Subverted in the autobiography About Face by David Hackworth. During the Vietnam War a Military Maverick who's notoriously ill-disciplined but an excellent soldier is given a promotion. Hackworth rings the man up to inform him of the good news, but his response is say You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me! and resign his commission. If the US Army is screwed up enough to promote someone with his record, he doesn't want any further part of it.
Narration: Chef Vlad might be loony, but it would be a sad day if he ever left the ship. Or was dragged off kicking and screaming in a straitjacket, as Baz said was more likely.
Discussed in Andrew Vachss's Burke book Another Life. Burke (and maybe Vachss himself) disdain these sorts, being of the opinion that commanders giving leeway to high-performing hotshots can all too easily extend to forgiving some pretty heinous trespasses. See the quotes page.
Baccano!'s Claire Stanfield, an assassin who is very good at tracking people down, extracting information, and killing things. The catch is that he has a huge list of quirks (constant name-changing, a complete disregard for contract confidentiality, a habit of going wayoverboard, a firmly sustained belief that he is God — the list goes on) that can make him more than a little annoying for his employers to deal with. Still, he is really, really good at what he does.
Bigend Books: Everyone working at Blue Ant. It helps that the CEO is an eternally curious Eccentric Millionaire with a penchant for military secrets.
Rick Riordan's The Camp Half-Blood Series: This is a pretty common among Demigods. Percy is perhaps the most obvious example. He's a bit ditzy even by Demigod standards (they basically all have ADHD to some degree) and has a tendency to not really think things through. That being said he is one of the most powerful Demigods at either camp, and can actually be surprisingly clever. In The Son of Neptune, Hazel explicitly does a mental double-take when he pieces together a history of Camp Jupiter based on information scattered through Frank's dinner conversation despite his Laser-Guided Amnesia.
Felix Hoenikker in Cat's Cradle was considered an uncontrollable man by his colleagues. He ground the Manhattan Project to a halt because he decided to stop working on it and instead discover if turtles' spines buckle or contract when they draw their heads into their shells. However, he is an absolute genius, responsible (fictionally) for the creation of the atom bomb, and later Ice-9, a substance that causes the end of the world.
Pessimist-242 makesMarvin the Androidlook cheerful, and rarely says anything that's not an insult of some sort to whatever is around him. He has been known to spend his free time literally just lying on the floor wallowing, for lack of interest in anything else. When actually given a mission to fulfill, however, he has an extraordinary track record, and there is plentiful evidence that he's extremely intelligent.
Frankenstein-818 may spend half his time kinning Baron Frankenstein and creating such inventions as a "lightning-powered toaster" or "automatic shark generator", but he's remarkably capable when his talent is channeled towards something useful, once building three working dimensional portals in a single day.
Porfiry Petrovich from Crime and Punishment; while he may act like a buffoon, could run intellectual rings around most of the people on this page. One of the book's longest chapters is dedicated solely to showing us how he nearly manages to get Raskolnikov to confess merely by talking him (and the reader) to death; it's easily one of the most amusing and gripping parts of the story.
In Cryptonomicon, Lawrence Waterhouse is a man who does something socially ept "once every two or three years" and enjoys three things in the world: cryptology, playing the pipe organ, and sex. (The third clears his mind, enabling the first, and the second can sometimes be used as a substitute for the third.) Very few people understand much of what he says, and he's never very sure of what's going on around him, but since it's World War II, the whole cryptology thing works out well for him.
Also, his grandson, Randy Waterhouse, who has a strange obsession with Capt. Crunch cereal, and tends to use computer, DnD or Tolkien analogies to explain things. He's also one of, if not the, best network engineers in the world. And later on, he finds his grandfather's cryptology notes...
The Shaftoes have a tendency toward violence and a gift at ass-kicking. The extraordinary crazy that runs in the family is not something you want to bring up, because you really want them on your side. Unless you outrank them, in which case, feel free to keep telling Bobby Shaftoe to stop mentioning the giant lizard. (It won't do any good.) The same goes for his son and granddaughter,
And in Quicksilver, we meet the Esphahnians, who apparently have no middle setting between declaring a blood feud against someone and adopting them into the family, and are so insane that even Jack Shaftoe (who, at this point, is being literally driven insane by syphilis) comments on it. They're also scarily competent business owners.
Stephenson's version of William of Orange is smart enough to recognize that the best people have the weirdest quirks, so he only employs Bunny Ears Lawyers, and he distrusts competent people who have no quirks.
Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash gives us Hiro Protagonist, who lives in a storage container and is neurotically insecure when it comes to women, but is at the same time, one of the best hackers in the world and is globally accepted as the world's best swordsman to boot. Although that one is mostly because he wrote the sword-fighting code for the Metaverse. In reality, he seems to be competent, but the book doesn't make an enormous deal about how good he is with an actual sword.
