Adults Are Useless: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

In some shows that revolve around teenagers, preteens, or younger children, adults can't do anything right -- [[Parental Abandonment|if they appear on-screen at all]]. Teachers tend to be annoying sticks-in-the-mud who do nothing but [[Sadist Teacher|spoil people's fun]]. Parents are [[Not Now Kid|clueless]], and either [[Overprotective Dad|over-]] or underprotective. And any other designated authority figures the kid might come across? [[Police Are Useless|Forget it]].

 

Not to be confused with [[Humans Are the Real Monsters]], which deals with ''everybody'' being violently like this.

 

* ''[[Future Boy Conan]]'': Conan is an uber-capable 10~12 year old, capable of running roughshod over all the adults in the series. His female co-star Lanna is similarly, if not as totally, capable.

* ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (manga)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]'': Kinda mentions this {{spoiler|as Edward and Alphonse Elric disobeyed a direct order from Major Armstrong to search the abandoned laboratory 5, refusing to wait for him to look into the matter deeper before going into the lab. Second Lieutenant Maria Ross and Sergeant Denny Brosh slap and berate both of them on that, trying to do everything themselves, being just a child still and ends it with "...it's okay to trust adults sometimes." The slapping part with Al apparently didn't go so well... him being a suit of armor and all.}}

** Zig-zagged especially with Kogoro. He's shown to be a bumbling fool several episodes (Especially early on) and is an alcoholic and sometimes physically hurts Conan. However, averted because he actually ''does'' come to conclusions a lot of real life detectives would and actually knows some stuff Conan doesn't. (He's more street-smart; Conan's more Book-smart.) His biggest shortcoming is that he's competent, but impatient. Averted when [[It's Personal|the case is personal]] or if [[Papa Bear|Ran or Conan are threatened]], then he becomes ''scarily'' competent. There have been several cases where he got it mostly right and just needed a couple hints from Conan, or where he got it all right but only realized it after Conan did. (He's slower.)

** However, note that Shinichi's father Yuusaku is just as good a detective as he is, if not even ''better''. He's only useless because he's simply almost never there and he'd rather continue writing about mysteries than solving them.

** If anything; Megure is perhaps the most worthless of the adults - he's so strictly adhered to police code that he refuses to take a leap of faith and think maybe not all cases are like the ones you learn about in the police academy.

*** However, in one episode he's able to solve the case long before Conan does. Although, this is due to seeing a similar case years before.

* Haruka's mother in ''[[Psychic Detective Yakumo]]'' does not put up any fight, protest, plea, when her daughter wants to walk into a potentially dangerous situation to rescue Yakumo.

* [[Loveless]], oh so much so. Pretty much every adult is either abusive, inneffective, or emotionally fucked up enough to not be able to help, whether that's with Ritsuka being abused by his mother or all those 12 year old kids running around on their own getting into spell battles.

* Used as a plot necessity in the Lost Children Arc in ''[[Berserk]]'' (even implied in the title). With the exception of Guts, every adult present is either a violent and sick pervert, a completely clueless moron, or a useless coward. Turns out that the [[Big Bad]] of this arc is a teenaged girl apostle who turns the local children into her spawn to join her [[Crap Saccharine World|elf fantasy land,]] all of them being very lethal, while she makes adults into spawn to use essentially as her own [[Cannon Fodder]] as punishment for treating children so poorly. Also, the village children who aren't turned into monsters seem more ballsy than the adults around them, namely [[Plucky Girl|Jill.]]

 

* In Marvel's ''[[Runaways]]'', the teen heroes don't trust any of the adult characters, even Captain America. ''[[Civil War]]'' only cements their "Adults are tools" mentality.

** [[Cloak and Dagger (comics)|Cloak and Dagger]] nearly subvert this, by finding out what's really going on in Los Angeles and telling the kids that they'll get in contact with Captain America and send him to take out the Pride. {{spoiler|Unfortunately, they are caught and brainwashed by Molly's parents into forgetting everything}}.

*** When you think about it, you have to feel really bad for the guy. The entire series takes place over only 6 months, and he's still just a high schooler who's in way over his head. And he can't get help from the super-hero community, because they're ALL JERKS. There is not a single super-hero who was kind or supportive to him except maybe for three X-Men and The Fantastic Four, and they're the same age he is. Kitty even got kicked out of the X-Men when she insisted they go help him.

