Stardew Valley Tries to Have a Better Conversation About Disability, But Does It?

When Stardew Valley recently released its major 1.4 update, termed the “everything update” by developer Eric Barone, including a new map, additional endgame content, and thirty-five new hats for your farmer and their horse, it was a small unassuming patch note under the heading ‘Other Changes’ that caught my eye: “Adjusted a dialogue option in Penny’s 2-heart event to be more considerate of George’s perspective.” While it doesn’t provide much context, I knew exactly which scene it referred to — it had always been a particularly sour note for me in the otherwise idyllic escapist fantasy that is the adorable farming sim Stardew Valley.

Like many others, I love Stardew Valley for its colourful art style and meditative farming and fishing loop, but I was also charmed by the ability to develop relationships with (and marry and raise children with) the cast of characters living in the town. I would ply every townsperson with gifts, lovingly grown on my own farm, and watch our relationship improve until I was rewarded with their heart events. 

In Penny’s 2-heart event, you see George struggling to remove a piece of post from his letterbox from his seated position. Penny appears, tells him to “let her help him” and, before he has a chance to respond, pushes his wheelchair out of the way. She cheerfully presents him with his post, only for George to respond not with thanks, but with an angry tirade: He could have got it himself, he can certainly move himself around, and how feeble does she think he is?

The way the scene is originally set up, Penny has done a well meaning thing, and is being berated by an unreasonable person who is embarrassed because of their pride. George is consistently shown throughout the game to complain, be hostile towards others, and generally be negative and unpleasant even to his cookie-baking wife. We are explicitly shown him being unable to get the post from his letterbox, so when he claims otherwise, we’re sure to take his outburst as prideful bluster.

However, Penny pushing George’s wheelchair without his consent is a major violation of his boundaries, akin to bodily shoving or picking him up and carrying him. George’s role in the game as ‘the grumpy old man’ dismisses his entirely justified anger and frustration in this instance, and creates a very unsettling emotional dissonance as a disabled player. Despite his initial response being set up as prideful bluster, it is entirely accurate and not insignificant for him to say that he can certainly move himself around when he loses his temper at Penny.

Penny, conversely, is shown to be a shy bookish type, but friendly and optimistic, and loved by the children of Pelican Town. When she asks the player character for reassurance, it isn’t about taking sides. The question is only about Penny: Do you encourage her good intentions, or do you reinforce that if someone is unkind to her, she’s done something wrong?

The problem inherent with this framing is that Penny has, in fact, done something wrong. When the game shows us George struggling with his post, it’s meant to be an out for Penny: “no, look, he really couldn’t have done it by himself”. The problem here, which the patch attempts to address, is that disabled adults are adults. It is rude, condescending, and often counterproductive to assist somebody with (or fully take over) a task without asking them first. 

At the risk of sounding redundant, disabled people live their everyday lives every day. There are plenty of tasks that we might manage in a way that is slower, or more awkward looking, but we are still managing. Numerous people have insisted on holding open doors for me as a wheelchair user in such a way that has left me with a narrower and more awkward space to navigate through, or forced to make physical contact with their bodies in order to pass through the doorway, which suddenly makes navigating public spaces needlessly intimate. It might make them uncomfortable to watch me jimmy the handle, kick the frame a little bit, wedge the door with one elbow and wheel with my other arm until I’ve got a metaphorical foot in the door, but, well — this is why we should have more automatic doors!

It is from this perspective that the event is now changed. Before, the second dialogue choice suggested that Penny should have left George alone because “now he’s grumpy”, which embarrasses Penny and condescends to George. In its place is one that says “You should’ve asked instead of assuming George wanted help”, in addition to the remaining ones to reassure Penny she did a kind thing, or to feign ignorance. Should you take that option, Penny then admits that you’re right, and apologises to George for being rude.

However, the new dialogue option exists in a troublesome narrative space. It takes the “upsetting people means you did something wrong” part in Penny’s arc, and accordingly loses you friendship with her. Despite it being the right moral choice, the right gameplay choice remains telling Penny she did a kind thing, an option that remains entirely unchanged. 

Regardless of what you say, as in the original version, George is shown to be ashamed and apologises for getting angry. Even if you won’t say it, he tells Penny that she did, in fact, do a kind thing. And she accepts his apology, and says she understands. You can subvert the purpose of the scene for only a moment to draw attention to the real ableism that took place, but its bookends reflect the original narrative: Penny does a kind thing, a

nd George is too proud to accept help. 

Both narratively and mechanically, despite presenting you with an option to call out the ableism present in the scene, you are actively discouraged from doing so. Of course the dialogue branches have to close to a point in this way for the scene to conclude, but it comes back to the issue of the original framing: there weren’t supposed to be two balanced ‘sides’ to choose from, George is merely a prop for Penny to move around and be kind at. 

In both versions of the scene, the game presents the side I am ‘supposed’ to take. I am shown a situation I am unfortunately all too familiar with — where someone with physical power over you decides to move your body, for their convenience or an assumption about yours, and it doesn’t matter if you get angry or upset, because you are expected to say thank you afterwards. As the player character, I become a bystander in this situation, and originally my options were only to speak over a disabled person, shame their emotional response, or feign ignorance of having seen anything to avoid taking responsibility; I have no mouth, and I must scream. 

In the new version of the scene, I can choose to speak up, but even while the option is entirely canonical, it subverts the purpose of the heart scene, and it shows. But then again, I have to do a lot of awkward things in my life as a disabled person anyway.

Even though these changes are limited by the framing they exist within, I still believe this new exchange has value. Where criticism of this scene was raised in gaming community spaces like Reddit and the Steam forums, responses to it were largely mixed and confused. Many players were, like Penny, sure that ‘doing the kind thing’ was more important than respecting disabled people’s autonomy, even when disabled people and allies were telling them otherwise. 

There was a considerable unwillingness from some to admit that Stardew Valley would make this sort of error in the first place. Having the game acknowledge its mistake and take steps to rectify it will hopefully bring a new viewpoint to players who hadn’t considered it before. Even if they never choose it, the option on the menu becomes part of the language they’ve now seen around disability. Additionally, as a disabled player, even though I may have to knowingly subvert how heart scenes are ‘supposed’ to go, I am no longer made to be an unwilling bystander in a series of microaggressions that are gratingly familiar from real life. 

It may not be perfect, but I would forever rather people make good faith attempts to rectify past mistakes than double down on and ignore them, because the stories we tell about people, and the way we invite people to engage with those stories, matter.

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