If you were stuck on a deserted island and could only pick one personality type to be stranded with, who would it be? The whole Blue Lagoon dream would end after 24 hours if you were more butch than Butch himself, now wouldn’t it? And every girl wants a guy to rescue her, doesn’t she?

Although the other hero character types are most certainly manly and appealing to our damsels in distress, my personal favorite is the one who you can count on to make a radio out of a coconut and some spare parts he found washed up on the beach: the professor.

The professor is the guy who is coolly analytical. He knows every answer when you play trivial pursuit. He’s logical, introverted, and inflexible, but once the heroine turns his head he is genuine about his feelings.

By day, he may be a computer engineer, accountant, or lab rat. He likes cold, hard facts, and statistics, so if you go toe to toe with him, you’d better have the data to back it up. The up side to this guy? He's honest and faithful, and won’t let you down. Not only will he have calculated the exact longitude and latitude of your position to broadcast on that homemade coconut radio, but he will have a plan B and C in case it doesn’t work.

The professor is one of the most underestimated character types. He can be extremely calculating, highly intelligent, rational and an excellent strategist. However, this can also make him extremely arrogant. After all, he knows his IQ score is higher than 90 percent of the population.

The professor is guided by the pursuit of knowledge and the usage and implementation thereof. This can range from the inconsequential, to the extensive inner workings of political culture, computer design, or magic lore.

Of course, like the rest of the archetypes, he comes in many forms. Usually the stereotypical academic spends 10 years in obscurity studying his chosen craft. He wears thick BC (birth control) glasses, but may have upgraded to tortoise shell, aviator style frames too. He may have a slightly balding head with wildly unmanageable tufts or have fantastically thick locks cut in military style.

He prefers plain and unassuming clothes because they are more comfortable to read and research in, but if he is a high-powered financier, he may be just as comfortable in an Armani three-piece suit. He may live on the edge of financial existence, or have the best of everything and want to share it with his special someone. The possibilities are endless with this archetype!

Character growth for this guy is fairly simple. He learns that other people have good ideas too, becomes more tolerant of the “little people”, and realizes that he underestimated the heroine. Why, he may even discover that she is SMARTER than he is. He, he, he.

So chalk one up as won by the “geeks” of the world. Without them, we would have no inventions, medical breakthroughs, or space programs. There would be no need for Star Trek conventions or Dungeons and Dragons tournaments and we would be constantly subjected to sports trivia by the other archetypes.

Now it’s your turn. Can you think of any books or movies where this archetype plays a starring role?