| “ | Now, I came up here to get a new drumstick. And now, Greg, since Mom and Dad are gone, I'm going to kill you. Literally kill you! | ” |
| — -Rodrick threatening to kill Greg in the film | ||
Rodrick Heffley is the anti-heroic tritagonist of Diary of the Wimpy Kid franchise, also being Greg’s and Manny's older brother. He has appeared in all of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series books. He is the tertiary antagonist of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and serves as the anti-heroic deuteragonist of Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules.
Personality
Like Greg, it is explained that Rodrick has no actual talents, is only good at a few things, mainly rock music, and spends most of his time on it, which drafts him away from schoolwork. He would much rather sleep for hours over doing anything else. Fitting with his love for heavy metal music, Rodrick is the lead drummer of a band called “Löded Diper”, a metal band. Its lead singer is a man whom Rodrick's parents are afraid he will become like: Bill Walter, a 35-year-old high school drop out who is unemployed and still lives with his parents.
Rodrick is extremely lazy and careless when it comes to school, which explains where Greg gets his laziness. He almost never gets a grade above C-. Greg believes that Rodrick is lazy and unintelligent in all other areas, though there are clues that show otherwise. Rodrick clearly isn't the smartest of his family, since he hardly makes an effort at school and constantly asks his parents to do his work for him. Although Rodrick is portrayed in this manner, he is actually quite manipulative and intelligent in conning other people.
Rodrick is said by Greg to be a terrible speller (though he spelled everything right besides band names on his activity page in The Wimpy Kid Do-It-Yourself Book) and is said to be completely ignorant about how to use any electronic device (although this may be more manipulation to get things done for him; he is clearly seen using a music player in Rodrick Rules and a cell phone in a flashback in Dog Days, and in The Ugly Truth it is shown that he uploads photos online and he is again seen using a music player once again in Hard Luck). Rodrick did terribly back in elementary and middle school. He also thinks you can get bacon from pigs the same way eggs come from chickens.
The only reason Rodrick is doing slightly better at high school is that he cheats by having his dad do all the work for him, but in Hard Luck, it is said his first quarter didn't go well, meaning that his father might have stopped helping him. In the online book, Rodrick gets into a big fight with his dad in seventh grade, so he had to do a history paper himself. Greg buys that paper and flunks it. He is shown to misspell a lot of words even in the recent books, like for example, in Dog Days and the online book, when they got Sweetie (the dog), Rodrick went and got the dog a bowl that says "Sweaty". In The Long Haul, he thought a safe is a microwave and bacon comes from pigs in the same way that eggs from chickens
Background
Birth and Childhood
Rodrick as a baby
Rodrick Heffley was born to Susan and Frank Heffley in Plainview.
When Greg was young, Rodrick liked to mess with his head. The first lie he told Greg was that if your belly button got untied, your butt would fall off. Greg told his whole preschool class, which caused a big stir. Another lie was that the toilet seat was only used for girls. Greg believed this, until he accidentally left the door unlocked, and Susan found him. Once he told Greg that if someone wears camouflage, they are invisible to everyone else. That incident got Greg banned from the pool for the rest of the summer. Sometimes Rodrick's lies even end up costing money. Greg once believed that if you put money in the ground, it will grow into a money tree. Rodrick took the money, and Greg lost a lot of his birthday money until his mom stepped in to help him.
Teen Years
Rodrick Heffley attended Westmore Middle School and became friends with Chris and Ward. He also wrote an assignment called A Hundred Years Ago this assignment was the reason Frank started to do his homework for him. He used to be a trouble maker in school and was greatly disliked by some of the teachers there one known person being Mr. Huff.
A summer later, Rodrick and his friends were going camping overnight looking for concert tickets during that time they meet Bill Walter Rodrick became friends with him and looked up to him because in high school he was voted "Most Likely To Be A Rock Star".
