't as big as the Angrborn, but is still massive. And invisible.
 * Harry Potter also features giants. Most of them are the typical nasty brutes, but a few (including the half-giant Hagrid, one of the major characters), are friendly.
 * While Hagrid is more civilized than full blooded giants, he has an over fascination with very violent and deadly magical creatures, and has a tendency to bring students too close to harm. For example, he sees no problem with keeping the giant spider, Aragog, despite the fact that it would love nothing more than to devour the occupants of the castle, and only spares Hagrid because he raised it.
 * Where would we be without The BFG? That is, the Big Friendly Giant of Roald Dahl fame. The other giants in the story were VERY nasty, however...
 * Most giants in The Chronicles of Narnia are fairly genial and usually on the side of the good guys, although there are some 'evil' wild giants who eat other sentient creatures.
 * The Gentle Giants featured in the fourth book eventually turn out to be less-than-gentle (though smarter than most of the other dim-witted giants).
 * Don't most humans, including those considered "good guys" eat other sentient creatures too?
 * No. It's established in the fourth book that Narnians consider it okay to eat wild, non-sentient animals, but eating an intelligent, talking animal is considered the Narnian equivalent of Eats Babies.
 * The most recent film version of the first book had giants on both sides, although they all disappeared once the two forces actually met.
 * The White Witch is actually half Giant and half Jinn.
 * The Hobbit briefly features giants throwing rocks around in the Misty Mountains. An odd case, since they aren't even mentioned in The Lord of the Rings or The Silmarillion, and there's no explanation of what they are or where they came from. For all we know, Bilbo could have just made them up when he was writing the book, consid.
 * Very early in The Fellowship of the Ring in a bar scene in the Shire, a giant is mentioned as being spotted.
 * The giants in the The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant series are a friendly and advanced species. They have an affinity for stone and are excellent sailors. They cannot be burned, but they still feel the pain of intense heat. They are generally a very sedate and even-tempered people, but can sometimes be provoked into a state of Unstoppable Rage.
 * In Clive Barker's "Books of Blood," the story "In the Hills, The Cities" deals with a traditional battle between two unorthodox giants which are beings composed of thousands of human beings from the rival cities of Popolac and Podujevo, all citizens working together to form a single, massive being which then fights the "giant" of the other city. Unfortunately, one year the harvest for Podujevo is less than anticipated, and as a result one flank of the giant is weakened and the city-giant collapses, killing all constituent participants and causing the city-giant of Popolac to go collectively insane with grief.
 * The Brobdingnagians in Gulliver's Travels are as tall as church steeples and have a moral superiority in proportion to their physical size. When Gulliver describes European society, the Brobdingnagian king is disgusted. In contrast, the Lilliputians see Gulliver as a giant, and their own society is a parody of the worst aspects of European society.
 * There's a friendly giant in one of Mercedes Lackey's Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms.
 * The giants of the Xanth series vary in size (but are always colossal). Some of them are invisible; they became that way by becoming so big that they became too diffuse to see, like a balloon inflated to the point of transparency.
 * In George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, giants are a species of shaggy, ape-like people in the frigid north of Westeros. They stand around fourteen feet tall, wield crude clubs in battle, and ride woolly mammoths. A dwindling species, giants are little more than a legend to the majority of the continent. Wildlings believe that particularly large humans have some giant blood.
 * Mirror Mask's giants look like bizarre statues, and they levitate above the ground, orbiting each other. They also SPEAK... VERY... SLOWLY. When one of them is pulled to Earth by shadows, it melts into the ground, and the other floats away.
 * The Grass Giants from Ringworld, a very large, herbivorous race of hominids. Presumably not the only giant hominids on the Ringworld.
 * A member of a prehistoric race of giants, as yet undiscovered by paleontologists, appears in the Riverworld series.
 * Stan Lee's Riftworld series has a race of giants from Another Dimension -- they're basically scaled-up humans supported by telekinesis, genetically engineered by an alien AI. And nearly every one a Jerkass.
 * The Food of the Gods by H. G. Wells is about the discovery of a food supplement which, when ingested by newborn creatures (including humans), causes them to grow very large.
 * In The Challenges of Zona giants are actually mutant humans who both grow at an accelrated rate and never stop growing their entire lives. The two met so far are also Gentle Giants.
 * In Robert E. Howard's "The Frost Giants Daughter," the title character is the sister of a band of giants who kill and eat anyone she lures to them. They (and she) meet their match when she tries to do this with Conan the Barbarian.
 * In "The Pool of the Black One", Conan encounters giants, only a little taller than human, but murderous.
 * In Magnus, the giant Tsavo is described "the last progeny of the second preternatural race of supermen spawned by fallen angels."
 * In BrokedownPalace, one of the four royal brothers is a human giant. It's mentioned that the family produces them every few generations, suggesting a genetic proclivity towards gigantism.
 * Gargantua and Pentagruel By Rabelais has giant protagonists.
 * In L. Jagi Lamplighter's Prospero Regained, they are nephilim, the offspring of angels and men.

