Bully (video game)

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Jimmy Hopkins is happy to see you.

"So here I am, at probably the worst school in the country, whose alumni are nothing but arms dealers, serial killers, and corporate lawyers. Real scum. And that old creep thinks he can tame me? We shall see, my friend. I only give people what they have coming to them."

—Jimmy Hopkins

Bully is a video game by Rockstar Games that follows in the footsteps of Grand Theft Auto, combining the Wide Open Sandbox and questionable moral alignment of Grand Theft Auto with the fantasy of besting (or, if you prefer, beating up) The Bully who made your own school years hell.

Jimmy Hopkins, a 15 year old boy with a troubled past and a face like a dog who's just been kicked, is left at Bullworth Academy while his mom (on her 5th marriage) and new stepdad are gone on a year long honeymoon cruise. Expelled repeatedly, Bullworth is pretty much his last stop before Juvenile Hall, and he can't afford to get in trouble again. Unfortunately, trouble finds him the second he steps inside the school gates, when three bullies attack him.

Jimmy makes two friends: shy everykid Petey Kowalski and scheming sociopath Gary Smith. He finds out that the school is in constant turmoil due to the feuding of five cliques: the Bullies, the Nerds, the Preppies, the Greasers and the Jocks. The cliques hate each other and pretty much everyone outside their social circle. The teachers are mostly aloof and apathetic at best, and downright corrupt at worst. School Principal Dr. Crabblesnitch ignores the bullying that goes on, calling it "school spirit".

The game follows Jimmy's ongoing battle as he takes on each clique one at a time to try to tranquilize them.

When the game was first announced, Moral Guardians Jack Thompson took issue with this game. Well, of course he did. Finding out that the game was a lot less violent than the Grand Theft Auto series (no blood, let alone death) didn't stop him; maybe he just wanted to maintain his image of hatred for Rockstar. Other Moral Guardians claimed the game was going to let kids think bullying was cool. However, the storyline of the game encourages standing up for those too weak to stand up for themselves, and treats hitting girls, authority figures and children as the worst crimes you can commit (then again, one mission involves helping the cafeteria lady rape a male teacher).

In 2008 Bully: Scholarship Edition was released for the Xbox 360, PC and Wii. This version featured a few exclusive missions, extra classes, new outfits and some minor improvements to the graphics.

In 2009, scorer Shawn Lee suggested that a sequel was in the works. In November 2011, Dan Houser of Rockstar Games mentioned a potential Bully sequel in an interview about Max Payne 3. The interview, while promising, stated that work on Bully 2 certainly wouldn't begin until after Max Payne 3 was finished.

