fictional Characters' intelligence

[Mr.Grey-Cat]

character intelligence. a real thing that can make a story either enjoyable or total garbage. though of course, this all depends on the reader, the genre, the mood of the story, and also the mood of the reader, nevertheless there have to be some limits to what readers like, right?

so then, how smart do you like your characters? and just saying but no need to think too much, just a light-hearted answer. so, do you like characters being:

1D Character: are characters that are simply stupid. even when they are smart, they are still stupid, with most of their decision just feeling wrong, like super wrong, that even a 5yo kid would do better

2D Character: are characters that are smart, but just as smart as a character in anime can be. clearly having a lot to learn about how logic and brain work.

2.9 Character: are smart. even realistic, at least as far as fiction can go. they are smart and logical, but even so, you can still feel the difference in their action and thinking most of the time.

3D Character: realistic. just like a real person if it comes to thinking and reasoning.

3D Special Character: realistic. too much actually, that sometimes, you just think that what you are reading is not fiction, but the daily life of that random guy at the forum, always saying stupid jokes, and some occasional dirty word, or net vocabulary.

4D Character: beyond reality. their thinking and reasoning, are just more than what reality can keep up with. characters that make you feel as of you are the 1D character being looked down on sometimes.

5D Character: enlightened. characters that have achieved a great understanding in the Dao, that their thinking is just beyond your understanding. yeah, logical, but how they got to their logic is a but mystery unknown to low dimensional mortals.

 

[owotrucked]

I like them deep fried -1D.

 

[SailusGebel]

Give me a 10D character.

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

character intelligence. a real thing that can make a story either enjoyable or total garbage. though of course, this all depends on the reader, the genre, the mood of the story, and also the mood of the reader, nevertheless there have to be some limits to what readers like, right?

so then, how smart do you like your characters? and just saying but no need to think too much, just a light-hearted answer. so, do you like characters being:

1D Character: are characters that are simply stupid. even when they are smart, they are still stupid, with most of their decision just feeling wrong, like super wrong, that even a 5yo kid would do better

2D Character: are characters that are smart, but just as smart as a character in anime can be. clearly having a lot to learn about how logic and brain work.

2.9 Character: are smart. even realistic, at least as far as fiction can go. they are smart and logical, but even so, you can still feel the difference in their action and thinking most of the time.

3D Character: realistic. just like a real person if it comes to thinking and reasoning.

3D Special Character: realistic. too much actually, that sometimes, you just think that what you are reading is not fiction, but the daily life of that random guy at the forum, always saying stupid jokes, and some occasional dirty word, or net vocabulary.

4D Character: beyond reality. their thinking and reasoning, are just more than what reality can keep up with. characters that make you feel as of you are the 1D character being looked down on sometimes.

5D Character: enlightened. characters that have achieved a great understanding in the Dao, that their thinking is just beyond your understanding. yeah, logical, but how they got to their logic is a but mystery unknown to low dimensional mortals.

Intelligent characters are incredibly hard to depict, if not impossible as they are constrained by the respective intelligence of the author.

The vast majority of characters are merely knowledgeable, not intelligent.

 

[Kenjona]

Depends, there is a difference between Intelligence, Knowledgeable, and Savant. I prefer that everyone is at the intelligence they are suppose to be at. If they are suppose to be dumb then they act dumb, if they are suppose to be book smart, then let them be book smart, if they are overall the smartest thing ever, hard to do granted but let them be that way. To many "smart" MC's are more like Idiot Savants with photographic memory.

 

[RedHunter2296]

Well I think that I have come across that same theme in my novel.

I am writing in the first person from the point of view of the protagonist, most of the time. With him, it is easy because I simply imagine how I would be facing that problem and how I would solve it. Explain how he came to think that that decision at that moment seemed to be the best for him, as it is what I would have done. I think this works well to be able to make the character believable and realistic, as it is basically me, acting.

Now, another of the characters is a police inspector who obviously investigates difficult crimes that are related to events the protagonist ends up involved in. The problem is that this character obviously has to be an intelligent person who can see the clues and come to a conclusion about what happened. But that conclusion has to point towards the protagonist, but at the same time, it cannot be very direct as if the inspector was God watching from heaven. Besides that I wanted him to be or look like a person with a mysterious past, that it be known that he is a danger, but why is not known.

What I did? Well, every time in the novel there is a point where the inspector is the protagonist, I change the way of writing the novel, I change it from first person to third person. In this way, I can describe what he is seeing, but not how the inspector interprets it in his mind. I can narrate the feelings he has, but I'm not forced to say why behind them. When the inspector reaches a conclusion by looking at the clues that lead him one step closer to the protagonist, we can know what the evidence was, and the result, but not the process. And that result does not have to be correct and lead to an immediate response, but only something that is similar.

I think that in this way the illusion can be given that the character is much more intelligent than what I as an author can do by simply "closing the door" of the inspector's mind and letting the reader try to imagine how he came to that conclusion. What they imagine for themselves will be better than anything I do, most of the time. Once again to a partially correct answer at least, not clairvoyance where the inspector magically filled in all the gaps as if he had seen what happened himself.

 

[Kenjona]

I pretty much prefer anything above 1.9, as they tend to read better. Closer to 3 the Author can get the better the story IMHO, with higher outliers as needed for the story.

 

[DarklyReadsBooks]

5d, but all the decisions he makes are stupid ones. Because, naturally as the King of The Heavens, I am omniscient, so I physically cannot write anything below 5d characters, trust me.

 

[K5Rakitan]

Given that my OC is based on myself, and I am a 5D person, she is a 5D character

 

[gaylolis]

regardless of their intelligence, i prefer an entertaining character to a boring one, i guess.

i do like to read some mentally disabled characters in absurd situations just for fun.

if i like 'intelligent' characters, it's probably more of their ability to amuse me rather than their actual smarts. like, they could come up with genius solutions most others couldn't and it'd totally made my day. but if they spam walls of text with boring complicated shit and bootload of jargons i would drop the story in a heartbeat.

a good example is probably henry stickmin, he's both genius and idiotic in his arsenal but he's a damn entertaining fellow.

 

[Deleted member 45782]

Like them 2.9D-3D. Ofc, its fiction so don't have be realistic to a T. Its fantasy. But at least have a brain and it connects somewhere. Besides the hormones.

And beside the overglorifield and "justified" rage too, which often really is questionable...

Sometimes, you read fiction but the lil things that are relatable connect to readers with an ah-ha moment. Sorta like bridge between something a reader finds in their reality and the fantasy they're trying to immerse into.

 

[HokuouTenrou]

tfw I like 3D, but can only write (and is a) 1.9-2D