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alt title(s): Creators Pet 
"How can you not like me?"
There are certain characters who receive a lot of hatred from the majority of the fanbase for one reason or another. Most often, when their creators pick up on the hate, it's either ignored or, sometimes, played into (as eventually happened to Scrappy-Doo in the first Scooby Doo movie).
There are times, however, when it becomes obvious that at least one writer has become attached to a hated character, writing them into more and more scenes, giving them more — and more important — things to do, having the other characters rave about how awesome they are and sometimes even making them the proxy voice of the author, all while blithely ignoring the fact that the fans absolutely goddamned hate this character.
That's The Wesley in a nutshell (a.k.a. the Creator's Pet or "author's darling").
The main characteristic of The Wesley is that the writers' focus on them is detrimental to the show, not so much that the parts featuring this character necessarily suck more than the rest, but that so much effort is being directed to them that it detracts from the quality of the series as a whole. It's as if the writers think that there's nothing more important than browbeating the viewers into falling in love with this one character. And it never works.
The trope is named after Wesley Crusher of Star Trek: The Next Generation, probably the most (in)famous example of this syndrome. Star Trek fans have a really hard time understanding why the snot-nosed kid is the one saving the Enterprise every other episode, so the writers explain it by... revealing that he is actually a super-special genius destined to Ascend To A Higher Plane Of Existence. Then, they wonder where groups like alt.wesley.die.die.die came from.
The Trek franchise is strong enough to overcome the original, but other shows haven't been as lucky. When a character starts developing into The Wesley, it's often a code-red Jump The Shark sighting. Like Wesley's puppy-powered cousin, he can still be Rescued From The Scrappy Heap, but that's rare and takes considerable writing talent. The only certain way to dodge this particular bullet is to either put him on a bus or outright kill him off.
Keep in mind that this isn't " The Scrappy with a big role", nor is it the Mary Sue, although related traits and tropes are often a factor in why this character is hated. The Wesley is a combination of being hated by fans ( The Scrappy), loved by the writers ( Creators Pet) and butting into big scenes for no reason ( Character Focus). If it doesn't meet those three criteria then it doesn't fit.
Compare Spotlight Stealing Squad, which happens when Character Focus pushes a lot of the other characters out of the limelight for an extended period of time, and The Barney, when this kind of character is the main one from the beginning. Also compare the GMPC, which is often this in a Role Playing Game. Contrast The Artifact, as a fair solution to a character who is only a Wesley because of overuse: the writers no longer find them interesting, but can't write them out of the series without royally screwing things up. Also contrast The Poochie, whom the creators get rid of as quickly as possible.
No connection to Mr. Butlertron. And try not to confuse him with The Weasley. ( especially not that one)
Keep in mind that even though this is a Subjective Trope, only blatantly obvious or creator-acknowledged examples should be listed in the folders below. Please avoid injecting personal opinions into these entries. Thank you.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Trope Namer
- Wesley Crusher, of course, but he became a bit more bearable with the episode "The First Duty," where he screws up big time by participating in an illegal stunt that gets a schoolmate killed and attempting to cover it up. That leads to the most unpleasant, but fan-pleasing, events in the series, being bawled out by Captain Picard and getting that school year's marks voided. In fact, most of his distinct spotlight episodes are really fairly good, as they focus mostly on him trying to grow as a character. It was butting into every other episode that made him so hated.
- Shout Out to Mister Wheaton; we suppose it really needs to be said out loud or put blatantly on a webpage, so thank you for objectively covering your own character so well in the blog devoted to "The Battle"
 . Frankly, you were going to get saddled with the name for this trope either way, Wil, but the fact you grokked just what happened with that first impression gave all the Wesley haters a real sense of vindication. In that spirit, please regard the other examples as proof you are not alone. Neither, God help us, is Wesley Crusher.
- You don't deserve to wear that uniform!
- A similarly satisfying event in "Datalore" - After Wesley gets everything right, as usual, Capt. Picard decides he's had enough of him, turns around, points at him, and yells "SHUT UP, WESLEY!" at the top of his voice.
- He almost killed the show off by being an utterly ubiquitous know-it-all until he was Put On A Shuttlecraft. This was in large part due to Wesley's admitted Canon Sue status for Gene Wesley Roddenberry and he left on his own request; There used to be a STTWCIASSD - Society To Turn Wesley Crusher Into A Small Styrofoam Dodecahedron.
- It's ironic that the franchise known for Sues to the point of a Parody Sue fic becoming the origin of the term... and then Roddenberry himself shows us all how it's done. Based on self, check; perfect and constantly showing everyone else up, check; loved by almost all, hated inexplicably by one (boo!) but that makes him more sympathetic and makes things more triumphant when the jerk is forced to admit Wonderboy's awesomeness (yay!), check.
- Interestingly enough, The character was originally envisioned as a female until Wil Wheaton's name came up and the character was quickly remade as being male.
- Voltaire has a song which points it out rather clearly.
"Although he's just a child, and some think him a twit,
Wesley is the master when it comes to making up some shit,
He's the guy you want with you when you go out in space,
Now if only he could beam those pimples off his face"
- Seen in a different light, though, Wesley was probably the most accurate literary embodiment of what what Gene Roddenberry demanded to see his second Star Trek series: a world where absolutely everyone was nothing less than perfect, and any problems to be found existed only in backward-alien-cultures that then needed to be guided by the missionaries-with-tricorders that now inhabited the long-since paradisaical Earth. Compare the episodes Code of Honor, The Last Outpost, Angel One and Symbiosis, and you'll find mostly the same material in different garbs (complete with Riker, at the end of the second example, giving a brief sermon): Roddenberry's dreamworld, Planet Sue...and the natural spawning ground of a Wesley Crusher.
- The most important thing that enabled STTNG to improve in later seasons, in the opinion of many viewers, is that GR's direct influence was greatly reduced. The same phenomenon was observed back in the 70s. The first Trek movie is widely seen as inferior, and it recycled material from a proposed second Trek series that would have aired in the mid-70s, using the characters and 'tone' of the first movie. Mercifully, it never saw air. Roddenberry had in common with Robert Heinlein that he needed editorial or cultural restraints to keep his personal tropes from destroying what could otherwise be entertaining stories.
- The concept of Wesley is made fun of in Sev Trek: Puss in Boots (the Australian CGI spoof of Star Trek The Next Generation). Upon hearing that "Measly Cruncher" has come up with a technobabble solution to deal with the shape-shifting alien (making this the 47th time he's saved the Enterforaprize) Captain Pinchhard utters a Big No and disintegrates Measly on the spot. The other crewmen quickly point their phizzer rifles at Pinchhard.
Piker: "Only the alien would have killed Measly!"
Pinchhard: "Well come on! Don't tell me you never wanted to do it!"
Gaudy: "You know, he's got a point..."
Beta: "He annoyed me, and I'm an android!"
- In MAD Magazine's TNG spoof, Captain Jaunt-Fluke Retard demanded a status report from Pestley Cruncher.
Cruncher: "Everything is all messed up, sir!"
Retard: "Be specific, you little idiot!"
Retard: "Oh, God, we really are in trouble!"
- Wil Wheaton himself commented on this in giving his opinion on the Star Trek spoof movie, Galaxy Quest:
"I loved Galaxy Quest. I thought it was brilliant satire, not only of Trek, but of fandom in general. The only thing I wish they had done was cast me in it, and have me play a freaky fanboy who keeps screaming at the actor who played "the kid" about how awful it was that there was a kid on the spaceship. Alas..."
- A classic Real Life example of Wesley-hate, from Next Generation's original run: A notorious Gen Con auction ended with a frantic bidding-war, for the privilege of burning Wesley's TNG trading card alive on stage.
- Wesley's hatedom was mocked in a certain sketch on Robot Chicken.
- Of course, on the character of Wesley himself, Your Mileage May Vary - mostly dependent on whether you were a die-hard male Trekkie at the time of TNG's debut, or a teenage girl.
- As a former teenage girl, I can say at least Wesley got me into Star Trek, so he's good for something. I'm more of a Picard girl now, though.
Anime
- Shirayuki Berii (a.k.a. Berry Sue) from the Tokyo Mew Mew a la mode manga, which was not helped by invoking the very rare instances of replacing a shoujo series' star character without giving the series an explicit Retool. Not helped was that the manga was not written by the original creator and gelled so badly with the original that most people relegate it to Dis Continuity. It was left out of the anime entirely.
- Chris Thorndyke from Sonic X. From the second episode onward, Sonic was reduced to a minor supporting character who hardly speaks, while all the attention was on Chris. Characters will only be praised for saving the day if Chris played a part in it, however little (and he'll always be given even praise to the one who did all the work). If the show had actually been about Sonic and the gang, rather than just The Chris Show, featuring the Sonic cast we wouldn't be declaring it as Adaptation Decay. The way he obsesses over Sonic makes even Amy's attraction look perfectly normal. In the Grand Finale of one season he was even willing to make time completely grind to a halt and ruin the lives of everyone on the planet just to keep Sonic with him. He wasn't even punished or even called out on it.
- Is it just me, or does that last bit remind you of Elise from Sonic 2006? I think I see a connection here...
- Daichi from the later season of Beyblade. Basically a exaggerated Copy Cat Sue of Tyson with a very irritating voice who gets just as much spotlight, leaving Max, Rey and Kai with less screentime.
