Follow TV Tropes

Following

Video Game / Bully

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bully_scholarship_edition.jpg
Canis Canem Edit. note 

"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 2006 video game by Rockstar Games for the PlayStation 2, combining the Wide-Open Sandbox gameplay of the Grand Theft Auto franchise with the fantasy of besting The Bully who made your own school years a living hell. In 2008, an Updated Re-release, Bully: Scholarship Edition, was released for the Xbox 360, PC and Wii. This version features a few exclusive missions, extra classes, new outfits and some minor improvements to the graphics.

Our protagonist, James "Jimmy" Hopkins, is a 15-year-old boy with a checkered past who has major issues with authority. He's just been dropped off at Bullworth Academy, a so-called "prestigious" school in New England, while his serial divorcée of a mother and fourth stepfather depart for their honeymoon cruise. Far from being a respected seat of learning, it is in reality the worst school in the entire country. Having been repeatedly expelled from past schools for various counts of vandalism, violence and insubordination, Bullworth is the last stop for Jimmy before he is landed on juvenile detention. Naturally, trouble finds him the moment he steps on campus, in the shape of delinquents always on the lookout for new kids to dunk into the toilet.

Only two kids at Bullworth are willing to befriend the freshman: well-meaning effeminate pariah Petey Kowalski, and smart-talking sociopath Gary Smith. Jimmy soon discovers that Bullworth is in a state of constant turmoil due to the feuding of five cliques: the Bullies, the Nerds, the Preppies, the Greasers and the Jocks. The headmaster, Dr. Crabblesnitch, always turns a blind eye towards the bullying that goes on, calling it "school spirit". Jimmy has no choice but to pacify the situation, one clique at a time, and keep his chances for a non-orange jumpsuited life afloat.

When the game was first announced, Moral Guardian Jack Thompson took issue with this game.note  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, authorities, and young children as the worst crimes you can commit.

Among fans of the Wide-Open Sandbox genre, Bully is fondly remembered for a few unique gameplay twists that set it apart from its big brother Grand Theft Auto. While the quaint New England town of Bullworth is nowhere near as big as Liberty City or Los Santos, the developers manage to inject a great deal of personality and interactivity into the school and surrounding areas. Notably, there isn't a single randomly generated Non-Player Character in the whole game, and every character that Jimmy encounters—whether they're a friend, an enemy, or an unassuming pedestrian—has a name and a distinct personality.

Their personalities come with a wide range of interactions: whenever you encounter a character, you can give them a friendly greeting, insult and harass them (and apologize for it), flirt with them, play pranks on them, or challenge them to a fight. While roaming the school and the nearby town, you'll regularly run into the same characters who figure prominently in the story missions, and their behavior will often change to reflect plot points in the story. Even when you're brawling with enemies or running from the authorities, none of your foes are anonymous Mooks: every one of them has a name and a distinct role in the story, making every punch feel distinctly personal. Notably, the "greeting", "insult", and "apology" mechanics eventually made a comeback in Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption 2 over a decade after this game's release, although they were renamed "Greet", "Antagonize", and "Defuse".

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. Rockstar purportedly registered a Bully-related trademark in July 2013. In August 2017, there was a supposed leak of several character designs and environments.


Bully contains the following tropes.

