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i feel like the women in this game in general are really flat and
sometimes Written By A Man, especially compared to the men. every single
male character in this game, even the boring (IN MY OPINION i know a
lot of people like them and i respect that) male characters like sam and
sebastian and harvey have a good amount of substance to them. but
"boring" female characters like maru and penny just fall flat in so many
ways...as someone who likes both of those two its exceedingly
frustrating to see how lame their stories are. today we are going to be talking about penny, i think ill save my thoughts on maru for a separate bulletin because this one is going to be. long. (and so will that one.)
controversial
opinion incoming but i dont think penny is the spawn of satan actually.
and i think most of the problem with her is not her personality and
character in concept but rather the way that she's written and her
complete and utter lack of a character arc! like yeah i get it the game
needs some grounded characters who dont need a character arc to come
into their personality but like. we have leah. we have maru. i could
argue emily for this point as well because like she doesnt have horrible trauma she is just a silly silly woman. especially with her
heart event, penny is the kind of character who needed an arc to realize
that she doesnt need to act like a hero to everyone, and that even if
her actions are meant with good intentions, they may not come across
that way (hello infamous unanimously disliked- and deservedly so- two
heart event).
she has a piece of dialog when
you get to 8 hearts where she asks you if a person's actions or
intentions matter more which i believe is a callback to said two heart
event but. other than that there is no elaboration. she's stuck in her
ways AND SHE DOESNT HAVE TO BE!!! if you can make alex get over his
internalized homophobia and misogyny why can't penny have a similar arc
with her unchecked saviour complex and inability to accept the answer
no? have her realize everything ive already mentioned? maybe send her to
therapy? i really love her a lot and i genuinely think she deserved
better writing...she had the potential to be such a great character. and i wish she'd gotten better writing, or at least got better treatment in fanon. the stardew valley fandom is a classic "lets give all
of the one dimensional borderline stereotype male characters complex backstories and fleshed
out personalities but when it comes to one dimensional borderline stereotype female characters
we will deem them flat and uninteresting and hate them purely based on
that" situation so whenever you try to talk about characters like penny
you get whacked in the face with BUT SHES ABLEIST!!! BUT SHES A
TRADWIFE!!! BUT SHES BORING!!!
i think the
casually ableist two heart cutscene needs a followup later where you
talk to her again and she realizes that "hey perhaps i shouldnt have
pushed this old man in a wheelchair out of the way before i made myself
feel better about myself by acting like im a hero for helping him".
though the way the game treats george in general is kinda ehhh...again. i
know the developer is obviously not disabled but like would it have
killed you to do research? as someone who's not exactly able-bodied myself it's always irked me how GEORGE is the one who has to apologize for getting upset even though both the player and penny treat him like absolute shit? though i think this is due to the developer's unconscious bias because of the way george's disability is portrayed in other events referencing him
when i saw that cutscene for the first time i
thought it would be the start of a character arc like (drawing back to
alex again im sorry) when you meet alex as a female farmer and hes
misogynistic as fuck but he gradually learns that hey maybe i shouldnt
treat women this way but they just. dont do anything. the good thing about her is that she doesnt drastically change after you marry her (she still goes into town, still teaches the kids, still sits under that tree in town and reads books- it doesnt feel like im shackling her to my ankle and forcing her to be my stay at home wife like with characters such as abigail) but the bad thing about her is also that she doesnt change. at all. she doesnt have any self reflection. she doesnt get help or intervention or anything she just stays a traumatized abused woman with an unresolved saviour complex. its really hard as someone who's been abused and has trauma from said abuse to get over things or unlearn behaviour, i know that from experience. but that doesnt mean i dont try. that doesnt mean that she wouldnt try. that doesnt mean that no abused person ever has ever tried to break the cycle or unlearn toxic behaviours they've picked up/had forced on them
none of penny's
cutscenes really tie into each other now that i think about it actually.