Mythology and Religion

 * Older Than Feudalism: Classical Mythology features various giants:
 * The Gitantes notably had a major conflict against the Olympian gods. The Greeks believed that earthquakes and volcanic eruptions were caused by these giants being buried beneath the earth. One fact about these Giants that aren't widely known was that they were born wearing armor and holding a spear and that they had snakes for legs. Not as much as Typhon's snake legs, though.
 * Typhon himself is a giant so tall that his hands could almost touch the stars. He also had one or more snake tails for legs, and hundred dragon and animal heads. He belches fire and/or lava.
 * The Hekatonkheires are as huge as giants, and each has a hundred arms and fifty heads. They're apparently immortal, like the gods.
 * Cyclopes are giants originating in Greek myth. There were two versions: the immortal smith assistants of Hephaistos; and the brutish, sheep-herding, man-eating fellows such as Polyphemos.
 * One Greek myth features a set of six-armed giants marauding around the south coast of the Black Sea.
 * In late antiquity, writers started getting the Titans (originally a group of gods) confused with the Gigantes, adding yet another bunch to the giant menagerie.
 * Giants in Norse Mythology:
 * Similar to the Greek giants, the Jotun were perennial foes of the gods of Asgard, particularly the frost giants.
 * The frost giant Ymir was so large that his corpse was used as the construction materials for the whole bleepin' universe. When he was killed, his blood drowned all the other giants, except for two that were on a boat.
 * There's also Surtr and the rest of the fire giants, who play a major role at Ragnarok.
 * The Bible and biblical lore:
 * The half-angel Nephilim were described as giants.
 * A similar example of a giant-as-antagonist: Goliath. Some versions of the story have him as a descendant of the earlier race. Earlier texts have him only six and a half feet tall, not the "usual" nine and a half.
 * Some more examples would be the people who lived in the Promised Land, but since we only have the word of some very scared scouts, this may be a bit of exaggeration.
 * Jack and the Beanstalk is a classic tale featuring a giant as the main antagonist.
 * There's also Jack In Irons, a creature of folklore that makes an appearance as an enemy in City of Heroes.
 * Another Jack, Jack the Giant Killer who seems to have met a truly amazing number of giants throughout the British Isles. Some had multiple heads.

Table Top Games

 * Dungeons and Dragons has a wide variety of giants, including the stereotypically brutish Hill Giants, shy and reclusive Stone Giants, the Norse-inspired Fire Giants (who look like gigantic evil dwarves), and the Norse-inspired Frost Giants. Storm Giants lean more toward the Gentle Giant side of the archetype, plus they have innate magic.
 * The 4th edition of the game even references the Rage Against the Heavens subtrope by having giants as the servants of the Primordials, ancient foes of the gods in a very Norse Mythology-esque parallel. It also follows along nicely with Greek/Roman Mythology: First the Gods(Olympians) overthrow the Primordials(Titans), then the Primordials try to use the Giants(Gigantes) to retake the throne, but fail. This was taken from the vague backstory of Forgotten Realms giants.
 * It's also a pretty common trope in mythology, particularly Indo-European mythology. Supposedly, its linked to a cultural memory of the conquest or displacement of palaeolithic peoples by neolithic ones, represented by the civilised gods overthrowing an earlier, primordial race more heavily associated with the elements. The exact "alignment" of the primordials differs from culture to culture, and some, such as the Norse, include primordials ranging from the Lawful Good Vanir, a tribe of nature gods, to the Chaotic Evil fire-giants.
 * Giants are different in Monte Cooke's Arcana Unearthed Dungeons and Dragons setting - they begin only slightly larger than humans and gain in size and power as they gain names. They're intelligent and highly magical, and they rule the world after saving it from the dragons.
 * Space fantasy setting Spelljammer had the colossus, a giant roughly the size and shape of a small mountain that could navigate through space by jumping off the planet. (His speed was very low, though, unless he got engines installed somehow.)
 * In the Eberron campaign setting, ancient giants formed a number of highly advanced civilisations across the continent of Xen'Drik. After a series of major cataclysms the empires lie in ruins. Most giants have regressed to a more primitive state, with some powerful exceptions.
 * 3.5's Races of Stone and 4th Edition include the Goliath as a player race. They grow up to nearly 8 feet, which isn't large for a giant, but still the largest of any player race.
 * Although roughly on par with half-giants, which are half hill giants. Before you ask, yes, A Wizard Did It (or maybe a sorcerer). What's more, despite their hill giant parentage, not only are they mentally on par to normal humans, they are arguably superior by virtue of their inherent psionic abilities.
 * Warhammer Fantasy Battle giants are the barbaric remnants of a once-great civilization decimated devoured by the Ogres.
 * The Storm Of Magic supplement of Warhammer introduces Bonebreaker Giant, which is almost thrice as tall as a normal giant, which itself is already 5-6 times taller than an average human.
 * Known to exist in Warhammer 40000 as well, where they're generally labeled Big Mutants or big ogryn, depending on whether they're Lost And The Damned or not.
 * Giants in The Palladium Fantasy RPG come in most of the same flavors as D&D, and also include the noble Titans and the mutant Gigantes. These species also made their way to Rifts in various ways. A Titan runs what's left of Houston, Texas, and a mercenary Jotan (equivalent to a D&D Hill Giant) wears a suit of Power Armor that makes him look like a mech. The Jotuns of Norse mythology are in fact a combination of all these.

