Brilliant But Lazy / Literature

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• Accomplishments of the Duke's Daughter: Iris was not an accomplished student, which helped fuel Berne's ego. However, this was mostly due to a lack of effort or interest, which is in large part due to her infatuation with Edward. When she's kicked out of school at the start of the story she quickly makes a name for herself as acting fief lord of her family's duchy, instituting numerous reforms and overall helping it prosper.
• In The Adventures of Pinocchio, Pinocchio hates school, studying, or work of any kind for that matter, but when he's forced to actually put in the effort, he excels at it. When the Fairy convinces him to go to school, he ends up becoming the top of his class, and the envy of his classmates.
• Alderamin on the Sky: Main character Ikta Solork is a genius military tactician with a deep interest in sciences who would rather relax in a hammock or chase skirts than fight. At the beginning of the series he only tested for the Military Academy because his best friend Yatori Igsem was going due to family obligations, easily passed, and hoped to be set up with a quiet archives job. Instead, after he and his friends were shipwrecked in the enemy Kioka Republic with the runaway princess of the Katvjarna Empire and led them safely back across the border, they all ended up being knighted by the Emperor, requiring Ikta to train as a field commander instead.
• Alien in a Small Town: This is the defining characteristic of Indira's ex-boyfriend Aleksei Callahan (well, besides being self-centered). Genetically engineered to be an Übermensch, he got so sick of his mother's "colossal hubristic expectations" of him that he finally became kind of a useless layabout.
• In Animal Farm, Benjamin is a deconstruction of this. He's smart enough to realize that things probably won't be as rosy as the pigs say they'll be, he sees right through their various deceptions, and he's one of the few animals other than the pigs who can read. But Benjamin can't be bothered to spell it out for the other animals. In the end, this means Boxer obliviously works himself to near-death from exhaustion, and then meekly goes to his death because he trusts Napoleon's claim that he is being sent to a vet instead, and though Benjamin (who figures out the truth) tells the other animals, it’s too late to save him. All because Benjamin couldn't be bothered to try to make his fellow animals realize what a tyrant Napoleon had become. Even after this, when Napoleon tricks the others into thinking Boxer really was sent to a vet, Benjamin doesn’t try to oppose him.
• Marco from Animorphs is frequently noted as having below-average grades and not really trying in school, which becomes hilarious when the books gradually reveal him to be by far the most cunning and clever member of the team.
• In Arc of a Scythe Scythe Rand proves that her impulsive, playful personality is hiding a truly devious mind that comes to light the few times she actually applies her self. She acts as a Hyper-Competent Sidekick to Scythe Goddard who's content to kick back and kill people for him, but when he's killed, she organizes an intricate scheme to revive him and give him power over the Scythedom that nearly works, before falling right back into her old ways once he takes over.
• Elliana Nautilus from Aria of the Sea has incredible dancing skill but doesn't put in the effort, leaving her the oldest student in her class as her teachers don't think she's ready to advance. She only puts in the effort when Cerinthe Gale choreographs a beautiful dance in tribute to their goddess, demanding that Cerinthe finish the choreography and let her dance it, which is the first time protagonist Cerinthe as well as the readers realise just how passionate Elliana truly is about ballet.
• In Artemis, Jazz is certainly this. She is smart enough to figure out the orbital mechanics of how spacecraft make it to the Moon in a few minutes, but only works as a porter and smuggler.
• Ascendance of a Bookworm: When he put his mind to it, Sylvester can pull quite impressive political moves that match his high position within the setting's status-based society. His subordinates and relatives also wish he would use the brain than comes up with said political moves to do the boring, but necessary, parts of his job instead of foisting them off on others. The fact that he's introduced pulling a King Incognito for a two-digit number of days in a row says a lot about how invested he is in the aspects of his job that don't involve political maneuvering.
• Early books in The Baby-Sitters Club established Claudia as this; she's said to have a high IQ and is shown to be able to get good grades on occasion, but she's disorganized and frequently forgets to do her homework or doesn't pay attention in class. This is largely forgotten as the series progresses.
