Genius Bruiser / Video Games

"A unique combination of shrewd military intellect and raw brute strength has ascended Ghoritch to Clan Moulder's most exalted military rank."

— Flavor Text for Ghoritch's "Castellan of Hell Pit" trait, Total War: Warhammer II

Brilliant brutes in Video Games.

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• Michael Thorton from Alpha Protocol. He kicks a tonne of arse regardless of your play style, of course, but not just that. Depending on the background you chose, Mike can have multiple PhDs, crack ciphers in his spare time, learn foreign languages amazingly fast... Even in gameplay, you can make Mike a technical whiz without compromising too much on his killing prowess.
• Bomb, the black Angry Bird, is very intelligent. Aside from his great brute force, he is good at reading self-help books such as "Keep Calm And Don't Blow Up" as well as cooking. He could possibly be a strategist.
• In the backstory of Armello, the King used to be this. Strong enough to break crossbows with his bare hands, cunning enough to lie, scheme, and manipulate his way to throne of a foreign land, and a master sorcerer. Then he meddled with the Rot, which turned him into the mad king seen in the game proper; only the bruiser remains.
• Baldur's Gate:
  • The first game has Sarevok Anchev. An enormous Black Knight who's by the numbers as strong as an ogre (which are a lot bigger still), but also The Chessmaster running everything from behind the scenes in the first game (and again, by the numbers on his statistics, a genius).
  • From Baldur's Gate II, we have its Big Bad Jon Irenicus, a mastermind wizard with the physique of an athletic champion.
• Batman: Arkham Series:
  • Batman: Arkham City: The title character, but also Mister Freeze. Trying to fight him head on is comparable to trying to fight a hand grenade using hugs, and he's also the only smart enough to manufacture the cure to the disease that everyone's been catching.
  • Batman: Arkham Origins: While he didn't completely fulfill the role in the first two games due to his overexposure to Venom and Titan, Bane more than makes up for it in the prequel. Of all the assassins that Joker hires, Bane is the most patient and calculating while also dwarfing everyone in the room even without his Venom injection. This ends up making him the biggest overall threat and he acts more as a very open and unsubtle Dragon with an Agenda to the Joker than a lackey. The only reason he ends up only sharing Big Bad status with the Joker rather than taking it away from him completely is due to the Joker's sheer unbridled insanity.
• Unlike his Thrall brethren who are simply all muscle and no brains, Attikus from Battleborn has both muscle and brains. Thanks to the side effects of the Hedronic Collector grafted on his right arm, he's not only capable of clobbering foes with his fists but also capable of thinking of higher concepts. Said concepts include realizing the unjust slavery his people have been shackled to.
• Iron Tager from BlazBlue is this trope to a T; a massive, genetically and cybernetically modified hulk of a man, almost eight feet tall and over a thousand pounds. Tager is able to throw opponents around the battlefield like rag dolls, sometimes jumping after them and plowing them straight back down into the earth face-first. A single full-on punch from Tager will easily send his target flying to the opposite edge of the screen. However, the very reason he's able to do this is that he was dealt a grievous wound while doing field research, his life only saved by the cybernetic enhancements he uses in battle. As testament to his immense practical and technical knowledge, in addition to his raw physical capability he also uses electromagnetism to draw opponents towards him rather than having to chase after them himself. When he's not throwing his weight (and/or opponents) around in direct battle, he operates primarily as a field agent, and when not in the field, he works as a researcher directly under the greatest scientific mind in the world. Finally, in addition to his fearsome intellect and frightening battle ability, Tager's quite the calm, collected gentleman — he rarely, if ever, actually gets angry, has an open and honest demeanor and is quite happy to discuss scientific theory when the opportunity presents itself.
• Eddie, the fourth party member in BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm, is practically the ideal definition of this trope. He’s quiet, mild-mannered, works in a library, and uses his research skills to find information about enemies… yet he also jumps at the chance to go adventuring, and turns out to be the hardest-hitting powerhouse on the team, with a proficiency for wielding large axes and war hammers.
• Eddie Riggs of Brütal Legend is not only a Hot-Blooded warrior, but being that his life as a Roadie requires him to maintain others' equipment, he's also mechanically adept enough to build practically anything as long as he has the tools around with him. Being a roadie is also where he picks up his strength, heavy lifting and all.
• Pick any member of the Belmont family from Castlevania series and you've got a pretty good chance of finding a Genius Bruiser. Notable examples include Juste, Richter and Julius. Alucard is also a fairly sharp guy, particularly in his Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow persona of Genya Arikado.
  • Justified in that he is Dracula's son, and immortal, meaning he has lots of free time.
• Contra: In Contra Returns, Lance Bean is as intelligent as he is buff and that guy has scary amounts of muscle. He's the Gadgeteer Genius who designed almost all the hardware that the Contra Force uses.
• Danganronpa:
  • Nekomaru Nidai in Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair is The Big Guy of the group, and has the title of Ultimate Team Manager due to his masterful ability as an athletic trainer and coach. The Japanese version adds to this, as he speaks in an archaic dialect that makes him come across as a professor.
  • Gonta Gokuhara in Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony is The Big Guy and a Genius Ditz who doesn't know how to speak properly due to his nature as a Tarzan Boy, but is an expert outdoorsman and has the title of Ultimate Entomologist. In his backstory he was famous for the development of new cultivation methods and discovery of numerous insect species, including a parasitic worm that was causing disease, saving numerous lives. Unlike his The Big Guy predecessors, he's not knowledgeable about fighting but even the skilled fighters in the group doubt they could take him due to his monstrous size and strength.
• In the Dawn of War sequel, Dawn of War II — Retribution, Kaptin Bluddflagg is able to tell that Adrastia is an Inquisitor by her uniform, which is remarkable as Orks have a biologically enforced Large and in Charge thing going for their race and have no concept of uniforms (and Adrastia is a mite shorter than the soldiers with her). He also deduced Kyras' location very intelligently, not just by Ork standards, but by any standards. Note that Autarch Kayleth, leader of the so-called "super-intelligent" resident elves, struggled to figure this out. Although, to her credit, Kayleth takes a lot less time to explain it when she finally puts two and two together... and unlike Bluddflagg's gang, her subordinates actually understand what she's on about.
• JC Denton from Deus Ex is either a badass Super-Soldier or a badass Solid Snake type sneaker, but a competent secret agent either way. He often gets into discussions on political philosophy with curiously knowledgeable bartenders or ultra-advanced A.I.s. By contrast, Alex D, protagonist of the sequel, Deus Ex: Invisible War, always reacts in similar situations with "Huh?" or "What do you mean?". Apparently, Alex's intelligence was programmed out...
• Vergil, Evil Twin brother of Dante from Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening is quite scholarly as seen in the first cutscene of the Special Edition where Arkham finds him searching through a library onto how to open the Demon World. It's also evident in combat as while Dante has a careless and crazy fighting style, Vergil on other hand favors precision to back up his demonic strength resulting in Vergil wiping the floor with his brother in their first match (before Dante Took a Level in Badass). V, Vergil's human Soul Jar from Devil May Cry 5 embodies this, making up for his complete lack of strength with skill and tactics. V also loves poems as Vergil did in his youth before his Start of Darkness.
  • Vergil most likely gets it from his Long-Dead Badass father Sparda, whom was renown for his level headed wisdom and in his human form looks like a Quintessential British Gentleman complete with monocle. Sparda was also the most powerful demon warrior ever, single handedly fighting the legions of the Underworld along with Mundus the Prince of Darkness and winning.
  • Played with Agnus from Devil May Cry 4 in contrast to the usual Mad Scientist archetype he's massive and brutish looking, except Agnus is actually a stammering Dirty Coward who hides behind a innocent girl he's holding hostage when threatened by her Love Interest protagonist. This is probably a ruse though, as he's surprisingly powerful in combat and has his own demonic transformation.
