History Main / EinsteinSue

Compare TheJorEl, TheCassandra, OnlySaneMan. Related to TheOnlyOne, and may overlap with TheMainCharactersDoEverything. See also TooDumbToFool, for when the obvious solution is too obvious to be noticed.

'''No examples please, this just defines the trope.'''

In a long running show, it's tempting to make a character into one of these for a day, especially an EnsembleDarkhorse, but [[EspeciallyZoidberg especially]] TheWesley. When this happens, expect everyone else to [[ContrivedStupidityTropes suddenly drop 50 IQ points]] while our hero saves the day.

'''No examples please, this just defines the trope.''

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!!Examples:

[[AC:Film]]
* David Levinson in ''IndependenceDay'', despite the huge array of government scientists working on the alien spaceship issue, he's the only one, seemingly in the entire world, who notices the signal they're sending through Earth's satellites. Because it's not as though people who monitor outer space for any sign of incoming signals or other alien presence might, when there's an alien fleet over their heads, check the obviously artificial sending and receiving devices circling the earth (which are apparently operated with technology derived from the aliens' own technology, a fact some people in the US government know) to see if the aliens might use them. Also counts as ProductPlacement for Apple, the computer on which he spreads a virus [[hottip:*:Nothing would have made sense, but a Linux or *nix based OS would make ''more'' sense; Apples are specifically designed to limit user control so it's harder to mess them up; here, ''everything'' needs to be reconfigured for it to work with an alien system]] HollywoodHacking at its worst.
* Jack Ryan in every single TomClancy movie.
** In ''TheHuntForRedOctober'', he is a lowly CIA analyst who apparently knows everything about Marko Ramius after having sat next to him once at a banquet and is the only one there who doesn't believe he will [[ANuclearError launch his missiles]].
*** Much more reasonable in the book version; Jack is the Ramius expert because he's the senior analyst in charge of working on Soviet missile submarine patrol patterns, and virtually everyone else working the case is able to independently follow Jack's reasoning once he explained the data he was drawing his conclusions from.
** In ''TheSumOfAllFears'', Ryan seems to be the only one who knows anything about the nuclear attack and knows it wasn't the Russians who were responsible.
*** Again, more reasonable in the book version; there it wasn't so much 'Jack is the only guy in the government capable of figuring it out' as it was 'Jack was the ''first'' guy to figure it out because he was the only senior official actually at his desk instead of stuck in traffic, dead in the original explosion, panicking due to being an over-promoted political hack, or otherwise out of the loop'. Also, Jack's team of subordinates did much of the work of assembling the data for him.
* ''TheDayAfterTomorrow''
* ''{{Impact}}''
** Aw heck, let's make it easy by saying that 99.9% of all [[DisasterMovie disaster movies ever made]] have this character in them.
* {{Mulan}}, from the townsfolk's perspective. She's some random girl who runs into town, trying to get someone to believe her about the Huns invading. And, since no one does anything about it, [[ActionGirl she]] [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome does]].

[[AC:Literature]]
* In RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/ThePuppetMasters'', Sam, who is a secret agent and not a biologist, is the one who thinks up the idea of how to spread disease among the aliens. Twice.
* John Galt, Henry Rearden, and a few others, in AtlasShrugged.
* Marjorie Westriding, in Sheri S. Tepper's ''Grass,'' manages to find the cure all by herself to a plague which has baffled the best minds of a multiplanet civilization.

[[AC:Live-Action TV]]
* [[TheWesley Wesley Crusher]] in several episodes of ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' is frequently the only one who notices some glaringly obvious but important bit of information.
** And in true form to this trope, everyone else starts juggling [[IdiotBall Idiot Balls]] whenever they're around him.
** Which is [[BlatantLies justified]] by his destiny to [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence Ascend To A Higher Plane Of Sue]].

[[AC:Videogames]]
* Intentionally created and deconstructed in ''UminekoNoNakuKoroNi'' with Erika, the self-proclaimed GreatDetective and Witch of Truth. A young girl who randomly floats onto Rokkenjima and then brilliantly solves the fifth arc's murders [[spoiler:with the wrong solution, not that it stopped her]], but said powers of deduction come at least partially from a mind that's become completely unhinged.

