Discussion Main / IntellectualAnimal

Cut:

• Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Kyubey grants wishes to teenage girls so they will fight witches that threathen the locals. We see him traveling, giving advice, planning witch hunts and otherwise acting like a Mentor Mascot. He’s also working to prevent the universe's heat death. A Justified Trope since Kyubey is a Sufficiently Advanced Alien. Unfortunately, it turns out he is not using his intelligence for good. The Incubators are trying to save the universe, but thier increased intelligence coupled with a Lack of Empathy cause them to have the same opinion of humans that humans do of cattle- and they have no problem killing them off en masse for energy.

Since Kyubey is shown to be an alien being from the get-go, there is no reason for anyone to assume that he has animal-level intelligence in the first place.

Literature: The talking dog Martha, from a series of children's books by Susan Meddaugh. This led to an animated TV series: Martha Speaks.

Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Doesn't Match the Description on the SSOA, Needs to be Split, started by EdnaWalker on May 13th 2011 at 7:16:46 PM

Stratadrake, these are the contexts in which the Wiki Word Intellectual Animal is used:

Context 1) Smart and/or condescending

• In George Of The Jungle, Ape (a gorilla, to be precise) is probably the smartest member of the cast and he can talk.
• Mr. Peabody from Rocky And Bullwinkle. No context given, but he fits this context of Intellectual Animal and can talk.
• Brian from Family Guy definitely qualifies, even though he can talk.
• Snoopy from Peanuts. No description is given, but he fits this context of Intellectual Animal.
• Hobbes from Calvin And Hobbes. "There are times when it's a source of great personal pride to not be human."
• Garfield. No context given, but he fits this context of Intellectual Animal.
• Gromit from the Wallace And Gromit shorts and film. It can be argued that he's much smarter than his Bungling Inventor owner, Wallace.

Context 2) Non-talking or Animal Talk speaking normal animal

• In The Small One, the animals don't talk, but Small One clearly understands everything the humans say, as well as the greater implications of being sold.
• Bambi. No context is given, but they fit this context of Intellectual Animal because they talk in Animal Talk, but are otherwise normal animals.
• The Plague Dogs. No context given, but they fit this context of Intellectual Animal.

Context 3) Both contexts

• Watership Down. They're about as intellectual as you can get and still be wild animals with an IQ of hrair.
• The four-legged Garfield in the earlier comic strips.
• Ein the dog from Cowboy Bebop probably qualifies, despite being a data dog and having a computer for a brain. Nonetheless, he's been known to utilize keyboards, play shogi, and hack into websites. The episode Mushroom Samba shows him holding a conversation with a cow, in which he is quite articulate.

No Context Given

• The Jungle Book
• Corneil from Corneil And Bernie