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As You Know, The Scrappy is any character hated by the majority of the fandom. Sometimes, the writers become aware of such hate and start sadistically fooling around with the character, to the delight of the fandom; sometimes, they just pull him out of the scene.
But what happens when everybody hates The Scrappy, while the writers absolutely love him? He becomes a creature that we tropers like to refer to as "The Wesley"...the polar opposite of the Ensemble Darkhorse, and the only thing worse than The Scrappy.
A Wesley is created when the writers (or sometimes only one of them) have become attached to a specific character, so they begin writing him/her into more and more of the scripts, giving them more to do, and sometimes making them the proxy voice of the author, all while blithely ignoring the simple truth that they're the only ones that love their character, because the fans absolutely goddamned hate this character.
The main characteristic of The Wesley that distinguishes him from, say, The Kimberly, is that the writers' focus on him is actually acting to the detriment of the rest of the show. It's not that the parts of the show featuring this particular annoying character suck more than the rest, it's that so much effort is being refocused on him that the episodes that don't prominently feature him are also beginning to suck.
When a character starts turning into The Wesley, the show usually begins hemorrhaging fans - it's a clear sign that it's about to (or just did) Jump The Shark. The only certain way to dodge this particular bullet is to write the character out, either by having them Put On A Bus or outright killing them (the latter choice has been known to actually win back some of the fans). He can be outright redeemed though if he's Rescued From The Scrappy Heap, but that's rare and takes considerable writing talent. Some writers won't bother with this step, and will try to get other characters to fluff The Wesley up to get the audience to like him/her by proxy.
This trope is named after Wesley Crusher of Star Trek: The Next Generation, probably the most famous example of this. 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; Wesley's actor Wil Wheaton comments in this blog entry (scroll down to Behind the Scenes Memory) on some of the reasons the character was so deservedly hated.
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 since the beginning. Contrast The Artifact, which the writers try to ignore because they no longer find the character interesting, but can't write out of the series without royally screwing things up and a fair solution to a character who is only a Wesley because of overuse. Contrast Likeable Sue, which is a character whose biggest difference is that the fans actually like them.
Examples
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.
- Chris Thorndyke from Sonic X. From the second episode onward, Sonic was reduced to a minor supporting character, while all the attention was on Chris. If you want to make a good cartoon based on a game it generally isn't a good idea to focus all the attention on an original Sympathetic Sue character. 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.
- That said, giving him some actual abilities and turning down the whining in the final series was the thing which rescued him from the scrappy heap in the first place. Frankly, he can't win.
- Alexis, Rad and Carlos from Transformers Armada lived somewhere between The Kimberly 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 his desire to engage in squishy human procreation takes over the whole movie).
- That said, Sari from Transformers Animated has yet to fall victim to this problem, mostly because her antics are usually just funny or adorably appropriate (or inappropriate) given her 8-year-old age.
- Sari is human?
- Many of the members of the Kirby fandom love the games but absolutely despise the anime based on the games, 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). She essentially steals the spotlight away from Kirby so she can deliver environmentalist messages every episode, 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.
- Tate Yuichi of Mai-HiME is merely considered The Scrappy in the anime version, as a very bland Accidental Pervert whose relationship with Mai pushes the actual plot to the background in later episodes, especially when he breaks the rules of rematerialization and appears at a different spot in order to sword fight the Big Bad. His Wesley status is cemented in the manga, where he's the de facto main character and Mai and Natsuki are fighting over him. Rumor has it that the reason the writers gave that he wasn't in Mai-Otome was as "punishment" for the voice-actor revealing the plot in his blog.
- 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 critised 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.
- That's nothing. The newest ending for the anime focuses entirely on Piplup, Or So I Heard.
- Petra from Gunslinger Girl, who is an older version of the original cyborg-girls, "defines" this trope; the creator has openly admitted that she's his favorite, despite being a new addition and taking the storyline in an entirely new direction, as well as yoinking it away (at points) from the former focus character, Henrietta. Despite the creator's fanboying over Petra, the fandom at large hates her passionately.
