The cruelty of children as depicted in Video Games.
- Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth has the main protagonist invoke the trope verbally after being kicked by Kay Faraday from behind.Edgeworth: Kids... can sometimes be so cruel...
- Batman: Arkham Origins: Batman brings it up regarding Killer Croc's origins.Batman: Imagine growing up looking like he did. Children are cruel, Alfred.
- Bully:
- Yeah, let's all go pick on the shaven-headed Sociopathic Hero who's already proven capable of beating down the Hulk in a school uniform. And after he kicks our asses, LET'S DO IT AGAIN!
- Jimmy can choose to indulge in acts of cruelty as well. Taken to extremes when Jimmy chooses to torment adults, though the peril of bullying adults is significantly greater than picking on a nerd.
- In The Dead Case, there is a group of children who torment a little girl repeatedly. The first time the protagonist comes across them, he must scare them away. Later, the school ghost scares them away and protects the girl.
- The Doll Shop: The childhood friend relates to an incident in town where a schoolgirl was held prisoner and then killed by her own classmates.
- Played with in many ways in Double Homework:
- Exaggerated: Tamara’s caustic behavior that is, in many cases, calculated to do the most possible harm just because. She isn’t even popular.
- Downplayed: The protagonist’s dismissive attitude toward his classmates and crass behavior toward Rachel before the Barbarossa incident. He wasn’t trying to be mean; he just had his abilities and successes go to his head.
- Justified: Some of the protagonist’s new classmates picking on him once he switches summer programs, now that their places on the social ladder are switched.
- Subverted: Morgan, who has done hard time, doesn’t really go out of her way to antagonize anyone who isn’t Lauren, and is one of the least judgmental characters in the story.
- Double Subverted: Lauren is caustic towards Morgan, but she’s desperate to be accepted by people, especially the protagonist. She’s so desperate for attention, in fact, that she tips off reporters about her first date with him, hoping to glom onto his fame. Plus, she used to be a member of Morgan’s gang.
- Averted: Johanna, Henry, and Amy are all very nice people.
- Deconstructed: Rachel, knowing what the protagonist is going through, doesn’t hesitate to kick him while he’s down when they start summer school together owing to how he treated her before. He manages to change her mind about him by showing her how he has learned and grown from his failures.
- Invoked: Drives a good part of the protagonist’s actions (and lack thereof) after the Barbarossa incident. He doesn’t want to lose face in front of his classmates by admitting his weaknesses and failings, and he wants to protect Johanna and Tamara from Dennis’s machinations.
- Defied: Marco goes out of his way to defend the protagonist from bullies, saying that even jocks shouldn’t have to endure bullying.
- Logical Extreme: Dennis is a sadistic, narcissistic pervert who isn’t above illegal spying, frame-ups, blackmail, stealing government secrets, or all-out rape to get what he wants.
- In the Dying Light expansion, The Following, one sidequest has you responded to a distress call from some kids in a warehouse, making a reference to a "big guy", which Kyle assumes is referring to him. Suddenly, you're attacked by a Demolisher. On defeating it, the kids freak out and run away for some reason. After climbing to the floor they were at, you find dozens upon dozens of abandoned backpacks and shoes. Turns out these kids were intentionally luring people in to get killed by the Demolisher (the "big guy") so they could steal their stuff.
- Porky from EarthBound (1994) is a rotten kid who antagonizes you through the game, eventually allying himself with Giygas. By the time of Mother 3, he's the main antagonist and actively trying to bring about the apocalypse.
- In Fair one of the exhibits at the Hillview Elementary School Science Fair is a video of the entrant demonstrating how much pain he can cause the brother who wasn't fast enough to run away.
- Final Fantasy Tactics Advance:
- Mewt Randell, a boy who is picked on by bullies, becomes overlord of his own fantasy world very early on.
- Ritz also gets some bullying for her white hair. She's more confident than Mewt, but the events after Mission 14 indicate that she's taking it harder than she lets on.
- Five Nights at Freddy's:
- Mangle (or presumably, Toy Foxy) from Five Nights at Freddy's 2 was an animatronic specifically made to be more kid-friendly and cheerful than the original version, and to entertain them. They immediately brutally tore it apart, so many times that the staff eventually gave up trying to fix it and left it as a heap of, well, mangled parts.
- Five Nights at Freddy's 4 also uses this trope in a much more depressing way: The protagonist gets shoved into an animatronic's mouth by older children (one of which is his own brother), and as a result his head gets chomped. (This could be the infamous Bite of '87. We aren't really sure.) That being said, the brother does, at least, regret his actions.
- Grand Theft Auto: Vice City has Lance Vance, who got picked on in school due to his Unfortunate Name.Tommy Vercetti: Vance? Your name's Lance Vance?
Lance Vance: Hey, I got enough of that at school.
Tommy Vercetti: Lance Vance. Poor bastard. - Inazuma Eleven:
- Villains in series tend to be on an extreme end when it comes to fantasy violence. Sure, it's limited to soccer, but they are still egotistic children who enjoy invoking total humiliation, destroying property, and playing unfair — with little to no remorse until their destined Heel–Face Turn.
