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{{trope}}
{{quote|'''Caboose''': I know where you can find O'Malley. [[Body Surf|He lived inside my helmet for a while]], maybe he left an address to send his mail. We were like roommates.
'''Sarge''': Sounds like he took some of the furniture when he left. [[Escalating Punchline|And the carpet. And the drapes.]] [[Metaphorgotten|And I wouldn't expect to get that deposit back, if you know what I mean.]]
|''[[Red vs. Blue]]'', "Episode 39"}}
A specific subtrope of [[Flanderization]] (and occasionally [[Jerkass]] also). As a series progresses, characters sometimes become more and more stupid as time goes on. Usually the reason is related to the [[Badass Decay]] phenomenon, but with the character's level of intelligence rather than his ability to kick ass, following something along the following cycle: an episode in which the characters acts like a total buffoon gets good ratings, so another one is made. It too gets good ratings. So they make another. And another. Eventually the character is so dumb that you wonder how he manages to walk across a room without injuring himself, and pretty soon everyone forgets that the character was anything other than a complete moron.
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[[Book Dumb]] characters seem particularly prone to this; it is very easy for writers to go from 'savvy but unintellectual' to 'just stupid'.
May result in a typical [[Idiot Hero]] degenerating into [[Too Dumb to Live]]. Contrast [[Took a Level
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* Sailor Venus from ''[[Sailor Moon]]''. See [[Flanderization]].
* ''[[Tenchi Muyo!]]'': Mihoshi, ''especially'' in ''[[Tenchi Universe]]''. Somewhat justified in the case of ''[[Tenchi Universe]]'' (and ''Tenchi in Tokyo'') since those aren't actually the same Mihoshi, due to those being [[Alternate Continuity|alternate continuities]]. Totally unjustified in the 3rd installment of the OVA series, though.
* Gourry from ''[[The Slayers]]'' degraded from [[Idiot Hero]] to [[The Ditz]] and then became even dumber.
** The degradation arguably occurred before that, considering how Gourry's dumbass swordsman persona was apparently all an act in the original novels.
* ''[[Code Geass]]'': Ohgi, after falling for Villetta. It's so bad that thanks partly to him, {{spoiler|Lelouch finishes crossing the [[Despair Event Horizon]]}}, which causes {{spoiler|Lelouch}} to implement the {{spoiler|[[Thanatos Gambit|Zero Requiem]]}}.
* ''[[
* ''[[Ranma
* ''[[
** Light Yagami. He goes from erasing his own memory, trusting in the brilliance of his planning to ensure L's death while cementing his own complete innocence... to hiding the Death Note in storage and ''really hoping no one finds it while he's not looking''.
*** That, or it was he was going insane due to his [[A God Am I|god complex]] and truly thought that everyone was beneath him.
* ''[[Pokémon (
** This is finally subverted in Best Wishes as they now [[Took a Level
* Alphonse in [[Fullmetal Alchemist (
* As of late, whenever [[Naruto]] seems to start growing as a character, he immediately takes a level in dumbass. Most notoriously when he doesn't realize anything is wrong during the attack on turtle island by Kabuto and zombie!Deidara. Despite the living island suddenly acting as if it were hit with a high-level earthquake.
* Sakura Kinomoto of ''[[
== Film ==
* ''[[Idiocracy]]'': This trope happening to the entire human race is basically the plot.
* ''[[The Neverending Story (
** Not to mention the Rock Biter...
* ''[[The Mask (
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* ''[[Wheel of Time]]'': In the first four books of the series Elaida is presented as a cunning member of the Red Ajah who is able to get Suian removed from power and still her. As soon as she gain powers her I.Q drops considerably, she pisses everyone in the tower off, she makes disastrous decisions that causes Aes Sedai to be captured, and she can't even decide that the Black Ajah exists or not even when it should be obvious after several sisters were murdered and Ter'angreal were stolen. The only possible explanation is she was elevated beyond her abilities (not surprising given she was the pawn of several Black Ajah in getting raised) and cracked after her first few screw ups.
** Actually, there's another explanation: she was briefly visited by Padan Fain, whose powers include the ability to corrupt people and drive them insane. In one of Fain's points of view, he mentions that he "brushed [her] with what he carried from Aridhol." It's not exactly confirmed, but it is implied.
*** [[Word of God]] confirms it. Fain wasn't around Elaida long enough to substantially change her personality, but his presence brought out the worst aspects that were already there and certainly accelerated her deterioration.
