Gilmore Girls’ Supposedly Smartest Character Wasn’t Even That Smart

It’s common knowledge that Rory doesn’t really deserve to be the main character because she is annoying and selfish as hell, but we are here to talk about something else. Rory isn’t actually as smart as the show and everyone around her makes her out to be.

Rory is presented as this incredibly gifted girl from the beginning. She gets accepted into a top prep school, becomes the valedictorian, and later gets into the best universities in the country – Princeton, Yale, and Harvard. All of these do indicate a higher-than-average intelligence, right?

Well, that really depends. We know that Rory is an avid reader, and on top of that, she can read exceptionally fast. Is this enough to qualify for “a gifted kid”?

Not really, Rory is smart and hardworking – more than an average child, and that can be attributed to the way Lorelai has chosen to bring her daughter up.

Rory has to go the extra mile to achieve the academic goals she has set for herself, she rarely has anything handed to her, so her successful academic career is the result of her own dedication rather than her being gifted.

Plus, Rory does struggle at Yale and later at her job. Journalism has proven to be the wrong career path for her, but she is still trying to make it work.

If there’s a gifted character on Gilmore Girls, that’s definitely Paris. Yes, she is just as driven and hardworking as Rory (or even more so), but objectively she is more talented than Rory.

While Rory is great at writing, Paris has succeeded in different fields – she runs her own fertility clinic, has become a certified lawyer and dental technician, and has gained expert knowledge on classical architecture. Also, say what you will, but Paris deserved to be the valedictorian at Chilton, and you know it.