- It also doesn't help that even more Petra-like characters are being introduced in the manga, fundamentally diverting the attention from the much younger first girls, since the plot's poignancy stems largely from the fact the girls' age didn't match their occupation as assassins. It gets even worse when Petra actually appears to start a sexual relationship with her handler, which breaks the "fratello"-dynamics on a basic level.
- 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.
- Usually splits along
gender sexual preference lines, Or So I Heard. He's really not around enough for me to care one way or the other, but if I had to choose one side to align with...I'd probably have to align with the haters, falling in line with those who prefer females.
- Ex school teacher, later guerrilla warrior Kaname Ohgi from Code Geass lost his Ensemble Darkhorse status after the Black Knights turn on Lelouch and he becomes leader, something that the Unpleasable Fanbase did not take kindly. By the end of the series, however, he gets what could be considered one of the happiest endings of the whole cast: he becomes the first Japanese Premier in almost a decade and marries Viletta Nu, one of the prettiest females of the cast.
Comic Books
- 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 psychic 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".
- Marvel's Jessica Jones (New Avengers). This editor has yet to see what she actually does (besides Luke Cage). Particularly egregious since only one writer (Brian Bendis, her creator) really does anything with her, making her faux-Action Girl / Badass Normal scenes seem even more tacked on.
- Less apparent in her origin series, Alias, where her character is a failed superhero working as a private detective. Bendis liked the character enough to put her onto New Avengers where she really doesn't belong - a character who obviously doesn't want to be a superhero fits really poorly in a team whose main reason for being is to defy a government ban on superheroes.
- In all fairness, she is only in New Avengers as Luke Cage's wife and mother of his baby; she is a side character in this series.
- DC comics' recurring Big Bad, Superman Prime, gets continually recycled as the ultimate villain, despite the fact that most fans of the comic would rather he just die horribly somehow. Every time he appears, the writers find some way in which to make him even more superior to everyone else in existence (Antimonitor armor, Sinestro power ring, etc), only to have all of creation unite to defeat their unstoppable foe. Superman Prime is always more powerful, more threatening, and more awesome than any other villian (or hero, for that matter), despite the fact that he is generally disliked among the fanbase.
Live Action TV
- 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.
- 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.
- 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"
- Neelix on Star Trek: Voyager. He, too, was eventually Put On A Shuttlecraft, but it was much too late as the Grand Finale was a mere two episodes later...and he cameos in it.
- 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 holodeck 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 on the holodeck 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.
- Rusty in the newer Narrow Gauge episodes of Thomas & Friends.
- This troper quite likes him, although he's only read the original Railway Series books... in the books, Rusty was only the second diesel introduced (in book 14, Little Old Engine, with Diesel's one and only appearance being in book 13, Duck and the Diesel Engine). He was also the first nice diesel, before Daisy and Bo Co and Bear (who probably still hasn't been introduced on the TV show). He was brought in for a couple of reasons: one, the publishers were upset that Diesel had been sent away and wanted Rev. Awdry to introduce a diesel as a regular cast member to reflect at least partly the modernisation of Britain's railways, and two, Awdry himself wanted to introduce a nicer diesel character so that all diesels weren't tarred with the same brush as... well, Diesel. Maybe part of the problem with TV Rusty is that, along with the other narrow gauge engines, he was introduced so late on...
- Kim Bauer from 24. The writers have had a million chances to shock (and, in some cases, please) the audience by killing her off, 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.
- 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.
- In this troper's opinion, Elmo has usuruped Grover's rightful place as the lovably childish star of Sesame Street - a particularly annoying replacement character.
- Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys, although to be fair, the show was great until around Season 6, and by that time he'd already been a main character for 2-4 seasons, depending on who you ask.
- 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.
- For this troper, 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. Ugh.
