hyper aware characters-HELP!!!

I require some assistance. Please

one of my characters (actually the closest thing my story has to a protagonist{observer-protagonist}) has, without any intent on my part, become a hyper-aware sherlock scanning deducer.

Now, since she's an 'analyst', this isn't an incongruous with the character. My problem is, she's inconsistent with her hyper-awareness. sometimes she's the cool, collected and urbane scion of a First Hundred Family, who notices everything calmly only to bring them up when required. Other times, she's bloody Arthur Dent in his dressing gown

So, advice. should i just get rid of the hyper-awareness altogether (hard, because the story goes a lot smoother with her attention to detail), should i 'smarten up' the Arthur Dent bits (hard, because she's a trade delegate in a strange land, and thus is stunningly ignorant about the world she's visiting. blame the briefing dossiers) so that she's hyper-aware for the whole book, or should i try to smoothe and level it out so that the extremes are not so jarring.

Actually, the title makes me sound desperate and whiny. wasn't s'posed to be. i'd like another perspective. willing to provide additional info if requested

edited 20th Dec '10 11:37:05 PM by pathfinder

I would suggest using such characters sparingly. Josieph (the character in my avatar) is quite the meme spewer yet he somehow manages to stay in character and most of his actions usually only get attention if his wife tells other people to listen to him.

You should look at what causes this shift in behavior. Does she get overwhelmed by the hyper awareness when stressed? Or is it the opposite, that dropping her composure makes her loose a framework to filter all the data through? Or something else?

losing her composure loses her her analytical framework. but she really only has two major concerns, the "ohcrapihaveto facilitatethistradenegotiationsolargeamountsofmoneyflowsfromhomeintotheseotherlessdevelopedeconomies,creatingjobs,reducingunemploymentandstavingoffthebloodyrevolutioni'mafraidwillhappen! (the negotiations succeed, but by that time, the revolution's already started, and the capital city is a crater, and sixty million people are dead)", and "Ireallydon'tunderstandthisworldoritspeople (she gets better)"

but mostly, my problem is caused by an inconsistent author, which is caused by the fact that it wasn't planned hyper-awareness from the beginning

Please never write a blur together that long ever again.

Well if it is giving you problems ask yourself if it is really necessary for the plot? If the story will be able to function without her being hyper aware, cut it.