    open/close all folders 

    #-C 

  • 100% Completion: There are a bunch of things the player has to do in order to accomplish this. Some are these are obvious, while others require a guide.
  • 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 Academy are big enough to hold an entire fighting pit, complete with chain link walls and an announcer's booth.
  • Aborted Arc: Nothing ever really comes out of Earnest running for class president against Ted. It's just the backdrop for a mission's excuse to grant you a cooler weapon.
  • Academy of Adventure: Overlapping with City of Adventure, with the four districts of the city of Bullworth (Old Bullworth Vale, Bullworth Town, New Coventry and Blue Skies Industrial Park) and an insane asylum unlocked as you progress.
  • Acceptable Breaks from Reality: The little kids in the game do not spawn in the boys' dorm. Despite that making no sense from a narrative standpoint, it makes sense when you consider that prefects never enter the boys' dorm, meaning you would be able to freely abuse and bully the little boys without consequences.
  • Actor Allusion: One of the townswomen says, "I hear Mr. Grant was once the star of the Scottish Stage." Mr. Grant/The Hobo was voiced by Angus Hepburn, who is Scottish and is primarily a stage actor.
  • Adults Are Useless: 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 does step in when he knows what is going on.
  • All Girls Want Bad Boys:
    • Jimmy gets the affection of every girl in school over the course of the game, despite not being what you'd call a looker.
    • Most of the girls think Johnny Vincent is hot.
  • 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, 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". This is subverted in that it's hinted she's actually a somehow decent person whose attitude stems both from peer pressure and insecurity, and she eventually mellows after the Nerds put indecent pictures of her around the school.
  • Ambiguously Brown: Edgar is this.
  • Ambiguously Gay: Pete is accused of homoerotic leanings, such as when Gary asks him if he's watching the swim team for the girls or boys (and the only answer he can muster is a lame "shut up"), and when he makes a really awkward joke about Jimmy becoming a male stripper.
  • Anachronism Stew: The Bullworth region appears to be caught in a time warp. The game is ostensibly set in the present (there is reference to the school banning MP3 players, Mr. Galloway mentions the Internet during his questline, Jimmy receives a digital camera during the Photography class, and the map of Europe in Geography class added in Scholarship Edition features a modern-day political layout), but the cars, computers,note  nobody has a mobile phone (which, even if set in The '80s, would definitely have been thrown in as a status symbol for the Preppies), and the Preppies look like they came out of The '80s, while the Greasers are a throwback to The '50s. One of the arcade machines has the release date for its game as 1995. There's also no mention of social media, which would seem odd for a game set in the mid-2000s. Reportedly, this was done because Rockstar 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 will yell at you for breaking the dress code, but do nothing else.
    • The Black Ninja Outfit (which you get for completing the School Yearbook) and Green Ninja Outfit (1,000 successful hits with projectiles) both give you bonuses (Black makes you invisible to authorities to an extent, and Green increases damage, range, and hit ratio for projectiles).
    • In Scholarship Edition, the only reward you get for passing three of the four new classes are clothing. And those clothes are worse than useless, since if Jimmy wears them, people laugh at him instead of interacting normally, and he can't get kisses and ergo can't get the health bonus kissing rewards.
  • Animal Motif:
    • The nerd clique has an association with rats; Algie and Buckynote  have pet rats called "Sniffy" and "George", the gang has a collective fear of rats as shown by the mission Rats in the Library, the group is willing to run away from a fight, use underhanded tactics, are regarded as "Sneaky bastards" by Gary, and the Nerds use homemade firearms that are made from various scraps around the school. They also made an alternate route to the abandoned observatory to avoid jocks, like how rats would avoid predators by taking alternate routes and staying out of sight. The Bullworth Academy crest also has a rat as part of the design, likely representing the nerds.
    • The jock clique has an association with Bulls. This is justified because as the school's sports team, they are required to wear Bullworth's bull emblem as part of their uniform. They also have a bull mascot and the group is known for being quick-tempered as they attack anyone on sight who isn't a jock or has low popularity. The clique is also fixated on manliness and behaves in a hypermasculine way, they believe that violence, wrestling, and football are ways of proving their manhood, likely referencing how bulls are symbols of virility and masculinity. There is also a bull on the Bullworth Academy crest, which most likely represents them.
  • 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.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
    • According to Jimmy, the Bullworth Academy alumni consist of arms dealers, serial killers, and corporate lawyers.
    • Compared to all of the other things Gary frames Jimmy for in Chapter 5 (namely setting the gym on fire, stealing the Preppies' boxing trophies, and making Johnny go missing), setting rats loose in the library is pretty minor. Doesn't stop the Nerds from being just as pissed as the other cliques though.
  • Art Shift: The game went through a drastic one through development - Originally, the characters had a more cartoon-like style, with many of the characters being even more stereotypical in appearance than their final counterparts - Peanut looked like an Elvis impostor, Russell was more of a Barbaric Bully but lacked his lack of intelligence, the nurse looked barely human, and Earnest was more of a stereotypical nerd than his final design. Hell, even the Prefects looked more barbaric (they carried batons - it was changed to paddles before being cut altogether) than their final counterparts. Eventually, the game switched to the more realistic style the game kept, before ditching most of the cartoon-like design elements. The pause menu screen illustrations are based on the aforementioned early version of the game's character designs.
  • 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.note 
  • 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 this. 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 4000. No matter how many times you blew people up during the previous days, people will still gather around it and act surprised until it explodes in their faces.
  • As the Good Book Says...: In Nice Outfit, Earnest quotes Matthew 22:14 as an invocation to Jimmy to help him stand up to the Jocks.
  • Asskicking Leads to Leadership:
    • Once you beat up a faction leader, you are treated as The Dragon for the faction before moving on to the next one. Once you defeat every faction, you are treated as king of the school until Gary puts the final pieces of his plan into place.
    • 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. Dr. Crabblesnitch, in his one non-cutscene appearance, has four times the stamina of any other character.
  • Background Boss: The Earnest boss fight has him fighting Jimmy while in the background.
  • Badass Normal:
    • Jimmy may only be fifteen (and quite a bit short for a kid of his age), but any teenager who can whoop that much ass singlehandedly is definitely a kid to stay away from. 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 is the single toughest random fight in the game, and is capable of beating up a pro boxer like Bif. He's also your first boss fight. Post-Heel–Face Turn, we see him do such things as hold a shopkeeper in Old Bullworth Vale off the ground by the neck with one arm, ride a stolen police motorcycle, something not even Jimmy can do, and chase off two prefects. His simple-mindedness also makes him the only person largely immune to Gary's manipulations.
  • Barbaric Bully: Subverted. As the title of the game would suggest, a big portion of the named characters could be considered "bullies" in some way or another, but the only clique in the game that's explicitly called "the Bullies" is composed exclusively of dimwitted thugs who'll fight anyone they run across for the hell of it. Then again, the leader of the Bullies (Russell, a hulking giant who's barely capable of forming a coherent sentence) is a textbook example of this.
  • Bare Midriffs Are Feminine: Lola is an Alpha Bitch and the only female Greaser, who wears midriff-baring outfits, even to school, except during the winter. Zoe is more of a Tank-Top Tomboy, but her top also bares her midriff. There is an unused model for Pinky (the token female Preppie) in the game's data files that has this as well.
  • Bathroom Brawl: You are able to get into fights in the bathrooms of Bullworth Academy. One particular mission involves protecting Algie from bullies that come into the restroom to beat him up.
  • Battle in the Rain: The first occurs on the football field, during a nighttime brawl with the Jocks. The second happens on Bullworth Academy's steeple during the chase with Gary.
  • Beautiful All Along: Averted with Beatrice, who holds this in disdain.
  • BFG: The Spud Gun. Probably the closest you're going to get in a T rated game about going to school.
  • Big Bad: Gary, the manipulative sociopath who pulls every string he can to take over the school.
  • The Big Damn Kiss: Zoe and Jimmy finally kiss at the very end of the game.
  • Black-and-White Morality: Play the game a few times and be surprised at how morally ambiguous it isn't. While Jimmy is well aware that he's not the nicest kid around, he's a saint compared to a lot of the people he fights.
  • Black Comedy Rape: Jimmy helps the (extraordinarily ugly) cafeteria lady Edna slip sedatives to Dr. Watts; 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...
  • Bland-Name Product:
    • "Aquaberry" brand clothing is a portmanteau of real life British clothing brands Aquascutum and Burberry.
    • Grottos & Gremlins.
  • Blocking Stops All Damage: Whether it be Jimmy or any of the other students, when their guard is up, many physical attacks can't get through unless they're specifically block-breakers i.e. heavy attacks. Punches, kicks, headbutts, wide swings and more coming from different directions are easily stopped with a simple guard. Some attacks avert this, however.
  • Bloodless Carnage: Jimmy and Gary manage to fall through a glass skylight and end up without a scratch on them.
  • Boarding School of Horrors: Bullworth Academy, hands down. Good luck trying to survive a year, let alone three, without physical and/or psychological damage.
  • 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:
