Basic Trope: The ability to solve a Rubik's Cube is used as shorthand for "this character is a genius".
- Straight: To demonstrate that Rhonda is the brains of the Five-Man Band, the work shows her solving a Rubik's Cube effortlessly.
- Exaggerated:
- Rhonda is introduced as the world's fastest Rubik's Cube solver. She's also one of the smartest people alive.
- Rhonda is a super genius who can solve a 100x100x100 cube.
- Downplayed: Rhonda has to play around with the cube for a while to solve it, but she does manage it in the end.
- Justified:
- Rhonda and her friends are just children. While most adults can solve the cube, it makes sense that Rhonda is the only child character with enough problem-solving skills and patience to figure out how to manipulate the blocks properly.
- Rubik's Cube solving is Serious Business in-universe.
- Inverted: The Ditz Daniel is fantastic at solving a Rubik's Cube. Whenever Rhonda tries to solve it, she only fiddles around with it without making any progress.
- Subverted:
- When Rhonda is introduced, she's shown solving a Rubik's Cube effortlessly. It's later revealed that her grades are terrible.
- Rhonda's solving of a Rubik's Cube was fake. The clock in the background was identified as a barber-clock with regular face-plate, proving that the recording was reversed.
- Double Subverted:
- Rhonda is Book Dumb.
- Rhonda is book smart, and would've had good grades if it weren't for her very strict and/or very unfair teachers.
- Rhonda would have good grades if she weren't so obsessed with cubing. As it is, she blows off her studying and homework trying to lower her personal best time speedcubing and posting on cubing forums.
- Parodied:
- Rhonda is blatantly cheating by moving the stickers around, painting the cube, or disassembling and reassembling it. She's still praised as a genius for managing to solve it.
- Rhonda has successfully proved/disproved the Riemann hypothesis
, but no one takes her seriously as a genius because she can't solve a Rubik's Cube.
- Zig Zagged: Rhonda is a brilliant scientist with multiple PhDs, but her teammates in the Five-Man Band won't take her seriously because she can't solve a Rubik's Cube. Frustrated, she learns how to solve a Rubik's Cube online and wins the respect of her teammates. However, she also discovers the online cubing community and becomes obsessed with speedcubing. Her natural genius makes her take to it naturally, and she sets multiple world records with various sizes of Rubik's cubes. However, she's spending so much time cubing that she no longer has time to do her scientific work, and the team's headquarters is slowly being taken over by her growing collection of cubes and cube lubes. Finally, her teammates have to stage an intervention where they force her to give up cubing and get rid of her collection. However, because she no longer solves Rubik's Cubes, her teammates stop taking her seriously.
- Averted: Whether the characters can solve a Rubik's Cube is unrelated to their intelligence.
- Enforced: "Well, those meddling executives said we shouldn't waste time on 'boring' characterization, so we need a quick-and-dirty way to show that Rhonda is smart. They also told us to find some product to shill for." [looks at a Rubik's Cube] "I've got it!"
- Lampshaded: "I saw her solving that cube thing in ten seconds. She's a genius, so it doesn't surprise me at all."
- Invoked: An in-universe marketing campaign tries to associate the Rubik's Cube with geniuses.
- Exploited: Rhonda takes up speedcubing to seem smarter.
- Defied: The averagely intelligent Molly learns how to solve a Rubik's Cube, and shows it off to put the "only geniuses can solve a Rubik's Cube" myth to rest.
- Discussed: "Rhonda can solve a Rubik's Cube in ten seconds! She must be very smart!"
- Conversed: Carl the Critic points out that unlike what the show claims, someone who can solve a Rubik's Cube is not necessarily a genius. He says he's going to prove it, and proceeds to solve a Rubik's Cube himself.
- Implied: A solved Rubik's Cube is seen in Rhonda's room.
Back to Rubik's Cube: International Genius Symbol.
