"I got bullied too. ...By kids calling me a bully all the time, and telling me I was abusive. Hey, that hurt my feelings! ...What happened to the good old days where you could just non-stop fuck with somebody without them claiming to be a victim?"
See that big hulking brute in the playground? The one constantly stealing your lunch money, giving routine poundings, and making everyone in his presence absolutely terrified of him? Well, that kid half his size flicked him on the nose, and he ran away like a punk.
Bullies are cowards. They pick on those weaker than them. However, in media, this tends to be set to such a level that Dirty Coward doesn't even cut it. Fictional bullies are the undisputed kings of Glass Cannons, being buff and blustering, but reduced to screaming infants begging for mercy the moment their prey even remotely implies they're Not Afraid Of Them Anymore and stand the slightest chance of fighting back. The local school bully will run screaming for mommy the instant his victim fights back. The ruthless Domestic Abuser will be left neutralized with a single Groin Attack. The Big Bad that Kicks The Dog is a mere Harmless Villain.
This trope can be misleading, particularly if it encourages children to believe that challenging bullies carries no risk. While it's Truth in Television that bullies are generally acting out of some kind of insecurity, many are sufficiently accustomed to violence that it doesn't scare them. It can't be assumed that all bullies, or even most, would be frightened off by fighting back.
Sub-trope of Paper Tiger, a character who isn't as tough as their physical appearance and/or personality suggests. Compare Miles Gloriosus, a character who puts on a brave act but is usually an incompetent coward in the face of real danger. Might overlap with Easily Embarrassed Youngster. Often the result of someone Challenging the Bully, and it can overlap with Swiper, No Swiping! if being told not to bully is what makes them resign.
Examples:
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Comic Books
- SpyBoy: Butch is The Dragon of the Barbaric Bully Schweitzer but is as skinny as the wimp Alex Fleming, being more of an informant bully. When Alex converted into SpyBoy and beat the crap out of them, he and Butch were captured by The Gourmet and the latter relied on Alex to save him since then.
- Exaggerated in the backstory of Watchmen: As a boy, Rorshach was taunted by a bully because his (Rorshach's) mother was a prostitute. After taking it for a while, Young Rorshach attacked the bully, biting his face and stabbing him in the eye with his own lit cigarette. This turned the bully into an innocent victim in police reports, with no mention of the initial bullying.
Fan Works
- How Bad Can A Little Gossip Be: Mr Ricci, the Big Bad of the fanfic, acts more as a playground bully than a grown man, being him completely unable to manage his anger, trying to hurt (or worse, murder) Alberto (a young adult) and cowering in fear when someone who exercises more authority than him (like Massimo) calls him out on his cruel behaviour and stands up to him.
Film — Animated
- Fantastic Mr. Fox: The coach's son makes Ash eat mud in retaliation for Ash's father causing the whole neighborhood to be destroyed. Ash's cousin Kristopherson comes to his rescue by using his karate training to kick the bully in the nose. The bully cries then leaves Ash alone after that.
Film — Live Action
- In A Christmas Story, Ralphie and his friends are constantly on the receiving end of beatings from Skut Farkus and his little friend. When Ralphie finally has enough, it results in Ralphie giving him a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown. Skut's friend is casually pushed aside by Ralphie and he immediately runs and threatens to call his dad. Meanwhile, Skut is left a crying mess in the snow after his lopsided beating. Decades later, we learn that this buttkicking actually helped set Scut on the path to becoming a good man in his adulthood.
- Back to the Future: Biff Tannen is a bully of Marty McFly's father from his high school years, that continues to demean him in the present. When George stands up for himself and punches Biff out for trying to date rape Lorraine, he never bullies him again and ultimately becomes submissive to George in the present day.
- The Wizard of Oz. When Dorothy first meets the Cowardly Lion he starts insulting and threatening her, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman, and even Toto. After she slaps him on the nose, he engages in some Inelegant Blubbering and admits he's a coward.
Literature
- In the kids' book Hurty Feelings, the elephant bully Rudy runs away the moment Fragility the hippo takes offence at being compared to an elephant.
- Deconstructed by molesworth:
Everyone sa stand up to bulies they will run away but do not believe it. A lot of them stand still and then where are you eh? i will tell you you are in the duck pond and it is joly freezing.
- Moongobble and Me: Peter and Thomas, the two local bullies in Pigbone, like taunting and harassing Edward. When he's traveling through town with Moongobble though, they prove too afraid to come near the old man.
Live-Action TV
- In The Brady Bunch a boy Peter's age bullies Cindy for having a lisp. ("Baby talk, baby talk, it's a wonder you can walk.") Peter snaps and pushes the bully down, knocking his front teeth out, so now he has a lisp.
- Cobra Kai: Yasmine decides to get in Aisha's face once too often and gets a frontal wedgie for her troubles. She limps away from the gloating crowd in response.