• In The Belgariad, Belgarath is one of the oldest and most powerful beings in the world but spends most of his time loafing around or reading. To be fair, though, he's also painfully aware of that even the slightest use of his powers could have grave consequences for the entire world.
• In The Black Company power or magic ability is determined by how hard you work at it. A very few individuals are born with an innate magical ability, with varying degrees of talent, but anyone can do anything as long as they put in the time and effort. The Company's wizards are all mediocre in ability, as they prefer getting blasted and beating on each other. Their potential is shown whenever they work hard at something, like with One-Eye's spear which can kill a god.
• The eponymous Boy of the Three Year Nap, disguises himself as a god/demon and convinces his wealthy neighbor that if his daughter doesn't marry Nap Boy she'll fall into a coma. It turns out Nap Boy's mom is smarter — she turns his trick on him and tells him that if he doesn't work hard he'll die.
• Larcener from Calamity is an Epic whose power is being able to permanently steal abilities from other Epics. The only reason why he doesn't rule the world is that he isn't interested in going to the trouble of getting rid of all the other Epics.
• In the original book of Cheaper by the Dozen, one of the early signs of Frank Gilbreth's interest in efficiency is when he works as a bricklayer in his teen years: Normally, as the wall got higher, a bricklayer would have to stop periodically to collect the mortar that falls to the floor, but Gilbreth devised his own system to minimize and catch any wasted mortar. His boss at the time told him: "You ain't smart. You're just too damn lazy to squat."
• Ciaphas Cain, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM, though he wouldn't admit it to himself. He can talk a riot into not happening, spar with a Tyranid monster, Ork Warboss or Chaos Space Marine, rally the survivors of a ravaged planet to strike back... but only in the event that things go very wrong so that he actually has to do something.
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Greg Heffley. Despite consistently failing assignments and tests in school, he has shown considerable intelligence in economics, relationships, and computer sciences. It is simply because of his adverse social skills that he is seen the way he is academically.
• Dinoverse:
  • At the start of his part Zane fits this trope. He used to be more of an achiever and found that his Disappeared Dad would only contact him in any way if his grades were failing — even letters with nothing in them but "I'm disappointed in you" were treasured. Additionally, Zane was fat and targeted by bullies. He felt that people would know how to treat him if he was Fat Comic Relief but not if he was smart, so he became the Fat Best Friend of a popular student, coming up with stunts in exchange for protection. Once he complains internally that it's hard maintaining a C+ average since he has to know the material to know what to get wrong. After Character Development, he decides fuck it, I'm going to be smart, and realized that he was bigger than the bullies, not just fatter.
  • Mr. London believes one of his Hypsilophodon friends is this — he fakes injuries and pretends to be shortsighted in order to get out of having to work or keep watch. The teacher affectionately names him "Al".
• Victor Tugelbend in the Discworld novel Moving Pictures. He's described in the text as the laziest person on the Disc — but his laziness takes a rather odd form. ("He put more effort into avoiding work than most people put into hard labour"). In order to avoid ever having to do any work, he chooses to remain a student wizard (which, in the days at Unseen University when Klingon Promotion was still popular, is also safer than becoming a full wizard). That means never passing his final exams (passmark 88%) and also never scoring below 80% on an exam (so he still qualifies for the generous inheritance he's received from his uncle). He, therefore, applies his intelligence to consistently scoring 84%, every single time. At one point, his teachers catch on and attempt to give him a one question test: "What is your name?" He also takes the view that the physical tasks of life are much harder if you're physically limited, so he works out quite a bit. He ends up becoming the Victor Mature of the Discworld.
• Fred Cassidy in Roger Zelazny's Doorways in the Sand. His uncle's will provides him a healthy amount of money as long as he's in school. Fred has consequently been an undergraduate for thirteen years.
• In Eden Green, the main character is intelligent enough to contemplate controlled experiments with her best friend's new immortal needle symbiote, but works an office job and avoids the topic of college.
