2. His Presence Provided Cover For The Other Sucky Characters On The Show
With the almost instant hatred of Wesley Crusher by Trek fandom a lot of other characters were given passes especially in those first two seasons... I'm looking at you Dr. Crusher, Counselor Troi and Lt. Worf. Those three characters were gawd awful in the early goings of TNG. Dr. Beverly Crusher was as interesting as a rice cake she was a bland, stiff, dull woman devoid of any spark, be it romantic with Capt. Picard or as a comrade to the rest of the crew. The best thing Dr. Crusher did was leave the show so that the infinitely more interesting Dr. Pulaski could take her place, albeit all too briefly. Worf ended up becoming one of my favorite characters in all of Trek but early on he was a snarling poseur who talked a good game about how tough he was but who ended up getting his ass handed to him on a regular basis. The only thing that Worf could be relied on is being the first person knocked unconscious on the bridge. And Troi, well Troi was just awful from start to finish. I am wracking my brain as I write this trying to find one redeeming quality about her and I am coming up totally blank. If there were no Wesley Crusher serving as a human force shield, then Deanna Troi would have probably been the target of all of the fandom's laser-focused hatred and there would be meme generators littering the entirety of the Internet in her dishonor instead of Wesley's.