Recently, I wanted to watch some Hercules: The Animated Series, since I didn’t check it out when I was little. It’s a fun little cartoon about a teenage Hercules trying to juggle high school responsibilities and his ultimate task of re-joining the pantheon of Mount Olympus.

Of course, with any school based show, an important character is the bully. In Hercules’ case, his bully is Adonis; handsome, rich, popular, and will let you know it constantly.

Adonis likes to mock Herc about his poor family, weird friends, or occasional clumsiness. Obviously, there needs to be foils and conflict in shows like these, even though there are literal monsters and demons to fight in this series. But, within the universe, one must ask…why is anyone bullying HERCULES?

Adonis knows that Hercules is a super strong demigod. He knows that Hercules’ dad is Zeus. Shit, several gods and goddesses have personally punished Adonis for being a jerk. And yet, Adonis still makes fun of Herc and his friends. He usually never does anything physical (not that I’ve seen yet, I’m still working through the first season) but still, he will mock and sometimes sabotage Hercules to make him seem like a loser. Likely, the reason Adonis makes fun of Hercu-fucking-les is that the demigod is trying to become a true hero. Throwing a guy into orbit for insulting your sandals isn’t very heroic. So, Adonis can make fun of Hercules all he likes, and Herc won’t retaliate physically. 

Despite this, Adonis doesn’t get away with being a jerk all the time. Hercules does stand up to him, clapping back on his insults. Also, as I said before, Adonis has been shown up or punished by the pantheon, including Zeus himself, on a couple of occasions. It’s almost like mocking the “favorite nephew” of Mount Olympus is a bad idea.

A couple more of my favorite examples of this are…

Beyond: Two Souls

Main character Jodie is linked to a spirit, named Aiden. Aiden follows Jodie wherever she goes, protecting her from harm, and helping her with tasks. Other people can’t see Aiden, but know when he interacts with objects in the world. One day, a teenage Jodie goes to a birthday party. Since she doesn’t know the kids at the party too well, she has trouble fitting in, but things start looking up. She even gets to dance with a cute boy. Later, one of the girls asks Jodie for a demonstration of her “powers.” If the player does so, Aiden moves things around the room, freaking out the others.

Later, the other kids rather quickly turn on Jodie, calling her a “witch” and locking her into a closet to continue the party without her. If the player chooses to do so, she can have Aiden go hog wild, destroying the party, attacking the teens, and even setting the house on fire. Even if the player didn’t show off Aiden prior to this, the teens knew that Jodie was in the “supernatural studies” program in their town. And they still burned her with cigarettes and threw her into a closet.

Dragon Ball Z

An evil wizard, Babidi, has released an immensely powerful creature, Majin Buu, from his walnut-like prison. Buu is capable of destroying entire worlds in seconds, and kills gods for the funsies. Babidi wishes to use Buu to, of course, destroy/take over the universe, and get revenge on Shin, the god who killed Babidi’s father. Unfortunately for the wizard, Buu is like a child, wanting to eat sweets, play, and explore the new world he is on. Babidi orders Buu to travel the world with him, destroying cities and eating people (after transforming them into sweets). Whenever Buu disobeys, Babidi threatens to say the spell to seal Buu away. Babidi continues to insult Buu’s face and intelligence during the whole day they are laying waste to the world.

Some time later, Goku arrives to fight Buu, but is on a massive time crunch since he needs to go back to heaven (long story). They duke it out for a while, but Goku realizes his time on Earth is nearly up, and says he must go. Goku compliments Buu’s strength and resilience, and wonders aloud why Buu listens to Babidi’s orders. He adds that Babidi is a coward, and despite having scary magic powers, he is a weakling. Goku leaves and Buu considers the hero’s words. Babidi insults Buu even more for letting Goku escape, and threatens to put Buu back in the walnut.

Buu responds by strangling Babidi, preventing him from saying the spell, and punching the wizard’s head clean off.