Characters / Diary of a Wimpy Kid

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Heffley family

In General

• Adaptational Nice Guy: In the film trilogy, the Heffleys are nicer and more sympathetic, essentially acting more like people you'd probably meet in life. Greg is less selfish and more willing to do nice things for his friends and family (and many of his Kick the Dog moments are either downplayed or removed), Frank tries to be a better dad, Rodrick becomes a Big Brother Mentor, and even Manny is noticeably less of an Annoying Younger Sibling and never reaches the Troubling Unchildlike Behavior territory. The only one this trope doesn't apply to is Susan since she was already the nicest of the family to begin with.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Greg and Rodrick in the second film, Greg and Frank in the third film. These films explore and flesh out Greg's dysfunctional relationships with his father and older brother better than in the books, eventually showing they do care for each other.
• Butt-Monkey: Whether on their own or all together, nothing ever goes right for Greg's family.
• Dysfunctional Family: Susan is a bossy Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher, Frank is a grumpy Jerkass and not the most pleasant father, Rodrick is a wild and aggressive Big Brother Bully and Lazy Bum who would make a second grader proud of his spelling skills, Manny is an immensely Spoiled Brat with alarming sparks of Troubling Unchildlike Behavior, and Greg is an undiagnosed sociopath and an absolute narcissist… It's a wonder they're still together after so long.
• Nice Mean And In Between:
  • Out of the three children:
    • Nice: Believe it or not, Greg surprisingly, being a Jerk with a Heart of Gold and having had a few Pet the Dog moments here and there.
    • Mean: Manny. A nasty little selfish brat who once left his family to die in a blizzard with no remorse for his actions. However, he has been getting better after Cabin Fever such as wanting to be with Greg during The Meltdown and Wrecking Ball.
    • In-between: Rodrick. He's mostly a bully to Greg and hasn't had as many Pet the Dog moments as him, but he's certainly never reached Manny's level of pettiness.
  • If you want to divide the family into pairs:
    • Nice: Susan and Greg. The former is a loving mother to her family and children while the latter, while having questionable moments, is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold and Only Sane Man of the family sometimes.
    • Mean: Manny and The Pig. The former is a Spoiled Brat who only gets away scott-free by using his age as an Freudian Excuse while the latter mostly causes trouble for the whole family.
    • In-between: Frank and Rodrick. The former likes to stay away from his family but still cares about them somewhat, while the latter can be a bully, but never reaches Moral Event Horizon.
• Noodle People: How Greg draws the cartoon version of his family in the books.
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: After 14+ books, Greg's still a middle schooler, Rodrick's still in high school, and Manny's still a preschooler.
• Shared Family Quirks: All of the Heffley men are self-centered jerks to varying degrees.
• Single Sex Offspring: The Heffley family has three sons — Rodrick, Greg, and Manny.
• Vacation Episode: The Long Haul, The Getaway, and The Deep End all deal with the disasters that happen when the Heffleys go on vacation.
• Walking Disaster Area: Thanks to the Sadist Show nature of the books, the Heffleys can't seem to go anywhere as a family without some sort of disaster happening. Sometimes it's their fault, sometimes not.

Greg Heffley

Played by: Zachary Gordon (first three movies), Jason Drucker (The Long Haul), Brady Noon (2021 film), Wesley Kimmel (Cabin Fever)

The main character and narrator, Greg is the family's middle child. Despite being an inveterate underachiever of average grades and no particular social standing, he is convinced that one day he will become rich and famous. How he plans to achieve this he never actually states.

