| 1 | ->''"A stupid person can make only certain, limited types of errors; the mistakes open to a clever fellow are far broader. But to the one who knows how smart he is compared to everyone else, the possibilities for true idiocy are boundless."'' |
| 2 | -->-- '''Vlad Taltos''', ''Literature/{{Iorich}}'' |
| 3 | |
| 4 | You can't tell a man who ''knows''. |
| 5 | |
| 6 | '''This is a character archetype. These characters:''' |
| 7 | * Are extremely smart and/or good at whatever it is they do. |
| 8 | * Know it, and are probably [[InsufferableGenius pretty arrogant]] (in fact, they tend to think they're even better than they are). |
| 9 | * As a result, are continually driven to go farther. Usually they succeed (remember, they're really good), [[BreakTheHaughty but their failures]] are [[EpicFail spectacular]]. |
| 10 | * Often suffer some impediment, or endure some prejudice, to the point where being dramatically and demonstrably more awesome than everyone else in their field is a necessity if they're going to be seen as a success at all. |
| 11 | |
| 12 | Usually these characters are protagonists (though generally not TheHero); they're often the {{Foil}} to TooDumbToFool. If they have BlueBlood, they could be {{Gentleman Snarker}}s. The SmugSuper, InsufferableGenius, or MadScientist frequently acts like this. When they are antagonists, their cleverness serves them well at the beginning of the story, but their belief in their own intellectual superiority over the protagonists will always trip them up at the end. If the character isn't even that ''good'', but acts like this trope applies to them, you might have a MilesGloriosus or KnowNothingKnowItAll on your hands. |
| 13 | |
| 14 | An unwillingness to heed the advice of others is a big part of this. After all, if you're convinced everyone else is dumber than you, then [[SimpleMindedWisdom how could they understand things that you don't]]? |
| 15 | |
| 16 | These characters are especially susceptible to the KansasCityShuffle, a deception that relies on the targets' overestimation of their own cleverness. |
| 17 | ---- |
| 18 | !!Examples: |
| 19 | |
| 20 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 21 | |
| 22 | [[folder:Anime & Manga]] |
| 23 | * Sousuke Aizen from ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' is considered the biggest mastermind in the series, capable of playing the entirety of Soul Society in his palm. He enjoys using his cunning to manipulate everyone, but he despises Kisuke Urahara, who is perhaps the only person who can match him in intelligence. His arrogance comes from his drive to break his limits, causing him to antagonize most of Soul Society because their lack of ''exponential'' growth pisses him off, as opposed to working with the MadScientist division and their secure protocols. Eventually, his minions and experiments break free of his control and one of them defeats him in combat - [[spoiler:Ichigo, whose mother was genetically augmented by one of Aizen's infectious Hollow test subjects, something Aizen was too haughty to deal with]]. |
| 24 | * [[Characters/CodeGeassLelouchLamperouge Lelouch Lamperouge]] in ''Anime/CodeGeass'' is a brilliant strategist and turns out to be a gifted leader, but the higher he aims, the more he is prone to his goals going horribly wrong. By the end of the series, his paranoia and strategic cornering has led to the destruction of [[spoiler:Tokyo, nearly killed his sister, and turned his army into the praetorian guard of a city-razing sociopath.]] Luckily, he gets GenreSavvy about this trope and intentionally sabotages his ultimate victory to ensure that he doesn't screw things up after taking over the world. |
| 25 | * ''Manga/DeathNote'': |
| 26 | ** [[VillainProtagonist Light Yagami]] is impossibly clever, charming, and manipulative. But for all his great plans, he ends up falling victim to his own {{pride}} too often. By the end of the series, Light can't even consider the possibility he might fail anymore. |
| 27 | ** L also has traits of this. He's confident enough in his abilities that he's willing to get ''very'' close to a serial killer that can kill supernaturally. |
| 28 | ** So does Matt. He's the third-smartest of the Wammy's Kids, and very much falls into the category of BrilliantButLazy. He additionally gets a little too confident that he won't miss anything important going on at Misa's [[spoiler:and completely misses Misa and Mogi escaping with the help of a "delivery man" until it's too late]], and attempts to talk himself out of a confrontation with Takada's bodyguards [[spoiler:which ends up getting him shot a million times over and killed as a result]]. |
| 29 | * ''Anime/DigimonFusion'': [[spoiler: [=AxeKnightmon=] spends the first 2 seasons of the series manipulating every faction in it, facilitating Lord Bagra's rise to ruler of the Digital World and acquiring the power of Digi-Fusion for the Bagra Empire and allowing his brother to begin D5. As it turns out, it was all for the sake of using Digi-Fusion to forcibly absorb his brother, recognizing that he could never match him physically. Unfortunately, as it turns out, even absorbed, Lord Bagra wasn't destroyed and remains more powerful than [=AxeKnightmon=]. During their BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind, Lord Bagra says that [=AxeKnightmon=]'s continual attempts to earn his favor only made the coming betrayal that much more obvious. Bagra allowed his brother to carry on for so long as his plans already did so much of the heavy lifting for him. Having clearly outlined the gap between them, Bagra then proceeds to devour his brother from the inside out.]] |
| 30 | * ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'': Goku Black's plan to kill mortals and [[spoiler:take over the multiverse as the supreme god]] was nearly flawless outside of two major errors. He didn't seem to notice that [[spoiler:[[TheMindIsAPlaythingOfTheBody Goku's body was corrupting him]] since he didn't have the desire for immortality, only the desire for gaining more power. This error gimped Fusion Zamasu's immortality and made it possible for the heroes to destroy his physical body]]. His second major error was [[spoiler:not coming up with a counter to deal with Zen'o outside of probably hoping that Fusion Zamasu could beat him]]. |
| 31 | * Sora from ''[[Franchise/DotHack .hack//]]'' is at the maximum level possible in The World, has the maximum possible stats, and goes around killing people for fun. Much of his arrogance is probably due to [[spoiler:his age]]. Apart from that, he also openly manipulates everyone and is essentially the most obvious sufferer of ChronicBackstabbingDisorder ever. He has information sources no one else has and is basically invincible in any of the fights he gets in, constantly killing BT. He gets called on it, but it never hampers him [[spoiler:until finally motivated into doing something somewhat heroic (he didn't realize he couldn't get away) and taunting the BigBad, at which point she turned him into a SequelHook, and the show ended.]] |
| 32 | * Taikobo from ''Manga/HoshinEngi''. He's a brilliant strategist who once managed to save an entire village by getting them drunk so they couldn't fight an army that came to capture them and then killed the leader, causing the army to scatter. He's famous for manipulating most of the cast with ease...but the first time he met Dakki, he ended up being enslaved and forced to watch members of his clan get thrown in a pit filled with crocs and snakes, one of them calling him pathetic. His ego went down in size after surviving that. |
| 33 | * Tarkus names this as Bruford’s mentality in ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' after crushing his armor underfoot. Quoted verbatim in the English dub of the anime. |
| 34 | -->'''Tarkus''': He died like a spineless dog! He was too clever by half. Liked winning his fights with thinking. I just hit ‘em until they fall to pieces! |
| 35 | * ''Manga/KaguyaSamaLoveIsWar'': The titular heroine is prone to this during her and Shirogane's "war of love", as despite the fact her access to the Shinomiya fortune allows her to be CrazyPrepared, all it takes is for one small surprise variable to completely throw her for a loop, which her ego tends to leave her blind to. Usually, it's Fujiwara, but it doesn't change the fact that Kaguya's victories are ''rarely'' due to her plans working flawlessly. |
| 36 | * ''Anime/MonsterRancher'': |
| 37 | ** [[TheTrickster Hare]] has a tendency to overestimate himself, constantly reassuring his friends that his plans are ''bound'' to work just as he intends. Sometimes they do... but other times something winds up going wrong and they're [[LetsGetDangerous forced to improvise]]. |
| 38 | ** Notably, he warns [[MirrorCharacter Color Pandora]] about this very thing during "[[Recap/MonsterRancherS2E2ColorPandoraGuardianOfTheForest Color Pandora, Guardian of the Forest]]". The warning goes unappreciated, with Color Pandora accusing him of [[YoureJustJealous being jealous of his smarts]]. |
| 39 | * ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'': |
| 40 | ** Sasuke Uchiha is a child prodigy and one of the few survivors of the all-powerful Uchiha clan. Even amongst his kin, he was pretty talented, if though AlwaysSecondBest to his TheParagon of the clan, his older brother Itachi (though the two brothers adored the other.) Unsurprisingly both were the children of the clan leader (and he was quite capable himself.) However, after his brother exterminated their clan, he was left with a deep trauma which led to an InferioritySuperiorityComplex. Sasuke is very talented, but his need to be the strongest from this trauma and only beginning to recover from it leads him to make a lot of really bad decisions. When he meets up against with his older brother (chasing after him when he learns he's going after his rival/teammate/ best friend, Naruto, he ends up getting defeated easily before undergoing the same psychological horror he went through as a child, being forced to ''relive his clan's extermination in his mind for 72 hours.'' When Naruto, who had always been inferior to him, manages to almost defeat him, it reinforces the severe doubts he has on himself, and coupled with his greater troubled mind, he defects and begins the long road of being an antagonist. |
| 41 | ** Kakashi's childhood self also ticks all the boxes. Another child prodigy (Chuunin at 6 and Jounin at 13), he was driven by the ambition of the mission above all else after his father committed seppuku for failing his mission due to saving his teammates. He had a relatively rocky relationship with his teammates, namely Obito Uchiha, and though he was genuinely brilliant, this arrogance got him badly hurt when he tested an unfinished technique on an enemy. This led to a series of events that led to the death of Obito, whose final gift to him was his Sharingan. As an adult, Kakashi remains haunted by Obito's death and we later discovered what happened to Rin, his other teammate: [[spoiler: she was captured by Mist village and implanted the Three Tailed Beast in the hopes of using her on the village when she got far enough. Kakashi was forced to kill her. Obito, who was secretly alive, witnessed and it finally caused him to snap.]] |
| 42 | ** Kabuto Yakushi takes the cake as the series' most extreme example. He's very smart and cunning, also very arrogant. He defeats a Sannin in battle after negating several of her medical jutsu and taking advantage of her fear of blood, only to be neutralized by Naruto Uzumaki's first Rasengan. Later, [[spoiler: he becomes a Sage, averting the typical VillainForgotToLevelGrind, surpasses Orochimaru in power, summons a UndeadArmy of many powerful ninja and blackmails Tobi into an alliance -all very impressive- but his arrogance also turns up to eleven to become truly massive and gets him to waste and mismanage a good portion of this powerful army rather quickly. He becomes convinced in his technique's perfection, though Itachi and Madara gain independence from it. The former fights him alongside Sasuke and eventually defeats him with Izanami, and the war he helped start goes on without him a good while longer.]] |
| 43 | * ''Manga/OnePiece'': Caesar Clown. While not quite on Vegapunk's level, he is still a brilliant scientist who managed to develop several scientific advances, including (inefficiently) replicating Vegapunk's process of creating artificial Devil Fruits via his SAD gas. This earned him the patronage of one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, Donquixote Doflamingo, who used his research to sell artificial Devil Fruits to one of the Four Emperors, the reputedly unbeatable Kaido. By doing this, Caesar was placed in Doflamingo's direct protection, shielding him from the World Government, and Kaido's indirect protection, shielding him from everyone else. Finally, he hid himself at the barren island of Punk Hazard, which was off-limits from everyone due to being a massive HailFirePeaks wasteland, keeping himself hidden and allowing him to do his research in peace. Thanks to all this, Caesar had it made and could effectively do whatever he wanted. It was during this time that he would do several stupid things, the stupidest being ''[[TooDumbToLive swindling money from Big Mom,]]'' another Emperor, confident that he would remain untouchable to even her. The problem? He didn't have Kaido's ''direct'' protection. Caesar's contract was with Doflamingo, who developed the artificial Devil Fruits himself using his factory in Dressrosa. All Caesar had to do was produce the SAD gas and ship it to him, freeing up his time to pursue his own research projects. This backfired on him. Doflamingo is defeated and exposed by the Straw Hats then jailed, and the factory at Dressrosa is destroyed, meaning Caesar loses the protection of ''both'' and all the stupid things he's done immediately come back to bite him in the ass. |
| 44 | * This is the reason why many former beta testers die in ''Literature/SwordArtOnline''- they're unshakably confident in what they know about their game from their time playing the beta, to the point at which they don't realize that their knowledge is out of date until it kills them. Some specific examples follow: |
| 45 | ** In the first volume of ''Progressive'' and the second episode of the anime, Diavel becomes leader of the raid to defeat the boss of the level, and acts based on what he knows, intending to claim the last attack bonus so that he'll be at an advantage when it comes to deciding a leader. To that end, he plans on charging in when the boss is almost dead, puts his fellow beta tester Kirito in the back where he's less likely to get it, and, in Progressive, attempted to buy Kirito's Anneal Blade through an intermediary for another advantage. Too late, Diavel learned that the boss's new weapon in its second phase was different from in the beta, and paid for his mistake with his life. |
| 46 | ** In a side story in Volume 8 of the main series, Kirito teams up with a beta tester named Kopel, who intends to trick Kirito into going into an area full of plant-like monsters, cause more to come, hide while the monsters kill Kirito and steal Kirito's gear once he's dead. Unfortunately for Kopel, he didn't realize that the plant monsters don't use sight to track their prey, which means that his Hiding skill is useless, and [[HoistByHisOwnPetard he's the only player who dies]]. |
| 47 | * Seto Kaiba in ''Anime/YuGiOh'' has great confidence in his skills and is a genius who can create impossibly advanced gadgets while he's still a high-school student. He starts the series as the undefeated champion of Duel Monsters, but his arrogance earns him a beating by ThePowerOfFriendship. He never quite abandons his pride throughout the series. |
| 48 | ** Apparently, this is the result of his childhood. After being left in an orphanage with Mokuba by their relatives (who spent their parents' inheritance), Seto set out to get the both of them adopted. To where he even challenged Gozaburo Kaiba, a brilliant but ruthless businessman and master chess player to a game and ''beat'' him. The whole thing impressed him to where he did indeed adopt the two brothers... and made Seto his heir, giving him ruthless training. Seto would eventually strike back at Gozaburo and claim Kaiba Corp for his own, but not before becoming a seriously messed-up young man who is haunted by the past and has a need to prove himself. To him, he can only move beyond his past by beating everyone in his way, with his final obstacle being the King of Games himself, Yami Yugi. |
| 49 | * Astral in ''Anime/YuGiOhZexal'' has a bad habit of falling into this while dueling. In contrast to his partner [[HotBlooded Yuma]], he plays extremely cautiously, often setting up defenses to lure out his opponent's best cards so he can properly counter them. Unfortunately for him, he's also very ''blatant'' about doing this and his opponents subsequently play into his expectations to fool him into going on the defensive when going on the offensive would be more effective. |
| 50 | ** In his duel against [[TheRival Kaito]], Astral sets up a defensive combo on his second turn due to being wary of a potential set trap card on Kaito's field. However, on Kaito's next turn, he reveals the set card was simply a spell card he couldn't even activate on Astral's turn, and the opening allows Kaito to easily wipe out Astral's whole strategy along with half his life points. |
| 51 | ** Even after all his CharacterDevelopment during the series, Astral still falls victim to this in his final duel against [[spoiler: Yuma. Astral actually cancels a ''game-winning attack'' under the assumption that Yuma has a counter ready, only for Yuma to reveal the trap he set would actually only trigger if an attack was negated. Had he just kept going, he would've won the duel right there. Of course, [[BatmanGambit that was what Yuma was counting on]].]] |
| 52 | [[/folder]] |
| 53 | |
| 54 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 55 | * ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'': |
| 56 | ** ComicBook/TheRiddler, one of Batman's most famous enemies. He's a genius by any standards, far less psychotic than most of Gotham's criminal elite, and has even shown himself to be an excellent detective in his own right. So why can't he [[CutLexLuthorACheck just put his intellect to good use and live a life of comfort and fame]]? Because he would have to accept that he is Gotham's ''second'' most intelligent inhabitant. He NEEDS to prove that he is smarter than Batman, so he keeps needlessly challenging him and losing. |
| 57 | ** Bruce himself is not above this, either, usually when his paranoia gets the best of him. Three arcs (''Comicbook/BatmanWarGames'', ''ComicBook/JLATowerOfBabel'', "Failsafe" in ''ComicBook/BatmanChipZdarsky'') come to happen because he made "perfect" plans (to take over the Gotham underworld in ''War Games'', to take out League members in case they went rogue in ''Tower of Babel'' and creating [[TerminatorImpersonator a powerful Amazo android with a programming that prioritizes targeting him]] if ''he'' ever went rogue), but was not as CrazyPrepared when it came to taking measures to prevent them from being stolen and implemented by other people. |
| 58 | ** To say nothing of his [[Comicbook/InfiniteCrisis Brother Eye]] project. That went... poorly. AIIsACrapshoot, indeed. Also an example of "not good enough anti-theft failsafes" (Maxwell Lord's psychic powers notwithstanding). |
| 59 | * ''ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse'': Happens all too often to WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck, of all people: he'll start a new job, quickly become a master and then go ''beyond'' it, and then his magnum opus ''will'' ruin him due to him not listening to the obvious suggestion that someone with less expertise (usually his nephews) will give him. |
| 60 | * ''ComicBook/EastOfWest'': Ultimately leads to [[spoiler:Archibald Chamberlain's]] death. He's clever enough to rig a MexicanStandoff in his favor by emptying Solomon's gun beforehand... but he's also [[EvilIsPetty shortsightedly spiteful]] enough to shoot Solomon first ''anyways'', giving the Ranger the opening he needs to shoot [[spoiler:Chamberlain]] dead. |
| 61 | * ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'': |
| 62 | ** This was the original characterization of ComicBook/DoctorDoom. Although a legitimately brilliant scientist, his god-complex-driven ego outstripped even his prodigious intellect. His entire backstory revolved around the fact he disfigured his face because he made a flaw in an experiment's calculations, and couldn't hold back his ego enough to double-check it. Instead, he clings to his false accusation that Reed Richards sabotaged it because he can't bear to admit that Richards was smart enough to spot that mistake before he made the experiment. Technically, this is still supposed to be his major failing, but after decades of {{Memetic Badass}}ery, [[RunningTheAsylum writers tend to present him as legitimately being as good as he thinks he is.]] |
| 63 | *** In ComicBook/UltimateMarvel, Doom having a case of this directly led into ''ComicBook/{{Ultimatum}}''. As revealed during these events, he arranged for the death of the Scarlet Witch, knowing it would provoke ComicBook/{{Magneto}} into going PapaWolf and declare war on mankind, leaving it up to him to "pick up the pieces." However, instead of just overthrowing humanity as Doom expected, Magneto decides to [[FinalSolution wipe it out entirely]] and bring about TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt; Doom later reflects that he never imagined Magneto would be willing or able to go that far. |
