The Idiot Hero is a common character in action series. Often, they are both The Protagonist and the central character of the narrative. They will frequently use the Indy Ploy, will be too stupid to be afraid of imminent peril, and will often have a short memory span. Despite all of this, they are the most effective member of the cast at fighting. They will also usually be the leader of a tight-knit group of characters, despite the fact they don't have the brains to lead a cat out of a paper bag. This is because they are so stupid as to be incorruptible, and has the ability to maintain a childlike innocence and faith in people that inspires those around them.
The Idiot Hero comes in many breeds, like The Fool. The most common variation, known as the Stock Shōnen Hero, usually has some idealistic goal in mind. It is usually becoming the "best warrior ever", and is usually much more aggressive when irked. Such a hero usually enjoys fighting, and is always looking for a challenge. The only way to actually anger this kind of Idiot Hero will be inevitably to hurt one of their friends, or Innocent Bystanders. In some cases, their idiocy may become the best weapon to ruin an evil plan inadvertently.
Tends to overlap with Small Steps Hero, being too lacking in ambition or easily distracted to plan anything truly long-term. In their early stages, they may be little more than an Invincible Incompetent; however, with Character Development, the Idiot Hero may mature into a Messianic Archetype. The Idiot Hero is usually opposed or rivaled by The Stoic or the Aloof Big Brother or Sister. If the Idiot Hero is not nearly as aloof when things get serious, then their stupidity is actually an Obfuscating Stupidity. They may also have others Won Over by Earnestness.
The Lancer to the Idiot Hero takes two common forms: either a Hero-Worshipper willing to look past their obvious drawbacks, or a Sour Supporter who acts as their Foil. In either case, they often act as a source of exposition, explaining things to the hero that they really ought to already know. Their other True Companions will usually get annoyed or even outright be embarrassed by their presence — but deep down, they know they can depend on the hero to protect them from the evils of the world. They may also deliver a sincere "Life Is Awesome" Speech along the way.
Does not necessarily star in an Idiot Plot.
Compare All-Loving Hero, Failure Hero, Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!, Hero with an F in Good, Good Is Dumb, Stupid Good, Butt-Monkey, and No Respect for the Village Idiot. Contrast Pragmatic Hero, Guile Hero, and Byronic Hero. Will frequently be an Idiot Houdini and/or a Manchild (or Womanchild) — or even a Psychopathic Manchild (or Womanchild) if crossed with Sociopathic Hero; though that would border on an outright Deconstruction of the archetype. Can also result in the Idiot Hero being Unintentionally Karmic to the villain if the villainous plans are foiled because of the ill-fated results of their attempts to give the bad guy friendship or Unwanted Assistance. Genuine competency over standing idiocy makes a Bunny-Ears Lawyer.
Could naturally emerge in Tabletop RPGs as a form of Min-Maxing, where the hero sacrifices intelligence (or at least its non-combat related aspects) for better ability to fight.
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Other examples:
- Bananaman is the Super-Powered Alter Ego of schoolboy Eric Wimp. He's a Flying Brick with "the muscles of twenty men" but also "the brains of twenty mussels".
- Beetle of Beetle Bailey is probably one of the best examples every of an Idiot Anti-Hero.
- The title character of Li'l Abner is the stupidest person in a mostly none-too-bright cast. He has survived being shot in the head because he has no usable brain matter.
- Spider-Man: Spider-Man is most generously described as a bumbling slapstick character who isn't very good at his job. One memorable arc with Ant-Man has him shrunk down to bug-size. When a tarantula about ten times his size shows up, Spidey charges ahead because he's "got the proportionate strength of a spider."
◊ It takes another character to point out that the spider also has the proportionate strength of a spider, and since it's bigger it's "got a lot more of it." By this time Spider-Man is basically in the tarantula's chompers.
Spider-Man: "Yeah, guess I should have figured that out — for myself!"
- For the most part, this trope is often averted when possible in fanfiction for a variety of reasons Depending on the Writer.
- A Certain Droll Hivemind: Referenced; the Network, despite respecting Kamijou Touma deeply for his heroism in rescuing them, wonders if he's not very bright. Whether this is true in the source material is up for debate due to several instances of Obfuscating Stupidity and Smarter Than You Look, but in the fic they think this because he fails to understand a complex relay chain that they find perfectly clear.
- Challenger! (Brave Soul RMS): Averted. While Grey Thomas memory is a little spotty and he's definitely Hot-Blooded, Grey well aware of the consequences of his running away from home and of his mistakes in general. He's sometimes even the one to point them out. He only addresses them half of the time, though.
- Cool Cat Saves Vietnam: Cool Cat is oblivious to the sounds of the screaming passengers on the plane and doesn't even notice that they've died because he's so excited about jumping into a war.
- In The Sparkle in His Eye, this trope is taken to the extreme, as Captain Quark has the ability of being so stupid, he changes reality. As in, if you told him the door could be blown up by throwing a rock at it, it could actually happen.
- Deconstructed in-universe in Stallion of the Line: Ranma Saotome is recruited by Urd and Belldandy to replace Monkey D. Luffy's original soul. They do this because the original Luffy's inability to learn that he needed to think instead of just relying on guts, brawn and luck caused him to inevitably fail his quest to reach the One Piece, no matter how they tried to manipulate fate in his advantage. And every time Luffy failed, it brought disaster to the world.