- Alexis, Rad and Carlos from Transformers Armada lived somewhere between Damsel Scrappy and The Kid With The Remote Control for most of the series, then quickly spiraled into Wesley territory when they used their Super Special Awesome powers of Mini-Con communication to single-handedly bring down planet-eating Big Bad Unicron.
- This extended into the sequel shows Energon and Cybertron. The former had Kicker, with a powersuit and the ability to both detect Energon and be free of any consequences of acting like a complete jerk. The latter went back to the three kid format with Coby, his little brother Bud, and Lori, who were basically the Autobot cheerleaders/Earth travel guides.
- The original two Witwicky kids (Spike pre-movie, Daniel post-movie) never quite fall into this category (merely staying at the level of The Scrappy), as back then they were marginally useful, and not actual stars.
- Some fans consider any puny human, or at least any puny human who threatens to be a significant figure in the continuity in question and takes away screen time/page count from the Transformers, to fit this trope (especially if what should be a minor subplot about Sam Witwicky's desire to engage in squishy human procreation takes over the whole movie).
- That said, Sari from Transformers Animated did not fall victim to this problem, mostly because her antics are usually just funny or adorably appropriate (or inappropriate) given her 8-year-old age. Retroactively though, she shouldn't count as she is in fact a Transformer herself.
- Kira Yamato and Lacus Clyne as of Gundam SEED Destiny. Central characters in the previous series, about a third of the way through they come out of retirement. They then proceeded to gain an Omniscient Morality License and force their worldview on anyone who dares oppose them. All while losing the actual personalities that made them legitimate characters in Gundam SEED. Despite the director claiming that the pair "may have strayed from the path of justice", the fandom tends to treat Destiny as a poorly-executed God Mode Sue fanfiction. Especially in America; in Japan, however, their popularity from the first series was so immense that among a large segment of the fandom it carried over into Destiny even after they'd been derailed into Wesleys.
- Many of the members of the Kirby fandom love the games but absolutely despise the anime, in part because it's only loosely based on the games, and partly because it adds a new character, Fumu (named Tiff in the dub), who essentially steals the spotlight away from Kirby so she can occasionally deliver environmentalist messages, and since Kirby is only a baby in the anime, she practically has to tell him what to do. Had the anime been about Kirby and not this ridiculous new character from nowhere... well, it'd probably be much better off.
- Though she's not universally hated in the fandom. Chances are that if a fan likes the anime, they don't mind Fumu. A small number of fans are overly obsessed with the character, though.
- That sounds overly negative. Personally, I think Tiff and Tuff aren't bad at all. Besides, Kirby creator Masahiro Sakurai actually worked on the series, which means he was basically in charge of the way everything went.
- So that all basically means the entire series can be boiled down to *laughs*.
- A lot of people who've read the Mai-HiME manga (mainly those who've watched the more popular anime adaptation) believe this to be the case with Yuuichi Tate, since its plot focuses more on his misadventures at school than those of the girls fighting to save it. Then again, other more casual fans tend to see his increased activity as a point in his favor, since he doesn't spend the majority of his time doing next to nothing at all.
- Mai-Otome has its own Wesley in Tomoe Marguerite, a scheming Smug Snake whose only real goal was to get attention from Shizuru, and was willing to push anyone out of her way to get it, regardless of whether or not the other persons actually got in the way. Somehow, the audience is still expected to see her as a viable threat (while the actual Big Bad is doing...well, bigger and badder things) even after she makes several mistakes that should have gotten her caught, ranted out, or killed, but for some reason never does. Evidently, the writers liked Tomoe enough to keep her around for the OVA sequel, despite her having
practically no positive personality traits whatsoever.
- Pokemon often has a problem in balancing the screentime of the titular creatures. Ash used to be criticized for his overuse of Pikachu back in the day but Piplup is the most blatant Wesley, being constantly forced as the secondary mascot of the series while Dawn's other Pokémon rarely get a chance to shine. It's gotten really bad in one of the more recent episodes. It was supposed to center around Team Rocket, but it had a subplot where Piplup becomes over-worked from too much use... So much so that it had to go to intensive care. Dawn's solution to what to do while Piplup recovers? Give advice to other trainers on how to train their Pokémon. It's as if Dawn's other Pokémon do not actually exist.
- Still, that episode is worth watching just to listen to the "Double Trouble" song.
- It Gets Worse, the latest anime Mystery Dungeon special (Which has nothing to do with the main Anime series, by the way) involves the MAIN CHARACTER being turned into a Piplup. It's like the producers of the Anime are saying "Pikachu's old news, lookit the cute penguin! Don'cha just love him!? Isn't he just kawaii!?"
- May's Squirtle in the Battle Frontier arc had elements of this as well. Despite being an untrained baby, it knew moves that it shouldn't, won battles that it shouldn't, and stole screentime away from all of her other Pokémon. And among long-time viewers, it certainly didn't help that Ash used to have a Squirtle of his own, except his wasn't a Mary Sue and had a much more interesting personality.
- Even if he's (she's?) been eclipsed by Piplup and Squirtle, the original God Mode Chu still had a bit of this. Being the most overexposed character in the history of the world and possessing the power to explicitly break the rules of the universe rubs many people the wrong way.
- Code Geass has Rolo, who the creators seem to have a massive fondness for over many other better liked characters, and for his later series actions, Ohgi.
- However, there's also huge debate over whether or not he's even supposed to be sympathetic, so it really depends on future development.
- It isn't a matter of how sympathetic he is, it's that the staff seemingly adores him and features him prominently to a degree that eclipses that of the collective fanbase. Not to mention that his death was a little too undeservedly redemptive. YMMV of course.
- Sasuke from Naruto, a definite Spotlight Stealing Squad, is a very odd case. He's actually one of, if not the most popular character in the series. But there are plenty of others who absolutely hate this guy. In short, there's no middle ground with this character and you'll either be gar for this manga version of Jesus and want to have his babies (even if you can't) or loathe him so much that your soul crushing hatred manifests itself as a Negative Space Wedgie.
- This seems to be another one of those "Japan loves him, Western society hates him" things.
- Much of the hatred in the West seems to originate in how the character hardly ever faces any struggle by virtue of his propensity to constantly pulling new tricks out of his hat to stomp his enemies with (in contrast to Naruto who has to work hard for every tiny bit of growth, and even then gets shafted with an eleventh-hour drawback) and how other characters seem to get [1] derailed to elevate him. All this only increases his popularity in Japan because teenaged fanboys and fangirls think it increases his coolness factor.
- It certainly doesn't help that Masashi Kishimoto has admitted that he's his favorite character to draw.
- Johan/Jesse Anderson of Yu-Gi-Oh GX was the first undisputed Wesley (not to mention Marty Stu) of the franchise, stealing the spotlight from Judai's friends and becoming the latter's raison d'etre during the third season.
- Crow from Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds is an arguable case. While he hardly eats up as much plot as Johan (who got a whole arc based around rescuing him when the main cast barely knew him), fans still point to Crow's superior D-Wheel, Game Breaker deck, relatively random introduction, status as essentially a walking ad for Blackwings, and last but not least, that he subverted the condition that all Signers must be born with one of the marks of the dragon, as signs that he's overstayed his welcome.
- And now that he's acquired the Blackfeather Dragon, who has been confirmed as the missing "fifth dragon," (causing many fans to cry Ret Con, as the original fifth dragon was shown to be yellow in coloration with an entirely different design) as well as been given a backstory that results in a bunch of factual and continuity errors, it's less of a stretch; some fans go as far as to blame his introduction into the plot for the weak writing that followed and persisted throughout the end of the second and into the third season.
- In Bleach, we have Mayuri Kurotsuchi. While he is more of mild version, many fans are baffled at how he can get away with experimenting on Uryuu's beloved grandfather to death, using his subordinates as human bombs and abusing his daughter/Vice Captain (Even if she can take it, it's hard not to feel sorry for her).
Comic Books
- Very arguably, Superboy-Prime.
- The Sentry from, Mighty Avengers, Dark Avengers, Age of the Sentry, World War Hulk, Secret Invasion, Dark Reign, Siege, Fall of the Hulks, New Avengers, and The Sentry mini series. Writers love using him, fans hate seeing him.
- And now he just killed Ares. Certainly things are just going to get worse for him.
- Danny Chase from DC Comics' New Titans was universally loathed by fans within a few issues of his first appearance. He was a Cousin Oliver (he even looked like the original Cousin Oliver) introduced to make the team seem younger, as he was only in his early teens while everyone else was pushing 20. Despite his age, he constantly argued with the other members of the team, criticized them, was supposed to be a genius superspy teenager with telekentic powers, but then totally went crazy with fear whenever an actual fight took place. The only person who didn't seem to grasp how loathed this character was was writer Marv Wolfman who, to this day, still insists it was the readers' fault for not "getting the character".
- As a tip, in a series about costumed superheroes with codenames, whose fans presumably enjoy reading about costumed superheroes with codenames, having a character who continually goes on about how lame costumes and codenames are and how he's too cool for a costume or codename probably isn't going to go down to well.
- It also hurt that Marv Wolfman had no idea how to write a telekinetic as to compliment the diverse power set as the Titans. Chase's powers were mainly shown to be (at best) extremely limited: at best he could levitate himself (but only while sitting Indian style) and throw small objects around at bad guys to annoy them. Jean Grey he wasn't; this combined with his wussy behavior during combat, made him practically useless in battle. As bad as Cypher was powerwise, at least he had training in hand-to-hand combat and willing to take a bullet for his teammates when necessary.