• Zigzagged with Jean-Luc Measurehead in Disco Elysium, The Dragon for the local Neighbourhood-Friendly Gangsters. A large Scary Black Man, who despite being eloquent and well-read, utilizes Insane Troll Logic to defend his Boomerang Bigot ideology. He's also astute enough to be one of the only two characters in the game capable of convincing the Player Character that alcoholism is ruining his life and helping him quit.
  • The player character can also be one of those, provided the build favors Intellect and Physique.
  • There's also Fat Angus from the Union. Fat Angus is the biggest, strongest and smartest of the Hardie Boys, capable of building a radio from scratch and tossing around objects weighing hundreds of pounds with ease.
• Adell from Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories is a surprise example. A Hot-Blooded fist-fighter who puts Honor Before Reason, he manages to shock the entire rest of his adventuring-party when, during the Tournament Arc, he solves a highly complex Geo-Puzzle after a brief glance and two seconds of thinking-time. As it turns out, he doesn't charge headfirst into every conflict because he's too stupid to think of anything else — but simply because that's his style.
  Adell: Never underestimate me. I hate cheap tricks and dirty tactics. If I put my mind to it, I can solve these things pretty quick. Just because I like to rush into things doesn't mean I can't think.
• Divinity: Original Sin II: Any character with the right investment of Skill Scores and Perks can have a martial focus supported by a hefty Intelligence and/or Loremaster score. Of the origin characters, the Red Prince and Sebille are both expert warriors by default — an imperial Front Line General and an infamous assassin, respectively — who have the Scholar background, granting them unique dialogue options related to their depth of learning.
• Doom: While he may not initially look it, due to his silent nature and brute force approach, the DoomGuy, particularly his incarnation as the Doom Slayer, is far from a mindless killing machine. What initially appears to be the Slayer smashing equipment without any heed to Hayden's instructions is shown to be the Slayer ignoring the instructions because he knows from experience no good can come from the use of Argent energy. He is also shown to be very adept at various different technologies, even having rebuilt VEGA from a copy he made. His absolute focus on destroying the demonic threat at all costs, with any economonic, property or even planetary damage being secondary at best, leads him to come up with innovative and out-of-the-box (if less than subtle) strategies that are able to foil the demons where every other tactic fails.
• Dragon Age: The Qunari (a term that refers to followers of the Qun, regardless of race) consist mostly of, and is often erroneously used as a name for, a race of musclebound, gray- or black-skinned giants (with or without horns). While all the Qunari you meet in the games belong to the Antaam (which is essentially the warrior caste in the Qunari's non-hereditary caste system) and are therefore Proud Warrior Race Guys, they tend to be of the quiet and brooding variety rather than Boisterous Bruisers. The Qunari are also the most technologically advanced society in the games and the only one to have developed gunpowder (though not firearms).
  • Believe it or not, the Mabari War Hounds. Among dogs, Mabari are geniuses, able to understand spoken language and learn complex commands. They are also hulking beasts, being as large as a dwarf and just as strong.
  • Dragon Age: Inquisition has The Iron Bull, a member of the Ben-Hassrath (the Qunari secret intelligence) who happens to be the largest of the party members and openly embraces the life of a hard-partying mercenary. This doesn't stop him from being a very perceptive individual with a talent for reading people, with idle conversations showing that he's capable of spotting out spies with relative ease. He's also smart enough to go toe-to-toe in chess with Solas, with the game they play only being visualized in their heads.
    • A warrior Inquisitor can also be played this way, if the Knowledge Perks are chosen from the Inquisition perk trees at the war table. Nobility Knowledge, Arcane Knowledge, History Knowledge, and Underworld Knowledge each provide the Inquisitor with extra dialogue options in certain situations which reveal just how well-read and well-educated the character is, as well as being an absolute nightmare on the battlefield.
• The Warforged in Dungeons & Dragons Online have been shown to be rather intelligent, despite their massive, muscular, mechanical bodies. A good example is Talbron, who you meet in the beginning. If you take the quest, he, the rogue, and the paladin accompany you through the caverns. In one situation, after defeating the Sahaugin, Talbron steps on a switch that reveals a pit of water in the center of the room. Since you have to swim down and retrieve the key at the bottom yourself, the other characters make up reasons not to go down. Talbron's excuse is "My joints rust easily. I will read until the situation resolves itself." At which point he pulls out a book and does exactly that.
• Elden Ring: Starscourge Radahn was one of the most powerful participants in the Shattering, which he owed just as much to his mind as his martial prowess and giant stature; he's an accomplished general and good enough with gravity magic to hold the stars in place and to cast spells using only his greatswords as foci. Sadly, he doesn't get to show most of it off during his boss fight due to the horrible state you fight him in.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • In the series' backstory, the Dwemer were an entire race of genius bruisers. They were the most technologically advanced race known to have ever walked Tamriel. It's said that even the dullest of their kind was still a genius compared to a clever man, and that even a Dwemer child was capable of building a mechanical golem. The only military force in history that really challenged them was a Nord army led by masters of the Thu'um, and even then, the Dwemer crushed them after joining forces with their rival Chimer. Later, while tampering with the heart of a "dead" god, they did something which caused their entire race to disappear from all known planes of existence in an instant. Much of what they left behind is now Lost Technology being used by the more clever members of the other races along with the occasionally Lost Superweapon Humongous Mecha.
  • Ysgramor, the ancient Atmoran/Nord hero and Founder of the Kingdom of Skyrim, was one. In addition to being a badass warrior, he was wise enough to outsmart Hermaeus Mora, become the first human historian, and invented the first written language of mankind.
  • In Skyrim, Galmar Stonefist, the right-hand man of Ulfric Stormcloak (either The Dragon or the Number Two depending on which side you take in the Civil War) looks like a typical Nord, a hugely-built Proud Warrior Race Guy with Manly Facial Hair and a huge battle-axe, but he demonstrates a surprising amount of brains. He is a very-skilled tactician, a gifted speaker, possesses an impressive knowledge of Skyrim's history and folklore, and he pulls a Batman Gambit on his Imperial enemies with some altered documents.
• The monsters of Evolve. Physically, even the smallest among them is over six meters tall and capable of ripping through armored fortifications. Mentally, they use psychological warfare against their human prey and outwit enemies despite a massive technological disadvantage. While their physical strength is constantly increasing, it would be foolish to assume them helpless just because they're at their weakest.
• Fallout:
  • Super Mutants are quite strange. While most of them are dimwitted brutes, some are actually very intelligent.
    • One of the earliest examples of this is The Lieutenant (called Lou Tenant by his underlings), The Dragon of Fallout. Where most of the other Super Mutants range from average to dim, Lou is urbane, philosophical, and offers cogent arguments that Utopia Justifies the Means, considering himself to be the pinnacle of evolution. Considering he's That One Boss, it's hard to argue with him...
    • Marcus from Fallout 2. In Fallout: New Vegas, he's one of the few non-Legion character who consistently uses the Latin pronunciation of Caesar, "Kai-Sar". Though for some reason, in New Vegas his Intelligence stat is only 3, compared to the notably above-average 7 in 2.
    • In Fallout 3's setting, smart mutants are quite rare. The only two intelligent super mutants around DC are Fawkes and Uncle Leo. The latter randomly wanders the wasteland and manages to retain his human conscience through zen. No, really. The former is described by Game Informer as being "smart, funny, and damn near unkillable". Fawkes is an enormous green beast with a fondness for Super-Sledges and gatling lasers, and yet is very intelligent and philosophical. This is due to having been locked in a cell for most of his life, with the only diversion being a computer terminal with access to massive amounts of data and a huge library of electronic books.
