Trope Talk: The Smart Guy

An integral 20% of the Five-Man Band! Today let's discuss the teammate with majority custody of the party brain cell and all the ways this can go right and wrong!

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[psychronia]

What's neat about Sokka is that he's almost a tactical version of the Avatar. While Aang is learning bending, Sokka is learning strategies from all over the world.

[Matthew_Murray]

Sokka is the equivalent of the "crouching moron hidden badass" trope but more so "crouching moron hidden genius" and really I love that about his character.

[acecat]

"We need to reboot the router." "In English, dammit!" is probably my favorite background gag.

[MyLPMaster]

I find it quite funny how the smart guy in phantasy is usually a mage, but in Avatar, Sokka is explicitly defined as one of the few non-mages

[EverythingTheorist]

I love how the strengths/weaknesses map has "Can Drive" "Can Cook" and "Has Netflix" on it.

[jessicajayes]

What about the earliest example of the smart guy: Odysseus! Unlike other Greek heroes with god-like powers from their god parents, Odysseus is completely human and uses his smarts to get out of bad situations. Getting a cyclops drunk, building his own palace and raft to get home, the Trojan horse, the list goes on.

[Leopardfoot]

“The writer’s ‘clever plan-inator’” is the best way I’ve ever heard the plotting process described omg

[Phoenix]

I love how Toph is the “Big Guy” despite being tiny. Ember Island nailed it

[TidalShadow]

I've found that the trick to writing a smart guy is to remember that as the writer, I have a luxury that my smart guy character doesn't: time. If you have a smart guy, write them into a corner and then take the time to figure out how they can get themselves out of it. This can make your smart guy seem brilliant because nobody needs to know just how long it took you to come up with the solution when the smart guy figures it out in seconds. I've found this to work equally well with both good and evil smart guys. Especially when you're able to come up with a solution based around information that your smart guy canonically knows.

[Dhips.]

"While you were bending water I was studying the blade, while you were bending earth I was studying the blade." - Sokka, probably.

[MundaneAxiom]

One of my favourite Smart Guy traits to see is practicality. Often characters (and audiences) in supernatural stories can forget that there exist normie solutions to problems, so having a character (often one with no powers) that can, for example, answer "how can we stop this guy" in an urban fantasy setting with "hit him with a bus" can actually be a clever and fun show of smarts.

[jnswiwh]

The fact that 'what is niche and nerdy these days' even needs to be asked:

"Age of the geek, baby"

[Astro_Crunch]

One of my favorite things about Sokka is that he's both the tactical strategist and also the big goofball. At a glance, you'd think he's just the clumsy comic relief guy, but he's actually very intuitive and observant.

[hella_lugosi]

Chewie is the smart guy in the Chewie/Han Smart Guy/Big Guy duo. Despite being physically larger and more imposing, Chewie is usually depicted as the one who fixes the ship, is the better pilot, and is the more insightful of the two despite his inability to speak common. Han is the guy you point in a general direction and tell him to shoot things.

[HarmonicHewell]

When we play d&d, I’m personally a “big guy” main, but shout out to all the “smart guy” mains. For without you, we are stupid, and without us, you are dead.

[Tekdruid]

"Show, don't tell" is especially difficult when it entails presenting somebody as very smart.

[jackielinde]

Red: "...hide behind the tank and chuck fireballs."
Me: "Hide behind the tank, a large rock, a solid stone column, a building, under a large table, across a river, across the nation, or from another continent entirely. Also, never underestimate the importance of a solid, oak table. A wizard worth their salt will be able to scan any bar and know INSTANTLY what's the best table to hide under in the place. Oh, and hay carts make lousy hiding spots. You'd think all that hay would be a great place to hide and chuck fireballs, but only a madman would hide in a place of very flammable stuff on top of a mobile funeral pyre."

[masenformen]

I love how every three out of four Trope Talks end up being reminders of how great Avatar TLA is.

[kytyoy]

I love how on the graph, literally no one can drive except the Lancer. One can only imagine the terrified screaming of the group as the Lancer character drives them off a cliff with a smirk.

[zujuice]

That "smart guy being an antisocial jerk" trope is probably my biggest reason why Senku from Dr. Stone is one of my favorite smart characters of all time. It's very subversive, I think truly intelligent people would know to be kind to others.