- To be fair, his removal from the team did show that Wolfman DID somewhat get why fans hated Danny. Danny acts like a little shit when informing Nightwing of Jason Todd's death and pretty much mocks Dick's reaction of shock and grief. Which in turn leads to Dick expelling Danny from the team several hours later.
- Danny Chase DID get killed off/retooled via death as he merged with Raven's mom to become Phantasm (which was originally an alias introduced after the Wildebeasts "killed" him in a failed assassination attempt before the soul merging), with the gestalt being its own entity with no trace whatsoever of Danny's personality. Sadly that didn't stop Marv Wolfman from continuing to plot Danny's return: the "Leader" of the Team Titans was supposed to be Chase, before Wolfman was kicked off the book and the character was revealed to be Hank "Monarch" Hall.
- In the Sonic the Hedgehog comic, a character was introduced named Tommy Turtle, a childhood friend of Sonic that had never been mentioned before, but had once taught him a valuable life lesson. He died in his first appearance while performing a Heroic Sacrifice to save Sonic, but about a year later was revealed to not have actually been killed and was brought back. Attempts by the writers to make him more relevant (such as having him become infested with nanobots, causing him to develop Transformers-esque abilities) ended up just appearing ridiculous and making fans dislike him even more. In Sonic grams while Archie staff admitted that they knew a lot of their fans hadn't liked the character, they'd hoped they could change their tune, showing the clear divide between the staff at Archie and the people actually reading the book. In the end writer Ian Flynn said when compiling a list of the comic's most unpopular characters, Tommy still ranked very high among the fanbase despite efforts to make him popular by previous writers. Tommy was therefore killed off and hasn't been seen since.
- Nurse Annie Ghazikhanian is the Wesley of the X-Men, along with being a Purity Sue, Relationship Sue, and the low point of Chuck Austen's X-Men run if not entire career.
- Damian al-Ghul, Batman's son, in Batman. He's pretty much Grant Morrison's pet character and has been given an awfully large part in the Bat-verse, despite not many fans liking him very much. It doesn't help that he's an obnoxious, stuck-up brat who wants to fight everyone he meets.
- Granted, he's not completely hated either.
- Is not as hated as it was in the beginning of Morrison's Batman.
- At least a good deal of the characters seem to hate him, too.
- And in the new Flagship series Batman and Robin, he actually screws up. He still tries to steal the spotlight, but it seems that Morrison knows his status as Wesley by many fans.
- Drift from IDW's Transformers comic hit this status before he even debuted because the promotion of the character was so obnoxious. He was hyped up at conventions as "The Wolverine of Transformers," which struck many fans as odd because Grimlock pretty much has a lock on that role. Drift has a Weeaboo vibe thanks to the rising sun motif and Gratuitous Japanese on his car mode, as well as being described as a "drift-racing Transformer" created because he filled a niche no other character could (never mind the Loads And Loads Of Characters in Transformers and the fact that at least one drift racer already existed). He boasts Implausible Fencing Powers, an annoying arrogant smirk that never goes away, and copious Shilling The Wesley from fan-favorite Kup. He debuted alongside the Wreckers, a group of well-loved badasses, with no explanation except that everyone thinks he's so awesome. There are even instances of characters asking where he is when he's off screen. Oh, and did we mention that he's some sort of mysterious wild card who is not really an Autobot but is trusted by Kup and company anyway? Essentially, he's a heavily promoted character who is cool pretty much because the comic tells us he's cool and lets him curb stomp scary Insecticon drones (while wearing that Primus-damned smirk) and impress the actually likable characters. The similarity to The Simpsons parody of Wesleys has led Transformers fans to start a meme of quoting "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show" in reference to Drift, hoping desperately that his home planet needs him and that he dies on the way back.
- Shoehorning Drift-chan in the children's "I Am Optimus Prime" Robot Heroes book sure doesn't help his case any either.
- And he does nothing, he's just there because we're supposed to believe he's awesome. Teletraan-1 Wiki even gives as picture captions, "He's your horrible fancharacter." and "Seriously, you made this guy up when you were eight."
- Hasbro may have wised up to the fact of how utterly hated Drift is; when they told fans, after being asked if fan-favorite Wheeljack would get a new Universe figure, Hasbro said he wasn't going to get one because they were considering making a toy out of Drift and didn't want two white cars out at the same time. Fans reacted quite negatively, to such an extent that Hasbro hasn't brought up the notion of making a Drift figure since then.
- You know Drift's bad when Flatline (from the movie spin off comics and another writer's personal creation) is more likeable than he is.
- Jessica Jones; her status as the Wesley was confirmed for all time in the first issue of Young Avengers when you had the four main rookie Young Avengers, all of which are in their mid-teens, meeting Jessica Jones (an obscure super-heroine who hadn't even been a hero for the last 5-6 years Marvel time, having retired to become a private eye) being treated like the Second Coming by the Young Avengers.
- Magog, for writer Bill Willingham. Magog began as a fascinating character in the Elseworld Kingdom Come who served as an examination of what happens when a Nineties Anti Hero goes too far (It's not pretty). Geoff Johns brought him into The DCU proper in Justice Society Of America. When Willingham took over, however, his importance ballooned. He was now prominent on most covers, got a series of his own, and became battlefield leader of the group despite being a relatively new member. All this culminated in him leading a rebellion of the younger JSA members against the older ones, completely throwing out the established theme of the title. It's rumored that Willingham is using Magog as a mouthpiece because he and the character have similar political views. Only time will tell if this once-great character can be salvaged.
Film
- Averted in Star Wars. Once George Lucas got the message that fans
didn't like hate want to strangle Jar Jar Binks, his role in the second prequel movie was smaller than the first and in third movie he got only a cameo. In Attack of the Clones, instead of bumbling his way to an allegedly humorous victory, Jar Jar's stupidity instead directly aids Palpatine in paving the way for the rise of The Empire.
- Of course, if you want to anger the fans, one can also point out that he's responsible for saving Obi Wan's life and for the existence of Luke and Leia. Had Jar Jar not been around, The Empire would probably have been born either way, if not in name. Instead of Vader, Palpatine instead would have had minions in the form of Count Dooku and without Obi Wan spearheading the war effort against the Seperatists Movement, Palpatine's minions would have crushed the Republic and crippled the Jedi.And there would be no Skywalker to end the empire in a few decades. But since we all hate Jar Jar, we'd rather not think of that. Blaming him for the rise of the Empire feels good.
- And just made my day. Also, apparently the Ewoks come in for a lot of flak too. ''My'' mileage varies. I love the little guys.
- They could have used Wookies...
- Obi-Wan could have been saved through some other medium. Though Jar Jar is despised by the other Gungans, given they banished him in the first place and were going to execute him if Qui Gonn didn't intervene.
- When Jar Jar, his mom, and his dad George R. were stranded on a desert island, George initially tried to kill himself. Then, Jar Jar offered to swim for help. His father began to dissuade him from such a suicide mission, but then in a moment of clarity let him go. Unfortunately, Jar Jar's mother liked him too much for that.
- This troper liked Jar Jar, granted, she was seven when Phantom Menace came out, but still.
- Jar Jar could've been
roleplayed written much better: see Exhibit A. The real problem, of course, is that George Lucas is a d/ck.
Literature
- The Inheritance Cycle gives us Eragon. While he was only mildly annoying in the first book the second and third turned him into a God Mode Sue and a Jerk Ass who rarely got called out on all of the horrible things he does. Things like letting slaves get devoured, killing a young conscripted soldier with his bare hands and torturing a newly-blind, starving man for daring to try and protect his daughter by any means possible.
- Lord Jaxom from the Dragonriders Of Pern series. His high Gary Stu levels were barely acceptable in The White Dragon. But when he was made the focus character in All The Weyrs Of Pern - which featured the resolution of F'lar's dream of removing the threat of Thread permanently - the fandom turned on Jaxom en masse.
- Mileage varies on this one.
- Karen Brewer, Kristy's step-sister from the Baby Sitters Club book series by Ann M. Martin and various ghost writers, is adored by Ann because she is allegedly what Ann wishes she was like at that age. She was so loved, in fact, she got her own spin-off series Baby-Sitters Little Sister. Unfortunately, all this series did for Karen was highlight her obnoxious tendencies already made known in the main series during her appearances.
Live Action TV
- Kate from Robin Hood. The writers derailed the more sympathetic Isabella to kick start Kate's relationship with Robin. She also gets a lot of shilling from the other outlaws singing her praises despite the fact that she is in fact next to useless. She needs to get rescued a lot, and when she does she rips into her rescuer big time.
- Jake Sisko and Nog from Star Trek Deep Space Nine and Naomi from Star Trek Voyager ran the risk of becoming Wesleys, but they actually became well-rounded characters and dodged most of the hate.
- On the other hand, there's Vic Fontaine, the holosuite lounge singer who had several episodes devoted to him in the final seasons. The writers loved loved loved him, while fans kept wondering why they were wasting time in the holosuite while a war waged. Maybe if those episodes hadn't been wasted on Fontaine, they could've covered some of the loose ends that the writers desperately scrambled to tie up in the last three or four episodes of the series. (Of course, both the writers and the cast were expecting, or at least hoping, to have an 8th season to deal with all that.)
