Justice for the stompy boots. MY BOOK! Amazon: mybook.to/DeCineribus1 Video Summary: • So I Wrote A Book... |... 0:00 Intro 3:31 What Is A “Real Girl” Anyway? 8:07 Monkey’s Paw
Honestly, in my opinion, by turning Penny human, they completely undermined the two main parts of her character: 1.) Making her own decisions and 2.) Not needing to be flesh and blood to be human (or at least a person). And even then, they still could have salvaged that by exploring her becoming human... but, instead they just axed her so that she could give the powers to the person they were supposed to go to begin with. Not to mention Penny didn't really do anything of lasting impact throughout V7 and 8. Anything that was major that happened to her or that she did either resulted in nothing changing or got quickly glossed over. So what was the point of bringing her back?
I really felt like the message for Penny should’ve been more like the Iron Giant when “being a machine doesn’t make you a weapon, you are who you choose to be.” This can be demonstrated by having Penny completely overcome the virus in her own and go out of her way to save her friends.
I’m more upset that she came back as the same person. Especially because all the protagonists just have no reaction to her return. They just all go “oh penny is alive…cool.” I was really hoping to see a newer more Ironwoody Penny, and watching Ruby try to get her old friend back then try to connect with this new penny would’ve been a really entertaining arc. What we got was super disappointing for me
That would have been way better then what we got. Like, I assumed back in season 3 that the reason they didn't linger on Penny's death was because they were already planning to bring her back (being a robot, it seemed obvious to me). So when she came back, I was really excited to see what they would do with her. The "hack the atlas robot" arc from season 3, but now it's Penny, was not the story they needed to tell.
@@spritemon98 that also would’ve been good. Literally anything other than her being the same person would’ve been better. The consequences of V3 would still be there and not feel as cheapened.
Yeah, especially considering jaune is nothing but a self insert at this point Why else was he the one to kill penny and be the only character outside of team RWBY (and Neo for obvious reasons) to end up on the island?
@@lonewolf9578 The argument could be made for why Jaune stayed behind being strange but it makes sense he was the one to kill Penny. Weiss is a better fighter and could hold of Cinder better, Jaune can also heal people and that was the original plan, until Penny told him to kill her. It does feel jarring though, Jaune has done nothing since v6 and then he gets a big moment out of nowhere in v8. I can understand criticism against Jaune as a character because he's super inconsistent in how important he is etc. But that doesn't mean he's a self insert, he's not cool, the world doesn't bend over backwards to suit his needs. But yeah, it might have been more interesting if Penny lived and Jaune died.
@@findlaymurray397 first of all, it doesn’t make sense because the two literally never spoke with each other once in the entire series up to that point And if anything jaune should have gone with Ren to, oh I don’t know, keep his aura boosted so people don’t die. you know, The thing they’ve literally been doing together since volume 6 on the train?! And what happened when jaune wasn’t there? Ren’s aura ran out, his semblance stopped working and people died
@@lonewolf9578 They didn't expect Cinder to show up so they probably assumed Ren would be able to hold for a little while. I meant that it made sense in that one moment for Jaune to be the one to do it and it makes sense why he was there. My point was just that just because Jaune is written pretty poorly doesn't mean he's a self insert. But your point about Ren makes me wonder, why is the portal just to the middle of the desert? Why not just Shade academy? Like, what was the plan? They get everyone into the desert and then what? They trek towards civilisation with no food or water and no idea where they're going. The plan as a whole was just bad.
Personally the way I like to think how Penny's return could have been done is that she greets Ruby and the gang distantly, with Pietro explaining that for the amount that managed to be recovered, the memories of the original Penny are merely like recordings she watched instead of having personally experienced, allowing her to reference things from Beacon days but would need to remake her relations with Ruby and the others from scratch, which isn't helped by how different she comes off from what they knew, making her return still have the consequence of the drama of Ruby only seeing a reminder of the original Penny in the new one, rather than considering her the real Penny, something more than her just.. being back, like as if nothing ever happened, her death so long ago being made pointless
Honestly I didn’t mind that they did brought her back, but I did disagree with the fact that they killed her again. Me and my friends pretty much all agree that bringing her back just to kill her was a worthless story line. I also agree with you that Penny should have been Ironwood’s first choice as the Winter maiden. Forgive me if this sounds heartless, but Penny is a robot and has a much better chance at surviving dangerous battles that a normal human. And because she has a soul she does have the ability to assess a situation from an analytical and an emotional perspective in most situations unlike, say Ruby, who is a good leader that can let her emotions get the better of her in tough spots. And if necessary she can follow direct orders in times of need unlike a normal girl who can defect. P.S. Winter as the Winter maiden is really boring to me and way too obvious to be exciting or interesting
Clearly, they turned her human so her death would be "shocking," for what is te point in turning her human if she just dies. Note: Anyone wanting to criticize "but they did just kill her," yes, *they did.* @@spritemon98
@@Bezaliel13 You can kill a character if has a meaning in the storyline, but bringing Penny back was just so pointless and lazy. As a writer I can say that killing and reviving a character for killing it again has no meaning, just a lazy decision and is not shocking it was obvious she was gonna die again. -A fan of Penny.
@@NighttyDai So, they went with a shocking death instead of a meaningful one, and you are *telling me* that it was obvious? I do not feel like we are in opposing views here.
"Characters feel like they're forced to be together and have to pretend to be friends" ohhh that's exactly how it feels to me too but i couldn't put it into words!
Honestly, I always felt it was unique to have the OG Penny as an element in RWBY. The whole idea of her being synthetic but having an aura (even if it stemmed from Pietro) honestly made her a much bigger deal for the world of Remnant than what the show made it out to be. It was akin to Gen:Lock's story in how it played with the idea of sentience beyond a strictly human body. It would have also been an interesting element to discuss in relation to the idea of the Grimm brothers, the creation of life, and perhaps even the benefits (and challenges) that a new "species" of sentient life on Remnant would have.
Maybe the Schnee Dust Company could have replaced their Faunus workers with AI bots, and caused a complex struggle in Blake and Weiss. There would have been Faunus who, while suffering terrible work conditions in the mines, got the best pay possible in Atlas for Faunus citizens. Maybe racists could have expressed that Faunus, the second-class citizens, were now worthless and ought to return to Menagerie. But, that would mean the CRWBY needs to do more in-depth research about racial injustice to pull it off well
Yeah, I think they essentially abandoned that whole storyline since Adam's downturn back in Vol 5 (really Vol 3 if you think about it). After that, aside from the super overt stuff at the start of Vol 7, racism as an issue feels like it's been abandoned over time.
Face it, RT can't, they are even incapable of making a decent general storyline or make characters not puppets. They can't even survive without forcing a ship.
@@havinearlong9055 I've honestly thought, since Vol 4-5, that one of the major problems is they just have too many characters in the story at all times. They're cooking with too many ingredients and it just makes it so they're not getting the flavor or depth out of any of them.