*** Peter even lampshades this in one exchange with a teacher at his high school; he questions why the Kingpin (a known crime lord) is allowed to walk free, she gives a pat answer about due process and such, and he explodes, asking whether people's idealism somehow disappears the moment they turn twenty.

* Aversion: The adults in ''[[Gladstone's School for World Conquerors]]'' are typically famous super villains and are quite important to the plot.

* In ''[[The Beano]]'' The adults and teachers never seem to be able to prevent their kids from misbehaving. In older strips they would whack their kids with slippers or a cane but now it seems the kids never seem to get much in the way of a punishment apart from making their parents really angry.

* Averted in ''[[Super Dinosaur]]'' where the adults perform important support roles if they aren't directly in the action. The Kingstons repair SD's armor while Dr. Dynamo creates valuable new technology.

 

* ''[[Shining Pretty Cure]]''. The only adult who even ''suspects'' something might be going on is Ren, the friendly owner of the neighbourhood cafe.

* Lampshaded and then averted in ''[[Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon]]''. Dawn''/''{{spoiler|Ogata Kirei''/''Cure Dawn}} notes that she's supposed to leave fighting evil to the thirteen-year-old title characters {{spoiler|because she's without her powers}}, but doesn't seem to be very happy about it. Near the end of the series, she becomes an active combatant.

* In ''[[Kyon: Big Damn Hero]]'', Kyon's parents are like this. Other adults are, fortunately, far more useful.

* A major topic of discussion in ''[[Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality]]'', with Harry frequently telling others how adults who do not treat him as an equal are obstacles to be dodged or manipulated (including those very adults).

* Adults in ''[[Calvin and Hobbes: The Series|Calvin and Hobbes The Series]]'' are, at the very least, [[Weirdness Censor|very unobservant.]]

* The counselors in ''[[Calvin at Camp]]'' let the kids get away with just about ''anything,'' aside from actually leaving.

 

* ''[[The Land Before Time]] III''. Not long after a meteor storm, the Great Valley's main water supply, a river running down from beyond the wall, mysteriously dries up. Rather than say, investigating the river's source (they could have sent fliers if they were worried about carnivores), the adults decide to wait in the valley and hope the water returns. In the meantime, water is running low, tempers are running high and all the food is quickly dying off. In the end, it's the children who accidentally find out that the water was blocked off and even ''then'' the adults can't agree on a plan of action and guess what? The children save the day! Again! By accident! Again!

** This is a ''very'' common occurrence throughout the series. None of the adults want to risk personal safety going out into the Mysterious Beyond for ''any'' reason whatsoever, leaving the children to do everything themselves.

*** An especially notable moment comes in the fourth film, where Littlefoot's grandmother (who had been willing before to leave and search for a flower with healing properties) and the mother of a new character not only fail to go after their runaway children but don't even seem worried or concerned that the kids are gone.

* Both used and subverted in ''[[Coraline (animation)|Coraline]]''. Coraline's parents didn't do much. But Bobinsky gave Coraline a subtle warning and Spink and Forcible also warned her that she was in terrible danger. And at the end, {{spoiler|Spink and Forcible gave Coraline an important item to help her find the eyes of the ghost children.}}

* ''[[The Lost Boys]]'' has a group of 12-year-old vampire hunters attempting (and at one point succeeding) to kill the group of teenage vampires. In fact all the main characters are younger than 20 with the adults being unaware until the big reveal at the end where one character displays he knew what was going on all along.

* In the recent ''[[Transformers (film)|Transformers]]'' movie, much of the first tier of authority that Sam Witwicky encounters regarding the title being is best summed up by his disbelieving question of a police officer, "Are you on drugs?!" Note that this only applies to the ''civilian'' adults. Those involved in the military usually perform rather well considering the circumstances, even if it's not always the best actions to take.

* ''[[Mystery Team]]''. The main characters insist that they're more suited to solve the case than THE POLICE.

* In ''[[Mikey]]'' the only characters that seem to display any common sense about Mikey's behavior are his teacher and Jessie.

 

* Justified in ''[[Animorphs]]'' as many of the protagonists don't want to risk the lives of others and they also know there are few they can actually trust due to alien infestations. This is occasionally subverted however.

* Zigzagged in ''[[The Candy Shop War]]''. The kids parents are completely unhelpful {{spoiler|thanks to mind-controlling white fudge}}. The other adults, however, do manage to help the kids.