Tropes used in Bully (video game) include:
  • 100% Completion
  • Absurdly Powerful Student Council: Not stated outright, but, considering the elaborate class presidential elections, and the extreme levels of power the Head Boy is implied to have, one has to wonder.
  • Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The basement tunnels under Bullworth are big enough to hold an entire fighting pit, complete with chain link walls and an announcer's booth.
  • Adults Are Useless: A duh. It's a school. Even the teachers who are nice in the storyline are just as bad as the others on the very rare occasions they're encountered in free roam due to game mechanics. However, Dr. Crabblesnitch will indeed step in when he knows what was going on.
  • The Alcoholic: Mr. Galloway.
  • All Girls Want Bad Boys: Jimmy gets the affection of every hot girl in school over the course of the game despite not being what you'd call 'a looker'. Most of the girls also think Johnny Vincent is hot. This also might explain why the fangirls love Gary so much.
  • All Guys Want Cheerleaders: Pretty much what Mandy's popularity runs on.
  • All There in the Manual: There's almost no way to match the various adults in town with their names. The data files for the characters included the names though, and some hex editors over on the Bully Wiki exhaustively worked out who was who.
  • Alpha Bitch: Mandy Wiles, head cheerleader who mercilessly teases nerd girl Beatrice. She also keeps up a steady stream of catty remarks against Lola, who is her top competition for "hottest girl in the school." Slightly subverted in that it's hinted she's actually a nice person and that her libbyness is a combination of peer pressure and insecurity.
  • Ambiguously Brown: Edgar Munsen.
  • Ambiguously Gay: Let's just call out Petey on this one. There's the conversation where Gary asks him if he's watching swim team for the girls or the boys and the only answer he manages is "Shut up, Gary". There's also the time he makes a really, really awkward joke about Jimmy becoming a male stripper.
  • Anachronism Stew: The school and the town appear to be caught in a time warp. The game is ostensibly set in the present day (there is reference to the school banning MP3 players), but the cars, the computers and the preppies look like they came out of the '80s, while the Greasers are a throwback to the '50s. This was deliberate on Rockstar's part: they wanted both adult and teenage gamers to be able to enjoy it, and thus, they threw in elements from multiple time periods rather than grounding it in one.
  • And Your Reward Is Clothes:
    • A somewhat weird example. Ammo for your weapons is dropped in fights, so the only thing you really use your money for is getting a haircut and expanding your wardrobe. The clothes don't really provide any benefits, and if you wear anything but your uniform on school grounds the prefects yell but do nothing else at you for breaking dress code.
    • The Black Ninja Outfit (which you get for completing the school yearbook) and Green Ninja Outfit (which you get for making 2000 successful hits with long-ranged weapons) both add bonuses to your character (Black makes you invisible to authorities to an extent, and Green increases damage, range, and hit ratio for long-range weapons).
  • Anti-Hero: Jimmy's located somewhere on the Sliding Scale of Anti-Heroes. Depending on how the player chooses to control Jimmy, he could range from Type 2 to Type 4. Safest to call him a Type 3 though.
  • The Artifact: A character named Bob was removed from the game fairly early on in development for unknown reasons. Problem was that one of the very first cutscenes completed had Bob in it. So they just left him in that one cutscene (Bob is the huge-shouldered white kid in the wrestling uniform in the cutscene in front of the burning gym).
  • Artificial Atmospheric Actions: Several random NPC dialogues can sound... very artificial to say the least. Not to mention, you can have a lot of fun with Kick-Me signs, sometimes even the prefects or the gym teacher will run over and kick a student with them! This also borders on the funny side of the trope. Because everyone "Resets" when you do something like go to class or enter a building, it's possible someone you beat up a couple hours earlier to ask you to run an errand for them. And the prefects never remember the Swirlie you gave them unless they witnessed you giving one.
  • Artificial Stupidity: Put down a volcano firework. No matter how many times you blew people up during the previous days, people will still gather around it and say "Ooooooooh!" until it explodes in their faces.
  • Authority Equals Asskicking:
    • All the cliques are led by the toughest member. The adults (including the female nurse in her late 60s) are always tougher than the students (even the All-American linebacker). Dr. Crabblesnitch, in his one non-cutscene appearance, has four times the stamina of any other character.
    • The Jocks clique averts this, since they're lead by the star quarterback rather than the aforementioned All-American linebacker.
    • The Preps play with this. To be specific, Derby's free-roam model and Bif share the exact same stats. Derby's boss fight model hasn't actually been located in the data files yet, and so can't be compared to any other character. Being that Derby spends the boss fight hiding behind his friends and he's quite a bit shorter than Bif, he's generally assumed to be the weaker of the two.
  • Background Boss: The Earnest Jones boss fight.
  • Badass:
    • Jimmy Hopkins. He may be only 15, but any teenager who can whoop that much ass single-handedly is definitely worthy of the title. Entire cliques are frequently beaten into submission by his fists alone. Sheer numbers and even being bigger than him doesn't seem to help.
    • Russell Northrop qualifies. He's the single toughest random fight in the game, and is capable of beating up a pro boxer (Bif). He's also your first boss fight. Later on, we see him doing such Badass things as holding a shopkeeper in Old Bullworth Vale off the ground by the neck with one arm, chasing off two prefects, and stealing a police motorcycle, something not even Jimmy can do. His simplemindedness also makes him the only person largely immune to Gary's manipulations.
  • Beautiful All Along: Averted with Beatrice Trudeau, who holds the trope itself in disdain.
  • Big Bad: Gary Smith. It’s implied he’s the reason why the cliques are fighting each other. When he becomes head boy, it’s an all-our war between the factions.
    • Subverted with the principal. He was originally intended to be the villain, but apparently the developers thought having Gary Smith be the villain was more creative.
  • Bigger Bad: Derby Harrington's father. He doesn't appear in the game and is only mentioned in some lines of random dialogue, but he holds undue influence over the school and the principal and has quite a bit of responsibility for the general corruption and rottenness in Bullworth Academy.
  • The Big Guy: Russell Northrop post Heel Face Turn.
  • Bi the Way: Jimmy has the option of romancing and kissing certain boys in each clique. Though there is never anything mentioned about it in any dialogue or plot. However, he prefers the ladies.
  • BFG: The Potato Gun. Probably the closest you're going to get in a T rated game about going to school.
  • Black and Nerdy: Cornelius Johnson.
  • Black and White Morality: Play the game a few times and be surprised at how morally ambiguous it isn't. Although Jimmy's a great example of Good Is Not Nice, there's really no question about who the good guys and bad guys are. Though Russell does become a good guy after being a bad guy.
  • Black Comedy Rape: Jimmy helps the (extraordinarily ugly) cafeteria lady Edna slip sedatives to a male teacher; she then takes him inside a nearby motel for the presumed and implied purpose of sex, and it's played for laughs. Imagine the Moral Guardians' reaction if the sexes were reversed...
  • Blond Guys Are Evil: Derby Harrington.
  • Boarding School of Horrors: Bullworth Academy.
  • Bond One-Liner: After beating the Mascot and stealing the costume, Jimmy quips "Sometimes you just gotta take the bull by the horns."
  • Boring Insult: Don't call Gary boring...
  • Boss Battle:
    • Background Boss: The nerd boss fight is the background.
    • Bullfight Boss: Two. The fight against Russell and the fight against the Mascot. The latter being a literal one.
    • Flunky Boss: The boss fight between Derby Harrington. He starts off fighting you alongside his minions, then after beating them up he hops behind a counter (where you can't hit him for some reason) and then shouts, "Give me a hand in here boys!" and gets more preppies to come after you.
    • Get Back Here Boss: The early boss fight against Davis starts with a lengthy chase before Jimmy's able to tree him on a scaffold. And during the final fight against Gary, you have to make your way across an obstacle course while he throws bricks at you. To a lesser extent the fights against Johnny and Edgar have chase sections as well.
