History ObfuscatingStupidity / Literature

* The [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Klingon]] Grodak in ''Literature/StarTrekSevenDeadlySins''. It leads to protagonist Toqel (a Romulan politician) severely underestimating him and the Klingons in general, with troubling results for the Romulans and fatal ones for Toqel. Grodak was relying on Toqel's Romulan pride and arrogance to blind her to his games.

** To a lesser extent, Vin disguises herself as Valette Renoux, a RichIdiotWithNoDayJob, in order to infiltrate noble society, which is mostly populated with more of the same. Even those who catch on that she's not what she appears have no idea that she's a Mistborn.

** Meanwhile, in the ''Literature/HandOfThrawn'' duology, Moff Disra had a very bland military aide, Major Grodin Tierce. Disra, looking up his aide's records, found that he was actually a Royal Guard – that is, the best of the best, a really good fighter – confronted Tierce about it, and... well. As part of a BigBadDuumvirate, Tierce dropped the clueless act, letting people see him as a dangerous fighter, but whenever Pellaeon was around he took it up again. [[spoiler: Tierce is a human clone with a little of Thrawn's mind in him.]]

* Sun Tzu recommends this in both his ''[[Literature/TheArtOfWarSunTzu Art of War]]'' and UsefulNotes/TheThirtySixStratagems.

--> "The highest pitch you can attain is to conceal your dispositions, and you will be safe from the prying of the subtlest spies, from the machinations of the wisest brains." (''The Art of War'')

Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.

** ZigZagged with Gerda from ''Literature/TheHollow'', who seemingly has some kind of AmbiguousDisorder and is often critizised for being "slow". However, an early chapter from her point of view reveals that, while she is a bit slower than average, Gerda is actually smarter than she seems and to some extent likes to exaggerate her seeming lack of intelligence to get back at other people. [[spoiler: This character trait turns out to be {{Foreshadowing}} and is the key to the whole murder mystery, as Gerda was the one who murdered her husband and then pretended to act confused and innocent. Despite this, other members of the family realized that Gerda was the killer and began to work on confusing the investigation in order to protect her. So while Gerda may not be stupid, she's obviously not as smart as she thinks (not to mention, you know, an unstable killer.)]]

%%* Simon Mead and Hugh Pierce in the ''Selena Mead'' stories both do this.

** To a lesser extent, Vin disguises herself as Vanette Renoux, a RichIdiotWithNoDayJob, in order to infiltrate noble society, which is mostly populated with more of the same. Even those who catch on that she's not what she appears have no idea that she's a Mistborn.
** Later in the series we encounter Allrianne Cett, a flittery pink cream-puff of a blonde noblewoman who not only turns out to be a Rioter whose skill in alomancy is just about the equal to Breeze, but who winds up being an invaluable ally - and who, far from being seduced by Breeze's emotional allomancy, had to use her own considerable powers to seduce ''him'' in order to get past the discrepancy in their ages.

%%* [[spoiler:The Lepar]] are an entire species made of this trope in ''Literature/TheDamned'' trilogy by Creator/AlanDeanFoster.

* Emile Dupont in the ''Franchise/BerniceSummerfield'' novel ''Ship of Fools'' is a Poirot parody who appears to be the most clueless of the {{Clueless Detective}}s Benny is trapped in a ClosedCircle with, coming up with increasingly convoluted and unlikely methods of murder, and totally inaccurate {{Sherlock Scan}}s, and refusing to ever, ''ever'' admit he might be wrong ... until the murderer has had enough and confesses just to get him to shut ''up'' about trained mice and concealed midgets. Benny realises this was his goal the whole time, but Dupont claims to have no idea what she's talking about.

* Emile Dupont in the ''Literature/BerniceSummerfield'' novel ''Ship of Fools'' is a Poirot parody who appears to be the most clueless of the {{Clueless Detective}}s Benny is trapped in a ClosedCircle with, coming up with increasingly convoluted and unlikely methods of murder, and totally inaccurate {{Sherlock Scan}}s, and refusing to ever, ''ever'' admit he might be wrong ... until the murderer has had enough and confesses just to get him to shut ''up'' about trained mice and concealed midgets. Benny realises this was his goal the whole time, but Dupont claims to have no idea what she's talking about.

