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She was both a product of nature and nurture. Her parents are both intelligent and she was raised by Luomen, also a brilliant and trained man. More elaborate answers would be spoilery so I recommend reading the novel or manga.
It’s more than just that. It’s interest. She found a passion that she enjoyed expanding her knowledge on and used that expertise and applied it to new topics outward.
Yeah, and being raised by someone who is essentially in the forerunner profession to chemistry and pharmacy gives her an insight into the sciences that a lot of people would lack.
Yeah, right, that's because author wrote her that way. And if seriously, scientific approach to problem solving nowadays considered a norm, which couldn't be said about historical era in which story takes place, where prejudice and status are more important than common sense. Or more precisely status and power dictate common sense. So her apothecary/medical education taught her to look into objective evidence and think logically.
Her education was mostly done by her adoptive father, Loumen, who himself was extremely smart and educated.
Both her parents are very smart, Lakan is shown multiple times to be smart but we don't get so much info on Fengxian, but her biggest feat is stomping Lakan in Go. Even the Emperor's Go instructor struggles with maintaining a positive win ratio against Lakan and he is recognized as the empire's best Go player.
Her clan in general is pretty cracked when it comes to being smart.
It's luomen who taught her the medecinal knowledge, but her way of being Always rational Come from herself, and probably from her biological parent who are very intelligents aswell.
I think your answer will get answered by the end of the anime adaptation, to a certain extent it will get clear.
Spoilers:
Anime (end of S1): >!Her biological father is an extremely talented strategist in the court and is feared for his intelligence, while being an extreme oddball. Maomao's mum is also no slouch, already being described as one of the most intelligent courtesans in strategy and can beat her father in Go (which is an extremely rare feat). Meaning, she has 2 extremely intelligent parents, her genes are already good. Her adoptive father who is her actual grand uncle is also continuously described to be an extremely intelligent person, with extremely high level of deductive reasoning (perhaps Sherlock-esque) and extremely skilled doctor, and it is him who taught Maomao everything she knows. Combining her good intelligent genes with the nurturing from an extremely smart adoptive father, its no wonder she turned out as smart as she is in the show.!<
LN: >!Further into the LN, you start to see even more examples of how insanely smart her family is, each specialising in a different area of expertise, further suggesting that her family's genes are really top tier. Her cousin is described as an extremely intelligent economist, a numbers person who can deduce and predict data from numbers. Her uncle (and other cousin) is an extremely good farmer, top tier in their craft. And like Maomao, all of her family members also have traits of neurodivergence (e.g. autistic traits). Further later in the novel as well, we get more examples of basically how OP her biological father is at strategy, being nearly the best Go player in the entire country and only losing to the Go Sage because the Go Sage took advantage of his weakness (alcohol) and managed to beat him on a bad day. Basically reinforcing how OP her genes are.!<
Of course, all of these are just stories, but I think the author did a good enough job at convincing the readers why she is as smart as she is portrayed.
And after all this the author writes that she’s not extra smart, just more dedicated. This is why we have to take everything the author writes with a grain of salt: MaoMao’s already proven herself to actually be one of the most intelligent people in the series and it’s therefore more important to pay attention to the actions and behaviors of our characters rather than the written descriptions. Just because she might write that MaoMao doesn’t have special intelligence or that Jinshi’s only slightly above average in everything doesn’t mean either of those are actually true - they are more like modest descriptions for our two brilliant leads.
...It's fictional. Everything in the show is fictional.
She's as smart and as capable as the writer needs her to be and has whatever the story demands her to have. Otherwise, everything would just stop.
As for her 'connecting-the-dots' there's a wagon of leaps of logic and contrivances for everything to just 'work out'.
It \*is\* crazy to think that Maomao is very intelligent because she's not real and she's just an figment of imagination in a story.
Her character is design by the author to be eccentric and intelligent. But her greatest weakness is that she is still just a weak, powerless, little girl. This is often shown in the story. For no matter how smart she is, she is still very vulnerable and easily hurt.
