I was a long term Wimpy Kid fan until last year, I used to love reading and watching everything to do with the Wimpy Kid franchise. I read all the books, watched all the movies (even the bad ones), and I thought it was an amazing series (and looking back prior to 2013, it was). But as the series has evolved, I noticed I felt less engaged in the books as I had gotten older, and I wondered if it was because I knew more about good story writing, but then I checked out the older books, and I must say, they still hold up. Not because of the good drawings or the unique concepts, but how grounded in reality it was. It felt more like the books were actually connected and Greg actually was growing, at least until the 7th and 8th books where that idea was thrown out the window completely by the 10th book. Then I read the Diper Overlode, the most recent book at the time of writing this post, and my gosh has the writing gotten so much worse throughout the series. I just don’t understand why Greg has to stay in middle school, it doesn’t enhance the story at all, it doesn’t add anything to Greg’s character, it’s just the same old “Greg wants to play video games and doesn’t like middle school” story we’ve seen SEVENTEEN times already. By keeping him in middle school, we don’t get to see him grow as a person much (if at all), and there’s only so many stories you can tell from a middle schooler’s perspective before it just loses its intrigue, I don’t care about Rowley and Greg’s friendship at all, it just keeps going in circles, Rodrick doesn’t go anywhere, Manny doesn’t evolve out of being an annoying little brother, and Susan and Frank don’t have any personality about them. Even when Jeff Kinney had the chance to do something truly impressive with the series with Wrecking Ball, he doesn’t even take advantage of it, and just throws out any potential good story telling in the future with Greg moving. IS he trying to purposely make these stories as bland and uninteresting as possible? Sure, it would be repetitive to see Greg in middle school anyway even if he had gone through with having Greg move to another school, but it at least would have given some room for creativity and seeing how he interacts with his new neighbours and new classmates and school. But no, Greg has to stay in Plainview forever because nothing can change. It works for a TV show and as a comic strip to stay the same age, since they have the sense of staying the same mostly and slice of life, but as a book series, it doesn’t work, especially when Jeff Kinney is having all these crazy climatic endings that make absolutely no sense. Jeff Kinney can’t just say it’s a slice of life series, while also having these crazy endings, such as a crane destroying the Heffley’s house (which isn’t even brought up after the Deep end, making that book completely pointless), Manny driving an RV, Heffley’s sneaking into an Island and getting banned for life, a 100 person snowball fight, Greg just making a super lucky shot, these don’t belong in a slice of life series because they’re too over-the-top and crazy to be feasible. I mean what is all that stuff in this series at this point, a couch destroying a home, a Biblical storm, an RV snapping correctly in place in a bridge, would you have ever believed this series started out as Greg going to Middle School and had conflicts exclusively centred around Middle School? Jeff Kinney can’t have it both ways, both keeping Greg in Middle School and having all these climactic endings, that would be like GTA IV having an anti-climactic ending despite all the things that had happened. If we saw Greg grow, then we could see him learning how being in High school is different than middle school and that the way he got by in Middle School wasn’t going to get him anywhere in High School anymore. We could see him learning how to drive, getting a job, dating, doing an extra cirricular (which has more posssibilities because there are more options in high school), preparing for College, learning how to be more responsible, learning more about his interests, making new friends, see Rodrick move out, learn more about Manny as he grows out of being a little kid, and much more. There is absolutely nothing that Jeff Kinney can write about Greg in middle school that he couldn’t also write about him if he aged Greg up to be in High school. The main reason why it was a mistake for Jeff Kinney to keep Greg Heffley in middle school is that he’s holding his writing potential back and it’s making every subsequent book meaningless, since Greg stays at the age of \~13 (I think), nothing that happens in the book series ends up mattering. If Jeff Kinney wants to keep Greg at the same age forever, that’s fine, but he’s just limiting his audience to children rather than making it accessible to as many people as possible. And before you tell me it’s for kids, sure that may be true, but that doesn’t give him the excuse to not care about the quality of the books or thinking about the implications of keeping Greg in Middle School forever.
by Dark_User25