A whole lot of warship Minds in The Culture, especially ones tied to Special Circumstances, are a trifle eccentric — for example, Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints loves to screw with random mortals, while Me, I'm Counting runs around the galaxy collecting very detailed scans of all kinds of fascinating things. At the same time, however, each one has enough firepower to scrape most of the crust off a planet.
Discworld: Everyone, or at least the main recurring characters, falls into this trope.
The Librarian of Unseen University is an orangutan. He didn't start out that way, he got accidentally transformed and no one bother to change him back, as he seems to prefer it. He's also still very good at his job (in fact, he's probably better at it than he was beforenote He can shelve books with his feet and fearlessly read books that Man (note the specification) was not meant to know) and of course an adult male orangutan is considerably stronger than an adult male human, and the Librarian is not necessarily averse to expressing his displeasure physically. It also helps that bananas are cheaper than an actual salary. These days, if someone told the wizards that there was an orangutan in the library, they would probably ask the Librarian if he'd seen it.
The Bursar of the university is literally insane. It's downplayed in that he has to take dried frog pills in order to perform his job, but they don't actually make him sane, they just make him hallucinate that he's sane, that he's a bursar, and, incidentally, that he can fly.note When a wizard hallucinates that he can fly, it's a bit... different from anyone else hallucinating they can fly. He's not allowed above the second floor. Archchancellor's orders.
Continuing with the Unseen University staff, there's Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully. By most people's standards he's no stranger than other wizards, but to other wizards he's completely mad. He not only enjoys but actively encourages healthy exercise, puts a homemade and highly volatile condiment on everything he eats, and is about as subtle as a sledgehammer. He handles most matters through Obfuscating Stupidity, on the assumption that if someone is still trying to explain something to him after several minutes, it must be important. At the same time, he brought stability to UU, ending the tradition of Klingon Promotion by being unkillable himself.
City Watch Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson, a 6'6" dwarf (biologically he is technically human thanks to an odd birth defect commonly known as "both his birth parents are human", although both he and other Dwarves have no problem overlooking this fact) who is also (probably) the long lost heir to Ankh-Morpork's throne. Having been raised by dwarves, he has no concept of irony and has become either a Genius Ditz or a master of Obfuscating Stupidity. He also has the stones to arrest anything, up to and including a dragon and all the soldiers in two opposing armies who are about to fight a battle, for "Behavior likely to cause a breach of the peace."
This is common amongst reformed vampires: channel the obsession away from blood and onto a subject which is less likely to get you staked. The one with a coffee obsession was particularly memorable. There's also Otto Chriek, who is a damn good photographer and a pretty nice guy, helpful to anyone who needs it... and a vampire who obsesses over photography like most vampires obsess over blood. He's regularly harmed or reduced to ashes (he gets better) by the flash, much to bystanders' consternation.
Jeremy Clockson, a clockmaker with no sense of fun who is, in fact, too sane.
Leonard of Quirm, a parody of Leonardo da Vinci. Despite a habit of stopping in mid-sentence to play with folded-paper gliders and doodle schematics for working instruments of destruction in the margins, Lord Vetinari still employs him, and finds uses for all his ideas. Though "employs" is, perhaps, not quite the right word: the Patrician keeps him imprisoned in a tower and well supplied with parchment. Leonard genuinely appreciates both these things, since it keeps him from being distracted from his thoughts and sketches.
Also, after talking to Nobby in Jingo Leonard is even happier with Lord Vetinari's 'imprisonment': not only does he get all the materials he wants, but he is also well away from everyone who'd seek to turn his genuinely well-conceived ideas (such as guns, nuclear explosives, etc.) into weapons.
Marco Soto — one of the best field agents the Monks of Time have - refuses to cut his hair, as he claims that it is a separate entity that simply happens to live on his head. Supposedly, they gave him a field posting really quickly after that.
The Monks of Time also have to put up with Lu-Tze, AKA Sweeper, who follows a philosophy based on common Morporkian idioms as filtered through the dressmaker Mrs Cosmopilite, ignores orders whenever he sees fit, and is as rude to the actual monks as he pleases. He is also one of the most effective temporal manipulators they have, with a keen grasp of subtle manipulations like providing a horseshoe at the right moment, and has mastered a time-based martial art none of the actual monks can manage.
Maladict, a vampiric Borogravian soldier, is a coffee addict who suffers deprivation hallucinations others can see about wars that didn't even take place on the Disc, carries a rapier he can't use properly to deter attackers because the only other option is to tear them apart with his fists, and is actually a woman.
Rincewind the "Wizzard" is the Disc's biggest coward, actively craves boredom, and is as competent at magic as a fish is at mountaineering, but when Ridcully is faced with the task of sending him on a very dangerous mission, he doesn't hesitate, under the logic that he'd end up going along anyways and, no matter what the danger, Rincewind always survives. He spends the entire adventure running away screaming, but he makes it back, even from another dimension, the beginning of time, outer space, or hell itself. He is also The Lady's (as in, luck) favorite person, so even when things get really bad they tend to work out in his favor.