Western Animation

 * A gigantic pirate appears in the animated Puff the Magic Dragon, evidently in direct response to Jackie Draper a.k.a. Paper's fear of pirates.

Video Games

 * Shadow of the Colossus, the eponymous colossi, natch.
 * Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II figures the only way to top the rancor from Return of the Jedi is to throw in a several hundred foot tall monster that is capable of crushing a rancor in it's hand. And it still manages to get beaten!
 * Warcraft games feature many different types of giants. Most were created by the Titans to help shape the world. The most common types are Sea Giants (aquatic giants that look like big scale-covered humanoids) and Mountain Giants (big roughly humanoid things made of rock). Other types include Ice Giants and Molten Giants (recolors of the Mountain Giant model), Flesh Giants (really big homunculi created by the Scourge), Crystal Giants of Outland (basically stone giants with a fancier model) and Storm Giants (appearing in the next expansion. Not much info on them yet, but they seem to be more intelligent than the other ones)
 * Giants in this series are apparently something along the lines of guardians created by the titans, not unlike the dragons. However, they tend to be more territorial and aggressive. Their second main duty is that they are the titans' craftsmen IE. the sea giant sculpted the sea floor and mountain giants... made mountains and stuff. They're almost all hostile, however, though there is a friendly sea giant god in Azshara and a faction of frost giants in Storm Peaks.
 * The viking-like Vrykul probably count too. While they're much smaller than the actual giants, they're still well over twice the height of humans, and even the few Vrykul who aren't serving the Lich King are every bit as aggressive as giants tend to be portrayed.
 * The Ogres could also count, although they are completely unrelated to the Titans, having originally come from the world of Draenor (the Orc homeworld). They are normally dumb, whether they have one head or two, unless they learn magic, at which point they get really smart.
 * Castlevania has one as a Bait and Switch Boss. AND HE'S AWESOME.
 * The protagonist of Doshin the Giant is an incarnation of the sun who appears every day at dawn, and grows larger by absorbing the love and hate of humans. The love giant, Doshin, wants to help humans, while the hate giant, Jashin, wants to kill them and make them suffer. He starts off 10m tall, and can reach a maximum height of 301m.
 * Giants in The Elder Scrolls are usually a metaphor used for gods. Some human cultures believe they descend from giants, in contrast to the elves who outright (and arrogantly) state they descend from the gods, though they both actually believe the same thing.
 * However, The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim contain more traditional giants. And in Skyrim they can launch people into space with a single hit.
 * The Gigas in Final Fantasy XI hail from the frozen far northern continent in the world of Vana'diel. They were employed as mercenaries by the Shadow Lord, but after the Crystal War, all the Gigas in the Middle Lands were trapped, unable to come home. They now reside almost entirely in Qufim Island and Delkfutt's Tower, although some of them are in Tavnazia or the Grim Up North areas in or around Xarcabard.
 * Or stuck in Korroloka Tunnel.
 * Giants in Tales of MU are a mixture of the Dungeons and Dragons version and various mythological influences, as most MU races are. They're apparently primordial beings who warred with the forces of chaos, the gods, and the dragons in some combination before leaving the world for another plane, possibly by climbing a stalk or a trunk. Only one of them has been seen in the main story, a badly undersized storm giant named Pala (Icelandic for "small") who "commutes" to Magisterius University.
 * Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge and VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant feature giants, usually in the transition between the early and middle game. Most are of the big bruiser type, but are also resistant to magic. The Elite Mooks and Superpowered Mooks versions add extra abilities, such as vomiting on the player.
 * Age of Wonders features universally good-aligned giants who are close allies of the dwarves (and speculated to be related to the dwarves). Even larger and more powerful entities called Titans fight for the High Men, being creatures of intense discipline and righteousness.
 * The Qunari of Dragon Age are sometimes called giants by non-Qunari, and not without good reason: they tower over the other races, common specimens being at least seven feet high. Qunari are also born with horns, though some of them have them shorn (the Saarebas Ketojan, for example), and a rare few are born entirely without them (the Sten from the first game). Also unusually for giants in fantasy games, the Qunari have a very ordered society that dictates and cements an individual's place in society based on their talents, a strong urge to spread this philosphy to the rest of the world, a spectacular grasp of gunpowder weaponry in an otherwise Medieval setting, and a caste of mages known as Saarebas who are kept collared and supervised at all times to prevent any form of corruption. (word of god succinctly described them as "militant islamic borg".
 * Meanwhile, the Darkspawn borne from Qunari women-turned-Broodmothers, the Ogres, are the biggest and nastiest breed of darkspawn, outgrowing true Qunari by several metres. Fortunately, there aren't any Ogre Emissaries.
 * In Dante's Inferno the Ninth Circle is surrounded by a wall of giants imbedded up to their waists and wrapped in chains.
 * Mabinogi giants are about 9-10 feet tall and are a player race. They are at war with the desert elves.
 * The prequel, Vindictus, has a currently-unreleased giant character named Karok. He wields a battle pillar, and can use grapple attacks on bosses.
 * In Disciples and its sequels, the giants are related to the dwarves, as both as children of Wotan, and often fight by their side. Vithar is a giant who protects the dwarven capital from their enemies and is Wotan's right-hand man. The titans are just as big but fight for The Empire (i.e. humans). They also appear to be all female. Additionally, there are wild giants who have no allegiance to any power. They aren't too bright, but anything using a tree trunk as a club can't be useless.
 * In Dungeon Siege 2, there exist Agallan Giants, a race of Ultimate Blacksmiths who live in seclusion in the mountains and are easily 50 foot tall, and a good deal wide as well. Descended from them are Half-Giants, who are more sensibly sized but still tower over any human. They are the offspring of a group of banished and cursed Agallans who lost their enormous proportions and limitless lifespan. Because the banished group had no female members, they were forced to interbreed with other species, and the result was a One-Gender Race of Half-Giants whose gene pool is doomed to be diluted into nothingness.
 * In the second "The Battle for Middle Earth" game, Mountain Giants are a unit for the "Corrupted Wild"/Goblin side. They are even bigger then Trolls, and due to their attacks of throwing boulders seem to be the same type of Giants listed at the top.
 * Giants in Dark Souls are armored behemoths that the gods conscripted into manual labor. While the three in Sen's Fortress don't speak and are hostile to the player, the Giant Blacksmith is a Gentle Giant that is always happy to see the player.
 * Giants in Dark Souls are armored behemoths that the gods conscripted into manual labor. While the three in Sen's Fortress don't speak and are hostile to the player, the Giant Blacksmith is a Gentle Giant that is always happy to see the player.

