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metalgearkaiju · 4 months

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Penny Character Critique Analysis: Death, writing, and her relationship with Ruby

ALRIGHTY so this is officially my first analysis post on Penny as a whole, being said a certain screen here prompted it and after reading into a lot of things and other analysis in the mix I feel like I finally can sort out my feelings about the writing of this beloved character. I want to particularly go in to depth about how she was recieved as a character as a whole, her relationship with Ruby and ultimately how her death was handled. Being one of my most favorite tragic characters I really just want to pin down some thoughts I've had that I feel it is vital I get out. There will be critique on the writing here and there and a little bit of nuts and dolts (because you gotta admit their relationship was one of the most wholesome in the show) but AHEM hear me out yall, and truly while this character holds so much importance with me, along with that comes the genuine criticism of how her arc concluded as a whole so far.

Now let me get this straight. I was not really a fan of her dying a bit. At least in the way she did and ultimately I have a lot to say regarding it after a lot of thought and more research. And this is not just because of her relationship with Ruby (not even talking about the shipping aspect, it genuinely adding a layer of humanity to her and brought out so much character development between the two which was super interesting to me) but I'll get into that in a moment.

To be clear, it is obvious that penny is written to be a tragic character. That much cannot be argued. From the beginning, Penny is shown to be under a strict amount of control from Ironwood, and even to an extent Pietro's worrying for her safety. Which is understandable.

Penny is the first of her kind, an AI that can generate an aura and sentience. She is a war weapon capable of extreme destruction, yet she is given this soft and innocent yet aloof personality that contradicts that. Ultimately, she in some ways is a walking oxymoron. What she was built for (by Ironwood) and who she truly is as a person is really interesting to me from a writing standpoint. We are shown very early on that Penny is just like every other teenage girl, she wants to sneak out, she craves relationships and knowledge about the world, but ultimately because of her differences, there is a hidden barrier she can never cross.

That barrier is broken when Ruby enters the scene. Initially hiding her synthetic identity, this topic is very sensitive for her. She looks thinks and acts like a normal girl for the most part, but isn't. And this is shown to be an extreme part of her insecurities.

We are shown the scene where Penny saves Ruby's life by stopping a car in mid traffic and drawing attention to herself, and ultimately fleeing out of fright of being found out. She's is instructed to by Ironwood to lay low of course, but this is also likely due to her insecurities about being perceived as different. This all changes when Ruby accepts Penny as her first friend, holds her hands and tells her that she is valid the way she is. I cannot describe how this scene made me feel the first time watching it, but the comfort from Ruby telling her that it doesn't matter what's inside of her, she still accepts her as a girl and a friend and won't abandon her. It's perfectly executed, and all in all a really interesting addition to the Penny Ruby dynamic as whole. Penny just wanted a friend, and Ruby accepted her and validated her in her humanity.

We see their relationship begin to develop a bit and ultimately season three hits. Penny is used as a plot device by the villians as a message and ultimately offed in one of the most brutal ways. This scene is very tragic in of itself, and while Penny and Ruby had not yet been able to get as close, it was for sure that their relationship was certainly unique enough to where it really devastating Ruby at that moment. And with good reason; she was killed in front of everyone in the tournament to villianize Ruby's teammate.

All in all, fraud, framing, and Penny getting dying overall seems to be a very prevent theme that adds to the tragedy of this character.

Season 7 hits, and we are all greatly surprised to find Penny is rebuilt, and the fans recieve this REALLY well for the most part. In her short time she was a really interesting and honest to god adorable and enjoyable character, and she was no exception to fans. There is something so interesting about how you can utilize exploring humanity with a robot character that isn't quite human, but deep down craves to understand others and acceptance. Penny from the start is put in this box that separates her from others, but as her relationships fold out the lines begin to blur. Is she really just a machine, or is she much more than that? Ruby is truly a character that helps her find herself and truly learn about the world and what it means to have human emotions and relationships, and that in itself is beautiful. We have this character that is almost akin to an innocent child learning about the world, what is right and what is wrong, and what it means to love. Ultimately, I still feel like love in a general sense is a big theme shown with Penny and her friends, along with the selflessness she shows when anyone she cares about is about to get hurt, and that gives her the humanity she craves.

