History Main / SkilledbutNaive

* Haqua du Lot Herminium of ''Manga/TheWorldGodOnlyKnows'' was a brilliant student, whose hard work and talent were so undeniable that she broke through the glass ceiling and became the first student from a lower-class family to ever be awarded the [[SinisterScythe Scythe of Testament]], signifying her place at the top of her class. Once put in the field, however, she causes trouble by losing patience with her human partner's GradualGrinder approach, due to her need to prove herself. Then, when [[TheRemnant Vintage]] rears its head, she proves to be woefully naïve when it comes to reading people, requiring the help of her more worldly acquaintances on numerous occasions.

* Rook Blonko in ''WesternAnimation/Ben10Omniverse''. A highly-skilled Plumber, he is often mystified by Earth customs. WordOfGod mentions this was fully intentional, so he'll balanced Ben's status of being roughly self-taught, but very experienced.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'' episode "The Lepidopterists", 21 and 24 are accompanied by Henchman #1, a totally by-the-book henchman who [[GenreBlindness clearly never had been on a single mission.]] While 21 and 24 infiltrate JJ's museum with carefree abandon (due to their SurprisinglyEliteCannonFodder status), Henchman 1 continually runs into problems and is eventually hunted down by Brock Samson. Throughout their mission, 21 and 24 attribute Henchman 1's difficulties to him being a noobie and not actually knowing what he's doing and tell him exactly how he's going to die (at Brock's hands).
** Interestingly enough, [[spoiler: it's Henchman 24 that dies, prompting 21 to TakeALevelInBadass]] while [[spoiler: Henchman 1 returns later on as Zero a couple times, most latest as part of Phantom Limb's Revenge Society.]]

* In the second ''[[TabletopGame/Warhammer40000 A Dawn of Fire]]'' novel ''The Gate of Bones'', the highly idealistic Shield-Captain Achallor of the Adeptus Custodes is an amazing fighter and diplomat. He's had thousands of years of training and combat experience but almost all of his life has been spent in isolated guard duty. As such he's largely ignorant of the fanatacism and social decay that's happened to the Imperium. The pilot of his ship is an old lady who surprises herself at having maternal feelings for the ancient bio-engineered warrior because of his naivety.

* Kate Bishop in ''Series/{{Hawkeye}}'' is a highly skilled and gifted young martial artist and archer, but she's also from a privileged background and is used to honing her skills in a structured and controlled environment. When she tries to utilize her skills out of those environments, she habitually creates huge messes and winds up in situations that are way out of her depth solely because she lacks the practical knowledge and experience to know when something is a bad idea, how a situation could conceivably spiral out of control, and how many variables and moving parts exist in street-level combat situations.

* ''Videogame/YakuzaLikeADragon'' has a more down-to-earth version of this with Ikari, a guy with multiple certifications from a Vocational School that makes him highly qualified on paper but is unable to land a job due to his lack of confidence that causes him to botch interviews.

* ''VideoGame/DawnOfWarII'': Thaddeus, the youngest of the SpaceMarine cast is a bizarre case. Despite being a SpaceMarine sergeant (which in 40K involves decades of reconstructive surgery, indoctrination, and TrainingFromHell before you can advance to the lowest rank), he displays a remarkable lack of savviness regarding the nature of their service, or that they are no longer part of humanity (he keeps insisting that the Blood Ravens should save his homeworld Meridian before the other planets due to its greater value to him and him alone).

* In ''VisualNovel/TheGreatAceAttorney: Resolve'', Susato Mikotoba is an expert judicial assistant and the very reason Ryonosuke Naruhodo became a good lawyer. However, due to leaving Great Britain momentarily and alone at her father's behest to check up on his condition, she is left with no choice but to defend her best friend Rei from murder charges by herself. Susato pretends to be a man in order to act as her lawyer (as female lawyers are unheard of and prohibited to practice law). To her dismay, she realizes the pressure of being a defense lawyer by freezing on the spot in complete shock and acts very much like Ryonosuke (except sweating bullets of stress).

