Search/Recent Changes
DBTropes
...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!

Penance

 Penance
type
TVTItem
 Penance
label
Penance
 Penance
page
Penance
 Penance
comment
Penance is Eliza Clarke's second novel, published in 2023. In 2016, in the small town of Crow-on-Sea in Yorkshire, three girls - Angelica, Violet, and Dolly - murdered a classmate, Joan Wilson. Now in the present day, a true crime writer goes to Crow-on-Sea to get the story about what happened.
 Penance
fetched
2024-03-23T01:31:27Z
 Penance
parsed
2024-03-23T01:31:27Z
 Penance
processingComment
Dropped link to BystanderEffect: Not a Feature - UNKNOWN
 Penance
processingUnknown
BystanderEffect
 Penance
isPartOf
DBTropes
 Penance / int_13992073
type
Rasputinian Death
 Penance / int_13992073
comment
Rasputinian Death: Dolly, Violet, and Angelica kidnapped and savagely tortured Joan over an entire night before killing her by setting her on fire. She still lives for around an hour afterwards.
 Penance / int_13992073
featureApplicability
1.0
 Penance / int_13992073
featureConfidence
1.0
 Penance
hasFeature
Penance / int_13992073
 Penance / int_14c04cad
type
Butch Lesbian
 Penance / int_14c04cad
comment
Butch Lesbian: Jayde is ostracized and bullied in Crow-on-Sea because she's stereotypically masculine (and from a poor background). It's suggested that Joan becomes friends with Jayde out of her own curiosity because Jayde made no effort to hide being a lesbian, but it's not known by anyone if Joan was actually a lesbian, if she was just curious, or if she wanted to be friends with Jayde.
 Penance / int_14c04cad
featureApplicability
1.0
 Penance / int_14c04cad
featureConfidence
1.0
 Penance
hasFeature
Penance / int_14c04cad
 Penance / int_1869b4b1
type
Unreliable Narrator
 Penance / int_1869b4b1
comment
Unreliable Narrator: The in-universe introduction and the attached interview afterwards both state that Carelli's relationship with the truth is flexible at best. Many details are extrapolations or bald-faced lies, and he portrays his investigation as a lot more sensitive and a lot less unwelcome than it actually was. The biggest example is the supposed correspondence from Angelica, Violet, and Dolly—they never wrote him letters, he bribed prison employees for access to their psychiatric records.
 Penance / int_1869b4b1
featureApplicability
1.0
 Penance / int_1869b4b1
featureConfidence
1.0
 Penance
hasFeature
Penance / int_1869b4b1
 Penance / int_1f6983f7
type
Ambiguous Situation
 Penance / int_1f6983f7
comment
Ambiguous Situation: Whether Dolly was sexually abused by her father, as her stepsister thinks, is left ambiguous. Alec takes this story about Dolly's potential abuse very personally, and tells her that he would also go into his daughter's room to look after her when she was struggling with her mental health. Whether this is an Implied Rape situation for Dolly, Frances, or both is left very ambiguous. (Notably, Dolly makes Matty McKnight's parents the exact type of abusive Heather claims Dolly's parents were in her fanfiction, despite the McKnight couple being by all accounts perfectly nice people.) Whose idea was it to torture Joan, Angelica or Dolly? Or both of them? It's known they were the only two present for the entirety of Joan's torture, and it's stated that both girls blamed each other. Carelli suggests it was Dolly, but he's an Unreliable Narrator at best.
 Penance / int_1f6983f7
featureApplicability
1.0
 Penance / int_1f6983f7
featureConfidence
1.0
 Penance
hasFeature
Penance / int_1f6983f7
 Penance / int_2ed5e99d
type
Depraved Bisexual
 Penance / int_2ed5e99d
comment
Depraved Bisexual: Dolly is bisexual and apparently tortured Joan and set her on fire because she was flirting with Dolly's girlfriend Jayde. While that was the theoretic trigger, there's plenty more to it than that. Possibly, Matty from the Cherry Creek massacre. He is known to have asked out a girl, but is also believed to have raped Brian, his co-conspirator in the shooting.
