Basic Trope: The heroic character/protagonist is an idiot.
- Straight: Bob, the Chosen One destined to defeat Emperor Evulz, is a very powerful warrior, but lacks intelligence.
- Exaggerated: Bob is The Ditz and is also Too Dumb to Live but all his other traits are matched to an Ideal Hero.
- Downplayed:
- Bob is Book Dumb.
- Bob is of average intelligence, but looks dumb in comparison to his team-mate(s).
- Bob is actually quite smart but has a tendency to charge into battle without thinking first.
- Justified:
- Bob's magic sword gives him great power at the cost of brain efficiency.
- Bob is powerful because he's an idiot.
- Bob was Raised by Wolves and never got the chance to go to school. In fact, he might actually be a Genius Bruiser in his own right through Awesomeness by Analysis; It's just that he's an uneducated hero.
- Bob is a Kid Hero, but like most children that aren't Child Prodigies, he's prone to his stupid acts.
- Inverted:
- Bob, The Unchosen One not destined to defeat Evulz, is a Badass Bookworm or a Genius Bruiser.
- Evulz is an idiot who only got where he is through overwhelming force.
- Good Is Not Dumb
- Evil Genius, if inverted both ways.
- Subverted: Bob appears to be an idiot at first, but he's revealed to have been playing dumb all along.
- Double Subverted: Bob claims to be playing dumb in order to make himself look smarter than he really is.
- Parodied: Bob is a Cloud Cuckoolander ditz whose stupidity makes every situation he's in funnier while at the same time solving it somehow.
- Bob was chosen because he's an idiot: No-one with any intelligence is stupid enough to accept the quest.
- Zig Zagged:
- Bob is generally a smart person, although he does have the occasional brain fart.
- Bob's problems stem from his intelligence, not his stupidity.
- Averted: Bob is of average intelligence.
- Enforced:
- The show is an action comedy, making the main character into an idiot allows everyone else (including the viewer) to be the Straight Man.
- "He has no flaws. People are going to think he is boring. Well, I guess we'll just have to turn him into an idiot."
- It's easier to world build for the audience if the main character is unfamiliar with the world.
- Lampshaded:
- "Which end of the sword is the one you hold again?" "And here we are, relying on your great leadership and combat experience..." "Huh?" "Nevermind."
- "The gods chose this idiot? Welp, we're all screwed."
- Invoked: Bob was chosen because Dumb Is Good.
- Exploited: Emperor Evulz takes advantage of Bob's lack of wits, turning him into an Unwitting Pawn.
- Defied: The gods purposefully choose an intelligent hero to defeat Evulz.
- Discussed: "Why is Bob the leader again? All he ever seems to do is be incompetent and get distracted by shiny things."
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed:
- Bob's stupidity continually makes every situation he tries to get involved in worse and stops him from solving the problem.
- Because of his simple-minded nature, he doesn't question what he's doing, the morality of it, or think of any other solutions, making him essentially a Knight Templar.
- Bob's mental pratfalls often fail to be inspiring or even endearing, and he becomes increasingly sensitive about cracks to his intelligence as the series goes on.
- Bob is Too Dumb to Live, and invokes that trope's logical conclusion.
- Bob may still be a badass despite his idiocy and excel at his own style of fighting, but he has trouble going up against other styles of fighting, and can struggle to advance in areas outside of it, hurting him in the long run.
- Bob is so incompetent and ineffective that the audience becomes frustrated with him and they ultimately stop caring about him and the story altogether.
- Bob's idiocy leads to lots of property damage and/or innocent people getting hurt/killed. This ultimately results in Bob suffering a bad reputation and he even gets arrested and taken to jail for all the damage he caused.
- Bob is pretty much The Big Guy at this point; He's Dumb Muscle, and he's usually the biggest badass around. Now, about the actual Big Guy, who he put out of a job...
- Reconstructed:
- Bob's idiocy gives him new attacks and abilities, and he's able to solve problems no one else can because he sees things simply.
- Bob, ashamed of his failure, decides to study strategy and become smarter in certain areas even if he is still Book Dumb.
- While Bob regularly hurts himself in stupid ways, he still learns from his mistakes, and never falls into the same trap twice... Instead finding entirely new ways to stupidly hurt himself.
- Bob's stupidity ended up also making him too dumb to kill, and he wasn't dead.
- Bob, well aware of the hindrance his idiocy is to the team effort, lets The Smart Guy give him advice and guide his course of action.
- Played For Laughs:
- Bob is so dumb, he nearly gets his friends killed by placing them into crazy situations like being thrown into a pit of killer puppies, chased down by monkeys with jetpacks, and fighting an old man with a plastic baseball bat.
- Bob is so dumb he becomes a Weirdness Magnet and gets all sorts of troubles mentioned above on himself.
- Played For Drama:
- Bob is separated from his friends and has to work out his problems on his own despite his incompetence, leading to many failures and causing the audience to wonder if he'll manage to survive.
- Bob is stupid, but is smart enough to know that he's stupid and has an inferiority complex as a result.
Where's the way to Idiot Hero again?
