Anyone else wish Penny didn't exist?

[Miss CS]

I thought it was funny at the end of A Dance with Dragons how the… pig, was it? - or the dog? - got left behind and Penny is so worried about it and so innocently dumb and it's going to get eaten. It was funny. It'll be interesting to see what happens to her, I think. If she does end up as Tyrion's lady and Tyrion ends up as lord of the Rock… well, that's something. A pair of dwarves ruling over Casterly Rock will have Tywin rolling in his grave like an angry croc!

[JonCon's Red Beard]

Some characters exist to serve a purpose that helps others to either advance in their plots or developt as characters themselves. Penny is one of them. We're not supposed to be "fans" of her nor like her beyond a human empathy. You can like her, but Martin isn't presenting her to be more than a character that exists to prove Tyrion is an hypocrite.

Also, she's supposed to be annoying because she's supposed to be annoying Tyrion.

[Wall Flower]

2 hours ago, bent branch said:

Bingo, the character Penny is most similar to is Sansa, without the wealth and beauty, of course.

 

This is such a wonderful point. There is a reason GRRM is using POVs the way he is. Far too many people don't take this into account when trying to understand the story.

ETA: Forgot to answer the question. No, I like Penny. I have no problem with her existence.

I agree that there are similarities between Sansa and Penny in the sense that both live in a world where they don't make the rules or hold the power and have been raised to be pleasing  to those who do. Penny does raise some interesting questions - does Tyrion really have to be grateful for the privileges he was born with or is he perfectly entitled to still be angry at the prejudice and abuse he suffered and demand more than unreasoning bigotry from his society. Penny does give Tyrion an insight into the compromises those without privilege have to make and the resourcefulness they need to employ to survive.

[HouseHarrison]

People who whine about Penny don't appreciate character arcs and should just watch the show for "muh dragons"

[Seams]

17 hours ago, Walda said:

@Seams you might be right.

But GRRM could have made her a likeable character, or a strong character, if he wanted to. She has already caught Baelish in a lie (Oswell at Pentos) although one that we, rather than Tyrion, pick up on. He feels a compulsive desire to tell Jaime and Penny and whomever listens to him long enough that he murdered Joffrey, then despise them all for 'accusing him of being a dwarf', but he has not the slightest interest in the wedding arrangements for the Purple Wedding, or who might actually have murdered Joffrey, or how.

On the other hand, there is a strong "just like a dwarf - only female!" aspect to Penny's character. And GRRM's female and differently-able characters all have something a little off in their internal characterisation (how they think, and see themselves) - women and cripples are always extremely influenced by the implacable external male gaze of the patriarchal society they live in, not just in ways that are fair enough, but also in ways that make them somewhat less believable than the normally-abled male characters, and quite unlike historical people in real life.

...

I know dwarfism isn't a disability, any more than being a giant or too fat for one's amour. But in Westeros, being too fat to sit a horse isn't a disability, even when that is the primary form of transport. Being a giant is more like belonging to an uncomfortably sub-human race (ie. they can breed with humans, but they are not as smart, have a different phrenology, pelt-like body hair, can't digest meat.) 

...

So, even though it is very likely GRRM has deliberately made Penny unlikeable, it is also very possible he has done so for reasons that will only make me like her less.  And even if she turns out to be an extremely underestimated and sensational device for a plot twist, I don't think she can escape the way Tyrion has defined her existance, and become a person in her own right.

You provide a good summary of the book's "outcasts" - people who will never be POV characters but whose lives and loves and struggles are just as important to them as Cersei's plans for a feast and Robert's idea for a tournament are to them. Probably more important because the low-born people are struggling to survive.

It took me awhile because I can be very dense, but I finally settled on an explanation of why GRRM makes one of his top two protagonists a dwarf: the "little people" are relegated to the margins in Westeros and Essos, even though they grow the wheat and work in the brothels and die in the raids. High born characters refer to the "small folk": the term clearly compares the low-born people to Tyrion and Penny and Groat and other little people who are treated with contempt by "big people." Even Tyrion hasn't quite understood yet that his mission in life is to become the champion of the small folk. I think that's the reason Penny is in the books - she is teaching him what life is like for both small folk and for a little person who isn't high-born.

Some other major characters are getting some of the same lessons: Jon Snow lives with the wildlings and serves as a steward instead of a ranger; Arya works as a servant and in other subservient roles; Theon is horribly reduced to the stinky steward, Reek. Even Sansa, who looked down on her illegitimate half-brother, is now living life as a bastard. It looks as if Dany will be seeing life through non-royal eyes (or formerly royal Dothraki eyes) in TWoW.

