These big guys are always in their element. note .
Sometimes, you want the giants in your fantasy setting to be more than mere mountains of muscle and brutish strength that just look like oversized humans. One great twist is to give them a connection to the Classical Elements. This can range from simply giving giants an elemental motif, to giants having Elemental Powers, to giants being made out of the very elements themselves.
Tying giants in with the elements is not only a way to make them seem more unique or special, but also to make them (even more) awe-inspiring. Giving them a feeling of being these ancient, primal beings who shaped the landscape in the distant past. And indeed, many elemental giants feel almost deity-like in their presentation. If both elemental and more mundane giants coexist in a setting, expect the elemental kind to be held with higher reverence, and probably be the tallest of the lot to boot.
Elemental giants are a trope that predates modern fantasy by quite a bit, tracing its roots back to several world mythologies. The most readily cited will likely be the frost and fire Jotun of Norse Mythology, but elemental giants pop up in others too, such as Irish Mythology making references to giants of winter and ice dueling giants of summer and flame across mountain peaks.
A subtrope of Our Giants Are Bigger and Elemental Embodiment. Our Titans Are Different can apply as well, but only in media that clearly re-imagines the Titans as gigantic creatures because the traditional Titans of Greek mythology were not gigantic.note Can also overlap with Living Whirlwind if the whirlwind is of gigantic size.
Compare Giant Corpse World, where the outcome of these giants, whether elemental or not, ends with the assimilation into an element. Compare Elemental Dragon and Elemental Zombie for other fictional creatures with an elemental makeover.
Examples
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- One Piece: The giant Hajrudin tries to invoke this trope by getting his hands on the Flame-Flame Fruit to become an Elemental Shapeshifter of the fire-element by winning the tournament in Dressrosa. He does not succeed due to Luffy knocking him out.
- The Seven Deadly Sins: All Giants have an affinity with nature that manifests in the magical power known as "Creation", allowing them to manipulate the earth. They can raise the ground like towers, transform minerals into sand and transform their bodies into metal.
Films — Animation
- Frozen II: The enchanted forest is home to four elemental spirits, one of which manifests as earth giants made of living rock.
- Hercules (1997): The titans in the movie are only very loosely based on those from the mythology, with the movie re-imagining them as giant monsters, four of which are made up entirely of their element. There's Lythos, the Rock Titan; Pyros, the Lava Titan; Hydros, the Ice Titan; and Stratos, the Living Whirlwind Titan. The fifth Titan, Arges, is just a giant Cyclops with no elemental power.
- Puss in Boots: The Last Wish: At the beginning of the film, Puss fights with a stone giant that has trees as antlers/horns.
Films — Live-Action
- Noah: The fallen Angels have been cursed to live in stone bodies several times the size of a normal man.
- Spider-Man: Far From Home: The main threat Peter faces in the film are the Elementals, four giant beings responsible for destroying Mysterio's home dimension. Except, they’re actually just holograms created by Mysterio to make him look like a hero.
Live-Action TV
- Mahou Sentai Magiranger/Power Rangers Mystic Force: Not all of the building-sized Infersha Gods/Ten Terrors fit this trope but the first of them, Ifrit/Magma, is a being of rock and lava. Two other members look like water-dwelling creatures and another is a flying dragon.
Mythology & Religion
- Chinese Mythology: Some giants start out as normal humanoids who turn into an elemental and integrate into the Earth itself. The most famous story being the Creation Myth of Pangu, a giant who spent his life separating Yin and Yang, and upon his death, his corpse turned into plants and stone and his eyes became the sun and the moon, thus forming Earth.
- Norse Mythology is where a lot of examples take their inspiration from. Namely, from the fire giants and the frost giants. Both groups are the traditional enemies of the gods and will one launch an all-out assault on them during Ragnarok which will climax with the leader of the fire giants Surtr engulfing the nine realms in flame. Hrungnir, a powerful jötunn (giant) whose heart, head, and shield were made of solid rock, making him tough and strong. He famously challenged Thor to a duel after a drunken visit to Asgard, where Thor eventually killed him with his hammer, Mjöllnir, though a piece of Hrungnir's whetstone remained lodged in Thor's head.
