Tall Is Intimidating

IT'S THE URBAN LEGEND!!!

Boss: I could kill you right now.
Maero: No. [he stands up to show how tall he is] You couldn't.

— Saints Row 2

When tall characters are introduced, their height often makes them imposing or intimidating to other characters by default. Generally because there is an assumption that a larger person will be more physically threatening. This fear is not limited to muscular characters, as even Noodle People can make others hesitate on their imposing stature alone.

This may involve a looming shot of the tall person casting a wide shadow over someone else. Eventually the shorter character might gawk upward at their size sheepishly (possibly after talking very confidently about being able to fight them). Occasionally the characters themselves won't be intimidated at all, but the intensity of the camerawork and presentation tells us they should be.

This is a common trope of The Big Guy, especially during their introduction to establish their tough credibility. They might even invoke it on purpose in the case of a bouncer or hired muscle. The Statuesque Stunner also runs into this a lot, as being intimidating can be part of the character's appeal.

Whether or not the intimidation is justified depends, as nowadays it's pretty likely to lead into a Gentle Giant reveal. When this trope isn't subverted, expect it to be applied to The Bully. This trope can also justify Large and in Charge if the smaller minions follow their boss because his size is intimidating.

Compare Evil Is Bigger and David vs. Goliath. May be subverted via Big Little Man if he's not as tall as he seemed.

Supertrope to Scary Black Man, and Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Sakaki from Azumanga Daioh is seen as intimidating by most other characters. It's partly due to her quiet personality, but her height certainly contributes.
• Chihayafuru: During the first match against Hokuo, Kanade notices that her opponent is nearly twice her height. All she can do is let out a startled "Eep!"
• The Dangers in My Heart: Anna Yamada's father, Yuki, scares the absolute hell out of people who meet him largely due to being a giant of a man. That and his quiet, awkward personality making him real hard to read.
  • In a bonus chapter, Yoshida recalls the time she first met Yamada in fifth grade sitting at her desk. She tried to intimidate Yamada out of her seat until Yamada, realizing she was in in the wrong classroom the whole time, got up and showed just how tall she really was for her age. Yoshida ended up being the one terrified.
• At the start of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, Jotaro Kujo's imposing stature intimidates Koichi Hirose on his way to school.
• My Love Story!!: Takeo stands at an impressive 6ft 6 in., and as a result most people are very intimidated by his presence, from a woman whose child dropped a shoe he was trying to return to a group of hoodlums who thought he was an urban legend before meeting him in person. About the only people who aren't intimidated by him initially are his lifelong friend Suna and his girlfriend Rinko, who know he's a Gentle Giant.

Comic Books

• Blacksad: A thug tries to intimidate Blacksad into leaving a bar. Blacksad stands up, revealing he's One Head Taller than the thug.
• The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye: During the "Shadowplay" flashbacks, when Orion is trying to take his Senator friend into protective custody, a young Skids objects. Roller — who turns into a Cybertronian paddy-wagon — suddenly turns up and asks if there's a problem. Skids meekly backs down.

Fan Works

• The Mountain and the Wolf: The Wolf is even bigger than the biggest man in Westeros, and doesn't hesitate to use it when intimidating people by bending down to their level.

Films — Animated

• Antz: In the bar, Z asks Bala if she's crazy for provoking an ant much larger than them since he's "built like a pebble".
• The Incredibles: While Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl are arguing, Mr. Incredible looms over the much smaller Elastigirl. But then Elastigirl uses her stretching powers to increase her height so she looms over Mr. Incredible.

Films — Live-Action

• 1776: Played straight and then subverted near the end of the "Dear Mr. Adams" scene, when Adams (William Daniels, at 5'7" the same height as the historic Adams) is trying to get Jefferson (6'6" Ken Howard, four inches taller than the historic Jefferson) to write the Declaration of Independence, the two are on a staircase. Adams declares that Jefferson will write it. Jefferson asks who will make him. Adams declares he will. Jefferson ascends to the same step Adams is on, towers over him, and calmly asks "How?" (He does, of course, ultimately write it, but he's not happy about it.)
• In the Police Academy movies, Moses Hightower is the tallest and most intimidating of the cops. He never needs to say anything, just a towering glare from this Scary Black Man is enough to make any bully back down, or any racist jerk retract their words.
• Played for Laughs in The Super. While meeting his teammates for a basketball game, the title character Louie (played by the rather short Joe Pesci) is introduced to one of his teammates nicknamed "Milkman" and asks why he's called that. The guy, who looks to be at least six and a half feet in height, rises from his seat and towers over Louie (complete with a low-angle shot from Louie's POV) to bluntly explain "Because I killed a milkman." However, Milkman turns out to be a friendly guy who was apparently just messing with him.

