Does anyone think that the character would have worked better had they consolidated Gary and Petey into one person? In other words make him sarcastic like Gary but loyal like Petey throughout most of the game, not turning on Jimmy at the end of Chapter 1. It would've explained why Jimmy didn't go after Gary until he was expelled. Interestingly enough, Gary's monologue at the end would have still made sense.
Actually this what I thought in my restructure except Petey would still be in the story. The biggest problem with Gary is the fact Jimmy never has any reason to go after him when you know he's an enemy.
How do you resolve this? By not making him an enemy until absolutely neccessary. This is only a very rough outline of the 'changes' but it's too long as is
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Simply put Gary would be made headboy in chapter 2's beginning though he has already set Jimmy up to face against Russell in the hole, though Jimmy has no idea who did that and who's spreading hearsay about what he is saying. Petey suspects Gary of something fishy but of course Jimmy as always never listens to Petey in regards to Gary.
However for Gary to keep 'order' within the cliques he uses Jimmy as his unoffical enforcer while at the same time (unknown to Jimmy obviously) gives them reasons to hate him. Jimmy then pacifies the cliques as he does in the main story. Petey is still Jimmy's 'guide' telling him to solve the problem that Gary sets out (and causes).
You might say at the end of chapter 4 is where Gary stops taking his meds. Gary then goes to the townies and gets their help to start causing problems. You ever wondered how Gurney got into the school and set the gym on fire? Gary. Not to mention there's a secret passageway inside the school by the asylum. It'd be pretty easy for him to get in undetected, especially with inside help.
Jimmy is of course accused of doing everything bad for exactly the same reason as normal. Because Gary said so. Except this time he is actually trustworthy at this point rather than a horrible liar which makes it far more believeable that people would listen to him.
This of course leads Jimmy to being expelled. Knowing that the townies caused his problems he seeks them out for a beating and upon beating Edgar the pair finally put the pieces together since Edgar realises he wasn't going to get to rule the school, or even continue to prank them because Gary had already achieved his goal of removing Jimmy and now they are an 'enemy' and therefore would no longer recieve his inside help.
Then of course Gary carries out the finale as before, causing everyone to fight each other and 'turning the school into a battleground', just for kicks. He's obviously the insane lunatic now we all know and loathe
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A few simple changes and Gary goes from a horrible obvious see through liar who nobody would believe where the hero has to carry an idiot ball to make the plot work to a devious mastermind.
I do think there could be a sequel where you play as Gary as he tries to redeem his name.
I mean, in the Kyrandia series, Malcolm is initially the bad guy. But in the third game, you play as him, and he still has his narcissistic and sarcastic personality as he tries to survive (and it was not only the funniest game in the series, but also by far the best)...
Ehhh... it'd be risky, because Gary's not only devious he also shows a complete lack of morals and it was even said in this thread that's one of his most likeable features. It'd be very difficult to portray him as a hero. If Gary really must return to Bully, it'd have to be with some sort of leverage. Like something he knows about the school that Crabblesnitch doesn't want people knowing about but something that's difficult to prove thus giving a potential protaganist a mission.
This gives him an out from Happy Volts and a way back into Bullworth but as a playable character (either as a hero or a villain) I don't know, the guy is not known for his fighting ability but I guess you could remedy that. To be honest I really believe too much damage was done in the first game to make him return in any believeable fashion without completely destroying the reasons people like him in the first place.