    • Final Boss: Against Gary. While on foot he's no tougher than standard mooks (considering the fact that he's not as experienced in brawls as Jimmy), chasing him across the steeple of Bullworth Academy requires you dodging bricks he throws at you while negotiating the steel bars and the rocks hurled from wheelbarrows while climbing ladders if you want your health up for the final showdown. He also counts as a Fisticuffs Boss; the prefects confiscate all your weapons before the battle, leaving you to face off against Gary with your bare hands.
    • Background Boss: Against Earnest, leader of the Nerds, who fights in the background.
    • Bullfight Boss: Against Russell and the mascot, the latter being literal.
    • Flunky Boss: Against Derby. 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: Against Davis, who starts off with a lengthy chase before Jimmy traps 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 Vincent and Edgar have chase sections as well.
    • High-Speed Battle: Against Johnny Vincent, 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 his boys) and fling slingshots at him.
    • Tennis Boss: Against Ted, who can only be beaten by throwing his explosive-laced footballs back at him to take out his bodyguards and then tackling him.
  • Boss-Altering Consequence: During the boss battle with Johnny Vincent, the leader of the Greasers, he fights you while riding his bike. If you knock out all the Greasers in Pete's way, he'll use the crane's electromagnet to pull Johnny's bike out from under him, forcing him to fight you on foot.
  • Boss Dissonance:
    • Easy Levels, Hard Bosses: Taking on the mooks of the various cliques isn't difficult, but their boss fights are always challenging and include a special gimmick of some sort.
    • Hard Levels, Easy Bosses: Gary, on the other hand, is fought after a Marathon Level in the middle of a war zone, with Jimmy having to bring down the majority of the school's population before getting to him, but his lack of fighting experience puts him far from being the hardest boss in the game.
  • Boss in Mook Clothing: Bif and Damon are the toughest, strongest members of the 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. This is 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.
  • Bowdlerise:
    • There were a few cutscenes viewable in the game trailers that didn't make it to the final version, 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.
    • At one point, the older girls were modeled to wear sexy underwear in the dorm. It's more surprising that this idea made it far enough for the characters to be designed than that it was removed from the game.
    • A rather minor bowdlerization was introduced between the original Bully and all other editions. During boxing matches, the amount of visible damage on opponent's faces was reduced from extensive bruises to mild redness.
  • Brats with Slingshots: Official artwork and screenshots seem to play up the slingshot as Jimmy's signature weapon, though other students use their own slingshots throughout the story and in free roam.
  • Break Them by Talking: Gary tries to deliver this lecture to Jimmy during the final mission. Because Gary's "master plan" has already fallen apart, Jimmy isn't very impressed.
  • The Bully: Aside from the actual clique referred to as the "bullies", you also have the preppies, greasers, jocks, and townies. Even the Nerds pick on non-clique kids who happen to wander by the library. Actually, almost everyone in the entire game is a bully in some respect, including a few of the teachers (Mr. Burton and Mr. Hattrick spring to mind), the exceedingly rude townsfolk, the prefects, Gary (to an exceptional extent), and sometimes even Jimmy himself.
  • Bully Turned Buddy: Jimmy's plan is to invoke this by subjugating the leaders of the school's gangs to defeat Gary by beating them up and declaring them his friend. For some reason, this works.
  • Bullying a Dragon: Some students sometimes try to fight back when being caught by a prefect or a teacher, with predictable consequences.
  • 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.
  • Burning Bag of Poop: The game features an optional (and missable) Halloween mission in which Gary and Jimmy put a bag of poop just outside the teacher's lounge. The fire alarm is pulled just after it's lit on fire, causing Mr. Burton to charge out of the lounge and fall victim.
  • Butt-Monkey:
    • The Nerds are, in their own words, "laughed at and mercilessly bullied by just about everyone."
    • Pete 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, doesn't treat him with much respect. In addition, the Nerds won't accept him into their fold because they feel he is too dorky for comfort.
    • Constantinos. He's constantly complaining about how poorly he's treated on a daily basis. There's also a minigame where you have to beat him mercilessly with a soccer ball, and a mission where you have to annoy him, beat him up, and steal his mascot costume:
      Constantinos: "As usual, the world takes an enormous crap on my head!"
  • But Not Too Gay: The game goes out of its way to establish all the boys who Jimmy can kiss are bisexual. Cornelius pines for Mandy, Gord dates Lola, Trent and Duncan are both girl-crazy, Kirby at least likes women's feet, and can sometimes be seen holding hands with Mandy. Vance is sometimes thought to be fully gay, but he can occasionally be seen making out with girls and has a couple hard to catch lines of dialogue about hanging out with them. Interestingly, the deleted character Bob was Manly Gay and openly disliked girls.
  • Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Jimmy vandalizing Town Hall leads to getting expelled.
  • 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.
    • The character whose name the game designers couldn't keep straight, Clint aka Henry. The name "Clint" is never used in Bully. In Scholarship Edition, he's mainly called Clint, but they missed a few instances of Henry. He was credited in both games as "Clint (aka Henry)."
    • You can find a very brief instance when you enter the Nerd hideout in the Dragon's Wing basement. If you zoom in on the books next to the Grottos & Gremlins set using your camera, you'll notice that they're actually titled "Goblins and Gremlins".
  • Car Fu: Cops are absolutely relentless in chasing Jimmy in their jeeps and motorbikes, even plowing into his bike from behind. This launches Jimmy to the ground if the car/bike connects.
  • Cast of Snowflakes: Every character in the game is unique. One of the side missions revolves around finding all 60 students and taking photos of them. Add the various school staff and townsfolk to that 60, and the game has over 100 characters.
  • Cat Fight: Kissing a girl in front of another girl will cause them to break out in one.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: 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...
  • Children Are Innocent: About the nicest people in the game are the primary students, who happily wave to Jimmy should you greet them. They still have residue of a soul left. However, even they can delve into mischief or violence at times, such as Pedro asking Jimmy to stuff other students into trash cans, or Sheldon wanting him to pull the fire alarm. They can also rarely be seen around campus fighting bullies, or will fight Jimmy himself if he shoves a camera in their face when they're already upset.
  • Christmas Episode: Not really an "episode", per se, but the first half of Chapter 3 definitely qualifies. At this point, the entire town will be blanketed with snow, and a number of locations will be festively decorated for the holidays. Then, of course, there are the Christmas-themed missions, which must be completed in order to move onto the Greaser missions.
  • Climbing Climax: A few. Jimmy must fight his way to the top floor of Harrington House where the greenhouse is located. The final mission concludes with a mild obstacle course atop Bullworth Academy's bell tower, which is undergoing restoration.
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: Any of Jimmy's harem is this, as if they see you flirting with another girl they will attack her and possibly you.
  • Clique Tour: In the mission This is Your School, Gary shows Jimmy the four cliques of Bullworth Academy at the cafeteria: the Nerds, the Preppies, the Greasers and the Jocks.
  • Closet Key: Russell is Troy's closet key.
  • Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Every group of kids, including non-cliques, have their own dress style and colour that is for the player tell them apart: Non-Clique students wear dark teal uniforms, bullies wear white button-down shirts, nerds wear green astronomy club vests, preppies wear cyan Aquaberry sweaters, greasers generally wear black and brown leather jackets (though two wear denim), jocks wear blue sports gear and the townies wear orange shirts and vests.
  • 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. Of course, while boxing, Jimmy fights fairly.
  • Comically 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 blondes."
  • Cosmetic Catastrophe: Edna puts on some makeup for her date with Dr. Watts. It only makes her look even worse, literally like a clown.
  • Covers Always Lie: The cover art pictured above suggests that Dr. Crabblesnitch is the Big Bad. While antagonistic at first, he's actually a Reasonable Authority Figure; it's Gary who's the real villain.
  • Crappy Carnival: Billy Crane's Traveling Carnival, which is free to explore once the town opens up. Busted rides, sleazy carnies, it's fun for the whole family!
  • Crapsaccharine World: Bullworth Academy can be seen as this. It certainly looks nice from the outside, with the elegantly maintained grounds and main hall with chandelier and wooden bannisters on the staircase, plus a student body consisting of rich and/or gifted kids - "the leaders of tomorrow". Of course, any part of the school that isn't kept up for appearances' sake is a dump, and the school doesn't really advertise the reform school candidates.
  • Cruel 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.
  • Crying Wolf: You can pull the fire alarm a lot. Chances are the fire department only comes 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). Additionally, Jimmy is not the only person who does this, although others doing so is rare. Occasionally, you may hear announcement from Miss Danvers warning that when a fire does break out, the firemen won't respond.
  • Cultural Translation: In the French translation, "Blousons noirs" ("Black Jackets") may look like a weird way to translate the name of the Greasers' clique. It's actually the French equivalent of the Greaser subculture.
  • Custom Uniform: Each of the cliques hold a variation of the school uniform, save for the Townies for obvious reasons. They're also somewhat color-coded to help distinguish them better.
  • Cutscene Incompetence: Any time Gary and Jimmy interact after Gary's Face–Heel Turn, Jimmy basically loses all ability to act while in Gary's presence. Gary badmouths him and turns other kids against him with inexplicable effortlessness, and Jimmy can't even bring himself to call Gary a liar let alone punch him in the mouth. There's also a mission in Chapter 5 where he asks Zoe to distract a pack of Townie kids so he can sneak by, when the player could have beaten them all easily.

