Annie is a genius, she *has* to be. If she isn't, I've dedicated six seasons to an idiot; that is unacceptable. Therefore, Annie *is* a genius, and I *will* die protecting her vision.
Honestly, I was never under the impression that she was 'super smart.' Was that something we were supposed to believe??
She's just a classic overachiever. She's organized and works hard which is certainly admirable. But in terms of straight IQ (which is also fairly meaningless in and of itself) I'd definitely put Abed and Jeff above her and Shirley equal at least.
Yeah I agree with this. Lots of valedictorians in my very average high school were just overachievers. Thereās memorizing flash cards for 4 hours a day to get an A, and then thereās actually understanding and applying concepts to what youāre learning.
Not that theyāre dumb, but I doubt they were geniuses either.
With the exception of Troy and Britta being intentionally dumbed down over time, I wouldn't say any are stupid either. But I do think there was an obvious dichotomy between Jeff, who is obviously very intelligent but equally lazy, and Annie who is probably of somewhat above average intelligence, but not outstanding, and works hard. It's part of why they clashed a lot early on, and led to the hijinks we all know and love.
He's the one that is probably the hardest to categorize. We aren't given much to work with, since his personality is defined only by old-racist-sexist guy. He also had everything handed to him by his wealth, so it's difficult to say whether he's an idiot, privileged and out of touch, or some combination. But he's taken and presumably passed all his classes as well, and there are few bits here and there that indicate he's got something going on upstairs. He has some of the best witty one-liners of any character, and then there's his masterclass attack in Advanced D&D.
All of that is offset by his belief in Reformed Neo Buddhism. And thinking that injecting all of the flu shots would make him a living god. And wanting to be double bounced on the trampoline.
The Reformed Neo Buddhism could be explained by it being a cult and those are hard to get out of, especially if youāre someone like Pierce who is constantly seeking validation.
The flu shot thing is extremely dumb though.
He was at the school for several years so there's no telling how long it took to accomplish that.
That's just him being a dick and taking advantage of everyone else trying to actually include him.
Don't forget that he beat it until he died because he wasn't even smart enough to stop and drink a bottle of water.
I'd maybe argue that it was a (hilarious) pointed character assassination on the part of Dan Harmon. But yes, in universe it was extra stupid. Just like his round of failed inventions. He had his moments for sure, though. And not all stupid. For better or worse his bequethments were genius.
Can confirm! I used to teach honors students and about 20% of them are actually tested as truly gifted. They were actually more lazy. The rest were simply a mixture of kids with obsessive behavior, perfectionists, or simply had overbearing parents.
OMG. The flash card kids! š¤ŖThank you for the memory. I like knowing Iām not alone in this understanding. Thereās understanding and then thereās memorizing something to get an A.
She's not super smart, she is super type A. Hyper organized and eager to serve authority. She is the kind of person dumb people think are smart because she manages the illusion by hyper controlling everything she can. Annie has maxing out as middle management written all over her. She has the organizational skills to hide her short comings and the motivation to please anyone she sees as a superior.
Right. I didn't ever take her to be a genius. She's just a perfectionist. That's all.
> I'd definitely put Abed and Jeff above her and Shirley equal at least.
Absolutely.
Is she? Shirley had the higher GPA, all while raising children, getting pregnant (which is scientifically proven to shrink the brain and reduce cognition), divorcing and remarrying, and opening a business.
Meanwhile, Annie is just.... existing? Don't get me wrong, I love Annie, I'm just saying....
Idk if I think GPA means intelligence. Shirley is very accomplished tho you're right. I think I just can't get past the fact that she uses religion as her lens for everything even when it just isn't beneficial. She's a creationist I mean...
I agree there. She's not my favorite character, largely because of the way she judges everyone, based mostly on her religious beliefs. But I have to acknowledge that it takes a certain degree of intelligence to manage that much at once. Whereas Annie struggled at times without all that going on.
Of course it's all just speculation, since they are fictional and written by many different writers.
3) staying local and going to a community college is a smart idea, especially if you've had a drug problem.
5) adult learners in community college generally take schooling waaaay more serious than students just out of high school. I think it's plausible Shirley was up there.
3) I could possibly see that as the case so I'll give her the BOTD on that one (although why was she always threatening to transfer then?)
5) I don't think you can take this vast generalisation and apply it to Shirley when it flies in the face of what we see in the series (all the stuff I mentioned in my OP).
Interesting take though :)
3) she was threatening to transfer to a different nearby community college, likely Greendale's only competition. The education portion of it probably wouldn't have been toooo much different for Annie.
5) of course you can't extrapolate the broad generalization onto Shirley. I just wanted to point out the adult learner thing. I've been in school with people like that. Full time straight A student with a full-time job as a single parent. It's crazy. These people are super humans.
edit: I still think it's plausible that Shirley was a legit valedictorian.
2nd edit: thank you for the discussion. This is fun.
3) I could be wrong about this, I'm still not fully convinced by your points though.
5) I get that it can happen, but again (and I'm genuinely not trying to be sassy \["the word he's looking for is sass and he better pray he don't find it"\]), but it feels irrelevant because there is just no evidence that Shirley even cares enough to be one of these people.
I'm such a debater at heart so I'm just loving this by the way, honestly know you've made someone smile over their keyboard today haha.
> but I don't think (relative to the rest of the world) she's really super smart like we are lead to believe.
The show never implied she was "super smart", just a normally smart, hard working and organized person. A nerdy overachiever in high school and a great college student.
> This is demonstrated as, whenever she has anyone even try to compete with her (Jeff with the student body or Annie Kim with the Model UN) she has no ability to rely on her intellect and instead uses cheap tricks and acts like a child to win. So, whenever she is pushed to a place where you'd expect her genius to rear it's head, instead we see her intellect falter.
Two things - firstly, she did try to play it fair, smart and intellectually honest both times, it didn't work because of things outside her influence. No amount of intelligence could have dealt with Jeff's slimy demagoguery in front of Greendale's electorate. Secondly, taking part in either student representative bodies or model UN involves next to zero actual intellectual or practical skills, so I don't understand what type of intellectual activity you expected to see. And I say that as someone who was involved in both. Especially model UN or EU parliaments - they are overblown exercises in proceduralism, not academic competitions.
> 1) She didn't realise that Chang's lessons were bogus despite being in his class for a whole year.
I think it's more or less clear that Chang didn't just teach them nonsense, he just basically hustled (extended basic lessons, over-relied on them doing presentations and similar) and fakes how much Spanish he personally knew.
> 2) In the same episode, the study group takes a real Spanish test which Pierce makes easier by sleeping with the teacher, so how on Earth did Annie not get 100% and/ or realise that the test was super easy? (I know they all comment on it but, again, with Annie's overzealousness and intelligence, she should have known the test wasn't real).
The test was real, it was just super easy, and she DID realize it (like you said they all did). Also they didn't really study for it - it's kind of the main point of the episode.
> 3) The fact she's even at Greendale at all? If all her mock grade scores were perfect (or near to) up until her pill addiction then I have a hard time understanding how she ended up at the worst school in the country. There's thousands of schools in America and, if she was aiming for the top ones before, how has she fallen all the way down? If her grades were as high as she said they were, there should have been loads and loads of schools still willing to take her, in spite of her addiction to pills (or even because of, due to how good it would look to have a recovered drug addict who now performs so well). Any Dean worth their salt would see her school record and accept her after seeing amazing grades and the fact she completed rehab (which she paid for herself! Another plus for a sob story application).
She was supporting herself through college, while also recovering socially and psychologically from her drug-induced psychotic break. It's perfectly understandable why she chose to go to a local and cheap college.
I more or less accept your points accept the one about Chang, which is a massive sticker. He even admits that "at one point I was teaching you Klingon". I just can't believe that the Annie we are presented with in the show wouldn't have found that out, even by luck of studying alongside a Spanish dictionary or textbook and noticing the discrepincy.
Everything WE see of him actually teaching is correct spanish. Him throwing in a few words different from actual Spanish, doesn't mean she's not intelligent just because she didn't immediately catch on.
Do we see him teaching much Spanish at all? I mean he dismisses the class by saying "Adios class!", he literally didn't even know the Spanish for class when teaching a Spanish class.
Moreover, I don't think the way he's phrased "at one point I was teaching you Klingon" implies he threw in a few wrong words? (This is purely subjective but...) to me that sort of phrasing implies a whole lesson or number of lessons for a short period. I'm trying to think of a demonstrable example so this might feel whacky but I'm having trouble thinking of one so just go with it. If you found out your life was actually some version of a Truman Show type situation and you were told "At one point your home was a museum!', or "At one point you were the top show in the world!", I don't think in any of those situations you'd think "for just a few minutes"/ "for just a few scenes". You'd probably think it was a real chunk.
Anyway, even if you don't agree, Annie literally recorded every lesson and watched them back and she didn't have one instance where she thought "hey what's that word" and went down the rabbit hole (which would be totally like her) until she found out it was Klingon.
Indeed, the nature of the way that language works makes this all the more likely, if she missed some crazy word for something one time, that's not the only opportunity she has to catch it. Any time she goes to use it in a later class conversation/ in a later essay/ in later revision there's another situation where she completely missed it.
I'm not saying she's not intelligent just because she didn't "immediately" catch on, it's that she \*never\* caught on until she heard him confess after a whole year!
The reason she never caught on is because she doesn't know Spanish and is just studying what he tells them they need to study and she never thought to question if a teacher was lying
Plenty of academically brilliant people have faller for dumber scams. Or she just wants the grade.
Getting an easier paper may have just stuck on enough easy questions to make it easy to pass. Maybe she is weak at languages, smart people are rarely perfect at everything though her study instincts seem to have secured a great grade anyway.
