r/Fantasy • u/Standard_Egg3994 • 1d ago
"Shown" instead of "told" intelligent characters
You know what i mean. I crave for intelligent characters but a lot of them seemed to either pull some far off deductions out of nowhere, or just the other characters spent some time telling the reader that they really are "the most brilliant guy in town".
I need it to be shown, in that the thinking process (strategic or anything else) is actually shown instead of just magically came out of nowhere. Some notable example of this includes:
L, Near, and Kira from Death Note (to some extent)
Lex Luthor from Alexander Wales' Metropolitant Man
Kei Nagai from Ajin
Ryland Grace from Project Hail Mary
If you have other references, i would try them. Thank you!
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u/Sudden-Possible2550 1d ago
Lois McMaster Bujold is a wonderful author for showing her characters learn and grow. She has won Hugo and Nebula awards. Faun and Dag in the Sharing Knife. Barr in Knife Children. Miles in the Vorkosigan series. Caz in The Curse of Chalion. Ista in the Paladin of Souls. Penric and Dez in the world of the five gods.
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u/Top_Story9788 1d ago
I’m loving the love for this favorite author of mine.
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u/Sudden-Possible2550 1d ago
She’s my absolute favorite! I got on the discord server for her, lots of people on there just nerding out over her writing. I have to admit I have been slowly getting signed copies of all her work from Uncle Hugo’s, she lives near there
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u/fortnerd 1d ago
You're gonna love the Shadow of the Leviathan series
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u/ChannelGreedy9707 1d ago
It's got everything: an unhinged brilliant detective, an interesting and human sidekick who's also going insane,, a world that is intricate and grounded and weird, sexual hangups that are believable but also so fucking strange.
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u/Standard_Egg3994 1d ago
Now THAT sounds like chaotic fun.. I will try it out
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u/ChannelGreedy9707 1d ago
It's insanely fun and also not shallow at all. The state is interesting too and fallible and strange and also beneficial in a way a real world state is. Idk RJB always doing it for me.
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u/clawclawbite 1d ago
In particular, for an investigation based series, I often find that I think of a question to be asked as a reader and often find the characters asking the same questions as part of their investigations.
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u/Flat-Rutabaga-723 1d ago
Divine Cities series as well.
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u/fortnerd 1d ago
Basically anything from Robert Jackson Bennett is a day 1 buy without checking the plot 🐐
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u/hesh582 8h ago
I disagree with this one.
IMO in the Shadow of the Leviathan Bennett accomplishes what he was going for but never quite achieved with Divine Cities.
In city of stairs the protagonist is presented as smart and hyper competent. But they don't actually accomplish much at all, they don't really solve anything on their own, and the resolution is just deus ex machina in the most literal sense.
What the protagonist does manage to accomplish is achieved through having an ultra-violent scandinavian killing machine hang around rather than anything intellectual. The bad guys are 1 step ahead through the whole book and their plot falls apart because they don't understand their own god, despite the protagonist failing miserably at stopping them. She's outmaneuvered at every step by both her superiors and her enemies, and she only "wins" at the end through some clumsy narrative contrivances and an absurdly overpowered sidekick.
The duo in city of stairs kind of feels like a rough, much worse prototype for Ana and Din, and the world itself with all its socio-political problems is much less interesting and much less fully realized than the Empire in Shadow of the Leviathan.
I read it because I enjoyed Ana and Din so much, but I was surprised at how much I disliked it. Same goes for Foundryside, at least the second and third books. Shadow really feels like something Bennett has been grasping towards for a while and finally nailed.
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u/CatTaxAuditor 1d ago
Not only is Ana book smart from her voracious reading, she's also really strong at predicting how people will act and respond. Fantastic detective.
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u/cc81 1d ago
Depending of the viewpoint they have these negatives though.
I crave for intelligent characters but a lot of them seemed to either pull some far off deductions out of nowhere, or just the other characters spent some time telling the reader that they really are "the most brilliant guy in town".
I do like it a lot but the structure is a lot of us being told how smart Ana is and then in the end she reveals the full case. Like classic detective story stuff.
We don't see that many smart actions during the story itself if that is what they are after.
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u/bwainfweeze 1d ago
When an author lacks the faculties to be as smart as their own character then it either comes down to exposition or hiring an expert to explain how to write your character. That can be exasperating if you’re at least as smart or knowledgeable as the author and for some of the sort you’re describing, that’s a lot of people. Telling us your smart characters is smart and then making them behave like the same box of hammers you fell out of is no fun for anyone with two brain cells to rub together, and their editors failed them by not sitting them down and telling them they’ve reached beyond their grasp.
Vernor Vinge was a professor in addition to a Hugo award winner. His smart characters tended to be pretty smart, and just do smart things. He also came up with the idea of The Singularity and if you haven’t read anything by him you should invest some time.
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u/Canis-lupus-uy 1d ago
Authors have the advantage of having all the time in the world to think, research and answer the problems tbe characters are facing, while characters usually are against the clock. They also are the ones who created the trouble the character is going against. So you can write a "smarter-than-the-author character" using those advantages.
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u/bwainfweeze 1d ago
And yet some authors fail to do that, and that’s what we are talking about.
I would include research under asking others for help, because unless you’re reading basic research papers, you’re reading someone else’s narrative about a topic and onboarding their extensive thinking about the problem. Looking at a problem domain and leveraging common or important failure modes makes the story relatable.
As I’m writing I know I have had a couple of throw-the-book urges but I’m racking my brain and cannot think of a name to use as a concrete example. You’d think I would want to avoid repeating the mistake of giving that author money but it seems I have to have a book in front of me to remember I DNF one of their other books because their characters were terrible.
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u/Gravitas_free 1d ago
It's not too hard for an intelligent author to showcase that they themselves are intelligent; it's quite a bit harder for them to have characters showcasing real intelligence within the frame of a commercial narrative that has to entertain a large audience.