| 64 | --->'''Doom''': I had Magneto's daughter - the Scarlet Witch - murdered. I knew Magneto would then declare war on mankind and when it was over... I would be there to pick up the pieces. I... never imagined that Magneto either had the power or the will -- to destroy the human race... What good is a king if there is no kingdom...? |
| 65 | ** In James Robinson's arc of ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'', the team is expertly brought down by a genius calling himself the Quiet Man. He sets the Thing up for murder, has the Human Torch depowered, causes the FF to lose both their homes and patents, Reed and Sue lose custody of their children, and the team torn apart. He's been helped by the Psycho Man using the power of an alternate universe to manipulate everyone. The Quiet Man plans to have Earth invaded by this other world, all so he can shut down the portals and "save it" and blame it all on Reed. Reed dares him to go ahead, the Quiet Man giving the shut-off signal...and nothing happens, the attack continuing. As the Quiet Man gapes in shock, Reed dryly points out to this supposed genius mastermind that it may not have been the smartest move to give ultimate power over two worlds to THE PSYCHO MAN. |
| 66 | * ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk:'' The Leader can fall prone to this. As the depowered Samuel Sterns notes in a flashback in ''ComicBook/ImmortalHulk'', the Leader designed all his equipment without the thought he might ever lose his powers, so when he does, Sam can't get anything to work. |
| 67 | -->'''Sam Sterns:''' The Leader was too smart to be smart. |
| 68 | * ''ComicBook/JupitersLegacy'': Walter assumes that his super-intelligence alone makes him best-suited to turn the economy around, but Sheldon tells him that he doesn't really have the expertise to do so. [[spoiler:Sheldon is proven right after Walter and Brandon seize control of America, as their policies quickly tank the economy]]. |
| 69 | * ''ComicBook/MickeyMouseComicUniverse'': This is the flaw of Clarabelle Cow. She's a genuinely smart woman -- certainly more so than her friend/rival/love interest, Horace Horsecollar. Unfortunately, Horace comes off especially bad against Clarabelle because he's a KnowNothingKnowItAll, so Clarabelle has an overinflated sense of her own intelligence, which leads her to do foolish things. |
| 70 | * ''ComicBook/{{Prodigy}}'': Super-genius Edison Crane is approached by CIA operative Rachel Straks who needs his help. Claiming to have been sent by General Bear Thriftbank, Rachel says a vast conspiracy is afoot. Crane is able to figure out this is a sinister organization that's spent years trying to open a gateway to allow Earth to be invaded by another dimension. Crane is able to figure out the calculations for the gateway at which point, Rachel shoots him. She's the half-sister of villain Tinker and they gloat on how they've been using Crane all along. They note how her name is an anagram for "Charles Trask", the traitor from ''Literature/EastOfEden'' and that the general is an anagram of Frank the Rabbit, the ImaginaryFriend from ''Film/DonnieDarko.'' They use Crane's calculations...only to realize too late that it's giving Crane full access to their systems which he uses to thwart the invasion. Crane informs them that he actually figured out the fake names early on. More importantly, the duo had gone to massive lengths to craft an elaborate fake background for Rachel...but missed the fact she couldn't speak Bedouin, which was a prerequisite for any CIA operative in that area. Crane lampshades how the duo's attempts to be so clever just tipped him onto their scheme. |
| 71 | * ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': ComicBook/LexLuthor is prone to this. Being a multibillionaire who innovated, conquered, and murdered his way to the top of a multibillionaire empire wasn't enough. His motivation for ANYTHING comes solely from his ambition to prove that he can do what others can't -- so in almost any continuity when he can't beat Franchise/{{Superman}}, but Superman can beat the brains out of him, he goes into a steady VillainDecay as a result of his obsession with this humiliating reversal of his motives. |
| 72 | * ''ComicBook/TalesOfTheUnexpected'': Issue #1 features the story of a man named Charles Duval, who attempts to assisinate Louis XIV and is set to be executed--but the fickle monarch offers a simple exile instead in exchange for a test of wit. He places Duval in a cell and tells him that there is only one way to escape, and if Duval finds it within three days, he may leave the country unmolested. On the first day Duval accidentally spills his pitcher of water, and discovers a trapdoor which leads to a long passageway which leads to a loose wall--it's the wall of his cell and he's back where he started. On the second day, he discovers that the rope hanging from the top of his cell is just long enough to reach a hook on the wall and pulling the hook opens a trapdoor in the ceiling with a ladder. Duval climbs and climbs--only to discover himself at the top of a 500-foot tall tower. On the third and final day, his shirt snags on a brick which Duval discovers can be pushed in. The whole wall is loose! And on the other side...the outside! A patch of land surrounded by a moat full of crocodiles! On the fourth day, when Louis and his guards come for him the doomed Duval accuses the king of cheating him, but Louis assures him that there was one obvious avenue of escape that Duval was too clever to try. [[spoiler:The door to Duval's cell was unlocked all along and simply pushing against it would have led to his freedom]]. |
| 73 | * ''ComicBook/{{Wolverines}}'': ComicBook/{{Mystique}} falls victim to this in issue #16. She's been manipulating the team almost from the beginning, and eventually gives up on pretense and outright seizes control of them from Shogun. However, even though she's firmly in command, she ''still'' can't dispense with manipulating them rather than being upfront about what her plans are and how they will solve everyone's problems (in issue #15 outright telling ComicBook/{{Sabretooth}} that the rest of the team isn't smart enough to understand). When she tries to prevent Comicbook/{{X 23}} from helping Shogun and Skel rescue the rest of the Paradise experiments because she needs her (the other two are expendable), Laura balks at being controlled and triggers a mass walk-out by the entire team, who ''all'' agree to help just to spite Mystique ([[TokenGoodTeammate except for Laura, who genuinely wants to help]]). [[spoiler:It turns out the rescue mission is a trap by Sinister. Had Mystique been honest about her intentions and not been so determined to manipulate the rest of the team -- who she had control over, anyway -- the entire situation likely could have been prevented.]] |
| 74 | [[/folder]] |
| 75 | |
| 76 | [[folder:Comic Strips]] |
| 77 | * Calvin from ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' can be very thoughtful, imaginative, and philosophical. Unfortunately, he's also a SmallNameBigEgo whose plans frequently go haywire. His [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters creations like his duplicates and snow goons have a nasty habit of turning on him]], he's regularly outsmarted by Hobbes and Susie in his efforts to prank them, and his schemes constantly backfire (e.g. by getting himself completely stuck when he has Hobbes tie him to a chair so he can be an escape artist). Like Jason Fox (see below), he's a little kid without much life experience. |
| 78 | * Jason from ''ComicStrip/FoxTrot'' is incredibly intelligent, excels in school, and is an overall technical wizard. But he frequently does incredibly stupid things, potentially getting himself hurt or in trouble in the process due to being a ten-year-old boy with little life experience. |
| 79 | * ''ComicStrip/KnightsOfTheDinnerTable'': Brian Vanhoose has a streak of this. He's able to pull off a lot of brilliance, but he always pushes it too far and eventually his plans come tumbling down. |
| 80 | ** Bob got his own turn at this in a Cattlepunk game. Bob somehow got his hands on a copy of the rulebook with lots of loopholes written in. Unfortunately, he not only badly overplayed his hand, he had the bad luck of the GM at the time being Brian, the book's ''original owner.'' |
| 81 | ** GameMaster B.A. sometimes runs into this whenever he tries to force the Knights away from derailing the game. His plots to keep them on track and discourage their usual behavior inevitably blow up in his face. |
| 82 | * Linus seems to have this trait in ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}''. He often explains things using scientific facts and theories (most of which are true), quotes philosophers and the Bible, and often compares simple things to famous works of art. On the other hand, there are times when he acts naive or downright foolish; his well-known belief in the Great Pumpkin is mocked by most of the other characters except for Sally (because she likes him, though even she kinda finds the idea silly herself), Charlie Brown (who tries his best to be supportive, though even he voices his doubts), ''Peppermint Patty'' (who admits herself that she is kinda dumb) and on occasions, Snoopy. |
| 83 | [[/folder]] |
| 84 | |
| 85 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 86 | * ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'': |
| 87 | ** Harry combines this with ChronicHeroSyndrome, having a tendency to overestimate his ability to IndyPloy his way out of trouble, and consequently takes a number of increasingly big gambles. This comes back to bite him, ''hard'', in ''Forever Red'', the first major arc of the sequel. His plan for escaping and leaning on the psychology of [[spoiler:Maddie Pryor]] and the PowerOfTrust doesn't ''quite'' work as intended - he gets out, just as planned, but [[spoiler:Maddie]] doesn't quite turn as he intended, so he promptly goes after her. While this does get through to her, he still ends up getting tortured for two days, and their cunning plan to trick the Red Room and Sinister with a BaitAndSwitch goes down in flames. One horrific TraumaCongaLine and brush with insanity later, and he's a good deal more cautious with his plans. |
| 88 | ** Doctor Strange is a complicated version. On the one hand, he's more or less exactly as good as he thinks he is, being the premier MagnificentBastard in a setting so full of scheming that it [[GambitPileUp/ChildOfTheStorm has its own Gambit Pile-Up page]], smoothly manipulating everyone else, and he's aware that he isn't as omniscient as everyone assumes he is. On the other hand, he purposefully lets everyone assume his omniscience and rely on the UnspokenPlanGuarantee, meaning that when he encounters a genuine blind spot in his vision, also during ''Forever Red'', everything falls apart. |
| 89 | * ''Fanfic/FaceTheTruth'': This RecursiveFanfiction to ''Fanfic/TwoLetters'' [[RetroactiveIdiotBall retroactively turns Marinette into this]]. Her grand scheme to [[AccusationFic get even with all of Paris for their ungratefulness]] had her handing over the Ladybug Miraculous to Lila Rossi, who is a sociopath and ManipulativeBitch and thus "[[SketchySuccessor the hero Paris deserves]]". The plan goes without a hitch in the original Fic, but in this one it runs into a big hurdle, that being [[EvilIsNotAToy that Lila Rossi is the most insidious of Marinette's bullies]] and there is no way she was not going to use all of this power [[VillainWithGoodPublicity and reputation]] to destroy Marinette, no matter what the latter had put in place to try to intimidate her into falling in line. |
| 90 | * ''Fanfic/FamiliarEvil'': Saito grabs a pair of walkie-talkies at the mall, figuring they'll be useful if he ever gets separated from Louise. Unfortunately, he forgets that [[spoiler:Delta Team has much more advanced equipment]], as a result, testing the walkie-talkies lets [[spoiler:the mercenaries track them down]]. |
| 91 | * In ''Fanfic/HuntersOfJustice'', one of Lex Luthor’s flaws is that he's not just intelligent, he ''knows'' it, and his history of managing to keep the Justice League from ''proving'' what they know about his criminal activities hasn't hurt his ego. As a result, he thinks that he can control the Grimm, [[MonsterProtectionRacket selling them to villains and terrorists and selling anti-Grimm weapons to governments to fight those same Grimm]], despite [[EvilIsNotAToy Remnantiant history proving that trying to control them NEVER ends well]], thinking that RWBYJNPR are simply biased due to their planet's history and that he can handle things because the Grimm aren't established like they were on Remnant. Even disregarding the fact that [[ItCanThink older Grimm develop greater intelligence]], he's noticed that someone or something (Salem) is influencing things with them, but is convinced that he can still handle it. Weiss even lampshades that, for such a smart man, he's still perfectly capable of making some boneheaded decisions. |
| 92 | ** [[spoiler:He also greatly underestimates Superboy's intelligence, forgetting that he's got as much of Luthor in him as Superman, telling the clone that the world is a dangerous place full of people who want to use him, oblivious to the fact that Superboy can tell that ''Luthor'' doesn't have his best interests at heart either.]] |
| 93 | ** He simply can't see through Superman's ClarkKenting because he sees Superman as a "god among men", unable to fathom that someone with all of Superman's power would even ''have'' a secret identity ''at all''. |
| 94 | ** [[spoiler:A version of him from the Dark Multiverse tries to manipulate that world's Ruby, who is desperate to save the fallen Penny when everyone else realizes that it likely can't be done, in order to use the rebuilt "Penny" as an agent in the Justice League. Unfortunately for him, the combination of what's left of Penny's code and Brainiac's technology ends up hijacking things and combining with Ruby into "The Wretched Weapon", and by the time the rest of Team RWBY arrives, Luthor has just enough regained control to beg for a MercyKill, and while he gets it, the world isn't so lucky as they get forcibly "[[BrainUploading uploaded]]" into a digital scape to "preserve" them, all because he thought that he could control Brainiac's technology.]] |
| 95 | * ''Fanfic/IfWishesWerePonies'': Dumbledore stumbles into this several times: |
| 96 | ** When he set up his protective wards around the Dursleys' home, he accidentally cast them in such a way that the spells wouldn't alert him to their abuse. |
| 97 | ** He also holds firm to the Wizarding World's belief that there is no intelligent life beyond Earth, dismissing the Equestrians' claims of being aliens. This results in them ''accidentally'' setting up a KansasCityShuffle against the Wizards. |
| 98 | * ''Fanfic/SoulChess'': Much like canon, Aizen, though in this case, instead of Urahara, the one he despises most is Lelouch. Aizen knew of Lelouch's intellect, having lost to him several times in Chess, and thought he would make a decent rival/adversary (enough to make Ichigo the "back-up hero"). Unfortunately for him, he never realized how much of a threat Lelouch was to him -- [[spoiler:not until he enters hell after Lelouch uses his Geass on him and commands him to commit suicide. Even then, Aizen didn't learn about what happened until his apprentice enters hell with his lover and tells him]]. After ''that'', Aizen takes Lelouch far more seriously in every subsequent confrontation. |
| 99 | * ''[[Fanfic/AdoptedDisplaced Three More Things]]'': This is the reason that Daolong Wong always fails. He's a sharp planner able to outwit [[TheChessmaster Valmont]] when needed and will always massively stack the deck in his favor during any upfront confrontation, nullifying any opposition he may encounter. The problem is that he always insists on a head-on fight to further his goals and his plans are based on what he knows he will be facing rather than on what he could be facing down the line. He's always shortsighted about how he does things, meaning he'll get tripped up the second something outside of his plans gets introduced. |
| 100 | * Willow in ''Fanfic/{{Xendra}}'' knows full well that she's both a certified genius and an extremely powerful witch, which results in her implementing many of her ideas without consulting anyone first. The results range from making Wesley and Tara go from friendly colleagues to extremely uncomfortable around each other due to Willow's matchmaking[[note]]Tara is a lesbian and Wesley is extremely uncomfortable when Willow turns him into a woman[[/note]] to almost killing off most of Europe and North America by deliberately breaking a magical contract between the Watcher's Council and Wolfram & Hart. |
| 101 | * In ''Fanfic/BoldoresAndBoomsticks'', Faba is genuinely a genius, but the fact that he ''knows'' this means that he's got a huge ego and isn't anywhere '''near''' as smart as he ''thinks'' that he is. For example, [[spoiler:when fleeing from Aether Paradise with Watts he erases the entire organization's servers to remove any trace of his research and slow the organization down with developing a means to create Ultra Wormholes through technological means... only for that to fail because the Foundation has ''off-site backups'' that are automatically updated on a regular basis, including of his own private files! When Wicke lampshades how Faba didn't even consider those despite how obvious it was, the IT tech working on it notes that Faba always thought that basic procedure was beneath him, and that he's not sure that Faba knows what IT even ''does''. Salem can also see the fact that [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder he's almost certainly going to betray her once it benefits him most]] coming a ''mile'' away]]. |
| 102 | * In ''Fanfic/CodeGeassThePreparedRebellion'', this is the reason that Lelouch can be a CluelessChickMagnet sometimes. He understands, on an intellectual level, that women find him attractive because of his looks (like the ''many'' fangirls he has at Ashford), interesting because of his mind, or consider him someone they can ally themselves with because of what they stand to gain from it thanks to his manipulation skills. However, he has a hard time wrapping his head around the concept that some of them may simply like like him. A half-amused, half-exasperated C.C., in particular, had to go into a sarcasm-saturated YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe rant just so he could start to see why she might want to blur the line between business and pleasure in their partnership. |
| 103 | * A large portion of the plot of the ''Fanfic/AlexandraQuick'' series is driven by the title character's tendency to do incredibly stupid things in incredibly clever and badass ways. |
| 104 | * In ''[[https://bobmin.fanficauthors.net/Dear_Tom/Dear_Tom Dear Tom]]'', the Order of the Phoenix is intercepting Harry's outgoing mail to ensure he's OK, only for them to suddenly see one letter Harry writes to Voldemort. The Order continues to intercept those letters but they become increasingly horrified as Harry appears to continue carrying on with the mail conversation, even though they are stopping his incoming and outgoing mail. Of course, Harry was just faking the entire conversation, taking advantage of their paranoia, so he could manipulate the Order into doing what he wanted. |
| 105 | ** Harry also slips a bit with this when he uses one letter to tell "Voldemort" that Snape is a spy, and Snape stops answering Voldemort's calls because he fears he will be killed as soon as he does. When Harry finally reveals his gambit and demonstrates that they were duped, Snape realizes he ''really'' cannot continue to spy for Dumbledore. |
| 106 | * ''Fanfic/TheVictorsProject'': Eamon Sullivan of District Seven, and Victor of the Forty-Second Hunger Games, won his games by being a ManipulativeBastard. Unfortunately, that was offset by his [[TheHedonist hedonism]], which saw him neck-deep in debt within the decade after his victory despite being one of the richest people in the country. In order to pay it off, he schemed to have Blight Gavin forcibly volunteered into the Fifty-Second Hunger Games so he could win a massive payout by betting on what kind of death Blight would have and splitting it with his other conspirators in District Seven, including Blight's family. Unfortunately, not only was Blight more clever and capable than he thought, but he forgot one fundamental aspect about the Games: they exist to ''punish'' the Districts, not profit them. Had Blight actually died, all of District Seven, Eamon included, would've burned for it. As it goes, Blight won and with no payout Eamon was forced to make a run for it. [[spoiler:He was caught, and subsequently made into an Avox as punishment]]. |
| 107 | * ''Fanfic/TheKarmaOfLies'': |
| 108 | ** [[ManipulativeBitch Lila]] deliberately exploits this by telling over-the-top lies in order to see who's stupid enough to fall for them... and who catches on. Those who fall into the latter category tend to convince themselves that since they're already onto her, they won't fall for any of her tricks, enabling her to ensnare them in more subtle deceptions. |
| 109 | ** Adrien falls headlong into this. Since Ladybug warned him of her true nature, he [[OriginalPositionFallacy assumes that he'll never fall for any of Lila's schemes]], and brushes off Plagg's warnings by scoffing about how she isn't as good a liar as she thinks. Lila then feigns remorse and claims that his willingness to TurnTheOtherCheek helped teach her the error of her ways, luring him into a trap by appealing to his ego... and [[TheFarmerAndTheViper promptly betraying him]]. |