- Irish Mythology contains references to giants of "winter and ice" and giants of "summer and flame". Most notably in one story where Ruscaire, a giant of winter and ice, fights a duel with his rival Finn Toirneach, a giant of summer and fire. Ruscaire believes that by defeating and capturing Finn Toirneach he will create an eternal winter, and use it to make humans suffer. Toirneach, who is an ally to humanity, is naturally against this. The two engage in a duel that lasts three days, first fighting with swords, then clubs, and finally boulders. In the end, Finn Toirneach wins and slays Ruscaire, whose flesh melts into water upon his death. Unfortunately, Finn Toirneach is so exhausted from the effort that he falls into an eternal slumber and becomes part of the mountain he was standing on.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons: Of the six freqeuntly-mentioned species of giant, five have some degree of Elemental Motif. These being stone, frost, fire, cloud, and storm. Hill giants are the only outliers, as their defining traits are instead primitiveness, gluttony, and violent tempers.
- Magic: The Gathering: Kaldheim, a plane inspired by Norse Mythology, is home to fire and frost giants in Surtland, a realm of climatic extremes. Frost giants are aligned with Blue mana, the color of ice, water, and the mind; they are solitary, contemplative beings who live in fortresses on the realm's high peaks, studying magic and hoarding secrets. Fire giants are instead aligned with Red mana, the color of emotion, impulse, and fire; they are barbarians who live in tribes in the volcanic lowlands and have a form of crude but potent pyromancy. They detest one another, and fire giant tribes often attack frost giant forts. Aegar, the Freezing Flame
, is a unique result of a tryst between the king of the fire giants and a frost giant matron; he possess a mixture of his parents' temperaments and elemental affinities, and hopes to one day unite all of the giants into a single people.
Video Games
- Age of Mythology: Certain civilizations have access to elementally-powered giants as mid to late game myth units.
- Norse Frost Giants are available to worshippers of either Skadi or Hel. They have an icy breath that can freeze enemies solid.
- Norse Fire Giants are available to worshippers of either Baldur or Hel and Japanese Asuras are available to worshippers of Takemikazuchi. The former throw fireballs that are effective against both units and buildings and have a Charged Attack where they project multiple fireballs at once. The latter are melee units that slam the ground with fiery punches and have a passive ability where they throw fireballs at nearby units.
- Norse Rock Giants are available to worshippers of Aegir and Aztec Quinametzin can be upgraded to Stoneskin Quinametzin by worshippers of Xolotl. Both are giants made out of rock, with the former being a highly durable myth unit who carries a shield and has a Practical Taunt and the latter being a stronger version of the base unit which itself throws massive boulders.
- Age of Wonders 4: Giant King rulers, introduced in the Giant Kings expansion, are divided between four broad clans, representing the elemental forces that they most directly interacted with when they shaped the world in ancient days — Fire, Frost, Rock, and Storm. These differ in regards to what terrain types they benefit the most from — Fire Kings get production bonuses from areas with open lava, Frost Kings from snow and ice terrain, Rock Kings from mountains and stalagmite-covered caves, and Storm Kings from rivers and water terrain — and each can summon a runestele that terraforms its surrounding landscape to the giant's preferred type.
- Dungeon Keeper 2: Downplayed in that Giants' immunity to lava makes them the heroes' counterpart to Salamanders, but they lack the Salamanders' fiery breath.
- Elden Ring: In the ancient past, the Fire Giants lived in the Lands Between, invented blacksmithing and worshiped a god of fire. Marika and Godfrey drove them to extinction, although their smaller (about 20 ft. tall — true giants stood around 50 ft.) relatives, the trolls, remain. Several powerful fire incantations are stated to have been invented by the giants and to draw power from their god.
- The Elder Scrolls: Frost Giants are much stronger versions of normal giants that physiologically resemble Frost Trolls (they have four eyes, horns, and shaggy white fur), and are an elusive and seemingly Dying Race on Tamriel that have been nearly hunted to extinction by the likes of Ysgramor and his companions. One legendary Frost Giant, Karstaag, can be found as the boss of Castle Karstaag on Solstheim in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.