    D-F 
  • Dean Bitterman: Dr. Crabblesnitch, although this is 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.
  • Deconstruction: Jimmy forces all of the school cliques to unite in the name of peace. It falls apart in less than 24 hours. This is a parody of the idealized high schools which exist in the minds of John Hughes and Peter Engel.
  • Deep South: Despite Bullworth being located in New England, the district Blue Skies Industrial Park resembles a blighted southern area much more than a northern one. It's full of trailer parks, grassy empty lots full of rusted out cars, and formerly nice houses with furniture on the porches.
  • 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 Earnest finds his offer of friendship questionable (since he just beat him up) Jimmy snaps "We're buddies!"
    • One humiliation is the inverse: an offer of friendship by extending the hand, followed by painfully squeezing it.
  • Determinator: In the boss fight against the Jocks, Damon is pelted with exploding footballs. He dusts himself off and proclaims that a little blood never hurt anyone.
  • Developer's Foresight:
    • 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 Mr. Galloway instead of the usual response.
    • In Weed Killer, Jimmy has to disguise himself as a Prep and infiltrate the Harrington House in order to kill Derby's rare plant. When you first enter the house, you'll find Gord and Parker conversing in the living room; beating them up is entirely optional. However, if you do choose to fight them, Tad (who you encounter upstairs) will hear the ruckus, but will merely shrug it off and assume that they were just wrestling each other.
    • There's an alternate way to defeat Johnny and Earnest in Complete Mayhem. Rather than fighting them head-on, you can run into the bathroom. Once they catch you there, you can drag them to the nearest toilet and give them a swirly to take him out instantly.
    • Normally, if Jimmy wears the Mascot outfit, the girls in the game will point and laugh instead of kissing him. However, in the mission Discretion Assured, he gets a kiss from Mandy - and it's also likely that he'll be wearing the Mascot outfit, since he had to for the previous mission. As such, the game contains a cutscene where, if he's wearing the Mascot outfit upon completing the mission, Mandy will kiss it on the nose.
    • With the use of mods, you can play as a female NPC. If you enter the boys dorm, you'll get a trespassing offense. If you enter the girls dorm, you'll be in the clear (although the girls will act as if you are a boy). If you actually interact with Ms. Peabody while in the girls dorm, she'll politely greet you.
    • If the player somehow gets projectiles to use against Gary for the final fight, either via PC mods or cheat codes, the mission is programmed to automatically fail if you do so during the chase sequence. The developers went out of their way to program this, likely so that it doesn't become possible to KO Gary during the chase and glitch the game.
    • In Save Algie, it is possible to ignore Algie's warning to not use the first floor boy's bathroom and go in anyway. Two Bullies are waiting in the bathroom, which requires you to beat them up. Algie will use the bathroom after, only to demand going to the second floor as there's no lock.
    • In portions of the game set during the winter months, Jimmy can pick up snowballs and throw them at NPCs. If you do this to other students, they will react appropriately and throw snowballs back at you.
    • There are a few missions where there are interesting ways to fail it - for example, shooting out the speakers during Earnest's speech during the mission The Candidate, or pulling the fire alarm yourself and blowing your cover in Panty Raid.
    • If Jimmy gets busted by the cops just after 1:30am, the game will process into the next day and a cutscene plays showing him being driven to school by a police officer.
  • Devil in Plain Sight: Gary is such an obvious liar. His choice in Halloween attire is also questionable. Sieg heil.
  • Disc-One Nuke: The classes are unlocked very early in the storyline (though a few of them are unavailable before Chapter 2's beginning). Then, you can choose to not advance the plot before fully completing all the available classes, which means that you'll benefit from some very interesting perks (fully unlocked social skills from the English class, kissing girls grants a full health bonus and is free thanks to the Art class, the chemistry set can craft all the items and has unlimited uses thanks to chemistry) before the middle of Chapter 1.
  • Disco Dan: It seems that the Greasers are stuck in the '50s, daddy-o.
  • Disappeared Dad: Jimmy's father isn't seen or mentioned. Only his mother and fourth stepfather are seen.
  • Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Jimmy helps Edna slip sedatives to Dr. Watts; she then takes him into an hourly rates motel with the strong implication she intends to have sex with him. This would rightfully be seen as date rape if it were a male doing this to a female; instead, it's played for comedy.
  • 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.
  • Driven to Suicide: There is an audio file of Mr. Hattrick mentioning his wife committed suicide and saying it was most inconsiderate of her.
  • Drowning My Sorrows: Mr. Galloway, when asked by Jimmy, makes a speech on how he tried various methods to reduce stress, and that only scotch makes them fade away.
  • Dysfunction Junction: Everyone at Bullworth seems to have some sort of mental issue alongside any physical issue they could also have. Not just the students, but even the teachers and regular townspeople, including the local psychologist. You'll hear a lot of NPC chatter regarding how sad they tend to be and what trauma they've faced in life. It's their various issues that lead to everyone acting sour towards others.
  • Eagleland:
    • To quote Jimmy when it's time to restore order in Bullworth Academy in Chapter 5:
    "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 immediately follows this up by saying:
    Russell: Russell... likes to hurt people... for peace!
  • Early-Bird Cameo: The mascot appears in the nerd hangout in a picture detailing the plans against the jocks that gets enacted later on.
  • Early Game Hell: The very first chapter traps you in Bullworth Academy with no safe places except directly inside your room. You have no resources but your fists (and even those are limited until you get in some gym time and hobo lessons), you haven't completed any of the classes at first, and the bullies (your enemy for the chapter) consider the boys' dorm to be their particular turf. It's much easier to get knocked out if you're not careful.
  • Easily Forgiven: Gurney's setting the school gym on fire should have, realistically, landed him in actual prison for years. Once the fire's out, it's never mentioned again, and Jimmy doesn't seem to hold the fact that he nearly killed three people against him.
  • Edible Ammunition: Jimmy's Spud Gun, naturally.
  • Elaborate University High: Justified in that Bullworth Academy is a Boarding School.
  • Enemy-Detecting Radar: Jimmy has one that rivals Solid Snake's.
  • Enemy Summoner: If you're on terms lower than 45% with any clique and you step foot near a stronger member, expect other members to start helping them in a matter of a few seconds. This is particularly annoying with the Jocks, where Damon's on-sight attacks are followed by most other Jocks on campus coming to help.
  • Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas:
    • The way Gary makes Russell fight Jimmy is by "claiming" Jimmy said something about his mother and some barnyard animals. Thankfully, once Jimmy knocks some sense into Russell, he tells him Gary lied.
    • Tad has a bad relationship with his father, but he loves his mother. He gets extremely offended when Gary lies to him about Jimmy claiming his mother is legally his aunt:
    Tad: You've been rude about Mummy! Let's get this pauper!
    • Though it would be justified if Jimmy did hate his mother, considering her negligent parenting and cruel attitude toward him, it's apparent he does care about her. Occasionally, some of his idle comments gives the impression he misses her. Furthermore, when he confronts Gary on the bell tower, he doesn't physically attack the latter until he makes a derogatory comment about his mother.
  • Everyone Has Standards: While the jocks are the reigning popular kids who are happy to beat up anyone weaker than themselves, they are enraged when they discover the nerds have taken erotic pictures of Mandy against her consent and attack the observatory while calling them "sickos".
  • Everytown, America: Apart from the Academy, the town of Bullworth is this played straight. The worst you can say about the place is that the policemen are fascist, child-hating goons.
  • 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.
  • Exclusive Clique Clubhouse: Just about every clique in the game has their own clubhouses, both on the Bullworth Academy grounds and in the surrounding town. Over the course of the game, Jimmy has the opportunity to acquire some of the secondary clubhouses as his own, usually by defeating the inhabitants in a fist-fight (or a video game tournament, as is the case with the Nerds):
    • The Preppies have their own official dorm, the palatial Harrington House, befitting their status as the school's elite. Off campus, they've not only taken over the Glass Jaw Boxing Club in Old Bullworth Vale, but also have an opulent hideout in the abandoned lighthouse on the beach - complete with gaming consoles, Persian rugs and a bar.
    • The Greasers commonly hang around the auto repair shop, though they also have a hideout in the abandoned Blue Balls Pool House in New Coventry.
    • The Jocks have territory almost exclusively around the sporting fields and gym, and are rarely seen off school grounds. Even their clubhouse remains on campus, as it's actually a storage facility for the sports equipment located right next to the football field.
    • The Nerds take the cake: they not only hang out at the library and have a secret clubhouse in the basement of the Dragon's Wing comic book store in Bullworth Town, but they have their own exclusive headquarters at the otherwise-abandoned school observatory - which they've transformed into a fortress. In order to get the Nerds on your side, you have to fight your way into the heavily-guarded observatory... and then defend the place when the Jocks try to storm the building.
    • As the lowest clique in the game apart from the Nerds, the Bullies are stuck with the boys' dormitory and only hang out in the parking lot.
  • Extended Gameplay: Endless Summer. Bullworth is your sandbox. Get going.
  • Face–Heel Turn: Gary starts out as your friend but early on betrays you, although if you didn't see it coming, you must have Genre Blindness.
  • Fallen Princess: Mandy, after risqué photos are taken of her, blown up into posters and placed all over town.
  • Family-Friendly Firearms: Since you play as a teen protagonist living at a boarding school, none of the weapons in your arsenal are lethal. They mainly consist of mischievous prank items like firecrackers, stink bombs, and potato cannons.
  • Fan Disservice: Paris, a.k.a. "The Ugly Fat Bearded Woman", from the carnival freak show is an morbidly obese bearded woman who wears a dark red bikini.
  • Fat Bastard: Mr. Hattrick, the only real obese teacher in Bullworth, is also the meanest, as the plotline shows. Mr. Burton, while just being somewhat overweight, also counts.
  • Fatal Fireworks: The firecrackers and firework launcher, which can be used to stun NPCs or knock them out completely. There's also the incredibly potent Volcano 4000, which can draw in a crowd of people and then knock them down all at once.
  • Faux Action Girl: Zoe 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.
  • Fauxreigner: Over half of the Preppy clique speak with faux British accents to sound more sophisticated than the "paupers", and in Tad's case, because he is rather insecure and has a Foreign Culture Fetish for the British.
  • Fille Fatale: Lola. 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.
  • Fire Alarm Distraction: Most of the buildings on campus have a fire alarm that Jimmy can pull, which causes any students and teachers inside to run for the exits. Sometimes it's necessary in order to complete certain tasks without being interrupted, but the player can also do it for laughs. Dropping marbles in front of the door of the boys' dorm and then pulling the fire alarm is a favorite trick of many players.
  • 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 at the end of the game. Not that it stops him from teaching gym.
  • 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, while the Jocks have two black members, Bo and Damon.
  • Flipping the Bird: Damon flips Jimmy off at the introduction of Chapter 4. The player never sees this because the camera angle obscures it.
  • Flushing-Edge Interactivity: The toilets and urinals can actually be used by Jimmy, though only to urinate, with a flush sound being heard should you choose to do so. You can also place firecrackers in the toilets. And if so inclined, you can drag another student over and give them a swirlie. All of this is completely optional, however.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • Pinky's first mission in Chapter 2 features Gord having a small fling with Lola. Later on, Gord's affair with Lola is the driving point for the start of Chapter 3.
    • Once you complete the Nerd Challenge in Chapter 3, the bedroom of the basement features a poster for "Operation Trojan Cow", which comes into full effect during Chapter 4.
    • In Character Sheets, Melvin offers his "wenches" to Jimmy as reward for getting his character sheets back from the Bullies. Although it's initially played for laughs, it does foreshadow the darker aspects of the Nerd clique, namely that they objectify women and how the Nerds are willing to target Mandy Wiles to humiliate the Jocks.
  • The Freakshow: This is an attraction at the carnival, including betting section for midget wrestling. These six exhibits are optional, but you're directed here by the photography class.
  • Future Loser: Osbourne (one of the town bums) used to be the star quarterback of the football team. Now, he's a bum, and the cheerleader he married "couldn't wear her old cheerleading skirt as a garter."

