Rhoda Penmark (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
naturevsnurture) wrote2017-05-13 03:35 pm
naturevsnurture) wrote2017-05-13 03:35 pm
Ryslig app
OOC INFORMATION
Name: Carbon
Contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
godofpaper84
Other Characters: AM
CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Rhoda Penmark
Age: 8
Canon: The Bad Seed
Canon Point: Just before her overdose
Character Information: The Bad Seed info. NOTE: The novel, play, and movie are all very similar save for the ending. Due to Rhoda's canon point, the differences in the endings will not matter. However, if it comes to it, I will take the original ending - i.e. Rhoda survives and her mother does not.
Personality:
The Bad Seed came at a time when it was generally accepted that bad children have bad upbringings. Those who grow up to be murderers were abused as children, for instance. The fact that brain chemistry could influence the future of a child was only beginning to be explored. Rhoda is somewhat of a guinea pig for the concept of "nature vs. nurture" (hence the journal name), a hypothesis of sorts: a child with wonderful, loving parents, enough money to live comfortably, and a community who treats her well... She should be a model child, someone that others should aspire to be like. She should have an excellent lifestyle, a wonderful personality - and to most, she does.
To any adult who may not know her - and to many who do know her - Rhoda is an adorable, charming little girl. She is very polite to adults, giving pleases and thank yous where appropriate, but will also prance around and play like any child. Many adults dote on her, including the landlady, Monica, who often says that she wishes Rhoda was her own.
Throughout the canon, when Rhoda's mother questions her about Claude's drowning and becomes more suspicious, Rhoda attempts to charm her away, wrapping her arms around her and gushing about how beautiful she is. She doesn't want to be found out, so playing up the charm is a skill she relies on. She charms adults for gifts, innocently asking Monica for another stone in the necklace she was gifted, or innocently inquiring if she could inherit certain items when the person dies. Charm likely doesn't work on the other students, who don't dote on adorable children.
Her charm and manipulative nature go hand-in-hand. Rhoda knows she's an adorable little girl, so she will exploit that to the nth degree if she needs to. Even if Rhoda senses that her teacher is wary of her, she still greets her with an exaggerated but otherwise "perfect" curtsy. Monica gives Rhoda gifts occasionally because she is so taken with her. Her father, away on a business trip, sends her a beautiful tea set with a note that says he gave it to her because she's "the most adorable little girl in the world." (Not the exact wording.) It's also of note that before her father left, Rhoda told him to send her gifts. Of course, most children are like this to a degree, so at the beginning of the movie/book, nothing seems out of the ordinary about this. Later on, though, it's fairly clear that this was all intentional on Rhoda's part.
She often plays up her charm in order to obtain material rewards, showing a degree of materialism. This may just be due to the fact that she's a child. She has caused at least one death, though, simply to obtain a material possession. An elderly neighbor doted on her and promised her an item upon her death, so Rhoda simply killed her in order to get the item faster. However, to kill this woman, she had to wait and plan for the opportunity to present itself, so this requires a degree of forethought and a significant desire for the material reward. Another child might stamp their feet and demand the item, but then forget about it later, but it obviously meant a great deal to Rhoda. After her canonpoint, when she survives her mother's attempt to kill her, she mentions offhand that Monica had promised her another item upon her death. Despite the fact that Monica very clearly loves Rhoda like her own and practically spoils her, Rhoda wouldn't hesitate to kill her for a mere material item.
In addition, she killed her own dog simply because she was "bored" with it; showing she viewed the dog as a material possession in a sense. It existed to entertain her for a time, and once she had enough, she tossed it away like garbage.
Beyond materialism is her desire to be perfect, whether or not others recognize it. Her desperation for the penmanship medal joins these two points, and is what led to her killing Claude. When she does get the medal, though, she doesn't show it off; she keeps it to herself as a trinket to hide the evidence, but also to reward herself. In her mind, she is entitled to that medal. No one else deserves it but her. The only possible reason Claude won the medal is because the system is rigged, obviously. She knows she is the best student in her class with the best penmanship, so she has to get it. She's so desperate that she committed murder.