Vetinari is a very subtle example, but he definitely has a quirky side. Like showing some Mundane Object Amazement with a spoon in Unseen Academicals (and with an inkwell in The Truth—and that while the city's head religious official was waiting to see him!) Or preferring to read music because it always sounds better in his head than it does played with real instruments. He also seems to know really random facts that couldn't possibly help him run the city, like the stats of one of the football teams or that "pysdxes" are ancient Ephebian needle holders.
Dive (2003): Iggy Ocasek is a brilliant tinkerer and marine biologist, but he has no social skills and is introduced using a blowtorch and a mollusk shell to pop popcorn.
In Bram Stoker's Dracula, Omnidisciplinary Scientist and vampire hunting expert Abraham Van Helsing has quite the disturbing sense of humor, but his friends still admire him.
Waldo Butters is a skilled an capable medical examiner (as well as a decent Back-Alley Doctor in a pinch). He's introduced mid-autopsy, blasting Polka music and wearing bunny slippers, and even has a one-man-band Polka suit.
Harry himself from many view points:
From the point of view of the muggles, Harry is a weirdo with a sense of humour as dodgy as his sense of personal hygiene, and a tendency to mouth off at authority figures without provocation. The cops at Special Investigations put up with his proclamations that he's a wizard because he gets resultsnote since he really is a wizard.
Also, the Wardens recruit Harry despite his severe authority issues (especially regarding the White Council) and history of dark magic because he's one of the only really powerful wizards left and is famous for rebelling against the Council, so if someone so anti-council is on their side, they must be doing the right thing.
We also get to see Harry's bunny-ears from Murphy's perspective. Harry is a guy who walks into a scene with an outfit that looks like it belongs on the set ofEl Dorado, asks a few questions that make absolutely no sense, occasionally does something strange like take a strand of hair from a brush, vanishes for two days and somehow makes an envelope with the exact information necessary to crack the case wide open and an invoice for twenty billable hours appear on her desk next Monday morning. Knowing he's a bona fide wizard doesn't help, especially since he loves to play up the mysterious and all-knowing aspects of wizardry.
Bob the Skull is an extremely powerful spirit of intellect that has worked for wizards for centuries and has such a wide span of magical knowledge that the White Council considers him a serious threat and they'd be seriously pissed if they knew Harry has him. And he reallylikes porn and trashy airport romance novels.
Kurt Kusenberg's Eine Schulstunde is about a school seemingly full of Bunny Ears Lawyers. The teacher brought a living bear to class, the principal would teach William Shakespeare only while disguised as The Bard, and one of the students would speak every A as an I for one month because he lost a bet.
Elizabeth Moon's Familias Regnant universe is chock full of these... including one very competent politician with a passion for things Victorian; he is, naturally, "Bunny" to his friends.
Robots and some staff of Institute in Feliks, Net & Nika. Special mention should go to robot Roznakin, who does his job even too well and is constantly arguing with his own printer (printer is another instance of Roznakin. It's complicated), as well as rocket scientists who are a real crazy bunch, but invented rocket-shooting rocket and shot it in the sky. It succeeded.
Dan Onanian, of the comic neo-noir Get Blank is an interesting subversion of the trope. On the surface, he plays it straight to the letter: skilled criminal lawyer who is obsessed with his belief in the Reptilians, a lizardlike alien race that wears human masks. Yet in the Blankverse, the Reptilians are not only real, Our Hero has worked for them. Dan has managed to successfully identify several people as Reptilians, but has no actual proof in the matter.
Mithril appears to employ a number of these. There's Kurz Weber, a skilled AS pilot, top-grade sniper, and a complete Lovable Sex Maniac... and Teletha Testarossa, a sixteen-year-old Cute Clumsy Girl with a bit of inferiority complex who's also a Teen Genius, the captain and designer of the Tuatha de Danaan, and the others' commanding officer. Sousuke, meanwhile, is a consummate professional when he's in a military setting... and a hopeless Fish out of Water with No Social Skills in any non-military situation.
Sousuke himself takes on elements of the trope even within the military setting. He uses part of Mithril's military maneuvering ground to house his giant pet tiger (whom he referred to as a cat in his report to Tessa, making her largely regret approving it), and along with Kurz ends up completely trashing multi-million dollar Arm Slaves on a pirate treasure hunt. These and other shenanigans — including the incident from Ending Day By Day, in which Sousuke outright demands that Mithril's high command reinstate him as Kaname's bodyguard — are tolerated because Sousuke is the only person who can operate the Arbalest and its Lambda Driver, which are the only weapons Mithril has that can equal Amalgam's technology.
