Basic Trope: Idiots pick on somebody they know could seriously hurt them if they so chose.
- Straight: Lisa and her Girl Posse pick on Marcy, a Cute Witch who could blast the lot of them with a well-placed fireball if she ever snapped, because she is a witch.
- Exaggerated:
- Marcy can blow up entire cities with a thought. Lisa and her gang tease her relentlessly with lines like "Hiroshima girl" and "Tsar Bimbo".
- Lisa kept on trying to provoke Marcy but always ended up in making herself look weak and pathetic. Marcy can take her off with almost no effort but she was so unimpressed by them that she doesn't bother finding reasons to do so.
- When Lisa is expected to keep the all mighty Marcy alone, since she can destroy the whole universe in one attack, she instead makes fun of her without holding back. The end result was the death of the universe.
- Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?
- Do Not Taunt Cthulhu
- Downplayed:
- Lisa has heard rumors that Marcy is a witch, but she scoffs at them and continues bullying her.
- Lisa doesn't bully her in person but does so online.
- Justified:
- Humans Are the Real Monsters, Bastards, And Morons, Youth Is Wasted on the Dumb, etc.
- If Marcy retaliates, she'll get in more trouble than Lisa will; Lisa knows this, and expects others to intervene before she and her friends get seriously hurt by the horrible rampaging loser.
- Lisa hates Marcy because Marcy's powers gave Lisa misfortune in the past.
- Marcy has a Restraining Bolt placed on her, and Lisa takes this as an opportunity to tease her without being scalded.
- Lisa is jealous of Marcy and her power, and barely even cares if Marcy kills her as long as it takes that stuck-up witch down a peg in the process.
- Lisa is secretly a Death Seeker who is trying to goad Marcy into killing her.
- Lisa has too much Pride, she thinks bullying someone with ridiculous powers and standing on the edge of being annihilated would make her look like a badass in the eyes of her peers, when in fact that is not the case.
- Marcy has that creepy aura around her.
- Lisa has numbers on her side to make her feel safe, under the assumption that they could just Zerg Rush Marcy if necessary.
- Lisa thinks Marcy is threatening one of her friends and doesn't care whether she could get hurt if it means she can protect them.
- Lisa heard that Marcy is a very weak mage, and fails to realize that "weak mage" means can blow up a city instead of a planet.
- Lisa thinks that Marcy, for all of her powers, is only human and so if she strikes hard and fast enough she'll be able to remove her as a threat.
- Inverted:
- Marcy uses her powers to terrorize everyone and keep them afraid of her.
- Marcy is a super-powered bully, and Lisa the only one who dares stand up to her.
- Lisa and her Girl Posse suck up to Marcy because her powers could come in handy in the future.
- Lisa picks on someone she knows is too vulnerable and powerless to fight back.
- Lisa sucks up to a person way less powerful than she is.
- Subverted:
- Lisa, after having the power discrepancy pointed out, decides not to tease or antagonize Marcy anymore.
- Lisa and her crew pick on Marcy despite her witchery being common knowledge, but later we find out Marcy is joining their sorority and hazing is par for the course for everyone. Marcy knows she is not getting any special treatment.
- Lisa has heard the rumors, but believes that Marcy is either delusional or faking it. When confronted with a display of actual power from Marcy, Lisa backs down rather meekly.
- At first it seems Marcy can easily kill the bully, but later it reveals that Lisa is just as powerful a witch as Marcy, if not more, so she has no reason to be afraid.
- Lisa kept on trying to provoke Mary but always ended up in making herself look weak and pathetic. Marcy can take her off with almost no effort but she was so unimpressed by them that she doesn't bother finding reasons to do so.
- Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?
- They're good enough friends that everyone knows the teasing isn't serious.
- Marcy is unable to summon her powers without causing widespread destruction. Because of this her powers are the very reason she can't fight back against Lisa.
- Marcy can use her powers as Destructo-Woman to vaporize Lisa and the surrounding 500 miles of countryside in one fell swoop… if she transforms. If Lisa is (literally) quicker on the draw, Marcy is screwed.
- Double Subverted:
- ...At least, not to her face. But playing pranks on her are fair game.
- Lisa and her crew use this opportunity to really hurt Marcy because she's a witch, under the guise of common hazing.
- Lisa secretly plays pranks on Marcy and blames it on someone else.
- Until Lisa has her powers taken away as punishment, yet still continues to torment Marcy.
- For a given definition of “friends.”
- Lisa then proceeds to bully a similar witch with far less scruples, who doesn't care who they hurt to get back at Lisa.
- That is why she has begun to walk around transformed as Destructo-Woman 15-8/7 (with the eight hours she needs to sleep barricaded in her fortress-like home surrounded by minions who can hold off any potential attackers long enough for her to wake up and deal with them). Lisa's a high school bully without the resources of a Chairperson of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, so any plans to bully Marcy that are not "strike from anonymity" are going to lead to a bloodbath.
- Parodied:
- Marcy is an actual full-sized dragon. Lisa insists on throwing rocks at her anyway.
- Every time Marcy and Lisa are in the same room, everyone else runs for cover.