Continuing on with season 7, Ruby and Penny get a little closer, and the relationship is expanded on. Unfortunately however, Penny still has a duty to Ironwood as the protector of mantle, and that is her primary purpose. We are shown that the authority over Penny still has not quite loosened and that she is still ultimately regarded as a weapon, not a free willed person who should be doing teenage girl things (making friends, learning basic social skills and going through normal teenage experiences). Even with good intentions as a caring father, we still see some of that worry and protectiveness from Pietro as he is afraid of losing her again. Aside from her interactions from Ruby and gang, Penny isn't really able to just live as a normal girl, but is faced with a huge amount of expectations and responsibility as a powerful and dangerous machine that was built to stop evil.

Back to the point I was bringing up earlier, Penny is tragic, and we definitely see this in volume 7, and Penny still isn't getting a break. She is framed on live TV as a volatile killer and is immediately despised by the public. This of course is all a political scheme to sway an election, but Penny is just a tool for their propaganda. And we are shown how Penny's feelings aren't really regarded in all of that, and even Ironwood cares more about how he looks than Penny's feelings (and trauma) on the matter. This leads to the whole fiasco where Penny's decommissioning comes up for debate due to the fact that she is just immediately regarded as a volatile threat. This attack on her humanity hits hard, and weighs very heavily on Penny's heart.

Season 8 comes, and it just doesn't end with the tragic shit. This season however is really vital for Ruby and Penny getting closer and we finally see their interactions bloom, as well as getting some of those more sentimental scenes where Penny is reminded that she doesn't have to be like everyone else to be human, because she is accepted the way she is and not for her purpose or expectations. NND share a lot of hugs this season and truly bring out a lot of soft moments between the two showing how impactful their friendship is.

Ultimately as I said above, the bad guys aren't done. And this time, Penny is hacked and used as a tool to open the vault. The entire virus scenario is really hard on Penny and with the whole fiasco with Ironwood and his treatment of her she is really distraught throughput most of the season (rightfully). Through her expectations with higher ups, as well as quite literally suffering a slow and painful infection leading to her self termination Penny is in an extreme amount of agony. This doesn't help when Ironwood basically held the life of an entire city over her head should she not leave her friends and return to him to do her duty as a machine. And all of those expectations and choices are placed on what is ultimately just a teenage girl who is new to the complexities of humanity.

The points I'm mainly trying to make here is Penny cannot get a break whatsoever, she's under an immense amount of pressure and expectations probably 24/7, and once again she is used as a tool with no regards for her consent or humanity because everyone sees her as a soulless machine.

And I cannot tell you how frustrating that is to see such a sweet and innocent character be treated that way, but like I said initially, she was written to be dramatic, tragic, and excruciating.

Now let's get to the big topic on hand here, Penny's second death.

Now don't get me wrong, I love my share of tragic characters, and I fully believe there are ways death can be a necessity in a character arc to convey powerful imagery. Ultimately this comes down to my opinion as a creative writer, and I in all honesty am not a fan of how Penny's death was handled in hindsight.

Within minutes of becoming human and being saved from the virus, Penny is brutally killed by Cinder (once again) and dies in assisted suicide from Jaune. When I say this scene almost made me cry it was for mixed reason. While I saw this coming, it did make me a little sad considering she was ONCE AGAIN used as a tool by Cinder to get what she wanted. And while she risked her life for thousands, the only ever autonomy she had was choosing her own suicide in that scene, and that is extremely tragic and upsetting in of itself.

I can go on and on about wasted potential because that is a thing but characters arcs can be cut short sometimes. That happens.

But my issue with all of this is ultimately the aftermath.

We have this really important character character brought back from the dead, given character growth, hopes and aspirations only for her to be forced to choose suicide the only time she is given a choice for herself. And I'm not sure about how others feel, but as she is quite literally miserable throughout V7, V8, (and even shown to some extent that she was suicidal to an extent when she asked Ruby to kill her when she was infected with the virus). Giving us her final wish to die so that she isn't a burden or tool to be fought over conveys in all honesty a really sad message about her character and in of itself does a lot of injustice.

But once again, she is written to be a tragic character that doesn't get the good ending.

