Penny Polendina

Penny Polendina is a character who first appeared in the episode "The Stray", being found lying on the ground after Weiss Schnee crashes into her while chasing after Sun Wukong.

In "Painting the Town..." it was revealed that Penny is a robot, with her telling Ruby Rose that "most girls are born, but I was made."

In "PvP", Penny is destroyed by her own weapons when Pyrrha Nikos used her polarity Semblance to deflect what she thought were thousands of Floating Array's swords flying at her, when in reality it had been Emerald Sustrai using her perception manipulation Semblance to trick Pyrrha into using her Semblance to a devastating magnitude.

She returned in "The Greatest Kingdom" with a new look made by her father, Pietro Polendina, who rebuilt her after the Fall of Beacon. Penny became the official protector of Mantle and eliminates Grimm that invade the city.

Original Design (Volumes 1-3)
Penny had short, rather curly orange hair with a small ahoge on top that came down to her chin, and she wears a pink bow on the back of her head. She also has bright green eyes, light skin and freckles. She wears a whitish-gray old-fashioned blouse with short gray feminine overalls as well as a black and green collar with a matching pair of stockings. A layer of skin conceals her metallic structure and spherical joints, and her irises bore similarities to the shutter of a camera.

The green lines on the side of her stockings also appear to glow at times. She has what appeared to be a small and thin backpack, though it has only been seen when she came to the aid of Ruby in "Black and White" and when she and Ciel Soleil fought against Russel Thrush and Sky Lark in "Never Miss a Beat".

Prom Outfit
During the Beacon Dance, Penny wears a short, green, sleeveless dress with a black sash around her waist and green heels.

Rebuilt Design (Volume 7-Present)
After the Fall of Beacon, Penny was rebuilt by her father. Her hair is now significantly longer and more rounded at the tips, and she now wears a black bow with pink accents. The ahoge remains and is more prominent.

Additionally, Penny wears a Victorian-era dress. The abdominal region is black with four golden buttons; the upper blouse remains silver, but the vertical lining now extends well down from the collar. Her collar piece does away with the green accents and is instead finished with a black ribbon, a power button at its center. Penny now wears black fleece gloves with circular golden accents at the knuckles. Her footwear are now jet-powered boots, with the green lines on her stockings now illuminating exclusively when she uses them.

Personality
Penny is amiable, excitable, kind and curious. She often shows a distinct lack of social awareness, likely due to not having a lot of experience with Human nature. When Ruby made an unconditional offer of friendship, Penny seemed both immensely pleased and somewhat surprised. Another small quirk is that Penny hiccuped whenever she told a lie.

She also seems to place great value on friendship, for she is greatly angered at the sight of Ruby being knocked down by Roman's flare in "Black and White". She also places trust in Ruby based on the latter promising that she is her friend in "A Minor Hiccup".

Furthermore, Penny seems to be immensely curious. Upon hearing that Blake Belladonna has run away, she proceeded to Ruby numerous questions, all related to Blake and friendship in general. Despite being told not to wander off, Penny still wandered Vale on her own.

Penny occasionally shows insecurities about her artificial nature. Upon confiding in Ruby that she is a synthetic being, Penny was worried about how she would take the news. However, after seeing Ruby take it rather well, she was glad that Ruby does not seem to care that she is really a machine, for what truly matters is her heart and soul.

In "Dance Dance Infiltration", Penny is shown to enjoy dancing as she is seen dancing by herself between two Atlas Soldiers. Later that night, she's seen doing "the Robot" with one of the soldiers.

Penny's most notable trait is her kindness. Upon meeting Team RWBY, she greeted them with a jovial "Salutations!", complimented Weiss' hair, and offered to help Ruby track down Blake. In addition, she once saved Ruby from a truck before asking the driver if he was okay, thanked Team CRDL during the Vytal Festival for the time she had, and told Pyrrha in the finals that it was a pleasure to finally meet her.

Penny's more peculiar social quirks appear to tone down as the series progresses. While earlier appearances had her depicted as cheery, curious, and unfamiliar with many aspects of social interaction, these aspects appear to diminish with each subsequent appearance; by the time of the Vytal Festival, Penny was barely distinguishable from her former self's naivete and volatile emotional state, sharing a conversation with Ruby about both her plans to stay at Beacon, despite her teammate Ciel objecting due to running short on time.

