History Main / TooCleverByHalf

* Megamind. His intelligence is hyper-advanced compared to Earth standards, he's a genius inventor, and his hobby is creating grandiose revenge schemes against the kid who bullied him in elementary school. Worth mentioning that these schemes don't just fail, they ''fail''.

->"My game plan all my life has been to demand acceptance of this," a vague wave down the length, or shortness, of his body, "because I was a smart-ass little bastard who could think rings around the opposition, and prove it time after time."
-->-- '''Miles Vorkosigan''', ''[[VorkosiganSaga Mirror Dance]]''

->So I'll start a revolution from my bed
->'Cause you said the brains I had went to my head
-->-- '''{{Oasis}}''', "Don't Look Back in Anger"

A character archetype. These characters:

** This gets taken to a literal level when he has Ancient intelligence downloaded into his frail human skull. He creates a new form of math just to keep up with his new discoveries. After being forced to choose between ascending or dying, he [[TakeAThirdOption invents a cure for himself]], returning himself back to "normal" genius levels, not realizing he was in spitting distance of [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence ascending]]. For a kicker, all his notes and his new mathematics are so complex that even ''he'' can't figure out what they meant, making [[StatusQuoIsGod virtually everything that happened completely moot]]. Did get a nice DeusExMachina out of it for the next season opener, though.
*** It was not the case of Ancient intelligence downloaded into his frail human skull but the Ascension machine that rewrites person's genome. It's not the same machine Jack O'Neill was caught in at all.

* [[FalloutNewVegas Mr. Robert Edwin House]], President, CEO and Sole Proprietor of New Vegas. He's a ProperlyParanoid genius owner of a MegaCorp who firmly believes DemocracyIsBad (not entirely untrue, considering the circumstances) and defended Las Vegas from nuclear attack to rebuild it to a point of glory, but is incredibly arrogant and refuses to believe that he could be wrong. He also thinks there's no question that he should be the sole [[InsistentTerminology autocrat]] of New Vegas.

* The eponymous character in Marlowe's ''DoctorFaustus'' is one of the best examples of this trope. His own brilliance in all things academic (and belief that he can do even more than he has) lead him to explore to ThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow. The results are predictable.

* Hermione of ''HarryPotter'' is the smartest person in her classes, tends to be rather rudely disparaging of her peers' intelligence, and is [[FantasticRacism discriminated against for being a muggle-born]].

* Dumbledore from Harry Potter. ("As I happen to be rather smarter than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger")

* Sora from ''[[DotHack .//hack]]'' is at the maximum level possible in The World, has the maximum possible stats, and goes around killing people for fun. Much of his arrogance is probably due to [[spoiler:his age.]]

->''So I'll start a revolution from my bed''
->'''Cause you said the brains I had went to my head''

->''So I'll start a revolution from my bed
->'Cause you said the brains I had went to my head''

* Shows up often on ''{{Survivor}}''. Russell Hantz, for example, is extremely savvy to the mechanics of the game, finding Immunity Idols before receiving ''any'' clues to their location - but lost, twice, for being completely insufferable, not grasping that you have to avoid getting on the other players' bad sides.

* Sheldon Cooper from ''TheBigBangTheory'' is a brilliant theoretical physicist. He's also [[InsufferableGenius insufferably arrogant]] and ignorant of basic social interaction. At least once the other characters acknowledged that if he wasn't Leonard's roommate they wouldn't hang out with him.

* Rodney [=McKay=] from ''StargateAtlantis'' nails all 4 points.
** Especially to degrees. Rodney is one of the smartest humans from earth. Despite everyone in the Stargate program being top in their fields, is the only one to make such a huge deal out of his intelligence. And on number three... while he regularly makes astounding accomplishments while under threat of imminent death, his biggest failure? Blew up a solar system, and almost destroyed two universes.
*** Five-sixths of a solar system, but it's not a precise science.
**** Just have to mention: CrowningMomentofFunny when his sister finds out and smacks him for it.
** Later characterisation showed [=McKay=] to be (at the very least) equal to Carter in terms of scientific genius, but sadly lagging behind the vast majority of Earth, let alone the Stargate program, in terms of common sense and social skills...
*** Rodney's problem isn't that he's not smart, it's that he's not as smart as he thinks he is.

** And he's gonna let everyone know.
--->[[BadassBoast "Hey, I'm Dr. Rodney Mckay, all right? 'Difficult' takes a few seconds, 'impossible' a few minutes."]]

*** Five-Sixths of a solar system, but it's not a precise science.

** This gets taken to a literal level when he has Ancient intelligence downloaded into his frail human skull. He creates a new form of math just to keep up with his new discoveries. After being forced to choose between ascending or dying, he [[TakeAThirdOption invents a cure for himself]], returning himself back to "normal" genius levels, not realizing he was in spitting distance of [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence ascending]]. For a kicker, all his notes and his new mathematics are so complex that even ''he'' can't figure out what they meant, making [[StatusQuoIsGod everything that happened completely moot]].

** Especially to degrees. Rodney is probably the [[strike:second]] smartest human from earth. Despite everyone in the Stargate program being top in their fields, is the only one to make such a huge deal out of his intelligence. And on number three... while he regularly makes astounding accomplishments while under threat of imminent death, his biggest failure? Blew up a solar system, and almost destroyed two universes.

--->[[BadassBoast "Hey, I'm Dr. Rodney Mckay, all right? 'Difficult' takes a few seconds, 'impossible' a few minutes."]]

* SherlockHolmes is undoubtedly this in the BBC's 2010 modern-day adaptation, {{Sherlock}}. Yes, he's very, very clever, but it has its disadvantages, and he doesn't know how to turn it off and be a human being (not a million miles from the Doctor, which given he's scripted by Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss... not that surprising).