He later graduated from Westmore Middle School and later attended Crossland High School and recently graduated there too and now Rodrick is looking for a college. It is safe to assume that he has been unemployed and living with his parents ever since he graduated high school.
Trivia
- Rodrick's science project and his grades for his SAT exams have not yet been revealed so far, though there is a possibility it may come in future books. In the online version, however, Rodrick got no ribbons for his science project.
- Rodrick once slept for 36 hours and didn't notice until he saw that Monday Night Football wasn't on.
- He also had a bad habit of falling asleep in the hot tub and once Susan forgot to wake him up, resulting in his skin looking like a prune for two weeks during which his high school did their yearbook photos.
- With the proper calculations, the year Rodrick was born is presumed to be 1991.
- Rodrick's room is located in the basement of the house. In the film, however, it was relocated to the attic as the house the producers used to film all the Heffley household scenes had no basement.
- Most of the characters in the book only show their eyebrows when they are mad. Fitting with Rodrick's antagonistic behavior, however, he always looks angry due to him having eyebrows all the time.
- It's hinted in the online book that Rodrick has never had a legitimate girlfriend since Greg has never seen him with a girl. However, in The Wimpy Kid Do-It-Yourself Book, it is hinted in a letter that he was associated with a girl named Lyndsey, who seemed to break his heart in some way. This may explain why he acts incredibly rude and immature.
- Rodrick did have a brief relationship with an unnamed girl that he met at the Isla de Corales resort in the book The Getaway.
- Rodrick is a major antagonist of the three series; book, film, and online version. However, he isn't an antagonist in The Third Wheel or Hard Luck.
- In The Third Wheel, he is mentioned only a few times and is a background character; he doesn't bother or prank Greg at all (except for flashbacks), the same in Hard Luck.
- He has had a minor role in the recent books, since Dog Days, with the exception of The Long Haul.
- In Diary of a Wimpy Kid Online, he has an El Camino Type and the van belongs to Bill Walter, however in the book and film the van belongs to him.
- He is thought to have a love for pranks. In the Rodrick Rules film, he takes Greg to a mall and throws fake vomit on cars. This ends with the boys being chased through a dumpster and the mall by an angry gym teacher (Coach Malone). He is also shown pulling pranks on Greg other adults and teenagers in many of the books, for example putting fake vomit on cars, shooting spitballs on a man and mentioned to have pranked people with dollar bills underneath the boardwalk
- It is most likely he has a social network account because according to Greg he uploads pictures of his band. But after when Susan told him that people will look at his social media profile before giving him a job, in order to make him stop posting pictures of his band.
- Despite appearing on all the books first page (which generally has all the books protagonists) Rodrick is only a major character in Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul with every other appearance being minor (under 30 pages)
- Rodrick is shown to be taken advantage of for the first time in Old School. This is also the first time he doesn't squeeze out of a situation from his Dad, Frank.
- Rodrick cut off some of his hair and one of his eyebrows in the online version when he grew a great mustache.
- In Dog Days, Rodrick got Sweetie's name wrong on the water bowl, which he spelled "Sweaty".
- Rodrick is usually the main antagonist in Diary of a Wimpy Kid, minor antagonist, and anti-hero in Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School.
- It remains unknown if Rodrick got fired from his job at Old-Timey Ice Cream Parlour after Old School.
- It is assumed that he has minor dyslexia as he has trouble with writing and spelling
- Rodrick is based on Jeff Kinney's older brother named Scott Kinney.
- Rodrick made an appearance in a Happy Meal Commercial created McDonald's alongside with The Pig, Gammie, and Sweetie
- It is unknown if he is in college as of Double Down or not, even though his mother has tried to persuade him to apply for numerous ones, where he eventually applied (even though he didn't know) for dog schools.
- In the online version, Greg states that Rodrick has a bee sting allergy
- Like Greg, Rodrick is rarely seen smiling.
Gallery
For more images, see: Rodrick Heffley/Gallery