its the idea that you keep telling a person that they are X, specially if its done since the person is a child, day after day, the person is told that being X is their role, the person live to be X, dies being X.
X is the old Penelope, we saw her past, she was put on a box, accepted the box and was acting the way everyone expected her to act, Penelope being bad was a blessing for the guilty consciousness of everyone around her.
Now if Penelope start to act like a half decent person, she is not X anymore, she is a real person, and she did not just became a real person, she was a real person all this time, so the father and the brothers were being evil to that strawman, knowing that there will be no consequences, now that the strawman was removed they cant treat her like they treated her on the past, they are not two faced, they are feeling guilty and they are letting the guilty control their actions and thoughts.
"everyone hated me, i was raised to be hated, so what is wrong about i get a slave guard that will never harm me?"
As the one that made her be hated, the father cant say anything, the brothers that helped her learn that she must be evil, they cant say anything.
Penelope have almost 2 decades of being de-humanized by everyone as ammo to use against them, if the old Penelope had
ONE FRIEND only one, that would be enough to break the bubble and learn how she should be treated, and i am not talking about someone saving her, i am talking about someone just treating her like a human being, the old Penelope never had this experience, it was hell from morning to night, every day, if you are on hell all the time, you will start to act like the Devil, its only natural, no other choice, and the others treating the Devil bad, its only natural as well.
I don't know if i made much sense on all this text, but i saw people being put on boxes multiple times, and i believe that its the case with this protagonist, feels like something real
@ssss