Idiot Hero / Literature

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• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Verne’s writing constantly informs us (and Counseil and Aronnax repeatedly lampshade) that Ned Land is a Hot-Blooded, Great White Hunter, Big Eater Real Men Eat Meat Book Dumb badass who is from Canada. On the other hand, he's Too Dumb to Fool, and is his distrust of Captain Nemo is ultimately proven right.
• Harry Harrison's Bill the Galactic Hero books involve the titular character being a dumb farmboy on a backwater planet being tricked into enlisting into the fleet. He makes one stupid decision after another, mostly related to drinking, women, and money. In one of the novels it's revealed that his stupidity is directly caused by excessive drinking. When he's put on a prison ship for a few years without a drop of alcohol, his IQ jumps to genius-level, and he figures out several important things, such as the meaning of life (which, in Layman's Terms, can be phrased as "Life = Crap"). Then, at the end of the novel, he shares a toast with his friends, and promptly forgets everything he has learned. Most other characters aren't much smarter, at least the human ones. The Emperor is an inbred who can barely string two sentences together, and the admiral in charge of the fleet in the first book is a baby in diapers. Is it any wonder The Empire is losing the war with the Chingers (which it started in the first place)?
• Amber from Demon Road makes so many stupid decisions, it's a wonder she survived the first book.
• Discworld:
  • Corporal Nobby and sergeant Colon of the City Watch. Nobby is somewhat more intelligent than his companion, whereas Colon, if he solves anything, it's usually by being Too Dumb to Fool.
  • Sergeant Detritus as well, depending on the local ambient temperature. Thing is he's a huge troll made of stone, and armed with a siege crossbow, so he usually gets away with it.
• In the Dragaera series, this is the province of the House of the Dzur, a.k.a. the House of Heroes. Not all Dzurlords fit the stereotype (i.e. near-suicidal bravery and a shortage of little grey cells), but many seem to.
• One of the running questions of the ½ Prince novels is whether the protagonist is one of these. Her narration always has some explanation for whatever stupid thing she's just done, but other characters tend to think she gets by on luck, attractiveness, and/or being so stupid that she doesn't "know" she can't do something everyone else falsely thinks nobody can do.
• Harry Potter. He may not be ditzy or absent-minded per se, but he suffers from a terminal lack of self-preservation and trust into his peers, especially adults, as well as total and persistent inability to foresee the consequences of his actions, or even to make a plan more than five minutes in advance. At least Once an Episode he rushes heads forward into a situation he has no feasible way of mastering, usually without any planning or preparation. Only Hermione, Dumbledore, and the fact that all the villains suddenly become stupid at the crucial moments keep him from killing himself. Harry also has a bad tendency to pin all of the wrongdoing in the school on Draco Malfoy (or Slytherin in general), and if ever he senses a corrupt and possibly harmful teacher, it's always Snape. It comes back to bite him where in Half-Blood Prince, Ron and Hermione start rolling their eyes at Harry whenever he brings up his "Malfoy is a Death Eater" theory. He was right, but Dumbledore was already aware of Malfoy's allegiances. However, had Ron and Hermione tried to help Harry, they may have been able to avert a lot of tragedy. His predictability gets him into trouble in Order of the Phoenix, and Hermione even lampshades this by telling Harry he's got "a saving-people thing" that Voldemort not only can exploit, but has exploited in the past, by kidnapping Ginny and taking her into the Chamber of Secrets to arrange a meeting with Harry.
• Household Gods: A problem with the story is that Nicole's really naive about life in ancient Rome. You don't expect random Americans to be experts on it, but as Jo Walton points out in her review, Nicole's shocked even by the fact that they have slavery, which is very much common knowledge (as many films such as Spartacus have portrayed it). Nicole's ignorance and incurious nature will likely make many (like Walton) be very annoyed with her, even if they'd enjoy this otherwise for portraying the late Roman Empire so well.
• Mentioned in an author's note that Eragon of the Inheritance Cycle is not too bright. Obvious from reading the text.
• Michael in the Knight and Rogue Series. Luckily, his squire Fisk was blessed with all the common sense Michael lacks.
• Katarina in My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! runs almost entirely on id with no thought to future consequences, a trait that a lot of people actually envy or admire. Her brother acts as a kind of external superego but barely even manages to make her behavior even slightly reasonable. She's also completely oblivious to how popular she is, giving rise to the fan nickname Bakarina. It even ends up working to her advantage when she's accused of manipulating people into bullying Maria and all of her friends point out that she's far too stupid to pull off something that complex.
• Matteo in Someone Else's War is an interesting example of one of these. He is actually rather tactical and tries to plan ahead, but when the situation calls for a snap decision, he always makes a stupid one. (Why yes, Matteo, jumping on the tail of a tank after you've thrown a grenade at it will give you first degree burns.)
• Several of the "heroes" in A Song of Ice and Fire. Unfortunately, they live in a Crapsack World, so they tend to die a lot.
  • This is usually a matter of Honor Before Reason.
  • Four books and several thousand pages in, and most of the surviving "good guys" seem to be getting better: Jon and Dany have both gained a measure of pragmatism after attaining positions of power; Arya has had to live entirely by her wits since her father's death; and former Wide-Eyed Idealist Sansa is even taking lessons in Magnificent Bastardry from none other than Littlefinger himself. In many ways, this can be seen as the younger generation overcoming the flaws that killed their parents and older siblings.
• Gregor from The Underland Chronicles. He's just a kid, after all.
• Deconstructed in Warrior Cats with Foxleap, whose stupidity inadvertently causes the death of another cat and causes him to start feeling immense pain.

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