    G-L 

  • Game-Breaking Bug:
    • 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.
    • During Complete Mayhem, the game will not allow you to leave campus, lest you receive a Game Over. However, there is indeed a way to leave the school: go to the side alley by the library and follow the path until you reach the mine shaft. From there, you'll be able to reach the asylum grounds without getting a Game Over, and from that point, you can enter the town. All of the rioting cliques that fight each other on the school grounds will now spawn anywhere in town (even within the shops), and apart from a few cars that drive by, the place will be completely deserted (however, cops will still spawn if you attack the citizens in the cars). Once you approach the school gates, the game will shut down.
    • In the mission "Miracle on Bullworth St.", it's possible for the imposter Santa to put Jimmy in a hold that renders him stuck lying on the ground unable to move even after he's no longer being held down.
  • Gameplay and Story Integration: Jimmy kisses Zoe at the end of the main storyline's final cutscene. When you regain control of the game, Jimmy benefits from the health bonus granted by kisses when you pass the art classes.
  • 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 Dr. 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. On a similar note, no matter how vicious or violent you are to the Bullworth citizens or the local police forces, the worst which can happen is a short trip to the police station.
    • Mr. Hattrick and Mr. Burton are both fired during the course of the story (after completing a series of sidequests, and at the end of the main storyline, respectively), but, after that, they are still teaching their classes. This is probably to ensure that their classes and the related rewards aren't permanently missable if you complete the quest before passing all the classes.
    • Prefects yell at you if you aren't wearing the school's uniform. They still do it near the end of the storyline, when Jimmy has been expelled and Dr. Crabblesnitch forbade him to wear the uniform. You can still wear it regardless without any consequence.
    • Every adult you meet during in free roam mode is a jerkass to Jimmy. This includes the teachers who seem decent during their own classes or the missions involving them. Thankfully, after completing Final Showdown, they will start responding nicely...as long as Jimmy wears the right clothing.
    • When Jimmy is sent to Dr. Crabblesnitch's office after being busted, Jimmy's rule violations mentioned by Crabblesnitch are actually sentences randomly selected, which are picked without checking whether the player actually committed those specific offenses or not.
    • In the penultimate mission, Russell bashes an iron gate with a motorcycle and ends up bruised, with dirty and torn clothes. He then flees because the police are pursuing him. In the beginning of the last mission, Russell is hiding inside a warehouse, looking as messy as he did when he fled the police. If you go roaming between finishing the former mission and starting the latter, you may encounter Russell, standing in the open at his usual place, dressed with his standard clean clothes.
    • Once the storyline is finished, the game is locked into an eternal summer in which the same cycle of classes from the same schoolyear plays forever, even if you play with the sandbox for the in-game equivalent of several years.
  • Gang of Hats: Most cliques in the school. Each of the first four chapters deals with different cliques:
    • The Bullies all dress in white Bullworth shirts and are seen generally antagonizing random students around campus. They tend to hang around the main school building, the boys' dorm, and the parking lot.
    • The Nerds all wear green sweaters and are all either fat or skinny, are all majorly academic, into geeky culture and are treated as Butt Monkeys. Their territory is the library, but they're also often seen around the main school building.
    • The Jocks are on the opposite end of the spectrum and their tendencies are encouraged by Mr. Burton. They tend to dress in sports gear and varsity jackets. They tend to hang around the gym.
    • The Preps all wear Aquaberry sweaters and have their own expensive luxury dorm in the form of Harrington House.
    • The Greasers wear fifties style leather jackets and hang around the auto shop and the poor part of town.
    • The Townies are students who have been expelled from Bullworth Academy and hang around the town instead.
  • Gateless Ghetto: Bullworth doesn't have any exits or roads leading out of it besides the tunnel to the fairground and the road to the Happy Volts Asylum. Oddly, the car the Hopkins' family drives in during the introduction appears to be coming from the fairground tunnel.
  • 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 achievements. Then you must kiss 20 boys for the achievement "Over the Rainbow."
  • Geek Physiques: The Nerds are either obese (Fatty, Algie, and Melvin) or skinny (Earnest, Bucky, Cornelius, Donald, and Thad).
  • Geo Effects: One of the most common Artificial Stupidity among the NPCs is its inability to climb up to grab Jimmy. Thus you can simply climb up into a high ground such as a car or the reception table and the authorities won't be able to grab you.
  • Genre Blindness: Jimmy spends most of the game inexplicably refusing to deal with/address/hunt down Gary, instead giving him free rein to make trouble behind the scenes.
  • Glass Cannon: The Nerds clique. They'll go down with just a few punches, but they tend to rely on very strong weapons to stop you from closing the gap.
  • Gonk:
    • Eunice, 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 as while he's trying to stop the bullying at Bullworth Academy, he's not afraid to use threats, intimidation, or his fists to get what he wants.
  • Good Scars, Evil Scars:
    • While Jimmy has a couple cute nicks on his head, Gary has the cliché scar through the eye.
    • Chad (one of the Preppies) has a fencing scar on his cheek.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: Derby'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.
  • Grey-and-Gray Morality: Most of the cliques are revealed to be a bunch of flawed kids, each making the best of the current social order. Gary, however, is demonstrably insane.
  • Groin Attack:
    • "Nooo! I needed those!"
    • Best of all when assaulting a prefect: "My nards!" a hilarious Bowdlerised 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!"
    • If you return the favor to Gary, he whines, "OW! You can't do that!"
    • "Ooh, nooo! My children!"
    • "AAAAHH!! I'll sue your ass if I ever have stupid kids...!"
    • "Ow! You just ruined my puberty for me!"
    • "Oh no...! My legacy...!"
    • After hitting Russell, "You hit Russell's Special Place!"
    • And in the mission Character Sheets, Jimmy himself suffers a crotch kick. In fact, there's even a stat for times kicked in the nuts.
  • Guide Dang It!:
    • What constitutes a "good" snapshot in the photography missions isn't always obvious, which leads to some "WTF?!" moments as you take the same picture over and over from slightly different angles and distances until you finally find one the game will accept.
    • 100% completion requires you to do plenty of things. Some of them are obvious (doing all the missions and completing the storyline, passing all the classes, finding all the collectible items, winning all races, completing all the clique challenges, take all the photographs for the yearbook, etc.), some of them aren't (pulling the fire alarm 20 times, giving 50 wedgies, going on all the carnival rides, picking 50 flowers, use a ranged weapon 1000 times, buying each available piece of clothing, etc.). Here's an exhaustive list of what counts in the completion meter.
  • Halloween Episode: The mission in Chapter 1, appropriately titled "Halloween". Put on a skeleton suit, conjure up some pranks, and unleash chaos on the costumed students.
  • Hazy-Feel Turn: The cliques tend to be humbled after Jimmy beats the crap out of them and their leaders, but while he makes note that he intends on reigning in some psycho kids and trying to stop the bullying, every student he beats down will still happily keep their classism, narcissism and tormenting of students as long as it doesn't directly cross Jimmy. This is mostly the case with the Bullies clique, who keep harassing weak kids but remain respectfully out of Jimmy's way when he's done with them.
  • Head-Turning Beauty: Ms. Philips, who is considered by far the most attractive teacher in the school.
  • Heel–Face Revolving Door: The clique leaders step through one all at once. At first they lighten up to Jimmy following their defeats, but quickly turn on him again once the school falls into chaos, forcing him to take them down one-by-one in a Boss Rush segment. After Gary is defeated, they can be seen among the crowd cheering for Jimmy, signifying that they've all made amends for good this time.
  • Heel–Face Turn:
    • Russell, the first clique leader that Jimmy faces in the game, becomes one of his most trusted allies after Jimmy convinces him to stop bullying innocent students.
    • Edgar, the leader of the Townies, joins Jimmy and Russell on their mission to save the school after realizing that he was a pawn in Gary's plan.
  • 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 threatening to fail him.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Hostile students occasionally stun themselves (or members of their clique) with their own petards or fireworks.
  • Homework Slave: It's been said multiple times in the game that the jocks have been strong-arming the Nerds into doing their homework for them. The Candidate also shows that Juri, a Russian jock, is actually illiterate because he couldn't read "class president" despite speaking near-perfect English (a few grammar hiccups here and there, as well as not knowing the English phrase for "fire alarm"):
    Damon: Keep this up and I won't let you do my homework anymore!
  • Homemade Sweater from Hell: Jimmy gets one for Christmas. It's an actual mission that requires he pick it up. And afterwards, he has to go back to the dorms to change out of it, subjecting himself to much shame and humiliation from the other students.
  • Homoerotic Subtext: And not just the gay options, either:
    • Troy's crush on Russell.
    • During the Candidate, where Jimmy has to protect Earnest while he gives a speech, Earnest goes into unnecessary detail about how good-looking Ted is, with an odd, longing tone in his voice.
    • In Movie Tickets, you can see Trent, a bully, and Kirby, a jock, holding hands in line at the movie theater.
    • 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.
    • Gord opens chapter two by approaching Jimmy to compliment his fighting skills and invite him to box with the preps. The delivery of the lines paired with his canonical queerness paints the scene as quite flirty.
  • Hulk Speak: "Russell SMAAAAASSSHHHH!"
  • Hypocritical Humor: Algie has a weak bladder, unzipped pants, and lack of social skills. And yet somehow calls Petey weird. The latter lampshades this.
    Petey: Werid? Look at you! You've got a weak bladder!
  • I Fought the Law and the Law Won: You can defeat some authority figures (notably prefects), but attacking them maxes out your trouble meter, meaning that if they touch you, you're busted then and there. Edward will even tell Jimmy, "You fought the law, and the law won!" when busting him.
  • I Know Madden Kombat: Some of the Jocks use football tackles when they fight. Also, the Jocks and Bullies can be seen using baseball bats as weapons.
  • I Need a Freaking Drink: Mr. Galloway says this if he is annoyed. Or exasperated. Or just whenever.
  • Idiot Ball: Apparently, Gary carries a bunch of these around and hands them out to people before he talks to them. All he has to do is tell them that Jimmy said or did something, and they believe him.
  • Instant KO:
    • Jimmy has a move where, after tackling the opponent to the ground, he spits right in their face. This is only used the same way the rest of the bullying-finisher moves are, but data reveals that this does damage at around the hundreds, making it this.
    • If your trouble meter is fully in the red, the second the authority figures catch you, you'll instantly be busted.
    • Dragging students to the toilets and performing swirlies on them is an instant knockout. This even works on the Prefects.
  • Interface Screw: Starts at 1:00 a.m. and gets screwier until 2:00 a.m., at which point you pass out.
  • Interface Spoiler: The yearbook. One can infer that Zoe being in the yearbook before she's reinstated in the school can only mean that she'll become a student eventually.
  • Intra-Scholastic Rivalry: The rivalry between all 5 factions of Bullworth High, those being the Nerds, Bullies, Preppies, Greasers, and Jocks. This feud is one of the main traits (and obstacles) the game offers to Jimmy in his journey.
  • Jerkass: Apart from a few exceptions, everybody:
    • The Jocks are bullies who pick on anyone who isn't athletic enough.
    • The Bullies are, obviously, bullies who pick on anyone weaker than they are.
    • The Greasers are violent delinquents who'll bully or attack anyone who crosses their path, enters their territory or just looks at them funny.
    • The Preps are all stuck-up rich kids who think all other people are inferior to them simply because they have less money and aren't above telling them so.
    • The Townies will insult and fight any Bullworth Academy student and can be seen insulting or even fighting adults, which, in this game, is a major offense.
    • The Townsfolk are pretty much grown-up Preps, and will treat you like shit simply for being underage.
    • Even the Nerds, who are pretty much at the bottom of the food chain, act pretty rudely to anyone who isn't one of them and will happily bully anyone weak enough for them to get away with doing so.
    • The biggest jerkasses in the game, though, are Gary, Derby, Mr. Hattrick and Mr. Burton.
  • 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 counts as this too. He helps Jimmy quell the riot during the final mission despite the fact that he hates Bullworth Academy and most of the students therein.
    • Dr. Crabblesnitch is one of these, especially in ending when he has a big Pet the Dog moment.
    • Each clique has one student who's this. Tom of the Bullies is still in the Bullies clique because his friends are, but sort of wishes they weren't bullies. Parker of the Preppies has the instincts to be nice and generous, although his fellow Preps don't let him use them. Lucky of the Greasers is an advocate of finishing your education and learning a trade. Of the Jocks, Luis does fairly well in classes and Bo has a good relationship with his family. Even the Nerds have Bucky, who speaks fondly of his grandmother and is the one to give Jimmy the skateboard after rescuing him in the Defend Bucky mission.
  • Karma Houdini: The lack of reaction to Gary having the Townies (Gurney, in particular) burn down the gym and almost murder several jocks in broad daylight is incredibly jarring. The fire is never even mentioned again after the mission, the jocks continue to attack Jimmy on sight even after saving their lives, and while Gary eventually gets taken down (even if not specifically in retribution for the fire), Gurney simply flees the scene and doesn't get in any trouble for it whatsoever.
  • Kick the Dog: Happens few times in the game. For example, the Nerds do a bit of this during Stronghold Assault. Algie taunts Petey for having no friends and being "weird" and calls you a useful idiot, and all throughout they deride Jimmy's intelligence.
  • 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:
    • Gary definitely applies to this, especially in the climax of the game.
    • Seth. Sure, his apparent only task is to endlessly run after jerkasses, bullies and future criminals around the school, but there's not a single line where he isn't yelling "EEEVILDOER!".
    • Karl counts, especially when he gets hurt.
    • Jimmy hams it up during his "I run this clique now" speeches:
    Jimmy: Who's the baddest?! Me! Who's the toughest?! Me!
  • Let's Get Dangerous!: If you mess up the bull dance in front of cheerleaders enough times, they will attack you.
  • Lethal Chef: Edna, whose hygiene, cooking, and cleanliness are all somewhat lacking.
  • Leitmotif: Each clique has their own theme that plays when they fight or chase Jimmy. The Bullies have a breakbeat techno theme, Preps have a jazz-organ New Wave theme, the Greasers naturally have a '50s rock and roll rumble theme, Nerds have an 8-bit techno theme, Jocks have an almost jock jam techno theme similar to the Bullies, and Townies have a hard edged surfer rock theme. Even Non-Clique kids get a variant on the standard theme when in fights.
  • Lighter and Softer:
    • 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 like jackbooted skinhead thugs. The game was, er, softened from this visualization.
    • The game on the whole 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 (unless you count the Spud Gun), 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.