• Ellen and Otis: Otis Spofford has a tendency to get in trouble during class because he finishes his schoolwork ahead of time.
• Robert in The Emigrants is seen as this by some: he is the The Smart Guy out of the main cast, but he also wants to avoid work. And even his search for gold is an attempt at becoming rich quickly, so he won't have to work again. The truth is though that being a Book Worm and not a sturdy farmer like his brother Karl Oskar, Robert is merely trying to avoid physical work. If he only had been allowed to continue his schooling and get an education, he would have excelled within that environment. But alas, his family is poor struggling farmers. So nobody seems to even see this as an option for him.
• In Eric, or Little by Little, the titular protagonist spends his first few years at Roslyn School at or near the top of his form. But as he gets older and more rebellious, he stops caring about schoolwork, and his marks get worse. Some of his masters tell him that he's wasting his potential, but he doesn't listen until he and Wildney are almost expelled for drunkenness, which scares him into straightening out.
• Ryan Oberoi, one of the three titular characters in Chetan Bhagat's book Five Point Someone, could fall under this trope. However, when he finds something he is really interested in, he is capable of working really hard at it.
• In Freaky Friday, Annabel's English teacher explains to Annabel/Mrs. Andrews that part of their hostile relationship is because of her frustration with her very bright student's unwillingness to apply herself. This is a huge eye-opener for Annabel, who doesn't consider herself particularly bright.
• The Fantasy Noir series Garrett, P.I. features the Dead Man, who is usually capable of solving whatever problem or mystery Garrett brings him but usually has to be bribed or forced into it because he's incredibly lazy. (Think Nero Wolfe's telepathic corpse.) He kind of has an excuse — what with being, y'know, dead — but Garrett learns during the series that the Dead Man was about as energetic when he was alive.
• Hamish Macbeth would prefer to walk his dog, go fishing, court his love interest or just sit around drinking coffee than do any actual policing. It's only when a murder takes place that he has to get himself in gear and solve the crime. It's also been noted that while Hamish is smart enough to be a great investigator, he doesn't actively seek promotion and is perfectly happy to stay in his small police station in Lochdubh.
• Harry Potter:
  • Minerva McGonagall, and a few others described students James Potter and Sirius Black this way.
  • Also Fred and George Weasley. They were both brilliant wizards, creating all manner of magical tricks and novelties, but failed at many exams because they didn't care about them. They don't mind though, openly acknowledging in Order of the Phoenix that "our talents lie outside the realm of academic achievement." Days later they drop out in spectacular fashion and go on to run the most successful shop in Diagon Alley.
  • While there's nothing concrete, Ron may be a case of this as well. He states early on that, due to his high performing older brothers, he doesn't get praise, even when he does well. It would also explain his proficiency in chess.
  • Severus Snape is certainly an extremely skilled Potions brewer, but when it comes to teaching, his style basically consists of "the instructions are on the board, get to work". Rather than give help to students that need it like Neville, he just goes around insulting and bullying them. It never crosses his mind that his students would succeed more if he bothered to actually teach them.
  • According to Word of God, Gilderoy Lockhart truly did have the potential to be a gifted wizard, but he was too focused on his vanity and deceit that the only spells he thought to master were memory charms. Because of this, he was easily disarmed by a twelve-year-old Harry.
• Kyon in Haruhi Suzumiya is shown to be quite intelligent and observant and frequently makes references to advanced physics, ancient mythology, history and psychology. He is also a highly apathetic and cynical guy who barely does above average in school. Or so he says; the occasional line from other characters implies he is of much higher academic status than he claims in his narration. Also, Koizumi teaches him how to play Go during one of their usual club meetings where they do absolutely nothing. After a few games, Kyon is easily beating Koizumi, though it's implied that Koizumi just really sucks at board games so Kyon beating him might not be a sign of vast intellect.
