Bully Hunter / Video Games

Bully Hunters in Video Games.

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• This is the Raisons D'être of the eponymous warriors of Assassin's Creed; protectors of innocence that smites tyrants and oppressors of the weak from the shadows when society is too corrupt and cynical to oppose their cruelty. Being warriors of compassion, the best among Assassins such as Ezio Auditore, Connor Kenway, Jacob Frye and Bayek also endeavor to rebuild broken communities after slaying the tyrants that oppressed them. It is in fact Ezio Auditore's financial sponsorship of the formerly destitute states of Florence, Venice and Rome after slaying its tyrants that single-handedly allowed The Renaissance to begin in the Assasssin's Creed universe.
  • Jacob Frye of Assassin's Creed Syndicate pursues this principle with a zeal that rivals that of Ezio Auditore and Connor Kenway. He formed the Rooks precisely to have an army to protect the everyman from the injustice and oppression of the Templar-corrupted London government. Both he and his sister Evie share a hatred of the despicable industry of Child Labor, and with Jacob's army of Rooks they waged a war to free the orphans of Northern London from a short life of legalized slavery in Templar-owned factories.
    Jacob: ''These people... are tired of living under your bootheel! You're a bully, Mr Strain... and I find I'm not overly fond of bullies.
• The Riddler in the Batman: Arkham Series. After you solve enough Riddles in Arkham Knight, the man himself will mention "When I tested this on one of my childhood bullies, he simply could not solve it. Not even on the pain of death."
• Jimmy Hopkins of Bully is the epitome of this trope, and can also fall afoul of the He Who Fights Monsters aspect of it. His treatment of the school's Alpha Bitch was particularly over-the-top, even if he didn't actually put the posters of her up and despite his trying to patch things up later. He's prone to other mean-spirited actions as well. And as for what the player may do with him... so, it sure is fun to run over, wedgie, and otherwise traumatize the hell out of little kids, isn't it?... why are all these prefects suddenly after me? Then again everyone, from student to prefects to teachers are bullies in some way or another so Jimmy by default can only fight bullies.
• Keisuke was one of these before you met him in Devil Survivor. Then it backfired on him one day. Horribly.
• In the first two Fable games, your character becomes one... that is, if you don't decide to be the bully in the first game. Fable II is pretty much compulsory due to Rose having a Leeroy Jenkins moment.
• In Fallout 3, you have the option of saving your childhood friend from Butch and the other tunnel snakes before an exam. Cue some clever talking or a hard fistfight if your strength is low.
  • More evil oriented characters can also simply murder him while leaving the vault a few scenes later.
    • You can also murder his mother, if you're going for maximum evil.
• Many of the interactions with Lafonda in the third episode of Farnham Fables mention that she tends to get into fights with bullies. Angelica and Janine, the class bullies, are said to fear her, while other students respect her for standing up for the weak. Her teacher, Mrs. Benheimer, sometimes has to step in to stop Lafonda from going too far, but she still acknowledges her strong moral compass.
• Shirou from Fate/stay night, when he was younger.
  • In the Heaven's Feel route, going to the playground near the shopping district will cause Shirou to remember doing this as a kid there and that he had a childhood rival, also a Bully Hunter, who clashed with him over this and may have teamed up with him on occasion. While Shirou never seems to realize it himself, to the player it is hilariously obvious that said rival was actually Rin.
• Haseo of .hack//G.U. may qualify, given Haseo's desire to hunt down and punish all Player-Killers in the game, the main bullies of the .hack universe.
• According to one of the mangas, Kyo Kusanagi from The King of Fighters began his streetfighting career by defending his elementary school friends from bullies.
• This is the original premise of Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun, where the protagonist beats up gangs of school bullies who have tormented his friend. The Western release (Renegade) changed the storyline entirely to be more "badass", and the protagonist now fights criminal gangs in order to save his girlfriend.
• Kiryu from the Like a Dragon series is one of these, due to the fact that some random enemy encounters take the form of random thugs mugging and harassing bystanders, and the player has the option of coming to their rescue.
