Ian's and Lena friends measurements does not mean they are lesser, its general measure of who these people are and fairly representative on the interactions with them. overall they are generally average people given the point of their lives and dialogue we interact with as the story progress.
Louis is same only not that charming considering how blunt and judgemental, right or wrong.
Louise is the best example character for this, I'm fine with her having low charisma for the reasons you mentioned, but she's getting a master's degree on literature and she has a "wits" stat of 5, tied with Ivy (who didn't go to college), losing to Mike (???) and Axel. We have seen absolutely nothing to even indicate those characters have "higher than average" intelligence besides their social aptitudes (which should fall under charisma, not wits), and yet they are handily beating characters like Emma, Perry, and Wade, which we have seen nothing from them to indicate "lower than average" intelligence aside from social ineptitude (which again should fall under charisma, not wits).
Seymour overall is very intelligent and is charismatic to maneuver to achieve and profit. the two dont really overlap; a person dont have to be very educated to charm people or convince them to do things.
again manipulator, he is smart and very persuasive to be where he is.
Holly meek and naive personality is fairly fit give her a low charisma. lot of it is based on confidence to argue or sway a person. She is smart, but i but is less likely to convince others or lose her nerve or be shaken in a conversation.
Again, in matters of social aptitude, it is clear Seymour is much more skilled than Holly, but that is already reflected in his charisma stat, you can't argue it is fine for him to have an absurdly high "wits" because of his manipulation skills and at the same time also argue there isn't an overlap between "wits" and "charisma" in the form of "social intelligence".
Also we know basically nothing of how Seymour got his money, assuming that it happened strictly because of his intelligence is a bit of "wealth worshipping". For all we know he could have inherited most of it, or been involved with crime and gotten lucky.
Also the issue with his take on "philosophy" is that if he were to debate his "social darwinist" takes with anyone that has an academic level of knowledge in sociology, he would be straight up embarassed. Which is why some people hold the opinion that him having a "wits" stat of 10 is a bit silly, since from what we have seen so far he is just a rich stubborn old man doing evil shit and cherry-picking quotes from philosophers to desperately try to convince people he isn't actually evil.
I'm not saying he can't actually be a genius and just willingly evil rather than ignorant and self-deluded, but most demonstrations of his intelligence so far have been little more than pretension.
sociopath....read many of those arguments many times and many on cindy. dont think a lot of people clearly understand what a sociopath is or how they operate or defines them.
Not that im an expert either, but in regards of Ivy....way off base.
Basic definition is a person who is antisocial and lacking a conscience. Seymour is perhaps accurate on it given he is self serving and based on revealing connections and etc thus far, man is self serving and will use and exploit and anything and anyone to get what he wants.
Ivy....very free spirit individual i suppose and is driven by her confidence in her own sexuality but highly doubtful on her being a sociopath. Considering her friendship with Lena and , from what i remember, general attitude when or should the reader choose to reveal or setup the dilemma regarding with Jeremy and Louise. Now unless a reveal shows otherwise, she is a person who embraced her sexuality and willing to use it, but its not completely morally bankrupt, unorthodox sure, and does have a....at least unusual stance on caring for her friends or friendship with Lena.
You might have missed some details about Ivy's story, we know already that she was actually ostracized and bullied during high-school, with Lena being pretty much her only friend. She wants to pass an image of a confident and completely self-reliant person, but she has some concerning attitudes here and there that maybe indicate she might be a little obssessed with Lena and that she seems to be a bit ruthless and uncaring about other people's wellbeing if they get on her way.
Mostly only theories for now, but it is a bit suspicious how she is trying to stonewall any possible ammends between Lena and Cherry, how she is pretty pushy about trying to "corrupt" Holly during their hangouts, and just how much she antagonizes Louise.
Maybe it is a little bit too early to call her behavior sociopathic, but the stuff she can do to hurt Louise is definitely leaning towards it.
