Reid: Tardive dyskinesia.
Morgan: Once more for those of us who don't have an encyclopedic memory?
Morgan: Once more for those of us who don't have an encyclopedic memory?
— Criminal Minds, "Derailed"
Some characters just seem to know a little of everything. It doesn't matter what the subject is, they can rattle off a couple of facts on the subject. They might not have much depth of knowledge, but they certainly have breadth. The possessor of this knowledge doesn't have to be alive in the traditional sense. Robots, AIs, sentient books and the like count as well.
Sometimes these little tidbits can serve as a Chekhov's Gun when the information comes in handy later, sometimes they'll provide just the right details needed right then to solve a problem, and sometimes they'll just sound like Non Sequiturs. This trope is often used to make a character's intelligence more than just an Informed Ability. It can also be an aspect of Mr. Exposition.
Note: This isn't for characters who think they know everything. They need to actually have real, accurate knowledge. It also is not for characters who just know everything about one subject, such as history, maths or automotive repair. They need to have a little knowledge about everything.
See also Omnidisciplinary Scientist, Renaissance Man, Elite School Means Elite Brain.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Dr. STONE: Senku seems to know everything there is to know about chemistry, physics, engineering, and math, and easily surpasses any other character in his knowledge of biology (though he's still not as good with medicine as a real doctor with proper equipment would be).
- Sheska from Fullmetal Alchemist remembers every little thing she reads, logically resulting in Encyclopedic Knowledge being mixed with a good dose of Human Data Storage.
- Miyuki Takara from Lucky Star always seems to have information relevant to the subject of conversation. It's lampshaded by her friends how much she knows about things they don't learn at school, and Miyuki herself admits that she loves to learn things in her spare time.
- William and Sherlock of Moriarty the Patriot both qualify for this trope:
- There seems to be nothing William can't consult on: growing flowers, math, criminal activities, drugs, violins, England's many accents — he seems to know something of everything.
- Sherlock can rattle of the most random of facts about nearly anything at no prompting. Just don't ask him to solve William's math problems.
Comic Books
- Batman is often presented this way, particularly when used in a team environment. He's a polymath with expertise in martial arts, forensic science, detective work, disguises, escapology, computer hacking, ventriloquism and a bunch of other fields.
- Fables has an odd example in Bufkin the flying monkey; he is the librarian of the vast Business Office and can perfectly remember where every book is stored and everything he's ever read (and he reads a lot). However, he's extremely goofy and generally lacking in foresight, self-control, and social graces (a Running Gag is that he throws poo at people and needs to be reminded that his fecal matter is not an appropriate topic of conversation). Consequently, he's comic relief until he ends up trapped in the Business Office with Baba Yaga, her three One-Man Army henchmen and an escaped Djinn, at which time Beware the Silly Ones comes into full effect.
- Genius Jones
: A boy who was stranded on an island for several years with a library's worth of books he memorized. After being rescued, he would use his knowledge to solve mysteries for a dime apiece.
- The Devil's Dictionary in Requiem Vampire Knight qualifies, but then, he's a dictionary demon...
Films — Animated
- In Kung Fu Panda, Po has an impressive knowledge of martial arts lore and philosophy, although the TV series has him realizing that there is far more to learn.
Films — Live-Action
- In The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, a college student gets all the knowledge contained in a computer's data banks (mostly filled with educational material) and represents his school in a College Bowl type competition. What he doesn't realize is that the computer also had a criminal organization's records of its illegal activities.
- James Bond graduated with a First in Oriental Languages at Cambridge University but demonstrates remarkable fluency in French, German, Danish, Italian, Japanese and Russian (and likely even more than that). However he also has an impressive knowledge of several sciences from nuclear physics to marine biology, and an excellent knowledge of history and geopolitics — often more than enough to verbally spar with the villains and point out the flaws in their Evil Plan. And not only can Bond pilot or drive almost any vehicle he falls into, but also identify classic cars on sight, right down to noticing if one has phony licence plates. He's also a connoisseur of food and fine wine, and believes drinking French champagne at the wrong temperature is "as bad as listening to The Beatles without earmuffs".
Literature
- Tsubasa Hanekawa from Bakemonogatari doesn't know "everything", she just knows what she knows... which seems to be nearly everything. Not surprising of the top student and class rep.
- Noriko Null from Beyond the Impossible (2015). In addition to being superhumanly smart, every single information known to mankind has been uploaded into her brain. And every new information is upgraded about once a month, provided she's on the planet.
- Don't Call Me Ishmael!: Ignatius Prindable is mostly interested in math and biology, but he tends to rattle off random facts about all kinds of different topics even if they have nothing to do with what the characters are talking about.
- In The Dresden Files, the girl Harry calls "Ivy" is The Archive of all magical knowledge. If you write it down, she can see it.
- Encyclopedia Brown got his nickname by knowing so much about so many subjects that he was like a walking encyclopedia.
- DV-9 in Galaxy of Fear. Well, he is a research droid.
- Sherlock Holmes: Defied by Holmes, who specifically warns against storing vast amounts of useless knowledge, comparing it to a man buying planks of any size rather than those that will fit into the lumberroom. This is his excuse for not knowing that the Earth orbits the sun. However, his knowledge comes across as this trope instead as there is always some link to criminology.