    • This is actually a plot point in the previous Fallout games. The Forced Evolutionary Virus, which "perfects" humans by turning them into Super Mutants, also grants them genius level intellect... or rather, is supposed to. Unfortunately, one of the problems that can't be solved even with 200 years of slow but steady progress in the field of retroviral evolution is the fact that the IQ upgrade only works on the unmutated genetic structures of Vault Dwellers. Apparently, after a single generation of exposure to the titular fallout, human genetic damage isn't enough to markedly impact human appearance or skills, but it is enough to react unpleasantly with the FEV to reduce the minds of the Super Mutants created from them to that of particularly dim-witted children. Later in Fallout 3, this is the revealed as the motivation behind the Enclave's plan to introduce their plague into the water... it's designed not to kill all the people in the Capital Wasteland, only those whose genetic structures have been too badly damaged to be converted into Super Genius Mutants. So the Vault inhabitants survive, everybody else dies.
    • It should be noted that in the first game's actual terminology, the FEV created two different types of creatures from human subjects. Those whose intelligence diminished from the change were called simply "mutants." It was only those whose intelligence increased who earned the title of "super mutants." Using this terminology, there were a total of two super mutants in all of ''Fallout 3’'. It should also be noted that "purity of DNA" brought on by having been born and raised in a Vault was merely The Master's favorite theory of why some humans became super mutants, and some became mere mutants: This was never flat-out confirmed to be the actual reason, but some mysterious "x factor" did exist. That being said, this means that any being marked as "super mutant" in the first two games-even ones who were given no official name beyond such and were just nameless mooks-qualifies as an example of this trope.
    • Note that the super mutants in DC are products of Vault 87 experiments rather than (remnants of) The Master's army, the different strain of FEV there causes mental degradation even in Vault Dwellers and makes them grow bigger with age. Although they know one thing or two about tactics and are aware of their sterility, "recruiting" hapless wastelanders to expand their numbers.
    • The Nightkin, which are stealthier, Stealth Boy-addicted versions of the aforementioned mutants, should qualify, as they, like other West-Coast Super Mutants, retain their intelligence and physical prowess indefinitely. However, this is offset by the chronic, species-wide schizophrenia they suffer due to constant stealth-boy use. What you get as a result are mutants who, instead of being utter morons, are at best paranoid to the point of violence, and at worst utterly detached from reality. Still, those that manage to stay functional qualify handily, like Lily and God in Dead Money.
    • Fallout 4 averts this with super mutant companion Strong: while he's a great deal more introspective than your garden variety super mutant, he's still dumb as a bag of rocks and just as prone to violence as his kin. Conversely, there is Dr. Brian Virgil, an Institute scientist who abandoned his position after having a crisis of conscience due to the pain and suffering his research into the FEV was causing. He willingly injected himself with the FEV so that he could escape into the inhospitably-radioactive Glowing Sea as a super mutant, but he retains his intelligence throughout the ordeal.
  • With the right levelling, perks, and chems, the player character in any Fallout game can become one as well: able to hack any computer, pick any lock, smooth talk any merchant, and, if need be, kill Deathclaws. bare-handed. The effectiveness of dropping a Logic Bomb on stubborn machines while turning around and wielding a Gatling Laser with efficient aim cannot be understated.
  • Fallout 2's Goris, who rivals Myron in terms of smarts and also pretty handy in a fight, what with being a Deathclaw and all.
  • In New Vegas, Legate Lanius is a brutal Blood Knight who revels in bloodshed and quite tough in direct combat. However, he's actually a relatively decent tactician who if you decide to engage him in conversation is actually a surprisingly intelligent man who will not toss away the lives of his men pointlessly and will actually retreat if the player makes a very good argument (most of which has to do with logistics).
    However, while he sounds like a smart guy and is a decent tactician, his leadership is inferior to Caesar's. He has absolutely no idea what he's doing when it comes to keeping an empire up and running. Sure enough, a Courier with maxed out Barter can make him retreat simply by pointing out just how logistically stupid his long-term plans for the Legion are, and it's implied by several characters, chief among them being Mr. House, that the whole Legion will fall apart within a scant few years under his leadership.
    • His predecessor "The Malpais Legate", AKA Joshua Graham was both a fearsome warrior infamous for both his ruthlessness and resilience (having survived five killshots from elite NCR snipers). While by his own admission not a particularly skilled military commander he's a (by wasteland standards) well-educated scholar in matters of religion, linguistics and weapons as well as being articulate and well-spoken in person.
• Final Fantasy provides several examples:
  • Golbez of Final Fantasy IV is an eight-foot-tall hulk of a Tin Tyrant with Shoulders of Doom and marked proficiency in the use of BFSs. And on top of that is well-spoken, a mage of great skill, and a masterful Chessmaster.
  • Cid from Final Fantasy IV is a much better example. As the game's resident Cid, he's the engineer in charge of the airships, but is also a formidable physical fighter too, preferring to bash his enemies in with hammers and wrenches.
  • Edgar of Final Fantasy VI is a talented engineer, having designed a castle capable of subterranean travel, a small arsenal of machine weaponry, and is capable of repairing practically any broken equipment you come across. Oh, and put a spear in his hands and he'll make shish kebab out of you in about 3 seconds flat. His twin brother Sabin is no idiot either, despite being a Bare-Fisted Monk and one of the stronger players in the game.
  • Cid Highwind of Final Fantasy VII is one of the best examples in the series. Featuring some of the highest HP and Strength stats in the game, the second-best limit break damage, serious muscles and a nasty mouth, he also has stacks of engineering blueprints in his house and a massive airship named after him, presumably because he designed the damn thing himself. Oh, and he's the world's first astronaut (is hinted to have had a hand in building the rocket too), runs a town, has flown a light plane, a jet-powered airship & a more traditional zeppelin style one. He's quite possibly the most book-smart FF hero ever. And a powerhouse.
  • Zell Dincht of Final Fantasy VIII. While at first glance Zell seems to be nothing more than a passionate, loud-mouthed fighter-type with energy to spare, throughout the game it's revealed that Zell is an avid reader with extensive knowledge of world history, mechanical expertise, and jewelry making. He's literally referred to in-game as Mr. Know-It-All-Zell. He's also one of the strongest characters in-game. He once derailed a train accidentally by punching the floor of a train car. Later in-game, he steps forward as leader and pilot.
  • Final Fantasy XIV:
    • The majority of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn are Archons, elite scholars from the country of Sharlayan, which emphasizes the pursuit of knowledge above all else. Of those Archons, most take up magical pursuits such as thaumatergy or astrology. Thancred Waters is an exception, as early in the game he practices the arts used by the Rogues of Limsa Lominsa, with a touch fo the Far East's Ninja, is an expert in infiltration, and later takes up the tank-oriented job of Gunbreaker. He tends to use his skills to infiltrate dangerous areas, and his interpretations of what he finds are typically on the mark.
    • Moenbryda Wilfsunnwyn is a large Roegadyn woman whose scholarly achievements include finding a way to permanently kill Ascians, who are otherwise able to come back from the dead more or less at will. This technique she develops sees use throughout the entirety of the game, long after her death shortly after joining with the Scions. She is also a two-hand axe wielding Marauder, a tank class, and is largely The Lad-ette in personality.
    • While not an Archon, Alisaie Leveilleur is a student of Sharlayan, the youngest to gain admission to the Studium besides her twin brother, and the granddaughter of the man who was both the Scions' mentor and founder of their predecessor organization, the Circle of Knowing. However, she is very much an Action Girl, preferring to fight with the sword than to study with the tome. This mix is shown by her taking on the Magic Knight job of Red Mage from the second expansion onward. She is no slouch as an intellectual, however, as the very same Hot-Blooded Determinator personality that drives her to joining the fray also gives her the stubbornness needed to ultimately achieve something that none before her had accomplished and all had given up on: A cure for the Brainwashing power of Primals known as Tempering.
