Rodrick Heffley (Diary of a Wimpy Kid)

Rodrick Heffley is a major character and one of the main antagonists of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid book series. He is Greg Heffley's older brother. He owns a heavy metal band called Loded Diper (Loaded Diaper.) Originally, he was not actually stupid, only pretending to be, to avoid working. However, as the series progressed, he became progressively dumber, suffering from flanderization. Although, the newest book, Diper Överlöde does kinda fix him in that regard.

Why he doesn’t rule

 * 1) Rodrick is incredibly lazy and irresponsible:
 * 2) *He'd much rather sleep than do anything productive, as seen in Rodrick Rules when he once slept for 36 hours straight.
 * 3) *He always finds an override when his father tells him to wake up.
 * 4) *He almost never gets a grade under C-, except from his book reports.
 * 5) **Speaking of, he never actually did the reports himself; he has his father type everything up for him in Rodrick Rules.
 * 6) *He manages to get away from doing chores and homework by irritating his parents to the degree that they oblige to his desires.
 * 7) He acts like an abusive jerk to his brother Greg, and will blackmail him into not getting him in trouble:
 * 8) *In Rodrick Rules, he pretends to have the 'flu. Then, he actually throws a big party while his parents are away, and locks Greg away in the basement.
 * 9) ** To make matters worse, he forced Greg to help him tidy up and keep everything a secret or he would spill Greg's embarrassing secret.
 * 10) *In the same book, Rodrick is told by his mother Susan to drive him to the swim team in his band’s van, which he strongly dislikes because all of his band equipment is sliding around and there are no seats. Whenever Rodrick slams on the brakes one of his drums nearly takes Greg’s head off. However, when Greg tells Rodrick to go easy on the brakes, he drives through every speed bump in town, causing Greg to slam against the wall.
 * 11) *In The Last Straw, all of Rodrick's April Fools "jokes" involve Greg getting hurt.
 * 12) **One example is how Rodrick told him to pick up a quarter from the ground and while Greg is leaning down, Rodrick shoots him in the rear end with a paintball gun.
 * 13) ** In the same book he also tricks Greg and locks him out of their hotel room while in his underwear.
 * 14) While still slightly bright, Rodrick struggles in other areas:
 * 15) *Grammar: In Dog Days, when the Heffleys brought Sweetie (a dog they used to own), Rodrick is obliged to buy a dog bowl by his father, but he ends up vitiating it as "Sweaty" instead of "Sweetie".
 * 16) *Common Sense: In The Long Haul, Rodrick says that bacon comes from pigs the same way that eggs come from chickens, and also that a safe is a microwave, in which he accidentally locked a frosted pizza.
 * 17) When Greg was little, Rodrick constantly messed with his head:
 * 18) *He said to Greg once that if your belly button was untied, your butt would fall off. Greg then told everyone in his preschool class.
 * 19) *He also said that the toilet seat was only for girls. As a result, Greg said he would’ve been sitting on the toilet the wrong way for his whole life if the door wasn’t unlocked and Mom hadn’t come in.
 * 20) *Worst of all, sometimes Rodrick’s lies cost him money. He told Greg that you can grow a “money tree” by putting all of your birthday money in a hole in the ground and water it. This is exactly what Greg did, but later on he checked on it only to find out that the whole thing was a sham. Greg lost a lot of his birthday money before his mom stepped in.
 * 21) The only reason he actually does band practice is to occupy his spare time and keep him away from schoolwork.
 * 22) In Rodrick Rules, when Greg cannot turn in a proper history assignment, Rodrick sells him an old assignment on the exact same thing for 20,000 Mom Bucks. However, the sheet was actually terribly written (no, it wasn't typed), and Greg ended up flunking the assignment.
 * 23) In the same book, Rodrick also tries to take Greg’s journal, showing how disrespectful he is to his privacy.
 * 24) Rodrick originally wasn’t stupid, but was flanderized and became progressively dumb over the book series.
 * 25) One example of Rodrick being dumb was in Double Down, when he was reluctantly looking for a college on the computer, yet all of the good colleges he found were for dogs.

Qualities that do rule

 * 1) While usually lazy, mean and careless, sometimes he has a softer side as he occasionally treats Greg nicely.
 * 2) He is more responsible and treats his family better in the more recent books.
 * 3) Rodrick is not as dumb as everyone thinks. In fact, he can be pretty smart sometimes (check out the YT videos below for more.)
 * 4) Devon Bostick did a great job portraying him.
 * 5) His antagonistic role is somewhat stemmed due to Greg and Rodrick's less-than-ideal relationship per their sibling rivalry.
 * 6) At least he's not as bad as Susan Heffley (his mom).

Videos
8i9BXAIAfDw G5eqQvruoUI