Poor Wesley Crusher... the character is possibly the most maligned in all of Star Trek. His name elicits immediate derision from every corner of the Trek universe and one is more likely to find a Sarah Palin fan at a Jay Z concert than to find an actual Wesley Crusher fan. Now I have to admit to having my own bias against Crusher and even joining in on the bashing once or twice but I decided to give Wesley a second chance based solely on how cool of a guy his portrayer, Will Wheaton, turned out to be. The guy does a pretty nifty podcast and has no problem making fun of himself as evidenced by his portrayal of a supremely dickish "Will Wheaton" on The Big Bang Theory. So I did a bit of a Crusher-esque review of Star Trek: The Next Generation to try and find ways that Wesley Crusher was not so awful and was able to scrape together a list full of backhanded compliments and thinly veiled snark that proves why Wes was not quite as horrible as everyone thinks.
5. He Is Not The Worst Mary Sue Ever
Now before the cries of "No! Mary Sue's suck! And Crusher was the worst of them all!" comes shooting out of the peanut gallery, let us all admit that the majority of fiction (especially science fiction) benefits from having that one character that can serve as a stand-in for the audience, which is what Wesley Crusher was billed as even if he was really Gene Roddenberry's surreptitious way of inserting an idealized version of himself into Trek lore. Wesley was supposed to be the audience proxy and through his eyes we would see the new universe that Roddenberry had created. Sure things got seriously out of hand that first season with Wesley constantly saving the day and just strolling onto the bridge all willy-nilly but by Season 2 his Mary Sue-ness was dialed down by a billion and he became just another member of the cast. Wesley Crusher may be a textbook Mary Sue but he is definitely not the worst. Twilight's Bella Swan holds that dubious distinction.