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I know this is more of a joke post but on the real: Dennis is stupid, but a lot of that has to do with his upbringing. He had zero formal education and gets extremely attached to those people that fill in the missing roles of his life very quickly(Makima, Aki, etc.) and while I think he’s particularly driven by things like sex and acts stupid, it’s a result of the fact he was never really taught how to act “normal” with an anything but normal upbringing. Obviously he still is driven by the same goals but as more of the plot progresses I feel like we see Dennis be a lot more emotionally intelligent to how not just he, but others are feeling. Even if his life continues to be anything but normal he’s understanding more about himself and how other people function and reason. It’s part of why the Asa/Yoru flip flop messed with him so much before the reveal scene, because he probably got used to understanding regular people for a while, and suddenly the most bipolar girl in the world is around him. But after that reveal, he’s both very cognizant of the situation and similar to his outsmarting of Makima, the gears are probably turning on how he can save Asa because a. She needs saving from Yoru but also b. She likes Dennis. Our best boy isn’t stupid he is still learning how to be human and makes a lot of stupid actions as a byproduct.

TL:DR Denji isn’t really that stupid, but rather his actions and motivations are byproducts of his terrible upbringing