Basic Trope: The Big Bad is a smaller person with an ill-fitting nickname.
- Straight: A crime lord is called Mr. Big even though he is a little person.
- Exaggerated: Mr. Big is small enough to fit in the pockets of his henchmen.
- Downplayed:
- A crime lord with the surname Biggs is an inch or two shorter than average.
- Emperor Evulz is fairly tall for human standards, but is prone to barking orders at the massive giants, trolls, and orges, despite that they could crush him with one hand.
- Justified:
- Mr. Big became a powerful crime lord thanks to his cunning mind and ruthless nature, something which doesn't require massive physical prowess. Besides, he has plenty of hired guns to compensate for that disadvantage.
- It was precisely because of his short height that Mr. Big became a villain in the first place. He could take only too many short-jokes before finally snapping.
- Inverted:
- Smalls is a hulking brute of a man who towers over the hero.
- Mr. Big may be a little person but he is a hard-working hero who is cleaning up the streets.
- Large and in Charge
- Subverted:
- The heroes assume that someone who calls himself Mr. Big would be a small man, but he is actually quite large.
- The heroes find Mr. Big, a little person running the Mafia — only to learn soon that he's not the real Mr. Big, but The Dragon. The real Mr. Big is a normal-sized man.
- Mr. Big appears puny next to his bodyguards, but perspective reveals them to be genetically modified Super Soldiers that tower over any normal humans.
- 'Meneer Big' comes from the Netherlands, where he earned the name for his gluttony/'piggish behavior'.
- Double Subverted:
- But it turns out, the large man was just a decoy and the little guy is The Man Behind the Man.
- As it happens, Mr. Big is from a place where people are much larger than is normal where he is now operating, so this 'normal'-sized person was ridiculed for being small. As such, he tries to compensate for his perceived lack of stature by calling himself Mr. Big and having a little person dragon.
- Parodied: Mr. Massive-And-In-No-Way-Small is actually the size of a mouse.
- Zig Zagged: Mr. Big is a little man who eventually undergoes some weird process to give himself a larger body but the process was faulty. His body withers and degenerates to the point of being much smaller than it ever was before.
- Averted: Mr. Big is a normal-sized crime lord.
- Enforced: The writers enjoy the irony of a little person called Mr. Big.
- Lampshaded: "He calls himself Mr. Big. We should've expected a little guy."
- Invoked: Mr. Big is small but wants to build a reputation fitting for a feared crime lord, so he remains the man behind the scenes, creating a number of rumors about the massive, vicious Mr. Big no one dares to defy.
- Exploited: Mr. Big lets it be known he is a little person and has a goofy, ironic nickname that is meant to invoke mockery. As it turns out, he is a badass martial artist who knows how to kill a man and he is also a little Ax-Crazy, welcoming any excuse to kill those who scoff at him.
- Defied: The really short crime lord calls himself Mr. Smalls and doesn't care who knows he's little since he's too dangerous to be mocked.
- Discussed: "He's small but he's really mean."
- Conversed: "Did the writers really think they were clever making the crime lord a little person?"
- Implied: The hero recounts a past job in which he brought down a crime lord named Mr. Big but mentions, "He wasn't nearly as tall as you'd expect."
- Played For Laughs: The heroes are in fear of the dangerous crime lord Mr. Big until they come face to face with a little guy with a squeaky voice.
- Played For Drama: Mr. Big was bullied growing up and his own family cast him out as a freak, resulting in him becoming a hatefully bitter crime lord.
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