If they do evolve, they are rather malleable. A bad shock may send them into themselves, creating a ZenSurvivor or KnightInSourArmor, a character who feels cynically about issues but still can't stop the bold idealistic tendencies from showing through when the chips are down. Or constant steady success may create a full-on ActionHero or AllLovingHero. They can easily become a FutureBadass in cases of SacrificialLion or an earlier DownerEnding where this character survives. Compare InnocentProdigy.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': All of the teenage characters, most of whom are skilled fighters but have yet to make use of them outside of a school or teaching environment. Weiss Schnee in particular has to mentally go through the motions of properly adopting a fighting stance in early episodes. Justified, since they're all students at a combat academy who have yet to be taught the skills needed in order to apply their talents in unmonitored field situations. Which unfortunately goes on to [[BreakTheCutie hit them really hard]] when [[spoiler:[[CerebusSyndrome the school and the surrounding city is destroyed in a terrorist attack]]]] and they're forced to do so years earlier than expected.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': Weiss Schnee, the 17 year old MagicKnight who in "The Emerald Forest" has to mentally go through the motions of properly adopting a fighting stance, suggesting she doesn't have much practical fighting experience despite her impressive powers. The rest of Team RWBY would also qualify, as they're very good fighters for first-year trainee Huntresses but also prone to making rash and rather dumb tactical choices and also quite naive in how the world works ([[BreakTheCutie which hits them really hard later on]]).

** Aang the Avatar is like this in ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender''. He's so naïve and kinda ditzy that characters easily forget that he's already a master-level Airbender when the show begins. The fact he's a 12-year-old kid doesn't help, either. ''None of that'' gets in the way of him learning '''everything''' -- '''''FAST.'''''

* Garion, the titular hero of ''Literature/TheBelgariad'', is said to have the potential to be one of the most powerful sorcerers that ever lived. He has performed several feats that other sorcerers regularly defied as being outright impossible, such as resurrecting a dead horse, [[AchievementsInIgnorance simply by not being aware that it shouldn't have worked]]. And yet, even after overcoming the trials on his initial ComingOfAgeStory and becoming a respected king as of ''Literature/TheMallorean'', he still has a tendency to play fast and loose with his powers in ways that could have grave consequences for hundreds of years. Fortunately his grandfather and aunt have seven and five thousand years of experience with which to guide him.

* Harry Dresden from ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' takes this trope and runs with it. Until he starts [[spoiler: offing gods and ''species'' and learning about the underlying conflicts in the series]], he has a reputation as a magical thug. In the early books, it's a [[OnceAnEpisode regular]] occurrence for someone with more experience to tell him that's he's in over his head. They're right, though Harry usually [[HonorBeforeReason won't]] or can't back out at that point. Even he admits that his continued survival is as much luck as anything else.

* ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' plays with this a bit. Most of the main characters start out as UnskilledButStrong. When they start to get some training they transition to Skilled But Naive, and then as the series progresses they [[CharacterDevelopment mostly lose their naivete]] (except for Elayne who remains somewhat spoiled and naive throughout the whole series).

* Negi Springfield from ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'', a highly talented mage who at 10 years old has the sort of power and skill that most don't get even after decades of study and training...but he's still a ten year old and he thinks like one. As a result, a good chunk of his training involves getting the naïveté beaten out of him.

* ''FanFic/GreenTeaRescue''; Izuku can talk for hours about Quirks and the best ways to use them for superhero work, has great control with his own Quirk, and can hold his own in a fight. Everything else he's completely helpless with; he's oblivious to the fact he's the Archie in a rather heated BettyAndVeronica love triangle between [[NiceGirl Ochako]] and [[TheVamp Toga]], will let more intense people like Bakugou walk all over him, and when he stumbled across [[BigBad Shigaraki]] infiltrating U.A. he took the villain's cover story of being a lost sidekick at face value and never questioned if he was out of place.

* ''FanFic/RosarioVampireBrightestDarkness'':

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* ''WebComic/StandStillStaySilent'': Emil is good at his DemolitionsExpert job, but has been doing it for less than two years when he joins the expedition and before that was a rich kid on an education track that was intended to make him an academic. His first face-to-face confrontation with a PlagueZombie, which he is expected to see a lot of during the expedition, happened in one of the early arcs of the story.

* ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics'': Silver is good with [[PsychicPowers his powers]] and fighting, but not so good at getting facts and interacting with people. He's trying to SetRightWhatWentWrong by hunting down and stopping a traitor in the Freedom Fighters, but he's terrible at ''identifying'' said traitor and keeps running off half-cocked with little-to-no evidence; it takes him getting it wrong ''[[RuleOfThree three times]]'' and pushing Sonic to the point he [[RageBreakingPoint physically assaults him]] for Silver to realize he's going about trying to find the traitor the wrong way.

* ''ComicBook/ArchieComicsSonicTheHedgehog'': Silver is good with [[PsychicPowers his powers]] and fighting, but not so good at getting facts and interacting with people. He's trying to SetRightButOnceWentWrong by hunting down and stopping a traitor in the Freedom Fighters, but he's terrible at ''identifying'' said traitor and keeps running off half-cocked with little-to-no evidence; it takes him getting it wrong ''[[RuleOfThree three times]]'' and pushing Sonic to the point he [[RageBreakingPoint physically assaults him]] for Silver to realize he's going about trying to find the traitor the wrong way.

* Teana Landstar of ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha'' fame has the YoungGun trait. Her CharacterDevelopment is chiefly about getting over herself and learning to be a team player.

* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'':
** Itachi Uchiha claims that his younger brother is one of these [[spoiler: (Hence the manipulations of Orochimaru, Madara/Tobi and to some extent Itachi himself.)]]
** Sakura had some of these tendencies as well; despite having excellent chakra control, and potential for genjutsu, she had even less fighting experience than Naruto, and tended to be useless in fights for a good chunk of the series.
** [[spoiler:The 1st Hokage is considered to be this by his younger brother, the 2nd. While Hashirama is unquestionably one of the most powerful shinobi to ever live, he had the rather naïve idea that all of the clans (who had spent generations killing each other) would all of a sudden get along after he founded the village. Likewise he distributed the tailed beasts among the ninja villages, hoping that this would balance things out and prevent war. It didn't.]]
** Nagato. As [[spoiler:Pain, he is/was an indomitably powerful ninja, but his ultimate goal was to end all war with the threat of the use of an incredibly powerful weapon. This sentiment has been expressed by many inventors in the past, who believed that the weapon they created would be devastating enough to end war forever (the Gatling gun and dynamite to name two) and without exception they have been sadly mistaken.]]
** [[spoiler:The legendary Sage of the Six Paths seems to have been this during his life as well. He was probably the strongest ninja in history (other than [[PhysicalGod his mother]]). Even so, he honestly didn't think people would abuse the powerful techniques he passed down to them, and was surprised that his older son became resentful when he named the younger his successor.]]
* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'': Orihime has martial arts ability. In fact, she has black-belt level skill. She also has a one-hit kill ability that could potentially be devastating. The snag is that she is too idealistic and soft-hearted to be able to function as a warrior. The end result is someone who struggles to possess the mentality for battle which affects her skills and power. She's been working on this REAL hard.
* ''LightNovel/TheDevilIsAPartTimer'': Emilia Justina/Emi Yusa is very powerful and charismatic, but is genuinely shocked to discover that the Church of Ente Isla, which she had been fighting for her entire life, is {{corrupt|Church}}; her friends, Albert and Emeralda, are not too surprised to discover this themselves. Furthermore, she is unaware that Suzuno is another Ente Isla native, something that Maou and his group [[EverybodyKnewAlready knew from the minute she saw them]], until Suzuno explicitly told her so to her face; Suzuno herself is absolutely ''shocked'' that Emi didn't figure it out herself.
* Azuma Kazuma of ''Manga/YakitateJapan''. He's an excellent baker (and is later to be ''incredibly'' good at math), but has little experience due to growing up in a remote rural area. He didn't even know what nan bread was, [[ItsBeenDone "inventing" it himself without realizing it had already been invented.]]