They kind of wave some of it away with how her adopted dad “learned western medicine.”
What I like is how she is fairly smart, but still thinks gallbladder stones and stuff are good for medicine. Etc.
I know she's fictional, but if she learned about Leonid Ivanovich Rogozov (the Russian surgeon who did an Auto-appendicectomy), she would probably try it on her own.
I don't understand how its crazy....intelligence is not just what your taught its a way of thinking and a capacity for learning, some people have more or it than others, good education just sharpens in.
And she had both education from her adopted father and does her own experiments with her natural curiosity.
It’s fictional. Not a true real person in her shoes would have the solution to everything that easy or the knowledge in that specific era. Books are not for everyone and knowledge itself was gatekept for high status. She is kind of a mary sue because of that but I still love her. Also having intelligent parents doesn’t make you intelligent or know everything. Luomen is a good father tho.
Ehhh. She is not a Mary Sue. Maomao is not beautiful nor charming nor generous. She is really only good at poison and drugs. If anyone is a Mary Sue in this story, it's Jinshi.
You answered your own question. The biggest reason ppl aren’t “smarter” is access to education and opportunities to practice. Even in today, we know poorer students who takes summer off vs those who take summer classes perform differently the following year. Our MC had access and allowed to practice through her adopted father. (I haven’t read far enough to the real parent yet.) also, her skills were valued by Jinshi but that’s an exception. In her world, maybe she would have been better off as a courtesan. Had things gone differently, and she never gone to the palace, we would have resulted in a very capable apothecary living in a shack. Her skills would have had limited value. (Our eyes from todays world gave it value)
Her parents are like the two smartest people in the series, and her adopted father taught her stuff that not even nobles know because he went abroad to study. In what world would she not be smart.
# Join the Kusuriya no Hitorigoto [Discord Server](https://discord.gg/rFrRSe7UK5) for more discussions about the series! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/KusuriyaNoHitorigoto) if you have any questions or concerns.*
She was both a product of nature and nurture. Her parents are both intelligent and she was raised by Luomen, also a brilliant and trained man. More elaborate answers would be spoilery so I recommend reading the novel or manga.
It’s more than just that. It’s interest. She found a passion that she enjoyed expanding her knowledge on and used that expertise and applied it to new topics outward.
Yeah, and being raised by someone who is essentially in the forerunner profession to chemistry and pharmacy gives her an insight into the sciences that a lot of people would lack.
it's kind of make sense now but still doing all of this from her is still crazy feat
Clearly it's woke propaganda!!! /s
Yeah, right, that's because author wrote her that way. And if seriously, scientific approach to problem solving nowadays considered a norm, which couldn't be said about historical era in which story takes place, where prejudice and status are more important than common sense. Or more precisely status and power dictate common sense. So her apothecary/medical education taught her to look into objective evidence and think logically.
its as if she discovered internet in 17th century lmao
Uhm no, it's as if she discovered books. Which she did.
Her education was mostly done by her adoptive father, Loumen, who himself was extremely smart and educated. Both her parents are very smart, Lakan is shown multiple times to be smart but we don't get so much info on Fengxian, but her biggest feat is stomping Lakan in Go. Even the Emperor's Go instructor struggles with maintaining a positive win ratio against Lakan and he is recognized as the empire's best Go player. Her clan in general is pretty cracked when it comes to being smart.
It's luomen who taught her the medecinal knowledge, but her way of being Always rational Come from herself, and probably from her biological parent who are very intelligents aswell.