    M-R 
  • Mailbox Baseball: Clint (aka Henry) assigns Jimmy a mission to ride his bike around the rich part of town and smash up mailboxes with a baseball bat.
  • Malevolent Mugshot: Earnest's campaign posters feature him as this alongside a green or black backdrop.
  • Mall Santa: During the Christmas missions, you help Rudy, a drunken bum dressed as Santa Claus, sabotage a mall Santa that sets up in front of the town hall. Then you help him make his own "workshop" and take pictures with children for profit.
  • Market-Based Title: The game was released as Canis Canem Edit (Latin: "Dog Eat Dog") in the UK.
  • "Metaphor" Is My Middle Name: When Mr. Burton asks Jimmy to go on a panty raid that's very "discreet", Jimmy replies, "Discretion is my middle name, sir."
  • Mini-Game: Attending class is presented as such, and it sometimes apes related existing game. Art class is played like Qix, Biology is a simpler Trauma Center, and Music is a much simpler DanceDanceRevolution.
  • Minigame Zone: The Carnival has, among other things, go-kart racing.
  • Money for Nothing: You get cash for almost every mission you pass, regardless of whether it makes sense. Most of things you can buy are either cosmetic (clothes - you'll get a temporary minor infraction if a prefect sees you wearing them, but it's of no consequence -, haircuts, tattoos, etc.) or can be easily gained for free (crafting weapons with the chemistry set, picking flowers in front of the Girls Dorm, being rewarded a bike at completion of each Shop class, etc.). Paying is the only sure way to get a few specific things (hiring a bodyguard, etc.), and you sometimes need to pay to advance the plot (a mission with the Preppies requires to get a haircut and buy their sweater), but the amount of money you get by completing main missions and errands is way higher than the amount of money you'll need on those occasions.
  • Mrs. Robinson: Teased, then subverted by Ms. Philips. She would've been the "hot older woman" variation if it had been played straight.
  • Mundane Made Awesome: The game manages to make riding a bike feel like one of the most badass things ever. Once you've spent a substantial amount of time traipsing around the school (and running from enemies) on foot, it feels amazingly liberating to just jump on a bike and fly. Particularly since bikes can travel up and down stairs with ease, while the skateboard (which is unlocked earlier) can only travel down stairs.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: After her fall from grace and a period of soul-searching, Mandy comes to the realization that she probably deserves to be miserable for being mean to other people.
  • My New Gift Is Lame: Jimmy's Christmas sweater. Every NPC will howl with laughter as you pass by.
  • Named After Somebody Famous: Bo Jackson, who is one of the Jocks, is named after the former NFL and MLB star of the same name.
  • New Era Speech: Jimmy gives these each time he takes over a clique.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: Lola's appearance was based on actress Molly Ringwald in the '80s.note 
  • No Dress Code: For some reason, the school allows Lola to wear a belly shirt.
  • No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Jimmy shares a lot of similarities to Julius Caesar:
    • Both were bald men who rose to power without parental influence (Jimmy's dad is no longer in the picture, while Caesar's dad was never consul so Caesar had no inherited excellence). Both Caesar and Jimmy joined two other allies and formed the Triumvirate so they could build nobility and rise to power. Before rising to power, both the Roman Republic and Bullworth Academy were plagued by a ruling body who were divisive and eventually factional, causing multiple civil wars. At Bullworth Academy, there are five cliques who are at each other's throats and fights are a common sight.
    • The Triumvirate was formed around favours; the friends of Caesar helped him become consul and Caesar would help them in turn by passing any law they wished. In the game, Jimmy was helped by Gary who encouraged Jimmy to help the nerds and take on the bullies. Gary was the one who encouraged Jimmy to join him in become the ruler of the school. After the fight against Russell, Petey takes over and directs Jimmy on how to fight the cliques.
    • Both Jimmy and Caesar attacked their first tribe because they were a threat to their allies (Jimmy fought the bullies first because they were antagonising him and the nerds. While Caesar attacked the Helvetians because he believed they were attacking an ally of Rome).
    • Both fought enemies to the north and were ambushed by a different tribe a year later, (Jimmy fought the preppies in Old Bullworth Vale, which is in the north-west of the academy and was eventually ambushed in the junkyard by the greasers). Due to his family wealth, Jimmy was put against the preppies because they believed themselves to be superior to him due to their inherited wealth and they start talking badly of him when he starts interacting with the Greasers, their rivals and from a poorer part of Bullworth. Caesar had no inherited wealth, and the triumvirate allowed Caesar to have the wealth to become consul. When his consul expired, his allies started turning against him and he became general to maintain his imperium, as well as, become governor of a providence and take command of a few legions.
    • Both had to turn against their allies under the excuse of a revolution and took the emblem of a bull afterwards (Caesar claimed the Veneti tribe revolted and he conquered it. During Caesar's reign, the Legio X Equestris was formed and they adopted the bull as their emblem. Jimmy had to fight the nerds after they severed their allegiance to him and he helped them fight the jocks by disguising himself as the academy's bull mascot.
    • When both became leaders, they were betrayed by a friend and forced to fight over leadership which caused a civil war when they returned, whereupon the traitor retreated to another country after losing the battle.
      • Like Gary, Pompeius acted from the sidelines and renounced the protagonist's leadership during a campaign. Gary used the Townies to create dissonance between Jimmy and the other cliques while Jimmy was away tagging the town hall. Meanwhile, Pompeius rescinded Caesar's governorship while the latter was away from Rome.
      • After defeating the jocks, Jimmy became king but was set up by the townies and expelled. Gary took over and caused a civil war, forcing Jimmy to return with the Townies and he gets Gary expelled after trying to understand why he would betray him. Gary was then presumably dumped with the vengeful Townies, after that, Jimmy became the king of the school and presumably began an official relationship with Zoe, a Townie.
      • Caesar's closest ally, Pompeius, betrayed him and tried to become leader by rescinding Caesar's governorship of Gall. Pompeius and Caesar contended for the leadership of Rome, causing a civil war when Caesar returned to Rome with his 13th legion. Pompeius retreated to Greece and soon lost the battle of Pharsalus. After this, Pompeius retreated to Egypt for sanctuary from Caesar by seeking refuge with Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator but was promptly beheaded instead. Caesar was horrified by this because he wanted to spare Pompeius' life and he returned to Rome as it's dictator after forming an alliance with Cleopatra of Egypt.
  • 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.
  • No OSHA Compliance: In the gym, the pool has been drained for unknown amount of time and has no railings to stop people from falling into it or stop people being thrown into it. It's also a lot deeper than standard regulations and has no clear shallow end.
  • No Swastikas: There are no swastikas on the SS officer uniform that Gary wears for Halloween.
  • 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, it would be more likely he'd get arrested instead. Jimmy doesn't seem to care even though he does get him out.
  • Non-Uniform Uniform: Bullworth Academy's dress code seems to be "anything affiliated with Bullworth." You can wear jeans and jackets over the uniform if you'd like. If you'd prefer plain sportswear, it's fine as long as it's from the school store.
  • Not So Above It All: The townie kid Duncan has more in common with the Nerds than it you would suspect since he's a fan of Grottos & Gremlins because you can "kill things and take their stuff."
  • Obviously Evil: If the scar and somewhat creepy things Gary says at the beginning of the game don't tip you off, the SS uniform he wears for Halloween certainly will.
  • Only a Flesh Wound: Said by the nerd Melvin if you beat him up.
  • Only One Female Mold: At Bullworth, Eunice is unique but all the small girls share one body mold, and all the other older ones share a body mold. There's a little bit more variety among the adult characters, but even then most of the adult townswomen and female Bullworth faculty share the same mold.
  • Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping:
    • Juri's Russian accent subtly slips into an American one during The Gym is Burning.
    • A strange instance occurs when the Chinese shopkeeper at Yum Yum Market speaks with an American accent during Tad's House, despite having a generic Chinese accent whenever you enter the shop.
  • Overturned Outhouse: Jimmy knocks over a port-a-potty that Mr. Burton is using as revenge for getting Zoe expelled from Bullworth Academy.
  • Painted-On Pants: Lola always wears what looks like a leather or spandex variant of this.
  • Parental Abandonment: 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 Academy so they can go off on a year-long honeymoon.
  • Permanently Missable Content:
    • 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 100% Completion. This was corrected in the Scholarship Edition which allowed you to do any mission you missed after completing the main game.
    • The Red Ninja outfit, the reward for completing The Big Prank. If you skip the mission, you won't be able to get the outfit since you get one chance to do it.
  • Pet the Dog: Several minor characters have these moments:
    • Parker seems to have a genuinely good nature beneath his preppy upbringing.
    • Bo and Luis, both jocks, do relatively well in classes.
    • Norton the Greaser has a pronounced sensitive side.
    • The entire Townie clique during the final mission aid Jimmy in restoring order to the school, despite their hate of Bullworth Academy and their students.
  • Pink Is Erotic:
    • Downplayed. The flirt interaction is first represented by a pink heart and Jimmy has to provide flowers to achieve a kiss. When he passes all art classes, the heart symbol changes to a passionate red as he's now able to seduce girls without needing to provide flowers.
    • Downplayed. Lola is a promiscuous character who seduces boys for personal gain and to get a reaction from her hot-headed boyfriend, Johnny. Her character design consists of a pink crop top under her leather jacket or a pink sweater during the Greaser chapter.
  • Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Jimmy is shorter than most of the girls yet manages to effectively defeat everyone the school and town throws at him.
  • 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.
  • Poke the Poodle: Dress code violations will get you some annoyed comments from the prefects and will very briefly put them into condition yellow (making them slightly more likely to spot any shenanigans you might already be up to), but it's impossible to get busted just for being out of uniform. You can even come to class in your underwear and nobody will say anything.
  • Politically Correct History: Played with. The Greasers have a black member and a bisexual one. Greasers were prominent in the 1950s, which wasn't very kind to either minority.
  • Politically Motivated Teacher: Neil (the shop teacher) is an anti-government conspiracy theorist. Possibly for that reason, the game is set so he'll never spawn in free roam and can only be encountered in shop class.
  • Pretentious Latin Motto: Canus canem edit, which literally means "Dog eat dog".
  • 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.
  • Proactive Boss: Before fighting Gary, Jimmy is forced to give chase up to the roof of Bullworth Academy. All the while, Gary throws bricks at him when crossing thin scaffolding, and tries to tip carts filled with cinderblocks on top of him when he climbs up ladders.
  • Public Domain Soundtrack: Of a Stylistic Suck type. In the Scholarship Edition, Miss Peters' class plays some wind instruments all in monotonous, and sometimes off-key, renditions of "Turkey in the Straw" (early 19th century); "Fanfare-Rondeau" by Jean-Joseph Mouret (1729; used in the TV series Masterpiece); "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain" (1899); and "The Liberty Bell March" (1893; used in Monty Python's Flying Circus) and "The Washington Post March" (1889), both by John Philip Sousa. Give it a listen... and a bit of a chuckle.
  • Putting on the Reich:
    • Gary dresses up as an SS officer for Halloween. He wears a crew cut year-round, and his mania is highly reminiscent of ze Führer der Nation.
    • When Earnest runs for class president, his flags look oddly familiar.
  • Rage Helm: The Bullhorns' team mascot, whose costume Jimmy loots. The helmet's expression actually isn't too dissimilar from Jimmy himself.
  • Rainbow Pimp Gear:
    • The Black Ninja outfit. Other students will laugh at you for it, but it will make you almost invisible to prefects and other authority figures.
    • The Crash Helmet is this to a certain extent. You'll still be a laughingstock, but at least you won't get busted for not wearing a helmet on a motor scooter.
  • Really Gets Around: Small talk says Mandy does this, but the game implies that she doesn't. Lola actually does, but mostly no one talks about it because they don't want their ass kicked by Johnny.
  • Recurring Riff: The melody in the Nerds' Leitmotif gets reused and restructured in a number of the mission tracks, notably Defend Bucky, Defender of the Castle as well as the Jock's boss theme, "The Big Game".
  • Redheads Are Ravishing: Jimmy's final love interest is Zoe, a red-haired Townie girl.
  • Revenge Is Not Justice: Zigzagged in Chapter 4 where Jimmy enlist the Nerds in his fight against the jocks because they have been bullying everyone since the start of the game and the Nerds want revenge as well for being bullied by them. In their revenge plot, Earnest makes Jimmy take illicit photos of Mandy, the head cheerleader and a bully herself, in order to rile up the Jocks (in actuality, Earnest was just being a creep and wanted those photos for himself). The nerds are attacked later on by the jocks for what happened. Jimmy then meets a distressed Mandy, who tells him that the photos have been printed all over town and she's feels humiliated and dreading the reaction from her parents. In an inversion of this, Mandy accepts that she's been a terrible person and says she deserves it, while Jimmy volunteers to take the posters down after internally realizing that he and the Nerds have taken their revenge too far since they've effectively ruined her life and caused life long trauma. Since then, Mandy has been attracted to Jimmy and she becomes a lot nicer.
  • Rewarding Vandalism: Several missions involve smashing things, but the mission Smash It Up might as well be the Trope Codifier.
  • The Roleplayer: Most of the Nerds consider roleplaying the "high point of human achievement."

