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Author: bejjinks

Jul 29th 2014 at 9:20:08 AM

No it is not SmarterThanYouLook. The Wise Fool is almost the exact opposite. The Wise Fool is never the ditzy cheerleader, the AbsentMindedProfessor, the SeeminglyProfoundFool, or the GeniusDitz.

The Wise Fool may overlap with AlmightyJanitor, Crazy Like A Fox, ObfuscatingStupidity, {{Cassandra}}, MadOracle, DitzyGenius, TooDumbToFool, or cuckoolander but only on occasion and usually as an attempt to fool other people. (The Wise Fool is not a fool himself but cleverly and surprisingly points out the foolishness in people who think they are wise).

The Wise Fool is closer to being like the {{Jester}} or the EccentricMentor. The Wise Fool is not characterized as being a fool but is characterized as being eccentric and doing the unexpected but his eccentricity comes from his wisdom and isn't just random eccentricity.

Another good example and may even be the trope namer is from The Emperors New Clothes. Everyone wants to appear wise so they all claim to see the beautiful clothing the emperor is wearing. But a little girl plays the wise fool by not going along with the crowd. Instead, she let's herself be seen as the fool and blatantly tells everyone that the king is naked. Thus the king and all the crowd realize that by trying to seem wise, they had actually been the fools. The Wise Fool always flips the distinction of who is wise and who is foolish. In the presence of a Wise Fool, the wise always learns how foolish he is.

Not going along with the crowd is the distinction of the Wise Fool.  To quote the Wikipedia article: "Though the fool is in a position separated from normal society which can cause them to be subjected to deriding acts and contemptuous treatment, it has also at times caused them to be regarded with respect and reverence" and "Since the fool is only guided by their natural instincts, because they do not understand social conventions, they are not culpable for breaches of those rules."

As far as intelligence, the Wise Fool may be stupid or may be a genius but that is not the distinction of the Wise Fool. How intelligent a person is doesn't determine whether he's a Wise Fool or not.

In many ancient societies, the mentally ill were protected and considered holy because they received wisdom from the gods. In the Bible, King David took advantage of this by pretending to be insane in order to escape from the Philistines. In a television series called Shogun, the protagonist also pretended to be insane in order to help the emperor escape an ambush. There's also a movie I don't know the name of in which one of the female POWs pretended to be insane throughout the film to help protect her friends. At one point, one of her friends faced a firing squad and she brazenly walked out in front of their rifles and started stripping like a mad woman. This caused everyone to forget all about executing her friend.

So it isn't that the Wise Fool is right occasionally. It's that the Wise Fool, like the jester, can get away with things no one else can and can therefore save the day.

The Bible speaks of the Wise Fool when it says, "using the foolish things to confound the wise."