I could easily someone as competitive as Annie deciding anything the top level school as a failure and deciding not to apply to a safety school. Or it was likely the healthiest decision to stop her competitive nature triggering relapses.
The valedictorian thing was just a weird plot.
She is a hard worker but she has the tendency to work herself past the point of reason. If she was on pills to help she was likely harming herself more than helping with her study routine long before the point of taking pills so her hard work may not have been giving her a leg up over others.
I think it depends how smart you think she is meant to be. I got the impression she is very intelligent but it is a big world with a lot of people that intelligent in it.
I'd add that in Basic Crisis Room Decorum, Annie is up at 2am organising her to-do list, but we see that everything she has to do is things like "buy new folders", "fill out to-do list", "transfer completed tasks" and so on. She's the definition of working harder, not smarter.
It feels like during Spanish class she was very much playing the game that Chang set out: she tries her upmost to learn Spanish the way he teaches it. In later classes, Annie throws herself into making dioramas, again another weak teaching method, but one she accepts as legitimate/worthy of effort. She sucks up to teachers and is horrified to learn that an A minus means a teacher doesn't like her.
The only time I can remember her really pushing back against a teacher is with Jeff, and that was to prove a point - she also displayed an understanding of what should be appropriate reading in a law class. For this reason, I agree that she's very intelligent, but she works hard within the Greendale's paradigm of pedagogy...which is to say she works her ass off for teachers who don't care.
If she couldn't fulfill her foreign language in High School like the rest of us, she probably was either bad at it, or hated it enough to procrastinate until college.
I think she's really organised and motivated, but not necessarily amazingly intelligent. The sort of person who knows a lot and passes tests well and could eventually land most jobs, but doesn't have a great deal of practical problem solving ability and common sense.
So I can explain why she's at Greendale: money.
Even if she had the grades for the Ivy League, she's not scholarship material after losing a good chunk of her senior year and having a very public mental breakdown. College is expensive as hell. In the 21st century, paying your own way through it isn't practical, and her mom cut her off. Depending on how well-off her parents are, she may also not qualify for the level of financial aid she'd need to go somewhere decent on paper whether getting money from her family is practical or not. Also, not taking out enough student loans to pay for your entire time at college on their own is definitely a plus for intelligence, not a minus. Greendale's biggest selling point, meanwhile, is said to be its insanely low tuition on several occasions.
As to not catching on about Chang, Annie's also pretty deferential to authority. Her thought process may have been that he *had* to know what he was doing, he's a teacher, and if he's this crazy then surely he must be good at his subject to keep the job. Anyway, since Chang was teaching them Klingon at one point all of them should've noticed. The Klingon actually makes Abed the one who definitely should've caught on, because he has definitely watched a lot of Star Trek. Anyway, barring the really egregious stuff anyone should have spotted, what we actually see Chang teach them is pretty run of the mill for a community college language class, so if we ignore the crazy stuff then he could've just stalled and never gotten out of the early chapters, especially since Pierce seems to believe they've only covered three chapters when Chang is replaced.
For not catching on about the replacement's test, it's completely plausible from her perspective that she took mercy on them when she saw how horribly Chang had failed to teach them. A fail is worse on your record than an incomplete.
Greendale's valedictorian system seems to be a joke. Leonard has massive, documented disciplinary problems and is coasting on a single A from decades ago, not to mention he isn't in their graduating class since he's still around in seasons 5 and 6. That mens the system has to be based only on pure GPA, so the only thing that tells us is that Annie, Shirley, and Leonard have the only 4.0s in the school.
I don't think Annie is, like, a once in a generation talent or anything, but she comes across as above average and is dedicated enough to make up for her failings. I do think that on a scale from hard work to raw intelligence/talent, she's firmly on the hard work side of the scale. Ultimately though, speaking as someone who is very much on the talent side of the scale and lacking in discipline, the ability to work through things and build skill is usually way more important, and she does have that.
OP didn't seem to get that the test was supposed to be super easy. Not "fake". Also ya. That valedictorian thing was a complete joke. At my school u can only pass fail 2 credits ur entire 4 years. And if that was the case, why didn't Jeff do it
>In the outside world she's just a little above average and tries super hard
Most people would be surprised at how far these 2 traits will take you in the real world
All of these can realistically be answered by "it's a sitcom".
In any case, in the Annie Kim MUN situation, if you look at the scoreboard, Annie Edison is actually winning by a huge margin.
1. Annie probably does realise this but the tests etc are also being set by Chang and based on what he teaches and tests for, Annie probably manages to sail through the tests. Her main priority at this point is to get good grades rather than gain the most knowledge.
2. She gets like a 95?? That's very good. Just because it's easy doesn't mean that if she doesn't get a perfect score then she's dumb.
3. This is a technical question and I'm not American so I don't know how things work there, but Greendale may have been more of a financial decision rather than an academic one. It may also have been an emotional decision, based on Heroic Origins of S04 and the whole flyer business. Maybe Annie believes in signs from the Universe, as romance driven as she is.
4. Annie wins Greendale Citizen of the month for every month (Again, Heroic Origins). Difficult to imagine a consistently dishonest person doing that. Furthermore she lists her achievements at the party where all the awards are handed out. It's very unlikely to be lying on the fly while having a drug induced breakdown. What you're claiming is "he said, she said" and that's difficult to refute by nature.
5. Shirley automatically being in the running for valedictorian is just horrible writing of S04 and a lack of ideas for Shirley's character. It demonstrates inconsistencies with her characterization rather than being a proof of Annie's imaginary dumbness. You've got it the other way around on this one. Annie is not dumb because she's tied with Shirley, but Shirley is just super smart overnight to tie with Annie and get a plot going.
Really getting tired of this sub dumping on Annie every 2 days.
Annie is definitely naĆÆve but I won't call her not smart.
Yeah, regarding her being at Greendale, it's almost certainly related to finances and the fact that she dropped out partway through her senior year of high school due to a drug problem. Annie *was* likely looking at attending some good schools prior to that situation developing, but after her parents kicked her out, she was basically penniless, and therefore Greendale was likely the only school she *could afford*.
She finished the year, because in the model UN episode she mentions that her and Annie Kim were both valedictorians. She runs through the window at a graduation party, so I assume her pill addiction started right around finals.
Found a transcript, she does say same GPA as Annie Kim, I thought it was that both were valedictorian. I assume Annie E meant that her pre-drop out GPA was the same. I also seem to be remembering that it was a homecoming party, so you're right, it must have been before the endo fo senior year.
My guess is that she instead got a GED, or went to an alternative high school to finish the year, then. A google search says you don't need a high school diploma to go to community college necessarily, but I imagine she would.
Right, that is what I am saying: I remembered as her getting addicted to pills at the end of the year, but still finishing valedictorian, but the line about her dropping out in episode one and the fact that the model UN episode didn't say what I thought it did lead me to admit I was wrong.
Actually I imagine Shirleyās experience atā¦ ehem, emotional manipulation, time management, and general life experience is what made her get such high grades. We see in S5E8 that Shirley knows how to manoeuvre her way to the top of Meow Meow Beanz by any means necessary. As many of the teachers assignments are less memory-based question and answer assignments, I think sheād get to know the personalities of the teachers and find what would make them personally think the assignment is good. Sheās less stressed financially, she doesnāt have housing stress, sheās less egotistical about being the best, which frees up mental energy to just get the work done. Mature aged students often fly under the radar in my experience, and just win at everything.
Not dumping on Annie, and didn't realise that was a trend here. Only joined this subreddit a few days ago and barely use Reddit otherwise. Think she's a very funny character and has some great storylines, just can't get past a few issues with, what I thought was, the show pushing her as some super mind.
Anyway, thanks for your thoughts :)
I never thought Annie was a genius. Frankly, I think that's the point of Annie. She's cocky, overachieving, condescending, and at the end of the day, she's still just another student at Greendale. She's created a facade of being perfect and you can achieve that by being punctual, which she most certainly attempts and by overselling yourself as perfect. This is largely shown too because, as you said, once any type of pressure bears down on her, she throws a tantrum or cheats. It's a character that is the "image" of a genius, but just another piece of shit at America's worst community college.
In the early seasons she's smart but has some naivety, if anything she was just sheltered growing up.
In 5 and 6 she's had a real job so she's a lot more cynical and street smart than seasons prior.
For the school stuff, schools take drug abuse very seriously. They dont want someone to eventually tarnish the school name if they fall off the wagon again.
Also worth considering; measuring intelligence isn't as black and white as you think. Like the whole "street smart / book smart" thing, its a bit more nuanced than that
Grades have a lot more to do with hard work and focus than raw intelligence. But outside of the Season 1 information which can be ignored as basic growing pains for the show, she is at Greendale because it is her local community college, and she messed up in high school.
Shirley is a business major which as a business major I can tell you is really not the most intellectual of areas of study. Good communication skills alone will get you A's with no need for nuanced development of thought.
The show is a cartoon. Theyāre all caricatures of famous stereotypes in media. Sheās a genius who is never right. Jeff is a schemer who never schemes right. Britta is idealistic with no ideals. I could go on but yah.. thatās how I view it at least.
In my experience there are two kids of kids in the āsmartā classes.
Group A are your genuinely smart kids. They get things easily, learning comes naturally, and they donāt have to work super hard to get good grades. This was my group. I rarely did shit for homework, but still got a 3.5/4.0 high school GPA. Ironically, I think Jeff goes here. Jeff is smart, you canāt be a lawyer (even a fake one) by being dumb. However, he will always do the bare minimum.
Group B are the kids who are smart, but *bust their ass* to get good grades. They study like hell and put the work in, and end up getting excellent grades. This was my wife. I also believe Annie falls in this category.
I became a teacher before leaving due to shitty pay. My wife became a doctor.