A double-decker example in Gosick: the detective Grevil acts pretentious and sports a ridiculous hairdo, but the police overlook these things because he solves difficult cases so reliably. Except... he's secretly completely incompetent. To solve his cases (even the simple ones), he relies on a real example: Victorique, an arrogant, manipulative, rolling-around-on-the-floor-to-express-boredom girl who is, unlike Grevil, genuinely very good at deciphering mysteries.
Albus Dumbledore. Aside from the frequent plans that usually involved him appearing to do absolutely nothing (getting the school temporarily closed down and Hagrid sent to Azkaban in Chamber of Secrets; getting removed from power in Order of the Phoenix; getting killed in Half-Blood Prince...), there's this gem from Philosopher's Stone, when at the opening ceremony, he says he'd "like to say a few words":
Dumbledore: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Harry: Is he — a bit mad? Percy: Mad? He's a genius! Best wizard in the world! But he is a bit mad, yes.
Just look at his clothing. Every time it's described, it is more bizarre and clashing.
At least half of Hogwarts' other staff is equally strange. The History teacher is a ghost who doesn't recognize his own students and may not even be aware that he's dead (the only evidence to the contrary being the one time he entered the classroom through the blackboard) and the Divination teacher doesn't really count as a teacher because most of the time she's talking out of her behind, when she's not getting drunk on cooking sherry (also frequently forseeing her student's deaths). Hagrid's love of terrifying creatures makes him quite suited for the Care of Magical Creatures class, and he does seem to be fairly good at tending to them for the most part. Severus Snape is wildly condescending, overly dramatic, openly disparages students he doesn't like, and is also one of, if not the, greatest Potions master in the world and is a damn good teacher when he wants to be. Although most of them (with the possible exception of Hagrid) don't seem to be particularly odd by the standards of wizard society which is far more accepting of various eccentricities.
Where it regards the Divination teacher, Sybill Trelawney, she certainly does appear to be talking out of her ass, and will frequently use her connection to the "Inner Eye" to excuse any of her eccentric behavior, or to make herself more impressive to easily-impressed students. That said, Dumbeldore keeps her around because she is a legitimate seer (albeit one who makes prophecies she never remembers). And that may not be the full extent of her abilities, either, as she ended up making several predictions throughout the series which ended up coming to pass, usually centered around key events in the series like the death of Albus Dumbeldore.
Before the series proper James Potter was seen as one of these, from what we see he is described as a delinquent, an adrenaline junkie, and a snarker not adverse to outright bullying some of his peers.............But he was also one of the most brilliant students who consistently got top scores and managed to do spells most of his peers could not replicate.
Julia Larwood of the Hilary Tamar books is an Oxford-educated tax barrister with a successful Lincoln's Inn practice. She also routinely gets lost everywhere, even in London, tends to fall over a lot, gravely misunderstands social situations, and forgets that she has to pay her own taxes. At one point she's accused of murder, and one of the arguments mounted in her defense is that even if she wanted to kill someone, anyone who's seen her try to slice a peach knows she couldn't possibly muster the coordination to stab a man to death.
Haruhi Suzumiya: The title character is considered by most of her fellow students to be a Cloud Cuckoo Lander, but since she's also good at almost everything, they're willing to overlook that during events like sports and culture festivals when they need her help to do well. Bonus points for actually wearing bunny ears.
In High School D×D, Rias describes the four lords of hell as this in their private lives and later on, the other leaders of the different factions are this and it shows. Serafall loves to cosplay as a Magical Girl, Sirzechs and Azazel made an entire Sentai TV series based on Issei and Rias after Issei achieves Balance Breaker by pushing Rias' nipples, and Odin visits love motels just to name a few.
Ford's semi-cousin, Zaphod Beeblebrox, with whom he shared three of the same mothers, is also this to unknown extents. He is the inventor of the Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster and, due to an accident with a contraceptive and a time machine, his direct ancestors from his father are also his direct descendants. He also employs Obfuscating Stupidity, mixed with unknown quantities of actual stupidity, to get away with being Brilliant, but Lazy. He also came up with a plan that would allow him to confront the ruler of the universe, a plan that involved lobotomizing himself so that he wouldn't remember the plan and thus couldn't sabotage it for himself... Unfortunately, the lobotomized Zaphod hates being a pawn of his past self, so he actively tries to sabotage his own plans. Which is, of course, easier said than done since he anticipated this and lobotomized himself in order to prevent himself from succeeding with doing exactly that. Zaphod's just zat kinda guy, you know?
Life, the Universe and Everything has His High Judgmental Supremacy, Judiciary Pag, L.I.V.R. (the Learned, Impartial, and Very Relaxed). "He was clearly a bounder and a cad. He seemed to think because he was the possessor of the finest legal mind ever discovered that gave him the right to behave exactly as he liked, and unfortunately he appeared to be right." Judging by his personal name, Zipo Bibrok 5*10^8, being a Bunny-Ears Lawyer may well be genetic in this universe.... (See aforementioned mishap by Zaphod Beeblebrox.)
