Talk:Competent man

Heinlein was trying to find an ideal
First, at a lower level as a writer, I never thought Heinlein was very good. All of his characters sounded very much alike. Especially in his later writings, I found it hard to distinguish one character from another.

Yet I bought every one of his books. I believe he captured - however imperfectly - some aspect of human nature that should not be forgotten.

Heinlein captured an aspect of what should be the ideal as a human. You might disagree a bit on specific points, but ... there is something he preserved that should not be forgot.

As my readings into history deepen, I suspect there was a moment of insight - more than a century ago - that bought us Americans a century of breathing space. The last century was rather busy, and those lessons seem to be lost on the present. Heinlein brings us echos from that time, to which we should listen.

I think Heinlein's expressed ideal in indeed notable, as he preserved and communicated a frame that is of merit.

Removing Examples
There should be less examples I think. Elvis (talk) 11:45, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm dropping a bunch of examples, as some of them are needlessly obscure, and others are incorrect or inaccurate (For example, I would not classify Harry Potter as a competent man; one of the recurring themes of the books is how he and his friends have their flaws and help each other overcome them). 99.231.179.171 (talk) 00:45, 11 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I just added Cyrrus Smith, as it is more classical example from older literature, than many of others from modern days sci-fi. It was me, I just forgot to log-in before editing. --XChaos (talk) 16:21, 30 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Removed Sherlock Holmes as A Study In Scarlet details that his range of knowledge is very specific to his work as a consulting detective, he is not at all a polymath. I'm not familiar with many of the other examples but I agree the list is too long to be useful. I'd suggest finding a handful of well known examples. Jeeves seems a good example to me as he is a well known literary example of a man competent in doing everything. Maybe McGuyver should stay as an example from pop culture. 3amFriday (talk) 17:36, 19 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Hannah Montana? Seriously? Wavy (talk) 16:12, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

MacGyver should be on there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 20.137.18.50 (talk) 19:26, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree about MacGyver, especially since the character is built around the concept of being able to do everything with anything. Others, like Aragorn, Paul Muad-Dib, and Indiana Jones are far too confined in scope to stand as prime examples. Tin tin is a good example, pulling any skill out of the bag that the plot might require. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.125.146 (talk) 08:32, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree, Sherlock Holmes (see Sherlock Holmes) should be removed. One of the key aspects of his character was his specialization. In Study In Scarlet Holmes Made a point to have any knowledge not directly related to his work. 76.106.122.183 (talk) 02:52, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Data from Star Trek is a robot, as such, Data has nothing to do with this article, which lists Characters from literature or other media that are to practical skills what the Renaissance man is to knowledge. I'm removing Data. --60.242.56.215 (talk) 15:47, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Removed Batou (Ghost in the shell). He's a cyborg and many of his skills and abilities are superhuman. Removed Gregory House. He's unorthodox in his methods, but this does not necessarily translate into being a Competent Man.Mr. ATOZ (talk) 01:53, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Let's pin down the definition
Is this formally defined anywhere, or it OR? I wonder because we start by defining a competent man as:
 * a stock character who can do anything perfectly,

Anything? Perfectly? Well, that's a super-man. But:
 * or at least exhibits a very wide range of abilities and knowledge,

Erm, that's not a super-man, quite a few real people exhibit such a degree of, erm, competence ... This definitional problem segués into the complaint about the plausibility of the character:
 * While not implausible with older or unusually long lived characters, when such characters are young it is often not adequately explained as to how they acquired so many skills at an early age.