  • Basically all protagonists in the series count, with many sidequests having you come across all kinds of bullies, typically educating them the hard way. Even Majima, arguably the most ruthless playable character, has a sidequest where he wins a lonely little girl a stuffed toy only to find her crying later with the toy torn up. It ends badly for the bullies.
• Lost Judgment:
  • While investigating the murder of a student teacher at Seiryo High School, Yagami becomes a bully hunter when he has to deal with a group of bullies no less than four separate times; first when he stops them from harassing a restaurant owner, then when he helps out a girl getting bullied by them. Thanks to his intervention, the girl is saved from being pushed past the Despair Event Horizon, and the bullies start becoming better people.
  • Jin Kuwana is an extreme example of this. Formerly a high school teacher, he ignored the severe bullying of one of his students until it was too late, and the student attempted suicide only to end up in a coma. Years later, Kuwana blackmails all the bullies of the boy into becoming his accomplices as he goes on a crusade to murder every single bully that has ever driven someone to suicide until the law changes to protect those who are tormented as well as giving the victim's parents a chance at vengeance. By the time the events of the game begin, it's mentioned that he's murdered at least seven former bullies in his rampage.
• Played for Drama and Defied in OMORI when Sunny and Kel confront their estranged childhood friend Aubrey - who has since become the leader of a gang of delinquents - over her bullying of another former childhood friend, Basil. However, Aubrey's aggression is a direct result of a combination of trauma over the death of Sunny's sister Mari, belief that her friends abandoned her in trying times, and Parental Neglect, with a bit of Poor Communication Kills thrown in. While she has obviously gone too far and eventually admits as such, some of Sunny and Kel's actions - such as clashing with Aubrey while she's at church, in the middle of a sermon no less - come off as no less excessive, and she harshly chastizes them, not without reason, for sticking their nose where they don't belong. When It Means Everything starts playing, you will feel like the asshole.
• Pokémon:
  • The bear-like Pangoro won't tolerate bullies, demonstrating that Dark Is Not Evil.
  • The elderly dragon Drampa has been known to burn bullies' houses down.
  • In Pokémon Scarlet and Violet the Player Character themselves has to become this and hunt down the gang of delinquents at their Academy of Adventure calling themselves Team Star. As you progress in the storyline, you learn that Team Star used to do this themselves and all the rumors of them bullying students stemmed from their own bullies dropping out in fear of them.
• Mikhail of Psychonauts may be a wrestling fanatic and Blood Knight, but once he sees Maloof being picked on by Bobby, he steps in to make sure Bobby knows bullying is now forbidden. He then agrees to be Maloof's bodyguard, and the two of them are later seen tormenting Bobby's toadie Benny.
• River City Girls: The song "Bully" with the title and talking about fighting a bully.
  Kill the lights, gonna fight, don't you hassle me
  on this ride.
  Feel the spite, won't play nice, don't you bully me,
  You'll want to run and hide.
  * Kiyo Tsukino of Rumble! @ The Campus is a well-known one (in her school, that is).
  • So does Keiichi and Motoko, but the former is a bit of a coward and the latter is unaware of being one.
• Pretty much the only somewhat consistent good trait that Makoto Itou shows in the School Days saga is his hate for school bullies. One of the good endings with Kotonoha in the original game has Makoto defending her when he learns that Otome and her Girl Posse are bullying her (he even stops one of the girls when she's about to slap poor Kotonoha); in Cross Days, he also steps in defense of his Gay Option Yuuki after finding out he was gang-raped by other boys — including Makoto's own Bromantic Foil Taisuke, and in the School Days backstory, he gained Setsuna's appreciation by protecting her from other kids that bullied her for looking smaller and younger than she truly was.
• If both what we've seen of his personality and his official profile, which lists one of his dislikes as "those who prey on the weak", is anything to go by, Alex from Street Fighter is also one of these.
• So did Asuka Kazama in Tekken. Joining the tournament is her way of going pro.

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