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• Absurd Phobia: Greg admits that he developed a fear of puzzles, ever since he opened a puzzle box filled with crickets, though he seems to have gotten over this fear in The Deep End, as he was shown doing puzzles without any problems.
• Accidental Celebrity: In 'The Long Haul, when Greg lands in a ball pit that has a diaper in it and it gets stuck to his hand, he starts trying to shake it off while yelling, "Diaper! It's a diaper!". This leads to him being known as "Diaper Hands" to everyone he meets, much to his embarrassment.
• Accidental Hero: He shovels the walk to the soup kitchen in Cabin Fever causing poor people to be able to eat there, but he didn't even know it was a soup kitchen in the first place. He just wanted to find the letter he had sent to the church.
• Accidental Pervert: In The Getaway, Greg accidentally steps onto a nude beach with a camera. He ends up paying for it.
• Adaptational Karma: In Rodrick Rules, while Susan did find out about "The Invisible Chirag" joke and forced Greg to apologize, he still got off pretty lightly and even twisted his mother's Brutal Honesty-inflicted punishment to his advantage, forcing Susan to call it off. The movie, however, has Chirag actually get the last laugh by tricking Greg into acknowledging him and having a bunch of kids laugh at him.
• Adaptational Modesty:
  • Downplayed in the first three movies but because Zachary Gordon was an underage minor during the filming of Dog Days (which adapts several scenes from The Last Straw), two scenes involving Greg in his underwear are removed: Rodrick shoving him out of the hotel room in his underwear and the scene where his pants fall down, revealing his Wonder Woman underwear (although the former is played via animation at the start of the movie).
  • An extremely minor example. In the books, whenever an event took place in either autumn or winter, although Greg wore pants, he still wore his signature shirt. In the movies, whenever it's autumn or winter, he wears either a jacket or a long-sleeve shirt.
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • He's considerably more sympathetic and less abrasive in the films. They also make his not-so-nice moments (his prank on Chirag, throwing apples at Patty) more justified by the situations and the other's Jerkass attitude towards him, while in the books, both pranks were made basically For the Evulz (Patty was never mean to Greg in the books like she was in the movies, and she wasn't targeting him in particular when she prevented him from cheating in a test by suggesting a map with the answers on it be covered up). In addition, Greg gets Rowley in trouble in the books by chasing the kindergartners with worms for no reason while wearing his hat, while in the movie, he lowers them into a construction hole for their own safety, since he thought a gang of teenagers he'd angered on Halloween were approaching. Although he's still kind of a Jerkass in the first film like his book counterpart, in the sequels, he becomes nicer and even his bad treatment of Rowley is downplayed.
  • While the animated film is mostly faithful to Greg's portrayal in the books, after Rowley's wrist is broken Greg is genuinely remorseful, is fully prepared to accept whatever punishment Susan is going to dole out, and almost goes to Rowley's house to confess to Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson what he did, though he isn't able to go through with it. As a result, he comes off as less of an asshole and more of a flawed but good-hearted kid who lets peer pressure and a desire to be somebody influence cloud his judgment.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Greg in the books was too squicked out by Fregley to hang out with him and only befriended him after he and Rowley broke up. In the movies, while Fregley still grosses him out a little bit, Greg at least seems to tolerate him enough to have him be part of his friend group.
• Aesop Amnesia: You expect him to learn his lesson and stop trying to do stupid things that always end up flying right back in his face? Not a chance. He will just never, ever learn.
• Affection-Hating Kid: Greg finds it absolutely disgusting when his parents kiss or say, "I love you so much!" to one another. He also hates being kissed by his relatives because he's afraid they'll spread germs.
• All Guys Want Cheerleaders: In the first book, Greg wants to become treasurer and use his powers to do favors for cheerleaders.
• Animal Lover: One of the few genuinely redeeming qualities about him is his fondness for animals that he encounters. See Hidden Depths for more details.
• Anti-Hero: He definitely fits this trope due to being the protagonist of the series and is a selfish and whiny jerk.
• Anti-Role Model: Jeff Kinney, the author of the books, describes Greg as this in an interview.
  Interviewer: Is Greg a good role model?
  Jeff Kinney: No. In fact, you should do the opposite of everything Greg does.
• Angst? What Angst?: In-Universe, Greg shoehorns in a line of comedy in his horror movie due to Rowley getting scared easily.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Mostly averted but Rodrick seems to view him as this sometimes. For example, in book three, Rodrick was annoyed when Greg and Rowley went into his room without his permission and in the first live-action, he was furious when he saw them in his room.
• Asshole Victim: His Butt-Monkey status usually serves him right for his jerkass ways.
• Athletically Challenged: He is very bad at sports — he spent most of his swimming lessons hiding in the bathroom because the water was too cold, he gets distracted playing soccer, and he once mentioned doing badly at baseball.
• Attention Whore: He always tries to gain attention and respect at school.
• Author Avatar: Jeff Kinney stated on Reddit that Greg is based on his worst qualities while growing up.
• Big Brother Bully: In Rodrick Rules, Greg explicitly says he had intended to become this to Manny and treat Manny the same way Rodrick treats him. But he could never really do it, mainly because he can't get away with a thing with Manny, due to his parents being extremely protective of him.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: On the surface, he seems nice to the people around him, but in reality, he is a massive jerk who looks down on everyone and he won't hesitate to manipulate and gaslight others to get what he wants.
• Black Bead Eyes: Like everyone else in the series.
• Blind Without 'Em: He mentions that without contacts or glasses, he's blind as a bat.
• Book Dumb: He's not stupid, but he's a slacker who receives bad grades.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Eventually, he did catch up on his grades... but he's still lazy.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Downplayed in the movies (which give Holly more screen time) but Greg is noticeably much snarkier and more cynical than the overly-friendly and cheerful Holly Hills.
• Brutal Honesty: Invokes this when his mom tells him he'll be grounded for a month if he's caught lying. He takes pleasure in this trope. He's also this in his journals when it comes to his opinions and the failings of others. When it comes to himself, however...
• The Bully: A strange variation of this. Despite being a victim of bullying sometimes, he surely counts as a bully himself, especially to Fregley and Rowley.
• Butt-Monkey: A day without something going wrong for Gregory Heffley is a lost day.
• Cain and Abel: Abel to Rodrick's Cain. Greg is no saint, but while Greg is a cowardly sell-out, Rodrick is an active sadist who delights in tormenting others. Their relationship can be seen as a sort of Sensitive Guy and Manly Man dynamic played up to the worst extremes.
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin':
  • Whenever he tries to hide his misdeeds (starting the "Invisible Chirag" game, or failing his duties in the Safety Patrol and blaming Rowley for it), he's always eventually found out and punished.
  • Greg strives to be a Big Brother Bully to Manny in the same way that Rodrick is to him, but fails because his parents are too overprotective of the little boy.
• Casanova Wannabe: Often attempts to get with various girls, but he's so bad at it that it ends up that the girls in question never even realize he exists or he ends up looking like a perverted loser in front of them.
• Character Catchphrase: He comes up with one due to his "Truman Show" Plot, "Bite my biscuits."
• The Chain of Harm: At home, Greg gets picked on and bullied by his big brother Rodrick. In turn, he frequently takes opportunities to bully other kids when he can get them, especially his gullible best friend Rowley.
• Character Development:
  • Played with. Greg has had his fair share of Pet the Dog moments and shows of maturity throughout the books: in Cabin Fever, after being rumbled for accidentally vandalizing the school, he takes the punishment himself because, while Rowley was involved, he was essentially dragged into it. In other books, he yells at a loud group of kids during a road trip for waking him up in the middle of the night instead of hoping someone else will do it, gets along with his older brother better, admits he's not proud of several things he's done and is genuinely happy to see Rowley at his leaving party. However, these developments are all subject to change by the next book, as he's endlessly prone to returning to his Jerkass ways.
  • Greg's on-and-off character growth gets lampshaded in Hard Luck. At first, it seems like he's matured a great deal by the end after all the awful things that happened throughout the book: he finishes up his schoolwork on time, hides Meemaw's diamond ring (which he could sell for a massive sum of money, something he really wants to acquire) so it won't break up the family, and patches things up with Rowley after he realizes Abigail was just using him. Rather than try to better himself after that, though, he just figures that he and Rowley will break up and makeup again.
  • Unlike the books, the movies show him becoming considerably nicer and learning lessons that actually stick. After the first movie, he's no longer quite as obsessed with being "cool" and isn't embarrassed by his friendship with Rowley, and he bonds with Rodrick to the point that he hugs him out of relief at his well-being at one point in the third film (something their book counterparts would never dream of doing).
• Charlie Brown Baldness: How he draws himself.
• Chekhov's Skill: In "Big Shot", Greg unexpectedly manages to get a basketball through the hoop by throwing backward during practice (for which Mr. Patel reprimands him). Later on, similarly through dumb luck, wins the Second Chance Tournament by doing so yet again.
• The Chew Toy: He could give Charlie Brown a run for his money. The main difference is that Greg pretty much deserves the torment he receives.
• Cloudcuckoolander: He has some pretty crazy ideas about how the world works. In Double Down, for example, he thinks houseflies are drones aliens use to watch us. In the same book, he has a theory about how your brain can only hold so much information, and when you're eight or nine, it's filled up, so to learn something after that, you have to get rid of something old. His "proof" is that when he learned photosynthesis, he forgot long division (most likely, this is just a coincidence).
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: To Rowley all the time, even though he's a Cloudcuckoolander too.
• Comedic Sociopathy: This and Greg's reaction to it is from where most of the books' humor derives. Less so later on, though.
• Comically Missing the Point: Greg's mother tells him he'll be a garbage collector if he doesn't take school seriously. Greg says that being a garbage collector sounds cool.
  • In the same book, his mom tells him he can be anything he wants when grows up. Young Greg thinks he can literally be anything.
• Companion Cube: One Christmas, Susan got him a baby doll named Alfredo which he became extremely attached to until he lost the doll (actually, his Dad took him and hid him). So Greg replaced Alfrendo with a grapefruit that he took care of in the same manner for the next three months.
• Cosmic Plaything: The universe seems to just have it for Greg.
• The Creon: A non-leadership example. Though Greg fantasizes about being famous for a good portion of the series, at the beginning of Diper Overlode he decides he'd rather be friends or family with a celebrity so he can enjoy the benefits of their fortune without dealing with the burdens of fame. This is why he puts up with Rodrick's get-famous-quick schemes for most of the book.
• The Cynic: Let's just say it's not often that we see him smiling.
• Deadpan Snarker: Considering that he is the narrator and his personality, this isn't too surprising.
• Death by Newbery Medal: Greg is very much aware of this trope. When his mom makes him read Charlotte's Web, he predicts either Wilbur or Fern will die. He never finishes the book to find out, but anyone who has will know who does die at the end: Charlotte, the spider.
• Demoted to Extra: Downplayed. In "Diper Överlöde," while Greg helps out on occasion, due to the book being centered on Rodrick and his band, he mostly narrates what's going on with them, doesn't have a plot focusing on him, and is absent for a majority of the pages.
• Didn't Think This Through: His Fatal Flaw. A good example of this is The Getaway, where he tries to dry his socks with the eco-friendly dryer. Needless to say, it backfires horribly.
• Dirty Coward: Greg lives up to the "wimpy" part of the title of the series in many ways. He's fine with letting Rowley take the blame for scaring kindergarteners in the first book when it was Greg who did it in the first place. Another example is in Old School. After being caught trying to flee with Frew and Billy, Greg instantly blames it all on Billy to get out of trouble. And in The Getaway, he admits himself that "when Heffleys get in trouble, Heffleys RUN."
• The Ditz: Greg provides so many facepalm-worthy moments it's ridiculous. In Dog Days, for example, he thinks a muddy hand from a movie is real and constantly tries to avoid it. In Old School, he accidentally puts his socks over his shoes (which is not easy to do on purpose, let alone unintentionally) due to his father taking down a chart to help him get ready. And there are times where if Greg thought before he acted, he would be fine.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: The film trilogy ends on a high note for him. He becomes a better friend to Rowley, he and Rodrick are now friends, Frank and Susan start to respect him, Holly probably becomes his girlfriend, and he's much less of an outright Jerkass thanks to his Character Development.
• Easily Embarrassed Youngster: Let's just say Greg is very easily embarrassed, which is bad for a kid who has Amazingly Embarrassing Parents, a Big Brother Bully, and is the franchise's Butt-Monkey.
• Embarrassing Nickname: "Bubby" from Manny, a childish pronunciation of "brother". Greg goes to extreme lengths to keep anyone from learning about that nickname.
• Enraged by Idiocy: He's often enraged by the stupidity of others (mostly Rowley). Though this is a bit hypocritical seeing how he himself is not much better.
• Everyone Has Standards: Even though Greg is an unrepentant Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist to the tenth degree, being an insensitive jerk and a sellout, he still got his limits on what he's okay with.
  • In Rodrick Rules, Rodrick offers him a chance to buy a paper off him, since he had the same teacher and the same assignment as him a few years ago. Greg is seriously tempted, but can't go through with it. As he puts it, cheating on a pop quiz is one thing, but outright buying a paper off someone is too far. He actually does put in the work and tries to do the assignment the honest way... and then the power goes out. He gives into desperation and buys the paper from Rodrick... and finds that because it's Rodrick, it's utterly unusable anyway. He promptly resigns himself to summer school.
  • In the same book, he genuinely feels sorry for Rodrick when it looks like he might flunk out of school, and decides to help him out. As much as he hates his brother, he doesn't want his future to be ruined.
  • While he usually takes Albert Sandy's "information" at face value, even he starts to doubt him when he claims that girls are biologically incapable of farting, something he knows from experience to be bogus.
  • He not only approved of the Hero Points program that rewarded students for being nice, but he also really hated how the Hero Points scheme was ruined by two hoodlums who photocopied the sheets, resulting in the teachers becoming suspicious and eventually landing a genuine Nice Guy in detention, who earned his points legitimately and didn't buy them. In addition, he lamented that with the removal of Hero Points, people won't help others in need, such as helping someone with a broken leg and crutches carry a lunch tray.
  • Later, he refuses to buy an old science project from the same two guys, as he knows that it's not only going to land him in jail, it's stealing from everyone. Finally, when he manages to find the diamond ring that Mom's family nearly came to blows over, he hides it so a conflict like that can't happen again for a while (and in case he needs to fall back on it...).
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: While the term "evil" is pretty exaggerated, Greg is quite an ass. When he tells Rowley about how his family is going to get a bigger kitchen in Wrecking Ball, he doesn't understand why Rowley is happy instead of jealous as Greg can't understand that people can be happy for others and that not everyone is as self-centered as him.
• Evil Versus Evil: While calling Greg "evil" is a bit strong, he is still a self-centered jerk. But the people he frequently interacts with, whether they are other jerkasses, bullies, apathetic adults, feral children, delinquents, or even his own family, aren't nice people themselves.
• Fair-Weather Foe: Greg usually hates Fregley due to the latter being a Cloudcuckoolander, but in "The Ugly Truth", when he and Rowley temporarily stop being friends, Greg becomes so lonely that he's willing to try to befriend Fregley.
• Fatal Flaw: His impulsiveness and stupidity, which often gets him into major trouble. Notable examples include the first book, in which he told some teenagers he would call the cops, of which they later got revenge, Dog Days where Greg constantly ordered drinks without pay and racked up a bill for Rowley's dad, and Double Down, when he buys an expensive French Horn for a party, only for him to lose interest.
• Flanderization:
  • Greg's status as a Loser Protagonist and The Chew Toy has been upped. While initially, he deserved most of his misfortune, in recent books he seems to suffer for no reason at all other than bad luck. It doesn’t help that he becomes more smug and delusional per book.
  • While Greg isn't the smartest, he becomes dumber with more ridiculous beliefs as the series progresses, such as assuming his parents are robots when he hears one needing to "recharge our batteries" and squirting the father with a hose to verify this.
  • Wrecking Ball ups Greg’s Jerkass traits. While previously he mourned the deaths of his relatives, here he actually celebrates Aunt Reba’s death and tries to con children into buying useless items, including gifts that Rowley bought him. In the end, though, he still proves to be a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, and he genuinely appreciates Rowley showing up at the party at the end and admits he will genuinely miss him.
• First-Person Smartass: In his narration, he often makes snarky comments on how idiotic, petty, and brutish the people surrounding him are, including his own family.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Downplayed since he himself can be foolish too but Greg is noticeably more sane and mature than Rodrick.
• Freudian Excuse: He may be a complete jerk, but his life should give you a reason as to why he acts as such. His mother is overbearing and embarrassing as all hell, his father is a no-nonsense curmudgeon, his older brother always seeks out ways to screw him over, his younger brother is a spoiled brat and he's constantly stepped on and made fun of at school. It's not hard to see where his jackassery comes from.
• Friendless Background: Outside of Rowley, Collin, and sometimes Fregley, he doesn't appear to have any actual friends, mainly for extremely petty reasons. Whenever Susan tries to get Greg to befriend other kids, he refuses to because he looks down on everyone, even for the most minor of flaws.
• For the Evulz: A lot of his pranks and mistreatment of others are just cruelty for cruelty's sake.
• Generation Xerox: In The Ugly Truth, it turns out that Greg looks exactly like Frank's ugly cousin, Terrence, in the latter's youth. He's not happy about it.
• Genius Ditz: Despite his idiocy and cluelessness, he can come up with good plans. Notable examples include The Third Wheel, where he comes up with a plan to get Rowley into the student council and get himself to help Rowley make decisions and also comes up with a secret stall to hide his toilet paper and Double Down, where he plans to join the band to get invited to a party and makes a two-headed monster to get in when he realizes his section wasn't invited.
• Genre Savvy: He knows about the Death by Newbery Medal trope in Dog Days. He predicts that by the end of Charlotte’s Web, either Wilbur or Fern will die at the end of the book. Of course, since he’s a Lazy Bum, he never figures out that it’s really Charlotte who dies.
• Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing: The Grumpy to Rowley's Gleeful.
• Goal in Life: To become rich and famous, although he doesn't seem to have any idea of how he's going to get there.
• Gone Horribly Right: Is told he'll be grounded for a month if he's caught lying, so he takes Brutal Honesty and runs wild with it, much to his mother's dismay. He tells an overweight kid that he probably isn't going to become a basketball player when he grows up, and an old man at his birthday party that he's probably gonna die soon.
• Global Ignorance: When he's forced to make a school project about Malta, he admits he doesn't know almost anything about that country and the only thing he's sure about is that Malta is "somewhere near Russia" (it's in the Mediterranean Sea). He also mistakes an iguana for a dinosaur, though this is likely because he has never seen one before.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Whenever Rowley is getting more attention, Greg tries to steal his limelight.
• Hates Everyone Equally: It's a natural instinct for Greg to judge people for the most minor of faults. He even looks down on Rowley, who is supposed to be his best friend who has been with him through thick and thin.
• Heavy Sleeper: Only behind Rodrick when it comes to this.
• Heel–Face Turn: Only in the movies.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Greg is not a good person, no matter what anyone tells you. The books are funny because of how much of a jerk Greg is, and while he does have an occasional Pet the Dog moment, at the end of the day Greg is Exactly What It Says on the Tin — a wimpy kid.
• The Hero: He certainly thinks he is this trope.
• Hidden Depths:
  • The first movie reveals that he's actually got a great singing voice, albeit he's embarrassed that his voice is high enough that the music teacher wants him to play the part of Dorothy in the school's The Wizard of Oz play.
  • He has a fondness for animals, especially dogs, fish, dolphins, and pandas.
  • Big Shot reveals that he is actually great at shooting hoops, albeit only from across the court and when facing backward.
  • He's got a talent for sewing, and genuinely enjoyed taking Home Ec because of this. Unfortunately, the other boys made fun of him, so he decides not to pursue it further.
• Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Rodrick is constantly bullying him, but his antics are mostly portrayed as funny. Downplayed as it is not abuse per se.
• Hollywood Genetics: In the movies, both he and Rodrick have black hair but both their parents both have brown hair.
• Hopeless Suitor: Greg's crush on Holly, at least in the books. In the films, it's implied she may like him, too. By the end of the third book, he gave up on her after she mistook him for Fregley. Come to the 8th book, though, and as it turns out, he still wants to marry her when he grows older. He’s this for pretty much every girl he’s liked.
• Humiliation Conga: In the second film, which starts with him trying to talk to Holly at the skating rink, getting stranded as he can't skate, having to be carried off by his dad, and then falling into a cake and getting beaten up.
• Hype Backlash: In-Universe in the webcomic. Greg is hyped for Twisted Wizard 2, only to think it sucks.
• Hypocrite: One of his many flaws:
  • In Hard Luck, he complains about Rowley, who is always hanging out with his new girlfriend Abigail, and basically says that he misses Rowley's friendship because he misses Rowley doing things for him, like carrying all of Greg's books when they're walking to school (he even describes Rowley as a "pack animal"). And then he says, "Unfortunately, Rowley is just as willing to help Abigail with her books, which makes me think the only reason she's even with him is to use him." It doesn't help that he actually tries to use Fregley to mold him into another Rowley (luckily, that backfires).
  • Also in Hard Luck, he is disappointed in his schoolmates gaming the "Hero Points" program with counterfeit notes, which ends up with the program canceled, but he did more or less the exact same thing in Rodrick Rules (with the exact same end result). Of course, the difference in that case was that he was the one trying to game the system.
  • In The Ugly Truth, Greg's relatives have put sticky notes on Gammie's stuff so they can claim it when she dies. Greg rightfully points out that it's disrespectful before admitting that he did the exact same thing himself.
  • He tends to frequently bring up how dysfunctional his family is, especially his brothers, while making it seem like he's the only normal one in the family. But as Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid shows, Greg is actually just as dysfunctional as his family is.
  • He often looks down on the kids in his middle school as thugs who bully and exploit weaker kids, despite the fact that Greg himself bullies and exploits kids who are too submissive or too weak to fight back, like Rowley and Chirag.
  • Greg hates it whenever Rowley or Manny snitch on him, even though he's done that plenty of times to other people, like Billy Rotner.
• Hypocrite Has a Point: Greg's consistent description of Rodrick as a jerk is rather hypocritical in light of his own behavior and his treatment of Rowley. It's also completely truthful, seeing as how Rodrick is a Big Brother Bully with a penchant for crass jokes and petty schemes.
• If I Were a Rich Man: In the books, he often fantasizes about being rich and famous and seems convinced that it'll happen one day.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Or popular. He puts on a mean ego to fit in with the crowd instead of being an outcast for being too cowardly.
• Insistent Terminology: It's a journal, not a diary.
• Insufferable Imbecile: He is a manipulative, narcissistic Jerkass who can also be quite airheaded and simple-minded, constantly making harebrained decisions that backfire on him one way or another, being unable to tell fiction from reality, and forgetting how to put his socks on. Despite this, he is the self-proclaimed "smartest person on earth."
• Irrational Hatred:
  • His hatred of Fregley. Sure, he's not the most normal guy in the world, but he does not deserve the harsh treatment Greg gives him.
  • His hatred of Patty in the books, as she's only implied to be a Teacher's Pet at worst and never actually interacts with Greg. In the movies, however, this trope is averted, as Patty there is a total bitch who deserves Greg's hatred.
• It's All About Me: His incredibly self-centered personality needs no introduction.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • Pretty frequently. For example, he's completely right about how his brother Rodrick is an abusive jerk who takes delight in Greg's torment and Manny does deserve to be grounded when he misbehaves.
  • In Dog Days, Susan decides to take Greg to the mall to get an extra gift for him after his birthday party was ruined. However, she allows Rodrick and Manny to come along and get gifts for themselves too in the "essence of fairness." Greg rightly points out that this isn't the time for equal treatment, since his brothers weren't the ones who had their birthday cake eaten by a dog.
  • In the first movie, he's trying to make Rowley look cooler by getting rid of some of his more babyish stuff. While he's being a jerk about it, he's right that some of Rowley's favorite clothes aren't appropriate for his age and will probably get him bullied by the other middle schoolers.
    Greg: (holding up a "Me and My Mommy" shirt with a heart-shaped photo of Rowley and his mom) This one, we burn.
    Rowley: It was a present from my mom!
    Greg: Well, then your mom is trying to get you killed.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: A surly, snarky jerk with bullying tendencies towards Rowley, never mind his treatment of Chirag Gupta and all the times he manipulated Fregley. However, his Pet the Dog moments do show that he will eventually do the right thing and is not heartless.
• Jock Dad, Nerd Son: Nerd Son to Frank's Jock Dad. An odd case since Greg is Book Dumb unlike the typical nerd, but the trope is still there: Frank wants Greg to play sports, even if Greg hates them, and would rather stay at home with comic books and video games.
• Karma Houdini: Usually averted big time, but he very rarely manages to avoid punishment for his actions.
  • One time, he sent mean Valentine's cards to his classmates. He never gets in trouble for it, because he also wrote one for himself.
  • In "The Ugly Truth", he dumps a pile of deviled eggs in the Snella's potted plant due to their awful taste, which drives them to move out due to the awful smell. Greg is never found let alone punished, though he feels guilty when he sees the Snellas take their potted plant with them.
  • Downplayed in Rodrick Rules. He manages to weasel his way out of punishment for helping Rodrick cover up his house party, but since Greg had been locked in the basement for the entire party and then blackmailed into cleaning up the aftermath, it's hard to feel like he really deserved much punishment in this scenario.
• Kick the Dog: To pretty much everyone.
• Kick the Morality Pet: His relationship with Rowley hinges on this.
• Kids Are Cruel: He can be an instigator or a victim to this. He is a toxic friend to Rowley, however he is mocked by the other kids in school.
• Knight in Sour Armor: He'll help. There just has to be no other choice. Less so later on though.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Downplayed. He is shown to be quite Genre Savvy, have plenty of intellectual outlooks on how middle school works, displays artistic and grammatical expertise in his writing, and has quite a long and detailed memory shown in his diaries. This makes him conclude that he is brilliant overall. However, he is seriously lacking in common sense as many instances of his ineptitude can prove.
• Lack of Empathy: Despite being treated badly by Rodrick and knowing how painful said treatment can be, he treats Rowley the exact same way, which causes Rowley to give him "The Reason You Suck" Speech. In addition, despite being an outcast, Greg feels no empathy for Fregley and looks down on him.
• Laser-Guided Karma: One of the reasons the books are funny is because Greg is such a cowardly Jerkass that we feel no sympathy whenever bad things happen to him. In the second movie: Chirag actually gets the last laugh by tricking Greg into acknowledging his existence by pretending to have Holly want to meet Greg, only for Chirag to be dressed like Holly.
• Lean and Mean: In contrast to his friend Rowley who is wide and much nicer.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Greg mentions how he feels like he's been in middle school forever.
• Limited Wardrobe: A white shirt and black shorts are all you're getting with Greg Heffley.
• Literal-Minded: Greg sometimes is this. When his parents say they want to recharge their batteries, Greg sees it as proof that they are robots.
• Loser Protagonist: Our protagonist here is an underachieving dork who completely fails at everything, except for video games. It's mostly subverted in the films, where he progressively gets better.
• Love at First Sight: Towards Holly Hills in the second film.
• Manipulative Bastard: Basically what his relationship with Rowley hinges on. Although as a number of instances imply, he does have some genuine care for his friend, with the biggest evidence of that arguably being sharing a teary-eyed hug with Rowley in Wrecking Ball.
• Middle Child Syndrome: Rodrick frequently bullies him and gets away with it through intimidation and covering his tracks. Meanwhile, Manny makes himself a pest, but Greg can't do anything to him without getting into trouble with his parents.
• Missing Child: In the Long Haul movie, Greg sneaks off to a video game convention, only for Susan to find out.
• Misplaced Retribution: In Rodrick Rules, Greg recalls a time when he snitched on Rodrick for swearing. Greg spelled out the word for his mom and was punished for knowing how to spell a swear word, whilst Rodrick got away with it.
• Mistaken for Gay: In The Meltdown, Greg and Rowley sneak off to Gramma's house. Greg thinks he can get warm in the dryer. They are then caught by Susan wearing their underwear. Susan then says it's OK for boys to play pretend.
• Moral Myopia: In Hard Luck, he believes Abigail is only with Rowley to use him because she makes him help her carry her books, even though Greg himself did that a lot too.
• Mythology Gag:
  • In the movies, he has a cowlick (called a "wimpy spring" in the Movie Diary). In the books, he has only three strands of hair.
  • In the fourth movie, he wears a shirt with the words, "Twisted Wizard" on them. In the books, Twisted Wizard is a game Greg likes to play.
• Narcissist:
  • To the point where the entire reason he begins writing in journals is his expectations of being rich and famous and being too busy to answer people's questions. He also thinks he'll have a reality TV show by age 12. He even spends most of the book not shutting up about it.
  • In The Last Straw, he's talking about his family's New Year's resolutions and about finding ways to improve himself...but it's not easy for him to improve himself because, in his own words, "I'm pretty much one of the best people I know". So he starts thinking of ways to "improve other people" and telling them what he doesn't like about them.
  • In Wrecking Ball, he claims that he will have his own national holiday in the same vein as Dr. King and they’ll make his childhood home into a museum.
• Never Gets Fat: He is skinny throughout the entire series despite his diet. He even notes in The Meltdown how he constantly eats so much, yet he does not appear to gain any weight as a result.
• Never My Fault: Typically he is looking to find a scapegoat to blame, and very few times does he admit being wrong.
• Nice Mean And In Between: Believe it or not, he's the nice one to Manny's mean and Rodrick's in-between, having had a few Pet the Dog moments here and there.
• Nighttime Bathroom Phobia: "The Last Straw" reveals that Greg has always been afraid of a certain picture of Shel Silverstein on the back of The Giving Tree since he was three. Back then, he had a bad habit of getting out of bed at night for no reason, so his father Frank told him that if he got up again, he'd run into Shel Silverstein in the hallway. To this day, Greg is too scared to get out of bed at night, even to go to the bathroom.
• No Infantile Amnesia: Greg claims to remember the time he spent in his mother's womb.
• Nominal Hero: Not particularly noble to begin with, and most of the time he only looks out for himself. But he is capable of correcting his wrongs in the end, if only out of guilt.
• Noodle Incident: In The Ugly Truth, Greg constantly avoids Rowley due to a fight they had.
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: Word of God has confirmed that Greg will be in middle school forever.
• Only Sane by Comparison: He is normal in comparison to the spoiled Manny and ignorant Rodrick, but Greg rarely thinks through his actions and can be a coward.
• Only Sane Man: Can occasionally play this role. Probably the biggest example is Old School, where he's the only one who doesn't believe in Silas Scratch and constantly puts up with his cabinmates.
• Parental Sexuality Squick: In The Getaway, when he turns around to ask his parents something, he sees them making out, so he just leaves them alone and privately wishes that he didn't see that.
• Perpetual Frowner: His general facial expression in the books is a frown.
• Pet the Dog: Despite being a jerk most of the time, Greg has his moments of being nicer than usual.
  • At the end of Rodrick Rules, he stays up all night to help Rodrick put together a school project so he won't flunk out, something he really did not have to do, especially given that Rodrick has spent that book terrorizing him more than usual.
  • In Cabin Fever, when Rowley anonymously snitches on Greg for accidentally vandalizing the school, he doesn't pull Rowley into it and takes the punishment by himself.
  • In Hard Luck, he comforts Rowley after a particularly cruel breakup, decides to hide a diamond ring worth millions so his mom's family can't tear each other apart again, and is genuinely furious when a Nice Guy gets landed in detention, and utterly disgusted at how a bunch of delinquents in Hard Luck stole thousands and thousands of science projects and ruined the Hero Points scheme all for a quick buck (although he did something very similar before).
• Pinball Protagonist: In The Getaway and Wrecking Ball Greg does nothing to drive the plot other than go through his usual Butt-Monkey routine, while Susan drives the plot in both stories.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality: Though they're meant as tongue-in-cheek jokes for the audience, Greg's status as the Unreliable Narrator means the books have this in spades. Does Greg get Rowley in trouble for something he did? Good and dandy! Rowley snitches on him for this? He will pay for this! Greg bullies and abuses the crap out of Rowley? Perfectly justified! Rodrick treats Greg the exact same way? He's a complete jerk. Probably the worst example is Hard Luck, where he criticizes Abigail for making Rowley carry her books only to admit he did the exact same thing himself. It doesn't help that he used Fregley, too.
• Poor Communication Kills: Several things could have been avoided if Greg simply told people what happened.
• Potty Failure: He used to wet the bed when he was eight.
• Really Fond of Sleeping: Seems to inherit this from Rodrick.
• Real Men Wear Pink: He enjoys the Slumber Party Pals book series. He was also good at Home Ec 1, though he didn't take Home Ec 2 because he kept getting teased for his embroidered bookbag that everyone thought was a purse.
• Sadist: He seems to take joy in tormenting others.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Downplayed in the movies but Greg is noticeably more laid-back (at least compared to his book counterpart) to the overly-sweet and bubbly Holly Hills, who gets more screentime in the movies.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man:
  • The Manly Man (Jerkass Casanova Wannabe) to Rowley's Sensitive Guy (childish and naive Nice Guy).
  • On the flip side, he's the Sensitive Guy (a cowardly, physically weak, awkward preteen) to Rodrick's Manly Man (a tough, physically aggressive rocker).
• The Slacker: Not as much as his brother, but he's still very lazy, and not just when it comes to school. When he hangs out with Rowley, he usually makes his friend do all of the work.
• Small Name, Big Ego: He's full of himself, being confident of becoming rich and famous when he grows up. In fact, the only reason he keeps a diary at all is so that he can have a record of his life for people to admire when he becomes famous.
  Imaginary male reporter: Gregory! Tell us about your childhood!
  Imaginary female reporter: Were you always so smart and handsome?
  Imaginary Greg: Here's my journal. Now, shoo, shoo.
• Smug Snake: "When I’m rich and famous, I’ll have better things to do than listen to people’s stupid questions."
• Spiders Are Scary: Greg has serious arachnophobia as shown in The Getaway. He is completely panicked when he meets a tarantula.
• Strong Family Resemblance: He looks like Rodrick a lot in the films.
• Surrounded by Idiots: Grows into this mindset as the books go on - and quite a lot of the time, it's justified, but he's not much better than most.
• Sweet Tooth: Falls asleep in class if he doesn't get a sugary snack in his lunch.
• Temporarily a Villain: He was the main antagonist in Diary of a Friendly Awesome Kid.
• Terrified of Germs: A minor running gag is his fear of germs or anything he considers unhygienic. He scrubs his face with antibacterial wipes (and a curtain) after being kissed by relatives, refuses to swim in the ocean because fish pee in it, and won't touch his mom's potato salad because it's served in the same bowl she gives him and his brothers to throw up in when they're sick.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Greg is probably the unluckiest hero in kid literature ever, but even he has something good happen to him every now and then.
  • In Rodrick Rules, Rodrick tells everyone about Greg getting stuck in the ladies' bathroom at Leisure Towers, but the details somehow get all mixed up so that it turns into a story about Greg infiltrating the girls' bathroom at Crossland High School, making all the other boys think he's the coolest guy ever and earning him the nickname "the Stealthinator."
  • At the end of Cabin Fever, he gets his picture in the paper for shoveling all the snow off the church sidewalk and clearing the way for the soup kitchen to open on Christmas. They weren't able to identify him since he was wearing a ski mask, but it was still pretty cool.
  • In The Getaway, on his family's vacation, he gets to snorkel and swim with dolphins like he wanted.
• This Loser Is You: Readers are clearly supposed to identify with Greg, who is often the passive victim of the torment and ridicule he receives.
• Token Good Teammate: Downplayed, at least of the children (Susan's easily the one of the entire family). He's far from a nice kid, but he's surprisingly far less mean-spirited than both of his brothers — the elder is a huge Big Brother Bully and the younger is a horribly spoiled child who isn't hesitant in leaving his family to die in a blizzard for no good reason. In fact, this actually makes it obvious where he gets his jerkish behavior from (from Rodrick, at least).
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In Diary of An Awesome Friendly Kid, Greg is almost never shown being nice, and in the rare instances he is nice, it’s usually for a selfish reason. His dickishness in Diary of An Awesome Friendly Kid is so extreme that he’s a borderline bully in the book.
• Took a Level in Kindness: In the 1st movie, he was a big jerk like in the books, but in the 2nd and 3rd movies, he was more likable (and Holly Hills was also introduced in the second movie, coincidence?). He notably apologizes to Rowley in the third film when he messes up and the two rekindle their friendship much faster than they did in the books.
  • The later books has Greg being somewhat less of a jerk; Painting him more often as a normal, though not without his moments of selfishness or idiocy, teen who has to deal with the insanity and bizarre situations he finds himself in. More books has Greg being in bad situations that most of the time are not his own fault, making him just a touch more sympathetic.
• Toxic Friend Influence: To Rowley, at least according to Rowley's parents (they're not entirely wrong...)
• The Un-Favourite: Only behind Rodrick. His parents favor Manny over him.
• Ungrateful Bastard: In "Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid", Rowley shows Greg his journal and suggests they could make a book series about their adventures together, so they'll both be famous. How does Greg respond? By saying that it's stupid and he can replace Rowley with any other moron in his biography. You don't feel bad when Rowley hits Greg with the book.
• Unreliable Narrator: Sure, a lot of what he goes through seems plausible. But Greg often tells very obvious lies, twists the facts to make himself look better and due to being a first-person narrator, we only have his accounts to go off of. And this being Greg, it's very hard to 100% trust them. The ending of The Deep End has him saying he makes stuff up and leaves things out, believing you shouldn't let the truth get in the way of a good story.
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Despite his claiming otherwise, he's clearly not the nicest person in the world and the reader is obviously supposed to laugh at him, not like him. The movies downplay this considerably and make him a much more sympathetic character.
• Unusual Euphemism: Has his own made-up language to avoid getting in trouble for swearing.
• Villain Protagonist: At his worst.
• Vitriolic Best Buds:
  • With Rowley. Greg supplies all the vitriol, and Rowley is the cheerful, passive one.
  • In the films, he's this to a lesser degree with Fregley and Chirag, as despite the fact that he thinks of one as a weirdo and the other as annoying respectively, he still hangs out with them. It culminates in them helping Greg stage a revenge scheme against a rival troop.
• Vocal Evolution: Over the course of the first 3 films, his voice gradually deepens, as a result of his actor going through puberty.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: As a kid, he was afraid of the creepy photo of Shel Silverstein on the back cover of The Giving Tree.
• With Friends Like These...:
  • For someone who claims to be his friend, Greg treats Rowley like absolute garbage, though he does have some Pet the Dog moments.
  • In the online version, he only goes to Collin’s house to mooch off him such as by playing his games and reading his books, and he ignores Collin when he asks a question and even steals Monopoly money from him.
• Would Hit a Girl: Greg has no problem at all throwing an apple at Patty in the school play. In the movie, Patty deserves it due to being a Jerkass.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Greg has a low opinion of the reading material he's given for his English classes, since most of the books he's given end with one of the main characters dying, causing him to write them off as predictable. He's then given Charlotte's Web and assumes either Fern or Wilbur dies. It's actually the titular Charlotte that dies.