But I think GRRM has done something very deft with Penny. He has caused the reader to dislike Penny without giving us a good reason to dislike her. A large part of this is because we are seeing her through Tyrion's eyes - he doesn't respect her, so we don't either. If you re-read the Tyrion and Penny interactions in ADwD, you see him condescend toward her (often in his own mind but also directly to her) by reminding himself that she is young, she is grieving, she is helpless and innocent and scared. He finishes her sentences for her or changes the subject without letting her say some things that could be important. He completely misses the point that this is a woman who has made a good living, traveled far and wide, impressed high-born audiences but mingled with low-born people and survived during wartime when others have died. Tyrion underestimates her so the reader does, too.

In the Puns and Wordplay thread, I think I will write up today the "knows / nose" pun that GRRM uses as a motif. Tyrion has lost his nose, but he tells Penny that he likes her nose and wants her to keep it. I think this is a deliberate echo of the, "You know nothing, Jon Snow!" line from the days when Ygritte was educating Jon Snow about everything he didn't learn within the double wall of Winterfell. Penny is Tyrion's Ygritte. She knows (nose) and he does not know (no nose). But there is hope that he will learn, if he will start listening to her.

[JonCon's Red Beard]

18 hours ago, Walda said:

@Seams you might be right.

But GRRM could have made her a likeable character, or a strong character, if he wanted to.

 

Why? Not every character, not even the females, should be strong or likeable. There is no rule or obligation for an author to do such.

The point of Penny is that she's weak and annoying. She should be all of those things because those things should irritate Tyrion. Had she been ultra helpful and had tried to make Tyrion better, then what's Tyrion's own progress? How he gets deconstructed as a champion of outcasts if we don't find out the truth about him and how he really sees them?

[Good Guy Garlan]

My problem with Penny is the same problem I have with Stoneheart: I like the concept but the execution leaves much to be desired. Penny comes off as a plot device/morality pet because she's solely there to service Tyrion's character development. It doesn't help that she seems more than a little unrealistic in that she's absolutely more sheltered and naive than a person with a disability travelling all around the horrible society of Planetos ought to be. 

That said, she didn't like ruin Tyrion's Dance chapters for me, as there wasn't much to ruin anyway. 

[Sigella]

On 19 april 2016 at 3:27 AM, Lord_Ravenstone said:

Honestly, Tyrion's going to kill Penny. 

In a recent TWOW chapter, he flips on her when she presses one of his buttons by accident and mentions that if he had a crossbow on him he would've shot her in the gut

Penny's there to undercut his character and darken Tyrion up even more 

Weel, THAT would tie in nicely with "the Dwarf", but somehow I doubt it... As I said she's being set up like a cliché of a moral guide and I'm totally hoping for a greater twist than that. Tyrion is dark enough as is.

[Lord Lannister]

I don't know, I never really understood the strong hatred a large number of fans have towards Penny. Sure she's not the most interesting character out there, but she's not supposed to be. She's supposed to be the naive innocent to remind Tyrion that there are still things worth living for, that he's been a fool and that things aren't as bad as he think they are. She basically has tragic character written all over her for me, as I don't see Tyrion being able to indefinitely protect her, but perhaps I'm wrong. Either way, her purpose in the story is to enhance Tyrion's character, not be her own character so much. I'm not sure what's so enraging about that. It strikes me as similar as people going out of their way to hate Moon Boy or something.

[WSmith84]

Well, she's not realistic, interesting or three-dimensional, so that she's hated doesn't surprise me. She's an obvious character facilitator, a bit like Daario (although not nearly as loathsome).

Feast and Dance suffer from a lot of bloat. Tyrion's chapters (and Dany's) feel like they have the most unnecessary bloat; I can see what George was doing with Brienne's neverending travels, even if I didn't much care for it, but Tyrion having so many chapters feels lacking in purpose. The purpose of his chapters is actually achieved fairly quickly; after that, it feels like George wrote them because he likes the character, instead of actually needing them. It's repetition for repetition's sake. Penny is present in this unnecessary bloat; indeed, she makes up a good chunk of it. So I think Penny is hated so much not because of her character but what her character represents. She's basically the Ewoks of ASOIAF.

[Good Guy Garlan]

2 hours ago, WSmith84 said:

Well, she's not realistic, interesting or three-dimensional, so that she's hated doesn't surprise me. She's an obvious character facilitator, a bit like Daario (although not nearly as loathsome).