Tabane Shinonono of Infinite Stratos created the titular Powered Armor at the age of 15, but she acts like a hyperactive idiot in public, and literally wears bunny ears and dresses up as Alice from Alice in Wonderland. Her first public appearance in the anime has her visiting the resort her sister is at by riding a carrot-shaped Drop Pod down to the resort from who knows how high. Not to mention her unique methods of performance testing the IS her little sister is using for the first time: first simple acceleration, then testing out the included swords, then summoning a huge SAM battery from hammerspace which promptly fires a RobotechingMacross Missile Massacre of real missiles with live warheads at Houki.
"Next, try intercepting these! [cue missile barrage] There you go!"
Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Prototype and master to the above, Yang Wen-Li, a social misfit with an alcohol problem who almost flunked out of military academy where he only entered because he had no money to pay for his education to become a historian. He sits on his flagship's instrument panel during important fights (when he is not simply sleeping) and claims to everyone that he hates working. No one, no one ever wonders how he became admiral by 30; his skills make it obvious to any character (ally or enemy) that he deserves to be at the top of the chain of command.
Gimli in The Lord of the Rings. It's often overlooked that he actually came to Rivendell on a mission: to conduct diplomacy with the elves and humans. He not only succeeds in getting elven and human support against Sauron's forces temporarily, but actually permanently thaws the frosty relationship between elves and dwarves (which goes back millennia). Also he makes friends with Éomer, and those who have read the Appendices will know that he ends up founding a city under Helm's Deep. Of course, famously he makes friends with Legolas: but people often forget that Legolas is the Prince of Mirkwood. Gimli's friendship with him ensures that Thranduil turns up to fight when the orcs threaten Erebor and Laketown. But not just Thranduil either, Rivendell and Lothlorien also send forces. His wisecracking looks silly on the surface, but it is in fact very carefully calculated. It helps of course that he's exceptionally good with that axe, and brave to the point of stupidity. Gimli is a very canny diplomat, who gets the job done while making it look like he's not doing anything at all.
Franz of the H.I.V.E. Series is assumed by everyone to be a total moron because he can't speak English very well. He's also completely lacking in the common sense department and improves his speaking skills only marginally over the course of four years. However, he knows more than his professors about economics and manipulation of people, doubling as well as a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass.
In the Honor Harrington series of books, many of the emperors of the Andermani Empire count. Gustav Anderman I was a brilliant strategist and mercenary who believed he was the reincarnation of Frederick the Great and insisted on language, dress code and court protocol to match. Gustav VI was quietly deposed after trying to make his prized rose bush chancellor, and was succeeded by Gustav VII, one of his sisters who had herself legally declared a man to stave off a nasty dynastic war between their male cousins. However, the family has a history of being fair and just monarchs who have slowly expanded their empire by rescuing planets in trouble.
Shannon Foraker. Few other officers could forget to use "proper revolutionary titles" as much as she does and expect not to get shot, but her reputation as a "tac witch" and plucky spirit keeps her own Political Officers looking the other way.
How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis: Colin, the protagonist of the series, is a sullen young man who hates everyone, trusts no one, and spends literally every waking moment trying to get his Ragtag Bunch of Misfits to either hate him so much they abandon him or become competent enough that they can survive without him (which they can't, despite his having absolutely no useful skills at first.) He sasses off to kings, an Evil Chancellor, and a demon who is literally going to end the world not because he's brave, but because he can't help himself. Despite this, he comes out on top in every confrontation to the point where said band literally will barely leave his side despite how much they hate him.
The Hunger Games: Despite her ditziness, Effie Trinket is extremely good at organising Katniss and getting her the sponsors she needs. Hamitch Abernathy who is able to mentor Katniss and Peeta enough to enable them to win the games despite being an extreme alcoholic is also an excellent example.
In The Hunt for Red October, the Dallas's sonarman Jones is described as eccentric even by navy standards, but is nevertheless very competent. To the point where, in Debt of Honor, years after retiring from the Navy, Jones was able to use the SOSUS network to track the entire Japanese Navy, which was deployed in the Phillipines, from Honolulu, with enough detail that his former CO (Now an admiral) was able to use the data to plot out operations.
I Am Not a Serial Killer has the Sociopathic Hero, John, particularly when collaborating with an FBI strike team in book four. He's a skinny, snarky teenager who often holes up alone and insomniatic, reacts to corpses like a little girl would to ponies, and generally acts like he doesn't have a care in the world. He's also a dedicated investigator and a prodigy in criminal psych and strategy.
The main character of the young reader mystery series Incognito Mosquito. He's portrayed as a bumbling doofus with a penchant for bad jokes, but he does always solve the crime by noticing something nobody else did.