* This is the lesson Coira learns very young in ''[[White as Snow]]''; her parents don't remember she exists, her nurse resents having to take care of her, and her nurse's replacement fails to give her what she really needs. Coira ends up practically raising herself and talks to none of them.

* ''[[Room One]]''by [[Andrew Clements]] (author of ''Frindle'') zigzags and plays with this. The hero reads mysteries, and when he encounters one, decides not to tell adults because in all the books he has read, they are useless or obstructive.

 

* The Australian kids' show ''[[Mirror Mirror]]'' managed an odd variant, where, aside from the Old Man, who was managing what has to be one of the most epic [[Gambit Roulette]]s ever, all the adults were at least plausibly incompetent (if not outright evil), mainly because only a few of them had any idea of exactly what the hell was going on.

** For the record: The adults in Louisa's family had no idea, and their tutor was in the pay of their rather nasty neighbour, who was hiding the son of Tsar Nicholas II, in a ploy to sell him back to Russia. As for Jo, her father gets clued in, but can't use the mirror. The worst offender would have been Dr Coigley, who was unknowingly working for the Old Man.

* In ''[[Wizards of Waverly Place]]'', all of the Russo children , but neither of the parents, have magical powers. This works out about as well as you'd expect.

 

* ''[[Quadrophenia]]'' shows the other side of this- even though the plot opens with Jimmy asking for help from a therapist, preacher, and his mom, as events wear on it's implied (even all but stated) that the real problem is that he can't accept help. As a work about youth, this makes perfect sense really, but considering [[Be Yourself|his epiphany]] at the end, perhaps he can't be blamed for having to find his own way.

 

 

* Subverted hard by The Children's Television Workshop and ''[[Sesame Street]]''. Mr. Snuffleupagus was originally created as a way for children to relate to having an imaginary friend whom adults didn't believe in. The problem, though, was that Snuffy was undeniably real; it was just the adults' bad luck that they never ran into him. Critics pointed out children could interpret the situation another way: Adults would never believe you even when you're telling the truth - a dangerous moral when trying to get kids to report child abuse to an authority like a teacher or the police. As a result, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L073xTrriZE#t=02m48s Snuffy was revealed to the adults], and to drive the point home, the adults even apologized to Big Bird for not believing him.

** However played straight in Abby Flying Fairy School with Ms. Sparklenose.

 

* In ''[[Pokethulhu]]'', player characters are ''required'' to be [[Enforced Trope|16 or under]]... everybody above high school age is either terrified and in hiding or [[Ax Crazy|dangerously insane.]]

* ''[[Teenage Mutants From Outer Space]]'' takes this trope and cranks it [[Up to Eleven]]. The rules specifically state that characters either have militant parent who will punish even the smallest infraction harshly, or hippie parents that refuse to take an interest in your life. However, since the main point of the character interaction is teenaged drama, having antagonistic parent works.

 

* [[Euripides]]' ''[[Alcestis]]'': Admetus is enraged that not even his parents could bring themselves to die for him, causing Alcestis to die instead.

* [[William Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]''. The teenage protagonists are halted at every turn by their parents and other authority figures. Friar Laurence tries to help, but he decides the best way to do this is marry the pair and hope for the best. It didn't end well.

** This really isn't a case of Adults are Useless so much as it is a ''severe'' case of [[Love Makes You Stupid|Lust Makes You a fucking MORON]], as the adults try and offer fairly decent advice, but the protagonists are too blinded, deafened, and otherwise rendered [[Too Dumb to Live]] by love to bother listening to it, or even think more than five minutes ahead.

** Ironically, Friar Laurence's original plan ''would'' have worked, if events had played out the way he expected. He just had no way to foresee the murder of Tybalt and how that would complicate the plot.

* At the end of ''[[West Side Story]]'', the few adults who have appeared in the story are left alone on stage after the youth gangs carry Tony away, emphasizing how little the supposed authority figures have done.

* This is probably the fourth strongest theme in ''[[Spring Awakening]]''. The first three being sex, sex and sex.

 

* Pretty much any RPG where the main characters are almost always under 20, often around 14-18. Normally there is one or two older characters to act as a sage or adviser.