Rodrick Heffley

Played by: Devon Bostick (first three movies), Charlie Wright (The Long Haul), Hunter Dillon (2021 film)

Greg's older brother in high school. He lives in the basement and leads a garage band, Löded Diper.

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• Adaptational Attractiveness: In the books, Rodrick is drawn as a noodle person with thick eyebrows and a perpetual frown. In the first three live-action movies, he's played by Devon Bostick◊, with a few gratuitous Shirtless Scenes for extra fanservice.
• Adaptational Hair Style Change: He has spikey hair in the books but has full head of messy hair in the movies.
• Adaptational Heroism: In the movie adaptation of Rodrick Rules. He goes from the Big Bad in the book to the Deuteragonist who (eventually) helps Greg in the movie.
• Adaptational Karma: In the books, Rodrick got away with most of his attempts to bully Greg, and the punishments he did receive were too flimsy for Rodrick to actually learn anything from the experience. In both the live-action and animated films, Rodrick faces more serious punishments for his actions. For instance, Rodrick in the books is punished for hosting a house party without permission with a grounding that didn't affect his ability to continue practicing drums and ultimately drove Frank into canceling his punishment early. In the films, Rodrick gets restricted from joining the talent show for the same offense, where he loses composure and pleads for his parents to let him participate.
• Adaptational Modesty: Downplayed. Although he has tons of ShirtlessScenes in the movies, whenever he does have his shirt on, Rodrick is sometimes shown wearing a jacket, something that he didn't have in the books.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: The movies have him start off as identical to his book counterpart, but the second and third films add more depth to his character by having him bond with Greg, becoming more of a Cool Big Bro.
• All Men Are Perverts: He owns a heavy metal magazine with a photo of a bikini-clad woman lying across the hood of a car.
• Ascended Extra: A secondary antagonist in the first movie, but he gets A Day in the Limelight in the second movie (it even has his name in the title).
• At Arm's Length: He does this to Greg in the second movie.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: In Rodrick Rules (the book), he wants people to notice his band so they can get famous. He gets noticed, all right...when the videotape of his mom dancing to the band's music turns into a meme and he becomes a laughingstock for being the drummer in the "Dancing Mom" video.
• Berserk Button: Never let him catch you in his room uninvited. Greg reveals in "The Last Straw" that Rodrick gets really mad whenever he catches him messing around in the basement, and the first movie has him chasing Greg down with clearly ill intentions after discovering him and Rowley reading his old yearbook there.
• Big Brother Bully: He frequently plays mean pranks on Greg. He gets better, though.
• Big Brother Instinct:
  • During The Getaway, in a rare case of Rodrick actually having a heart in the books, he willingly tried to help Greg to safety when he saw him in serious danger of getting beat up by an angry mob.
  • Has a major moment in the third film when he shows Greg that information about Spag Union came in the mail. Being worried that Frank was going to send Greg away, he convinces Greg to prove his worth during the wilderness weekend.
• Big Brother Mentor: In the second half of the second movie he evolves from a Big Brother Bully to this, giving him advice about how to deal with his parents and school problems.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: He's the only character in the books who is drawn with default eyebrows. In fact, he has eyebrows thicker than his lips, to judge from Greg's art.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Greg says he sets peoples' expectations for him low so that when he does something smart, he is seen as amazing. He can be quite clever when he tricks his brother.
• Book Dumb: He lets his father do all his homework, and fails his assignments when he does it on his own.
• Cain and Abel: Cain to Greg's Abel. Greg is no saint, but it's clear that Rodrick is the meaner one of the two.
• Casanova Wannabe: The movies give him this trait. He tries to flirt with girls at his party, who are clearly put off by him, and his efforts to win over Heather Hills are comically bad. When he tries to give Greg advice about Holly in the second film, he has this to say:
  Rodrick: Girls act like they're not into you when they really are. I mean, tons of girls act like they're not into me, but they are. I know they are.
• Character Development:
  • In the older books, there's not much to him other than being Greg's tormentor. In the movies, he gets a bit more depth and turns into a Big Brother Mentor.
  • In the newer books, he's less of a jerk to Greg, and conflicts between the two mostly stem from him not thinking something all the way through, such as taking a toilet break while in the middle of holding up a ladder Greg was on. In The Getaway, he even helps pull Greg over a fence that he was struggling to climb over in order to reunite with the family.
• Childish Older Sibling: While Greg isn't the pinnacle of maturity himself, his older brother Rodrick is a lazy, Book Dumb troublemaker who does little more than make life harder for the family, especially with how he acts towards Greg and Frank.
• Cool Big Bro: After a bit of Character Development in the movies.
  • He spends most of the second movie bullying Greg, but in later scenes, he starts bonding with him and giving him advice. The whole movie is about their rivalry and the development of their brotherly relationship.
  • He's still one in the third movie. While Greg doesn't look up to him nor thinks he's "cool", they are more or less on good terms (at least, much better than before), and Rodrick is never seen pranking or tormenting his brother.
• Crazy-Prepared: He has a magazine picture of a one-armed drummer in his room, just in case his mom ever asks what he'll do for a living if he loses an arm and can't play the drums anymore.
• A Day in the Limelight: In "Rodrick Rules" and "Diper Överlöde", Rodrick is a main character as they focus on his relationships with Greg (the 2nd book) and his band (the 17th book). "Diper Överlöde" especially has him appear in more pages than Greg.
• Deadpan Snarker: If there's a sarcastic one-liner to be given, he'll usually deliver it.
  Rodrick: Monkeys don't speak English, stupid.
• Deuteragonist: In the second movie, he plays the role of the second most important character after Greg. The movie even has his name in the title.
• Disappointing Older Sibling: Greg doesn't have a high opinion of him, to say the least. He describes Rodrick as a "jerk", looks down on him for being lazy and Book Dumb (even if Greg himself is not much better), and even thinks Rodrick's band is lame.
• The Ditz: He spells "sweetie" as "sweaty" and thinks pigs make bacon the same way chickens make eggs.
• Dogged Nice Guy: "Nice Guy" might be a bit of a stretch, but when you see him try so hard to win the love of Heather Hills in the third film, only for her to respond with rudeness and a cold personality, it's hard not to feel a bit sorry for him.
• Dreaded Kids' Table: He has to sit at the kids' table during family reunions, even though, in Greg's words, "he's practically a grown man."
• Dreadful Musician: Zigzagged. Greg doesn't really think much of his music. But then again, Greg doesn't think much of him at all. Frank doesn't like his music either, but Susan does.
• Dumb and Drummer: He has aspirations of playing drums in a heavy metal band. He's also one of the dumbest characters in the series.
• Dumbass Teenage Son: He's portrayed as dimwitted, especially when it comes to his schoolwork.
• Flanderization: In the first book or two, Rodrick was at absolute worst Book Dumb. He put little effort into things so people would set their expectations low, making it so he got praises and rewards whenever he would do the absolute bare minimum. In a way, this actually makes him smart. But with each book, he got dumber and dumber, until he got to the point where he's a grade A idiot who believes things such as pigs providing daily bacon the same way cows provide milk and applied to dog colleges.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Downplayed but Rodrick is noticeably more immature and more prone to dumb decisions than Greg.
• For the Evulz: Why he messes with Greg. There's no real benefit, except for the enjoyment he gets of it.
• Goal in Life: To become a famous heavy metal musician.
• Guyliner: In the movie, he occasionally dons eyeliner as part of his performance makeup.
• Heavy Sleeper: Spends most of his free time sleeping and once slept for almost two days straight. One time, when his old mattress was replaced, he went right back to sleep on the floor in the middle of his empty bed frame.
  Greg: "The only person I know who's better at sleeping than me is Rodrick."
• Heel–Face Turn: Much like Greg, this only applies to the movies.
• Hollywood Genetics: In the movies, both he and Greg have black hair but both their parents have brown hair.
• Hopeless Suitor: He's smitten with Heather Hills, and tries to win her heart. He fails.
• Hormone-Addled Teenager: He owns a porn stash consisting of sexually clad women.
• I'll Kill You!: In the first movie, this is his reaction when he finds Greg and Rowley in his room.
  Rodrick: I came up here to get a new drumstick. And now, Greg, since Mom and Dad are gone...I'm going to kill you. Literally, kill you!
• Implausible Deniability: The second movie has Frank catch incriminating crystal clear photos of Rodrick in a Wild Teen Party (due to Greg taking pictures and forgetting to delete them.). Rodrick's reaction?
  Rodrick: [sporting a clear Oh, Crap! face] That's not me.
• Insufferable Imbecile: He's an obnoxious Dumbass Teenage Son who likes to bully his younger brother.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Rodrick and Bill. Rodrick is a high schooler and Bill is in his mid-thirties, but the two of them are good friends due to a shared interest in rock music. However, in the movies, their friendship falls apart once Bill drops Rodrick from the band.
• Jerkass to One: He is not pleasant in general, but he's especially mean to Greg. He never bullies Manny (but it's likely he would never get away with that).
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: In the second movie he learns to be more caring towards Greg, still teasing him here and there, but it's more downplayed in later movies.
• Karma Houdini: He always gets away with bullying Greg.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: On one occasion his parents ground him for throwing a Wild Teen Party while they were away after he did everything in his power to prevent himself from doing so.
• Lazy Bum: According to Greg, he's "the king of laziness".
• Lean and Mean: Very thin, and mean like his two younger brothers; though not as bad as Manny.
• Little Known Facts: Since they were both very young, Rodrick has told Greg several lies in order to mess with him. For instance, in Dog Days, it's revealed that Rodrick once told Greg that if you swallow watermelon seeds, a watermelon will grow in your stomach, and in Double Down, Greg recalls a variety of lies Rodrick has told him, including "if your belly button comes untied, your butt will fall off", "if you wear camouflage, you become invisible to everyone else", and "if you bury money in the ground, it will grow into a money tree".
• Madness Mantra: He went on a school trip to Hardscrabble Farms when he was Greg's age and sent several letters home that said nothing but "Help help get me out of here. Help help get me out of here. Help help get me out of here."
• Metalhead: With aspirations of becoming a big-time musician.
• Misplaced Retribution: In the first book, Manny cuts out a picture of a bikini-clad woman from one of Rodrick's magazines and takes it with him to preschool the following day. Who gets punished for this? Rodrick, despite the fact that he had no involvement in this scheme and it was Manny's fault for breaking into his room in the first place and doing that without anyone's knowledge.
• Mr. Fanservice: In the movies where he's played by Devon Bostick with a few gratuitous Shirtless Scenes.
• Never My Fault:
  • The book version of "Rodrick Rules" has the distinction of having it happen twice on one page. When Susan dances during the recording of Rodrick's band session at the talent show, thus depriving him of his chance to show his performance to record companies, Rodrick calls her out. She just responds that he shouldn't play music if he doesn't want people to dance. Rodrick then blames the recording fiasco on Greg for not taping the show for him, only for Greg to reply that he would have done it if Rodrick wasn't such a Jerkass.
  • In "Diper Överlöde," he has the balls to get angry at Greg when he himself forgets to bring his drumsticks as Greg is the roadie even though he never told Greg to carry the drumsticks and he himself should always remember to bring his instruments.
• Nice Mean And In Between: The in-between to Greg's nice and Manny's mean - he hasn't had as many Pet the Dog moments as Greg, but he's certainly never left his family to die in a blizzard like Manny.
• Perpetual Frowner: In the books, he's mainly drawn this way.
• The Prankster: He certainly is clever when it comes to cooking up pranks against Greg.
  • In "The Last Straw", he tricks Greg into getting shot in the behind with a paint gun on last year's April Fools Day. Twice.
  • In "The Getaway", Greg mentions the time that Rodrick told him that if he peeked on the other side of the town pool's bathrooms, he could see what's in the ladies' room. The end result was Greg trying to erase the image of a guy sitting on the toilet from his mind.
• Pet the Dog: In The Getaway, he tries to save Greg from a crowd of angry beachgoers.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The manly man (a tough, physically aggressive rocker) to Greg's sensitive guy (a cowardly, physically weak, awkward preteen).
• Serenade Your Lover: In the third movie, Rodrick has a huge crush on Heather Hills, to the point of attempting to serenade her. She wants nothing to do with him.
• Shirtless Scene: Several in the movies, including the "three days and no shower" scene.
• The Slacker: He weaponizes this behavior to "lower people's expectations and surprise them by doing almost nothing at all."
• Slouch of Villainy: His cartoon self is drawn with a hunched back. Greg believes it's because of the heavy backpack he has to carry to and from school all day.
• Strong Family Resemblance: With Greg in the movies—seriously, the actors who play them could easily pass for brothers.
• Terrible Artist: Rodrick isn't much better at art than he is at music. When Susan makes him and Greg do a "Summit" (a punishment that involves drawing pictures of a bad thing they did), Rodrick draws a crude stick-figure picture of himself shoving Greg off a cliff into shark-infested water.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: In the latest books it's noticeable that Rodrick has gone from simply being Book Dumb because he's "Too cool for school" but clever when it comes to teasing Greg to being a complete idiot who thinks you can get bacon from pigs the same way you get eggs from chickens, and thinks his brain exploded when he had cinnamon bun dough all over him. That said, his embarrassing essay about "The Earth A Hundred Years Ago" makes it pretty clear since the second book (and movie) that he's not a smart guy.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: "Diper Överlöde," has Rodrick become controlling, selfish, and ungrateful as he wants his band to finally be well-known, but pushes his bandmates to do things that could get them arrested in order to do so. Understandably, his bandmates bail on him as even they don't want to do underhanded things just to be famous.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Unlike the book it was based on, the second movie focuses on Rodrick genuinely bonding with Greg and becoming his Big Brother Mentor.
• Troubled, but Cute: In the movies, which play up the All Girls Want Bad Boys / Loveable Rogue angle.
• Ungrateful Bastard: In the books, he has never softened up to Greg one bit, not even when Greg willingly helps him with the science fair in Rodrick Rules.
• The Unfavorite:
  • Even more so than Greg. Come to think of it, that's probably why he's such a Jerkass. Greg himself believes this is why Rodrick is so grumpy.
  • This apparently also applies to the grandparents, since Manny is Gramma's favorite and Greg is Grandpa's favorite.
• Would Hurt a Child: Picks physically on pre-teen Greg For the Evulz. Downplayed given he's just 17 himself, and Greg's sibling at that.

