Brainy Smurf (Empath stories)



"And as Papa Smurf always says..."

Brian Lunette "Brainy" Smurf is a Smurf character who is part of the EMPATH: The Luckiest Smurf story series.

History
Brainy was the son of Aristotle Smurf, born as the younger brother of Empath through his mother Lillithina. Because Empath was assumed dead at that point, Brainy had no idea that he actually had a brother, but he did assume that Papa Smurf was his actual father, as the relationship between his parents Lillithina and Aristotle was mostly platonic. Like most of his fellow Smurfs his age, he was raised by his parents until an unknown disease had claimed their lives, leaving him in the care of Culliford Smurf, who eventually became known as Papa Smurf. The rest of his personal history, at least at the present point of the story series, is similar to that of his cartoon show counterpart up until around Seasons 5 and 6.

In the 1800's, Empath and Brainy became the last living Smurfs of their generation until Brainy was swallowed up by an earthquake, leaving Empath as the sole surviving member of that generation. This would begin the event that Empath would remember as the Diaspora.

Personality
While sharing some similarities to his cartoon show universe counterpart, Brainy in these stories does defer to Empath's judgment in certain situations where Papa Smurf may not be available to offer his own. It was only after Empath's final return from Psychelia did Brainy discover that he was Empath's half-brother, sharing Lillithina as their birth mother but himself being fathered by Papa Smurf's friend Aristotle. Of course, public knowledge that he and Empath are both half-brothers wins Brainy even less respect from his fellow Smurfs, particularly from Hefty.

As a young Smurfling, prior to his being adopted by Papa Smurf as his first adopted son, Brainy dealt with the stigma of being called a "bastard Smurfling" by most of his fellow Smurflings because his mother had him outside of her relationship with her former husband, and was often ridiculed for this. This stigma eventually vanished when he became one of many children whom Papa Smurf was in charge of, with Brainy idolizing Papa Smurf to the point of emulation. It was most likely during Brainy's early years that he became friends with Clumsy, who loved him as a friend despite what anybody thought of him.

In his spare time Brainy enjoys playing games of strategy like chess, which he constantly plays with Polaris Psyche despite the fact that he always loses to Polaris. He contributes crossword puzzles to the Smurf Village newspaper, which Empath and Papa Smurf enjoy working on. He is also the author of a series of books, most of them being Quotations Of Brainy Smurf, which hardly any Smurf except for Empath reads.

Like his father, Brainy has astigmatism, which requires his constant wearing of glasses. Attempts at correcting his vision even with Empath's help have all turned out to be failures; aside from this, Brainy prefers the look that his glasses give him, which still doesn't win him any respect.

Brainy has an ornate smoking pipe that he occasionally carries with him to make himself look sophisticated, but never actually does any smoking with the pipe.

Like all the Smurfs in his village, Brainy is heterosexual and strongly believes that only males and females should be united together in marriage, believing that is what Mother Nature has decreed from the beginning. Sometime after his return from the Smurfs' time-traveling adventures in The Lost Year, Brainy was disgusted to hear from Empath that his Mirror Universe counterpart actually has a dating relationship with its Clumsy.

Relationships

 * Empath is his half-brother. He is usually very patient and understanding with Brainy, although at times Brainy can test even Empath's patience with his constant meanderings. Most of the time, if anyone wants to bonk Brainy in the head with a mallet with Empath around, Empath would come to Brainy's defense and say, "Nobody hits my brother except me!", even though Empath himself would never personally hit Brainy.
 * Papa Smurf is his adopted father and teacher in the ways of magic and alchemy, and is usually considered the source of Brainy's constant admiration and respect for his wisdom and intelligence. Brainy at one time assumed that Papa Smurf was his actual biological father until Papa Smurf revealed the truth to both Empath and Brainy. He often invokes Papa Smurf's name in his lectures to his fellow Smurfs, and will often say "I'm going to tell this to Papa Smurf" when he sees a fellow Smurf doing something that he perceives is wrong or is threatening towards him personally.
 * Smurfette is his love interest, though Smurfette personally can't stand being around him because of his behavior. One particular incident of note was when Greedy made for her a special smurfberry cake, Brainy talked her into giving the dessert to him by saying that it would make her gain weight if she ate it. A few years later, Smurfette would hear this coming from Brainy's own mouth in his Imaginarium fantasy of being King Smurf and drag him out of his fantasy by pinching his ear really hard. Despite how he acts toward her, Brainy truly cares about Smurfette and would not want to see her be in any danger if he can help it.
 * Baby Smurf is one Smurf that he hopes will take after him someday, although Baby is more content to play around with Brainy's glasses and mimic his finger-wagging and babbling.
 * Polaris Psyche is who he plays chess with, despite the fact that he always loses to Polaris.
 * Hefty generally dislikes Brainy and will only work with him when necessary. Surprisingly, he tends to be the Smurf who falls for Brainy's promises and schemes, such as being made the captain of the guard during Brainy's brief reign as King Smurf. Most of the time, Hefty would either want to clobber Brainy with a mallet or hurl him out of the village. Brainy collectively refers to Hefty, Tuffy, and Duncan as "The Three Smurfketeers" either out of admiration or just to mock their constant use of muscles over brainpower.
 * Jokey continually goes after Brainy with all his pranks.
 * Clumsy is considered his closest friend, despite the fact that he can't stand being around him most of the time due to his ineptitude. He did become surprised to find out that Clumsy isn't as less intelligent as he normally portrayed himself to be, and though Brainy thought of reconsidering his friendship due to the "dumb and fun" facade, he eventually recognized that Clumsy truly admired him for his intelligence. Clumsy at one time offered to be Brainy's "seeing eye Smurf" at a time when he lost his glasses and couldn't see well enough to get around without them.
 * Tapper tends to be very patient when it comes to dealing with Brainy and will often listen to him, offering some of his own advice in return. The only time Tapper ever got angry with Brainy was around the time of the cartoon show episode "Good Neighbor Smurf" when Tapper actually threw Brainy out of his house for arranging things according to his own liking despite Tapper's instructions for Brainy to leave things alone. Tapper admits that he never likes getting angry with Brainy or with any Smurf.
 * Duncan McSmurf genuinely likes Brainy, but doesn't like how scared and panicky Brainy gets whenever he's in a situation that's way over his head.
 * Orbit sympathizes with Brainy because they both share poor eyesight (with Orbit's eyes being light-sensitive, requiring him to wear wraparound sunglasses). Orbit occasionally helps Brainy get around the village whenever he loses his glasses.
 * Sophia is his daughter whom he fathered with his wife Librarian.

