Idiot Hero/Playing With
Basic Trope: A heroic character that is also an idiot.
- Straight: Bob, the Chosen One destined to defeat Lord Bloodstone, is a very powerful warrior, but lacks intelligence.
- Exaggerated: Bob has all the intelligence of a ditz, and he's Too Dumb to Live.
- Justified: Bob's magic sword gives him great power at the cost of brain efficiency.
- Bob is powerful because he's an idiot.
- Bod is a hero because he is a Determinator who is Too Dumb to Fool
- Inverted: Bob, the Chosen One destined to defeat Lord Bloodstone, is The Smart Guy or a Genius Bruiser.
- Bob is the Big Bad and is a Magnificent Bastard.
- Bob is a stupidvillain.
- Or, Bob is not the main (or heroic) character, but is very smart.
- Subverted: Bob appears to be an idiot at first, but he is 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 Cloudcuckoolander ditz whose stupidity makes every situation he's in funnier, while at the same time solving it somehow.
- Deconstructed: Bob's stupidity continually makes every situation he tries to get involved in worse, and stops him solving the problem.
- Or he's so stupid he's a Knight Templar. We're looking at you, Abraham.
- Reconstructed: Bob's idiocy gives him new attacks and abilities, or he's able to solve problems no one else can because he sees things simply, or the universe likes idiots.
- Zig Zagged: Bob is generally a smart and Genre Savvy person, although he does have the occasional brain fart.
- Averted: Bob is of average intelligence.
- Enforced: "Make Bob an idiot. It isn't Shonen without a heroic but dumb lead."
- "Our Shonen hero needs a flaw to make him more rounded, but we don't want any "evil" flaws... Aha! We can make him an idiot!"
- 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."
- Invoked: Bob was chosen because Dumb Is Good.
- Exploited: Resident Manipulative Bastard takes advantage of Bob's lack of wits, turning him into an Unwitting Pawn.
- Defied: The gods purposefully choose a smart hero to take down the Evil Overlord.
- Discussed: "Why is Bob the leader, again? All he ever seems to do is be incompetent and get distracted by shiny things."
- Conversed: "The heroes in these stories are always idiots!"
- 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 on their backs, and fighting an old man with a plastic baseball bat.
- 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.
Where is the way to Idiot Hero again?