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TV Genius: Difference between revisions
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There's also a chance that the [[TV Genius]] will be used in [[An Aesop]] about respecting non-intellectuals and appreciating the hard work they put into being the best and the brightest via an encounter with someone with a learning disorder that locks them out of the genius strata.
Often overlaps with [[Ambiguous Disorder]]. Compare [[The Rainman]], a.k.a. the [[TV Genius]] taken [[Up to Eleven]]. The [[Teen Genius]], [[Mad Scientist]], and [[
See also: [[Science Is Bad]], [[Dumb Is Good]], [[Straw Vulcan]]. When done intentionally (and everyone in the story realizes too that the person is not a real genius) it is [[Know-Nothing Know-It-All]].
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== Anime and Manga ==
* Sort of used by L in ''[[Death Note]]'', and also by Near, but averted rather heavily with Light and possibly also with Mello.
** Near's probably a good example, but in L's case at least it's stated that he's doing this to put on a show. In How to Read, the author's admitted that L makes up percentages on the spot to sound smart, and to manipulate the people around him (claiming that the percent-chance of Light being Kira has gone down, to placate Light's father, for example).
* ''[[Haruhi Suzumiya]]'' gives us [[Cloudcuckoolander|Haruhi]], [[Emotionless Girl|Yuki]] and [[The Philosopher|Koizumi]], all of whom are highly intelligent individuals with highly noticeable eccentricities. The trope is averted, however, with Kyon, who despite peppering his narrative with obscure references to literature, mythology and history, is a generally well-adjusted individual with somewhat poor grades.
** Koizumi and Yuki are more [[Averted Trope|aversions]] than straight examples. Yuki's behavior is due to her status as a [[Starfish Alien]]; and Koizumi is the Mask playing up his role in accordance with how [[Reality Warper|Haruhi]] [[Ambiguously Gay|wants him to act]]. a straight example is [[Straw Vulcan|Sasaki]]. Her [[Spock Speech]], tendency to [[Deconstructor Fleet|deconstruct the crap out of everything the sees,]] and her inability to understand people who believe in the supernatural are in line with this trope.
* Kotomi Ichinose from ''[[Clannad]]'' lacks all but the most basic of social skills while being a [[Teen Genius]]. Of course, she has a [[Freudian Excuse]] because {{spoiler|the last thing she told her parents before they died in a plane crash was that she hated them and Tomoya didn't show up for her birthday party.}} As a result, she shunned society and studied, and studied, and studied, and studied, and, well, [[Overly Long Gag|you get the idea.]]
* ''[[Code Geass]]'': Nina Einstein. Oh ''God'', Nina Einstein. Genius-level intellect and machine building skills, crippling insecurity, ''ginormous'' fear of Japanese and so on. And after {{spoiler|her crush Euphemia}} died... [[It Got Worse]].
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== Literature ==
* One of [[Magnus]]'s powers includes "supernatural cunning", which he never demonstrates. In fact he walks into an ambush obliviously.
* Ian Irvine's ''Well of Echoes'' books have Gilhaelith, the world's most powerful Geomancer and the inventor of Mathemancy, around whom some whapping great hints are dropped that he actually has Aspergers' Syndrome.
* In the ''[[Red Dwarf]]'' novel ''Last Human'', Lister has a conversation with an imaginary Kryten (sort of, it's complicated) who is "smarter" than Lister because he's able to flawlessly remember every fact that Lister has ever been exposed to, however fleetingly.
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** He even points this out in the series, at one point calling himself (paraphasing) "the rarest of breeds; a nerd with social skills."
* This is apparently the ''entire premise'' of [[CBS]]'s sitcom ''[[The Big Bang Theory]]''.
** The fans have so many theories on the state of Sheldon's mind. You can pick any combination out of Asperger's Syndrome (or several other autism spectrum disorders,) Nonverbal Learning Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive ''Personality'' Disorder, Narcisstic Personality Disorder, Antisocial Personality Disorder (in an unusual but not unheard of form,) Histrionic Personality Disorder, acquired brain injury to the frontal lobe...
** The other three are also extremely intelligent, but no where near as [[TV Genius]] as Sheldon.
*** To reiterate, in a show where three of the five main characters have at least one doctorate (Penny has a high school diploma, while Howard only has a masters) and most of the recurring characters are university professors or otherwise in highly technical fields, Sheldon is universally regarded as incomprehensibly bizarre.
* The main protagonist of the Fox TV series ''[[Bones]]'' started as a textbook example of this trope, but in later scenes showed a more realistic backstory, a love of Foreigner and Cindy Lauper, and slowly growing appreciation for her [[Book Dumb]] partner Booth's intuitive people skills. Her status is mostly justified by her childhood trauma, reliance on anthropological explanations over psychology and normal social skills, and aversion to any kind of imprecision.