    • High Speed Battle: The boss fight against Johnny Vincent is fought on a bicycle. However, you don't actually need to get on a bike for that since you could literally get in a corner (after taking out the adds) and fling slingshots at him.
    • Tennis Boss: The boss fight against Ted Thompson, who can only be beaten by throwing his explosive-laced footballs back at him to take out his bodyguards and then tackling him.
  • Boss in Mook Clothing: Bif and Damon are the toughest, strongest members of their cliques (Preppies and Jocks, respectively), but both can be found randomly wandering around Bullworth like normal students. It's rather hard to tell Bif apart from the rest of his clique. Averted with Russell, who is also randomly present but is actually a boss and is obviously different from the other Bullies. Ironically, in the storyline, you fight these three in order of most to least dangerous.
  • Bottomless Magazines: The slingshot, although it makes sense because the average ammunition for a slingshot is pebbles and small rocks.
  • Bowdlerized: There were a few cutscenes viewable in the game trailers that didn't make the final cut, probably because of all the negative publicity the game was getting pre-release. Makes you wonder what got left out that no one knows about. Most but not all of these were re-added in Scholarship Edition.
    • Also, the entire game was renamed to Canis Canem Edit- Gratuitous Latin for Dog Eat Dog- for the initial release in the PAL regions.
  • British Education System: A major influence, particularly in the use of the Prefects and Head Boy.
  • The Bully: An entire clique of them. Although really, every single clique in the school counts. Even the Nerds pick on Non-Clique kids who happen to wander by the Library, though they’re never portrayed as being as bad as the other cliques. (Jimmy does form an alliance with Earnest, after all.)
  • Bully Hunter: Jimmy is practically the trope codifier.
  • Burger Fool: Jimmy gets a job where he has to dress up in an awful yellow and red uniform with a hat shaped like a box of fries and deliver burgers.
  • Butt Monkey:
    • The whole Nerd Clique who are, in their own words, "Laughed at and mercilessly bullied by just about everyone."
    • Petey Kowalski is, in his own words, "too cool to be a dork and too dorky to be anything else." Gary picks on him endlessly and even his only friend Jimmy don't treat him with much respect. It is also worth mentioning that even said nerd clique refuses to accept Petey because they feel he is too dorky and will worsen their image.
  • But Not Too Gay: The game went to a fair amount of effort to establish all the boys who Jimmy can kiss as bisexual. Cornelius pines for Mandy, Gord dates Lola, Trent and Duncan are both girl-crazy, Kirby at least likes women's feet. Vance is sometimes thought to be fully gay, but he has a couple hard to catch lines of dialogue about hanging out with girls. Interestingly, the deleted character Bob was Manly Gay and openly disliked girls.
  • Camp Gay: Gord Vendome. Although he's canonically bisexual, the voice and fashion obsession plant him in this camp.
  • Canon Discontinuity:
    • On the official Bully website, there were some canon differences from the game. Most notably was Tad Spencer, who was prominently introduced on the website before the game came out as Tad Smith-Althorp Smith. Then, when the "Facebook" section of the website was released months after the game, the old name errors were still there, along with a few new ones.
    • And of course, the character whose name the game designers couldn't keep straight, Clint aka Henry. The name "Clint" is never used in Bully. In Bully: Scholarship Edition, he's mainly called Clint, but they missed a few instances of Henry. He was credited in both games as "Clint (a.k.a. Henry)".
  • Captain Ersatz: Grottoes and Gremlins.
  • Cat Fight: Kissing a girl in front of another girl will cause them to break out in one.
  • The Cheerleader: Mandy is never out of uniform and is very close to the stereotypical portrayal of cheerleaders. There are three other girls on the squad (Pinky, Angie and Christy). They're not as mean as Mandy, but they're meaner while in their cheerleading outfits than they are the rest of the time.
  • Chekhov's Gun: During Chapter 2, you can see Gord on a movie date with Lola. By the time Chapter 3 comes around, news of it has gotten back to Lola's perpetually enraged boyfriend Johnny Vincent...
  • Cherry Tapping: It's possible to win fights, including some boss fights, by giving your opponent a wedgie. The wedgie does a little bit of damage, and if their lifebar is low enough...
  • Climbing Climax
  • Closet Key: Russell Northrop is Troy Miller's closet key.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Jimmy has no problem fighting dirty, up to and including tripping the opponent, kicking them while they're down, kneeing them in the groin, slamming them against walls or furniture or even using weapons.
  • Completely Missing the Point: When Jimmy expresses disbelief that Lola would have anything to do with Algie, Earnest agrees with him... because it's "preposterous - everyone knows Algie likes blonds."
  • Crying Wolf: You can pull the fire alarm a lot. Chances are the fire department only come when someone physically calls them considering how often you hear the fire alarm getting pulled (even one of the non-clique students says, "Oh boy! A fire!" if you pull the fire alarm).
  • Deadpan Snarker: Plenty. This especially goes for Jimmy and Gary.
  • Dean Bitterman: Dr. Crabblesnitch, although subverted in that he's also a Reasonable Authority Figure despite being a Dean Bitterman. He scoffs at the idea that bullying is a problem and that his staff is corrupt, but when handed proof of such he takes the right action immediately. But... if that proof isn't iron-clad, expect to be labeled the troublemaker.
  • Defeat Means Friendship:
    • Although all the cliques accept Jimmy to varying degrees after he beats their clique leaders, Russell fully becomes Jimmy's friend after they fight.
    • Spoofed regarding the Nerds. Jimmy wants their help to take on the Jocks, but they want nothing to do with him. He's forced to beat them up and invade their observatory, and when their leader Ernest finds his offer of friendship questionable (since he just beat him up), Jimmy snaps "We're buddies!".
  • Deliberately Bad Example: Gary Smith is what Jimmy would be if he chose not to care about anyone but himself.
  • The Determinator: In the boss fight against the Jocks, Damon West is pelted with exploding footballs. He dusts himself off and proclaims that a little blood never hurt anyone.
  • The Dev Team Thinks of Everything:
    • Throwing food in the cafeteria will result in the students starting a food fight.
    • Entering a swear word during the English classes, only available during English 2, will prompt an amused reaction from the teacher instead of the usual response.
  • Devil in Plain Sight: Gary is such an obvious liar.
  • Disappeared Dad: We never see Jimmy's father, only his mother and fourth stepfather.
  • Disco Dan: It seems that the Greasers are stuck in the '50s.
  • Does Not Understand Sarcasm: The drunken Santa. Every other character just brushes it off when Jimmy starts snarkin'.
  • The Dragon:
    • At first, Jimmy to Gary.
    • Bif Taylor to Derby Harrington, Norton Williams to Johnny Vincent, Damon West (who has a bit of The Starscream in him) to Ted Thompson, Omar Romero to Edgar Munsen. Subverted in that all of them but Bif and Damon are weaker than those that lead them.
  • Dressing as the Enemy: One mission has Jimmy dress up as a Prep to kill Derby's plant. Though you can also get clothes to match the other cliques. He also dresses up as The School Mascot once, as well as an asylum warden.
  • Drill Sergeant Nasty: Mr. Burton. He's eventually fired.
  • Drowning My Sorrows: Again, Mr. Galloway
  • Dummied Out: Quite a lot of dummied out content in this game.
    • Hattrick Manor's indoors. Apparently, early on in the game's development, Jimmy was going to have to break into the house. That idea was scrapped, but they left what little of the inside of the house that had been finished, in the game. It can be accessed by jumping with a bike and falling through the roof.
    • There was a dummied out mission in Chapter 3 that involved Lola bringing Tad to New Coventry and Jimmy having to defend Tad by sniping Greasers with his slingshot.
    • Gloria Jackson was originally intended to be an older girl and a potential girlfriend for Jimmy. Her flirting and kissing dialogue lines are still in the data files.
    • Several missions were dummied out of Bully. Most of the "bonus missions" for Scholarship Edition were dummied out missions that were added back in.
  • Eagle Land: To quote Jimmy, "It's America! We go in there with threats and bribes until we get what we want. If all else fails, we beat the crap out of everyone."