4:45 As a neurodivergent person who works with other neurodivergent people, allow me to provide some insight. Neurodivergence is honestly something that can either be very noticeable and obvious (especially those with autism (a form of neurodivergent)), or something that is barely noticeable unless you really pay attention. Obviously Penny is the former with her being a robot and all. The main issue with neurodivergence in RWBY is that while it can apply to almost anyone, it is most obvious to Penny, and to Ironwood…Who’s semblance basically makes him neurodivergent and is blamed for being the cause of his downfall….Yeah. In essence, you have a neurodivergent character who has to forcibly change who she is to have agency, and a character who’s acts of evil and other stupidity is blamed on him being neurodivergent. I’m pretty sure this isn’t what they were going for and I can’t take offense to it (unlike the White Fang that was intentional), but it’s something I can see aggravating people with autism in the RWBY community, and I have autistic people I work with who watch the show, heck I got them into it. It’s kinda sad.
I don't think it's fair to say P.E.N.N.Y.'s change to gain more agency was a bad form of representation. The only thing that changed about her when she became human was she became squishy and removed her ability to be directly influenced and controlled by... basically her parental controls. I actually think that kind of metaphor would've been really cool, if they did anything with it instead of killing her off. AGAIN. I am autistic and have struggled in the past with parental and authority figures making decisions for me because they don't trust me to do that myself. Seeing that allegorically represented as something that P.E.N.N.Y. sheds to become more human is kind of cool. Again it's undermined by her dying in the same Volume, plus it's pretty clear that probably wasn't the thought process they had writing it, but the subtext is there. I hadn't noticed Ironwood's thing, but thinking about that, yeah, you're probably right.
I think the foreshadowing in the beginning of the Atlas arc, the scene where they say its like Beacon all over again - except Penny perma dies captures your point exactly. Unless Ambrosias decided to pull a wizard did it., which would be cool but highly unlikely
Thinking about it, it would have been cool to see Pedro just in the process of rebuilding Penny. With the core intact but damaged, they could have Penny not remembering the RWBY gang and getting to know them again while Ironwood has complete control (mentally) over her. Then as the arc goes on we see her gaining her own semblance of dependency and withdrawing from Ironwood but not completely trusting RWBY and co. It be cool to see that Watts escaped his death battle with Ironwood and is befriended by a rogue Penny sometime after leaving with the maidian powers. Just as general nod to Pinocchio taking off with a friend to Pleasure Island. They return to Salem where she could have prompted Salem to safeguard her. Idk it would have been epic to see her switch sides ( get turned into a donkey) and then come back as a real girl after she sacrificed her life (the mercy kill in the space betwixt) and the rod fell with them to help with this.
I was never against Penny coming back I just wanted it to actually serve a purpose. Like her loosing her memory or something. I wish they would have brought her back for a reason other than pleasing fans. Now she's dead so we'll never get anything interesting out of her. Her coming back did nothing.
There's a pretty cool storyline in star trek where Data(friendly robot who's always wanted emotions) is granted emotions, and he is so unused to them that he becomes super easy to manipulate into anger and hate, and ends up succumbing to a raged evil. HAL9000 literally snapped at the first sign that he was committing human error. There's a lot you can do with robots suddenly gaining another sense of self, what a shame they did none of it.
@@gameboy8010 probably has something to do with her stupid pride. Not making excuses for bad writing but cinder is always on her high horse and he put on back on the ground where she fucking needs to be, but she probably was super pissed because of that. I think he was also there when she used the last wish so she was cutting that loose end too.
The moment that Penny returned, I had a bad feeling because they just shrugged off the emotional value of her return. And they didn't even do anything, just Poof, she's here now. Salutations. Then they build her up to be something great only to have her brutally taken off to promote the secondary(now primary) character.
"Then they build her up to be something great only to have her brutally taken off to promote the secondary(now primary) character." And five years later, you all now know what Pyyrrha fans felt like. Sucks, realizing that the only reason they prop up these types of characters is to pretend that they're sharing their toys with you, only to snatch them away to make you cry.
@@2097Pyros pyrrha was a bit too powerful for one of the main characters. She was kind, wise, a highly competent combatant, knowledgeable and had a crush on the character voiced by one of the writers. If she were to stay alive, not only would many of the stakes be lost but also she would smack a bit much of the "perfect gf" to miles. And it's not like they haven't been creepy about the girls before. Honestly I think offing her was a favor because she got off the show while it was still good and not just a franchise to be milked to prop up rt's other shows.
@@chukyuniqul No, she wasn't, we were all fed very specific, cherry-picked information to get us to come to that conclusion, mostly around her Semblance. What Pyrrha DID have over the others was a public venue in which to showcase her abilities. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that using her tournament career as proof of her superiority over the others actually diminishes the other characters, characters like Blake who have loads of real-world experience and in her specific case, did not need a prep school to gain acceptance into Beacon. As for "stakes", I REALLY find it amusing when this word gets used, because the people who are using basically mean "character death ONLY". Also notable is that Yang, in the very same season Pyrrha died in, got caught dead to rights by adam, right after the man basically told Blake that he's going to kill everyone she cares about....and he ONLY takes her arm. Girl should be DEAD, with how that got set up. There's no stakes in giving one character actual Plot Armor, then turning around and killing one of the B-squad (season 1 commentary said that JNPR was originally this, and only got elevated at the last second, all but assured so they could claim that they were killing "main characters"). That very moment revealed that ALL of team RWBY are safe, and JNPR's just their body blockers. Willing to bet that the next time we see Ren and Nora again, they'll be dead.
@@2097Pyros Girl fought cinder to a damn near standstill while she was fully showcasing her maiden powers. That's leagues beyond what any of the main characters do. I don't necessarily disagree with your point, I see where you're coming from and to be completely honest the fact that the girls haven't really lost or faced consequences invalidates the idea of stakes. But, like, I still think Pyrrha was done a favor by being taken out of the show before it got...well... Volume 5'd. I mean her pull (hehe, pun intended) among her teammates would keep things from falling apart in season 8, eliminating even that pretense of drama. That'd be even more lame. Also idk what you're talking about, Yang's dead. The blob of yellow hair walking around and probably mashing clams with blake isn't Yang. She's fun but sensible and caring and her bad temper out of combat is exclusively in extreme cases. Also she makes puns. I see none of that in the most recent volumes, only anger and abandonment issues and gayngst when there's no reason for it. Yang isn't a raging dike, which is literally what this character replacing her is. A stereotypically almost-butch angry lesbian woman. Even the one arguable quality she has compared to volume 1-3 yang (her being queer representation among the main cast) is undermined by how much she behaves like a negative stereotype.
@@chukyuniqul "Girl fought cinder to a damn near standstill while she was fully showcasing her maiden powers. That's leagues beyond what any of the main characters do." Which is not believable in any stretch because they benchmarked Cinder's power to Glynda Goodwitch in the very first episode, and Glynda is basically Pyrrha's better by several leagues. The ONLY way to make this fight believable is to actually let Pyrrha take her half of the Maiden powers, because then you could have said that Cinder's experience with it was the deciding factor. Also note that we a) don't see how CInder beat Ozpin, and b) what we DO see shows Cinder doing way more than what she did with Pyrrha. This was NOT a close match, this was a stomp that Cinder drew out as long as it did. That whole fight was not Pyrrha's grand last stand, it was a powers test for Cinder, much like the Red Trailer was a weapons test for Ruby. Pyrrha was objectively nothing more than a punching bag for Cinder. Yeah, real nice treatment of one of your "mains". That being said, yeah, it's better that she got out when she did. ALSO that being said, there's much she could have done while keeping the same story beats. You know, like recovering from her injuries with Yang, then needing to leave because, I don't know, they might be wanted by Vale authorities for "their hand" in the Grimm attacking Vale, and finally having to find Rqaven because they were barred entry to Mistral? Dunno, some stuff like that.
