Basic Trope: A smart character happens to be badass.
- Straight: Bob is a short, genius bookworm with glasses who also happens to be a black belt in karate.
- Exaggerated: Bob has an IQ over 200 with no muscle mass whatsoever, but still manages to take on an army.
- Downplayed:
- Bob wears glasses, majored in biology, and has a green belt in karate.
- Bob isn't very good at fighting, but he's still great at using his cunning and knowledge against enemies.
- Justified:
- All of the books Bob reads are about all different forms of combat.
- Bob lives in a post-apocalyptic After the End scenario, where you have to be both intelligent and physically capable to have any hope of surviving.
- Bob is The Ace, so being both smart and strong is part of his job description.
- Inverted:
- Bob looks like a typical muscular strongman, but he turns out to have big brains as well.
- Bob is weak and stupid.
- Subverted: Bob is short, wears glasses, and has a black belt in karate. But as soon as he opens his mouth, it turns out he's not actually very smart.
- Double Subverted: Actually, he's a Southern-Fried Genius and your preconceived notions about Southerners just made you think he sounds dumb.
- Parodied:
- Bob is portrayed as the typical nerd stereotype (glasses, pocket protector, bad fashion sense, etc.) but he is somehow capable of beating down an entire army while chuckling like a dork.
- Badass Literal Bookworm.
- Zig Zagged: Bob is a nerd who gets bullied so he Takes a Level in Badass and works out, learns some martial arts, and otherwise toughens up. He casually beats down his former bullies but his sudden turn as a badass goes to his head and he stops pursuing academic pursuits. When someone makes him look like a fool in a battle of wits, he realizes he has to get back to studying.
- Averted:
- Bob is just as weak as he looks, and has no physical prowess whatsoever.
- Bob is stupid and incompetent.
- Enforced: The writers wanted to defy stereotypes.
- Lampshaded: "You may look really weak and into books, but you're pretty tough."
- Invoked: Bob, bullied for his brilliant grades, decides to train in kick-boxing to defend himself.
- Exploited: The chess club uses Bob's fighting skills to get back at a Jerk Jock.
- Defied: Bob wears contact lenses and bulks up so he'll look more like a badass and less like a bookworm.
- Discussed: Alice and her friends talk about Bob's mental and physical prowess, trying to figure out which is more impressive.
- Conversed: "I love this character. He is smart and badass."
- Implied: Bob is the top of the class and takes martial arts classes.
- Deconstructed: Bob is really smart but his constant fighting gives him a poor reputation amongst other intellectuals.
- Reconstructed: That is, until he performs a study and writes a long essay about his findings, detailing the benefits of being both badass and intelligent. He gets his respect.
- Played For Laughs: Bob beats up the Big Bad while schooling him on the finer points of quantum mechanics.
- Played For Drama: Bob is an intellectual who would rather be left alone but he is thrust into violent situations which call for more "savage responses".
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