** Taken to absolutely ridiculous extremes in the ''[[Pokémon]]'' games, where criminal gangs do everything from stealing/mutilating/killing [[Pokémon]] to attempted [[Apocalypse How]], and the only person who ever does anything worth mentioning about it is the ten- to fifteen-year-old [[Player Character]].

** Slightly averted in that several games, Link (occasionally with Zelda's or others' help) is actually a contributor to or cause of {{spoiler|releasing Ganon back into the world by taking the Master Sword}}. He always fixes it by the end, so it's not quite the aversion it could be.

* A major theme in ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'': Adults start wars that get out of hand or [[Sealed Evil in a Can|lock the super-dictator in a box]] and throw their hands in the air when she inevitably gets out, and it's all left to the super-capable [[Child Soldiers|SeeDs]] to clean up the mess.

* Most of the adults in ''[[EarthBound]]'' are incompetent. The police force of Onett fights Ness for whatever reason, and loses. Some of the Happy Happy cultists are too busy painting cows blue to care for their children back in Twoson. The Runaway Five is continually in debt everywhere they go. Pokey's dad in Fourside is seen riding off of his son's success, and later in the game he's lost everything.

** It's shown that Dr. Crabblesnitch actually ''can'' be a [[Reasonable Authority Figure]], too. He just didn't ''know'' what was going on until it was too late. This leads to a couple of the (realistic) interpretations where the adults aren't necessarily ''useless'', they just ''seem'' that way because they don't ''know''. Chances are, Dr. Crabblesnitch would have stepped in sooner or later; but [[Gameplay and Story Segregation|you can beat up as many prefects as you want; even his own secretary and merely get detention]].

* There are whole two adults in the Rose Garden Orphanage in ''[[Rule of Rose]]'', and the one with actual authority is a problem, not a helper, with his implied sexual abuse of the teenaged residents, and while the cleaning lady is more observant, it doesn't matter since the [[Police Are Useless]] and won't listen to her, and she gets murdered for her troubles.

 

* [[Deconstructed Trope|Deconstructed]] in ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]''. Antimony treats the teachers at the Court like they're useless, even those who have proved themselves competent and far more knowledgeable about the ongoing weirdness than she is. As a result, she nearly dies several times. (Annie's distrust appears to stem from the fact she had no shortage of Useless Adults in her life prior to enrollment at the Court: She could see [[Psychopomp|The Guides]]; none of the staff at Good Hope could.)

** This is addressed in Chapter 28: ''Sprimg Heeled, Part 2'', where Jones finally calls out Antimony on this, pointing out that the situation with {{spoiler|Jack}} could have been solved more quickly and with fewer problems if she had spoken to someone about it. Given that she {{spoiler|gave Antimony crucial help twice in that chapter, releasing Reynardine and dispelling Zimmy's hallucinations with a rain shower,}} her words have weight. Unfortunately, Annie doesn't seem to have learned any lessons from this...

** El Goonish Shive zigzags this trope a bit at times, though with justification. While Mr. Verres is certainly not useless, he was eventually [[Kicked Upstairs]] due to how close he was getting to the comic's various situations, so that he's no longer in as convenient a position to be helpful. Likewise, [[Badass Teacher|Raven]] is most certainly ''not'' useless, but is forbidden to involve himself in situations where magic isn't present, so his helpfulness is also limited. There's also Jerry, who was only introduced to the plot just as he was about to die and be reborn, which, as he points out, will limit his helpfulness for a time.

* [[Memoria (2010 webcomic)|Memoria]]: The police won't look for Winston. More bewildering, their perfectly loving parents let them go look for Winston with little more than giving them money and instructing them to come back in a few days if they don't succeed.

* While adults in ''[http://worldpeace.emilymarthasorensen.com To Prevent World Peace]'' aren't actually *useless* (in fact, one of the main characters is in her thirties), the magic system revolves around basically-always-teenage-and-younger girls. Subverted somewhat in that the main characters' parents were not only aware she was a magical girl, they actually helped design her costume.

* In ''[[Weapon Brown]]'', Jason Yungbluth's side comics about Clarissa, a kindergartener being [[Parental Incest|repeatedly raped by her]] [[Complete Monster|horrible, passive-aggressive father]], feature nothing but useless adults. Her ''entire family'' knows about the abuse, and her kindergarten teacher is far, ''far'' too dense to interpret any of Clarissa's numerous pleas and drawings as the cries for help they very obviously are.

