Why do so many people hate Wesley?

[Lord Falcon]

I mean, in early TNG, yeah, I can see why. He's an obnoxious dweeb, the nerd stereotype, plus he's a Mary Sue. But he mellowed out later on and became a more balanced character, in my opinion. Do people really hold a grudge this long?

[Batman]

While I personally never minded Wesley all that much, I think the Mary Sue aspect had a lot to do with it. I mean this is the Enterprise. Flagship of Starfleet, one of the most advanced ships they have, with hopefully the best crew they could find...and about thrice a season they needed Wesley to save their bacon. If I had to venture a guess I'd say Wesley was so hated because he came across as vastly more competent-at least in select situations-than the regular Ent-D crew.

[Eternal_Freedom]

So...WEsley is hated because in some situations he represents what the E-D crew should have been?

[Batman]

Since I never hated Wesley to begin with I have no idea what he was hated for, but yes, I'm presenting this as one possibility.

[Sidewinder]

Wesley is hated because, despite being presented as a know-it-all, do-it-all Mary Sue, he's careless- a trait that put the ship in danger more than once. See The Naked Now, Evolution, and Remember Me.

[Lord Falcon]

Yeah, he's endangered Enterprise many times, but he's also saved it many times. I myself didn't like the Mary Sue aspects, but that's the fault of the early TNG series as a whole, not the character. And like I said, once Wesley mellowed out, along with everything else that was ruining the series, I think he did okay. I mean, he wasn't my favorite, but like Jar Jar, while I didn't love him, I didn't hate him either. Certainly not to the degree certain self-important fanboys do, who scream about how awful Wesley is with no real reasons other than Season 1 failings.

[Sidewinder]

These "Season One failings" were enough to poison fans' opinions of him. Put another way, suppose YOU are a crewman aboard the USS Enterprise. You KNOW Wesley has put the ship in danger two times, and almost killed his mother when he experimented on the warp engines. Would you trust Wesley if he showed signs of "mellowing out," or would you continue to mistrust him? The latter is a human reaction, and in my opinion, perfectly understandable.

[Lord Falcon]

Well, yeah, but put it that way, others have also done the exact same thing. I mean, on other shows, the characters are not hated for that. Like Garak, Kira, even Benjamin Sisko. Why aren't they hated just as much? Hell, put that way, Picard did a lot of damage as Locutus, yet no one seems to hate him. I know, he wasn't himself at the time, but if I knew the Borg were coming after me, I'd kill myself first.

[Sidewinder]

The other characters weren't presented as Mary Sues, meaning the audience wasn't constantly bombarded with the message "This character is a superior human- smarter, braver, more capable and more moral than others!" After Picard was rescued, he did not go around saying, "The fact the Borg chose to assimilate me, is evidence I am a superior man- more important to any organization I'm a part of, than others!"

[Lord Falcon]

Actually, that IS what the other characters thought; that the Federation, and by extension humans, were perfect, paragons of morality for other races to aspire to. Besides, if Wesley is genuinely sorry for his acts of endangering the Enterprise, do you refuse to forgive him? Of course, you could argue he thought he was right even when he was doing something wrong, but then again, that is some of the other characters. Garak, for example. And Wesley did stop being a Mary Sue. In "The First Duty," for example, he was shown to be human, not a god on Earth, someone who can save everyone. I just think this Wesley hate is entirely unreasonable after the first two seasons.

[DrMckay]

Wesley as a character was written annoyingly and wrongfootedly. Wil Wheaton the actor is much loved by the sci-fi fandom at large in part because he dissected the character.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

Yeah, he's endangered Enterprise many times, but he's also saved it many times.

Wesley Crusher was pretty good at getting the Enterprise out of the kind of trouble that only Wesley Crusher could get it into.

[Spoonist]

One of the many reasons why Wesley was disliked by so many was because he was presented as a failed cadet being better than the best-of-the-best crew. ie he reduced the value of the others.

