SE Asia's Giantess
You already know that giant people and tiny people have existed in folklore and fairy tales for as long as we've been capable of telling stories. Right? Of course.
You can follow artists on social media and see amazing pictures of gigantic women in various states of undress, destroying cities, coyly looking back in "surprise" at people they've stomped, or tiny people living in the homes of normal-sized women, spying on them, getting trapped by them, etc. A rare breed of Size Fantasy fans even read stories like this.
When you're done with that, though, or you just need a break from American manga, where do you go? One thing you can do is hit the books and look up legends from around the world about mixed-size relationships. Where would you look first? Probably Scandinavian mythos, that's full of gods and giants and all that good stuff. After that, read up on Brazilian or Iroquois stories of gigantic people. Reread Gulliver's Travels if you have to.
But now, let me tell you about an epic poem by a Thai poet, Sunthorn Phu. He wrote Phra Aphai Mani (The Sacred Aphai Mani) in prison, jailed for getting into a fight, and sold the story in installments to earn some money.
The story... gods, it's hard to tell. There are so many versions of it. I mean, I only looked it up because of my Funko POP! Asia figurine, which they simply call "Giant Lady."
I'll share the core of the story that I do understand: Aphai Mani was out on adventures when he encountered a giantess, Nang Phisua Samut ("Butterfly of the Ocean" or "Ocean Swallow," the bird). She was charmed by him so she transformed herself into a beautiful woman to seduce and keep him. He discovered her treachery and escaped, and she was understandably furious.
It gets murky here as there are no definitive translations, apparently. By some accounts she hunted him down and turns up later. According to others, she was more like an ogress or even a she-demon, and in revenge she would lure and murder some other man each year.
Yet others hold that Nang Phisua Samut was a Nyakinee (male: Nyak), the Lao/Thai equivalent of the Hindu Rakshasa (female: Rakshasi), either a malevolent demon or an anthropomorphic tiger if you play D&D. Perhaps the supernatural beings in SE Asia are more mercurial than they are in Western stories, I don't know. Perhaps giants are a form of demon to them.
The longer story is that Aphai Mani and his brother Sisuwan were princes whose father sent them out to study the principles of leadership, to determine his successor to the throne. When they came back, Sisuwan had exclusively studied swordplay and Aphai Mani learned the flute. The king, disgusted with both of them, banished them from the kingdom.
We learn later that Aphai Mani actually had a magic flute that allowed him to lull people to sleep, and even to coax the soul out of their bodies, but his father never learned this. We also learn that Nang Phisua Samut had sex with Aphai Mani and gave birth to his son, Sinsamut, and when they fled the nyakinee/rakshasi, they sought protection from a family of mermaids. Too bad, because the giantess devoured the mother and father of the pod most violently. (Without the violence, you can see the giantess pursuing our hero and capturing the mermaid parents in Escape from Nang Phisua.)
Then Aphai Mani has sex with the daughter mermaid, who gives birth to his other son, Sudsakorn. I'm surprised this story hasn't been picked up by more cultures adjacent to Size Fantasy: handsome prince goes out on an adventure and fucks all sorts of supernatural creatures, like an ancient Star Trek. Some themes are timeless!
The story is epic and beloved throughout Thailand, I bet, because there are statues dedicated to Prince Aphai Mani, the nameless orphan mermaid he banged and abandoned, and the beautiful and misunderstood giantess Nang Phisua Samut in various locations. Wish I'd known, when I was over there.
So now you know! Don't ask Chat GPT about any of this, because it will make up wild, crazy-ass shit before it ever admits it has no idea what you're talking about. If you ask it about the poem, it can cite the author, but then it promptly goes off the rails. "The prince is seeking a rare jewel." "He encounters a variety of supernatural creatures, each of whom represent themes of love, loyalty, and the consequence of one's actions." I mean, it's useful for writing Size Erotica, as in one iteration it suggested that Nang Phisua Samut was a giantess princess, betrothed to Phra Aphai Mani (himself only a few inches tall), and on their journeys they encountered a she-demon who attempted to seduce the tiny prince. There, that's up my alley, though I will lose my badge for Cultural Sensitivity if I publish that tale.
(And I've just received an email warning from OpenAI that my requests have been flagged as inappropriate, so perhaps my account will be deleted soon. Get it while the gettin's good, I say, right after I back everything up.)
It's worth noting that according to the hated square-cube law, a small giantess would have to live in the water to cool herself down sufficiently. By some accounts Nang Phisua Samut ruled an undersea kingdom made of shells (sometimes translated to crystals). How else do you explain this ancient wisdom covering a physics conundrum, except that giantesses are real?
Some themes are timeless.
In Her Shadow,
Aborigen
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