History Main / PintSizedPowerhouse

lassy in {{Animated Inanimate Battle}} may seem cute in first sight, yet she's 6 stars of pure evil. She tries to bite Candle's face off after being kicked by Jelly
** Teardrop sends Woody flying through the air in the first episode of {{Battle For Dream Island}}

** Glassy in [[Animated Inanimate Battle]] may seem cute in first sight, yet she's 6 stars of pure evil. She tries to bite Candle's face off after being kicked by Jelly
** Teardrop sends Woody flying through the air in the first episode of [[Battle For Dream Island]]

** The Clans fielded technology so beyond the Inner Sphere's that any Clan 'mech during the Invasion Era is generally speaking the equivalent of an Inner Sphere 'mech 20 tonnes heavier. One of the perhaps best known (and feared) examples is the 35-ton ''Adder'' light 'mech, whose twin Clantech ER [=PPCs=] provides it with firepower equivalent to the 80-ton Inner Sphere ''Awesome'' assault 'mech.
** The Terran Hegemony was this in the lore's backstory. It possessed a meagre 95 worlds compared to the five Great Houses' hundreds of worlds each and therefore appeared as a tiny dot in the middle of five large realms on maps of the Inner Sphere. However, the Hegemony's worlds were the ones first colonised by humanity as opposed to the much-later colonised ones held by the Great Houses, giving the Hegemony a population and industrial base equal to several of the Great Houses combined and the best universities and development labs in the Inner Sphere. The Hegemony would leverage their technological and industrial might to serve as {{Mediator}} between the Great Houses, eventually leading to the formation of [[HegemonicEmpire Star League]] under the Hegemony's control.

->''"Tiny, but '''fierce'''."''
-->-- '''Sanya''', ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles''

* WebAnimation/{{hololive}} Virtual [=YouTuber=] Amane Kanata stands at 149 cm, but has an impressive grip strength of 50 kg, she can open jars and remove shower heads with almost no effort.

See also ApronMatron, for when small old ladies do this, and MiniMook. CuteBruiser, for when they're young, or [[OlderThanTheyLook at least very young-looking]]. KillerRabbit covers "harmless" animals. See WeakButSkilled for a common explanation behind this. WaifFu and GlacierWaif are subtropes. This Trope is often - but not always - associated with a DavidVersusGoliath fight.

Like the SquareCubeLaw going down, a combatant gets cooler and more badass the smaller they are. Short guys trounce giant bruisers, children routinely trounce goons, little people will be amazing wrestlers (if not literal ankle biters), and mice or smaller creatures (especially of the TalkingAnimal variety) [[ZergRush will swarm and overwhelm]], if not individually disable enemies with rapier precision.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': Nora Valkyrie is the smallest of the main eight protagonists at 5'1". That said, she is strong enough to wield a hammer bigger than her own body, and claims she can lift five times her own weight. When her [[FeedItWithFire Semblance]] is activated, her blows can render boulders into ash and break a stadium designed to take insane amounts of punishment.

-->-- '''Sanya''' (concerning Karrin Murphy), ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles''

* PintSizedPowerhouse/WebComics

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'':
** Neopolitan is ostensibly the smallest human character in the series, standing around 4'11" including heels, but is capable of performing some seriously impressive acrobatic feats near the end of Volume 2 and outright overpowering [[BoisterousBruiser Yang]], who is a head taller than her.
** Nora Valkyrie is the smallest of the main eight protagonists at 5'1". That said, she is strong enough to wield a hammer bigger than her own body, and claims she can lift five times her own weight. When her [[FeedItWithFire Semblance ]]is activated, her blows can render boulders into ash and break a stadium designed to take insane amounts of punishment.

-->-- '''Sanya''' concerning '''Karrin Murphy''', ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles''

* PintSizedPowerhouse/{{Film}}

!!Examples:

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[[folder:Mythology and Religion]]

* Thor's son Magni was the embodiment of strength. One myth states that Thor fought a giant named Hrungnir, but while Thor was victorious and killed Hrungnir, the giant's body fell on him, pinning him to the ground and leaving him helpless. After no-one else was able to so much as budge the giant's heavy corpse, Magni - who was only ''three days old'' at the time, was able to lift it off his father effortlessly.

[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]

** Character generation can result in this too. Height and weight in D&D, ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'', and many other games is not related to stats. So yes, that human girl who stands 4'11" and weighs all of 108 pounds? If you're lucky, she's a barbarian and is carrying the tools of her trade. If she prefers GoodOldFisticuffs though ...
*** It's entirely possible in the 4th edition D&D to start as a [[SquareRaceRoundClass Pixie Fighter]] [[UpToEleven with a 13 in Strength]], meaning the creature that's no more than 4 pounds and a foot tall in, and is the only player race in the tiny size category, [[SuperStrength can carry 130 pounds without penalty]], while making every fight [[DavidVersusGoliath a match against much larger sized foes.]]

* Pawns in chess can end up becoming this if they are in strategic enough positions. As a pawn is the least valuable piece, whenever one attacks any other piece, the other piece is usually forced to retreat. And if a pawn gets all the way to the other end of the board, it can decide the game by promoting to another piece (usually a queen).

