TWO
CENTS: AN ANALYSIS OF PENNY AND PENNY.
One
is a disabled seer!
The
other is a disabled Oathkeeper!
That’s
about where the similarities end.
Okay,
that’s not entirely true. This analysis is to read further into the characters
‘Penny Balisong’ from GraciousVictory’s Jeanette-verse (based exclusively on
Penny’s blog, ‘Runneth Over’, found here) and the ex-con Penny from tgecko’s blog ‘Penny
Dropped’, located here. Then I’ll do some comparing and contrasting, because two characters
named ‘Penny’ must have loads in common! Right?
PENNY
BALISONG:
Right
off the bat, you’re going to be able to pick up an impression of this
character; that name is a pseudonym. A Balisong, commonly known as a butterfly
knife, is a famously artistic weapon known for ‘fluttering’ – the way it gracefully
and swiftly flips open and closed is captivating, but god knows it’s a deadly
weapon. Then, of course, we’ve got ‘Penny’, the lowest form of currency in
circulation. Simple, easily overlooked, and as any cashier will tell you, they
can be somewhat of a hassle. Oh, and as a point of interest – ‘Penny’ is the
diminutive of ‘Penelope’, which comes from some Ancient Greek syllables thrown
together, part of them meaning ‘face’ or ‘eye’. Nifty little coincidence
there…unless Penny knew about that, and I don’t doubt she put a lot of thought
into her moniker. If so, that could be her personal private joke.
There
you go! Penny Balisong, in a nutshell.
The
theme of chess is prominent in the Jeanette-verse, so I won’t focus much on the
way she plays the game around her; her trick is tarot, which is of course
notable due to the fact that she’s blind. As one would expect from any psychic,
Penny does love to be cryptic, which I get the impression she does to
underscore the moments where she drives her point right home. She balances her
vague, infuriating comments (oh, does she ever know that they’re infuriating)
with blunt statements. This is even more easily seen in The Jeanette
Experience, but Penny’s blog captures that well standing alone, too (for an
example: within the first few posts of the blog, she gives a reading with very
little explanation, only a warning. When asked which side she’s on, she bluntly
responds that she’s on her own side. No mincing of words, there).
We
get a really good look at Penny’s independence and how it tears her. Early on,
she describes herself as ‘manipulative’, and the fun part is, I get the
impression that she tries to manipulate herself more than anyone else (see,
especially, the paragraph to follow: it’s a big, thick underline to the rest of
what I’m about to say). Due to the fact that she’s blind, she obviously can’t
do certain things on her own. She’s more than capable, in certain aspects, but
until she got a Braille keyboard she couldn’t even type for herself, relying on
her sister, or friend, and hoping they would convey her message. One will also
notice that the insults against said characters only really come out once she
starts typing on her own, but that’s beside the point (still amusing, though).
Penny, indirectly, uses her disability to bolster herself and simultaneously
wears it as a badge. She can recognize what she can and can’t do, and it pisses
her off enough to give her the confidence to talk big; in a sense, she’s
manipulating herself into being the confident quip-in-the-face-of-danger person
she is, because anything less would mean she’s giving into her blindness. She’s
able to say that she would do this, or would have done
that, because she’s not physically capable. It as if she thinks of herself as
being strong and weak at the same time, which is an interesting dynamic for her
to have, and probably very true-to-life. I would expect nothing less from
someone in her position.
Now
let’s focus on my personal favourite part of her character! That aforementioned
‘infuriating’ part. Penny is, in Internet-speak, a classic troll. Her sense of
humour, while perhaps aggravating to the characters she associates with, is
beautifully sarcastic. She can be counted on for a good snark between
insightful posts, whether it’s to point out that the resident badass watches
‘My Little Pony’ or throwing flat-toned quips in mid-rant. She’s also fond of
insult humour – you’d be hard-pressed to find a pleasant word she says about
anyone. Now, you can probably already see where I’m going with this, if you
guessed at the whole ‘humour as a defence mechanism’…but what really bolsters
that and drives it home like a volleyball being spiked right at your face is
that she uses that humour after people die. She will flatly state the
traumatic truth, and then casually go on to say something light-hearted that
clashes jarringly with the previous sentence. She needs to be this way; it’s
how she copes. Besides, even the most mentally stable have to get a kick out of
the blind girl informing her friends at every opportunity that they’re ugly.
My
last big point of focus? The way she approaches her feelings. Notably, her
attraction to Jeanette. Penny actually speaks out against her little sister
striking up a romance with Jeanette very early on, though she is quick to say
it’s not because of the ‘girl’ aspect. From that point on, she eggs Jeanette on
and tells her off for not making an honest woman of Chelsea (the word ‘honest’
loosely defined, here). It says a lot about her sense of self-worth, that she
develops feelings for someone she often expresses to be her ‘opposite’ and
proceeds to press at her relationship with someone else. Not just
someone else, either – her own sister. That’s a nail in the coffin, as far as
assessing Penny’s self-esteem goes; she doesn’t have any. Okay, maybe saying
she has no self-esteem at all is stretching it, but you can tell that it’s
definitely on the low end of the scale.
PENNY
DROPPED:
This
‘Penny’ sticks with the one-cent deal, even making her profile picture a
close-up copper ‘ONE CENT’. If I had to guess, that is clearly for the pun, and
I am a pun-loving person. ‘Shiny Penny’ isn’t quite so shiny, and from there
stems the problems: to begin with, our protagonist is an ex-con with mysophobia,
starting up a blog as part of her therapy. She has clear obsessive-compulsive
ticks, isolation issues, and a slightly strained relationship with her sister
which she goes about resolving for the wrong reasons. Like, really wrong.
