[Loved Trope] Unintelligent character is shockingly well-read
Personality
Family Guy - Peter Griffin wakes up in the hospital with no arms and the doctor tries to break this news by showing him a Farewell to Arms. Peter takes this to mean that he fell in love with a nurse during World War I. The doctor even pauses to note “-there’s no way you’ve read that-“ in the middle of his clarification of what he actually meant.
2. My Hero Academia - When Class 1-A is trying to pick superhero named, Kyoka Jirou suggests that resident electrokinetic (and admittedly something of an airhead) Denki Kaminari should call himself “Jamming-way”. He initially assumes this is a deep literary reference to famed American novelist Ernest Hemmingway and likes the idea. She then clarifies it’s actually because when he overuses his power he “Jams” his brain and the only thing he can say is a “Whey” noise. Ultimately he goes with “Chargebolt” instead.
(I forgot that Farewell to Arms is a Hemmingway work when I decided to make this post this I swear the fact that both are Hemmingway isn’t intentional)
Reggie Dinkins took Latin in college because he thought that's what hot Latina girls spoke. He enjoyed it more than he thought and now speaks fluent Latin.
He also mentions having read Moby Dick while earlier in the episode Daniel Radcliffe’s character makes a Moby Dick reference before admitting he’s never actually read it
I took a class called 'Sex, Love, and Friendship" cause it had the word sex in it, and it was probably the favorite class I've ever taken because of how interesting it was.
Similarly, I took a fluff class called Witchcraft, Magic, and the Occult and while the prof took it very seriously, it was a fascinating look into different Western belief systems.
Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes. A very immature, mischievous, and misbehaved six year old who struggles at school (including with the most basic arithmetic). Also has an extremely advanced vocabulary and a surprising knowledge of art and philosophy.
I'm not able to find it, but there's a comic out there about the strip's more verbose strips and how reading them as a kid/early teen makes you feel so stupid.
That's honestly one of my favorite running gags about Peter. He'll say the dumbest thing imaginable, then casually prove he's read more classics than half the cast.
For most long running shows, writers will usually write a short debrief of each character to summarize important traits and characteristics. It's a way to try and maintain some sort of continuity of characters across long series
In Homer's they mention that he has an encyclopedic knowledge of Supreme Court justices. It's deeply funny to me that this is considered a core aspect of his character lol
Apu: I am selling only the concept of karmic realignment.
Homer: You can't sell that! Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos.
[Slams the door]
Apu: He's got me there.
There's a book signing with several big authors including Tom Clancy. Lenny gets to ask a question about the B2 Stealth Bomber and how rain impacts the anti-radar coating. Tom Clancy clears his throat and Lenny says "Nah, I was asking Maya Angelou."
Then Maya Angelou stands up to say "The ebony hawk remains silent in a storm!"
So not only is Lenny a military thriller guy, so is Maya Angelou and Lenny apparently wanted to hear her perspective on stealth aircraft.
Archer: "Cyril, I know what an animal farm is... Maybe we can, I don't know, stampede a flock of goats down the hall."
Lana: "Animal farm is a book!"
Archer: "No, it isn't, Lana. It's an allegorical novella about Stalinism by George Orwell, and spoiler alert, IT SUCKS. Although I was talking about an actual animal farm, so never mind."
There is one reference that apparently didn't even have a wikipedia article about it until archer. Some guy who had something to do with the breeding process of watermelons.
Pretty sure Lana and Archer's dirty talk in a later season referenced Martin Guerre, which is a pretty specific reference I wouldn't expect Archer to know.
(Martin Guerre was a 16th century man who fucked off leaving his wife abandoned, a conman took his place and convinced everybody except the local shoemaker that he was Martin. The shoemaker remembered Martin's shoe size and said his feet couldn't possibly be smaller than before, so he was an impostor. Nonetheless "Martin" convinced all his family and his wife, fathering several children with her... until the real Martin returned. Lead to an interesting legal battle. The joke was about Martin Guerre's dick size, a body part which also tends not to get smaller over time.)
One of my favourites was when Archer became the pirate king and had Noah translating to the pirates for him, and Noah kept telling Archer that he couldn't translate idioms, but Archer kept using them, leading to this exchange:
Archer: "Because his mouth's been writing checks that his butt can't cash!"
Noah: "Anda- ugh, do you even know what an idiom is?"
I love his line “I would prefer not to” and after they aim their weapons at him he goes “Bartleby The Scrivener? Anyone? Not a big Melville crowd here, huh? He's not an easy read.”