Bridget Daly from The Infernal Devices sings annoyingly depressing songs everytime she cleans, which always get on everyone's nerves... and as mentioned above, she's more competent in battle than most Shadowhunters. Will actually comments that she makes more difference in battle than both Lightwood siblings.
In The Irregular at Magic High School, the student council president Mayumi is a gadfly who deliberately irritates her subordinates and occasionally slacks off on paperwork. However, she is so good at the diplomatic side of things — especially persuading otherwise fractious students to work together for the school's betterment- that everyone respects her authority anyway.
Journey to Chaos: Ponix Enaz is Dnnac Ledo's ambassador-to-everywhere and also a strange, puzzle game-obsessed, ditz. Despite these quirks, he's helped maintain peace between elves and mortal races for centuries on a planet where both sides are so scared of each other that they'd jump on any chance to go to war again. In the words of his daughter, "Yes, he is (a flake) but he's a good ambassador".
Magister Elodin from The Kingkiller Chronicle. That man makes Dumbledore look sane by comparison, openly despises most of his students and sends them off when they try to ask him anything, and when he decides to gives actual lessons to very few students he never takes part to them for more than fifteen minutes, if he shows up at all. He keeps his job because, before going completely mad, he was a real genius (first the youngest magister and then the youngest chancellor ever appointed), and because Kvothe himself admits that there actually is a method in his lessons, also, since the subject he teaches often causes to Go Mad from the Revelation he acts as a walking reminder of that. Oh, there's also the fact they are actually incapable of confining him in any way (and they tried), so they just let him wander around and do whatever he likes.
It should also be noted that the books are told from the point of view of an Unreliable Narrator who's rather arrogant: Fridge Brilliance sets in once one realizes that every single one of his classes that we see actually contains useful messages- you just have to be willing and able to look beneath the surface and understand what he's actually teaching.
In the early Dr. Seuss narrative The King's Stilts, the eponymous king is up every morning at five, multitasks handling important documents of state with bathing and breakfast, spends the actual working day personally supervising and inspecting every aspect of the kingdom's implausible flood protection systemnote which involves using specially trained cats to chase away birds that would otherwise eat the tree roots which are being substituted for actual levees. Seriously., and at five in the evening every day spends a good hour or so racing around the kingdom on bright red stilts. This is accepted with detached amusement by everyone except his Treacherous Advisor.
Isaac Asimov's "Lenny": Dr Susan Calvin is the only robopsychologist at United States Robots and Mechanical Men Corporation, and Director Lanning would love to fire her, due to perceived transgressions such as her decision to investigate and experiment on a robot that is so broken it cannot perform any work. However, he acknowledges that she is too valuable to fire, as she has personally saved the company millions of dollars.
Lanning nodded. He had lost count of the many times it would have done his soul good to have fired Susan Calvin. He had also lost count of the number of millions of dollars she had at one time or another saved the company. She was a truly indispensable woman and would remain one until she died-or until they could lick the problem of finding men and women of her own high caliber who were interested in robotics research.
Shadowthrone, the feared emperor, chessmaster usurper of High House Shadow, all around Manipulative Bastard... is deathly afraid of his mother (and all females), apparently. He has some shades of Cloud Cuckoo Lander as well, what with his undeniable cunning paired with questionable sanity and odd choices of personnel.
Iskaral Pust's very first scene has him interrupting his own 'epic' monologue by falling off of his mule, then proceed to almost fail to climb the rope to his own frontdoor. Then it turns out that he's a High Priest of Shadow, serving one of the more magnificent schemers of the pantheon. By the end of Deadhouse Gates it is revealed that he successfully managed to cheat all shapeshifters on the continent out of their chance at godhood by creating a fake Path of Hands to steer them around his monastery, wich hides the gate they were looking for, making him exceedingly good at his job.
Martin Beck: The defense lawyer for Rebecca Lund in the final book is a sometimes long-winded man who keeps forgetting his client’s name, even though he does care a lot about doing the right thing for her. However, he is also skilled at researching the background for a case and making strong arguments to discredit incorrect prosecution theories.
The Millennium Trilogy — Lisbeth Salander is a nearly Ax-CrazyDark Action Girl with very few morals or social skills and a deep hatred of authority. She also happens to be an incredible hacker and investigator who can find out just about anything given enough time. A very dark example.
In A New Kind of War by Anthony Price, the head of the counterintelligence unit, Colonel Augustus Colbourne, is first seen conducting a debrief while having a bath, has a bee in his bonnet about Ancient Rome and is reputed to believe himself to be the reincarnation of the emperor Augustus. He is also a highly respected barrister and not in the least stupid.
Nyarko herself may qualify, considering she's extremely goofy, lazy, and capricious, and yet never loses her job with the Space Police because she's apparently a well-respected and successful officer. It's also mentioned that she consistently got high marks in school and ended up graduating from a prestigious university at the top of her class. It could be that meeting Mahiro and becoming utterly devoted to bedding and wedding him (in that order) has taken all her focus; it might also be that she's literally on vacationnote After defeating Nodens, she takes 300 years' worth of paid leave.