Rhoda enjoys being a perfect little girl. She wants to be perfect at everything she does, which is noted by her teacher. She gets excellent grades, goes to Sunday school, and is, to an outside observer, generally the ideal child. She knows she's perfect and flaunts it often. But even when confronted by someone who can see through her, she generally is confident enough that they have no evidence against her. Leroy, the hired hand, teases her about stories of jail and the electric chair, which might normally scare an eight-year-old child - especially one who has indeed committed murder multiple times. But she easily brushes him off several times as a result. It's only when he reveals his incriminating evidence against her (the shoes) that her confidence morphs into a determined rage.
Rhoda shows no remorse whatsoever for her actions, except when she fears getting caught. After killing her classmate for the penmanship medal, she arrives home from the school picnic to a concerned mother who asks if she's okay. Rhoda shrugs her off and acts as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened, and goes off to joyfully rollerskate. When she tells her mother about her killing of the elderly neighbor in Baltimore, she adds that she pushed the woman down the stairs. When she says this, though, it seems as if she finds the whole thing amusing. She tells her with a smile and runs off joyfully.
Rhoda's teacher, Miss Fern, has also noted this characteristic. On a school report, she wrote that Rhoda was "cold, self-sufficient, plays by her own rules." Rhoda does go off on her own a lot during the canon, and has very few - if any - friends her age. The children at the school generally do not like her, as they sense something is "off".
It's clear, too, that Rhoda knows that killing is wrong. She just doesn't care. She goes to great lengths to cover up the fact that she killed the boy, arranging the scene to make it look like he drowned. The elderly neighbor in Baltimore was also easily arranged to look as if she slipped and fell, Leroy's death appeared to simply be him falling asleep in hay too close to a fire source, and her dog's death was an accident falling from a window.
Aside from her ruthless ways, Rhoda is very much like a child. She is quite feminine and very much into dressing nicely, even when all the other students are wearing jeans. She skips around and hums to herself, and even converts her regular dress shoes into tap shoes with some ingenuity on her part. She plays with the tea set her father sent her with great joy, pretending to hold a tea party.
5-10 Key Character Traits: Charming, manipulative, remorseless, self-sufficient, materialistic, perfectionist, confident, entitled, smart
Would you prefer a monster that FITS your character’s personality, CONFLICTS with it, EITHER, or opt for 100% RANDOMIZATION? Either
Opt-Outs: Arachne, werewolf, werebear, vampire, manticore, shade, demon (AM) Reapp - she is a troll.
Roleplay Sample: Test drive 1, 2, 3
plus Ryslig thread 1 and 2
Name: Carbon
Contact:
Other Characters: AM
CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Rhoda Penmark
Age: 8
Canon: The Bad Seed
Canon Point: Just before her overdose
Character Information: The Bad Seed info. NOTE: The novel, play, and movie are all very similar save for the ending. Due to Rhoda's canon point, the differences in the endings will not matter. However, if it comes to it, I will take the original ending - i.e. Rhoda survives and her mother does not.
Personality:
The Bad Seed came at a time when it was generally accepted that bad children have bad upbringings. Those who grow up to be murderers were abused as children, for instance. The fact that brain chemistry could influence the future of a child was only beginning to be explored. Rhoda is somewhat of a guinea pig for the concept of "nature vs. nurture" (hence the journal name), a hypothesis of sorts: a child with wonderful, loving parents, enough money to live comfortably, and a community who treats her well... She should be a model child, someone that others should aspire to be like. She should have an excellent lifestyle, a wonderful personality - and to most, she does.
To any adult who may not know her - and to many who do know her - Rhoda is an adorable, charming little girl. She is very polite to adults, giving pleases and thank yous where appropriate, but will also prance around and play like any child. Many adults dote on her, including the landlady, Monica, who often says that she wishes Rhoda was her own.
Throughout the canon, when Rhoda's mother questions her about Claude's drowning and becomes more suspicious, Rhoda attempts to charm her away, wrapping her arms around her and gushing about how beautiful she is. She doesn't want to be found out, so playing up the charm is a skill she relies on. She charms adults for gifts, innocently asking Monica for another stone in the necklace she was gifted, or innocently inquiring if she could inherit certain items when the person dies. Charm likely doesn't work on the other students, who don't dote on adorable children.
