Crossovers
- Blessed with a Hero's Heart: Izuku proves to be cunning enough that several others remark that he could have become a Rogue instead of a Druid, unaware that this was actually one of the options he was offered when first joining the Adventurer's Guild.
- Child of the Storm has the canonical examples of Harry Dresden, John Constantine, Albus Dumbledore, T'Challa, and Bruce Wayne — though the latter two are still in training, so to speak, one being a smart but somewhat brash young Prince when first introduced, and the latter being a teenager. Additionally, it has:
- Loki, who post Heel–Face Turn is this trope, being Reformed, but Not Tamed and while he's more than capable of being an Action Hero — and usually is in public — he uses his old skills of tricks and manipulation to get things done quietly.
- Natasha, who's a lethal fighter, but is generally considered to be among the most terrifying Avengers not for her combat prowess (which is impressive, but against god-like opponents, has its limits), but for her intelligence and manipulation skills.
- Doctor Strange, the acknowledged chief Magnificent Bastard in a series stuffed with them, is even more this trope than this canon counterpart, using his knowledge, well-earned reputation, and mastery of the Batman Gambit. The fact that he's also a powerful Seer helps with both the knowledge and his additional mastery of turning Butterfly of Doom to his advantage. As a result, until the finale of Book 1, he rarely actually uses any magic on screen, and when he does, it is — usually — nothing that any other accomplished mage couldn't do. However, he is also very capable of getting his hands dirty and demonstrating just how he got his reputation.
- Harry Potter/Thorson, the protagonist, becomes this trope as a matter of survival — for most of the first book he's suffering a major case of The Call Put Me on Hold, combined with Everyone Wants To Kill Me, meaning that he has to be excellent at thinking on his feet. While he later becomes a Person of Mass Destruction with an impulsive streak, prone to defaulting to the most ludicrously... destructive solution, he's a highly creative lateral thinker and the sequel's Character Development and a brutal Trauma Conga Line make him an adept schemer, a deft manipulator, and a talented student of Xanatos Speed Chess. As even the extremely observant Jean-Paul admits, it is very easy to forget that Harry is actually frighteningly clever.
- Dungeon Keeper Ami features the titular heroine, who uses her knowledge of modern technology, combined with magic to create Reaper-Golem shock troops, magical power armor, and an airship fleet. All the while pissing off every Dark God in existence.
- My Little Castlevania: Most of the enemies that Twilight faces are too strong to fight head-on, so she's forced to use her wits to compensate.
- The Reactsverse has a lot of these:
- Weiss Reacts: Yang is a more Anti-Hero/Sitcom Arch-Nemesis version, as her heart's in the right place but her methods are rather embarrassing. Jaune is a more straightforward version of this and Weiss grows into one throughout the volumes as she adapts to deal with Yang.
- Lucina Reacts: Reflet and Robin, Reflet moreso. Todd to some extent, although he is more often a Sitcom Arch-Nemesis.
- Corrin Reacts: Corrin is a straightforward version of this as one of the very few unambiguously heroic members of the Antic Order. Flora, Felicia, and Kana all express similar traits themselves.
- A Witch in Wartwood: Marcy develops into one, compensating for her somewhat poor social and diplomatic skills and lacking physical strength with her intelligence, quick thinking, and improvising skills.
- Unohana might or might not be a heroine in the AU Downfall, considering her desires to reconcile Seireitei and Hueco Mundo she seems heroic. But as she seems to think that only the wholesale destruction of the Gotei will accomplish this, it would seem that she qualifies more along the lines of Well-Intentioned Extremist. Of course, there seem to be other events and forces involved, moving behind the scenes...
- Even after taking a level in badass in Xendra
, Xander still has to fight more with his wits than his brawn since even as the titular Xendra (A teenaged Xena), he's only slightly better than the average vampire fledgling. As a result, he pulls stunts like tricking a pair of zombies into fighting a trio of demons, firebombing a vampire nest during the day, and pretending to be an ancient vampire with a fetish for Cold-Blooded Torture to interrogate a minion.
- Blackened Skies picks at this via Kaede, whose willingness to do whatever it takes to root out the culprits and put an end to the killing game ends up undermining her efforts. After some of her more questionable tactics are exposed during the first trial, she has to deal with how the other students trust her less as a result — especially since they almost falsely convicted Tsumugi as a result.
- Raonar Aeducan in Dragon Age: The Crown of Thorns qualifies as this and a Wise Prince, being the second son of the Dwarven King. He is a manipulator and schemer that constantly uses his wit to turn even the most dangerous plots against him, his family, or his friends in his favor. This becomes apparent early on, when the events of the Dwarven Noble Origin are fundamentally changed, although things still somehow manage to get more and more difficult for everyone involved as the story progresses.
- Chaos Theory Z: Kayos starts off as a normal human, and even after he starts bulking up and learning magic under Fortuneteller Baba, he uses his powers in matters of subterfuge and deception rather than straightforward assault. He puts it best in Chapter 3, when talking about how he would defeat someone who was immortal:Krillin: …who thinks like that?
