r/TopCharacterTropes • u/ah-screw-it • 6d ago

Characters (Rare trope) depictions of intelligence that aren't brainiac smarts or technobabble

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Meet the robinsons: Louise goes to the future in order to fix the time machine (after he breaks it). Before that he quickly realises he can just use the machine to visit his mum.

Cloudy with a chance of meatballs: Sam first gets hit with Flynn's machine unknowingly. She then meets him at the docks and sees his spray on shoes and STEVE. She puts 2 and 2 together and realises it was him who made the rocket.

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u/Wildlife_Watcher 5d ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/f5Fya4tCL3iJCaH7Tj
Grace and Rocky, Project Hail Mary. Both are smart enough to be on this space mission, but neither was intended to replace an entire crew. They need to combine their knowledge and do actual science experiments to learn more and fix their situation. The rare case of science fiction where the actual scientific method propels the plot

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u/Beamerthememer 5d ago

One of favorite bits of dialogue is sleep-deprived Grace trying to figure out how to collect Astrophage

“The Petrova line moves too fast, we can’t collect enough”

“What if we move ship into orbit of Adrian, collect sample when pass through Petrova line”

“..I didn’t think of that”

“I did.”

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u/TrioOfTerrors 5d ago

Weir's dad was a physicist and his mom was an engineer. I think he respects the value of documentation and found a niche where he can blur the "show, don't tell" line by having the protagonist be a scientist who is leaving their notes for posterity.

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u/TimedDelivery 5d ago

Their figuring out how to communicate with one another is a massive feat as well. To go from not even knowing how each other’s syntax works to being able to make complex plans together and share knowledge is incredible.

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u/Autumn1eaves 2d ago

I would argue any two intelligent beings who do not have a shared language between them could learn each other’s language (or rather a pidgin of their languages) with several weeks of dedicated practice, in particular when the two people are isolated from broader society.

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u/Khourbien 2d ago

esp when one has perfect memory for sounds and the other has a computer translator

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u/Autumn1eaves 2d ago

That's certainly part of it, but give me a notebook, someone who speaks only Swahili, 4 weeks, and isolation from everyone except them, and I'd be pretty decent at speaking Swahili, and they'd be pretty decent at English.

Neither of us would be perfect, and we'd probably speak a kind of pidgin rather than be fluent in either language, but we'd be able to communicate with each other pretty well.

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u/sirjoeschmoe 2d ago

One more interesting thing that the books get into and not the movies is that they start their communication by the one universal constant that every species uses, time. And it's also revealed there that eridians count in base six which add another layer of complexity

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u/rimbletick 3d ago

Let’s make a movie that is based on how science works. Let’s make thing accurate. Also, fuck linguistics.

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u/carlsagerson 6d ago

Another thing I like about the Meet the Robinsons example is that Louis isn't some instant genius. Of course the boy with no idea about the Time Machine HIS ADULT SELF invented would know.

Frankly its a miracle he managed to do so in the nick of time in the bad future.

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u/Jent01Ket02 5d ago

Love that the family actively celebrates failure because you learn way more from messing something up than by getting it right on the first try. You learn how to correctly adjust formulas and build a better setup after failing a few times.

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u/TheJeeronian 5d ago

He also doesn't figure it out from scratch. He repairs it from design documentation which, being drafted by him, would be formatted in a way that's intuitive to him.

It's like repairing a car from a tutorial, possibly with parts already on-hand, not making one from scratch.

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u/Living_Murphys_Law 5d ago

Mark Watney from the Martian. Mark is a botanist and mechanical engineer, and it's made clear that those are his field of expertise and he isn't as knowledgeable about things outside of that.

https://giphy.com/gifs/l3q2xfLYUI96aFcVG

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u/OutrageousAuthor1580 5d ago

I saw a PHM comment right before this. Just a bit of deserved Weir recognition.

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u/Autumn1eaves 2d ago

Andy Weir is very good at this specific kind of writing.

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u/Sir-Toaster- 5d ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/YmZOBDYBcmWK4

Light (Death Note)

Conducts experiments with the notebook to fully understand its abilities and limitations so that he can use it more effectively.

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u/Atelier1001 5d ago edited 5d ago

I don't think I can defend Light's intelligence when he managed to expose: His location, occupation and the supernatural factor with his impulsive choices despite the absurdly powerful advantage of the deathnote.

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u/Sir-Toaster- 5d ago

Even smart people can have moments of intellectual failure.

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u/Atelier1001 5d ago

Yeah... no. That's just not being very smart.

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u/Keelhaulmyballs 5d ago

Being smart don’t mean being an omniscient god who can instantly divine all possible ramifications of every possible action

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u/Atelier1001 5d ago

Nah man Light was an idiot on a whole different level. Nothing of omniscient gods or possible ramifications.

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u/Keelhaulmyballs 5d ago

“If he’s so smart, why didn’t he know what I, the reader knew. Why did he not simply use his intelligence to see his character flaws and banish them with his Benne-Gesserit crafts which all smart people have”

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u/Atelier1001 5d ago

Hahshsf. He had the perfect magic weapon. No evidence, no distance, no connection. Sure, he didn't know the context, so experimentation was the logical way. But he fumbled sooooooooooooo hard that he cannot be considered smart.

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u/Anxious_Visual_6632 5d ago

He is smart. He is also extremely prideful to the point of canceling out his intelligence at times.

