[beat]
Sokka: Why are you all looking at me?
Aang: You're the Idea Guy.
Sokka: So I'm the only one who can ever come up with a plan? That's a lot of pressure!
[Comes up with a plan 45 seconds later]
This is the one on The Team that uses their head. As the intelligent one, they come in when the team needs deep analysis, clever tactics, or there's highly technical work to be done.
They are always be prepared, sometimes Crazy-Prepared. Even under pressure they can whip up a plan at a moments notice. The Smart Guys will be at the computer doing Rapid-Fire Typing. Expect some fancy talk and Techno Babble from these characters. Usually a support unit, they may leave the action stuff to the others. Of course, Weak, but Skilled is always in effect for these guys. Can be expected to play a mean game of chess.
Physically they tend to be small in stature. If not tall and skinny, then short, especially if they're the youngest of The Team.
Sometimes the Smart Guys are more street savvy than they appear. Those who follow the path of the Badass Bookworm are just as physically capable as they are mentally. They remain firmly planted as the Smart Guy, but are just as ready to jump in as everyone else. The results are often impressive, and usually have the advantage of surprise. Who expects the little guy with glasses to be an asskicker?
With a personality range from the introverted and weird TV Genius, the highly technical Spock, to the improbably cool nerd, the smart guy is better defined by the skills they bring to the table rather how they act.
Common skills that you can mix and match on your way to Omnidisciplinary Scientist are:
- Techies who have great skill with technology and engineering. They build and repair devices for The Team, and can hack in to any computer system. They may be hot wiring the terminal or disarming the bomb while the rest hold off the baddies.
- The Mad Scientist who conducts all kinds of experiments to help the team. Like the techie, you can find these characters in the lab coming up with new Phlebotinum that does whatever the plot needs it to. Wizards and mages can be equivalent in fantasy, and less frequently a priest if spirits and spirituality play a big role.
- The booksmart guys. The guys whose Elite School Means Elite Brain. The walking encyclopedia who can always do even more research on the situation or analyze enemy weaknesses. They get the job of Mr. Exposition to break down plot, lore, or what the heck just happened to other teammates (and the audience.) The Straw Vulcan might just prattle on too long and get ignored, but a direct idea guy can be an invaluable planner and even direct the group.
- Swapping book-smart genius for Street Smart cleverness. The thief archetype, detective or Street Urchin who has traded in knowledge and intelligence for know-how and intel. These people figure out mysteries, track down foes, and get into hard to reach places. Sometimes they're just rascals that outsmart their foes through sheer creativity or ingenuity, while making a fool out of them in the process. If they're good with tech too you get a Playful Hacker.
- Swapping knowledge for wisdom. An older Mentor Archetype, or the Wise Beyond Their Years Only Sane Men who can keep a cool head, think their way around problems that seem too big to solve, and give really good advice.
Other common powers include:
- In fantasy and superhero settings, they tend to be Weak, but Skilled. This can manifest as magic ability, Psychic Powers, or Super-Intelligence.
- If they're a Gadgeteer Genius, they will build and customize their own weaponry, such as Powered Armor, vehicles, or being one of the few gun users. In a magical setting they may use spells or a Magic Staff.
- In both cases, they will be the best shooter of the team, often showing Improbable Aiming Skills.
- But if martial arts are the go to, they may use a Martial Arts Staff or an elegant sword.
- Their Elemental Powers are typically part of Fire, Ice, Lightning. Fire as the 'birth of science' for curious types. Ice (or water) as the cold ivory towers of education and learning for bookish ones. Lightning to go along with machines for techies. Or they could be non-elementals that rely on practical knowledge if they lack the spiritual aptitude for magic.
While it was always a more gender balanced archetype in general, a wave of STEM/media partnerships brought an influx of many a coding and gadgeteering Smart Girl in The New '10s.
In terms of relationships, The Smart Guy may be part of a Little Guy, Big Buddy or Brains and Brawn duo with The Big Guy, the latter emphasizing a contrast between intelligence and strength. They also make great sidekicks or advisors to The Leader, without all the conflict a full Lancer brings.
In an ensemble, the Smart Guy is usually the last character to have a Love Interest. When they do, expect a subplot about the geek's unrequited feelings towards an unattainable cooler love interest. Younger Smart Guys may have a cute Puppy Love plot with someone their own age, or a Precocious Crush on someone much older. In most cases where the geek's love interest is not "out of their league", they tend to be little more than a Distaff Counterpart.
If there's a Robot Buddy or an alien on the team, they're usually The Smart Guy.
