Why are giants dumb??

[WeilderOfTheMonkeyBlade]

Is it just me, or are Giants always portrayed as quite stupid? Why is this?
Just to say stick it to the dumb giant lovers I'm thinking about putting pretty clever and cultured Frost Giants into one of my stories.
Giants need love to!!!!

 

[CupofJoe]

There may be lots of historical reasons rooted in myths and legends but I see it as an anti-Mary Sue move.
Just as they are often portrayed as slow and clumsy they are shown as dumb... If you had a Giant that was smart and fast and agile as well as being strong and huge, it could be fairly unstoppable. [okay - sneak thief would be out, but it would make a great hero-warrior...]
I've used the dumb slow giant before now in a story, but I made them a slave race, where they were mercilessly beaten and attacked for any sign of resistance.

 

[Svrtnsse]

I think it fits well with the notion that big equals stupid. This is of course not true, but it's common enough, at least in fiction, that it's commonly accepted as truth.

Your average reader won't have to struggle with the idea of a big, stupid giant, but they may have difficulty relating to a big, highly intelligent and refined giant. I'm sure there are stories where it's been done well but I may not have read them or if I did I've forgotten about them.

 

[Svrtnsse]

On a similar note we often perceive people who speak our language badly as being stupid. This is also inaccurate of course but it's still something that's fairly deeply rooted. Speaking our language comes so easy and naturally to us that it's not a big step to thinking that there must be something wrong with someone who doesn't.
This may also be something that could be put to some interesting use in a story.

 

[TWErvin2]

It really depends on the world. I find nothing wrong with slow-thinking brutes.

The giants in my world aren't brilliant, but aren't dullards either.

An example of sharp giants can be found in Steven R. Donaldson's Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever books.

 

[deilaitha]

If you want some serious giant affection, read the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever. The giants are an incredibly intelligent race, love poetry, song, and tales, are emotionally complex, and possibly my favorite 'race' in that story.

The whole 'dumb giant' thing, I think, may come from the fact that those born with the birth defect of gigantism are also likely (not always, of course) to suffer concurrent birth defects such as mental retardation. It is unfair, of course, to think that all large people are slow. In my WIP I have a giant who does suffer from mental retardation in a country where all disabilities, even differences, are persecuted in a Nazi-like war of eugenics. The point is that prejudice is unwarranted. I have a special heart for anyone with disabilities. I have bipolar disorder, myself, and my adopted sister suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome. There is too much prejudice against people with special needs, and it disgusts me. Part of the message in my story is that people with hardships are incredibly crucial in our world. The protagonist is blind, and her main 'sidekick' if you will is the aforementioned giant. They slide back and forth between two worlds, and in the one where the giant is born, he is incredibly strong but suffers from retardation; in the other, he is mentally 'normal' but ridiculously weak. Part of my goal with that is that there are two sides to every condition, and that even mentally retarded people are intelligent in a way we will never be able to understand.

One of my favorite poems ever is "A Mongoloid Child Gathering Shells on the Beach" by Snyder. He insinuates that the down syndrome child communicates with nature in a way we can never understand or hope to accomplish; his use of the word 'mongoloid' (now considered more derogatory) shows the reader their own internal prejudices and turns them toward the beauty that is inside every person regardless of disability.

Okay, my rant is concluded. As I said, I have a special heart for people like this.

 

[deilaitha]

An example of sharp giants can be found in Steven R. Donaldson's Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever books.

LOL you posted this as I was typing my post! LOVE love love Donaldson. Can't wait for The Last Dark to come out this October. It's supposed to be his magnum opus.

I react to Donaldson like an eleven-year-old girl at a Justin Bieber concert. I would totally be a Donaldson groupie.

 

[Alexandra]

Is it just me, or are Giants always portrayed as quite stupid? Why is this?

Because so many writers are unimaginative.

 

[Mara Edgerton]

Maybe it has to do with prejudices against jocks? We have this (unfounded) trope of the dumb American football player, etc.