Kayos: (coldly) Someone who can’t benchpress this house. That’s the problem with you guys… you are very strong and powerful but you forget what it’s like to be completely desperate. Because desperation forces you to get VERY creative.
- Vow of Nudity: Due to her nudity, Haara is consistently at a material disadvantage to whoever she's fighting, and often must rely on her wits, keen sense of observation, or her opponent's behavioral weaknesses to defeat them. Common tactics involve her taunting or misdirecting them into making a mistake, or realizing something they don't about the environment/situation.
- Jess from Children of the Atom is hopeless in a straight fight, but manages to be awesome due to deductive ability and acting diplomatically.
- Saito Hiraga in Soldier of Zero comes from a world where he had to use his wits to survive. He was noted by his old teachers that he'd never be more than a mediocre soldier but he was extremely skilled at improvisation and fitting in with groups of people. In his first conversation with Louise, he effortlessly trolls her into believing he's actually a foreign noble. It helps that he's a spy in his world.
- Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): Ren Serizawa basically operates this way after infiltrating Apex Cybernetics, such as when he secretly reprograms Encephalon under the guise of being thorough with his work.
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality: Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres. His ability to think more logically than most is both his biggest strength and weakness; there are times when one needs to act on intuition, and he has a near-compulsive need to understand what he's dealing with before reacting.
- The Peace Not Promised: Severus Snape. Although his time travel means that he has adult dueling skills in a teenage body, he's not interested in the front lines of the war. Instead, he uses surgically applied Cherry Tapping to establish himself as a power to fear in Slytherin House, leverages that influence to demand House unity and make the older years look out for the younger ones — thus gaining a groundswell of popular support from the rising generation — and once his policies have gained traction, he declares independence from the Death Eaters, shocking many of his former associates but retaining many allies and giving many others an excuse to remain neutral. As a result, the Dark Lord's recruitment is greatly hampered compared to the original timeline.
- Prodigal Son: Hiccup was able to leave Gothi speechless (even for her) when he openly defies her use of the valknut rune in order to get him to tell her his true identity in what essentially amounts to "if the Gods wanted you to know, then you would not have had to ask in the first place." Ironically, it actually compels her to speak to Astrid, telling her to tread lightly, comparing him to both Odin and Loki.
- While starting out as a side character in the fic Uplifted, by the sequels, Admiral Halid Zorah becomes one of these, though he remains on the sidelines. Still, he tends far more towards being a magnificent bastard.
- Turning a New Leaf: Izuku manages to both elicit Bakugo's Heel–Face Turn and have Aldera investigated by the Hero Commission — outing them as a secret recruiting tool for the Meta Liberation Army — by shapeshifting into All Might and using his influence to manipulate both.
- Yesterday Upon The Stair: Midoriya Izuku, having spent his life helping ghosts to move on, which often involves talking them down from violence, has become skilled at remaining calm while manipulating people who could very easily kill him. This backfires, as it leads to his kidnapping, due to Shigaraki genuinely liking him. Doesn't stop the boy from pulling off a Batman Gambit while in captivity, managing to play the Arch-Enemy of his mentor like a complete chump.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- Drawn With the Night Klein Bottle is able to get his way by learning about the various traditions and ethics among the various species in the world of Equestria, allowing him to run his company staffed with minotaurs smoothly, negotiate with dragons, and in his avoidance of the princesses.
- Trixie in the Pony POV Series becomes one of these after her Heel–Face Turn. She uses her cunning and ability to lie flawlessly to aid the group in their goals. A great example is faking a hostage situation to distract Princess Gaia's The Dragon so the others can take her down.
- Orangejack, one of Applejack's Alternate Universe selves, proves to be this, using her brain to help her and Applejack defeat Nightmare Mirror with a Fake Defector gambit.Orangejack: You and big brother dearest are Elements of Honesty, I'm still a liar.
- Liarjack becomes one after her Heel–Face Turn back into Applejack, primarily based on her flawless lying (the fact that she's no longer the Element of Honesty helps with that).
- Orangejack, one of Applejack's Alternate Universe selves, proves to be this, using her brain to help her and Applejack defeat Nightmare Mirror with a Fake Defector gambit.
- The Powers of Harmony: Twilight of course, thanks to her intellect combined with the combat training she receives from her Guards.
- Rarity as well, at least in her dealings with Eclipse after the latter possesses her.
- Most of the Guards qualify as well, to varying degrees.
- Alternia in Princess Celestia: The Changeling Queen, who has spent the past thousand years pretending to be Princess Celestia and running Equestria's government while the real one is in a thousand-year-long coma after the Nightmare Moon incident completely exhausted her. While Alternia is no pushover and fights well physically, many of her battles are political and diplomatic in nature where her ability to read others' emotional state and being a Living Lie Detector are greater assets as she goes to govern a country that she had to adopt as her own.