 Penance / int_2ed5e99d
featureApplicability
1.0
 Penance / int_2ed5e99d
featureConfidence
1.0
 Penance
hasFeature
Penance / int_2ed5e99d
 Penance / int_3ed23024
type
Surprisingly Realistic Outcome
 Penance / int_3ed23024
comment
Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Angelica's stereotypical Alpha Bitch behavior, far from cementing her popularity, actually just annoyed and confused people and made them like her less, because being catty, insulting, and obsessed with imaginary hierarchies are unattractive qualities in a friend. For instance, she describes half her friend group as the "B-tier", less pretty and popular hangers-on to the "A-tier", in a way that wouldn't be out of place in a YA novel or teen movie...but everyone else in the group just thought of those girls as their friends and thought the A-tier/B-tier thing was weird.
 Penance / int_3ed23024
featureApplicability
1.0
 Penance / int_3ed23024
featureConfidence
1.0
 Penance
hasFeature
Penance / int_3ed23024
 Penance / int_4f362a27
type
Implied Rape
 Penance / int_4f362a27
comment
Whether Dolly was sexually abused by her father, as her stepsister thinks, is left ambiguous. Alec takes this story about Dolly's potential abuse very personally, and tells her that he would also go into his daughter's room to look after her when she was struggling with her mental health. Whether this is an Implied Rape situation for Dolly, Frances, or both is left very ambiguous. (Notably, Dolly makes Matty McKnight's parents the exact type of abusive Heather claims Dolly's parents were in her fanfiction, despite the McKnight couple being by all accounts perfectly nice people.)
 Penance / int_4f362a27
featureApplicability
1.0
 Penance / int_4f362a27
featureConfidence
1.0
 Penance
hasFeature
Penance / int_4f362a27
 Penance / int_59ddd555
type
Psycho Lesbian
 Penance / int_59ddd555
comment
Psycho Lesbian: Discussed. It's common to assume that Joan was set alight because of Dolly's relationship with Jayde, and they are mocked often for being schoolgirl lesbians (but Jayde comes across as a decent person, and Dolly is suggested to be bisexual rather than gay).
 Penance / int_59ddd555
featureApplicability
1.0
 Penance / int_59ddd555
featureConfidence
1.0
 Penance
hasFeature
Penance / int_59ddd555
 Penance / int_7f5aa0d6
type
Ron the Death Eater
 Penance / int_7f5aa0d6
comment
Ron the Death Eater: In-universe, the Creekers again. As part of their whitewashing of Matty's actions, they write his victims as terrible people who provoked the shooting with their awful behavior (for instance, they portray his Black victim as a violent Jerk Jock who bullied Matty, and the female survivor as a heartless slut, so they don't have to accept their hero is a racist proto-incel).
 Penance / int_7f5aa0d6
featureApplicability
1.0
 Penance / int_7f5aa0d6
featureConfidence
1.0
 Penance
hasFeature
Penance / int_7f5aa0d6
 Penance / int_a04ec6cb
type
Overshadowed by Controversy
 Penance / int_a04ec6cb
comment
Overshadowed by Controversy: In-universe. Joan's brutal murder happened on the night of the June 2016 Brexit referendum, and was not covered as much in the media as a result. Alec floats two reasons for this: possibly because it wasn't related in any way, but also because Angelica was the daughter of a low-rent rightwing pundit.
 Penance / int_a04ec6cb
featureApplicability
1.0
 Penance / int_a04ec6cb
featureConfidence
1.0
 Penance
hasFeature
Penance / int_a04ec6cb
 Penance / int_a861560f
type
The Friend Nobody Likes
 Penance / int_a861560f
comment
The Friend Nobody Likes: Deconstructed. Lauren, a former friend of Angelica's, says (per Carelli's account of the interview, anyway) that Angelica was this—the girls found her mean and childish and would make fun of her behind her back. However, Lauren now feels terrible about how they all treated Angelica, noting that they made fun of her for harmless things like enjoying musicals and could get just as mean, and can't help but blame herself for not stopping everyone from picking on her.
 Penance / int_a861560f
featureApplicability
1.0
 Penance / int_a861560f
featureConfidence
1.0
 Penance
hasFeature
Penance / int_a861560f
 Penance / int_b0855ef3
type
No Historical Figures Were Harmed
 Penance / int_b0855ef3
comment
No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Vance Diamond, a native of Crow-on-Sea who became a very popular and beloved media personality and philanthropist, and who was discovered to be a serial child molester and rapist, is obviously a reference to Jimmy Savile.