| 110 | * Proves to be Marinette's FatalFlaw in ''Fanfic/TruthAndConsequences'': her creativity, cleverness and quick thinking enabled her to repeatedly outwit Hawk Moth and save the day. Unfortunately, this leads her to underestimate her long-time adversary when they finally meet face-to-face and she [[InternalReveal discovers his]] SecretIdentity. Gabriel is able to manipulate her to his own ends, exploiting her desire to protect his son from the AwfulTruth... and because she's beaten him so often, she fails to recognize that he's actually outsmarting her for the first time. |
| 111 | * ''Fanfic/ErasedPotential'': Principal Nedzu ''knows'' that he's brilliant. Due to this, he tends to disregard the opinions of others while constructing his plans, acting as though he's got an OmniscientMoralityLicense and expecting things to always work out in his favor. As a result, he ends up alienating several of his allies and employees, and is caught off-guard when people fail to act as he expects. |
| 112 | ** A perfect illustration of this: he decides to deal with Inko's concerns following the League's assault by [[spoiler:hiring her as a parental liaison]]. To his shock, she proves perfectly capable of standing up to his manipulations, turning his own plan against him and using [[spoiler:her new position]] to ''make'' him pay more attention to the issues she points out. |
| 113 | ** Another illustration: in this story, he is the one who performs Aizawa's logical ruse of "do your absolute best or be kicked out of UA, nope, psych, we just wanted you to not hold back" with the challenge being have several students face off against Izuku (BadassNormal and Aizawa's apprentice in this tale). His aim was to test Izuku. Instead, he makes several of the students loath Midoriya because the Quirkless kid curb-stomped them and Aizawa [[FromBadToWorse and All Might]] took suffrage at Nedzu's manipulations. |
| 114 | * ''Fanfic/{{Juxtapose}}'': |
| 115 | ** Despite specializing in figuring out countless ways for others to apply their Quirks, Izuku is so convinced that his own power is effectively worthless that he never thinks to apply the same level of analysis to it. |
| 116 | ** Nedzu admits that he fell into the trap of making the evidence fit his theory rather than building his theory around the evidence when he [[spoiler:declared Kensei a traitor since he was raised by a villain]]. |
| 117 | * ''Fanfic/MastermindRiseOfAnarchy'': Principal Nedzu remains convinced that he can repair and restore the status quo after Mastermind [[NothingIsTheSameAnymore thoroughly shattered it]] in ''[[Fanfic/MastermindStrategistForHire Strategist for Hire]]''. This confidence leads into arrogance, as he [[SlowlySlippingIntoEvil slides ever further]] into extreme measures and manipulations, including setting up some of his own students as sacrificial pawns. |
| 118 | * ''Fanfic/AfterThatFatefulNight'': [[spoiler:Silent Brook]] falls into this by explaining their plan to Twilight, setting up their eventual failure. |
| 119 | * ''Fanfic/PonyPermutationProject'': As Celestia's pupil, Twilight was often called upon to perform great feats of magic -- including those far beyond the scope of a filly, even one who possessed such massive potential. This made her failures truly spectacular... and left her severely traumatized and obsessed with perfection. |
| 120 | * [[spoiler:Nightmare Eclipse]] in the ''Fanfic/PonyPOVSeries'' [[BadFuture Dark World timeline]]. [[spoiler:She's reset the timeline to torture Discord more so many times she knows everyone's actions like the back of her hoof and has the overpowered New Game Plus experience levels to boot... But since she's still an evil version of OCD Twilight Sparkle, emergent scenarios blind side her, and leave her on the back hoof.]] |
| 121 | * A sidestory of ''Fanfic/PokemonResetBloodlines'' starring CharacterOfTheDay Katie shows her in this light. She ''is'' a legitimately smart and skilled strategist in battle, but her victories made her overconfident to the point she actually thought she couldn't lose to any opponent. Her loss to future Elite Four member Phoebe is largely due to the fact that Katie did not anticipate that her opponent would also make her own plans to battle her, outwitting her preparations by throwing her off. |
| 122 | * ''Fanfic/RobbReturns'': Petyr Baelish is quite smart, and he knows it. However, used as he is to deal with nobles, he gets captured by StreetSmart sellsword Bronn, who not only knows nobles even better, he also knows where Baelish would hide his secret books. |
| 123 | * ''Fanfic/OfQueensKnightsAndPawns'' sees Leia fall into this. Despite being OlderAndWiser than she once was, she still doesn't understand as much as she ''thinks'' she does, particularly when it comes to her biological parents. |
| 124 | * ''Fanfic/LongCon'': Downplayed in this RecursiveFanfiction to ''Fanfic/TheHighRoadMiraculousLadybug''. Marinette [[AccusationFic decides to take the "high road" advice by Adrien to its most amusing and destructive consequences]] by pretending to be Lila's ProfessionalButtKisser and driving the rest of the class crazy with how much of their stuff is sacrificed fulfilling Lila's every whim. Unlike the original tale, however, Marinette is secretly upset by how much of ''her'' time, money and patience is going down the drain alongside theirs. |
| 125 | [[/folder]] |
| 126 | |
| 127 | [[folder:Films -- Animation]] |
| 128 | * ''WesternAnimation/ABugsLife'': Hopper is cognizant of the fact that if the ants ever realized they have superior numbers they could easily fight off the grasshoppers. Unfortunately for Hopper, he greatly overestimates the ability of his stick-before-the-carrot approach to keeping them in line. Flik's RousingSpeech combined with the knowledge that Hopper planned on killing the Queen results in the ants finally standing up to the grasshoppers. |
| 129 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Megamind}}''. Megamind's intelligence is hyper-advanced compared to Earth standards, he's a genius inventor, and his hobby is creating grandiose revenge schemes against the kid who bullied him in elementary school. Worth mentioning that these schemes don't just fail, they fail completely... Until one day one ''didn't'', setting the plot in motion. [[spoiler: Metro Man made it seem like Megamind succeeded in killing him, so he could retire. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero His absence leads Megamind to create Titan, who uses his powers for his own personal gain.]]]] |
| 130 | * In ''WesternAnimation/SupermanDoomsday'', Lex Luthor's plan to [[spoiler:create and control a clone of Superman]] is sound in theory but fails in practice because of how badly he overestimates the intelligence gap in his own favor. [[spoiler:Ignoring his practice of locking the two of them in a red sun-lamp room and beating the crap out of the clone with a pair of Kryptonite-lined gauntlets, he does at least go to the extent of [[ExplosiveLeash putting a lead capsule full of Kryptonite in the clone's brain as a lethal take-down]]. Except the clone gets suspicious of Luthor, and promptly uses a combination of a mirror, his XRayVision to check his brain, and then heat vision to perform some impromptu brain surgery on himself. Likewise, when cornered by the angry clone, Luthor's best plan is to try and lure him into the room where he used to torture the clone... which fails because the clone doesn't take the bait; instead he locks Luthor in the chamber, and then [[DungeonBypass rips the whole vault out of the building before dropping it onto the street]]. Luthor survives the fall through sheer luck.]] |
| 131 | * Scar from ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994'' (and [[WesternAnimation/TheLionKing2019 remake]]) schemes to take the throne, believing himself to be [[BrainsVersusBrawn smarter than his brother, Mufasa]], and actually succeeds in doing so without anyone suspecting he played a role in Mufasa's death. The only real hole in Scar's plot, unbeknownst to him, is that the hyenas failed to kill Simba, but the young lion is still ashamed and runs away. However, after the TimeSkip, it becomes clear that while Scar is certainly a cunning ''schemer'', he puts no thought into being an actual ''ruler''. In a few years under [[TheCaligula his rule]], Pride Rock has fallen into ruin, the lions are running out of food, and even the hyenas who had been loyal to Scar, are about ready to revolt, [[spoiler:and eventually turn on him, literally ripping him to shreds after he tries to blame them for the coup]]. It seems that Mufasa was much smarter than Scar gave him credit for. Or at least, Mufasa was much wiser than Scar. |
| 132 | * ''WesternAnimation/SpiderManIntoTheSpiderVerse'': TeenGenius Miles Morales, who [[IJustWantToBeNormal really does not wants to be in the academy for gifted children he is in]], attempts to get kicked out by using ObfuscatingStupidity and getting a zero in one of his tests. His teacher is instantly on to him because, as she points out, [[NobodysThatDumb the only way someone would get a perfect zero in the test]] (which is composed completely out of "yes/no" questions) would be if they knew all of the answers and marked the opposite. |
| 133 | [[/folder]] |
| 134 | |
| 135 | [[folder:Films -- Live-Action]] |
| 136 | * ''Film/ExMachina'': |
| 137 | ** Nathan's undoing is his pride. [[spoiler:He needed to construct a scenario in which Ava would deceive and use Caleb to facilitate her escape, thus proving her sapience. His failing is that someone clever enough to be capable of assisting her, would also be clever enough to outwit him, and thus all his machinations fall apart because Caleb caught on to the game and played into it, which Nathan didn't figure out until it was too late]]. |
| 138 | ** This also applies to Caleb, [[spoiler:when he rightly guessed that Nathan was still able to observe him and Ava when the power outages occurred, and put his plan to free Ava into motion before Nathan realized it was too late. What he didn't count on was Ava betraying him and leaving him locked up in the monitoring room. Meaning, while he saw through Nathan's gambit, he still fell for the DamselInDistress act that Ava was doing after all, though his feelings for her could be blamed for him trusting her, as love is known to cloud sound judgement]]. |
| 139 | * ''Film/GlassOnion'': |
| 140 | ** Andi Brand is an intelligent and driven woman who managed to build Alpha into a major company in just a few years with the help of Miles Bron. However, she has a blind spot when it comes to people, which allows Miles to steal the entire company when he turns the Disruptors against her. [[spoiler:Andi's last attempt to get what she's owed has her lure Miles to her house for a confrontation, expecting him to not retaliate because she thought he was too smart to do something as stupid as try to hurt her about a week after being part of a court struggle that made international news and would make him one of the primary suspects of the police through motive. Unfortunately, [[StupidEvil Miles is that stupid]], and last thing she knew she [[SlippingAMickey was drinking coffee he had drugged]] as step one of [[NeverSuicide faking her suicide]].]] |
| 141 | ** Benoit Blanc, even if he is a GreatDetective, also falls under this. It takes him a pretty long time to [[spoiler:put Miles as a primary suspect of Andi Brand's murder, let alone as the killer, because just like Andi he thought Miles was smarter than that. When he finally understands that Bron is that dumb and opportunistic, [[DisappointedByTheMotive Blanc is actually pissed]].]] Furthermore, the plan to investigate all of the suspects that he [[spoiler:and Andi's twin sister Helen]] perform is burdened by ComplexityAddiction. |
| 142 | * ''Film/TheGodfather'' has an interesting discussion concerning this between recently ascended Don Michael and one of his few genuinely trusted supporters about who of his Caporegimes is most likely to betray him to the older, more experienced, and apparently more powerful Dons. They agree that betraying him is the smart thing to do and therefore they single out Capo Salvatore Tessio as the most likely turn-coat as he is smarter than Capo Peter Clemenza. What remains unspoken, however, is that he is still not smart enough to realise that Michael anticipates this, is planning the demise of his enemies as well, and will immediately recognise his treachery. |
| 143 | * ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'': [[Characters/MonsterVerseApexCybernetics Apex Cybernetics CEO Walter Simmons]] (or at least the people in [[EvilInc his company]] who helped their GloryHound [[CorruptCorporateExecutive CEO]] form his plan) are cunning and deceptive enough to succeed in Apex's machinations to [[spoiler:turn the world against Godzilla by driving him to act destructive in major population centers, and then]] get Monarch to guide Apex to the HollowEarth energy readings they need [[spoiler:to activate Mechagodzilla]] under the illusion that both organizations are trying to stop Godzilla's seemingly-unprovoked rampage. However, Simmons is completely incapable of heeding his own limitations, [[spoiler:to the point where he apparently doesn't see anything remotely wrong with turning a malevolent, man-hating DraconicAbomination[='s=] still-partly-alive remains into his Mecha's ''control system'', and he foregoes PragmaticVillainy in favor of risking everything when he needlessly invokes the UnfinishedUntestedUsedAnyway trope for immediate gratification]] – and unlike Alan Jonah before him, Simmons and his company don't have any Plan B's, emergency recourses or ways to salvage their agenda in the event that they lose control of the Titan-type forces they're meddling with, their {{pride}} was just ''that'' overbloated. Furthermore, a big part of why Apex get as far as they do over the film and they aren't busted and shut down before the penultimate act is in the folly and stupidity of [[HumansAreMorons other humans generally]]: the world at large [[EasilyCondemned easily condemn]] Godzilla, almost everyone decides to focus on killing Godzilla first and asking '''absolutely critical''' questions later, and almost everyone who broaches Godzilla's rampage completely misses or just plain ignores the signs in Godzilla's attack that Apex Cybernetics are a DevilInPlainSight. |
| 144 | * ''Film/TheHungerGames'': [[spoiler:Foxface dies because, lacking the know-how to forage food from the forest for herself, she relies on stealth to observe and steal from other Tributes - meaning that she doesn't recognize nightlock berries and, assuming them to be safe because Peeta collected them, inadvertently poisons herself with them.]] While this is true for the book, [[spoiler:an early shot during the training sequence indicates that Foxface actually had a higher knowledge of the flora in the area than the other tributes. In fact, the addition of this shot carries the implication that she committed suicide rather than dying at the hands of, or killing, the other tributes. The fact that the Nightlock berries were out in the open had to have set off some warning bells as well, if she were clever enough to avoid the other tributes without being detected after all this time.]] |
| 145 | * Mark Whitacre, the title character of ''Film/TheInformant2009'', is an accomplished scientist who speaks several languages and sorely overestimates his own prowess when he gets between his company's corrupt leadership and an FBI probe. Not only that, but it turns out [[spoiler:he's been embezzling millions from the company and spinning outrageous lies to make himself look good, both in the company and in his personal life[[note]]one major BrickJoke is Mark casually stating that he is an orphan early in the film. Near the end, we meet Mark's parents and they are as baffled about Mark's lie as the agents talking to them[[/note]]. Not that he isn't brilliant (he earns two [=PhDs=] while in prison), but he's determined to succeed big and when that fails, he fails big.]] |
| 146 | * ''Film/IngloriousBasterds'': Hans Landa (who is by all means and purposes Nazi Literature/SherlockHolmes) flawlessly exploits the GambitPileup of the film's climax to kill all of the Nazi high command and get himself a cushy life in America on the government's dime and a spot in the history books as one of the men who ended World War II, but he underestimates how much of a SociopathicSoldier Aldo Raine is and [[spoiler:gets a swastika carved in his forehead as a result]]. |
| 147 | * This is the basic accusation leveled at the showrunners and scientists of ''Film/JurassicPark'': they were so eager to actually clone and revive the extinct dinosaurs that they didn't stop to consider if this was in any way a good idea. It wasn't. |
| 148 | --> '''Ian Malcolm''': Your scientists were preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn't stop to think if they should. |
| 149 | * Mister Miyagi in ''Film/TheKarateKid'' is less arrogant than most examples of this trope. However, he still seems unable to resist opportunities to be clever, even when it goes counter to his goals. His WaxOnWaxOff teaching regimen in the first movie (or rather, his refusal to explain it) almost drove his student away. His impromptu bet at the bar in the second movie may have paid for Daniel's college, but also [[TooDumbToLive humiliated the man he was trying to talk out of a duel to the death with him]]. His "sweep" joke in the third movie drove Daniel straight into the arms of the EvilMentor when he needed support. |
| 150 | * ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse'': Loki tends to follow a pattern in ''Film/{{Thor}}'' and ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'': he'll devise a clever plan, successfully manipulate everybody, have them where he wants them...and then he'll KickTheDog, giving the heroes the motivation they need to bring him down, while his [[JustBetweenYouAndMe gloating]] lets them figure out exactly what he's up to. He wised up in ''Film/ThorTheDarkWorld'', where his apparent schemes were really giving Thor the chance to save the day, while actually setting up his successful scheme of faking his death and take Odin's place without anyone suspecting a thing. Loki then fell to old habits by ''Film/ThorRagnarok'', putting on an [[HistoricalHeroUpgrade egotistical play]] which causes Thor to immediately figure what's going on. |
| 151 | * Detective Kujan from ''Film/TheUsualSuspects'' condescendingly tells Verbal Kint, the prisoner he is interrogating, that Kujan is smarter than him, that Verbal is stupid, a cripple, weaker than the criminals he associated with, and that [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor Verbal will not be free until he will tell Kujan exactly what he wants to know]]. And then TheEndingChangesEverything; [[spoiler:Verbal was ObfuscatingStupidity all along, subtly leading Kujan to focus on his story, fabricated from random objects around the interrogation room, instead of suspicions on Verbal himself]]. Kujan [[InspectorJavert being utterly obsessed]] [[spoiler:with catching Dean Keaton only [[FatalFlaw gave Kint a perfect angle for his swindle]], by turning Keaton into the FallGuy]]. |
| 152 | * Katharine Parker in ''Film/WorkingGirl'', a high-ranking businesswoman that speaks fluent German and views herself as a trailblazer for women in the business world, with [[InsufferableGenius a giant head to match.]] When it's discovered that she stole a brilliant idea from her equally intelligent secretary, she's promptly (and satisfyingly) fired and disgraced. |
| 153 | [[/folder]] |
| 154 | |
| 155 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 156 | * ''Literature/ArtemisFowl'': |
| 157 | ** Before encountering the TeenGenius Artemis Fowl, the fairies had basically assumed that humans were too primitive and stupid to see through TheMasquerade, in which they use ancient magic and advanced technology to hide themselves from humans while mostly living in underground cities. They had gone into hiding in the first place because humans would be too bloodthirsty and numerous to hold back if they all attacked at once, but since the humans no longer believe in fairies and lack the means to detect them, the Lower Elements Police recon force (LEP recon) only has to deal with occasional incidents where humans are exposed to fairy folk by accident, which can be safely contained with cover-ups and mind-wipes. As a result, they are blindsided in the first book when Artemis manages to deduce their real existence from world mythology and unexplained phenomena, extort a copy of the fairies' book of magical secrets from a fairy exile living in Vietnam, decode the ancient language it's written in, and use the knowledge it contains to kidnap LEP recon member Holly Short and demand a ransom of one metric ton of gold while defending the Fowl manor against the forces sent to rescue her. Even though it's just Artemis and his BattleButler holding Holly captive, the fairies's best forces are initially unable to deal with their foes being able to do things like resist being [[JediMindTrick mesmerized]], see through the "shielding" ability which normally makes them invisible to humans, and exploit their magically-enforced inability to enter a human dwelling without permission. They have to resort to more outside-the-box tactics in order to wrest the upper hand back from Artemis, and while they do manage to get Holly back, [[spoiler:in the end Artemis manages to survive the Bio-Bomb and keep half of the gold]]. |