Feast and Dance suffer from a lot of bloat. Tyrion's chapters (and Dany's) feel like they have the most unnecessary bloat; I can see what George was doing with Brienne's neverending travels, even if I didn't much care for it, but Tyrion having so many chapters feels lacking in purpose. The purpose of his chapters is actually achieved fairly quickly; after that, it feels like George wrote them because he likes the character, instead of actually needing them. It's repetition for repetition's sake. Penny is present in this unnecessary bloat; indeed, she makes up a good chunk of it. So I think Penny is hated so much not because of her character but what her character represents. She's basically the Ewoks of ASOIAF.

I don't know, man, the Ewoks were proactive and set traps and nets and stuff. 

Penny is more like the kid from Iron Man 3.

[WSmith84]

24 minutes ago, Good Guy Garlan said:

I don't know, man, the Ewoks were proactive and set traps and nets and stuff. 

Penny is more like the kid from Iron Man 3.

Fortunately I never saw Iron Man 3. You know who she is slightly less annoying than? Lois Lane in BvS (or as I call it: DC desperately try to catch up to Marvel).

[Seams]

2 hours ago, WSmith84 said:

Well, she's not realistic, interesting or three-dimensional, so that she's hated doesn't surprise me. She's an obvious character facilitator, a bit like Daario (although not nearly as loathsome).

Feast and Dance suffer from a lot of bloat. Tyrion's chapters (and Dany's) feel like they have the most unnecessary bloat; I can see what George was doing with Brienne's neverending travels, even if I didn't much care for it, but Tyrion having so many chapters feels lacking in purpose. The purpose of his chapters is actually achieved fairly quickly; after that, it feels like George wrote them because he likes the character, instead of actually needing them. It's repetition for repetition's sake. Penny is present in this unnecessary bloat; indeed, she makes up a good chunk of it. So I think Penny is hated so much not because of her character but what her character represents. She's basically the Ewoks of ASOIAF.

I have to admit, I agree with a lot of this. My initial interest in figuring out Penny's purpose was that I couldn't figure out why she was present on so many pages. To be fair, though, you could say the same thing about other mentor characters such as Jeor Mormont or Oberyn Martell. Those are cool guys with swords, though, so they readers like them better. Penny is also a mentor and a warrior with a lance, but she's a girl who isn't attractive, so we wish she didn't exist. (Or, at least, didn't occupy so many chapters.) The producers of the tv show obviously agree, so we won't see her in the show at all.

A couple days ago, I wrote up some thoughts about Tywin's use of magic, and I noted that Cersei's name is like Circe, the ancient Greek goddess of magic. Circe appears as a "witch" in Homer's Odyssey. At a feast, she turns most of the crew of Odysseus's ship into a bunch of pigs. Depending which version of the story you prefer, Odysseus either turns the pigs back into men, has an affair with Circe for a year and then resumes his voyage; or he goes home to collect his loyal wife (named, by the way, Penelope) and son and they all come back to live with Circe until Circe gives her own son with Odysseus a magic weapon that he inadvertently uses to kill Odysseus.

Tyrion's voyage chapters are one of several places in the books where GRRM alludes to the Odyssey. Instead of Tyrion's sister Cersei, we get Penny as this substitute sister character (Tyrion has taken Groat's place in the act, so Penny becomes a sort of sister to him). Tyrion isn't turned into a pig, but he ends up riding Penny's pig against all his instincts and wishes. (As I've been pondering the continuing pig imagery throughout Tyrion's arc, I realized that there are other places where he personifies wine, such as when Joffrey soaks Tyrion to his small clothes by dumping wine on him at the wedding reception or when Tyrion hatches from a wine barrel upon arriving in Essos. Which leads me to realize that I'll need to write up a "swine / wine" post for the Puns and Wordplay thread.) The two parts of the storm that destroy the Selasori Qhoran could be compared to Scylla and Charybdis, although Tyrion is sort of clinging to the deck for part of one storm, so it could also be a comparison to Odysseus tied to the mast as his ship passes the Sirens.

There are other important symbolic developments in the allegorical voyages, though: playing cyvasse with various people, sewing a motley outfit (Florian the Fool), the three books Tyrion reads in the kitchen, Two of Moqarro's five "fingers" being carried away by the storm as they try to secure a loose sail (= mummer's dragon). Losing fingers is like Davos and Qhorin Halfhand and Great John Umber, and will cause Moqarro to be a loyal supporter of Tyrion, I suspect, the way Davos is loyal to Stannis, Qhorin supported Jon Snow and Great John is loyal to Robb.

