Line #48 Main/SurroundedBySmartPeople


1	Bob has just been invited to attend the ElaborateUniversityHigh for the Gifted. He himself is only a normal guy, but his common sense with an experiment involving mutant beavers running amok in his hometown caught the attention of the prep school. Bob now finds that his roommate is a ninth-degree black belt and can build a nuclear reactor with a paper clip and a rubber hose. The classes here are based in nanotechnology and xenobiology, and physical education involves math problems in Ancient Egyptian. Bob now has to deal with all this weirdness and may or may not have to fix whatever this group of geniuses throw at him.
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3	Bob is now Surrounded by Smart People.
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5	While the OnlySaneMan is usually SurroundedByIdiots, this guy is an [[TheEveryman Everyman]] who finds himself in a group or place filled with people smarter and/or more skilled than he is. The Only Sane Man usually has to deal with the fallout of all that smartness in one place, often being the voice of reason in the group. This person may have a military or police-based background, serving as the badass among the smart folk.
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7	The cop of the CopAndScientist is often this trope. See also OnlySaneEmployee, which frequently overlaps with this trope. For when an already genius-level character ends up in this setting with characters who are as equally (or more) smart as they are, see BigFishInABiggerOcean.
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9	!!Examples:
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11	[[foldercontrol]]
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13	[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
14	* In ''Literature/HaruhiSuzumiya'', Kyon is the only non-superpowered member of the S.O.S. Brigade, and many of the events they get caught up in, tend to be over his head. As such, he often has to rely on Yuki's {{Technobabble}} explanations, or Koizumi whenever he can't understand Yuki, to get a handle on things. Mikuru also chips in, as much as regulation will allow since most of what she knows is "classified".
15	* Zenkichi from ''Manga/MedakaBox''. While the people around him are certainly quirky, their abilities can't really be denied. Akune and Kikaijima are both scholarship students and specials, Medaka herself is talented at everything as an abnormal. Plus the Class 13, who are all incredibly talented in one area (though at a price). He is able to keep up with them with his abnormal amount of determination.
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18	[[folder:Film]]
19	* PlayedForLaughs in ''Film/TheIntern'', revolving around a CoolOldGuy who ends up working at a tech startup. Despite his lack of experience and being surrounded by geeky programmers a third his age, he serves as a BlitheSpirit.
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22	[[folder:Literature]]
23	* In ''Literature/RamaII'' all the astronauts are 1 in 100 re intelligence or more, and Nicole, the viewpoint character, is around 1 in 1000. However, Wakefield's score of +5.58 on an intelligence test indicates he is one in 10^5.58, that is, in a group smaller than one in 100,000 of the population, which puts him near the top, and fellow cosmonaut Sabatini is 1 in 10,000, and so is Officer Brown, leaving Nicole in the middle of the pack, though she puts little stock in the tests per se. This series follows the trend where three of the brightest are the most irascible, while Nicole is a heart, and a foil for the most antagonistic of the lot, though the crew is mostly agreeable people. The cosmonaut team is well educated, highly trained for these particular jobs - see pilot, engineer, historian of the spacecraft, and this impresses Nicole and gives the sense of a competency filled place, notwithstanding the mild personal troubles. As life science officer, Nicole herself is skilled in the use of robots to monitor the cosmonauts' condition and shares the education gained from graduating from the cosmonaut academy with this cohort.
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26	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
27	* In the Creator/{{Syfy}} show ''Series/{{Eureka}}'', Sheriff Carter often has to deal with the weirdness caused by the geniuses living in the town. The sheriff himself is a former U.S Marshal.
28	* In ''Series/KnightRider'', Michael Knight is friends with an educated British man, a WrenchWench, and an artificially intelligent car.
29	** This also occurs in the 2008 ''Knight Rider series'', where the main character is surrounded by an AI expert, a woman who can speak six languages, a computer whiz, and a DeadpanSnarker Ford Mustang.
30	* ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'': John, definitely. Wife's an assassin, best friend's a detective, and....well, yeah. He doubles as an OnlySaneMan due to the fact that Sherlock's weirdness gets him into trouble and the like.
31	* The whole concept behind ''Series/HeadOfTheClass''.
32	* Penny in ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' qualifies, being the only non-science geek in the group. That's pretty much the entire basis for her character, really.
33	** Also Howard, to a lesser extent. Sure, he has an [=MSc=] in Engineering, but that's still poor compared to Sheldon, Leonard, Raj, Amy, and Bernadette (ie. the entire remaining main cast) who all have [=PhDs=] in their fields.
34	* Booth in ''Series/{{Bones}}'', as the only non-scientist in the main cast.
35	* Steve Harrington in ''Series/StrangerThings''. A lot of the heroes in the show are nerds or geniuses, while Steve is a BookDumb jock. This is most apparent in Season 3 when he's grouped with three of the smartest characters: resident science nerd Dustin, CunningLinguist Robin, and math and politics prodigy Erica.
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38	[[folder:Video Games]]
39	* James Vega from ''VideoGame/MassEffect3''. James is a self-admitted grunt on a team of scientific experts, technical geniuses, proven leaders and tacticians, and galactic saviors in general. James is also the only member of the team with no experience fighting [[EldritchAbomination Reapers]].
40	** Even Shepard falls into this role. While by no means lacking in intelligence, they will often take the everyman seat and just let [[AdventurerArchaeologist Liara]], Miranda, [[RobotGirl EDI]], [[MadScientist Mordin]], [[WrenchWench Tali]], [[RobotBuddy Legion]] and [[SmartPeoplePlayChess Traynor]] do their thing as the [[TheSmartGuy resident smart person]] in the room.
41	* ''Franchise/{{Danganronpa}}'':
42	** Makoto Naegi of ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc''. An average Joe by his own admission, sheer luck gets him into Hope's Peak, where everybody else is the "Ultimate" in their chosen field.
43	** Played with in ''VisualNovel/Danganronpa2GoodbyeDespair'', where this role is filled by Hinata. As the designated "???" Ultimate, he doesn't know what his talent is while everyone else is certain of theirs. [[spoiler:He's also the only kid in the group that was a Reserve student, i.e. from the part of the school where Average Joes are admitted if they have enough cash. This is also inverted with his Kamukura personality, who was modified into the most talented person in Hope's Peak-- but thanks to his lack of emotion, he considers himself SurroundedByIdiots.]]
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46	[[folder:Webcomics]]
47	* In ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'', Moloch von Zinzer is surrounded by incredibly intelligent "sparks" who can dream up wonders of science before breakfast. However, when an experiment goes horribly awry, he's the only one to think of pulling the plug instead of panicking and shouting, "Nothing can stop it now!!!"
48	** Justified, because Sparks are {{Mad Scientist}}s with an emphasis on the "mad". Moloch is Surrounded By Smart People, but he's also ''literally'' the OnlySaneMan. It's also theorized in-universe that he's an instinctive HypercompetentSidekick.
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51	[[folder:Western Animation]]
52	* ''WesternAnimation/MegaManFullyCharged'': Aki's father, sister, and best friend are all robotics experts. Even his crush excels at school, whereas he struggles to the point that his family has even hired tutors for him several times. Given that he's a robot, one has to wonder why it would have been a good idea to program him like that, other than to make him [[RidiculouslyHumanRobot seem more human.]]
53	* In the first regular episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', "Bart the Genius", Bart is mistaken for a genius after he cheats on a test and is enrolled in a school for prodigies.
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56	[[folder:Real Life]]
57	* Go to any UsefulNotes/{{Mensa}} event in real life.
58	* Visiting the campus of a university or college can feel this way.
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