Literature

• Discworld: In Men at Arms, there has just been an explosion at the Assassin's Guild, and Captain Vimes of the City Watch wants to get inside and investigate. The Assassin guard at the front gate denies him entry, on the grounds that "your uniform doesn't scare me."
  Vimes: [looking at self] You're right. This is not a scary uniform. Forward, Corporal Carrot and Lance-Constable Detritus.
  [Corporal Carrot (somewhere around 2m tall) and Lance-Constable Detritus (a troll, formerly employed as a bodyguard and bouncer) step forward; the Assassin becomes aware of the sun becoming blocked out]
  Vimes: [from behind the eclipse] These, I'll think you agree, are scary uniforms.
  Assassin: I'll go and get Dr Cruces.
  Carrot: [leaning down] Thank you for your co-operation.
• The Hunger Games: Katniss finds practically every other tribute intimidating because they're all bigger and stronger than her thanks to her childhood of malnutrition. However, this is especially pronounced with the careers and Thresh, all of whom are described as massive and scary. Thresh in particular is so large that even the careers — trained killers from childhood — are intimidated enough to avoid him for most of the game.
• The Lord of the Rings: Gandalf is, of course, already quite tall compared to hobbits. But when Bilbo starts throwing accusations that he wants the One Ring for himself, the wizard shows a glimpse of how truly intimidating he can be.
  "Well, if you want my ring yourself, say so!" cried Bilbo. "But you won't get it. I won't give my Precious away, I tell you."
  His hand strayed to the hilt of his small sword. Gandalf's eyes flashed.
  "It will be my turn to get angry soon," he said. "If you say that again, I shall. Then you will see Gandalf the Grey uncloaked."
  He took a step towards the hobbit, and he seemed to grow tall and menacing; his shadow filled the little room.

Live-Action TV

• Lurch of The Addams Family, the family's loyal butler is well known for his tremendous height and super-human strength.
• Haven: Discussed in regards to Dwight, played by WWE wrestler "Edge." He's part of Haven's Clean Up Crew, keeping up The Masquerade by quietly doing away with Trouble-related messes. At one point, Audrey comments that his job isn't as hard as it could be, because when you look like a Viking, people just kind of believe anything you say. Subverted with Duke, who is tall and can be scary when he wants to be, but is far too much of a Lovable Rogue to come off as intimidating.
• Deliberately invoked many times on Night Court, with Bull, one of the bailiffs. Due to the wacky hijinks of the court Harry often asked Bull to defuse tense situations by simply looking very large and menacing.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation: Discussed in "Hollow Pursuits". Will Riker is offended by Reg Barclay making a holodeck version of him who's short. Deanna Troi says that, considering Reg's personality and Riker's height, perhaps Reg was afraid of Riker because Riker was tall.
• Sometimes comes into play on Taskmaster with the Taskmaster himself (6'8" Greg Davies). Case in point, in "OLLIE", when James Acaster made a flippant insult at him, Greg stands up and takes James aside for a quiet but stern talking to, with James clearly terrified the whole time.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition:
  • As an optional rule in edition 3.5 (and an official rule in its spin-off Pathfinder 1st edition), a character gains a +4 bonus on Intimidate checks for every size category that he or she is larger than the target.
  • The towering oak ranger spell (Spell Compendium) gives a +10 bonus on Intimidate checks through the power of the forests.
  You loom over others like a mighty tree dwarfs lesser plants.
• Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition The illustration for the Intimidation entry of the 5th edition PHB shows a barbarian bending down to terrify a considerably smaller guard.
• The Transformers RPG, characters with the Monolith alt-mode (a large vehicle like Optimus Prime or Ultra Magnus) a bonus to social skill checks against smaller characters. In the Decepticon Division supplement book, Decepticon PCs are also given a bonus to Intimidate checks against smaller characters.