If the Smart Guy happens to be big and strong, he has enough of The Big Guy elements to be a Genius Bruiser. Otherwise, he's a Badass Bookworm.
If you're looking for the Evil Counterpart, regardless of team structure, that's The Evil Genius.
Oh, and he's also part of the Four-Man Band in a comedy ensemble.
Not to be confused with the series Smart Guy.
Examples
- The Apotheosis of Washington: Minerva serves as the representative of Science among the gods and pensively points to and observes an electric generator while students and scholars observe her and write notes.
- Satsuma is this for Exit Tunes Presents ACTORS' Singing Club. He thinks too much that he has to be a Big Eater to make up for all the energy his brain uses.
- Sherman of Calvin & Hobbes: The Series. Though he's a bungling inventor, he's still the resident Mr. Exposition.
- Child of the Storm has a number of geniuses, who rotate through their areas of expertise.
- Loki tends to take anything magic or politics related, though in the former regard he's superseded by Doctor Strange (who may not have forgotten more about magic than anyone else has ever learned, but only if he ever actually forgets anything).
- Tony takes anything tech related, while Bruce is more expert on super soldier stuff, biochemistry, and radiation.
- Natasha is the espionage genius.
- Dumbledore is the magical world's resident genius, and something of a hobbyist polymath.
- Jane is the astrophysics genius, with her home-made stargates.
- Doctor Strange, meanwhile, is an Immortal Genius who started out as a brilliant medic, sorcerer, and Mozart-plus musical prodigy, and has spent the intervening millennia becoming an expert in almost everything (in some very specific fields, similar immortals are more knowledgeable than he is.
- In Horseshoes and Hand Grenades and its sidestories, we have different members. In Horseshoes alone we have Riderman, JK and Miu Kazashiro
- In Month of Sundays we have Ibuki Watanabe for the "Cosmic Hunting Dogs".
- Soren in The Night Unfurls. Fitting the Street Smart archetype to a T, he excels most in sneaking, spying, lock-picking, and gaining intel for the Five-Hunter Band.
- The Pieces Lie Where They Fell: Rex is highly intelligent and wiser than most, much to the surprise of people who expect less of him due to his being a Diamond Dog. He's a skilled alchemist who developed and supplied the formulae for the spell that created the items he and his business partners are selling, and easily translates Xvital's comments when she slips into her native language.
- PMD: Another Perspective: Purry is well-versed in Pokemon knowledge, including the moves they know and their stats; in her mind, it's the reason she was chosen for the mission. She uses this knowledge to help Blazy fight effectively.
- Pokémpanions: Minun is often called "Minerd" for being so nerdy and he's able to build machines like robots.
- Pokémon Reset Bloodlines: Among Ash's traveling companions, Anabel is the one with the most analytical mind, and she's pretty good with coming up with plans and strategies for battles. The fact that, as a Psychic Heart Bloodliner, she has access to pretty much all standard abilities of Psychic-type Pokémon, reinforces this even more.
- Leon Gilbertson fills this role as the resident animal expert of the park rescue team in both Prehistoric Earth and its later Continuity Reboot Prehistoric Park Reimagined.
- Savior of Demons: Murai is the default translator for the Arcosians when they go to meet the Tsufuru. He also has elements of The Smart Guy and Deadpan Snarker.
- Bruce Banner in The Avengers. While the "other guy" gets his share of action, Nick Fury brings Bruce into the plot specifically because he knows more about gamma radiation than anyone on the planet. Tony Stark, Insufferable Genius extraordinaire, doesn't even mind playing Bruce's assistant.
- Lucius Fox in The Dark Knight Trilogy. He runs Wayne Enterprises, either invents or improves upon most of Batman's tech, and can come up with an antidote to Scarecrow's fear gas in the span of a night.
Bruce: (after Lucius explains how he made the antidote) Am I supposed to understand any of that?Fox: No. I just wanted you to know how hard it was.
- Now You See It...: Allison is a talented puzzle-solver and is the smartest member of the teenage cast; she was the only one to decipher the trick on the reality show's poster, and later was able to help Danny uncover the secrets of the house through her intelligence alone.
- The Super Hero spoof film The Specials from 2000 includes a brainy gadgeteer member of the titular superteam whose nom de guerre is simply "Mr. Smart".
- The Standoff At Sparrow Creek: Beckmann is a teacher and radio expert who is Genre Savvy about what happens in mass shootings (both in terms of police responses when they suspect terrorism and how most shooters commit suicide at the scene). Keating proves to be even smarter once he finally drops his mute act. He nearly graduated from college when he was nineteen and is an eloquent speaker with an eidetic memory, a wide range of arcane knowledge, and keen social insight. That being said, he is also far more dangerous and unstable than Beckmann.
