History Literature / TheGreatBrain

* RulesLawyer: Tom will do this when it suits him, though he typically doesn't have much respect for the rules. A prominent example would be book 5 when he's trying to convince the boarding school kids that his planned Black Market Candy Store is perfectly ok. To their first objection he asks them to show him where in the Bible it says that eating candy in a catholic school is a sin, which obviously there is no such specific commandment, and then he gives a "technically" correct example of a situation where eating candy in school would not break the rules, and the kids are convinced. His examples are a little [[InsaneTrollLogic Trolly]] and definitely wouldn't convince a rational adult, but the kids fall for it.

[[quoteright:320:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/5_24_the_great_brain.png]]

* ''Me And My Little Brain'' (focuses on JD's life while Tom is away at the Academy of the following book, introduces adopted brother Franky to the cast)

* InformedFlaw: According to JD, their father has a reputation for jumping into bad investments and crazy ideas that don't work. Their mother complains on the attic filled with now-worthless stocks. However, the closest to that actually shown in the books is Mr. Fitzgerald nearly falling for a con man and even then, he's not the only person in town to do so. He's the first in Adenville to have an indoor toilet and rightly predicts that giving JD a basketball and backboard will make him the most popular kid in town.

* BroadStrokes: The main series is clearly set in a different continuity than ''Papa Married a Mormon'', ''Mama's Boarding House'', and ''Uncle Will and the Fitzgerald Curse'' due to (among other things) the Fitzgerald brothers' sister, Uncle Will, and foster brother Earnie being AdaptedOut and Frankie not appearing in the original books. At the same time, the brothers occasionally reference events from those books (like their Uncle Mark's duel with the Laredo Kid)..

** In ''Papa Married a Mormon'' Earnest "Dirty" Dawson ends up befriending the whole Fitzgerald family after Tom whips him, to the point that they take him in when his father does.

* BroadStrokes: The main series is clearly set in a different continuity than ''Papa Married a Mormon'' and ''Mama's Boarding House'', due to (among other things) the Fitzgerald brothers' sister, Uncle Will, and foster brother Earnie being AdaptedOut. At the same time, the brothers occasionally reference events from those books (like their Uncle Mark's duel with the Laredo Kid)..

* SmallTownTyrant: Averted with Calvin Whitlock, the wealthiest man in Adenville. He is the town's banker, a member of the school board (despite being a bachelor with no children of his own). At some point, he becomes the mayor, but even before he's referred to by this title, it's obvious that he is the most powerful man in town. However, most of his actions reflect that his heart is in the right place and that he tries to do good by the people of Adenville.* SociopathicHero: A mild example with TD. Tom is greedy, manipulative, and more than willing to con people out of their money or posessions, and even when he does something truly heroic, there's usually a selfish reason behind his actions.

* SociopathicHero: A mild example with TD. Tom is greedy, manipulative, and more than willing to con people out of their money or posessions, and even when he does something truly heroic, there's usually a selfish reason behind his actions.
* SmallTownTyrant: Averted with Calvin Whitlock, the wealthiest man in Adenville. He is the town's banker, a member of the school board (despite being a bachelor with no children of his own). At some point, he becomes the mayor, but even before he's referred to by this title, it's obvious that he is the most powerful man in town. However, most of his actions reflect that his heart is in the right place and that he tries to do good by the people of Adenville.

** It's indicated that this is why Tom's attempts at legitimate ventures don't work as well. He's terrific at figuring out the nuances of a con game but misses the legal loopholes and issues of an honest line of work.

* CoolUncle: The Fitzgerald boys clearly admire their Uncle Mark, who is the town marshal and the county sheriff's chief deputy. Among the things that make them admire him are the fact that he doesn't talk down to them, he is an accomplished and highly competent peace officer, and he gets them unique gifts at holidays and birthdays. He also plays along with their schemes to a degree, as long as those schemes don't put people in danger or break the law.

** Frank Jensen (one of the Fitzgerald boys' friends,) Frank Jackson (an outlaw in the second book), and Frankie Pennyworth Fitzgerald, John and Tom's adopted brother.

* [[OnlySaneMan Only Sane Woman]]: Tena "Mamma" Fitzgerald. She usually the first person to see through Tom's schemes and put a stop to them. At the same time, she does her best to rein in her husband's tendencies to let his imagination run wild, points out to Papa when he was in the wrong in conflicts with Tom, and often has to act as a peacemaker between her husband and her son. J.D. tells how Mamma always reacts quickly to a crisis at least once in every book.

* [[OnlySaneMan Only Sane Woman]]: Tena "Mamma" Fitzgerald. She usually the first person to see through Tom's schemes and put a stop to them. At the same time, she does her best to rein in her husband's tendencies to let his imagination run wild with them, and often has to act as a peacemaker between her husband and her son Tom. J.D. tells how Mamma always reacts quickly to a crisis at least once in every book.

* BadassBookworm: Tom is known as "The Great Brain" because he is very book-smart and has strong logic skills, despite him using them for mischievous ends. He is also one of the most athletic kids in town, being able to engage in physical feats that few of his friends would dare engage in, and is able to beat almost all of his contemporaries in physical fights (with the possible exception of Parley, as noted above.) He applies his "great brain" to physical training just as easily as he does to mind games.

* GoodIsBoring: This is JD's opinion, after Tom reforms.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: While strict, the teachers at the academy are ultimately an example of this. One specific example being after the above-mentioned kitchen raids, Tom is punished.. but also allowed to eat a couple of soft-boiled eggs instead of the liver.