Russell: Russell likes to hurt people... For Peace!

  • Elaborate University High: Justified in that Bullworth is a Boarding School.
  • Enemy-Detecting Radar: Jimmy has one that rivals Solid Snake's. No explanation, just for ease of gameplay.
  • Evil Teacher: Both Mr. Burton, the gym teacher and Mr. Hattrick qualify.
  • Expy: Jimmy looks an awful lot like a younger version of James Earl Cash from Manhunt, another Rockstar game, and even has the same first name. He doesn’t resort to Murder though.
  • Extended Gameplay: "Endless Summer". Bullworth is your sandbox. Get going.
  • Face Heel Turn: Gary Smith starts out as your friend but early on betrays you, although if you didn't see it coming, you must be Genre Blind.
  • Fake Brit: In-Universe: over half of the Preppy clique speak with faux British accent to sound more sophisticated than the "paupers".
  • Fallen Princess: Mandy Wiles, after risqué photos are taken of her, blown up into posters and placed all over town.
  • Faux Action Girl: Zoe Taylor is a mild example. Although according to dialogue, she enjoys and is very good at fighting, she's as weak as all the other girls in the game if she's actually provoked. It has been shown that she is a strong girl though based on how much property she manages to destroy over the course of her date with Jimmy.
  • Fille Fatale: Lola Lombardi. She speaks in double entendres (bike races make her... excited), and she uses her looks to get homework help from Nerds and money from Preppies.
  • Fired Teacher: Mr. Burton and Mr. Hattrick at the end. And yes, they deserved it.
  • Foil: Gary, Pete, and Jimmy all serve as foils to each other. Jimmy and Pete turn out to have a lot in common, however. As for Jimmy and Gary…it turned out they weren’t so alike after all.
  • Five-Man Band: Jimmy and his allies (Petey, Russell, Zoe and Edgar ) during the last mission.
  • Five-Token Band: Each clique includes one black kid, one bisexual kid, and excluding the Bullies one girl. The Nerds go for a Twofer Token Minority with Cornelius, who is black and bi.
  • Foot Focus: Kirby Olsen likes the girls' feet.
  • Foreshadowing: It’s hinted that Gary and Jimmy aren’t true friends. And he’s definitely not a true friend to Pete.
  • Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: While he had an abusive father, Mr. Burton is never really treated with any sympathy.
  • Future Loser: Osbourne (one of the town bums) used to be the star quarterback for the football team. Now he's a bum, and the cheerleader he married "couldn't wear her old cheerleading skirt as a garter."
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: You can actually beat up as many students as you want and merely get detention. Heck, you can even do stuff like beat up the faculty (if you manage to do this) and run into a prefect with a lawnmower or hit him with a shovel and you won't get expelled, whereas Crabblesnitch would have more than enough reason to do so. This is a case of Acceptable Breaks From Reality because one could get expelled before the story demands it. Plus, it's incredibly satisfying to give a prefect a swirlie and then watch as later in the day he appeared to have forgotten it.
  • Gang of Hats: Most cliques in the school.
  • Gay Option: Well, it doesn't really affect the overall storyline, but Jimmy can kiss one member of each clique if the player chooses to. And it's more like Bi Option anyway. Getting girlfriends is a mandatory part of the game. Boyfriends are strictly optional... unless you're playing the XBox 360 version and want all the achievement points. Then you must kiss 20 boys for the achievement "Over The Rainbow"..
  • Gonk:
    • Eunice Pound, the morbidly obese girl with a thick husky voice, small vocabulary and elephantine legs, embodies this, especially since 90% of the girls at Bullworth are way, way above average in looks.
    • Edna the lunchlady also definitely qualifies.
  • Good Is Not Nice: Jimmy embodies this.
  • Good Scars, Evil Scars: While Jimmy has a couple cute nicks on his head Gary has the cliche scar through the eye. Chad (one of the Preppies) has a fencing scar on his cheek.
  • Groin Attack:
    • "Nooo! I needed those!"
    • Best of all when assaulting a prefect: "My nards!" a hilarious Bowdlerized version of the British slang "Kicked in the nads!"
    • "My girlfriend's gonna kill you! Ugh."
    • "Don't lie, Petey. Don't you lie. Because you know what we do to liars? We kick them in the BALLS!"
    • "Ooh, nooo! My children!"
    • After hitting Russell, "You hit Russell's Special Place!".
  • Handsome Lech: Trent Northwick. Not only is he a handsome lech, he doesn't even sex discriminate.
  • Hannibal Lecture: Gary delivers quite the memorable one to Jimmy.
  • Heel Face Turn: Russell Northrop and Edgar Munsen.
  • Hello, Nurse!: Ms. Philips who is considered by far the most attractive teacher in the school.
  • Hero Antagonist: Crabblesnitch is one of these if Jimmy doesn’t stay on his best behavior. It’s averted if Jimmy manages to prove Hattrick’s guilt, however.
  • Heroes Want Redheads: Jimmy's final love interest is red haired Townie girl Zoe Taylor.
  • Hollywood Nerd: Subverted by Beatrice, who's actually closer to the Nerd trope played straight. The only thing worse than her fashion sense is her hairdo (and maybe her coldsores and braces). She could probably pull a Beautiful All Along if she wanted to, but she never makes an attempt to do so. For that matter, the girls actually subvert a lot of stereotypes (well, other than maybe Lola but that's cause her stereotype is based off of Grease). Pinky appears to be a Spoiled Brat, but she turns out to be Spoiled Sweet when Jimmy takes her out, Beatrice can easily pull a Beautiful All Along, Mandy is the Alpha Bitch, but it's implied she is that way due to peer pressure, and when she becomes a Fallen Princess, is significantly nicer. Lola can also be a vamp, but she cares about Johnny enough to express concern when he gets sent to the asylum.
  • Homemade Sweater From Hell: Jimmy gets one for Christmas. It's an actual mission that is required he pick it up. And afterwards, he has to go back to the dorms to change out of it, subjugating himself to much shame and humilation from the other students.
  • Hot for Student:
    • Jimmy mistakenly believes Ms. Philips is this for him.
    • Mr. Burton is this for the female students as Zoe explains, though made very obvious earlier by the Panty Raid mission.
  • Hot for Teacher: Jimmy and most of the other students are this for Ms. Philips.
  • Homoerotic Subtext: And not just the gay options either.
    • Troy's crush on Russell: see Closet Key above.
    • On one mission, you can see bully Trent Northwick and jock Kirby Olsen holding hands in line at the movie theater.
    • During the mission where Jimmy has to protect Earnest while he gives a speech, Earnest goes into unnecessary detail about how good looking Ted Thompson is, with an odd, longing tone in his voice.
    • And for the distaff counterpart, Lola and Mandy are a little too insistent when it comes to how unattractive they find each other.
    • All Peanut ever seems to talk about is Johnny.
  • Humilation Conga: Both Hattrick and Mr. Burton end up getting fired.
  • Hulk Speak: "Russell SMAAAAASSSHHHH!"
  • Idiot Ball: Apparently, Gary carries a bunch of these around and hands them out to people before he talks to them.
  • I Know Madden Kombat: Some of the Jocks use football tackles when they fight. Also, Jocks and Bullies can be seen using baseball bats as weapons.
  • Incest Is Relative: It's clearly stated, repeatedly, that the rich, preppy kids' ancestors inbred frequently in the hope of keeping their family trees pure.

