Aang: The question is, how are we gonna stop that thing?
Sokka: Why are you all looking at me?
Aang: You're The Idea Guy.
Sokka: So I'm the
only one who can
ever come up with a plan? That's a lot of pressure.
The Smart Guy is the only one in the
Five Man Band who rates as a college graduate. He is sometimes written as mousey and withdrawn, and if not antisocial, at least non-social, sliding into
TV Genius. Expect some
Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness from this character.
Quite often,
he is also short and wears glasses.
Powers and skills common to the smart guy include:
- In modern or sci-fi settings, The Smart Guy often has great skill with technology and engineering, in order to build and repair devices for the band. The Gadgeteer Genius, Mad Scientist, and The Professor will often fill this role. If they're the protagonist, they'll be a Campbellian Hero
- In settings where guns are rare, he might be one of those few who uses one.
- In fantasy settings, he'll usually be skilled at magic, particularly of the offensive variety, in which case he serves as the team's "nuker". His Weapon Of Choice tends to be a Magic Wand, a Simple Staff, or both in one package. Alternatively, he may prefer a easily manageable dagger.
- If the team's Lancer is not the sneaky type, sneaking will typically fall to The Smart Guy. This type of smart guy will rely on stealth, guile, and cunning plans to trip up his enemies. He may also be a bit more Lanecerish than others of his kind.
His knowledge will allow him to
find enemy weaknesses and to serve as
Mr Exposition in order to explain plot points to the less intelligent members of the band (and the audience).
In recent years, as casts have become more gender-balanced,
The Smart Guy is the one most likely to swap genders. Since the character type is outwardly sexless and non-masculine, turning him into The Smart Girl is not that big a stretch. Mousey, shy and withdrawn work equally well on female characters, and can sometimes be appealing (See
Hot Librarian and
Nerds Are Sexy). When used in this way, she's usually much less girly than
The Chick. (See
Wrench Wench.) In a fantasy setting, she's often the
Black Magician Girl, or sometimes the
Staff Chick.
If there's a
Robot Buddy on the team, he's usually
The Smart Guy.
The most common subversion today is to make The Smart Guy physically as well as mentally capable. Sometimes, this is done by making the Smart Guy and
The Big Guy one and the same, effectively defying the two stereotypes to the utmost extreme. (See
Genius Bruiser.)
Then there is the path of the
Badass Bookworm. The results are often impressive, and usually have the advantage of surprise. Who expects the little guy with glasses to be an asskicker?
The Smart Guy archetype is often unfairly vilified in shows where
Dumb Is Good. Other times, he's not so much the Smart Guy as the
Smartass Guy.
The Smartass Guy will occur in a team with a
Big Smart Guy. The team doesn't need another brainy guy so much, and since Big Smart Guys tend to be
Gentle Giants, adding a
Deadpan Snarker just seems natural. Appropriately, The Smartass Guy will probably be the "sneaky Lancer" type mentioned above.
Examples:
- McKay on Stargate Atlantis is probably the most egregious example on modern TV; often, the other characters will just sit around and threaten him until he comes up with a plan.
- Samantha Carter is more of badass bookwork than just The Smart Guy, Zalenka is McKay's much more reserved and polite second in command. The remaining scientists tend to fit a different trope, in no small part as they are not members of the Five Man Band.
- As implied by the page quote, Sokka of Avatar The Last Airbender. He set out with the goal of being the Big Guy and Deadpan Snarker, but for various reason never really succeeded (and Toph later filled both roles herself). By the third season, however, he could arguably qualify as a Badass Bookworm, though he's a strategist and innovator rather than an academic.
- Code Lyoko: Jeremie, the team's Non Action Guy; in a Love Triangle with The Chick and The Big Guy.
- The Super Hero spoof film The Specials from 2000 includes a brainy gadgeteer member of the titular superteam whose nom de guerre is simply "Mr. Smart".
- Early seasons of Doctor Who had the Doctor as The Smart Guy, with a male companion as the Action Guy and a female companion as the Distressed Damsel. He is still the smart guy, although since the Seventies he is always a combination of several archetypes.
- Buffy The Vampire Slayer had Giles, and Angel had Wesley. Watchers are pretty much Smart Guy incarnate. Angel also had Fred, a mixture of the Smart Guy and The Chick. In addition, Anya could be considered a Smart Guy when talking about demonic matters (with which she has personal experience), although less so in most other matters (such as "how to conduct myself in human society").
- Brainiac 5 fills this role in every version of the Legion Of Super Heroes.
- Tako, the unofficial leader of the Sushi Pack, is the one usually called on to think of a plan to defeat the bad guys, and even has a standard "thinking routine." He also offers explanations of more complicated terms that come up in the show.
- In Transformers: Beast Wars, Dinobot The Lancer was a Proud Warrior Race Guy with little respect for trickery. Rhinox The Big Guy was a Gentle Giant Genius Bruiser. So Rattrap The Smart Guy was, while plenty smart, more of a smartass, and was well-versed in underhanded combat tactics, including infiltration and sabotage. In fact, you could break the three of them down into a triangle of hybrids: Dinobot = Lancer/Big Guy; Rhinox = Big Guy/Smart Guy; Rattrap = Smart Guy/Lancer.
- In Kingdom Hearts, Donald is The Smart Guy of the team, being the Disney Court's royal magician, and good at his craft. However, he doubles as the bad kind of team Lancer as well, because of how self-centered, small-minded, and short-tempered he is; he's always trying to get his way, and doesn't consider the consequences of his bullish behavior. All of the wisdom is instead found in Goofy, The Big Guy of the team, making him something of a Genius Bruiser. This pretty solidly seems a case of Dumb Is Good. Actually, considering how many evil scientists there are in the series, it could seen as a double-whammy of Dumb Is Good and Science Is Bad. Even good-guy inventor Cid can't escape the fact that his gummi ships couldn't be built without breaking off material from the shells that protect each world from Darkness.
- Rowen Hashiba is described by Dais to be the smartest and most cunning of the Ronin Warriors. He probably got his smarts from his Mad Scientist father and is said to have a really high IQ.
- Taranee Cook in WITCH is archetypical of this trope.
- Jeff in Earthbound is also archetypical of this trope.
- Yue of Negima, a Nakama regular and Teen Genius
- In the webcomic Girl Genius, some of the Sparks are even identified by the Jagers as "da schmot guy".
- Blackberry, of the initial refugee band in Watership Down. An amusing variant in that his skillset is basically that of an engineer's, except downsized to a rabbit POV; his bright idea - which becomes the key strategem in the climactic battle - is that things which float on water can thus be used as transport out of reach of land-based enemies.
