Tiny Cooper

Character Analysis

Tiny Cooper is the man between our Will Graysons—best friend to Will and first boyfriend to will, Tiny's kind of at the center of everything. Which is where Tiny likes to be. Will pretty much sums up his best friend with this quote:

Tiny Cooper is not the world's gayest person, and he is not the world's largest person, but I believe he may be the world's largest person who is really, really gay, and also the world's gayest person who is really, really large. (1.2)

Yes, Tiny is physically large, but he also has a huge personality—he's large in every way. So while Tiny and Will have been friends since fifth grade, it isn't as great as you might imagine. Tiny is huge, confident, loud, clever, and talented, all things that Will isn't. To be fair to Will, though, anyone would feel small standing next to Tiny Cooper. And not just because he's 6'6".

Free to Be Tiny

Tiny Cooper is a force of nature. He rushes into a room and all eyes are on him—and he clearly loves it. Will is even jealous of all the attention he gets. Sure, Tiny isn't conventionally attractive (he's actually "big-boned" (16.100)), but he has friends and boyfriends coming out the wazoo. No one makes fun of him for being gay or even for being unapologetically into musical theater. If they do, they get shut down right away. No matter what Tiny does, people love him.

But this doesn't mean that Tiny is all about himself. Sure, he'll suck up all the attention in a room like a Hoover, but he still cares about other people. In fact, that's the big reason he turned his life story into a musical—for other people. Or at least that's what he tells will grayson:

do you know what it's like to work so hard to make sure everyone's happy, and to have not a single person recognize it? i can work my ass off bringing together the other will grayson and jane—no appreciation, only grief. i write this whole musical that's basically about love, and the main character in it—besides me, of course—is phil wrayson, who needs to figure some things out, but is all-in-all a pretty wonderful guy. and does will get that? no. he freaks out. i do everything i can to be a good boyfriend with you—no appreciation, only grief. i try to make this musical so it can create something, to show that we all have something to sing no appreciation, only grief. this musical is a gift, will. my gift to the world. it's not about me. it's about what i have to share. (16.100)

Is this speech true? Is sharing with others Tiny's only motivation, or is there a little bit of self-interest in there? In the beginning of the novel, Tiny is pretty much all about himself, but he does change and grow, and by the end he realizes that every moment cannot be the Tiny Cooper show. A lot of them can, but in order to make a difference in other people's lives, he has to reach out and help his friends.

Tiny's big moment is when he finally apologizes to Will at the Little League field for being a pain sometimes. Tiny knows that he can be overbearing, but he does it all out of love. And since Will (and will) are so closed off to love, they kind of need a Tiny-sized dose of it to help them take the leap and follow their hearts.

Big Love

Tiny isn't just hopelessly devoted to others, he's also a hopeless romantic. He goes through boyfriends like other people go through Kleenex and he's constantly announcing that he's madly in love with some new boy:

[Tiny] turns to me and he whispers really loudly because secretly he wants other people to hear, "I'm in love." I roll my eyes, because he falls in love every hour on the hour with some poor new boy. They all look the same: skinny and sweaty and tan, the last an abomination, because all February tans in Chicago are fake, and boys who fake tan—I don't care whether they're gay—are ridiculous.

"You're so cynical," Tiny says, waving his hand at me. (1.8-9)

This is actually part of why Will just cannot stand the thought of being in a relationship. He sees Tiny go through the same cycle over and over again—love-heartbreak, love-heartbreak, love-heartbreak—and just can't imagine doing that to himself. No way. It's far better not to get on this roller coaster of love.

But Tiny clearly doesn't agree. He even makes his entire show—Hold Me Closer—all about love. The love he has for his parents, his best friend, and all the various guys who have cycled through his life. Tiny has a piece of his heart for everyone.

In the end, Tiny grows and matures in his views of love. Instead of declaring that he's totally in love with will grayson, he tells everyone that he "really like[s] him" (11.6). It's a step in the right direction. And even though will breaks his heart, too, Tiny never gives up on love:

tiny: maybe there is something you're afraid to say, or someone you're afraid to love, or somewhere you're afraid to go. it's gonna hurt. it's gonna hurt because it matters […]

but i just fell and landed and i am still standing here to tell you that you've gotta learn to love the falling, because it's all about falling […]

just fall for once. let yourself fall! (20.79, 84, 86)

Does love hurt Tiny sometimes? Yup, but he brushes himself off and gets right back up, ready to fall in love all over again.

All Tiny, All the Time

As much as Tiny tries to make things about other people, they always seem to come back to Tiny. He's the kind of larger-than-life character who takes over a story. Think about it: He's Will Grayson's best friend, but the plot of the book quickly becomes about Tiny staging his musical. Will is sort of pushed to the sidelines on this little adventure.

And when Tiny meets will grayson, he almost immediately starts dating him and takes over his story line, too. will can't get through the day without receiving at least a hundred texts from Tiny and being drowned in his big love. Heck, the entire novel ends with everyone affirming Tiny Cooper and telling him how much they love him.

So could you say that Will Grayson, Will Grayson is actually all about Tiny Cooper? Are Will and will just sidekicks tagging along on a Tiny-centric adventure? That would definitely be one way of looking at this story. You could also say that Tiny's confidence and larger-than-life persona are what really get both Will Graysons to open up to something different than what they've known. Tiny might change a little, but he helps both Will Graysons change a lot.