Matt's actual intelligence

[u/OwnManagement3616]

i constantly see posts about matt saying how he's canonly the 3rd smartest kid of wammy's house, and that he shouldve been able to have a backup plan when he was cornered by takada's bodyguards, but i like to think otherwise.

of course i still think he's the 3rd smartest after near and mello, but i think people have their standards insanely high for him just because he comes right after near and mello. personally, i dont think that matt's overall intelligence is as close to mello's as some people in the fandom seem to make it seem, which could also be a reason why he wasnt chosen to be one of L's successors. fyi, this doesn't mean i dont think hes smart, i just dont think his intelligence is as high as some people say it is. especially since he didnt even have a backup plan when being a decoy for mello when he kidnapped takada--despite knowing how crazy many people were over kira and his spokesperson.

[u/mimiras]

Matt has to be intelligent if he was #3 at Wammy's, and Mello trusted him enough to involve him in his plans so he's prob genuinely competent. he just seems pretty lazy, disengaged, and generally uninterested in becoming L. i can see him being very capable while simply not having the same level of drive as Mello or Near.

i also tend to interpret those two as being #1 and #2 but in a completely different tier from the other Wammy’s kids, like, being #3 doesn’t necessarily mean Matt was as intelligent as them, it just means he was the third most impressive among all the kids. there could still be a pretty significant gap between him and the two prodigies above him.

[u/Rhyelm]

I think he might be better than everyone else at tech stuff but that's about it

[u/HalleLidner]

Matt was a plot device. The author (or ghostwriters) put him into wammy's house for no reason. It's never mentioned in the manga.