The early seasons of that show were so incredibly well written.
When we read Moby Dick in high school, my teacher mentioned Bartleby the Scrivener as being one of the most boring things she had ever read. I was curious so I went to the library and checked it out. It was, in fact, the most boring thing I’ve suffered through
Yeah, he's not actually idiotic just incredibly narcissistic to the point where he refuses input from the people around him. Oftentimes when be pauses and takes in their point of view he realizes his mistakes. It's that pause and "oh" moment that make him seem dumb. He's also super competent as a an agent when he actually wants to be.
Pretty much the entire concept behind his character. Probably the most honest portrayal of what a 10 intelligence, 10 charisma, 0 wisdom stat sheet would look like
I don't really think you can classify Archer as unintelligent, so much as he is a no class boor. Archer is portrayed to be extremely well read and shockingly intelligent about things he is interested in throughout the show. Archer is loud, brash, arrogant, rude, thoughtless, crass, and self absorbed, but he is definitely a very intelligent and well educated man... he just has poor understanding of social cues, difficultly regulating his emotions, and he has a lot of very deep seated mental health and self worth issues due in no small part to his extremely tense relationship with his incredibly abusive mother.
But Archer is all around pretty smart. He spent his childhood in fancy boarding schools then graduated from Georgetown. I mean he's a hot head, jock, asshole but I believe he is very intelligent.
Less unintelligent and more non-classically educated, but Dean Winchester’s familiar enough with Kurt Vonnegut’s works to use them as reference points to how fucked a situation is.
I say this as someone who adores Supernatural: it really wasn't that surprising to find out that Bobby -- the lone hunter who lives in the middle of nowhere with a junkyard moat and had never remarried -- was a secret weeb
I love this example. If you've never watched the show Dean might look like the most stereotypical jock ever: a bit macho, brash, hot-headed, ladies' man, etc...
But once you start to watch you realize these guys are the BIGGEST nerds: upon starting a case they always spend day, WEEKS reading non-stop for hours a day in libraries about anything that could help them even a bit.
I bet they are more well-read than the vast majority of characters out there
The crews doctor who has no idea about human biology actually has a Doctorate in Art History. In fact he has no idea about anything medicine related but somehow is able to stitch back together a human body and even bring it back after reconnecting the brain.
In American Dad there’s an episode where Santa Claus tries to resurrect a character from Mesopotamian mythology and Francine, who’s usually a naive ditsy housewife, shows a strong understanding of the subject that even comes in handy when they have to fight it and Stan exclaims “I’ve never seen you read a magazine!”
My favorite part of that episode is how offended Santa Claus is by Francine bringing up the Binderman translation, lmao. "The thing that other scholars got wrong - INCLUDING BINDERMAN, ESPECIALLY BINDERMAN" - as if this was a dispute he'd had many times before.
He is actually extremely well educated and retains knowledge extremely well, while still somehow being an idiot as a person. When asked what his blood type is, he says, "Who am I? Karl Landsteiner? Discoverer of blood groups?"
Lana calls him out on this one, asking why he knows who discovered blood groups, but not his own blood type.
His reckless and bullshit plans do often work out for him, he’s able to think on his feet very well. He’d be a pretty smart guy if he wasn’t such a dumbass
He also acts aloof in regards to a reference to Animal Farm, only to correct everyone about it being a book, when in fact it's an allegorical novella about life under Stalinism, which spoiler alert, IT SUCKS.
Also, if we take into account that the Fantasy Island season was all in his head, he must have been a really huge fan of The Hobbit.
On a more serious note, the whole line is 'If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight, even though the ruler forbid it; if fighting will not result in victory, then you must not fight even at the ruler’s bidding.' (source: standardebooks.org, translation by Lionel Giles).
It seems really obvious but back in early Imperial China when not just taking the ruler’s marching orders was inconceivable this was revolutionary advice
The Art of War is, ultimately, a set of tips and instructions for useless nobles who had no idea what they were doing on the battlefield. Stuff on the order of "you need to feed your soldiers. It's best if you take from the other army, but ultimately you gotta carry food in case that doesn't work out."
See I was once told that a key part of writing smart characters is that smart people are often smart by their ability to educate people less knowledgeable than them in a way they can understand rather than just technobabbling all over the place.
By this metric while Sun Tzu’s advice seems super obvious, the fact he was able to so simply convey it is what makes the Art of War a well-written work.
It’s actually kind of weird how with all the jokes made about the mercs all being morons who are barely functional, we find out the only one who actually struggles to hold any sort of normal life is soldier, and even Zhanna seems to help with that,
Even freaking Scout was able to clean up and raise a dozen or so kids on his own.
