Is it a Voltron? A Wicker Man? A Trojan Guy? What's term for it?

June 11, 2020 5:22 PM

I'm trying to find examples of giant hollow man (or human figure) that people go into. Ideally five. One in each limb and then one in the body/head. Like Voltron. But searching is bringing up all the wrong things. Is there some sort of technical term I'm supposed to be using here for big human figure with people in it?
posted by rileyray3000 to Grab Bag (12 answers total)

My son says that the Power Rangers composed Megazord in precisely this fashion—does that help?
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 5:28 PM on June 11, 2020 [4 favorites]

Combiner is the term for Transformers.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 5:36 PM on June 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

Mecha, maybe? The term is broader than Voltron types, but I think all Voltron-types would be Mechas?
posted by jzb at 5:36 PM on June 11, 2020 [2 favorites]

is the purpose human sacrifice or battle bots
posted by poffin boffin at 5:37 PM on June 11, 2020 [24 favorites]

TVTropes doesn't have one answer for this, interestingly; it breaks it up to whether it's multiple people in one suit or people in individual unit machines combining into one machine, which they call 'combining mecha', which sounds somewhat legit. They also note one subtype of Combining Mecha called 'Leader forms the Head' specifically.
posted by cobaltnine at 5:58 PM on June 11, 2020 [6 favorites]

Yeah mecha or mech is the name for a robot which holds and is semi or fully controlled by at least one person. My partner, who is more into mechas than I am, suggested the term "fusion mecha" but genuinely thinks there's not a specific term for it. I found this and this, though. To find examples in which more than one person controls the robot (though not necessarily 5, which doesn't seem to be as common), I would search for "mecha co-pilots." For example, that brought up this article.

If you don't need it to be piloted by multiple people, there's tons of mecha shows with single pilots. My personal favorite is Neon Genesis Evangelion, although knowledge is knowing that NGE is a giant robot anime, while wisdom is knowing that NGE is not a giant robot anime.
posted by brook horse at 7:05 PM on June 11, 2020 [4 favorites]

Immediate insight can be had via M.C. Frontalot's I'll Form the Head.
posted by sourcequench at 7:46 PM on June 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

In Marvel comics, there is the Quintronic Man, who fought the Hulk, Spiderman, and others. Controlled by 5 people, as requested
posted by librosegretti at 7:57 PM on June 11, 2020

This is adjacent to what you're describing, but Clive Barker's short story "In the Hills, the Cities" describes two cities each creating a giant person out of their citizens by basically strapping everyone together and coordinating their movemtns to do battle. They're not inside anything, though. Just masses of people who come together resemble giant humans. Of course, this involves hundreds or thousands of people, not five like you're looking for. Not sure why you want these examples, but thought I'd throw this out there.
posted by acidnova at 8:40 PM on June 11, 2020 [3 favorites]

The Living Theatre's "Frankenstein."
posted by JimN2TAW at 9:07 PM on June 11, 2020

I’ve seen robot toy fans refer to a combiner like Voltron or the Megazord or Devastator as a gestalt.
posted by sleeping bear at 11:27 PM on June 11, 2020 [5 favorites]

combining many into one is a gestalt. one that is empty inside until imbued with a mission is a golem.
posted by evilmonk at 12:01 PM on June 12, 2020