 

* In ''[[Lonelygirl15]]'', all of the TAAG's parents who aren't dead ({{spoiler|or evil}}) are this.

** Bree's dad does display competence, for a while.

* In ''[[KIKEN]]'', this is a [[Deconstructed Trope]]. That's because adults aren't ''entirely'' useless—some want to change the world, but are trying to balance their careers (i.e. Emiri, Juuri, Yukari and Yamato) and some are too cynical or apathetic to even ''believe'' in a changing Earth (i.e. Takeo).

 

** Taken [[Up to Eleven]] in the Season Finale. {{spoiler|Fred's dad is revealed to have run the previous Mystery Inc. out of town through blackmail and false incrimination of their families, betrayed and imprisoned his partner in crime, and stole Fred from his parents when he was a baby and fed him lies his entire life to keep the truth hidden. Shaggy's parents have Shaggy shipped to military school to put a stop to his mystery solving and send Scooby off to a farm. Velma and Daphne's parents ground them for a year, including forbidding Daphne from talking to Fred, and Sheriff Stone is pretty much oblivious to everything. [[Downer Ending]] doesn't even begin to describe it.}}

* A source of much of the humor on ''[[South Park]]'', where it is always up to the kids to save the day while the adults run around either clueless, panicking, or distracted. Stan Marsh's father Randy in particular is wonderfully stupid and easily led.

** The movie is a particularly good example of this trope. The opening song even includes the line "Off to the movies we shall go/where we learn everything that we know/'cause the movies teach us what our parents don't have time to say".

*** "I know our parents have done some stupid crap before, but Jesus Christ."

** Seriously, almost all of the adults in this show are about a point or two above in IQ compared to a bag of rocks. The only ones that aren't are either [[Too Cool to Live|killed]], [[Jerkass|amoral]], [[My God, What Have I Done?|regretful]], or [[Driven to Suicide|are very close to killing themselves]] by the time they have any significant time onscreen. Any other [[Only Sane Man|sane people]] aren't usually seen, are gotten rid of quickly, or suffer from the various antics within the show with the exception being Chef for a while. {{spoiler|At least until he was [[Killed Off for Real]].}}

* ''[[Recess]]'' has been known to go in and out of this trope. Adults in the show tend to vary between the primary antagonist (at least for the episode) to recurring obstacle to often siding with the children. And nevertheless, they are frequently portrayed as being worthless. In a startling realistic scenario, Ms. Finster actually tells a bully to leave Gus alone only for him to flat out ignore it and she is nowhere to be seen for the rest of the episode. (And neither is [[The Dragon|Randall]], who you would ''think'' would find prime tattling material except for that ''he'' is afraid of them too.)

** Really; we can add a lot of things done by some of the kids on that playground to this list. Half the stuff people do in ''[[Recess]]'' on a regular basis seem to be ignored by adults. Doesn't help that Ms. Finster is more keen on looking for kids chewing bubble gum or bringing outside toys in.

** Weirdly, the only consistently [[Reasonable Authority Figure]] is King Bob—the child-appointed sovereign of the playground. He's ''nine''.

*** Eleven or twelve, actually—one episode and [[The Movie]] revealed he was a sixth-grader. Still counts, though.

** Later on in the show, however, Reverend Rod Putty and Coach Daniel Stopframe subvert this, actually doing their part to help Orel.

* Subverted in ''[[The Venture Brothers]]'', where the title characters are accident-prone morons. True, their dad isn't very useful, but that's more because he doesn't care rather than any real incompetence. And of course Brock Samson more than makes up for anything Doc Venture is lacking in.

** After season 3, Doctor Venture is pretty much forced to care about his sons now that he can't just keep cloning them. Orpheus, having gone into his mind, finds an army of Hank and Dean zombies wandering around inside Venture's mind looking for their father to love them. Orpheus mentions that they're the manifestation of Rusty's guilt of being apathetic enough toward his sons to clone them so he doesn't actually have to take care of them.

* Naturally also averted in ''[[Jonny Quest]],'' where the boys provide minimal help for Race and Dr. Quest.

* Partially averted with Helen Morgendorfer in ''[[Daria]]'' who shows in at least one episode [[Mama Bear|that it's good to have a high powered lawyer in the family]] and, very occasionally, shows signs of genuine wisdom. Played straight with all the other adults in the series except one of Daria's aunts (naturally, she's a lot like Daria).