- Some people liked Vic Fontaine. Vic was the first major non-villainous hologram character to touch on the question of computer sentience, an important developing issue in the Star Trek universe. For unlike Data, who was unique, Vic was among the first of many such new beings to come.
- Vic was well used in his first appearance in the sixth season, but then the writers kept trying to wedge him in randomly all the time in the seventh season just as a spacefiller.
- The writers of 24 have had a million chances to shock (and, in some cases, please) the audience by killing off Kim Bauer, but they insist on keeping her alive and featuring her in irrelevant subplots - although the total hotness of the actress playing her may have had something to do with their decision.
- To be fair, the creators have noted that, with Teri Bauer dead, Kim dying would effectively destroy Jack Bauer. The creators decided to take the middle route: In Season Five, Kim effectively steps out of her father's life and refuses to contact him.
- She returns in Season 7...and manages not to totally suck.
- Chloe O'Brien was largely detested by fans when she first appeared in the third season. She, however, proved something of an acquired taste, and as of the current season has second billing in the opening credits.
- Many grownups today who remember watching old-school Sesame Street now despise Elmo for this reason. The writers never allow him to be smart about anything since he's supposed to be representative of the audience's youngest age bracket, not to mention that he's given way too much to do, and the rest of the show suffers for his now-constant presence.
- Wouldn't that make Elmo more like The Barney, though? Sesame Street isn't really geared for grownups, anyway.
- The more recent Abby Caddaby is slowly but surely becoming one of these as well.
- Elmo was an Ensemble Darkhorse who evolved into a Wesley. Abby Cadabby is a replay of the Zoe fiasco. Zoe was the first Sesame Street Muppet created specifically for marketing and merchandising purposes, but the huge publicity push she received didn't work and the character sort of faded into the background.
- Although, it is a bit funny to see Elmo get really snarky with Zoe when she brings up her pet rock Rocko.
- Lana Lang from Smallville was kept on way past her usefulness as obligatory love interest from the early seasons. No amount of retooling can save her in the public eye and some people mark her as the greatest reason the ratings are dropping. Nonetheless the writers seem invested in her, inserting her into every storyline they can, if only so she can keep pulling in the teenage girl demographic, even if much of that demographic wants to punch her in the throat. The writers' persistence could be chalked up to the fact that Lana is traditionally the girl in Clark's past... if Smallville hadn't already made far bigger breaks with tradition, particularly by introducing Lois Lane.
- And now she's back for three episodes in Season 8 with faux-Navy Seal training and superpowers sending her beyond The Wesley and well into Canon Sue territory. God Mode Sue even. She's just all kinds of Sue.
- The saddest Lana arc was in Season 6, when Lana started to show flashes of Luthor-like evil. For a few brief, shining episodes, it looked as if Lana was actually going to achieve the coolness as a villain that always eluded her as The Chick. But, of course, wonderful kind sweet Lana Lang would never actually turn to the Dark Side; she was just trying to protect Clark.
- Dylan Hunt in Andromeda, who from the second half of the second season onwards, came to dominate the plot and had by Season 5 turned into a hero-worshipped Marty Stu, Chosen One, and Savior of Mankind, to the extent that all other characters were only allowed significant screen time if their scenes also involved Hunt in some way. While Hunt was the main character, the writers seemed to forget that "main" does not mean "only", and that Andromeda was supposed to have an ensemble cast.. It got to the point where enormously more interesting characters were arbitrarily rendered into drooling idiots, then destroyed, then written off the show, then brought back and destroyed further, and then literally dropped off a cliff while the entire rest of the cast mocked their former comrade-in-arms mercilessly and metaphorically spat upon his grave, simply because that character was growing to be more popular and interesting than Hunt.
- The rumor was that Executive Meddling had something to do with it, releasing executive producer Robert Hewitt Wolfe after he refused to accept to such meddling and replacing him with someone else who would reformat the show for more "casual viewing".
- Megan of Drake And Josh is supposedly cast as the antagonist of the show, but a combination of being a particularly grating Bratty Half Pint, the extremeness of her "pranks" (some of which are unambiguously criminal) without any hint of remorse, and a total lack of any repercussion to her behavior rubbed a great many of the viewers the wrong way. The writers obviously loved her, however, and portrayed the very few genuine bad actions to affect her as completely terrible (lying to her to prevent a wrongful jail sentence is bad, but it's okay for her to physically assault them on a regular basis). They were probably aiming to Cross The Line Twice via Mood Whiplash, but they either fell way short of the mark or were trying it on the wrong genre and audience to begin with (she seems more suited for an Adult Swim Sadist Show than a Nickelodeon sitcom).
- Billie from Charmed's final season. The often nicknamed "Maggot Neck", "Bimbo", and "Ultimate Retard" was loathed for many reasons - creating useless subplots that were often just rehashes of previous storylines, distracting focus from the titular Charmed ones, threatening the world with a spin-off, getting a character that had been around since season one (and Piper's husband) encased in a block of ice for over half the season due to budget cuts, and breaking canon by having the ability to alter reality with her mind making her and her lisping sister the Ultimate Power - but no reason garnered as much hatred as Kaley Cuoco's inability to express any semblance of humanity that resulted in her character being alienating and just downright unlikable. Being Brad Kern's pet means you can get away with anything.
- Arguably Joey in Dawsons Creek, especially when all attention was shifted on the Dawson/Joey/Pacey Love Triangle, shoving everyone else on the sidelines.
- Gwen in Torchwood, partially due to Die For Our Ship, but even non-Ianto/Jack shippers, or non-shippers in general dislike her. The production team gushes about her being "the heart of the team" and "the most human" but that's not really shown on the screen.
- Kennedy from Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Some fans are bewildered why Willow hasn't put Kennedy out by the curve by now, what with snakebabe Saga in tow. The writers other then Joss Whedon knew how hated Kennedy was by the fans and often toyed with her almost getting killed. Joss however loved her, and so she stayed til the bitter end.
- Funnily though, the character actually called Wesley, who was intended to be annoying and hated by the audience, Took A Level In Badass in Angel.
- But he was definitely something of a Wesley in the beginning - just that, by continuing to give him more, and more important, things to do... he stopped being completely useless, like he was at first.
- The difference is that Wesley Crusher was annoyingly competent while early on, Wesley Wyndham-Pryce was humorously incompetent.
- Despite being unbearably pretentious and annoying, The L Word's Jenny Schecter is so beloved by series creator Ilene Chaikin that she kept getting more and more screen time devoted to her creative-writing exercises, no matter how wanky they got.
- Some, especially the members of Television Without Pity, would argue Izzie Stevens is this on Grey's Anatomy. No matter what Izzie does, be it cutting LVAD wires or stealing hearts or spending several self-absorbed episodes moping, she is the Shining Light and Most Human of the interns.
- The other half instead focuses on the equally self-absorbed title character, whiny Meredith Grey, as a character that absolutely must go. Sounds good to me.
- The newspaper staff during the fifth season of The Wire. Their plot was inspired by David Simon's tenure at the Baltimore Sun as a crime reporter. Unfortunately, the plot is shoehorned into the narrative because of a silly plot involving Detective Jimmy McNulty faking murders to get more funding for the department. The viewers more than understood the message after three episodes: city editors are kind and by-the-book, reporters are always getting screwed, and buyouts are bad.
- It makes sense that the writers liked them, since Gus Haynes is an obvious Author Avatar for one of the head writers.
- Arguably Franklin on My Wife And Kids. A kid genius (or, in others words, knowledgeable and masterly skillful at EVERYTHING) who made guest star appearances a couple of times before getting promoted to the main cast. Afterwards, he started getting shoehorned into every single episode, which almost always involved at least one of the Kyles (usually the father) asking him for help and/or advice. Essentially, the character himself was an Overused Running Gag that many fans of the show got sick of after awhile.
- Dr. Allison Cameron was the original Wesley on House. However, her storylines and character gradually grew less obnoxious, so of course she was then pushed aside in favor of a new Wesley, Dr. Remy "Thirteen" Hadley. Ever since Hadley appeared, she's getting more and more airtime (especially concerning her personal life and diagnosis), while much of the show's fanbase seems to despise her utterly.
- The problem is aggravated by her Huntington's allowing her to take more screentime as patient as well as doctor. Alas Poor Scrappy doesn't really work on the installment plan.
- Jennifer Keller on Stargate Atlantis; since her inclusion in the fourth and fifth seasons, she has become the writers' favourite character. It has even been speculated that a few writers even use her to live out their fantasies. The writers are insanely defensive of this character, and it was even revealed by a producer that the more people complain the more she will be included in the episodes in an effort to make her appeal more to fans. With the exact opposite effect.
- The writers often dismiss the dislike of their favourite character to them disliking her replacement of a well-rounded fan favorite, Carson.
- All things considered, this case was almost certainly driven by writer-worship of Jewel Staite's admittedly fantastic performance as Kaylee Frye on Firefly, and their wanting to see her in their show as much as possible - whether or not they actually had a character that could live up to such exposure.
- Lulu Spencer from the daytime drama General Hospital used to be this, until the focus was shifted from her to Maxie Jones and she was written better. Now Maxie Jones, once an extremely popular character, has suffered from being extremely overexposed, along with Spinelli and the whole "Spixie" pairing in general, with both Maxie and Spinelli quickly become hated in the fandom.
