Large and In Charge: Difference between revisions

 

{{quote|"I'm da biggest, so I'm da boss!"

 

The tendency to visually depict leaders of an organization as large, physically intimidating people. Sort of makes sense, because people are more likely to follow orders from a big guy than a small one. Abundant in video games since these guys need to be able to make impressive bosses as well and players like big targets. Unless they have magic or machines for that, but even then they tend to be pretty big. While most commonly this trope applies to villains there are still some heroic characters that are '''Large and In Charge'''.

** Averted with the Straw Hats. Luffy isn't the tallest of the crew. Franky and Brooke easily tower over him and Zoro and Sanji are also taller than him. Even Robin is taller than Luffy.

*** To be fair, Robin is around 6'2 and also taller than Zoro, Usopp, and Sanji.

** Blackbeard is a subversion; while he ''is'' about 12 feet tall, some members of his crew are larger, most notably San Juan Wolf, who is not only an actual giant, but large even compared to most of his people.

* Lordgenome from ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'', who's at least seven feet tall and densely muscular. Even more so with Thymilph the Crasher, first among his four generals and literal 800 Pound Gorilla.

** Jabba the Hutt. And, in the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe|Expanded Universe]], all other Hutts, as well. Hutts, in fact, consider girth to be a sign of strength and power, and consider small Hutts to be weak and less worthy.

** Ironically subverted with [[The Emperor|Emperor Palpatine]], the [[Big Bad|main villain]], who has the appearance of frail old man.

* The Persian "God-King" Xerxes in ''[[300]]''.

* The President in ''[[The Fifth Element]]''.

 

== Literature ==

** Played with in the case of Captain Carrot plays. He's 6'6 and has the approximate body shape of his namesake due to his hugely developed musculature. He's neither the leader of the watch nor the ruler of the city, but he has to actively work to not be any of those things, since most people obey him unthinkingly.

** Amongst others are Mustrum Ridcully (Archchancellor of UU, and apparently quite a big man), Hughton Ridcully (Mustrum's brother, and chief priest of Blind Io, and consequently the whole religious organisation in the city), Harry King (one of the biggest employers in the city, and apparently also a big man), the brothers Upright (run all the stagecoaches in the city, and again, big men, and in this case pretty portly as well). Perhaps surprisingly averted with the trolls, the most powerful troll in the city is by no means big by their standards.

* Tigerstar of ''[[Warrior Cats]]'' is described as a very large and muscular cat with very long, hooked claws. Inverted with Scourge of BloodClan, who is so tiny that most characters wonder what the heck he's doing sitting next to Bone, who is enormous (and Scourge's [[The Dragon|Dragon]]). Scourge quickly proves that his small size gives him speed and agility, which coupled with his ruthlessness make him one of the [[Asskicking Equals Authority|most lethal combatants in the series.]]

* ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'':

** Men of Númenor were noted for generally being taller than typical Men, and their height was often indicative of their personal power and social standing. Elendil (regarded as the greatest Man of his age) was about 8 feet tall. Height as a measure of power and standing was also typical among the Elves.

** Another Tolkien example is the Great Goblin from ''[[The Hobbit]]''.

** The Witch-King of the Nazgul was easy to tell from his eight underlings, standing head-and-shoulders over them.

* Gilgamesh in ''[[The Epic of Gilgamesh]]''.

** On a smaller scale, the race known as dark creepers in the 1st and 2nd Editions, later called dark ones or dark folk, are the size of Halflings, except the leader of each community, called a dark stalker; they're human-sized.

** This is always the case with myconids, a subterranean race of fungus-men. Myconid range from 1 to 7 HD, and are about one foot tall per HD; there is only one 7 HD myconid in a community, and that one is the king.

* The "rulers" of the Slivers in ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' are much larger than even their largest subordinates—specifically, all three have 7 power and 7 toughness, while the largest Sliver (aside from a variant designed to sabotage opposing Sliver decks) has 4 and 4. In real life terms, they would also be physically larger; the Queen is dozens of feet long, the Overlord a mashup from at least four other Slivers, and the Legion actually being a [[Hive Mind]] spread out among many Sliver bodies.

** The green Phyrexian faction is led by Vorinclex. It really fits [[The Social Darwinist|his personality]].

* In ''[[Amphibia (TV series)|Amphibia]]'', Mayor Froderick Toadstool is the largest resident of Wartwood Swamp, the town where most of season 1 takes place; justified, as he is a toad while most other residents are frogs. However, the king of Amphibia as a whole is King Andrias Leviathan, who towers over ''any'' of his subjects, clearly the biggest non-monster character on the show as of the end of season 2.

* In the 2012 version of ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'', the Kraang are aliens that are about the size of the brains they resemble. Their leader is called Kraang Prime, looks similar to its underlings, but is much bigger, about the size of a bus. [[Authority Equals Asskicking|Far more dangerous too.]]

 

== [[Real Life]] ==