I've ranted about this several times on this sub lol. Merry and Pippin were badasses, especially in the books. Pippin is smart enough lead the orcs away from frodo, know that they're being followed, sort of plans the invasion of isengard, sees the palantir as a powerful magical item before anyone else, then he uses it and when sauron, a super powerful mind reader, tries to read his mind pippin lies about himself and his mission (a feat we later see aragorn and denathor, both men of numenor, fail at) His pledge to denethor was the smartest political move he could have made in that moment and Gandalf praises him in the books for this and his great court behavior even though pip has never been to court, he speaks up for faramir when no one else would, then he saves his life (and later names his son after him) he lights the beacons saving all of gondor, he finds and rescues merry from pelanor, he charges the black gate alone (merry wasn't there in the book) and kills a troll by himself. He and merry then lead the army of Buckland to victory over much larger and well trained armies of sharky using superior tactics they picked up from gondor and Rohan. Pippin becomes even closer with faramir and they like to talk about lore and history together, iirc pip took the red book to gondor after Sam left middle earth? I might be remembering that last part wrong, but you get it he's a good writer/reader and a high ranking member of gondorian court that is capable of leading armies of a few different species. Definitely not dumb or weak, I would say Pippin is the GOAT hobbit.