* Negi Springfield from ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'', a highly talented mage who at 10 years old has the sort of power and skill that most don't get even after decades of study and training...but he's still a ten year old and he thinks like one. As a result, a good chunk of his training involves getting the naïveté beaten out of him.

* ''Manga/OnePiece'':
** Luffy is a strong and determined character who is made of rubber... who also goes "WOOOOOOOW" at every little thing along with Chopper, and who lacks common sense in many (most) occasions... like Goku above, he also gets better, sorta, as the story progresses.
** The Zou arc introduces Carrot, a LittleBitBeastly young rabbit girl who is an acknowledged warrior in her homeland but has no idea of anything outside of it. While even Chopper and Luffy understand what a big deal going to sea is, Carrot thought stowing away on the Thousand Sunny to join a rescue mission would be a simple day trip and is amazed that the trip to their destination would take several days.
* Shichika of ''LightNovel/{{Katanagatari}}'': He's spent his entire life on a remote island cut off from civilization with only his sister and his father. He can't even tell other humans apart from each other by sight alone. While he did receive 20 years of training in Kyotoryuu, a powerful fighting style that is essentially "swordsmanship without a sword", he lacks actual battle experience. This actually cost him a quick victory in Episode 2 when he was caught off guard by his opponent's sword pressure and inadvertently held back on what would have been a decisive blow. Fortunately he had a backup plan in that case.

* ''Anime/RomeoXJuliet'': Juliet, oh Juliet. You're a total BadassAdorable, but you should've known better than falling for the cute guy in a CoolHorse...

* This trope is addressed in ''Anime/SamuraiChamploo'': One of Jin's early opponents, Inuyaka, notes that while he's a very skilled swordsman, he hasn't had enough outside experience to fight him in an unfamiliar environment, as he's spent his entire life training in a dojo. (By contrast, his counterpart Mugen wouldn't know formal fighting if he was presented with an instruction manual.)
* Haqua du Lot Herminium of ''Manga/TheWorldGodOnlyKnows'' was a brilliant student, whose hard work and talent were so undeniable that she broke through the glass ceiling and became the first student from a lower-class family to ever be awarded the [[SinisterScythe Scythe of Testament]], signifying her place at the top of her class. Once put in the field, however, she causes trouble by losing patience with her human partner's GradualGrinder approach, due to her need to prove herself. Then, when [[TheRemnant Vintage]] rears its head, she proves to be woefully naïve when it comes to reading people, requiring the help of her more worldly acquaintances on numerous occasions.
* Pick a ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' protagonist. [[Anime/MobileSuitGundam Amuro]], [[Anime/MobileSuitZetaGundam Kamille]], [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSeed Kira]], [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSeedDestiny Shinn]], even the supposedly cynical [[Anime/MobileSuitGundam00 Setsuna]] all start out pretty naïve. Then they get caught up in the war and, in one way or another, all break. In Shinn's case, the clever BigBad exploits this, manipulating him into becoming one of the CoDragons without Shinn even realizing it until the end.
* Priscilla from ''Manga/{{Claymore}}'' fits this with tragic consequences. She hadn't been on the job for long before she was promoted to number two in the organization, and she was truly skilled at what she did. However, her big flaw was that she lacked experience and tended to [[LawfulStupid see everything in black and white]], even when fighting [[AlwaysChaoticEvil yoma.]] Both Teresa, who she was hunting, and Illena, who was really in control of the entire assassination task force (albeit it was technically Priscilla since she outranked her), called Priscilla out on her naïveté, but seeing that Priscilla was also emotionally unstable do to her traumatic past - you can guess [[SuperpowerMeltdown where everything eventually led to.]]
* ''Manga/ThePrinceOfTennis'': Kabaji Munehiro is one of the most formidable players due to his PowerCopying abilities coupled his physical power. However, he often lacks experience with the techniques he copies from opponents, which allow both [[UnskilledButStrong Kawamura]] and Tezuka to exploit this.
* Mizuki from ''Manga/KamisamaKiss'' knows quite a bit of magic and is far tougher and stronger than any ordinary human. However, he has lived a very sheltered life and when he is suddenly dropped into modern day Tokyo it really shows.
* Shierke from ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'' is a very skilled witch (and arguably the most useful character to have in a fight after [[PowerTrio the main three]]), but her youth and relative inexperience leads her to overestimate her abilities and make several ultimatley avoidable mistakes due to recklessness.
* Shinji Ikari in ''Anime/RebuildOfEvangelion''. He's shortly established as the most competent and skilled EVA pilot, beating out the much-more-experienced Asuka while in an EVA he's unfamiliar with, but [[spoiler: is easily manipulated by Gendo into accomplishing his goals and triggering a ''Fourth'' Impact.]]
* Sensei from ''Manga/{{Barakamon}}''. While a genius in calligraphy, lacks social skills and gets easily flustered when interacting with others, accidentally saying that his piece for a contest was a test piece and forcing him to come up with a new one at the last minute. Similarly, he constantly acts childish, gets outsmarted by 6 year olds in social interactions and has no idea about romance. Still he helps his students win calligraphy contests and always places high in them.
* For all his cynical pragmatism and perfect social control within his normal sphere of influence, Kyouya Ootori from ''Anime/OuranHighSchoolHostClub'' shows signs of being just as much of a teenage ShelteredAristocrat behind those StoicSpectacles as all the other students except Haruhi. Shows up most prominently in his DayInTheLimelight episode, "Kyouya's Day Out!", and some of the more Kyouya-focused manga arcs that never made it into the anime.
* In ''LightNovel/VioletEvergarden'', this was Violet's initial problem when it came to writing letters as noted by the Doll teacher. She was the only one in her class to attain perfect grades in vocabulary and grammar, as well as having excellent typing skills, but Violet simply lacked the social skills to accurately decipher a person's true letter and express it properly in a letter.
* ''LightNovel/TheAsteriskWar'': When protagonist Ayato Amagiri faces minor {{recurrer}} Elliot Forster in the Phoenix Festa semifinal, he comments in his InternalMonologue that, given time and practice, Elliot might become better with the sword than himself. Until then, though, despite only having his backup weapon instead of his usual Orga Lux Ser Veresta, Ayato's greater experience and physical strength from being a few years older give him enough of an edge to win.

