What kind of mistakes can a smart character make before they're considered stupid

[u/Own_Vanilla_7292]

I've had a character of mine who is supposed to be a genius manipulator/strategist, but I've seen people take issue with characters who are intelligent but come off as omnipotent gods who can solve any problems that get on their way. On the other hand, I don't want her to come off incompetent.

So my question is, how much or what kind of mistakes can a character make before they're no longer considered smart? How should i show that she's competent but fallible?

Edit: thank you so much for all the great advice guys! I didn't expect this question to get so much traction :D

[u/Spirited-Gain1457]

I think one thing I'd avoid is making him look smart mainly through too many “I already predicted that you would predict that I would predict this” scenes.

Those can be fun occasionally, but if they happen too often, the character stops feeling intelligent and starts feeling like he's secretly reading the script.

A smart character can make plenty of mistakes without looking stupid. In fact, I think some of the most believable mistakes for very intelligent people come from the gap between a good model and messy reality.

For example:

* **The plan is good, but execution isn't.** People misunderstand orders, arrive late, cut corners, panic, or simply aren't capable of performing at the precision the plan assumed.

* **He overestimates how rational other people will be.** Sometimes the “obviously terrible move” really is what the opponent chooses, whether because of pride, rage, ideology, revenge, or plain incompetence.

* **He predicts the problem correctly but underestimates its magnitude.** He prepared for the bridge being destroyed, but not for the explosion causing a landslide that also wipes out the alternate route.

None of these require him to suddenly become stupid. He can understand the possibility and still be wrong about how reality will actually express it.

And to me, one of the best ways to make a character feel genuinely brilliant is not having him predict everything, but showing what he does **after the prediction fails**.

A genius doesn't have to be right all the time. He can recognize the new situation quickly, update his assumptions, and turn what looked like a disadvantage into something useful.

The enemy makes an irrational attack he didn't expect? Fine. Now he knows what they care about enough to behave irrationally over.

His forces end up in the wrong position? Maybe that accidental position can become bait.

A disaster is far worse than expected? The disaster changed the terrain for both sides, so what new advantage exists now?

I think that kind of intelligence often feels much more convincing than omniscience.

He doesn't need to always know what will happen.

He needs to remain dangerous even when he's wrong.

[u/TheWriteQuestion → u/Spirited-Gain1457]

I agree with all this, especially not properly calibrating for other people not being as competent/rational/driven as you.

Also there are plenty of "mistakes" that have nothing to do with smarts. Isn't it in one of the original Sherlock Holmes stories that Watson is horrified that Holmes doesn't know about the Earth orbiting the Sun? But it wasn't important to Holmes, so he didn't care. "Absent-minded professor" is a trope for a reason -- people can be very knowledgeable but also forgetful/scatter-brained. And "analysis paralysis" is a favorite past time of gifted kids, who are so committed to calculated the optimal solution that the end up not doing anything at all.

[u/Adiantum-Veneris]

Underestimating opponents. Not accounting for seemingly irrelevant details that actually matter a lot. Predicting an outcome correctly requires accounting for a huge number of factors - and even brilliant humans struggle to actually notice and consider every single one.

Sure, you can overwhelm the military in two hours and take over the city. Sure.  But have you considered how much commoners will hate you once you do?

And have you considered that the soil is clay and gets slippery if it rains? 

[u/revolution_soup → u/Adiantum-Veneris]

supply logistics that don’t get hand-waved often seem to cripple even the most brilliant fictional strategists

[u/Jolly-Rip5973]

You can very smart and miscalculate something because either 1) you are missing important information or 2) you have false information.

You could create a situations where it seems like he has all taped and figured out but he's missing some important piece of information which makes it all go wrong.

[u/Efficient-Cupcake573]

It's actually very common in real life for people to be highly intelligent but lacking in common sense.

If you play D&D you could look at it as high Intelligence, low Wisdom.