Manny Heffley

Played by: Connor and Owen Fielding (first three movies), Wyatt and Dylan Walters (The Long Haul), Grace Newton (2021 film)

The youngest Heffley child, Manny is endlessly coddled by his parents and, consequently, very spoiled.

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• Adaptational Attractiveness: While he looks like (to use Kinney's own words) an alligator with buckteeth in the books, the movies make him into a perfectly normal-looking little kid.
• Adaptational Karma: Where his book version got away with hoarding the family's food and supplies in Cabin Fever and left them a freezing mess in the original, Manny notably didn't luck out in its Animated Adaptation, where the family discover he's behind the theft of all their resources and he is taped to his car seat as punishment.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: The film version of Manny is a nuisance to Greg, but his spoiled nature and brattiness are toned down from the books.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Manny is Rodrick and Greg's younger brother, who gets his way no matter what. Their mother even drives to Manny's preschool just to cut his sandwich because it wasn't how he wanted it.
• Animal Stereotypes: He has the look of "a bucktoothed alligator" according to the movie diary.
• The Baby of the Bunch: Of the Heffley family, and the reason why Susan spoils him.
• Baby Talk: "Wipe my heinie, ploopy!"
• Barely-Changed Dub Name: He's called Manu in the French translation.
• Berserk Button:
  • If you don't give him what he wants, he will have an utter tantrum.
  • It's revealed in "The Long Haul" that he will go into an utter rage if his nap time is interrupted.
  • Never give him sandwiches cut in halves. You'd better put the mustard on his hotdog across the middle if he asks you to give one. Always put the cereal in his bowl after the milk. If you fail at any of these, he'll cry like mad.
• Better with Non-Human Company: Manny is terrified of other children. However, he does seem to love animals; he's very attached to the Heffleys' pet pig, and in The Getaway, he catches sea creatures in his bucket with the intention of keeping them as pets on three occasions.
• Bilingual Bonus: In The Long Haul, he becomes fluent in Spanish after listening to a Spanish CD that Susan bought on their road trip.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Manny acts all nice and sweet around Susan and Frank, but in reality, he's a complete brat and the gloves will come off if he doesn't get what he wants.
• Bizarre Taste in Food: For some reason, he loves the taste of Bitter Apple Spray, a bad-tasting but non-toxic substance meant to be sprayed on furniture to discourage dogs from chewing on it. He puts it on everything he eats.
• Born Lucky: Has much more privileges than his brothers and barely anything bad happens to him, to Greg's annoyance.
• Bratty Food Demand: He'll throw a tantrum if his food is not prepared in the very specific way he demands, e.g. if you cut his sandwich in halves instead of quarters, pour the milk in the bowl before the cereal, or give him a hotdog without a short line of mustard applied in the middle.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Manny persists to throws tantrums until his demands are fulfilled.
• Character Development:
  • He makes one small improvement in Hard Luck: he's shown to have made a friend in his preschool class, which suggests that his social skills may be getting better if nothing else (although according to Greg, they don’t even talk to each other). And he quickly picks up on speaking Spanish, which leads to getting a ride home in a car that works.
  • In The Meltdown, he's noticeably less bratty and almost acts like a normal kid. Also, for the first time, he's looking up to his older brothers and imitating what they're doing. This continues in Wrecking Ball where he wants to be with Greg after the latter is tossed out of the house to see what the construction workers are doing and gets upset when Frank won't let him. The Deep End also has him not going with what Susan wants to do.
• Child Prodigy:
  • In Cabin Fever, he figured out how to change the parental controls, hack into Greg's Net Kritterz account, and even switch off most of the electricity.
  • Shows signs of this by The Long Haul. He gains the ability to speak perfectly fluent conversational Spanish from a tutorial CD, understands decimal numbers, and gives accurate directions in Spanish to a petting zoo that he'd only seen once in his life that the family had passed several days ago (that, or he figured out how to use the GPS in the car, which is still impressive by itself, let alone somehow either finding it on the map or having noted the petting zoo's postcode while there).
  • He built an entire house by himself with functioning water and electricity in Wrecking Ball.
• Companion Cube: The remains of his old knit blanket, which he calls "Tingy" (which was accidentally thrown away by Frank).
• Cloudcuckoolander: He has quite the air-headed personality. He has No Social Skills and his Baby Talk mannerisms are immature even by the standards of most kids his age, who know how to form at least some coherent sentences.
• Compressed Vice: Way too many times to count but especially in Cabin Fever which includes spraying a Bitter Apple Spray onto food he eats, not giving up the Parental controls so the family can watch other things besides little kids shows and demanding everyone get their ornaments off the tree so he can put his favorite one up first.
• Creepy Child:
  • Played for laughs in Cabin Fever, where he steals almost all of the house's supplies and leaves the rest of the family to die during a blizzard. Greg throws out the possibility that Manny was just throwing a tantrum and didn't honestly realize he was endangering anybody, but he's not 100% convinced that's the case.
  • In addition, this is invoked in the third movie, where after his father assures him that him throwing away Tingy was "an accident", Manny responds with "Tingy says you're going to have an accident." and shoots him a Death Glare. This scene was deleted for reasons not too mysterious.
• Deathbringer the Adorable: A variation. Jeff Kinney chose the name "Manny" because he thought it was meant to be an "ultra-masculine name" and thought it would be hilarious if he gave such a manly name to a tiny boy.
• Deliberately Cute Child: He uses this to manipulate his mother.
  Greg: He ruined my video game.
  Susan: Oh, he didn't do anything on purpose, did you, honey?
  Manny: No, I didn't.
  Susan: No, he didn't. He's only three.
  Manny: I'm onwy thwee. [he pokes his tongue out at Greg when Susan isn't looking]
• Demoted to Extra:
  • He doesn’t have much of a role in the books since The Long Haul, and in later ones, he mainly just sits there in the background.
  • This extends to the movies too. In the books, he is a supporting character while in the movies, he's a flat background character who aside from a few throwaway jokes here and there is just... there for the sake of being there.
• Don't Wake the Sleeper: In The Long Haul, it's mentioned that if Manny is woken up from one of his naps, he "goes ballistic" and is unable to be calmed down.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Out of all the Heffleys, Manny is the closest to Susan, despite his spoiled and bratty personality. In The Deep End, on the other hand, he's none too eager to go along with what she wants to do outside of a Mother-son dance contest.
• Flanderization:
  • The books gradually up Manny's negative traits. While he's always been a spoiled brat, in early books he's simply a troublesome child who doesn't really do much beyond annoy and frustrate his brothers. Over time, he slowly transforms into a real menace and a consistent Karma Houdini. Downplayed after The Long Haul wherein he's mostly in the background.
  • While Manny was prone to odd behaviors as far back as the first book, these were either him Obfuscating Stupidity to mess with people or simply him behaving like the child he was. In later books, Manny is unable to speak in a coherent sentence and engages in completely crazy acts like trying to climb down a toilet or trying to keep a box jellyfish as a pet.
  • Initially, Susan’s insistence that he’s smart for his age comes off as her justifying his behavior. In later books, Manny is a Child Prodigy who can speak conversational Spanish fluently by listening to a CD for all of five minutes, build a house, and hack into electronics.
• From the Mouths of Babes: He is shown swearing at other drivers in "The Deep End" when Susan lets him sit in front of it to pretend he is driving the RV.
• Genius Ditz: He has No Social Skills and other unspecified mental issues, but he's implied to be quite smart for his age. He seems to have extensive knowledge of computers, being that he messed up Greg's Net Kritterz account password in Cabin Fever and changed the settings on the TV. Manny is also shown to pick things up quickly, as he becomes highly fluent in Spanish in The Long Haul from a few CD lessons.
• It's All About Me: Has extremely selfish behavior, even for kids his age.
• Jerkass: Manny is very bratty and spoiled, and throws fits to get what he wants. He even almost starved his family to death in the middle of a blizzard just because nobody taught him to tie his shoes. Manny has a vindictive streak as well; he once ruined Frank's civil war battlefield because the latter threw out his blanket, though to be fair, Frank didn't know it was Manny's blanket. Downplayed in the later books where he's still smart but prefers looking up to Greg.
• Karma Houdini: He can get away with messing with Greg's stuff solely because Susan and Frank baby him. This gets ridiculous in Cabin Fever. He gets away with leaving the family to die during a blizzard, and does not get punished.
• Kick the Dog: He not only left his family to die during a blizzard to ensure his own survival but also turned off the electricity to every room but his own. When Manny went missing for a day, Susan found him in his room surrounded by food, water, toys, and a space heater. The reason for this? Nobody ever taught him how to tie his own shoes!
• Living Prop: Downplayed in the movies. While he does get a few scenes here and there, he's mostly just a background character. Whenever he isn't bugging Greg, he's usually in the background (and sometimes doesn't even appear at all). Justified due to child labor laws limiting how much screen-time his actors can get.
• Momma's Boy: He's clearly Susan's favorite son, probably because he's the youngest.
• Moral Myopia: He has no qualms with calling Greg a "ploopy", but he gets really upset when Greg does that to him.
• Never My Fault: He blames breaking a plate on his imaginary friend "Johnny Cheddar" and always comes up with the same lame excuse for his actions.
• Nice Mean And In Between: The mean to Greg's nice and Rodrick's in-between, being a nasty little selfish brat who left his family to die in a blizzard with no remorse for his actions.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: After watching a horror movie, Manny draws a picture of a monster, and it even frightens Greg.
• Nightmare Fuel Coloring Book: Manny accidentally watches a scary movie that Rodrick left in the disk drive, then later makes a scary drawing that Greg notes were enough to give him nightmares.
• Non-Standard Character Design: He has an extremely pronounced upper jaw and prominent buck teeth. Since this is at no point commented on, it's likely a purely artistic matter.
• No Social Skills: Even for a kid his age. He's so terrified of kids his age that his only friends are imaginary ones. Heck, when other kids come over to play, he takes everything away because he doesn’t want to share. Subverted in Hard Luck, where he manages to make at least one friend in preschool, but they don’t even talk to each other and just watch TV together.
• Obsessively Organized: With his food. Never give him a sandwich cut in halves (quarters instead); he only eats hotdogs with a short line of mustard applied in the middle; pour milk in the bowl first before the cereal and he will throw a tantrum.
• Out of Focus:
  • From "The Long Haul" onward, Manny doesn't play much of a role in the series' plotlines, and mostly serves as set dressing or gag fodder.
  • This applies to the movies too. Outside of a few throwaway jokes here and there, he doesn't do too much and is mostly just a background character.
• Pet the Dog:
  • He helps Greg shovel the driveway in Meltdown even though he has no reason to.
  • He also tries to apologize to Greg for messing with his video game system in "Rodrick Rules" by giving him an Apology Gift, even if it backfires on him.
• Picky Eater: Manny will refuse to eat certain foods if they aren't served to his standards.
• Ping Pong Naïveté: It varies from story to story just how intelligent Manny is and how much he acts like a normal child as opposed to a Child Prodigy. In some books, like Cabin Fever, he's clever enough to cut power to every room in the house but his own, and in "The Long Haul" he quickly learns fluent Spanish. However, he's still young enough to believe in some pretty illogical ideas, like another kid being a vampire. There are also some books, particularly the early ones like Rodrick Rules, which suggest he's really intelligent, but pretends to be childishly dumb to get away with things.
• Pint-Sized Kid: He can fit in a cupboard.
• Reused Character Design: His design originated from Igdoof, a comic strip written by Kinney for his college's newspaper. There, he was the titular character's younger brother.
• Satellite Character: In the movies. Outside of being Greg's Annoying Younger Sibling (as usual), he doesn't get too much characterization in the movies and remains Out of Focus.
• Sinister Schnoz: In the books, Manny is drawn with a long, snout-like nose, and he's often portrayed as an unrepentant Bratty Half-Pint.
• Spoiled Brat: His parents spoil him so much and let him get away with things that Greg and Rodrick would get in big trouble for.
• The Stool Pigeon: Manny has always been a big tattletale since the day he was able to talk. According to Greg, he also told his parents what wrong deeds Greg did before he could talk.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In Cabin Fever, he acted noticeably brattier than in other books.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: In the first book, Manny rips out a suggestive picture of a bikini-clad woman reclining on a car hood from one of Rodrick's magazines and takes it to preschool. Susan ends up punishing Rodrick.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Cabin Fever has him hoard food and cut off all the power to the house except his room during a blizzard, essentially leaving the family for dead because no one taught how to tie his shoes. After Susan teaches him, he decides he likes having her tie them for him better.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Was afraid of the "Potty Monster" for a time after Uncle Joe^note Greg in the movie told him there was a monster in the toilet.
• Youngest Child Wins: In that Manny winds up getting treated much better than his siblings. It's implied that this is a bit of a cyclical matter, as Gregory used to enjoy a similarly privileged position right until Manny was born.

Susan Heffley

Played by: Rachael Harris (first three movies), Alicia Silverstone (The Long Haul), Erica Cerra (2021 film)

Greg's mother, Susan is a kind and supportive woman, but is also somewhat naive and out of touch with the world experienced by her teenage sons.

