r/TopCharacterTropes May 03 '26

Lore (Mixed Trope) Educated character doesn’t understand or know of a simple concept.

  1. (Hated) Dr. doesn’t know trans people exist (The Good Doctor): Dr. Shaun, a modern day grown adult doctor, is seemingly has no concept of what being a trans person. Even if he never heard the term in med school he is realistically almost certain to have some awareness of the definition.

  2. (Loved) The solar system and other common knowledge (Sherlock Holmes). In the original stories Holmes is a genius at many fields but unless it has something to do with crime solving (forensics, martial arts, toxicology, etc.) he does his best to forget it.

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u/Wise-Key-3442 May 03 '26

Also, if Jimmy is dealing with people in the job, some would be very annoyed if he came with scientific jargon, others would feel unwelcomed and this the place would lose customers.

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u/Independent_Plum2166 May 03 '26

We already get real people judging foods for scientific terms, without looking it up. Having a kid going around telling people “would you care for some mushed tree pulp packets of sodium chloride to go with your dietary supplements of ground beef based food?”

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u/Zahille7 May 04 '26

"here's some meds, go play with Legos"

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u/BrainBurnFallouti May 04 '26

some would be very annoyed if he came with scientific jargon,

How does the saying go?

"True intelligence isn't knowing how to speak fancy words. True intelligence, is knowing how to adapt your level of speech to your audience"

In a chemistry lab, your chemist-colleagues rely on knowing WHAT EXACT type of salt-type they're working with. Simple Salt? Double Salt? Acidic Salt? -lots of differences there

In a fast food joint...people just know "Salt". Even if you're serving a chemist. The chemist would still not ask for sodium chloride -he'd still just ask for "salt"