* YoungEntrepreneur: Tom sometimes follows this, when he's not trying to be a HonestJohn for a quick buck. In fact, the very first story deals with him charging other kids to view his family's brand new water closet. Other examples include taking kids on a river rafting trip and running a black marketcandy store out of a Jesuit boarding school.

* KarmaHoudini: Somewhat subverted; Tom actually gets in trouble quite a lot for the various stunts he pulls, to the point where he probably loses his allowance more weeks out of the year than he gets it. But on the other hand, the punishments he receives for his plans are often pretty light relative to what he actually does; such as when he tried to get his teacher fired by ruining his reputation; the punishment? a week of silent treatment.
** JD confirms Tom's Houdini status in-universe, when he points out that many townspeople have tried to have him arrested for his stunts, but are never able to because he never does anything technically illegal.
** This is one of the main themes of the sixth book. Tom is under a suspended sentence of one year of the silent treatment, with the suspension to be revoked if Tom is found to have swindled any other kid during that time. Tom carefully frames his schemes and bets in such a way that he can argue that his victims understood what the rules of the bet were and knowingly entered into them, thus nobody can prove he was dishonest and they cannot revoke his suspended sentence. Harold Vickers, the teenager who presided over Tom's trial as judge, agrees and even points out that the victims were foolish when they agreed to the bets. Notably, this is the only book in the series where Tom manages to avoid any kind of punishment from his parents, largely through legalistic wording in his explanations to them. He knows that if his parents decided to punish him, the town kids would also revoke his suspended sentence.

* BuryYourDisabled: Narrowly averted when Andy Anderson loses his leg to gangrene and tries to kill himself with J.D.'s help. Neither attempt is successful to begin with, but Tom walks in on the two trying to hang Andy in the barn and offers-for a fee, of course,- to teach Andy to do his chores and play games with his peg leg.

* CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot: Tom is upset the academy serves liver once a week as he cannot stand the taste of it. This leads him to pull some shenanigans to sneak into the kitchen to make himself a sandwich. When discovered, Father Rodriguez is set to hand out a punishment when Tom protests being unable to eat liver. An astounded Rodriguez asks why Tom simply didn't say that before and immediately arranges for the cook to give him a different meal that night. Rodriguez lampshades Tom made the mistaken assumption that A) he's the first kid in school to have this problem and B) that Rodriguez is the type of man who'd make a child go to bed hungry rather than eat a food he hates.

* DemotedToExtra: Sweyn started out the series as a main character along with Tom and John, despite being [[PutOnABus put on a train]] in the second to last chapter of book 1. Except for Book 4, he plays an increasingly smaller part in the storyline as the books go on, as he spends most of his time away at school.

* DumbIsGood: Completely averted. JD flat out says that it's not Tom's Intelligence that makes him a JerkAss, but his "money-loving heart".

* ExactWords: TD often takes advantage of this to pull off a scheme or lie without technically lying. For example, when a priest asks if he has any candy, Tom replies "I don't have any on me" and he's right, it's in his suitcase.

** However, after their first use of the silent treatment on Frankie results in him running away into the desert to be rescued by a search party, they abandon the silent treatment altogether and punish the boys by withholding allowances and imposing extra chores.

* GoneHorriblyRight: As part of a prank, Tom and JD create fake footprints to make it seem like a dinosaur is in the area, thinking it'll be a good laugh. To their shock, their father and uncle actually believe it and it starts to build up into a big story with the government about to be called in. When the two confess, their mother laughs out loud at how the two supposedly sane and smart adults fell for this ruse.

** The rest of the kids aren't much better most of the time either. The Tug O' War game demonstrates this, when Tom gets his entire team to knowingly cheat against the Morman kids, and even profit from it with some side betting, despite how many times all the kids have been cheated and taken advantage of by him themselves. Even JD justifies it in his mind.

* JerkAss: Tom, quit a bit of the time, especially as the books went on.

** This is one of the main themes of the sixth book. Tom is under a suspended sentence of one year of the silent treatment, with the suspension to be revoked if Tom is found to have swindled any other kid during that time. Tom carefully frames his schemes and bets in such a way that he can argue that his victims understood what the rules of the bet were and knowingly entered into them, thus nobody can prove he was dishonest and they cannot revoke his suspended sentence. Harold Vickers, the teenaged judge who presided over Tom's trial, agrees and even points out that the victims were foolish when they agreed to the bets. Notably, this is the only book in the series where Tom manages to avoid any kind of punishment from his parents, largely through legalistic wording in his explanations to them. He knows that if his parents decided to punish him, the town kids would also revoke his suspended sentence.

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: The whole town goes through this when [[spoiler: Abie Glassman dies from malnutrition and everyone begins to question if they're possibly Anti-Semitic and how differently things might have turned out if it had happened to someone else.]] As a result, guilt ran rampant throughout the town for a while.

* ScoobyDooHoax: Book 2 has the characters investigating a haunted mining town, where they run into a ghost. The ghost turns out to be [[spoiler:the uncle of one of the neighborhood kids, who overheard them planning and dressed up as a ghost to scare the kids away]].

* ATasteOfTheirOwnMedicine: Fittingly, the final story of the last book has Tom outwitted, done in by ExactWords and forced to pay his brothers and other kids money and publically humiliated...and all by [[spoiler: his own mother]].

* ThrowTheDogABone: Now and then, Tom can do something unselfish. After he wins Sweyn's prized fishing pole in a bet, Tom promises he won't be as selfish with it as Sweyn was and let JD use it free of charge.