"I'll be famous one day, but for now I'm stuck in middle school with a bunch of morons."

—Greg Heffley

Gregory "Greg" Heffley is the main character of Diary of a Wimpy Kid book series, who is believed to be loosely based on Jeff Kinney. He is an outcast who has, according to him, unreliable friends. He is very concerned about his popularity level and how he looks in public. He absolutely loves video games and slacking off, taking after his older brother Rodrick Heffley. As much as he dislikes his older brother, he takes up a lot of traits from him (selfish, slacker, etc.) He also has an interest in cartooning and making comics. He is played by Zachary Gordon in the movies.

Personality

"So if you want to find somebody to blame for the way I am, I'd guess you'd have to start with the public education system."

Greg Heffley

He explains that he has nothing that he is incredibly good at, other than video games and comics. As such, he spends most of his time on them, which deters him away from schoolwork and chores. He always blames this behavior on others, as shown by the quote above, although it technically makes no sense, as he was the one who started behaving this way; nobody forced him or influenced him, other than probably his elder brother, Rodrick, to act in this manner. He almost always takes advantage of Rowley, and uses him as a decoy for his own schemes and desires, and also attempts to raise money through his schemes for his own personal use. He also had a crush on Holly Hills, but his attempt failed as she called him Fregley, which Greg took as an insult due to his incredibly critical nature. Greg often comes up with many plans to impress girls, make money and to be popular among his school, but mostly all of his schemes fail, and lead to serious, unfair and unwanted circumstances which he also blames on other people. Greg is also uncomfortable around Fregley, the most unpopular kid in his school. Many of his teachers hate him since they all had Rodrick as a student in middle school, and they expect Greg to be as bad as his brother is. This is evidence that Greg's teachers don't realize that just because Rodrick or anyone else was bad doesn't mean that Greg or anyone else's sibling will be the same. It should also be noted that while Greg is, for the most part, a watered down version of Rodrick, he does not have any productive interests (Which IS something Rodrick has, if you think about it) and could actually be considered more hurtful than Rodrick in mental terms.

Rowley's parents also see Greg as a bad influence. He is terrible at school, failing in most of subjects, and he does not make any effort in school whatsoever; he is also ignorant to the fact that his expectations, which are exceedingly high, come from a good education. Greg is often pushed by his parents to either participate in sports, or read books or newspapers more often, but he prefers to play video games instead. Greg is an abusive and narcissistic person, who only admires himself as the best person in the world, and views every person he does not like as imperfect and immature. He is also hypocritical in the fact that he repeatedly criticizes people for their flaws, although Greg himself makes those mistakes, which he proceeds to blame other people for. By the third and fourth book, Greg is apparently attempting to give up his video game addiction, and is trying to move on to participate in sports more frequently and read more. Note that many children around his age can relate to his personality.

In the book, it is shown recurring that Greg's main interests are video games and comics, and spends most of his time on that. For a time, he harbored a hope of drawing for the school newspaper, but his comic was bowdlerized by the editor and Rowley’s comic was better liked by the people at his school.

He hardly shows any other talents; most of which his teachers and parents view as a good sign. Greg is good at singing and has a "nice soprano voice", as implied in Diary of a Wimpy Kid. He is said to have a interest in Home Economics, however in the movie he burnt a cake he was baking. Also, he says that being good at sewing does not make him popular.

Appearance

Greg is usually depicted with black shorts, or black pants and a white shirt. He is very skinny and does not seem to eat nor work out much. His father has tried to get him to work out and exercise, but he prefers playing video games. His nose as simply oval while his ears are circled.

In the movie, his hair is brown and pale white skin. Like in the book, he's visually skinny and shorter than Rowley and Angie.

References