** Alviarin was a member of the Black Ajah and Elaida's Keeper of the Chronicles. She had been bullying Elaida into obeying her orders, even using Compulsion on her to have her obey. Most of Elaida's efforts since being raised are to undermine Alviarin's influence on her, and it is known that Compulsion causes mental instability if it is used multiple times on one person. Both these factors, as well as Fain's ability to corrupt, would swiftly give her the dumbass experience required to level up from cunning to totally incompetent.
** Also, by the last several books things aren't going Elaida's way at all, and she's starting to crack under the strain. A [[Villainous Breakdown]] may not cause you to ''lose'' IQ points, but it'll certainly have a negative impact on your being able to use them.
* Cersei in ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'', although YMMV. In book 1 she successfully engineers her husband's death and beats out Ned Stark in the power struggle that follows, and while she's ultimately bested by the Imp in book 2, she's not a pushover. In book 4, though, she surrounds herself with morons and alienates everybody useful as if she's doing it on purpose - Littlefinger aptly describes her as "stumbl[ing] from one idiocy to the next." One interpretation is that she's gotten stupid and arrogant from her success, which matches this trope. But it's also possible that she's no dumber than before, and has simply been promoted to the level of her incompetence, Peter Principle-style. The Seven Kingdoms are not an easy realm to run.
** It helps that everyone capable of overriding her bad decisions is dead or has left King's Landing by the fourth book.
** It's a fairly consistent personality trait that while Cersei is fairly cunning in achieving her goals, she has absolutely no good sense in ''setting'' her goals. She's also consistently heedless of long-term consequences in her pursuit of short-term gain. So, her going from success to qualified success to repeated failure is a function of things she keeps letting pile up finally piling up high enough to crush her.
* Kalten in ''[[The Elenium]]'' seems to get a case of this. In the beginning of the trilogy, he is a skilled knight although basically book-dumb, i.e. he is incapable of performing magic because he couldn't learn the Styric language. By the end of the second book, this has turned into him not knowing what a diagonal is. Subverted at the end of the Tamuli where he reveals that he is playing the [[Obfuscating Stupidity]] card, since he knows that if people don't take him seriously they will be off-guard around him.
* Septimus Heap in ''[[
* Claudia from ''[[The
== Live Action TV ==
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** Inverted with Dwight who started the series as a gullible man with almost no common sense and then became more and more skilled and successful as time went on. By seasons six and especially seven he seems smarter than any of the other characters.
** Kevin Malone. He was never the brightest bulb at Dunder Mifflin, but he showed signs during the first few seasons of just being a little dopey. A savant at the worst. By Season 5, he had lost about 25-50 IQ points. As of Season 8, he is pretty much mentally retarded.
* ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]''
** Peter Petrelli [[Idiot Hero|after he learns how to use the powers he absorbs.]]
** In fact, ''[[Idiot Ball|everyone]]'' on ''Heroes'' gets this, with nominal good guys Mohinder, Peter and especially Hiro getting the worst of it.
** The villains too. Adam Monroe goes from being a coldly calculating bad ass with mad samurai skillz to a guy who meekly allows powerless brainless thug Knox to take him to see Arthur Petrelli. Arthur himself goes from an [[Evil Overlord]] big on the "You have outlived our usefulness" who was genre savvy enough to take out everyone who could oppose him to being a dumb ass who stands around and does nothing while Sylar has a bullet aimed at him. The German in the graphic novels was a vicious amoral killer who knew how to use his powers in clever and brutal ways but in the show he's an idiot who just does nothing while Knox lumbers over to him and slams his fist through his chest. Candice goes from being a smart and sadistic villainess to being stupid enough to let her guard down around Sylar. Elle has the exact same thing happen to her.
** Mr. Linderman. He began as a cryptically whispered name that made the most [[Badass]] among the cast cower in fear. He was revealed as an [[Affably Evil]] [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] [[The Chessmaster|Chessmaster]] who had been engineering events across the entire first season. When DL and Jessica show up, what is his plan? {{spoiler|"Take this money and kill your husband."}} [[Sarcasm Mode|Yeah, really bright, Linderman.]]
* Kelly Bundy from ''[[Married...
** Hilariously subverted in the episode "Hi, I.Q.," in which she accomplishes what Al couldn't--assembling his workshop bench. Which could just suggest she is simply [[Book Dumb]].
* Michael Kelso from ''[[That '70s Show]]''. He was always a [[The Ditz|ditz]], but he just got dumber and dumber as the show progressed.
* Chelsea from ''[[That's So Raven]]''.
* London from ''[[The Suite Life of Zack and Cody]]''. And ''again'' on ''The Suite Life On Deck''.
* Max from ''[[Wizards of Waverly Place]]''
* Eric from ''[[Boy Meets World]]''.
* ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'': This has happened to Dean Winchester, starting from the point that he became a [[Break the Cutie|Broken Cutie]], [[Depending
* Jack O'Neill in ''[[Stargate SG-1]]''.
** Initially he was quite intelligent and a prime example of [[Colonel Badass]]. He had tendencies of [[The Watson]], but there's no shame in knowing less about science than the one who [[Remember When You Blew Up a Sun?|blew up a sun]], less about ancient cultures than the one who's studied them all his life, or less about alien technology than the one who lived with it. Then the things being explained to him got simpler and more obvious as his jokiness quotient rises. At the nadir, we get "La, la, I can't heeeear you!" when finding out a guest star was in fact someone ''incredibly'' dangerous from a previous episode, or later gems like "SHE'S HAVING HER BRAINS SUCKED OUT!" By season five, his role seems to be "make jokes during dead-serious situations while others roll their eyes and make the decisions that would have been O'Neill's responsibility." An episode had the people of the planet of the week talking about how Earth would have sent its best and brightest representative... and then [[Description Cut|O'Neill enters, making one of the sort of inane comments]] that had become normal for him. When the idea of the leader of the team being a smart and capable guy is a punchline, you know you have a problem. Later seasons seemed to go back and forth with his intelligence.
** Of course, the characters who know him best, especially Sam, insist this is just [[Obfuscating Stupidity]].
** As of ''[[
* Rimmer from ''[[
* Joey from ''[[Friends]]'' seems to have lost quite a few IQ points over the years, to the point where in the final season he can't tell left from right.
** Also Erica, the biological mother of Chandler and Monica's twins. When we first meet her she's a perfectly normal, intelligent girl. When she appears later in the season she's so stupid that her IQ is merely half of Forest Gump's.
* Chrissy on ''[[
* Baldrick from ''[[
** If you want concrete evidence, compare this scene from ''Blackadder II''...
{{quote|
'''Baldrick''': Well I chopped his head off, that usually does the trick. }}
** ...with this one from ''Blackadder The Third''
{{quote|
'''Baldrick''': We do... nothing.
'''Edmund''': Yep, that's another world-beater.
'''Baldrick''': Wait, I haven't finished. We do nothing ''until'' our heads have actually been cut off...
'''Edmund''': ...and then we spring into action?
'''Baldrick''': Exactly![...] }}
*** The character changes between series are all justified because it is a different Baldrick in each one.
* Matthew Brock from ''[[News Radio]]'' is another example; in the show's first season he seemed relatively normal and competent (he even secretly was {{spoiler|a registered dentist}}), but by the third or fourth season he came across as either mentally retarded or an eight-year old in a man's body. Jimmy James to an extent too, although that was more of Taking a Level in Craziness than Dumbness. Both characters were a lot funnier and more interesting due to these changes, of course, due to the quality of the writing & acting.
** While Matthew has no excuse, Jimmy James may have been engaging in [[Obfuscating Stupidity]]. Alternatively, he really is that eccentric, [[Let's Get Dangerous|and his business skills are only used as he needs them.]] This is apparent given that Mr. James is implied to be a highly successful [[Self-Made Man]], and his occasional bouts of serious behavior back up that he didn't get there by being an idiot. Most likely, he really is a goof ball and we generally only see him when he's relaxing, rather than engaging in [[Serious Business]] (which is on several occasions implied to involve questionably legal activity).
* Radar O'Reilly of ''[[
** Possibly justified. A recurring theme of the series was that people found odd and near-insane ways to cope with what they were experiencing. Radar's steady retreat towards childhood is actually one psychological response people have to stress in the real world.
** Radar's character regressed in a lot of ways. Early in the series, he was seen smoking cigars, drinking Henry's booze, and had several references to him peeping in the nurses' showers and enjoying developing their chest x-rays. As the show progressed, he got dumber, more naive, and less experienced to the point that even grape Nehi was a strong drink for him. He also lost almost all of the psionic powers which gave him his nickname, until all that was left was his ability to hear the helicopters before anyone else.
*** To be fair, [[G-Rated Drug|grape Nehi]] is a strong drink for ''anyone.'' [[Bill Bryson]] [[I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin!|solemnly swears that he once saw the edge of the universe after drinking it as a child.]]
* Nate Archibald on ''[[Gossip Girl]]''. While he wasn't as intelligent as Chuck or Blair in season one he was still a guy of normal intelligence. By season four even his actor is complaining about what a moron he has become.
** In fairness, he's done so much pot in the last four seasons it actually does make sense that he's dumber.
* Granted, Potsie Webber of ''[[Happy Days]]'' started out a little on the dim side, but he only got dumber and dumber and dumber as the seasons went on.
