Mini Mook - Television Tropes & Idioms

"Real little and real mean!"

— Crazy Dave, Plants Vs Zombies

You've fought against normal Mooks and now you've met a smaller version of them. A impending Curb-Stomp Battle? Well ... you can't be that sure. Sometimes, the Mini Mook will take advantage of its fragility by being so dang hard to actually hit. And sometimes, it defies expectations by being a full-on Pintsized Powerhouse.

Often dealt with using a handy dandy shotgun, or a useful and versatile rocket launcher. Because there is No Kill Like Overkill. Also, it is hard to hit the Fragile Speedster with a knife.

Sometimes Mini Mooks will come in swarms, relying on sheer numbers to compensate for their weaker strength.

Contrast Giant Mook. See also Adorable Evil Minions.

Examples

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Card Games

Magic: The Gathering gives us Segovian Leviathan. A 3/3. A normal Dominarian leviathan is a 10/10. Why is this? Well, Segovia is a plane where everything is tiny. More directly dealing with this is Amrou Kithkin, a tiny creature that can't be blocked by anything that isn't also tiny.

Films — Live-action

Nick Nack in The Man With the Golden Gun, played by Hervé Villechaize.
Austin Powers: "I shall call him... mini-Me."

Literature

The Star-spawn of Cthulhu, who are basically mini-mes of Cthulhu.

Video Games

Some games in the Super Mario Bros. franchise (starting with Super Mario Brothers 3) have the Micro-Goomba, a smaller (and much more annoying) version of the usual Mascot Mook. Super Mario World has the Thwimps, which are tiny versions of Thwomps.
Gunstar Heroes: the diminuitive Minion Soldier, who is actually really quite hard to beat.
Invoked by the Pokémon move "minimize" (which also increases damage from the move "Stomp") which raises your Mons' evasion.
In Half-Life, when you get to Xen you discover that the ubiquitous headcrabs are merely mini-versions of the Gonarch. (And the Gonarch spawns mini-headcrabs, as well.)
- In Opposing Force, there is a mini-version of the voltigore.
Psychonauts had mini-censors (like normal Censors, but smaller). Ranger Ford would advise the player to use Raz's Ground Pound attack to take them out the whole swarm at once.
The various midget versions of enemies in Borderlands.
In Photo Dojo on DSi, in the 1-player beat-em-up sidescroller mode, miniature versions of your opponents sometimes appear. You can't punch them or hit them with fireballs, but kicks and jumpkicks kill them in one hit.
Little Calebs in the Blood Expansion Pack. Notable in that they are midget enemy versions of the protagonist.
Super Smash Bros..: Mites in Subspace Emissary.
Evolva featured a few of these, especially at the Parasite's headquarters, where they're supposed to be created.
In one stage of Plants Vs Zombies, you have to fight small versions of regular zombies. They take about a third of the damage they normally have, but they move twice as quickly and eat your plants twice as fast.
Crazy Dave: Defend your shins!!!
The Nameless Mod has tiny aliens on the space station. They're extremely difficult opponents, approaching Goddamned Bats, because of their small hitboxes and because of how fast they are. They can also somehow tank whole clips of bullets that are half their size.
Red Dead Revolver: them; buildings full of clown midgets. You; gatling gun. Fun times are had by, well, you.
Bug! had Reptilia, a stage with literal Army Ants that fired grenades from their tails. At the end of Scene 2, you come across a sign that says: "BEWARE! BIG ANTS". You then face off against three tiny versions of the ant enemies, but these don't do anything except flee from Bug. Until you get to the end...
Serious Sam occasionally toys with the enemies' size just to screw with the player. Most often tiny enemies retain health and power of normal ones, unless they have even more.

Western Animation

Jackie Chan Adventures had Hak Fu summoning miniature shadowkhan. They failed to prove a threat until he discovered their shadow eating abilities. His attempts to teach them martial arts, however, were hilarious.

Mini Mecha

Added Alliterative Appeal

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