* In ''Literature/TheNowhereGirls'', Principal Slatterly questions Erin, who has Asperger's, about who stole the other students' email addresses, thinking Rosina put her up to it. Slatterly is talking down to Erin, so Erin goes along with it, pretending not to know what an email address is and asking if she can wear a [[ComicBook/{{Superman}} shiny red cape]] when Slatterly says she can be "a hero." Slatterly leaves in frustration.

* In the Literature/CaptainFuture novels by Creator/AllenSteele, Grag is an ArtificialIntelligence in the body of a [[TinCanRobot Grag-model construction robot]]. He uses this to advantage when found outside a restricted base, claiming that [LiteralMinded his owner ordered him to "Get lost", which he now is.]] The humans think this is hilarious and bring Grag inside their base and leave him unguarded while they try to find out who his owner is.

* ''Literature/AvengersOfTheMoon'': Grag pretends to be a LiteralMinded robot who was told to "get lost" and complied, to explain what it's doing wandering around in a secure area. This works as Grag has been reprogrammed to [[AIIsACrapshoot increase its intelligence]], but in appearance is a standard construction robot. The novel is a {{reconstruction}} of sci-fi pulp hero Literature/CaptainFuture, where Grag really was the DumbMuscle of the group.

* Planetary governor Grice in the ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' novel ''[[Literature/CiaphasCain For the Emperor]]'' seems to be petty and stupid, as well as possibly corrupt, his foolish actions exasperating a potential conflict with the alien tau. He's actually [[spoiler: a [[HordeOfAlienLocusts tyranid]] mutant purposefully trying to create conflict among the locals to make it easier for the tyranids to invade.]]
* In Gina D'Amico's satire of reality shows ''Waste of Space'', it turns out that [[spoiler: Bacardi]] is not nearly the vacuous, Instagram-obsessed party animal [[spoiler: she]] appears to be, and that [[spoiler: she has deliberately cultivated this persona to get onto the show so she could win the massive cash prize.]] Once things start to go sideways on the "spaceship" (really a soundstage in New Mexico that the characters are unaware isn't real, at least to start), this character quits pretending to be an idiot, and turns out to be a major factor in helping get everyone out.

* Verin Mathwin from ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' certainly qualifies as using this. Using her membership as a [[AbsentMindedProfessor Brown Ajah,]] she hides her identity as a brilliant, centuries old mage. Not only is she [[spoiler:a member of the Black Ajah (a secret society of Aes Sedai devoted to the [[BigBad Dark One]]) who only joined their ranks to ferret them out and betray them]], but she is so good at hiding this very fact [[spoiler:that she can do it in chapters of the books that are written ''from her own point of view''. Her final admission of her membership, handing over of everything she'd found out, and subsequent death qualifies as a SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome in its own right]].

* In ''Literature/WolfHall'', Jane Seymour presents herself as a naive ShrinkingViolet while serving as one of Anne Boleyn. She also isn't as educated as most of them, knowing only English and having been taught more hunting than reading by her father. When at home or talking to Cromwell, however, Jane shows more wit and insight, and while her sister describes her as a woman who's always waiting for a man to tell her what to do, that doesn't necessarily mean she'll ''listen''. While she does seem to be genuinely kind, she's quicker than she lets on, as becomes evident in the way she handles Henry's attention.
* In Creator/AndreNorton's ''Literature/TheZeroStone'', Jern feigns that fever affected his wits when the Guild ship's crew find him.

* ''The Wind Done Gone'', a revisionist re-telling of ''Film/GoneWithTheWind'' portrays Prissy/Miss Priss as this. Far from being the idiotic slave most people think she is, she purposely acts stupid to throw off white people but is actually a crafty woman who deliberately caused the death of Melanie/Mealy Mouth as revenge for the death of her two brothers, for which she blamed her.

