WhenPokemon Scarlet and Violettrainers enroll at the prestigious Naranja or Uva Academy, they’ll meet Penny, a seemingly familiar character for those well-versed in previous Pokemon installments. This character is a shy STEM student with a knack for computers and machinery but doesn’t attend classes often. The reason for this is revealed when the player helps her deal with some aggressive Team Star Grunts.
The trainer soon learns that the grunts were trying to recruit Penny into their group, but unbeknownst to them, Penny is actually their boss. Her secret identity is Cassiopeia, and she’s the head honcho of Team Star. Penny then gets into different shenanigans with the player and through Operation Starfall, where they infiltrate and take down the bosses of her own group. During thisPokemon Scarlet and Violetquestline, the player gets to know more about the enigma that is Penny, including the fact that her hometown is in Galar. This region is wherePokemon Sword and Shieldwas set, and it features a character that has a lot in common with Penny.
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Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s Penny is Similar to Peonia
Penny has a similar face model to Peonia fromPokemon Sword and Shield’s Crown Tundra expansion. They also have two-toned hair, styled with bangs. While they’re opposites when it comes to their clothing style, they have a wealth of other similarities. For one, their names are inspired by the peony or Paeonia genus of plants, which have beautiful pink flowers.
Penny and Peonia have doting dads, whom they are both embarrassed about. Peony, Peonia’s dad, is Rose’s brother. If the girls are related, it may indicate that Penny belongs to one of the most powerful families inPokemon Sword and Shield’sGalar. The two characters also reference theLet’s Go Pikachu and Let’s Go Eeveegames. Penny loves Eevee, as evidenced by her backpack. Peonia, on the other hand, has Pikachu tail earrings.
The Pokemon Franchise Loves Creating Look-alike Characters
Penny and Peonia aren’t the only look-alike characters that span game generations. The franchise loves creating such characters, with the earliest examples being the multiple Nurse Joys and Officer Jennys. All the Joys are related, and so are the Jennys, according to Pokemon’s official lore. A more recent and significant example of look-alike characters isVolo fromPokemon Legends: Arceusand Cynthia fromPokemon Diamond and Pearl.
While it hasn’t been officially revealed that Volo and Cynthia are related, fans speculate that the former is an ancestor of the latter. They both have blonde hair and share similar facial features, with bangs that cover one side of their face. Volo calls himself “The Researcher of Myths,” which is a title that Cynthia adopts as well. Volo also usesCynthia’s Pokemon roster, which includes Garchomp and Spiritomb. Other possibleLegends: Arceusancestor links include Cyllene and Cyrus, Gaeric and Wulfric, Bertha and Agatha, and Beni and Wally.
It’s interesting to see how Pokemon designs characters who are related, not just by blood, but also by their profession or hobby. The earliest mainline games used the same model over and over for specific types of opponents, like the bug catchers, hikers, ace trainers, and evenTeam Rocket grunts. This was likely because of limitations to console hardware and software at the time, and the game now has more unique characters. However, the franchise occasionally creates characters across installments that are complete parallels of each other in terms of looks and personality. Some of them, like Penny and Peonia, are cheeky callbacks to past games. Others are more or less confirmed to be relatives and ancestors, like Volo and Cynthia. Either way, it’s always fun to find these look-alikes and discover whether they’re connected or not.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violetare available now for the Nintendo Switch.