- The "Spixie" ship created another Wesley in the form of Winifred, who was basically killed on arrival when the head writer proclaimed his enthusiasm for the chemistry between her and Spinelli...before a single episode featuring them aired. It doesn't help that she was given the same character traits as Spinelli, thus making half the fandom hate her on the spot, with the other half hating her because, well, she was breaking up their favorite ship.
- Raymond Langston is arguably the CSI Wesley. It's not that all of the fans hate him, it's that he never goes away. Every other character on the show has been relegated to the background because of him. It even got so bad that one of the characters isn't even coming back for the tenth season because she got no Character Development. The fans have a problem with him because he started out as a lovable rookie and almost overnight turned into a CSI expert that goes on solo cases despite the fact that soloing at Level One has been specifically stated as not allowed. To make matters worse, The Powers That Be have said that he's going to be given more screentime in Season Ten because it's "what the fans want". Oh, really?
- He was brought in as the Grissom replacement, so they writers must believe he's the main character. Even though the entire point of the original CSI is that there really isn't a single main character even when Grissom was there.
- CSI also has a Wesley director, William Friedkin, who directed the two worst episodes of CSI, ever, as generally confirmed by the fandom. The Powers That Be love him, however, and think that he's the best guest director they've ever had. (Which... they've had Quentin Tarantino for God's sake...)
- Most of the reasons why some fans and viewers hate CSI: Miami is because they believe that Horatio is one of these. He gets more spotlight than any of the characters, and all the promos focus on him.
- Adric of Doctor Who has the original Wesley beat by almost a decade. Not only did the fans hate him, but when Matthew Waterhouse - the guy that portrayed him - started lecturing his thespian cohorts on how to act when his professional acting career up to that point could have been measured in mere months, nearly everyone backstage did, too. That didn't stop him from saving the Doctor at least once a story.
- Bailey, who replaces Maddie for The Suite Life On Deck isn't well liked for...well...replacing Maddie. Despite this, she seems to have a lot more backstory than all the other characters and is now hooked up with Cody.
- Irish drama The Clinic has this with Dr. Dan. He started off as a corrupt third-string cast member, then got found out and left. A year or so later he came back, began going out with the lead character. Then when she died he became the lead. Through all this he never reformed, constantly seemed to lying for no good reason, trying to scam people, and generally being a total douche and never reforming, even after a bout of life-threatening illness. The character has no depth, they stop him being an outright hero by making him do bad things, stop him from being an outright villain by making him seem joyless. The end result is he's a boring would-be anti-hero who gets all the plot lumped at his feet.
- It's only 9 episodes in and Mark Benford from Flash Forward 2009 is, at least according to the fansites and TV blogs, quickly becoming this.
- Echo on Dollhouse might be considered this. The entire show was created by Joss Whedon as a favor for his friend Eliza Dushku (who plays Echo), and most of the first season prominently features Echo, along with every single character gushing over how awesome she is. Granted, the character herself isn't too grating, just not as interesting as the side characters, and Dushku's apparent inability to carry a show by herself doesn't help. (Though to be fair, as a Doll she's at least theoretically not supposed to have a personality, so the plot is working against her.)
- Some fans have actually felt Caroline (Echo's original personality) is a Wesley, though as the series goes on the idea that she's less-than-perfect seems to be developing into a plot point—-Echo even claims to be "afraid" of her, while Bennett's opinion of her is certainly not friendly.
- Sylar on Heroes is this to half of the Broken Base. He constantly outsmarts every other character (which is not hard, on its own), gets all the snarky lines, and generally winds up killing off or otherwise supplanting the main villains every season. It doesn't help that not one, but several characters have made Heroic Sacrifices to finally kill him, which diminishing returns. The most recent one didn't even last until the end of the scene. Amusingly, the trope comes full circle as one of the reasons for keeping Sylar prominent on the show is the actor's popularity from appearing as Spock in the new Star Trek reboot.
- West Rosen is more universally acknowledged as a Wesley. Tremendous effort was placed into getting viewers to gush over his and Claire's extremely forced romantic relationship, probably to help fans forget about the unfortunate chemistry between Claire and Peter, her biological uncle.
- Jay Leno could always be considered one outside the middle-age-and-older demographic that put him on top during his run on The Tonight Show. The recent Conan / Leno controversy shattered any doubt and placed him into full-fledged Wesleydom.
- How can this page have got this far without mentioning Lucas Wolenczak from Sea Quest DSV? Given that Sea Quest DSV was basically conceived as a clone of Star Trek: The Next Generation set on a submarine he positively has "Wesley" written all over him! Consider - character is a super-genius who can intellectually outdistance any other character, check. Character manages to save the damn ship on a near-weekly basis, check. Played by cute child actor on the verge of maturing out of the child actor bracket, check. Hell's teeth, the reason for him being there was so contrived as to be utterly unbelievable, given that at least the Enterprise-D was supposed to have families and children aboard!
Newspaper Comics
- Moon Maid (and to a lesser extent, the Moon People) of Dick Tracy. Yes, that Dick Tracy. If this wiki came into being 40 years ago, this entry would be called "The Moon Maid." The daughter of the Moon's supreme ruler, her first appearance had her display abilities that had Mary Sue written all over them. Serving as a liaison between the Moon people and the humans, she started to cheerfully be the Punisher of her time while Dick Tracy, the embodiment of established law and order, unaccountably all but cheered on murderous vigilantism. She eventually married Dick Tracy Jr. (the title character's adopted son) and had a daughter. Fan demand and the Apollo 11 mission combined to make the strip's creator Chester Gould tone down, but not completely eliminate, her and the sci-fi elements that introduced her. His successor, Max Allan Collins, had Moon Maid die in a car bomb intended for Dick Tracy, and her funeral strip noted that this marked the severance of all ties between Earth and the Moon People.
- Anthony Caine of For Better Or For Worse. Once Lynn Johnston decided to bring Liz "back home" and pair her up with her nice-but-dull first love, Johnston has made every effort to make the reader love him as much as she obviously does (and pretty much retroactively vilifying his ex-wife, Thérčse, in the process). This extended to her having Liz's father John, the strip's patriarch, explicitly put down Liz's other boyfriends, and fawn over Anthony to the extent that he seriously appears to want his daughter to marry the guy mostly because he himself has a crush on him. (That Liz's stated goal is to marry a guy just like her father only adds to the Freudian fun.) The readership, by and large, rejected any and all attempts at this, as signified by his Detractor Nicknames "Blandthony", "Granthony" (due to the fact that he looks way older than Elizabeth) and "That Fucking Mustache Guy."
- Everyone who talks about how Peanuts lost its edge in later years almost always mentions Snoopy's older brother Spike. For comparison, Rerun went through a similar evolution (Schulz even claimed he "took over" the strip), but most fans liked him.
- Much of the Spike hate can be ascribed to the fact that strips centering around him never included any of the other cast members, since he lived in a completely different part of the world than everyone else.
- Frank - ostensibly the central character of Liberty Meadows. At first just the foil for the antics of the Funny Animal cast, towards the end of the strip's newspaper run, he became more and more the focus of events, particularly lead female Brandy's wedding. As the strip made it more obvious that Frank and Brandy were meant to be together, there were fewer and fewer answers to the question "Why, exactly?" Especially given that A) Brandy's fiance was everything Frank wasn't (rich, good-looking, smooth, and actually able to tell Brandy how he felt) and B) Brandy had already told him he'd blown his shot with her by being wishy-washy.
- Because that's not a good enough reason to blow off a relationship? Especially when she plainly couldn't stand her fiance's personality. His main characteristic was arrogance.
Professional Wrestling
- Realistically, just about any wrestler who is overpushed (that is to say, given more screen-time and wins than their talent level or popularity would deserve) could be a Wesley. Only the most obvious examples should be listed below, and as with all Subjective Tropes, take them with a grain of salt.
- Pick any wrestler who is on the booking team, or better yet, a relative of someone on the booking team. Some American examples: Dustin Rhodes (AKA Goldust, son of Dusty Rhodes), Triple H (son-in-law of WWE's Vince McMahon), Jeff Jarrett (co-owner and son of Jerry Jarrett) in TNA, Eric Watts (son of Bill Watts), David Flair (son of Ric Flair), and Kevin Nash (booker in 1998-1999) in WCW, Greg Gagne and Larry Zbyszko (son and son-in-law of Verne Gagne, respectively) in AWA. Such wrestlers are usually pushed far beyond their ability levels or to the point where fans become sick of seeing them. Other countries' promotions are not immune to this either.
- Triple H is arguably the prime example in this genre. Even when he was out for a year with a quad injury, it seemed like J.R. or Jerry Lawler would mention him during every match (even a women's or cruiserweight match). And that's when they weren't showing heroic montages of HHH's rehab. If he wasn't The Wesley already, that time period made him one.
- As bad as Trips was, Jeff Jarrett in TNA was (is?) a lot worse, especially in 2005, when fans were pleading with him to "DROP THE TITLE!" Not to mention the fact that he is also the head booker, as well as the wrestler. And before that, Jarrett was pushed big time in WCW because of his friendship with Vince Russo, the then-current writer for WCW in 1999-2000. While Triple H does have a lot of pull in the WWE thanks to his marriage to Stephanie McMahon, it is Vince who gets the final word on everything.