* In ''Fanfic/TheUniversiad'', Celestia was this back in the Black Queen War. Her younger self, while still stupendously powerful, naïvely held out for a cure to the Plague where far more experienced and hardened Forumers had established the impossibility of doing so. Reactions varied widely from admiration of her tenacity to derision.

* In ''Fanfic/NeitherABirdNorAPlaneItsDeku'', Tatsu Yamashiro, better known as Katana, is a skilled warrior who can easily carve through combat robots like tofu. But she's totally out of her element in a classroom setting and freezes up in front of a class full of students, forcing her to read off flash cards. She can't hold a conversation to save her life and is constantly getting lost in U.A.'s hallways.
* ''FanFic/GreenTeaRescue''; Izuku can talk for hours about Quirks and the best ways to use them for superhero work, has great control with his own Quirk, and can hold his own in a fight. Everything else he's completely helpless with; he's oblivious to the fact he's the Archie in a rather heated BettyAndVeronica love triangle between [[NiceGirl Ochako]] and [[TheVamp Toga]], will let more intense people like Bakugou walk all over him, and when he stumbled across [[BigBad Shigaraki]] infiltrating U.A. he took the villain's cover story of being a lost sidekick at face value and never questioned if he was out of place.

* ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'': Chancellor Sheev Palpatine/Darth Sidious seems to think that way of his late master, Darth Plagueis, who possessed great abilities but was uncharacteristically altruistic for a Sith, enough to teach his apprentice how to create life, and trust Palpatine not to kill him.
-->'''Palpatine''': He had ''[[AdmiringTheAbomination such a knowledge of the Dark Side]]'', he could even stop the ones he cared about from dying... [sic] Unfortunately, he taught his apprentice everything he knew, [[TheStarscream then his apprentice killed him in his sleep]]. Ironic... he could save others from death, [[WhatAnIdiot but not himself]].
* The team in ''Film/AnacondaTheHuntForTheBloodOrchid'' are brilliant in their academic fields of biology, chemistry, and pharmacology, but don't appear to have spent a single night in their lives camping before venturing to Borneo in search of the titular flower.
* Colossus in ''Film/Deadpool2'' might have more experience than the usual examples of this trope, but he still falls into it, as his [[WideEyedIdealist idealistic]] and [[NiceGuy empathic]] personality leaves him far too trusting for his own good (he never realized something was off with [[OrphanageOfFear Essex]] until Deadpool brought the place into the light) and makes him something of a doormat.

