Who is the dumbest protagonist in a video game, and why?

[Professor Beef]

ASBEL LHANT, FUCK YOU

He might actually be the stupidest (as in intelligence) protagonist I've ever played as. He's from Tales of Graces and he is an actual moron who might not even be able to see.

 

[sredgrin]

This was my first thought.

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I can only assume he isn't dominating the thread because not enough people played the game.

 

[HK-47]

Andy is Advance Wars can act pretty dumb, needing basic things explained to him

Kanebi in Advance Wars 1 is so stupid you wonder how he even remembers to breathe

 

[Deleted member 3815]

Pit from Kid Icarus, he doesn't know how to read, can't fly despite having wings and is very simple minded.

How many times has Knuckles been duped by Eggman?

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Three times;

Once in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, again in Sonic Adventure and in Sonic Advance 2, which is hilarious as Sonic chews him out for that.

 

[JustTom]

Noctis. Everything is going down the drain and he is like "Yea I collect dogtags and frogs for you. Saving the kingodm can wait."

 

[Necromanti]

I'm playing through KH3 right now, and Sora is a pretty dumb guy. I don't think he's the worst case scenario, though. So I got to wondering who is. I thought maybe Raiden from MK9/X, but he's not stupid, just grossly incompetent.

Who do you think is the absolute dumbest hero in gaming? Give us examples as to why you think so.

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Terra was actually who came to mind first since I've recently played BBS, though he's definitely not the dumbest protagonist ever in gaming. (And he's not even the dumbest character in that game. That would probably be Master Eraqus, though he's not a protagonist.)

 

[Deleted member 43872]

Here's the plot of Red Faction: Armageddon in a nutshell. Spoilered out of caution, but come on, you don't care about spoilers for this goofy game.

Spoiler: All of Red Faction: Armageddon

Darius Mason, the player character, is handed a magic nanotech gun that can fix almost anything. He then fails to stop terrorists from blowing up a terraforming machine that's the only thing making the atmosphere of Mars breathable. Years pass, everyone's living underground because Mars is a wasteland again. He's tricked by the same group of terrorists into letting loose a horde of giant alien bugs. A few hours of bug-killing later, Darius discovers that the bugs are weak to... air. So, several years and one wrecked planet later, he realizes "I have a gun that fixes things, and all these problems are because a machine is broken." He uses the magic gun he had the entire time to fix the terraformer which he could have fixed immediately and everything goes back to normal.

 

[PeakPointMatrix]

I know Ryo is still a teenager but seriously:

This moment in the Asia Travel Company where he hands over his savings without any receipt or anything to this shady-ass woman takes the cake. He deserved to lose it all tbh.

Mario. Will he ever realize that Peach just isn't that into him? Doubtful. He will keep going on all these ridiculous adventures even after receiving a clear "no" in SMO. Hit the gym, Mario

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Your avatar!! I can't believe there's someone else out there that watched Ox Tales, lmao!

 

[Rogue Blue]

Y'all people mention Terra and Sora, but what about Ventus?

Especially when he encounters Vanitas in the beginning

Vanitas: Hey kid, ignore the fact that I, a very ominous looking character, invaded your private quarters and let me tell you that you totally need to find Terra. Don't question how I, a complete stranger you've never met before, knows all this. Just do it.

Ven: Okay, I believe you.

I know he's supposed to be child like, kinda like Sora, but that was too much for me.

 

[Manu]

Noctis. Everything is going down the drain and he is like "Yea I collect dogtags and frogs for you. Saving the kingodm can wait."

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Cloud and his friends go snowboarding right after Aerith is killed.

 

[Linde]

Corrin from Fire Emblem Fates. Worst version is Conquest. Father is obviously evil and tried to kill her, yet Corrin continues helping him. And it gets even worse, showing Corrin's stupidity has no limit. Birthright and Revelations Corrin are also dumb, but Conquest wins in that regard.

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This, easily.
Doesn't help that he/she isn't the only stupid character in the games. The entire main cast reeks of stupidity

 

[Necromanti]

Y'all people mention Terra and Sora, but what about Ventus?

Vanitas: Hey kid, ignore the fact that I, a very ominous looking character, invaded your private quarters and let me tell you that you totally need to find Terra.

Ven: Okay, I believe you.

I know he's supposed to be child like, kinda like Sora, but that was too much for me.

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Their greatest enemy turned out to be a lack of communication.

 

[Deleted member 46922]

Duke Nukem (No reason needed, he is an idiot every moment in all his games. :P )

 

[THE GUY]

Sora has to be one of the dumbest motherfuckers who ever lived. It'd make more sense that he was 5 years old rather than the 14-16 he is in the game series.