- Star Wars: There's a reason C-3PO refers to R2-D2 as his counterpart: They split the usual Smart Guy duties between them, with R2 handling the practical side and 3PO handling the exposition side.
- Donald Poultry is the pre-teen version of this trope in Summer Camp Nightmare, as he goes about the camp carrying a tape recorder and a suitcase full of tools, and put his technical knowledge to good use, even if in one circumstance (as in fiddling around with the rec room's TV set's channel reception) it gets him into trouble with the Dean Bitterman camp director. He also narrates a good deal of the movie's story.
- Kevin Sandusky of Tropic Thunder is the one who knows what is going on the most. He recognized the Heroin Processing plant, can read the map, and he's the only one of the actors who had actually read the script and the book.
- Hank McCoy/Beast from the X-Men Film Series, is incredibly intelligent and a brilliant scientist who has invented most of the nifty tools and gadgets (X-Jet, Cerebro, etc.) that the X-Men use.
- In Classical Mythology, Athena is this among the Olympians, being The Strategist.
- Hermes sometimes fill this role in a trickster-ish sort of way.
- Apollo, as the god of knowledge, reason and arts.
- Among mortals, Odysseus is the "ideas man" for the
GreeksAchaeans in The Trojan Cycle (including The Iliad and his very own story, The Odyssey). Pretty much every actual strategy mentioned in relation to The Trojan War starts with him, including (ironically) both one of the reasons for the war (the Achaean kings agreeing to protect whoever married Helen, to keep them from fighting over her) and the reason it ends (the Trojan Horse, of course). Naturally, Athena favors him and helps him out a lot (against the wishes of her uncle Poseidon, whom he had somehow offended). - The Biblical prophet Daniel (aka Belteshazzar) was a brilliant scholar and a top-notch administrator.
- In the Caucasian Nart Sagas, Setenay — as brainy as she is beautiful — demonstrates an affinity for observing and investigating the world around her. She is credited with revealing the life-giving power of water to the first people, and in one tale assesses the properties of a magical apple through experimentation.
- In Irish mythology, Ogma is the wisdom/eloquence god, creator of the Ogham writing system, and Tuatha dé Dannan's wrestling champion.
- The Toa of Earth (such as Onua or Nuparu) tend to fill this role on their respective Toa teams in BIONICLE. Nuju and Kopaka also serve this role on their respective teams, with Kopaka doubling as The Lancer.
- Hod, god of darkness and winter, is The Smart Guy to the Norse kids in Brat-Halla, although he is a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass as well.
- Dubious Company:
- Walter starts out as this to Tiren and after they pick up Elly. But when the team picks up Sal, she then becomes the The Smart Girl and Walter functionally shifts to The Leader.
- This also occurs on the Imperial side, with Izor shifting the responsibility to Gary once he becomes a prominent character.
- Tedd of El Goonish Shive is knowledgeable and skilled in Magitek and the science of magic to the point of being able to create magic watches out of mundane toy watches that can cast spells for even Muggle users.
- In Girl Genius, some of the Sparks are even identified by the Jagers as "da schmot guy". In Gil's case, it's even on his hat.
- Homestuck:
- Rose is the beta kids' main Smart Guy and the primary Miss Exposition when it comes to explaining the mysteries of Sburb. Even her mythological role as the Seer of Light marks her as a quester after knowledge. Jade is also very brainy, but her intelligence isn't as central to her character or role in the story as Rose's is.
- In the alpha session, Dirk (Rose's genetic father) takes on the Smart Guy role as the team's chief strategist (though he does have an AI double to help him out).
- Im Not Your Friend: Natalie likes doing homework and math.
- Magick Chicks: Faith recognized Sandi's talents as a technopath, when she was young, and helped her learn to properly control her abilities.
Now, she's so adept at her gift that she can predict the probability of future events with 97.09% accuracy
; so long as she has all the available data. What's more, the cast page of the comic's print edition describes her as "a living Google", which is why Faith chose her as her personal secretary and is genuinely surprised whenever Sandi can't
find intel on something.
- In morphE, Asia Ellis fills the role of smart guy through being the analytical thinker of the Five-Man Band who takes notes, makes maps when introduced to new areas and studies every text she can find to discover the many truths of the awakened world. Despite not being the most intellectual member of the party Asia fits this trope perfectly.
- Vaarsuvius fills this role in The Order of the Stick. Although Roy Greenhilt has more common sense and Haley Starshine is more observant, V's sheer 18 INT has them beat. Besides, Roy and Haley are The Hero and The Lancer respectively.