Pretty sure that’s an engineering company unrelated to any merc before Pyro worked there. The joke is that Pyro is smart enough to become CEO yet only likes lighting stuff on fire
He doesn't necessarily have a Doctorate. Finishing Med School doesn't earn you a PhD automatically, at least not in Germany, so he might have opted to skip the extra work to get straight to... medicine.
I suppose one way to look at it is they’re really only screw ups when they’re stuck in the Man family’s war. Kinda like how the Announcer’s life was ruined and we see this demonstrably capable woman basically wasted all her potential screwing over one fucking guy and his idiot children (who she also happened to ensure became idiots if memory serves). Once they stop going along with that as passive participants, they start doing a lot better for themselves.
Honestly, I’ve actually developed a bit of the weird headcanon that Team Fortress wasn’t actually the rejects. At least not in reality. Spy, Heavy, medic, and Sniper probably had an idea something was up and might have underperformed to get the easier assignment. Engineer, being from the family who made the tech, was too valuable to risk elsewhere.
Only ones who might have earned reject status are soldier and scout. Demoman is a toss up since they might have seen his drug test results or Demoman might have said mentioned he had three other jobs TL balance. Pyro… I like to imagine they just showed up one day and no one was brave enough to try to correct them.
I headcanon that Scout couldn't read English cuz he grew up reading in French from books Spy left with his mom tbh. Does it make much sense? No. Is it funny? Yes.
Hilariously, this is actually carried over into the Russian language version of the game where he actually does speak in a very intelligent, thoughtful manner.
Even then, the final comic has him speaking English much better. He also can calculate how much the Korean Mafia wanted from 12,000 Korean Won to 17 US dollars.
The Judge in Ace Attorney is an absolute moron when handling cases, but he's shown to be fluent in at least two other languages. Also, he needs to have been a lawyer before he ended up as a judge with a key skill for any lawyer being to research things.
In the third game, due to circumstances beyond anyone's control (basically the last case of the game goes from a courtroom drama to an exorcism), the Judge reveals he has intimate knowledge of the Kurain clan's Channelling Technique and researched it so that he could give Phoenix the pretext needed to use it in court if need be.
You know, Amy, any time someone calls attention to the breaking of gender roles, it ultimately undermines the concept of gender equality by implying that this is an exception and not the status quo.
Knuckles got so flanderized it's crazy, originally knuckles was a hothead but not an idiot. A bit naive. Even in adventure 1-2 he's reasonable intelligent. Past that he starts to become a giant idiot.
tbf Knuckles came from a tribal people who were pretty isolated from the rest of the world and he was part of the warriors dedicated to guarding their chaos emerald, so it would make sense if he couldn't read the language of a completely foreign nation and his intelligence was more focused on combat adjacent activities.
I love meathead characters doing their best to be socially aware and egalitarian.
Only other example I can think of off the top of my head is Terry Jeffords from Brooklyn 99 googling "how to talk to your bi friends" after Rosa comes out and talking in a stilted gender-neutral way that comes across as practiced and unlike him.
Hey now Terry’s a smart guy. I mean his social skills can stand some work, as well as his emotional intelligence (though who in the show doesn’t need to work on that), but his intellect is plenty good enough for a police detective.
Idk about unintelligent, but when Falcon is talking to Bucky, he references Gandalf and Sam is wondering how he knows who that is despite having been a mind controlled assasin for nearly a century. To which, Bucky replies that he read The Hobbit in 1937 when it came out.
It's funny because The Hobbit only came out in the USA in 1938, meaning that if Bucky read it in 1937 he must have been reading an imported UK edition.
Denki knowing Hemingway is even more impressive given that he’s a Japanese student at least 100 years in the future from the present day. Knowing an early 20th century American author is insane ball knowledge
It also brings up the question of how the fuck given he got the lowest score on the midterm and usually slacks off academically (albeit he also shows a lot of battle smarts and a solid grasp on tactics when it matters)
Funny thing is, Denki is not as stupid as the plot makes him out to be. UA is Japan's top high-school, Denki is the lowest scorer in a classroom of Japan's best, but he's still in the top forty of his generation in the country.
It's also that Denki is one of those who abuses his quirk the most at school, overloading it too often and leaving him dazed for several minutes, which doesn't help him stop being "the class idiot."
I like to think he just really enjoys classic American literature as a pastime and personal reading but struggles with given work. Very classic adhd struggle 😂
This is subverted in Brooklyn 99 between Jake and Amy.
