The Wesley - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Creators Pet

Even the actor playing this guy hates him.

As you've probably read elsewhere, 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, or simply pull him out of the scene. There are times, however, when it becomes obvious that the writers (or at least one of them) 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 them.

That's The Wesley in a nutshell (a.k.a. the Creators Pet or "author's darling").

The main characteristic of The Wesley that distinguishes him from a garden-variety Scrappy 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. It's almost as if the writers think that if they just show this character as much as possible, they can browbeat the viewers into falling in love with them. It never works.

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 Putting Them On a Bus or outright killing them (the latter choice has been known to actually win back some of the fans). Like Wesley's puppy-powered cousin, he can still be Rescued From The Scrappy Heap, but that's rare and takes considerable writing talent. Insufficiently talented writers usually try Shilling The Wesley (having other characters fluff The Wesley up) to make the audience like him/her by proxy. This also never, ever works.

This trope is named after Wesley Crusher of Star Trek: The Next Generation, probably the most (in)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 (himself an avid Trekker who was aghast at how much of a Marty Stu Wesley was) comments in this blog entry (scroll down to Behind the Scenes Memory)

on some of the reasons the character was so deservedly hated.

Keep in mind that just because The Scrappy has a big role doesn't make them The Wesley. Someone is The Wesley if they're already The Scrappy (or at least somewhat disliked) but the writers inexplicably decide that's a sign to use them more often. And is sometimes excarbated by giving them Mary Sue traits.

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, 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.

No connection to Mr. Butlertron.

Examples:

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.
- 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.
  - And then Crusher tells Wesley to shut up while she's scolding Picard about telling Wesley to shut up. Unfortunately, this only serves to make Wesley more Wesley-ish; because Picard ignores him, Wesley goes against his orders and as a result saves the Enterprise, proving once again that Wesley is ~~more competent than the rest of the main cast combined~~ a Marty Stu.
- 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 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 paradisical 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 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 shapeshifting 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!"
Cruncher: "The thingamabobs are broken, the whatsits are shattered, and there's gunk all over the doohickeys!"
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..."