Penny was such an interesting take on the non-human becoming human because she never once expressed a desire to be human and was perfectly fine being herself, she didn't ever really NEED to be physically human and that was the beauty of her character. It could have opened up questions about how the Maiden powers aren't exclusive to physical bodies, but willing souls and the possibility of non-humans like Penny having more to them than meets the eyes. But I guess that was too complicated to develop into a cool character arc for her and they didn't plan that far ahead.
This, she is the closest thing to the antichrist of Remnant, conceived in an unholy way, died and come back through even less clean powers. Salem and the Twins should be paying a lot more attention to the cosmology implications behind her and even the Blacksmith/Creator should take a look.
Tbf, I never forgot about Penny's first 'death'... I was upset still, but knowing that she was a robot, I already knew or believed, that they're gonna bring/reconstruct her back... Still tho... Can't say enough of how pissed and terribly upset I was(still am) by meat-person Penny's death... I was stumped for like a week... And I get sad every time I listen to "Friend"...
If I were to say anything about Penny, I honestly didn't mind her return, it was expected since she is a Android. However, I was expecting some sort of consequence of her destruction in the past. I was thinking more of the line of Memory Loss. It would put a damper on the team that Penny isn't the same Penny they spent their time with back in Beacon. That Penny is long gone, but they'll form new memories and bonds with this Penny.
Penny was one of my favorite RWBY characters. She was fun, memorable, I liked her weapon, and the little friendship between her and Ruby was wholesome. Plus, I was a nuerodivergent teenager who was really into robots and also felt generally weird compared to everyone else, so she was kinda my dream character. When she died in Volume 3, it really broke me up, even as much as Phyrra's death, but it was what made the Volume 3 finale so great (Ruby being so broken up by grief and trying to take on the Nevermore was fantastic). Sure, I wish that she was mentioned more after that, and maybe be a catalyst for Ruby to harness her silver eyes so she could protect people like she failed to protect Penny, but hey, I was content getting my Penny content from RWBY Chibi. I lost interest in the show after Volume 6, but when I heard Penny had come back, I was intrigued (I always wondered why they just didn't rebuild her). Even so, I felt kinda burned by this show and was decided to not tune in. Then, recently I began watching some RWBY rant videos after they began popping up on my dash, and when I found out they had killed Penny after both turning her into the Winter maiden and a human, I just... I just felt empty sadness and expected disappointment. It just hurt. They took a character that had so much promise and who brought emotional weight to the best part of the show, then killed her positive message and then her again. It's just immensely disappointing, and the thing that will probably turn me off from this show forever
Winter should've became the Winter Maiden first. And I think Winter should've been killed off instead, THEN she gives. Penny the power. Also Penny being so self-sacrificial throughout V8 made her death even worse. I think the human thing could still work if she mentioned a desire to feel sensations like wanting to taste a sandwich, smelling rose, feeling a warm embrace from a hug and not just wanting to be human in general. Finally, another reason to make her human would be let's say that Watts' hacking can't be stopped, only he can do it or it can't be overridden, period. Like any tampering with the program could fry her CPU or worse cause her to explode. And even if she could overcome it, who's to say Watts wouldn't anticipate that and plant a failsafe on the program that make her attack her friends or erase her emotional grid making her a blank slate causing her to become more compliant to the problem. Thus, making her human would be the only option left to save her life.
I think it would be interesting if watts managed to get his hands on og penny and reprogrammed her. But also have penny 2.0 and have them both go through different character arcs through volumes 7 and 8. In other words protoman and megaman
@@trentfowler1335 that’s more comparable to something that happened in megaman zero 3 Also the reason why I brought up protoman was because he sort of joins megaman and helps when it’s necessary
PennyOne: "What are YOU? Dr. Pietro's assistant? His weapon? His daughter?!" PennyTwo: "I'm all those things." PennyOne: "THEN WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO BE?!"
I think it would have been better if instead of being made human, Penny overcame the virus herself through her own will. It's cheesy but it would have been a triumphant moment for this character who strives for agency and free will. Unlike the other robots, Penny has a soul and aura, so I don't think it would be too much of a stretch for her to do that.
Or have her at least break free long enough to tell them to make her a real girl somehow. Since, aside from the comical amounts of "yall did all of that prep in the brink of apocalypse?" I liked the basic idea of turning the "literal genie" trope on its head, tricking the flamboyantly nerdy genie to do what they actually want. But going through all that trouble to not even be able to explore life with her as a human, or even letting Pietro see her like that, is shameful, even by toying with viewer's emotions standard. The death of potential is much worse.
The plot of the entire Atlas Arc only works by removing every last brain cell from every single character. I literally have no idea how or why anything happened for the last 2 seasons.
An example of "android brought back different so it's jarring for the MC to interact with them" that I really like is Legion in ME3. For those of you who didn't make the mistake of choosing Jacob for the vent part of the ME2 suicide mission, if you do so Legion dies and in ME3 is replaced with a Geth virtual intelligence. Throughout the Geth/Quarian part of ME3 Shepard, or at least my Shepard, tries to talk to the Geth VI as if it were Legion and it only responds with "I am not Legion", and at the end of Geth/Quarian arc choosing it over Tali(a queen who has never done anything wrong) kinda leads to a "bad end"
Having never watched RWBY but having watched a LOT!!! of videos discussing RWBY, Penny to me sounds like she was written from a point of view that went no deeper than "hey, wouldn't the fans lose their absolute shit if we did x?" without any further thought put into character motivations, inner conflicts, growth, personalities, or how they process events and how those events permanently affect them psychologically. But that sounds like it's a pretty overall RWBY thing... not just Penny. Also as someone who is actually neuro divergent lol fuck these people for implying that not following the 'correct' methods of being a person is undesired and that being reshaped and reprogrammed (no pun intended) to fall exactly in line with the common norm is desireable because being 'normal' is automatically better and desired by all those who fall outside of the majority. To go back to Star Trek; Data never wanted to not be an android. Data wanted to have emotions and understand people. THOSE ARE NOT THE SAME THING.
Data had the opportunity to become organic through the Borg and chose against it because he genuinely cared about Picard, the Enterprise's crew, and humans as a whole. He never NEEDED to be human to be considered a person and worthy of respect and love by his crew-mates (well a good number of them) as well. He even has a pet cat named Spot that he cares dearly for.
I have to disagree. I have a lot of issues with V8's writing, however I can't agree on this one. Penny in V8 was basically Ironwood's foil. While Ironwood is supposed to be presented as a human who become more heartless in their pursuit of what is deemed necessary, Penny was the inverse or a robot becoming more and more human like. And part of being human is making choices for yourself, even if that choice is voluntarily sacrificing yourself. Her becoming human is both a figurative and literal transformation or her being in control of her own agency.
Honestly, the author of the Team Rain comic mentioned something about them preferring if Winter Schnee got the Winter Maiden powers, but then for them to go to Penny after dying; a bug reason would be for them impact it would have on Winter's kin and associates. Also, I was not impressed the first time K-Mart-Azula/Cinder killed a redhead in a finale, and I was less impressed this time.
