"School was my favorite place. I had a lot of friends. Life was nice. But not after today. Now, school is my nightmare."
AlRawabi School for Girls (مدرسة الروابي للبنات) is a Jordanian anthology series created by Shirin Kamal and Tima Shomali.
Season 1, which was released in 2021, follows the story of Mariam, a student at an elite all-girls school, and her plan to get revenge on her bullies. Season 2 takes place in the same school, but focuses on Sarah, another student who seeks to become popular, and all the consequences that motive brings, intended or otherwise.
AlRawabi School for Girls contains examples of:
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Tropes for Season 1
- Adults Are Useless: More often than not the series shows that the reason bullying continues to happen is because the adults fail to really do anything to properly address the issue until it's already too late. The principal takes the cake with regards to the trope.
- An Aesop:
- The first season does not shy away from showing why bullying is horrible — not just because of the effects it has on the victims, but also because what said victims can do once they've had enough and when they have nothing left to lose.
- Although it does not excuse the bullies' actions, the series also shows the damaging effects a repressive and patriarchal society can have on women, especially when said society places Honor Before Reason no matter what.
- Animesque: In episode 3, we see Dina's booth for the charity event. She has a sign that says "Dina's cookies" with an anime-fied drawing of her, big eyes and all.
- Possible Actor Allusion - Nadira Emran (Principal Faten Qadi) and Reem Saadeh (Miss Abeer) lent their voices to a lot of Arabic anime dubs made in Jordan.
- Beauty, Brains, and Brawn:
- Between Mariam, Noaf and Dina, Noaf is the "beauty" (being a goth chick who gets hit on by a lot of guys, to her chagrin) Mariam is the "brains" (being skilled in academics, so much that she's nicknamed a "nerd", on top of being a genius manipulator) and Dina is the "brawn" to due being tubby and able to scarf down a lot of food when challenged by her classmates.
- Alternatively, Noaf is the "brains" (being a genius hacker who gets into Ruqayyah's Facebook easily), Mariam is the "brawn" (being hell-bent and ruthless in her revenge on Layan) and Dina is the "beauty" (being a sweet-natured Nice Girl with while always being well-dressed, alongside stylish Odango Hair).
- Chekhov's Gun: A literal case; while Hazem drives Layan to school, the latter notices a gun in the glove compartment, which makes her uneasy. Hazem ends up using said gun in the finale when he shoots Layan in an act of honor killing.
- Dark Reprise: A somber version of the AlRawabi School's anthem plays in the finale and throughout the credits.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Ruqayyah is slut shamed for daring to (gasp) show her hair to a guy. Meanwhile Rania's ex boyfriend sexually harasses women left and right and cheats on her, and even dates some who are underage.
- Downer Ending: With the exception of Mariam herself, everyone else is left with either severe emotional damages, or even worse, as a consequence of tormenting Mariam past the point of no return.
- Foreshadowing: In Episode 6, looking for information about Layan's boyfriend, Laith, Mariam remarks that Layan's time is up. Then she notices something on her screen that, while it's not shown to the audience, has her realize that she got some damning information about Ms. Faten as well. The last scene reveals that Laith is actually Ms. Faten's son.
- Fighting Back Is Wrong: Subverted. While some characters feel bad about what Mariam is doing to the bullies, only Rania tries to play this card to Mariam. It doesn't work, and Mariam viciously tears into her for trying to downplay how much they really impacted Mariam's life for the worst.
- Grey-and-Gray Morality: It's hard not to feel at least some sympathy for both sides of the main conflict.
- On one side, Layan and her clique are vicious and spiteful in the beginning, victimizing anyone around them, and especially the innocent Mariam. However, they are also shown to have horrible lives that explain though doesn't excuse their abhorrent behavior.
- On the other side is Mariam, who is horribly bullied and victimized, to the point of being nearly beaten to death by Layan and her clique, and then make it worse by accusing Mariam of homosexual assault, and then leaking some of Mariam's journal entries about her mental health to the entire school. Mariam eventually decides to get some revenge on them. Her revenge causes Layan to die, Ruqayya to be completely ostracized from society and her own family, and Rania to be wholly traumatized for the rest of her life.
- Hope Spot: Rania promises that she and Layan will never hurt anyone else again if Mariam doesn't go through with her revenge. When it looks like Mariam is taking her words into consideration, in reality, it just makes her more determined to go through with her plan to ensure that Rania will keep her word once she and her friends suffers the consequences of their actions.
- Hypocrite: Mariam accuses Noaf and Dina for being such since they were initially complicit with encouraging Mariam in getting brutal and bloody revenge on her bullies before changing their minds halfway. Not to mention, even though they were supposed to be Mariam's friends, they failed to be there for her when she needed their help the most. Even Noaf acknowledges that Mariam's not wrong in her accusations.
- Incest Subtext: Layan's brother is really touchy about his sister's sexuality and is angry when he hears her on a call with her boyfriend, and when he mistakes her for sleeping with another man, he kills her.
- Irony: When Mariam is beaten to near-death, Layan warns her that "there will be blood" if she crosses her again. There was blood that was spilled alright— Layan's blood, that is, after she crossed Mariam one time too many.