* In ''Literature/FiveHundredYearsAfter'' by Steven Brust, Mario is hired to assassinate the Emperor because he fits this trope. [[spoiler:He's being set up to fail; [[SpringtimeForHitler he doesn't]].]] In all the other books where he appears or is mentioned, it's enough later that he's become an OldMaster.

* Parzival in ''Literature/{{Parzival}}'' is this for the first half of the poem, before gradually coming to self-awareness.
* Shannon Foraker of the ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' series is this. She is a phenomenally competent Tactical Officer, earning the nickname "Tac Witch" because of her nearly magic ability to work out problems. She is so focused on her work, however, that she pretty much ignores everything else. Unfortunately, during the 7th and 8th books, several events yank her into the real world and cause her to become much more introverted... and possibly dangerous to herself and those around her. One of her superior officers notes her loss of naïveté with regret, as it was one of the things that made her so likable - if occasionally exasperating.

* Harry Dresden from ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' takes this trope and runs with it. Until he starts [[spoiler: offing gods and ''species'' and learning about the underlying conflicts in the series]], he has a reputation as a magical thug. In the early books, it's a [[OnceAnEpisode regular]] occurrence for someone with more experience to tell him that's he's in over his head. They're right, though Harry usually [[HonorBeforeReason won't]] or can't back out at that point. Even he admits that his continued survival is as much luck as anything else.

* In ''Literature/TheDinosaurLords'', for all her youth, Melodía is actually brilliant and very well educated in matters of warfare, but woefully lacking in practical experience, way too idealistic and too used to having everything served to her on a silver platter, leading to more than a few stumbles before she [[TookALevelInBadass takes a level in badass]].
* Literature/TheWheelOfTime plays with this a bit. Most of the main characters start out as UnskilledButStrong. When they start to get some training they transition to Skilled But Naive, and then as the series progresses they [[CharacterDevelopment mostly lose their naivete]] (except for Elayne who remains somewhat spoiled and naive throughout the whole series).
* Garion, the titular hero of ''Literature/TheBelgariad'', is said to have the potential to be one of the most powerful sorcerers that ever lived. He has performed several feats that other sorcerers regularly defied as being outright impossible, such as resurrecting a dead horse, [[AchievementsInIgnorance simply by not being aware that it shouldn't have worked]]. And yet, even after overcoming the trials on his initial ComingOfAgeStory and becoming a respected king as of ''Literature/TheMallorean'', he still has a tendency to play fast and loose with his powers in ways that could have grave consequences for hundreds of years. Fortunately his grandfather and aunt have seven and five thousand years of experience with which to guide him.

%%* Chuck of... ''Series/{{Chuck}}'' starts off this way.

* ''Series/KamenRiderGaim'': Takatora Kureshima is the strongest of the series' rider ensemble, capable of beating any of them in fight with just pure skill, obsolete driver and normal Lockseed. Unfortunately, he has serious case of HorribleJudgeOfCharacter and WrongGenreSavvy among others. [[spoiler: His unability to understand [[GoodCannotComprehendEvil that not all people are after as noble causes as he is]] becomes his undoing]].

* ''Franchise/FireEmblem'':
** Fir, from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBindingBlade'', is skillful as she tries to chase her mother Karla's legacy as a swordmaster. But she recklessly challenges the first fighter she sees at an arena, not considering that these are [[DuelToTheDeath to-the-death]] affairs, and lucks out in picking NiceGuy Noah. Later she is easily hoodwinked into lending her blade to some pirates who are obviously out for her InfinityMinusOneSword when they tell her that Roy's group are the bad guys--she's shocked when she sees Noah among them and almost [[AttackHello attacks when he says hello]].
** Princess Tana from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones'' starts like this. She ''is'' a PluckyGirl with quite the talent to ride pegasi and use a BladeOnAStick, but she's also very sheltered by her brother and has just finished her official training. This leads her to catch a huge DistressBall in Ephraim's route, but with some training, she can become quite the powerhouse.