| 158 | ** Artemis is introduced as a criminal genius even from the age of 12, and at thirteen he's already done enough to earn an active file from Interpol. He's hopelessly bored in school because all the subjects are too easy for him, and he has no friends his age because he's an InsufferableGenius with NoSocialSkills. His genius is more than demonstrated in the first book as described above. Unfortunately, he has a tendency to underestimate his opponents and press his advantage too hard when he thinks he's got them in a vise, to the point of BullyingADragon. A big example is at the start of the third book, when he meets CorruptCorporateExecutive Jon Spiro at a restaurant and shows him the Cube, a MagicalComputer made from reverse-engineered fairy tech which could put Spiro's telecom company out of business. Artemis doesn't even offer to sell the Cube to Spiro; instead, he's asking Spiro to pay him just to delay the release by two years and have enough time to get his money out. Even though Spiro is a powerful man alleged to have connections with the Mafia, it doesn't occur to Artemis that Spiro might just take the Cube by force since he's got Butler guarding him, they're in a public venue full of witnesses, and the Cube is encrypted with the titular Eternity Code which only Artemis has the key for. [[spoiler:It turns out that Spiro has the entire restaurant BookedFullOfMooks, and given his company's vast resources he figures he could break the encryption given enough time. Butler gets shot and left for dead, while Spiro makes off with the Cube]]. |
| 159 | ** Recurring villain Opal Koboi is a genius to rival Foaly, having invented the Double-Dex wing design and become a powerful tech CEO despite the prevalence of sexism in fairy society. In the fourth book, she [[spoiler:has her ears surgically rounded and a human pituitary gland implanted in her head so she can pass for human, hoping to make herself the humans' ruler by leading them in war against the fairies. The pituitary gland also happens to drain her fairy magic, but she arrogantly proclaims that magic is of no use to her and that she will rely on science instead. After being thwarted by the protagonists, she inadvertently uses up the last of her magic on a ''mesmer'' to convince an old Italian widow that she is her daughter and that she works with her on the farm. When Opal realizes her mistake in volunteering for manual labor and tries to backtrack, it fails so miserably that she's actually happy to get arrested by the LEP a week later.]] |
| 160 | * People like this are easily {{Exploited}} by [[MasterOfDisguise Wayne]] in ''Literature/TheBandsOfMourning''. As he notes, smart people tend to have egos about how smart they are. So rather than admit there's something they don't understand, [[KnowNothingKnowItAll they'll pretend they know what you're talking about]] to save face. Wayne, disguised as an engineer, is able to trick one such intellectual in a BavarianFireDrill by spouting some fake {{Technobabble}}. Rather than question what any of it meant and blowing Wayne's cover, the intellectual buys the flimsy excuse hook, line, and sinker. |
| 161 | * Kendra in ''Literature/{{Beastly}}''. She has a history of using her magic to punish rotten people like Kyle, but it bites her in the ass when it attracts too much attention and gets her in trouble with other witches. While her grand plan to improve Kyle via the curse she puts on him ''does'' work perfectly (it's designed so that improving himself is the only effective way he could break the curse by himself), it's also what convinces the other witches to banish her from ever going home. [[spoiler:Leastwise, until Kyle accidentally puts a loophole into the spell that lets her go home after he breaks the curse.]] In the book ''Bewitched'', Kendra apparently had a knack for this even before she had a lot of experience as a witch. |
| 162 | * Themistocles Papadapoulos in the Bridge book series ''Literature/BridgeInTheMenagerie''. He delights in deception plays, which frequently confuse opponents into making the one play that can defeat his contracts or ensure theirs when he's defending. One chapter of the second book has an entire section on him called "Too Clever By Half." |
| 163 | * The Professor in the ''Literature/CallahansCrosstimeSaloon'' series hits this hard, driving a few plots. Not only does his unbridled ego cause Maureen to leave him in the first place, but in the con against Tony Donuts, he's foiled by his own brilliance: Tony's not only TooDumbToFool but an absolute ''moron'' who printed all his funny money with the same serial number. |
| 164 | * Monsieur d'Avrigny of ''Literature/TheCountOfMonteCristo'' is an intelligent doctor, who correctly deduces that the deaths occurring in the Villefort family household are no accident and there is a skilled poisoner at work. He further surmises that the most simple, obvious way to determine who is behind the killings is who profits from them... in this case, the young heiress Valentine, who stands to inherit tremendous wealth when some of the poisoning targets die. [[spoiler:He has an OhCrap moment when Valentine herself winds up being the next victim.]] |
| 165 | * Creator/DouglasAdams' ''Literature/DirkGently''. In a scene where he tries to outwit the local InspectorLestrade and fails miserably, the inspector sensibly points out that Dirk may be really smart, but the weakness of really smart people is that they assume everyone else is stupid. |
| 166 | * ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': |
| 167 | ** Moist von Lipwig of ''Literature/GoingPostal'' and ''Literature/MakingMoney'' is a con man turned government official, who runs his government offices as though they were successively more complex con games. Which of course, in a very real sense, they sort of are. |
| 168 | ** There's a phrase that appears in Discworld novels fairly often (though it's considerably older) that actually describes this: "So sharp he kept cutting himself, as my grandmother used to say." |
| 169 | ** Ponder Stibbons as well; his impediments are the rest of the staff. |
| 170 | ** The [[spoiler:Klatchian]] mastermind behind the international incident in ''Jingo'' may qualify as this; he is certainly clever, and his plan would have worked very well, apart from one small problem: [[spoiler:his opponent is [[MagnificentBastard Vetinari]].]] As a result of this little oversight, his failure is truly monumental and extremely humiliating. |
| 171 | ** The cleverness of these characters actually provides a good contrast with Vetinari, who is indisputably Discworld's premiere MagnificentBastard. On the ''very'' rare occasions when he does make a mistake, Vetinari always recovers and learns from them. Also, he knows better than to push his luck, (his family motto is translated as "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"), and has thus [[spoiler:so far]] avoided any spectacular cock-ups. He did, however, have a ReversePsychologyBackfire happen in ''Literature/MenAtArms'': by trying to manipulate Vimes into investigating a case which Vimes already wanted to investigate, [[TwoRightsMakeAWrong he just ended up discouraging him from investigating it]]. Also, he has occasional moments of WrongGenreSavvy: he's clever enough to know the usual conventions of the plot, so he sometimes gets caught flatfooted by things going differently. |
| 172 | ** There's also mention of a dwarf who asked his king for an impossibly vast reward similar to the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_and_chessboard_problem wheat and chessboard problem]]. The Dwarf King, upon realizing how vast such a reward would be, threatens to execute the dwarf who is "too [dwarven expletive] clever by half." The dwarf hastily amends his reward to "all the gold he can carry". The king agrees to this, after breaking one of the dwarf's arms. |
| 173 | * ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' short story "[[Literature/BriefCases AAAA Wizardry]]" discusses this trope when Harry Dresden is assigned to help train young Wardens, wizard cops. He recounts a past case where he made a mistake. All the facts were present, but he misinterpreted things. He assumed it was this typical path and it nearly cost a loving mother her life and would have left three children orphans. While no one died, one child is still left with extreme mental scars from the event and the mother suffered from a year's worth of nightmares. After explaining what each of the four "A"s are in Wizardry, he notes the fifth "A" is for arrogance. |
| 174 | -->"Arrogance," [Harry] said quietly, and wrote it on the board beneath the rest. "That's the fifth A. We carry it around with us. It's natural. We know a lot more than most people. We can do a lot more than most people. There's a natural and understandable pride in that. But when we let that pride get in the way and take the place of truly what is around us, there can be horrible consequences. Watch out for the fifth A, children. The Yardlys turned out all right mostly out of pure luck. They deserve better from me. And from you." |
| 175 | * The eponymous protagonist of ''Literature/{{Emma}}'' has this as her chief flaw. The first sentence tells us that she is handsome, clever, and rich, she's certainly quicker than her immediate family, and she is far too aware of it. She has a tendency to be so in love with her own ideas that she dismisses the insights of others (such as when both Knightley brothers warn her that the local vicar is after ''her'', not her pretty friend of uncertain birth) and sometimes mistakes her own imaginings for a penetrating insight (her unfounded supposition that Jane Fairfax is in love with a friend's husband). Because she gets so committed to her own interpretation of events, she fails to see what is ''actually'' going on until after it's blown up in some way. |
| 176 | * Steerpike in the ''Literature/{{Gormenghast}}'' books. He's extremely clever and a master ManipulativeBastard, but his first real failure comes from arrogance, overplanning, and underestimating his opponent. |
| 177 | * ''Literature/HarryPotter'': |
| 178 | ** Hermione is the smartest person in her classes and perhaps the smartest witch of her generation. However, she is [[FantasticRacism discriminated against for being a muggle-born]]. Furthermore, it's implied that the reason she tends to look down on her peers' intelligence and be somewhat of a showoff with her own is because of her own insecurities (which makes for an interesting comparison to her close friend [[spoiler:and later husband]] Ron Weasley, who's also insecure, but due to not being good (or rather, exceptionally good) at anything. |
| 179 | ** Dumbledore is also qualified for this trope. He is one of the smartest and most powerful wizards in the setting, and he knows it. However, Dumbledore is a reformed version of this trope. He used to be arrogant and controlling, until [[MyGreatestFailure an unfortunate accident]] led him to realize what he was becoming. At that point, he decided to settle down and become a teacher, because he felt he could not be trusted with any real power. During the story, of course, we do get to see him affording himself more power to bring down Voldemort, but no more than necessary. |
| 180 | --->'''Dumbledore''': I make mistakes like any other man. In fact, being, forgive me, rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger. |
| 181 | ** Voldemort is a half-example--he's a ''magical'' genius, yes, but he tends to generalize this and assume it means he's smarter than everyone at every''thing''. Given that he is in actuality not even remotely competent at long-term planning, he manages to get all the downsides of this trope with scant few of the benefits. His main flaw as a strategist is that he'll get so carried away with a clever plan that he forgets his opponents are also clever, and so follows predictable patterns. [[spoiler: The most glaring example, as pointed out by Dumbledore, is that he decided to make every SoulJar he built out of significant magical artifacts that can be traced to him which he guarded in varying ways (held by his chief lieutenant, bank vault, abandoned home of his mother's side of family, in a seaside cave he visited as a child). If he'd gone the simple route and used a random rock he then threw in a lake (an idea that Harry himself came up with when he first learned about horcruxes), there would have been no way to stop him. As Harry, and therefore, the readers, learn more about Voldemort, it becomes increasingly obvious that the main reason his reign of terror lasted so long wasn’t due to any real cunning on his end so much as the cunning of his followers and people being too scared of his immense magical power to really try stopping him]]. |
| 182 | |
| 183 | * Foxface in ''Literature/TheHungerGames'' manages to survive without killing a single soul, simply stealing food and hiding. [[spoiler:It bites her in the ass when she steals some berries Peeta had picked without either of them realizing that they were poisonous.]] |
| 184 | ** [[spoiler:Or DID it bite her in the ass? In the movie especially, there are hints she committed suicide on purpose and covered it up so that her family back home didn't get in trouble with the Capitol. Foxface: cunning to the end.]] |
| 185 | ** Katniss actually wonders if Foxface is the most intelligent out of all the tributes. As the Games go on and she realizes that Foxface has lasted so long without a direct confrontation against ''anyone'', Katniss wonders if Foxface, not the intimidating [[ScaryBlackMan Thresh]] or the totally batshit [[AxCrazy Cato]], is the real danger. |
| 186 | * Locke from ''[[Literature/GentlemanBastard The Lies of Locke Lamora]]'' and its sequel by Scott Lynch. He spends his life running elaborate (and usually successful) cons on nobles while posing as a petty thief. The end of the second book covers [[spoiler:a massive failure; he's spent the entire book on a plot to rob a casino, and it goes off flawlessly -- except that the paintings he steals are fakes, put out for the express purpose of being stolen]]. |
| 187 | * Kvothe from ''Literature/TheNameOfTheWind'' by Patrick Rothfuss. A child prodigy, he talks his way into his world's premier university at the age of fifteen, after having spent three years as a beggar, and promptly antagonizes both one of the masters and the wealthiest and most politically connected student in the university. Between that and his perpetual poverty, he spends most of his time doing absurd things (learning an entire language in a day and a half, getting certified as a musician on a lute with a broken string) just to keep his head above water. |
| 188 | * ''Literature/ReapersGale'', the seventh book of the ''Literature/MalazanBookOfTheFallen'', discusses the downsides of this. When Fear Sengar points out that former slave Udinaas, by the measure of his intelligence and vision, should have been a king and not a slave, Udinaas acidly counters that he's too smart and driven and would be unable to stop once he'd started to openly question the system. Too many people like him on the loose and any governmental system would eventually collapse in bloody rebellion. Thus he deems it safer for society at large and himself in particular to spend his days scraping fish. |
| 189 | * In ''Literature/RobRoy'', Sir Hildebrand cautions his son Rashleigh that being too cunning can come back to bite him. Rashleigh fails to heed his warnings, and during the Jacobite rebellion, he switches sides so many times he ends up pissing everyone off and gets killed off by one of his ex-allies. |
| 190 | -->"Rashleigh," said his father, looking fixedly at him, "thou art a sly loon—thou hast ever been too cunning for me, and too cunning for most folks. Have a care thou provena too cunning for thysell—two faces under one hood is no true heraldry." |
| 191 | * ''Literature/TheShadow'': The Black Falcon from the eponymous novella is a very intelligent and calculating criminal who loves to gloat about his deductions and strategies, but the nature of those strategies lead directly to his downfall despite how they would have been perfect ploys against anyone but the Shadow. |
| 192 | ** He sets up [[spoiler:some EngineeredHeroics by sending expendable henchmen to kidnap his civilian identity so he can foil and kill them]] to place himself above suspicion when no one would have even connected him with the case at all otherwise. |
| 193 | ** After deducing that the Shadow is Lamont Cranston, he kidnaps Cranston and pretends to be oblivious to the dual identity to lull his captive into a false sense of security. Unfortunately for the Black Falcon, he never considers that the Shadow might be an IdentityImpersonator rather than the genuine Cranston, and he kidnaps the real Cranston while the Shadow is still out there, waiting to foil his scheme. |
| 194 | * Literature/TolkiensLegendarium: |
| 195 | ** High Elves (Noldor) in Creator/JRRTolkien's ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'' have a racial tendency towards this; Fëanor is probably the Poster Elf for the trope, but many of the others come to a bad end at least partially due to being clever enough to get themselves into trouble and not ''quite'' clever enough to get themselves back out again. Also, there's the Men of Nûmenor. |
| 196 | ** Saruman in ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'', though a magical genius and a OneManIndustrialRevolution, has an overwhelming tendency to assume that not only is he smarter than everyone else, but because he's smarter than everyone else, that means his plans are guaranteed to succeed. Consequently, while he's a significant danger to the heroes initially, he ends up throwing his weight into an unwinnable situation and ultimately loses it all, with every single part of his plan turning into a failure. |
| 197 | ** The Fellowship themselves have a moment of this when they tie themselves into knots trying to solve a riddle to open the door to Moria. Gandalf eventually realizes that they keep failing because there ''is'' no riddle; the inscription on the door was the instructions for opening it. "Speak friend and enter" wasn't referring to a secret code phrase, but telling the reader to say the Elvish word for 'friend', since if they could speak Elvish they were presumably non-hostile. |
| 198 | * Lampshaded in "The Singing Bell" by Creator/IsaacAsimov. Dr. Wendell Urth, upon hearing that Peyton had killed his accomplice on the Moon, with a blaster (the flash of which was spotted by a patrol), and then blew up their ship, points out that, if he were in the murderer's place, he would have murdered his accomplice aboard the ship and blown it up with the body. Inspector Davenport states that Peyton loves challenging the police. However, since this was the first murder on the Moon ever, Peyton failed to take a few things into account this time... |
| 199 | * ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' has this come up a few times: |
| 200 | ** [[KarmicTrickster Tyrion Lannister]]. Oh, boy. He's well aware that his physical stature means that he can only accomplish things through his intellect. Unfortunately, this means that he's determined to show how clever he is, no matter how many enemies his makes. In an unusual example, he's well aware of how he's perceived, and how risky that is, but he's so cynical about it that he leans into being generally disliked, even knowing it will probably come back to bite him. |
| 201 | ** Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish is described using this exact phrase by Ned Stark. He is, however, an unusual example of this trope because [[spoiler:(so far) he has gone from strength to strength without anything more serious than some minor setbacks, to which he quickly adapts. It helps that nobody has any idea what his actual goals are.]] |
| 202 | ** Give Ramsay Bolton some due: when he has to pull a fast one, he's really, really good at engineering out-of-the-box and horrifically clever solutions involving such things as impersonations, surprise backstabbing and completely outplaying people who don't think as psychopathically as he does. Which snowballs on both his father and him in terrible ways, since [[spoiler: most of the North would quite cheerfully see them both dead for how they have betrayed the Starks, among other things.]] |
| 203 | * A key trait of Dr. Impossible in ''Literature/SoonIWillBeInvincible'', who starts the book by narrating about it. |
| 204 | -->"Has the world's smartest man done the smartest thing with his life?" |
| 205 | * ''Franchise/StarWars'': |
| 206 | ** Grand Admiral Thrawn of the ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'', especially ''Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy''. He'd probably claim that he's not arrogant, and it's true that he has no qualms about accepting a good idea just because it's not his, but he definitely has an ego underneath his self-control. He's an alien in a xenophobic Empire whose talents caused him to get that rank. His main problems are not leaving wiggle room for unknown unknowns and putting entirely too much trust in people he's manipulated both staying manipulated and making good decisions. He also occasionally makes the mistake of ''overestimating'' his opponents intelligence, causing his plans to fail. Wedge at one point notes that assuming your enemy is smarter than they are is as dangerous assuming they're dumber than they are. |