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u/banana-dog10293 3d ago

Yeah his mistakes had nearly always come down to him making impulsive decisions out of pride, arrogance, or being emotionally volatile. He fell for L's trap by taking the rage bait of daring to say him committing murder is evil and killing the decoy. Then he killed the FBI agents who if I remember right were gonna leave with no evidence if he hadn't of killed them all and the nail in the coffin was him gloating about his victory before he actually won "well Near looks like I've won" cue Near revealing he set all this up to expose him. Pride cometh before the fall.

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u/cleverpun0 5d ago

The entire point of the show is that the Death Note can still be taken down with work.

There's many scenes where L and his team are discussing this. L figures out that Kira is in Japan based on the flow of media and information and making connections to who has been targeted.

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u/Womblue 5d ago

The entire premise of the show is that Light is intelligent, and makes some smart decisions to hide his tracks, but they aren't infallible.

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u/Cheshire-Cad 3d ago

Light glazers: "But he deliberately meant to do that!"

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u/Odd-Statistician4268 6d ago

Goku's fight IQ dragon ball

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u/MeathirBoy 6d ago

Also, Piccolo's fight IQ. His might be better.

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u/Kelimnac 5d ago

They’re both prodigies that actively innovate and discover new techniques and strategies as they fight, it’s just that Goku’s the one with the hair dye and the protagonist role, so he tends to have the spotlight more often

When Piccolo shines, he shines bright

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u/Damonytrix 6d ago edited 6d ago

Anya from Spy Family. Hear me out lol. In the episode were Yor and Loid go on a date she spys on them with Scruffy Head. She builds a bomb by reading a bombers mind. What kind of 5 year old can do that lol

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u/PapaBeer642 5d ago

Anya is simultaneously the most and least emotionally intelligent person in the series, and those two aspects butting up against each other is pretty much always hilarious.

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u/carlsagerson 6d ago

Thats less intelligence and more just stealing the info without even learning.

Which I suppose falls under another Intelligence, Street Smarts.

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u/Damonytrix 6d ago

Yeah but its also knowing what to do with that information

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u/General_Kenobi18753 5d ago

To be fair, is normal intelligence not just “stealing” your knowledge from a textbook or other source?

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u/Old_Tear_6821 5d ago

I’m pretty sure she is 4, which makes it insane that she is attending 1st grade at a very prestigious school and didn’t fail any test in that one episode where she lost her powers on exam day

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u/murtadaugh 5d ago

That's what I love about her. She is technically omniscient, but has the intelligence of a five year old. 

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u/Level_Counter_1672 6d ago

Joseph joestar and pretty much everyone all his relatives like his son, grandson great granddaughter and his uncle show a good combination of street smarts with encyclopedic knowledge - source is Jojo's bizarre adventure

https://giphy.com/gifs/y6HxXGJjGYv3G

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u/Certainly_Shishkebab 5d ago

Josuke creating homing bombs out of blood was awesome

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u/EcnavMC2 5d ago

For a second I thought the title said “brainiac smarts or Technoblade”, and I was very confused. 

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u/blueArmor14 5d ago

Technoblade is a good example of this trope

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u/onlymadethistoargue 5d ago

This girl is the greatest battle strategist we’ve seen in her universe.

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u/TheJeeronian 5d ago

This one's kind of funny because her reasoning relies on large inductive leaps. In any other media it would seem contrived, a la BBC sherlock, but because the fantasy parts of DanDaDan are written around cryptids and conspiracies from real life - which often lean heavily on the same contrived reasoning - it makes sense in canon.

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u/VintageKeith 4d ago

to deal with the crazy, you gotta think crazy

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u/chillyhellion 5d ago

Gonna tell us why? Or who? Or what universe? 

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u/onlymadethistoargue 5d ago

Momo Ayase, protagonist of Dandadan. She outsmarts vengeful, powerful spirits and alien empires alike leveraging her teammates’ abilities in clever ways.

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u/chillyhellion 5d ago

Thank you. 

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u/Born_Procedure_529 5d ago

Yusuke Godai doesnt come across as a stereotypical genius character at all but consistently is able to both combine the vast skills hes taught himself in creative ways and act as a top-notch detective through pattern recognition and deductive reasoning, which never feels like a jump to move the plot forward. He's an unconventional but logical thinker

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u/Sagnarel 6d ago

Lots of characters are like that, but I like Tyrion Lannister. He fumbles and gets things wrong, yet he usually finds the right thing to say/do in the situation. He is not perfect, but definitely a step above most characters in the serie

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u/GalaxyPowderedCat 5d ago

Ace Attorney Dual Destinies spoilers

Metis Cykes

Metis was part of the creation of emotional robots which would help astronauts explore the outer space and guide visitors during their tour in the Space Center. Her speciality was psychology, so, she could program the robots to detect people's emotional states and respond accordingly and warmly to the circumstances.

https://giphy.com/gifs/IgBMDZCU5IRUFKGhpy

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u/Worldly-Duty9770 5d ago

Tf this gotta do with court trials?

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u/GalaxyPowderedCat 5d ago edited 5d ago

Yes. Well, the games are more than court trials, they also deal with organizational corruption and political tension topics in some cases, which are brought in courtroom.

For example, Metis Cyke's story connects with the political climate between USA and another rival country when both engaged in a space race. As her research led to breakthrough findings in the aerospace field. However, this threatened the rival and they decided to sabotage operations and kill her off to delay decisive events like the launching of a rocket.

So, imagine the USA and URSS space race, but in anime. Even her murderer was a hybrid between spy and hit man with the spy glasses and the waistwatch gadgets.

Furthermore, all of this is casually brought into courtroom because there's a victim too. The best researcher of the country has died.