Im less impressed that Cinder is STILL alive. Seriously the Cinder ex Machina can stop now Miles. Stop Simping! Stop it! No that doesn't mean you can self insert as Jaune and put in thirsty moms thirsting for Jaune! No! Stop! Seriously its sad that Volume 7 showed thay they can write pretty damn good... and just like with the conflict with Adam dramatically changing character at the end of Volume 6 for the sake of ships they fell down the stairs and dropped the show along the way. Just this time with Volume 8.
@@francisharkins It's been a while since I've looked back at the other volumes, but the problem has and always will be that they have some cool ideas and exactly zero talent for bringing them to life. I was willing to forgive vol 4 for being lame but... they officially had no excuses after 6. At this point I watch RWBY to see how finally it ends, not because I like it. Penny being resurrected for basically nothing TWICE was the final nail in the coffin that these flucklechucks have no idea what they're doing and never have.
@@rururiemn1941 I think the main issue is now that they are so far in they don't know how to write antagonists. Plus they always try for shock factor endings. The fact they went for Penny dying again was such a cheap climax because of the fact its just meant to rival Pyrrha's death in Volume 3. I mean look at how many antagonists got killed off in these last two volume. Hazel, Watts, Jaques, Ironwood, Clover. Technically the conversion of Emerald, Winter, and the Ace Ops and likely Neo from being betrayed again by Cinder So that leaves us with what, 4 antagonists? You got Salem who is just the definition of a villian going god mode which in itself is bad writing, Cinder who literally is pulling a Shadow of Mordor and refusing to die and coming back with even more bs. (Even though her backstory was nice it was delivered to late, they really should have revealed it back when she lost her fight to Raven and was hunting the gang down. Mercury who's only reason for fighting for Salem is because she's the boss now. Tyrian. I don't even need to explain Tyrian because I think he's actually the best written of the antagonists... least till they reveal his edgy troubled backstory with poor writing. Then you got the Grimm who are just a limitless horde of monsters and who RT can't even be original with their own ideas anymore. Its bad when you realize alot of the new Grimm in the last 3 volumes has all been fan creations. 1 of which im pretty sure they didn't give credit to being a fan made grimm, that being the Leviathan. I hate to be the one to bash RWBY because I do want to see the show succeed, but I don't think its possible without more writers to critique bad ideas or time for animators and the two writers to think of better ideas. Which is very unlikely since the show is an IP now. Its not gonna make investors or executives happy if its not put out quickly to rake in the money. I mean look how expensive most of the RWBY merch is....
@@francisharkins The lack of writing in the characters is awful, but the squandered thematic potential for the grimm is just sad. I really wanted to believe it could pick itself back up, but at this point I'm just waiting to see if the ending is gonna boring or terrible.
It really irritates me with how they handled bringing back Penny. What was the point of constantly reassuring her she's real despite her metal body and that she deserves her own life just to give her a flesh body and kill her almost immediately after? What was the point of her becoming the Winter Maiden instead of Winter just to give her the powers a volume later? It renders it all moot. She might as well have stayed dead instead of wasting time on a character they would end up re-killing. Also, poor Pietro. He never saw her after she fell from Amity Tower and never knew she was hacked. He probably could've helped with that so she wouldn't have to become human. The "hacked Penny" storyline was such a waste of potential. They made us think it would lead to her fighting her own friends and possibly help her realize the true power of her free will, but all it was was an excuse to abandon her robot body for an inferior human one, making her easier to kill.
Honestly if they were going to just kill her off a volume after she got reintroduced then I question why brining her back at all. Especially since she died like an episode after she became human which kind of ruins her arc of proving she’s human despite being mechanical
@@johnross5098 yeah like what I said the entire subversion of Penny's allusion was that she was just as real as anyone else despite being a robot. Having her be human and dying for it messes it up.
@@johnross5098 how so? All team RWBY were doing with that was saving her life, it didn't change her arc at all except for letting her live to finish it.
I thought she would join Jaune, Nora and Ren, thus becoming team JNPR once more. It sucks that she died... again and after becoming human for like five minutes.
Yo I never realized that Penny never mentioned that she wants to change into a human until you mentioned it! Holy crap, what a small yet very important plot point that crwby ignored I never understood why I hated the end of Penny's storyline in volume 8 but that's exactly it! Penny never said anything herself about changing. Once again you've opened my eyes Unicorn 💕
I feel like we were given the Rwby Sun monkey paw. My 3 wish were. 1. I want Neo back 2. I wanted Penny back 3. Wanted better Cinder I feel like the Sun monkey paw couldn’t take anything from me because I didn’t have anything to take and decide to temp me with first Neo. After I learn about Neo and rewatching bit past episodes I wanted have Penny. I wish for her to be brought back but in process unknowingly ruin some future story plot. When I try fix everything with my final wish and finally more Rwby fan. Also Neo showing me Cinder. Getting a 2.0 Cinder took away Penny and accidentally got rid Neo. Now I have cinder of my wish and deep void of sadness. I shouldn’t listen to Jinn about Ambroisius.
Penny's arc in volumes 7-8 was the more mature version of the one she had in Beacon - she wanted to be a person who could make her own decisions and be with/support those she cared about. Having that tragically end once at Beacon meant something, but doing it again in Atlas felt cheap and exhausting. We spent all this time with her to have her die, instead of growing the characters we're supposed to be following. If they were going to do a hacking plot, it should have been done before she became a maiden. The maiden powers could have functioned as a counter to it, proving Penny as a real girl who can't be controlled anymore. It feels like they just wanted her out of the plot, and not like her death was supposed to mean anything. It's exhausting. If you've read this far, I'd be interested on hearing your take regarding Ren finally bringing up Jaune cheating his way into Beacon after 7 seasons while lashing out, as opposed to literally any time before. It felt to me as if it was a way to fill time to avoid having to show fights against the Grimm army, but seeing a proper breakdown would be interesting too. (No pressure though, I realize your videos take a lot of work and time)
Yeah Penny's entire thing just... felt eh. I'm perfectly fine with bringing her back but *she was the exact same*. Everyone else in the comments has explained it well Although with Ren lashing out? Personally, I have my own take on it. The reason he didn't do so a lot earlier was because... it wasn't important as he thought they would be spending four years at Beacon so whatever Jaune didn't know, he'd learn there. But this wasn't Beacon anymore. Team RWBY and JNR were pushing ahead as if they could handle this and Ren was attempting to knock some sense into them. With him mentioning he cheated his way into Beacon, it wasn't meant to be a jab at Jaune's character but rather "you have significantly less training than we do and we're only first years" and a "we aren't prepared for any of this" Granted, this might not be factual to what actually happened but it's just my take on it. As to why it wasn't mentioned until much later? I have a few theories. A. Ren was trying to continue on without snapping at them or earlier they were essentially they weren't sticking their noses into the middle of a war just yet. Although Ren could've discussed this calmly with the others (granted they probably wouldn't have listened to him which might be why he didn't do it) B. A bit of a continution but this was a scenario where he kind of just snapped and said something he didn't *entirely* mean. He didn't meantion it cause he either felt it would be a waste of time or things hadn't escalated so much then, not saying the situation was good but right then and there... they were in the middle of the snow opposed to staying in Atlas dorms or being in an apartment Again just my take, it's been a bit since I've seen that scene so yeah
@@willop6591 Pretty much. That dialogue is pretty explicitly Ren listing out why they are *all* not qualified for any of the decisions they have to make. Him bringing up Jaune as a cheat isn't supposed to be this deep, plot relevant piece like the OP implies. It just so happens to be one of the deepest wounds among those present for his rant
They could bring Penny back one more time at the end of the series by just making her a computer program. Like, Ruby could visit Pietro’s workshop and find a computer and then see in green letters the word “Salutations.”