theyre all random as shit. how do we go from her pushing an old man in a wheelchair to her getting screamed at by her drunk mother for us seeing
her mess to her poisoning me with her rank ass (affectionate) cooking to
me teaching her students about natural resources to us having implied sexual intercourse in the bathhouse. why do none of these have dialog after they happen referencing them (other than her apology note after her four heart event and her saying "thanks for being my taste tester" after the six heart event). i get that she's a "quiet and shy" type of character but her dialog is sometimes LACKING..she doesnt even have unique gift reactions. she says the same line about everything
unpopular and controversial opinion two but i think, though they can be seen as annoying, that the extremely harsh friendship point deductions on penny's later two (pre-marriage) heart events are kinda justified actually. youre telling a woman who loves kids in front of her child students that you fucking hate childen and youre telling a woman who's just poured her heart out to you about how much she loves you (and who youve given a fucking BOUQUET THAT SIGNALS ROMANTIC INTEREST + WANTING TO GET SERIOUS) that you dont love her back. id be fucking upset too!! yeah i know six hearts worth of friendship is ridiculous but given her complete lack of development + the way her personality is in general it makes sense. im surprised, having played through other routes, that for like every other bachelor the choices you make have literally no difference on your relationship path either way. at maximum from bad choices you lose like. 50 friendship points. that's not even a heart of friendship. youre telling me everyone in the valley, even characters like shane and haley and abigail and sebastian, would NEVER get mad at you for saying something they think is stupid or wrong? its only mood swings tradwife penny who would ever get mad at you? yeah ok thats kinda lazy writing i dont really buy that but whatever
might add more to this later. i kinda just needed somewhere to get my thoughts out after seeing bullshit take after bullshit take on reddit
Comments
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goro ( PROFILE IS A WIP LMAO )
YOU'RE SO REAL FOR THIS . . penny could have had such a deeper and more three-dimensional personality if certain traits ( like her saviour complex ) were addressed and confronted at least by the eight hear event - i think there were so many missed opportunities for her to be developed further ( like the reference to That two heart cutscene later on ), especially when it comes to her relationships with others like george, or those that she has could have deeper connections with ( e.g, other npcs around her age like sam, abby, seb, haley, etc. ). like she's getting there as a character but is sooo so bland and lacking in so many aspects that i feel that only mods and fanfic can fix in a way.
also most of the female characters being significantly more bland compared to the male characters is such a valid statement, and maybe i'm biased as a nblm person, but it's weirdly frustrating as to how all of the bachelorettes feel so similar ( especially with the ages ? give us older women ! 1 ! ), which honestly makes me turn to the bachelors more ( despite my preferences not really mattering much when it comes to games ).
sorry for rambling on your blog but you've hit all the marks on the analysis of how penny could be better and where she's almost there personality wise :} ! 1 ! ! 1
YES!! i wish she had more connections towards the other npcs as well- or even just any development with her friendships with sam and maru. in general i've found that one of the main problems with the characters in stardew valley is that the bachelor(ette)s genuinely don't interact with each other that much. all of the friendships have maybe one line devoted to them and several of the characters don't interact at all!! in a town with like 30 people they would all know each other regardless of whether they considered each other friends or not. there's not really that much npc dialog in the game in general unfortunately especially considering how long save files can last sometimes (i'm on year 7 in my main one and i swear haley has told me she thinks her sister is weird about 600 times lol)
since starting sdv i've slowly been working on a rewrite of penny's character in an attempt to flesh out all the parts of her that aren't the greatest and/or maybe give her the growth she's lacking but i wish even a little bit more of it could be in the game...she has a good character base but concernedape just did absolutely nothing with her in the same way he did absolutely nothing with sam or emily (imo) despite them also being really good characters in concept
also you don't need to apologize for rambling!! i love hearing the thoughts of other people and i really appreciate your comment :] /gen
by marcel 🍓 (wip); ; Report
friday / kieran 🫀
iwish i could reblog stuff on here or something because you are SOOOOOO right with all of this. literally nodding aggressively and agreeing so hard with every point ur making like yes... yes.... i cannot stress enough how much i agree!!!! i never rlly dived too deep into the stardew valley fandom but it's hard not to notice how differently the women vs men are treated in regards to their story arcs. it's very annoying lol. some criticisms of penny and her writing/heart events are valid (the 2 heart one being the most obvious issue) but at the same time... idk, the way people express those gripes are usually very telling. u are not making a point by going "i hate penny she's ableist and evil and a bigot" you just sound like you hate women. it's not exactly constructive commentary or criticism especially when the issue lies with the writer not doing a great job at conveying certain points/handling topics like disability or trauma, not penny being purposefully awful or whatever. people jumping to bizarre conclusions to make her out to be some evil and despicable woman is truly insane to me she's just very underutilized not....like.... a bad person.