* Nearly everyone from ''[[
* Joe from ''[[Wings (TV series)|Wings]]'' after season five.
* Charlie on [[
{{quote|
* KC from [[Degrassi]], he's introduced as a member of the school's gifted program, two seasons later he thinks there's four trimesters during pregnancy.
* Randy Disher on ''[[Monk]]'' seems to get more and more improbably stupid as the series progresses.
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== Newspaper Comics ==
* ''[[Dilbert]]'': The [[Pointy-Haired Boss|defining character trait]] of Dilbert's boss was a result of this. In the earlier strips he was just a regular [[Bad Boss]] who was more likely to be shown performing evil experiments on his employees than [[The Ditz|losing at chess to a pineapple]]. And done deliberately in one strip where a new guy transitions from appearing to be smarter than everyone else in the team to having neanderthal-level intelligence over the course of a ''three panel comic''.
* ''[[FoxTrot]]'': Roger, the father figure. In the earliest years of the strip, he was a competent enough patriarch, though a bit harried and somewhat of a [[
* ''[[Garfield]]'': Jon Arbuckle, Garfield's owner. He started as a perfectly ordinary young man. Come the early-2000's, and he's a total moron who finds interest in mundane activities, mistakes a sudoku for a crossword, and mistakes an upside down restaurant menu for French. It was around the same time he was [[Flanderization|Flanderized]] into being the [[Straw Loser]] to Garfield.
* ''[[Peanuts]]'': Sally Brown started out as reasonably naïve and childish before devolving into a full-on [[The Ditz]] who made hilariously inaccurate school reports.
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== Video Games ==
* ''[[Final Fantasy]]'': [[Genki Girl|Rikku]] got significantly ditzier between ''[[
* Perhaps it was just Kazushige Nojima's shaky writing (he admitted in an interview that he didn't do a lot of work on the first game and wasn't familiar with the plot/characters/cosmology of KH), but Sora went from often naive in ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' to often ''ridiculously clueless'' in ''[[
* Pete Wheeler of ''[[Backyard Sports]]''. I mean, he ''forgot how to ride a bike within a few months of being a pro''.
* ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]'' Has Bowser. Originally, just a straight up, [[Obviously Evil]], [[Designated Villain]]. The lighthearted nature of the series however, lead to his portrayals as a dumb, immature bully, leading him down the path of this trope.
== Webcomics ==
* In ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' Sam "Da Man" Sein's intelligence has been plummeting ever since he became a vampire.
* ''[[8-Bit Theater
** Bikke the pirate was actually fairly ruthless and cunning when he first appeared (well, compared to Garland and the heroes, anyway). At this point, his intelligence is viewed as on par with [[The Ditz|Fighter's]]. In fact, he's probably worse since he's not even literate.
** D'rizzl actually ''inverted'' this trope, by taking levels in Smartass. Complete with a 50-point IQ hike.
** Fighter himself could also be considered a victim of this trope. Initially, he was simply [[The Fool]] with an intense sword obsession. For the past few hundred comics, he's essentially been a total idiot.
*** Could be justified due to brain damage as a direct result of Black Mage's stabby urges.
* Nick in ''[[
== Web Original ==
* Caboose from ''[[Red vs. Blue]]''. This was explained in-universe as the result of the trauma of losing his girlfriend ([[Cargo Ship|Sheila the tank]]) having his mind controlled by [[
** Oddly enough, starting from ''Recreation'', Caboose actually seemed to ''regain'' some of his intelligence, upgrading from a complete idiot to merely [[The Ditz]]. This could be explained by the time Delta spent in Caboose's mind.
* ''[[Homestar Runner]]'': Homestar himself. Which makes his [[Smart Ball|random moments of intelligence]] all the more hilarious. He once recited Coulomb's Law when asked "What is 2 plus 2?" (when Strong Sad reiterates the question, Homestar naturally gets it wrong), and actually outsmarted Strong Bad by getting him to say something stupid.
* The reviewers of [[That Guy With
** Happened to both [[
== Western Animation ==
* Homer Simpson, of ''[[The Simpsons]]'', has never been the brightest bulb in the box, but he actually started out a fairly normal person. He just got dumber and dumber as time went on. There have been a couple of in-show explanations for this, all contradictory. [[Conan O
{{quote|
** Ralph Wiggum has suffered from this trope more than any almost any other character mentioned. He was originally just another generic classmate of Lisa's before becoming the unbelievably dense collection of non-sequiturs we all know.
** [[Word of God]] says that Ralph was originally intended to be an eight year old version of Homer. When it they realized that didn't really work, they just made him the most childlike character imaginable.