I sat down saw the thumbnail and title, saying outloud: "I agree." *Clicks.* But to further my opinons on the matter, Penny actually grew a lot stronger on me once re-introduced into Volume 7 and I'm not really sure why? I liked Penny before and accepted her death back in Volume 3, but seeing her again reborn with more adult eyes was different? Not sure. I will say though that I totally got behind you saying "Well her coming back can't be rly a bad thing I mean...characters can grieve and she can become a whole new person, etc" but when I did not see Ruby react hardly at all to her coming back I got a bad, bad gut feeling. But I justified it saying: "It's okay! I'm sure...it can be fixed down the line!" And it never did. Penny becoming the Winter Maiden was okay by my book only because at this point I was attached, and I wanted to see more of what she could do. (Tbh, with what you said about neurotypical people-- I'm autistic and I can agree with your statement about making us as people look more like robots than actual people.) I was more attached to her as a character than I ever have been since Yang. (And she's...yikes to me now.) So when Volume 8 came around, I knew she was going to be hacked and all- but I did not expect her to be killed off again. Perhaps it was me being naive in thinking that wasn't going to happen. My big theory during V8's runtime was for Penny to join Jaune, Ren, and Nora and they could form JPNR again and I really liked this idea. Because it gives Penny something to do, it makes her relevent to the plot, and it's just good times. Until she perma-died. I'm quite honestly still bitter that they did that. I sobbed my heart out and finished V8 with a stained face of tears and just feeling...empty. I have never once felt that for RWBY before and I've watched this since I was a teenager, after Volume 2 had finished up and Volume 3 was beginning production. I have never been this so disappointed with something I care about since SVTFOE. I can't even listen to her character song at the end and I refuse to listen to it. I'm still so mad LOL. BUT TLDR I TALKED TOO LONG; Video great! Love to see more! At least they can't fuck up Penny anymore than they already have.
Omg. Having Penny "find her place" by reforming Team JNPR is so big brain. It would cause the group so much turmoil to actually get over their old issues (I thought Pyrrah caused Penny's first death. Maybe. Been a while. Mentally blocking too much out of the show). But it would allow the group to separate from RWBY earlier and actually help Oscar in Vacuo while the others get flung into whatever dimension they are now.
9:40 yes this exactly, she should have been a new penny. Make it weird and awkward. Automatically makes it possible to mass produce (we should take the aura ripping ether a non issue or that multiple people are viable for the process.) You could have penny, kinda end up as a South Park kenny. And it can certainly mess with ruby if by just her personality setup, she always befriends her. That would be interesting
Ok, hear me out: Imagine if *Ruby* killed Penny. Think about it. Penny is close to death (still an android), and she asks Ruby to kill her in order to transfer the maiden power. Imagine how this would affect Ruby. She just got back her friend who she lost, comforted, and was inspired by. How would Ruby keep moving forward when she was the one who dealt the final blow? She should’ve been able to save her. To find a way to help instead of making things worse and killing her friends. She’s not worthy to be a leader. This would be a great thing to explore in future volumes. Ruby’s mental health would take a hit, messing with her ability to use her silver eyes and act as a leader. After all, she killed her own friend. In her own eyes, she is not fit to protect life when she ended someone she was supposed to protect. It would bring Ruby closer to her darkest hour and a negative side to her that we have rarely ever seen. It would be great to explore that side of Ruby’s character, to see her start to crack under the pressure of it becoming harder and harder to move forward. That’s my idea. But noooo, they had to have Jaune do it instead. Tell me what you think!
Even Penny's reintroduction was done bad. Given Ruby’s reaction to her first death, I fully expected the girl to break down crying while hysterically clinging to the friend she lost. That scene should have been way more emotional, and Penny shouldn't have quite understood why Ruby was upset at first (playing into her not fully understanding emotions). There should have been a scene between Penny and Jaune, where Jaune finds it nearly impossible to speak to Penny because Pyrrha killed her, and then Penny says she forgives Pyrrha because it wasn't her fault. And don't even get me started on making her human and killing her for good. Actually, screw it. I am going there. Making Penny human in the first place was a mistake. Her ENTIRE character arc in Volume 7 and 98% of Volume 8 is her learning to be human DESPITE being a machine. At the end of V7, the viewers are led to believe that this character plot is resolved when Penny becomes a Maiden, affirming that despite her mechanical nature, that she has a SOUL, and all that entails. We’re led to assume that besides some minor hiccups where she gets used to the Maiden powers, and the responsibilities/dangers those powers bring, that her character arc is resolved just in time for Salem’s invasion of Atlas to take front and center stage in the story. Except, and I’ll agree that it was actually a good piece of writing on the part of the show, it ISN’T, because boom, Watts has made a virus that’s threatening not only her free will, but her LIFE, and her mechanical nature is suddenly brought back into stark and terrifying focus for everyone involved. How this plot *should* have ended was the main cast finding some way to overcome the virus, the best option of which I’ll get to soon, that DID NOT utilize a Deus Ex Machina in order to affirm once and for all, that despite her mechanical nature, Penny is human, and has a soul. That she’s real, even if she has wires and bolts instead of squishy guts. Instead, the Relic of Creation gets used as a MacGuffin, in a manner that’s just dumb, and not even in the sense that it’s an obscure idea when there were better options available with that same MacGuffin. First off, by using the relic, the writers essentially went: Okay, let’s just toss Penny’s entire character-arc off the side of Atlas and to the Grimm-infested tundra below, and just magically make her human, based off a plan that none of the cast is sure will even *work.* And then we’ll kill her AGAIN, not fifteen minutes later, just so we can tell the viewers that “Yeah, this time she’s perma-dead, now subscribe to RT First and give us your money because we took already released volumes off of RU-vid.” Why the hell did you even bring her back in the first place, and invest all that time and effort into developing her character, just to toss all of that out the window and then kill her AGAIN, this time for good? Before I get into what I thought would have been a way better solution to the hacking dilemma, let me just point out a use for the Staff that would have made way more sense, and should have been *way* more obvious to the protagonists. If Ambrosius can only make things if he has an example/blueprint to make them off of… why not make another virus, based off the one already present in Penny? Except this virus ONLY exists to wipe out the one Watts made. And once virus B has erased Virus A, there’s no longer a need for its continued existence, so they can go ahead and make the Central Location and move on. It would have still been a cop-out, but it would have made sense, and have been guaranteed to work, instead of a half-baked idea that the characters could only cross their fingers for and pray to a pair of brothers that quite frankly don’t deserve to be worshipped (but that’s another argument for another day, and I’m digressing) that it works. Now, taking aside the use of the Staff as a MacGuffin, let me talk about the idea that was almost used in the show, and would have made way more sense, as well as working to finish off Penny’s character arc for good in a way that doesn’t make it meaningless. That solution is Jaune. Instead of having his Aura-Amp just slow the virus down, when Ruby suddenly realized it just after Penny asks Ruby to KILL HER, Jaune’s semblance, which boosts the physical manifestation