- The Ship Who...: Very common for shellpeople, who can casually obtain information modules to add to their databanks, which they can reference like truly accurate memories.
- Tantei Team KZ Jiken Note: Kazuhiko Kozuka "of Socials and Sciences" has the tendency to provide exposition on bits of factoid.
Live-Action TV
- Barney Miller: Detective Arthur Dietrich can always be counted on to know more than anyone else in the precinct about any obscure topic.
- Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory at least likes to think he knows just about everything — as long as it isn't pop culture-related, or about driving, or about social interaction — and does not hesitate to point it out, whether he is asked or not. (He's shown clear faults in the field of biology and such; it's implied that he gets most of the non-physics related information off the internet.)
- Bones has Mr. Nigel-Murray, who spouts off random facts as a way to keep himself focused.
- Cheers has Cliff Clavin, who mixes this trope with Little Known Facts and a dash of Feigning Intelligence, leaving everyone never quite sure whether the latest bit of trivia is one of the accurate facts or not.
- In Chuck, the Intersect acts as this with government information, martial arts, hacking skill and linguistic abilities, to name a few fields.
- Reid from Criminal Minds does this, to the point of irritating the other characters. Because he reads quickly and often, has an eidetic memory, and is particularly fond of statistics, he simply pulls from his memory whatever statistic the situation calls for. Morgan even lampshades it in the episode "Derailed":
Reid: Tardive dyskinesia.
Morgan: Once more for those of us who don't have an encyclopedic memory? - CSI: NY:
- Mac Taylor. It doesn't matter what hobby the victim had, Mac is well versed in it. Examples include boxing, Indy car racing and video games. Then, there's this exchange from "Grand Master" during a discussion about hip-hop:
Mac: You should hear Aiden talk about this DJ world. Close your eyes and she sounds just like Queen Latifa.
Sheldon: [surprised] What do you know about Queen Latifa?
Mac: [grinning slightly] It's my job to know a little something about everything. - Dr. Sheldon Hawkes impresses Mac with his knowledge of mosquitoes in "Summer in the City." Mac later tells Stella that Sheldon is a "walking encyclopedia of tidbit information." She replies that they can ask him stuff instead of Googling it.
- Mac Taylor. It doesn't matter what hobby the victim had, Mac is well versed in it. Examples include boxing, Indy car racing and video games. Then, there's this exchange from "Grand Master" during a discussion about hip-hop:
- John Doe, for supernatural reasons. Supposedly, he is actually omniscient, but in practice, his knowledge is limited to things that could be learned via research.
Podcasts
- While the hosts of Fat, French and Fabulous trade off who researches and presents the week's topic, both seem to be able to reference and explain highly-specific concepts off the top of their heads, such as Pigovian taxes and cognatic primogeniture.
Radio
- Vivian Stanshall's Rawlinson End stories feature Reg Smeeton, whose encyclopedic knowledge of trivia is triggered by word association, e.g., when he hears the word "shrewd", he rattles off facts about shrews. Of course, nobody ever listens to him, and his inner monologue consists of complex chains of association that all lead to the conclusion "me = zero". This is true in the LP, film and literary versions as well.
Tabletop Games
- Chronicles of Darkness: The Trope Namer is the "Encyclopedic Knowledge" merit, which gives the character a chance to remember useful factoids about any situation they find themselves in.
- Pathfinder lets Bards become this thanks to the Bardic Knowledge ability. In 1st edition, it gives Bards a bonus to Knowledge skills and lets them use a Knowledge skill even if they haven't invested in it, while in 2nd edition it gives a special Lore skill that can be used to Recall Knowledge on any topic but can't be used to Earn Income. The Loremaster and Storyteller archetypes and the Thaumaturge class can get similar skills in 2nd edition.
- Savants in Warhammer 40,000 tend to be characterised like this, especially in the related novels.
Video Games
- In the Castlevania series, Cute Witch Charlotte Aulin is this, most likely as a counterbalance to (a) the more "rely-on-gut-feeling" Jonathan and (b) her own young age of 16 years (this is Charlotte's Berserk Button, by the way). The only subversion is that she really is a Brainy Brunette with a veritable cornucopia of knowledge on most subjects (to the point that in the final battle, she expresses surprise that Death is actually teaming up with Dracula since she never read about it in her books).
Western Animation
- Tom in The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, most notably in episodes 14 and 16.
- One of Ben's transformations from Ben 10: Omniverse, Brainstorm, has an IQ of 1000000000000000000000000000000. It's... fairly safe to assume someone with an IQ that high would qualify for this.
- In every episode of The Magic School Bus, Dorothy Ann provides information about the topic of the day from her research — though since she IS only 9 or 10, she occasionally just reads it out of whatever book she has currently pulled out of her shoulder bag.
- Ready Jet Go!: Face 9000 is a talking computer who knows everything about science. He uses his extensive knowledge to teach the kids about science.
- Rocky and Bullwinkle: The recurring "Mr. Know-it-all" sketch is actually a parody, as Bullwinkle (who plays Mr. Know-it-all) has knowledge that is less than encyclopedic. A more straightforward example is Mr. Peabody from the "Peabody's Improbable History" segments.
- The Transformers has the Autobot Rewind, whose entire personality shtick is that he loves collecting trivial factoids about anything and everything.
