For one, intelligent characters require intelligent problems. You can't actually have a clever, cunning protagonist in a world full of idiot young masters. And it's difficult to write intelligent side characters and design intelligent trials for an intelligent protagonist when you're writing two chapters a day to make a living.
Two, they're not actually going to describe their protagonist as a moron. That's not the kind of story they're writing. They're writing about a cunning, OP badass that overcomes the world. So of course they're going to describe him as a "cunning, OP badass." ... Even though he's not and they suck at writing. It's fine that the description doesn't match reality.
Three, because they suck at writing, they have put the plot before the protagonist, and now need the protagonist to play a role. They have devised a scenario, and need the protagonist to act in exactly the right way to fulfill that scenario. The protagonist does not have a character, basically. Instead, the protagonist is whatever character the plot currently requires.
Because if the protag is as dumb as a sack of bricks then they can engineer ridiculous drama that can be milked for 10s, if not 100s of chapters when anyone with a brain could solve it easily.
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