- Hulk Hogan himself was and is beloved in WWE/F, but in WCW he was, for the most part, a Wesley. When he first arrived, fans hated his Boring Invincible Hero schtick. Hogan's solution was that he wasn't invincible enough, and so he set about burying all the other top drawing wrestlers in the booking. Things got so bad that WCW had to take anti-Hogan signs from fans before letting them into the arenas, and free Hogan merchandise given to the fans in the front row was thrown back. Of course, Hogan was Rescued From The Scrappy Heap when the New World Order formed. A few years later the nWo had run its course and Hogan turned face again, and went right back into Wesleyhood, where he remained until a falling out with booker Vince Russo had him removed from television until WCW's demise.
- Actually, the smart fans (the ones in the know about wrestling) called Hogan a Wesley back in his WWE/F days. Back then, however, the smarts were very few and far between, and Hogan's popularity was in its peak. He did, however, have a Wesley moment of his own in the WWE/F at Wrestlemania IX, where he won the title (despite not being scheduled in the title match) and buried two of the promotion's top wrestlers, Bret Hart and Yokozuna, in the process. He was only given this title reign by Vince McMahon on the condition that he drop the belt to Bret Hart at the next pay-per-view. Hogan reneged on his deal, however, and would go on to wrestle Yokozuna instead. As a nice little Take That, Yokozuna no-selled every single one of Hogan's moves, including the leg drop finisher, and Hogan was basically humiliated out of the company. Hogan would never be seen in WWE/F again for years.
- The Rock, for much of his first year or so. Green as grass, pushed to the moon, won the IC title, all over TV and the fans loathed him. "Die Rocky, Die" chants were not uncommon. He was only rescued by his Face Heel Turn, making the most of fan hatred while letting him grow as a performer.
- It also helped that they retooled the character from a squeaky clean face into "Dwayne Johnnson, cracked up to eleven".
- Lex Luger's "Made in the USA" gimmick in WWF was pretty much the definition of The Wesley in wrestling. He was pushed to the top after Hulk Hogan finally "left for good" (well, for 10+ years, anyway), plugged directly into Hulk Hogan's feud with Yokozuna, and given a hugely over-the-top All American Face gimmick, in hopes to get him massively over. It completely failed on every level possible; the casual fans saw Luger as a poor imitation of the departed Hogan, and the smarks detested Luger's lack of mobility and failure to grasp even basic Wrestling Psychology.
- To make matters worse, most fans liked (well, in a "love to hate" kind of way) the Narcissist gimmick he was using before the Heel Face Turn.
- Towards the end of ECW's run, Justin Credible was made their World Champion. Now, Credible had been quite good in his previous upper midcard role, as one half of the Impact Players tag team with Lance Storm. But when Storm left for WCW, Credible was promoted to the main event. As any wrestling fan knows, singles wrestling and tag teams are completely different and a great tag wrestler can be completely boring without his partner. Also, Storm's excellent wrestling ability covered up the flaws in Credible's work. But in an un-ECW like decision, Credible kept the belt, and retained it time and again, mostly against wrestlers who would work the title defense, maybe 2 or 3 other matches, and then leave the company. By the time the belt switched hands half a year later, fans were SICK of Justin Credible.
- To be fair, Paul Heyman later said in an interview that he wasn't terribly fond of him either, and only kept the belt on Justin because he knew he was the one guy who wasn't going to get snatched up by WCW or WWF.
- Steve "Mongo" McMichael, a member of the mid-late 90's version of the 4 Horsemen, could qualify as this. Mongo wasn't so much talentless as incredibly green in the ring, but he was still far, far below what a hardcore fan would expect from one of the Horsemen. Still, he was given a fairly long reign as the WCW United States Champion and a never-ending series of angles involving his then-wife now ex-wife Debra. Keep in mind that while all this was happening, Mongo still needed to be carried through matches.
- Chikara has Lince Dorado. He was pushed way, way too hard right after his debut, and then went through a period where he would alternately be booked too strongly and be booked as a wrestler of his stature normally would be. End result, Lince's popularity plummeted to the point where it wrecked that of his stablemates in The Future Is Now, Jimmy "Equinox II" Olsen and Helios. The bookers have gotten the message and Lince is now booked in the undercards, but the fans still consider The Future Is Now to be the least interesting group on the roster. When uber-heel group F.I.S.T beat TFiN, the fans chanted "Thank you FIST". More recently, during Cibernetico Incredible, the crowd began booing after Lince scored two eliminations in the torneo cibernetico.
- Beaver Cleavage. This gimmick was Chaz Warrington (formerly Headbanger Mosh) and his girlfriend, the late Marianna Komlos, as a hypersexual parody of Leave It To Beaver. It was Vince Russo's pet gimmick. Russo fought and fought with the rest of the WWF creative team to get Beaver Cleavage on the air, and when he finally did, the fan reaction was as negative as everyone not named Vince Russo expected. Vince McMahon himself vetoed the character a couple of weeks in, nipping his Wesleyhood in the bud. The incident, however, was one of Russo's main reasons for leaving WWF for WCW. As for Chaz and Marianna, after being allowed to work under their real names without gimmicks, they got stuck in a So Bad Its Horrible domestic abuse angle.
Role Playing Games
- In the Living Death campaign the character of Jason Lindaman was supposed to be a super-intelligent, Crazy Prepared investigator who was taken out by the enemy before the PCs arrived. Because the PCs' only real interaction with him was after something heinous that took all four to six of them to handle had physically or emotionally crippled him, many players considered him a joke and / or incompetent to the point that they wished for his death.
- Elminster from Dungeons And Dragons. For the crowd that is not into roleplaying: Think about what would happen if Gandalf was the main character of Lord of the Rings and the story consisted of him beating up anything that is a bother and boning the goddess of magic whose boobs are totally big and rad to the max.
- Some Warhammer 40000 fans think that the sudden elevation of the Necrons and their undying C'tan masters to essentially the prime source of all evil in the universe - responsible even for Chaos, the force intrinsically opposed to the Necrons and the traditional Big Bad of the setting - was an entire race of Wesleys. The insinuation that the C'tan secretly rule a large part of the Imperium and are worshipped by a smaller but incredibly critical part has not helped this any.
- The new 5th Edition rules seem to be trying to rectify this, pointing out that the long hibernation coupled with the constant repairs to their bodies have turned many of them into mindless procedure-following automatons, and most Lords are so completely insane they think themselves immortal gods and build grand powerful bodies for them to inhabit and wage war with. Whether this removes the C'tan from the fluff completely is uncertain at this point, but it appears Chaos is back as Big Bad numero uno.
- The Tau could be considered another example of this trope. When they were first introduced they were young idealists with shiny new technology and animé-inspired mecha, needless to say many fans thought this didn't at all fit with the tone of the universe. The fact that they then continued to prosper and expand significantly whilst suffering no major set-backs in conflict with the other factions only served to reinforce the fans' belief that Games Workshop had only introduced them to lure in young animé fans. With the release of their second Codex, however, they were 'darkened' appropriately and made to seem less like a United Federation of Planets-esque utopia and more like an Orwellian police-state. Most fans have now come to accept the Tau as a legitimate part of the 40k universe.
- Astute 40K fans will note that a faction has to be a Wesley when it's the New Faction on the Block. As soon as a new horrible faction is introduced, the Necrons won't seem so bad.
- Actually, the new hate train on the block? The original Space Marines themselves, and the Ultramarines in particular. Codex Creep has made them more powerful on the tabletop, and for some reason the Ultrasmurfs keep getting more hero units, more exposure and never seem to lose. It was even worse in the last edition; almost every single picture in the previous Codex was of the Ultramarines, with only a few pages to show that other chapters actually existed. The Space Wolves are being accused of even more Codex Creep, especially with one particular psychic power that's just begging for errata, but... they're Viking werewolf space marines, we just can't manifest the hate.
- The Elemental Heroes (and their Spiritual Successors, the Neospacians) from Yu-Gi-Oh GX are certainly qualified here; already having a strike against them as the signature cards of the anime's unabashed Boring Invincible Hero Judai, they are absolutely reviled by most duelists due to their weak stats, underwhelming effects, their Fusions being unable to be summoned by fan favorites Cyber-Stein or Metamorphosis, and half of the Elemental Heroes being normal monsters. What pushes them over the edge, though is how throughout the show's run, Konami could hardly go through a set without dedicating at least a fourth of it to the E-Heroes/Neospacians and support cards.
- Elemental Hero Mudballman is the king of this trope, being the only fusion with no actual effect, but still can't be summoned outside of fusion summon. At least Master of Dragon Soldier and Five God Dragon has reasonable effects to make up for it.
- Similarly, Elemental Hero Flame Wingman and especially Elemental Hero Neos, as Judai couldn't seem to go one duel without using them almost exclusively. At least Flame Wingman remained silent, though; Neos also had the distinction of being The Obi Wan since his introduction, and in seasons 2 and 4, he became a virtual Deus Ex Machina, becoming "real" to take care of non duel-related threats. As you might have guessed, fans are sick of their overuse.
- Synchros and Tuners are (albeit less commonly) hated by fans for similar reasons - they utterly dominate the plot and duels of 5Ds, Konami dedicates an average of three-quarters of a set to them, but unlike the E-Heroes, the majority of Synchros *cough* Lonefire Blossom *cough* are on par with effin' Chaos, which either totally redeems them or makes them glaringly worse, depending on which side of the Broken Base you are on.