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• Abusive Parents: Downplayed and Averted (for the most part). While she does try to be a good mother, the way Susan treats her sons (except for Manny) can come off as rather questionable at times. For example, at the start of The Third Wheel, Greg mentions that instead of getting an actual crib, his parents used to make him sleep in a drawer (which is dangerous for children in real life). She and Frank also let Rodrick sleep in the cold basement.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Applies to both live-action Moms. To be fair, that's not hard to do when you're competing with minimalistic doodle-style drawings, but Susan in the book is shown as considerably dowdier. She has an outdated, unflattering haircut and glasses so big they take up half her face. The first three movies' version does make an attempt to downplay how attractive Rachael Harris is, but she clearly still looks prettier and more youthful◊ than Susan in the books. The Long Haul makes even less of an effort to make Susan (as played by the famously lovely Alicia Silverstone) look plain.
• Adaptation Induced Plothole: In the first three movies, she has brown hair. In The Long Haul movie, she's blonde. It's never explained In-Universe how her hair got that way. This isn't a problem in the books, where she consistently has dark hair.
• Adaptational Jerkass: In the Long Haul film, she is noticeably more immature and bossy. She even deliberately humiliates Greg (to be fair though, it was his fault the trip was going wrong).
• Adaptation Name Change: Susan is named "Ann" in the original online diary.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Susan is always the Token Good Teammate for the Heffley family, but one of her main flaws in the books is forcing her family to do things she wants, even if they protest against it. In the original film trilogy, this trait gets downplayed with scenes like forcing Greg to participate in the school play or Frank to accompany Greg and Rowley on Halloween being removed.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parent: She tends to (unintentionally) humiliate Greg a lot.
• Blatant Lies: In "Big Shot", she tells Greg that she was glad for her loss in the Championship game back when she was on the middle school basketball team because it taught her to deal with failure and made her a better person. However, given that she traded Greg away from her team to the rival's team so that her team would win, as well as that she was at first hesitant on telling Greg how the Championship went for her, it's pretty obvious she wasn't proud of herself for losing and it stuck with her all the way to adulthood.
• Blind Without 'Em: In Cabin Fever, it's shown she cannot see well if her glasses aren't on, and this is a huge problem when Manny breaks her glasses.
• The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: She runs a parenting advice column in the newspaper, but is completely ineffective at disciplining any of her children, especially Manny. It does not help that she tries to use methods meant for preschoolers to discipline her teenage sons, such as punishing them for fighting by having them sit down and draw a picture of the thing they did wrong. (Greg writes "I will not call Rodrick names" and draws baby Rodrick crying after getting called a bunny rabbit, and Rodrick writes "I will not push Gregory" and draws himself shoving Greg off a cliff to get eaten by a hungry shark.)
• Doting Parent: To Manny, especially, but she's also shown to be a loving parent to Greg and is also soppy to Rodrick, being the only person in the family who actually likes his music.
• Flanderization: Susan was always oblivious to what teenagers enjoy and embarrassed Greg constantly, but only out of love, and was only stern when the situation called for it. However, she has become increasingly selfish.
  • The Long Haul turns her into someone who doesn't care what anyone else thinks about her family activities and forces the entire family to participate (against their will) to go on an ill-advised road trip.
  • Also, her mild skepticism of modern technology turns into a pathological hatred of it, using a petition to force the town into giving it up for a weekend and making the family abandon technology whenever she can.
  • Her selfishness also manifests as hypocrisy, as she used electronics to track Greg despite calling for the town to go electronics-free, which even Greg calls out.
  • In Wrecking Ball, Susan says that the inheritance money needs to be spent on something people will agree on, only to hypocritically contradict herself by getting upset when nobody likes her idea of improving the kitchen and leaves.
  • In Big Shot, she turns her own son, Greg, over to the rival team to relive her glory days of her team not winning due to her lack of faith in Greg.
• Hidden Depths: She loves dancing to heavy metal music.
• Horrible Judge of Character: She means well, but doesn't seem to understand any of her children and spoils her youngest son Manny way too much.
• Hypocrite: She can come off as one at times. To name some examples:
  • She frequently calls out people (Greg especially) for lying, but Greg himself has noted that Susan herself has a tendency to lie about stuff and that she's also willing to lie to Manny about stuff.
  • She hates it when a member of the family, particularly her husband, makes decisions without consulting her first, but she makes tons of major decisions on her own, ignoring whatever her family thinks about it.
  • In Rodrick Rules where Greg mentions that his Grandma expresses favoritism towards Manny, one moment shows Susan accusing Grandma of favoritism even though she and Frank express just as much, if not more favoritism towards Manny.
  • In Hard Luck, Susan's revealed to have a sister named Audra who's a big believer in stuff related to the supernatural, such as horoscopes and crystal balls, and Greg claims that Aunt Audra never does anything, not even household chores, without consulting her psychic first—Susan apparently finds that sort of stuff to be "hocus-pocus" and got mad after she discovered that Audra had brought Greg along to a couple of her psychic appointments when he happened for a little while during one summer. Greg admits that he finds this to be kind of hypocritical, especially since Susan apparently claims that her and Audra's mother (Greg's maternal grandmother) has psychic abilities, such as ESP.
  • In Old School, Susan petitions for her town to go electronics-free for the weekend, only to break this herself by using a pet-tracking app to track Greg on his shoelace. Even Greg calls this out.
  • In Wrecking Ball, Susan says that the inheritance money needs to be spent on something people will agree on. However, she contradicts herself by getting upset when nobody likes her idea of improving the kitchen and leaves.
• It's All About Me:
  • Susan loves to railroad everyone into going along with her plans and ignores any complaints or criticisms so that she can live out her fantasies. The greatest examples of this are in The Long Haul where none of the family can decide what to do for the day, so she makes an "executive decision" of going to the beach, which she wanted to do in the first place, and all of her attempts to ban technology, merrily going on her crusade against it and ignoring that no one actually wants to give up technology.
  • In Wrecking Ball Susan shoots down the rest of her family’s (admittedly impractical) ideas for spending the inheritance Aunt Reba left them, but when they reject her idea to use it to improve the kitchen, she throws a hissy fit, demands they go along with her idea because she was "the only one to send her thank-you letters", and storms out.
  • This is her entire attitude in Big Shot. From encouraging Greg to take up sports, to be an Olympian, and making him sign up for Basketball, it was pretty clear that she was trying to turn Greg into a successful athlete just so that she could ride on his coattails and feel like his accomplishments are her own accomplishments. And when that didn't work, she traded him away to the rival team so that her team would win and she would feel like a winner. However, this fails, as Greg scores the winning shot.
• Kick the Dog: Near the end of "Big Shot", she trades Greg to the rival team in the Second Chance Tournament, and when Greg sees that she's not rooting for him anymore, he realizes that she traded him so that her team would win, proving to him that not only was she using her own son to relive her glory days on the middle school basketball team, but that she didn't really have confidence in his skills and traded him away just so that she could feel like a winner. Luckily, her team doesn't win thanks to Greg.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Susan thinks she knows Spanish, even though every Spanish phrase she says is completely wrong.
• Laser-Guided Karma: In "Big Shot", Susan urges Greg to take up basketball (which he understandably suspects is to compensate for losing when she played the sport as a teen) and later trades her to another team in the Second Chance Tournament, using him as her "secret weapon", eventually backfire when Greg scores a basket with a backward throw and ultimately wins the game, causing her and her team to lose.
• Ludd Was Right: She prefers doing things the old-fashioned way and seems to dislike modern technology (or more precisely her sons' addiction to it). In Old School, she starts a petition for the entire town to go electronics-free for the weekend.
• Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher: Many of the issues involving her that crop up over the course of the series are rooted in her thinking disciplinary methods geared towards pre-schoolers will be just as effective for kids in their early-to-mid teens.
• Moral Guardian: She dislikes violence in any sort of media and will do anything to keep it away from the kids.
• My Beloved Smother: She always spoils the youngest child and treats her older two sons with little knowledge of pre-teen and teenage culture, albeit with good intentions.
• My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels: According to Greg in "The Long Haul," Susan has been trying to teach her sons Spanish since they were really young, claiming that learning a foreign language is one of the best things that you can do for your brain (which Greg acknowledges that she has a point on). However, it's clear that Susan doesn't understand Spanish nearly as well as she thinks she does (such as thinking that "Tengo hambre" means "Tango hamburgers," when in reality it means "I'm hungry"). In fact, Greg says that up until he started taking Spanish in middle school, Susan had taught him a bunch of incorrect words and phrases, such as teaching Greg that the way to ask "What's your name?" is "Te Amo", which actually means "I love you", causing him to repeatedly say that to a bemused waiter in a Mexican restaurant (the actual correct way is "¿ Có mo te llamas?").
• Nice Girl: While unaware of things around her, from the first book to Hard Luck, she was a genuinely kindhearted mother who just wanted what's best for her family. Downplayed from The Long Haul onward, where she Took a Level in Jerkass and her Soapbox Sadie traits are played up.
• Opaque Nerd Glasses: In the books. Her eyes are rarely drawn because of her glasses.
• Opposites Attract: She's caring and good-natured while her husband Frank is cranky and mean.
• Parental Favoritism: Towards Manny. She even went all the way from her workplace to his preschool to cut his sandwiches because Manny was throwing a tantrum about his sandwich being cut in halves instead of quarters.
• Parental Neglect: Not intentionally, but her obliviousness towards the Sibling Rivalry between Greg and Rodrick, her unwillingness to punish Manny let alone teach him right from wrong in general, her actions that frequently embarrass Greg in public, and also her uselessness in giving Greg help when he's having personal troubles. Downplayed in the movies, except in The Long Haul, where she's more competent at parenting, aware of Greg's poor relationship with Rodrick, and smart at giving Greg advice like when he was hesitant to confess about the safety patrol incident. But she's still hesitant with Manny, and she still embarrasses Greg at times.
• Parental Obliviousness: She's apparently unaware of the ongoing Sibling Rivalry between Greg and Rodrick, among other things. This is downplayed in the films, as she's shown to listen to what Greg has to say about Rodrick's party and even agrees to keep it secret if it meant ending Greg and Rodrick's rivalry.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Zigzagged—it's never confirmed what Susan does for a living. Greg mentions that she used to be a preschool teacher (Kindergarten teacher in the original online version) and she's also said to run an article in the local newspaper, and it's also implied that she used to work as a therapist (probably one for younger kids). Also, for part of The Ugly Truth, she went back to school for a semester to "stimulate her mind" and ends up going back to school full-time in Double Down. Other than that, she doesn't appear to do much.
• The Pollyanna: Always tries to see the good side of things, even in her Dysfunctional Family.
• Pushover Parents: She's too hesitant to punish her jerkass youngest child Manny simply because he's the youngest and also her favorite. However, she has sometimes acknowledged some of Manny's bad deeds, like when he broke Greg's console in Rodrick Rules, leading her to tell him what he did was wrong, or in Cabin Fever, whereas despite not grounding him for nearly accidentally killing her and his brothers, she isn't shown to be happy with him after giving him his presents.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: In Rodrick Rules, Greg doesn’t want to show his face at school after Rodrick tells everyone about the incident where he got stuck in the bathroom at Leisure Towers. Susan tells him he won't get laughed at because everyone will realize it was an honest mistake. She turns out to be right, and they don't laugh...because the details get scrambled and the story somehow turns into him infiltrating the girls’ bathroom at Crossland High School, making the boys think he’s the coolest guy ever.
• The Smurfette Principle: She's the only main female Heffley member.
• Springtime for Hitler: After signing Greg up for basketball in Big Shot, she trades him to a rival team after discovering that he's terrible at it, hoping that his incompetence will cause them to lose against her own team. Cue Greg scoring the winning shot for his new team and celebrating his victory with them as Susan drives away with nothing but shame.
• Soapbox Sadie: Susan often gets very preachy on her one-woman campaign against technology.
• Teasing Parent: She sometimes uses a jokey version of Reverse Psychology, where she pretends to humour her kids but then uses reverse psychology to get them to obey her. One example was when she tricks Greg into brushing his teeth by faking a call to the dentist, and another example is when she tries to get Greg to stop hiding by pretending she doesn't know where he is.
• Token Good Teammate: She's the only one who isn't a total Jerkass in the family, although she is pretty oblivious to anything to do with teens and pre-teens. Downplayed from The Long Haul onward, as the later books portray her as significantly more selfish and overbearing on her family.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Following The Long Haul, Susan has a tendency to railroad her family into doing whatever she, and she alone, thinks is best for the family and totally ignores any protests.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Always tries to do good with her family, like bringing them on trips, inviting friends over, and trying to get kids to be more active, but they never ever pan out and always end up making the situation worse for the main character. She still keeps trying anyway.
• What Does She See in Him?: One's a snarky, Jerkass, grumpy, bumbling dad who hates teenagers, heavy metal, video games and only wants to toughen up his middle child while getting rid of his eldest child. The other is a former kindergarten teacher who's a gentle, caring, well-meaning Moral Guardian mother who dances to heavy metal, loves her family for the way they are, only wishes for them to be more like a family, and genuinely tries to do the best for her sons (though it's often wasted effort because of her inability to understand the fact that problems teens face can't really be solved with methods used to solve problems for preschoolers and kindergarteners). They're married.

Frank Heffley

Played by: Steve Zahn (first three movies), Tom Everett Scott (The Long Haul), Chris Diamantopoulos (2021 film)

Greg's father, Frank doesn't really understand his sons, and often finds himself confused and exasperated by the antics of his family and by ill-advised attempts to bond.

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• Abusive Parents: To Greg and Rodrick:
  • In the first book, his method of discipline was to throw at his misbehaving sons whatever he just so happens to be held at the time, and Greg even once talks about how a bad time to make a transgression was when his dad was laying bricks.
  • In Dog Days, it's also stated that he has to be reminded by his wife to show affection to his sons.
  • In the online version, Rodrick tells Greg he beats his sons with a belt if they misbehave. As far as Greg knows, their dad doesn't believe in this form of discipline, so either this isn't true, Frank is willing to make an exception with Greg, or he only beats Rodrick (or used to beat him) with a belt.
  • Him and Susan making Rodrick sleep in the freezing cold basement (implied to be so in Rodrick Rules and Dog Days) instead of possibly sharing a room with one of his brothers would be considered neglect.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Downplayed when he was played by Steve Zahn. Although not some head-turning, drop-dead gorgeous man, this version of Frank is definitely in good shape for his age. He has nice, full, thick hair and seems pretty physically fit, unlike the book version, who is depicted as a scrawny man with obviously thinning hair.
• Adaptational Comic Relief: In the books, he mostly exists as a put-upon and constantly exasperated Straight Man. In the films, he's highly bombastic and almost always Suddenly Shouting.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: He's much milder and more fatherly in the movies, to the point where he and Greg actually have a rather close relationship. He's even friendlier to people outside his family, as seen when he cheerfully welcomes Rowley into the house in Rodrick Rules, while in the books he stingily resents whenever that happens due to considering Rowley a Lethal Klutz.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Various illustrations of him as a young boy throughout the books show him as having light hair, suggesting that he has blonde to red hair. Despite this, all of the films depict him with brunette hair.
• Ascended Extra: The third movie is sort of A Day in the Limelight for him, compared to his role in the first two movies.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parent: He can be this, but not to the same extent as his wife.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other:
  • Occasionally with Greg, especially in the third film where Greg's final line is "As for my dad, we may not see eye to eye on everything... but we work as a team".
  • In the books, he and Susan have their moments. Although he doesn't usually show it (presumably because Greg is an Unreliable Narrator, didn't want to talk about his parents being romantic, and/or just isn't around when they show affection).
• Bait-and-Switch: In the film version of "Rodrick Rules", Frank begins poking around the house to see if Greg and Rodrick held a house party and breaking their rules to not invite anyone over. Some time later, he yells in anger and confronts the two in the living room, making it seem like he's uncovered their deception. However, it turns out not to be the case and he's only angry because he found one of his Civil War figurines on the thermostat rather than on his battlefield model.
• Bumbling Dad: He acts like he's in his 80's. Not only does he regularly yell "Dagnab you rotten teenagers!", but in the webcomic, he tries to get classical music playing throughout the town to scare the teenagers away, is apparently teenager-phobic, and can't figure out how Greg's game system is even hooked up to the TV and says people at drive-thrus are idiots...yet he tries to place his order through a garbage can.
• Berserk Button: To put it bluntly, a lot of things make Frank angry.
  • Don't wake him up in the middle of the night.
  • Frank HATES heavy metal music.
  • Never mess with his Civil War battlefield models.
  • The entire existence of the comic strip Li'l Cutie is this for him.
  • Bringing up the time Uncle Gary pranked him on Christmas.
  • The Peachy Breeze ice cream commercial is a huge button for Frank, to the point that Greg thinks he might even hate it more than "Li'l Cutie", which is saying a lot. Every time it comes on TV, he types a long letter to the company saying how much he hates the commercial and how he'll never buy any of their products.
• Deadpan Snarker: He isn't really far behind Greg in levels of snarkiness.
• Fantasy-Forbidding Father: He strongly disapproves of Rodrick's desire to become a heavy metal musician. He also hates the fact that Greg spends so much time playing video games.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: He has a steady job and is Happily Married while his brother Gary is a goofy man-child who has never held down a job for more than a day.
• Hopeless with Tech: He usually has major trouble with figuring out how devices work, such as the television. Greg believes his father would have dismantled his video game systems by now if he could figure out how to, but he can't.
  Frank: Dag nab these fancy gadgets!
• Horrible Judge of Character: His Irrational Hatred for Rowley in the books. At some point in the third movie, he even states that Rowley may be a Toxic Friend Influence for Greg when it's actually the other way around.
• Irrational Hatred: Greg claims that when Rowley was having dinner with the Heffley family one night, he accidentally dropped a plate and broke it—and ever since Frank has treated Rowley like a Lethal Klutz ever since.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • His fears that Rodrick will grow up to be a Basement-Dweller aren't too far off.
  • He's also quite right to think that Greg is a lazy person, as he has a history of cheating and/or half-assing on his assignments and wants to do nothing but play video games all day.
  • In the films, his suspicions of Bill being a bad role model for Rodrick are proven correct when he kicks Rodrick out of the band when it is convenient.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's a bit of an asshole to his sons and frequently forces them to participate in activities they don't like (i.e. sports). However, Frank did go to scout meetings with Greg and bought tickets to the baseball game so the two could bond (sadly both events backfired horribly). He also bought Greg an expensive weight set for Christmas (that Greg then never used). In the movies, he's not nearly as much of a jerk as he is in the books (though he is still kind of strict). He's notably much more involved with his sons, and with Greg consistently shows support for him when he's down on his luck. This is best shown in the first film when he comforts Greg after he ruined the school play, and in the third, where he gives Greg some genuine advice on admitting mistakes and covering each other's backs on the camping trip against their rival scout troop. Humorously, the closer relationship he has with his sons here means he thinks Rowley is a bad influence on Greg.
• Jock Dad, Nerd Son: Jock Dad to Greg's Nerd Son. An odd case since Greg is Book Dumb unlike the typical nerd, but the trope is still there: Frank wants Greg to play sports, even if Greg hates them, and would rather stay at home with comic books and video games.
• Large Ham: In the movies, Steve Zahn portrays him pretty humorously.

  "GUESS WHO'S THE LAUGHER NOW? ME! I'M THE LAUGHER! I'M THE LAUGHINGEST LAUGHER THAT EVER LAUGHED! HA-HA! HA!"

• Not So Above It All:
  • In the second film, he's the one to record Susan's goofy dancing, and asks Greg to keep it between them that the crowd is cheering for her and not Rodrick's music.
  • In Old School, it turns out that he made up the legend of Silas Scratch so he could use an old maintenance shed he found during his time at camp. When Greg finds out about this, he lets him in on it.
• Perpetual Frowner: Does not smile very much. It's very obvious in the books, but the films downplay it.
• Pet the Dog:
  • In "The Last Straw", Frank decides to not send Greg to Spag Union as repayment for Greg (accidentally) causing a scene that saved him from performing in front of the Snella's new baby and publicly humiliating himself.
  • In the first movie, he waits outside for Greg while picking him up from Fregley's house.
  • In the first movie, after Greg lashes out at Patty during the play and ends up ruining the whole play, Frank is more accepting of it than Susan and comforts him, saying that "I think Dorothy deserved it."
• Serious Business: He is very protective of his toy American Civil War battlefield and won't let anyone else touch it.

  "WHAT WAS GENERAL GRANT DOING ON THE THERMOSTAT?!"

• Sibling Rivalry: Frank despises both of his brothers, disliking Gary for being lazy and disliking Joe for accidentally stoking Manny's fears of the toilet and resetting all of his potty training.
• Sports Dad: He pushes Greg into signing up for sports like soccer and swimming.
• The Stoic: Is not a terribly emotional person. Not so much in the film, where he's a Large Ham.
• Sweet Tooth: He's addicted to snack foods to the point he'll frame his sons for taking them.
• Teen Hater: He loathes teenagers due to their tendency to vandalize and TP his house on Halloween, a holiday which he very much fears the upcoming of. He becomes armed with buckets of water to drop onto them once they come onto his property to trick-or-treat. As the series goes on, it’s clear that he hates any teenager from random ones to his oldest son Rodrick. He even considered sending Greg off to military school when the latter had turned 13, only to change his mind when Greg accidentally saved him from public embarrassment.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Anything with sugar in it.
• The Unreveal: Combined with What, Exactly, Is His Job?. Much like with his wife, it's never confirmed what Frank does for a living, though from what we can gather through Greg's journals, it's apparently some kind of office job.
• Wanted a Gender-Conforming Child: Wants Greg to be one. He refuses to let Greg be part of a water jazz class and turns down his request for a Barbie Dreamhouse.
• Why Couldn't You Be Different?: He wishes his sons to be more manly because the sons of his boss are all sports jocks. He gets better about it in the third film with Greg in particular, admitting that he was never really all that into camping and as he and Greg talk things over, the two discover that they're actually much more similar than they originally thought.

The Pig

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• Anthropomorphic Shift: He learns how to walk on his back feet.
• Artistic License – Biology: Pigs can’t walk on their back feet due to their bone structure and they can’t write for obvious reasons (although the latter could’ve been a trick).
• Jerkass: The smarter he gets, the more condescending he becomes, especially when he decides to come and go as he pleases.
• The Load: In ''The Long Haul", the Pig serves as another nuisance who hinders the Heffley's vacation, often making an already chaotic situation even worse.
• Nearly Normal Animal: He can't talk, but seems to be able to stand on his hind legs and possesses greater intelligence than one would expect from a pig.
• Put on a Bus: He runs away in “The Meltdown” after not being invited to the family vacation in the previous book, The Getaway.

Greg's Classmates

Rowley Jefferson

Played by: Robert Capron (first three movies), Owen Asztalos (The Long Haul), Ethan William Childress (2021 film), Spencer Howell (Cabin Fever)

Greg's closest friend, Rowley is positive and cheerful, but also childlike and naïve. Despite this, he manages to be more popular than Greg is with other children at school.