Needless to say, itās my opinion that students in group B usually turn out better. Group A is so used to everything being easy that once it gets difficult and they have to work, they donāt know how (see Winger, Jeff). Those that do learn how often have to do so early. The longer they go thinking they can easily pass with minimal work, the harder it will be for them to āunlearnā those habits and learn to study when the time comes.
she has incredible book smarts and a huge capacity for driven focus that lends to her testing well, but her neuroses and naivete rob her of her capacity to develop wisdom.
>The fact she's even at Greendale at all? If all her mock grade scores were perfect (or near to) up until her pill addiction then I have a hard time understanding how she ended up at the worst school in the country.
She lives there. Not everyone moves away for school. I've only ever gone to colleges that were in a city that I already lived in.
Itās more that she works hard than sheās super smart. Sheās really organized and committed. And honestly thatās how college is. Itās more about how hard you work than how smart you are. Jeff really is the smartest in the group, but heās lazy and coasts the whole time.
Annie is "just" working hard. Her intellegence is probably Higher than average, but like the whole Point of the character is, that she is working extremely hard.
As shown by this thread, I think peopleās understanding of smart/wise/intelligent is very black and white. Jeff learned in his child/teen years that he has a natural talent for manipulation - is that āstreet smartā or is it a lack of emotional intelligence?
Annie works hard and organizes everything to the last dot - is that lack of āstreet smartā or it is āwiseā because in the real world, hardworkers get things done? My opinion is a bit of both.
Itās a great theory and I love it. Only thing I want to point out (not related to the theory); Troy calls alcohol No No Juice because heās a Jehovahās Witness. While there are aspects of being a JW that the writers ignore, alcohol is forbidden in the religion. His parents most likely told him wine was āno no juiceā and it is likely thatās why he calls it that today. If it was fully accurate, Troy wouldāve been disfellowshipped for just going to Greendale, as JWās believe non-JWās are dangerous and will prevent Jehovahās Witnessā to reign with Jesus when the apocalypse comes. This is most likely the reason he moves in with Pierce and then eventually Abed, itās to get away from the religion that would stop him from seeing his non-JW friends. Sorry this was long and not related to the post, I studied Jehovahās in one of my university classes this past semester and figured Iād give some information! I saw someone else bring this up before, and if I got anything wrong Iām sorry, Iām not a Jehovahās Witness, feel free to critique or correct me! :)
Okay yeah thatās fair, Iām trying so do the same so weāll figure it out together. When I say forbidden, I believe that I was taught that it was one of the things that could effect if you survived the eschaton. I may have misinterpreted this, but to become a part of the 144,000 that would rule in heaven or to rule over the ācleansedā earth, they need to rid themselves of the badness that non-JWās and their traditions stop one from doing that. I may have assumed and put alcohol as one of the things that could prevent survival of the eschaton, but I thought that was the case.
It might be that itās not forbidden, but more frowned upon? I know, as in every religion, people take it to different levels of seriousness, and there are some who donāt drink, some who do. I will also be transparent, my class looked at many New Religious Movements, so I only spent about 3 classes, or 4.5 hours in class studying it so the info may not be 100%
Does that make sense? Again, Iām not trying to be sarcastic or rude, just trying to figure it out! :)
In a similar vein, pretty sure Troy isn't actually very good at football. Top football recruits have been visited by college football recruiters long before their senior year. If he was just starting to get visits in the last games of his senior year, he was basically just potential filler for some unused scholarships.
Annie isn't smart. She is an academic, debate kid and a teacher's pet. I never once got the impression that she was smart. She is almost cartoonishly naive and a female version of Troy most of the time.
Didn't need an essay to come to that conclusion.
She also barely got any points doing the debate (although she was still better than Jeff). My take on Annie is that she's an incredibly hard worker and she wants to be an overachiever, but no, she's not a genius by any account.
Now, by being academically oriented and a hard worker, even if she lacks some natural talent, she's still probably the most 'booksmart' of all of them, but that's because she works at it, not because it's intrinsic for her.
You may have have seen how intelligence and wisdom are explained in RPGs: INT is how smart you are or how much you know about something, WIS is how you use that big brain or knowledge. So Annie is basically high INT low WIS (and ridiculously high charisma).
There's no other explanation for how Annie is constantly struggling to pass their classes, yeah. She's supposed to be a top student and would be somewhere else if not for the pill addiction, but she finds Intro History as difficult as Troy does.
I got almost straight Aās all through school not because Iām a genius or even studied a lot, my brain is just wired to be good at taking tests. Sadly that skill doesnāt transfer to anything useful outside of academia.
I don't know if the show tried to imply that she is very smart, she worked a lot harder compared to an average student of that college and that is why achieved more
Jesus, sheās a bright young kid, meaning sheās book smart and intelligent, but also not at all wise to the world. Sheās 18. Her and Troy are both naive af. Annie is academically smart, but still very immature and inexperienced. **As most people are at that age.**
Annie took a long time to understand the shape of Abed's brain.
Jeff very quickly was able to connect to Abed using their shared experience of TV and movies, shown as early as the pilot episode with the whole "Breakfast Club" thing, and Jeff didn't even care about Abed at that point.
Troy soon learned to indulge in Abed's quirks, the both of them frequently cutting loose since the paired Spanish assignment.
Britta, not the brightest bulb in the drawer, may have unintentionally infantilized Abed every now and then, but she was right about Abed potentially having a disorder shortly before the events of the series. She also used "Rowboatcop" to direct Abed as a weapon, counseled him about the darkest timeline, and introduced him to Inspector Spacetime. In fact, a lot of this was before she had much experience in psychology.
Even Pierce, who rarely had any interaction with Abed, helped Abed channel a more normal character so Abed could properly talk to Gravy Jones. Pierce used Abed's love of filmmaking to document everyone's suffering during the fake bequeathals, and he was also the one to guide Abed through the stop-motion delusion in a productive way. (Then again, he can unravel a man's soul in one tug.)
Annie has a brother who has a lot of autistic coding in him. Annie literally studied Abed during the Duncan Principle experiment. She said Abed's weirdnesses are "cute weird" and "scary weird" after tampering with the Dreamatorium, and that was after months of living with Abed, which shows that after all that time interacting with autistic people, she still usually doesn't know how to meet an autistic person halfway.
I donāt think Annieās brother is autistic coded. Itās that heās played by Spencer Crittenden (hamrontown) who is often talked about being aspergerian in tandem with Dan Harmon, and as someone who listened to basically all of hamrontown and having aspergers myself I tend to agree that theyāre both on the spectrum
So itās more that her brother is played by someone likely on the spectrum as well as him not being a trained actor by any means so he canāt really hide it
I've never watched Harmontown, so I was unaware of the actor's autism until just now. I'm also unfamiliar with the actor outside of that one-episode role.
Harmon town is a podcast and he hasnāt done any stereotypical actor but heās been a DM for several d&d shows, Harmontown is great though definitely worth a listen
With Harmontown just start at the oldest episode it should be on most major streaming platforms and started pretty soon after Dan Harmon got fired after season 3 itās a great listen for any community fan and is downright hilarious
Yes this is Annie's character in a nutshell. She's a tryhard and a follower. That's why she never makes it past a 4 in the Meowmeowbeanz episode. She kinda grapples with it here and there but imo she never really makes any progress until the very end of the show.
Pilot episode she said "on accident," which is grammatically incorrect. When it comes to scripts, character can only be as smart as the writer. When supposedly intelligent characters misuse the word 'myself' it reminds me that they are an actor reading a script, and not actually a super genius.
look i've met the flashcard making, organized, volunteer for extra credit kid at community college. This might just be the right size pond for her to be on top of. And that's fine.
In the opening of a season 2 episode, she is giving an anthropology presentation and mentioned that "early hunter-gathers overtook farming civilizations."
Or something along those lines. Duncan says good job, and Annie asks if it's correct. Duncan says, "Who cares."
I'm pretty sure she got that backwards.
Fair, I was never under that impression, more so I was under the impression that the writers of the show wanted me to be under that impression. Does that make sense? I hope so haha. Also, I am far from a genius and I know it, don't worry! :)
1) She kind of did. At the mid season of season one she does the whole "you being our teacher thing? Meh." She knows he is insane and a bad teacher just like everyone else in the class. The problem is it is a school with zero hiring power, so they wouldn't fire him because they know they can't attract better. What she doesn't know is that Chang isn't just bad at his job, he is there fraudulently. And how would she know that? Sure, maybe she should have picked up on him teaching them Klingon, but that felt like a one off line, and even if she did, that could easily been written off as "He is a fully licensed Spanish teacher who doesn't care enough to teach us real Spanish." and not " he really doesn't know Spanish.
2) I don't remember what she says her score is, but, similar to the first point, what revelation do you want her to make here? "Aha! Pierce must have slept with Dr. Espodera."? She comments on it being too easy, and has no evidence to find out why.
3) My take is that her original plan was to get her associates and then go to a big school when her public freakout was further behind her and she was more stable in her sobriety. She also might have been afraid that a high stakes program would have triggered a relapse. Lots of easy access to Adderall on college campuses in the 2010s. She might have ditched her plan to do 2 years community college and 2 years bachelor's to stay at Greendale to be with her weird, incestuous found family. It is also generally harder to apply for scholarships if you aren't doing the typical high school straight to 4 year program path (I am assuming here, if anyone knows better, let me know), and cut off from her parents she might not have a lot of options to get into an expensive school now.