i also did NOT realize penny was *that* intensely hated until u brought it up and it's making me sad now. penny stardew valley get behind me the things redditors are saying about you are NOT true.............
RIGHT its really funny because like with characters like clint and pierre every time you criticize their behaviour ingame you get an army of defenders saying stuff like "oh clint being a fucking creep towards emily isnt actually what happens!! he's just a nervous guy whos too shy to tell her how he feels!!" "pierre being a money-hungry exploitative freak is justified because xyz!!" meanwhile if you try to defend penny in a similar way you get screamed at and told theres no way her actions could possibly be justified because shes an ableist tradwife with no room for analysis. like ok babes your misogyny is showing.....
i mean i can see where some hatred of her is coming from but it feels almost cartoonishy exaggerated? people who act like shes the spawn of satan just because she's a "boring" spouse are especially amusing to me. why are you bursting veins in rage over three pixels of a woman reading in your yard.... theres 11 other options for people you can marry and yet youre acting like you can ONLY marry this woman whose guts you hate
and youre so right about the way that women are treated vs men in this fandom. iirc people used to treat haley like trash as well by shutting down every defense of her or everyone who liked her with WELL SHES A B*TCH SO I DONT SEE WHY ANYONE COULD POSSIBLY LIKE HER!!! however in recent years shes grown a lot in popularity (especially w sapphic women lol) so you dont really see that much unbridled haley hate anymore thankfully. and i know abigail is decently popular as well but there are some people who despise her with a passion because of. a line she says when she first meets you where she mentions that its a shame you moved in because she liked exploring the abandoned fields that your farm was before you moved in? shes literally just a teenage girl why do you hate her more than you hate the megacorp poisoning the waters and ruining the economy of the small town you move to lmao
its not just reddit that's soaked in penny hatred unfortunately.. people HATE her on tumblr and in the stardew forums as well from what ive read
apologies if this is a long or hard to read comment btw this is a topic i am very passionate about
by marcel 🍓 (wip); ; Report
NOIT'S OK im also very into this topic i love reading ur long responses. once again i need to stress that im nodding my head aggressively rn agreeing. idk how anyone seriously genuinely enjoys and defends pierre ill be so honest like what r u guys even seeing in that man. he's just annoying. it's ok to just admit the man is annoying and kind of shitty. he doesn't have any deep trauma that makes him money hungry he's just like that. penny *does* actually have depth and reasons for her flaws though. not that they necessarily justify her but she has waaaay more depth than pierre or clint like...... come on guys.
??? people haaate it when girls have fun..... they also hate it when they're "too boring" apparently. penny is underutilized by the writer yes but i don't think that necessarily means she's boring... she has plenty of established story and conflict that's interesting to think about. it's just that the writer didn't rlly follow up on any of it. which again is a weird thing to hate *penny* for that's an issue u should be having with concernedape!! especially if ur going out of ur way to be weirdly passionate about ur penny hate like..... she's just a 2d girl from a farming sim game bro. u will be ok. just choose someone else if it irks u that badly
i DO remember when haley hate was much more alive...... it's still out there but i agree that it's not as bad as it used to be (which thank god for that bc she's a fav of mine too). i had no idea people seriously have beef with abigail for one (1) throwaway line though that's ??
insert demi lovato "get a job" "stay away from her" image here
by friday / kieran 🫀; ; Report