Oh, good point, yes! I was also making a reference above to Nero Wolfe and Archie, where Archie almost plays up his lacking of brains compared to Nero, and does a lot of legwork and chats up women etc. But it's wrong to be fooled into thinking that this means Archie is not a smart character. Part of it is that yes, he doesn't share Wolfe's genius and that's why he's our pov character. But it's also that his personality plays down the smarts he does have where Nero's plays his up.

I do wonder about Reed. I wonder if it is that he's too socially capable or something.