of one’s *soul,* which Penny is proven to have beyond a shadow of a doubt when she became a Maiden, it allows her soul, which transcends her mechanical body, to overcome the virus that only limits her physical being. In effect, Jaune boosting her aura SHOULD have let Penny burn the virus out of her outright, which would have resolved her character arc even more than becoming a Maiden did, by affirming her humanity once and for all. This would have had a side effect of making Jaune an incredibly important plot point beyond just “Hey, I make semblances better, and I’ve only really used that on Ren for some reason.” Leaving aside all the arguments I want to make for why the hell Jaune hasn’t boosted anyone else on the teams (Say, making Weiss’ summons WAY more powerful, or maybe making it so that she could have TWO summons at once [and what happened to time-dilation glyphs?], or drastically boosting Yang’s aura after she took a bunch of hits, meaning Burn would hit even HARDER, making Ruby use Petal Burst to move around groups way more easily and at greater speeds, the list goes on), Jaune… didn’t really do that much in V8. This would have made him have a serious and lasting impact that he only really had at all in V8 because he killed Penny when she asked him to as she was bleeding out. And if the writers were hell-bent on offing Penny a second time in order to make Winter the Winter Maiden anyways, they could have done something like the following, which would have made way more sense, and would have been way better from a writing perspective: Since Penny is still a machine in body, she ends up getting seriously damaged by Cinder in the Central Location (possibly by taking an attack meant for one of her friends, since they were all running seriously low on aura by this point). As she’s on the ground, unable to move due to damages to her body but still online, she asks Jaune to kill her, but also instructs him where her CPU/Aura storage unit/whatever is, so he can remove it afterwards, allowing her to be revived again. Penny “dies,” and Jaune still has to deal with the fact that he "murdered" her (along with the uncomfortable reminder of Pyrrha because killing Penny is apparently an Arkos thing now), the powers of the Winter Maiden pass to Winter Schnee, and we get the added plot of Jaune basically all but literally carrying Penny’s corpse along (and perhaps LITERALLY carrying her corpse because a good deal of it could likely be salvaged, perhaps repaired entirely) in Volume 9, and the group that fell basically accepting that they have to guard what’s left of Penny until they can get her back to Pietro. At some point, either at the end of V9, V10, or even later, Jaune finally meets Peitro again, and the inventor chooses to sacrifice his life by using the rest of his soul via his semblance to bring Penny back a third and final time. Penny has to deal with her all-too-human emotions as the first thing she does upon her second revival is find out that her dad is DEAD, and that she’s technically the one who killed him. And then Jaune, as a sort of reverse for when he dealt with Pyrrha’s death (which, after reading the Arkos Manifesto, I wholeheartedly agree with that being an outright mistake and poor writing), ends up trying to comfort her along with the rest of her friends.
Huh. You know, I never heard someone say ‘as a neurotypical I don’t feel comfortable speaking for this’, like I’ve heard for other groups like gender, ethnicity, etc. Maybe it’s just cause I’ve never heard anyone not neurodivergent speak about such things? Or maybe it’s just cause people tend to speak for us more often? Or it’s easier to just speak with the assumption being you are? I don’t really know. Just something that stood out watching this. So, props for that I suppose! And for the record, as someone who saw a lot of myself in Penny, I can pretty much agree with everything you said. While coding can be great with things like getting people to see themselves, there’s a whole lotta unfortunate implications. I have a love/hate relationship with characters like that lol.
I think Entrapta from DreamWorks' She-Ra is the only autistic coded human character that I've seen myself in. Its frustrating in how limited our representation is and how it is so often of someone either acting like a robot (Sheldon from Big Bang Theory) or a literal robot (Penny, potentially Data from Star-Trek) are our options.
@@Cruznick06 Heh, agreed with Entraptra. I’m reminded of what Overly Sarcastic Productions said, that autism-coded traits were often given to robots as a way to make them seem different from humans, and the stereotype stuck. Entraptra on the other hand, it feels like her autism coding is used to humanize her, even as so far as having those traits interact with non-humans to humanize them more in the eyes of the audience. Admittedly, She-Ra also made their non-binary rep a trickster non-human shapeshifter, so still not entirely free of that kinda stuff lol.
NGL, I got a huge smile on my face when you brought up Xillia 2 and Alt!Milla; it's always been my favorite Tales game despite its issues. But yeah, I don't get either why Volume 8 woke up and went, "WE NEED PENNY TO BE HUMAN" like it was ever Penny's desire to be human; I thought her talk with Ruby about not having "squishy guts" already assured her that she was human, but just without being physically born. And for that being the endgoal, having human!Penny last only a single episode after her debut again makes me wonder the point of it. It could've been interesting showing how a former robot girl learns what drawbacks there is to being human now (she can feel pain, she can't use weight to her advantage like she did back in Volume 1, she could sustain lasting injuries like Yang losing her arm), but nah she just tries to fight Cinder and dies. Lame. The idea of a Penny 2.0 like X2 having Milla and Alt. Milla also could've been cool to satisfy both camps who wanted her back, but not cheapening OG Penny's death by just, "Well we recovered her core so it's like she never died. She even got a redesign!". Alas, it feels as if they went with the worst of both and satisfied those who wanted her back, but then to appease people who're rightly bringing up how this cheapened Penny's loss by rekilling her.
I was too busy squeeing on the return of Penny for any critical thought and the pulling of my heart strings when they placed her in mortal danger and then death to think really critically. So I definitly need to go back and watch the stuff again. Thanks for the vid.
Penny deserved to be a Maiden so much. It would have been a wonderful arc seeing her struggle with and later master her powers. With the way things went, she only served as a tool for Winter 🤦♀️ Her death was honestly super painful to watch and absolutely unnecessary.
I wouldn't have minded if they killed her off two or three seasons later. Not one season later. That way she'll be fleshed out more and her death would have much better impact.
I get what they were trying to do with her. Salem gave into despair and the only way to persuade her to stop is to connect. Ruby's situation with Penny mirrors Salem's with Ozpins. She lost Penny, got her back....and lost her again. The key difference is that Ruby will likely be able to rise above her despair and heal thanks to her friends. This means that Ruby will be able to connect with Salem and so persuade her to stop her rampage and vendetta.
I wish more becoming human stories would go The Last Unicorn route and have the person become afraid now that they can feel themselves slowly dying from aging. Granted that would be kinda dark, but I feel it would set the tone for how Penny was vulnerable in brand new ways now that she's human
I can never take any scenes where anyone that isn't Ruby is being so friendly and affectionate with Penny seriously Every character but Ruby wanted to avoid Penny like a plague but the moment she comes back, more powerful than ever, they're all suddenly so chummy with her? It feels like gaslighting than an actual friendship
It feels like a CW show where it’s filled with so many characters who barely (if ever) interact with each other and yet they still try to have scenes that make it seem like they actually care about each and are friends.
The only way I can see Penny's death being worth anything is if in V9 it leads to some interesting character development for Ruby herself. Hell, even some conflict with Jaune over it, just to make Ruby more interesting.
