Why Greg Heffley is a SOCIOPATH

I don’t exactly count Greg as a sociopath… but as a narcissist, absolutely.

Honestly who I really feel bad for is Rowley’s parents. They keep telling him Greg’s a bad influence but he just can’t see it

Rereading those books as an adult is a really different experience. I've never realized how dysfunctional Greg's family was. No wonder he became a sociopath. No wonder he was obsessed with becoming rich and popular - he wants to feel seen and loved. Something he does not get from his family. He is also getting bullied at school, and struggles with making friends (Even Rowley, his only friend, was the one who started this friendship, not Greg)

Greg has: - a little brother that always gets him in trouble - a mother that is overly strict and punishes him for everything he does - a dad who doesn't care about him - a big brother that bullies and annoys him No wonder he turned out that way

Everyone is so focused on Greg being a sociopath that they miss the obvious. Rodrick has dyslexia.

One of the big things about sociopaths is they're not born that way, it's a product of their environment. And looking at Greg's family... yeah I can see it

What we have found out from all this: Greg:sociopath Manny:phsycopath Susan:An absolute Karen Frank:neglects family Rodrick:a relatively normal

I remember a part in the series where Greg was imagining how he was a super rich guy and Rowley was just his poor gardener/ handyman

With his family, is it any wonder Greg turned out how he did? A mother who doesn’t know how people older than a toddler think and behave, a father who is only interested when his own image can potentially be improved, an older brother with no ambition who antagonises him and a toddler brother who never has to deal with consequences because he’s a blind spot for their mother.

So we have 2 sociopaths, 1 normal teen, a Karen mom and a dad who could care less. This is a messed up family dynamic.

Greg does show some genuine emotions like when he thought he was gonna move and Rowley made that poster for Greg and Greg cries because he really was gonna miss Rowley

greg was never really intended to be a sociopath and a good thing from that is that he ends up being a pretty realistic portrayal. hes not a genius mastermind that manipulates everyone around him for evil, hes a wimpy, awkward and nerdy middle schooler with a single friend who only really knows how to properly manipulate rowley and whose blurred sense of good and wrong might still get things right every once in a while (such as covering up for rowley with the cheese incident)

I'm not defending him, but I do remember one time in Cabin Fever when Rowley turned them in for the neon blotches on the wall, Vice Principal Roy gave Greg the option for him and Rowley to clean them up or just him. He decided to do it himself because he dragged Rowley into it.

Greg canonically eating cereal with the milk poured in first is the biggest proof that he is a sociopath.

What I like is that, despite Greg being an unreliable narrator, since he doesn’t see anything wrong with most of his actions, the stories themselves are reliable. His opinions are the unreliable part, but even a child can usually tell what’s an opinion and what is a fact. At least I was able to. Diary of a Wimpy Kid is the first children’s book I read that not only had a character that was almost constantly in the wrong, but they also almost never learned anything from it. Even as a kid, it encourages you to challenge Greg’s views by telling you something that is pretty obviously false. After that, you start to take Greg’s opinions with a grain of salt, and try to look at what’s actually happening to see how much the person screwing over Greg is actually in the wrong, if at all. This really helped with understanding my own bias in situations. If Greg could be an ass to his friends and still think he was doing “the right thing”, then maybe the person annoying me does legitimately think they’re in the right. That wouldn’t justify their actions (or my own, in the case I was in the wrong), but it did help resolve the situation.

That part where greg genuinely couldn't understand that taking responsibility for his actions was "the right thing to do" is what convinced me.

3:14 to be fair Manny freakin deserves that. Kid gets away with EVERYTHING and never seems to be punished for acting out.

I’m not all that surprised that Greg is a sociopath considering the people he lives with. He was constantly picked by Rodrick as he was little(and his parents never seemed to punish Rodrick. I remember Greg tell Susan that Rodrick said a bad word and instead of punishing the two of them, she just punished Greg for knowing how to spell the word.) His dad doesn’t care about him(or anyone in that family) very much. His mom said is shown to be a bad parent. Like when Greg got scratch by his Grandma’s cat and was bleeding, Susan didn’t help immediately and instead tried to turn it into a spelling lesson. His little brother gets spoiled rotten and constantly gets away with everything.

Greg is just a future politician

One thing though is that at the end of the first book Greg could have told everyone that Rowley ate the cheese as revenge or something but out of remorse and actual kindness for once he instead told everyone he touched the cheese and Greg got the cheese touch. This shows that Greg has at least some Unsociopathicness in his (if thats even a word)