    S-Z 
  • 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.
  • Sarcasm-Blind: The drunken Santa, who takes Jimmy's sarcasm at face value. Every other character just brushes it off when Jimmy starts snarkin'.
  • Sassy Black Woman: Miss Peters, the music teacher. Though she first appears as a Hippie Teacher, she turns into this in the Nutcrackin' mission when Jimmy refuses to help her at first and she blackmails him by threatening to fail him.
  • School Nurse: Bullworth Academy has Mrs. McRae. She hates kids, is a fatalist, and chainsmokes.
  • School Uniforms are the New Black: Every single student in the game is seen only in their school uniform or gym clothes, whether they're on campus or off. A handful can occasionally be seen in their pajamas while inside their dorms, but other than that, the only exception to this rule is Jimmy himself, if you so choose.
  • Seriously Scruffy: During Complete Mayhem, Johnny and Ted's outfits are tattered and dirtied because of the riot, whereas Earnest swaps out his uniform for military fatigues. The sole exception is Derby, who isn't part of the riot and dresses up to watch it.
  • Sexophone:
    • In missions that finish with Jimmy getting a kiss from a girl, a quick saxophone melody plays.
    • The mission Carnival Date has one that plays when you're about to kiss Eunice.
  • Shellshocked Veteran: The Hobo, who teaches Jimmy his fighting moves.
  • Shared Universe: With Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto and by extension Manhunt- though in this case it seems to span two different continuities. It came out after the final GTA III-era game was released (and hence shares certain props with them, mainly cars); but Bullworth Academy was sighted in the Show Within a Show I'm Rich in Grand Theft Auto IV. Grand Theft Auto V also has a few references to this game (a movie called Sequel II (Sequel: The Movie originated here), and the occasional sighting of someone wearing a jacket marked "Hopkins" at the Vanilla Unicorn).
  • 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).
  • Short Teens, Tall Adults: The adults in this game are massive compared to most of the teen cast.
  • Shout-Out:
    • One of the jocks is called Casey Harris. To probably drive the reference further, he's one of the few jocks who can be seen carrying a baseball bat with him at times.
    • 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."
    • Provoking Ray causes him to say "shkt! Lets go, bub!". ("shkt" being the sound effect of adamantium claws unsheathingnote )
    • Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "'Tis but a flesh wound."
    • After the school descends into total anarchy, Earnest is spotted wearing fatigues and a red bandana like Rambo.
    • Monty Python's Flying Circus: In the Scholarship Edition, Music 2 requires you to play a slowed-down, off-key rendition of Mouret's "Fanfare-Rondeau", used as a theme song for the TV series Masterpiece. Music 4 requires you to play Sousa's Liberty Bell March, which is also 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 smaller of the two black Jocks is named Bo Jackson.
    • One of the elves in the drunken Santa missions can be heard muttering "I only wanted to be a dentist."
    • There's a Christmas mission called "Miracle on Bullworth St.", a reference to the classic Christmas movie Miracle on 34th Street.
    • Compare Jimmy's 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.
    • In the Character Sheets mission, one of the bullies says, "I'll kick you in the nuts, then you kick me in the nuts and the first one to fall loses."
    • For completing Music 3, you are rewarded with the Musical Note Pajamas outfit, which includes a shirt that looks nearly identical to the piano-and-notes shirt Michael Jackson wore in the "Beat It" video.
    • The Final Boss music is based on the general use score track "Cold War" by Chris Payne and Paul Rogers. It's also used in the Dante's Theater level in Rainbow Six: Vegas.
    • The Extended Gameplay of the game, once the player has finished the main storyline, is called Endless Summer, which is literally true since it takes place during summer vacation and has no end. It's also a reference to the surf documentary and famous Greatest Hits Album by The Beach Boys, both of which share the same name.
  • 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, which was cut from the final version of the game.
  • Shows Damage: During the boxing minigame, the opponent's face becomes more bruised while his health meter decreases.
  • Sibling Yin-Yang: The siamese sisters that work at the carnival Freak Show. Delilah is quite beautiful, gentle, likes working at the carnival, has aspirations and enjoys all the attention she gets for being a conjoined twin. Jezebel, on the other hand, keeps bragging about how much she hates the world and everyone around her, is disgusting as she doesn't take care of herself and claims to like eating bugs, and apparently likes doing pretty disturbing things.
  • 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, 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!"
  • Smashing Survival: When a prefect or other authority figure catches Jimmy, you're given a brief chance to escape by mashing buttons quickly enough... unless your Wanted Meter is too full, in which case they bust you instantly.
  • Smug Snake: Gary is the 'bastard whose supposed magnificence is really the rest of the cast grabbing Idiot Balls' version. Derby 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.
  • Snowball Fight: You can engage in these during Chapter 3, when it's winter (to do so, you have to go to a grassy area, make a snowball there, and then chuck it at someone to start the fight).
  • Social Climber: Deconstructed, Jimmy spends the entire game building relationships with each clique until he decides to just to beat them into submission. By Chapter 5, all the cliques are on Jimmy's side until he vandalises the town hall because Gary stirred up trouble and they all blame Jimmy.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: During Movie Tickets, this smooth, jazzy saxophone song plays as you are about to kiss Eunice, the ugly girl of the school.
  • Spoiled Brat: Many of the Preppies. Pinky is the most well-known, 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!"
  • The Starscream: Gary, as he's your ally at first, but it's pretty damn obvious he's going to double-cross you before too long. Ironically, Gary actually accuses Jimmy of this, which is why he decided to double-cross you first.
  • Statuesque Stunner: With the exception of Eunice, all of the older schoolgirls are easy on the eyes and noticeably taller than most of the other students. Even geeky Beatrice.
  • Stealth-Based Mission:
    • In Panty Raid, you have to sneak into the girls' dorm and steal five pieces of dirty laundry (specifically panties, hence the name) for Mr. Burton. If Mrs. Peabody spots you, she'll kick you out.
    • Finding Johnny Vincent has you sneaking into Happy Volts Asylum to rescue Johnny. You have to carefully sneak past the orderlies, or else they'll catch you and knock you out with a tranquilizer.
  • Stepford Suburbia: While Bullworth appears to be a normal urban community, it's practically a hell hole according to some of its denizens. Later, it's confirmed that they're not so wrong as Jimmy and the player almost instantaneously find out or better yet realize.
  • Stock British Phrases: As used and abused by the preppies. They're not really British, though. Well, Tad isn't, anyway.
  • Straight Gay: Some boys are canonically bisexual, but almost none of them (exceptions being Cornelius and Gord) display any camp traits nor blatant attraction to boys.
  • Storming the Castle: Two examples, one figurative (the final mission) and the other literal: the nerds are holed up in an abandoned observatory lined with sniper's bluffs and cannons.
  • Stripperiffic: Zoe's townie outfit, by school standards. Her original character design by any standards.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Sweet Polly Oliver: Karen claims she disguised herself as a boy once so she could play sports.
  • Sympathy for the Hero: When taking on the Preps in their boxing club, everyone except Pinky will naturally be rooting against you and for their own members, but you can still hear them voicing occasional, grudging admiration for your performance with lines like "Hopkins is surprisingly tough!"
  • Take That, Critics!: In a rather mild example, minor character Ray says, "They say kids imitate characters in video games. But I have yet to become a mustached plumber!"
  • Teacher/Student Romance:
    • Jimmy mistakenly believes Ms. Philips is this for him.
    • Mr. Burton is into the female students, as Zoe explains, though made very obvious earlier by the Panty Raid mission.
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: In the mission Wrong Part of Town, Jimmy, Chad (a Preppie), and Algie (a Nerd) team up to escape the Greasers in a bike chase.
  • "Test Your Strength" Game: You can play a strength game when you visit the carnival. To play, you must mash the A button to build up strength as Jimmy, the player character, swings back the mallet.
  • Theme-and-Variations Soundtrack: The main overworld theme has quite a number of variations: There's the intro version, the vehicle version, the mission version, the vehicle mission version, the tired version, the Leitmotif of the Non-Clique students and the Leitmotif of the Jocks.
  • Thriving Ghost Town: Bullworth Academy has 61 students (65 if you count the prefects) when realistically a campus that size could support more. 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!
  • Timed Mission: Almost everywhere:
    • Several specific missions objectives (e.g.: entering Mr. Hattrick's garden during the questline about the Hattrick-Galloway feud, climbing the tree when you have to protect Edna's date with Dr. Watts, reaching the entrance of the auditorium before Earnest starts his speech, etc.) and minigames (e.g.: newspaper delivery) have a timer and are failed if the objective isn't completed.
    • Some of the classes. Math, English, and Geography are timed quizzes, Biology requires to finish a dissection before the end of a timer, and Photography is a timed mission to take a number of photographs, then go back to the classroom.