- Zig Zagged:
- Lisa refuses to openly harass Marcy, but she and her Girl Posse secretly play nasty practical jokes on Marcy. Marcy figures this out and confronts them; Lisa immediately backs off, shocking her friends by apologizing. Then they start picking on Iris, Marcy's much-less powerful friend. and when Marcy finds out, she is through the roof with rage.
- Lisa and crew pick on Marcy despite knowing she's a powerful witch, but they're just hazing Marcy like their sorority normally does to their new entrants. Then they drug her, take embarrassing pictures of her, blackmail her, then release the pics to the Internet anyways to "put that prissy witch in her place". Marcy snaps only for Lisa and crew to reveal they had superpowers all along and can shrug off anything Marcy could throw at them. But all this was a scheme to get back at Marcy's boyfriend for dumping Lisa, even though they know he is a Bully Hunter with Psychic Powers they are not immune to.
- Averted:
- Only people who have a chance of surviving Marcy's retribution pick on her.
- The story dispenses with bullies altogether.
- The story takes place in a mundane setting, let’s just say high school. In short, Lisa picks on a completely normal person.
- A stranger attacks Marcy, because he didn't know she's a witch. People who know are either friendly or at least leave her alone.
- Enforced:
- "We need some way to make people feel sorry for Marcy, even though she's got those great powers... Let's bring in these bullies to pick on her!"
- Strawman Bullies.
- "We need people to believe that having super powers are not all that it’s cracked up to be."
- "You know what would add more depth to our story? An allegory for discrimination!"
- Lampshaded:
- "Lisa, you know she could barbecue us any time she wants, right?"
- "Why are bullies such suicidal idiots?"
- Invoked: Lance, Lisa's crush, double dog dares Lisa to pick on Marcy.
- Exploited: Lisa picks on Marcy, knowing that she will end up getting hurt, and will subsequently sue her for a large sum of money.
- Defied:
- "Are you insane? We're not picking on anyone we can't beat up if they decide to fight back. We're bullies, not idiots."
- The first time Lisa starts mocking Marcy, she gaves a splendid beatdown to the bully and tells her that, if she dares to speak with her in that tone again, she will kill her.
- Discussed: "There go Lisa and her gang again, picking on Marcy. Are you sure they know she's a witch?"
- Conversed: "The bullies on this show are dumb as hell; they've already seen Marcy wipe out the gymnasium."
- Deconstructed:
- Lisa is full of self-loathing, but cannot bring herself to commit suicide, so she's provoking Marcy in an attempt to get Marcy to kill her.
- She really is that stupid and bitchy and there are other situations where she shows off her complete lack of survival instinct to indulge her pettiness (like walking into traffic to yell at someone she thought snubbed her).
- Marcy just kills Lisa off when she goes too far. Then the local witch hunters show up out for Marcy's blood, viewing her as nothing more than another murderer they need to bring to justice.
- Marcy gets fed up of Lisa's bullying and gives her a vicious beatdown, but she goes too far in her beatings, and as soon as she realizes how viciously Lisa is beaten, Marcy couldn't believe the damage she had done.
- Reconstructed:
- Marcy breaks and tries to kill Lisa, but manages to control herself and redirects the fireball into a nearby tree. Afterwards, Lisa and Marcy reconcile and become friends. Marcy soon discovers that she can't produce another fireball that big without duplicating the situation, resulting in Lisa becoming her sidekick in order to intentionally tease her into full power when the need arises.
- As enraged as she is, Marcy ends up holding back at the last second. Instead of outright hospitalizing her, she instead uses her magic to bind Lisa and shove her into a nearby locker. Only Lisa's closest friends and immediate family bother to call Marcy out on this and try to tattle on her, only for the latter and everyone else to spell it out to them that no; as bad as her distress and possible injuries were, Lisa was still the one in the wrong for knowingly trying to harass and bully someone who could have easily done much worse with little effort, and gets no sympathy.
- Marcy is well aware that while she could kill Lisa any time she wanted to, that doesn't make it right. So she decides to look for a more reasonable solution to the problem (for instance, mentoring Lisa to become smarter). Until she finds one, however, she'll have to put up with Lisa's teasing.
- Marcy easily slaughters the witch hunters and moves on with her life.
- Marcy apologizes for what she did and helps Lisa recover. After this is said and done, Lisa continues to pick on her anyway.
- Lisa is actually scared shitless of Marcy, and picks on her specifically to break her spirit and project the illusion of strength in the hopes she'll be too browbeaten to oppose her. Without this bluff she's nothing to Marcy and she knows it. Of course, she's unable to realise that her desperate aggression may be what gets Marcy to snap.
- Played For Laughs: A recurring extra ends up getting Amusing Injuries when trying to beat up Marcy for being a witch. This turns into a Running Gag.
- Played For Drama: Marcy is this close to snapping and misusing her powers, and Lisa and her flunkies just keep dancing on her last nerve.
- Played For Horror: When Marcy finally snaps it's a massacre of proportions so epic that Stephen King would lament that Carrie became so famous. Then Lisa, the Final Girl, insults Marcy one more time. Earth-Shattering Kaboom.
- Implied: Marcy on many occasions is implied to be a devious chessmaster underneath her innocent façade. It's why she is likely candidate for Lisa's life being slowly but surely dismantled piece by piece.
Go back to Bullying a Dragon? Even though you know it hates your relentless clicking?