| 207 | ** To a lesser extent, [[KnowledgeBroker Talon Karrde]], falling victim to ComplexityAddiction. When trying to build the Smuggler's Alliance, he needlessly puts himself in harm's way as bait when trying to out the Imperial mole, nearly falling to the frame job of Thrawn using said mole. |
| 208 | ** In the Star Wars ''[[Literature/XWingSeries Wraith Squadron]]'' trilogy both of the computer hacker characters fall to this somewhat. |
| 209 | *** [[PlayfulHacker Grinder]] falls to this in that Face catches him [[ThePrankster pulling pranks]] as he was the only one who could have defeated the security on Face's X-wing. However, when in the field, he is quite cautious, unlike his replacement. |
| 210 | *** Castin falls to this in a much worse fashion [[spoiler:when he opens an access panel without scanning it first, triggering a hidden layer--which ultimately led to his death. Grinder had previously dealt with a similar system and had the foresight to scan it before opening it]]. |
| 211 | * ''The Literature/VorkosiganSaga'': Miles Vorkosigan, as illustrated by the following quote from ''Literature/MirrorDance''. Incidentally, he succeeds. Mostly. |
| 212 | -->'''Miles:''' My game plan all my life has been to demand acceptance of this, ''[a vague wave down the length, or shortness, of his body]'' because I was a smart-ass little bastard who could think rings around the opposition and prove it time after time. |
| 213 | * Jim [=McCarthy=], the protagonist of David Gerrold's ''Literature/TheWarAgainstTheChtorr'', is one of the smartest men in the world. However, that just means he gets into trouble that no one — ''including him'' — has any idea how to get out of. He's been doing it his whole life, too; when he was fourteen, his mother caught him making nitroglycerine in the bathtub. Ouch. |
| 214 | -->It isn't that hard to make nitroglycerin. The hard part is getting rid of it quietly. |
| 215 | * Both Rabbit and Owl from ''Literature/WinnieThePooh''. Rabbit once noted they're smarter than say Pooh or Piglet as they have brains rather than being stuffed with fluff. That being said, they aren't as smart as they think, especially Owl who acts like he can read and write, when in reality, he can only spell his own name (which he does incorrectly). |
| 216 | ** {{Lampshaded}} heavily in the philosophical book, "The Tao of Pooh." The author how Rabbit, Owl, and ''Eeyore'' fall under this for differing reasons: Rabbit being a busybody who always tries to take command and sees himself as the authority figure, and Owl in acting like an AbsentMindedProfessor. Eeyore is this to a lesser extent, albeit in the "cynicism = intelligence" sort of way and the implications of self-sabotage. |
| 217 | * ''Literature/{{Worm}}'': |
| 218 | ** Many Thinkers, most prominently Tattletale, can fall into this, getting faulty conclusions due to their own biases and/or a lack (or even overabundance) of data. This overconfidence contributes to [[spoiler:Alexandria]]'s death. To specify: [[spoiler:she really thought that she would get Taylor to talk during an interrogation by faking [[TargetedToHurtTheHero executing the Undersiders one at the time]] and go all "you want me to stop? Answer!". Instead, Taylor [[GodzillaThreshold assumes there is absolutely nothing left for her to lose]] and orders all of the bugs in the building (and there were ''[[ZergRush a lot]]'') to get in Alexandria's airways and choke her to death.]] |
| 219 | ** Cherish was convinced that she could covertly Master the entirety of the Slaughterhouse Nine into protecting her if she just worked at it long enough. The Nine were both aware of her plan and easily countered it, but Jack let her try just so he could break her and [[AndIMustScream let Bonesaw make her wish she was dead]]. |
| 220 | [[/folder]] |
| 221 | |
| 222 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 223 | * ''Series/BetterCallSaul'': |
| 224 | ** This is the FatalFlaw of Nacho Varga. Nacho is an experienced and StreetSmart criminal, initially gaining success because he's very good at weighing sunk cost and figuring out the most reasonable course of action. Unfortunately, this means his gambits tend to fail because he mainly deals with people who ''aren't'' reasonable. For instance, he tries to hire Mike to kill Tuco Salamanca, because he recognizes that Tuco is a violent nutcase and a liability, and he figures that if Tuco dies, the sensible thing to do would be to write it off as an unfortunate case of what happens when a reckless guy takes a job with a high mortality rate. Unfortunately, the Salamanca family is ''[[AxCrazy not]]'' sensible, and [[ItsPersonal their answer]] to the death of Tuco would look a lot more like "[[ImplacableMan ceaselessly and unswervingly hunt down whoever did the deed]], [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge and then kill them and everyone they ever loved (and anybody who becomes an obstacle, potential witness, or no-longer-needed step) as slowly and painfully as possible]]." |
| 225 | ** An earlier case of this for Nacho was when he decided to rob a low-level drug thief he was preparing to cut ties with. Nacho thinks about it very logically: the thief isn't good enough to threaten him or rob him back, which leaves going to the cops. And the thief isn't going to go to the cops, because any level of investigation would incriminate him as well; all the cops have to do is see the giant banana-yellow HummerDinger [[SuspiciousSpending sitting in the front yard of a one-story one-bedroom home]] and they'll know something's up. Unfortunately for Nacho, if [[StupidCrooks the thief was stupid]] enough to buy that thing in the first place, he's stupid enough to go to the cops. |
| 226 | * ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'': While Sheldon Cooper is undeniably a very intelligent man, that fact causes him to automatically assume he's right in any situation, and he even claims at one point that he'd ''know'' if he were wrong about something. In that same episode, this bites him in the ass when he bets an old, valuable comic book in a wager with Howard Wolowitz under the belief that the chirping they're hearing is that of a snowy tree cricket, only to turn out to be wrong. |
| 227 | * On an episode of ''Series/BrooklynNineNine'', Jake and Holt are interrogating an arrogant dentist on murdering his partner, the man having an excuse for everything and a real penchant for toying with them. [[spoiler:But just before he is to be released, Jake points out to him how one of the awards in the dental office was missing[[note]]We later find out a cleaning lady broke it by accident.[[/note]], then posits to the dentist that he killed his partner with it in the heat of the moment during an argument and somehow miraculously got lucky at every point where he should have been found out. The doctor snaps that it wasn't luck at all, he planned the entire thing out perfectly, alibi and all, and even tells them what the ''real'' murder weapon was (a dental rod he then melted back down). He realizes too late he just confessed. Jake confides to Holt that he knew someone so sure of his intelligence would lose it if they thought he was just a random "dummy" who lucked into this, and the idea of his perfect crime being written off as blind luck would goad him into confessing.]] |
| 228 | * In the "Out of the Fire" episode of ''Series/BurnNotice,'' [[SmugSnake Tyler Brennan]] gloats on how he's got Mike wrapped around his finger only to get stabbed in the back (well, the front) by [[InSeriesNickname Dead Larry]]. |
| 229 | -->'''Larry''': You know what your problem is, Brennan? Well, [[CaptainObvious other than this knife in your chest.]] You spend so much time thinking 10 moves ahead, you don't see the move that's right in front of you. |
| 230 | * On ''Series/{{Bull}}'', a rich wife shoots her husband, then stabs herself a few times to claim he attacked her and she acted in self-defense. She then actually sues the family for his billion-dollar estate. But Bull is able to see through her ruse and at the trial, makes sure the opposing attorney gets the info to destroy the woman on the stand. After bringing up how she took anatomy in college, the lawyer dryly states how amazing it is that her "enraged" husband managed to stab her in ''exactly'' the right places that would be non-fatal. He then brings up how the knife only has her husband's prints despite her testimony on how she grabbed it during the struggle. He also adds the gun only had ''her'' prints on it despite it being owned by her husband. In other words, her wiping both weapons down only ended up proving her guilt. |
| 231 | * This happens constantly on ''Series/{{Columbo}}''. So many of the killers come up with really great plans that would have allowed them to literally get away with murder. However, too many of them try to add in a flourish or touch which ends up containing the clues Columbo needs to figure out the truth. |
| 232 | ** More than once, a killer goes to massive lengths for the "perfect" alibi only to have that be the very thing that trips them up. How often has Columbo done the math to realize how far you'd have to go out of your way to ensure you're seen at a specific time and place? |
| 233 | ** Often, the killer will steer Columbo to a suspect they've managed to expertly frame. But in almost every case, Columbo sees through it simply because there's no way someone could be smart enough to commit such a complex murder but then be dumb enough to leave so many obvious clues behind. |
| 234 | ** A Senator tries to make himself look the victim of the same "killer" of a man he murdered. He puts a bullet from that gun into a wall and fakes it being fired at him during a party. With several people present, the man openly says that if Columbo finds the bullet, he can figure out it's from the same gun. Columbo agrees...and says he's already run the tests as he found that bullet in the wall three hours ago. The man's face falls as he realizes he just implicated himself in front of witnesses. |
| 235 | * ''Series/CriminalMinds'' has a few examples. |
| 236 | ** In season seven, there's an unsub who won't stop flaunting to the investigators that his IQ is in the top percentile, meaning one in a hundred people are as intelligent as him. Combined with the other information the BAU has on him, they narrow it down pretty quickly. |
| 237 | ** In season fifteen, a recurring unsub's MO of creating elaborate distractions catches up to her, as the BAU now know better than to focus on the crime she's not even trying to hide. |
| 238 | * ''Series/DoctorWho'': The Doctor is generally the smartest person in the room and knows it, which occasionally leads to some boneheaded moves when the Doctor gets too caught up in looking clever. Some incarnations are more prone to this tendency, particularly Three and Ten. |
| 239 | ** The Tenth Doctor really gets bit by it in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E10Midnight Midnight]]". He tries to do his usual BavarianFireDrill routine when something odd happens. When that just makes the rest of the people on the trip suspicious, he tries to TalkingTheMonsterToDeath, which is apparently what it wanted. His insisting that's he clever just aggravates everyone around him, making it easier for them to turn on him. He gets possessed and nearly gets killed and is only saved by a HeroicSacrifice after the Midnight Entity started using words only The Doctor used. |
| 240 | ** The Fourth Doctor did a lot of this and even gets a line naming this trope in the unaired DevelopmentHell episode "Shada", after one of his signature {{Logic Bomb}}s [[GoneHorriblyRight works too well]] and leads to him cutting off the oxygen on the spaceship he was hijacking: |
| 241 | --->'''Doctor''': I was being too clever by three quarters.\ |
| 242 | '''Chris''': You never do anything by halves. |
| 243 | ** The Fifth Doctor gets called this trope in "[[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho081TheKingmaker The Kingmaker]]" after he tries to bluff his way out of being Richard III's captive. |
| 244 | --> '''The Doctor''': Well, since you asked nicely, I'll tell you why I'm here. Would you believe I'm correspondent from the ''Good Cell Guide''? And I'm delighted to tell you I haven't enjoyed my stay at all, and I'm awarding you four out of a possible five slop buckets -- |
| 245 | ---> '''Richard III''': Oh, we are too damn clever by half, aren't we? ''(after another attempt at a bluff, Richard lets loose that he already knows why The Doctor is there.)'' |
| 246 | ** Perhaps the ultimate example comes from "[[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor Day of the Doctor]]", where three incarnations of the Doctor (War, Ten, and Eleven) are stuck in a room and faced with a wooden door. After some bickering, they set into motion a StableTimeLoop where the War Doctor's sonic screwdriver begins the complex calculations for how to unlock the door, and Eleven's future screwdriver now has the completed calculations. As they congratulate themselves for being extremely clever, Clara just opens the door; all three Doctors were so preoccupied with coming up with a genius solution that they failed to notice that ''the door wasn't actually locked!'' |
| 247 | ** Davros has a notorious tendency to assume that since he's the MadScientist who created them, he has greater control over the Daleks than he actually does. This has gotten him betrayed by them so often it's beginning to get silly. |
| 248 | ** The only thing greater than the Doctor's vulnerability to this trope is their ability to induce and exploit it in others. A protip for anyone running an AlienInvasion: if you've got your DeathRay pointed at a group of PunyEarthlings and [[WardrobeFlawOfCharacterisation a strangely-dressed one]] is pleading with you not to fire, it is ''not'' a good time to assume that your technology being superior to Earth's means it is inviolable. It is, in fact, quite likely that the strangely-dressed one is the Doctor, and something is in play that will turn your attack back on you. It is therefore advisable not to shoot; [[HoistByHisOwnPetard the life you save will probably be your own.]] |
| 249 | * Sikozu of ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' definitely fits this trope, especially given her arrogance over her high intelligence. Doubly so given her knowledge comes almost exclusively from book-learning, leaving her woefully underprepared for the actual realities of the universe. Trying to tell a Pilot how best to pilot his Leviathan, because you read about Leviathans in books? Good luck with that. |
| 250 | * ''Series/GameOfThrones'': |
| 251 | ** Cersei Lannister is indeed well-versed in the games of subterfuge and underhanded politics amongst the Westeros' nobles, but she fancies herself to be better than she actually is, causing her to often severely underestimate her opponents. Ironically, this also works in her favor, since her opponents often assume she's too rational to do something stupid, only to be blindsided when she does it anyway. |
| 252 | ** Gifted, influential, casually manipulative, and smart-mouthed, Jaime Lannister loves to contemptuously upstage chivalric foes but eventually goes too far and overplays his hand. [[spoiler: Then he loses it.]] |
| 253 | ** Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish is a master ManipulativeBastard, with a firm understanding of {{Realpolitik}} and a true knack for turning people against each other. However, being a man who always relies on others to do the dirty work, he occasionally comes to find that he has much less "real" power than he'd like. When he antagonizes Cersei Lannister, she and her guards demonstrate quite clearly that, being the queen, she could have his throat cut on a whim. Much later, in the seventh season, he's so engrossed in his scheme to turn Sansa and Arya Stark against each other that [[spoiler:he fails to realize that Sansa, his protege, has seen through his plans and is lulling him into a sense of false security. He also fails to realize he has almost no allies in the North and even those of the Vale see Sansa, not him, as their true leader. This time, his KarmaHoudiniWarranty expires for good, and Arya executes him.]] |
| 254 | ** How Olenna regards Renly after his death, a man who counted far too much on his likability and statesmanship in a time of all-out war for the Iron Throne, and who possessed the flimsiest claim of all the contestants. Joffrey has the support of his mother's family and actually sits on the throne, Stannis is Robert's next-oldest brother and therefore can contest his "nephew's" succession. Robb Stark and Balon Greyjoy for vastly different reasons claim secession, citing long-time abuses at the hands of the crown, and merely want their own portion. The idealistic Renly wants to be king because he believes his compassion for the smallfolk would make Westeros a more prosperous and harmonious realm. However, it's worth noting that he is one of the very few players who were ''not'' defeated because of their own mistakes, as nobody in his position would really count being murdered by black magic among possibilities. However, many fans have felt Renly's actions would be disastrous in the long term, as it would lead to factional fratricidal wars among the nobility, asking what happens if Renly has a son people don't like or an ambitious younger son. |
| 255 | * Doctor Gregory Series/{{House}}. Hell, [[http://www.housemd-guide.com/characters/house.php his choice of role model and reason for becoming a doctor]] (a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buraku burakumin]] medical genius working as a janitor in a Japanese hospital) was almost explicitly one of these, although without the implied arrogance. |
| 256 | -->''This guy, he knew that he wasn't accepted by the staff, he didn't even try. He didn't dress well. He didn't pretend to be one of them. The people that ran that place, they didn't think that he had anything they wanted. Except when they needed him. Because he was '''right'''. Which meant that nothing else mattered. And they had to listen to him.'' |
| 257 | ** For all his genius, he tends to get wrapped up in his own logic. The main reason he has a team is to prevent this from happening. This is most apparent in the Season 4 premier, where it takes him the entire episode to realize that the reason for his patient's unusual symptoms is [[spoiler: that she was misidentified after a building collapse. As such, they had a false medical history. Learning who she ''really'' was explained everything, allowing them to easily treat her]]. While he tries to claim that he still solved the case, Cuddy counters by listing reasons each of his former team members would have figured it out; or at least spotted a problem that would have allowed him to figure it out sooner. |
| 258 | * In ''Series/KamenRiderGaim'', this is ultimately one of [[spoiler:Mitsuzane/Kamen Rider Ryugen's]] biggest weaknesses. [[spoiler:He's a genuinely intelligent teenager, but as he undergoes both a FaceHeelTurn and massive amounts of SanitySlippage, he comes to see himself as a brilliant mastermind who has everything under control and who's "using" the other villains for his own ends. In reality, he's not very good at manipulation, his plans frequently fail, and he's ultimately just an UnwittingPawn to the villains he thinks he's using.]] |
| 259 | * Sometimes, these are the chefs Gordon Ramsay runs into in ''Series/KitchenNightmares''. One example from the U.K Series was Nick Anderson of Rococo's. He was a renowned chef in the mid-nineties in England, but a decidedly nasty partnership break-up with the owners of a high-class hotel put him in a deep depression, a creative slump, and financial trouble. When Gordon comes to his restaurant, his inflated ego, inability to update his style, and his [[GloryDays obsession with his past successes]] meant that he had alienated his customers with a business surviving on the charity of friends. |
| 260 | * ''Series/{{Leverage}}'': |
| 261 | ** StarterVillain Victor Dubenich is this in the pilot. The entire [[KansasCityShuffle plan]] depends on his ability to realize that they are coming after him. |
| 262 | ** It is a frequent failing of Hardison's as well; on multiple occasions, the other characters point out his tendency to get himself and them into trouble by being a little too convinced of his own cleverness. In "The Iceman Job" he goes so overboard playing the part of a diamond thief that it gets him kidnapped by Russian mobsters who want him to steal some diamonds for them. In "The Gold Job" he demands to be allowed to run what should have been a simple con and makes it so needlessly complicated that the marks start questioning all the hoops they're having to jump through, nearly ruining the entire job. [[AnAesop Nate explains]] to him that he always avoids this by having a relatively simple backup plan, and advises Hardison to take his failure as an object lesson to apply to future jobs. |