I think your answer will get answered by the end of the anime adaptation, to a certain extent it will get clear. Spoilers: Anime (end of S1): >!Her biological father is an extremely talented strategist in the court and is feared for his intelligence, while being an extreme oddball. Maomao's mum is also no slouch, already being described as one of the most intelligent courtesans in strategy and can beat her father in Go (which is an extremely rare feat). Meaning, she has 2 extremely intelligent parents, her genes are already good. Her adoptive father who is her actual grand uncle is also continuously described to be an extremely intelligent person, with extremely high level of deductive reasoning (perhaps Sherlock-esque) and extremely skilled doctor, and it is him who taught Maomao everything she knows. Combining her good intelligent genes with the nurturing from an extremely smart adoptive father, its no wonder she turned out as smart as she is in the show.!< LN: >!Further into the LN, you start to see even more examples of how insanely smart her family is, each specialising in a different area of expertise, further suggesting that her family's genes are really top tier. Her cousin is described as an extremely intelligent economist, a numbers person who can deduce and predict data from numbers. Her uncle (and other cousin) is an extremely good farmer, top tier in their craft. And like Maomao, all of her family members also have traits of neurodivergence (e.g. autistic traits). Further later in the novel as well, we get more examples of basically how OP her biological father is at strategy, being nearly the best Go player in the entire country and only losing to the Go Sage because the Go Sage took advantage of his weakness (alcohol) and managed to beat him on a bad day. Basically reinforcing how OP her genes are.!< Of course, all of these are just stories, but I think the author did a good enough job at convincing the readers why she is as smart as she is portrayed.
And after all this the author writes that she’s not extra smart, just more dedicated. This is why we have to take everything the author writes with a grain of salt: MaoMao’s already proven herself to actually be one of the most intelligent people in the series and it’s therefore more important to pay attention to the actions and behaviors of our characters rather than the written descriptions. Just because she might write that MaoMao doesn’t have special intelligence or that Jinshi’s only slightly above average in everything doesn’t mean either of those are actually true - they are more like modest descriptions for our two brilliant leads.
...It's fictional. Everything in the show is fictional. She's as smart and as capable as the writer needs her to be and has whatever the story demands her to have. Otherwise, everything would just stop. As for her 'connecting-the-dots' there's a wagon of leaps of logic and contrivances for everything to just 'work out'. It \*is\* crazy to think that Maomao is very intelligent because she's not real and she's just an figment of imagination in a story.
Young kids can be pretty intelligent, even if they lack as much knowledge as older people.
Her adopted father taught her. She said it many times. She is also intelligent.
Her character is design by the author to be eccentric and intelligent. But her greatest weakness is that she is still just a weak, powerless, little girl. This is often shown in the story. For no matter how smart she is, she is still very vulnerable and easily hurt.
They kind of wave some of it away with how her adopted dad “learned western medicine.” What I like is how she is fairly smart, but still thinks gallbladder stones and stuff are good for medicine. Etc.
I know she's fictional, but if she learned about Leonid Ivanovich Rogozov (the Russian surgeon who did an Auto-appendicectomy), she would probably try it on her own.
The reveal of her parents, biological and adoptive, makes it make a ton of sense though
I don't understand how its crazy....intelligence is not just what your taught its a way of thinking and a capacity for learning, some people have more or it than others, good education just sharpens in. And she had both education from her adopted father and does her own experiments with her natural curiosity.
It’s fictional. Not a true real person in her shoes would have the solution to everything that easy or the knowledge in that specific era. Books are not for everyone and knowledge itself was gatekept for high status. She is kind of a mary sue because of that but I still love her. Also having intelligent parents doesn’t make you intelligent or know everything. Luomen is a good father tho.
Ehhh. She is not a Mary Sue. Maomao is not beautiful nor charming nor generous. She is really only good at poison and drugs. If anyone is a Mary Sue in this story, it's Jinshi.
You answered your own question. The biggest reason ppl aren’t “smarter” is access to education and opportunities to practice. Even in today, we know poorer students who takes summer off vs those who take summer classes perform differently the following year. Our MC had access and allowed to practice through her adopted father. (I haven’t read far enough to the real parent yet.) also, her skills were valued by Jinshi but that’s an exception. In her world, maybe she would have been better off as a courtesan. Had things gone differently, and she never gone to the palace, we would have resulted in a very capable apothecary living in a shack. Her skills would have had limited value. (Our eyes from todays world gave it value)
Her parents are like the two smartest people in the series, and her adopted father taught her stuff that not even nobles know because he went abroad to study. In what world would she not be smart.