Smarter: Fred or Willow

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Joshua

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Which genuis is the smartest?

High school Willow in the first two seasons
or
Winifred Burkle
 
Fred. If we're talking high-school Willow, then it was strictly high-school level academics, compared to Fred who was already in college and studying physics. Also, TBH I really don't see Willow heading up Wolfram and Hart's science division like Fred did. Don't get me wrong, Willow's brilliant, to be sure, I just think in later seasons she was too preoccupied with magic to become any kind of scientist, so based on that I'll say Fred.
 
academics and science? fred of course, but Willow became a supernatural, a powerful and gifted one, her focus was not science or academics anymore.
 
Fred was giving lectures to professors and doctoral level postgraduates in physics. Willow did not appear to take any hard science subjects herself and took psychology which usually is not offered with a hard science curriculum. Willow did not seem to have much interest in science and we only see her functioning in computer science which is not a subject at the same level. Fred all the way.
 
I think it's a little unfair to compare high school Willow with any iteration of Fred on Angel. Obviously Fred is probably more accomplished academically while Willow's in high school however I'm sure the smartness playing field evens out as Willow grows older and learns magic. Plus, I think Willow has a lot of emotional depth... I think she's very smart in ways other than academics. So I'm going to say Willow. 😛
 
Magic does not appear to require a great deal of intelligence as shown - it is more like a chef following a cookbook. Also, I would be very cautious about equating emotional depth with lack of academic accomplishment. I would not equate ability to portray suffering with emotional depth - Willow never deduces (or believes) that people like her until they tell her explicitly. We don't see any such emotional blindness with Fred.
 
Fred. She was a physicist! Scribbling stuff on the walls. Both girls were smart and seemed to be gifted learners. Willow was probably smarter with computers. It's a tough call, cause I think that given an opportunity to learn something new they would both excel.
 
Define smarter.

Fred has the science and academic strengths by a long measure - as a physicist, inventor, or creative scientist she rocks
Willow has real power from magic that she has explored, learned, practiced, developed - making her more powerful than Fred in any competition of strengths.

We have no idea what high school Fred was like except that she was a stoner who believed in conspiracies - so I'm comparing both at the height of their power.
 
Ethan Reigns said:
Magic does not appear to require a great deal of intelligence as shown - it is more like a chef following a cookbook. Also, I would be very cautious about equating emotional depth with lack of academic accomplishment. I would not equate ability to portray suffering with emotional depth - Willow never deduces (or believes) that people like her until they tell her explicitly. We don't see any such emotional blindness with Fred.
Click to expand...

There are many forms of intelligence - can a giraffe beat a shark? Depends on where the confrontation occurs.

Both science and magic require a predisposition toward the field of inquiry, and a huge amount of creativity and work to become achieve excellence.
 
Fred. She was asked to a be guest speaker for a University and nobody raised an eyebrow. She had a theory of hers published and talked about in the scientific community.

Willow is smart but she never even reaches that level of professional brilliance.
 
If we're talking straight book smarts then Fred without a question. They were both smart but on completely different levels.
Willow was more knowledgeable in worldly matters as she matured, more street smart due to her various skills with magic, technology, slayer assistance etc.

If we had a Willow vs Fred intelligence battle over science, mathematics, geometry, architecture, yada yada, Fred would win.
If there was a showdown using life skills gained working in the evil fighting business, Willow would win.
 
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Fred was more intelligent, she accomplished much more than Willow ever will. And she survived by herself in a hell dimension without using magic.

Although I think she wasn't very smart by examining Illyria's coffin without taken any kind of precaution.
 
I think Willow's focus changes part way through whereas Fred has always been driven in the scientific direction. Not that Willow lost all interest in science, but she obviously focused a lot more on magic later on. Fred's scientific knowledge far surpasses Willow's, but then Willow's knowledge of the mystical far surpasses Fred's. Both are very inventive and inquisitive.

So, in the real world sense, I suppose we'll natural say Fred is smarter since science is a real world thing that you can aspire to professionally. But I do think Willow is very smart too, just in different areas.
 
I don't see Willow as a pure scholarly type. She doesn't obtain knowledge just to become more knowledgeable, you know, as a goal in itself, but also to become more powerful. Basically, Willow views knowledge as a source of power. Her approach to magic reflects that - it's nowhere near academic, it's a self-taught DIY freejazz graffiti punk hacker type of deal. Even in season 10, being the seed's mom and having all that incredible knowledge she's still all man, #@$& Latin! and might even cast a spell with an incantation like Boom Shaka Laka! and I mean, really Will, really? 'Cause there's nothing to gain from learning Latin, so #@$& it, right?

So yeah, Fred's smarter. She's the genius prodigy professional researcher type, Willow, on the other hand is a freaking mad scientist slash MacGyver who nonetheless gets shit done.
 
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