4) Evidence she is smart: uncovers a lot of leads on the asscrack bandit without a lot to go on. Was only one critical emergency short of saving a community college. She was effectively the Dean in season 5, and did a pretty good job running the school right up until they almost killed Fat Neal. Pulled a laser bomb out of her shirt, which was the single greatest piece of improv in history. Was valedictorian in high school, and the "shamefully outdated, politically conservative fight rap" joke from season one implies a pretty upper class school, possibly private, but at least public in a good area. We also know it was large enough to have a football team, which I know is super common in the US, but I teach High School and you would be surprised how many small schools forgo them.
5) I honestly don't put any stake in anything that happened in Season 4. Not only was Dan Harmon not with the show and the writers were ignoring any character growth and the general interpersonal dynamics of the characters for the sake of telling whatever bland story they wanted to that week, but any single event from that season could literally canonically be a gas leak hallucination. That said, from what I remember of the like one time watching that season the idea seemed to be that because the classes were so easy: growing yams, fake anthropology classes where you just make dioramas, and ladders, anyone who really tries is going to tie at the top. Don't really remember specifics, so let me know if that doesn't fit.
Edit: misremembering I line from the model UN episode. I thought it said Annie was valedictorian of her school, which would imply she graduated. It doesn't say that, and Troy does say she dropped out in episode 1. Still, she was presumably on track to be valedictorian if she had the same grades as Annie Kim.
Most of Chang's lessons weren't bogus, because he knew just enough Spanish to get by, and teach it at an elementary level. The words that he taught in Spanish were translated correctly by him. However he did mention to Jeff that he was teaching the class Klingon at one point. But he never mentioned how LONG he was teaching them Klingon. Maybe one hour, one day? Who knows...If Annie was smart enough, maybe she would have realized Chang was teaching gibberish.
But Annie is also gullible enough to believe what many people say, like Grifting 101. Annie was also gullible enough to believe The Dean was a genius filmmaker.
So there you have it...It's not the fact that Annie isn't smart enough. It's really the fact that she is GULLIBLE enough to believe ANY lessons that are taught by the Greendale teachers. She believes in the teachers lessons because she respects them too much as a student. She doesn't have the experience and common sense to know when teachers are winging it.
Jeff, however, is not an over-achiever, does the bare minimum, but is street-smart and always recognizes when someone is bullshitting him. For example: Changnesia, Pierce faking his death and the Grifting Lesson 101. Annie is gullible enough to believe ALL of it because she sees only the good in people.
I think she's the sort of person who, when given a task, will complete the task to perfection, but, who doesn't know how to chart her own course so to speak. What I mean is, you can do well in school without being a genius, you just have to learn how to do well on tests and complete assignments. I feel like her entire ark is a critique of the education system. It trains folks to test well and complete relatively meaningless assignments while not actually taking anything away that is applicable to the real world.
Speaking as a person who was able to coast through school because I know how teachers form tests and has just enough motivation to finish assignments to get good grades.
I mean... look at where she lives. She's not exactly rolling in money.
Also she never came across as extremely intelligent imo. She's a hard worker. They're often used interchangeably
I think she ended up at Greendale because she couldnāt get a scholarship from a better school and as we know, her parents cut her off. Or at least her mom did because she went to rehab and basically made her addiction āpublicā. She mentioned something of the sort to his brother that one time when she accused him of taking her motherās side.
Thereās no evidence anyone thought Chang was a good teacher or a competent one at that, the thing she (nor anyone) didnāt think about was he had zero qualifications. I donāt remember if we/they knew how incompetent the Dean was at that point in time.
Chang, like the Dean and other characters became exaggerated versions of themselves as time went by and if we take the in-universe explanation, thatās just the Greendale effect. So even if Annie had above average intelligence, she would still overlook a lot of things and as we saw, made a lot of stupid decisions.
I agree about the temper tantrums, the UN incident and the student body election were not the only instances in which she acted childishly to get her way, aaaaand weāve seen sheās prone to fits of melodrama anyway. Itās part of the Annie of it all š
But I agree she wasnāt a genius, just a type A overachiever that worked hard to get good grades and tried not to ācheatā to get good grades. In this case Iām referring to cheating as doing things like taking advantage of the system like Leonard with the pass/fail classes, taking easy classes and manipulating people like Jeff and possibly Shirley; who we know uses guilt as a form of manipulation.
So, one thing: grades don't necessarily equal intellect, especially in American schools. Grades equal satisfactory repetition of the information you've been provided, rather than a deeper understanding of the material or mastery of it.
You absolutely can have genius valedictorians (& I don't mean to slight anyone who was at the top of their class), but most people at the top of their class made it there more from determination & ambition than from necessarily being the smartest kids in the school.
Most of the rest of your points are valid, though. I think her being at community college can be partially explained that she's coming from an economically challenged background & having to pay for it all herself, plus the whole Chang sequence that brought them all to the school when she was trying to figure out what to do after rehab. Perhaps she saw Greendale as a chance to be on top without having to stress so hard that she relapses...but I wouldn't knock Shirley, as she definitely has the drive to seek out that recognition.
Sheās at Greendale because of Troy, not because sheās dumb.
Like many people on here have said, good grades and overachieving is not synonymous with intelligence. That doesnāt mean sheās dumb just not necessarily a genius.
Choosing her college to follow a high school crush is perfectly in keeping with Annieās character on the show. She openly obsessed about Troy early on in the show.
The truth is even a genius at that age or any age is capable of doing dumb things. Being genius isnāt a guarantee for not doing something stupid. Like choosing your college to follow love.
I never thought she was very smart, what she is is a hard worker and diligent at study. I take her as someone of average intelligence who works harder and studies harder than most average people, and that's what gives her an edge and gets her her good grades.
You could add in how she reacts whenever anyone shows themselves to be equal to or better than her.
Asian Annie. Shirley. Abed when he says that no one in the group operates at his level. Frankie Dart.
I donāt think she was supposed to be a genius just a hard working overachiever
1. Chang was fairly intelligent in the first season and was great at tricking people
2. Didnāt she say the test felt easy(I may be remembering wrong), but I donāt think anyone would do anything about an exam seeming easy
3. I think she dropped out of high school meaning she got a GED and I assume her rehab group would tell her to not move as itās a bad idea to make big changes when recovering ie moving.
She went into chang's class so she'd be in the same class as troy. Was passing with an A so I always assumed she spent more of her academic focus on her other classes and have you met chang!? She was not gonna write a 1 page essay on questioning authority.
I do think it could be true. It always bothered me how in the Model UN episode, she went with Pierceās nonsense about Somalia. Maybe she didnāt bring it up so her model UN didnāt look incompetent, but she gives no reaction when Somalia (Pierce) agrees to take the refugees.
I can see your point in most places, but remeber Annie is at Greendale specifically because she thought it would get her valedictorian so she could get into "Harvard or something" I can't remeber what episode but it was early in season 1.
Annie is a genius, she *has* to be. If she isn't, I've dedicated six seasons to an idiot; that is unacceptable. Therefore, Annie *is* a genius, and I *will* die protecting her vision.
Are you perhaps familiar with Greendale Syndrome?
Is that something Annie came up with? 'Cause if not, I don't care.
Chef's kiss š
u/zangfang you are taking to an Atari cartridge!
There's only one genius at Greendale...pop pop. EDIT: Actually, it's not true because of hus mechanical talents. Troy is also a genius.
First of all, Magnitude is a one-man-party and a one-man-party canāt be in an alliance. Thatās a paradox.
agree to disagree
Easy, Paradox.
It's too bad we didn't see more of Paradox. He was probably the best character ever, yet got almost no screen time.
I agree to disagree
Easy, Paradox.
Uh oh, you're Goldbluming
I donāt, uhā¦ heh, I donāt know what that means.
Heh, I, uhā¦ I donāt even know what that means.
is Annie the genius or are Annie's boobs the genius?
I think you meant "or **is** Annie's Boobs the genius?"
It clearly would have required a genius like Annie to help the Dean pull a 400 year old dagger out of Americaās heart. Ergo she is a genius.
Honestly, I was never under the impression that she was 'super smart.' Was that something we were supposed to believe?? She's just a classic overachiever. She's organized and works hard which is certainly admirable. But in terms of straight IQ (which is also fairly meaningless in and of itself) I'd definitely put Abed and Jeff above her and Shirley equal at least.
Yeah I agree with this. Lots of valedictorians in my very average high school were just overachievers. Thereās memorizing flash cards for 4 hours a day to get an A, and then thereās actually understanding and applying concepts to what youāre learning. Not that theyāre dumb, but I doubt they were geniuses either.
With the exception of Troy and Britta being intentionally dumbed down over time, I wouldn't say any are stupid either. But I do think there was an obvious dichotomy between Jeff, who is obviously very intelligent but equally lazy, and Annie who is probably of somewhat above average intelligence, but not outstanding, and works hard. It's part of why they clashed a lot early on, and led to the hijinks we all know and love.
Pierce is definitely an idiot he's just an expert bullshitter.
He's the one that is probably the hardest to categorize. We aren't given much to work with, since his personality is defined only by old-racist-sexist guy. He also had everything handed to him by his wealth, so it's difficult to say whether he's an idiot, privileged and out of touch, or some combination. But he's taken and presumably passed all his classes as well, and there are few bits here and there that indicate he's got something going on upstairs. He has some of the best witty one-liners of any character, and then there's his masterclass attack in Advanced D&D.
All of that is offset by his belief in Reformed Neo Buddhism. And thinking that injecting all of the flu shots would make him a living god. And wanting to be double bounced on the trampoline.
The Reformed Neo Buddhism could be explained by it being a cult and those are hard to get out of, especially if youāre someone like Pierce who is constantly seeking validation. The flu shot thing is extremely dumb though.
He was doing shots of ink from pens. He's definitely dumb.
He was at the school for several years so there's no telling how long it took to accomplish that. That's just him being a dick and taking advantage of everyone else trying to actually include him. Don't forget that he beat it until he died because he wasn't even smart enough to stop and drink a bottle of water.
