In yesterday’s post, I started this topic off talking about the most intelligent characters in fiction, then covered the main reason I’ve found it so hard to write an unintelligent but compelling character. Reason being, we’re so primed to accept that a character who seems unintelligent is actually a hidden genius below the surface. Even a huge pile of poor life choices and other deficiencies will only serve to highlight how amazing their redeeming talent is. Without a redeeming trait though, the unintelligent character becomes a drag to read. How can a writer overcome this catch 22 and make a believable, compelling, but unintelligent character?

There are a few ways I can think of off the top of my head, but most of them rely on reducing the impact of how stupid the character is. Take Conan the Barbarian for example. He’s not a particularly smart character, but it doesn’t matter. Most of the problems the writers present him with are solvable by destroying things with a big sword. The same goes for most action heroes from the 70s and 80s. Any shoot em’ up has a similarly simple-minded brute, except for ‘First Blood’ and ‘Die Hard,’ which are two of the most popular and acclaimed action movies for a reason. Turns out the most compelling way to write a brute is to make him use violence in an intelligent way. Huh …

Another method is to have a character that’s stupid by proxy. Every other character besides Dr. House comes to mind. A bunch of highly trained doctors who just can’t hold a candle to House suddenly seem incompetent. We as the viewer still know they aren’t stupid though. They’re doctors after all. It’s just House is that much better. Kinda cheap, in my opinion, but a good tool to keep in mind.

How about a more literary example? This is a writing blog after all. It’s honestly kind of hard to think of one because not many people go for it. There are lots of characters who are presented as stupid, but then fall into the catch 22. Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ has several of these. Characters who the reader is told are merely average, but turn out to have an incredible memory, recording skill, or amazing tactical knowledge in a fight (looking at you Quincey). What’s worse is how these characters make conflicting decisions. One second they’re doing forensic realty to figure out where Dracula lives, and the next they’re leaving a friend all alone just so Dracula has a victim. The least intelligent character is probably Renfield, the mentally handicapped man that Dracula uses as a tool to enter the insane asylum with an invitation. He’s also the character I thought was the least interesting, more of a plot tool than anything, and really weird to boot. His whole arc gets resolved when Dracula body slams him on the ground the second he gets inside. Not exactly the compelling character I’m looking for.

‘Brave New World’ stars an unintelligent character, a man with genetic defects born into a world of genetically perfected people. Personally though, I found his character extremely one dimensional and rather off-putting to read. His lack of intelligence was often a point of internal conflict, but he turned out too stupid to actually solve it. In my opinion he was big let down in the end.

So to find a good example, I had to search for a long time. I do have one in mind that is to me the ultimate use of an unintelligent character. Ironically, it’s from another story about a genius.

‘Good Will Hunting’ is my favorite example of a well-written genius. It’s tied to my personal belief that positive traits like intelligence and negative traits like prejudice and depression are not directly linked. ‘Good Will Hunting’ explores this concept so thoroughly it’s hard to even summarize all the points made, but there’s one key piece of information to take from Will’s character: His intelligence is not the direct cause of his flaws, but he does use it as a weapon to defend his flaws. He’s a damaged person with authority issues and a strong prejudice against the elite. Nobody can help him because he’s too smart to be helped. His intellect allows him to defend his prejudice and his fear and his attachment to his home from those elite he sees as the enemy. That’s why, in the end, it’s not therapists, MIT professors, or his Stanford-bound girlfriend who really get through to him (though they certainly softened him up), it’s his lifelong friend Chuckie who’s finally able to encourage Will to live up to his intellect, even if it means joining the world owned by the elitists he can’t stand.

Chuckie doesn’t have a good education, he never made good grades in the schools he did bounce around, and he’s been stuck working dead end jobs and construction all his adult life. He doesn’t have those two traits that can make anyone into a genius. There is no particular problem that he can solve quickly, and there’s not a lot of information at his disposal. He’s even shown being outclassed by some guy with a basic knowledge of history while trying to pick up a girl at a bar. That said, he’s still not clear of the catch 22. Often when a character lacks a more traditional intelligence we tend to prescribe them a lot of emotional intelligence and wisdom. A great friend with profound advice might not be considered a genius, but they certainly aren’t stupid either. Chuckie is a great friend, and he does give good advice sometimes, but they make sure he doesn’t have that wisdom all the time. He’s shown getting into trouble with Will and the boys, drinking underage, making cocksure conversation with girls, and calling himself a self-taught genius. None of which is very wise. They did every single thing in their power to make sure you are absolutely certain that Chuckie is not a smart man.

He is a loyal friend though, a rabble rouser too, and has a lot of snarky bravado. Those traits are redeeming enough to keep him interesting throughout the movie, but his purpose is largely to make Will look smart. It’s not that compelling all on it’s own. He doesn’t have his moment until the very end, when he convinces Will to leave Boston and go do something great by showing Will just how much he has. Chuckie reveals how aware of his own deficiencies he really is and uses that to convince Will how important it is for him to use his intellect to it’s true potential. He famously tells him,

‘Let me tell you what I do know … You know what the best part of my day is? For about ten seconds from when I pull up to the curb and when I get to your door, is I think maybe I’ll get up there and I’ll knock on the door and you won’t be there. No goodbye, no seeya later, no nothing. I don’t know much, but I do know that.’

We as the viewer still don’t think of Chuckie as very smart or wise, and yet there is one thing he does understand very well, and that’s just how smart Will is. He’s only capable of truly understanding this because of his lack of intelligence. The brilliance of Chuckie’s character is that we know he’s not smart, but that only makes his advice at the end all the more profound. He has to constantly remind the viewer that ‘I don’t know much’ right up to the very end for this to even work. It’s really the only way to convince anyone that he’s not secretly a man wise beyond his years. His advice is so profound otherwise that a single moment threatens to undo all the work they put into establishing him as unintelligent.

The main takeaway I got from Chuckie is that for an unintelligent character to have a great emotional impact, they need to be self aware. They have to use their lack of intellect as a tool in a way that makes it clear they understand their drawbacks and know how much the world values a powerful intellect. For this to work, there has to be a mountain of evidence that they are indeed unintelligent. They can’t go too far in their profound wisdom or else they lose the appeal. There need to be some other redeeming qualities along the way, or they’ll lose the plot. Finally, they have to have their moment and be done with it. Solve too many problems with the character, and suddenly they’re really not that deficient, are they?

These are just a few rules that might add up to a good character. I’ll have to try them out and report back. Maybe I’ll make a follow up post to this one in good time. I hope this was a thought provoking read, although I know it’s much wordier than my usual posts. I’ll try to make something a little more visual next week. Seeya then.

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley