When a giant character needs to pick up and carry or interact with a smaller character, there are a lot of ways to do it. Some might carry them in their open hand or in a clenched fist. Others might place the smaller character on their shoulder, or if the larger character is a Giant Woman (especially in works that are willing to be more risque) she might carry them in her Victoria's Secret Compartment. Then there's simply pinching the back of the smaller character's shirt collar between their fingers and letting them dangle.
This trope is the last one.
Regardless of if the giant/giantess is a Gentle Giant or far more malevolent, this tends to be very menacing. Letting the smaller party dangle from the larger one's fingers may play into the former's fear of heights, since all the bigger character would have to do is let go, or let the smaller character's clothes slip from their grip to send them plunging to their doom. This is why some giant characters may hold people this way over something very dangerous. Characters picked up this way tend to react in terror, so expect a lot of flailing and kicking as they are being lifted into the air.
When framed from the giant character's POV it shows the smallness and weakness of the smaller character. Meanwhile, framing it from the smaller character's POV tends to have the inverse effect. It emphasizes the large character's power over the smaller one.
Giant women seem particularly fond of carrying people this way. Most likely this is because it allows her to look dainty and feminine while also showing off how vastly stronger and in control she is over her the person she's dangling. After all, what's more "girl power" than a woman plucking a guy off the ground and casually holding him aloft with nothing but her fingers while he flails helplessly?
The giant/giantess also tends to hold people this way when they are about to eat them, as it's easier for the bigger character to lower them into their jaws or pop them in their mouth this way.
Though it's most common to see people held by the collar or back of their shirt, other areas are also prime for this pinch carry, such as the back of the pants or a leg. If shirtless, the smaller character may have their arm pinched between the bigger character's fingers. If the characters have an extremely vast difference in size (like the smaller character appearing to be the size of an ant), then the smaller character may be completely enveloped by the larger character's fingers.
To count as this trope:
- The character doing the lifting must be significantly bigger than the smaller one. So the giant person merely being say, 8 ft tall and the smaller person 3 ft tall would not count. The size disparity has to be big enough that the big character could reasonably carry the smaller character in/with one hand easily without great strength being necessary. Good rule of thumb is if the small character is about action figure size or smaller by comparison, then they can count.
- The larger character is lifting with nothing more than the tips or pads of their fingers. Gripping a limb in a balled-up fist is not this trope. While a two-finger pinch-grip with the thumb and index finger is most common, similar grips with three, four, and even five fingers can qualify if only the tips and/pads are used.
- The smaller character is in some way dangling as they are being held aloft.
Compare Neck Lift. Often a way to show off a Casually Powerful Giant. A common form of Unwilling Suspension that doesn't involve bindings.
Examples
Anime & Manga- Attack on Titan: This usually happens whenever there's a Titan attack when they pick up unarmed humans and eat them. For example, in the initial fall of Wall Maria, we see a woman get picked up this way by her head as a titan picks her up and devours her.
- A unique variant also notably featuring a non-humanoid as the giant occurs in Blood-C featuring several Elder Bairns.
- In the final episode, a Cereberus-type Elder Bairn attempts to eat Kanako by using its fingers to pin her arms behind her back and carries her this way as it lowers her into its mouth while she kicks desperately.
- Another non-humanoid example occurs when an Elder Bairn resembling a cross between a tree frog and a jumping spider attacks Saya's school. During the attack, it picks up a female student and holds her with the tips of its claws as it drops her into its mouth and devours her. What stands out in this instance is that it has its "fingertips" pinching either side of her midsection, so she dangles horizontally rather than the usual vertical position.
- For all versions of Doraemon: Nobita's Little Space War (manga, original anime, 2021 remake), towards the end of the final battle, after Gian took down Dracorl's battleship, he then grabs and lifts the finger-sized Dracorl by the collar while interrogating him.