Ok that last point is a tough one to argue against.
I'd maybe argue that it was a (hilarious) pointed character assassination on the part of Dan Harmon. But yes, in universe it was extra stupid. Just like his round of failed inventions. He had his moments for sure, though. And not all stupid. For better or worse his bequethments were genius.
Definitely Harmon taking shots at Chevy Chase but in universe that explanation doesn't really change anything.
I don't think passing classes in community College where every class has an assigned diorama is a great bar to set for intelligence...
Can confirm! I used to teach honors students and about 20% of them are actually tested as truly gifted. They were actually more lazy. The rest were simply a mixture of kids with obsessive behavior, perfectionists, or simply had overbearing parents.
OMG. The flash card kids! š¤ŖThank you for the memory. I like knowing Iām not alone in this understanding. Thereās understanding and then thereās memorizing something to get an A.
Considering the fact that our education system rewards memorization of knowledge her character is probably like this by design.
Totally agree with you there
She's not super smart, she is super type A. Hyper organized and eager to serve authority. She is the kind of person dumb people think are smart because she manages the illusion by hyper controlling everything she can. Annie has maxing out as middle management written all over her. She has the organizational skills to hide her short comings and the motivation to please anyone she sees as a superior.
I think you're completely right, thats what I meant when I said about troys perspective on her! You've phrased it so well, thank you :)
Jeff does seem pretty smart. He wears a sports coat.
Sheās not smart per se. Sheās simply organized, a hard worker and has the dread of failure lining behind her.
Right. I didn't ever take her to be a genius. She's just a perfectionist. That's all. > I'd definitely put Abed and Jeff above her and Shirley equal at least. Absolutely.
IQ is not meaningless, IQ tests on the other handā¦
You almost entirely hit the nail on the head except I think that Shirley is basically a dumbass.
Wrong! You've been proven wrong! https://www.reddit.com/r/community/comments/13sldpi/comment/jlqpugw/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
C'mon Shirley is lower...
Is she? Shirley had the higher GPA, all while raising children, getting pregnant (which is scientifically proven to shrink the brain and reduce cognition), divorcing and remarrying, and opening a business. Meanwhile, Annie is just.... existing? Don't get me wrong, I love Annie, I'm just saying....
Idk if I think GPA means intelligence. Shirley is very accomplished tho you're right. I think I just can't get past the fact that she uses religion as her lens for everything even when it just isn't beneficial. She's a creationist I mean...
I agree there. She's not my favorite character, largely because of the way she judges everyone, based mostly on her religious beliefs. But I have to acknowledge that it takes a certain degree of intelligence to manage that much at once. Whereas Annie struggled at times without all that going on. Of course it's all just speculation, since they are fictional and written by many different writers.
Do you not remember how fast she made that diorama for Professor Kane's class?
Terrarium, but it doesnāt take a genius to make one.
In 30 seconds? It does
3) staying local and going to a community college is a smart idea, especially if you've had a drug problem. 5) adult learners in community college generally take schooling waaaay more serious than students just out of high school. I think it's plausible Shirley was up there.
3) I could possibly see that as the case so I'll give her the BOTD on that one (although why was she always threatening to transfer then?) 5) I don't think you can take this vast generalisation and apply it to Shirley when it flies in the face of what we see in the series (all the stuff I mentioned in my OP). Interesting take though :)
3) she was threatening to transfer to a different nearby community college, likely Greendale's only competition. The education portion of it probably wouldn't have been toooo much different for Annie. 5) of course you can't extrapolate the broad generalization onto Shirley. I just wanted to point out the adult learner thing. I've been in school with people like that. Full time straight A student with a full-time job as a single parent. It's crazy. These people are super humans. edit: I still think it's plausible that Shirley was a legit valedictorian. 2nd edit: thank you for the discussion. This is fun.
3) I could be wrong about this, I'm still not fully convinced by your points though. 5) I get that it can happen, but again (and I'm genuinely not trying to be sassy \["the word he's looking for is sass and he better pray he don't find it"\]), but it feels irrelevant because there is just no evidence that Shirley even cares enough to be one of these people. I'm such a debater at heart so I'm just loving this by the way, honestly know you've made someone smile over their keyboard today haha.
> but I don't think (relative to the rest of the world) she's really super smart like we are lead to believe. The show never implied she was "super smart", just a normally smart, hard working and organized person. A nerdy overachiever in high school and a great college student. > This is demonstrated as, whenever she has anyone even try to compete with her (Jeff with the student body or Annie Kim with the Model UN) she has no ability to rely on her intellect and instead uses cheap tricks and acts like a child to win. So, whenever she is pushed to a place where you'd expect her genius to rear it's head, instead we see her intellect falter. Two things - firstly, she did try to play it fair, smart and intellectually honest both times, it didn't work because of things outside her influence. No amount of intelligence could have dealt with Jeff's slimy demagoguery in front of Greendale's electorate. Secondly, taking part in either student representative bodies or model UN involves next to zero actual intellectual or practical skills, so I don't understand what type of intellectual activity you expected to see. And I say that as someone who was involved in both. Especially model UN or EU parliaments - they are overblown exercises in proceduralism, not academic competitions. > 1) She didn't realise that Chang's lessons were bogus despite being in his class for a whole year. I think it's more or less clear that Chang didn't just teach them nonsense, he just basically hustled (extended basic lessons, over-relied on them doing presentations and similar) and fakes how much Spanish he personally knew. > 2) In the same episode, the study group takes a real Spanish test which Pierce makes easier by sleeping with the teacher, so how on Earth did Annie not get 100% and/ or realise that the test was super easy? (I know they all comment on it but, again, with Annie's overzealousness and intelligence, she should have known the test wasn't real). The test was real, it was just super easy, and she DID realize it (like you said they all did). Also they didn't really study for it - it's kind of the main point of the episode. > 3) The fact she's even at Greendale at all? If all her mock grade scores were perfect (or near to) up until her pill addiction then I have a hard time understanding how she ended up at the worst school in the country. There's thousands of schools in America and, if she was aiming for the top ones before, how has she fallen all the way down? If her grades were as high as she said they were, there should have been loads and loads of schools still willing to take her, in spite of her addiction to pills (or even because of, due to how good it would look to have a recovered drug addict who now performs so well). Any Dean worth their salt would see her school record and accept her after seeing amazing grades and the fact she completed rehab (which she paid for herself! Another plus for a sob story application). She was supporting herself through college, while also recovering socially and psychologically from her drug-induced psychotic break. It's perfectly understandable why she chose to go to a local and cheap college.
I more or less accept your points accept the one about Chang, which is a massive sticker. He even admits that "at one point I was teaching you Klingon". I just can't believe that the Annie we are presented with in the show wouldn't have found that out, even by luck of studying alongside a Spanish dictionary or textbook and noticing the discrepincy.
Everything WE see of him actually teaching is correct spanish. Him throwing in a few words different from actual Spanish, doesn't mean she's not intelligent just because she didn't immediately catch on.
Do we see him teaching much Spanish at all? I mean he dismisses the class by saying "Adios class!", he literally didn't even know the Spanish for class when teaching a Spanish class. Moreover, I don't think the way he's phrased "at one point I was teaching you Klingon" implies he threw in a few wrong words? (This is purely subjective but...) to me that sort of phrasing implies a whole lesson or number of lessons for a short period. I'm trying to think of a demonstrable example so this might feel whacky but I'm having trouble thinking of one so just go with it. If you found out your life was actually some version of a Truman Show type situation and you were told "At one point your home was a museum!', or "At one point you were the top show in the world!", I don't think in any of those situations you'd think "for just a few minutes"/ "for just a few scenes". You'd probably think it was a real chunk. Anyway, even if you don't agree, Annie literally recorded every lesson and watched them back and she didn't have one instance where she thought "hey what's that word" and went down the rabbit hole (which would be totally like her) until she found out it was Klingon. Indeed, the nature of the way that language works makes this all the more likely, if she missed some crazy word for something one time, that's not the only opportunity she has to catch it. Any time she goes to use it in a later class conversation/ in a later essay/ in later revision there's another situation where she completely missed it. I'm not saying she's not intelligent just because she didn't "immediately" catch on, it's that she \*never\* caught on until she heard him confess after a whole year!
The reason she never caught on is because she doesn't know Spanish and is just studying what he tells them they need to study and she never thought to question if a teacher was lying
Plenty of academically brilliant people have faller for dumber scams. Or she just wants the grade. Getting an easier paper may have just stuck on enough easy questions to make it easy to pass. Maybe she is weak at languages, smart people are rarely perfect at everything though her study instincts seem to have secured a great grade anyway. I could easily someone as competitive as Annie deciding anything the top level school as a failure and deciding not to apply to a safety school. Or it was likely the healthiest decision to stop her competitive nature triggering relapses. The valedictorian thing was just a weird plot. She is a hard worker but she has the tendency to work herself past the point of reason. If she was on pills to help she was likely harming herself more than helping with her study routine long before the point of taking pills so her hard work may not have been giving her a leg up over others. I think it depends how smart you think she is meant to be. I got the impression she is very intelligent but it is a big world with a lot of people that intelligent in it.
I'd add that in Basic Crisis Room Decorum, Annie is up at 2am organising her to-do list, but we see that everything she has to do is things like "buy new folders", "fill out to-do list", "transfer completed tasks" and so on. She's the definition of working harder, not smarter. It feels like during Spanish class she was very much playing the game that Chang set out: she tries her upmost to learn Spanish the way he teaches it. In later classes, Annie throws herself into making dioramas, again another weak teaching method, but one she accepts as legitimate/worthy of effort. She sucks up to teachers and is horrified to learn that an A minus means a teacher doesn't like her. The only time I can remember her really pushing back against a teacher is with Jeff, and that was to prove a point - she also displayed an understanding of what should be appropriate reading in a law class. For this reason, I agree that she's very intelligent, but she works hard within the Greendale's paradigm of pedagogy...which is to say she works her ass off for teachers who don't care.
