This is topic Wil Wheaton fans will enjoy this in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.


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Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
 
recursive Wheaton

really, anyone with a sense of humor will enjoy this.
 

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Posted by The White Whale (Member # 6594) on :
 
recursion
 

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Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
Does Will Wheaton have fans?
 

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Posted by The White Whale (Member # 6594) on :
 
He has a fairly geeky, small group of entertained internet fanboys.
 

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Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
 
not sure, I remember him best from Toy Soldiers as a kid! Found this image on popurls.
 

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Posted by Bella Bee (Member # 7027) on :
 
I'm not sure anyone should allow Wesley ad infinitum.

Although it could probably be argued that this has already happened (or maybe it just felt that way at the time).
 

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Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
 
Will Wheaton was originally only hated for his role as Weaselly Crusher from TNG but has managed to turn this around somewhat recently and become a small internet celebrity like John Hodgeman.
 

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Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 
He was also loved for his role as Wesley Crusher.
 

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Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
 
Oh wait! Stand By Me. I forgot that was him.

I've never really seen star trek, can someone explain the anamosity towards this guy?
 

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Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
 
Wesley was allegedly a horribly written flat annoying character that even Wheaten himself felt was a terribly written character to the point he made it a point to apologize profusely for it ever since, as for the specifics as to why you'ld need to look it up on Tv Tropes.

You'll find mph that the number of people who hate the character vastly outweigh (on the internet anyways) the number of people who like the character (the actor himself people would universally agree is a cool guy and shows up at PAX alot I think) as for my views on him I actually never saw enough of TNG to register an opinion other then "stop talking so Data can get more lines"
 

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Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
 
Quoted for your convenience:

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"How can you not like me?"
—Brian, Family Guy
"It's what the network wants, Why bother to complain?"
—Pinky and the Brain theme song on Elmyra, Pinky And The Brain
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 things like the Usenet group "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.

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as for the specifics as to why you'ld need to look it up on Tv Tropes.

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Except that TV Tropes doesn't do as good a job as, say, Wikipedia or Wheaton's own blog at describing why someone might be a fan of Wil Wheaton.
 

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Posted by The White Whale (Member # 6594) on :
 

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Was there something wrong with the way I explained the situation to Strider?

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Originally posted by TomDavidson:

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as for the specifics as to why you'ld need to look it up on Tv Tropes.

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Except that TV Tropes doesn't do as good a job as, say, Wikipedia or Wheaton's own blog at describing why someone might be a fan of Wil Wheaton.

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Exceeeeeeept that wasn't the question! The question was 'why would there be animosity towards this guy' which specifically is why would their be animosity towards the character of Weasely Chrusher which I answered correctly with the quoting.

"The general incoherency, I'd venture."

What would you have preferred I edited my post to provide the correct explanation in the first go and pretend my mistake didn't exist? That would be dishonest which is why I made the second post with the direct quoting from the relevent tvtropes article.

Seriously this should be obvious clearly some of you need to stop knee jerk insta posting and read the damn post first.

Unless "anamosity" means the complete opposite of "animosity".

 

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Posted by The White Whale (Member # 6594) on :
 
I was referring more to the syntax, grammar, lack of punctuation, strange flow, run-on sentences, and your spelling Wheaton "Wheaten."
 

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Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
 

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Originally posted by The White Whale:
I was referring more to the syntax, grammar, lack of punctuation, strange flow, run-on sentences, and your spelling Wheaton "Wheaten."

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Somewhere along the line this contributor got more into the form than the content. They sometimes leave snarky little notes in discussion areas about the correct use of italics or where the apostrophe goes in "its/it's." They don't actually add no any new content — except possibly passive-aggressive "help" articles on proper usage of the semicolon. At their worst, they are known for insisting on "rules of English" which don't actually exist. They'll also likely become a Serial Tweaker, careful to quickly correct their own mistakes. (hopefully)

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your just being a grammar nazi.