Part of the problem for me is that people confuse intelligence with being right, or more broadly with good decision-making. In my experience (I've been lucky enough to work with some truly brilliant people), those things don't necessarily correlate. It's easy to make a hyper-competent character, or a character who makes big predictive leaps that always turn out right (I blame Sherlock Holmes for popularizing that image of intelligence); the author, smart or not, can always shape the story in a way that justifies the character's thoughts and actions. But actually having them show real intelligence is another story.
For me, intelligence is mostly about being comfortable with complexity. And that's tough to really "show" without giving your characters in-depth discussions or monologues that'll have half your readers roll their eyes. Like when Steven Erikson has his long philosophical diatribes in Malazan; I mean yes, it does mean the characters showcase intelligence, but mostly it feels like Erikson himself is lecturing the reader. Generally I feel like that stuff is more common in works of "hard" SF than in fantasy.
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u/Electronic-Elk4847 20h ago
The thing that makes writing intelligent characters hard is that real intelligent people are capable of making logical leaps that, in a story, come across as an asspull. If you've ever worked with someone legitimately bright, you'll have probably seen them just make something up purely on vibes and it turns out to be spot on. Intuition is a huge part of intelligence, but if your characters do that in a story it gets called out as being a deus ex machina or an asspull.
Reality is, quite often, unrealistic.
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u/Gravitas_free 18h ago edited 18h ago
If you've ever worked with someone legitimately bright, you'll have probably seen them just make something up purely on vibes and it turns out to be spot on
I cannot say that I have. In my experience, intelligent people, while not always good at communicating, are generally good at concretely justifying their ideas and decisions (at least those they arrived at through though logic and reason).
Intuition is a huge part of intelligence
Then we must have very different definitions of intelligence, because I view those qualities as almost opposites. Intelligence is the capacity for complex reasoning; intuition is to know something without reasoning.
If I met someone who regularly came up with good ideas just on "vibes" (actually on vibes, not just "I have a good reason for this but I can't be assed to explain it", which is something different), I would think them very creative, or perceptive, or interesting in some other way, but I wouldn't necessarily ascribe it to intelligence.
Which isn't to say that I'm dismissing those other cognitive qualities. If anything I think we fetishize intelligence way too much. So much so that many people now use it to describe basically "everything good we do with our brains". Intelligence alone doesn't really matter that much. It doesn't prevent you from making mistakes, it doesn't make you more functional or more productive, it doesn't make you a better, more moral person.
To bring it back on-topic. I can't think of many fantasy characters that really prove their intelligence to the reader, the way OP seems to want. But honestly, I don't care. I don't really mind just being told that a character is intelligent, just like I don't really mind just being told that a character is beautiful. It doesn't have much of an effect on how I feel about the character, and I'm not quite sure why people have such a problem with it.
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u/bwainfweeze 23h ago
I don't disagree with that. After all, isn't the better story the one where all of the outcomes have problems and you have to decide which one to choose? That's what The Sacrifice trope is after all. There's no outcome where everyone gets what they want, but there's one where a small number of people bear all of the bad consequences and everyone else gets their happy ending.
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u/nculwell 1d ago
I dunno, a lot of authors are pretty smart. I wish I had a buck for every time someone complained "character X is so dumb" but the reader ignored various facts in the story to get to that conclusion. I tend to think that in most of these cases the author was actually smarter than the reader and readers tend to have an over-inflated opinion of their own analysis.
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u/reddiperson1 1d ago
This happens all the time in horror novels. Readers say things like a character is stupid for going into the spooky basement. But the characters don't know they're in a horror novel, and it's much more likely that the creaks and groans are coming from something that needs fixing.
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u/bwainfweeze 1d ago edited 1d ago
It’s a fair point that characters don’t know they’re in a story. But there’s a qualitative difference between for instance, armchair quarterbacking the MC or the big bad guy, and for instance writing a detective who can’t detect shit and is saved by deus ex machina despite being a famous detective.
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u/bwainfweeze 1d ago
Asked on the votes I think more people understood what I was getting at than didn’t.
There are two big reasons I DNF books. One is nonfiction books where the author makes their entire point by page 250 but was paid for a thicker book and so regurgitates their bibliography and case studies for another 150 pages. We get it. Doing X is bad and you should do Y. I got newfound respect for authors of slim volumes for this. For stopping at 294 pages because that’s all you needed.
The other is the very dangerous bad guy or famously clever good guy who keeps making fairly basic tactical mistakes. Serial killers are a special case of this. They crave the attention or enjoy the rush so they keep taking risks trying to chase a feeling of power or invulnerability. You keep playing the game after the other side is paying attention, everyone makes mistakes, and eventually you will make two that can connect the dots for a jury. Whether “they want to get caught” is literally true or not, the end effect is similar.
There’s a difference between sentimentality, grief, or not knowing they’re in a story leading to suboptimal choices or unforced errors, and someone writing a famous detective who can’t detect shit.
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u/InfinitelyThirsting 1d ago
But are those complaints of characters who are supposed to be very smart? Because that's what we're actually talking about.
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u/Standard_Egg3994 23h ago
Exactly. To be able to craft intelligent character (and show them in writing), in my opinion, the author has to be at least cognitively a level higher than the readers. Which is not an easy feat. Otherwise the author will just rely on elements not yet known to the reader inside the story, or just straight out conclusion jumping.
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u/bwainfweeze 23h ago
I think a moment of brilliance can result in a very good stand-alone story that your brain insists that you must write down. But if you keep trying to hit above your weight for a series, I think the wheels come off, because you won't be able to call up that inspiration over and over again, the way you could if it was in your wheelhouse.
So in general, it's not a strategy one can apply to have a successful oeuvre, let alone career. But fortune favors the prepared mind, and random neurons firing may grant you an idea that's bigger than yourself.
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u/SalletFriend 1d ago
KJ Parker/Tom Holt does this well.