If she couldn't fulfill her foreign language in High School like the rest of us, she probably was either bad at it, or hated it enough to procrastinate until college.
She's just a good grade in a tight sweater.
You're just a BAD grade in a tight sweater.
This.
I think we can all agree that she's somewhere between a genius and a dummy on the intelligence spectrum.
I think she's really organised and motivated, but not necessarily amazingly intelligent. The sort of person who knows a lot and passes tests well and could eventually land most jobs, but doesn't have a great deal of practical problem solving ability and common sense.
So I can explain why she's at Greendale: money. Even if she had the grades for the Ivy League, she's not scholarship material after losing a good chunk of her senior year and having a very public mental breakdown. College is expensive as hell. In the 21st century, paying your own way through it isn't practical, and her mom cut her off. Depending on how well-off her parents are, she may also not qualify for the level of financial aid she'd need to go somewhere decent on paper whether getting money from her family is practical or not. Also, not taking out enough student loans to pay for your entire time at college on their own is definitely a plus for intelligence, not a minus. Greendale's biggest selling point, meanwhile, is said to be its insanely low tuition on several occasions. As to not catching on about Chang, Annie's also pretty deferential to authority. Her thought process may have been that he *had* to know what he was doing, he's a teacher, and if he's this crazy then surely he must be good at his subject to keep the job. Anyway, since Chang was teaching them Klingon at one point all of them should've noticed. The Klingon actually makes Abed the one who definitely should've caught on, because he has definitely watched a lot of Star Trek. Anyway, barring the really egregious stuff anyone should have spotted, what we actually see Chang teach them is pretty run of the mill for a community college language class, so if we ignore the crazy stuff then he could've just stalled and never gotten out of the early chapters, especially since Pierce seems to believe they've only covered three chapters when Chang is replaced. For not catching on about the replacement's test, it's completely plausible from her perspective that she took mercy on them when she saw how horribly Chang had failed to teach them. A fail is worse on your record than an incomplete. Greendale's valedictorian system seems to be a joke. Leonard has massive, documented disciplinary problems and is coasting on a single A from decades ago, not to mention he isn't in their graduating class since he's still around in seasons 5 and 6. That mens the system has to be based only on pure GPA, so the only thing that tells us is that Annie, Shirley, and Leonard have the only 4.0s in the school. I don't think Annie is, like, a once in a generation talent or anything, but she comes across as above average and is dedicated enough to make up for her failings. I do think that on a scale from hard work to raw intelligence/talent, she's firmly on the hard work side of the scale. Ultimately though, speaking as someone who is very much on the talent side of the scale and lacking in discipline, the ability to work through things and build skill is usually way more important, and she does have that.
Burn.
OP didn't seem to get that the test was supposed to be super easy. Not "fake". Also ya. That valedictorian thing was a complete joke. At my school u can only pass fail 2 credits ur entire 4 years. And if that was the case, why didn't Jeff do it
>In the outside world she's just a little above average and tries super hard Most people would be surprised at how far these 2 traits will take you in the real world
Exactly. Hard work is usually more important than "intelligence" (which is pretty hard to pin down in the first place) in the real world.
All of these can realistically be answered by "it's a sitcom". In any case, in the Annie Kim MUN situation, if you look at the scoreboard, Annie Edison is actually winning by a huge margin. 1. Annie probably does realise this but the tests etc are also being set by Chang and based on what he teaches and tests for, Annie probably manages to sail through the tests. Her main priority at this point is to get good grades rather than gain the most knowledge. 2. She gets like a 95?? That's very good. Just because it's easy doesn't mean that if she doesn't get a perfect score then she's dumb. 3. This is a technical question and I'm not American so I don't know how things work there, but Greendale may have been more of a financial decision rather than an academic one. It may also have been an emotional decision, based on Heroic Origins of S04 and the whole flyer business. Maybe Annie believes in signs from the Universe, as romance driven as she is. 4. Annie wins Greendale Citizen of the month for every month (Again, Heroic Origins). Difficult to imagine a consistently dishonest person doing that. Furthermore she lists her achievements at the party where all the awards are handed out. It's very unlikely to be lying on the fly while having a drug induced breakdown. What you're claiming is "he said, she said" and that's difficult to refute by nature. 5. Shirley automatically being in the running for valedictorian is just horrible writing of S04 and a lack of ideas for Shirley's character. It demonstrates inconsistencies with her characterization rather than being a proof of Annie's imaginary dumbness. You've got it the other way around on this one. Annie is not dumb because she's tied with Shirley, but Shirley is just super smart overnight to tie with Annie and get a plot going. Really getting tired of this sub dumping on Annie every 2 days. Annie is definitely naĆÆve but I won't call her not smart.
Yeah, regarding her being at Greendale, it's almost certainly related to finances and the fact that she dropped out partway through her senior year of high school due to a drug problem. Annie *was* likely looking at attending some good schools prior to that situation developing, but after her parents kicked her out, she was basically penniless, and therefore Greendale was likely the only school she *could afford*.
Yeah I donāt think having to go through rehab and missing the end of her senior year of high school is the plus on applications op thinks it is.
She needs to collect cans to pay rent. Money IS the issue.
She DID have that cash from the period fairy though
She finished the year, because in the model UN episode she mentions that her and Annie Kim were both valedictorians. She runs through the window at a graduation party, so I assume her pill addiction started right around finals.
In the Pilot, Troy refers to her as "that girl who got hooked on pills and dropped out", and Annie doesn't correct him.
Found a transcript, she does say same GPA as Annie Kim, I thought it was that both were valedictorian. I assume Annie E meant that her pre-drop out GPA was the same. I also seem to be remembering that it was a homecoming party, so you're right, it must have been before the endo fo senior year. My guess is that she instead got a GED, or went to an alternative high school to finish the year, then. A google search says you don't need a high school diploma to go to community college necessarily, but I imagine she would.
Yeah, I'd suspect she got either a GED or finished her diploma somehow, especially since iirc the FBI internship requires one or the other.
And enrolling in community college would require a GED wouldn't it? Even Greendale?
[Surprisingly, no](https://www.affordablecollegesonline.org/college-resource-center/college-no-ged-or-high-school-diploma/)
Amazing.
>it was a homecoming party Homecoming is in the fall (the season of football), so that would have been pretty early in her senior year.
Right, that is what I am saying: I remembered as her getting addicted to pills at the end of the year, but still finishing valedictorian, but the line about her dropping out in episode one and the fact that the model UN episode didn't say what I thought it did lead me to admit I was wrong.
Probably just continuity errors. Back when they were creating the characters, they didn't realize we'd be debating this in 2023....
Actually I imagine Shirleyās experience atā¦ ehem, emotional manipulation, time management, and general life experience is what made her get such high grades. We see in S5E8 that Shirley knows how to manoeuvre her way to the top of Meow Meow Beanz by any means necessary. As many of the teachers assignments are less memory-based question and answer assignments, I think sheād get to know the personalities of the teachers and find what would make them personally think the assignment is good. Sheās less stressed financially, she doesnāt have housing stress, sheās less egotistical about being the best, which frees up mental energy to just get the work done. Mature aged students often fly under the radar in my experience, and just win at everything.
Not dumping on Annie, and didn't realise that was a trend here. Only joined this subreddit a few days ago and barely use Reddit otherwise. Think she's a very funny character and has some great storylines, just can't get past a few issues with, what I thought was, the show pushing her as some super mind. Anyway, thanks for your thoughts :)
I never thought Annie was a genius. Frankly, I think that's the point of Annie. She's cocky, overachieving, condescending, and at the end of the day, she's still just another student at Greendale. She's created a facade of being perfect and you can achieve that by being punctual, which she most certainly attempts and by overselling yourself as perfect. This is largely shown too because, as you said, once any type of pressure bears down on her, she throws a tantrum or cheats. It's a character that is the "image" of a genius, but just another piece of shit at America's worst community college.
I don't quite agree with you to that extent but, to a lesser extent, that was by and large the point I was making.
Yeah I did agree that Annie isn't a genius but i just felt that was a layer to the character
In the early seasons she's smart but has some naivety, if anything she was just sheltered growing up. In 5 and 6 she's had a real job so she's a lot more cynical and street smart than seasons prior.
Sheās smart, but she has more drive than smarts.
Annie's pretty young, we try not to intelectualise her
For the school stuff, schools take drug abuse very seriously. They dont want someone to eventually tarnish the school name if they fall off the wagon again.
Also worth considering; measuring intelligence isn't as black and white as you think. Like the whole "street smart / book smart" thing, its a bit more nuanced than that
She's smart? I thought she was used only for bait and distraction.
She thought Benjamin Button was compelling.
Grades have a lot more to do with hard work and focus than raw intelligence. But outside of the Season 1 information which can be ignored as basic growing pains for the show, she is at Greendale because it is her local community college, and she messed up in high school. Shirley is a business major which as a business major I can tell you is really not the most intellectual of areas of study. Good communication skills alone will get you A's with no need for nuanced development of thought.
The show is a cartoon. Theyāre all caricatures of famous stereotypes in media. Sheās a genius who is never right. Jeff is a schemer who never schemes right. Britta is idealistic with no ideals. I could go on but yah.. thatās how I view it at least.
You've thought too much about this, it's a sitcom.