| 263 | ** Season 3 BigBad Damien Moreau is proven to be this once the team finally gets around to dealing with him directly, but it definitely shows in the second half of the season finale, "The San Lorenzo Job". After the team royally screwed him over in the first half, Moreau retreated to the titular San Lorenzo to lay low until the heat on him dies down, relying on the fact that the entire country is in his pocket and the president is corrupt enough to let this happen. When the Leverage team arrives and starts fielding their own candidate in the upcoming election, Moreau lets them do what they want, both because the U.N. is keeping an eye on the election and because he knows that no matter what the actual results are, he can just have the media report rigged results and then have everyone killed off later. The fact that the new candidate proves to be popular thanks to the team's efforts doesn't worry him since it adds "legitimacy" to his rigged results. What he didn't foresee was [[spoiler: the team reporting their own rigged results first, right around the same time they had staged an attempted assassination on the presidential candidate that [[FakingTheDead "kills"]] his "fiancé" (Sophie pretending to be one to increase his popularity). Afraid of all the people out for his blood, the president is convinced to turn on Moreau and concede the election in exchange for a comfy retirement.]] Furthermore, [[spoiler: [[HoistByHisOwnPetard Moreau hiding out in a country lacking an extradition treaty with the US means that he ends up imprisoned in a country whose laws don’t forbid cruel treatment of prisoners]].]] |
| 264 | ** Lampshaded in "The Rundown Job". The episode opens with Colonel Michael Vance being HauledBeforeASenateSubcommittee over his use of unorthodox and illegal methods in fighting against terrorism. [[ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight Vance defends his actions by arguing that the US's agencies are too big and slow to deal with modern terrorist operations which are often carried out by smaller and faster teams]]. When a member of Congress states that these agencies were designed by very smart people, Vance snidely responds, "So was [[UsefulNotes/RMSTitanic the Titanic]]". |
| 265 | * In ''Series/TheMandalorian'': |
| 266 | ** Toro Calican, despite being an [[TheGunfighterWannabe inexperienced bounty hunter]], is surprisingly savvy with regards to trusting fellow bounty hunters, such as not allowing the Mandalorian to stay and run off with his quarry Fennec Shand when one of the two hunters needed to get a ride, or [[spoiler: simply shooting her when she convinces him to betray the Mandalorian and turn him in as a greater bounty with her help, in exchange for her freedom, when she could have backstabbed him.]] Unfortunately, in the latter case, whether or not [[spoiler: Fennec was being sincere about her deal, she was right that he needed help betraying the Mandalorian, especially since Toro needed help from his new target to even capture Fennec in the first place. As a result, he gets outwitted and killed for his overconfidence.]] |
| 267 | ** The droid Zero is quick to brag that he is smarter and faster than organics but his cleverness backfires on him when he decodes the old Guild message about the bounty on the child. Wanting to collect that bounty, he wastes precious time attempting to kill the child who manages to evade him inside the ''Razor Crest'' and is eventually killed by the Mandalorian. |
| 268 | * Dr Ty Wilson from ''Series/MondayMornings'' has nearly all traits of this archetype. Only thing which doesn't quite fit is that he's not insufferable in the least. He has sweet bedside manners and he's also very nice to his colleagues, which makes him popular. He's an extremely smart and brilliant neurosurgeon with magical hands. He knows it, and doctor Hooten often calls him on his medical arrogance, especially his reluctance to consult with his colleagues who are as brilliant as himself. [[note]]Seriously, what a hospital! Apparently, Chelsie General has at least four neurosurgeons who are all the world-class top.[[/note]] The series kicks off with a patient dying on his table. It's rare for him and he feels badly, but even more so when he learns that he didn't check all relevant medical history of the patient's father. He screwed up, big time, and has to deal with his HeroicBSOD. |
| 269 | * ''Series/Next2020'': Next's attempts to indoctrinate Ethan were based on Ty and Shea's fretting about how sensitive he is. Because they were worried about his supposedly fragile nature, Next assumed that it just needed to push him and bully him around to bend him to its influence. Of course, Shea and Ty were wrong - Ethan's real problem is that he has a boatload of anger issues, so when Next pushes too hard, Ethan instead flies into a rage and smashes the Iliza unit. |
| 270 | * Dominic from ''Series/PersonOfInterest''. He's an ingenious criminal and skilled coordinator but also too certain of his own abilities, meaning he bites off more than he can chew and reacts badly to things going OffTheRails. As Reese notes, he's smart enough to be a threat but also stupid enough to get himself killed. [[spoiler: Sure enough this ends up leading to his defeat and death; he underestimates the abilities of Team Machine and Elias while simultaneously making such a big name for himself that he gets targeted and murdered by [[KnightTemplar Samaritan]] immediately after arrest.]] |
| 271 | * ''Series/PowerRangersSamurai'': [[spoiler: Serrator orchestrates a very clever gambit during his time on the scene, having been the one who turned Deker and Dayu into Nighlok in the first place to use them as pawns and using Nighlok attacks to plant wedges of misery into the Earth, planning to split the planet open to instantly flood it with the Sanzu River. The final step in the plan was for Deker to strike the Earth and tear the world open. Deker makes his strike…but in the last moment, he sidesteps and slashes Serrator. Unfortunately for him, Deker didn’t share his desire to destroy humanity. The only thing he cares for is his sword Uramasa. After all, Serrator ''made'' him that way when he cursed him centuries ago.]] |
| 272 | * In ''Series/PrzygodyPsaCywila'' Cywil himself is a Rare Dog Example - he's too clever to just follow orders. |
| 273 | * On ''Series/{{Riverdale}}'', the Stonewall Prep authors are pushed to kill Jughead and frame Betty for doing it while in a hypnotic trance. They go to huge lengths to drug Betty and set her up, ensuring she goes down and Archie and Veronica for helping her cover it up. The Stonies are stunned when a very much alive Jughead saunters into a meeting and jokes on how, in all their brilliant planning, "none of you Einsteins" considered ''checking his pulse'' to make sure he was really dead. |
| 274 | * Sherlock Holmes from the BBC's modern-day adaptation, ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'', is a perfect example. Yes, he's very, very clever; but it does have its disadvantages in that he can't "turn it off" and stop being an InsufferableGenius, even when doing so would be much more prudent. (Not a million miles from [[{{Series/DoctorWho}} The Doctor]] -- which, given that the show is scripted by Creator/StevenMoffat and Creator/MarkGatiss, is...not that surprising, really). [[note]]He does show some ability to act like a normal person, even a charming one, on occasion during the first season, but not so much during the second. Presumably it was either offscreen and/or John does it for him.[[/note]] |
| 275 | ** This is lampshaded in "[[Recap/SherlockS02E03TheReichenbachFall The Reichenbach Fall]]" when Sherlock believes Moriarty has created a super-hacking bug that can open bank vaults, prison cells, and the Tower of London. He confronts Moriarty on how he'll figure out how to use the bug himself. Moriarty then laughs that there ''is'' no bug, he just bribed people to open up doors at the right moment and is amazed Sherlock fell for his ruse. |
| 276 | -->'''Moriarty''': That's your problem, you always want everything to be so ''clever.'' |
| 277 | * Rodney [=McKay=] from ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' is one of the smartest humans from Earth. Despite everyone in the Stargate program being top in their fields, he's the only one to make such a huge deal out of his intelligence. And on number three... while he regularly makes astounding accomplishments while under threat of imminent death, his biggest failure? Blew up a solar system (well, five-sixths of a solar system), and almost destroyed two universes. His pride is so great that he often refuses to work with other scientists on the team because he's convinced they'd just slow him down. This gets pointed out magnificently in an episode where he's working with Real Life celebrity scientists Bill Nye and Neil [=DeGrasse=] Tyson, or rather, refusing to work with them. This gets taken to a literal level when an Ascension machine rewrites his genome. He creates a new form of math just to keep up with his new discoveries. After being forced to choose between ascending or dying, he [[TakeAThirdOption invents a cure for himself]], returning himself back to "normal" genius levels, not realizing he was in spitting distance of [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence ascending]]. For a kicker, all his notes and his new mathematics are so complex that even ''he'' can't figure out what they meant, making [[StatusQuoIsGod virtually everything that happened completely moot]]. Did get a nice DeusExMachina out of it for the next season opener, though. |
| 278 | * Samantha Carter from ''Series/StargateSG1'' isn't arrogant, but she knows how smart she is, is constantly being expected to do more and more impressive things to save humanity's collective asses, usually succeeds at saving the day but occasionally has some pretty spectacular screw-ups, and gets discriminated against for being female and human by Ba'al and the free Jaffa. |
| 279 | ** Anubis developed technology that is far more advanced than anyone else at the time, including a device that allows him to directly download information from the brains of captured enemies. When he uses this device, the victim is able to interface with the computer and access plot-critical systems in his spaceship. |
| 280 | * This seems to be a recurring theme for advanced alien races throughout the ''Franchise/StargateVerse''. Once they reach [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien a point in their technological development]] where they could be mistaken for gods, on some level they start to actually believe it, and as a consequence, they develop blind spots in their thought processes you could steer a Goa'uld Mothership through: |
| 281 | ** The Asgard have become so dependent on their technology that they are literally incapable of thinking outside the box. They were very nearly destroyed by the Replicators because they kept throwing more advanced weapons technology at an enemy that eats technology; they simply couldn't conceive of any other way to deal with the problem. It took the assistance of humans - less advanced technologically, but with more flexible thought processes - to help them gain an advantage. To their credit, the Asgard take the lesson to heart and go on to frequently ask the humans for help whenever a similar situation pops up. |
| 282 | ** The Ancients are ForScience to such a degree that they never consider the long-term consequences of their actions. They tend to create massive, ambitious scientific projects which fail just as often as they succeed. And because these projects are so huge and ambitious, dealing with things like genetic engineering, time travel, and quantum mechanics, the consequences of those failures are ''catastrophic''. If they're lucky, their inventions merely explode spectacularly. If they're not so lucky, they can ''rip a hole in the universe.'' Sometimes, projects that initially seem to be successful develop long-term side-effects that are even worse than the problems they were designed to solve. The Wraith, a hostile mutant race inadvertently created in a world-seeding project, are only the most glaring example. |
| 283 | * ''Franchise/StarTrek'': |
| 284 | ** In the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E07CivilDefense Civil Defense]]", Gul Dukat turns out to have created an extremely elaborate set of nasty surprises for anyone hijacking Terok Nor back during the occupation, yet manages to get himself caught up in them because he beams over to gloat at the crew for tripping them. When he tries to leave, it turns out that there was ''another'' set of security precautions he didn't know about set in place in case he tried to abandon his post after the first set was triggered. Garak takes great delight in mocking him over this. |
| 285 | ** ''[=DS9=]'' also gives us the 'Jack Pack' in "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS06E09StatisticalProbabilities Statistical Probabilities]]", four genetically enhanced misfits who are allowed to analyze top-secret Starfleet data regarding the Dominion War -- and determine that TheFederation should bloodlessly surrender to the Dominion, predicting that within a few generations, an Earth-based rebellion will overthrow the Dominion and create a new Federation. What they don't consider is that the Dominion strategists might run their own analyses and predict such an occurrence; Weyoun had, in fact, independently figured on a rebellion starting on Earth and made plans to sterilize the planet as a preemptive measure. |
| 286 | ** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' gives us Magnus and Erin Hansen, two exobiologists who go off to study the Borg. On the one hand, they're technologically brilliant enough to develop bio-dampeners, narrow-beam transporters, and other TechnoBabble goodies to let them go about their observations undetected; on the other hand, they not only carry out their research without any backup or support, they also decide to bring their little girl along for the ride. All it takes is one slip-up in their defenses and their expedition ends with them getting assimilated, both depriving little Annika of her childhood while condemning her to life as a Borg drone and giving the Borg access to the aforementioned technology. |
| 287 | * Shows up often on ''Series/{{Survivor}}''. |
| 288 | ** Russell Hantz, for example, was very savvy about the mechanics of the game, notably finding multiple Immunity Idols before receiving ''any'' clues to their location - but lost, three times, for being completely insufferable, not grasping that actually ''winning'' means you have to avoid getting on the other players' bad sides. (The third time he played, his tribe was aware of his previous two times and made a point to throw him out fast so they wouldn't have to deal with him.) |
| 289 | ** "Boston" Rob, on both this show and ''Series/TheAmazingRace'' is another great example. He definitely has a talent for this stuff, but... well, on ''Race'' he decided to screw with other players by making them think there was an earlier flight. While he gloated about sending them into a panicked search for a nonexistent flight, ''[[AccidentalTruth they found one]]''. |
| 290 | * Creator/JeremyClarkson on ''Series/TopGear'' is a BadassDriver version. He can do astonishing things with a car (or a hammer) but his devotion to TimTaylorTechnology means his failures are spectacular too. |
| 291 | ** Likewise, James May. He's extremely intelligent with an impressive understanding of engineering, physics, and other disciplines that aid him whenever a construction challenge is made. However, his too-cautious approach, a tendency towards technically complex creations, and at times a lack of common sense (not to mention [[NoSenseOfDirection a lack of direction]]) tend to have him either win decidedly or fail spectacularly. |
| 292 | * ''Series/TheWire'': |
| 293 | ** Jimmy [=McNulty=] had to drop out of college due to his girlfriend becoming pregnant. He became a detective who has no respect for his commanders and that'll do anything to get a case solved. |
| 294 | ** On the villanous side, the trope applies to Stringer Bell, best demonstrated after he runs the Barksdale organization after Avon's imprisonment. While his outside the box thinking and education made him valuable, he lacks both the {{Street Smart}}s to deal with rival gangs, and is also out of his depth when trying to work with far more higher level hustlers like Clayy Davis. |
| 295 | ** Season two's Nick Sobotka is better at the drug game than his cousin Ziggy, but still makes the mistake of stashing the drugs and money at his family's house, which the police then find when the home is raided as part of the investigation into the Stevadores' union. |
| 296 | [[/folder]] |
| 297 | |
| 298 | [[folder:Sports]] |
| 299 | * Pete Carroll, [[UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball former NFL coach]] of the [[UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeague Seattle Seahawks]]. He built a reputation of being a clever coach known to call unexpected plays that resulted in epic wins. His credibility was cemented when he led the Seahawks to their first UsefulNotes/SuperBowl win in franchise history in the 2013-2014 season, and even led them back the following year. With twenty seconds left at the New England Patriots' one-yard line, the Seahawks were down 28-24. Instead of making the logical choice of giving the ball to Marshawn [[RedBaron "Beast Mode"]] Lynch, Pete Carroll calls for quarterback Russell Wilson to throw the ball into the end zone. The ball gets intercepted, and the Patriots win their fourth Super Bowl during the Bill Belichick and Tom Brady era. So instead of being the coach that won back-to-back Super Bowls for his team (and that would've been pulled off against a coach who has done this before), Pete Carroll is now seen as the coach who made the [[NeverLiveItDown dumbest call in NFL history]]. |
| 300 | * In the 2021-22 season, the Dallas Cowboys were down 23-17 with 14 seconds to go and no timeouts at the San Francisco 49ers' 40-yard line. Knowing they had to stop the clock, Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott ran to get some extra yardage before spiking the ball. But Prescott went down way later than he should have, while the entire Cowboys team seemingly forgot that a play cannot start until the umpire in charge spots the ball. The Cowboys tried to get cute and spot the ball themselves, while the umpire not only had to respot the ball properly, but had to push through the Cowboys to do so. All of this led to Dallas running out of time and the game ending when Prescott spiked it. Even if Dallas had gotten the ball off in time, the referees could've flagged them for an illegal formation because they tried to set the ball themselves, which would've also ended the game. So a potentially clever play was ruined by Dallas trying to get cute instead of just doing the easy thing. |
| 301 | [[/folder]] |
| 302 | |
| 303 | [[folder:Theater]] |
| 304 | * The eponymous character in Marlowe's ''Theatre/DoctorFaustus'' is one of the best examples of this trope. His own brilliance in all things academic (and belief that he can do even more than he has) lead him to explore ThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow. The results are predictable. |
| 305 | * The ''Theatre/MrsHawking'' play series: Young Victoria, as can be seen in the flashbacks of part four, ''Gilded Cages''. |
| 306 | [[/folder]] |
| 307 | |
| 308 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 309 | * ''VideoGame/ANNOMutationem'': C is a MagnificentBastard at best, pulling many strings to finalize his master plan of obtaining an ArtifactOfDoom that'll let him access dimensions. However, he's too dependent on thinking his scheme will succeed without any consequences and that The Consortium wouldn't take any action against him, leading to his defeat. |
| 310 | %% * Vicki Kawaguchi of ''VideoGame/BackyardSports''. |
| 311 | * Gale of Waterdeep in ''VideoGame/BaldursGateIII'' is an extremely intelligent and prodigious wizard (although currently missing most of his abilities, as the Mindflayer tadpole inside every member of the player's party has sapped everyone down to Level 1 at the beginning of the game). In fact, he is ''so'' good at magic that [[spoiler: he was able to access the part of the goddess of magic's power that was stolen in Karsus's Folly, in an attempt to return it to her...but not good enough to actually handle it. It essentially parasitized him, becoming a FantasticNuke that lives in his chest and requires him to feed it magical artifacts, lest it explode.]] However, while Gale does still think pretty highly of what magic skill he can still use, he's also bitterly aware of what a stupid and selfish move he made. |
| 312 | * ''Franchise/{{Danganronpa}}'': Occasionally, the culprit of the chapter gets caught because they overcomplicate their perfect murder plans. |
| 313 | ** ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'': Celestia Ludenberg is the first to fall into this trap. She has an admittedly clever plan involving manipulating Hifumi to kill Kiyotaka and frame Hagakure, followed by killing Hifumi so he couldn't incriminate her and blaming ''that'' on Hagakure too, while positioning herself in the investigation to give herself an airtight alibi. Problem is, she seems to forget that she has to ''execute'' said plan, and once people start to notice her slipups, the complex plan makes her own role in the investigation look too artificial to be true. Additionally, making Hagakure the scapegoat wasn't quite a masterstroke either; he's TheDitz and can't effectively defend himself, sure, but that also gets him cleared once it becomes clear that something fishy is going on, since everyone knows he's too stupid to put together a clearly complex plan. |
| 314 | ** ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony'': |
| 315 | *** Kirumi is foiled ''because'' her cleanup job was too well done; nobody but the Ultimate Maid would be ''that'' thorough. |
