Jimmy Hopkins

From Bully Wiki

"The name's Hopkins. Jimmy Hopkins."

— Jimmy Hopkins

James "Jimmy" Hopkins is the playable protagonist and main character in Bully. He was voiced by Gerry Rosenthal.

Contents 1 Character Description 1.1 Character Inspiration 1.2 Character History 2 Characteristics 3 Role in story 4 References

[edit] Character Description

Jimmy is 15 years old and is smaller in height than most students, but is reasonably stocky. He has freckles on his cheeks, and wears a gold stud earring in one of his ears. He has a ginger buzzcut.

At the start of the game, he is wearing a brown jacket over a white t-shirt, with faded blue jeans and, white sneakers. His school uniform consists of a blue Bullworth vest over a white shirt, with khaki school slacks. Over the course of the game, Jimmy can obtain a wide variety of clothes, haircuts, and tattoos, allowing the player to either have him adopt the "look" of one of the cliques, or make his own unique fashion statement. He generally wears his clothing more disordered than intended; for example, he wears his school uniform with the collar unbuttoned and unfolded, and his sweater vest and shirt only half tucked in.

In early screenshots, Jimmy was seen with no freckles, a longer nose, and ears that stick out.

[edit] Character Inspiration

Jimmy was designed to be an "everykid." Lead Producer of Bully, Jeronimo Barerra, claimed that what he wanted to do with Bully was to recreate the state of being a kid, and to make it fun. ^[1].

Parallels were also made between Jimmy and Holden Caulfield, the main character of The Catcher in the Rye. Jimmy and Holden share a background of having a difficult homelife and being thrown out of multiple private schools. Jimmy even uses Holden's favorite derogatory term, "phony", to describe his new stepfather.^[2]

[edit] Character History

Jimmy is dumped at Bullworth Academy by his often remarried mother and his new stepfather, who Jimmy describes as a "rich old phony", whilst they go on a year long cruise. Jimmy had previously been expelled from seven schools for a variety of reasons (graffiti, violent conduct, bad language, disrespecting staff and, according to small talk, arson). Bullworth is Jimmy's last chance to avoid juvenile detention and, knowing Bullworth's reputation, he prepares for the worst.

[edit] Characteristics

Jimmy is slightly undersized, however, his tough childhood has granted him both a level of physical toughness, fighting skill (enabling him to hold his own against students larger and stronger than him) and a level of awareness that most of his peers at Bullworth don't have. Though he's aggressive and quick to fight, he's not truly malicious. As he states early on in the game, "I only give people what they have coming to them."

When dealing with others, Jimmy tends to be rough mannered. He talks abusively to people such as Algie, even when helping them. His only real friend at the school is Pete Kowalski, but Jimmy doesn't treat him with respect either, calling him a dork to his face. Despite this, he seems to have a decent underlying nature, frequently moved to defend people who are weaker than he is. He helps the Nerds despite his rude treatment of them, and later in the game, he helps Mandy despite the fact that she was antagonistic to him through most of the school year. He also gets along with any teachers who are willing to treat him with respect, which perhaps surprisingly is most of them, excluding Mr. Hattrick and Mr. Burton.

To a large extent, Jimmy's personality within the game depends on the player controlling him. While his actions in the cutscenes are predetermined, Jimmy can deal with situations in different ways. For example, he can order other bullies to leave their victims alone, or he can bully the other kids himself. He can also pay off bullies to leave him alone, or start fights for no reason.

During the course of the in-game missions he causes all the girls in the cliques (Beatrice, Pinky, Lola, Mandy, and Zoe) to like him. The only girls he goes on actual dates with are Pinky and Zoe. He can also kiss one boy per clique - Trent, Cornelius, Gord, Vance, Kirby and Duncan - but this doesn't come into play in the actual storyline, and the player can chose whether to have him do this or not. The only character Jimmy shows long term interest in, however, is Zoe. The end of the final mission closes with Zoe kissing Jimmy on the steps leading to the Academy.

[edit] Role in story

Jimmy is the protagonist of Bully, and is present in all missions and events.

[edit] References