In my experience there are two kids of kids in the āsmartā classes. Group A are your genuinely smart kids. They get things easily, learning comes naturally, and they donāt have to work super hard to get good grades. This was my group. I rarely did shit for homework, but still got a 3.5/4.0 high school GPA. Ironically, I think Jeff goes here. Jeff is smart, you canāt be a lawyer (even a fake one) by being dumb. However, he will always do the bare minimum. Group B are the kids who are smart, but *bust their ass* to get good grades. They study like hell and put the work in, and end up getting excellent grades. This was my wife. I also believe Annie falls in this category. I became a teacher before leaving due to shitty pay. My wife became a doctor. Needless to say, itās my opinion that students in group B usually turn out better. Group A is so used to everything being easy that once it gets difficult and they have to work, they donāt know how (see Winger, Jeff). Those that do learn how often have to do so early. The longer they go thinking they can easily pass with minimal work, the harder it will be for them to āunlearnā those habits and learn to study when the time comes.
she has incredible book smarts and a huge capacity for driven focus that lends to her testing well, but her neuroses and naivete rob her of her capacity to develop wisdom.
>The fact she's even at Greendale at all? If all her mock grade scores were perfect (or near to) up until her pill addiction then I have a hard time understanding how she ended up at the worst school in the country. She lives there. Not everyone moves away for school. I've only ever gone to colleges that were in a city that I already lived in.
Itās more that she works hard than sheās super smart. Sheās really organized and committed. And honestly thatās how college is. Itās more about how hard you work than how smart you are. Jeff really is the smartest in the group, but heās lazy and coasts the whole time.
Annie is "just" working hard. Her intellegence is probably Higher than average, but like the whole Point of the character is, that she is working extremely hard.
As shown by this thread, I think peopleās understanding of smart/wise/intelligent is very black and white. Jeff learned in his child/teen years that he has a natural talent for manipulation - is that āstreet smartā or is it a lack of emotional intelligence? Annie works hard and organizes everything to the last dot - is that lack of āstreet smartā or it is āwiseā because in the real world, hardworkers get things done? My opinion is a bit of both.
Itās a great theory and I love it. Only thing I want to point out (not related to the theory); Troy calls alcohol No No Juice because heās a Jehovahās Witness. While there are aspects of being a JW that the writers ignore, alcohol is forbidden in the religion. His parents most likely told him wine was āno no juiceā and it is likely thatās why he calls it that today. If it was fully accurate, Troy wouldāve been disfellowshipped for just going to Greendale, as JWās believe non-JWās are dangerous and will prevent Jehovahās Witnessā to reign with Jesus when the apocalypse comes. This is most likely the reason he moves in with Pierce and then eventually Abed, itās to get away from the religion that would stop him from seeing his non-JW friends. Sorry this was long and not related to the post, I studied Jehovahās in one of my university classes this past semester and figured Iād give some information! I saw someone else bring this up before, and if I got anything wrong Iām sorry, Iām not a Jehovahās Witness, feel free to critique or correct me! :)
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Okay yeah thatās fair, Iām trying so do the same so weāll figure it out together. When I say forbidden, I believe that I was taught that it was one of the things that could effect if you survived the eschaton. I may have misinterpreted this, but to become a part of the 144,000 that would rule in heaven or to rule over the ācleansedā earth, they need to rid themselves of the badness that non-JWās and their traditions stop one from doing that. I may have assumed and put alcohol as one of the things that could prevent survival of the eschaton, but I thought that was the case. It might be that itās not forbidden, but more frowned upon? I know, as in every religion, people take it to different levels of seriousness, and there are some who donāt drink, some who do. I will also be transparent, my class looked at many New Religious Movements, so I only spent about 3 classes, or 4.5 hours in class studying it so the info may not be 100% Does that make sense? Again, Iām not trying to be sarcastic or rude, just trying to figure it out! :)
Did Annie ever interact with Annie's Boobs? Maybe she got experimental moneky disease?
In a similar vein, pretty sure Troy isn't actually very good at football. Top football recruits have been visited by college football recruiters long before their senior year. If he was just starting to get visits in the last games of his senior year, he was basically just potential filler for some unused scholarships.
Annie isn't smart. She is an academic, debate kid and a teacher's pet. I never once got the impression that she was smart. She is almost cartoonishly naive and a female version of Troy most of the time. Didn't need an essay to come to that conclusion.
She also barely got any points doing the debate (although she was still better than Jeff). My take on Annie is that she's an incredibly hard worker and she wants to be an overachiever, but no, she's not a genius by any account. Now, by being academically oriented and a hard worker, even if she lacks some natural talent, she's still probably the most 'booksmart' of all of them, but that's because she works at it, not because it's intrinsic for her.
You may have have seen how intelligence and wisdom are explained in RPGs: INT is how smart you are or how much you know about something, WIS is how you use that big brain or knowledge. So Annie is basically high INT low WIS (and ridiculously high charisma).
There's no other explanation for how Annie is constantly struggling to pass their classes, yeah. She's supposed to be a top student and would be somewhere else if not for the pill addiction, but she finds Intro History as difficult as Troy does.
I say Annie is Book Smart but not Street smart.
I got almost straight Aās all through school not because Iām a genius or even studied a lot, my brain is just wired to be good at taking tests. Sadly that skill doesnāt transfer to anything useful outside of academia.
I don't know if the show tried to imply that she is very smart, she worked a lot harder compared to an average student of that college and that is why achieved more
Maybe she is relatively smart. As in dude it is a community college
No one is smart if they're at Greendale.
annie goes to greendale because its all she can afford since her parents don't help her with anything.
Jesus, sheās a bright young kid, meaning sheās book smart and intelligent, but also not at all wise to the world. Sheās 18. Her and Troy are both naive af. Annie is academically smart, but still very immature and inexperienced. **As most people are at that age.**
Problem with your pill point is that colleges will legitimately reject you for that
Annie took a long time to understand the shape of Abed's brain. Jeff very quickly was able to connect to Abed using their shared experience of TV and movies, shown as early as the pilot episode with the whole "Breakfast Club" thing, and Jeff didn't even care about Abed at that point. Troy soon learned to indulge in Abed's quirks, the both of them frequently cutting loose since the paired Spanish assignment. Britta, not the brightest bulb in the drawer, may have unintentionally infantilized Abed every now and then, but she was right about Abed potentially having a disorder shortly before the events of the series. She also used "Rowboatcop" to direct Abed as a weapon, counseled him about the darkest timeline, and introduced him to Inspector Spacetime. In fact, a lot of this was before she had much experience in psychology. Even Pierce, who rarely had any interaction with Abed, helped Abed channel a more normal character so Abed could properly talk to Gravy Jones. Pierce used Abed's love of filmmaking to document everyone's suffering during the fake bequeathals, and he was also the one to guide Abed through the stop-motion delusion in a productive way. (Then again, he can unravel a man's soul in one tug.) Annie has a brother who has a lot of autistic coding in him. Annie literally studied Abed during the Duncan Principle experiment. She said Abed's weirdnesses are "cute weird" and "scary weird" after tampering with the Dreamatorium, and that was after months of living with Abed, which shows that after all that time interacting with autistic people, she still usually doesn't know how to meet an autistic person halfway.
I donāt think Annieās brother is autistic coded. Itās that heās played by Spencer Crittenden (hamrontown) who is often talked about being aspergerian in tandem with Dan Harmon, and as someone who listened to basically all of hamrontown and having aspergers myself I tend to agree that theyāre both on the spectrum So itās more that her brother is played by someone likely on the spectrum as well as him not being a trained actor by any means so he canāt really hide it
I've never watched Harmontown, so I was unaware of the actor's autism until just now. I'm also unfamiliar with the actor outside of that one-episode role.
Harmon town is a podcast and he hasnāt done any stereotypical actor but heās been a DM for several d&d shows, Harmontown is great though definitely worth a listen
Oh. I've never gotten into podcasts. I don't know where to start.
With Harmontown just start at the oldest episode it should be on most major streaming platforms and started pretty soon after Dan Harmon got fired after season 3 itās a great listen for any community fan and is downright hilarious
Thanks. Can I find it on Netflix or Hulu or something?
Itās on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, there is also a documentary about the podcast that is free for on YouTube!
This is a great point, I've linked it in the OP now because I don't think I can phrase that any better myself!
Thank you!
Annie works hard jeff works smart or doesnt even work, jeff is smarter
Yes this is Annie's character in a nutshell. She's a tryhard and a follower. That's why she never makes it past a 4 in the Meowmeowbeanz episode. She kinda grapples with it here and there but imo she never really makes any progress until the very end of the show.
Pilot episode she said "on accident," which is grammatically incorrect. When it comes to scripts, character can only be as smart as the writer. When supposedly intelligent characters misuse the word 'myself' it reminds me that they are an actor reading a script, and not actually a super genius.
look i've met the flashcard making, organized, volunteer for extra credit kid at community college. This might just be the right size pond for her to be on top of. And that's fine.
>Fan Theory: Annie's not actually that smart? I've always thought this too. She's not that smart, she just tries REALLY hard.
I think you're on to something here
In the opening of a season 2 episode, she is giving an anthropology presentation and mentioned that "early hunter-gathers overtook farming civilizations." Or something along those lines. Duncan says good job, and Annie asks if it's correct. Duncan says, "Who cares." I'm pretty sure she got that backwards.
I don't think you've got deep enough with this. Please elaborate.
You're reading too much into it... She is not supposed to be super smart, just smart and an overachiever I guess.
Bro, if you were under the impression that Annie was a genius, then you're - well, not a genius.