* [[CuteClumsyGirl Merrill]] of ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'' is a young Dalish elf who happens to be a brilliant mage and excellent historian. Aside from a mage Hawke, she's the single most powerful member of the party. Unfortunately, she's had next to no life experience and, as a result, she's a gullible, distracted ditz with almost ''no'' common sense. If it weren't for the fact that half of the party looks out for her, she'd probably never have survived her first year in Kirkwall.
* N of ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'' is very good at his job (as an extremist semi-cult puppet leader) because he is a VERY naïve person. It's even mentioned in-game.
* ''VideoGame/MegaManX'' is shown to have been very naïve when he started out as a Maverick Hunter, especially in the ''X1'' remake ''Maverick Hunter X'' and its OVA prequel The Day of "Sigma", though he's also stated to have limitless potential.
* In a strange way, the Brotherhood of Steel in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas''. The Brotherhood is the single oldest organization in the Western U.S., and their access to pre-war technology and military-level training gives them enormous power, but their close-mindedness and isolationist policies have led them to lose contact with reality. The Brotherhood simply refuses to see that their advantage in quality, in all aspects of society, is shrinking daily, and their disadvantage in quantity grows even quicker.
* ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar II'': Thaddeus, the youngest of the SpaceMarine cast is a bizarre case. Despite being a SpaceMarine sergeant (which in 40K involves decades of reconstructive surgery, indoctrination, and TrainingFromHell before you can advance to the lowest rank), he displays a remarkable lack of savviness regarding the nature of their service, or that they are no longer part of humanity (he keeps insisting that the Blood Ravens should save his homeworld Meridian before the other planets due to its greater value to him and him alone).

* ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars'' has Colin, who is introduced in the second game as having [[NewMeat just become a CO of Blue Moon]]. He's obviously very skilled as a CO, able to keep up with the ''far'' more accomplished Grit and Olaf, but lacks the confidence and experience to use his troops as effectively as they can. [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration In terms of gameplay]], this manifests as his troops being weaker than average, but his ability to ZergRush his foes into submission makes him one of the most formidable commanding officers in the game.

* Grace from ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'' has a bit of this. She's becoming a bit less naïve, but not much.

* Parian in ''Literature/{{Worm}}'' is highly skilled with her [[MindOverMatter cloth-kinesis]] at the start of the story, but none of her training or experience covers ''combat''.
* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': Weiss Schnee, the 17 year old MagicKnight who in "The Emerald Forest" has to mentally go through the motions of properly adopting a fighting stance, suggesting she doesn't have much practical fighting experience despite her impressive powers. The rest of Team RWBY would also qualify, as they're very good fighters for first-year trainee Huntresses but also prone to making rash and rather dumb tactical choices and also quite naive in how the world works ([[BreakTheCutie which hits them really hard later on]]).

* Aang the Avatar is like this in ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender''. He's so naïve and kinda ditzy that characters easily forget that he's already a master-level Airbender when the show begins. The fact he's a 12-year-old kid doesn't help, either. ''None of that'' gets in the way of him learning '''everything''' -- '''''FAST.'''''
* Korra from ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' is skilled in three of the four elements, but due to her sheltered upbringing, she's socially inept when she goes to Republic City and discovers the [[TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized enemies]] [[ChessMaster that]] call it home.

* Rook Blonko in ''WesternAnimation/Ben10Omniverse''. A highly-skilled Plumber, he is often mystified by Earth customs. WordOfGod mentions this was fully intentional, so he'll balanced Ben's status of being roughly self-taught, but very experienced.

* The team in ''Film/AnacondaII'' are brilliant in their academic fields of biology, chemistry, and pharmacology, but don't appear to have spent a single night in their lives camping before venturing to Borneo in search of a legendary flower.