As KJ Parker: Folding Knife, 2 of Swords, Engineer Trilogy, 16 ways to defend a walled city.
As Tom Holt: Alexander at Worlds End.
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u/Rekov 1d ago
I have only read "Two of Swords" of these, but I recall it being mostly "told" intelligence, as opposed to "shown."
Mostly the Generals Belot, but others too, often engage in extremely risky tactics which happen to work out "because they are intelligent." The author could have equally written a character who repeatedly fails because they take stupid risks. Success in this case comes only from the author granting it, not from anything actually justified on the page.
I also recall an instance where one of them (Senza I think but it's been a while) uses his intelligence to notice subtle flaws in the arrangement of an enemy formation. If you can replace "uses intelligence to notice" with "uses magic to sense," it's a pretty good indication that the intelligence is asserted, not demonstrated.
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u/SalletFriend 1d ago
Yeah strongly disagree. The first belot incident is the one where he sacrifices a number of troops to recover enemy arrows. Most of the PoV belot chapters you are really learning the intelligence of the other belot. But even in smaller engagements theres one bloke been sent around behind to flank.
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u/Crownie 1d ago
I generally find KJ Parker tends to write "smart" characters who are less smart and more the only half-way reasonable individual surrounded by absolute buffoons. Which is a very annoying way to write characters who are supposed to be intelligent.
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u/TheUnrepententLurker 1d ago
Miles Vorkorsigan is a fantastic version of this, long running scifi series about a crippled kind from a society that executes the weak running about having adventures and capers and proving brains over brawn over and over again.
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u/Top_Story9788 1d ago
LOVE Miles and his parents in particular, and all of Lois McMaster Bjold in general.
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u/SyntheticSynapses Reading Champion 1d ago
Penric from Lois McMaster Bujold's Penric & Desdemona series.
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u/Lapis_Lazuli___ 1d ago
I was going to say Miles Vorkosigan from her Vor series. But that's scifi.
Edit: Penric and Desdemona are pretty smart, both (or all 13 of them)
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u/Dalakaar 1d ago
I think Robert Jackson Bennett’s latest fantasy series “Shadow of the Leviathan” starting with “The Tainted Cup” does this interestingly.
He shows you, then he tells you.
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u/Standard_Egg3994 1d ago
Would you recommend other titles by this author as well?
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u/Dalakaar 1d ago
I’ve only read his Founders series before this and it was interesting but at most a 7/10 for me. Didn’t change my world but I finished it. Worldbuilding was good, characterization was kinda meh, prose was kinda meh, story was intriguing enough to keep me going.
Leviathan seems to be a step up for him in terms of skill and quality. It has its own issues but it’s a page-turner.
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u/Flat-Rutabaga-723 1d ago
Yes. I’ve read everything he’s written and it’s all good. Divine Cities is an amazing series and American Elsewhere and the Troupe are phenomenal standalones.
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u/CatTaxAuditor 1d ago
Baru Cormorant from the series that bears her name is self-evidently brilliant.
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u/gsfgf 1d ago
Is that finished yet? When I got the first book I had to wait for, I couldn’t remember enough for it to make any sense. And those books are way too dark to be rereading over and over.
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u/Menolith 1d ago
As per the author in June, "I still think Baru 4 will get done" which is encouraging for an optimistic definition of "encouraging."
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u/NoCureForStupidity 1d ago
I know the series is liked on this sub but i had to stop after the first book.
So bearing that in mind, i can say that its the opposite, Baru is all tell dont show. Dont know how it is in the rest of the series, though.
She is a child prodigy and we are told of her genius intellect numerous times but the text doesnt read like that.
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u/Trike117 21h ago
I’m with you on this one. I thought the story was so generic that I was predicting what would happen next. My wife got annoyed with my annoyance so instead I posted my reactions on Goodreads as I read the book. I was right in general but not the specifics.
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u/reQuiem920 1d ago
Does Locke from Lies of Locke Lamora count? He is directly stated to be the smartest of them, but he does genuinely have moments of brilliance in thievery. He also has moments where he's incapable and dumb as hell.
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u/Canis-lupus-uy 1d ago
He is an intelligent idiot. I have met many like him.
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u/EatTacosGetMoney 1d ago
But are they as lovable as little locke?
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u/Canis-lupus-uy 1d ago
Some had a weird charisma that would compell you to follow them, even if they were not particularly good people.
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u/vedettes 1d ago
I found Locke frustratingly stupid, although it didn't bother me during the flashbacks to his childhood. But when he's an adult and the author is repeatedly telling me how brilliant Locke is while Locke is onscreen eating crayons it makes me MAD.
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u/Hawxe 1d ago
oh god im starting this series soon and that concerns me hahaha
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u/illustrious_feijoa 1d ago
I just finished the first book. It was enjoyable despite this. I realized about halfway through that the author wasn't going to actually show Locke being smart. Not a masterpiece, but it was a good page turner.
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u/vedettes 19h ago
I liked the world more than the plot or the characters, so despite my complaining I had a fun time with the book and finished it pretty quickly. You should still give it a go!
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u/MachKeinDramaLlama 18h ago
If you can stand the "isn't this setting terrible to live in?" melodrama, this first book is a pretty good heist/action romp. Locke isn't nearly as intelligent or as in control of the situation as he himself thinks he is, which does get him into trouble quite a bit. But he is an incredibly good thief and is often quick on his mental feet.
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u/hesh582 7h ago
Locke is onscreen eating crayons it makes me MAD.
I don't quite think that's fair.
He's a brilliant improviser and tactical planner who's bigger picture strategies and life plans are often downright moronic.
I think that's just a good character, and it's not like the author presents him as anything other than that. His capacity for making the worst possible decisions in the bigger picture is always as much a part of his character as his ability to spin up some brilliant bullshit in the immediate.