• Fire Emblem:
  • In general, most of the members of the Knight/General/Great Knight classes fit here (no pun intended). They're all slow and powerful lance (and axe, after promotion) users with great defense, but at the same time they're so smart and dedicated to their mission that they're often the right hands of the Lords.
  • Hannibal from Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War;
  • Bors, Barth, Wendy, Fighting General Douglas, and Lieutenant Murdock from Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade;
  • Oswin and Lord Uther from Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade;
  • Emperor Vigarde of Grado, Gilliam, and Obsidian Duessel from Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones;
  • Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn have both Tauroneo and Zelgius; the latter is a devastating swordsman, high in every stat, yet also a brilliant tactician and a great leader to his troops.
  • Fire Emblem: Awakening:
    • The mercenary Gregor, who has trouble speaking proper English, but is otherwise a fairly intelligent man with lots of street smarts, wisdom and experience. He also states that a mercenary has to be smart to survive.
    • The Avatar deserves mentioning if the player uses the largest of the three available physical builds, which makes them tower over more than half the cast. They are a brilliant tactician, known to obtain victory against nearly impossible odds without getting anyone killed (if the player's doing a No Casualties Run). On top of that, the Avatar can easily become the most powerful unit.
  • Fire Emblem Fates has Ryoma, an extremely strong fighter who is also the very competent and charismatic Crown Prince of Hoshido.
  • Fire Emblem: Three Houses has Sylvain, who is 186 cm tall (or about 6'1") and rather broad in the chest and shoulders, and despite his slacker attitude, he's no less capable than his hardworking peers on the battlefield. He's also considerably intelligent, with his budding talent being in Reason, in addition to being a fan of fine art.
• Minute Man in Freedom Force is a Captain America-themed hero who can leap tall buildings and has enormous strength. He's also a nuclear physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project. In one mission, a villain sets off the timer on a nuclear bomb. Guess who has to disarm it?
• He doesn't display much sign of higher education in his actions or dialogue, but as he player is him, Badass Biker Ben of Full Throttle shows a great deal of unconventional genius. How many other bikers would think to use mechanical toy bunnies to clear a minefield?
• Fur Fighters has Viggo, the main antagonist of the game. He's built up his own business empire, discovered a hidden society of dinosaurs underground and backwards engineered their technology for resale. Learned an ancient ritual for raising the dead, mastered genetic manipulation and built a machine that pumps out endless clones. He's also the strongest thing in the whole game.
• Gaia Online plays with this trope with Labtech X, who is a huge man but has never been seen in anything but a lab coat.
  • Gambino himself might qualify as a more eccentric variation, as he's dabbled in mad science in between playing the stock market, picking fights with vampires, and being generally clueless how to deal with other people. Labtech X is Gambino's clone, so naturally they'd both be genius bruisers.
• Forte, in the Galaxy Angel gameverse; the anime version showed less of her "genius" side.
• Damon Baird from Gears of War. He doesn't just shoot people and take steroids like all the other Gears! He has some understanding of the Locust language and a head for technology and mechanics. He fixes nearly anything and everything that ever breaks in the game. When asked to improvise a bomb with few parts available, he replies, "Regular or extra strength?"
• Ghost of Tsushima has Big Bad Khotun Khan, leader of the Mongol forces invading Tsushima, a fierce warrior in his own right, and a shrewd tactician who took the time to learn the language and customs of his enemies, allowing him to exploit the samurai's sense of honor and, in so doing, lure them into a massacre.
• Kratos from God of War, despite being a brute that kills anything that so much as looks at him funny, is still intelligent enough to succeed at obtaining Pandora's Box, a task many adventurers before him failed, the path to it requiring as much wit as it does brute strength and he also managed to find a way to get the Stonemason's Chisel underneath the block of ice when even someone like Thor isn't capable of digging through. In fact, he spends just as much, if not more of his time solving puzzles than he does killing monsters and Gods.
• Piers in Golden Sun: The Lost Age is a beefy sailor◊ and a textbook Mighty Glacier. He also has powerful healing spells and indicates in some cutscenes that he's trained as a medic, figures out ancient Magitek in moments, infiltrates a town under security upgrades for a special occasion, discusses at length the state of the world since the decline of Alchemy... oh, and it's implied in some of the Lemuria cutscenes that he was originally going to leave the country as a spy for King Hydros. There might be some justification in his age, but he refuses to disclose his age, so we don't know if he's Really 700 Years Old or not.
  • Agatio, from the same game, gets points in this category in his intro scene, just for telling Alex to his face that he knows Alex is using him as Dumb Muscle, and doesn't care as long as it gets the job done. It also shows up when he starts taking advantage of Jupiter Lighthouse's construction to set booby traps for Isaac & Co. to neutralize Mia's many advantages. His last qualifier for this trope is his having the largest variety of Psynergy spells among the Mars Clan antagonists, meaning he's as good at casting as he is at brawling.
• Grand Theft Auto:
  • Grand Theft Auto: Vice City: Tommy Vercetti. He is smart enough to manage a considerable number of businesses and is undoubtedly one of the most physically strong characters in the series.
  • Grand Theft Auto IV: Niko Bellic is pretty intelligent, skilled with many different types of weapons, knows Krav Maga, and is one of the most dangerous characters in the series if he's after you. Despite his lack of formal education, Niko is a tactical genius and remarkably fluent in English: He is quite articulate during conversations and also demonstrates good grammar when writing emails. How much of a badass he really is? He has survived the war, the disaster of a ship, dozens of shootouts, and still managed to survive all this, almost as if he were supernatural!
  • Grand Theft Auto V:
    • Trevor Phillips is one of the most scarily psychotic protagonists in the entire series and boasts the highest Strength stat off the mark, but there are many moments that show that underneath his deranged exterior, there's a sharp mind that's working non-stop. This is made especially apparent when he single-handedly plans out a heist against a private militia that would have succeeded had the target not been a deadly superweapon that would have had the entire U.S. government after him and then, later on, is able to calculate the value of two tons of gold bricks in a matter of seconds, impressing pretty much everyone around him. It's revealed through conversations that he was a qualified US Air Force pilot (an occupation requiring a college degree) who was rejected because of his psychotic personality, not because of lack of skill or intelligence.
    • The Online Protagonist. They are very capable of hacking doors and planning heists. Besides, if you want to improve your skills, the protagonist can be superhumanly strong.
• You probably wouldn't believe it from looking at him, but Sol Badguy from Guilty Gear. Yes, the insanely powerful warrior who's built like a quarterback and wields an angular BFS is actually a bona-fide genius. He used to be Frederick, the brilliant scientist who created the titular Gears, and he's also responsible for building the Gear-obliterating superweapon Outrage. He's also proficient with magic, as he uses very powerful fire magic in battles and spends most of Guilty Gear II: Overture prattling off Magi Babble.
  • Potemkin also counts. While he looks like the ridiculously Dumb Muscle right hand of President Gabriel of Zepp, he is also very polite, erudite, and must be smarter than he appears if he's been directly tasked by his own president to undertake covert missions on his behalf. He's also a talented artist.
• In Halo:
  • The children who would become the Spartan-IIs were selected as much for brains as for brawn, with the Master Chief himself having enough tactical knowhow to make even admirals listen to him. The Spartans III aren't too shabby in regard either, Kat from a Halo: Reach is oblivously built like an amazonian Super-Soldier and as deadly as the rest of the team, but her intellect and computer skills are incredible and as shown extremely vital on missions.