 

[Devor]

Is it just me, or are Giants always portrayed as quite stupid? Why is this?
Just to say stick it to the dumb giant lovers I'm thinking about putting pretty clever and cultured Frost Giants into one of my stories.
Giants need love to!!!!

It's because the size of the giant brain is amplified by the need to coordinate the nervous system of a much larger creature, and the net difference is in the brain's slow-moving grey matter instead of the short-cut-taking white matter which typically builds up with experience. As a result, the giant's response time is greatly reduced. And because the giant receives far greater levels of stimulus from a much larger body, the already-slow brain is probably easy to overwhelm.

But if you kick back with a few beers and get to know one, the giant will show you that he's much more level-headed than he comes across in the anxieties of combat.

 

[Scribble]

Maybe it has to do with prejudices against jocks? We have this (unfounded) trope of the dumb American football player, etc.

There's a similar unfounded trope of the socially inept smart person. There are cases, of course, but largely, it is the great literary equalizer for the (less than) average Joe. Less than average Joe wants to feel good about himself. He may not be strong, but he can read (some) books. He may not be smart, but he can talk to (some) women. Then this guy comes along: Dolph Lundgren

1. He has degrees in chemistry, chemical engineering and was awarded the Fulbright Scholarship at MIT.

2. The U.S. Olympic committee named Lundgren the official Team Leader of America's Olympic Modern Pentathlete team for the 1996 Atalanta Games

3. He's an accomplished drummer and musician Dolph Lundgren On Drums (Command Performance).mp4 - YouTube (Cheesey trailer )

4. He's a an international karate champ. A disciple of Kyokushin karate, Lundgren won the European championships in both 1980 and 1981 before taking down the Australian championship in 1982.

5. He's not a bad looking guy, by most accounts, and he has a beautiful girlfriend, Jenny Sandersson.

6. He's an accomplished actor, maybe no Anthony Hopkins, but better than most.

7. He was friends with Andy Warhol... that's got to mean something. I think.

If this isn't an awesome case of a smart, talented, physically powerful "giant", socially adept jock, I don't know what is.

(I swiped some fact text from the internet, I didn't memorize all that!)

 

[Ireth]

I recently saw the movie Epic, which I think ties into the "dumb giant" issue, at least from a certain perspective. The premise of the movie is that a human girl, nicknamed MK, is magically shrunk down to minuscule size and finds herself in the midst of a war between two kingdoms of equally tiny people. MK's father is a scientist who studies the tiny people, looking for proof of their existence so he can win back his ex-wife. The people MK sides with, the Leafmen, know about MK's father and make fun of him, calling him a "Stomper", as they call all humans. The idea is that the tiny people live at a faster rate than humans do, so when they interact with humans, the latter seem to be going through life in slow motion, while the tiny people's "normal" seems like superspeed from a human perspective. This has the effect of making the Leafmen think MK's father, and by extension all humans, are big, slow and stupid. MK is not pleased to hear of this, and she promptly chews them out for their assumptions.

 

[WeilderOfTheMonkeyBlade]

Thanks to everyone, didn't realise this was such a hot topic, that preyed so heavily on so many peoples minds (It just shows that you have your priorities totally right )
I need to read Thomas Covenant - I had already heard a lot of good stuff about it, but my "Books That I Must Have List" (It Exists!!!) is already VERY long (and I don't have much space left in my room)

 

[Pythagoras]

The giants of Norse mythology are far from stupid. They are the biggest (no pun intended) threat against the gods (though sometimes they are friendly with them), and frequently engage in battles of wits to decide who possesses the greater wisdom. Of course, the gods normally win, but the giants make it very difficult for them.

 

[Scribble]

The giants of Norse mythology are far from stupid. They are the biggest (no pun intended) threat against the gods (though sometimes they are friendly with them), and frequently engage in battles of wits to decide who possesses the greater wisdom. Of course, the gods normally win, but the giants make it very difficult for them.