* Another bunch of rodents takes this trope even further in ''Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH'', when the sapient rats convert their ElaborateUndergroundBase into a replica of a normal rat burrow, destroying all evidence of their civilized lifestyle, to throw their creators from the National Institutes of Mental Health off their trail.

* In ''[[http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks04/0400411h.html The Kennel Murder Case]]'', Liang tries to pull this off with his "can barely speak English" act, and it's implied that he succeeded as far as the Coe household went. ''Literature/PhiloVance'' saw through the act immediately – Liang was educated at Oxford.

* [[spoiler: [=SiMevolant=]]], of the third ''Literature/AgeOfFire'' novel, spends the whole book acting like a lazy {{Cloudcuckoolander}}, until he becomes Tyr [[spoiler: by assassinating [=SiDrakkon=]]] and starts acting in a more dominating and focused manner, implying that it was all an act so that no one would view him as a threat.
* May Welland of the ''Literature/TheAgeOfInnocence'', who acts like a vapid, clueless, superficial {{socialite}}. But as the story progresses, it's hinted that she suspects the relationship between her husband and her cousin, and it's confirmed both with the BatmanGambit that she pulls to get rid of the interloper, and 20-something years later, after she's passed away, when her son reveals to his father that she had confided in him.

* In ''Literature/TheAliceNetwork'', the spy Eve pretended to be [[TheDitz an unintelligent girl]] so that men would underestimate her and [[LooseLips say things they shouldn't have]]. She even acted stupid in civilian life for her own purposes. Her SpeechImpediment helped her with this, since most people were disposed to think that she wasn't particularly smart anyway.
* Marco from ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' is a ManipulativeBastard who uses this as a strategy, particularly when he's dealing with adults. In his internal monologue in ''The Reunion'', he comments that adults are more likely to ignore a kid they think is an idiot than one who they suspect is on their level.
* ''Literature/ArtemisFowl'' manages to rob one of the most secure banks in Europe by pretending to be a snotty teenager.
** Subverted in that everyone already knows Artemis is a genius, but according to one quote he never lets anyone know exactly how intelligent he is because they would be too scared.
* ''Avengers of the Moon'', by Creator/AllenSteele. Grag pretends to be a LiteralMinded robot who was told to "get lost" and complied, to explain what it's doing wandering around in a secure area. This works as Grag has been reprogrammed to [[AIIsACrapshoot increase its intelligence]], but in appearance is a standard construction robot. The novel is a {{reconstruction}} of sci-fi pulp hero Literature/CaptainFuture, where Grag really was the DumbMuscle of the group.
* In ''Literature/{{Below}}'', Dex is [[spoiler:a self-taught amateur spellbinder]] working outside of their guild. He acts like more of a psychotic buffoon [[JerkWithAHeartOfJerk than he really is]] so others won't suspect. Many guilds tend to arrange "accidents" for outsiders, or even insiders who put their skills to ill use.
* Some exegesis holds God in ''Literature/TheBible'' to be using ObfuscatingStupidity most of the time he deals with humans, explaining why he often asks questions to which he already knows the answer. Other exegesis holds this to be simply a feature of ancient Hebrew rhetoric with its rabbinical style of asking rhetorical questions in order to educate one's understudies.
* Not entirely stupidity, but more lack of guile as well as lack of physical capability: In L. B. Graham's ''The Binding of the Blade'' series, mysterious recurring character Synoki spends four books acting like a crippled, guileless peasant, tramping rather uselessly around with the heroes, before it's revealed in the last book that he's actually [[spoiler: a human avatar of Malek, who is essentially the series' analogous equivalent of Lucifer and the BigBad whom they've been trying to track down ''the whole time''.]]
* In ''The Literature/{{Blackcollar}}'', former commando Damon Lathe is a gray-haired, borderline senile war veteran who like to sit around reminiscing about the war, even though he was on the ''massively'' losing side. Or so the collaboration government thinks. [[spoiler:Right up until he leads a mission to overrun and capture the government center and the spaceport. On twelve hours notice. After waiting ''twenty nine years.'']]
* Played with in Creator/MargaretAtwood's short story "Bluebeard's Egg". The protagonist, Sally, spends the whole story fondly mulling over her husband's incredible stupidity, until she finds out two pages from the end that he's [[spoiler:having an affair with her best friend]] and wonders if he's actually scintillatingly intelligent and has spent his whole life [[TheChessmaster playing cruel games]] with not only her but his previous wives.