  • The Sangheili/Elites and Jiralhanae/Brutes are physically impressive species who nonetheless have their fair share of brilliant scientists and engineers; something similar applies to many of the more brawny Lekgolo gestalts (like the Mgalekgolo/Hunters) too.
  • But these are all topped by Forerunner Warrior-Servants, who are both highly skilled tacticians and equipped with armor and mutations far superior to what even the Spartans have.
• Hello Neighbor is basically a middle finger to Artificial Stupidity; the eponymous Neighbor learns from your mistakes and secures his house by installing cameras, bear traps and motions detectors. He has also set a huge amount of puzzles that you have to solve if you want to acquire the items required to open his basement's door. To make thing even more difficult, the Neighbor is FAST and will chase you around his house by breaking doors and jump through windows very easily.
• Horizon Zero Dawn: Aloy, hands down. She's a professional hunter who can reverse-engineer precursor technology in the post-apocalypse stone age. She hunts T-Rex inspired robots with heavy missile launchers on their backs which she can pick up and use with her bare hands, and figured out on her own that the Earth was a sphere because of its shadow on the moon during an Eclipse. She's also a resident CSI who knows what actions will set off a giant crate bomb and pushes the whole thing off a cliff with minimal help. And let's not forget that she's the clone of genius Elisabet Sobeck and has inherited much of her intelligence
• Steroid Gontarski in Jagged Alliance 2, one of the strongest mercs in the game AND when dealing with repair and electronics is one of the best mercs outside of the ones who assign both specialty options as one of the two. He is hindered only be his lack of agility, but he is also very cheep to hire.
  • At first, Steroid's lines and voice acting suggest that he's not very bright. Then you realize he just doesn't know English too well, and that his voice is a parody of classic action movie heroes...
    Steroid: My skin is punctured and leaking!
  • He also refuses to work in the same team as Ivan Dolvich (one of the designated badasses), which many fans consider to be a serious drawback.
    • Ivan Dolvich is also a good example. Ex-Red Army Major, explosives and heavy weapons specialist, high physical and mental stats, and very well-spoken and erudite... in Russian.
• Oscar in Jurassic Park: The Game is strong enough to take on a raptor in one-on-one combat armed only with a knife and win. Though a man of few words, the few times he does speak imply he is very knowledgeable and quite possibly the most intelligent of all the InGen Mercenaries, like when he correctly identifies what kind of dinosaur collided with their helicopter and downed it:
  D-Caf: Oh man, InGen's gonna be pissed when they get the bill for this one.
  Yoder: Then they should have gotten pterodactyl insurance.
  Oscar: Pteranodon insurance.
• Lexaeus from Kingdom Hearts is a good example of this trope; he's the musclebound Earth elemental giant of Organization XIII, who knows when it's a good idea to wait for events to develop (rather than immediately charge into the action like your standard brute). In addition, in his cutscenes in Chain of Memories, he's usually seen pondering, or holding conversations with Zexion. As a founding member of the Organization, he was a researcher apprenticed to Ansem the Wise before becoming a Nobody.
  • This is furthered in the manga: he apparently spends his free time doing brain teasers or reading.
  • Xaldin is almost as large, and also one of the original six, with a particular penchant for psychological manipulation.
• Bao-Dur from Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords built a custom droid when he was a kid, made weapons for the military including the mass shadow generator that wiped out a planet and ended a war, says designing planetary-class defensive shields is 'a hobby', and starts idly taking apart and rebuilding your ship piece by piece because he's bored. He also has a military-grade artificial arm with weaponized force fields and starts out with a very high Strength score and multiple points in unarmed combat.
  • Mical. He talks like a teacher, is a historian/scientist, and can be trained as a Jedi Consular — the class that focuses most on the Force rather than lightsabers. He starts out as a Soldier class. You find him in the deadly sub-level of the Jedi Temple, from which almost no one has returned alive. He might be more of a Badass Bookworm, though.
• League of Legends: Jayce, the Defender of Tomorrow, is an extremely well-built and handsome man who fights crime in his hometown Piltover using his own invention, an advanced lightning-based cannon-hammer hybrid called the Mercury Hammer. He's also one of Piltover's most brilliant Hextech inventors.
• The Legend of Zelda: Ganondorf is usually portrayed as a genius bruiser whenever he's not a drooling beastie, and sometimes even then. He always plans ahead of time and is rather methodical. Tricking Link into opening the sacred realm so he could get the Triforce (The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time), setting up plagues and curing them through Aganihm in order to gain (political) power (The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past), and apparently setting up several resurrection plans are some of his highlights. Even when things don't go his way, he can salvage the situation; his actions in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, including feeding on the Twili's hate and allowing Zant to release him, as well as getting around every seal placed on him, are examples of this. He is also a beastly fighter: in his human form, he's canonically seven and a half feet tall, and deadly with swords and his bare fists, while his true form is a gigantic boar more than capable of crushing Link with his sheer size when he isn't trying to impale him with his trident.
  
  Although not canon to the Zelda series, he appears in a fairly high-tech-looking computer lab in the Subspace Emissary in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, overseeing everything as it transpires. Given that his only immediate ally besides Master Hand is Bowser, it's not too much of a stretch to assume that ol' Ganon's technologically savvy, too.
• Jack Cayman of MadWorld is actually an incredibly sharp dude coupled by experience as former Grand Champion of Deathwatch. He's able to wax philosophy as he carves mooks in half and by the time he's facing the Final Boss it's implied he's already figured out the entire scheme of Deathwatch and who's really behind it.
• The Big Bad of Majesty 2 is a demon called the Barlog, in the final mission we find out that it's short for "Baron of Logic" and he's very articulate and smart in addition to being a powerful demon.
• Mass Effect:
  • Commander Shepard, in addition to them being regarded as the biggest badass in the known galaxy, shows themself to be very intelligent throughout their battles, as much as they hate dealing with it, politically savvy, and capable of coming up with creative solutions to many problems. Plus, the male version is pretty buff. Ironically, the third game shows that for all their intelligence, Shepard isn't a very good chess player.
  • Grunt, the genetically-engineered Super-Soldier krogan in Mass Effect 2 is raised via Neural Imprinting. While he's The Big Guy of the party, he's actually quite articulate and contemplative for a krogan (if still just as much of a fight-happy Boisterous Bruiser in the field). He even chose his own Meaningful Name reflecting on how well it represents him when he's born, a fighter without much purpose. The Shadow Broker DLC reveals that he's into Ernest Hemingway on his spare time.
  • Before Grunt, we had Wrex. Disillusioned with his people because their nature will doom them to extinction. Knows that the purpose of a stealth ship is NOT to get into slugging matches. Can con clients into hiring him on as a permanent bodyguard against a particular enemy of the client, even after failing the original contract to kill said enemy. Also smart enough to see Saren as Obviously Evil and not even waiting to get paid for a job he was hired and ends up becoming the only surviving merc. Eventually becomes the man with the plan on saving his species if he survives to the second game.
  • The Shadow Broker is revealed to be one of these in "Lair of the Shadow Broker". He took over a criminal empire and ran it in such a way that no one even figured out that power changed hands. He himself is three times the size of a krogan. His species is said to be this, in fact: strong as krogans, smart as salarians.
    • The downside being that their tempers are 3 times those of the already-irritable krogan too. And when his species get angry they lose all their intelligence and go berserker.
  • Javik. A skilled warrior, talented commander and eloquent (if grim) philosopher.
  • Garrus Vakarian. He is an extremely skilled sniper and soldier and consistently causes the highest weapon damage of Shepard's squadmates. Garrus is also a skilled technician and detective.