• Robert A. Heinlein's Have Space Suit – Will Travel: Kip's dad. Though it's not so much "lazy" as it is "fed up with having to work and get ulcers and fill out taxes". He keeps his money in a basket and just sends a wad of it to the IRS each year. Brilliant doesn't seem to begin to cover it. Kip's dad is frequently pestered by Government officials begging him to come work for them. He refuses, plainly explains that he currently lives within his means, no longer has ulcers, and offers the man more coffee. He rubs elbows with one of, if not THE most important scientific mind on the planet, according to alien invaders. And he drills a work ethic into his less-than-motivated teenaged son by... Plainly asking him what his plans are for life, and pointing out that the table for cube-roots in the back of a math text didn't descend from on high via an angel courier.
• Hercule Poirot only took cases if they interested him or if they were literally forced on him, and he avoided doing legwork whenever possible. The crime scene investigation is for quite inferior detectives who couldn't fathom to use the little grey cells, after all.
  • In The Big Four, Poirot mentions his brilliant but lazy brother Achille, who is essentially a parody of Mycroft Holmes. Assuming Poirot didn't make him up.
• Marvin the paranoid android in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy frequently brags about having a "brain the size of a planet", but he's so cynical and depressed he usually can't be bothered to use his smarts to help people.
• Beowulf Schaeffer in Larry Niven's Known Space stories gets into adventures because he is, as the author puts it, "too lazy to stay out of trouble, but bright enough to think his way out once he was in".
• Yang Wen-li from Legend of the Galactic Heroes. Like most main characters of this trope, after a Heroic BSoD event, he stops being lazy which always means Oh, Crap! for his enemies.
• Ryner Lute of The Legend of the Legendary Heroes is the most skilled mage in his kingdom, is talented at combat with his lightning-fast reflexes, and backs it all up with a special ability called Alpha Stigma. But he'd rather nap all the time, and, even when he fights, puts in as little effort as he can get away with (though lazy Ryner can still compete with other mages at their best). He chooses to be passive because when he overuses his powers, he risks being possessed by an Omnicidal Maniac Superpowered Evil Side.
• The Marquis of London in the Lord Darcy novel Too Many Magicians, by Randall Garrett. Given that he's a straight-up homage to Nero Wolfe (his secretary's name is "Bontriomphe"), it's only logical.
• Alexandria De Cambrey of Magic for Liars manages to occasionally fail tests despite her apparent access to spells beyond what her teachers believe to be technically possible.
• Elliot in The Magicians isn't hugely lazy, but being one of the few students for whom magic comes easily, he passes over his chance to be tops in the class.
• The Murderbot Diaries: Murderbot achieves a great deal, and is very capable in many ways, but complains the entire time how much it would prefer to be watching bad television soaps.
• Nero Wolfe: Nero, a portly gourmand and brilliant detective who solves cases from his home, between enjoying gourmet dishes prepared by his personal chef and breeding rare orchids in his private hothouse. He's quite capable of turning down all cases for months at a time if the bank account is healthy. He hates going outside. He sends his handsome assistant Archie Goodwin out to do all his legwork. One of Archie's many responsibilities is to goad Nero into working when needed. (Some people conjecture that he's the grandson of either Sherlock Holmes or Mycroft Holmes.)
• Old Kingdom: Mogget ends up this way due to being bound with a miniature Ranna. (A bell with soporific effects on the spirit.) He spends as much time as possible asleep in Sameth's pack, only rousing to eat an offered (or not so offered) fish. That said, he's one of the cleverest of the four. Probably for good reason.
• Orphans of the Sky: Joe-Jim is one of the smartest people on the ship, and in terms of pure intellect and reasoning power is quite likely the smartest person around, period. However, he is by inclination perfectly content with looking after his personal comfort and welfare, and rarely cares to truly exert himself outside of using idle reading or debate to fill up his free time. As a result, most of the intellectual revolution ends up being spearheaded by Hugh, who, while less quick-witted or imaginative, is profoundly driven and more stubborn about tackling the problems that he ends up facing.
  Joe-Jim's minds were brilliantly penetrating when he cared to exert himself; he remained a superficial dilettante because he rarely cared.