- The old Fujiko Fujio comic, Super-Weapon Guh Mk. I, have Gulliva, a giant-sized human from outer space, crashing in 1940s Japan. After spooking off some Japanese soldiers, he picks up one of them — the human protagonist, Officer Kaido — by the collar using two fingers and asks what planet is he on.
- Soul Eater: After possessing a child, Medusa goes to make a deal with Lord Death. However, Lord Death repeatedly picks her up by the hood, much to her annoyance.
- While the Fantastic Four are visiting the Inhumans on the moon, gravity suddenly goes haywire. The cause is a Tractor Beam that's pulling the moon into the docking bay of a gargantuan starship. As a colossal alien begins to examine the moon, Ben Grimm tries to get its attention by tearing off a huge chuck from a control panel. Well, to Ben it's a huge chunk; to the alien, it's a mere sliver. The alien dangles the sliver with Ben still gripping it before its eye, but cannot see minuscule Ben. The alien shrugs, discounts the sliver as an anomaly, and does a Blind Shoulder Toss with the sliver. It's stated that poor Ben will take hours to plummet to the floor.
Films — Animated
- Alice in Wonderland: When a currently giant Alice tries to pluck a carrot from a garden to shrink herself, she grabs the White Rabbit as well.
Alice: I'm sorry, but I must eat something!
White Rabbit: Not me, you barbarian! - Gulliver's Travels: When Gulliver meets Gabby for the first time, he holds Gabby up by his shirt while he's flailing around in utter terror.
Gabby: You can't do this to me! I got a wife and kids! Millions of kids!
Gulliver: Hold on there, mate. Nobody's going to hurt you. - Hercules. When the statue of Zeus is trying to stop Hercules from running away in fear, one of the things it tries to restrain him is by holding him by the back of his tunic. However, Herc manages to break free.
- The Iron Giant. When Dean McCoppin first meets the title robot, the robot grabs him by the collar of his robe and lifts him into the air for a face-to-face meeting.
- The LEGO Movie: When Emmet wakes up in the real world, he is picked up by Finn, who is a human child.
- Pinocchio: While Jiminy Cricket is scolding Pinocchio for smoking, Lampwick picks him up by his coattails and asks "Who's the beetle?". Jiminy angrily demands that he put him down before getting twisted up in his dangling coat.
- The Transformers: The Movie: When the monster planet Unicron unveils his robot mode and attacks Cybertron, Galvatron attempts to fight him. Unicron responds by picking up Galvatron in this manner and dropping him in his maw.
Films — Live-Action
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: After Mike TeeVee got shrunk by Willy Wonka's television chocolate machine, his father gets him out of the TV by grabbing him by the neck of his shirt.
- Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory: Mrs. TeeVee picks up her son Mike, who got shrunk by Wonka Vision, by the white suit with her fingers before putting him in her purse.
- In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Grawp pulls a Big Damn Heroes by picking up Dolores Umbridge by the scruff of her pink jumper and lifting her to eye level so he can stare at her, right when she's holding Harry and Hermione at wandpoint and nearly strangling one of the local centaurs with some conjured ropes. He eventually lets her go, not through her own efforts, but when he gets bored of the centaurs shooting him, at which point said centaurs carry her off to do... something uncomfortable... to her.
- Also happens in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone when the troll has Harry dangling by his feet during the fight in the girls' lavatory and is swinging his large club at Harry
- The Indian in the Cupboard: Omri picks up a toy cowboy by his fingers after he came to live with a magic cupboard.
Literature
- Captain Underpants: In "The Preposterous Plight of the Purple Potty People", George and Harold tricked their evil alternate selves by using the Shrinky Pig backwards and got shrunken. Harold picks them up by their shirts by his finger and thumb, while George spanks their evil selves with his index finger
- Discworld When she gets really angry, the young Witch Tiffany Aching physically picks up Rob Anybody of the NacMacFeegle and lifts him off the ground to glare him in the eye. Normally on the Discworld this is a shocking breach of good manners and any human other than a Witch is risking some very emphatic correction. But Rob knows he is dealing with a Witch, who stands twelve times his height, and takes it in submissive terror.