  • David Anderson starts the series as Shephard's captain, and (optionally) becomes the Citadel councilor, which are both intellectual jobs. He is a highly decorated Special Forces soldier, one of the first graduates of the same N7 program Shep graduated, and the first human Spectre candidate, who are quite literally a collection of the biggest butt-kickers in the known galaxy. He quits his (optional) Councillor job after the second game, and gets right into the trenches of the Reaper War by leading the human resistance on Earth. He also finds time to call Shep and give him/her some comforting and philosophical words.
• The Metal Gear series is about a special ops soldier who had a genius-level IQ, fluency in a half-dozen languages and enough skill with a vast array of weaponry (from sniper rifles to tranquilizer darts to aerosol spray cans and matches) to bring down telekinesis masters, armed tanks, overmarketed yellow rodents, and berserk clones of a legendary villain. His father is implied to be similar.
  • Interestingly, while Big Boss and Solid Snake share all the traits described above, Snake is a Pop-Cultured Badass while Big Boss tended to suffer from Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure. The latter is justified, though, as he's simply wasn't as interested in pop culture as nearly everybody else.
  • Vulcan Raven from the same series is a villainous example. While he's best known for his fondness for serious firepower, he's also a shaman and a graduate of the University of Alaska.
  • Liquid also has a genius level IQ, and is even tougher than Snake, but really should've paid attention in high school biology.
  • Colonel Volgin from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is also an example: It's implied that he came up with the design and architecture of his fortress Groznyj Grad, and likewise the Hinds were also implied to have been designed by him. He also was shown to possess enough strategic sense to deter any chances of an air-raid against Groznyj Grad by fortifying the Krasnogorje Range and, should that not work, he even created an air raid shelter below the mountain in anticipation of the unlikely event that it was going to be hit in an air raid, and also fortified the already fortified range even further with Hinds when Snake arrived, implying that he anticipated that Snake was to traverse through the area. A throwaway line made by him shortly before shooting the Davy Crockett at the Sokolov Design Bureau likewise suggested that he was at least knowledgable enough in world politics and intelligence operations to know that the world's intelligence agencies will likewise only assume that The Boss fired the weapon instead of himself. He is also extemely large, was strong enough to send foes flying with his punches, and possessed electrical abilities.
  • Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance has Senator Steven Armstrong who is quite good at manipulating others and organizing various illegal activities while keeping up false motives as his disguise. Since his body was artificially enhanced, he's also a Mighty Glacier and a Lightning Bruiser at the same time. He also proudly boasts of having played college football at the University of Texas, so it's believable that he was physically strong even before getting nanomachines.
• Metroid:
  • Samus Aran is implied to be a pretty sharp woman; she's about twenty different flavours of badass in battle, but she's also apparently quite learned in biology and designed her own gunship. During the times we can hear her thoughts, she's quite philosophical, too.
  • Samus's nemesis, Ridley, has a high level of intelligence and cunning that has earned him a command position in the Space Pirate organization and under Mother Brain. He's also a giant winged space dragon that eats people.
• Ar-Kaius the Architect in The Blade of Galadriel DLC for Middle-earth: Shadow of War is an Olog-Hai captain just as big and strong as any other and also a great fortress architect both skilled at designing very tough fortifications and noticing weaknesses in structures to better wreck them. He keeps a full set of geometry instruments on his chestplate at all times and even has a blue beret and a full grey beard that make him look like a more muscular version of Leonardo da Vinci.
• Mortal Kombat: Jax is as intelligent as he is strong and he's the World's Strongest Man in the Mortal Kombat setting. Besides designing his own bionic arms and those other futuristic gadgets that the U.S special forces uses, he was the person behind the dimensional gate to Outworld.
• Nintendo Wars: An odd example in Advance Wars: Dual Strike. Normally, Jugger is The Brute and is coded with an intentionally stupid AI script. When he uses his CO power, though, he switches to the smartest AI script in the game and spends the next turn liberally tossing you to the curb.
• Steroids from Nuclear Throne is a musclebound Dual Wielding powerhouse and a former scientist who was wise enough to bulk up on steroids in order to survive the apocalypse he predicted. He was right. It's not entirely clear how much of his past intellect has been retained in his current state, but seeing as he still reads books in his spare time, he's at least smarter than the average wasteland mutant.
• Demon King Odin from Odin Sphere is a gargantuan mountain of muscle whose weapon of choice is a ball and chain larger than most playable characters. More importantly to the plot, he is also a wise and cunning schemer, as befitting the king of a nation.
• Frank Gaunt of Operation Darkness is a heavy machine-gunner and close-combat specialist who also seems to have some knowledge of nuclear physics and other specialized fields. Certainly doesn't hurt that he is the Frankenstein creature, who was every bit as sharp in Mary Shelly's Frankenstein.
• Overwatch:
  • Winston, a super-intelligent gorilla who is about as comfortable devising groundbreaking new technologies as he is jumping into the fray, frying people with his tesla cannon and beating them senseless with his bare hands. Many of his enemies often underestimate him for this reason, thinking he's just a dumb animal.
    Reaper: I'll be sure to send them your regards, 'monkey'.
    Winston: I'm not a monkey... I'm a scientist! *Device blows Reaper across the room*
  • Doomfist is an enormously powerful Power Fist-wielding Scary Black Man with a Social Darwinist worldview. He is also frighteningly intelligent, as seen in his Origin Story trailer, where he deals with a blinking Tracer by calmly observing her movements before grabbing her out of the air and ripping out her chronal accelerator.
• In Persona 3, once your Academics reach level 6, the protagonist officially becomes a "Genius". They're probably also the one dishing out the most damage in Tartarus.
  • Makoto Niijima in Persona 5 is a model Student Council President who gets good grades, while also being a Phantom Thief who specializes in brutal close-quarters combat. She acts as one of the Smart Girls of the team, along with Futaba Sakura.
• In Pillars of Eternity, like many RPGs, it's possible for the Watcher to qualify. Canonical examples, however:
  • Kana Rua is an Aumara; in other words, he's seven feet tall with shark's teeth, and built like a castle wall. He's also an intelligent, well-read scholar who came to the Dyrwood from distant Rautai to find archaeological evidence proving his culture is more interconnected with others than reactionaries in his own land would like to believe.
  • Galawain, god of the hunt, is exactly as powerful and brutal as one would expect. However, he considers cunning, guile, and willpower forms of strength as important as physical might, and explicitly respects the hunt for knowledge as much as he does a literal hunt. This makes him an unintuitive but steadfast ally of scientists and animancers, whom most other gods despise.
  • The Master Below, aka the Adra Dragon. Bonus Boss. Giant Dragon. Also one of two characters to figure out actual, drawback-free immortality (the other is the Big Bad). She created both a method to keep her body alive indefinitely through soul absorption, and a method of stealing another body if she ran low. Also figured out how to peer into and influence the minds of others at extremely long range - most ciphers need to be face-to-face for that.
• Very strong and a remarkably skilled fighter, what made the Practical Incarnation in Planescape: Torment such a dangerous and effective person was his cunning and near complete lack of morals: a Genius Bruiser Manipulative Bastard.
  • Coaxmetal is a gigantic iron golem in possession of a similarly gigantic hammer, locked into a siege tower due to his destructive potential. He's also one of the best blacksmiths and weapons manufacturers in the planes and an erudite in the art of war, both small-scale and large-scale. He can both provide you with the strongest armament of the game (including the only weapon in the game that can permanently end your life) and some invaluable advice in how to face your mysterious antagonist, and how to root out his weaknesses to finally take him down. Remarkably polite and erudite for an Omnicidal Maniac, all in all.
• Pokémon:
  • Any Psychic-type reliant on Physical attacks. The most evident example is Metagross, who has a modular brain with the intelligence of a supercomputer and is pretty much a tank on legs.