Wesley as a character was written annoyingly and wrongfootedly. Wil Wheaton the actor is much loved by the sci-fi fandom at large in part because he dissected the character.

http://www.aoltv.com/2007/12/03/star-tr ... -datalore/

Personally, I hated the way they handled Wesley in this episode. He's already on his way to becoming a hated character, and the writers cranked it up to Warp 11. It was stupid of them to have Picard give him an adult responsibility, and then dismissively treat him like a child when he carried it out. It undermines both of the characters; how is the audience supposed to take either of them seriously? Maybe the idea was that Wesley would prove Picard wrong, with a big payoff at the end when Picard apologies or something and their relationship grows as a result. But all we get is one line in the cargo bay when Picard says, "Can you return to duty?" Really? That's it? How about, "Hey, can you kiss my ass, Captain? How does that work for you? I was right about everything, bitch!"

[DaveJB]

In order for a character to have any chance of being accepted by the viewers, they usually have to be either easy for the viewer to identify with, or interesting in their own right. Troi was probably the worst overall character on the show (leaving aside the short-lived ones like Yar and Pulaski), yet she was generally inoffensive and apart from the empathic nonsense easy enough to relate to. Data and Worf obviously wouldn't easily relate to the average viewer, but they made up for it by being interesting characters in other ways. Wesley didn't have either of those saving graces - he wasn't especially interesting as a character, the vast majority of the viewing audience wouldn't have related to him, and those who did identify with him evidently didn't like what they saw.

[Crazedwraith]

Because well he never really improved. He was annoying. Then he was annoying in increasingly less amounts until he left entirely. Unlike say Bashir, who was intially annoying but stayed the entire run of DS9 and was developed into an interesting character, Wesley didn't get that development, the writers never tried to fix what was wrong with him.

Really The First Duty is the only good Wesley episode. Because he actually fucked up in a way that can't be fixed and has to to

[EnterpriseSovereign]

And the small matter of him eventually deciding Starfleet wasn't for him and decided to go with the Traveller near the very end of the series.

[Crazedwraith]

ghetto edit: that last line was obviously supposed to be:

" Really The First Duty is the only good Wesley episode. Because he actually fucked up in a way that can't be fixed and has to live with the consequences"

[TOSDOC]

I remember thinking how unlikely that a young child, an acting ensign who had never graduated the Academy, was being allowed to helm the Federation flagship (not on night watch, but in numerous combat situations no less!) while I'm certain there were so many other lower deck graduates having their hopes and careers dashed and derailed in the process.

There are cleverer ways to write cast members into the story without making them bridge crew members. McCoy and Crusher do not have bridge posts, and yet are vital to the storyline. Scotty did, yet he sometimes created more tension when he was away from it down in the engine room!

Even having done that, he should have come away from his experiences on the bridge, at the Academy, and his Board of Inquiry, with sufficient disicipline to respect the chain of command, and not disobey his commanding officer on site to appeal to the American Indians. He could certainly appeal to Picard afterward, resigned his commission in protest, run off with the Traveler or whoever else, but why act like a spoiled brat who's learned nothing while wearing the uniform, and put people's lives in danger in the process?

Wesley had some great character moments, yet these are the ones that come to my mind first.

[Hamstray]

One of the main reasons I can think of why I dislike Wesley is that in the German dub the voice actor who did Wesley had a real whiny and obnoxious voice.

[spaceviking]

I think the Barkley episodes are the best examples of why people hated Wesley. In many examples it was not that Wesely knew the solution when no one else did, he was more like the annoying kid in class who yelled out the answer rather then wait for the person actually called upon.

Though somehow he did not make it into Starfleet on his first try.

[Connor MacLeod]

You know when I ever actually watched the series I never remember caring particularily about wesley one way or another. It was only later on (during the internet days) I learned he was even unlikable. I wonder if there's a certain 'groupthink' element involved there - eg you get a bunch of peopel who hate wesley, and it sort of spreads.

[StarSword]

One thing I liked about the book Federation is that he saved the day in a way that didn't make the command crew look like complete idiots.
Spoiler

Computer entity Big Bad is possessing Data and has everyone else at crazy-strong-android-arms-point. Big Bad is focused on command crew. Wesley sneaks up behind him and hits Data's off switch.

EDIT: Spoiler fix. Forgot you had to supply a reason on this board.