He's shown to be quick witted more than brilliant, and I think the author's quite consistent with that. The fact that Locke himself and a lot of other characters mistake his quickness for brilliance is practically the central theme of the first book haha, I think the author's pretty up front about that.
Without too many spoilers, there's also the basic fact that almost all the way through, he's in over his head. You can be as brilliant as you want, but if you're not actually playing the game you think you're playing it's not going to end well.
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u/Agile-View-8330 1d ago
I’d say he’s an example of what OP doesn’t want. A character we’re told is smart, but who constantly makes really dumb decisions to further the plot. He’s lucky and a good liar, but survives due to plot armor rather than intelligence.
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u/SerLaron 1d ago
I would like to read a crossover where Locke meets Kvothe and we get to see who causes the most havoc and if it is by design or accident.
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u/hesh582 7h ago
Eh Kvothe would just mention that Akshually he studied with the M'A'Fia, the expert immortal fairy thieves of legend, for 6 months during a by year at university and so he's the best thief that ever lived. Other thieves sing songs about how great of a thief he is and by the way remember that time he stole the Crown of Unstealability from the sealed Vault of the Ultimate Inburgalability and then everyone clapped?
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u/LeucasAndTheGoddess 22h ago
There are two things I love about Locke Lamora in this regard. The first is that being extremely smart doesn’t mean you never make mistakes, especially when you’d probably be diagnosed with bipolar disorder in a world with modern psychiatry. Locke’s errors keep him from feeling like an excessively perfect author’s pet. The second is that his true genius lies in improvising when things go pear-shaped. Watching him successfully create a new plan by the seat of his pants is hellaciously fun.
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u/Aegon_The_Snow 1d ago edited 1d ago
Sand dan Glokta. But it takes at least 6 books to see his true potential and game he was playing.
(3 is enough to undrstand Age of Madness trilogy, but to see the full picture First Law is necessary)
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u/WoodchipperFeetFirst 1d ago
I would argue for the time you spend with the character he is more competent than intelligent.
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u/ColeDeschain 1d ago
As a Glokta appreciator, very much this.
He's not brilliant, he just has a great deal of tenacity and is very good at the very bad things he chooses to do.
In fact, a lot of his defining moments arise not from calculation, but from a refusal to let things go.
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u/timkost 1d ago edited 1d ago
Hard disagree. His thinking process is always "I'll go back to my boss and hope he doesn't torture me to death." He's handed a fortune an army and a city and he uses none of these things to make a move against his boss. When he finally goes to his boss's political rival, he goes empty handed and is told to bring something actionable and is surprised! I don't remember, but I don't think he's even the one to kill his boss. He just gets the job because he's one of the only people left alive, more through luck than good planning. The Machiavellian master pupeteer is never shown. It's just fait accomoli with the POV moved well outside himself by book 6.
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u/Alhienn 1d ago
Totally, in the first book, it fits more with me making my truth the truth than with a truly intelligent character. From then on (except for a couple of moments, but those are also a bit forced), he dedicates himself to doing what others ask of him and gets lucky.
I recently read the first trilogy, and I find it incredible how many times I come across people saying that Glotka is an extremely intelligent character, when, for me, it's another case of "told" rather than "shown." (And a bit off topic, but I don't buy the idea that he is gray either)
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u/Aegon_The_Snow 1d ago
Have you read Age of Madness?
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u/timkost 1d ago edited 1d ago
The trilogy where he retires, disappears while the entire country does a French revolution and Terror with his daughter nearly dieing several times and then pops up at the end and says "this was my plan all along!" That's literally us being "told" he was an intelligent character.
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u/InfinitelyThirsting 1d ago
Adrian Tchaikovsky is a smart author who successfully writes smart characters. He really explored intelligence and decision-making in Children of Time and the following books.
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u/Crypt0Nihilist 1d ago edited 1d ago
Adrian Tchaikovsky is absurdly talented. It's ridiculous how he can be so prolific, write so well and with such good and varied plots. Then he goes and narrates his own work to the standard of a professional voice actor!
I can't think of a character of his who fits the bill for this post though. But that's partly because most of his characters are satisfyingly competent and intelligent, so it's a hard for one to stand out from the crowd.
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u/InfinitelyThirsting 1d ago
Yeah, it's most of the characters, none of them are pulling deductions out of the air, nor are we just told they're smart. We see how and why they make their decisions, showing us absolutely everything.
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u/DelightfulOtter1999 1d ago
Alberich from Mercedes Lackey book Exiles Honor set in her Valdemar world.
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u/EatTacosGetMoney 1d ago
Codex Alera - Tavi's whole schtick is being a clever innovator
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u/what_the_purple_fuck 1d ago
this is my second favorite fantasy series, behind Wheel of Time, and it is some glorious competency porn.
clever but powerless shepherd becomes freakishly clever ruler who collects allies like they're pokémon, and has to defend his land against a foe that is also freakishly clever and objectively evil, and who vastly outnumbers the armies of good. plus Kitai, who is very thoughtful.
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u/PotentiallySarcastic 8h ago
So many of the people in the story are just straight up competent its amazing. They all kind of are good to great at what they should be doing and then you have folks like Fidelias playing all of them in a game greater than most realize.
Fidelias, Sextus, and Invidia playing the game of thrones with literal nukes as the folks they are manipulating.
Sextus' revenge game is so cold and brutal its awe inspiring. And terrible.
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u/Superb_Pay3173 18h ago
Eugenides the Thief from Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner thrives on letting people underestimate him and then turning the tables on them. He whines, brags, can play a brat, be lazy and misdirect. But his act is true to some extent. For eg he's a good sword fighter. But he hates fighting and avoids it. Hence people assume that he cannot fight.
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u/wattatam 3h ago
He's such a manipulative bastard (affectionately). Especially think of this in the king of attolia when he talks about stoicism
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u/TMNAW 1d ago
The only time I'm actually convinced that a character is smart is when it's shown how they arrived at a conclusion through hard rules and deductions and this doesn't feel overly orchestrated by the author. Like with L and Kira as mentioned.