  • Fighting-types have a kind of reputation where they're portrayed as "Dumb Muscle" due to their weakness to Psychic attacks. In actuality, they're more this trope. For example, Conkeldurr taught humans how to make concrete while older Hariyama actively teach young Makuhita the art of sumo. And combining the two are the Pokémon who are both Psychic AND Fighting, such as Gallade and Medicham. They are both mentally focused and in peak physical shape.
  • The Official Pokémon Handbook states that Machop is quite intelligent, although this isn't mentioned anywhere else and it's unknown how its evolutions compare.
• [PROTOTYPE 2], James Heller, former US Marine sergeant, whose powers allow him to absorb the knowledge of his victims, among which are a wide variety of genetic scientists, mostly virologists.
  • This is also true for Alex Mercer but with Alex initially being a geneticist himself.
• Resident Evil:
  • Albert Wesker. Described as a child prodigy, one of Umbrella's top researchers, master of The Plan, and was skilled enough in martial arts pre-viral upgrade to go toe-to-toe with an Ivan-class Tyrant, and is capable of punching through people's torsos and breaking concrete with his fist after his viral upgrade.
  • Wesker's son Jake Muller takes after him. Though it's downplayed since he's not that educated and drops more curses than big words, he's implied to be able to pick up skills very quickly. Aside from learning combat skills well enough to kill multiple experienced attackers after the relatively little experience when he was just a teenager, he speaks and writes flawless English despite it probably being his second language and learns how to both speak and read fluent Chinese — a tone language with vastly different grammar from English and most European languages — after listening to his captors speak it for a few months.
  • Jill Valentine. Her Delta Force background training that got her recruited for S.T.A.R.S detailed in her bio involves bomb disposal as well as lockpicking, she's also a talented pianist as RE1 and RE5's DLC shows. More importantly, she's a One-Woman Army proficient in martial arts like Taekwondo, Tricking, Pro-Wrestling as well knives and firearms who's killed armies of zombies, giant monsters and defeated The Dreaded Nemesis all by herself. In RE5 even while brainwashed she retains her intelligence and skill for most of the game but also has superpowers akin to the aforementioned Wesker.
  • Leon S Kennedy. Graduated from the police academy in his earlier 20s and became a federal agent after surviving the Zombie Apocalypse, Leon is a highly resourceful, extremely tactical monster-killing badass who utilizes Taekwondo, Krav Maga, Pro-Wrestling, Jujitsu and Systema (Russain Martial arts) to peak human levels. Even Ada a superspy who has duped Leon in the past admits Leon is "a genius" when it comes to combat and he's also equaled the boulder smashing Chris Redfield in a fistfight.
  • Speaking of which, there's Chris Redfield himself. True, he comes off as a meathead soldier at times, but he's a man who was ranked high in the Air Force and made his way to the elite tactical squad hand-picked by Wesker when he was only 24. Besides marksmanship, Chris is a proficient pilot and displays martial skill in boxing, kickboxing, Judo, and Brazilian Jujitsu. He's also somehow strong enough to punch 151-ton rock out of his way in the Final Battle of RE5 and unlike Wesker didn't take a Super Serum to achieve that level of strength. Both RE7 and RE Village show how methodical and crafty Chris is bedsides his strength, like in the former where outsmarts a Jigsaw-esque Trap Master like Lucas and in latter where he’s The Chessmaster.
  • Karl Hisenberg of Resident Evil Village, he's a gifted scientist and mechanic who is able to create an rudimentary army of super soldiers from corpses Dr. Frankenstein style, but on top of that Hisenberg is also a powerful mutant with Magnetism Manipulation and wields a massive hammer.
• Runaway 2: The Dream of the Turtle: has the protagonist Brian Basco, who is a former physics student with body-builder physique.
• Your player character in RuneScape can be the ultimate Jack of All Trades, from Strength and Agility to Magic and Invention, and master them all, too.
  • The Temple Knights of Saradomin have this trope as a requirement. You can apply to join them in the quest "Recruitment Drive", and they test you with everything from "fight a champion no man can defeat... with your bare hands and no armor, while he has both" to logic puzzles, lore, and chemistry.
  • General Khazard is the only Mahjarrat to specialize in melee combat over magic. However, as seen in "Ritual of the Mahjarrat" he's absolutely not stupid, and perfectly capable of using magic if he needs to— he's just such a Blood Knight that he prefers swords to spells.
• Oleg Kirrlov of Saints Row: The Third. Outsizes everyone by about three feet — in height and width — can shove cars aside like toys, was the genetic model for the Brutes... and is well-read, speaks with impeccable diction, and loves playing chess. An audio log in the sequel reveals that tech genius Kinzie thinks of him as an intellectual superior, suggesting that he is likely one of the smartest people on earth.
  • Alien emperor Zinyak in the sequel. He is far smarter and more cultured than the protagonist (possibly than any human) and is also so large and strong that he is able to curb stomp the protagonist at the start of the game with little effort.
• In The Sims 2: Bon Voyage, if you can persuade him to join a playable family, Bigfoot begins play with all his skills and talents maximized.
  • In any Sims game there's nothing stopping you from making any given sim a giant with equal scores in athletics/body and logic.
• Sly 2: Band of Thieves has Jean Bison, a Fish out of Temporal Water from the 1850's who is built like, well, a bison. A rather big deal is made out of how he may be behind the times but isn't stupid: he's clever enough to not only immediately adapt to more modern lumberjack and train technology but also combine it with advanced technology like Clockwerk's various parts to turbo-charge his criminal empire, and when Sly and his friends dress up as judges to rig an event he instantly sees through their disguises and takes them down.
• Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves has Dr. M, a well-spoken genius mandrill scientist who used to plan elaborate heists for the Cooper Gang during Sly's father's time. He almost entirely relies on his mind, building gadgets and Mix-and-Match Critters to serve as his minions, relying on machinery rather than strength in fights, and planned to steal the Cooper Vault by simply buying the property it was on to have free reign over it as landowner of the island. However, when the chips are down he is a mandrill and can go toe-to-toe with Murray in unarmed combat.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Vector the Crocodile is classified as a power character, and is shown to be a brilliant detective. He unfortunately sometimes doubles as a total idiot - but then most of Team Chaotix does that. Nowhere is this shown better than at the end of Sonic Heroes where he lays out to Eggman that he knew EXACTLY who he was all along, and was playing along with his game because he knew that whomever locked Eggman up would be the worse of two evils after effortlessly tearing a thick metal door off the wall with his bare fists.
  • Dr. Eggman, though he rarely ever uses his raw strength. He is orders of magnitude above everyone else in knowledge of robotics and machinery, but when push comes to shove, he can not only run as quickly as Sonic can (albeit for short periods of time), but the Sonic Riders games show he can punch aside metal doors, cars, stone statues, and other large heavy objects like they're nothing and with no assistance. He just prefers to let his machines do the destruction.
  • When he's not being written as a rock stupid character, Knuckles has, at various points, demonstrated a philosophical streak, a fair bit of historical knowledge, an ability to read ancient runes, and some tactical ability. All in addition to his prodigious strength.
• Zasalamel from the Soul Series is a tall, heavily-built black man who is implied to be one of the most strongest fighters among the cast due to his centuries of experience. But he is also knowledgeable on many subjects, including magic, and demonstrably capable of playing a long game and manipulating other characters towards his own ends. His weapon Kafziel is menacing, but it may be his mind is an even greater weapon.
  • Raphael is not just a master fencer, he also shows a crafty side too. Even when he loses his titles and fortune, he goes into hiding and eludes the French authorities and fends off assassins for years. Then he reintegrates himself into the nobility under a false identity, bumps off Dumas and steals his riches. He also demonstrates good knowledge of medicine and anatomy.