- 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 on the [[Ensembles cast]] were only allowed significant screen time if their scenes also involved Hunt in some way. 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.
- Megan of Drake And Josh. The publicity and attention given to such a detested (and despicable) character is sickening. Her only redeeming factor is the talent of the actress portraying her... but there's always iCarly if you actually want to see her playing someone likable.
- Ironically, in iCarly, Carly is the only thing keeping Sam from from becoming this, because she keeps her in line against the pranks she pulls, and Sam's pretty much been degraded to a Butt Monkey due to her behavior.
- Adric in Doctor Who. After two seasons, he was Killed Off For Real in Earthshock. The DVD release of the story features an animated bonus "Episode 5" which shows Adric actually surviving his nosedive onto prehistoric Earth in a massive 26th Century freighter... only to get eaten by a dinosaur, to which a nearby severed Cyberman head impassively remarks, "Excellent."
- And then he's killed again in a vision in the episode "Time-Flight"... and his name is the last word the Fifth Doctor says before regenerating in the much more quick-tempered Sixth. After all, who wouldn't be pissed if their last thought before dying was about Adric?
- Adric is called on it when he acts the arrogant snotnosed kid however, and frequently gets into disagreements with the Doctor.
- 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 down right unlikeable. Being Brad Kern's pet means you can get away with anything.
- Lucas Wolenczak (who like Wesley is a Teen Genius) from Sea Quest DSV falls under this category. In fact, he was so popular in teen magazines at the time, that the entire second season was retooled to make him the focus.
- Arguably Joey in Dawson's Creek, especially when all attention was shifted on the Dawson/Joey/Pacey Love Triangle, shoving everyone else on the sidelines.
- Sylar in Heroes is in danger of becoming this. He was slated to die at the end of the first season, but because creator Tim Kring loves him (he claims he's "excited by Zachary Quinto (Sylar's actor)"...his words), he was kept on and really didn't have much to do in the second season other than be played the exact same way he was in season one. Because of this, some fans find Sylar annoying...and the rest find him to be a Draco In Leather Pants. It doesn't help matters that, during the second season, he was teamed with Maya and Alejandro, who are themselves roundly disliked.
- Of course, it's probably just as well they kept him around, as Sylar may be the only villain capable of opposing the God Mode Sue of the series, Peter Petrelli. The writers have been keeping Peter in check by attaching a big ol' Idiot Ball to his ankle, but that can't last forever.
- Well it seems thanks to Volume 3, Sylar has been Rescued From The Wesley Heap as they are now doing new and interesting things with his character. Unfortunately, that does not make Heroes free of Wesleys. Ali Larter's characters have always been polarizing and now it's just getting ridiculous. Niki/Jessica has always had one of the more boring storylines in the show but got so much more focus at the expense of the more interesting storylines. At the end of season 2, Niki was killed off and there was much rejoicing. But then season 3 starts and Ali Larter is back, this time playing Tracy Strauss, another lame split personality of Niki, until it's revealed Niki really did die and Tracy is Niki's sister... triplet sister. Which means there's at least one more of her out there. And we even know her name: Barbara. Oy vey.
- In the third season of Lost, the characters Nikki and Paulo were introduced in order to put a bit more emphasis on some of the background characters that also survived the crash. The directors apparently had big plans for these two characters, but shortly after their first appearance the fan community cried out in protest. It didn't take long for the directors to catch on, though: in the episode "Exposé," the characters' backstories were shown and they were killed off by being buried alive. This is especially odd for two reasons:
- Fans had been complaining about the lack of plots with the unseen survivors (canon explicitly says there are forty-some, but only about half that many have ever been in center stage), only to complain about how the writers expected them to believe Nikki and Paulo had been there the entire time, unseen.
- And the writers cut out the subplot introducing them, where Claire finds them having sex in Jack's tent...and instead introduced them by having Nikki make an idiot of herself by yelling at Hurley for not telling them Jack, Kate and Sawyer had been captured...when Hurley had just returned.