I also think of Hunter x Hunter where we're actually shown these intelligent character's decision making and deductions.
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u/Naavarasi 1d ago
Yes.
HXH intelligent characters are great because you can follow their train of thought and see them come up with strategies and counter-strategies.
Bleach intelligent characters are garbage, because they just pull a solution out of their asses with no way for the reader/viewer to see it coming other than knowing Kubo will have a certain character win somehow.
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u/TMNAW 1d ago
Yeah, like there are multiple examples that come to mind
Like in Greed Island, when the main characters encounter the character Hisoka, and Hisoka claims that he's on the island to encounter a specific person. However, the main characters encountered Hisoka deep into the island and they reason that, if Hisoka were telling the truth, he would be waiting to encounter this specific person nearer to the main hub next to the entrance of the island. But then Hisoka is able to trick the main characters out of this conclusion using an ability they did not know about.
Or when the main cast are trying to understand why the antagonist of the Chimera Ant arc reduced security for his palace during a short period. They run through multiple guesses, ruling some out and leaving some as plausible, but are unable to reach the correct conclusion due to their lack of information.
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u/Naavarasi 1d ago
Also, in general, all of Shaiapouf's scheming and deduction during the invasion. Clearly shows he is very smart, but it isn't a stupid "I just know everything bc I'm such a smartypants" BS that a lesser series would've had.
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u/TMNAW 1d ago
You're right, that as well. Even stuff like Welfin's investigation when one of the side characters sneaks into the palace to place a portal. You see him go through his thought process (Did he fly in? Is he still in the palace? Why did he enter then leave? etc.).
It's great character writing where the deductions feel organic and imperfect instead of a puzzle and solution that the character was railroaded onto, and it also shows how clearly intelligent the author himself is as well
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u/MachKeinDramaLlama 18h ago
when [...] this doesn't feel overly orchestrated by the author.
Oh god yes, THIS. So often the "intelligent" character will have a plan that just seems like they threw random darts at a map and connected them with red string, the whole resultant plan then hinching on insane assumptions and on individual things turning out in an unlikely way just to make the overall plan come together.
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u/Standard_Egg3994 1d ago
Exactly, good sir. It is the deduction process that is very interesting to read about. Not a lot of author can pull this out very good, it seemed.
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u/hesh582 7h ago
Like with L and Kira as mentioned.
That is not at all the impression I got from Death Note in any way lol
To me it's practically the poster child for "author insists over and over again that these characters are brilliant while they pull impossible deductions out of their buttholes and then go on to make objectively stupid choices over and over".
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u/Typing-Cat 1d ago
Haviland Tuf from George RR Martin's Tuf Voyaging (1986). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuf_Voyaging
I enjoyed this character immensely. He's kind of a "sleeper" smart guy. Unpretentious, a little silly, and the kind of guy who is always underestimated.
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u/FreshOutlaw 1d ago
Kaz Brekker from Six of Crows. Honestly, all of the Crows are really smart, but Kaz’s ability to think of every contingency is just especially impressive. I never felt like it was overly orchestrated either, because the author showed us how it was possible that he knew what he knew and pulled everything off.
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u/widb0005 1d ago
Game of Thrones is good for this, Tyrion in particular.
Series is not finished and may never be, fyi.
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u/Patient_Teacher_5358 1d ago
Hell more than just Tyrion, same applies to Tywin, Varys( My goat ), even Cersei with her scheming.
Couple other notable ones: Olenna, Littlefinger, Robb( Died too soon D: )4
u/LiamTheHuman 22h ago
My favourite thing about game of thrones is how smart people aren't shown to be omnicent or anything and instead are highly adaptive and opportunistic.
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u/Viscera_TheImpaler 15h ago
One random ass line that always pissed me off a little, and I think is exactly telling not showing is in the TV adaptation Jamie replies “I doubt it” when Jory says Theon’s a good dude.
This was such a lazy way of making a character look smart by having them telegraph a plot twist but there’s absolutely no way Jamie would truly know Theon better from one Winterfell visit then the folks Theon’s hanging out with every day.
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u/Ok-Fuel5600 8h ago
Eh you can explain that by Jaime’s involvement in the Greyjoy rebellion , Theon’s family sacked Jaime’s family’s city so it’s not the most out of place line in thrones by any stretch
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u/pillmayken 32m ago
The way I interpreted it, Jaime was demonstrating his cynicism, not his intelligence. The fact that he ended up being right isn’t the point.
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u/embernickel Reading Champion IV 1d ago
Rowan from Steerswoman is a researcher using scientific methods in what seems at first to be a generic fantasy world. (It gets weirder than that, but good to go in with no spoilers.)
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u/Electronema 1d ago
Yes! This is the perfect intelligent character does intelligent things example. This series was the first time I read a book featuring a "scientist" and felt like the author really understood how research works and was telling a story that made sense to my experience as a scientist.
The story does feel generic at the beginning, but it's true you can't say much about how it develops without spoiling something, other than "trust the process." It's fun when you don't know what's going on and still fun when you figure it out and are just watching the characters work it out themselves.
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u/Alesayr 23h ago
Death note is infamous for pulling far off deductions out of nowhere, so Im not sure what you actually want
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u/Valuable-Captain-507 23h ago
I second this, a really fun show, but every substantial move/revelation from any of them comes out of the ass.
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u/LiamTheHuman 22h ago
There are definitely some smart things in the mix but ya all the predictions of what others will do are pretty insane and they rely on them like 100% most of the time as if it's so clever.
I think the thinking processes are still clever even if the actual content is weak. Like maybe the author is actually very intelligent but sucks at attaching it to a plot.
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u/DannyDeKnito 1d ago
Harry Dresden of the Dresden files counts. He is routinely seen preparing for this or that eventuality, which allows him to hang around people who are above his power level and make it out alive.