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• Achievements in Ignorance: Throughout the books, he succeeds at a lot of things that Greg fails at, such as getting a girlfriend, becoming the school's newspaper cartoonist, winning a spot on the yearbook's favorites page, and even appearing on TV. Rowley accomplishes some of these things (most of which involve becoming popular) because he's a likable Nice Guy and some just because he seems to be luckier than Greg, who always tries too hard and usually ends up with little to show for it.
• All-Loving Hero: Rowley has a pure soul and only wishes the best for everyone.
• Ambiguously Bi: Sometimes, Rowley's actions are a bit suspect, especially with Greg. You'd think that a twelve-year-old boy would realize that sharing a "Best Friends" locket (in the shape of a heart) with another twelve-year-old boy wouldn't be something straight people do. It could be argued that he's just completely unaware of these things considering that he is a Cloudcuckoolander and is completely sheltered, however. That said, he does hook up with Abigail. He also has an obvious crush on his female teacher and his Author Avatar in "Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Adventure" gets Ship Tease exclusively with female characters.
• Barely-Changed Dub Name: His name in the French books is "Robert", which ironically is his father's original English name, and the name of the actor who plays him in the first three films.
• Big Fun: Larger than Greg, and more cheerful and optimistic than him.
• Blaming the Tools: In one book, Rowley insists that volleyball is called "bolleyball", and when he can't find that word in the dictionary, he decides the dictionary must be outdated.
• Born Lucky: Although he can be a Butt-Monkey on occasion, he has much better luck than Greg and even got a girlfriend at one point.
• Bumbling Sidekick: Greg's bumbling annoying best friend.
• Butt-Monkey: At times, mostly as an indirect result of Greg's actions.
• Camp Straight: He likes pop music, which isn't particularly a masculine interest, and yet managed to get in a relationship with Abigail for two books. He also has a crush on his female teacher.
• Character Development: Throughout the books, Rowley learns to stand up for himself and grow a spine instead of blindly following people (including Greg).
• Clueless Chick-Magnet: He doesn't seem to be all that interested in girls, yet in Rodrick Rules, he manages to socialize with some of the most popular girls in his grade.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Rowley acts like he's "out of it" sometimes.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: As the main character of Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid, he's this to the usual narrator Greg. Greg is The Cynic who dislikes most people except himself, while Rowley is a naive and innocent Wide-Eyed Idealist.
• A Day in the Limelight: He's the main character of Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid.
• The Ditz: He often says and does ignorant things. Part of this is because of Greg's depiction of him. Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid shows that he's naive, gullible, and does have moments of being ditzy, but he's smarter than Greg usually gives him credit for.
• Deuteragonist: Of the book series and the first movie.
• Does Not Like Spam: According to Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid, he hasn't been able to eat anything with cheese in it, ever since the incident with the Cheese. He can't even bring himself to write down the word "cheese".
• The Dog Bites Back:
  • In "Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid", he hits Greg with his journal after being treated like garbage for the entire book.
  • The first movie has him give Greg a well-deserved Shut Up, Hannibal! after the latter reveals he abandoned the children.
• Dumbass Has a Point: The very few times Rowley calls out Greg for being unfair, he's completely right.
• Dumb Is Good: Rowley may not have the most common sense, but everyone likes him better than Greg.
• Endearingly Dorky: Rowley is a naive and gullible Kiddie Kid who doesn't have a mean bone in his body. While his friend Greg finds him childish and annoying, Rowley is actually better liked by his classmates than Greg is and even becomes a Clueless Chick-Magnet on more than one occasion. In the third movie, Holly even signed his yearbook saying "you are so cute" with "cute" being underlined three times.
• Extreme Doormat: He usually just goes along with Greg's ideas, even though Greg often uses him and makes him do all of the work.
• Fat and Skinny: The Big Fun to Greg's Lean and Mean anti-hero.
• Fat Best Friend: He is to Greg what Patrick is to Spongebob.
• Fat Comic Relief: He's a little wide around the edges, and is a comedic relief character.
• Fat Idiot: Downplayed, as he's chubby but not that fat, and ditzy but not outright stupid. Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid supports the latter, revealing that he has a 95 in math while Greg has a 72.
• Flanderization: Rowley was simply gullible and slow on the uptake before becoming the Kiddie Kid. Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid seems to rerail his characterization.
• Foil: To Greg. Greg is a skinny, cynical, jerkass and Butt-Monkey, while Rowley is chubby, optimistic, nice, and Born Lucky.
• Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing: The Gleeful to Greg's Grumpy.
• Horrible Judge of Character: In Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid, he talks about his friend Greg who obviously comes off as a jerk and a bad friend. But even when describing all of Greg's With Friends Like These... moments, Rowley insists Greg is awesome and doesn't understand why his father doesn't like him.
• Idiot Hero: In Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid, he's the main character and has more heroic intentions than Greg, but is still completely clueless and easily manipulated by his friend.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: He's a fan of some rather effeminate pop singers.
• Kiddie Kid: He's very childish for someone his age, and at one of his birthday parties, all his guests aside from Greg are six-year-olds (albeit because they were all from his karate class).
• Kindhearted Simpleton: He means well for the most part.
• The Lancer: As Greg's sidekick.
• Made of Iron: The first book ends with him surviving being force-fed "the Cheese", a piece of cheese that has been sitting in the outdoors growing mold for a year and change, with no immediately apparent (physical) damage.
• Momma's Boy: His mother is overly loving and protective towards him, especially seen in the third film. This may explain Rowley's Kiddie Kid behavior.
• Nice Guy: In sharp contrast to his friend Greg, he is a decent guy to be around.
• The Noseless: His art style, where he only puts exaggerated noses to express gonk in his fictional comics.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: Frank treats him like a Lethal Klutz because he dropped and broke a plate one time, entirely by accident, as a fairly young kid.
• Only Friend: To Greg, who doesn't appear to have any actual friends other than him.
• Perpetual Smiler: In contrast to Greg, he almost always is smiling.
• The Pollyanna: He's much more optimistic than Greg.
• Precocious Crush: Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid reveals that he has one on his math teacher, Ms. Beck, which Greg teases him about.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The Sensitive Guy (childish and naive Nice Guy) to Greg's Manly Man (Jerkass Casanova Wannabe).
• Status Quo Is God: No matter how deep the rift between him and Greg gets, they ultimately go back to being friends again.
• Straw Loser: Invoked by Greg. Being fat and childish, he seems to be even more pathetic than Greg. However, all signs point to Rowley actually being a great deal more popular than Greg, simply because he's just nice to everyone and doesn't try too hard to be cool.
• Stupid Good: He's one if not the nicest character in the stories, but also one of the dumbest.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: In Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid, he denies having a crush on his math teacher, Ms. Beck, although he thinks she's super nice, smells good, bases Awesome Guy's love interest off of her, and would like to buy her nice things like a fancy car and drive her around in it if he was rich. Greg sees through it.
• Supporting Protagonist: In Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid. Rowley was originally going to talk about his own life in his diary, but Greg forced him to make all the diaries about Greg, so we see Rowley's life mainly in relation to him.
• Terrible Artist: Greg describes Rowley as a terrible artist in the first book when Rowley reveals his art style. But that's Greg's opinion.
  Greg: And believe it or not, Rowley's drawing skills are worse than his writing skills.
• Unintentionally Karmic: Rowley (foolishly) believes that Greg is the best thing since sliced bread, and will follow him anywhere and do anything he says, no questions asked. However, his childish personality and somewhat moronic nature often embarrass and ruin things for Greg.
• Unreliable Narrator: More innocent and unintentional than Greg, but he's this in Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid. While Rowley is more honest and open in comparison to Greg, he has the mentality of a child and is always blind to Greg's mistreatment of him.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Completely one-sided on Greg's part, as Rowley has nothing but cheerfulness to offer.
• You Shall Not Pass!: Played for laughs in the first movie, when Rodrick says he's going to kill Greg after catching them in his room and Rowley clings to Rodrick's leg to hold him off (and Rodrick yells, "Let go, baby hippo!")

Chirag Gupta

Played by: Karan Brar (first three movies), Veda Maharaj (2021 film)

Another kid in Greg's grade. Chirag is mostly a bit character in the books but becomes a secondary friend of Greg's in the movies.

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• Adaptational Comic Relief: In the films, Chirag is a lot hammier and has a thick Indian accent, which his book counterpart seems to lack.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Zigzagged. In the books, Chirag's hostility towards Greg is very well-deserved. In the movies, he's extremely condescending and arrogant. Unlike in the books, however, Greg and Chirag actually share somewhat of a friendship in the movies.
• The Artifact: Chirag's full name is of Indian origin. In the animated movie, he's black, but his name isn't changed.
• Ascended Extra: He's only occasionally mentioned in the books as one of Greg's classmates. In the movies, he gets a more active role, being the occasional Mr. Exposition.
• Bully Magnet: Due to his small stature, Chirag gets picked on a lot by the other students, including Greg himself, who started the "Invisible Chirag" joke.
• Butt-Monkey: He's sometimes picked on because of his short height. Also in the second movie and book, when Greg plays the "Invisible Chirag" joke on him.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Chirag may look small, but as Greg notes, he packs an extremely hard punch for his size.
• Funny Foreigner: The movie states that he's originally from India.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While condescending and arrogant in the movies, he has his share of nicer moments. Most notably, he saves Greg from getting the cheese touch (the first time) and has Greg and Frank's backs when they find out how much of a jerkass Stan Warren is.
• Mr. Exposition: Tells Greg and Rowley about the Cheese in the 1st movie and Holly Hills in the 2nd.
• Older Than They Look: Greg says Chirag could pass for a first grader but he is the same age as him.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: He's the shortest kid in class, but Greg mentions that he can punch hard.
• Race Lift: While he's Indian in most of the franchise's media, the animated movie makes him black.
• The Rival: To Greg in the 2nd film. Both of them like Holly Hills.
• Stalker with a Crush: "What? I Googled her."
• Token Minority: He's the only non-white character in the series.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Briefly disguises as Holly to make fun of Greg in the 2nd movie.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Despite their rivalry for Holly's affections, Greg still hangs around him. He even helps Greg with his revenge scheme against a rival scout troop and defends him when it's exposed.

Fregley

Played by: Grayson Russell (first three movies), Christian Convery (2021 film)

Another school kid who lives in Greg's neighborhood, Fregley is mostly distinguished by his long list of bizarre habits and idiosyncrasies. Greg mostly tries to avoid him.

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• Adaptational Attractiveness: While calling him ugly may be a bit of a stretch, Fregley is considerably much dowdier in the books. He has messy, unkept hair, a wide-open mouth with round teeth and wears goofy-looking glasses. In the movies, he's played by the thick-haired Grayson Russell and wears normal-looking glasses.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In the books, Greg disliked Fregley and refused to be anywhere near him. In the movies, while, he still freaks out Greg a little bit, because he hangs out with Greg, Rowley and Chirag quite a bit, it can be assumed that Fregley is one of Greg's friends (or Greg and the others are at least able to tolerate him around).
• All of the Other Reindeer: He's a social outcast whom nobody likes (though it's not like one could blame them, given his grossness and lack of personal space).
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: He tends to get distracted easily.
• Attention Whore: He constantly does things to get a reaction from others.
• Cloudcuckoolander: He's considered the class weirdo who's frequently trying to show off his belly button and collects weird objects.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: His wrestling match against Greg. He pinned the boy in every way possible.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: In "Hard Luck", he becomes one of the popular kids.
• Eye Glasses: He has these in the books.
• Flanderization: His Cloudcuckoolander tendencies are kicked up a few dozen notches in Hard Luck.
• Hidden Depths: Who would have expected him to be good at wrestling?
• I Just Want to Have Friends:
  • In Hard Luck, it is shown that Fregley desires to have friends but does not have any due to his unpopularity. Fortunately, he gets his wish when becomes one of the popular kids thanks to his unique ability to eat with his belly button.
  • The film adaptation (particularly the sequels) has him hanging out with Greg, Rowley, and Chirag, heavily implying they are able to tolerate him at the least.
• Keet: Always a very hyperactive and annoying Cloudcuckoolander.
• Nerd Glasses: A dorky kid with glasses.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Known for his many disturbing activities and disgusting quirks.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Greg is very much creeped out by Fregley's quirky behavior. And that's not counting the fact that Greg and Rowley are understandably fooled into thinking he was the infamous "devil worshipper" that Rodrick warned them about. Oh, and the live-action adaptation of the Muddy Hand? That's an old Wilderness Explorer story narrated by him.
• Non Sequitur: He tends to drop random and gross lines whenever Greg walks by his house, such as "Wanna see my secret freckle?" and "I bet I can fit your whole foot in my mouth!"
• Non-Standard Character Design: No other character has his head shape.
• No Full Name Given: Unlike Greg's other friends, his last name is not revealed.
• No Sense of Personal Space: He often gets disturbingly close to others.
• No Social Skills: He doesn't seem to understand that flashing his chest hair to others or chasing Greg with one of his boogers is inappropriate behavior.
• Perpetual Smiler: He's almost always drawn with that wide grin of his.
• Potty Dance: In the first book. Accompanied by his cry of, "Juice!"
• Redheads Are Uncool: Fregley is the least popular kid in the school, and in the movies, he has red hair.
• Sixth Ranger: Implied in the second and third live-action movies. In the first movie, Greg finds him to be too creepy to hang out with. The second and third movies (especially the latter) actually have him hanging out with Greg and his friends, implying that although he still squicks him out, Greg might've changed his mind.
• Straw Loser: Another outcast "friend" to Greg and Rowley, and they are the cool ones compared to him. Subverted in Hard Luck when Greg starts hanging out with him (although that was just to mold Fregley into another Rowley), Fregley becomes very popular with other students, much to Greg's dismay.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Fregley is an extremely unpopular student, but he does get a few moments of fame:
  • In "Hard Luck", Fregley manages to win "Most Popular" by virtue of his ability to chew food and blow bubblegum with his bellybutton.
  • In the first film, Fregley easily pins Greg multiple times in wrestling class, getting cheered on by the rest of his classmates.

Patty Farrell

Played by: Laine MacNeil

A girl at Greg's school. Patty and Greg aren't the best of friends, in fact, they are deathly enemies.

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• Abled in the Adaptation: She doesn't wear glasses in the films.
• Academic Alpha Bitch: In the movies. She is the class president and seems to be abusing her power.
• Academic Athlete: Class president and teacher's pet, she's also great at wrestling, soccer, and tennis. Though the "athlete" part only applies to the movie version.
• Adaptational Badass: In the movies, she's a stellar athlete, being good at wrestling, soccer, and tennis, when in the books, she's only shown to be academically smart.
• Adaptational Villainy: In the books, Patty is a teacher's pet at worst and is only implied to be an Attention Whore — in fact, she's never directly interacted with Greg ^note Besides denying him access to the bathroom when put in charge of their class — while in the movies, she's a nasty two-faced egomaniac who goes out of her way to antagonize Greg.
• Always Someone Better: In the movies, she seems to always beat Greg at everything.
• Ascended Extra: Has a bigger role in the movies than in the books.
• Attention Whore: She wanted to be in the most prominent role of Dorothy in the "Wizard of Oz" school play and, in the movies, was pissed when Greg was chosen.
• Big Bad Ensemble: One of the main antagonists in the first movie, along with Rodrick and Pete Hosey.
• Blind Without 'Em: In the books. It's the reason why the play had to be cut short because she broke her glasses.
• Braids of Action: In the movies, her hair is in braided pigtails, and she's given the Adaptational Badass treatment.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Since her last appearance in The Last Straw, she hasn't been seen ever since.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: She easily beats Greg in Wrestling in the first movie. Happens again in the third movie where she easily wins in tennis against Greg AND Rowley.
• Depending on the Writer:
  • Her thoughts on Rowley wildly change from the first to the third movie. She seems to be friendly to him in the first movie, cheering him on in his "fight" against Greg and hugging him and wishing him a good summer, but in the third movie, she's just as aggressive to him as she is to Greg when playing tennis and is shown to be exasperated when trying to teach him how to play.
  • Likewise for her feelings for Holly. They have no interactions in the second movie, but Patty seems to dislike her as she rolls her eyes annoyed when people clap at Holly's presentation, come the third movie and they're best friends and are seen talking together and playing tennis with each other.
• Disproportionate Retribution: In the movie, she is brutally vindictive to Greg, for insulting her in kindergarten.
• Girlish Pigtails: Subverted. Even though her hair is tied in pigtails, she is not at all girly.
• Freudian Excuse: In the movie, it's shown in a flashback that she was bullied by Greg in kindergarten and it's implied that he did it more than once, that's why she hates him now.
• Jerkass: In the movies. Bratty, rude, and even more selfish than Greg.
• Jerk Jock: A rare female example. Not only does she beat Greg at wrestling in the movie (which doesn't happen in the book version), but she's also violent when it comes to playing tennis.
• Karma Houdini: She didn't get punished for yelling at the drama teacher, threatening to ruin her life unless she played Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz school play. She also goes psycho on Greg when he is unable to sing in the middle of the play, and yet she doesn't get punished.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: However, she gets her just deserts when in Rodrick Rules (movie version), a bird splatters bird poop on her head.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: An aggressive girl who contrasts with Rowley's cheerful nature.
• Nice, Mean, and In-Between: Movie adaptation only: The Mean to Holly's Nice and Angie's Inbetween.
• Noodle Incident: In the films, she's beaten up Greg in kindergarten and fourth grade, but neither incident is seen onscreen.
• Not So Above It All:
  • In the second film, Patty rats out Greg for (accidentally) passing her a note reading "How do you get your hair to smell so beautiful?" When Greg gets punished, Patty does take time to sniff one of her braids, curious to see if Greg is actually right.
  • Blink and you'll miss, but she is clearly seen in the background in the lunchroom laughing at Greg's continued prank on Chirag amongst the others despite her clear animosity toward the former.
• Odd Friendship: Despite being a Jerkass, in the movies she's on good terms with a Nice Girl like Holly.
• Pet the Dog: She does seem to act friendly to Holly, as they're seen having a friendly conversation in the third movie and playing Tennis together.
• The Rival: She is Greg's worst enemy, especially in the movies.
• Spoiled Brat: Her mother in the movies is the head of the PTA, so she gets what she wants from the teachers.
• Teacher's Pet: She mentions her Mom's Responsibility to fire a teacher if she doesn't get what she wants.
• Tender Tomboyishness, Foul Femininity: Inverted. In the movie adaptation, Patty is a mean-spirited tomboy to Holly's kind-hearted girly girl.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Movie adaptation only: The Tomboy (an aggressive and temperamental Academic Alpha Bitch who loves wrestling and sports) to Holly's Girly Girl (a sweet, bubbly and cheerful Girl Next Door who's commonly associated with the color pink).
• Tomboyness Upgrade: She goes from a serious student in the books to an aggressive and violent Passionate Sports Girl in the movies.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: In the movies, she's a violent and aggressive girl who is interested in wrestling and sports, but she also likes theatre, has braided pigtails, and wears a frilly pink dress during the talent show.
• Town Girls: Movie adaptation only: the Butch to Holly's Femme and Angie's Neither. Although Holly and Angie never appear together, they are the three most prominent girls in Greg's school.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: The only flashback about her childhood shows her as a sensitive little girl who cries after being insulted by Greg, but now she's always aggressive, especially to Greg. It's also implied that she Took a Level in Jerkass immediately after that, when was still a little kid, since Patty mentions that she has beaten up Greg in kindergarten.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: At least from Greg's perspective. Their first "interaction" was when Patty told the teacher to cover up the United States map during their states capital quiz, in which she unknowingly foils Greg's plan to cheat by looking at the map and resulting in him failing.