** Her primary assistant for the first 3 season, Zack Addy, is an even better example, to the point where [[Word of God]] is that he does have Asperger's, but is undiagnosed.
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* Largely averted by ''[[The IT Crowd]]'' especially from series 2 onwards. Moss, despite his strange appearance and apparent genius-level intelligence, is reasonably socially capable and most of the embarrassing situations he finds himself in/causes are down to misunderstandings rather than ineptitude, while Roy seems perfectly normal most of the time.
** Moss does have a lot of social ineptitude, but this is addressed directly, meaning that the show averts this by very rarely having people consider him to be capable of knowing anything ''except'' book smarts.
* Subverted in ''[[Malcolm in the Middle]]''. The title character has a genius IQ, but deliberately the only way the writers ever actually showed this was in spending days coming up with complex solutions to the problems of an episode, then portraying Malcolm as coming up with the same ideas in seconds.
** Also, Malcolm is really irritated by his classmates who exhibit stereotypical nerdish behaviour.
* Billy of ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]''. He is very upset from getting a "B", yet he received the grade because he didn't have even an elementary school level knowledge of insects. There's also Dr. K of ''[[Power Rangers RPM]]'', but she's justified as essentially being [[For Science!|Raised For Science!]] and being very [[No Social Skills|screwed up]] as a result.
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** Though at least they give an explanation for how he suddenly had knowledge he couldn't possibly have acquired normally.
** He also ''gained'' social skills, whereas he had none before, and became much more confident. He successfully hit on Troi.
* Subverted in ''[[The West Wing]]'', particularly with the character of President Jed Bartlet; a Nobel Prize-winning economist, veritable mental warehouse of obscure trivia and unashamed intellectual, Bartlet was also a genuinely caring, personable and likable man with a great deal of charm. He was, after all, able to get himself elected twice to the office of President of the United States, which requires ''some'' people skills.
** Also subverted generally throughout the series, a key theme of which was that intelligence and intellectualism were nothing to be afraid of or ashamed of, and that treating the American people as thinking adults would reward everyone.
* For a show where science might as well be magic, ''[[Eureka]]'' is amazing in that it flat out ignores this trope with its scientists. Most of the cast have better than genius IQs and run the gamut from Fargo, who's just like this, all the way to Stark, a charismatic family man.
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** Many of his odd behaviours may have more to do with his culture and species. (All of his species think, speak, and act exhaustingly quickly; he just expediates his actions even moreso.)
** Mordin is also old by Salarian standards (their lifespan is about 40).
* In ''[[Starcraft]] 2'''s cinematics, the scientists seem incapable of using normal-sized words, jump to conclusions in a very unscientific way, and wear lab coats and nerd glasses or goggles all the time.
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* ''[[Ben 10]]'' has a morph, Grey Matter, that greatly increases his intelligence. As Grey Matter, Ben knows a lot of information that he couldn't possibly know, speaks in unnecessarily long words (unlike his usual, typical ten-year-old method of speech), and appears to lose common sense and the ability to talk to normal people (when asked "where are you?" he begins to give information that could find his geographical position, such where he is in reference to a mountain, until prompted for the name of a street).
** ''[[Ben 10: Alien Force|Ben 10 Alien Force]]'' has an arguably more straight example in Brainstrom. While Grey Matter knows more and speaks longer, the Ben personality doesn't change, as shown when Ben says "How do I know that?/I have no idea what I'm talking about". Brainstrom adapts a British accent, uses words simply because they are longer and not because they have any scientific value at hand, and becomes much more arragont in how smart he is.
* The eponymous character of ''[[Dexter's Laboratory]]'': he's a world renowned genius capable of building [[Time Travel|time machine]]s, giant robots and create all sort of genetically modified creatures, yet thinks "girl" is some kind of tribe, doesn't know what dirt is, and one time thought he was going to die due to having ''gas''.
** [[Justified Trope]]. Dexter is less than ten years old (one episode dealt with him getting promoted to the fifth grade). Spending so much time and effort maintaining a secret lab, he just wouldn't have much opportunity to associate with other people. Combined with his non-physical nature, he would have been viewed as a weird outsider. When he does have to work with others, he tends to be arrogant, but has fairly normal friendships. He just doesn't have many, and spends most of his time alone.
* Averted in an episode of ''[[Doug]]''. Skeeter, who'd always been the goofy sidekick type, takes an IQ test and scores incredibly high. Over the course of the episode, he is studied by scientists and gets into college (from the elementary-school setting of the series). This revelation goes largely ignored in most later Nickelodeon episodes, the Disney series has Skeeter's genius IQ play a role in a few other plots. However, at no point in either series does his personality change from [[The Ditz]].
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