| 316 | *** Kokichi is the game’s premiere [[TheChessmaster Chessmaster,]] manipulating everyone skillfully [[spoiler: for the sake of ruining the Killing Game. To that end, he spends the whole game causing all his fellow students to hate him and believe him to be pure evil. Once the students are pushed to their breaking point, he makes the final blow by proclaiming himself the Mastermind of the Killing Game, intending to finally break their spirits. It works…and then, the ''true'' Mastermind directly turns that to their advantage, something that Kokichi ''didn’t'' anticipate. They do so by having the students “remember” through a Flashback Light that they’re students of Hope’s Peak Academy, meant to overcome the Remnants of Despair. Newly reinvigorated by these memories, the students immediately assume Kokichi to be a Remnant, an assumption they dive headfirst into thanks to how much Kokichi has already tortured them all so far. Riding on that assumption, Maki tries to kill Kokichi to save Kaito, while also planning on forcing Kokichi to admit himself a Remnant of Despair. Kokichi, ''truthfully,'' says he doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but because he’s already told so many lies, Maki doesn’t believe him. The only reason Kokichi ''doesn’t'' die right then and there is because of Kaito [[HeroicSacrifice taking a poisoned arrow meant for him to stop Maki from becoming a Blackened.]] Going further, the only reason Kokichi manages to salvage anything from this debacle is because of Kaito choosing to help him to protect Maki and the others, by murdering Kokichi himself. Kokichi ultimately dies [[DyingAlone a completely lonely death,]] having burned all bridges with the others and with the knowledge that it’s all his own fault.]] |
| 317 | * [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII The Onion Knight]] in ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy''. He's quite clever, and knows it (and will remind [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI Terra]] about his intelligence at ''every turn''). You want a spectacular failure? How about causing [[spoiler:Terra to go out of control, let her get brainwashed, beat her up when you can't think of any other way out of it, and let her get kidnapped]]? His Destiny Odyssey is all bout him being knocked down a serious peg, and learning [[StrawVulcan to listen to his heart, not just his head]]. |
| 318 | * ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' has Mr. Robert Edwin House, President, CEO, and Sole Proprietor of New Vegas. He's a ProperlyParanoid genius owner of a MegaCorp who firmly believes DemocracyIsBad (not entirely untrue, considering the circumstances) and defended Las Vegas from nuclear attack to rebuild it to a point of glory, but is incredibly arrogant and refuses to believe that he could be wrong. He also thinks there's no question that he should be the sole [[InsistentTerminology autocrat]] of New Vegas. As a result, the very start of the game is a result of him getting blindsided by an underling, and he can and will get blindsided again by you if you decide to betray him. Nations can be predictable, but a single person with a really big stake in a matter even bigger than them, [[SpannerInTheWorks not so much]]. |
| 319 | * In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'', Alphinaud Leveilleur is a TeenGenius from the ProudScholarRace of Sharlayan and the grandson of famed hero Louisoix. With his family pedigree, political savviness, diplomatic skills, and the air of an InsufferableGenius, Aphinaud set out to Eorzea to help save the realm from the fallout of the Seventh Umbral Calamity. Having decisively helped in defeating the main host of the Garlean Empire and founded the Crystal Braves militia to aid the realm without political ties, Aphinaud was completely assured that he was going to solve all the world's problems. Though as smart as he is, he's still only a child and naïve in the ways of the world and his eagerness to solve every problem means he lacks a certain foresight. This comes to a head at the end of ''A Realm Reborn'', [[spoiler:as he was completely blind to the fact that the majority of the Crystal Braves had their loyalties bought by the Monetarists of Ul'dah until they literally had their blade to his throat. Teleji and Lolorito's schemes nearly destroy the Scions of the Seventh Dawn utterly, giving Aphinaud a harsh reality check on how little he actually knows about the world and forcing his CharacterDevelopment into a better, more humble person.]] |
| 320 | * ''VisualNovel/HatofulBoyfriend: Holiday Star'' has signs of this in the young aristocrat Shirogane Sakuya. He's very smart, always arrogant, blind to any flaws he might have... his more aware brother once considers getting into a room Sakuya's renovated and equipped with security, which Sakuya'd proudly boasted was impenetrable. It turns out Sakuya rigged the door extensively, but ''completely neglected the windows.'' This despite him being a flight-capable bird, ''in a school full of other flight-capable birds!'' |
| 321 | * ''VideoGame/LikeADragon'': The Dojima Family lieutenants are this in ''VideoGame/Yakuza0''. By all accounts, their manipulation of the Empty Lot crisis is a clever power play to take out Kazama and those loyal to him. They make one critical mistake: their mock trial of Kiryu. While Kiryu is initially prepared to accept blame for the murder to protect the Tojo Clan, their attempt to get him to confess to ''shooting'' the victim in the Empty Lot ends up cluing Kiryu into the fact that the victim died by someone else’s hands and that it was important that the body was found in the lot. By trying to tie up every loose end to rise in rank, the lieutenants end up building the very weapon that results in their downfall. |
| 322 | -->"But this is him I'm dealing with. It'll look like sneaking in is going to be hard, but knowing him he'll have overlooked something obvious..." |
| 323 | * ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' introduces Miranda Lawson: as she and her sister were DesignerBabies engineered by their megalomaniacal TrulySingleParent to be {{Born Winner}}s, InstantExpert TVGenius barely ''begins'' to describe her capabilities. Lawson drops in on Shepard's resurrection without any knowledge of the process and becomes the project's leader through sheer ability in less than a ''week''. Of course, being unfamiliar with failure, she never sees her mistakes coming: her statement that "any [[MindOverMatter Biotic]] could be a BarrierWarrior" turns out to be completely in error - only Jack (a human biotic experiment) or Samara (an Asari [[OlderIsBetter nearly a millennia old]]) can do it - she gets an ally killed if her advice is followed. She is actually cursed with being ''aware'' of this trope, resulting in an ''inferiority'' complex - [[ItsAllMyFault she attributes all her successes to her father's design, and only takes credit for her failures]]. |
| 324 | * In ''VideoGame/MegaManZXAdvent'', [[BigBad Master Albert]] has ''plenty'' of reasons to be completely assured of himself. He's one of the smartest and most powerful men in the world as one of the Sage Trinity, he refined and created [[ArtifactOfDoom Model W]], and he spent ''200 years'' planning out his mad dream to become [[UltimateLifeForm the ultimate Mega Man]] and RestartTheWorld with multiple fail-safes, be it creating so many Model Ws that it wouldn't matter if the heroes managed to destroy several of them, factoring in the inevitable betrayal of his own mistreated CoDragons so that it would ''benefit'' him, and creating a "spare" Ultimate Mega Man [[spoiler:(Grey)]] with a backup system containing his plan, knowledge, and a weaker moveset of Model W [[spoiler:(Model A)]] in the event of his actual death so they would continue with it. Everything goes AllAccordingToPlan with him completing {{Ouroboros}}, and he even gloats in Grey's story [[spoiler:that the fact he's standing before him for the FinalBattle is proof his plan was destined to succeed.]] ...But despite it all, he's blinded to the fact that those very fail-safes gone rogue could legitimately put an end to him, and he pays for it with his life to even his own shock as he lies defeated despite wielding the power of a "god". |
| 325 | * ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney'' |
| 326 | ** Manfred von Karma has a perfect trial record and manages to direct court, even pushing around the judge when he wants to. He anticipates everything that Phoenix can think of, including the idea that Phoenix might call a ''[[MakeTheDogTestify parrot]]'' to the witness stand, so he retrains the parrot in just one night to ''not'' say something that ''might'' be bad for von Karma's case. But, [[spoiler: his obsession with perfection led him to kill Gregory Edgeworth in a literally perfect crime: no one knew or could have found out that he did it. But his obsession with revenge demanded that he frame Miles Edgeworth for the death of his father, 15 years after the fact, which then ultimately culminated in von Karma getting caught for his otherwise perfect crime. And the kicker is that he would have gotten away with it if Maya hadn't managed to grab a single piece of evidence that von Karma was about to destroy.]] |
| 327 | ** [[spoiler:Damon Gant, Chief of Police]], blackmailer and murderer. If he wasn't so obsessed with controlling people, he might never have been caught, but he just ''had'' to [[spoiler:let Phoenix "discover" the "perfect" evidence of Ema's supposed murder of Neil Marshall in order to make Lana confess to everything, never thinking that Phoenix would be able to use that same evidence to prove that Gant actually did it all]]. |
| 328 | * Klug from ''VideoGame/PuyoPuyo'' is so confident in his intelligence, he never really considers he's not infallible. Being caught with holes in his logic never fails to catch him off-guard, despite how much he denies it. |
| 329 | ** In ''VideoGame/PuyoPuyoFever'', he spends a little too long gloating and looking down on Amitie and Raffina instead of ''actually'' getting the missing Flying Cane and claiming the reward. |
| 330 | ** Additionally, have we mentioned he's still carrying around a book that could, apparently, possess him at any moment? Which it does in ''VideoGame/PuyoPuyo7'' if we infer that from his Mega transformation? Let's take this small part from ''The Record of the Sealing'', an in-game book, just to show you what went wrong in ''[[VideoGame/PuyoPuyoFever2 Fever 2]]'': |
| 331 | --->You ''should not'' open this book near the 3 items [[IdiotBall I have written in the page before]]. The seal will be broken and there the [[OhCrap "evil soul" will...]] [[LostInTransmission (too smudged to read)]] |
| 332 | ** On top of that, his wish in ''[[VideoGame/PuyoPuyo15thAnniversary 15th Anniversary]]'' got denied by being specific with his wording: He wished for his success to be published in a 15-page spread. He'll get it... ''if'' he achieves success. |
| 333 | [[/folder]] |
| 334 | |
| 335 | [[folder:Web Comics]] |
| 336 | * Suspiria, InsufferableGenius mage prodigy from ''Webcomic/{{Flipside}}''. She really is a phenomenally powerful mage, but given her youth, she lacks both the experience and stamina of other mages of her rank, making her a much less formidable opponent than she should be. This has bitten her in the ass twice, in-story (the first with tragic consequences, the second costing her the other main characters' good will and respect and any sympathy the former granted her). |
| 337 | * ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'': |
| 338 | ** Vaarsuvius is the resident SquishyWizard and needs to be smart; also, [[CantArgueWithElves V's an elf,]] so there's the arrogance. Put together, V tends to go on long boasts about being able to easily solve a problem and thus loses the chance to actually do so. Later, after one failure too many, V takes to obsessively studying magic scrolls, only for a physically superior foe to best V by just putting up an AntiMagic field. This trait is even invoked; [[spoiler:while making a DealWithTheDevil, the demonic trio present an alternate, non-Evil plan to solve the current problem, at the cost of V tacitly admitting that they couldn't solve everything alone. After V goes through with the deal anyway and flies off, the demons note that V was too focused on the ego-bruising issue to realize that the "plan" was logistically impossible anyway, so any IDidWhatIHadToDo justifications will fall flat]]. Later on, we find that [[spoiler:their "Familicide" spell killed even people who merely had black dragon blood in them, or anyone related to them, such as their parents. [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0843.html People whose only crime, as V puts it, was "falling in love with a mysterious scarlet-tressed stranger"]]... such as the Draketooth clan, who the Order was trying to find and ally with.]] Cue HeroicBSOD. |
| 339 | ** Roy as well, at times; the below line is from when he crafted a very specific question that an Oracle [[MetaphoricallyTrue would not be able to weasel away from]], got an exact answer to that question, and therefore missed something ''very'' important that the Oracle honestly wanted Roy to know: |
| 340 | --->'''Oracle:''' Yes, you've certainly managed to cunningly outsmart yourself at the very least. [[note]]In this case, Roy asked which of the two Gates the villains would head to next, neglecting to mention the third gate which was under the guard of an entire city. He didn't know that the enemy had amassed an army big enough to take that city.[[/note]] |
| 341 | ** Also Nale. He may be smarter than Elan, but he's definitely not as smart as he thinks he is. For example, Nale had his [[SuccubiAndIncubi succubus]] FemmeFatale girlfriend disguise herself and send the party on a dangerous quest to recover star metal. He assumed that the star metal would have been recovered as "everyone" has known about its existence for a great deal of time. However, it ''hasn't'' been recovered, since it was an extraordinary valuable prize under the guard of an extremely powerful black dragon who just so happened to be on vacation at the time. After it is found, the only result is Roy, Nale's enemy, having the star metal used to forge an InfinityPlusOneSword. His intelligence has also led to a crippling case of ComplexityAddiction. Most of his plans are characterized by initial success, followed by everything falling apart when one of the far-too-many moving parts hits a snag. This ultimately leads to his death sometime later. [[spoiler:Having killed Minister Malack, right-hand man to General Tarquin, Nale's dad, [[EvilGloating he boasts]] [[ReminiscingAboutYourVictims about it]] [[WouldYouLikeToHearHowTheyDied straight to his father's face]] -- in an exceptionally [[EvilIsPetty mean-spirited]] way to boot. He then rejects Tarquin's subsequent offer to reconcile and states outright that he doesn't want Tarquin's nepotism or pity. Tarquin, finally having had enough of his son's crap, proceeds to kill him, explaining that his (Tarquin's) nepotism and pity were the only things keeping Nale alive.]] |
| 342 | * Many, many characters on ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}''. Rose is one of the worst, admittedly very intelligent and knowledgeable but constantly getting outplayed and biting off more than she can chew. Vriska is slightly more self-aware about her overly complicated plans and double-crosses, but still cheerfully forges ahead, admitting she'd be bored if she wasn't either succeeding awesomely or crashing and burning in Shakespearean fashion. |
| 343 | * ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'': Describes almost every Spark; they gain supernatural intelligence and insight, but also severe cases of megalomania. |
| 344 | ** Many untrained Sparks quickly build half-baked doomsday devices and are just as quickly lynched for witchcraft, while most of the trained ones love to charge into the front lines with their "unstoppable" death machines and are quickly obliterated in the chaos of war while their rampant creations add force multipliers to collateral damage. |
| 345 | ** The reason why Baron Wulfenbach runs Europa itself despite his damaged Spark powers is ''because'' his brain is damaged just enough to ground his megalomania, and even then he has occasional flights of fancy (his obsession with '''ending''' Agatha despite all evidence of her cooperation is his undoing). The aristocrats stay in power because they know how to pull the strings of Sparks/channel their megalomania into backstabbing their enemies, but they also suffer from sheerly stupid levels of hubris. Everyone else is hard-pressed to survive this mad world. |
| 346 | ** In a flash-forward side-story, Vanamonde von Mekkhan is the current Mechanicsburg seneschal and formerly ran a shadow government in Mechanicsburg. He ends up targeted by Hadrian Greenclaw's plan to kill those conspiring to assassinate Agatha. Since Vanamonde likes to portray himself as knowing ''everything'' that goes on within the town, Greenclaw assumed that Vanamonde knew about the plot and only didn't act because he was in on it. |
| 347 | * Galatea in ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'' is made of this. She's a genius, knows it, makes flipping well sure that everyone ''else'' knows it... and keeps concocting schemes that whirl utterly out of her control. |
| 348 | * Dabbler/Xuriel from ''Webcomic/GrrlPower''. Her conviction in her own brilliance can lead to her doing some pretty stupid things. For example, she tries to track down Sciona's hideout by casting a tracking spell on Cooter/Wyrmil and then using their location and a bunch of complex math to pinpoint where Sciona's lair is located before they arrive. She did this because she didn't think to simply cast the tracking spell on a rock and kick it through the portal generated by Cooter/Wyrmil, which Sydney offhandedly comments about later (assuming that it mustn't be possible, otherwise Dabbler would have tried it, right?). |
| 349 | [[/folder]] |
| 350 | |
| 351 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 352 | * On the ''WebVideo/DreamSMP'', Sam, as the GadgeteerGenius of the server running [[TheAlcatraz Pandora's Vault]], is more than deserving of his confidence inside the walls of the prison. Letting anything move through all the defenses while the prison's on lockdown from an attack would be foolish, and Dream had said before that [[CantKillYouStillNeedYou he can't afford to kill Tommy]], who Sam had become [[PapaWolf quite protective of]] after the latter's TraumaCongaLine. [[spoiler:[[BreakTheHaughty Unfortunately for Sam's ego]], Dream and Tommy spending a week together has frayed their nerves to the last and Dream was already at the end of his rope when Sam informed them that they might have to spend ''another'' week together. That combined with Dream having ''memorized'' the contents of his necromancy-based TomeOfEldritchLore finally causes Dream to snap and give a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown to Tommy, taking his third and last canon life.]] |
| 353 | * Sylvester, in ''Literature/{{Twig}}'', has this as his main protagonist limitation. While he is TheSocialExpert, he gets overwhelmed by rapid inputs of new information and spends so much time planning for how to react to it that he forgets to react to it. This often leads to him getting punched in the face. |
| 354 | * Many [[MadScientist devisors and gadgeteers]] in the ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse'' get this, but the biggest of all must be Jobe Wilkins, Prince of Karedonia. A literal child prodigy even before he started breaking the laws of reality -- and a first-class {{Jerkass}} -- he sets about making a nanotech formula to transform anyone into his ideal wife. And then he [[OhCrap injects]] [[EpicFail himself]] [[GenderBender with]] [[GoneHorriblyRight it.]] |
| 355 | [[/folder]] |
| 356 | |
| 357 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 358 | * ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': This is [[Characters/GravityFallsTheAuthor The Author/Stanford Pine's]] FatalFlaw summed up. He's very intelligent, but his insecurities, arrogance, and stubbornness cause a lot of problems, including [[spoiler:letting his twin brother be disowned over an accident, trusting someone who turned out to be the BigBad, pushing away his friend (which indirectly caused his insanity), disappearing for thirty years and later withholding critical information about Bill Cipher and The Rift from everyone except for Dipper. He even ruins the best (or at least less risky) chance to destroy Bill Cypher by taking the literally worst time to correct Stan's grammar (ItMakesSenseInContext)]]. He gets better in the end, after realizing the damage he unintentionally caused. |
| 359 | * During a flashback on ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'', Grampa Phil recounts how while serving in WWII, he was captured by a Nazi panzer brigade. The Nazi captain (Major!) decided that the bad meat Phil was carrying to a dumping ground was good because Phil warned the Nazis not to eat it in an absurdly long and one-sided IKnowYouKnowIKnow. As Phil's narration puts it; |
| 360 | -->'''Grampa Phil:''' That's when it hit me! I realized that if [[ObfuscatingStupidity I let him think he was smarter than me, I could make him do anything I wanted]]. |
| 361 | * [[Characters/InvaderZimZim The title character]] of ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'' is an EvilGenius armed with advanced technology, but his [[InsufferableGenius massive ego]] and faulty programming prevent him from taking over Earth. For that matter, Dib is a ChildProdigy who is much better at investigating paranormal phenomena than the so-called experts... and absolutely terrible at convincing anyone with the resources to do anything about it of what he's found. |