- Three Sheets to the Wind: The reason Ozpin lets Jaune stay on Beacon is because he believes that deep down he wants to help others, as Amber's case shows, and if he learns to control his drinking powers he can go from an idiot to a very powerful idiot. Of course, as the fanfic progresses, more of his colleagues and allies mention to Ozpin how much of a liability this drunken nincompoop is.
- Vow of Nudity: Kay'la from the spinoff series The Naked Misadventures of Kay'la is a Heroic Comedic Sociopath and Fearless Fool who regularly leaps headfirst into danger and survives only by virtue of incredible luck and coming up with last-minute terrible plans that miraculously work. For example, at one point she joins an equestrian tournament, realizes halfway through the first event that she doesn't know how to ride a horse, and yet still comes in second!
- In Your Human And You, the main character, Max, is a prime example of this.
- Captain Kremmen from the radio series of that name.
"I shall break out of this cell using the hardest substance known to Mankind! MY HEAD!"
- Lord Vidar in ElvenQuest.
- Neddie Seagoon in The Goon Show. Well, at least Bluebottle and Eccles look up to him as a hero. Most of the other characters look on him as just an idiot or an easy mark.
- Interstitial: Our Hearts Intertwined: If a character takes "Taps My Head Three Times" from The Chosen playbook, they are deemed "not smart enough to be manipulated it" and can easily be interpreted as this.
- Artificial Nexus: The protagonist, Susan, relies entirely on her Mission Control to get by, and often has to be nagged into continuing to search for a way for the two of them to escape rather than playing around with the items she finds. She also misses some of the more obvious signs that her Mission Control isn't entirely on her side.
- Shirou, the protagonist of Fate/stay night has been known to cause large red spots to appear on the foreheads of viewers of the anime from facepalming so much. In a war involving ancient epic heroes and massive magical powers, Shirou is absolutely and completely determined to not let his fighting companion get hurt (even though she is infinitely more competent at fighting other servants than he is).
- This is actually justified. Shirou has a spiritual disorder that causes him to place no value on his own life, and he is incapable of being happy except when he is helping others, so he tends to take suicidal risks at the slightest provocation, and generally does everything in his power to prevent other people from getting hurt. It only really gets explained in the visual novel, though.
- Battler Ushiromiya from Umineko: When They Cry, at least until he wisens up.
- Happy Tree Friends: Frankly, the main cast in are as dimwitted as they are hapless and fragile, but a few stand-out:
- Lumpy, who is not only the most prominent character in the whole show, but also the biggest example of both Lethally Stupid and Too Dumb to Live.
- Splendid is quite literally this trope, being an incompetent superhero who blatantly hurts more than he helps.
- Pop as well, having multiple episodes solely dedicated to him and his son, being the catalyst of his son's deaths and injuries, and having a recurring tendency to wreck havoc for others or unintentionally lead into their deaths, such as "A Hole Lotta Love", "Cubtron Z", "Too Much Scream Time", and "And The Kitchen Sink", due to his repeated failures as a parent.
- Homestar Runner 20X6:
- Stinkoman, can be seen as a parody of this character type.
- It's entirely possible that Homestar Runner himself started off as one of these when he was first created. However, Flanderization exaggerated the idiot part while diminishing the "Hero" part. He's still a well-meaning guy, if thoughtless.
- PUNCH PUNCH FOREVER!: Gogo Matsumoto isn't particularly smart, even for an eleven-year-old. She continuously gets distracted and generally acts empty-headed, believing that Emperor Koro and the Japanese Emperor are giants because they're projected on large TV screens. At one point, this is visually represented by her head opening up and a bird picking at her brains.
- Jaune Arc of RWBY is this compared to his more educated and better-trained peers. However, he's aware of it and it causes him great distress for a while, until he decides to start training with Pyrrha to overcome it.
- Taco-Man has served as a superhero in both his world and the video game world, despite suffering from a lack of focus and poor video game skills.
- X-Ray & Vav. "Sometimes you gotta do something stupid to get results!"
- All three of the protagonists of The Adventure Zone. Especially Magnus, who is the most heroic and also the dumbest.
- Dragon Ball Z Abridged turned Goku into a major idiot hero. It's implied that Goku's status was caused by brain damage from his fights coupled by moments of Goku being unable to breathe (Freeza trying to drown him and Goku's inability to stop screaming in abject pain when the heart disease hits).
- Sparadrap from Noob moves from The Fool to this over the course of the story. The earliest signs appear in the webseries when he gets angry over enemies threatening to hurt his friends and his idealistic goal emerges when some of the friends in question leave the guild and he gets obsessed with Putting The Band Back Together. The power vacuum caused by the departures has also made him master of what's left of the guild.
- Oxventure:
- All the male members of the Oxventurers' Guild fall under this heading, leaving Merilwen and Prudence in charge of the brain cell. Corazon is a showboating idiot who will cheerfully endanger himself for money or attention, Dob is a Cloud Cuckoolander who is prone to random actions and has never knowingly thought a decision all the way through, and Egbert is a reckless, impulsive fellow who sometimes seems incapable of rolling well on anything remotely cerebral.
- In one of the "But Everyone's A Kobold" one-shots, Jane draws a kobold named Era the Vacuous. Era proves an absolute menace, hitting an adventurer in the face with a rock and not only making it out alive but ending up as one of the kobold elders by virtue of surviving the entire rest of the adventure!
- Tobuscus in the Wizards Game. In fact, if he animated it, you can be reasonably sure of this.
- Wayne from Vigilant is a failure in every aspect of his life, repeatedly testing fate. And yet, he is the central protagonist of the show.