- Karma Houdini: Rania's boyfriend, Ahmed, who not only gets the girls into the club in spite of them being underage, dates her regardless of this and both flirts with Noaf then blames her when Raina catches them, immediately runs away after being confronted by their teacher and is never seen again.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Even when taking into account how far Mariam is willing to go to get revenge, Layan and her friends did make Mariam's life a living hell, what with beating her badly and leaving her to nearly die, accusing her of homosexual assault, and exposing her issues with her mental health to almost the entire school. Once Mariam decides to get even, her entire scheme results in the following:
- A photo of Ruqayya without her hijab is leaked to the internet, resulting in her family treating her like an outcast and banning her from going to any school.
- Rania is caught by the school authorities for sneaking out at night to party during a school trip, causing her to suffer worse abuse from her already abusive father. The only upside for her is that the school lets her off with only a reprimand, and between the three, she gets off lightly.
- Layan, who is mainly responsible for Mariam's ordeal, loses her life in an honor killing when Mariam has Layan's older brother catch her with her boyfriend and assume the worst.
- Last but not least, Mariam's manipulations also end up risking the school getting shut down. Though it was not entirely part of her plan, it ended up being to her benefit, since she also wants payback from the school — particularly the principal — for failing to do anything to help her when she really needed it. Season 2 eventually reveals that while the school remains standing, Ms. Fatem ends up losing her job and is replaced by another principal, though that may only be salt on the severe wound that is the (possible) loss of her son.
- Love Triangle: Ahmed is Rania's boyfriend and likes Noaf, who couldn't loathe him more.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: By encouraging Mariam to not leave school and continue with her revenge, more lives end up getting ruined and lost. Even Noaf acknowledges that she feels responsible for Mariam being so hell-bent on ensuring that Layan and Rania also get their karma.
- Nice Guy: Laith is a genuinely caring and gentle boyfriend to Layan. When they hang out at his bachelor pad, Layan says that she will go inside as long as nothing happens, to which Laith assures her that he won't do anything and he just wants her to feel comfortable.
- One-Gender School: The titular school is an all-girls school.
- Shout-Out: The song Layan sings in S1 E2 is by Mashrou' Leila, a queer Lebanese band.
- Power Trio: Mariam, Dina, and Noaf.
- Uncertain Doom: While Hazem ends up shooting Layan due to placing Honor Before Reason, it's never shown what happens to Laith afterwards. Even when Season 2 confirms to the audience once and for all that Layan is dead, Laith's ultimate fate remains up in the air.
- Wham Shot: One of the final shots of the series is at the principal's desk that has a picture of her and Laith in it.
- You Are Fat: It's not just Dina, but another girl in the school who Layan & Co. bully for being fat, to the point of pitting both girls in an eating competition.
Tropes for Season 2
- An Aesop:
- While bullying still plays a role in the plot, the second season focuses more on the struggles that come from other people's expecations and standards of being "perfect" and "beautiful" all the time, and how it can bring more harm than good not just in the physical, but also in the mental sense.
- The second season also doesn't hold back on showing that status and popularity aren't as glamorous or as problem-free as they seem to be, and how they can make friendships fickle and fragile and drive people to damaging extremes.
- All for Nothing: After Nadeen and Tasneem went through all that trouble to sneak into Shams' room (with the help of Omar) and delete the documentary, Shams is still able to show it to the entire school, including Farah, who after being humiliated in it, kills herself.
- Aloof Older Brother: Omar to Shams. Omar continuously calls his sister "weird" and doesn't even bother to tell people that she's his sister because it would make him look bad.
- The Bus Came Back: Although Season 2 focuses on a different cast of characters, the characters from the first season briefly reunite in Episode 4 in honor of Layan's death. Even Layan herself returns, albeit only as a figment of Rayan's imagination.
- Distant Sequel: Season 2 takes place in the future, when all of the girls from season 1 have left the school.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Everyone's collective reaction in the finale when they realize that Farah had killed herself, with Shams taking the news the hardest as it was her film that pushed Farah over the edge.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Farida, who replaces Ms. Fatem as the school's principal. Unlike her predecessor, she's no-nonsense, isn't guilty of practicing Head-in-the-Sand Management and tries her best to look out for the well-being of her students. In her introduction, she outright says that she'll do her best to make things fair for them.
- Skewed Priorities: When Sarah' nudes are spread online, Miss Farida calls out the school board for being more concerned about the school's reputation, rather than the fact that a young girl was exploited.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Hakem shoots his sister in Season 1. In the final episode of Season 2 we see him return for a brief cameo where he is being sentenced for her murder.
- Sudden Downer Ending: Season 2 ends on this note. Shams' documentary is broadcasted to the entire faculty and student body, which not only details Sarah's ordeal in full, but also exposes the turmoil of some of the other characters, such as Tasneem's bulimia or her falling out with Hiba. While the documentary is forcefully cut off halfway, Sarah does get to explain her story to the end and successfully convey her message that popularity and social media isn't everything and that no one's truly perfect, which moves everyone in the audience to an applause. This gives the impression that things will end on a good note for the cast... but then, Farah is revealed to have committed suicide in a fit of despair, with one of the final shots of the episode lingering on the rest of the students' looks of horror, shock and grief.