• Peter Pays Tribute: The protagonist has perfected the art of the low B average, getting just good enough grades so that his Dad leaves him alone.
• P. G. Wodehouse's Psmith got terrible grades at Eton and spends the entirety of Psmith in the City pulling some serious psychology in the workplace just so he won't have to do any actual work.
• Rebuild World: Celene, a tailor and minor character who serves as a commentator on Akira and Sheryl’s changes in status along with her sister Kashua, is this, entering every scene by being woken up, and only caring when she can prove herself as a True Craftsman due to all the money Akira spends as an Uncle Pennybags.
• Older Than Print: The classic Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms uses this trope to describe Pang Tong initially. He was first assigned to help govern a city but did very little else than get drunk and laze about. When admonished for not doing his job, Pang Tong (still drunk) issued several edicts in a span of mere minutes and every problem in the city was taken care of. Subverted in that Pang Tong acted like this intentionally, offended that someone of his talent and brilliance was reduced to such a lowly position, to prove his worth.
• Francis Abernathy in Donna Tartt's The Secret History. He comes from family money so he has the means to be Idle Rich. It's to the extent that he marries a blindingly unintelligent woman whom he hates and is not in the least attracted to rather than face disinheritance by his grandfather and have to get a job.
  Bunny: You ask me, he's as smart as Henry. Society boy, tons of money. He's had it too easy, though. He's lazy. Likes to play. Won't do a thing after school but drink like a fish and go to parties.
• Mycroft Holmes. Sherlock Holmes acknowledges that his older brother is more brilliant than he; his problem is that he's the single laziest man in England. His world consists of his lodgings, his job at the Foreign Office, and his club (the Diogenes Club, the club for unclubbable men, which happens to be across the street from his lodgings). Sherlock explains that Mycroft refuses to do anything practical, instead preferring to act as a giant computer to crunch all the information he receives. On the other hand, Mycroft's work determines national policy, and Sherlock states that in some ways Mycroft is the British government. Sherlock, on the other hand, only uses his towering genius to solve private mysteries that interest him. He skips cases that bore him and sometimes prefers to just stay at home. It's lampshaded and somewhat deconstructed in Mycroft's first appearance — Sherlock notes that if catching criminals only involved being an armchair detective, Mycroft would by far surpass him. However, while Mycroft can put the facts together from the paper, you need someone who can a) examine the evidence onsite and b) actually catch the criminal.
• Slayers: Luna Inverse is The Chosen One, an all-powerful Cipheed Knight blessed with the power of the Elder God of the Slayers universe and the only person in the entire series who can put the fear of God into her psychotic little sister Lina. She could singlehandedly lay waste to the entire Makozu race and still have time for afternoon tea — if she felt like it. Instead, she's content working as a part-time waitress and forcing Lina to do all the monster-slaying work through sheer force of fear.
• Small World (Tabitha King novel):
  • Roger, who has discovered a functional key to alternate dimensions, can't think of any better way to make money from it except for what amounts to scalping black-market miniatures.
  • Possibly Lucy, although hers is less laziness and more complacency. She doesn't want to design commercial toys or hire a full workshop to produce on a large scale — although she easily could — because she's content with her small house and her small business. Meanwhile, the rest of the world counts her amongst the top miniaturists alive and her signature on an item elevates its value tenfold.
• August Derleth's Sherlock Holmes Captain Ersatz Solar Pons had a brilliant but lazy brother Bancroft, a Captain Ersatz of Mycroft Holmes.
• A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • Ser Jaime Lannister finds ruling and scheming extremely boring and generally prefers to solve his problems with violence. When that is not an option, however, he can be quite clever. That he is awesomely qualified for violence can't hurt either.
  • King Robert Baratheon is a similar case; he hates ruling but when he has a war to deal with he is a highly effective warrior and general, who could also make enemies into friends during and after the war. Also a case of Crippling Overspecialization; war and fighting are the only things that he can really do well (outside of the bedchamber) and without either to motivate him, he degenerates.
