Diary of a Wimpy Kid discussion

First of all, let me get something straight: this is a REDDIT post, not a diary.

Let me get another thing straight: I have been reading the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series since a bit after its inception in 2007. But as I've gotten older, I've been noticing more and more problems come up with the books, and particularly some of Jeff Kinney's decisions as an author. So let's dive right in:

The books are supposedly "timeless"

Timeless? How? This is supposed to be a coming-of-age series about a middle-schooler https://testmyspeed.onl/ https://essaywriter.fun/ growing up. How would the reader be interested in future books if Greg Heffley does not age at all, and does not grow up and learn?

Which brings up another thing: Greg NEVER seems to learn anything. He never carries knowledge from one book to another, aside from a few instances. For example, in The Ugly Truth, he mentions he ruled Fregley out as friend material "a long time ago", or during the time of the first book. Things like this are really it. Other than that, Greg doesn't progress as a character at all. But I'll go more into this in a bit, especially regarding other characters.

Greg is a sociopath

Oh? I could see that. I've read and watched plenty of analysises--analysi? whatever--about how Greg is really a growing sociopath, and I could totally buy it. He's a narcissist who manipulates people around him. While he's not a TERRIBLE person per se, why would any parent see him as a good role model for their kids? I'm asking because I'll admit, when I was a kid I used to want to be like Greg--a middle schooler who don't give a fuck about nuttin'. To me that seemed like the "cool" way to go about school. I'm older now, of course, and less naive.Every character has been "Flanderized"

Firstly, if you don't know what that means, Flanderized just means when one trait of a character just ends up becoming their entire personality. It's so-called because of Flanders from The Simpsons.

Anyway, let's go through all the major characters, shall we? Surely they can't ALL be like this, right? Unfortunately yes, I'm afraid:

Greg - sociopath who doesn't care

Rowley - a four-year-old stuck in a middle-schooler's body

Roderick - a dumbass metalhead who doesn't know his head from his ass

Susan - the overly-cliche "go-outside-and-stop-playing-on-your-electronics" type of mom who's also so out-of-touch to a delusional degree, and it gets really tiring after a while

Frank - the dad who only cares about his kids being tough and boring and going out to "pLaY sPeRtS", but is boring himself (HOWEVER, I must say I really liked him and his relationship with Greg in the latter half of Old School)

Manny - a little shit who's really pampered yet thinks and acts like a psychopath (I've heard he's modeled after Jeff's real-life younger brother, which is just terrifying)

Besides this, the series often introduces new characters, but then gives them nothing big to do and then abandons them:

Abigail - had potential, but then turned out to be a bitch and "just using Rowley to get back with her old boyfriend", which is a total cop-out of a character motivation. She could've stayed longer, and really played off of Greg and Rowley really well.

The pig - eh, I don't really care for this character, and he's really intelligent to an almost-scary degree. The only good part about him was that he was modeled after Napoleon from George Orwell's Animal Farm, which is honestly really cool. But then, the pig just runs away, and that's that. Whoopie.

Holly Hills, Chirag, Patty, and Fregley - this is where the movies REALLY improve over the books. These characters are present throughout the whole trilogy, and actually have layers. In the books, however, they do not. And it doesn't help that we haven't seen them in forever. Because Jeff can't keep track of what goes on in his own series. He keeps abandoning old ideas and going for new ones that don't even stay long anyway.

Finally, since the series is supposedly "timeless", these characters never GROW. And I have to say, this is one of, if not THE, biggest problem with Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Why should we care about these characters if they never evolve? They've all been rendered moot and uninteresting, and I'll explain why in a moment. But really, this is not how you write coming-of-age stories, or really stories in general. There's a time and a place, as well as a certain kind of genre, and this isn't it.

The series has long since lost its intrigue

See, coming-of-age stories are all about growing up and learning from the things that happen to you. How do you deal with situations? It's all in how characters and stories are written. But, of course, Jeff doesn't seem to even understand this.

The books have just evolved to be joke after joke, trying again and again to throw shit at the wall and hope it sticks. Let me explain:

There's been a pattern with each preceding book, notably the last several most recent ones, where the entire first half is Greg telling the reader some kind of story from his childhood, whether it be something he did, or something he believed and still does, or something of the sort. Story after story, this just keeps going on until a few things outside do happen, but they do not influence the book as a whole. And then, in the last THIRD of the book is when the "main plot" kicks in, but by then it's too late. It's too late to have any kind of impact, because I'm usually drained from frustration by this point. And when the main premise happens, the climax happens, and then Greg concludes the book with one last entry telling of the aftermath. And then he reiterates some kind of running gag or thing he mentioned earlier, and that's where the book is trunkaded.

This is the case up until Wrecking Ball, which I can't speak for as I have not yet read it. Nor have I read Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid.

There's an extra problem to this: I have gone back and read the first few books, and aside from the first one they too suffer from this problem of being "timeless", as well as not evolving any characters or subplots. This is also where the movies take the lead; the trilogy actually has scenes and moments that feel real, featuring characters that feel real. The books, however, suffer from a lack of this.

So, that's all I can think of off the top of my head. If I think of anything else, I'll add it in later. But for now, please tell me your thoughts in the comments--what do you think of my analysis? Better yet, what do you yourself think? Do you agree or disagree with anything I've said today? I genuinely want to know your thoughts, but for now I want to thank you for allowing me to finally get this off my chest, as I've had it in me for a long time.

I enjoyed reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid. It's always a fun reading this book. I bought this from online book store Islamabadat a very reasonable price.