this baldrick is considerably less intelligent than his medieval ancestor, although not as dim as future baldricks. a kindly soul, baldrick's lack of formal education is compensated for by his basic streetwise cunning. while his "cunning plans" do sometimes have a strange, twisted and often perverse logic and cunning to them, he is nevertheless incredibly stupid. for example, in the episode "head", blackadder attempts to teach baldrick how to add, asking if he had "two beans, and i add two more beans, what does that make?" baldrick replies, "some beans", "three beans... and that one", and "a very small casserole".