One of my favorite stories is the one about Thor and Utgard-Loki. This is a wonderfully told set of Norse legends in audio on Youtube. I have linked to the start of this tale, which is the second part of a greater tale. I recommend you listen to the whole thing. In this part, there are giants who are more clever than the gods themselves!

Norse Legends [Audio] - YouTube

 

[Creed]

Glad Norse mythology came into play!
One of my favourite giant tales is how Odin takes the head of Mimir, a giant. A very very WISE giant. And he carries it around with him so the decapitated head can tell him secrets and ancient bits of knowledge! How cool is that?!

 

[Scribble]

Glad Norse mythology came into play!
One of my favourite giant tales is how Odin takes the head of Mimir, a giant. A very very WISE giant. And he carries it around with him so the decapitated head can tell him secrets and ancient bits of knowledge! How cool is that?!

One of my favorite aspects of Norse tales are the often unorthodox uses to which body parts are put.

Back to the topic, these people imagined giants who were not slow moving, easy to kill things. They were large, but built for speed, and crafty! They were not intended to be foes for mere mortals. They were foes for gods. That being said, assuming your characters are mere mortals... how can you deal?

A single fast-moving, clever giant could wipe out legions of little men. Only through tight coordination should it be possible to take down such a giant. What about a tribe of them, an army? Pacific Rim, anyone?

This happens often to dragons who are made into flying fire-breathing lizards, not the ancient wise and crafty creatures of legend.

If your giants are as smart as men, or smarter, you can't respectfully use them as treasure guardian #4, easily slain by 3 puny adventurers. It makes no sense. They would threaten to take over the story. It would be a challenge to explain why they had not already enslaved/eaten all the humans before that point.

 

[Saigonnus]

If your giants are as smart as men, or smarter, you can't respectfully use them as treasure guardian #4, easily slain by 3 puny adventurers. It makes no sense. They would threaten to take over the story. It would be a challenge to explain why they had not already enslaved/eaten all the humans before that point.

Given the "common" environment for giants is inhospitable terrain in the mountains, deserts etc... it would stand to reason that because of the lack of food and other resources, they simply don't have the population necessary to carry out sustained combat. Another possibility is that they have a long gestation period for pregnancy (like with some other mammals on Earth) and as a result, can't breed that fast in comparison with the humans. If they had even 25% longer (say a year to have a baby) that could stunt the population growth further.

I think it depends on how large they are (anything greater than 9 foot is a "giant" in my opinion) and on how they are portrayed within the scheme of the story. Robert Jordan had Ogier (like ogres) in his story that were 9 feet tall or more and were relatively passive in contrast with the humans. If your "giants" (even if they are 20+ feet tall) are not war-like, why would they worry overmuch about the goings-on of the humans if they aren't encroaching on their territory or affecting them in some negative manner?

 

[WeilderOfTheMonkeyBlade]

Well, I'm not planning on having the Giants being warlike, (Maybe some inter-Giant fighting?) but nothing like giants vs humans. For one thing, the lands south of were they live (most lands) are to hot for them, and they see no point in taking them when the humans are, for the most part, willing to be peaceful.
Also not planning on using them as Hero sword fodder- My "Hero" has bigger plans, like selling the "Chosen One" to the "Bad Guys" whilst being attacked by the "Good Guys".

 

[Asura Levi]

I think it fits well with the notion that big equals stupid(...)

Thank you for the touching part (note how I omitted the rest of the comment. )

As said before, I high intelligent, powerful and fast race would have erased human long ago. Instead of putting them as stupid, maybe is just the humans who had to become smarter and smarter in the face of extinction (which still will make them look stupid).

Now, of all I read about the norse mythology, the Jötunn are by no means stupids. They are side-by-side with the Aesir (which are human-like besides being gods). Yet, is the only place where I saw they portrayed this way.