Wendy Darling as portrayed in Disney's Peter Pan.

Wendy Moira Angela Darling is a fictional heroine and main female protagonist (aside from Tinker Bell) in the Peter Pan stories by J. M. Barrie, in all their theatrical, literary, and motion picture adaptations. Her age varies from adaptions from the ages of 11 to 16; in the 1953 Disney film she appears 14. She is portrayed with both blonde and brown hair in different stories, and black hair in others.

Background

In the novel Peter Pan, and its cinematic adaptations, she is an Edwardian schoolgirl on the brink of (or during) adolescence. She belongs to a middle class London household of that era, and is the daughter of George Darling, a short-tempered and pompous bank/office worker, and his wife, Mary. She shares a nursery room with her two brothers, Michael and John. However, in the Disney version, her father decides that "it's high time she found a room of her own" and kicks her out of the nursery, but changes his mind when the film is nearly over.

Character

Wendy is often considered the main character in the story of Peter Pan. She is proud of her own childhood and enjoys telling stories and fantasizing. She has a distaste for adulthood, acquired partly by the example of it set by her father, whom she loves but somewhat fears. Her ambition early in the story is to somehow avoid growing up. She is granted this opportunity by Peter Pan, who takes her and her brothers to Neverland, where they can remain young indefinitely.

Ironically, Wendy finds that this experience brings out her more adult side. She becomes a matriarch to the tribe of Lost Boys who dwell in Neverland, and, in Barrie's original tale if not in some subsequent versions, develops a crush on Peter (thereby forming a love triangle with Peter's fairy friend, Tinker Bell), but also acts a surrogate mother, performing various domestic tasks for him and the Lost Boys.

Wendy eventually learns to accept the virtues of adulthood, and returns to London, having decided not to postpone maturity any longer. In some later works, she revisits Neverland briefly while she is still young (in adulthood it becomes impossible).

She marries a young man later, and has a daughter named Jane. Jane later has adventures with Peter when he returns for Wendy, thinking that she is still a young girl. Jane later also grows up, and has a daughter and names her Margarate. At the end of the book it is said when Maragarate has a daughter she will also have adventures with Peter. It is assumed that the Darling house is kept in the custody of Margarate, so Peter will be able to find her.

The name Wendy

The first name Wendy was not popular in the Anglosphere until after the Peter Pan mythos became well known. It was so rare that some have been led to speculate that the name was an invention by author J. M. Barrie. This is only half-true. Although the name Wendy is a shortening of the Welsh name Gwendolyn, in this instance it is believed to be derived from the phrase "friendy wendy," used by a child named Margaret Henley, whom Barrie befriended in the 1890s.

Portrayal in film

• Peter Pan (1953 animated film) - Kathryn Beaumont (Voice). Disney's Wendy is portrayed as being a mother first and foremost, with all the classical ideas of how to be a mother and care for people. She appears bossy, but well-meaning and slightly taken with Peter.

• Hook (1991 live-action film) - Maggie Smith plays an aged Wendy, whose granddaughter, Moira, is the wife of a Peter Pan (Robin Williams) who has practically forgotten Neverland until Captain Hook (Dustin Hoffman) kidnaps his children, Maggie and Jack, when the family visits Wendy in London. During a flashback of Peter's childhood, a young Wendy (also shown slightly aged over time) is played by Gwyneth Paltrow.

• Peter Pan (2003 live-action film) - Rachel Hurd-Wood. In this film, as in Barrie's original treatment, Wendy easily falls into a mothering role with her male companions, but is conflicted by her romantic feelings towards Peter, who reacts with incomprehension and annoyance. She is also more adventurous than in most adaptations, taking part in the conflict with the pirates including the sword fighting. The film also develops Barrie's hint that Wendy has incipient romantic feelings for the more mature and virile Hook, showing that she is growing up in spite of her intentions.

• Return to Never Land (2002 animated film) - Kath Soucie voices a grown-up Wendy who has raised her children in the tales of Peter Pan.

Portrayal in television

In the anime series Peter Pan no Boken (Adventures of Peter Pan), which is a part of the World Masterpiece Theater, a rather tomboyish Wendy has a pivotal role in the second part of the series, which depicts a completely original story where Peter Pan, the Lost Kids and the Darling siblings must save a young witch named Luna from the clutches of her evil grandmother, the witch Sinistra, and Wendy is the one who truly saves her. She's also shown directly antagonizing Captain Hook when he kidnaps her in the first part, yelling at him and even impersonating his mother at some point to manipulate his fears against him.

Wendy herself is voiced by veteran voice actress Naoko Matsui, who provides her voice in the Japanese version of the Disney film.

The Disney version of Wendy was featured as one of the guests in House of Mouse; however, despite the fact that Kathryn Beaumont provided Alice's voice, Wendy said absolutely nothing.

Other references in entertainment

• In Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie's adult graphic novel Lost Girls, Wendy is re-imagined as an adult woman who recounts her sexual encounters with a local homeless boy who represents Peter Pan. The graphic novel has faced some criticism from the Great Ormond Street Hospital which owns the copyright to Peter Pan. Because of this issue, the novel is currently not being sold in the United Kingdom.

• Wendy is also featured as her Disney character in the video-game Kingdom Hearts. In the game, Captain Hook believes she is a princess of Heart and is displeased when it turns out she's not.

• Wendy appeared in Shrek the Third as a resident of Far Far Away.

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