* In the world of ''Literature/ABrothersPrice'' men are rare and considered emotionally more fragile and less intelligent and driven than women. When kidnapped and tied to a bed, Jerin tries to take advantage of this by whining and using the 'baby words' of bodily functions to make it easier to believe that he's too helpless to try and escape.
* Lucretia in ''Literature/{{Bystander}}'' acts like an AttentionWhore in order to convince people that she's a vapid idiot beneath notice.
** Her entire BatmanGambit in the last act is made of this: [[spoiler: walk into ambush and let self get caught instead of simply stealthing away... play the bitchy and naive AttentionWhore unaware of deeper consequences for one kidnapper... when called on by the criminal leader, upgrades to a SmugSnake attitude and making references that virtually brag "I'm smarter than you" while also giving the impression that she's trying a desperate ploy she just rammed together... that convinces [[DarkActionGirl Kali]] that she is a smart but sloppy amateur in over her head. The fact being that Lucretia is aware that she's in over her head, but is a lot smarter and more calculating than she lets on even when she's talking to Kali about history.]]
* The satirical feminist self-help book ''Literature/LosCaballerosLasPrefierenBrutas'' (Gentlemen Prefer the Dumb) has this trope as its main thesis: it proposes that the woman should play dumb in front of the man and keep making him pay for everything, even if she has a paying job and can support herself. The reasoning is because many men today both feel intimidated by competent women and dismiss feminine intelligence, a smart woman can use those insecurities and prejudices for [[GoldDigger her financial advantage]] by playing bimbo. In the TV adaptation, the main heroine, who is wise about the above point and was given the "too smart" reason as why her (now ex) fiancé cheated on her, deliberately tries to dumb herself down in the hopes of attracting a new boyfriend.

* Planetary governor Grice in the ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' novel ''[[Literature/CiaphasCain For the Emperor]]'' seems to be petty and stupid, as well as possibly corrupt, his foolish actions exasperating a potential conflict with the alien tau. He's actually [[spoiler: a [[HordeOfAlienLocusts tyranid]] mutant purposefully trying to create conflict among the locals to make it easier for the tyranids to invade.]]

* Creator/GKChesterton's Literature/FatherBrown has a tendency to stumble around acting dimwitted or like a {{Cloudcuckoolander}} (or, in "The Blue Cross", simply acting memorably erratic – a tactic to get an inspector to follow him to the criminal) before suddenly whipping out the solution to the case. (Chesterton was making the point that, while many people think of priests as sheltered naifs, that's the one thing an experienced priest can't possibly be – he's heard more people confessing to evil thoughts and deeds than any dozen detectives.)

* ''Literature/HoratioHornblower'' novel ''Hornblower and the Atropos'' has Hornblower on a mission to covertly recover gold from a British ship sunk in Turkish waters. Hornblower is surprised but relieved that the local mudir is happy to have a British ship around to guard the bay from pirates and eager for them to stay. It's only when the ''Atropos'' is finished that the Turks begin manning their "abandoned" forts, and Hornblower belatedly realizes that 1. the mudir knew about the wreck and 2. the British are not the ''only'' people who can use telescopes to monitor distant ship operations. It takes some quick thinking for him to get out of the bay without having to give up any of the gold.

* ''Literature/TheSeventhTower'' has [[CrazyAwesome Ebbitt]], who is believed by everyone to be insane (and he very well might be), but who also has some of the most extensive and accurate knowledge of the Chosen, their Castle, and light magic in existence. He mentions in passing that he once "chatted" with the Codex of the Chosen (a magical encyclopedia, essentially), which may explain where all his knowledge came from.

