Daria: Main Characters, Ranked According To Intelligence

Daria showcases several personalities. Daria Morgendorffer and her best friend Jane Lane see each other at Jane’s house. Daria interacts with her mom and dad at home. Audiences see her classmates, teachers, and sister Quinn at school.

Some of Daria‘s best episodes showcase the many characters in Daria’s life. Daria is known to be a “brain,” while other characters like Brittany Taylor are presented as airheads. The personalities on the show present their smarts in their actions and responses to conflict.

Brittany Taylor

Brittany is Daria’s classmate at Lawndale and the girlfriend of Kevin Thompson. She is a cheerleader. Brittany is characterized by her ditziness. She asks Daria for help in school, and her lack of intellect is often presented in foolish comments in class.

For example, when a teacher tells his students that when taking a multiple-choice test, the test taker can usually eliminate two choices. Brittany asks, “does that work with true false?” Brittany occasionally spouts wisdom, like when she comes up with an effective strategy playing paintball. However, these moments are most often used to make jokes, considering how bone-headed Brittany typically acts.

Jake Morgendorffer

Jake is Quinn and Daria’s father. He shows his smarts in his job as a sales consultant. However, he is driven more by emotions than by logic. He shows his lack of emotional intelligence in his perpetual outbursts resulting from his short temper.

Furthermore, Jake is presented as clueless in Daria. He is often out of the loop as to issues going on in his own home. Furthermore, he is easily manipulated by Quinn and Daria when they want him to do things for them, or simply want to keep him unaware of issues in their lives. He presents boyish foolishness, like when Jane distracts him with a paper duck when he has an outburst while cooking her and Daria dinner.

Quinn Morgendorffer

Quinn is Daria’s sister and a member of the fashion club. Like Brittany, she is characterized by a shallow and conceited attitude, along with a shrill voice. Sometimes Quinn’s quotes on Daria are relatable. However, she often makes silly comments nearly always surrounding superficial subjects and her smarts are rarely on display.

However, Quinn shows her wits in her manipulation of others. She often swindles her father Jake into getting what she wants. She also takes advantage of “The Three J’s” by making them believe she will go out with one of them if they complete tasks she has them do for her benefit.

Sandi Griffin

Sandi is Quinn’s friend and president of the fashion club at Lawndale. She is not the most likable character in Daria. She is cold and mean to her friends, most often seen in her relationship with Quinn. She shows her wits in her less likable actions.

Sandi is manipulative and knows exactly what to do and say to get her way with her friends in the fashion club. Furthermore, she is able to come up with a constant stream of passive-aggressive comments toward Quinn. She is smart enough to protect herself from being labeled mean thanks to her thoughtful word choices.

Trent Lane

Trent is Jane’s sister and lead guitarist of Mystik Spiral. He is kind and aloof, leading some fans to call Trent the “Neutral Good” of Daria. Trent isn’t characterized by his traditionally intelligent behavior, and rather, as a musician who lives with his parents and sleeps through most of the day.

However, Trent is emotionally intelligent. He is calm, patient, and rarely lets his anger control his actions. He sometimes spouts nuggets of wisdom and can hold his own in a conversation with Daria. In one talk, they come to the conclusion that they have “different ideas of what a commitment is.” He speaks deliberately and with thought.

Helen Morgendorffer

Helen is Daria and Quinn’s mother and Jake’s husband. She is a driven lawyer. She shows her lack of emotional intelligence when her temper clouds her rational thinking. However, Helen’s smarts are more often put on display in her relationship with her family.

Helen’s intelligence is implicit in her job as a successful lawyer, a profession that requires a strenuous education. She shows her smarts in more practical situations when she gives advice to Daria and Quinn. She displays brains when she outsmarts Daria and Quinn’s teachers when they do her children wrong.

Tom Sloane

Tom is both Jane’s and Daria’s romantic interest. He is smart, and categorized as such by Daria after they first meet when he and Jane are dating. He shows interest in high brow subjects like art films, as shown by posters of older acclaimed movies in his bedroom and his discussion of a Federico Fellini festival with Daria and Jane.

Tom can be smug and condescending, ironically clouding his mind of self-awareness and reasoning. Such situations are highlighted when he leaves Jane for Daria in his most significant plot arc. However, his logical behavior overshadows his air-headed moments.

Jane Lane

Jane is Daria’s best friend. She is an artist. She shares Daria’s cynicism and sarcasm but is less closed off from others than her. She shows her intellectual curiosity in her interest in others, and her desire to use art to express thoughts and feelings in an interesting and thoughtful way. Jane sometimes shows her lack of emotional intelligence.

Her insecurity gets the best of her when Tom and Daria start talking, and emotion clouds her reasoning. She asks Daria to dye her hair against her wishes and blames her when it doesn’t come out well. Despite their long-standing friendship, in the moment she is convinced Daria wants to hurt her. However, she is most often showcased as smarter than most others, shown in her interactions with classmates like Brittany.

Jodie Landon

Jodie is Daria and Jane’s classmate and friend. She is the class president at Lawndale High. She is presented as intelligent, both in her title as class president and in her smart conversations with Daria and Jane. She is similar to them in her wits but different in her social behavior.

Despite being smart, she is not labeled as a “brain” or outcast by her classmates like Daria. She shows her emotional intelligence in her ability to connect with others outside her circle. She gets into a good college, does well in school, and is eloquent and well-spoken.

Daria Morgendorffer

It is hard to argue that Daria isn’t the smartest character in the series. She is the protagonist, and audiences get to know her more than anyone else. Her intellect is showcased in literary references, philosophical remarks, and occasions in which she outsmarts family members, friends, classmates, and even teachers.

Daria showcases a lack of emotional intelligence on occasion, like in her relationships with Jane and Quinn. However, these moments are sporadic compared to the examples in which her intelligence is highlighted. She is self-aware and explains to Jodie and a therapist in different episodes that she understands that she is blunt and emotionally cut off, but she chooses this method out of self-preservation.

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