When viewing films, reading books or watching series, few things bother me more that characters that show excessive competency just because they have some knowledge in an area. I’ll explain further: frequently, characters belong to archetypes. An Archetype is a concept, person or object that has served as a prototype or original idea, and has been used very frequently. There are countless examples, but just one will serve us well: Romeo and Juliet are frequently considered as an archetype for eternal love.

It’s common to start with characters as an archetype, and then to refine them, make them more complex. It’s common, for example, in a group of five characters, to see the Leader, the Smart One, the Strong yet Rebellious, the Girl and the Comedian. They all accomplish their role in certain ways:

The leader generally has great… well, leadership skills, but they can be too demanding and cause problems with their teammates. Their orders could be ignored.

The smart one tends to be very capable in one area, generally computers and technology, but they are not well respected by others or are too nerdy.

The strong yet rebellious one works as a foil to the leader, and frequently rebels against them. They are strong, yet they lack any respect or social skills, and they struggle to follow any orders or even to stay on the team. The lesson they often learn is to adapt to other people.

The girl is pretty much outdated on this day and age (and can even be sexist), but their central role is to be a female presence, and she accomplishes the stereotypes of that role. Those include not being respected by her male counterparts, to generate romantic friction both with the leader and the rebel if they happen to be male, and to include emotions on a “too rational” team.

Finally, the Comedian disperses tension and seriousness with jokes. They tend to not be taken seriously, and they may be underestimated by everyone else, or even by themselves.

Now, I’ll focus on the specifics: the huge competency expected from every archetype. The leader, for example, is excellent on everything that needs leadership. Are orders needed? They can do it. Tactical Problem? They may require the help of the smart one, but they adapt fast. Is the team on a dangerous or tight situation? Their capacity to keep the team joined together solves the problem. This, however, generates way too high of a standard, and subtracts realism.

People aren’t good at everything that covers their area. A good, loved leader can be terrible in organizing tactically. A nerd can be an excellent programmer, but be terrible at hacking. Series seem to think otherwise: If someone is part of an archetype, they are good at everything it represents.

In real life, though, this is not the case. A novel writer, in a series or movie, will be able to write anything. Poetry? No problem. Theatre? Easy. A short story? Ha. A real-life novelist might be just a novelist, and not anything else. He might be bad at any other topic, or good in some, terrible on others. Things aren’t so simple, and treating them like they are seems to be equivalent to taking something grey, and making it black or white. Let's try to avoid this in our writing, to make it richer, and more complex.