Tad Spencer: "First cousins is legal, my friend! Le-gal!"
Pinky Gauthier: "I don't really like [Derby], but he's my cousin. Our family wants us to get married. You know, keep up the tradition? It used to be brother and sister until it was made illegal. My aunt has four thumbs."

  • I Need a Freaking Drink: Galloway says this if he is annoyed. Or exasperated. Or just whenever.
  • Informed Attractiveness: In universe, Lola and Mandy are regarded as the best looking, yet Christy Martin is arguably better looking than either, at least on the PlayStation 2 version. Yet she's never more than a side character.
  • Interface Screw: Starts at 1:00 a.m. and gets screwier until 2:00 a.m., at which point you pass out.
  • Invisible to Gaydar: Ok! Some boys are canonically bisexual, but none of them (except Gord) display any camp traits nor blatant attraction to boys.
  • Jerk Jock: Ted especially, but all the jocks fit this to some extent, as do the Preppies.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Jimmy, totally. Edgar Munsen counts as this too. He helps Jimmy quell the riot during the final mission despite the fact that he hates Bullworth and most of the students therein. Arguably, Dr. Crabblesnitch is one of these too.
  • Kaizo Trap: A glitch-induced one in the mission Glass House. Jimmy is frozen and unresponsive to the controls during the Mission Concluded screen, but Mr. Hattrick is not frozen, and will run up and bust Jimmy while the game ignores the player's controller input.
  • Kissing Cousins: At the beginning of the game, Derby dates his first cousin Pinky. This isn't just common but encouraged among the Preppies.
  • Large Ham:
    • Seth Kolbe. "EEEVILDOER!"
    • During the end of mission "I run this clique now" speeches, Jimmy hams it up pretty good himself.

Jimmy: Who's the baddest?! Me! Who's the toughest?! Me!