** That is taken from the comic strip, which was done that way to keep eye-level with the kids. Taller adults would have not worked in that format.

** This trope was always played straight in the strip, however, as the general message is that the kids are on their own to fend for themselves—particularly via their various philosophical musings and Lucy's "Psychiatric Help" stand.

** ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' creator Matt Groening talks about many of the adult characters as morons. He said in an interview that authority isn't always quite as smart as it should be, and people like teachers and doctors all have flaws.

** Blatantly used in ''Treehouse Of Horrors V'' where Bart and Lisa tell Marge about the cannibalism going on in their school, and Marge promptly dismisses them telling them that she cannot fight all their battles and they should forcefully tell the teachers to not eat them.

* Subverted in ''[[King of the Hill]]'' where Hank and Peggy are always willing and able to get Bobby out of any trouble he might find himself in, and can even handle any problems that they themselves start. The other adults on the show however, particularly Bill and Dale...

* Somewhat the case in the 80's [[Nickelodeon]] cartoon ''[[The Mysterious Cities of Gold]]''. The three child protagonists repeatedly outsmart, escape, or defeat in combat entire groups of Spanish soldiers. Even in times where they had adult help, either the children were treated as leaders and guiders, or they ultimately ended up not being very helpful at all. Along the way they manage to solve several Incan mysteries the rest of the adults were incapable of figuring out.

** The only competent adults are Brian and Lois. And as the series progressed, much of Lois's competence was absorbed by Brian. Now Lois is mostly apathetic to her children's problems (which she wasn't before) and now Brian is pretty much the only adult in the show capable of using any sort of logic in their lives.

*** Joe Swanson is an aversion. He's likely the only truly competent person in town, barring the fact that he is a bit of a hard-nose, he's usually just doing his job.

** The quite possible worst example of this is probably one episode where Jimmy was being beaten up by a bully repeatedly at school. His parents assumed it was a ''girl'' and that ''he had found a girlfriend, even though he was coming home with BRUISES''. It eventually got to the point where Jimmy had to invent something to protect him!

* The action in every episode of ''[[Inspector Gadget]]'' revolves around the comically inept title character unknowingly putting himself in grave danger while his ten-year-old niece and canine sidekick have to protect him from himself and solve the case all by themselves. ''Other'' adults (e.g. [[Da Chief]]) tend to be competent and intelligent, however, so Gadget is the exception in this universe, not the rule. Possibly his idiocy stems from having a helicopter in his head.

** In "Failsafe", the entire team is defeated by the invading aliens without achieving any victory where the team was successful in running numerous offense action. {{spoiler|The entire point of the training exercise was to see how the team could cope after losing the league as support.}}

* Surprisingly averted in ''[[The Weekenders]]''. The characters' parents are all [[Reasonable Authority Figure|reasonable authority figures]] who're receptive and in-touch with their children, and just about ''always'' have the right thing to say. (Especially Tino's mom, who is [[Genre Savvy]].) Even Tish's mom, when she is shown as acting like a child eventually realizes that it was bothering Tish and stopped, but nevertheless enjoyed the weekend she spent with Tish and her friends. Carver's dad, portrayed as a rather uncaring authority figure by Carver is simply just stern...and it was Carver misinterpreting every chore and favour as a "punishment".

 

* Bullying. Bullied children often have a difficult time getting help from adults - some adults see it as a [[Rite of Passage]], some assume that the bullied child is oversensitive, others may just think it's not a big deal and some may believe that the child being accused of bullying would never do such a thing because of a certain status (such as having straight A's).

** This is especially true when the bullying is between siblings. Many adults are unable to distinguish the difference between sibling rivalry and outright bullying. And it's especially true if the ''younger'' sibling is the bully, as the older one will likely be accused of making up stories for the sake of attention and ignored (this is the reason the youngest of siblings is often considered "[[Spoiled Brat|spoiled]]").

* As much as some schools claim to be strict on fighting, you'd be surprised at how often students get away with it (oddly enough, though unsurprising, it's not uncommon that a student faces suspension for something as minor as not being in "proper" uniform).

** Made even worse when in some schools, when a fight breaks out, the person who was assaulted first and merely fights back to defend gets in just as much trouble as the aggressor. Great job, school admins.

[[Category:Adults Are Useless]]

[[Category:Depressing Tropes]]