 

[Winston1]

Doesnt Henry keeps asking dumb questions and being "surprised" (as surprised as an emotionless guy can be) by the dumbest shit
Like not recognizing the ghosts of the people he just met or every interaction with eileen
He never gets a clue about Walter either

Also entering random holes that appear around your house is kinda dumb

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Henry barely talks to anyone. And the few questions he does ask mainly amount to "What's going here?". The only times he ever reacts "surprised" is the first monster encounter and a couple character deaths. And entering the holes makes sense since he's been trapped in his apartment for five days with no other way to escape or contact people. The only truly stupid thing he does that I can think of is the "Are you okay?" line he says to Cynthia, which I can excuse because I personally don't know how I would react in a situation like that.

 

[Tigress]

I'm being a bit unfair cause I'm basing it on one scene... but John Morgan. It was a fucking trap. At one point he even admitted it seemed like a trap. Then he walks into it (fine, maybe he did so knowing so but I don't think so cause...) and he fucking acts surprised that it was a trap! WTF?!!!!! I was even grumbling that I really didn't want to walk in there cause it was so obviously a trap that why the hell would you just blatantly walk in (at least do something to try to make it so the trap doesn't work!).

 

[Wamb0wneD]

Corrin from Fire Emblem Fates. Worst version is Conquest. Father is obviously evil and tried to kill her, yet Corrin continues helping him. And it gets even worse, showing Corrin's stupidity has no limit. Birthright and Revelations Corrin are also dumb, but Conquest wins in that regard.

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Yeah Corrin in Conquest was so effing stupid I stopped palying the game 5 hours in.

 

[SugarNoodles]

Snow from FFXIII no contest.

 

[DaciaJC]

Andy is Advance Wars can act pretty dumb, needing basic things explained to him

Kanebi in Advance Wars 1 is so stupid you wonder how he even remembers to breathe

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I thought it was pretty cute how Sonja had to basically handle all of Yellow Star's strategy in place of her dad. Poor guy probably had dementia or something.

 

[chandoog]

Playing the RE2 remake and getting annoyed at every idiot protag who is incapable of making simple jumps. Like there's literally a multipart puzzle that you have to solve due to the protag being unable to make a jump across a 3 foot gap.

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I found it kind of funny but it didn't really bother me though.

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I took it as the character not wanting to jump because they don't know if the wood on the further side is strong, they could just bust through again and risk getting impaled with sharp edged wood pieces. Not worth the risk ..

 

[Nocturnowl]

ASBEL LHANT, FUCK YOU

He might actually be the stupidest (as in intelligence) protagonist I've ever played as. He's from Tales of Graces and he is an actual moron who might not even be able to see.

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This last bit would explain his disco pants

 

[STech]

Asbel from Tales of Grace is catastrophically dumb

 

[Pyramid Head]

Kratos tries too hard at everything he does

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Zeus: "I know it seems like we're in the middle of trying to kill you, but why don't you try syphoning all of your power into this here sword? It will leave you extremely vulnerable but I promise I won't stab you with it."

Batman in Arkham Knight seemed hilariously dozy throughout the entire game. I've never read a Batman comic and have only ever picked up little snippets of the universe outside of the movies, but even I knew who the Arkham Knight was from the fucking trailer for the game.
Watching Batman struggle with it right til the end was farcical. "Alfred! This guy knows everything about me and my tactics! Pull up all the records of every criminal in the world and go through them with a fine tooth comb! We must be missing something!" On top of having the Joker inside his head constantly dropping really strong hints. 'World's greatest detective' my arse.

At least the College Humour/ Lego versions of Batman are self aware about how dumb they are.

 

[Stuart Gipp]

God damn mf'ing Terra.

 

[Raza]

Asbel from Tales of Graces

Hard for me to give specific examples as to why anymore as I've never replayed the game, since even though it has the best Tales battle system ever, Asbel is such an moron, it's almost embarrassing to play through

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Yes, thank you. It's Asbel. He's not naive, he's just stupid.

 

[NHarmonic.]

Ourselves.
Because videogames are great, but also videogames are kinda garbage.
Still, we're always there...

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#deep

 

[ElectronicOldMen]

 

[pleaseinsertdisctwo]

I played KH3 for like an hour and a half yesterday and Sora already made me roll my eyes like 4 times

 

[Kain]

Asbel was the writer's tool to make fun of the player I think. Like, his super best friend forever, who he met for a whole 5 minutes, was obviously possessed with something and he just couldn't comprehend this. He kept making stupid decision after stupid decision and he would never stop. Ever.

 

[Laver]

Stupid main character in manga/Japanese games is a trope I've never come to understand.

Kratos in God of War 1/2 takes the cake as far as Western games are concerned (those are the only GOW games I've played).

 

[Deleted member 7450]

#deep

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more like #dumb

Fuck now it relates to the thread title and I feel worse.