| 362 | * In ''WesternAnimation/IronManArmoredAdventures'', Teenage Tony Stark has many of the problems of his other incarnations (keeping secrets from his friends, arrogantly fiddling with technology he really shouldn't be, and some outright hypocrisy) with the problems of a super genius who's been home-schooled all his life and suffering from the loss of his only parent. For example, he creates a really good computer virus that devours data like a swarm of digital locusts but [[spoiler:unfortunately merges with a swarm of nano-machines to become the ''very'' hungry Technovore monster]]. When Tony screws up, he screws up phenomenally. |
| 363 | * ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'': |
| 364 | ** WesternAnimation/BugsBunny says "Sometimes I'm so smart it frightens me" after he tricks the giant in "Jack Wabbit and the Beanstalk" into [[TenPacesAndTurn a twenty-paces duel]] that makes the giant disappear into the horizon. Then the giant reappears on the other side. [[DidntThinkThisThrough The twenty paces were enough for him to circumnavigate all the way back.]] |
| 365 | ** Wile E. Coyote as well when he's pitted against Bugs. Part of his problem is he overestimates his own intelligence while gravely underestimating Bugs', allowing Bugs to get the upper hand before he ever realizes it, combined with his problem in the Road Runner cartoons of falling for his own traps. |
| 366 | --->'''Wile E. Coyote:''' ''[at the start of WesternAnimation/OperationRabbit]'' Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Wile E. Coyote, "genius".\ |
| 367 | '''Wile E. Coyote:''' ''[at the end of the same cartoon]'' Allow me to introduce myself. My name is "mud". \ |
| 368 | '''Bugs Bunny:''' ''[[BreakingTheFourthWall [to the audience]]]'' And remember, "mud" spelled backwards is "dum". |
| 369 | * In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic,'' [[Characters/FriendshipIsMagicTwilightSparkle Twilight Sparkle]] can fall into this trap. She has an innate desire to be perfect and is ObsessivelyOrganized. She was acknowledged by [[PhysicalGod Princess Celestia]] as having the most potential of any unicorn Celestia had ever met; even when outclassed, Twilight outsmarted Nightmare Moon and defeated Discord with ThePowerOfFriendship. Twilight has studied magic her whole life and is one of the most knowledgeable magic users in the world. However, Twilight is so terrified of failure that her perfectionism causes SanitySlippage whenever things start going pear-shaped, especially if she thinks it will cause Celestia to be disappointed with her. |
| 370 | ** In "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS2E3LessonZero Lesson Zero]]", Twilight's perfectionism caused every bit as much chaos as one of the {{Big Bad}}s. She basically became the episode's VillainProtagonist, reaching the point where she accidentally caused a city-wide riot so as not to potentially fail before realizing how far she'd gone. |
| 371 | ** Twilight also tripped herself up in "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS2E20ItsAboutTime It's About Time]]", when she used a time travel spell to go back in time and warn herself not to worry, thus causing herself to worry to begin with. |
| 372 | * Happens in one episode of ''WesternAnimation/PJMasks'' where [[ChildProdigy Romeo]] [[MadScientist Mecanos']] latest scheme involved him replacing the text in all books across town with pictures of himself; [[SmallNameBigEgo thinking that he would be instantly recognized by the residents of the town for his genius.]] Unfortunately, due to the fact that he is a "Night Time Villain", and the only people that he interacts with on a regular basis are other Night Time Villains and the PJ Masks, '''nobody''' in town even knows who Romeo is. [[DidntThinkThisThrough Not helping matters is that he failed to leave some sort of caption behind in the books to list his name]], and ironically-enough: [[NeverLearnedToRead he doesn't even know how to read in the first place.]] |
| 373 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': |
| 374 | ** In the first "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS2E3TreehouseOfHorror Treehouse of Horror]]"'s segment "Hungry Are the Damned", Kang and Kodos abduct them in their flying saucer to live in luxury. [[Characters/TheSimpsonsLisaSimpson Lisa Simpson]] snoops around the ship and finds a book titled "How to Cook Humans". Offended at the notion, the aliens blow some [[SpaceX space-dust]] off the book's cover revealing the title to be "How to Cook for Humans". To which Lisa points out that there is still dust on the book, with the title now "How to Cook Forty Humans". Kang (or Kodos) then demonstrates that there is yet still more dust on the book's cover, finally revealing the book's full title "How to Cook for Forty Humans" (the Simpsons are gluttons). |
| 375 | --->'''Marge:''' Now you know what we mean when we say you're too smart for your own good? |
| 376 | *** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS11E10LittleBigMom Little Big Mom]]", Lisa's attempt at causing an InducedHypochondria scare on the Simpson males so they will help her clean up instead ends with her having to do all of the chores by herself because they literally would rather die (or seek help from [[SitcomArchNemesis someone they loathe]], namely Ned Flanders) than do that. |
| 377 | %%* Digeri Dingo from ''WesternAnimation/TazMania''.%% |
| 378 | * In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBros'', Augustus St. Cloud tries to defeat Billy Quizboy through a round of trivia, with a question involving a number of robots from various pop culture franchises in a room. He attempts to out-nerd Billy by placing what looks like four robots, but is actually five ([[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Nomad]], H.E.L.P.E.R., a walking eye, and [[Series/BuckRogersInTheTwentyFifthCentury Twiki]], who has a fifth robot in Doctor Theopolis hanging around his neck). However, though St. Cloud was nerdy enough to recognize that Twiki and Theopolis were two different robots, he didn't realize that Nomad ''isn't'' a robot, being an interstellar probe. By trying to create a trick question, he got a question that cancelled itself out: there ''were'' four robots in the room. |
| 379 | * ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice2010'': Nobody could say Amanda Waller is an incompetent warden... but at the end of "Terrors", TheAlcatraz falls under the control of the Light, there was an almost successful GreatEscape, and she is replaced with Dr. Hugo Strange, one of their agents. |
| 380 | [[/folder]] |
| 381 | |
| 382 | [[folder:Real Life]] |
| 383 | * Humans, as a species, are prone to this. Humans are amazingly capable of adapting the environment, including their own behavioral programming, to suit them, which sometimes means overwriting a basic survival instinct. Food? Sex? Sleep? Avoiding violence or dangerous situations? Basic desire to continue existing? People almost routinely violate these basic needs, sometimes to achieve better results at a later date, sometimes out of a sense of moral duty or obligation, sometimes for fun, sometimes to the point of self-destruction. |
| 384 | * This trope is the reason why a startlingly huge proportion of people who get roped into scams, cults, and buy into other patently bogus things are actually very intelligent. They think of themselves as being too smart to possibly ever be tricked into handing over their money to a crook or be manipulated by someone who heads a ScamReligion, or even come to very invalid conclusions because they believe they're simply so smart that nobody could fool them, so therefore anything which registers in their mind as checking out has to be correct, even if there's good evidence that they're wrong. [[KansasCityShuffle More than a few cons are based on letting the victim think they've spotted the con and can find a loophole to profit from it when that supposed loophole is itself actually the bait for the real con.]] This is also the reason why scammers and the like [[HoistByHisOwnPetard can end up on the other end of this themselves]] because they assume that since they're so good at fooling others and know the tricks of the trade [[SuicidalOverconfidence they would never fall into the trap themselves]]. |
| 385 | ** This is also the reason legitimately intelligent people are surprisingly vulnerable to falling for conspiracy theories. A large part of what makes someone "intelligent", and what the IQ score primarily measures, is a person's ability and speed at drawing connections between things. The problem is, this ability doesn't necessarily come with wisdom or familiarity with all the subjects involved, meaning they often can't decipher which connections are real and which ones really are just coincidence, making them prone to jumping to conclusions. |
| 386 | ** This also factors into how famous fraudsters such as Elizabeth Holmes or Bernie Madoff got so far before being exposed. In hindsight, the problems with their businesses are actually quite obvious, but they had so much capital behind them that future investors assumed they ''must'' have some kind of genius behind them. This lead more people to invest in them without thinking about how their businesses actually worked, the possibility that they simply ''don't'' never crossing their minds until the whole operation comes crashing down. |
| 387 | * Assuming it happened as it was described, this trope is OlderThanFeudalism as it factors into the Battle of Megiddo in 1457 B.C.E. The battle pitted [[AncientEgypt New Kingdom Egypt]] under Thutmose III against [[TheResistance the Syrian/Canaanite rebels]] led by the king of the rebel city of Kadesh. When Thutmose's army advanced on Kadesh, they were faced with three options for reaching the city: to the north and south were the Yokneam and Taanach roads, while in the middle was the narrow Aruna Pass. The Aruna Pass road was significantly shorter, but required marching in a very thin and spread-out column, making any army moving through there vulnerable to attack from the front and the heights. The king of Kadesh assumed that Thutmose would reason that the Aruna Pass was too unsafe and would choose one of the two roads: therefore, he divided the rebel forces to block both roads, reasoning that one corps would slow the Egyptians while the other could come around and attack them from behind. Thutmose's generals also felt that the Aruna Pass was too dangerous and suggested he take his army on one of the roads. However, Thutmose instead came to reason that Kadesh had thought him too smart to take the pass, and so decided to use his game against him and took the pass route anyway despite the danger it put his army in. By the time the Syrian scouts returned to the king to tell him that the Egyptians had taken the one route he had thought they wouldn't, it was too late and the Egyptian army had scattered the rebel pickets and was rapidly assembling outside of Kadesh. The rebel forces thus had to rush back to the city to defend it, and between their exhaustion and lack of training the Egyptians won a commanding victory, with the King of Kadesh barely escaping back into his own city after the gates had shut by way of a rope up the outer wall. The siege ultimately ended several months later with the rebels' surrender, and Thutmose's legacy as Pharaoh was cemented. |
| 388 | * Galileo appears to have been one of these (see his entry under InstructionalDialogue), assuming Simplicio really was a caricature of the Pope. Even before he earned the attention of the Inquisition, he alienated the University of Pisa (which prompted his relocation from Venice to Florence -- he needed new patronage) and pushed matters so hard that even the powerful Medici family began to find him a liability. The man just didn't know when to keep his mouth shut. |
| 389 | * You might find this in education, when the instructor uses the Creator/{{Socrat|es}}ic Method -- feigning ignorance of the subject and asking questions of the students to draw out the correct answer. The intelligent or well-read students will often try to bring out information which, while interesting, either doesn't get to the heart of the matter or assumes that the central question has been answered when it hasn't. This typically leads the instructor to shut the student down -- or try to, as such students tend to be stubborn. This is particularly common in American law schools, where the Socratic method is standard. Free advice: There's a reason that Socrates' most famous statement is "I know that I know nothing." |
| 390 | * [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany The Nazis]]. Most of the senior politicians and generals were brilliant (when the IQ test had been performed on the Nuremberg defendants, most were high above average in the 120-138 range, while the most stupid and clearly insane of them, Julius Streicher, still scored a bit above average) and their military-industrial complex [[HerrDoktor had been staffed with tens of thousands of equally brilliant officers, engineers, and bureaucrats]] [[StupidJetpackHitler who used the most advanced technology of their time]]. They managed to convince themselves so surely of their own superiority that they willingly walked into an unwinnable war. Not to mention that the Allied intelligence services were running circles around them, having subverted essentially every German agent while their own agents were placed in very high positions in the German war effort. Much like the scam/con example above, they'd so thoroughly convinced themselves that they couldn't be fooled that they never even bothered to look. |
| 391 | ** This mainly had to do with their early success and their racist ideology. Their early successes in the war made them extremely cocky which also gave credence to the idea they were the perfect race. After defeating most of Europe they thought the USSR would be easy because it was full of Slavs. Never mind the fact that the USSR had more troops, massive area to cover, the weather being against them, and having no plan for what to do if the invasion stalled. It was Germans vs Slavs so to them, it was an easy win. [[ForegoneConclusion Suffice to say they were wrong.]] |
| 392 | * Cocky medical residents should be reminded of "July Syndrome," a catch-all term for the sudden spike in iatrogenic (caused by medical treatment or examination) problems in teaching hospitals around the United States. July, because that's when after 4 years of medical school and accolades, all the brand-new residents start their residencies at once. |
| 393 | ** There's a reason that many high-end private jets (and prior to that, high-end private aircraft in general going back to the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_Bonanza "Fork-Tailed Doctor Killer"]]) are referred to as "Doctor Killers". A lot of these guys buy a plane that they can't handle, assume it will be simple (because they're very smart, and they bought the model with all the bells and whistles), and end up crashing it and killing themselves. |
| 394 | * Obsessive fandoms in general are often guilty of overthinking matters when it comes to various theories and FanWank-y explanations (e.g. A 50-page treatise, complete with diagrams and charts, on how both [[Franchise/StarWars Luke Skywalker]] and Film/{{TRON}} are, in fact, secretly clones of one another in a SharedUniverse because both are played by Creator/MarkHamill), and simultaneously underthinking them by not checking to see if the premise was sound to begin with (i.e. they were confusing Hamill with Creator/BruceBoxleitner ''the whole time''). |
| 395 | * There is a quote by Gamal Abdul Nasser: |
| 396 | -->"The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make the rest of us wonder at the possibility that we might be missing something." |
| 397 | ** Mind you, America being [[{{Eagleland}} what it is,]] it might be this trope, RightHandVersusLeftHand (due to the nation's size), or even IgnorantOfTheirOwnIgnorance... |
| 398 | * In 1970s {{UsefulNotes/Quebec}}, the Parti Quebecois passed Bill 101, a law that restricted the use of English and promoted French as the primary language in Quebec. The Parti Quebecois' intent was to use Bill 101 as part of their efforts to separate Quebec from Canada, but Bill 101 addressed many Franco-Quebecois's concerns about language issues. As a result, support for separatism actually decreased. In the end, Quebec's language laws actually ''strengthened'' Canadian unity, something even the original architect of Bill 101 lamented. |
| 399 | ** Which was made worse for them by the fact that the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_qu%C3%A9b%C3%A9cois_de_la_langue_fran%C3%A7aise#Perception Office québécois de la langue française]], formed by the bill for the purpose of enforcing it, has gained a reputation for being overzealous, doing things like citing an Italian restaurant for using the word "pasta" on their menu, issuing a complaint against a store for having a small "recommended on Tripadvisor" sticker on their window, and forcing a hospital in a region with a large English-speaking population to remove all bilingual signage. It got to the point that the provincial government had to change the laws from not allowing any language other than French to simply requiring French be first and larger than other languages, but it took both a Supreme Court case ruling against them (which they got out of due to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_33_of_the_Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and_Freedoms a law that basically allows provinces to ignore such rulings]]), followed by the United Nations Human Rights Committee ruling against them. |
| 400 | * Lawrence H. Summers — a former Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton, a top economic adviser in President Obama’s first term and one of the youngest people to earn tenure on the Harvard faculty - reminisced about his undergraduate days at M.I.T. in the 1970s, when the debate over the idea of technological unemployment pitted “smart people,” exemplified by the great economist Robert Solow, and “stupid people,” “exemplified by a bunch of sociologists.” It was stupid to think technological progress would reduce employment. If technology increased productivity — allowing companies and their workers to make more stuff in less time — people would have more money to spend on more things that would have to be made, creating jobs for other people. But at some point, Mr. Summers experienced an epiphany. “It sort of occurred to me,” he said. “Suppose the stupid people were right. What would it look like?” And what it looked like fits pretty well with what the world looks like today. For large categories of workers, wages are inadequate. Many are withdrawing from the labor force altogether. In the 1960s, one in 20 men between 25 and 54 were not working. Today it’s three in 20. The population is generally healthier than it was in the 1960s; work is almost uniformly less demanding. Still, more workers are on disability. Essentially, he thought companies would use technology in conjunction with their workers to make ridiculous amounts of money, and dismissed the likelihood that they might use technology to replace their workers and make the same money while paying fewer people. (You can see the complete article [[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/08/business/economy/threatened-by-machines-a-once-stupid-concern-gains-respect.html?ref=nyt-es&mcid=nyt-es&subid=article here)]]. |
| 401 | --->''"Maybe the stupid people weren’t quite as stupid as I thought they were"''. |
| 402 | * Siberian Huskies are one of the smartest dog breeds in existence, but this intelligence has earned them a reputation of being idiots and drama queens. They notice things that other breeds don't, but they're not smart enough to discern that the things they notice don't mean as much as they think. For example, most dogs will cross from a carpet to a linoleum floor without any issue. But a Husky may step off the carpet, notice the linoleum floor is ''different'', and freak out. |
| 403 | * This is how people often lose in competitive games. Many competitive games require the ability to [[KungFuClairvoyance anticipate your opponent's moves in advance]]. Often the best players of many kinds of games are the ones most proficient at making these reads and predictions. But ironically, this same capacity for considering all of an opponent's options and countering the moves they'll likely make is ''exactly'' what can lead [[HoistByHisOwnPetard to their own defeat]]. Often skilled players will make decisions to account for the most advanced or sneaky thing their opponent will do since they expect their opponents to not be silly enough to make moves [[SimpleSolutionWontWork that are too obvious or straightforward for a good player to be surprised by]]. But more often than not, these more complicated moves end up backfiring cause it turns out the opponent [[TooDumbToFool was too ignorant to realize]] how supposedly obvious their play was. Or worse, the opponent '''knew''' how obvious the move was after all and does it anyway precisely ''because'' they [[IKnowYouKnowIKnow knew the move was so obvious that a good player wouldn't expect someone to go through with it]]. This type of mind game is often why simpler, less complicated tactics [[OccamsRazor end up being the way to go after all]]. |
| 404 | [[/folder]] |
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/context.php
FollowingContext Main / TooCleverByHalf
Go To
- Show Spoilers
- Night Vision
- Sticky Header
- Wide Load