I agree so much! Penny was one of my two favorite characters before her death is season 3. And then after she died, I was enraged at the fact that no one addressed it, especially since the others had grown closer to her. Not just Ruby... And for Ruby to not talk about it either! And then they brought her back, which I was excited about, but none of them were addressing anything! The only good interactions Penny had were with Pietro (who randomly disappeared after V8 E4), Winter in volume 7, and a couple interactions with Nora in volume 8... Not only did they unnecessarily make Penny human just to kill her immediately after, but PIETRO DISAPPEARED AND NEVER GOT TO SEE HER BECOME HUMAN! IN FACT, HE NEVER GOT TO KNOW THAT SHE WAS OKAY AFTER THE FALL, OR THAT SHE DIED! Did Pietro and Maria freeze in the tundra or what the frick happened?! AND Penny dying again is lost to other characters because they'll think Jaune and all of team RWBY died, too.
On the mention of making Penny completely different upon being brought back, I remembered an OC I once made for a roleplay because I am a huge nerd, who was essentially that, before Volume 7 was even a thing. I went with the explanation that the amount of Grim still crowding Beacon Academy prevented the whole body from being retrieved, but a stealth specialist had been able to at least retreive Penny's memory drive, which was installed into the project that was proposed as a follow-up to her. Since Penny was killed with her own weapons, the redesign focused on making the body itself its weapon, resulting in a pneumatic air pressurization system that would allow the robot to extend its limbs with force matcing a firearm discharge, able to punch clean through most Grimm and providing high mobility without the possiblity of having its own strength turned against itself. This became a character I called Nickel, a young woman more mature than Penny, with better speaking skills, a more laid-back attitude, and equally high curiosity and little tact, who nonetheless took the safety of others and her own responsibilities seriously. Of course, once Volume 7 rolled around, I couldn't help imagining how this character would change interactions Penny took part in had she been present instead. I still have a vivid image in my mind of Nickel taking a moment to recognize Ruby, realize that she-- no, her sister, knew who Ruby was, and begin tearfully apologizing for having not been able to be there for her when everything happened, all the while Ruby stands in bewildered silence at this person she doesn't recognize suddenly becoming so emotional. I'd like to think it would have been plenty entertaining, but I never got to actually play that out with other writers so I don't have any feedback.
*The Happy Huntresses ambush the materials transport Ruby and Nickel are riding in* Nickel: ...Sincere question: is this a situation where violence is the answer? Ruby: My dad always said violence is never the answer. Nickel: Alright, then let's just _talk_ to the Grimm. Ruby: That's what _I_ said! *NIckel laughs, then Ruby joins in for a few seconds* Nickel: ...But is it in this situatio-- Ruby: No. Well, not yet. Nickel: Okay. Got it. Just...don't think I'm weird for asking. I gotta' treat this stuff on a case-by-case basis. Ruby: Don't worry about it. I've been there.
Tales of Xillia 2 and its way of dealing with alternative verses is a great way to recommend a plot point for what they could’ve done with Penny, i’m also going through a massive nostalgia wave cause its been so long since i’ve put any real thought into that game, loved it so much. Great Video!
I haven't watched your video yet. I will as soon as I feel like handling the depression it will inevitably cause. But I wholeheartedly agree with your title. The moral of a Volume shouldn't be "Don't try. Just kill your friends now. It's for the best." And using Penny to facilitate that is a nigh unforgivable crime.
You know when a character's going to die if they have green eyes. Clover Protester Hazel Penny Before that Random train guy Phyrah Torchwig Penny (1st time) And some more I don't remember of the top of my head.
I was just watching it make peace with RWBY video and this came up XD I'm salty they off penny why they bring her back why make her the maiden did they off her caz she was going to be 2 op for the main cast ,but then again even when the characters are overpowered the script has them forget they can do overpowered moves and techniques likely gang falling anybody on team Ruby could have saved yang but they all turned their brains off and at the stupid so the could fall in to volume 9 I'm winder if maybe penny was going to stay and team RWBY could have been a 5 girl team like in magical girl shows but I'm thinking some told the writers to change thing last min caz everything after episode 7 feels really rushed And I all so notice that for some reason penny and Oscar are aloy a like / feel like the same character Like here are something I notice that makes it feel like there the same •close to Ruby •used by ironwood and Salem for oz •main key to the relic in volume 8 •They have black,green and orange as their main colors right •they have green eyes and freckles •They currently n a position they didnt want 2 inherit & have 2 now go and save the world from Salem more than ever • 1 of Salem main Target •They have magic •Their linked to the relics •They been n a volume ending fight with cinder n the same room •Powers r green •They have green n their eyes •they been n 4 volumes of rwby •they been used as by and older man 2 help the heros •are slowly in a way dying/no longer going to be them self caz there life being taken away do and wont be there self when they change
9:30 theres an ongoing fanfic im reading that plays with this. "Atlas Arc Penny", in that fic is actually a separate person, she just happens to have penny's memories in her hard drive or whatever but to her its like simply being able to watch Penny's memories. this is because she was given a unique and separate part of Pietro's Aura and therefore has a different soul to that of Penny. She actually considers Penny to be her sister because of this and was at first just "being" penny because she thought that's what Pietro and teams RWBY and JNR wanted. She eventually "comes out" to everyone as not actually being Penny. She then from that point forward goes by the name Verdigris. its a fucking great twist on that fic's version of the arc.
@@StressedAfBOY the fic, "A Sadder and a Wiser Woman" is the third part of a series called "The Wandering One" by Apathetic_Abstract_Apotheosis on Ao3. the series has faunus!Weiss and starts as White Rose but then morphs to include Neo into ruby and weiss' relationship
@@curtistrinh5654 the fic, "A Sadder and a Wiser Woman" is the third part of a series called "The Wandering One" by Apathetic_Abstract_Apotheosis on Ao3. the series has faunus!Weiss and starts as White Rose but then morphs to include Neo into ruby and weiss' relationship
In a fic I wrote I took the "alt Mila" path in that penny technically came back same body same voice but her personality was completely different more of a boy crazy edgy teenager then a shrinking violet, peitro calls it "same brain just her aura needed to be replaced" And this of course *really* effects ruby since to her some stranger is wearing penny's face, ruby also ends up yelling this in an argument to penny that "she is real but not the real penny" this fight drives penny to speak more with winter devolving thier friendship Afterwords ruby is using her huntress licence to go through older computer files on the penny project turns out 3 years ago an android using the aura of a paralyzed atlas soldier went rogue after the transfer possess killing scientists technitions and guards and a notice at the bottom of the file by ironwood reads "adults are too rebellious, use children" This all build to a head revealing Cinder as the original android
I would be upset about them going against the idea of Penny being a real person despite her being a machine if they didn’t constantly undermine themselves, the show wants to have its cake and eat it too if that makes any sense. This is just one of a few examples: they want to be serious about oppression and racism but they make several jokes about Blake being part cat (she chases a laser pointer, she salivates over fish (and then comically collapses when they’re taken from her) and she hates Zwei (a dog)), They introduce Qrow as a drunk badass, the “cool guy”, we’re meant laugh at his drunken antics not to mention Chibi makes jokes at the fact he’s a drunk, later on they try to be all serious about it, not mention they show Willow Schnee: her being a drunk isn’t “cool” or “funny” we’re meant to see her situation as a tragedy (which it is). Blake and Weiss being slapped are treated as some cruel acts (which they are) but Blake can slap Sun (several times without reprisal) and we’re meant to find it “funny”.