* Creator/AgathaChristie:
** Literature/HerculePoirot frequently represents himself to suspects as a vain, obsessive-compulsive, language-mangling Belgian émigré – a more outlandish version of himself, in other words – in order to give them a false sense of superiority over him.
--->''"It is true that I can speak the exact, the idiomatic English. But, my friend, to speak the broken English is an enormous asset. It leads people to despise you. They say – a foreigner – he can't even speak English properly. It is not my policy to terrify people – instead, I invite their gentle ridicule. Also I boast! An Englishman he says often, 'A fellow who thinks as much of himself as that cannot be worth much.' That is the English point of view. It is not at all true. And so, you see, I put people off their guard."''
** Captain Hastings is not this trope, but he discovered a significant clue in "The Big Four" and Poirot presented him as this trope to British spies. They were impressed with Hastings' "act".
** ''Literature/MissMarple'' passes as a doddering old lady, but has a mind like a razor--or, as one police official put it, "like a bacon slicer".
** At “Problem at Mesopotamia”, there is a British guy that has an out of focus gaze, relaxed facial muscles, and always looks sad, and it's rumored he drinks heavily. If you are observant, when you go to his office you will notice the door fits perfectly in its frame, and that he adopts an alert posture... fitting for the head of the British secret service.
** ZigZagged with Gerda from ''Literature/TheHollow'', who seemingly has some kind of AmbiguousDisorder and is often critizised for being "slow". However, an early chapter from her point of view reveals that, while she is a bit slower than average, Gerda is actually smarter than she seems and to some extent likes to exaggerate her seeming lack of intelligence to get back at other people. [[spoiler: This character trait turns out to be {{Foreshadowing}} and is the key to the whole murder mystery, as Gerda was the one who murdered her husband and then pretended to act confused and innocent. Despite this, other members of the family realized that Gerda was the killer and began to work on confusing the investigation in order to protect her. So while Gerda may not be stupid, she's obviously not as smart as she thinks (not to mention, you know, an unstable killer.)]]

* ''Franchise/HarryPotter'''s Dumbledore likes to exaggerate his ''eccentric old man'' image to throw others off TheChessmaster scent. Most people are wary of him anyway. There's a reason that an alternate title for EccentricMentor is "The Dumbledore". It's more like Obsfuscating Insanity, really. Nobody who isn't deluding himself doubts that Dumbledore is a genius and the greatest wizard of his time, but he tends to come off as a little senile, lulling people into underestimating him.

* Creator/AgathaChristie's Literature/HerculePoirot frequently represents himself to suspects as a vain, obsessive-compulsive, language-mangling Belgian émigré – a more outlandish version of himself, in other words – in order to give them a false sense of superiority over him.
-->''"It is true that I can speak the exact, the idiomatic English. But, my friend, to speak the broken English is an enormous asset. It leads people to despise you. They say – a foreigner – he can't even speak English properly. It is not my policy to terrify people – instead, I invite their gentle ridicule. Also I boast! An Englishman he says often, 'A fellow who thinks as much of himself as that cannot be worth much.' That is the English point of view. It is not at all true. And so, you see, I put people off their guard."''
** Captain Hastings is not this trope, but he discovered a significant clue in “The Big Four” and Poirot presented him as this trope to British spies. They were impressed with Hastings' “act”.

* Two examples in ''Literature/TheHungerGames'':
** First, Haymitch started out as a drunken embarrassment on live television, but the minute Peeta and Katniss show they have an ounce of fight in them, it's like flipping a switch. He goes from barely capable of standing to a clever strategist and cunning liar with a cynical knack for thinking outside the box. He wasn't faking the alcholism, however, as evidenced when he goes into withdrawal at one point.
** Second, Johanna Mason's entire strategy during her initial Hunger Game was playing a slightly stupid weakling, only for her opponents to find out differently in their last moments.

* ''Literature/MissMarple'', also in Creator/AgathaChristie's books, passes as a doddering old lady, but has a mind like a razor--or, as one police official put it, "like a bacon slicer".