• Gary Karkofsky in The Supervillainy Saga by C.T. Phipps is a prime example of such. Despite the fact he spends most of his time goofing off, cracking wise, or rewatching Star Wars, he is an incredibly effective supervillain. Indeed, Merciless: The Supervillain without MercyTM benefits from most people thinking he's just a Harmless Villain.
• Jessica Wakefield of Sweet Valley High. In one of the earlier books, it's stated that she gets good grades in most of her classes, despite her primary concern being boys, parties, and shopping. Later books indicate that she's a poor student, but it seems to be everyone's opinion that she'd be an excellent one if she simply applied herself, which in fact does happen several times in the series. Additionally, she is shown to have a natural aptitude and skill for certain things. And in the best example of this, she aces the SATs, considerably outscoring Elizabeth, despite barely studying. Unfortunately, rather than congratulating her, everyone thinks she cheated.
• Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina: Labria is the worst spy in Mos Eisley, but when he learns that his favorite band is in town, he pulls off an epic Batman Gambit to arrange for them to get stuck playing at his favorite cantina, while doing so in a way that makes Jabba the Hutt forgive a major blunder he recently made. As Wuher says, if Labria put this sort of thinking to anything else, he'd be a very wealthy being.
• Tantei Team KZ Jiken Note: Wakatake might be a genius striker with supreme reflexes, but he hates practicing. Deconstructed as this is why his performance is infamously unstable.
• David Fields from Things I Should Have Known spends every class browsing the internet and only participating to disagree with other people. He gets such good grades that the teachers let him do whatever he wanted.
• The Man Who Was Too Lazy to Fail, from Heinlein's Time Enough for Love, is a warped example. He went to Annapolis because it was easier than farming, and memorized mathematical tables because it was the easiest way of handling the hazing from the upperclassmen — and that's just for starters. This character was largely based on Delos Wait, a fellow classman of Heinlein's at the Naval Academy.
  "Progress doesn't come from early risers — progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things."
• The Hare from The Tortoise and The Hare. Despite being greatly athletic, the hare loses the race due to his laziness.
• Third Time Lucky: And Other Stories of the Most Powerful Wizard in the World: Magdelene is the most powerful wizard in the world. She's not interested in doing much with her power though, living a comfortable life in her house by the sea, enjoying music, reading books and having sex with handsome men sometimes.
• Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs:
  • This is one of Leon’s defining character traits; he’s always looking to put work on others as much as possible before being dragged kicking and screaming into the action. He even gives a speech about this to his kingdom’s aristocrats, that they really messed up if they need a teenager to save their butts.
  • King Roland eventually shows Hidden Depths of being this instead of just a Lazy Bum who makes his wife do all the work. What specifically brings out Roland’s brilliance is his Sitcom Arch-Nemesis anger at Leon.
• Universal Monsters: Captain Bob. He's got an IQ of 130, but can barely keep his grades up because he thinks his classes are boring and is irritated that the high school won't let him take any advanced classes in his freshman year.
• Ivan Vorpatril in Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga. In Ivan's case, it is a case of self-preservation. He may be third in line for the Barrayaran imperium, and as such has been the target of multiple plots. Not to mention that the people ahead of him are close relatives and some of his best friends. He really doesn't want anyone thinking that he is future emperor material. On the other hand, his uncle Aral (Count Vorkosigan) points out that this would have made him a very cunning five-year-old indeed. Ivan's laziness also inspires him to do a very good job with the work he does do, to cut down on the need to do it again.
• Waldo, from the Robert A. Heinlein story of the same name. It wasn't entirely by choice in his case.
• Matt from The Wheel of Time magically ends up being a brilliant strategist, but spends most of the books trying to avoid being an actual military leader, instead spending his time flirting and gambling. It doesn't really work out for him most of the time, though, since he is drawn into battle and troublesome situations all the time, forcing him to follow his destiny even though he would prefer to stay as far away from any danger as possible.

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