All Ruby had to ask the Naked 3D Printer Genie for was a disposable antivirus installation program (maybe have ruby compare it to medicine for squishy people to sell home the original "you're still a real girl!" theme.) that would circumvent the bullshit "one thing at a time rule" that the Genie has. but instead we got a destroyed NATION, a displaced and upset population of that NATION, AND the bad guys have half the Relics. Penny would be ashamed... if the canon series' script didn't read like really bad fanfiction.
Literally the only thing that was gained from Penny becoming a human is that it gave the foot fetishists more fuel. And as a foot fetishist myself (plz don't judge), Penny become human ruining years of beautiful sentiment of Penny actually being a human despite being a robot only to die two episodes later in a disgusting attempt to pull at everyone's heart strings was 222% not worth even that. Way to ruin such a beautiful character just so you can show off the fact that you can actually animate bare fucking feet in Maya. XP Penny deserved way better than any of this shit.
I love Penny she's one of favorite characters from RWBY. I was happy to see her when I watched Rwby on RU-vid in a reaction video and I was sad when Penny died and then I was happy when she was on Rwby chibi.
I totally agree with this, it hurts that Penny got so screwed over in this last volume. That said, curse you and bless you for talking about Xillia yet reminding me of the pain of meeting Alt. Milla, she's so great
Penny? Oh you mean the character who was killed in the ending of seasopn 3, was framed for mass murder, became the winter maiden and reallly did nothing much with it, been infected with a virus that nearly enslaved her, and was turned into a human for about an episode or two before dieing again.
Thanks, I really need to get into the Tales series! My first encounter with Milla, Velvet, Yuri, and Cress was actually in the mobile game "Another Eden".
I think what it should've been is that Penny was infected with the virus sooner, as in before she became the maiden sooner, as part of her story of being bound to authority and lacking freedom. In this version the virus starts out as just like a twitch and progresses as Watts learns more about her programming. Make it explicit that the reason she's Penny and not a different android is a combination of Pietro's limiting sentimentality and Ironwood's desire for control (he already knows Penny's personality and how to manipulate her). Her story in Volume 8 is then, rather than coming to terms with the maiden power, learning to suppress the virus by increasing her independence (idk exactly how this works but roll with me). Then, in her fight with Cinder, Watts tries his hardest to make the virus kill both Cinder and Penny, but when she sees the winter maiden, Penny overcomes the virus and goes to her side, leading to her inheriting the maiden powers, deleting the virus and leading the people to Vaccuo as Winter does in the actual show.
Penny was an amazing character imo, it's sad that she was killed off so quickly, being introduced back into the series in season 7 only to be killed off in the next kinda caught me by surprise. She's a pretty likeable character in my eyes. I wish she had some more screen time honestly. And to kill off such a likeable character probably wasn't a very good move on RT's end if im being honest
Ruby: "Hi, Penny!" Jaun: "Bye, Penny."" Clearly, they turned her human so her death would be "shocking," for what is te point in turning her human if she just dies. Note: Anyone wanting to criticize "but they did just kill her," yes, *they did.*
I will say when I first saw that Penny was gonna get the maiden powers my first thought was that they were gonna use that to say that she's been "a real girl" all along - that the powers accepting her as a maiden would acknowledge that you don't need to be human to be real. I was disappointed when they didn't do that and instead turned her into a human and killed her =/
Which was a dumb line to begin with. Her body being a machine was what was a part of her. The virus was not, it was an infection inflicted by someone else.
I didn't mind Penny being brought back, but I do agree that the potential was wasted and it was so stupid of them to kill her off. I'm hoping maybe there's some way they'll keep her around, like maybe she's in Winter's head and can talk to her like Ozpin does like Oscar, but that may be just wishful thinking on my part.
On the "agency" part of the question, it always seemed to me that by joining team RWBY, Penny simply swapped one puppeteer for another. With Ruby stringing her along to get her own way, which was to spite Ironwood and prove she was in the right.
Would you ever consider recording an audio book for your novel? I usually like to have an audio book to listen with as I read. Excited to pick up your first book after so many years. Congratulations!!!
Ngl I hated the fact after Vol 3 Penny was barely mentioned and was kinda basically fridged but I kinda got more pist on the fact they brought her back and while it was aknowledged it was like "omg ur back, ok lets forget the fact you died" and just killed her again is like c'mon Detroit become human treats its robot death and robot resurections with respect.
I have been writing a Penny centric fanfic for over two years and the way I handle her coming back life was simply not having her actual die in the first place. Instead she only shut down and become immobile as a safety protocol to save her brain and aura generator from further damage. Basically a coma brought on by heavy injured in order to protect her mind and soul. However this put her into a form of locked in syndrome, leaving her in the dark void of her own mind until her brain and aura where safety put in a new body. This results in a case of PTSD where Penny would have occasionally nightmares about the incident and wake up shaken. And any thin material wrapping her waist would send her into a panic attack. It was a whole arc of her trying to hide how bad her condition is getting, even to the point she can’t rest probably or refuses to sleep out of fear, until she finally cracks and asks for help. I wrote this whole portion of the store around her forcing her fear away so she could continue protecting people even at her own detriment due to her morals and sense of obligation to the kingdom and military force that created her. It was a showcase of her selfless and loving nature becoming poisonous when not checked and her truly learning to care for herself. The concept of that arc to me less than a month to figure in its entirety while going to college classes so I don’t know what the writer's excuse for this mess was.
I had a similar idea floating in my head for there being an alternate penny, I came up with the idea that there would be a completely different version of penny but she would be named after Jimmy cricket, like Jezebel or something, she would be standoffish towards team Rwby but over time she gets to know Ruby, she would also have complicated feelings towards Penny because they would’ve interacted once before she left. Once it goes to that direction and the fallout she would have to choose to whether follow Ironwood’s orders or disobey and side with team Rwby. There would also be some conflict with Jaune because by all accounts, Pyrrha killed Penny and the other robot won’t know how to process it because she goes more for logic, when Jaune mentions Cinder, when with Winter, have her asking questions and maybe get close to the winter maiden and then when Cinder does arrive, maybe she feels she has to avenge her ‘sister’ You could go for the maiden route but I wouldn’t want them killed off, I’m not sure about turning them human either. I apologise if this is all pretty cringey, (I’m aware it is cringey) but I’ve had this floating in my mind for ages
Frankly, she and Pyrrha deserved so much better than they got, but CRWBY don't care. They're happy to chuck good potential out the window just for shock value.
Ok as heartless as this comment potentially is. They can just make another penny. Here me out! Her creator is still alive all he needs is the right tech and enough time and he can make a carbon copy of Penny like they do in Neir automa with the 2B units. It’s still a crushing death don’t get me wrong.
It’s not like a lot of the characters have any relation with each other, a good majority of them just hang around each other with little to no interaction. It feels like something off a CW show.
In the first 3 season deaths hurt. It hurt when Pyrrha and Penny died. But now its like, when someone dies it doesn't cause any feelings other than annoyance because everyone's death feels worthless. It sucks. :/