Video Games

• Little Nightmares II: All of the antagonists fall under Evil Is Bigger, but the thin man is specifically made imposing for how tall he is.
• Two villainous examples in the Saints Row series:
  • Maero, the Arc Villain of the Brotherhood storyline in Saints Row 2, is an imposing Tattooed Crook. We are first introduced to him when he invites the Boss to a meeting place where both of them are alone (except for the Boss' tagalong sidekick, Carlos). The Boss finds him sitting alone on a bench, and he responds to a threat by standing up and showing him how large he is.
  • Killbane/Eddie Pryor in Saints Row: The Third is the leader of the Luchadores, and eventually, the entire Syndicate, and he's an imposing man with a gravelly voice and a Hair-Trigger Temper who is all-too-willing to use physical force to cow his subordinates. When the Boss challenges him to a wrestling match out of anger that Killbane framed them for a terrorist attack earlier, his reply is to walk towards them to show off his height and rattle off a long string of Badass Boasts to make it clear that they don't stand a chance against him. Of course, the Boss being the Boss, they don't show any fear of the taller Killbane and remain confident that they can defeat him.

Webcomics

• Insecticomics: The Constructicons try to pull this off by combining into Devastator. As the G1 Constructicon toys were fairly small, this fails because G1 Devastator isn't any taller than most of the other Decepticons. And then Tidal Wave, whose toy is enormous, successfully does it to him.
• Paranatural:
  • Doorman briefly uses this technique to get Isaac to listen, looming his large figure over him.
  • Olly Ops does this frequently as well, and it helps with both his role as The Bully and a hired bouncer.

Web Original

• The Slender Man Mythos: The intimidating nature of tall people is one of the anxieties built into Slender Man's success as a creepypasta.

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender: When the (very large) Pipsqueak hears Aang call his name funny, foreboding music plays as he looms over Aang. Subverted when he starts laughing about it too.
• Fluffy Gardens: Pertrie the bear is the largest character in the Fluffy Gardens and he often intimidates the other animals with his size, but he's a Gentle Giant.
• Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: This is done accidentally by the large Eduardo when Mac meets him; Eduardo's large size (combined with scary appearance) causes Mac to scream about a monster. Of course, since Eduardo is a Lovable Coward, this just ends up with both of them scared about the so-called monster.
• Peg + Cat: In "The Big Dog Problem", Peg and Cat see an English Sheepdog and worry that he'll attack them because he's so large. However, he turns out to be a Big Friendly Dog, leading to An Aesop about not judging someone based on size.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: During Scorpia's introduction, her large form looms over Catra from the shadows, making Catra look up at her meekly. Subverted when it turns out she just wanted to give Catra a big hug.
• This is a running theme in Steven Universe, as Gem society is heavily structured on size. As a general rule, the larger a Gem is, the more powerful she is, and the camera works to stress their imposing size to the audience.
  • Jasper towers over other Quartz soldiers and is as big as Garnet, who's a fusion of two gems already. In a later episode, Peridot notes that Jasper is, for all intents and purposes, the ideal Quartz.
  • Yellow Diamond, who's originally The Unseen, first appears on a video call with Peridot; she picks up the entire camera in one hand and has to lean back to appear in the frame, and given that all of the Crystal Gems react in horror at the sight of her, it's clear that she is a force to be reckoned with. Her sister Blue Diamond gets a similar introduction—she is first seen towering over a massive palanquin, and Greg Universe (a fully grown adult man) is about the size of one of her fingers.
  • White Diamond takes the introductions of Yellow and Blue and goes even further, as she's the tallest and scariest Gem in creation. When Steven first enters her chamber, we only see her feet, then a cut to her face—and then the camera slowly pans up to reveal just how massive she truly is. Even the other Diamonds are terrified of her.
  • Alexandrite has a hilariously mundane example where the towering giant comes to meet Connie's parents for dinner. Her parents are clearly exceedingly intimidated by how large she is but decide not to bring it up since it would be rude.

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