  • Lethal Chef: Edna, whose hygiene, cooking, and cleanliness are all... somewhat lacking.
  • Lighter and Fluffier: Old concept art shows all the characters as rougher around the edges and uglier, lots of them have muscles like pro wrestlers, Zoe's outfit was extremely Stripperiffic, and the Prefects carried batons around and looked more than a bit like skinheads... the game was, er, softened from this visualization.
  • Lighter and Softer: The game is this compared to Rockstar's other high profile releases before it, Manhunt and the Grand Theft Auto series. A T rated game with no blood, no guns and no killing.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Jimmy is able to outrun or keep up with just about everybody in the game, in addition to kicking much ass.
  • Lost Forever: In the original version of the game, this would happen to any mission you failed to complete before moving on to the next chapter, preventing you from getting One Hundred Percent Completion. This was corrected in the Scholarship Edition which allowed you to do any mission you missed after completing the main game or the chapter corresponding to them. And you can still attend Me. Hattrick and Mr. Burton’s classes regardless of whether they’re fired or not.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Gary Smith, Derby Harrington.
  • Meganekko: Angie.
  • Minigame Zone: The Carnival.
  • Money for Nothing: You get cash for almost every mission you pass, regardless of whether it makes sense.
  • Moral Guardians: As with other high profile Rockstar games, this one had them up in arms.
  • Mrs. Robinson: Teased then subverted by Ms. Philips. She would've been the "hot older woman" variation if it had been played straight (though not that much older...).
  • Murder Simulators: What the Moral Guardians claimed it was, which is a little difficult when you can't kill anyone.
  • My New Gift Is Lame: Jimmy's Christmas sweater.
  • Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Bullworth Academy doesn’t sound pleasant. And indeed it isn’t when Jimmy first visits it. Luckily, Jimmy changes the school for the better, even if the name never changes.
  • Nerd: A whole clique of them. And every nerd trope in the book is probably filled by at least one of 'em.
  • New Era Speech: Jimmy gives these each time he takes over a clique.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Jimmy vandalizing the Town Hall leads to getting expelled.
  • No Bisexuals: Averted, if somewhat heavy-handedly, as mentioned in But Not Too Gay.
  • No Indoor Voice:
    • Edna is a really bad offender, but several other teachers and students are close.
    • Mr. Burton, when asking Jimmy to go on a "covert" Panty Raid mission, is practically shouting at him; it's a wonder the whole town doesn't hear him.
  • Non-Giving-Up-School Guy: Most of the teachers and prefects fall into this category.
  • Noodle Incident: One takes place during the game. It's never actually mentioned what Johnny Vincent did to get committed. From what you're told of Johnny, it would be more likely he'd get arrested instead. Jimmy doesn't seem to care though even though he does get him out.
  • Not So Different: Russell starts off as an enemy to Jimmy, but when Jimmy explains that he shouldn’t bully innocent kids, and that Gary had manipulated them both into fighting each other, they end up making peace.
    • Likewise, Pete and Jimmy both seem to be opposites at first, but it turns out they both want there to be peace at Bullworth Academy. And he’s just as smart as Jimmy himself is.
    • Jimmy persuades Earnest to work for him for this reason. They both want to teach the jocks at the school a lesson.
    • Crabblesnitch agrees with Jimmy that both Mr. Hattrick and Mr. Burton should be fired, though he needs to provide evidence of Hattrick’s corruption and explain that Mr. Burton decided to flirt with a teenage student despite her protests.
  • Not So Similar: It turns out Gary is willing to attack people unprovoked (unlike Jimmy), as poor Pete finds out.
  • No Swastikas: There are no swastikas on the SS officer uniform that Gary wears for Halloween.
  • Obviously Evil: If the scar and somewhat creepy things Gary says at the beginning of the game don't tip you off, the Nazi uniform he wears for Halloween certainly will.
  • Only a Flesh Wound: Said by the nerd Melvin O'Connor if you beat him up.
  • Parental Abandonment/Parental Neglect: Jimmy's mother and stepfather are guilty of this. They fit the negative stereotype of parents with kids in boarding schools, since they dump him at Bullworth, so they can go off on a year long honeymoon.
  • Pet the Dog:
    • After the events that turned her into a Fallen Princess, Mandy has a moment of introspection when she admits she probably deserves to be miserable for how mean she's been to other people.
    • Several of the minor characters have these moments.
      • Parker Ogilvie seems to have a genuinely good nature beneath his preppy upbringing.
      • Bo Jackson and Luis Luna, both jocks, do relatively well in classes.
      • Norton Williams the Greaser has a pronounced sensitive side.
      • The entire Townie clique during the final mission.
  • Plot Hole: Jimmy somehow knows who Edgar is and that he's actually the leader of the Townies despite not being established earlier in the story.
  • Pretentious Latin Motto: Canus canem edit.
  • Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Poor Algie tries to speak in Ebonics to make himself appear cooler. Next semester, he is going to "cowboy up", for sure. Yo.
  • Rated "M" for Money: Inverted, as the game had a T rating, but still managed to cause enough controversy to get it plenty of publcity.
  • Really Gets Around: Small talk says Mandy does this. Lola actually does, but no one talks about it because they don't want their ass kicked by Johnny.
  • Red Herring: Russell appears to be the main villain at first. (One can assume he’s the biggest threat at Bullworth, after all.) But it turns out that the real villain is in fact Gary Smith, who wishes to take over the school and turn it into a battleground.
  • Rewarding Vandalism: Several missions involve smashing things, but the mission "Smash It Up" might as well be the Trope Codifier.
  • Running Both Sides: Gary is manipulating both Crabblesnitch (Bullworth school principal) and Edgar (leader of the Townies, sworn enemies of Bullworth) for his own personal gain.
  • Sassy Black Woman: Miss Peters, the music teacher. Though she first appears as a Hippie Teacher, she turns into this in the "Nutcrackin'" misson when Jimmy refuses to help her at first and she blackmails him by threatens to fail him.
  • Schoolteachers:
    • Apathetic Teacher: Mr. Galloway. While he's actually very popular with the students and doesn't seem to hate them, he does hate his job due to Mr. Hattrick's bullying, as he drinks heavily even while at work.
    • Fired Teacher: Two, and both are the rare examples of it happening to a Sadist Teacher. Happens to Mr. Hattrick when he's caught taking bribes from the parents of his wealthy students to give them good grade, and at the end to Mr. Burton when the principal discovers that he shamelessly flirts with his female students.
    • Hippie Teacher: Miss Peters, the music teacher who only appears in the Scholarship Edition. However, she turns into a Sassy Black Woman in the "Nutcrackin'" mission when Jimmy refuses to help her at first and she blackmails him by threatens to fail him.
    • Hot Teacher: Ms. Philips.
    • Sadist Teacher: Quite a few teachers have their negative qualities, but the wealthy and cruel Mr. Hattrick and Mr. Burton are the worst out of all of them.
    • Subverted with Crabblesnitch. While he’s running a school filled with bullies ranging from plain bullies to jocks to rich kids, he actually isn’t condoning their behavior and is simply oblivious as to what is going on. Sure enough, when Jimmy reveals to Crabblesnitch that Mr. Hattrick is corrupt, he fired him. And when he explains Mr Burton’s lecherous behavior towards female students, he fires him as well.
  • School Uniforms Are the New Black: Jimmy frequently visits the town near his school in his school uniform during his days off. Of course this is mainly attributed to the player choosing to do so as opposed to the character.
  • Sexophone: In missions that finish with Jimmy getting a kiss from a girl, a quick saxophone melody plays.
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: The Hobo, who teaches Jimmy his fighting moves.
  • Shooting Gallery: Fittingly, there's two of these at the carnival. One is a Wild West setting: targets include bottles (shoot), bandits (shoot), women with their hands up (don't shoot) and a star (shoot for bonus). The other is a baseball throw, with catchers (hit), batters (don't hit), umpires (instant game over) and a big glove (bonus).
  • Shout-Out:
    • The entire Greasers vs Preps storyline is a giant homage to S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders. The Greasers even have a few lines that are direct quotes from the book.
    • Miss Danvers is a shout-out to a character in the novel Rebecca named Mrs. Danvers.
    • Jimmy can buy Holden Caulfield's Houndstooth Duffel Coat, and he calls his stepfather a "phony".
    • Lola Lombardi's appearance was based on actress Molly Ringwald in the '80s (think The Breakfast Club).
    • "Aquaberry" brand clothing is an amalgamation of real life UK clothing brands Aquascutum and Burberry.
    • Shkt! Lets go, bub! ("shkt" being the sound effect of adamantium claws unsheathing)
    • Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "Tis but a flesh wound."
    • Monty Python's Flying Circus: In Scholarship Edition, Music 4 requires you to play the show's theme song, albeit slowed down.
    • "This one time, at fat camp, I got beat up."
    • You can buy a Love Fist poster and the Scholarship Edition even has a Hair Metal style outfit just for fun.
    • The big athletic black guy who plays football is known as Bo Jackson.
    • One of the elves in the drunken Santa missions can be heard muttering "I only wanted to be a dentist."
    • Inadvertent one in Christy Martin, who has the same name as a female boxer.
    • Compare the Jimmy Hopkins default look to Butch in Pulp Fiction: shaved head, short and stocky build, unzipped tan jacket, white t-shirt with no logo and heavily faded blue jeans. Maybe it's no coincidence that Jimmy fights like a pro boxer after getting training from the hobo.
  • Shower Scene: Mandy in the "Paparazzi" mission. Since this is a T rated game we see nothing. There's a scene in one of the video trailers that's a close-up of Mandy's legs while she's wearing the towel, that was cut from the final version of the game.
  • Slapstick: The way students trip on marbles and banana peels borders on it, but if you run someone over with a go-kart? They rocket straight up into the air.
  • Small Name, Big Ego: Gordon Wakefield, who's convinced he's a brilliant intellect, a ladies man and a lethal fighter, when in fact, he's none of the above.

