Misused: Dumb Is Good

Deadlock Clock: Aug 25th 2018 at 11:59:00 PM

Malady (Not-So-Newbie)

#1: May 22nd 2018 at 7:24:30 PM

Possibly misused, anyway. There's something wrong with it in any case.

There's a conflict between name and meaning.

Laconic, Description and Playing With are all Dumb Is Nice, but it calls itself an inversion of Good Is Not Dumb, and has Dumb Is Nice examples like:

Examples

The stupidest character in Sailor Moon is Sailor Moon herself, which is amplified by her laziness and whining. But she's typically the nicest and first to reach out to those in need.
This is played with, though not directly touched upon in 8-Bit Theater. Of the four protagonists, three are self-serving rogues who are often committing or willing to commit actions far worse than most of their antagonists. The only character who could conceivably be called a hero is the one oblivious enough not to realize that his companions are incapable of altruism and that their schemes are often evil. However, it should be noted that he is sometimes shown to be a Genius Ditz and the other members aren't really that smart either.
- However, outside of the main cast, Whitemage stands out as an example of a character who is both good and quite canny. Meanwhile, several very stupid characters are shown to be malicious, some of whom [King Steve] are capable of real harm while others are largely harmless due to their incompetence [but not for lack of intent or the internal frustration and bitterness which most happy-go-lucky heroes avoid]. So on the whole it seems like the trope is averted but played with to a degree as the stupider villains are often treated as harmless while Fighter remains a good guy but may at times cause as much harm as his evil cohorts without realizing the consecquences of his own actions.
Nodwick [...] Thus, the dumbest and the smartest person in the party are the nicest, with the two in the middle picking up the "nasty" slack (although Nodwick has an extremely caustic tongue, particularly in regards to Yeagar and Artax's antics). And Yeagar and Artax are the ones slapping Nodwick around. Repeatedly. While Piffany isn't looking.
Thog of The Order of the Stick is a subversion, particularly in this strip, whose title is Stupid Isn't Always Cute. This doesn't stop most fans being sympathetic towards him nonetheless. (Not that it's hard to be sympathetic in comparison to Thog's usual company).
- Xykon plays with this, in so far as while he is still both intelligent and evil, he avoids the bitterness and other baggage that comes with this trope as he is often shown to not care about angst or strategy so much as just having fun being evil.
In The Last Days of FOXHOUND, the biggest jerks in the comic tend also to be the smartest (excepting perhaps Raven) — Otacon is the best example in that he is perhaps the only genuinely good person in the series, and also a complete Ditz.
Subverted in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog; The Good Captain is big and dumb and a completely insensitive jerk, while the titular Doctor Horrible is by far a more sympathetic character despite his Morally Ambiguous Doctorate. While he does have a fairly low opinion of people in general, it seems to not be meant in a malevolent way; as he himself says, "The world is a mess and I just need to rule it" ... presumably as (in his mind at least) a benevolent dictator. On the other hand, he is trying very hard to join an organization called "The Evil League of Evil", which name pretty much says it all. So it's also half played straight — smart and dumb are both jerks.
- This ideal is actually promoted by Captain Hammer himself in the comics, with him stating that smart kids or anyone that doesn't immediately fit mainstream's perception of normal should all be thrown into jail. The audience of course is expected to know that he's just spouting [BS].
Inverted in real life. Criminals and delinquents have below-average intelligence by somewhere between half and a whole standard deviation, on average, meaning that being dumb makes you more likely to be evil. Interestingly, the Flynn Effect has increased the average IQ of people in developed countries over the last century, and those countries have warred considerably less with one another in the meantime.
- Or, rather, criminals and delinquents who get caught have below-average IQ, but there's probably selection bias at work - intelligent evil people may not be any less common, just less likely to get caught/identified as evil. Apparently there's a correlation between sociopathy and success in the business world.
There seems to be an unspoken assumption in American politics that "intellectual" is a synonym for "elitist", and therefore of "bad". This belief seems to be roughly traceable to the 1840 presidential election, in which President Martin Van Buren lost re-election to William Henry Harrison partly because of Van Buren's public image as an aristocrat who was out-of-touch with the common folk. Since then, it has become something of a ritual in American politics for presidential contenders in both parties to compete for which candidate can seem the most like "just regular folk." This gets particularly funny in those elections when both candidates went to Ivy League or similarly acclaimed schools.
- It seems to hit a peak of ridiculousness during the 2008 Democratic Primaries, when the two front runners, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama were both getting painted with the elitist brush, since they were both well-educated Law school graduates. It created the surreal images of Hillary Clinton drinking shots in a bar, all the candidates appearing on Saturday Night Live and The Tyra Banks Show, and other related weirdness.
- Likewise it was major factor in the Republican Primary of 2012, prior to Mitt Romney's eventual victory many of the candidates tried to play up "folksy" images of themselves.

Wicks (Currently found 10 out of 687. Checked... around 30 works. Got up to page names starting with "AT".)

Tropes:
- Anti-Intellectualism: The stupidest characters in the cast are also the nicest.
Creator:
- Abbott and Costello: Abbott is clever and sly and Costello is usually dumb and happy or at least naive and happy-go-lucky.
Characters
- A Dragon in Shining Armour: The Greymon Five: Victory Greymon: He may not be the brightest, but VictoryGreymon is a really nice guy.
- All in the Family: Edith Bunker: Edith is ditzy and uneducated, and she's the nicest character on the show.
- A.N.T. Farm: Recurring Characters: Paisley Houndstooth: She's much nicer than her Manipulative Bitch friend Lexi.
- Ape Escape: Specter's very pleasant when he's just got the mind of a monkey. It's only when he's got the peak point helmet on that he becomes an intelligent villain.
- A Song of Ice and Fire - House Stark Household: Hodor: He appears to be both the kindest and least intelligent character in the series.
- A Song of Ice and Fire - House Targaryen Ancestors: Princess Gael Targaryen: Sweet, but not very bright. Possible Down's?
- Attack on Titan: 104th Trainee Corps: Connie Springer: Season 1: He's a loyal and caring friend, but he can be pretty slow sometimes.
Literature:
- Animal Farm: Played straight with Boxer, who is one of the dimmest animals on the farm, but also has a huge heart, a pronounced gentle streak, and massive loyalty to his fellows, which is why Napoleon ultimately is able to work him to death — Boxer is so determined to help the others on the farm however he can that he forgoes looking after himself.

Edited by Malady on Jul 15th 2018 at 9:47:31 AM

Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576

SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu

#2: Jun 2nd 2018 at 2:00:42 AM

This thread needs better evidence for misuse, ~MaLady.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

SeptimusHeap MOD from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu

#3: Aug 22nd 2018 at 11:16:56 PM

Clock is set.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu

#4: Aug 26th 2018 at 11:24:22 PM

Clock is up; closing.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Add Post

Back Top

Total posts: 4