Troperville
Editing Help
Tools
Toys
|
"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."
A character archetype. These characters:
- Are extremely smart and/or good at whatever it is they do.
- Know it, and are probably pretty arrogant (in fact, they tend to think they're even better than they are).
- As a result, are continually driven to go Beyond The Impossible. Usually they succeed (remember, they're really good), but their failures are spectacular.
- 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.
Usually this character is the hero (though generally not The Hero); they're often a Foil to Too Dumb To Fool. If they have Blue Blood, they could be an Upper Class Wit.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
Film
- Mark Whitacre, the title character of The Informant!, 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.
Literature
- Miles Vorkosigan, as illustrated by the quote.
- Moist von Lipwig of Going Postal and Making Money 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.
- The titular character from Artemis Fowl.
- Locke from 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 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.
- Kvothe from The Name Of The Wind 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.
- To be fair, though, he was a musician before that, and he'd had to do without strings before.
- Tyrion Lannister from A Song Of Ice And Fire.
- Grand Admiral Thrawn, the Magnificent Bastard that he is. 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. To a lesser extent, Talon Karrde.
- Hermione of Harry Potter is the smartest person in her classes, tends to be rather rudely disparaging of her peers' intelligence, and is discriminated against for being a muggle-born.
Television
- Rodney McKay from Stargate Atlantis nails all 4 points.
- Especially to degrees. Rodney is probably the
second smartest human from earth. Despite everyone in the Stargate program being top in their fields, is 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, and almost destroyed two universes.
- Five-Sixths of a solar system, but it's not a precise science.
- Later characterisation showed McKay to be (at the very least) equal to Carter in terms of scientific genius, but sadly lagging behind the vast majority of Earth, let alone the Stargate program, in terms of common sense and social skills...
- Rodney's problem isn't that he's not smart, it's that he's not as smart as he thinks he is.
- This gets taken to a literal level when he has Ancient intelligence downloaded into his frail human skull. 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 invents a cure for himself, returning himself back to "normal" genius levels, not realizing he was in spitting distance of 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 everything that happened completely moot.
- And he's gonna let everyone know.
- Doctor Gregory House. Hell, his choice of role model and reason for becoming a doctor (a burakumin
 medical genius working as a janitor in a Japanese hospital) was almost explicitly one of these, although without the implied arrogance.
They listened to him, because he was smart. And he was right. And that was all that mattered.
- Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory is a brilliant theoretical physicist. He's also insufferably arrogant and ignorant of basic social interaction. At least once the other characters acknowledged that if he wasn't Leonard's roommate they wouldn't hang out with him.
- The Doctor has a tendency to drift in and out of this trope, possibly moreso in his Third Incarnation.
- The Tenth Doctor is definitely this, especially given his love of telling people how clever he his.
- Villainous example: Orta from the Star Trek The Next Generation episode "Ensign Ro". Extremely good Bajoran terrorist with many impossible victories against the Cardassians, but his failures cost him his right eye and the ability to speak without a voice synthesizer. Over the course of the episode, Picard and Ro find that Orta did not make a strike they were investigating, because he didn't have the resources to do so (his freighter could only move at half impulse, for example)...because his rep was such that others were terrified in dealing with him.
- Sikozu of Farscape definitely fits this trope, especially given her arrogance over her high intelligence.
- Jeremy Clarkson on Top Gear is a Badass Driver version. He can do astonishing things with a car (or a hammer) but his devotion to Tim Taylor Technology means his failures are spectacular too.
Video Games
- Sora from .//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 his age.
- Apart from that, he also openly manipulates everyone and is essentially the most obvious sufferer of chronic backstabbing disorder 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 until finally motivated into doing something somewhat heroic (he didn't realize he couldn't get away) and taunting the big bad, at which point she turned him into a sequel hook and the show ended.
- Vicki Kawaguchi of Backyard Sports. This is the only character trait that stays with her throughout the series.
- The Onion Knight in Dissidia Final Fantasy. He's quite clever, and knows it (and will remind Terra bout his intelligence at every turn). He easily fits parts 1, 2, and 3. Especially 3. You want a spectacular failure? How about causing 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 to listen to his heart, not just his head.
Webcomics
- Riff, the mad scientist in SluggyFreelance, not necessarily scientific, but builds stuff. Usually involving weapons, explosives, robotics or dimensional transports. Lately incorporating inflatable technologies. They may not always work predictably ("Let me check my notes...") or reliably, but hey, at least they work, and isn't that cool?
- Vaarsuvius is the resident Squishy Wizard in Order Of The Stick and needs to be smart. Also, V's an Elf, so there's the arrogance. The current demonic contract plotline seems to be setting up the "spectacular failure" bit, too.
- Suspiria, Insufferable Genius mage prodigy from 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).
Western Animation
- Digeri Dingo from Taz Mania.
- Looney Tunes's Wile E. Coyote, especially when pitted against Bugs Bunny, where he acquires a voice with which to proclaim himself a "Super-genius".
|
|