- 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.
- Third Rock from the Sun would have been one of this editor's favourite shows... if it wasn't for a certain Dr. Mary Albright and her assistant Nina.
- Riley in Buffy the Vampire Slayer was widely hated by fans for being a charisma black-hole, which ultimately overrode the writers' love of the character.
- And they loved him till the end. Some people would say that a fellow who cheats on you, with two-bit vampire hookers, while being horribly passive-aggressive and insecure and taking it out on you while your mom's being treated for a tumor, is the sort of fellow you should dump posthaste. Yet Xander, of all people, gives Buffy a big speech about how she ought to forgive Riley and take him back. And after he was Put On A Bus, he still managed to come back in season 6, happily married to a Mary Sue, apparently for the sole purpose of showing Buffy just how unfulfilling and self-destructive her relationship with Spike was.
- 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.
- Arguably Abby Lockhart on ER. Has a fanbase, but most fans don't like her, yet aside from her poor personality she is a true Mary Sue. Keeps making diagnosis that no one else was able to make, convincing patients that no one else can convince that they need to take a certain course of action, excelling at everything during her rotations, always getting "the coolest" lines... Not to mention she has a tendency to date the lead character.
- 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 Mc Nulty 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.
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 of For Better Or For Worse. Once Lynn Johnston decided to bring Liz "back home" and pair her up with her 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). The readership, by and large, rejected any and all attempts at this, as signified by his Fan Nickname, "Blandthony".
Professional Wrestling
- 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 Mc Mahon; however, he was already a four-time World Champion before he even married Stephanie, so, YMMV), Jeff Jarrett (co-owner and son of Jerry Jarrett) in TNA, Eric Watts (son of Bill Watts), David Flair (son of Ric Flair), Hulk Hogan (held creative control) 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.
Video Games
- Kurtis Stryker from Mortal Kombat did not help his cause by being 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. It backfired.
- 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. The "fans" of the Sonic series are currently biased against him for being an emo Spotlight Stealing Squad, completely ignoring the fact that Tails and Knuckles got their own games earlier, and he only hogs the spotlight if you actually play as him. But as you can tell from here, Your Mileage May Vary.
- Some characters from the Mario series, depending on who you ask. Some include Petey Piranha, Bowser Jr, Princess Daisy, etc.
- Bowser Jr. in particular has been given such a boost that, in the Super Mario Bros remake New Super Mario Bros, you kill Bowser on the first level and spend the rest of the game chasing his half-pint eggspawn.
Western Animation
- In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fast Forward, Cody, in the spirit of good ol' Mr. Crusher, frequently becomes a Competence Zone of one. Any episode that doesn't dispense with him very early on will typically follow this formula: "Turtles leave him behind. Turtles tackle situation that they'd have once handled quite capably on their own, but get beaten and captured. Wonderkid finds out and saves the day in his gigantic battlesuit." He's also a Wes-level tech genius, natch (though it could be simple familiarity with his era's Applied Phlebotinum level.)
- 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. There's also the questionable logic of Sally (the level-headed and brilliant minded leader of La Resistance) 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.
- As Drawn Together entered its second season, most of the character focus was on Ensemble Darkhorse Captain Hero. This, to a number of viewers, ended up making him an example of this trope (even if he is a borderline Ax Crazy Heroic Sociopath).
- Some fans of Tiny Toon Adventures think Elmyra is perhaps 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. It takes real skill for a Wesley to be hated by not one, but two fandoms.
Real Life
- Brian Leiter's philosophy blog is taken so seriously by philosophers that Leiter has been said to control the entire academic field, but it has its own Welsey element - the Friday Poem, a weekly feature spotlighting his son's gawdawful poetry. This troper doesn't know anyone who thinks the blog is improved by it - for some this is because they don't like poetry; for others, it's because they do.
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