How that is treated after her death though is really where I have my issues however.

We see in volume 9 that Penny's death is somewhat relevant, Ruby hears her, faints yada yada, but immediately wakes up and there isn't much discussion beyond it. And what's truly annoying is that there was commentary released by CRWBY that the audience was supposed to assume there was an offscreen discussion about how Penny dies, and we are supposed to understand that. Of course we get that vital scene between Neo and Ruby that have illusion Penny tell Ruby that she meant the world to her to try and sway her emotions. I feel like that was a very critical moment in Ruby and Penny's relationship considering Neo weaponized pure emotion from Penny to hurt Ruby, and we are seen she is greatly affected by this. A lot of fans even took inspecting that this meant Ruby held deep hidden away feelings for Penny, which a lot of CRWBY (even Miles Luna himself) acknowledged.

In the end though, V9 doesn't really allow enough grieving time for Ruby and her death isn't really discussed and given closure. And that in itself isn't an issue, but it's where we go from here that I am really going to be critical of.

So we have some pivotal points:

Penny's death is never really a discussion, it's just washed over by team RWBY aside from Weiss's brief mention of it

Ruby's reactions to Penny's death (and ultimately the discussion of her method of death) is brushed over a bit, although not entirely

As CRWBY said, we were expected to have assumed it happened off screen, and that in itself feels disrespectful to the amount of character relevancy Penny had as of late

We actually got some really nice scenes from Ruby regarding Penny, however something feels off

And I want to talk about what exactly that off feeling is, because I truly feel like yes, it wasn't the time to completely mourn Penny in this strange new world, however if she is never mentioned significantly beyond this and brushed under the rug, I can truly say I'll be mad as that is a disservice to her character.

So no, I am not against the killing of characters, or tragedy for the matter, but I care about the messages you convey when you do so as well as what you do with it after.

Upon Pyrrhas death, we got the closure between Jaune and her we needed, the statue scene happened, conversations were had, and the discussions that needed to occur did. This just has not happened with Penny (yet) and I am honest to god just hoping we will see more of this in V10 (if that will even go into production) because Penny's relevancy doesn't feel finisher yet. With all the alluding to it all across V9, and the unresolved issue between Jaune and Ruby, I feel like there needs to be a genuine discussion about Penny to honor her character and give the closure to Ruby and Penny's intimate friendship. It's only fair to Penny's character, sacrifices, and the overall message RWBY wants to portray if they truly plan on keeping her permanently dead this time.

And regarding that, while I feel it is unlikely she will come back (I just don't want to get my hopes up because I'm kind of upset in general) I feel like RWBY has set themselves up to where they could do anything at this point so I say do it well. If you are going to keep her dead, address the themes, honor the character and give it realistic closure with Penny's close relationships (primarily Ruby). If this is in any way setting up a future scenario where mentions of Penny will be relevant (I don't even know at this point because we still have to deal with Pietro just having to deal with his daughter dying twice and just having to suck it) I will be interested to seeing how it is handled, because in the end the care into the writing is what I and others seem to care about the most and how you honor that character. For some that is honoring her death, and for a lot of people, it is that killing her at all was a stupid message utilized for torture porn with no real sentiment or closure to such an important characters commencement.

If the writers ever truly bring her back though, I hope they can finally honor Penny's wishes to have her own autonomy instead of consistently stripping her of her choices and using her as a plot device. And if she is to be dead, for God's sake give the closure needed for the intense and sensitive themes you wish to portray on a teens show. It's only fair to as someone who fell in love with this characters charisma and positivity.

I personally am okay with Penny coming back down the line (as it's been kind of set up to unintentionally imply Penny's relevance is not concluded or over yet, and her dying permanently opens up a lot of responsibility to properly address the themes RWBY chose to utilize) but whatever they choose for the love of god do it right. Penny in all honestly though should never have been brought back just to end her own life, I feel like how abrupt it all was and the immediate (presumed) moving on from it was weird and not considerable but that is simply my opinion.

That's all I have to say on the matter, I hope her relevancy is not truly gone and that Penny and Ruby can get that proper closure over everything that's happened because after all they've done to build eachothers characters and become the most tragic pairing in the show, its owed for sure, however it's gone about.

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