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[[folder:Literature]]

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* David Levinson in ''IndependenceDay'', despite the huge array of government scientists working on the alien spaceship issue, he's the only one, seemingly in the entire world, who notices the signal they're sending through Earth's satellites. Because it's not as though people who monitor outer space for any sign of incoming signals or other alien presence might, when there's an alien fleet over their heads, check the obviously artificial sending and receiving devices circling the earth (which are apparently operated with technology derived from the aliens' own technology, a fact some people in the US government know) to see if the aliens might use them. Also counts as ProductPlacement for Apple, the computer on which he spreads a virus [[hottip:*:Nothing would have made sense, but a Linux or *nix based OS would make ''more'' sense; Apples are specifically designed to limit user control so it's harder to mess them up; here, ''everything'' needs to be reconfigured for it to work with an alien system]] HollywoodProgramming at its worst.

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* Intentionally created and deconstructed in ''UminekoNoNakuKoroNi'' with Erika, the self-proclaimed GreatDetective and Witch of Truth. A young girl who randomly floats onto Rokkenjima and then brilliantly solves the fifth arc's murders [[spoiler:with the wrong solution, not that it stopped her]], but said powers of deduction come at least partially from a mind that's become completely unhinged.
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Why isn't this guy in charge of the crisis? Well, maybe he's a CowboyCop who is held back for insubordination. Maybe the ObstructiveBureaucrat won't promote him because he never technically got his degree. Maybe he made a career-limiting mistake in the past, or TheRival made it look that way. But it could be that our hero just likes their current job and has turned down better positions. In any case, the real reasons are that we like to see an underdog win, and we want a protagonist we can identify with.

* David Levinson in ''IndependenceDay'', despite the huge array of government scientists working on the alien spaceship issue, he's the only one, seemingly in the entire world, who notices the signal they're sending through Earth's satellites. Because it's not as though people who monitor outer space for any sign of incoming signals or other alien presence might, when there's an alien fleet over their heads, check the obviously artificial sending and receiving devices circling the earth (which are apparently operated with technology derived from the aliens' own technology, a fact some people in the US government know) to see if the aliens might use them. Also counts as ProductPlacement for Apple, the computer on which he spreads a virus. HollywoodProgramming at its worst.

*** Heck, it goes much earlier than that in the book. Jack Ryan comes up with an "ingenious" plan for peace in the Middle East (all by himself!), consisting of a neutral international zone in Jerusalem protected by Swiss troops. To anyone who doesn't know, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_separatum internationalization of Jerusalem]] has been on the table since 1947, and is still hotly opposed by both sides.

* David Levinson in ''IndependenceDay'', despite the huge array of government scientists working on the alien spaceship issue, he's the only one, seemingly in the entire world, who notices the signal they're sending through Earth's satellites. Because it's not as though people who monitor outer space for any sign of incoming signals or other alien presence might, when there's an alien fleet over their heads, check the obviously artificial sending and receiving devices circling the earth (which are apparently operated with technology derived from the aliens' own technology, a fact some people in the US government know) to see if the aliens might use them.

* Charlie Sheen's character in ''IndependenceDay''. Also counts as ProductPlacement for Apple, the computer on which he spreads a virus. HollywoodProgramming at its worst.

** Which is justified by his destiny to [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence Ascend To A Higher Plane Of Sue]].

Compare TheJorEl, TheCassandra, OnlySaneMan. Related to TheOnlyOne. See also TooDumbToFool, for when the obvious solution is too obvious to be noticed.

* In RobertAHeinlein's ''ThePuppetMasters'', Sam, who is a secret agent and not a biologist, is the one who thinks up the idea of how to spread disease among the aliens. Twice.

[[AC:{{Film}}]]

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]

[[AC:{{Manga}} and {{Anime}}]]
* Intentionally created and deconstructed in ''UminekoNoNakuKoroNi'' with Erika, the self-proclaimed GreatDetective and Witch of Truth. A young girl who randomly floats onto Rokkenjima and then brilliantly solves the fifth arc's murders [[spoiler:with the wrong solution, not that it stopped her]], but said powers of deduction come at least partially from a mind that's become completely unhinged.

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<<|SubjectiveTropes|>>

* [[TheWesley Wesley Crusher]] in several episodes of ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' is frequently the only one who notices some blaringly obvious but important bit of information.

* John Galt, Henry Reardon, and a few others, in AtlasShrugged.

-->''"...but more important things are going on, like how our government, with all their scientific technology discovers that the alien ships are using our own satellites against us, sending out a signal that will eventually run out and probably mean an attack. Oh wait, no sorry, this was figured out by one cable repairman whose job is to make sure that your {{HBO}} is coming in clear. {{FBI}}, TV maintenance, they're both pretty similar."''
-->-- '''TheNostalgiaCritic''' on this trope in ''[[http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/25249-independence-day Independence Day]]''

* Jack Ryan in every single TomClancy movie.