Basic Trope: Massive things should be crushed by their own weight, but are not.
- Straight:
- Bob the Rabbit is taller than an average human, but can support his weight.
- The 50-foot Humongous Mecha Gigaton moves as fast (proportionally) as a human does.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob is bigger than an entire planet, but can support his own weight.
- Gigaton is bigger than the entire universe, yet can move at light speed and turn on a dime.
- Bob a giant creature in 4-dimensional space where square-cube law is further squared.
- Downplayed:
- Bob is twice the size of a human and, though he's visibly a bit less agile, isn't slower by much.
- Gigaton is a bit bigger than a human, and slightly slower and less agile.
- Justified:
- Bob has hollow bones and an overall very light body structure so he can support his weight better.
- Gigaton was made on an alien planet, and the Phlebetonium they used allows it to move normally.
- Bob transcends the concepts of height and weight. So he cannot be crushed purely by his own height and weight.
- A giant creature lives on a planet with lower gravity and plenty of available food, allowing it to believeably grow to such a size.
- A Giant Flyer lives on a planet with a much denser atmosphere, making it easier for massive creatures to stay airborne.
- Gigaton has physical proportions specifically tailored for its colossal size, with most of its mass situated near the ground.
- Bob has Required Secondary Powers that allow him to reach that height.
- Inverted:
- Subverted:
- Bob is shown soaring through the air of a city with leaps and bounds... Turns out it's a computer simulation, and he's nowhere near that agile in real life.
- Gigaton is shown moving quickly... but that was a prototype, and the production model is far slower.
- Double Subverted:
- Bob was dreaming he was in a computer simulation and came out to real life. In real real life, he's no slower than he was in the simulation.
- The "production model" was another prototype. The real production model is faster.
- Parodied:
- Bob is shown gracefully skipping around despite his massive size.
- A scientist looks at Bob, back to his whiteboard displaying the square-cube law, then back to Bob, and then throws his hands up and storms out of the room.
- A giant monster rises out of the ocean to attack a city, and as it stomps onto land...it breaks every single bone in its body and instantly dies.
- Alternatively, it's designed to be absurdly stocky with legs thicker than the rest of its entire body just to stand up.
- Zig Zagged:
- Bob is shown soaring through the air of a city with leaps and bounds... turns out it's a computer simulation, and he's nowhere near that agile in real life... except Bob was dreaming he was in a computer simulation and came out to real life. In real real life, he's no slower than he was in the simulation... but that was another dream.
- Gigaton can manage speedy, dextrous movement, but this is shown to place massive strain on the body and risks shaking it apart. However, a few upgrades later, and it's managing just fine.
- Averted:
- Bob dies from his massive height.
- Gigaton is much slower than a human.
- Enforced:
- The execs want Bob the Rabbit to be on the show, but they want him to move quickly so they have more time for ads.
- Simple Rule of Cool: The bigger, the better. Nobody wants to see the giant be immediately and anticlimactically crushed under its own weight.
- Lampshaded: "How can you support your weight?"
- Invoked: Dr. Evilstein does considerable engineering to create a Cyborg Gigaton which features among other things a heat exchanger and reinforcement.
- Exploited:
- The heroes use the magic that allows Bob to move quickly to enhance their own agility.
- The heroes steal Gigaton and reverse-engineer the technology to fight the villains more easily.
- Defied:
- Bob is slower than a human, and is hit with a spell that shuts down all attempts to make him faster.
- The series follows This Is Reality, and they want Gigaton to move realistically.
- Discussed:
- "You know, I've never understood why Bob can move so fast if he's so big and heavy."
- "Gigaton is catching up fast! How can it even MOVE, let alone so quickly?"
- Conversed:
- "I had heard that Bob had himself enchanted to move faster." "Lucky!"
- "Gigaton is so powerful!" "I can only wonder what alien technology allows it to stay upright without collapsing..."
- Implied: Bob is, in a few scenes, seen moving faster than he should.
- Deconstructed:
- Bob gets tired quickly from moving that fast with his body mass, and develops health problems.
- Gigaton eventually overheats and explodes after chasing the heroes for too long, because its parts weren't meant to move that fast.
- A giant monster is unleashed onto the earth, but without a sustainable source of food to power its massive bulk, it quickly dies of starvation.
- Reconstructed:
- Bob has a spell cast on him to alleviate those problems.
- Gigaton 2.0. has better heat venting and is slightly smaller, so it can move quickly with no problems.
- The giant monster is of a more realistic size, about those of the biggest real-life dinosaurs: big enough to wreak havoc on a city but small enough to realistically exist.
- A giant monster is depicted with exaggerated proportions in an attempt to make its mass and girth at least somewhat plausible.
- A Giant Flyer is depicted with an incredibly immense wingspan far greater than its own body.
- Played For Laughs:
- Bob can run laps around the fastest humans.
- Gigaton eventually starts complaining about having to run so much.
- Played For Drama:
- Bob is a villain, and can easily catch up to heroes and messily decapitate them due to his massive strength and speed.
- Gigaton crushes the rebel base because of its enormous speed for its power level.
Back to Square-Cube Law, but if your computer is big, it'll take a long time to get there.