Web Comics

 * Erfworld has the Titans, the beings who created Erfworld. They can only be described as omnipotent mile-high Elvis impersonators.
 * In addition are somewhat more traditional giants, being about 10 or so feet tall, the Western Giants are styled after baseball players... complete with a reference to steroid use.
 * Parson himself probably counts. He's not as big as the really big units but all the normal sized humans of Erfworld are the size of children compared to him, and he seems to be classified as a "heavy" unit by the game-mechanics/physics of Erfworld. Stanley, his diminutive superior, barely even comes up to Parson's kneecap.
 * In The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob, Molly's second clone, Jolly, is very, very large.
 * In The Challenges of Zona giants are human mutants who grow at an accelerated rate and never stop doing so although their growth rate slows when they become adults. This is a more detailed accounting

Real Life

 * Persons with gigantism, a pituitary-related health condition leading to extreme height, were commonly featured in old-time sideshows. Promoters of such entertainments often boasted of (and shamelessly exaggerated) the extraordinary tallness of their performers. (To medically qualify as a giant, one must be 7 feet and up.)
 * 18th and 19th century anatomists often collected unusual human skeletons, and those of human giants -- the taller, the better -- were among the most sought-after. Charles Byrne, an 8'2" Irishman who died in 1783, was so afraid of being skeletonized that he asked for his lead coffin to be sunken in the Thames.
 * Gigantopithecus, an extinct primate that our prehuman relations Homo erectus may very well have encountered. From The Other Wiki: "Based on the fossil evidence, it is believed that adult male Gigantopithecus blacki stood about 3 m (9.8 ft) tall and weighed as much as 540 kg (1,200 lb)". Zoinks. (Note that while Gigantopithecus has at times been portrayed as a hominid, it was in fact more like a giant orangutan.)