>>97760226Expressing multiple emotions != having a good or interesting personality. Yes, good characters are capable of expressing a range of emotions, but so are lames ones. Beyond being “The Cool Older Girl” Wendy didn’t really have much of a personality, at least, nothing that was concrete or mattered enough to show in any way. Like how about when she talks about how her family stresses her out and that her laid back demeanor is all an act, that was never hinted at before, nor does it even affect or show in her behavior afterwards even in subtle ways. It’s like it never happened.
In fact, there’s so little about her personality and motivations that exist, that it actually make what we do know about her not really make any sense, like how and why she’s so attached to the Pines Twins. Yeah, sure it’s hinted that she’s a bored teenager who hangs around the Pines because they’re a magnet for interesting times, but then she’s barely there for any of their adventures. And that would only account for a passing interest, it doesn’t explain why Wendy was so defensive of Mabel in “The Last Mabelcorn”, and it’s even less understandable for her to Tell Dipper that he’s important to her at the end.
Like, Why? They barely spend any time together, and a majority of that time was with Dipper dropping spaghetti around her because of his crush. Sure he may have hung out with her friend group a bunch offscreen, but from what he saw, he was just an outsider little kid trying to look cool and impress them. When have they spent time together with Dipper actually acting like himself? How often were the times where she actually saw him as an equal and not either “The tag-along kid” or “The Kid with a crush on me”? It just makes it seem out of the blue and inexplicable.
You can say that it’s because of Hirsch’s shitty writing, and you’d be 100% right. But identifying the source doesn’t make the symptoms go away.
