Basic Trope: Someone has an organ that's smaller than usual, which causes either personality flaws or health problems.
- Straight: Alice's brain is the size of a golf ball, making her very stupid.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice's brain is microscopic.
- Alice has a small brain (making her stupid), a small heart (making her mean), a small liver (making her a lightweight) and a small stomach (meaning she doesn't have much of an appetite).
- Downplayed: Alice's brain is smaller than average, which explains her low intelligence, but it isn't tiny.
- Justified: Alice's brain stopped developing at a young age, stunting her mental growth.
- Inverted: Alice is a genius and has a large brain.
- Subverted: Alice is stupid, and Bob thinks she has a small brain, but then it turns out it's normal-sized.
- Double Subverted: Her heart, on the other hand, is tiny, and that's why she's so mean.
- Parodied: Alice's personality flaws are said to somehow stem from a small bladder.
- Zigzagged:
- Alice's intelligence fluctuates, as does the size of her brain.
- Alice is stupid, but it's unknown if that's due to her small brain, genetics, or Childhood Brain Damage.
- Alice has a brain, heart, liver, stomach, and liver that are all smaller than average. The small brain makes her stupid, and the small heart gives her health problems, but the smaller stomach and liver seem to have no ill effects.
- Averted: Alice's organs are all normal-sized.
- Enforced:
- Lampshaded: "How can she survive if her brain is that small?"
- Invoked: Dr. Charles Evilson shrank Alice's brain in utero to make her too dumb to defeat him.
- Exploited:
- Defied: Diane, while pregnant with Alice, notices that her brain is smaller than average and genetically-engineers it to be larger in hopes of making Alice smarter.
- Discussed: "Why is Alice so dumb? Is her brain the size of a golf ball?"
- Conversed: "Having a small brain would likely do a lot more than just make you dumb like on TV."
- Implied:
- Deconstructed:
- Reconstructed:
- Played for Laughs: A doctor needs a magnifying glass to find Alice's brain on the scan.
- Played for Drama: Alice has a small heart and needs surgery.
- Played for Horror:
Back to Shrunken Organ.