Anyway, I suspect the fun GRRM was having with the subtext and the Odyssey allusions and other symbolic developments may have prolonged these voyage chapters.

On the other hand, I've said it before and I'll say it again: GRRM does not waste words. One of the reasons these chapters SEEM so long and unnecessary might be that the author is hiding things in them that he doesn't want us to see right away. As I mentioned further up the thread, I think the thing he is hiding in the Penny part of the story is two dragon eggs. Mentor figures often give the hero a special weapon or tool. If Tyrion (Odysseus) is going to have a symbolic son (no way he and Penny will have a literal child, I'm guessing, for a variety of reasons), it will probably be a dragon egg Penny (Circe / Penelope) gives him and he figures out how to hatch. Penny is Mother of Dragons 2.0.

Beware the mummer's dragon.

[Good Guy Garlan]

42 minutes ago, WSmith84 said:

Fortunately I never saw Iron Man 3. You know who she is slightly less annoying than? Lois Lane in BvS (or as I call it: DC desperately try to catch up to Marvel).

Son, don't even get me started on Murderman vs SuperHypocrite or I'm gonna show my Marvel stan ass. 

(And I sooo don't wanna see Tyrion and Penny have implied bathtub sex)

[WSmith84]

23 minutes ago, Seams said:

I have to admit, I agree with a lot of this. My initial interest in figuring out Penny's purpose was that I couldn't figure out why she was present on so many pages. To be fair, though, you could say the same thing about other mentor characters such as Jeor Mormont or Oberyn Martell. Those are cool guys with swords, though, so they readers like them better. Penny is also a mentor and a warrior with a lance, but she's a girl who isn't attractive, so we wish she didn't exist. (Or, at least, didn't occupy so many chapters.) The producers of the tv show obviously agree, so we won't see her in the show at all.

Well, Jeor and Oberyn don't feel like obvious character tools. They are also characters within themselves, with their own lives, drives and failings. They also happen to be strongly written, whether or not one likes the characters, and they are in interesting parts of the story. Penny is none of those things. She's not well-written, nor interesting, nor in an interesting part of the story. She is nothing but a tool; a tool that exists for far too long in a far too dull part of the story. That's why people hate her. Not because she's ugly, or a girl, or a dwarf.

[WSmith84]

4 minutes ago, Good Guy Garlan said:

Son, don't even get me started on Murderman vs SuperHypocrite or I'm gonna show my Marvel stan ass. 

(And I sooo don't wanna see Tyrion and Penny have implied bathtub sex)

Maybe as Tyrion is choking the life out of her, she'll mutter

'Kill... Tywin...'

'Why did you say that name!?'

'My father... utter bastard...'

'My father was also called Tywin! Wait, why do you call your father by his first name? That's a rather odd thing to do. Is this just a cheap narrative way for us to reconcile our differences and work together?'

'Looks like it.'

'Well, let's go then!'

And Tyrion and Penny will ride off into the sunset together, forever wondering where whores go...

[Good Guy Garlan]

19 minutes ago, WSmith84 said:

Maybe as Tyrion is choking the life out of her, she'll mutter

'Kill... Tywin...'

'Why did you say that name!?'

'My father... utter bastard...'

'My father was also called Tywin! Wait, why do you call your father by his first name? That's a rather odd thing to do. Is this just a cheap narrative way for us to reconcile our differences and work together?'

'Looks like it.'

'Well, let's go then!'

And Tyrion and Penny will ride off into the sunset together, forever wondering where whores go...

"Wait, your father's name is also Tywin? Huh, that's a weird coincidence, what an amusing little piece of trivia. Anyway, where were we?"

*continues to choke the life out of her*

[Melisandre's White Pubes]

Penny is destined to be a dragon rider because all the dragons are still small (the largest with a wingspan of only 20 feet, comparable to an albatross).  Tyrion, Penny, the "small girl" Daenerys, and the midget Jon Snow.

[RumHam]

Don't worry, she doesn't.

[Brianstorm]

What will you be saying when you find out she's with the Faceless Men!? Her name fits, being in a mummer's troupe fits and then there's this:

"“It was Father’s idea to do the tilts. He even trained the first pig, but by then he was too sick to ride her, so Oppo took his place. I always rode the dog. We performed for the Sealord of Braavos once, and he laughed so hard that afterward he gave each of us a ... a grand gift.”"