“The toad being the smart one in the picture.”
You must be a liberal to make such a hateful statement, if not you are a POS.
I think some context obviously applies.
The problem is not always one of intelligence, but of wisdom. We sometimes think we’re smart enough to play around with evil and not get burned. And because of that illusion, we let evil charm us instead of sending it packing the moment it begins to charm us.
The toad might have been wiser, we could say, after having read the overall picture.