- Jade from Akatsuki Kitten: Phoenix Corporation Overhaul. Most stories, of any kind of "characters get turned into small animals and sent to the real world" plot, have whichever teenage girl that takes them in give no thought to the consequences (like paying for veterinary visits, food, supplies, etc.) or origins (random box of animals on your doorstep, anyone?), or only give it a fleeting mention. Jade takes it with a head full of paranoia and skepticism, and even then only because she's being paid a lot and figures that she can sell the kittens for a large sum if their fur colors are natural.
- A Case Study in the Sturdiness of the Rookie 9: Kakashi teaches Sakura, Shino and Chouji about the value and importance of deception, especially when he assigns them their first C-Rank — a mission that is in and of itself a lie, aimed at getting his genin to trick and humiliate Genma after he swiped his dessert. Unfortunately, this turns out to be achieve when the kids decide that this means it's perfectly okay to backstab your own allies in order to achieve your goals.
- Glass Marionette: Kankurou combines this with Pragmatic Hero. While he invents several new puppets and learns various new techniques, he also recognizes that he's simply not capable of strongarming his way through all obstacles. So he strives to approach problems from whatever angles work, taking advantage of any opportunities he can.
- Evangelion 303: Gendo and Fuyutsuki –especially the latter- spend most of their time negotiating with politicians and bureaucrats in Washington. They find it very tiresome and distressing.
- HERZ: Misato. Being the Director of UN organization HERZ, she has to deal with politicians constantly, often playing them against each other.
- Once More With Feeling (Crazy-88):
- Played straight with Kaji, who is spying on and for three different organizations at once.
- Subverted with Shinji. After a meeting with SEELE goes awry, Kaji warns Shinji that he must not try to outthink and outplan the Committee because he is not trained for it.
- Scar Tissue:
- Gendo Ikari is accustomed to playing powerful, influential people against each other. And in chapter 11 he proved that his skills are unmatched in that area. He was confronting a bunch of politicians planning to extradite him or execute him on the spot, and he drove them mad. He compared it with fishing with dynamite.
- Deconstructed with Misato. She is Nerv’s Sub-commander now, and she hates it. Every day she has to deal with politicians, army officers, civil servants, and mass media, assist pointless meetings, staying late at work, oversee Tokyo-3’s rebuilding... and because she missed what was happening to her wards. She is sick of the feeling of being loaded with all troubles of the world, of being unable to relax in her own home, and of having her children physically and mentally wrecked.
- This Bites!: Being from our world, the Self-Insert, Jeremiah Cross, is downright Made of Plasticine compared to the World of Badass that is One Piece, and is barely able to handle Mooks in a straight-up fight. He makes up for it with his knowledge of the story, his tactical thinking, his silver tongue, and his penchant for triggering Berserk Buttons.Cross: Nobody withstands my words.
- Zorua Trainer: Ash, being a Zorua, is this. The most prominent example being his revenge prank on Damian shortly after he leaves the Pokémon Center. This is followed up by Ash actually disguising himself as different trainers to get his Pokémon healed after nearly blowing his cover losing his temper with Damian.
- Ranma Saotome shows shades of this in The Demon's Contract after he's sent back in time to shortly after he first met the Tendos. For example, he ruins Ryoga's reputation right from the start by showing up at the time of their duel, and when Ryoga doesn't show, Ranma loudly declares him a coward. When Ryoga comes back a week later, no one is willing to buy that he got lost for a week. Furthermore, Ranma immediately tells Nabiki and Akane that Ryoga has a Jusenkyo curse that turns him into a piggy and has used it to snuggle girls' chests or sleep in their beds.
- The four do their damnedest to be Guile Heroes in With Strings Attached since they're Actual Pacifists with a huge amount of power who don't want to use it on anyone — at least, not lethally. In the Fourth Movement, their string of ploys to rescue one another and win back the Vasyn are things of legend.
- Even more so in The Keys Stand Alone: The Soft World, when they are determined to do everything peacefully, which means being tricky and subtle.
- Luminosity: Bella is turned into one of these. While most of her characterization revolves around this, one quote summarizes it well:My brain flew into action.
I want to live. I have the power of speech. How can I get what I want?
And then I spoke the words.
- Lizardstripe is always making clever plans for the rest of her True Companions, the forget-me-nots. Later on, she plots from the afterlife how to win Bluestar's trial and get her into StarClan]] while humiliating Thistleclaw's supporters in the process long before Bluestar actually dies, and succeeds.
- Cenotaph features this as a central component of Taylor's personality and strategy. First: as a solo operator with a power best suited to observation and spying, she lacks most tricks to end a fight decisively. Second: a great many capes possess abilities that can level city blocks. Third: Many of her enemies don't like each other. She takes advantage of the situation.
Miscellaneous
- Communication: The most dangerous thing about a Host of each version of the Quest they are in isn't the ever-growing list of powers they obtain as time goes on, but the fact that they have an entity that has knowledge of what had happened, what is happening, and what will happen inside side their heads, and more importantly, each Host is able to exploit and use said knowledge to make sure people and events alike very much lean into their favor.