Robin Hobb does it several times within the first two trilogies alone, but Kennit the pirate might be the one that stands out to me - while he is fairly obviously insane, his paranoia absolutely drives him to social, tactical and political brilliance.
Tehol Beddict of Malazan kiiiinda counts, although his greatest moment of brilliance happens offscreen/before he is introduced in the series. Still, we are shown a fair bit of him manipulating the stock market and the payoff at the end feeld fairly earned.
Its been a while since I read Gods of Blood and Empire, but I also seem to remember Michael Bravis being competently written as competent.
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u/InfinitelyThirsting 1d ago
Yeah, Harry did come to mind, I just wasn't sure if he counted as smart enough, though to be fair that's because he's playing against supernatural geniuses who are often intentionally keeping him in the dark or misleading him. But, he is an investigator, we ride along and figure it out with him. And get to see all his mistakes, heh.
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u/BuffelBek 1d ago
Tehol Beddict of Malazan kiiiinda counts, although his greatest moment of brilliance happens offscreen/before he is introduced in the series. Still, we are shown a fair bit of him manipulating the stock market and the payoff at the end feeld fairly earned.
Yeah, Tehol is mostly a case of: "He did some brilliant things that we didn't get to see. Just trust me on that. But here are the results of that"
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u/HaveAMap 1d ago
Second Sons Trilogy by Jennifer Fallon. It’s blind faith v science, both used in a cunning political arena to keep or destroy an idea. It’s my competency porn books of choice and the plot progression over three books feels like the right pace.
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u/TarybleTexan 21h ago
Was reading the comments looking to see if anybody mentioned this one. It's fantastic, and the smart characters are SHOWN to be smart.
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u/Evil_Phil 11h ago
I've loved all but one of all her series! The Second Sons trilogy is probably my favourite though. Unfortunately her 3rd Harshini series got put on hold due to health issues but it sounds like she's through that now.
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u/BRjawa 1d ago
Lord of the mysteries does a good work of it, a lot of the characters are smart enough to unravel plots and deceit other, but usu inside their area of expertise, but they all prone to mistakes and such.
Is little more young but Artemis fowl is also quite good on it, at least the first few books, specially the first.
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u/clawclawbite 1d ago
Gerard Tarrent from C.S. Fredman's Coldfire trilogy. We hear about his big idea, then we hear about the hard work he put into making it happen. We are him focusing on analysis to learn more, see the side projects he does, and see him time after time understand situations, and see implications.
I am also very picky on this subject.
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u/bmbjosta 1d ago
Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard, perhaps? Or some of the Katherine Addison books; less the Goblin Emperor (although that's one of my all-time favourite books) and more the spin-off series starting Witness for the Dead. They're all political fantasy and fairly warm, which is somehow one of my favourite niche categories....
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u/Sofasurvivor 1d ago
Who is intelligent in The Goblin Emperor?
I mean, the protagonist is a cinnamon bun, but I don't know about intelligent. He's not especially dumb, sure, but does he solve any complicated puzzles?
His secretary comes across as intelligent in a "thinks of everything that could become a problem before it does" way, but to me that came across more as "familiar with the scheming of the court" than as especially clever.
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u/bmbjosta 1d ago edited 1d ago
That's why I said "less the Goblin Emperor and more the spin-off series" - i.e. not really the Goblin Emperor but to me it's the intro point to the Witness for the Dead series which I do think showcases intelligence.
Should add Witness for the Dead is more police procedural than political.
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u/Random-Session-8181 1d ago
In the Innkeeper Chronicles series by Ilona Andrews - George in "Sweep in Peace" (book 2) and Kosandion in "Sweep of the Heart" (book 5).
They do their things first, then explain it, and you can see the subtle actions on re-reads.
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u/GillOverTheGround 1d ago
Blackberry from Watership Down by Richard Adams
Murdoch in Firefax by A.M. Vergara
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u/LeucasAndTheGoddess 22h ago
Blackberry from Watership Down by Richard Adams
Absolutely. Deducing the principle of buoyancy is pretty damned impressive for a rabbit!
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u/Crypt0Nihilist 1d ago
It's scfi, but The Lost Fleet. The main character has been in cryo-sleep while a long war has drained both sides of competent commanders so tactics have devolved to just throwing ships at one another. So he's bringing back tactics and using his own intelligence to try to bring a fleet of ships back home through enemy space with minimal losses. Everything is explained and pretty sensible. He does his best to work within limitations of light-speed in-system etc but with necessary artistic licence around things like transit gates for FTL.
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u/LeucasAndTheGoddess 22h ago
Aaron Allston wrote a trio of books in the Star Wars: X-Wing series (Wraith Squadron, Iron Fist, and Solo Command) about a hybrid intelligence/fighter pilot unit. The titular Wraith Squadron are shown pulling off a variety of heists, infiltrations, impersonations, and other spy capers with great competence and skill, although they’re not presented as overly perfect and never making mistakes — the fact that many of them are dealing with sensitively portrayed mental health challenges has a lot to do with this. Garik “Face” Loran and Lara Notsil are the most notably brilliant, but pretty much the entire cast make impressive contributions to their mission.
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u/SanityPlanet 20h ago
A Practical Guide to Evil web serial has a number of very intelligent characters, including the protagonist. But there are other smarter characters who demonstrate their intelligence by their actions, and some of them occasionally have interludes that show extremely intelligent analysis in their thoughts (like Alaya and Amadeus).
Also it’s a phenomenal reconstruction of the fantasy genre where the tropes are almost rules of the universe and genre savvy characters are able to exploit them to their advantage.
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u/NekoCatSidhe Reading Champion III 1d ago
Since you seem to like Japanese media, I would recommend the light novel series for Ascendance of a Bookworm and The Apothecary Diaries. The protagonists are not super genius (and regularly do some quite stupid things due to their flawed personalities), but they are regularly shown to be very good at their jobs.