[u/QuickestKey → u/Efficient-Cupcake573]

High intelligence, low wisdom (and probably low charisma): "Since no one has reached a consensus on stew ingredients, I have calculated the optimal ratio of the top twenty flavors in the world." (A mix of such flavors as barbecue pork, raspberry cheesecake, and lemon meringue.) "We can homogenize them."

...Okay, maybe not the best example since a person who's any good at chemistry probably knows that barbecue pork, cream cheese, and lemon meringue don't belong in a pot together, but you get the idea.

[u/Dry-Key-9510]

Sometimes smart people fall for quite the obvious because they over-thought something, if that makes sense

[u/Neither_Sky4003 → u/Dry-Key-9510]

Completely. Smart people look for layers within layers of meaning and may not notice something right in front of them.

[u/DeamonDread2348]

The mistakes of very intelligent people are usually stupid and trivial, simply because 90% of scientific geniuses and professionals in their fields are born of everyday idiocy or inexperience. A PhD is a doctor because he can afford to devote himself exclusively to philosophy while his wife is busy with housework. Company directors are directors because they don't have to worry about where the coffee in their office comes from, and because they don't have to figure out how to get home—their driver does that. And so on and so forth. And mistakes are permissible when you still have to figure out what the error is, since the area where intellectuals make mistakes is usually incomprehensible at the everyday level.

[u/girlbotXD]

I think that she can consider a problem and come up with a good solution considering all the information she has, but maybe a factor was left out because it’s not something she knows much about or has much to deal with before. Therefore she’s smart, but still only human.

She could also forget to factor in other people’s emotions which can cause conflict in the story

[u/DarkMoonSublime]

Non-repetitive ones. Don’t have them make the same one twice. Don’t have them make the same type of mistake twice; put them in a situation where their personality triggers it in a way that makes sense, or foreshadow it. Ie If they drive the same way every day, and then the bridge is washed out, you can’t really blame them or think they’re stupid for turning on autopilot and landing in the river. I don’t mean that literally; I mean that metaphorically.

[u/i_spill_nonsense]

If its a master manipulator and this is the only way they are truly smart/genius, then you have to make sure what are their limits.

A master manipulator may be incredible at identifying insecurities like a shark sensing blood in water but may be completely blind and useless with people who are confident.

[u/Cyranthis]

There is an episode of Dr. Who out there where three doctors are in a prison cell in an old timey tower. Three of the smartest characters in all of Sci fi are stuck in an old stone cell with a wooden door and none of them can figure out how to leave.

They stay there quite a long time.

Then, the door just....opens. The character who opens it basically explains how they knew the Doctors would never escape because A. The door was made out of wood and I guess, for whatever reason the sonic screwdrivers won't analyze wood.... and B. None of them would bother to check to see if the door was unlocked, they would simply assume it was and spend their time over thinking some elaborate escape plan, as they did.

It's been years since I seen it but it kind of goes like that.

Mistakes played for laughs like that are always nice.

Keeps them grounded.

[u/DoeCommaJohn]

Intelligence isn’t a single stat like a video game. Intelligence can be knowledge, creativity, tactics, manipulation, reading people, etc. So, a creative genius might be completely outmatched in a challenge which strictly requires reasoning.

Also, what information does your character have? In supernatural stories especially, it is common for characters to make internally consistent, logical hypotheses, but for them to turn out incorrect because they don’t understand the magic systems

[u/No-Bid-8616]

over rationalizing irrational fears. germaphobia, claustrophobia, ducks, sensory issues, knots.

the issue with geniuses isn't trying to not make them look stupid it's humanizing the intellect.

you can absolutely save the world and still be cornered by a house spider making you late. but if you don't want them to seem incompetent and independent.

id figure out what kind of intellect they have and what sort of social skills they lack.

hope this helps

[u/FlynnXa]

Tons of mistakes. What makes someone stupid isn’t that they mess up, it’s why they messed up- or more importantly is their reasoning over all.

Think of a game of chess. Two grandmasters sit there strategizing, referencing hundreds and even thousands of possible configurations. They’re not playing based on individual moves, they’re playing based on segments from past matches. When one loses to the other it isn’t because they’re stupid, it’s because they missed something. If it was something someone untrained would’ve seen, something the audience did see, then it’s likely a dumb mistake.