- Sleepless Domain:
- Sylvia fills this role on Team Alchemical, as the most mature and technical of the group, and the member most concerned with the media and commercial aspects of being a Magical Girl. Off the field, she's the one keeping track of her team's earnings, or researching new applications for her and her teammates' powers in combat. According to Word of God, she also has the highest grades out of her teammates.
- Vedika later serves as this to the Magical Girl Power Training Club. Undine recognizes her right away as the top student at Future's Promise, and she often volunteers at a local hospital. Her powers as a magical girl tie into this role — as Mindful Eye, she has a basic form of telepathy and can form Psychic Links with her allies. These powers aren't very useful for fighting monsters, however, something she's rather self-conscious about.
- Riff from Sluggy Freelance is both The Smart Guy and The Lancer, being a Mad Scientist with a penchant for destruction.
- Stand Still, Stay Silent: This is split between Tuuri and Mikkel. Tuuri was the one officially hired for this quality, but Mikkel being The Medic, more than a decade older than her, and having expertise in things in which Tuuri does not causes him to frequently override her in that domain.
- In Super Brothers Kamek is Bowser's Royal Advisor and generally more level-headed than his king.
- Nepta from Tinyraygun is a brilliant young space explorer. Unfortunately, her intellect's somewhat limited to what she learned in books.
- Weak Hero:
- Eugene is the Non-Action Guy of the main group, and instead contributes with his general intelligence and his vast knowledge of the Yeongdeungpo Union members. Ironically, his grades suck.
- Not only is Timothy a whiz with computers, but he's adept at analysing people's past actions and predicting how they'll act in the future.
- While not part of a Five-Man Band, computer programmer Raimi definitely fulfills this function in Broken Saints.
- Dreamscape: Keela is The Smart Guy of the Five-Man Band. She is very observant, extremely clever, and not very expressive.
- Iridescence from Dusk's Dawn, sort of. It's inferred that she's an expert in the medical field by her Cutie Mark, and she senses something bad is happening in the De Noir's castle.
- While he is not in a five man band, Sniffles from Happy Tree Friends could definitely qualify as he is a tech wiz, an avid scientist, and knows his way around power tools.
- Minecraft Endventures: Red Stone is an inventor who makes redstone machines for his group, including a potion making machine.
- Felix from The Ben Heck Show has become an Ensemble Dark Horse because of his software-savvyness, especially in Linux.
- In "Caelum Lex" Cyrus, the Dionysian's engineer and resident tech nerd, is often one step ahead of everyone else, coming up with ideas and plans and solutions that no one else on the crew considered.
- While not intelligent to a superlative degree, Chip from the web fiction serial Dimension Heroes proves on several occasions that his reservoir of book knowledge can prove beneficial in making it out of various tight spots the heroes get into.
- Economy Watch: Since all the members of the Economy Watch are nerds, most of them fall under this trope.
- James in Lightning Dust: safe to say that Klaus can go to him to ask about certain monsters/baddies in town and would probably go to him for inventions to help him while fighting if James knew about LD.
- Eugene, Matt Santoro's nerdy clone. Word of God (Matt himself) says that, if Matt's clones had a fight to the death, Eugene would win — despite being physically weak, he could build something like a tank to defend himself, because he's the only clone intelligent enough to do so.
- PHILLIPS from The Last Stage by NatOne Productions switches between this and Naïve Newcomer. He is incredibly knowledgeable about the paranormal due to his lifetime of research, but is inexperienced in the field. When PATRICK needs to know what something is or does, though, PHILLIPS is the one he looks to.
- Open to debate, since none of the characters are all that bright, but in Red vs. Blue, Simmons is arguably the smartest member of either team when it comes to pure common sense.
- Unwanted Houseguest: Doctor Wolfula is a variant. The information he gives the Houseguest is accurate, so he isn't a Know-Nothing Know-It-All, but he usually forces his zombie servant Ghoulash to do the research for him, and merely claims the credit.
- On the group Team Kimba in the Whateley Universe, Phase is probably the smart one, even if Chaka seems to be best at coming up with ideas in the middle of a fight. Phase is over-educated for a freshman in high school, is most likely to use the big words, and is a smart aleck, too. The smart guy they go to for gadgets is Bugs, who is a scientist.
- Carlos from Welcome to Night Vale is an Omni Disciplinary Scientist and possibly the only person in Night Vale who knows basic science. Thus, it often falls on him and his team of fellow scientists to save the town or figure out what weird thing is going on this week.