• Bentley the Yeti from Spyro: Year of the Dragon is a mountain dweller with a huge ice club, but speaks in Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness and comes up with a variety of barely pronounceable insults for Moneybags.
  Bentley: Why, you brazenly avaricious, duplicitous, larcenous ursine!
• Adray Lasbard from Star Ocean: Till the End of Time is 188cm tall, immaculately muscled, totes around a big frickin' katana and, oh yeah, he's considered a Wizard◊.
• Zangief of Street Fighter fame, towering muscle mountain and Boisterous Bruiser par excellence, is revealed in 6's World Tour mode to also be a published writer and voracious bookworm who graduated from a renowned university.
• It may not look like it, due to some of his portrayals as a comic relief and his overall lack of common sense, but Bowser from Super Mario Bros. is far from idiotic. Similar to the 300 IQ Dr. Eggman, Bowser designs and builds all of his technological contraptions, and while his plans usually fail because the good guy always wins, they are well thought out by the big man.
• Tales Series:
  • Tales of Symphonia has Regal Bryant: He's the second strongest fighter of the group and quite skilled in Chi arts, even capable of firing an energy blast once. However, he is also the president of the Lezareno Company and a duke, therefore the character that expresses himself in the most refined manner. He's also the one the smart woman of the group will turn to due to his general maturity.
  • Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World has Richter Abend, who was a scientist at Sybak University.
  • Malik Caesar from Tales of Graces is the most muscular and tallest man in your party but instead of using them to fight, he uses his magic to fight. Magic, in turn, is based off the intelligence of the mage. He is also the person that the other characters turn to due to both his experience and his knowledge.
• Team Fortress 2:
  • The Heavy wields the big guns. In Poker Night at the Inventory, it is revealed that he went to college and that he has a Ph.D in Russian Literature. He also has refined tastes when it comes to drinks and music. While he does display a fair amount of intelligence in "Meet the Heavy" by rattling all the detailed specs of his machinegun, the Russian version of this trailer and "Meet The Team" show that he is eloquent in his native language.
  • As displayed in the expanded material, the entire country of Australia is this. Thanks to Australium, every man and woman in the country are certified geniuses, while also being musclebound, mustachioed, machismo machines. Mann Co. CEO and yeti mauler Saxton Hale being the prominent example.
  • One update reveals that in the TF2 universe, the rocket launcher was invented by "Shakespearicles, the strongest writer who ever lived", a man capable of pressing 700 British pounds who also invented the stage play and the second-story building. Tragically, he never invented stairs, meaning that for the next three hundred years, people had to use Rocket Jumping to reach the second floor.
• Torchlight II's Engineers are expected to both construct a medical robot in a jiffy and lug around and properly use either a huge two-handed hammer or an enormous cannon without much trouble.
• Birdbrained moments aside, Utsuho Reiuji of Touhou Project demonstrates pretty good understanding of nuclear physics in Touhou Hisoutensoku ~ Choudokyuu Ginyoru no Nazo o Oe. Possibly a Required Secondary Power for her since nuclear power is her specialty.
• Dr. Hank Freebird of Trauma Team. Genius orthopedic surgeon with a military honorable discharge. Who fights crime as Captain Eagle in his spare time. Including picking up and tossing a car at a drug smuggler, or punching a thug through a ceiling. Yet has enough fine control to operate various medical tools during orthopedic surgery.
• Lee Everett from The Walking Dead: Season One is a former college professor of history (literature and social studies, too, according to him). He can also knock a few heads together if need be, mainly for the sake of protecting Clementine and at times, the group.
• Thrall from Warcraft is mostly represented as a magic type character (he is a Far Seer). But other sources show that he is as accomplished in physical fights. Being raised as a Gladiator really helps.
  • Shamans in general fit this trope, mostly. Even allowing for specialization, they excel in both spellcasting and melee combat.
  • Ogre-mages especially in Warcraft II. Ogres upon being upgraded even say "we're not brainless anymore!"
    • Although their next quote disputes the "genius" part a bit, when they go "I've got the brain!" "Nuh-uh!"
    • The case is strongly reconstructed by Draz'Zilb, an ogre-mage in World of Warcraft. When it becomes apparent that the Player Character is taken aback by his articulate and sophisticated speech manner, he responds thusly:
      Draz'Zilb: "Why the puzzled stare, <name>? Expecting me to speak like an uncouth ruffian merely because I am an ogre?"
  • Anduin Lothar: An accomplished warrior, commander of the Alliance forces, and skilled diplomat who cemented the Grand Alliance.
  • A portion of the Gorian Empire in the expansion Warlords of Draenor fits this trope. While many of the one-headed ogres fit the dumb muscle stereotype, a number of them completely subvert this by being just as competent as their orcish descendants, if not moreso. Granted, many of the Gorian ogres are sorcerers or mages, but there are still a number of warriors, barbarians, and other melee units that display a modicum of intelligence compared to their main-universe counterparts.
• Tyl Regor from Warframe is a muscular Grineer who wields an axe/shield combo and power fists, the latter of which the Tenno can only use when flying with an archwing. He's also a Mad Scientist who managed to find at least a partial cure to Grineers' Clone Degeneration.
• Wario definitely qualifies. Don't let his potbelly and ugly face fool you; on top of being able to shatter solid rock walls with a shoulder charge and lift enemies twice his size over his head with one arm, the man is a highly experienced treasure hunter (which, as his games demonstrate, is a job that usually requires fairly extensive use of your noodle!) and a wildly successful game designer and corporate owner to boot. Some games such as Mario Power Tennis and Wario: Master of Disguise even show that Wario is actually a pretty decent inventor.
• Wild ARMs 5 has Elvis, the foremost among the fore of Filgaia historians and a real top-class scientist. Oh, and he's absolutely huge, seems to be built out of nothing but muscles which he flexes a lot, and he beats the party down with his bare fists.
• Krogg of WildStar. Extremely large, muscular, tough, scaly hides, well-tuned predatory instincts and dangerously intelligent. They aren't the "criminal vermin of the galaxy" and head of the largest criminal syndicate, the Darkspur Cartel, for nothing.
• The Witcher: Azar Javed, a mage with the body of a barbarian warrior.
  • Letho of Gulet in The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is a large hulking man mistaken as Dumb Muscle by those he works with. This in turn makes it easier for him to manipulate them since all he has to do is play along and make them underestimate him as he secretly manipulates them for his own ends.
  • The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt introduced the Redanian spymaster Sigismund Dijkstra. Dijkstra was the Man Behind the Man to the former Redanian king Vysimir, was instrumental in making the country the leader among the Nordling nations, and still has his fingers in all of the major political pies in the setting. He is also the polar opposite of the usual small, grey, mousy cloak-and-dagger types, being well over seven feet tall, built like a barrel, always dressed in the most flamboyant clothes he can get away with wearing and tough enough that the thought of fighting him scares hardened commandos.
• Sheriff Bigby Wolf of The Wolf Among Us is a clever detective, able to quickly discern the implications of various clues and the motivations of various people. Oh, and also of note, he's The Big Bad Wolf, so partially transformed in his wolf form, he can shrug off several shotgun blasts at close range and rip a troll's arm out clean from the socket. And if you really piss him off... well, imagine a wolf the size of a bull elephant. Yeah.
• Yakuza 3 has Yoshitaka Mine, the Final Boss. He's both this and a Cultured Badass, being a self made businessman and having an amazing sense of class. On the strength side, he's seen working out, and in The Final Fight, he's so powerful that he managed to actually contend with Kiryu, something that only Taiga Saejima, Jo Amon, and Ryuji Goda could do.

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