 Penance / int_b0855ef3
featureApplicability
1.0
 Penance / int_b0855ef3
featureConfidence
1.0
 Penance
hasFeature
Penance / int_b0855ef3
 Penance / int_b53077b3
type
Take That!
 Penance / int_b53077b3
comment
Take That!: The podcast transcribed within is a clear Expy of The Last Podcast on the Left, complete with a title riffing on a notorious 1970s movie (here, I Spit on Your Grave).
 Penance / int_b53077b3
featureApplicability
1.0
 Penance / int_b53077b3
featureConfidence
1.0
 Penance
hasFeature
Penance / int_b53077b3
 Penance / int_cad57012
type
Draco in Leather Pants
 Penance / int_cad57012
comment
Draco in Leather Pants: In-universe. Matty is a Fetishized Abuser by Dolly and her Tumblr friends, who view him as a misunderstood Byronic Hero. Alec points out that they ignore that he's also a Neo-Nazi who murdered a black kid in the shooting out of pure racism, an incel who shot a girl who rejected him (despite knowing she had a boyfriend), and possibly raped his co-conspirator before his suicide.
 Penance / int_cad57012
featureApplicability
1.0
 Penance / int_cad57012
featureConfidence
1.0
 Penance
hasFeature
Penance / int_cad57012
 Penance / int_d52d28b6
type
Hypocrite
 Penance / int_d52d28b6
comment
Hypocrite: Vance Diamond, who as noted below was revealed to be a pedophile, was also a family friend of the Stirling-Stewarts, and Angelica's very conservative father stridently defended him in the press even as the evidence against him mounted—yet he himself refused to allow his daughters (and any female guests of similar age) to be alone with Diamond.
 Penance / int_d52d28b6
featureApplicability
1.0
 Penance / int_d52d28b6
featureConfidence
1.0
 Penance
hasFeature
Penance / int_d52d28b6
 Penance / int_de6bd03e
type
Trashy True Crime
 Penance / int_de6bd03e
comment
Trashy True Crime: Every which way. Alec Carelli is a hack writer who exploits the memories of people involved in notorious crimes to "rebrand" himself, including with the Joan Wilson murder. It's revealed that he promised to leave alone the people involved while actually drawing people to Crow-on-Sea, and that large parts of the book are exaggerated or outright fabrications. The American podcast quoted within are depicted as mocking the "lezzy English schoolgirls". Dolly and her online community are obsessive fans of the Cherry Creek massacre.
 Penance / int_de6bd03e
featureApplicability
1.0
 Penance / int_de6bd03e
featureConfidence
1.0
 Penance
hasFeature
Penance / int_de6bd03e
 Penance / int_e5467735
type
Expy Coexistence
 Penance / int_e5467735
comment
Expy Coexistence: Joan's savage torture and murder by a group of female friends (apparently over a Love Triangle and culminating in being burned alive) is extremely reminiscent of the murder of Shanda Sharer in the US. However, Jacque Vaught's donation of a dog to Melinda Loveless, one of Shanda's killers, is mentioned in the book itself (though no names are used).
 Penance / int_e5467735
featureApplicability
1.0
 Penance / int_e5467735
featureConfidence
1.0
 Penance
hasFeature
Penance / int_e5467735
 Penance / int_ed7dde2c
type
Popularity Cycle
 Penance / int_ed7dde2c
comment
Popularity Cycle: One of the major themes of the novel is how certain behavior can change from being regarded as "cool" to tragic in teens. Angelica and Alesha's behavior changed from being regarded as the peak of coolness to pathetic and uncool in secondary school, while Joan became more accepted for her supposed oddities.
 Penance / int_ed7dde2c
featureApplicability
1.0
 Penance / int_ed7dde2c
featureConfidence
1.0
 Penance
hasFeature
Penance / int_ed7dde2c
 Penance / int_name
type
ItemName
 Penance / int_name
comment
 Penance / int_name
featureApplicability
1.0
 Penance / int_name
featureConfidence
1.0
 Penance
hasFeature
Penance / int_name
 Penance / int_name
itemName
Penance

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

 Penance
hasFeature
Literature of the 2020s / int_b98def3b
 Penance
hasFeature
Psycho Lesbian / int_b98def3b
 Penance
hasFeature
Ron the Death Eater / int_b98def3b
 Penance
hasFeature
The New '10s / int_b98def3b