Hot take (maybe?): Penny’s torture of cigar was a totally unnecessary inclusion and I think speaks to mg’s habit of emphasising shock value at the expense of good writing.
Most of the analyses and deep dives of Penny’s character that I’ve read discuss one or more of the following scenes: her upbringing pre-FAYZ, her cementing of Caine, her attempted coup of Perdido Beach, her interactions and relationships with other female characters in the series, namely her sisters and Diana, and her infatuation with Drake. People have made links to how Penny’s upbringing, which involves witnessing her sisters being sexually exploited and being emotionally neglected herself as a result of her sisters’ sexual exploitation, has informed her self-image and her understanding of love, sex, and affection throughout her time in the series. People have discussed how her cementing of Caine and her poisoning of her sister demonstrates her inclination to react with violence when she feels her attempts to receive the love and affection (i.e. sexual attraction) she so desperately craves are rejected, a manifestation of her low emotional intelligence and lack of healthy coping mechanisms stemming from the neglect and lack of emotional guidance she experiences pre-FAYZ. People have explored how her interactions and relationships with Diana highlight the toxicity of trying to live up to the unrealistic standards of beauty and desirability imposed upon women by patriarchy and how such standards unjustly pit women against each other in their attempt to meet them. And although her interactions with Drake in the series are limited, I have seen people mention that it illustrates how Penny, in her desperation, is willing to sacrifice her own self worth in the pursuit of receiving any type of attention, to the point where she latches on to the most toxic man in their entire series. What all the discussions of these scenes have in common is that the people who have discussed them have done so in a way that substantively contributes to our wider understanding of what it is that I believe Penny’s character is meant to represent.
Of course, Penny’s torture of cigar is one of, if not, the most popular scene I’ve seen mentioned in Penny analyses and deep dives. I’ve seen people say that Penny’s torture of cigar is among one of the most memorable scenes from the series period. But every time it’s mentioned in a deep dive or an analyses, it is usually some variation of this sentence “Penny is an [insert adjective/s] character, but I also hate that scene where she tortures cigar and, as such, I do not defend her actions.” That’s it. For a scene which is supposedly so memorable, to the point where it’s all people remember about Penny, its inclusion begins and ends with just one sentence. It is relegated to being the obligatory “understanding a character doesn’t mean defending them” disclaimer at the beginning of every analysis and deep dive that I’ve read, a disclaimer which is oftentimes shoehorned in to every discussion and discourse surrounding morally complicated and unpalatable characters because people in fandom spaces have little grasp of nuance (a problem which is of course not exclusive to the gone fandom and one which I actually think this fandom in particular navigates well).
I’ve seen people make the argument that Penny’s torture of cigar is meant to highlight the deterioration of her emotionally unintelligent mind up until this point in the series, and the depravity of her imagination (channeled through her powers) as a result. However, if that’s what it supposed to be representing, then I think a scene she has later on in the same book where she demonstrates a new vision to Dekka in order to stop Dekka from pursuing her does a better at highlighting this. Penny creates a horrific vision just for Dekka which she describes as being new, clearly illustrating the depravity of her imagination and the deterioration of her mind up until this point. And it also showcases one of the talking points from earlier, in that it shows Penny’s desperation to seek love and affection at the expense of her own self worth (going to the mineshaft to work with drake and the gaiaphage) and her inclination towards violence when she is denied love and affection (going to enact her revenge on the citizens of PB and Caine by aligning herself with drake and the Gaiaphage following the failure of her coup). On the other hand, if you were to actually analyse Penny’s torture of cigar using the same talking points brought up in discussions of the other aforementioned scenes, you’d realise just how inconsequential Penny’s torture of cigar actually is to understanding who she is as a character.
In fact, the reason I’m writing this at all is because the only contribution Penny’s torture of cigar made to Penny’s character is canonically giving her a foot fetish 💀 way to go mg, sexualising the 12 year old girl that you were using to explore how the sexualisation of young girls can warp their self-esteem and emotional intelligence.
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