- Inazuma Eleven 3: Sekai e no Chousen: Bomber starts by showing The Rival Rococo being bullied by bigger, stronger kids in his childhood.
- In Katawa Shoujo, Hanako, whose body was severely scarred in a house fire that killed both her parents, was bullied by her classmates for her appearance when she returned to school, including several of her former friends.
- Kindergarten:
- Cindy is basically a kindergarten-aged Alpha Bitch. In her route, she asks the protagonist to put gum in Lily's hair, and later asks him to pour a bucket of blood on her. She also calls rape on him if he dare insult her at the start of the day.
- Buggs is a Barbaric Bully who robs the protagonist of his money if he has more than three dollars, and regularly throws slop at Nugget. He also beats you to death if you piss him off enough.
- The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask:
- The Skull Kid. The carnage that he invokes is fundamentally caused by his innocent inability to understand adult relationships and responsibilities, and a childlike egocentricity that makes him regard inattention toward himself as a deliberate insult. Thanks to Sanity Slippage from the Mask, he decides the appropriate response is to curse everyone he meets and set up the destruction of the world.
- The Bombers can occasionally fit this as well. While their job is helping out others in town, Jim is plenty rude if Link talks to him while he's playing games. The other kids all refuse to let Deku Link officially join their club because he's not human. Granted, this mindset is implied to have sprung from their last non-human member (Skull Kid) causing trouble instead of helping others, thus making them reluctant to take another chance, but still.
- One cutscene in Line Rider 2: Unbound has Chaz (who's roughly around the same age as Kid Hero Bosh) attempt murder via arranging for Bailey to be run over by a train.
- Little Nightmares II has the Bullies, child enemies who pull malicious "pranks" on everyone, including their own. They forcibly separate you from Six by kidnapping her and are later seen suspending her over the bathroom floor with a rope. Their description on the official website cements that they lack a Freudian Excuse and are just doing what they do For the Evulz.Proof that all children don't get to be innocent, The Bullies aren't tragic figures, no cruel parents to blame, and don't secretly crave your friendship. They are bullies, and they will get you if you don't get them first.
- Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance: Sundowner is a firm believer in this, boasting that kids are malleable and can be easily manipulated into becoming malevolent Child Soldiers, and later boasts about how he's very in-touch with his inner child. Raiden does not approve.Sundowner: Like I said, kids are cruel, Jack. And I'm very in touch with my inner child.
- My Child Lebensborn: The first people to bully the child are their classmates, who, on their own, eventually go as far as tying the child to a tree and leaving them there. In fact, the Player Character doesn't realize that the adults are just as bad until the aftermath of an incident during which the child's backpack (an optional purchase) or schoolbooks are badly damaged.
- Pretty much the entire school goes feral in Our Darker Purpose when all the teachers disappear. Most notable are Regan and Goneril, who arrange an outright massacre of weak, quiet students.
- The Outfoxies: 11-year old ex-Conjoined Twins Danny and Demi have no problems killing five people and a monkey for cold hard cash. In their defence, those same five people and the monkey are trying to kill them as well.
- Overlord II opens with the son of the previous Overlord as a child being pelted with snowballs by some kids in his village. This is of course a case of Bullying a Dragon when the "Witch-Boy" returns to fulfill his duties as an Evil Overlord.
- Pokémon:
- While not cruel per se, Blue, the rival of Pokémon Red and Blue, is said to have suddenly started bullying Red one day for no discernible reason, despite them being the best of friends previously, presumably because it amused him. However, he gets better as well, albeit it takes until Gold and Silver for him to do so.
- Silver, The Rival from Pokémon Gold and Silver and the remakes, thanks to a Freudian Excuse revealed in the latter; 11/12 years old and one of the only Non Player Characters to ever hit you, and exceptionally arrogant, he once actually threatens to physically hurt you and constantly berates you. He gets better.
- In Puyo Puyo Tetris, it's implied that Jay and Elle are the youngest members of the S.S. Tetra's crew. They're also Trickster Twins who love to pull pranks on others, with their target often being the Tetra's engineer Ai.
- The Red Crayon Aristocrats from Rule of Rose. To clarify: The game stars a group of unbelievably monstrous girls (the aforementioned "Red Crayon Aristocrats") who torment the main character, forcing her to do their bidding and then rebuke her efforts every time. Then, the one girl who was nice to you turns out to be the one behind it all along. Do note, however, that from the perspective this is all told from, some of the girls' attitudes and behaviors may be a result of Unreliable Narrator.
- Once upon a time, before The Suffering began, three Puritan children decided to start a Witch Hunt just for fun. Eleven people were burned at the stake, and three little girls were remade as immortal monsters by the land itself.
- Since the main protagonist is a child in Undertale, you can invoke the trope by having said child slaughter every single monster, with some of them being actively afraid of you when you show up after you amassed a high body count. The trope also applies to the first Fallen Child, who wanted to kill everyone in their village by committing suicide, so that their soul could merge with their best friend's soul, creating an immensely powerful being the Fallen Child could use to slaughter all the humans.