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So welcome to Hatrack you are wrong.

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Originally posted by TomDavidson:

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So welcome to Hatrack you are wrong.

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Never use this line, please. It makes me sad on a number of levels.

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hah, seems like it'd be a fitting motto for the last few years.

[ April 06, 2010, 01:29 AM: Message edited by: Strider ]
 

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Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
 
Blayne, if I didn't know better I might actually think your consistent confusing of you're/your/there/their in this thread was intentional, for some sort of obscure comedic effect.

Sadly, I do know better.
 

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Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 

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Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:
[QB] We could, but that would show discipline and self restraint, as well as respect to the original post./QB]

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Originally posted by AchillesHeel:

Is it bad that I remember Wil Wheaton better for the Family Guy joke where Stewie mispronounces WH words like Wheaton and whip?

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Originally posted by AchillesHeel:
I'm gonna go ahead and ignore the tangeant/tiff and say that Wheaton was awesome in the latest season of The Guild, even though he doesnt play any online games and stumbled around some the of the dialogue. Obviously most of the cast are not gamers but atleast they dont have to relearn geekspeak like he had to.

Is it bad that I remember Wil Wheaton better for the Family Guy joke where Stewie mispronounces WH words like Wheaton and whip?

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Originally posted by The White Whale:
He has a fairly geeky, small group of entertained internet fanboys.

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And fangirls!
 

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Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
 
I want a tee-shirt like that (of myself though). That would throw off my students a bit.
 

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Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
 

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:

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your just being a grammar nazi.

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I love the fact that there are two grammar errors in this phrase.

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Originally posted by Jon Boy:

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:

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your just being a grammar nazi.

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I love the fact that there are two grammar errors in this phrase.

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Uh . . . what's the second one? If you're talking about "nazi," it's typically lowercase when not referring to actual German National Socialists.

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Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Does Will Wheaton have fans?

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Originally posted by dabbler:
I saw him at PAX East two weekends ago and he wore the shirt on that Saturday.

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Originally posted by Valentine014:

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Originally posted by The White Whale:
He has a fairly geeky, small group of entertained internet fanboys.

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And fangirls!

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Amen!
 

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Posted by AchillesHeel (Member # 11736) on :
 

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Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:

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Originally posted by AchillesHeel:
I'm gonna go ahead and ignore the tangeant/tiff and say that Wheaton was awesome in the latest season of The Guild, even though he doesnt play any online games and stumbled around some the of the dialogue. Obviously most of the cast are not gamers but atleast they dont have to relearn geekspeak like he had to.

Is it bad that I remember Wil Wheaton better for the Family Guy joke where Stewie mispronounces WH words like Wheaton and whip?

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Was he in the first season of it (The Guild)? I didn't notice as I was trying to NOT watch it while playing other games when my friend kept insisting on playing it since if I was going to watch it I wanted to watch it from beginning to end and not jumping around so I wanted to avoid spoilers.

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Originally posted by AchillesHeel:

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Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:

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Originally posted by AchillesHeel:
I'm gonna go ahead and ignore the tangeant/tiff and say that Wheaton was awesome in the latest season of The Guild, even though he doesnt play any online games and stumbled around some the of the dialogue. Obviously most of the cast are not gamers but atleast they dont have to relearn geekspeak like he had to.

Is it bad that I remember Wil Wheaton better for the Family Guy joke where Stewie mispronounces WH words like Wheaton and whip?

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Was he in the first season of it (The Guild)? I didn't notice as I was trying to NOT watch it while playing other games when my friend kept insisting on playing it since if I was going to watch it I wanted to watch it from beginning to end and not jumping around so I wanted to avoid spoilers.

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He is a new character in season 3, I am no spoiler man when it comes to The Guild but I would like to implore you to watch especially if your a WoW player. Its creepy how non-exagerated certain jokes and instances are in that show.

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