Role
Brainy's original role in the Smurf Village was being the curator of the Smurf house of archives as well as an educator to his fellow Smurfs, given that his intelligence level is considerably higher than that of his fellow Smurfs. After Hefty was removed from being the assistant leader, the position was given over to Brainy, and then later was given to Empath. His current role, if he is not helping Papa Smurf with his experiments, is watching after and teaching the Smurflings, a situation that makes both Brainy and the Smurflings unhappy with each other, though Brainy is willing to prove himself to be a suitable role model to the younger Smurfs. However, the Smurflings are more likely to humorously put down Brainy whatever chance they get for doing so.

Around the time that the Smurflings first came into the Smurf Village, Brainy was in charge of conducting the Village Smurphony Orchestra after Papa Smurf had retired from the position. It was during that year's Smurfstock Festival that the Smurflings performed "Smurfbop" as their debut song, which made Brainy envious that most of his fellow Smurfs would prefer listening to the Smurflings style of music than that conducted by the orchestra, and even more upset that the song would cause most of his fellow Smurfs to depart from the orchestra to form their own musical bands. Even Papa Smurf was inspired by the song to come up with his own music similar in style to the Smurflings. As a result, Brainy in particular doesn't like listening to "Smurfbop" and is a bit stern in his treatment of the Smurflings.

At Empath and Smurfette's wedding, Brainy was given the escort position, presenting the bride to her husband.

Abilities
Brainy is considered to be very intelligent, though the application of that intelligence leaves something to be desired among his fellow Smurfs. As Papa Smurf's apprentice, he has some level of knowledge in sorcery and alchemy, though like everything else he does, he lacks discipline and proper control, often requiring Papa Smurf or some other Smurf to get him out of a situation that he gets himself and other Smurfs into.

Brainy is one of the few Smurfs in the village that knows the "lost" language of Schtroumpf, although he is not an expert at speaking it, and sometimes gets befuddled whenever Painter Smurf, an expert speaker of Schtroumpf, hurls obscenities at him whenever he gets angry enough with Brainy to speak them. (Like at one time, "Vous êtes un Schtroumpf stupide que vous mangez de la merde des Schtroumpfs pour le petit déjeuner," which in polite terms translates into "You're such a stupid Smurf that you eat Smurf poop for breakfast".) Brainy's knowledge in the language is mostly for interpreting and recording Smurf names in the Smurf Register Of Names, as he has helped Empath discover his recorded name Schtroumpf Empathie. Around Empath's 151st birthday, Brainy became proficient in the written form of Psychelian and gave Empath his first edition of Quotations Of Brainy Smurf translated into that language as a birthday present.

Appearance
Brainy constantly wears a pair of horn-rimmed glasses with round lenses. In his later adult years, Brainy would grow a reddish-orange beard and moustache.

Voice Actor
His desired voice actor would be Fred Armisen, who is the voice of Brainy in the Sony Pictures Animation's The Smurfs film and animated series.

Trivia

 * According to author Vic George, Brainy was originally intended to be a full brother of Empath and the second son of Papa Smurf, but as that became hard to reconcile without having Brainy being the older brother of Empath, it was decided that he should be a half-brother instead. His illegitimacy is inspired by the interpretation of Will Scarlet being Robin of Locksley's half-brother in the movie Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves.