"It's not the size, mate. It's how you use it."
— Nigel Powers (referring to his spy-car* ), Austin Powers in Goldmember
Tropes about things that are small. Not incidentally small, like being young. These tropes require something to be physically small.
Compare Rule of Cute, Youngsters.
Contrast Bigger Is Better.
Tropes:
- A-Cup Angst —a woman's breasts are small (or at least she thinks they are) and she feels negatively about it.
- Adorable Evil Minions —the villain's minions are small and cute.
- Animals Not to Scale — animals which are strangely big or small for their species.
- Baby Don't Got Back — a person with a small rear end.
- Baby Planet — a really tiny planet.
- Big Guy, Little Guy — two men who walk around together, one tall and one short.
- Big Little Man — an incredibly short character is introduced in a way that makes them seem significantly taller than they really are.
- Big Shadow, Little Creature — a large, gigantic shadow appears on the wall surface, but it soon turns out to come from someone or something much smaller and completely harmless.
- Cartoonish Companions — the main characters have a pal who's short and a lot more cartoony-looking than them.
- Compact Infiltrator — a character, often small and slight, with a gift for sneaking in through small holes and narrow passageways.
- Cute Little Fangs — a character has cute, often small, fangs.
- Dinky Drivers — very tiny people try to drive a regular-sized car.
- "Fantastic Voyage" Plot — characters become tiny enough to go inside someone's body... then, they do.
- Fun Size — smaller = cuter.
- Gulliver Tie-Down — someone is excessively tied to the ground by a group of smaller people.
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl — a tall man and a short woman who are lovers or best friends.
- Huge Rider, Tiny Mount — a large character rides a small animal.
- Incredible Shrinking Man — someone shrinks.
- Killer Rabbit — a small, cute person or animal that is dangerous.
- Knee-High Perspective — the work takes place from the perspective of someone who comes up to the average person's knees/ankles/waist.
- Large Runt — a character who's small for their species but actually quite big.
- Lilliputians — tiny humanoids (the tallest a Lilliputian can be is about knee-high).
- Lilliputian Warriors — a species of tiny, aggressive humanoids.
- Literally Falling Through the Cracks — A character so small that they can accidentally fall through the tiniest cracks in the floor.
- Little People — a race of humanoids who are short but not quite Lilliputians.
- Mascot Mook — a (usually small, but not always) Mook becomes popular among fans.
- Micro Dieting — comically tiny portions of food.
- Miniature Effects — film effects created with miniature props.
- Miniature Senior Citizens — someone who's elderly and short.
- Mini-Me — A smaller version of a character coexisting with the original.
- Mini-Mecha — the tiniest mecha for a normal sized pilot.
- Mini Mook — a mook that is small.
- Miniscule Rocking — a tiny song.
- Mobile-Suit Human — something normal sized but for a tiny pilot.
- Model Planning — planning something to do with a place and using models of that place to demonstrate.
- Mouse World — a story where the protagonists are very small.
- Nanomachines — little tiny machines.
- One-Paragraph Chapter — a chapter that is very short and/or has only one paragraph.
- Only a Model — a model of something larger.
- Petite Pride — the opposite of A-Cup Angst; a woman who is proud of having small breasts.
- Pint-Sized Kid — kids in media are unrealistically smaller than adults.
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse — someone is short but very strong.
- Resized Vocals — For some reason, being shrunken or grown changes your voice as well.
- Sewing Needle Sword — A very small character uses a sewing needle as an improvised sword.
- Scale Model Destruction — a 3D model gets destroyed.
- Scavenged Punk (often but not always a Tiny Trope)— a culture gets/makes its technology from scavenged stuff.
- Shameful Shrinking — someone literally shrinks when feeling guilty/ashamed/embarrassed.
- Shoulder-Sized Dragon — a little wee dragon.
- Shrink Ray — a gun that can shrink things.
- Shrunken Head — a human head that's been shrunk.
- Sizeshifter — someone can change their size.
- Sleep-Mode Size — a character looks much smaller when they're asleep.
- Small Girl, Big Gun — a little girl carrying a really large gun.
- Synchronized Swarming — groups of fish/insects/etc can form shapes with one another.
- Teeny Weenie — a small penis.
- This Is What the Building Will Look Like — a character designs a building and makes a model of it but we never get to see the building until the very end and sometimes, not even then.
- Tiny Guy, Huge Girl — a woman is much taller than a man she's dating.
- Tiny-Headed Behemoth — a huge creature with a tiny head.
- Tiny Schoolboy — a short teenage boy.
- Token Mini-Moe — a character much smaller and/or younger than the main cast who's meant to be cute.
- Vampire Lolita Archetype — vampires that take the form of short and young-looking girls.