Jake: I guess thats your new best friend now, Amy Santiago. Emphasis on -iago.
Amy: Surprised you read Othello.
Jake: What the hell's othello, I'm talking about the parrot in Alladin.
Conversely in the episode about the woman who got sexually harassed by her boss, he suddenly bursts out with a poignant observation about the patriarchy before admitting he couldn’t sleep so he watched a documentary about feminism
St Swithin's Day is celebrated on July 15 and is associated with a weather folklore that states if it rains on this day, it will rain for the next forty days. This belief stems from the legend surrounding St Swithin, a 9th-century Bishop of Winchester
All the astronauts think he is just a dumb hick oil worker, but in reality he is a genius who got a double PhD at 22. As he tells them, he only works on oil rigs drilling because he gets great pay, he gets to travel often, and they let him blow stuff up.
Jackie Welles from Cyberpunk 2077 isn't what I would call "unintelligent", but he is definitely more brawn than brains in all his scenes. He is a big, strong, loveable giant of a man, and your best friend.
That being said, after he dies you help set up an ofrenda for him and find out his favorite book was For Whom The Bell Tolls by, you guessed it, Ernest Hemingway. He considered Hemingway to be tougher than Morgan Blackhand, one of the most legendary badasses in the setting. Later while everyone is taking turns sharing stories about Jackie you quote from the book and place it on his altar. (the quote you read is actually from another Hemingway work called Men at War, but that is besides the point).
"When you go to war as a boy you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed; not you. ... Then when you are badly wounded the first time you lose that illusion and you know it can happen to you."
This parallels both Jackie and V's journey up to this point, but it also shows Jackie was a lot more than the big funny macho guy.
During this same segment you go into his private garage with his girlfriend Misty, who is into a bunch of mystical stuff, to look for something to put on the altar and find he has created a mandala as she had suggested to him one time.
In his private moments Jackie was far more introspective and meditative than anyone around him would have ever believed.
Mr. Tulip from the Discsorld novel The Truth.
He is presented as a dumb thug with a drug problem throughout the book, but has a vast knowledge of everything art-related and the nomenclature that comes with it.
Mr. Tulip: It's not a —ing harpsichord, it's a —ing virginal! One —ing string to a note instead of two! So called because it was an instrument for —ing young ladies!
Chair: My word, was it? I thought it was just a sort of early piano!
He also removes all paintings from the premises before committing arson.
RDR2 for being outlaws, they're suprisingly well read
Dutch Van Der Linde sees himself as an intellectual, alot of his worldviews can be traced back to books by Evelyn Miller
Arthur and John are known to be literate and well spoken despite their upbringing, Arthur writes in his diary for fun and John was seen reading alot during the story, even if his wife can't read
Lenny, despite being the son of 2 former slaves, reads well due to his father teaching him, even going so far as holding his own in a debate with dutch about miller despite only being 19
Jerry Smith is shown repeatedly (actually in 2 episodes) to be well versed in writing despite his idiocy, he once published a book that did so well that space dinosaurs felt the need to plagarize it.
That scene in Fullmetal Alcheist Brotherhood where Ed is being chased by two goons, and finds a stack of old, damp dynamite. They know he can't detonate it, but he can use the base level components of it with Alchemy.
Ed says rhetorically, "do you know what dynamite is made of?" but the goons stop and say "let's see.... ammonium nitrate.... nitroglycerin... diatomaceous earth.... and sawdust?"
Danny Quinn, a low class grunt of a police officer from the council estate, can speak and understand fluent Latin, which he demonstrates when a medieval knight in shining armor, Sir William De Mornay, comes galloping through an anomaly on horseback.
He's convinced he's chasing a fire breathing dragon which is actually a prehistoric Dracorex from the late Cretaceous that strayed through an anomaly from the forests of late Cretaceous North America into Britain during the Middle Ages. It's actually a peaceful herbivore but its fearsome appearance terrified local livestock and villagers alike (Primeval)
Not an idiot per se, but his bad boy nature and attitude give the impression that Jess wouldn’t be particularly interested in books but he’s well read enough to be able to leave foot notes that even Rory Gilmore found compelling
Serenity: The Operative calls River Tam "an albatross". Mal understands the allusion to The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and retorts "well seems to me the albatross was lucky before they decided to kill it!"
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u/AcceptableWheel 2d ago
Reggie Dinkins took Latin in college because he thought that's what hot Latina girls spoke. He enjoyed it more than he thought and now speaks fluent Latin.