 

[NealMcCauley]

All Ajay had to do was stay in his seat and eat the crab rangoon.

 

[The Almighty Tria]

Edge Maverick hands planet destroying weapon to badguys and destroys alternate universe earth and 1 billion people as a result.

 

[TheBored23]

Donkey Kong, by virtue of being a gorilla

 

[Driggonny]

I'm here for Fire Emblem Fates Conquest Corrin, and I have not been disappointed.

edit: oh I forgot to add why, it's kind of hard to distil without running through entire plot threads across multiple branches of the fates storyline.
But it runs a wonderful gamut of...
- Illogical ideals contrasting against the actual gameplay, yeah let's fight this war without killing anyone, in fire emblem, his/her dumb approach leads to numerous battles ending like "we won, without killing anyone apparently!" only for the bad guys they serve under to then turn up and do the dirty business anyway
- Not explaining anything clearly to anyone, wacky misunderstandings determining the fate of entire countries, how much crisis could be avoided if they actually did more than yell "I'm sorry brother, this is my path!" and "Gods nooooo!"
Of course the game does take this to its worst conclusion with a whole "I can't explain shit because otherwise a curse or something blah"
- Everything about the opera house scene

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Oh god that stuff was so bad. Never in all of Fire Emblem have I felt so flabbergasted. How tf do you win a battle head-on without killing a single goddamn person

 

[Voxl]

One could argue a travis is pretty dumb. He's a horny anime/Japan freak and bloodthirty aaaand that's about it. No smarts. Not even street smarts D:

 

[SofNascimento]

Max Payne in Max Payne 3 keeps making the worst choices possible but the game is also pretty self aware about it.

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He is a dumb move guy.

 

[KtotheRoc]

I can't recall specifics but Edge Maverick from Star Ocean 4 was pretty friggin' dumb.

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Edge Maverick hands planet destroying weapon to badguys and destroys alternate universe earth and 1 billion people as a result.

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I'm glad Edge has already been mentioned a few times in this thread. How he was given any sense of responsibility I will never know.

 

[Zoid]

I'm playing through KH3 right now, and Sora is a pretty dumb guy. I don't think he's the worst case scenario, though. So I got to wondering who is. I thought maybe Raiden from MK9/X, but he's not stupid, just grossly incompetent.

Who do you think is the absolute dumbest hero in gaming? Give us examples as to why you think so.

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I'm sorry but I couldn't help but laugh when I saw your avatar after you said Sora.

 

[Deleted member 412]

Your avatar!! I can't believe there's someone else out there that watched Ox Tales, lmao!

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The theme song never left me. I hum it at least once a week. It's not even a particularly good show lol, just heavy nostalgia.

 

[NTGYK]

Just looking at the games i finished recently it has to be Arthur from RDR2. I understand loyalty and all but you have to be pretty dumb to keep going along with his "plans" ..

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Arthur isn't stupid, he's aware of the futility of these follies, but he loves Dutch too much to run

 

[PeakPointMatrix]

The theme song never left me. I hum it at least once a week. It's not even a particularly good show lol, just heavy nostalgia.

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The theme song is god-tier, yes.

 

[Pata Hikari]

People bringing up Asbel reminds me that I am convinced that there was a massive change in that game's plot and direction partway through development but they didn't rewrite the earlier parts they already finished. There's a jarring shift in plot and characterization once Richard gets put back on the throne.

 

[Hours Left]

Luke from Tales of the Abyss.

 

[Pata Hikari]

Luke from Tales of the Abyss.

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Luke isn't dumb just ignorant.

 

[Hours Left]

Luke isn't dumb just ignorant.

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He's also really dumb IMO.

 

[Strings]

Asbel from Tales of Graces

Hard for me to give specific examples as to why anymore as I've never replayed the game, since even though it has the best Tales battle system ever, Asbel is such an moron, it's almost embarrassing to play through

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Eeeeh, as a kid, sure, but his older form isn't that stupid, as far as Tales characters go.

 

[DanteLinkX]

Tidus the thread. Hahahahahaahahahajahajajajaja

 

[halcali]

Quina is a complete waste of space but Steiner is the best thing about that game, he's stubborn at the start but with good reason tbf, and he does change

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Steiner is my favourite character. To describe him as "dumb" is not entirely accurate...
He's completely single-minded in his duty as knight protector of Garnet, so it's a complete shock to discover she WANTED to be captured by rogues.

I'd describe him more as a "useful buffoon" who's situational comedy is really endearing and always makes me laugh.

 

[Pata Hikari]

Tidus the thread. Hahahahahaahahahajahajajajaja

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Tidus isn't stupid. Like, not at all. He's ignorant about Spira but that's his entire narrative role.