"What a stupid question. Of course I'm the center of my universe!"

  • Smug Snake: Gary Smith is the Failed Magnificent Bastard + Villain Sue version. Derby Harrington is the "good" version.
  • The Smurfette Principle: The cliques all have only one girl, except for the Bullies, who don't have any.
    • The Nerds: Beatrice.
    • The Jocks: Mandy.
    • The Preppies: Pinky.
    • The Greasers: Lola.
    • The Townies: Zoe.
  • Spiritual Successor: Find a review of this game in a British magazine that doesn't mention the ZX Spectrum classic Skool Daze.
  • Spoiled Brat: Many of the Preppies. Pinky is the most well known (see quote below), but other preppies qualify. Chad threatens that his father will sue if someone hits him too hard, Parker expresses disbelief that Gord's father would actually make him work...

"I'm a PRINCESS!' And I need people to do things for me! So hurry up, because I wanna be FIRST!"

  • Spoiled Sweet: Pinky can act as one when she grows closer to Jimmy. She's obviously a princess in that she's spoiled, (and a stereotypical one at that) but is actually quite willing to date outside her social class (Jimmy) .
  • The Starscream: Gary, as he's your ally at first, but it's pretty damn obvious he's going to doublecross you before too long. Ironically, Gary actually accuses Jimmy of this, which is why he decided to double cross you first.
  • Stock British Phrases: As used and abused by the preppies. They're not really British though. Well, Tad isn't, anyway.
  • Stripperific: Zoe's townie outfit, by school standards. Her original character design by any standards.
  • Student Council President: During the game, Ted and Earnest are competing to win the election for this position. One mission involves you having to protect Earnest from the jocks while he gives a campaign speech. It's never specified who wins.
  • Stuffed Into a Locker: Played straight. You can do this to any character in the game.
  • Stuffed Into a Trashcan: Also played straight. If you don't knock them out first, of course.
  • Sweet Polly Oliver: Karen Johnson claims she disguised herself as a boy once so she could play sports.
  • Take That, Critics!: In a rather mild one, minor character Ray Huges says "They say kids imitate video games. But I have yet to turn into a mustached plumber!".
  • Teens Are Short: The adults in this game are massive compared to most of the characters. The second Asylum mission is particularly frustrating because of a character you have to sneak past that you cannot actually see because of a funny camera angle. And since most of the mission has been weapons free, it's easy to forget the stink bombs, which will distract him long enough to get you by.
  • This Is for Emphasis, Bitch:

Gary: Don't lie, Petey. Don't you lie. Because you know what we do to liars? We kick them in the BALLS!