Her charm and manipulative nature go hand-in-hand. Rhoda knows she's an adorable little girl, so she will exploit that to the nth degree if she needs to. Even if Rhoda senses that her teacher is wary of her, she still greets her with an exaggerated but otherwise "perfect" curtsy. Monica gives Rhoda gifts occasionally because she is so taken with her. Her father, away on a business trip, sends her a beautiful tea set with a note that says he gave it to her because she's "the most adorable little girl in the world." (Not the exact wording.) It's also of note that before her father left, Rhoda told him to send her gifts. Of course, most children are like this to a degree, so at the beginning of the movie/book, nothing seems out of the ordinary about this. Later on, though, it's fairly clear that this was all intentional on Rhoda's part.
She often plays up her charm in order to obtain material rewards, showing a degree of materialism. This may just be due to the fact that she's a child. She has caused at least one death, though, simply to obtain a material possession. An elderly neighbor doted on her and promised her an item upon her death, so Rhoda simply killed her in order to get the item faster. However, to kill this woman, she had to wait and plan for the opportunity to present itself, so this requires a degree of forethought and a significant desire for the material reward. Another child might stamp their feet and demand the item, but then forget about it later, but it obviously meant a great deal to Rhoda. After her canonpoint, when she survives her mother's attempt to kill her, she mentions offhand that Monica had promised her another item upon her death. Despite the fact that Monica very clearly loves Rhoda like her own and practically spoils her, Rhoda wouldn't hesitate to kill her for a mere material item.
In addition, she killed her own dog simply because she was "bored" with it; showing she viewed the dog as a material possession in a sense. It existed to entertain her for a time, and once she had enough, she tossed it away like garbage.
Beyond materialism is her desire to be perfect, whether or not others recognize it. Her desperation for the penmanship medal joins these two points, and is what led to her killing Claude. When she does get the medal, though, she doesn't show it off; she keeps it to herself as a trinket to hide the evidence, but also to reward herself. In her mind, she is entitled to that medal. No one else deserves it but her. The only possible reason Claude won the medal is because the system is rigged, obviously. She knows she is the best student in her class with the best penmanship, so she has to get it. She's so desperate that she committed murder.
Rhoda enjoys being a perfect little girl. She wants to be perfect at everything she does, which is noted by her teacher. She gets excellent grades, goes to Sunday school, and is, to an outside observer, generally the ideal child. She knows she's perfect and flaunts it often. But even when confronted by someone who can see through her, she generally is confident enough that they have no evidence against her. Leroy, the hired hand, teases her about stories of jail and the electric chair, which might normally scare an eight-year-old child - especially one who has indeed committed murder multiple times. But she easily brushes him off several times as a result. It's only when he reveals his incriminating evidence against her (the shoes) that her confidence morphs into a determined rage.
Rhoda shows no remorse whatsoever for her actions, except when she fears getting caught. After killing her classmate for the penmanship medal, she arrives home from the school picnic to a concerned mother who asks if she's okay. Rhoda shrugs her off and acts as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened, and goes off to joyfully rollerskate. When she tells her mother about her killing of the elderly neighbor in Baltimore, she adds that she pushed the woman down the stairs. When she says this, though, it seems as if she finds the whole thing amusing. She tells her with a smile and runs off joyfully.
Rhoda's teacher, Miss Fern, has also noted this characteristic. On a school report, she wrote that Rhoda was "cold, self-sufficient, plays by her own rules." Rhoda does go off on her own a lot during the canon, and has very few - if any - friends her age. The children at the school generally do not like her, as they sense something is "off".
It's clear, too, that Rhoda knows that killing is wrong. She just doesn't care. She goes to great lengths to cover up the fact that she killed the boy, arranging the scene to make it look like he drowned. The elderly neighbor in Baltimore was also easily arranged to look as if she slipped and fell, Leroy's death appeared to simply be him falling asleep in hay too close to a fire source, and her dog's death was an accident falling from a window.
Aside from her ruthless ways, Rhoda is very much like a child. She is quite feminine and very much into dressing nicely, even when all the other students are wearing jeans. She skips around and hums to herself, and even converts her regular dress shoes into tap shoes with some ingenuity on her part. She plays with the tea set her father sent her with great joy, pretending to hold a tea party.
5-10 Key Character Traits: Charming, manipulative, remorseless, self-sufficient, materialistic, perfectionist, confident, entitled, smart
Opt-Outs: Arachne, werewolf, werebear, vampire, manticore, shade, demon (AM)
Roleplay Sample: Test drive 1, 2, 3
plus Ryslig thread 1 and 2