Big Little Brother: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

When someone mentions his or her “little brother”, you usually expect a smaller, weaker individual, most likely a child or teenager. The big little brother is the polar opposite of this. It’s someone who may be the youngest member of his family, but just so happens to be stronger, taller and overall more physically impressive than his older siblings. The revelation of this usually comes as a surprise to both the audience and the characters in a story. This trope is usually used for comical effect.

 

* ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]''

** Alphonse Elric is the little brother of Edward Elric, but because his body has turned into a suit of armour he is much taller and stronger than his older brother. {{spoiler|A few years after regaining his body, Al grows taller than Ed. At least he isn't dwarfed in comparison anymore.}}

* Yuki Aiba of ''[[Infinite Ryvius]]''. Even though his older brother Kouji is the protagonist of the series, Yuki is a bona-fide [[The Ace|Ace]], while Kouji barely squeaks into [[Dogged Nice Guy]] territory. Yuki is taller, stronger, bolder, is better looking, is better a fighter, a better pilot, a better tactician, and has a more active love life than his older brother. Kouji's only saving graces are that he's more responsible and better organized than Yuki.

 

* The Belgium comic strip ''Suske en Wiske'' uses this trope in at least two albums. In ''de malle mergpijp'', Jerom is forced to fight a giant grotkastaar (an ape-like inhabitant of Jerome’s prehistoric homeworld) who is the “little brother” of a much smaller and less impressive grotkastaar. In the album ''de glanzende gletsjer'', Lambik finds himself in a world inhabited by cave men, who force him to fight against the little brother of their chief; a tall and muscular cave man.

* The French comic ''[[Asterix]]'' uses this trope in the album ''Asterix at the Olympic Games''. During the games we see a big, muscular man fighting in the arena while his older brother encourages him from the sideline. When Vitalstatistix asks him if everyone in his family is this strong, he mentions he has an even younger brother who is even stronger than both of them. {{spoiler|He was however unable to come to the games because he still hasn't recovered from a spanking he received from their mother}}.

* Colossus from the [[X-Men]] was the youngest of the "All-New, All-Different" team, being 17 or 18 when recruited, but he was also the [[Big Guy]] and towered over the others in his metal form.

 

* ''[[The Land Before Time]]'': Spike is the adopted little brother of Ducky, but is much bigger than her because he is a stegosaurus and she is a saurolophus.

* ''[[Four Brothers]]'': The youngest of the four Mercer brothers, Jack, is by far the tallest of the lot. They ''are'' all adopted, after all.

* Invoked verbatim in ''[[Flight of the Navigator]]'', where thanks to time travel, the main character's "little brother" has aged past him.

 

* In [[World Without End]], Ralph is this to Merthin.

* [[Jack Reacher]] is the younger brother, but he is the better fighter and physically bigger than his brother.

* ''[[Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix]]'': We get to meet Hagrid's little brother, Grawp. Grawp, being a full giant instead of just a half giant, is 16 feet tall (which makes him small, by giant standards).

 

** ''[[Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger]]'' has Younger Brother be an average-sized [[Monster of the Week]]. Elder Brother is the size (and shape) of ''a baseball''.

* ''[[Everybody Hates Chris]]'' has Chris's younger brother, Drew, being both taller [[Always Someone Better|and]] [[Big Man on Campus|much]] [[Kidanova|cooler]]. Chris is quite aware of it.

* Alcide Herveaux from ''[[True Blood]]'' is a walking mountain of muscle, but his older sister Janice still refers to him as her "baby" brother.

* On ''[[Hercules: The Legendary Journeys]]'', Aphrodite often refers to Herc as her "big brother," even though she's older than him by centuries.

* Rodney to Del in ''[[Only Fools and Horses]]''.

 

* Light example with ''[[Crash Bandicoot]]''. Coco is often slightly taller and significantly [[Wise Beyond Their Years|more intelligent and sane]] than her "big brother" [[Cloudcuckoolander|Crash]] (granted this depends on the [[Depending on the Writer|creative]] [[Depending on the Artist|team]], in ''Mind Over Mutant'' for example she is shorter than Crash and almost as demented and childish as he is).

* Played with in the ''[[Super Mario]]'' series. Luigi is taller than Mario and has his own moments of impressive heroism, however he is also rather cowardly and frequently lives in his big brother's shadow.

 

* Strong Sad from ''[[Homestar Runner]]'' is not only a lot taller than Strong Bad, he's also wider. Besides this, he's also shown to be almost always smarter. He probably only lets Strong Bad pick on him because their elder brother Strong Mad is Strong Bad's ally and is even bigger than Strong Sad himself.

 

* Prince Ossomer of ''[[Erfworld]]'' is the youngest, tallest and [[Mighty Glacier|most muscular]] of the three Jetstone Princes. [[Inverted Trope|Inverted]] by Prince Tramennis, the eldest and smallest.

 

* Tom in ''[[Echo Chamber]]'' was overshadowed by his little brother, which serves as his [[Freudian Excuse]] for being a [[Jerkass]] to [[Cloudcuckoolander|Zack]].

{{quote|'''Dana:''' Everyone has an older brother that overshadows--

'''Tom:''' I... I didn't say he was older.

'''Zack:''' Tom's a loser! }}

 

* Exaggerated in ''[[The Proud Family]]'' with the Gross sisters. The youngest sister in the trio towers over everyone, while the oldest is a half-pint.

* Don from ''[[Regular Show]]'', a fancy accountant who is tall, muscular, and popular. He is also Rigby's little brother. Made extremely jarring by the fact that, out of the cast of mostly-[[Funny Animal]]s, Don is the most human-looking character—more so than the human characters themselves—and he's stark ''naked''. And constantly wants some [[Unusual Euphemism|sugar]] from his big brother.

** ''Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story'' shows that the older siblings remain roughly the same height into adulthood, while Stewie grows up to be quite tall and lean.

* Sherman Cortez in ''[[Hot Wheels Battle Force 5]]''.

 

* Often [[Truth in Television]], especially for a lot of guys with older sisters. If genetics are kind to you there eventually comes a wonderful day where you find yourself looking ''down'' to see your big sister.

** The younger siblings often tend to be taller than their older siblings, even with girls. It's not that uncommon for an older brother to have a sister who's the same height as or taller than them.