  • Thriving Ghost School: Bullworth Academy has 61 students (65 if you count the prefects) when realistically a campus that size could support 1500+. And only 11 of them are female. Bullworth also apparently has a monopoly on education in town since you don't see any other schools. No wonder the Townies hate Bullworth so much!
  • Those Wacky Nazis: Gary dresses up as an SS officer for Halloween.
    • Subverted when Earnest runs for class president. His flags look oddly familiar.
  • Tomboy: Zoe, Karen.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: Zoe, when compared to Jimmy's other girlfriends.
  • Totally Radical: The nerds, especially Algie.
  • Training from Hell: Mr. Burton insists on making every gym class this as well as every football practice.
  • Trophy Room: Jimmy's room gains a memento from pretty much every mission, side mission, collection quest, class mini-game and race he completes. By the end his bedroom is filled to the brim with the trophies of all his accomplishments. He can even buy stuff like posters too.
  • TV Genius: The Nerds.
  • Twofer Token Minority: Cornelius Johnson is black and bisexual.
  • Updated Rerelease: Bully: Scholarship Edition for the Wii, Xbox 360 and PC.
  • Urban Segregation: The wealthy districts of Old Bullworth Vale and Bullworth Town are cleanly separated from the poor ones of New Coventry and Blue Skies Industrial Park by an elevated railroad trestle, making New Coventry and Blue Skies "the wrong side of the track" both figuratively and literally.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential: Quite a bit, as you might gather.
    • Jamming a prefect's face into a toilet and escaping unscathed is one of the more satisfying accomplishments in gaming.
    • If you manage to knock out all the prefects or cops, there's nothing stopping you from gunning down everyone in sight with bottle rockets and potatoes, regardless of age or gender.
    • Block the exit to the boy's dorm with marbles, then pull the fire bell. The gullible students will bolt to the door, trip repeatedly on the marbles and randomly attack each other. Hilarity most certainly does ensue. And if you hide in the trash can, they'll randomly attack each other instead of you.
    • Stand in your dorm room at the edge with a slingshot or fire extinguisher. As people walk by, spray them or shoot them. The idiots don't think to go in your dorm room and get you. You can also do this with fireworks or other stuff, but you'd probably want to be careful about it accidentally bouncing off the doorway and hitting you.
    • Try climbing the trellis in back of the school (facing the athletics building and prep dorms). From that ledge, you can snipe ANYONE you want with the super slingshot (the one with the scope) and watch the Prefects, etc spawn. And you can then snipe THEM. However, they CANNOT climb the trellis, so you can shoot to your heart's content from there in total safety then wait for the meter to go down before you descend.
    • Note that if you get caught too many times (or for too serious an offense), you must play a "Detention" minigame until you get it right. Each time you do so, it gets harder. Completing all of the detention services is the only way to unlock the prison uniform outfit.
    • Fun little game: pull out your potato gun. If you aren't in town go there. Wait in the middle of the street. Now when a car stops, jump on the hood. When the person driving it comes out, nail them in the face as much as needed to get them down. Now you cannot be one shotted by police when they come to get you. As long as you have health, they throw bricks, you can stay up there the entire time and just shoot anybody with your toys. Also appear to be a good bad bug. You can jump on school receptionist's desk and you will still be ungrabbable.
    • If the player unlocks the Rubberband Ball, by collecting all the rubberbands, the carnage produced by the Ball is awesome.
    • You can also shoot/beat up on the dog in one of the detention areas until he runs away.
  • Video Game Cruelty Punishment:
    • Feel free to fight among your own age group all you like...but hit girls, little kids, adults or prefects, and the game will immediately turn your wanted bar full red, meaning if a cop, prefect or teacher so much as touches you, you're busted immediately, do not pass go. What's more, hitting girls, little kids, adults and authority figures will cause prefects or police to spawn near you and charge immediately.
    • Extremely rare for this type of game, this punishment holds true for everyone, not just you: if an enemy accidentally hits an adult, little kid or prefect, The Law will spawn nearby and go after them. The lone exceptions are scripted interactions, such as a bully taking a little kid's textbook and hitting them with it.
  • Villain Has A Point: Gary wasn’t wrong to point out that Jimmy would want friends in order to survive in Bullworth. Gary turned out to be a terrible friend, however.
  • Virtual Paper Doll: While Jimmy isn't quite as customizable as CJ was, you can still dress him in a wide variety of clothes (sure, there's a dress code, but it's not enforced that strongly). And once Chapter 2 begins, and the school gates open up, you can go to a barber and choose from a few "tough guy" style haircuts. And once Blue Skies Industrial Park is opened up in Chapter 5, you can get tattoos.
  • Where the Hell Is Springfield?: It's never explicitly stated, but it's widely believed that Bullworth is in New England. The back of the Scholarship Edition box confirms that it's in New England.
  • White Anglo Saxon Protestant: Played up by the preps.
  • Wide Open Sandbox
  • Would Hit a Girl/Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Although the games does let Jimmy hit girls, doing so instantly maxes out your trouble meter.
  • Wrestler in All of Us: Russell Northrop, Juri Karamazov and Luis Luna all use pro wrestling moves when they fight.
  • You All Look Familiar:
    • Averted, at the cost of there being only about sixty students and ten teachers in the entire school, all appearing at multiple locations at the same time.
    • In individual missions, some characters may appear multiple times with others not at all. A mission early in the game, for example, has Troy Miller appear three different times and Davis White appear twice, while Ethan Robinson, Tom Gurney and Wade Martin don't appear at all.
    • If you're savvy, you'll notice that while you wrestle in gym Christy and Angie are there twice. It's not not as diverse as it sounds, since it's very possible for you to ride past a character, and then see that character again after going a few feet. It's also possible, albiet uncommon, for the game to glitch and spawn the same character twice in one location.
  • Your Mom: Gary, you really shouldn't have said that...
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