We’re
going to start by tackling Penny’s comfort zone, which she tries to do
throughout the blog, herself. Penny isn’t a big fan of people, and given the
background – a hostile incident that had her serving time – we can see that
this is something she’s been struggling with for a while. She isn’t a fan of
others (particular children, since they’re animated germ factories) and is very
quick to jump from ‘first impression’ to ‘dislike’; it doesn’t take much to
offend her, and when she’s angry, she’s angry. When life starts
to suck or she perceives a slight against her, her mind seems to leap right to
the violent fantasies. Most people can indeed get a good rant going when
angered, but the fact that Penny was once incarcerated makes these angry
outbursts all the more poignant. She is quick to say in the very beginning that
her history is history, and what happened was an accident…but this is still a
person who got angry enough to act on it. Interestingly, and making that line
of ‘there is me, and there is them’ a lot more defined, she doesn’t seem
incredibly burdened by that violence. She’s almost dismissive, and seems to
regret that it distanced her from her sister more than she regrets the
violence, itself. To me, who couldn’t be more Canadian and pacifistic if you paid
me, I find that aspect to her character extremely interesting. In a way, it
pegs Penny as being somewhat cold and dismissive. On the other side of the same
coin (I told you I love me some puns) there’s some strength to her, because of
that. She knows it’s behind her, and wants to deal with the now, rather than
dwelling on what’s already done.
When
she actively tries to like someone, though, and those attempts are met with
kindness, she becomes incredibly fond of them. The latter says, to me, that
she’s not one of those crotchety types who likes to be alone.
This is something that causes her a lot of difficulties and probably pain, but
getting through the mental barriers she’s stacked up proves to be too
exhausting for her to work through. Too much for her to want to
work through.
Hence,
the glimpses of her therapy sessions consist of her telling the Doctor what he
wants to hear – or, what she thinks he wants to hear – rather than be honest.
Throughout the blog, her phobias and obsessions get steadily worse, and it
isn’t in the least surprising. Given that there’s Fear involvement, too, the
moment you catch on as to where this is going, it becomes like watching two
trains approach each other on the same track, in slow motion. You know it’s
coming. You have the time to try to intervene, but you don’t, because you know
it wouldn’t do the tiniest bit of good. She immerses herself in her problems
and convinces herself that they’re the cure, not the cause – she cleans more,
blocks herself off more, and then…she snaps.
The
great thing is, snapped-Penny isn’t a huge leap away from
holding-it-together-Penny…probably because she wasn’t holding it together so
much as scrambling to hold onto her well-being. But I’ll get to that.
Penny
gives us plenty of glimpses into her pessimism, which she approaches with
rapid-fire disgust that she actively tries to counter. The way she fights back
with optimism generally start off feeling honest and full, but wind up ringing
a bit hollow by the time she finishes up – it’s as though she’s trying to
convince the world, and herself, that she’s okay. That she has good days along
with the bad. I can gauge, from this, that she recognizes the fact that she’s
sinking and just doesn’t have the energy to do more than thrash around a little.
She might even be convincing herself that she’s better off, given how much
energy she can have when it comes to feeding her neuroses.
Lastly,
I want to tackle her morals. Not too in-depth, because that would give away too
many spoilers, but Penny has a very self-absorbed sense of right and wrong.
What’s best for her, and the people she likes, is what’s best; period. It’s an
almost childish mindset, but the lengths she goes to and the determination with
which she upholds them is a very adult.
All
in all, Penny is a lovely bundle of psychological problems, and she seems kind
of resigned to it. They define her actions (to a point, not counting when
everything goes to hell), she knows it, she’s okay with it. She just wants to
figure out how to deal with what’s in front of her – climb one hill at a time.
THE
CONTRAST?
Balisong
is very ‘big picture’. Dropped is very ‘one step forward at a time’. We’ve got
two very broken women, here, each with a whole host of very different issues;
Balisong shoves her mental-self down and steps on her, trying to climb above
them. Of course, that simultaneously puts her down, too. Dropped ignores the
fact that they’re problems and wraps herself up in them, doing a very effective
job of both shunning and clinging to them at the same time. Balisong prefers to
dance around facts, especially when they’re combined with her feelings, whereas
Dropped is very up-front and direct with both. It’s like Balisong is a knife
(well, duh) and Dropped is a blunt instrument.
THE
COMPARISON?
The
most interesting and evident similarity between Balisong and Dropped is their
issues with self-worth, and the walls they put up. No one can get close enough
to get to know the real them, and I don’t think either of them likes themselves
very much. Also, come hell or high water, they’re going to do what they think
is right.
TO
SUM UP…
Penny
and Penny have several things in common, and just as much to separate them;
they’re both extremely dynamic characters with good points and bad, and are
each likeable and easy to relate to for different reasons. Putting aside the
circumstances of the stories they’re in, they’ve both got some seriously
admirable qualities…that can just as easily be overshadowed by the bad, if you
aren’t willing to stick around and get to know these characters. Reading about
them is much like making a friend, in that way, and that’s what makes them
three-dimensional. Your impression of Penny is entirely going to come from
which way you approach them. Do you want to like her? Then you will. Do you
want to hate her? Oh, you will.
Kudos
to both the authors – if I had to pay for your blogs, they’d be worth every
penny.
(Yes.
I just said that, and that’s my closing line. Deal with it.)
