Tip is a latent mad psychologist
Tip's skills at psychology are weirdly inconsistent throughout the comic. There's a running gag about him not actually being able to listen to people (despite considering himself a listener), he often seems unable to grasp the way normal people think (most obviously when he thinks others are referring to his choice in fashion when talking about completely different things), uses techniques that make no real sense (The puppetry being the most obvious) and is very careless with his remarks. He should be a terrible psychologist. But he isn't. He gets a surprising series of results throughout the series, such as talking down riled up enemies, or predicting people's behaviour after just a brief interaction. On no less than two different occasions, he's even gotten entire societies to restructure their entire way of living, using nothing but a brief conversation. He somehow manages to attain impossible results using methodology that should be doomed to fail. That's Mad Science. If its true, there's even been some foreshadowing.
