Discussion Main / ExpectingSomeoneTaller

Yeah, people also expect Frankenstein to be a lumbering brute who communicates in growls.

I think the Devil did this in a live action TV show. "Let me guess, you expected me to have horns, cloven hooves, and a tail?"

Would there be another trope involved if part of this trope results from having a very badass-sounding name? Just wondering...

Weeded out the Real Life section and cut several entries. Cuts with reasons:

These feel like stealth Troper Tales. Different from the examples for popular movie actors, it is not clear at all why anyone would expect these people to be taller.

• Composer John Mackey is a lot shorter in person than you'd think. Considering how famous he is in the orchestra industry, you'd expect someone to be a little taller.
• Audie Murphy was a small man despite earning so many military decorations that it's quite the feat of memory to list them all. In fact, his height and build almost relegated him to being a cook before his persistence got him a frontline post!

These examples focus on "ways to make actors appear taller", which is not really what this trope is about. Also, since porn is banned from the wiki, I don't think the Real Life section should discuss the making of porn movies either.

• An actress being short is usually less of a problem than an actor being short (as mentioned above), since we generally expect women to be shorter than men. However, if an actress is very short, (and especially if not only her male co-stars but also the female ones are considerably taller), her character often ends up wearing ridiculously high-heeled shoes in every scene to make the height difference look less dramatic.
  • Holland Roden's (5'3") character on Teen Wolf, Lydia, almost always wears extremely high heels, making her look almost as tall as her best friend Allison (played by Crystal Reed, who is 5'8").
  • On Elementary, Watson (played by Lucy Liu, who is also 5'3"), keeps wearing extremely high-heeled shoes even when it would make more sense for her to be wearing more comfortable shoes or even no shoes at all.
• It's common for porn stars, especially male ones, to be shorter than they appear on film/video or are advertised as being. This is because the same attribute (or attributes) will appear proportionately larger on a smaller person without an obvious frame of reference. Also, pairing a man, however tall, with a woman shorter than him will make him seem... taller in comparison to her.

I don't think the Real Life section should bother with inversions.

• Inverted with Ryan Stiles. He just seemed shorter than he really is because most of the other actors he worked with were also relatively tall.

This is Actually, That's My Assistant.

• The queen of a defeated Persian king once addressed Alexander The Great's friend Hephaestion as Alexander because he was both taller and more handsome. When the mistake was pointed out to her, she tried to apologize, but Alexander said, "Worry not, Mother – he too is Alexander."

Maybe I am missing something here and this guy is really famous, but this sounds like a mere subjective impression (as in, "he is shorter than I thought"):

• Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto is about 5'3". You'd never know it from watching the show, since they shoot the intro from a low angle.

We don't need to cite non-examples. But moving this one here for future reference.

• Despite Leia saying this phrase almost word for word ("Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?") when she sees Luke, the example doesn't quite fit (unless one only takes this trope literally for its title), as Leia was comparing Luke not with a preceding reputation, but instead with the standard height of stormtroopers.

Why isn't Harry Potter mentioned in here? In the first book, in the fourth chapter, I believe, the twins remark on how they think Harry should have been taller.