Hmmm. If we limit ourselves to a basic competence at a merely wide range of skills, it just isn't that implausible. For example, of Heinlein's list of 21 skills, I had a fair degree of competence in more than half of them whilst still in my teens, and by the age of 25 I had done 19 of them, 14 of them for money (but sorry, so far to date I have still failed to die gallantly, whether professionally or amateurishly!) Well, with some minor caveats, anyway: I have only butchered game animals, not hogs; and the largest vessel I have conned was 37 foot which is not a ship. Yet no-one would call me a super-man. In fact I dare say that most people who were raised in a rural district, did a few years serving their country in the armed forces, then got a technical education, would have most of Heinlein's list well before the age of 30. -- 202.63.39.58 (talk) 13:41, 15 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I am intrigued by the solving an equation thing. Maths always struck me as the chip on Heinlein's shoulder. 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:1508:FC82:66CC:D167 (talk) 09:27, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Let me guess --- you never wrote a sonnet?
 * Well that's just it. Heinlein's definition is a very mild version and isn't totally out of the ability of modern educated and driven individuals. But, in practice, fictional adventurer-type characters are often written to instantly have whatever knowledge,skill, or ability the plot needs at the moment without regard to whether a person of their age, sex, ethnicity, or educational/socioeconomic/cultural background would plausibly have that skill to a meaningful degree. For example, should John Shaft (who is not on the list and shouldn't be) have the instant ability to fluently speak Cantonese if one of his cases were to send him to Hong Kong?Mr. ATOZ (talk) 19:48, 6 March 2015 (UTC)


 * I concur with Mr A-to-Z. I might add that the instant skill and ability displayed by fictional adventurers often passes the audience unnoticed: people generally underestimate how hard it is to become fully fluent in a foreign tongue, master a musical instrument, or dig a hole big enough to bury a human being (moreover, among the people who have tried, most overestimate how successful they have been). I am particularly fond of the way these skills are explained in-story: the hero dated a French person (and is not fluent in French) had an egyptologist uncle (and now can read hieroglyphics) and so on. This idea is sent up marvellously in What's Up Dog? in which Streisand's character brims with knowledge gleaned from a motley assortment of classes she took as a student. 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:1508:FC82:66CC:D167 (talk) 09:26, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Is it just me...
Or does this article look like it would be more at home on TV Tropes than on wikipedia? I mean aside from the fact its not witty enough to be a TV tropes page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.53.1.40 (talk) 09:38, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

No, it's not just you. My thoughts exactly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.125.146 (talk) 08:34, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

The page on TVTropes is a bit more specific in application than this page is; the TVTropes page specifically references this phenomenon in regards to the sidekick character as opposed to anybody. That said, it follows the TVTropes format a little too closely for my comfort. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.135.112.14 (talk) 15:48, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

I found this page useful, but it could be better
I plan to remove the text "can do anything perfectly, or at" and the nonsense about age because that is NOT descriptive of the literary competent man. I will also separate the list by media (literature, comics, video) and perhaps genre so that readers of this page can find what they are looking for. Then I will add more literary "competents" (many are women) over time.

The page is heavily biased towards movies and TV, the surest training for anti-competence that I know of. The best TV show is the one that inspires you to abandon TV and do something meaningful instead. However, TV shows may be the closest most people will get to literature in their lifetimes, and shows that praise competence might help them understand it, perhaps tolerate competence rather than resent and attack it.

Heinlein's characters, and Sam Damon in "Once an Eagle", are by no means perfect, merely people committed to excellence and self-development. I know 12 year olds who are, and 60 year olds who are not. The Lazarus Long list does not include many competencies, and includes others ("con a ship") that can map onto more common competencies ("fly an airplane", which I can do). Beyond sonnets, it pointedly leaves out writing and most of the other ways Heinlein spent his days; there is hidden humor here. In an age of literary antiheros, some of us prefer characters to admire and emulate, rather than fools and villains to sneer at,

This reference list, and an expanded discussion referencing other discussions, will be very valuable when it is more complete. KeithLofstrom (talk) 20:12, 29 December 2014 (UTC)


 * What is badly needed is an article entitled "Competent human (Heinlein concept)." Such an article could have many references instead of this unreferenced essay.   I started to write that article a year ago, but I just haven't had time to complete it effectively.


 * Some suggestions for references for such an article were given at:


 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Competent_man


 * Although the idea of the competent human has been around for centuries, like many other concepts that existed vaguely in human cultures, Robert A. Heinlein gave the idea something closer to a concrete definition and meaning.


 * A "Competent human (Heinlein concept)" article could also get rid of the "Citation Needed" note for a book that has been in nearly every bookstore and library for more than four decades. X5dna (talk) 02:46, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Sources for improvement
This is most definitely a real concept discussed in reliable sources: see, , for examples. I agree that this needs more reliable sources to be cited: the last two above should be a start. The link to the closely-related concept of "competence porn" is also entirely relevant: see. -- The Anome (talk) 08:57, 23 October 2018 (UTC)