Dumbass Has a Point/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A dumb character usually not taken seriously actually brings up an excellent point to the astonishment of other characters.

  • Straight: Ben is usually slow to realize things that ought to be obvious and consistently makes foolish statements. However, in a moment of sharpness, even he finds what Dan is going to do so stupid he can present a really compelling reason for Dan to change his course of action.
  • Exaggerated: Ben only passed the comprehensive school by the virtue of his impatient father bribing a headmaster, has no social intelligence whatsoever, does and says the stupidest of things over and over again even after he's been told several times in a perfectly clear fashion not to repeat them and so on. However, in an extremely rare moment of lucidity, he presents at least ten compelling arguments for why what Dan is going to do would be stupid and better alternatives with solid justifications, to the point of philosophizing and stealing everyone's breath.
  • Justified:
    • Ben is only pretending to be stupid.
    • Ben has secretly been becoming more intelligent. Others only haven't seen a glimpse of it until that moment.
    • Ben is under an influence of something that actually momentarily or permanently increased his intelligence.
    • Dan is in such a great emotional strain he can't think rationally. This prompts Ben, who has had some semblance of intelligence all along, to metaphorically glance at the mirror, making the moment his starting point of change.
  • Inverted: Dan is usually incredibly intelligent, both in academic, logical and philosophical as well as emotional and social regard. However, at one moment, he says something so incredibly stupid everyone is mortified.
  • Subverted: Ben is simply parroting what he heard earlier from Dan's friend Emmett, not actually understanding the content.
  • Double Subverted: When someone calls Ben out on this, he simply keeps going on - making his own convincing, heartfelt arguments.
  • Parodied: ???
  • Deconstructed: Dan goes through with a plan that fails on a spectacular note that when Ben tells his idea, it becomes a huge We Could Have Avoided All This.
  • Reconstructed: ???
  • Zig Zagged: The dumb Ben presents a sensible point, but it's simply him regurgitating what he heard earlier. However, he follows up on it with convincing arguments of his own - admitting soon he actually has had no idea at all what he's been talking about - then someone smarter states he still had a point to take note of and backs it up with stronger arguments.
  • Averted: Ben is none the wiser and never gets any flashes of insight.
  • Enforced: ???
  • Lampshaded: Where did that piece of smartness come from?
  • Invoked: Susan suspects Ben isn't nearly as stupid as others seem to believe, so she stages a situation where she can see if her intuition is right.
  • Exploited: ???
  • Defied: Please understand that while stupid people can have moments of wisdom, it's still usually rare. Don't expect him to be wise at the right moment.
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: ???

You might think the main page is dumb as hell - yet it raises so many great points for further reference. If you have time to spare, why not check it out?