- Don't forget the predecessor of Synchros, Fusions. It's like the purpose of GX was to try and make them relevant. Never mind that you have to go through so many hoops to play them that Synchros were made to make them usable, every duelist in GX used them. Jaden's E-Heroes, as stated, most prominent.
- The folks writing for the early editions of Shadowrun must've really gone bananas over the idea of "immortal elves", because those spotlight-hogging weedeaters were handed the keys to the game's metaplot waaaaay too often.
- To be fair, the Immortal Elf plotlines did result in some of the better sourcebooks of the setting (specifically the Harlequin series), and led to the development of Earthdawn, which fleshed out the background of the universe a little more. The IE's are so rarely featured these days that a fair number of plot points from their time out in the sun are as of yet unresolved. Of course, the fact that FASA went down the drain (and its product line split up among a variety of companies) might have a little more to do with their low profile over the last ten years or so than not.
Sports
- One year, FOX's coverage of NASCAR races added a 'Digger Cam'- a ground-level camera in the infield that showed cars coming around a turn. The 'digger' part came from an animated gopher named Digger, who would pop up out of a hole, look behind him, notice the cars, scream, and then frantically get back into his hole. It was kind of funny the first time. After that it became progressively less funny. Then they did it repeatedly, every single race. This was the signal for FOX to render Digger in CGI, give him his own pre-race cartoon, and offer Digger merchandise. The response has escalated to three words: kill the rodent.
- This sounds reminiscent of "Scooter", FOX's talking CGI baseball. Well, except for the merchandising part and the fact that Scooter actually taught some useful facts about pitches (the problem with him was that he did so in a manner that became very annoying to anyone above the age of five or so). The real Wesleys of FOX's MLB coverage are Tim McCarver and Joe Buck, who seem to always be assigned to FOX's "A" game (the one that they show in markets not affiliated with any of the teams they're covering that week), despite the two of them being roundly despised. Especially Buck (both to the "despised" part and to the "shilled" part—Buck without McCarver is a more common sight than McCarver without Buck, and that doesn't even take into account the fact that they send Buck to NFL games as well).
Video Games
- Tales Of Destiny plays with this trope with Mighty Kongman, or "Bruiser Khang" for the western audience, who was little more than a complete ass in the original game due to his extreme arrogant and his general tendency to act like a bit of a dick. During The Remake, this is lampshaded all the way to and back, with Rutee even say off-handedly "nobody would actually care if you died, Kongman." Ironically, The Remake also turned him into the game's Ensemble Darkhorse.
- Kurtis Stryker looked incredibly out of place in the Mortal Kombat universe, as he was a plainclothes cop in a video game world filled with demons, cyborgs and Palette Swap Ninjas. From his initial appearance in Mortal Kombat 3, the developers figured that he would become one of the series' new favorite characters and tried to elevate his power to near-Game Breaker status, but only made him a Tier Induced Scrappy. Thanks to his new design in Armageddon, he's been Rescued From The Scrappy Heap. The backwards baseball cap is gone, at least...
- Shadow The Hedgehog of the Sonic The Hedgehog games is an odd case. The fans liked him in Sonic Adventure 2, but Sega loved him, and continued to reuse him to the point where some fans desperately wanted them to get rid of him.
- Part of the cause there is because Shadow died for a very good reason in the end of SA 2, and that was part of the appeal of the character. When Sega brought him back, that dulled the impact of his sacrifice (and seemingly reversed the most important part of his character development.)
- If he had been written well, that wouldn't have mattered. Shadow was hated because Shadow The Hedgehog and further games turned him weird, not because he was brought back.
- The biggest issue is that the writers really don't know what to do with him. Aside from being angsty about Maria (which was resolved by the true ending of Shadow the Hedgehog; note how he doesn't angst as much in games released afterwards), there's really nothing defined about his character.
- The World Of Warcraft player base is split about the leaders of their respective factions being this. The first, Thrall, has generally been accepted as Chris Metzen's pet character ever since his initial appearance, but not many have called him out on it, since the change of the Horde from bloodthirsty demonic army to a shamanic society of Proud Warrior Race Guys under his leadership has been accepted as a good thing for the lore. Ever since the latest expansion pack, though, we've been treated to Varian Wrynn, the rightful king of Stormwind who was lost to his people until recently. The way his change in character, return and insertion into the game has been handled, however, has been heavily criticized. Not only does his character development run a clear parallel to Thrall's, but it has been done in a fraction of the time, in which his character made a complete 180 - a barbaric human to Thrall's educated Orc - it involved some major asspulls and, to give him weight, culminated in his hijacking the lore of one of the most prominent quest lines the Alliance had: the exposing and subsequent slaying of Onyxia. This has drawn bad blood from both factions, while getting others up in arms over Thrall's status as Metzen's pet. Currently, Varian seems more deserving of Wesley status, as the developers keep pushing him in an ever more prominent role in matters even though a large part of the base hates him, while the main complaint of Thrall's detractors is that he's doing too little to oppose the inner conflicts, instead relying too much on advisers. Of course, Your Mileage May Vary.
- Well, let's be fair, there's only so much you can do about any given threat when it respawns after two hours.
- Varian's hijacking of Onyxia's kill was rather obnoxious in and of itself, putting him almost in Marty Stu territory, and his constant whininess about how a secret sect of the Forsaken experimented on humans without Thrall's knowledge automatically makes the Horde evil and unbearable has made him almost a return to the Alliance's roots as horrible anti-orc racists. Thrall has been taking his responsibilities quite well, only making appearances for Crowning Moments Of Awesome, where Varian has the wonderful privelege of being a gigantic fracking tool in every cutscene he's in. The fact that he serves as the instigator for a larger Alliance Vs Horde split in the latest expansion is especially grating: Thrall was doing quite well in working the Horde and Alliance towards a solid cold-war style peace, and with one word Varian brings it crumbling around Thrall's head.
- Though he loses the Marty Stu elements, Garrosh Hellscream is the Horde equivalent of Varian Wrynn. In Burning Crusade he was nothing but a minor character whose story was mostly a Call Back to Warcraft 3. Lately, he's been all over the place, leading the Horde forces in Northrend and escorting Thrall to all diplomatic events, and he's a hothead who causes conflict wherever he goes. His actions are doubly insulting to players who identify with the Horde. First, he loves to criticize Thrall and tell him what a "true Warchief" would do, despite only being a member of the Horde for less than a year (this fits the trope perfectly, since it's exactly the same as Wesley acting like he was smarter than Captain Picard). Second, for years Horde players have had to deal with idiots who aren't familiar with the story assuming Alliance are the good guys and Horde are the bad guys - Garrosh's making the Horde look bad makes them look bad as people who play Horde.
- Oh, and did we mention that, if preliminary reports on the new expansion Cataclysm are to be believed, Thrall actually steps down as Warchief in favor of Garrosh?
- This rumor has thankfully been proven false, but he'll still have a prominent role in Cataclysm.
- That last point is probably the reason a seemingly "perfect" character like Thrall is loved while more flawed leaders like Varian and Garrosh are hated - long-time WoW players see themselves as members of the Horde and Alliance, so they like leaders that make their side function well and appear good. For perspective, look at Illidan, who has a large fan following despite being incredibly flawed. None of his screw-ups directly impact the playable factions, so the players don't take them personally and they're more easily forgiven.
- You are generally supposed to hate both Varian and Garrosh for the sole sake of picking a lesser evil - to truly despise the opposite faction is the only way to reignite the war in Warcraft. As it was before, Bolvar, Jaina, Thrall et. al were paragons of perfection, so it was difficult to have the war play a part in story. As for Garrosh's position of warchief - any leaks may have been falsified, but he is definitely gaining power and followers.
- To Be honest, I believe the primary reasons people hate Varian and Garrosh so much is because of their Jerk Ass attitudes and the fact that they essentially exist only to invoke conflict between the Horde and the Alliance. Add that to the fact that Varian and Garrosh Wangst and bitch about the other faction every five fucking minutes, while the developers constantly try (and fail) to make them look Bad Ass at the same time, guarantees that they're going to get quite a bit of hate from the playerbase for a looong time. I mean... That's 'not' "Bad Ass"... that's just annoying... Your Mileage May Vary of course...
- I doubt that's the case, the writers seem to go out of their way to portray them as belligerent morons. Most likely the intent is "yes, they're assholes, and they're in-charge. Deal with it."
- In a way this makes Garrosh (and maybe Varian as well) ineligible to be a true Wesley. The writers don't want you to like him; he's supposed to be a semi-antagonist for the more popular Saurfang and Thrall (or in Varian's case, Jaina) and an easy target for hate from the other faction.
- Varian is Rescued From The Scrappy Heap after his actions at Icecrown Citadel. Garrosh is still pending, though he has always been portrayed as deliberately less reasonable than Varian, and is more an antagonist for his own faction much as Lady Prestor was to the Alliance (minus the dragon part).
- This isn't true, while his Pet The Dog moment does get him a bit of respect from the Hatedom, the major problems with this example is that it does not appear to have invoked a positive enough reaction for players to think any less of Varian as a Jerk Ass, and worse, due to the split story continuity between the Horde and Alliance for the ICC raid, this whole event may not even be considered canon.
