Mebs here

visiting uncle Iroh

breaking my 2+ year no posting streak cuz this design was too good

hunger

fear

and a complete lack of security—

Genuinely, Wasian Sir Pentious - specifically, half-Chinese Sir Pentious - could legitimately be a possibility for the time period he lived in.

In the 1800s, there was a big influx of Chinese sailors to the UK, who then went on to establish their own communities. Like, there were straight up enough of us that a Chinatown sprang up in both Liverpool and London sometime by the mid 1800s.

There were Chinese who married local white British people! Mostly Chinese men - since majority of immigrants were sailors - but a Pendleton with a white father and Chinese mother still would've been possible.

I feel like Pendleton's story also lends well to a Wasian reading. Racism against Chinese people was rife in the UK (classic "they're gonna steal our jobs!" reasons, then the whole mess of the two fucking Opium Wars, etc, etc) and even if Chinese people were allowed to marry British people, such unions obviously would've been disapproved of and the couples involved would've faced discrimination and racism, let alone their mixed race kids.

Pendleton was clearly, at bare minimum, middle class, if not of an upper class background. Racism abounds across all classes, of course, but if his father was an upper class man who then married a working class Chinese woman (since Chinese people wouldn't have had much opportunity to rise higher socially on their own), or even had her as a mistress and then had an illegitimate mixed race child, that would've been incredibly scandalous for the time.

Then, growing up in white, upper class British society - visibly different to everyone, never fitting in and frequently discriminated against - it's like, yeah, no wonder Pendleton ended up a hermit. Never belonging anywhere, never able to join in with wider society, pushed aside to only watch from the fringes.

I think I've only posted it on Twitter but to me, Penny is def wasian with an immigrant Chinese mother and a British middle/ upperclassman father. Just like you said, it adds to the self isolation he imposed and the fear of speaking up to authorities when he saw the murders.

In my head, he was an illegitimate child and lived with his mother within London's Chinatown for the most part of his childhood before his mom unfortunately dies and he's sent off to live with his father (he never really knew him, his mother doesn't have much good things to say about him but he's well off enough so surely he'll be able to take him in).

So now here he is, a quiet awkward kid living in a too big estate, learning proper etiquette and failing miserably to fit into high society, both because of his background and his general eccentricity (also headcanon that he looks more like his mom than his dad, like his genes didn't even try at all lol). The only good thing that came out of that arrangement was that he was able to get a proper education. As soon as he was able to, he left that manor and all of the cold, disappointed admonishing his father sent his way.

It would explain why he's a hermit in his adult years when all his life he was faced with ridicule by his peers. I mean sure, they could play into the cooky inventor with wild ideas that no one takes seriously, but imo, considering the time period, him being mixed would just make so much sense and add an extra layer to his reclusiveness and inability to make connections, and to speak up about injustice.

And also he just looks wasian LMAO speaking strictly of features, there's a ton of frames where his eyes are drawn upturned (think I saw a tiktok commenting on all the human forms we got this season and her saying that human pentious looks wasian really affirmed my hc)