* In ''WebVideo/TheCultOfScratchwood'', Bren initially scoffs at the idea that the literally pint-sized Dalek Danny could harm him. Only, his laser gun isn't any less powerful than the other Daleks'…
* Reiko Ishida of ''Roleplay/SurvivalOfTheFittest'' v4 is 4'9, which has been noted to technically make her a dwarf. However, she was a successful athlete before the island, having had a fair amount of recognition as a figure skater. On the island she manages to receive a fairly high body count; one death has her manage to beat a HugeSchoolgirl to death.

* ''Roleplay/Bay12SwordArtOnlineRP'': Shiina is the smallest player within the cast. She's also the party's [[StoneWall tank]] and is capable of hitting as hard as TheBigGuy, who's almost three feet taller than her.
* In a Captain Laserbeam episode of the ''Podcast/ThrillingAdventureHour'', ex-Adventurekateer now-supervillain Tinker Taylor calls out Captain Laserbeam on always taking on every supervillain who came to Apex City. In particular he names the time that he abandoned chaperoning a field trip to the Pen and Paper Museum to fight Major Minor, the Minuscule Musician. What follows is a LongList of various miniature heroes:
-->'''Captain Laserbeam:''' Who else was going to stop his martial march of miniature musical mayhem?\\
'''Tinker Taylor:''' ''So many'' people could have done that: Mighty Mite, Guy Small the Small Guy, Little Hercules, Tiny Timothy, Short Attack, Willy Wee Warrior, the Homunculus, Space Midget, Scale Model, Robo-Small, the Itty-Bitty Hitting Committee, ''shall I go on?!''

* In the ''WebAnimation/MadnessCombat'' episode ''[=DedmosRebuilt=].fla'', While Deimos is a normal sized character, he's this trope from the perspective of the [[GiantMook giant mooks]] he faces in the episode as he easily beat them to dead with his bare hands thanks to a new stronger form.

* The ''TabletopGame/{{Starfinder}}'' adventures "Skitter Shot" and "Skitter Crash" feature the [[RidiculouslyCuteCritter skittermander]] soldier Nako. Note that skittermanders average three feet tall, but have ''no'' penalty to Strength...and Nako has a score of ''18''. So what you have is [[CuteBruiser an adorable six-armed red fuzzball the approximate size of a toddler]]...who goes around geared up like a SpaceMarine and [[BadassAdorable can pretty much kick anyone's ass]].

* The Terran Hegemony was this in ''TabletopGame/{{Battletech}}'s backstory. It possessed a meagre 95 worlds compared to the five Great Houses' hundreds of worlds each and therefore appeared as a tiny dot in the middle of five large realms on maps of the Inner Sphere. However, the Hegemony's worlds were the ones first colonised by humanity as opposed to the much-later colonised ones held by the Great Houses, giving the Hegemony a population and industrial base equal to several of the Great Houses combined and the best universities and development labs in the Inner Sphere. The Hegemony would leverage their technological and industrial might to serve as {{Mediator}} between the Great Houses, eventually leading to the formation of [[HegemonicEmpire Star League]] under the Hegemony's control.

* The ''TabletopGame/{{Starfinder}}'' adventures "Skitter Shot" and "Skitter Crash" feature the [[RidiculouslyCuteCritter skittermander]] soldier Nako. Note that skittermanders average three feet tall, but have ''no'' penalty to Strength...and Nako has a score of ''18''. So what you have is [[BadassAdorable an adorable six-armed red fuzzball the approximate size of a toddler]]...who goes around geared up like a SpaceMarine and can pretty much kick anyone's ass.

* The ''TabletopGame/{{Starfinder}}'' adventures "Skitter Shot" and "Skitter Crash" feature the [[RidiculouslyCuteCritter skittermander]] soldier Nako. Note that skittermanders average three feet tall, but have ''no'' penalty to Strength...and Nako has a score of ''18''. So what you have is a six-armed red fuzzball the approximate size of a toddler...who goes around geared up like a SpaceMarine and can pretty much kick anyone's ass.

* The ''TabletopGame/{{Starfinder}}'' adventures "Skitter Shot" and "Skitter Crash" feature the [[RidiculouslyCuteCritter skittermander]] soldier Nako. Note that skittermanders average three feet tall, but have ''no'' penalty to Strength. So what you have is a six-armed red fuzzball the approximate size of a toddler...who goes around geared up like a SpaceMarine and can pretty much kick anyone's ass.

* The ''TabletopGame/{{Starfinder}} adventures "Skitter Shot" and "Skitter Crash" feature the [[RidiculouslyCuteCritter skittermander]] soldier Nako. Note that skittermanders average three feet tall, but have ''no'' penalty to Strength. So what you have is a six-armed red fuzzball the approximate size of a toddler...who goes around geared up like a SpaceMarine and can pretty much kick anyone's ass.

[[folder:Myths and Religion]]

[[folder:Pro Wrestling]]