Angie Steadman

Played by: Chloë Grace Moretz

A movie-only character.

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• Big Sister Mentor: She tries to be this to Greg and Rowley, but the former won't listen to her.
• Canon Foreigner: She's one of the few characters who does not appear in the books.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: She's never seen or mentioned after the first movie. Maybe she moved away and transferred to another school, but it's not confirmed.
• Deadpan Snarker: "This place is an intellectual wasteland."
• High School Is Hell: Seems to have this view about middle school.
• Hollywood Beauty Standards: She's a very pretty school journalist.
• Nice, Mean, and In-Between: The Inbetween to Holly's Nice and Patty's Mean.
• School Newspaper Newshound: She works for the school newspaper.
• Single Serving Friend: She befriends Rowley and (eventually) Greg in the first movie, but is not even mentioned in the sequels.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: She and Patty are both the Tomboys to Holly Hills' Girly Girl.
• Town Girls: The Neither to Patty's Butch and Holly's Femme. Although Holly and Angie never appear together, they are the three most prominent girls in Greg's school.

Holly Hills

Played by: Peyton List

One of the prettiest girls in the middle school, and the subject of Greg's longtime crush. It is not entirely clear that she even knows who he is.

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• The Ace: Summed up by Chirag — "She is an all-star soccer player, has done professional modeling, and was her 6th-grade class president... what? I Googled her!"
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Sort of. While there isn't any indication of her being unpleasant or mean in the books, we simply don't know enough about her to judge. The movie version is more fleshed-out; an overly sweet, bubbly, friendly girl who likes to be with her friends and do good deeds for others.
• Adaptation Name Change: Holly Hills is called "Piper Matthews" in the online diary.
• Alliterative Family: Holly and Heather Hills.
• Alliterative Name: Holly Hills
• Ascended Extra: Her character and personality were hardly explored in the books, but she gets a bigger role in the movies.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: In the movie, this is played up when compared to Patty. The sweet Holly always appears as a pretty and fashionable girl with a bright and innocent smile. The cruel Patty is portrayed as an unfashionable, dorky-looking girl with braces, and her actress often gives her not-so-pretty facial expressions (with intentional Large Ham acting) to make her even more obnoxious.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Downplayed in the movies (where she gets more screen time) but Holly is noticeably much more cheerful and friendly than the snarky and cynical Greg.
• Class Princess: In the movies, she's still one of the prettiest and most popular girls in her grade, and her personality is fleshed out as a nice and friendly girl who willingly hangs out with "losers" like Greg and Rowley.
• Contrasting Replacement Character: In the movie sequels, she replaces Angie as a blonde female friend to Greg and Rowley and as a sympathetic foil to Patty Farrell. Angie was snarky and cynical, disliked by Greg, and The Not-Love Interest. Holly is sweet and innocent, loved by Greg, and his main Love Interest.
• Girl Next Door: To Greg in the movies. She's a Nice Girl who serves as his Love Interest.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: In the film version, she's portrayed as a very Nice Girl. She willingly hangs out with "class losers" like Greg and Rowley.
• Innocently Insensitive: She initially mistakes Greg for Fregley, which unknowingly offends and shocks Greg.
• Maybe Ever After: With Greg, implied at the end of the third movie as they hold hands.
• Middle Child Syndrome: According to the second movie, she has a mean older sister and a spoiled younger sister, which makes her similar to Greg.
• Mirror Character: The movie version is this to Angie. Both are nice blondes who befriend Greg and (to a lesser extent) Rowley but there's an important difference. Although she's intelligent and pretty, Angie doesn't seem to be very popular at school while Holly is one of the most popular girls at school. Although she was one of Greg's friends, Angie was The Not-Love Interest and was just one of Greg's friends and nothing more. Holly was promoted to Greg's love interest and it's subtly implied that they got together at the end of the third movie.
• Morality Pet:
  • Greg is shown to have quite a soft spot for her.
  • In the movies, this also extends to Patty as she's the only person we see her acting friendly too. She even manages to stop Patty from beating up Greg after he snarks at her.
• Nice Girl: In stark contrast to the film version of Heather, she is a kind, friendly, sweet girl.
• Nice, Mean, and In-Between: Movie adaptation only: The Nice to Patty's Mean and Angie's Inbetween.
• Odd Friendship: In the movies, she's on good terms with Patty. Her friendship with losers like Greg and Rowley also counts in a Cool Kid-and-Loser Friendship kind of way.
• Promoted to Love Interest: In the books, Greg has a shallow crush on her, but there's no indication she even knows or cares who he is and they never have real interaction. The movies upgrade her to a real love interest by giving her and Greg an actual point of bonding (namely, their shared Middle Child Syndrome and problems with their siblings) and a genuine friendship, which leads her to reciprocate his feelings.
• Satellite Love Interest: More so in the books. In the second and third movies, she gets more personality.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Her older sister Heather is a jerk, her younger sister is spoiled, but Holly is a good-natured kid.
• Tender Tomboyishness, Foul Femininity: Inverted. In the movie adaptation, Holly is a kind-hearted girly girl to Patty's mean-spirited tomboy.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl:
  • Movie adaptation only: The Girly Girl (a sweet, bubbly and cheerful Girl Next Door who's commonly associated with the color pink) to Patty's and Angie's Tomboys (the former is an aggressive and temperamental Academic Alpha Bitch who loves wrestling and sports and the latter is a loser who's commonly associated with the color blue).
• Town Girls: Movie adaptation only: the Femme to Patty's Butch and Angie's Neither. Although Holly and Angie never appear together, they are the three most prominent girls in Greg's school.

Bryce Anderson

Played by: Owen Best

According to Greg, Bryce is the most popular boy in his middle school and the romantic interest of many girls.

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• The Ace: According to the second movie, Rowley calls him an athlete, whose soccer skills are only bested by Holly.
• Adaptational Hair Style Change: He has short hair on the sides and long hair on the top that is combed upwards. In the live-action movies, he has messy, long hair.
• Big Man on Campus: The most popular kid in Greg's grade.
• Chick Magnet: Greg is jealous of his apparent popularity with girls.
• Crazy-Prepared: When he ran a restaurant of sorts at his house, he had one of his cronies guard the area with a pellet gun.
• Gang of Bullies: Has a group of goons under his employ who worked at his restaurant. The "bullies" part might be subverted since they never actually bullied anyone (that we know of).
• Girls Have Cooties: According to Greg, he used to think "Girls are stinky-poos!" in elementary school, but now he's a Chick Magnet.
• Jerk Jock: How Greg puts it, but it's mostly an Informed Attribute.
• A Lady on Each Arm: When Bryce is introduced in the first movie, he has his arms wrapped around two girls, one on each side of him.
• School Idol: Most of the girls at Greg's school have a crush on him, and a good number of boys worship him.

Collin Lee

Played by: Alex Ferris

Rowley's replacement best friend after the former's falling out with Greg

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• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: The last we see of Collin is him running away from Greg when Patty calls the latter out for having the Cheese Touch. It's not even shown whether or not he still remains friends with Rowley.
• Fair-Weather Friend: Heavily implied to be this, as Collin immediately dips with everyone else when Greg gets the cheese touch. It's safe to say he would've done the same to Rowley had Greg not taken the blame when the former ate the cheese.
• Replacement Goldfish: Takes over as Rowley's best friend (albeit temporarily) after Rowley's relationship with Greg is strained.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Collin is never seen again after he (and everyone else) run from Greg when he gets the cheese touch, especially after Rowley and Greg make up.

Alex Aruda

One of the smartest kids in the school.

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• Adapted Out: His first book appearance is Rodrick Rules, but he doesn't appear in any of the movies.
• Alliterative Name: Alex Aruda.
• Bookworm: He reads dictionaries.
• Genius Sweet Tooth: In No Brainer, he apparently craves lollipops.
• Not So Stoic: In "No Brainer", he deliberately makes a mess to get in trouble so he could get a lollipop after learning Greg has been handing them out as part of his Principal For A Day and then he starts crying when he is in the office, likely from never being in trouble before.
• The Smart Guy: He's the smartest kid in class.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: He has a pair of typical Nerd Glasses.
• The Stoic: He hardly ever changes expression.

Ruby Bird

A creepy girl who has a habit of biting other people who displease her.

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• Abhorrent Admirer: Greg tries to be nice to Ruby because he's terrified of her, but he worries that he's being too nice to her and is scared by the idea that she might develop a crush on him. We never get to find out her feelings on the matter.
• The Bus Came Back: After only appearing in The Third Wheel, she returns in Big Shot as part of Greg's basketball team.
• Creepy Child: Her Hair-Trigger Temper and tendency to bite people terrifies Greg and she is the only girl his age he does not have any romantic interest in.
• Girlish Pigtails: Her hairstyle looks a bit juvenile for a middle school girl.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Even a minor grievance will set Ruby off and bite the person who irritated her. This habit got her suspended when she bit a teacher, making her the only female student to be suspended in Westmore's history.
• Man Bites Man: Bites people when she’s mad at them.
• Official Couple: With Fregley after they're partnered for couples dancing in gym class.

Julian Trimble

A wiry kid who ends up in Greg's cabin at Hardscrabble Farms

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• Getting Sick Deliberately: He eats half a stick of deodorant to make himself sick and gets sent home from Hardscrabble Farms, and it works.
• Momma's Boy: He was very attached to his mom as a kid. One time, in second grade, he clung to his mom so tightly that the vice principal had to come down and peel them apart.
• Nervous Wreck: Greg remembers that when Julian was in elementary school, he would always cry when his mom dropped him off in the mornings.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Somewhat downplayed since he otherwise mostly looks the same but his eyes are always drawn in the same style to represent someone being shocked, though it could represent his Nervous Wreck nature.

Albert Sandy

An eccentric storyteller who tells absurd stories of questionable validity.

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• Ascended Extra: Starting in book 10, he makes a brief appearance in the books telling students about stories with an occasional absence.
• Cannot Tell Fiction from Reality: He recalls watching a film where a prisoner escaped captivity by digging a tunnel with nothing but a spoon. When his listeners try to put this into practice while trying to escape a school lock-in party, they find themselves unable to make a dent in the linoleum floor.
• Fat Idiot: He's pretty overweight and, assuming he's not deliberately lying with his stories, extremely gullible to everything he hears.
• Insane Troll Logic: As fears of Silas Scratch begin circulating around Hardscrabble Farms, students begin telling contradictory stories of when they supposedly saw him. Sandy explains this confusion away as Silas using the farm's sewage system to travel around the camp quickly, which is how he can potentially be seen at two locations around the same time.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: He claims you can dig holes in the floor with a spoon without any other tools to get started, and that spit can freeze in the air.
• Real After All: He actually gets something right for once when the construction crew renovating the school finds a bunch of money that Albert had previously claimed embezzling former Principal Larry Mack hid on school grounds.
• Running Gag: A recurring joke in the series is for Sandy to tell the other students a sensational claim and prompt Greg and/or the other students to try it (and fail).
  • In The Last Straw, Sandy claims that a man learned how to jump like a kangaroo by jumping in and out of progressively deeper holes. Greg and Rowley attempt the same thing, but all sorts of hinderances, like Susan's interference and snowfall, throw a wrench in their plans.
  • While the boys discuss how to escape the Lock-In sleepover, Sandy proposes digging their way out, claiming that he saw a guy from a movie do the same thing to escape prison. When the students try to do same thing, they can't even make a dent in the linoleum floor and discover that it was all a bunch of "Hollywood baloney".
  • On a cold day, he claims that a person's spit can freeze before it hits the ground. When everyone tests Sandy's claim, it's not only wrong, but also creates chaos as students begin spitting on each other.
• The Storyteller: His defining character trait is to tell Greg and the other students buzzworthy stories, usually about people performing supernatural feats.
• Two First Names: Sandy can also be a first name, though it's usually a girl's name.

Other Characters

Robert Jefferson

Played by: Alf Humphreys

Rowley's father, who doesn't like Greg and finds him to be a bad influence.

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• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • In the books he got Greg banned from the country club, likely because he can't take being criticized.
  • In the first book and the movie Greg tells Rowley in a "secret language" that Mr. Jefferson smells like a woman when he was in hearing range. Mr. Jefferson responded by kicking Greg out of the Jeffersons' house. It's worse when you realize that with Greg at his age, smelling like a woman probably means smelling like flowers.
• Jerkass: He's an extremely strict father (far more so than Frank Heffley), and will never give Greg the benefit of the doubt at all. In Old School, when he chaperones the cabin Greg ends up in, he is particularly keen to pin any trouble on him. The thing is that Greg is well aware of how Mr. Jefferson feels about him and goes out of his way to not be disobedient.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • His attitude towards Greg is justified since Greg has caused trouble for him and Rowley on numerous occasions. According to Rowley in Diary of an Awesome, Friendly Kid, his dad and Greg first met when Greg tricked Rowley into letting him steal his bike and Mr. Jefferson had to get it back from Greg.
  • In The Third Wheel, when driving Greg to Abigail's house to pick her up, he tells Robert to honk his car horn to let her come out of the house. He argues that honking his horn is no way to treat a lady, and suggests that Greg should just go up to the front door and get Abigail herself.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Downplayed, but despite his hostile treatment of Greg, he has an entirely positive relationship with his own family, unlike Greg's parents.
• Knight Templar Parent: He's very protective of his son Rowley, which leads him to often overly swaddle him in an attempt to isolate him from any kind of negative stimulus.
• Moral Guardian: He thinks that Greg is a bad influence on his son Rowley and doesn't like to see Greg around. To be fair, Greg probably is a bad influence, at least in the books. Also, he doesn't allow video games that have any kind of violence in them, which means Rowley can only play racing games. Greg finds a loophole by storing video games with violence in Edutainment Game cases.
• Papa Wolf: To Rowley. He's overprotective of him and will immediately come to his defense if he's exploited or harmed in any way.
• The Quiet One: In the first two movies, he doesn't speak. He gets to talk more in the third film.

The Three Teenagers

Played by: Nicholas Carey, Donnie McNeil, and, Samuel Patrick

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• Adaptational Jerkass: In the books, the teenagers ended up backing off from feeding Greg the Cheese because he told them that he was allergic to dairy. In the film, Greg tries pulling that same excuse, but they simply ignore his pleas and only stop when they are confronted by the coach.
• Berserk Button: Their leader, Pete Hosey, turns bloodthirsty when someone damages his truck's paint job.
• Dirty Coward: Their film counterparts are a gang of bullies who pick on kids weaker than them, but the second that their victims show any capacity of fighting back or getting an adult to intervene, they start backing off, if not hightailing it out of there.
• Evil Is Hammy: When Greg accidentally damages his truck in the film:
  Pete Hosey: Are you kidding me?! I'm gonna rip off your arms and punch you in the face with your own fists!
• Even Evil Has Standards: In the book, they wouldn't force a kid to consume dairy products if he's lactose intolerant, and begrudgingly let Greg off the hook. However, their movie counterparts have no such reservations.
• Karma Houdini: In the film, the closest punishment they get is getting yelled at by the gym teacher, ultimately getting away with forcing Rowley to eat half of the Cheese. In the books, they don't get punished at all.
• Kick the Dog: When they force Rowley to eat the Cheese in the books, they only have him eat half to feed the rest to Greg. When Greg gets out of consuming it by claiming that he's allergic to dairy, they force Rowley to eat the rest of the Cheese.
• Named by the Adaptation: They're unnamed in the book series, but they are given the names Pete Hosey, Wade, and Carter in the film adaptation.
• Terrible Trio: Three teenage punks who antagonize Greg and Rowley. In the films, Pete Hosey seems to be the leader.

Bill Walter

Played by: Fran Kranz, Jimmy Tatro (2022 animated adaptation of Rodrick Rules)

The lead singer in Löded Diper, Bill is an unemployed thirty-something who still lives in his parents' house. Rodrick's parents are terrified by the thought that he might consider Bill to be a role model.

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• Adaptational Attractiveness: He's quite a bit more handsome in the movie than he is in the books, where he's depicted as a hairy middle-aged man with a beer gut.
• Adaptational Jerkass: In the books and animated films, he's merely annoying, and the worst he does is make Rodrick's parents fear that their son might take after him. His live-action movie version is more of a prick and drops Rodrick from the band the moment keeping him becomes inconvenient.
• Ascended Extra: Bill plays a much more prominent role in Diper Overlode due to the book being heavily focused on Rodrick and Löded Diper as a whole.
• Basement-Dweller: He's a 30+ something man who still lives with his parents (later his grandmother).
• Intergenerational Friendship: Bill and Rodrick. Rodrick is in his late teens and Bill is in his thirties, but the two of them are good friends due to a shared interest in rock music. However, in the movies, their friendship falls apart once Bill drops Rodrick from the band.
• It's All About Me: During the later points of Diper Overlode, Bill believes himself to be the true face of Löded Diper believing alongside his girlfriend Becky that he should be the one on the cover of their flyers. After his and Roderick's falling out, he quickly joins the main opposition, Stank, and becomes their new face for awhile.
• Jerkass: In the live-action film, he invites himself over to the Heffleys' for dinner, and then replaces Rodrick with another drummer when he's grounded from performing in the talent show.
• Laser-Guided Karma: In the films, Bill replaces Rodrick in Löded Diper after he was grounded from joining the talent show, telling him it's "rock and roll, bro" and to get over it. When Susan lets Rodrick rejoin the band, he kicks Bill out of the band for his betrayal, parroting his exact earlier line to justify it. Bill is shocked by this development, clearly displeased that his own philosophy has been turned on him this time.
• The Rockstar: He's the lead singer of Rodrick's band "Loded Diper".
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In the books and animated films overall, he is a decent fellow especially compared to his live-action movie counterpart. However, during the later points of Diper Overlode, Bill starts to develop more of an ego, especially after revealing he has a girlfriend, with both of them believing that Bill is the true face of Löded Diper saying that he should be on the cover of their fliers (despite Rodrick being the founder). Needless to say, this ended up resulting in a falling out between the two with Bill being quick to join up on their main competition, Stank, after their lead singer ruptured his vocal cords. Luckily, they make up at the end of the book.