- Aya Shameimaru of the Touhou games has long flirted with Wesley status. She made her first appearance in Phantasmagoria of Flower View as a tengu reporter who was investigating the incidents going on at the time. Oh, and she also "accidentally" beat up everyone along the way because she was "holding back" and "not actually trying to fight". This would have been one thing, but she would, in some form, go on to appear in the next four Touhou games, including a Gaiden Game with her as the main character. While reappearing characters were not uncommon to Touhou, they were usually limited to the human butlers of final bosses (Sakuya Izayoi and Youmu Konpaku, for instance), and not to a relatively minor youkai. Her appearance in Mountain of Faith was particularly infuriating because most of the old cast, Reimu Hakurei and Marisa Kirisame notwithstanding, made no appearance in this game...except for Aya, who not only ended up being the level four boss, but was explicitly stated by Touhou creator ZUN himself to have lost to the heroine on purpose. At her peak, Aya had become so bad that a minor meme had spawned explaining that she had gotten into so many games in exchange for giving ZUN sexual favors.
- However, fanon often portrays Aya as a humorously over-the-top, so-obnoxious-she's-funny tabloid reporter with a penchant for taking embarrassing photos of the other girls. This interpretation of Aya is not nearly as bad as the one that ZUN has saddled her with, and it not only rescued her from the scrappy heap, but it gave her almost as many fans as she has haters, making her one of, if not the most polarizing character in the series.
- Aya seems to be nowhere to be found in Undefined Fantastic Object, and her reduced roles in more recent games have taken much of the Wesley off of her. Although another character, Sanae Kochiya, has been seen an awful lot in the more recent games...
- In Silent Sinner in Blue, an even bigger pair of Wesleys show up, namely the Watatsuki sisters Yorihime and Toyohime. In addition to effortlessly defeating Reimu, Marissa, Remilia and Sakuya they force Yukari — a Reality Warper — to yield without a fight, and each chapter ends up being a demonstration of their superiority. To make things worse, they display the staggering amount of hubris and racism typical of Lunarians going to the extent of considering all living things on Earth as sinners and impure. This, despite the fact that Lunarians were originally human sages who had left Earth for the Moon.
- However, if you pay attention to the expressions and demeanors of the main heroes while fighting Yorihime, you get the feeling that our quad of heroes weren't really trying their hardest either.
- Not to mention the fact that Yukari might have got kidnapped by Toyohime on purpose for the sole intent of distracting her so Yuyuko could sneak in and steal their sake.
- In Guild Wars Factions, the character of Mhenlo at times felt more like the hero then the player characters. In the cutscenes, he seemed to do most of the thinking and talking, and he appeared to be...acquainted...with most of the female population of Cantha. In addition, that chapter was full of Escort Missions, usually with him as the person who you had to keep alive. Fortunately, Arena Net dialed his importance FAR back in later campaigns and didn't make that mistake again.
- Joey MacAdoo in the Backyard Sports series. Saying nothing other than corny jokes (you gotta MACADOO it!) in his first appearance in Backyard Baseball 2007, he was destined to become The Scrappy. The writers somehow thought he and Ernie Steele (who is also corny, but actually realizes he is making bad jokes) should be the poster boys for the series, evolving into The Wesley. Even worse: In one of the few Backyard Books, Joey is the main character. Cue Unpleasable Fanbase.
- Some people view Yosuke from Persona 4 as this. He makes several jerkass comments to fan favorite Kanji, spends much of the first two thirds of the game Wangsting over Saki's murder, and during the sequence that determines which ending you get, he has his jerkass qualities, which had been relatively minor up to this point, turned Up To Eleven. Despite all this, he arguably gets the most screentime and development of the main characters. Of course, this is far from a universal opinion.
- There are a good number of people who are starting to see Roxas from the Kingdom Hearts series as this. As the star of Kingdom Hearts II's controversial prologue, one might think Square would avoid using him anymore afterwards. But instead, he got his own game on the Nintendo DS, and one of the three main characters of the PSP game Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep'' is an absolute Expy of him, down to appearance and voice. So Yeah...either Roxas is a Wesley or his increased prominence is Square Pandering To The Base of yaoi fangirls who adore him.
- This is an extremely debatable example, even when not counting the yaoi fangirls. Roxas' importance to the story is only due to his connection with Sora who has the connection with Ven. It's hard to call Roxas a Wesley since he is both a separate character and part of Sora at the same time, and most of the fanbase likes him with a sizable minority who absolutely hate him, as opposed to the near universal hatred most examples on this page have.
- Deckard Cain from the Diablo video game series. While it is later revealed he is not the all-powerful Horadric Mage that he claims to be, he still persistently wastes the time and resources of the heroes by charging them money to look at the latest crapfest they've taken from a monster's corpse, getting himself captured by low-level monsters and imprisoned in a wooden cage or simply asking them to 'stay a while, and listen'. We don't have time you waffling old waste of space, we're trying to save the world here!
Western Animation
- Some fans of Tiny Toon Adventures think Elmyra is one of the most annoying animated characters ever created. Too bad the executives at Warner Bros. loved her, and kept trying to get her her own show. Eventually, they had her co-star in a Pinky And The Brain spinoff, Pinky, Elmyra, and the Brain, which earned her the wrath of more angry fans.
- Problem is, Elmyra works best as a lurking danger because of her And Call Him George tendencies. It takes a very strange mind to view her as a viable main character.
- Dulcy the Dragon in Sonic The Hedgehog (the "SatAM" version). Apart from just being there in season two without a proper introduction, getting a bigger part than most of the other freedom fighters, the writers try and squeeze her into as many scenes as possible, thus reducing Bunnie and Rotor to minor characters, and she gets the whole 'magic powers in a techno environment' deal (though that aspect was first established by the evil wizard Naugus). There's also the questionable logic of Princess Sally trusting her safety (not to mention the safety of any other passengers) to riding a dragon who can't land without crashing, and falls asleep during flight.
- Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick have stated that they will be intentionally invoking this trope by giving the widely-despised Murderous Moppets more screentime in the next season to spite the fans who hate them. Considering they're writing a Sadist Show, this could potentially redeem them as entertaining characters.
- Do they really count, though? The Moppets are nasty and creepy and evil. The viewers "hate" them in exactly the way we're supposed to.
- Well, originally the Moppets were a pair of Scrappys, who, while evil and creepy, were also not very entertaining. But they kept getting screentime. And unlike every other deranged weirdo on the show they never got some sort of comical comeuppance. Its just now that the writers have said that they are going to put them in the show more because they like the Moppets, that elevates them to Wesleys.
- Dr. Girlfriend gave the Moppets a bit of a Take That Scrappy dismissal in the season four episode "Pinstripes Versus Poltergeists", mentioning that she found them increasingly annoying. The Monarch was extremely aroused by this display of hate...
- Herbert the elderly gay pedophile from Family Guy. He's openly hated by the majority of the fanbase, yet he still gets to appear in almost ever episode, and sometimes even get a really long musical number. Also, Brian, despite still having a large amount of fans, has recently begun to fall under this now that he often acts as the writer's mouthpiece (see below).
- Also lampooned with the character of Meg whom everyone seems to hate in the show, but fans quite like.
- Brian mutated from the Only Sane Man into something of a Wesley when he became an Author Avatar in the later seasons. Judging from Quagmire's Take That Scrappy rant against Brian, the issue has at least been noticed by MacFarlane. Time will tell if the situation is rectified or not...
- Lisa Simpson is considered this by some fans, primarily because as the rest of the cast falls into Flanderization, she remains the only consistently intelligent person in all of Springfield and gets to lecture everyone as to why her views are right and theirs are wrong with annoying frequency. By the time of the film, the writers seem to have picked up on how obnoxious she could be to the fans, however, and played up her hardcore activism for comedy.
- There have been quite a few mockeries of Lisa in-show (though apparently she's big in Japan). For example in the episode "Bart Star", she wants to join the football team until it is revealed that there are already girls on the team, and her joining would not be taking a moral stand, so she switches to deriding the players for the fact the game is played with "the skin of an INNOCENT PIG!". When it is revealed that not only is the ball synthetic, but that a portion of its price was donated to charity, she begins to tear up, and flees. However, for the most part (and especially in later seasons), she's just intolerable.
- and she sings more often.
- Hawkgirl in the Justice League. Even by the writer's admission Hawkgirl is the Ensemble Darkhorse for half the audience and The Wesley for the other half and is certainly the Creator's Pet. A lot of it has to do with the fact that they upgraded her mace with Applied Phlebotinum that behaves inconsistently enough that its useful in an implausibly wide variety of situations in order to put her in the same League with three characters with Combo Platter Powers, one character with the literal Green Lantern Ring, and the rest.
- Owen from Total Drama Island/Total Drama Action has become an increasingly blatant example, with a lot of focus put on him, his fart humor, and Annoying Laugh throughout both shows. He wound up winning the first season despite having won few challenges and being up against the very competent and FanFavorite Gwen. In Total Drama Action, he was conveniently brought back onto the show after being eliminated halfway through, to the joy of all the other "good" characters. Fans have not been pleased.
- Well, some aren't; This Troper has actually been surprised by how many fans he has, most of whom cite his affable nature. But to many others he's annoying, especially since he lacks any real depth other than "the Nice Guy Big Eater Who Farts a Lot."
- Although he's only a recurring character, Cheese from Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends definitely qualifies, since his incessant antics become insufferable to anyone outside his Periphery Demographic, and he has appeared in several episodes.
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