Minori Koganuma of Outbreak Company is initially shown to be a serious member of the JSDF, but she fits this trope, thanks in no small part to her being a huge Yaoi Fangirl.
The Princess Bride: Miracle Max has clearly got a few screws loose (and honestly, who ever heard of a miracle worker named "Max"?) but he did get the job done.
Derek Hawthorne combines this and Cowboy Cop in the Red Room series. He acts exactly the opposite of how a Red Room agent is supposed to act and, somehow, manages to survive countless horrible situations which should otherwise kill him.
The Avatar from The Religion War found the technical genius behind the Global Information Corporation by seeking out the angriest, loudest, rudest employee. His reasoning was simply that "anyone with lesser value would have been fired for that sort of behavior."
Ripper (2014): Amanda's mother, Indiana Jackson, is constantly losing her phone, her keys, and appears oblivious to things going around her. But when it comes to her work as a holistic healer and her side gig as a seller of aromatherapy products, she takes those very seriously.
[T]hough McCoy's work area looked like utter chaos, his magazine never missed a deadline, and Bigelow had to assume there was some kind of system involved even if it escaped his powers of deduction.
Everyone in A Series of Unfortunate Events falls into one of two categories: weird and hypercompetent, or weird and incompetent. The Baudelaires just have the misfortune to mostly be in the care of people who fall under the second category.
Violin-playing, drug-addicted, outwardly disorganized, self-aggrandizing master detective Sherlock Holmes makes this Older Than Radio. Holmes regularly conducts very malodorous chemical experiments, decorates his wall with bullet holes, and keeps tobacco in a slipper and correspondence pinned to the mantle with a knife. He's also a Master of Disguise, so much so that even Watson doesn't always know it's him.
His older brother Mycroft would seem to suggest that it's In the Blood. Mycroft lives down the street from his government office, frequents a social club where none of the members are allowed to speak or even take the least notice of each other, has an almost obsessive hatred of going anywhere besides his apartment, his work and his club... and functions as a living database, archive, and computer for the British government. Holmes himself says that Mycroft is even smarter than he is and could be an even better detective. It's just that the man is not willing to do the physical work that comes with being a detective.
"Why do you not solve it yourself, Mycroft? You can see as far as I." "Possibly, Sherlock. But it is a question of getting details. Give me your details, and from an armchair I will return you an excellent expert opinion. But to run here and run there, to cross-question railway guards, and lie on my face with a lens to my eye — it is not my metier."
He also memorizes tons of little details that might help him solve crimes, but ignores any information that doesn't. Like that the Earth orbits around the Sun.
Shimoneta: Oboro's first inspection around Tokioka Academy convinces Ayame and Tanukichi that he's no threat to their ero-terrorist activities, due to his oddballway of thinking. Such as banning the school's gym equipment for allegedly being sexually provocative and attempting to ban their toilet paper for similar reasons. They soon realize their mistake only a few days later, when Oboro proves to be quick learner and an efficient leader. Within a week, he drafts the same students SOX had informed about lewd material as his own Decency Prefect squad and uses their knowledge to confiscate nearly all of SOX's hidden porn stashes, then has them burned.
Tia of The Ship Who Searched graduated with a class of brainships who strive to act and speak like advanced AI rather than shelled humans; as such, Tia's willingness to admit to and express emotions and preferences, her "humanity", set her apart from them. She proves herself even faster than Helva, though.
Carialle and Keff in The Ship Who Won are a First Contact Team regarded with some skepticism as they love fantasy role-playing games and LARP, and whenever they name a new species they tend to break convention and choose very colorful, unusual names like the "Beasts Blatisant". At the end of the book, Carialle triumphantly says that they might be considered the screwball crew but they get the results in the end!
The Silence of the Lambs: Dr. Hannibal Lecter is one of the most brilliant psychiatrists in the world and also a cannibalistic serial killer. It's averted in that they actually do put him in prison as soon as his "quirk" is discovered, although he continues to write articles for psychiatric publications on a regular basis. The "About the Author" blurb must be a scream.
Mark McHenry, the pilot from the Star Trek: New Frontier novels. He actively sleeps at his post, for one. But the best pilot there is. Backed up with alien super-powers of course.
Lieutenant T'Ryssa Chen, the contact specialist in the Star Trek: The Next Generation Relaunch novels. Even in the Mildly Military Starfleet, her lack of protocol stands out, especially since she's a half-Vulcan who was raised and acts human. But she's a very good contact specialist.
Sydney Carton from A Tale of Two Cities. Even though he's an alcoholic, he's actually a very clever and observant lawyer, even when he's drunk. (During the court case in England, Carton notices that he looks a lot like the accused Darnay, rendering one of the witnesses' testimonies void, since it was primarily based on "I saw him here." He also notices that Lucie Manette is about to faint, even when he's staring at the ceiling. He does all this... while he "smelt of port wine, and did not appear to be quite sober.")