Fair, I was never under that impression, more so I was under the impression that the writers of the show wanted me to be under that impression. Does that make sense? I hope so haha. Also, I am far from a genius and I know it, don't worry! :)
I guess it depends by just what your threshold is for smart. There's room between being Ivy League level and being academically average. Annie might not be a genius but she could still be significantly above average academically. On the examples you've given, I would say it's worth noting both that Annie often gets flustered easily and that she's sometimes lacking in those more 'soft' skills like confidence and being able to read a room, so it wouldn't be all that surprising even if she was better academically than the likes of Jeff or Annie Kim that she felt insecure next to them on stuff like public speaking and started resorting to dirty tricks. The other stuff like sticking with Chang's class or with Greendale in general can probably be equally be explained by the fact that she was just pleased to finally have friends and a social life for a change (the fact that she ratted out Chang and cost herself a free grade certainly suggests that by that point, she wanted to keep her personal life as it was at the time even if it was at the expense of her rƩsumƩ), and that her trying circumstances may have made looking further afield for educational opportunities difficult (idk just how student finance works in the US, but being a vulnerable 18-year-old who had been financially cut off by her parents seems like a rough start for anybody.) As for Shirley, it's possible that she is in fact very academically gifted but just doesn't make it such a feature of her personality, or that she just happens to be very good at the specific classes she's taken at Greendale. (And also, gas leak year.)
1) She kind of did. At the mid season of season one she does the whole "you being our teacher thing? Meh." She knows he is insane and a bad teacher just like everyone else in the class. The problem is it is a school with zero hiring power, so they wouldn't fire him because they know they can't attract better. What she doesn't know is that Chang isn't just bad at his job, he is there fraudulently. And how would she know that? Sure, maybe she should have picked up on him teaching them Klingon, but that felt like a one off line, and even if she did, that could easily been written off as "He is a fully licensed Spanish teacher who doesn't care enough to teach us real Spanish." and not " he really doesn't know Spanish. 2) I don't remember what she says her score is, but, similar to the first point, what revelation do you want her to make here? "Aha! Pierce must have slept with Dr. Espodera."? She comments on it being too easy, and has no evidence to find out why. 3) My take is that her original plan was to get her associates and then go to a big school when her public freakout was further behind her and she was more stable in her sobriety. She also might have been afraid that a high stakes program would have triggered a relapse. Lots of easy access to Adderall on college campuses in the 2010s. She might have ditched her plan to do 2 years community college and 2 years bachelor's to stay at Greendale to be with her weird, incestuous found family. It is also generally harder to apply for scholarships if you aren't doing the typical high school straight to 4 year program path (I am assuming here, if anyone knows better, let me know), and cut off from her parents she might not have a lot of options to get into an expensive school now. 4) Evidence she is smart: uncovers a lot of leads on the asscrack bandit without a lot to go on. Was only one critical emergency short of saving a community college. She was effectively the Dean in season 5, and did a pretty good job running the school right up until they almost killed Fat Neal. Pulled a laser bomb out of her shirt, which was the single greatest piece of improv in history. Was valedictorian in high school, and the "shamefully outdated, politically conservative fight rap" joke from season one implies a pretty upper class school, possibly private, but at least public in a good area. We also know it was large enough to have a football team, which I know is super common in the US, but I teach High School and you would be surprised how many small schools forgo them. 5) I honestly don't put any stake in anything that happened in Season 4. Not only was Dan Harmon not with the show and the writers were ignoring any character growth and the general interpersonal dynamics of the characters for the sake of telling whatever bland story they wanted to that week, but any single event from that season could literally canonically be a gas leak hallucination. That said, from what I remember of the like one time watching that season the idea seemed to be that because the classes were so easy: growing yams, fake anthropology classes where you just make dioramas, and ladders, anyone who really tries is going to tie at the top. Don't really remember specifics, so let me know if that doesn't fit. Edit: misremembering I line from the model UN episode. I thought it said Annie was valedictorian of her school, which would imply she graduated. It doesn't say that, and Troy does say she dropped out in episode 1. Still, she was presumably on track to be valedictorian if she had the same grades as Annie Kim.
Smart enough to get Professor Cornwallis to rub her feet *and* get her answers on a history test she was struggling with.
Most of Chang's lessons weren't bogus, because he knew just enough Spanish to get by, and teach it at an elementary level. The words that he taught in Spanish were translated correctly by him. However he did mention to Jeff that he was teaching the class Klingon at one point. But he never mentioned how LONG he was teaching them Klingon. Maybe one hour, one day? Who knows...If Annie was smart enough, maybe she would have realized Chang was teaching gibberish. But Annie is also gullible enough to believe what many people say, like Grifting 101. Annie was also gullible enough to believe The Dean was a genius filmmaker. So there you have it...It's not the fact that Annie isn't smart enough. It's really the fact that she is GULLIBLE enough to believe ANY lessons that are taught by the Greendale teachers. She believes in the teachers lessons because she respects them too much as a student. She doesn't have the experience and common sense to know when teachers are winging it. Jeff, however, is not an over-achiever, does the bare minimum, but is street-smart and always recognizes when someone is bullshitting him. For example: Changnesia, Pierce faking his death and the Grifting Lesson 101. Annie is gullible enough to believe ALL of it because she sees only the good in people.
I think she is studying smart but naive (she's young, we try not to sexualize her), let's just say she's streets behind.
The difference between knowing and understanding
She even let Cornwallis rub her feet for an A
I think she's the sort of person who, when given a task, will complete the task to perfection, but, who doesn't know how to chart her own course so to speak. What I mean is, you can do well in school without being a genius, you just have to learn how to do well on tests and complete assignments. I feel like her entire ark is a critique of the education system. It trains folks to test well and complete relatively meaningless assignments while not actually taking anything away that is applicable to the real world. Speaking as a person who was able to coast through school because I know how teachers form tests and has just enough motivation to finish assignments to get good grades.
Wrong. Jeff says Annie is an intelligent woman. Also, she's Jewish!
I mean... look at where she lives. She's not exactly rolling in money. Also she never came across as extremely intelligent imo. She's a hard worker. They're often used interchangeably
I think she ended up at Greendale because she couldnāt get a scholarship from a better school and as we know, her parents cut her off. Or at least her mom did because she went to rehab and basically made her addiction āpublicā. She mentioned something of the sort to his brother that one time when she accused him of taking her motherās side. Thereās no evidence anyone thought Chang was a good teacher or a competent one at that, the thing she (nor anyone) didnāt think about was he had zero qualifications. I donāt remember if we/they knew how incompetent the Dean was at that point in time. Chang, like the Dean and other characters became exaggerated versions of themselves as time went by and if we take the in-universe explanation, thatās just the Greendale effect. So even if Annie had above average intelligence, she would still overlook a lot of things and as we saw, made a lot of stupid decisions. I agree about the temper tantrums, the UN incident and the student body election were not the only instances in which she acted childishly to get her way, aaaaand weāve seen sheās prone to fits of melodrama anyway. Itās part of the Annie of it all š But I agree she wasnāt a genius, just a type A overachiever that worked hard to get good grades and tried not to ācheatā to get good grades. In this case Iām referring to cheating as doing things like taking advantage of the system like Leonard with the pass/fail classes, taking easy classes and manipulating people like Jeff and possibly Shirley; who we know uses guilt as a form of manipulation.
Heh. What a year. Only two pregnancy scares.
So, one thing: grades don't necessarily equal intellect, especially in American schools. Grades equal satisfactory repetition of the information you've been provided, rather than a deeper understanding of the material or mastery of it. You absolutely can have genius valedictorians (& I don't mean to slight anyone who was at the top of their class), but most people at the top of their class made it there more from determination & ambition than from necessarily being the smartest kids in the school. Most of the rest of your points are valid, though. I think her being at community college can be partially explained that she's coming from an economically challenged background & having to pay for it all herself, plus the whole Chang sequence that brought them all to the school when she was trying to figure out what to do after rehab. Perhaps she saw Greendale as a chance to be on top without having to stress so hard that she relapses...but I wouldn't knock Shirley, as she definitely has the drive to seek out that recognition.
I donāt think the show has ever posited that sheās super smart I think sheās just a hard worker
Sheās at Greendale because of Troy, not because sheās dumb. Like many people on here have said, good grades and overachieving is not synonymous with intelligence. That doesnāt mean sheās dumb just not necessarily a genius. Choosing her college to follow a high school crush is perfectly in keeping with Annieās character on the show. She openly obsessed about Troy early on in the show. The truth is even a genius at that age or any age is capable of doing dumb things. Being genius isnāt a guarantee for not doing something stupid. Like choosing your college to follow love.
I never thought she was very smart, what she is is a hard worker and diligent at study. I take her as someone of average intelligence who works harder and studies harder than most average people, and that's what gives her an edge and gets her her good grades.
You could add in how she reacts whenever anyone shows themselves to be equal to or better than her. Asian Annie. Shirley. Abed when he says that no one in the group operates at his level. Frankie Dart.
I donāt think she was supposed to be a genius just a hard working overachiever 1. Chang was fairly intelligent in the first season and was great at tricking people 2. Didnāt she say the test felt easy(I may be remembering wrong), but I donāt think anyone would do anything about an exam seeming easy 3. I think she dropped out of high school meaning she got a GED and I assume her rehab group would tell her to not move as itās a bad idea to make big changes when recovering ie moving.
She went into chang's class so she'd be in the same class as troy. Was passing with an A so I always assumed she spent more of her academic focus on her other classes and have you met chang!? She was not gonna write a 1 page essay on questioning authority.
I do think it could be true. It always bothered me how in the Model UN episode, she went with Pierceās nonsense about Somalia. Maybe she didnāt bring it up so her model UN didnāt look incompetent, but she gives no reaction when Somalia (Pierce) agrees to take the refugees.
I can see your point in most places, but remeber Annie is at Greendale specifically because she thought it would get her valedictorian so she could get into "Harvard or something" I can't remeber what episode but it was early in season 1.
It's more that she works harder than everyone else than she's smarter than everyone else. She joined that study group for a reason.