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians: When Percy and Annabeth arrive on Polyphemus' island, Annabeth attempts to distract the giant Cyclops by putting on her invisible cap and taunting him while pretending to be his old enemy, "Nobody." Unfortunately, Polyphemus finds her by the sound of her voice, grabs her, dangles her upside down, and shakes her so that the cap falls off her head.
Music Videos
- Daniela Andrade: In Polly Pocket a giant version of herself daintily picks Daniela up by the back of her pink sweater and gives her a look. This giant version of her proceeds to then eat her.
- Los Retrovisores' music video for Me Olvide Ti: The lead singer's gigantic ex-girlfriend captures him by dragging him out of the hole she made in his apartment and dangling him by the back of his turtleneck. After taking a second to look at him she then lowers him into her mouth, chews him up and swallows him.
- Ninja Sex Party: In the video for their cover for "Pour Some Sugar On Me" the band is playing the song inside a gingerbread house for some giant women in candy-studded bikinis. At the end, one of the giantesses pinches the back of Dan's unitard and carries him out of the gingerbread house. The way it's shot, the audience is led to believe she's about to eat him, but instead she just gives him a big smooch.
- Tommycassi, "Just for Tonight": After spending most of the video as a giant harassing a girl he likes, Tommy drinks a potion to shrink down to human size, only for it to overdo it and turn him super tiny. Now at her mercy, the girl pinches his hoody between her fingers as she examines him. After taking a moment to think it over, she drops him into her mouth and eats him.
- "We are Pop" by Musica Per Organi Caldi features a giantess in a cheerleader outfit rampaging across a city and killing the band members one by one in various ways. She picks up one of the unfortunate guys by the back of his jumpsuit and, with a big smile on her face, tilts her head back, lowers him into her mouth, and eats him.
Video Games
- In The Last Guardian, at several points Trico will pick up the boy (or catch him, if he's just made a death-defying forwards jump) by the back of his tunic collar, with his beaky mouth. At one point, he accidentally tears the tunic, but he just grabs a different part of it to prevent the boy falling.
Web Original
- Singer-songwriter Niia has a video short where she's at a table, talking on the phone when a tiny man emerges from the bowl of spaghetti she has in front of her. After trying unsuccessfully to swat him with her napkin, she picks him up by pinching either side of his torso between her thumb and index finger and lifts him over her head. Without skipping a beat she drops him into her mouth and swallows him before smiling at the camera.
Western Animation
- In The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 episode "Sneaky Lying Cheating Giant Ninja Koopas", giant Big Mouth grabbed Raccoon Luigi by the tail. Which caused him to power down, and instead grabbed by his overalls.
- Dungeons & Dragons: In "P-R-E-S-T-O Spells Disaster", Presto performs a magic spell that accidentally sends all of his friends to a giant's castle. The giant (voiced by Peter Cullen) at one point dangles Eric by his cape as he suggests the group play "Hide and eat" with his slime beast, Willy.
- Gravity Falls: In "Little Dipper", Gideon uses a magic crystal-powered flashlight to shrink Dipper and Mabel. At one point, he picks Mabel up by her sweater. She tries to fight out of his grip, only to stop when she sees he is taking her to a bag of Gummy Koalas.
- In Mickey's Christmas Carol, the Ghost of Christmas Present, played by Willie the Giant, dangles Scrooge over his bed and eventually over several succulent Christmas pies, meats, and fruits. He dangles Scrooge again while he's gripped at the end of a grape branch.
- Teen Titans: The season 3 finale ends with the Teen Titans battling the Brainwashed and Crazy Titans East, with Starfire taking on Bumblebee. After Starfire defeats the sized-down Bumblebee, she briefly picks up the latter by the wings with two fingers.