Professional Wrestling
- The most consistent method of establishing a Heel is their cowardice, a fondness for sneak attacks and outnumbering opponents, but begging for mercy or running out of matches the moment they're on the losing end. Some variations occur however since many heels are also Boisterous Weaklings.
Video Games
- This is Defied by the Bullies clique from Bully. As noted above the misconcepion that challenging bullies carries no risk part, while they will pick on anyone weaker than them, they are not afraid of picking a fight with a non-nerds clique who can easily hand their rears to the ground, especially if any of them wander into their turf — the parking lot. They'll even pick a fight with a Townie, a clique of outright criminals reputed to use students as dart boards (and are much worse than the Greasers).
- Heimdall from God of War Ragnarök. He's unbearably condescending but deservingly so as, thanks to his precognitive abilities, he's virtually untouchable. In fact, said smugness is primarily the reason Kratos can work around his foresight abilities, as rather than pragmatically dodging any projectiles shot at him, Heimdall goes the extra mile to demonstrate his superiority and always catches the missile to taunt his opponents. When said projectile is the Draupnir Spear, however, it allows Kratos to quite literally blow this tactic up in his face to get the drop on him. When Kratos finally manages to get the upper hand on him, Heimdall loses his cool, going into a Villainous Breakdown as Heimdall realizes that his Story-Breaker Power isn't going to work, which means he has nothing to fall back on. By the final phase of the fight, Heimdall is Blinded by Rage, completely losing his precognition in favor of swinging wildly at Kratos in a blind fury. Not long after, Kratos kills Heimdall by choking him out.
- One of the Nickelodeon Clickamajigs involves a kid confronting and beating up the school bully. After just a few hat-pulls, belly-blows, and eye-pokes, the bully is weeping and turns around so you can give them a wedgie.
Visual Novels
- Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony has Miu Iruma, whose less-sympathetic traits boil down to this. She generally acts very abrasive and has no problem throwing insults at anyone and everyone she comes across, usually in the form of Virgin-Shaming or giving immature and usually obscene nicknames. However, if anyone stands up to her (or insults her back, as Kokichi does), Miu will immediately back offnote .
Web Original
- Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog has Captain Hammer, an utter douchebag of a Smug Super who bullies the titular wannabe super-villain, and who happens to be Nigh-Invulnerable. At the climax of the story, Doctor Horrible's malfunctioning Death Ray explodes and a very little piece nicks Hammer's skin. Hammer, who has never felt pain before, is so shocked at his First Time Feeling it that he runs off whining like a little boy and literally begging for his mother or "someone maternal"
Western Animation
- Roger Klotz of Doug was frequently hinted to be this, such as when he was shown to have an irrational fear of a perfectly harmless dentist or when he was as afraid to graduate as Doug was.
- Sgt Blob of The Dreamstone is a traditional Drill Sergeant Nasty, but a Miles Gloriosus on the battlefield. The Noops' one loss in "The Dream Beam Invasion" also was a result of converting into a Knight Templar variant of this trope.
- Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show: Eddy's brother. Years of extreme physical abuse on children does you no good against a flying door. Granted getting knocked out by a flying steel door only looks 'weak' in a series like this one.
- Most of the Griffins in Family Guy are usually treated this way (albeit to varying degrees depending on Rule of Funny), being high order comedic sociopaths but still cowering when they themselves are the target of abuse. This is especially evident in the odd cases when Meg, their favorite punching bag, finally snaps.
- Harold of Hey Arnold! was similarly depicted as this, constantly attempting to intimidate other students but left whimpering when anyone so much as did something confusing around him. By later seasons this became so evident the actual bully aspect of his personality faded in favor of Character Development concerning his awkwardness and hidden sensitivity.
- In the Rick and Morty episode "Meeseeks and Destroy", Mr. Jellybean turns out to be a vicious child molester who attempts to have his way with Morty. When Morty snaps and brutally retaliates, he fails to remotely fight back against the wimpy teen, and is still dazed and sore when Rick finishes him off.
- Angelica Pickles of Rugrats often cowers whenever a larger infant comes along and routinely runs away crying the instant she hurt herself in any way. In one case, she was able to foil another bully this way, who despite being established as even crueler and more terrifying than her, ran away screaming for his mom after she pushed him once, causing him to graze his elbow.
- An episode of Scaredy Squirrel revolves around the titular character being bullied by a huge muscular dog. When anyone who is capable of fighting back opposes him, he Screams Like a Little Girl and runs away.
- Eric Cartman of South Park is an incredibly sociopathic case of a bully for comedic media, but still routinely presented as an utter wimp in the face of physical assault. In one episode, he repeatedly threatens to beat up Kyle. After Kyle relents to a fight and reluctantly taps him on the cheek, he's left bawling indignantly for a lengthy amount of time. The breast cancer episode takes this to eleven, as he cowers to, and gets his shit beaten in by Wendy of all people.