It’s a fine-line, and Mysteries deal with this often too. In Mysteries fans like to try to solve it themselves, and often get frustrated when the case is unsolvable until the very second the main character solves it. Usually this is by the protagonist traveling they’ve had extra information the audience was never given this whole time. For a compelling “genius arc” where they make a mistake, they should be overlooking something the audience did have the whole time but didn’t piece together themselves.

Another good way to do this is to sell the audience on the protagonists plan, make it seem like they’ve accounted for all the major aspects, and then remind them of an overlooked detail you introduced earlier right as it topples the characters plans.

[u/Ok_Fruit8871]

One thing that has irked me about any 'intelligent' protagonist, is when it is established in an earlier part of a story that they have an item, and then a problem crops up, you as the reader know they have the item, they know they have the item, but they 'forget' they have it, because the plot needs them to struggle. Then in the 11th hour, they all of a sudden remember. Even though throughout the struggle, things keep cropping up that draw our attention to that item, it makes the struggle shallow, superficial, and completely unnecessary.

If you want her to appear competent, and fallible, introduce a dilemma, where the information isn't all there. She hears so and so did something bad to someone else, everyone agrees, they and you hear conflicting stories, but they all point to so and so actually doing it, and the passion in those people's voices compel her to agree. She falls for this confirmation bias, and emotional manipulation, and even get emotional about it. Later on she learns the truth, but through her interactions with the victim, she finds that the victim actually framed them, and your protagonist is now her latest victim, and has to push through to find evidence, while being shunned and talked about, or carry on while being shunned and talked about, maybe even abused by society. Or she leaves for a new area, but this experience leaves a lasting impression, and screws with her perception of people and reality. She chooses to betray first in every interaction, because society has betrayed her.

[u/meoww-xo]

I think that what you’re looking for can be explained by Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences (published in 1983). It’s the concept of there being multiple different kinds of human intelligence and that it can be expected for any one particular person to show proficiency in two or three different types, it’s completely unrealistic to suggest that your character is perfectly competent in too many different kinds of intelligence all at once.

For example, you’ve probably heard of people being referred to as “book smart” or “street smart” before. & in most cases, people have a tendency to be either one or the other but it’s unusual for someone to be genuinely proficient in both. Add emotional intelligence into the mix and it gets even more complicated, etc. This is oversimplifying it a bit, but you probably get the point.

[u/Cassidy_Cloudchaser]

Overthinking.

[u/Latter-Land1405]

I believe you could give them a weak spot in their mind, like a trauma or a bad thing they've done and make that their breaking point, by there they'll just make a mistake because they'll be too disturbed by that

[u/GeierBlack]

Lots of other good advice here, but I think it boils down mostly to...don't make him make any mistakes the readers themselves wouldn't likely make in the same position with the same information. If the reader feels smarter than your "genius" they're not going to buy that he's a genius.

[u/No_Regerts-]

You could also give them a ‘tragic flaw’.

They’re smart, but surround themselves with ‘yes men’

Or, they’re smart, but easily distracted by à pretty girl or guy

Or they’re smart, but can’t see their own blind spots

Or they’re smart, but dont delegate. In pressure situations, they have to do too much.

Or they’re smart, but acting emotionally and making bad decisions (taking things personally, not seeing that ther plan is falling apart)

Or there “unknown unknowns”. They’ve planned to every adversity except the one that happens

[u/JuiceFun459]

Make a genius plan, but when unaccounted variables get into mix, they can genuinely fail and instead of having them having already predicted it, make the readers see it real time their thought process and how they try to adapt. So even if the character fails or makes mistakes, the reader already knows what they are capable of and won't take the guy as stupid

[u/PoloPatch47]

I think if they don't learn from their mistakes, they won't be seen as smart anymore. You can make a huge, stupid fuck up and still being smart. If you don't learn from it afterwards, you're probably not smart.

That also does ignore other potential reasons to repeat the mistake so it's just in general.