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| “ | I'm ownwy thwee! | ” |
| — Manny's response whenever he breaks Greg's belongings | ||
Manny Heffley is the younger brother of Rodrick and Greg and a supporting antagonist who is constantly pampered and spoiled by his parents. As the youngest child of the Heffley family, Manny plays a major role in Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, having appeared in all the main series books to date. However, he has never been a protagonist in the series. In fact, Manny is the favorite child of Frank and Susan.
Manny is played by identical twins Connor and Owen Fielding in the first three Diary of a Wimpy Kid film adaptations, and triplet brothers Dylan and Wyatt Walters in the Long Haul movie. He is also voiced by Gracen Newton in the animated adaptations.
He is the main antagonist of Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever.
Appearance
Manny is a small kid with three strands of hair, just like his brother Greg. Manny wears a white shirt, black shorts, and white shoes. He is the youngest and shortest Heffley family member. Manny is drawn with a large overbite and long nose for his size. In the Diary of a Wimpy Kid Movie Diary, it says that in the books, Manny looks like a buck-toothed alligator.
Personality
Manny Heffley is a selfish and spoiled toddler and is also a menace. Whenever he doesn't get his way, he will do things such as removing all the electricity at the house except for his room, as shown in Cabin Fever. Greg believes that his Mom and Dad treat Manny like a prince. He watches a show called "The Snurples," which according to a newspaper sets kids back in social skills and language development (Manny starts speaking gibberish). He has never been a protagonist. Manny has shown that this is true - he has no real friends and never plays with other kids in playgroups, but has imaginary ones and uses these to get out of trouble and get extra food, etc. Despite his seemingly air-headed exterior, Manny has shown that he can be very cunning, deceitful, manipulative, and intelligent for his age in unexpected ways. When Susan let him play on Greg's Net Kritterz account, he figured out how to sell all of his brother's items and change his password. He has also locked out the entire family from watching any TV shows except for his personal favorite cartoons. He also has been shown to speak Spanish, shown in The Long Haul.
Manny is also stubborn on getting what he wants, however ridculous it seems. If not, he will cry. Examples are crying over the order in which his cereal is poured, how many slices his sandwich is cut in, his ornament not being the first on the tree, and many more.
Manny has also been characterized as extremely uncaring and holds powerful grudges that have endangered the family on multiple occasions. One of these is shown in Cabin Fever, where he shuts off all the power to every room except his own, just because he wasn't taught how to tie his shoes. This caused the entire family to suffer in cold weather and starvation until Greg finally discovered the scandal. Since his mom Susan and Aunt Cakey are shown to hold grudges as well, it's highly likely that Manny inherited this trait from them.
Manny's unusual personality can, however, significantly help the Heffley family as a whole. Manny can speak Spanish properly, and that's just from listening to hours of Spanish-English wordbook-CD that his mother borrowed from the Spanish library. He also has an extreme ability to learn new things and abilities, which again, is shown when he learns to speak proper Spanish after just a few hours. In The Deep End when Susan allowed Manny to put the last piece in puzzles, he uses this knowledge at the end of the book to steer the RV into the gap of the broken bridge allowing everyone to leave Campers' Eden.
The fact Manny is able to learn perfect Spanish, change Greg's password and the parental lock, kill all the lights except for his room, build a house using only scrap wood and a toy toolbox, and steer an RV to fix a broken bridge is quite surprising for a child his age, meaning he is quite intelligent but however, is still socially awkward.
It is likely that Manny knows about his parents' favoritism towards him, and he takes advantage of this. This includes breaking Greg's gaming console, drawing on his bedroom door, taking a dirty magazine to daycare, and twisting the "No Swearing" rule in such a way that he makes money out of it.
Manny also gets anything and everything he wants, and his parents trust his lies to Greg and Rodrick, so they end up getting grounded, even though Manny deserves it.
Manny’s personality can be described as spoiled and mischievous. He knows how to push his parents’ buttons and uses his status as the baby of the family to avoid punishment, much to Greg’s frustration. For example, in Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw, he breaks a possession of Greg’s and faces no consequences, highlighting the favoritism he receives from their parents. Despite this, Manny is also intelligent in his own way; he quickly learns things from his surroundings, sometimes even picking up on things Greg misses. This complexity in Manny’s character adds depth to the family dynamics in the series and makes him both relatable and exasperating for readers who have experienced similar sibling rivalries.
He sometimes overreacts to tiny things and blames it on their brothers. One time on a New Year's Eve, Greg was pretending that a piece of thread was a spider, and he purposely swallowed it. He was crying and told Susan it was a spider, Greg explained it was just a piece of thread. Susan than put a seed, rasin, and grape on the table to ask Manny the closest size to the piece of thread, and Manny pulled out an orange. This causes Greg to go to sleep early, on New Year's Eve, and never prank him again as a New Years resolution.