Weapon
Penny's weapon was known as Floating Array, consisting of multiple short swords. They were stored in what appears to be a backpack on Penny's back.

As seen in "Black and White", Penny was able to control the Floating Array with simple movements from her hands. She was able to manipulate every sword simultaneously without any difficulty at all and could fire energy blasts when she brought them together, with the swords going into a special rotating configuration. This blast of energy was powerful enough to simultaneously slice multiple Bullheads in half, shooting them down. She could also put her swords into smaller rings in order to fire multiple weaker beams.

The swords are connected to her, and possibly operated, by the use of thin strings attached to the hilts. Penny's 'strings' seemed to be quite strong and durable, as they were able to pull down a Bullhead and cut through Penny herself easily. The swords are able to fold in half lengthwise for easier storage.

Mobility


She can allow Floating Array to pull her around or anchor herself and use them to pull large objects, including pulling down an airship in flight despite the mass and thrust power of the vehicle. Such feats seem to indicate enhanced strength. She can also use her weapons as thrusters, allowing her to move extremely quickly through the air.

Penny is able to jump great distances, with the force of her jump being enough to break the ground. She can also use her wires to catapult herself. She also seems to have a high amount of speed or stealthiness, as seen when she appears in one spot before quickly showing up in another. Examples of this are when she appeared in front of Team RWBY out of the blue and when she inexplicably appeared behind Weiss, Ruby and Yang Xiao Long two days later.



In Chapter 14 of the Manga, Penny is shown to combine her swords together into a jetpack.

As of "The Greatest Kingdom", Penny, in her new body, appears to have flight capabilities without Floating Array due to rocket thrusters implemented in her boots.

Strength
Penny possesses immense physical strength, made evident when she manages to bring an incoming From Dust Till Dawn truck in "A Minor Hiccup" to a complete stop with her bare hands, even causing the ground beneath her feet to buckle and crack. Her strength is attributed to her being a robot, which she admitted to in the same episode.

Aura
In the episode "Painting the Town..." Penny is revealed to be the first synthetic entity to be capable of generating an Aura. According to other references to Aura, this could also imply that Penny truly has a soul and that she can also wield a Semblance.

Mechanical Physiology
Due to Penny's nature as an android, she is significantly more resistant to fatal injuries. According to her father, Pietro, she can survive injuries and damage as severe as dismemberment and even decapitation, so long as her core remains intact. This is evident as her core survived her previous form's destruction and gruesome injuries unintentionally inflicted by Pyrrha in "PvP", an incident which led many to believe Penny was dead.

Trivia

 * Penny alludes to Pinocchio. For more information on this allusion, as well as other choices the creators made for this character, see Penny Polendina/Behind the Scenes.
 * Penny's name can bring to mind the color of copper, which pennies are coated in. It can also bring to mind the green color that copper takes on when it is oxidized.
 * In her debut episode, when Ruby tells Penny that she is her friend, Penny exclaims, "We can paint our nails, and try on clothes, and talk about cute boys!" which is a callback to Weiss' sarcastic rebuttal of Ruby's friendship in "The Shining Beacon, Pt.2". Ruby acknowledges this.
 * Since Penny has ferromagnetic components she can be affected by magnets, as seen in "Never Miss a Beat" and "PvP".
 * Penny is apparently very perceptive, for she saw through Blake's disguise and recognized she was a Faunus while most people did not.
 * Penny's fighting style resembles that of Naminé as she is depicted in Dead Fantasy, an online series also created by Monty Oum.
 * Going along with her robotic theme, her swords have the international stand-by / power symbol on each of them.
 * The destroyed character model of Penny from "PvP" and "Battle of Beacon" was actually built by her voice actress, Taylor McNee, who is also a 3D artist on the show.
 * Penny's emblem is a green sword, similar in design to the swords she uses in combat.
 * Penny's model number is revealed in "Never Miss a Beat" to be M374, which is possibly a reference to the M374 Hephaestus Combat Suit worn by the Meta in Red vs. Blue.
 * A new model of Penny based off of a scene from the Shirow Miwa manga was set to be included in RWBY: Amity Arena, but Rooster Teeth denied use of it owing to Penny's return in Volume 7.