Fiction has no tape measure: where invented sizes come from
Invented things have no size until somebody states one. The 152 objects in the Pop Culture set carry figures from at least four different kinds of source, and the gap between the firmest and the softest is wide enough to matter.
Four kinds of source, in descending order of firmness
Every invented object in this catalogue carries a size that somebody decided. The question worth asking is who decided it and whether they were in a position to.
- The author stated it. Rare, binding, and the strongest kind of figure available for something that does not exist.
- A game entry states it. Fixed, published, unchanging across appearances. Almost as good as the first.
- A production design states it. Precise within one film and liable to change with the next.
- Somebody worked it out from framing. An estimate, and the softest thing in the set.
When the author gives a number
Tolkien is unusually generous here. Treebeard is described as at least fourteen feet, which is the 4.3 m used in this catalogue. Orthanc's floor of polished stone stands five hundred feet above the plain of Isengard, which gives the 164.6 m figure. Both come from the books rather than from any designer.
That makes them the firmest invented figures available. Treebeard at 4.3 m against a mature oak at 22 m gives 5.12, and the interesting half of that comparison is the oak, because tree heights vary enormously while the Ent's figure is fixed by a sentence.
Orthanc at 164.6 m against the Wall at 213.36 m puts two authored figures together, seven hundred feet of ice against five hundred feet of stone. Both numbers come from the page, both are exact, and neither has ever been revised.
The counterexample from the same books: the Balrog of Moria. Tolkien describes a great shadow and never gives a height. The 6.1 m used here comes from the film design, which is a different kind of claim entirely. Against Gandalf at 1.8 m, ratio 3.39, one figure is authored and one is not.
Game entries, which never change
Pokemon heights are the most stable invented figures in the catalogue, because each creature has an official entry and the entry has not moved since 1996. Pikachu is 0.4 m. Charizard is 1.7 m. Mewtwo is 2 m. Squirtle is 0.5 m. Eevee is 0.3 m.
Stability is not the same as intuitiveness. Mewtwo at 2 m against Pikachu at 0.4 m gives exactly 5.0, and Mewtwo is taller than almost anyone remembers, because it is nearly always drawn crouching. Gengar at 1.5 m against Pikachu is 3.75, and a creature that reads as small on screen is listed at very nearly human height.
The lesson is that a fixed figure and a screen appearance can diverge indefinitely without anybody noticing, because nothing in the fiction ever forces them to agree.
Production designs, which are precise per film
Film and television designs give exact figures that are exact only for that production. Darth Vader is 2.02 m in armour, which is the character rather than the actor, and the armour accounts for several centimetres of it. Chewbacca is 2.28 m. C-3PO is 1.77 m. The Millennium Falcon is 34.75 m nose to tail, a figure that has been revised upward twice in official sources.
Chewbacca against Vader gives 1.13, and both figures come from the same production bible, which is what makes the comparison coherent. Pull one figure from a film and the other from a novel and you have two unrelated numbers.
Estimates, and how to flag them
Some characters have no stated size at all and carry a figure worked out from how they are framed beside others. Dobby at 0.9 m and Shrek at 2.33 m are both in this category. So is Hagrid in a different way: the books give about eleven and a half feet, which is the 3.5 m used here, but film framing rarely matches it, because doubles and forced perspective were used rather than a fixed scale.
Hagrid at 3.5 m against Vader at 2.02 m gives 1.73, pairing an authored figure with a production one. Thanos at 2.52 m against Shrek at 2.33 m gives 1.08 and pairs two soft figures, which is the weakest kind of comparison in the set and is marked as such on the page.
The ones with an exact answer
A small number of invented objects have a size stated to a precision that leaves nothing to argue about. Kirby is eight inches, which converts to 20.32 cm. A Quidditch pitch is five hundred feet by a hundred and eighty. One World Trade Center, which is real but chose its number the same way, is 1,776 feet exactly.
Sonic at 1 m against Kirby at 20.32 cm gives 4.92, and both figures come from official manuals. That is about as solid as invented sizes get.
Being honest about it
The point is not that invented sizes are worthless. It is that they are claims of different strengths, and treating them all as equally firm produces comparisons that look rigorous and are not.
Every page in the Pop Culture part of this catalogue says where the figure comes from: an entry, a design, an author, or an estimate. That one line is the difference between a number you can build on and a number somebody made up on a Tuesday.