Lady Whistledown: Friend or Foe

[RachelKM]

On 5/26/2022 at 11:21 PM, andromeda331 said:

I really have a hard time seeing Penelope as Lady Whistledown. I really do like her. It's also hard for me to see the Penelope who's nice, didn't know where babies come from and treated like crap by her family is writing the pamplet outing people's secrets and has the Queen hunting her down.

I completely agree.  But my thoughts on it will have to be taken to the book thread.

[wanderingstar]

On 5/27/2022 at 2:21 AM, andromeda331 said:

I really have a hard time seeing Penelope as Lady Whistledown. I really do like her.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who likes Penelope. And I agree - it's hard to square the character we see with the snarky narrator. But I guess that's where she expresses that part of her personality. LW papers does seem to be an outlet for her.

[LadyChaos]

On 6/8/2022 at 5:43 PM, Gillian Rosh said:

I'm glad I'm not the only one who likes Penelope. And I agree - it's hard to square the character we see with the snarky narrator. But I guess that's where she expresses that part of her personality. LW papers does seem to be an outlet for her.

I think Pen is a good person, and I like her too....I think the problem comes from that I think initially she started LW as a harmless way to vent her frustrations and feel like she had a voice....until the issue with the guy that was threatening Daphne (don't remember his name) she didn't really report anything other then what people were wearing and the impressions people gave to the ton. She was really only reporting what others were already saying in a more entertaining way, and she didn't leave herself out of it.....Although we don't see it, I feel like Eloise would've told her that this guy was threatening her family, and Pen saw an opportunity to expose him for the trash he was and save her friends family. After that it kind of shifted and got out of control.....BUT at the end of the day Pen/LW is not responsible for other peoples actions, she is only responsible for exposing them. And people shouldn't blame her for what happened to them when their actions were exposed. Marina and Eloise are still responsible for what they were doing. 

I also think that Pen feels like she has little control over her life and that she lacks a voice in her real life and it occasionally causes her to lash out. With Marina, she didn't expose her until she felt backed into a corner and Marina was cruel to her. With writing about Eloise, she hadn't considered writing something bad about Eloise until Delacriox suggested it, even then she wasn't going to do it until Eloise said she was going to pretend to LW which was only a temporary solution (plus I think Penelope was afraid of losing control of the one thing she felt was hers), and she wasn't cruel to Eloise when Eloise was yelling at her....until Eloise called her a coward and an insipid wallflower (something Eloise knew would hurt her)...then she was cruel.

Being cruel is never Penelope's first instinct. But she does lack some emotional control and is prone too lashing out.

We all gossip, even we say we don't gossip...we still gossip and talk about other people when we're with friends. Most people ignored Pen or bullied her and the only reason Penelope knew 90% of what she reported is because people were already talking about it, in front of her. And everyone had no problem devouring these scandal sheets because they all love gossip. Even the Bridgertons.