- EverQuest: Played straight and subverted with two different types of Giants.
- Rallos Zek, the God of War, created the Giants and numerous other races with the purpose of conquering. When he set his sights on the Elemental Plane of Earth, a horrific curse was afflicted to all of his races as punishment for executing the 13 avatars of the Rathe Council—the Gods of Earth. The Ice Giants found in Permafrost and the Fire Giants found in Lavastorm Mountains do not have any inherent elemental attributes, but they cannot survive if they ever leave those regions. Their specific curse is that they need those harsh regions just to live.
- Karana, the God of Weather, created his own Giants to serve him in the Plane of Storms and Torden, the Bastion of Thunder. These appropriately named Storm Giants take on the physical appearance of the elements around them. Various giants are seen with lightning, rain, snow and ice, or wind and dust coursing through their own skin itself.
- God of War: Titans can take on many forms. Some look like merely giant humans, while others such as Gaia, Titan of Earth, is made of dirt and plants due to those coming under her domain.
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Frost and Igneo Taluses are massive monsters comprised of frozen and molten rock respectively and are cold/hot enough to freeze/burn Link on contact without special armor, meals, or elixirs.
- Monster Musume TD: Several of the giant monster girls have their respective elements:
- Melon the Giant girl is associated with the wind element, yet her power over the element is less played up in contrast to the other two — though, in her character scenes, she's able to create gusts of wind through just her simple hand gestures, with her alternate forms having more straightforward manipulation of the element as attacks.
- Narcepafne is a Frost Giant girl, whose very presence makes the surrounding atmosphere cold and snowy, along with being able to imbue her axe with ice.
- Badagi is a Fire Giant girl, who can create pillars of fire from the ground with her very strength by striking at the ground.
- Pokémon: The Legendary Giants are golems made of different elements created by Regigigas. They consist of Regirock, Regice, and Registeel, with Regieleki and Regidrago being added later.
- Reus and Reus 2 both have the player control up to six elemental giants whose abilities are needed to shape the world. Such as the Forest Giant, which is made out of moss, leaves and living wood, and the Rock Giant.
- Skylanders: Giants: The titular Giants are an ancient team of Skylanders, each of whom are categorized by the eight Elements. Tree Rex the Life Giant, Thumpback the Water Giant, Bouncer the Tech Giant, Swarm the Air Giant, Eye Brawl the Undead Giant, Crusher the Earth Giant, Hot Head the Fire Giant, and Ninjini the Magic Giant.
- War of the Monsters: The monster Kineticlops is an electricity-themed Elemental Giant, as his body is effectively an eyeball suspended in a colossal body of living energy. Most of his attacks and abilities revolve around using lightning in different ways.
- Warcraft: Among the various types of giants that inhabit Azeroth are the fire, frost, and storm giants of Northrend, the aquatic, blue-skinned sea giants, and the primitive rocky-fleshed stone giants found in remote areas of the world. Magma giants and molten giants, despite their names, are instead types of fire elementals that outwardly resemble immense humanoids and are not directly related to the true Titan-made giants of Azeroth.
Webcomics
- Unsounded: The Mountain Ogres were enormous beings made of earth and minerals, and their corpses form the continent. They are rich sources of First Gemstones and create interesting humanoid rock formations. The few who survived the initiation of the khert create earthquakes as they struggle underground to free themselves of the corpses of their fellows.
Western Animation
- The Dragon Prince has a race called titans, which are portrayed as giants made of volcanic rock and lava. They appear to be a Dying Race, and the heart of one is taken by force and harvested by the villains as the key component in a spell.
- Hilda: Three of the Ancient Giants, Kald, Drib and the Ice Man, are snow/ice elementals, while Jaðarrokk is a being of rock and the Knollem is a sapient hill. Averted with the other giants that have no designated element.
- The Owl House: Played with; the Titans were living magical reservoirs whose magic is based around elemental spells but can be used to form more complex ones. When they die, their bodies turn into land masses, though the magic they carry is still channeled and reshapes the environment of the earth they form, including said elemental magic, which can be felt in the surrounding nature that grows on these bodies.