Originally Posted by
chief12d
I’ll be upfront and say I truthfully don’t have an issue with Shuri being the smarter sibling. To me the defining element of T’Challa’s intelligence is that he’s a strategist on par with, if not superior to, the likes of Cyclops, Doctor Doom, and other such figures. He thinks ahead, feigns weakness, and manipulates his enemies.
Shuri bring a superior inventor isn’t a problem as long as T’Challa isn’t depicted as scientifically inept and he’s shown tinkering in the lab every now and then. So yea Shuri can develop a space fleet or something but I still want to see T’Challa making personal upgrades to his Panther-Cycle and stuff like that.
I don’t think that in order for her to shine in the field of science, T’Challa needs to be dumbed down and his intelligence needs to be downplayed to the point of irrelevance. It’s not fair or logical when they can both exist in that space or even have areas of specialization. Plus highlighting other forms of intelligence can be just as cool and fun as inventing tech. T’Challa is a polymath, meaning he’s not just good with science. He should be a master of dead languages, have a top tier understanding of human psychology, be aware of legal practices from here to the Kree Empire, etc. I wish writers played up those elements of his character more tbh because it opens up new types of problem solving and stories. T’Challa is a modern Da Vinci and writers don’t seem to remember that.