Family
- Parents: Susan Heffley and Frank Heffley
- Brothers: Greg Heffley and Rodrick Heffley
- Cousins: Benjy Heffley, Georgia, Joe Heffley's children, Malvin and Malcolm
Trivia
- Given estimates made based on illustrations of him, Manny Heffley is most likely between 1' 3" (38.1 cm) and 1' 4" (40.64 cm) tall, which would make him shorter than the average newborn baby. However, this is entirely conjecture, as his height has never been stated definitively within the series.
- Manny appears to be the most hated character in the series by fans.
- Manny was originally 5 years old instead of 3, until Rodrick Rules. This is shown by how Manny says "I'm ownwy five!" instead of "I'm ownwy three!" in the online book, and how in the first book, after he yells "Bubby" at Greg on the stage, Greg says he's been able to keep that nickname quiet for 5 years. However, this has been retconned, as in later books and films Manny is always said to be 3.
- Unlike most 3 year olds, he misbehaves on purpose and likes to get away with it without getting in trouble since he already knows he won't get in trouble and rather wants Greg or Rodrick to get in trouble instead. It is likely that Manny knows that most 3 year olds wouldn't misbehave on purpose which is why he always gives that excuse.
- In Rodrick Rules, Greg says that even though Manny drives him crazy, Rodrick has been using Manny instead of Greg to help sell chocolate bars for his school's fundraiser since he started to talk, which Greg is grateful for.
- In the online version, Manny is allergic to peaches. Greg also implies that he is allergic to peaches, in The Ugly Truth.
- The only members of the family who do not appear to like him are Aunt Cakey, Greg Heffley, and Rodrick Heffley, despite the love towards him.
- Manny is quite smart for his age, as he knows how to change the password to both Greg's Net Kritterz account, and the TV parental locks so he can watch whatever he likes, whenever he likes. He can also speak perfect Spanish and the Snurple language fluently relatively quickly. Real life 3 year olds wouldn't be able to learn this quickly and are not that smart enough to do these things though some can speak fluent Spanish (mostly if their parents also speak Spanish).
- Manny can also build an entire house with just toy tools and scrap wood, even though the Heffleys failed to do so with the entirety of Aunt Reba's inheritance.
- Due to his love of Bitter Apple Spray, it can be inferred that he enjoys sour and bitter food.
- According to The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary, the main reason the producers picked twins was because they felt that twins would be easier to work with (on account that there would be a backup should one refuse to cooperate).
- Manny seems to be fond of keeping random animals as pets. In The Long Haul, he is attached to The Pig and repeatedly attempts to get him back. In The Getaway, he attempts three times to keep wild sea animals as pets: first with hermit crabs and snails, second with a baby sea turtle, and third with a Box Jellyfish. Surprisingly, in The Meltdown, he doesn't seem too concerned with the pig being lost, and forgets about it.
- He may be modeled after Igdoof's little brother.
- Manny got brand-new things when he was a baby, like pacifiers, and his bed looked even newer than Rodrick's.
- Jeff Kinney said that he gave Manny his name because he originally didn't know it was short for Emmanuel. Rather, he thought it was meant to be a very masculine name, making use of irony. "So, I wanted to have this tiny boy have this over-masculine name".
- Manny barely appears in Double Down and only makes a few cameos.
- Manny's hairstyle is very similar to Greg's, the only difference is that Manny's hair is shorter than Greg's.
- Manny is speculated to be a psychopath as he displays many traits of one such as faking emotions, being rather intelligent for a three year old, faking apologies and being very manipulative.
- He was originally a comic drawn by Igdoof in the titular comic series called 'Manny the Talking Sideburn'. This was recycled for the DIY book, but Manny is not the talking sideburn.
- He also appeared in a comic titled 'Igdoof's Tips for Avoiding Sibling Victimization'.
- In The Ugly Truth it is revealed Manny licks the flavor of barbecue chips. Greg had to learn that the hard way. When they had a maid, that quirk fooled her into thinking the barbecue chips were plain chips. She wrote a message to Susan that she prefers barbecue chips over plain ones.
- He is the character who appeared in most book covers aside from Greg, including Cabin Fever, The Getaway, The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary: The Next Chapter and Partypooper.
- In the Wimpy Kid Movie Diary, his appearance is described as a bucktoothed alligator.
- Manny's mouth has gotten slightly smaller over the years.
- He was inspired by Patrick Kinney, Jeff Kinney's real-life younger brother.