* ''[[South Park]]'': Almost every single adult undergoes this to a degree, but Randy Marsh is possibly the greatest example of this trope ever. Through the 13 seasons of the show, he has
* [[
** Especially after "A Pal For Gary". You'll want him dead by the end.
** This trope also applies to [[SpongeBob]]'s [[Heterosexual Life Partners|best friend Patrick Star]]. Oh so much...
* ''[[The Fairly
** Cosmo most definitely. His first appearance was of a suave, gentlemanly persona in the first episodes, who made sarcastic comments and wisecracks. Now he's a screeching, literally brainless fairy who would have already killed Timmy if not for his wife's constant surveillance.
* ''[[Space Ghost Coast to Coast]]'': Done with several characters.
* ''[[King of the Hill]]''
** All of Hank Hill's friends seem to slowly lose their precious remaining IQ points over the course of the
** Luanne and Peggy also. Peggy has never been the [[Closer to Earth]] person between her and Hank, but she used to be at least a competent Spanish
*** Peggy was bad at Spanish at the beginning of the series, in fact, she actually got a little better as it went on. The rest here is spot on, though.
* This happened to Fry in ''[[
** It's somewhat justified in-universe with Fry's lack of a delta brain-wave, which effectively stunted his mental growth:
{{quote|
'''Fry:''' I already did! }}
*** Of course, the means in which he contracted it — as shown in the episode "Roswell That Ends Well" — would have meant {{spoiler|[[Grandfather Paradox|he had this his whole life, including all prior episodes.]]}} Also of note is that, in "The Why of Fry", {{spoiler|the Niblonians reveal that they deliberately froze him so that his "superior, yet inferior" brain would be used to protect the universe in the 31st century. Later it is revealed that the Niblonian who blew Fry into the cryochamber was, in fact, not a time traveler, and that the Niblonians knew of this phenomenon at least a millennium before the Roswell time travel incident.}}
* ''[[Johnny Bravo]]'': Johnny. Ironically, when the series was temporarily revived, Johnny wasn't fucking retarded, instead trying to avoid his now-annoying neighbor, Suzie.
* ''[[Family Guy]]'': Peter Griffin was a dumbass to begin with, but it got worse with [[
* ''[[Back to The Future The Animated Series]]'': Marty McFly. He went from [[Book Dumb]] in the films to [[The Ditz]] in the series.
* ''[[Chowder]]'': Chowder; compare the naive little boy of Season One to the completely [[Too Dumb to Live]] of Season Two.
* ''[[Beavis and Butthead]]'' started out as just stereotypically lazy and not all that bright teenagers. As the show's popularity picked up the need for more outrageous material resulted in them becoming the [[Too Dumb to Live]] types everyone knows them as. Beavis especially went from a generic dumb teenager to a bizarrely retarded boy with a split personality.
* There was an episode of ''[[
* In season one of ''[[Frisky Dingo]]'', the villain Killface is intelligent, educated and sophisticated, by contrast to the Idiot Hero Awesome X. A lot of the comedy from Killface stems from the contrast between their personae. Come season two, they're both complete morons.
* ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]'': Fuzzy Lumpkins took this between the pilot and the series proper: in the pilot he was a reasonably calm [[Buffy-Speak|furry... thing]] with enough intelligence to build a gun that turns objects into meat; in the series he's a trigger happy hillbilly stereotype whose idea of a weapon is a rock (compared to, say, the ray guns of Mojo Jojo and Princess). Consider his line in "Fuzzy Logic" while chasing a squirrel from his home:
{{quote|
* Daffy Duck for ''[[The Looney Tunes Show]]''. In the original shorts he was fairly intelligent and clever, but occasionally gullible and was often defeated due to his greed and selfishness. Here, he's a lazy idiot who can't do anything right and fails to answer even the simplest trivia questions correctly.
* Penfold on ''[[Danger Mouse]]'' was the token dumbass, but as the series wound down to its final two seasons, Colonel K was afflicted by a case of the dumbasses which could be chalked up to early senility.
* The ''[[Battletoads (
* Cleveland grew progressively dumber when he left ''[[Family Guy]]'' and starred in his own show, ''[[The Cleveland Show]]''. Cleveland used to be the voice of reason in Peter's group but once he moved away, he became nearly incompetent and childlike.
* T.J. from ''[[Recess]]'' started out relatively average in the first season. He became more [[Book Dumb]] in season two, and by season four, he was [[The Ditz]].
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Comedy Tropes]]
[[Category:Characterization Tropes]]
[[Category:Stupidity Tropes]]
[[Category:Took
[[Category:
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