Heather Hills

Played by: Melissa Roxburgh

Holly's older sister. Not much is said about her in the books, so most of these tropes apply to her in the films.

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• Adaptation Name Change: She's named "Lori Matthews" in the online diary.
• Adaptational Jerkass: In the books, we don't learn much about her but there was never any indication that she was the stereotypical snobby, ungrateful bitch she is in the movies.
• Alliterative Family: Holly and Heather Hills.
• Alliterative Name: Heather Hills.
• Alpha Bitch: She's rich, beautiful, and popular, and uses this as an excuse to treat basically everyone around her (including her own sister) like trash.
• Ascended Extra: She's a total non-entity in the books, only existing as an even more unattainable crush for Greg. The third movie features her as a prominent Alpha Bitch.
• Big Bad Ensemble: One of the main antagonists of the third movie along with Stan Warren.
• Big Sister Bully: To her little sister Holly. She's rude to everyone, anyway.
• Cain and Abel: A female version of this. She is the Cain to Holly's Abel.
• Distaff Counterpart: The movie version is this to Rodrick, not to mention an even worse one at that. Lampshaded by Greg who, at one point, describes her as "Rodrick in a dress".
• Evil Counterpart:
  • She's this to Holly. Both sisters are beautiful blonde rich girls, they're both the most popular girls in their grade and one of the Heffley brothers has a crush on each of them (Rodrick for Heather and Greg for Holly). The main difference between them is that Holly's genuinely friendly and sweet-natured while Heather's a nasty and self-centered Alpha Bitch.
  • She's also this to Rodrick. Both are Jerkasses who bully their younger siblings but the similarities end there. Whereas Rodrick acts nicer than his book counterpart and later goes on to become a Cool Big Bro to Greg, Heather acts much meaner than her book counterpart and doesn't change her attitude whatsoever.
• Foil: To Rodrick; while both have bullied their younger siblings, Rodrick eventually went through Character Development and became a Cool Big Bro to Greg, while Heather has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
• Hate Sink: The film version of Heather Hills is a vain, self-centered Alpha Bitch who spends practically all of her screentime, either insulting somebody or cowing someone to submit to her demands, expressing outrage whenever they don't. When her sweet sixteen party is accidentally ruined by Rodrick, the main reason why the audience can still laugh at his antics without any remorse is that it's all happening to Heather Hills.
• Jerkass: She's a self-centered brat who refuses to help others even while on lifeguard duty, and frequently stops Holly from being nice to Greg because she'd rather her help out in her Sweet Sixteenth celebration.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: Throughout most of the third film, she does not face any repercussions from being a huge jerk, particularly towards Holly and while on lifeguard duty. It all comes crashing down during her sweet sixteen, making it almost nice to see her humiliated when her beloved party is ruined and she ended up covered in chocolate. Even Holly said she was happy and that she thought that Heather fairly deserved it.
• Kick the Dog: Several times. In her first appearance in the third movie, she runs over Rodrick's feet with her car when he tried to flirt with her. Then she is shown to turn away a little girl asking her questions about the Country Club schedule even though she's a lifeguard.
• Lack of Empathy: Of all the jerkasses in the trilogy, Heather has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
• Mirror Character:
  • To Rodrick. Both are Jerkasses who bully their younger siblings simply for their own amusement and have two younger siblings (Holly mentions having a younger sister in the second movie). However, while Rodrick does start off similar to his book counterpart, after going through some Character Development, he takes a level in kindness and becomes a Cool Big Bro to Greg while Heather is a stuck-up Alpha Bitch with little-to-no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
  • She also shows a few similarities to Patty. Both are spoiled AlphaBitches who act act much meaner than their book counterparts. However, whereas Patty was subtly implied to be good friends with Holly, Heather is a Big Sister Bully to Holly and couldn't care less about what happens to her.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Holly is good-hearted and affable, but Heather is selfish and stuck up.
• Smoking Is Not Cool: In the online diary, she got fired from her babysitting job when Rowley's parents caught her smoking behind their house.
• Spoiled Brat: In contrast to her sister's sweetness.
• Unseen No More: Holly tells Greg that she has a Big Sister Bully in the second movie, but we don't get to see her until the third movie.

Stan Warren

Played by: Phil Hayes

A neighbor of the Heffleys, and Frank's boss in the books. Since he is a relatively minor character in the books, most of these tropes apply to him in the films.

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• Adaptation Name Change: He's named "Mr. Swann" in the online diary.
• Adaptational Jerkass: He doesn't receive much characterization in the books, but the film portrays him as an arrogant jerkass.
• Adaptational Job Change: He goes from Frank's boss to the leader of a scout troop in the movie.
• Always Someone Better: His sons are this to the Heffley boys; while they're all fairly motivated and successful (especially when it comes to sports), the Heffleys are far less so, causing no amount of grief for Frank.
• Big Bad Ensemble: One of the main antagonists of the third movie along with Heather Hills.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: When he is first introduced in the film, he is shown to be a decent guy with a successful wilderness explorer troop. It is later shown that he and his troop secretly make fun of Frank's troop and carry luxuries unrelated to camping.^note  These include premade meals, a store-bought smores maker, and even a TV. Greg, Rowley, Chirag, and Fregley eventually catch wind of his true nature and expose him to Frank.
• Foil: To Frank and Mr. Barrett during the wilderness weekend. Stan's troop is far more successful, but Mr. Barrett and Frank operate their troop honestly.
• Hate Sink: His jerkass film counterpart is an arrogant, uncivil scout leader, who belittles and insults scout troops whom he considers inferior, particularly speaking ill of Frank Heffley. On top of that, it's soon revealed that Stan's reputation as a "big camper" is a fat lie, as he indulges in modern-day, instant conveniences to ease his own camping experience, including microwavable meals, pre-tied knots, and a TV. When he ultimately gets kicked off the Wilderness Explorer troop, there's little sympathy to be had for him.
• Innocently Insensitive: Seems to be this at his worst in the books; while he only ever appears whenever Frank is humiliated by something (usually Greg's antics), the most he ever reacts to said humiliations is with some light-hearted ribbing, not realizing how his presence is increasing Frank's distress.
• Jerkass: As the third film goes on, he is eventually shown to be incredibly arrogant, when he insults Frank and the rest of his troop behind their backs, and later attempts to go on a rant about Greg until Frank tells him to shut up.
• Laser-Guided Karma: His troop disbands by the end of the third film, leaving him to host a badminton team for kindergartners.
• Running Gag: In the books, he is often shown when something embarrassing happens to Frank.

Uncle Charlie

A relative of Greg's (the uncle of his dad, making him Greg's great-uncle).

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• Adaptation Name Change: In the webcomic, he's named Freddie.
• Attention Whore: He gives Greg a framed photo of himself for Christmas!
• Cool Uncle: Played with. Greg refers to him as his secret Christmas weapon, since he'll get Greg any gift he wants (although whether he gets Greg the right gift is another matter entirely). Greg also claims he always comes with his pockets stuffed full of candy for the kids.
• Innocently Insensitive: When Greg was young, Uncle Charlie would nickname him after the color of his footie pajamas, unaware that Greg gets irritated by those names.
• Rich Bitch: Uncle Charlie is wealthy and not afraid to flaunt it to other people. One of Greg's illustrations depict Uncle Charlie riding an expensive motorcycle in front of a pair of exhausted parents trying to take care of their children, mockingly greeting them with "Hey there, Plummers!"
• Running Gag: A minor one throughout the series is Uncle Charlie's tendency to unintentionally buy him poor gifts. When Greg asks for a Barbie Dream House to use as a fort for his toy soldiers, he ends up getting a Barbie doll, and when Susan tells him Greg really likes comics and superheroes, Charlie buys him a pair of Wonder Woman Underoos. In The Last Straw, he effectively gets Greg a chore for Christmas due to buying him a laundry-related gift despite Greg not actually doing his own laundry.

Gramma

Greg's maternal grandmother.

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• Blatant Lies: It's very obvious that Gramma favors Manny out of all the Heffley children, as her refridgerator is decorated almost entirely with photos of him, but if anyone accuses her of this, she always denies it.
• Chronic Pet Killer: She's overfed Sweetie to the point that he’s gotten obese, and Greg thinks that Sweetie's gotten depressed from that. Downplayed in that, while Sweetie is definitely not very healthy any more, he's not dead.
• Cool Old Lady: She's mentioned having full cable, with premium movie channels included.
• Egocentrically Religious: Downplayed. Greg says she uses prayer to solve all her problems and inconveniences, even the most mundane ones.
• Flat Character: She's rather unnoteworthy compared to the other characters. Although this possibly could be because she’s one of the only sane characters in the series.
• The Ghost: She is mentioned in the movies, but never makes a physical appearance.
• Parental Favoritism: She decorates her refrigerator solely with pictures of Manny and takes any opportunity to babysit him.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: She clearly isn’t happy about her daughter, son-in-law, and grandsons having to live with her in "The Deep End". She makes them live in the basement, despite having a guest room (which is apparently only for Sweetie), and when her friends are over, she makes them stay in the basement and won’t let them come out, not even to use the bathroom.

Grandpa

Played by: Terence Kelly, Ed Asner (2022 animated adaptation of Rodrick Rules)

Greg's paternal grandfather.

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• Bizarre Taste in Food: He loves watercress salad, which consists of green beans and cucumbers floating in a bowl of cold vinegar. Greg absolutely hates it, but Rodrick lies and says that Greg loves it as an excuse to pile it on his plate.
• Brutal Honesty: Unlike Gramma, he proudly admits that Greg is his favorite grandchild.
• Chick Magnet: In Old School, He claims to have accidentally invited a bunch of women on a dating site to the Heffley household, even though he only meant to invite one around to watch a movie together. He has quite a lot of women who like him.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: He has not appeared since Double Down.
• Cloudcuckoolander: He likes making watercress salad (which is just uncooked green beans in a bowl of vinegar), watching only the CCTV channel, and finds the unfunny jokes in "Gutbusters" hilarious.
• Cool Old Guy: When Greg accidentally creates a massive water stain on the ceiling, Grandpa immediately offers to take him to the hardware store to buy stain-blocking paint and cover it up, avoiding trouble with his parents. Later on, he gives Greg a book to take with him to a school camp, which he and his team use several times throughout.
• December–December Romance: In Hard Luck, he dates an old woman named Darlene. By Old School, however, the two of them have broken up, so Greg decides to help Grandpa find a new girlfriend online. This results in him accidentally dating multiple women at once due to his lack of knowledge regarding technology.
• Jerkass Ball: He moves in with the Heffley family after the nursing home becomes too expensive to stay at. Soon enough, he begins to goof off, chooses to occupy Greg's bedroom without considering where he would go, and causes trouble when they go out.
• My Greatest Failure: In the animated version of Rodrick Rules, he regrets that he was unable to help his sons to reconcile after their falling out, and hopes that Greg and his grandsons don't end up like their dad and their uncles.
• Parental Favoritism: He openly states Greg is his favorite grandchild, possibly because Greg is the only one who even attempts to put up with his many Cloudcuckoolander habits.
• Released to Elsewhere: When Frank was a child, Grandpa accidentally ran over his dog, Nutty, while backing out of the driveway and told him that Nutty ran away to a butterfly farm.
• Technologically Blind Elders: Greg teaches him about online dating, but he's so inexperienced with computers and the Internet that he ends up accidentally inviting dozens of women to the Heffley household, having intended to only invite one.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Him revealing the truth about what happened to Frank's dog to him leads to Frank buying Sweetie on impulse.

Uncle Gary

Greg's paternal uncle.

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• Annoying Younger Sibling: He's the polar opposite of his older brother Frank in terms of maturity, a fact Frank does not like.
• Big Eater: He once ate the three-pound "Monstrilla Burger" in one sitting at Dan's Diner, and got a tattoo on his arm to commemorate the event. Greg admits that the stunt was pretty impressive.
• Cool Uncle: In The Third Wheel, he gives Greg advice on how to make him look more attractive to girls.
• Con Artist: After being scammed into buying someone's entire supply of shirts with a typo on it, he tries unloading them on Greg's schoolmates during the Valentine's Day Dance for $5 each while working there as the DJ, using the darkness of the venue to disguise the typo. When the lights are turned on, all of his victims realize that they've been tricked and demand refunds, but Uncle Gary gets away with the scheme by turning up the music and diverting everyone's attention to dancing.
• Dreaded Kids' Party Entertainer Job: Gary is an entertainer at children's birthday parties. At one point, he arrives late to his wedding, still in costume, because the kids weren't letting him leave.
• Heavy Sleeper: Something he shares with Rodrick. When he moves in with the Heffleys during The Third Wheel, he spends half his time sleeping on the living room couch.
• Manchild: Compared to his brother Frank, he's basically a teenager in an adult's body.
• Serial Spouse: He's gotten married four times, all of which ended in divorce. Greg's parents use wedding photos of him, Rodrick, and Manny as growth charts.
• Too Dumb to Live: In Double Down, he saws a branch off of a tree...while still sitting on said branch. Not surprisingly, he falls to the ground and breaks his collar bone.
• Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs?: According to Greg, he's never held down a real job for more than a few days.

Maddox Selsam

A socially inept kid who finds Greg's balloon for Balloon Brigade.

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• Berserk Button: Stealing one of his Legos, even if was a small piece and by accident, is one of the few things to elicit anger from the otherwise emotionless Maddox.
• Bookworm: He doesn't watch television, so he reads books instead. When Greg visits his household, he's surprised to see a bookshelf in place of the TV.
• Control Freak: He's very particular about his precious collection of Lego sets, refusing to let Greg play with them or even go near them. He does let Greg play with the Legos in his leftover bin, but he still freaks out when he thinks Greg stole one of his thousands of leftover bricks.
• No Social Skills: Maddox spends most of his time by himself, so his playdate with Greg is equally awkward for both parties.
• Not So Stoic: On his first playdate with Greg, Maddox doesn't say a word to his new friend. However, when Greg starts playing a video game in front of him, Maddox becomes "animated" and starts making strange noises while scratching himself. Maddox's mom explains that this is because he's never even seen a video game before in his life.

Metallichihuahua

^{Present Day (Spoilers)}

A heavy metal rock band who are idolized by Rodrick and the other Löded Diper members. Of their members, Stewart Taylor Jr. was the lead singer, Wayne Barnes was the lead guitarist, Warwick Sprinter was the bass guitarist, and Sebastian Sleeves was the drummer. However, pride and greed split the band years ago.

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• Broken Pedestal: Metallichihuahua is the inspiration and personal heroes of Rodrick's Löded Diper, but when they meet Warwick and Sebastian, they're disappointed to see that the former has become a washed-up celebrity trying to sell his merchandise junk and the latter has become a cynical hermit wallowing in his decrepit mansion.
• Celebrity Endorsement: When the band members found out that their manager stole money from them, they started signing endorsement deals for a bunch of subpar products to make a quick buck.
• Chekhov's Gunman: The security guard at Hipp O' Henry's turns out to be Wayne, after Metallichihuahua disbanded and he got into law enforcement.
• Compressed Hair: While on-duty, Wayne keeps his long hair under a security guard hat.
• Hidden Depths: On first impression, Sebastian seems to be a total recluse, living only off of the royalty checks he receives from Metallichihuahua Pups reruns in Denmark. However, he's among the audience members in the Battle of the Bands competition before his confrontation with the other Metallichihuahua members, implying that he's not as isolated or disillusioned in rock music as he initially appears.
• It's All About Me: While Metallichihuahua was backsliding into irrelevancy, Stewart was convinced that he was the real star of the show, so he made a solo holiday album as a vanity project featuring himself only. It bombed and his selfish departure from Metallichihuahua was the last nail in the coffin for them.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Metallichihuahua is a stand-in for Metallica.
• Old Shame:
  • To make up the money they lost, Metallichihuahua signed a deal to make a line of personal fragrances that used their image. They ended up on the bargain shelf after two weeks of their release and no one on the band is particularly proud of them.
  • However, the line of fragrances doesn't compare to the time they helped create the Metallichihuahua Pups show, a Saturday morning cartoon that alienated their older fans and something that Warwick considers the worst decision the band had ever done.
• Putting the Band Back Together: The original Metallichihuahua members reunite at the Battle of the Bands competition and get into a heated argument over their past grievances. However, when the crowd goes wild with their appearance, the band set aside their disagreements and use Löded Diper's instruments to play their greatest hits, even breaking the instruments like they used to. This event reignites their passion for music and signals their return to the industry.
• Reclusive Artist: An exaggerated, in-universe example with Sebastian, who completely disappeared from the public eye when Metallichihuahua parted ways. He still lives in his mansion, but since he's jobless, it's become decrepit after he sold all of his luxuries and the state turned off his utilities when he went broke. Sebastian only survives by ordering delivered food with the royalty checks he receives from the Metallichihuahua Pups show still running in Denmark.
• White Collar Worker: After putting his rock star days behind him, Stewart went back to school and became a lawyer. When he reunites with the other Metallichihuahua members and restarts their musical careers, he unbuttons his collared shirt, symbolizing his return to heavy metal music.
• White-Dwarf Starlet: Warwick is the only member of Metallichihuahua who still plays in the music industry and he's fallen hard since his glory days. Warwick's appearance at the Legends of Yesteryear convention doesn't draw a whole lot of attention and his advertisement of having "surprisingly affordable rates" along with claiming he'll play at events like corporate retreats implies that he's long been overshadowed by other artists.

Robot Janitor

A robot Greg's school purchases to cut back on janitor costs.

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• Grew Beyond Their Programming: Parodied - despite ostensibly being just a cleaning robot, the robot attains sentience and starts taking classes (even cheating off Greg's test), playing cards with the other janitors (despite not having any visible hands), and applying for other jobs to make extra money.
• Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!: The school inadvertently gets it to start emulating human behavior just by attaching some googly eyes to it.
• Job-Stealing Robot: Replaces most of the school's janitorial staff. Becomes downright parodic at the end when the robot becomes the new principal.

Sophie

"Can you tell me what my watch says?"

A student at Slacksvile who begins dating Greg in No Brainer.

• Dumb Blonde: She is a fair-haired girl who can't spell or understand how a clock tells time. However, this (probably) isn't because Sophie herself is inherently dumb or a bad student and is instead a symptom of the pathetic curriculum at her school.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: She is completely forgotten after she dumps Greg and doesn't get any time to develop past her miseducation.

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