Technomancer by MK Gibson: Salem is capable of showing up demon lords much-much smarter and more powerful than himself. Most come to believe he's a genius trickster only playing the part of a fool. He is but not to the extent people believe. It's Subverted when it's revealed it's because the Devil is helping him.
A very controversial example in the novel The Thirty-Nine Steps is a spy who, while very competent, believes in every anti-Semitic conspiracy theory under the sun. The character ends up assassinated, showing the problems which come from pursuing false conspiracies and overlooking real ones, but he is still treated with respect by his colleagues prior to that.
In The Time Traveler's Wife, despite going missing for days at a time and often being caught naked among the stacks, Henry is allowed to keep his job at the library because he is great at giving talks about obscure literary things. His co-workers are also hanging out to find out the real reason behind his odd behaviour.
The reason James puts up with Colin despite Colin being a smarmy buttkisser who sells out anyone that doesn't outrank him at the drop of a hat. Colin is an extremely competent and very loyal assistant who has a knack for making sense of the vampire nation's labyrinthine records.
Bill himself is this. His (frequently) noted tendency to screw things up is tolerated because he gets the job done, and he is the Freewill after all.
The Traitor Son Cycle: Morgon Mortimir is a brilliant sorcerer, but his mind is quick to venture on tangents and he has a habit of pondering purely theoretical problems when a practical one is staring him right in the face - such as when he becomes fascinated with an idea of an anticonception amulet and starts considering theoretical problems with making one while there's a swarm of sea monsters circling his very rickety ship.
The Artificial Intelligence Personalities in Donna Andrews' Turing Hopper mysteries tend towards this as they develop more self-awareness.
M. Paul from Villette is a manic teacher who has an awful temper and can be down right abusive at times, but at the notion that he is leaving the school, students and staff line up to say their farewells to him.
Miles Vorkosigan is hyperactive, manic-depressive, has a stunted body, and shows a fascination with a secret identity that can be seen as bordering on multiple-personality disorder. His own mother acknowledges that he's acted crazy. He once had three consecutive commanding officers thrown into the brig in adjacent cells. He spent ten years as the best covert operative ImpSec had, with a career that included stopping a Cetagandan invasion and enabling another nation to repel its Cetagandan occupiers after they had been invaded (a feat which involved once of the biggest POW breakouts in history). Then he became one of the Emperor's personal trouble-shooters.
His mother is herself a Noble Bigot, and one of the most powerful women in the Empire.
Her best friend is an interfering busybody of a mother who also happens to be the Emperor's Protocol Officer, and pretty darn politically influential herself.
Hlaine "Mad" Larkin of the Warhammer 40,000: Gaunt's Ghosts novels is a slightly neurotic old man prone to fits who repeatedly has (maybe) hallucinated conversations with angels, statues, and dead squad-mates. He's also the best sniper in the regiment.
Never mind being the best sniper in the regiment, he may be the best sniper in the Galaxy, beating even bionically augmented super-snipers who have been blessed by the Chaos Gods...
Also, technically, no-one knows about the hallucinations except him, since he always has the good graces to have them in private. He's still a bit 'off' at the best of times though.
Lord Peter Wimsey is a motor mouthed British nobleman who quotes poetry almost continuously, plays word games with everyone he meets, and has a hobby as an amateur detective. He's a very good amateur detective.
Rhino A. Ross (yes, that's his actual legal name) from the John Birmingham books Without Warning and After America who at times refers to himself as if he were actually a rhino, has an unnatural fixation on his biceps (which "You don't get by patting kitty cats"), and in the second book acquires and insists on wearing a Viking helmet. However he managed to achieve the rank of CPO in the U.S. Coast Guard, is a skilled radar and sonar operator, and is every bit as dangerous in a fight as his namesake.
In the X-Wing Series it seems that Nawara Venn was a Bunny Ears Lawyer who wasn't taken seriously. He's another obvious alien, one who served as a defense attorney in Imperial courts. Of course, being a nonhuman defending people who tended to have perceived or actual Rebel connections meant that he rarely won, so at some point he left to join the Rebellion as a fighter pilot. By the time he took up lawyering again, it was in a New Republic court, where he wasn't seen as strange because New Republic policies aren't blatantly xenophobic.
Discussed in You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger by Roger Hall. An OSS agent roughs up a supply officer who's blabbing about an upcoming mission in a pub. He than advises Hall (who already has a reputation as a Military Maverick) against doing something like that himself. Anyone working in a cushy job like the supply officer would have connections, and while the OSS agent can get away with such stunts because of his extensive behind-the-lines experience which the OSS needs, a new officer like Hall would get in a lot of trouble.