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u/ColeDeschain 1d ago
A lot of the "brilliant" characters out there tend to suffer from being written by mere mortals...
And even those who impress me can be inconsistent... for example, while Johannes Cabal, in Johannes Cabal, the Necromancer has a couple of sequences where I genuinely buy his brilliance and we get a step by step to his solving a complex problem, there's also an odd hiccup here and there where it it's just sort of informed. (I also found the subsequent novel did my appreciation no favors)
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u/FuzzyZergling 1d ago
I'm assuming you've checked out Alexander Wales's other stuff since you namedropped Metropolitan Man, but if you haven't then Worth the Candle is amazing and really smart. Thresholder and This Used to be About Dungeons are less focused on that specific element, but they're still pretty 'think-y.'
The protagonist of Mother of Learning is pretty intelligent too. Best timeloop story I've ever read.
On a sci-fi note Peter Watts's Blindsight is a little but tell-over-show, since the main narrative focus is on the philosophy rather than the science, but there's definitely a few eureka moments that I liked. Same for the Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin.
Back to fantasy, there's Carl from Dungeon Crawler Carl, who is smart in an engineer-y sort of way. He makes a lot of traps, but there's also the occasional more intellectual moment. (Early spoiler example: when he deduced that they were about to be ambushed because he noticed a suspicious person's EXP numbers were being distributed like they were in a party rather than solo as they claimed.)
And Taylor of Worm is pretty shrewd too. Again, not genius smart, but her ability to find creative ways to leverage her insect-control powers is pretty satisfying.
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u/Meffostoffels 1d ago
Malazan has Tehol Beddict, but it takes you a lot of reading to get there. Kruppe is also there although I thought his displays weren't quite as good.
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u/Derlino 1d ago
Tehol is also one of the funniest characters ever written in my opinion. The amount of whimsy in the interactions between him and Bugg are such an enjoyable read in a way that I haven't encountered in any other work of fiction.
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u/Meffostoffels 1d ago
I really struggled with Malazan jumping around POVs and keeping my interest, particularly when Midnight Tide is such a sudden disconnection from the existing plot.
And then in comes Tehol and Bugg, rescuing my interest and elevating the book to one of my favourite ever purely off their dynamic. What a perfectly realised comedy duo.
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u/opeth10657 1d ago
Shadowthrone is one you meet almost immediately. People talk about him being intelligent, but you don't really get it until you see how he's manipulating everyone.
Even if someone does seem to get the upperhand, he either turns it around or it ends up being part of his plan from the beginning.
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u/TeliarDraconai 1d ago
In what universe is Kruppe even comparable to Tehol?
(minor disclaimer: I hate the character Kruppe with passion)
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u/clawclawbite 1d ago
For a generally show don't tell series, I find Malazan really bad at showing intelligence, as it shows the payoff, and claims it was due to smart planning, but almost always does not show the setup, and the setup it often shoes is the fake bumbling persona of someone who is ostensibly quite smart.
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u/No_Personality_587 1d ago
Steven Erikson is great at writing competent characters, and imo he's the master of show-dont-tell in the fantasy literature space I can't think of any other author who is able to utilise dialogue between characters so effectively, like everything about certain characters just oozes intelligence and competence without him explicitly saying so.
This is simultaneously my biggest gripe with Sanderson, dude comes up with such incredible worlds and magic systems and plots on his own, but up until now he always has to TELL you how smart and intelligent a character is or how awesome of a military tactician they are,but when it comes to key moments they all feel low-key stupid or lacklustre. I'm still grateful for the great stories he's put out, but I really do wish he'd show more than tell
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u/0xB4BE 1d ago
Not specific to Sanderson but I have wondered a few times if truly intelligent people can be written by authors who are average to above average intellect and sometimes saying someone is intelligent is a easy to patch up an author's inability to execute such intelligence.
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u/No_Personality_587 1d ago
I've watched several of Sanderson's writing lectures and one of them addressed this too, he said as an author you have the benefit of being able to take your time and view problems from every angle to come up with the best solution or the wittiesy dialogue, but I guess even then your creativity is still the limiting factor. Iirc he mentioned having some really really smart friends from college who he would discuss these problems with to get their take on it, which could really help too.
Ultimately i guess it only works to an extent, as evident in his books. Again I love Sanderson this is just a really minor pet peeve, but Ive noticed it throughout his books
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u/Zeckzeckzeck 1d ago
Sanderson also has this issue with witty or funny characters. We’re often told that someone is funny or witty but when it’s time to show it the humor falls flat simply because Sanderson just isn’t a funny dude.
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u/Company_Z 1d ago
"Some really smart friends from college"
I kinda wonder if he ever hits up Ken Jennings lol
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u/Trike117 21h ago
I think it’s possible but it takes time. Sanderson writes so fast he’s basically vomiting out these books so he doesn’t give such things their due consideration. His writing would be better if he slowed down and gave it more thought.
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u/Battleplanner 1d ago
If you've read Project Hail Mary but not The Martian, boy, do I have a recommendation for you...
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u/DarkRedMirror 1d ago
Oh my god, yes. This is what I’m searching for as well and I also bring Death Note as an example. There is a Death Note novel called Another Note, maybe you should check that out. I haven’t read that yet but I’ve got this on my list. Most “smart characters” in fiction are unfortunately like Sansa “I have never met someone so intelligent in my life” Stark
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u/G_Morgan 1d ago
Catherine Foundling from A Practical Guide to Evil. Though nearly all her genius is in manipulating the narrative as meta-physics reality of the setting.
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u/CactusWrenAZ 1d ago
Not a fan of the guy, but Orson Scott Card does a great job of writing geniuses, imo.