    • Most of the game is actually a giant timed mission. If Jimmy isn't in his bedroom at 2 a.m., he falls alseep where he stands, and then loses some of his stuff. Not only does the in-game clock constantly ticks in free roam mode, it also doesn't stop during most of the missions (exceptions include visiting the school at the beginning of the game, the Halloween pranks mission, and the boss fights).
  • Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Jimmy's a head shorter than pretty much all of the girls he gains the affections of with the exception of Eunice. Gameplay-wise, the only characters the schoolgirls are programmed to make out with are all on the shorter side, with the exception of Bucky.
  • Token Black Friend: The original concept for the character that would become Pete was black.
  • Token Minority:
    • Each clique has one girl and one black student (the Jocks being an exception, as they have two black students, and the non-cliques have three black students and six girls, seven with Zoe).
    • In every clique outside of non-clique students, one student will always be bisexual; The Bullies have Trent, the Preps have Gord, the Greasers have Vance, the Nerds have Cornelius, the Jocks have Kirby, and the Townies have Duncan.
    • Many characters have ambiguous ethnic backgrounds; Angie is implied to be East Asian (while both of the Yum Yum Market owners are obviously Chinese), Pedro, Luis and Edgar are implied to be Hispanic, and the Greasers bar two members are very likely Italian due to their surnames.
  • 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, classes 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.
  • Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay:
    • Unlike the adult protagonists of the Grand Theft Auto series, the teenage Jimmy cannot stay up for as long as the player pleases; staying up too long at night results in him collapsing from lack of sleep.
    • There are several acts that instantly fill the Trouble meter and bring people running to bust you straight away because they are social taboos or serious crimes. Chiefly, pinching the butt of a girl your age? Adults will yell at you, but it's a low priority offence since only one prefect will chase after you if you are in their line of sight. Pinch the butt of a ten-year-old girl, however, and the trouble meter will fill up immediately and you will be target #1 for all the authorities in the area.
    • Unlike the other protagonists in the future and preceding Rockstar games, once Jimmy gets a tattoo he won't be able to get it removed. People will also react to those tattoos since it's unorthodox for school kids to get them. The Bullies, Greasers, and Townies will speak approvingly of them since they don't really care for education or discipline while the others (nerds, preppies, jocks, and non-clique students) will insult them and/or shame Jimmy for having tattoos (with a few exceptions; Lola will mock them, while Zoe will comment on the ink being of poor quality). The prefects will also yell at Jimmy for violating the school dress code and will only stop yelling at him if he wears something that covers his sleeves.
  • Ungrateful Bastard:
    • Not only do the Nerds generally treat Jimmy like hired help and have to be challenged before they'll admit Jimmy to their clubhouse, but when they think they don't need him anymore, they abruptly cut ties with him for no apparent reason and have to be reined in the old-fashioned way.
    • Even after Jimmy saves the school from Gary and restores order, Prefects will still act hostile towards him unless he wears the Orderly Uniform.
  • Unintentionally Unwinnable: It's possible to break the game and make it unwinnable during the first mission. If Jimmy hits Gary by mistake during a fight, he'll turn hostile, thus completely messing with the dialogs and scripts he's supposed to follow when he's Jimmy's guide through the school. Since the game doesn't autosave, doesn't allow you to start again a mission, and the manual savepoints are enabled later, it basically means that you'll have to start from the very beginning.
  • Updated Re-release: Bully: Scholarship Edition for the Wii, Xbox 360, and PC. This version adds new missions, classes, characters, unlockable items and clothing, and a two-player multiplayer mode.
  • 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.
  • Vague Age: Jimmy is explicitly stated to be fifteen. Everyone else's age is left open to interpretation.
  • Very Loosely Based on a True Story: The side mission Character Sheets was inspired by a real life event of head Bully producer Jeronimo Barerra, in which a bully stole some gaming books from a paraplegic friend of his and Barerra tried to retrieve the stolen goods back.
  • 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 alarm. 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.
    • You can get away with anything in the boy's dorm because authority figures never spawn inside. Because of a programming quirk, Angie Ng will sometimes spawn in there during Chapter 3. You do the math.
    • 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 can't 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.
    • Pull out the Spud 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.
    • If the player unlocks the Rubber Band Ball, by collecting all the rubberbands, they can use it against anyone.
    • You can shoot/beat up on the dog in one of the detention areas until he runs away.
    • When you enter the gym, you'll occasionally find two students playing catch with a football. If the two students are from different cliques (ex. one Greaser and one Preppy), you could have some fun with them. Give one student a wedgie the moment the other student throws the football. This will distract them from catching it, and they'll get hit in the face. Then they'll get angry at the student that threw the ball and immediately fight them.
    • There's an easy way to get rid of the female authority figures in the girls' dorm. Once you're in the building, do something that will alert them (ex. hit a girl) and make your way into a random bedroom. Stand on top of a bed (preferably on a pillow) and the women won't be able to reach you. That's your chance to take them out with your slingshot. Once they're knocked out, you could do pretty much anything in the dorm until the authority figures respawn.
  • 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 trouble meter full red, meaning if a cop, prefect or teacher so much as touches you, you're busted immediately. What's more, hitting girls, little kids, and adults will cause prefects or police to spawn near you and charge immediately. This is also true for everyone else in the game.
  • 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.
  • Weapon Jr.: The available weapons in the game are things like firecrackers, spud guns, bottle rocket launchers, slingshots, itching powder and stink bombs.
  • Wedgie: Jimmy can give one to male characters from behind.
  • Wham Shot: After Jimmy tags City Hall at the start of Chapter 5, Petey warns him that trouble is starting to brew at the school, to which Jimmy claims that he'll be able to handle it. Once the cutscene ends, your respect levels for the Jocks, Nerds, Greasers, and Preppies plummet by 75 points... while you gain 25 points for the Townies.
  • Where the Hell Is Springfield?: It's never explicitly stated in the original game, but it's widely believed that Bullworth was in New England. The back of the Scholarship Edition packaging confirms that it's indeed in New England.
  • White Is Pure: Inverted with the Bullies. The Bullies are identified by the white shirts they wear, which represent their neutrality. Their shirts are dirty and unclean, which reflects how they don't care for Bullworth's social totem pole, as they don't wear a vest as a faction color.
  • Wide-Open Sandbox: While in the first chapter of the game, the player can only explore Bullworth Academy, the second chapter opens up the school gates to allow the player freedom to explore and complete missions in the entire town of Bullworth.
  • Would Hit a Girl: Jimmy can do this if the player wants to. However, the game discourages it by giving a maximum trouble meter, and there are no reason to do it anyway, since the girls never attack Jimmy (no matter which clique they belong to). Earlier in the game's development, the consequences for violence against girls were milder and it was even possible to bully them.
  • Would Hurt a Child:
    • In-game, Jimmy can bully and hit the younger students. Doing so, however, will give you a maximum trouble meter.
    • Under Gary's request, the Townies set the gym in fire, leading to three students getting trapped inside.
  • Wrestler in All of Us:
    • Russell, Juri, and Luis all use pro wrestling moves when they fight.
    • Derby and Bif avert this, and in fact are immune to wrestling attacks, because Preppies don't fight that way.
  • Wretched Hive: Bullworth Academy is the wretched hive of fictional video game schools. Its student body is composed almost entirely of liars, cheats, bullies, snobs, sluts, jerks, sociopaths, and backstabbers. Honestly, Pete and a select few of the non-clique students are the only good pupils there. Also, most of the staff is corrupt or extremely bitter, of course.
  • Wrong Side of the Tracks: The City of Bullworth has two districts, New Coventry and Blue Skies Industrial Park, that are on the wrong side of the tracks both literally and figuratively - New Coventry is separated from the more upscale districts of Downtown and Old Bullworth Vale by a railroad overpass. The Greasers and Townies are, respectively, from New Coventry and Blue Skies.
  • 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. This greatly accentuates the game's catharsis factor, since if another kid gets one over on you, you can track that specific kid down and whoop his ass for it instead of having to settle for a random lookalike.
    • In individual missions, some characters may appear multiple times with others not at all. A mission early in the game, for example, has Troy appear three different times and Davis appear twice, while Ethan, Tom and Wade don't appear at all.
  • You Leave Him Alone!: Jimmy has special dialogue that could be triggered whenever you witness someone bullying someone else. They're mostly along the lines of "Leave him/her alone!" or "He's my friend!"
  • Your Mom: Jimmy attacks Gary after he insults Jimmy's mother.


Alternative Title(s): Canis Canem Edit

Top