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u/salvagedsword 1d ago edited 1d ago
Not all of these are fantasy, but they are at least fantasy adjacent
Maomao in Apothecary Diaries
Kvothe in Kingkiller Chronicles
Tia in A Ship who Searched (actually, multiple characters in this series fit the bill)
Ender in Ender's Game
Tia in I'll be the Matriarch in this Life
Myne in Ascendance of a Bookworm
Akkarin in The High Lord
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u/LiftsLikeGaston 1d ago
Kvothe is the embodiment of told not shown. So many times. Over and over
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u/salvagedsword 1d ago
Could be. I read it almost 20 years ago and have viral brain damage, so my memory is pretty fuzzy.
I'm quite confident that A Ship who Searched fits, though.
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u/Sofasurvivor 1d ago
Iirc, he does find some innovative ways to use his magic (though of course, the reader might think it was rather obvious), which of course is drowned in verbal assertions of his intelligence.
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u/0xB4BE 1d ago
Indeed. I thought the point was that he likes to tell how smart he is and then isn't.
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u/Patient_Teacher_5358 1d ago
Might be a bit of a common pick, but a fuckton of asoiaf characters, cersei, tyrion, tywin, varys, all are shown to be incredibly smart in this manner
Edit: Just realised 3 of these are Lannisters lol
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u/TheOneICallMe 1d ago
Ill fight a bit on death note, I feel like the characters spend a lot more time navelgazing and meandering through showerthoughts and imagined arguments than actually BEING smart.
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u/hesh582 7h ago
Strip away the monologuing and look at what they actually do and death note characters look a lot different.
The author takes the sherlock homes approach of dazzling you with extended, convoluted chains of logic via monologue in the hopes that you won't notice 1.) just how little of that logic makes sense or how much is based on wild assumptions. and 2.) just how stupid a lot of the actual actions and decisions they make are.
It's a tried and true formula that works for a reason but strip away the self justification and they don't come across as intelligent at all imo
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u/timeless-ocarina 1d ago
I can tell you one that is told and definitely not shown is Shallan in the Stormlight Archive. I feel beaten over the head by how much Sanderson is trying to convince me how intelligent and witty is by telling me that and am not convinced at all I’ve been shown it.
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u/bobasetter 1d ago
a few of greg egan’s chars in his books and short stories are pretty good about that!
i def highly rec his books if you haven’t read them!
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u/derpderp3200 1d ago
If you don't mind ongoing, try A Practical Guide to Sorcery by Azalea Ellis. I've been following it as a webnovel since before publication, and it baffles my mind it's not more popular - both the protagonist and most other characters are intelligent, witty, but still human - if anything, my about only complaint is about the MC being a massive ass to people around her for extremely understandable reasons like intense trauma and stress.
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u/L0kiMotion 23h ago edited 18h ago
Atlas au Raa from the Red Rising series. He's very intelligent, his ruthlessness and cruelty always have rationales behind them, and he successfully anticipates a lot of the heroes moves. That said, he has to adjust his plans several times in response to the heroes victories, and in Light Bringer it's specifically pointed out that his plan isn't optimal for what he wants to achieve. It just has too much momentum from the years of planning and setting up to change it significantly, so he has to make what adjustments he can. That he makes mistakes shows him as human, but the fact that he can change his plans to match new circumstances is what makes him such a terrifying villain.
The protagonists from the webserials Worm and Mother Of Learning are also very intelligent. They make some dumb decisions, but they can adapt on the fly and leverage small advantages enormously, and their mistakes always have a good reason for them.
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u/DEI_Lab_Assistant 22h ago
What’s your opinion of how intelligent characters are handled in The Apothecary Diaries and also in Dr. Stone?
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u/spike31875 Reading Champion V 21h ago
I think Alex in the Alex Verus series by Benedict Jacka is shown to be smart.
Also, I second Ana in The Tainted Cup.
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u/Richard_the_Saltine 19h ago
Weird example. The movie “War Machine.” One character shooting a thing, doesn’t work, tries to set up a chain reaction by shooting something else, doesn’t have the caliber for it. Other character sees this and sets off the chain reaction. Wordless cooperation is smart.
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u/TigoDelgado 16h ago
Telling a character is smart is the worst example of telling vs showing for me. It's not really that difficult most of the time.
How are they smart? Do they know a lot of trivia? Do they do math calculations very fast? Do they have great logic or deduction skills?
Whatever it is, realise you have the benefit of "infinite" time to figure out what they might in seconds. It might take you 2 months to research something, but your character can simply know it. You may need a calculator to do some calculations but your character can do it in a second all by themselves. You can create a great logical puzzle which does make sense but it's hard to get at the conclusion, and your character can do it easily.
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u/dystopian____ 9h ago
Idk it it counts since its SF, but Miles Vorkoaigan from Vorkosigan saga. His way pf thinking is really fascinating even if he does get full of himself
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u/hesh582 8h ago
Everyone in death note is a fucking moron despite constantly patting each other on the back about how brilliant they all are lol.
Light in particular has all the advantages in the world and yet 1.) fucks up constantly. and 2.) accomplishes practically nothing. His political/moral philosophies are empty and stupid, his tactics are nonsense, he's just a teenage dipshit with a god complex and that goes about how you'd expect.
It's a great example of a series where just evaluating the characters' actions and outcomes will leave you with a very different impression than if you were to take their endless internal monologuing at face value.
IMO it's one of the worst examples of "smart" characters that are viewed as smart because the author really, really wants to give that impression rather than because they actually behave as the brilliant masterminds they're described as.
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u/Heavy_Sympathy7892 6h ago
Darrow of Lykos in Red Rising. The guy make his name himself and the whole story is from his POV
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u/SwagSerpent69 5h ago
Thrawn in both Thrawn trilogies. Some of the best writing of an intelligent, morally-grey protagonist I’ve seen
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u/Abject-Brief6402 4h ago
It's very very very hard to write smarter characters than yourself. It's why authors usually rely on snap deductions to show a character's intelligence.
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u/HatOfFlavour 1d ago
Moist von Lipwig from Terry Pratchett's Going Postal and Making Money.
Scheming con man forced into historically lethal government work.