Sparkles, sparks, a ship manifesto!
(AKA, "Sparkles, sparks, it all made sense at the time.")
The ship movement for Sheldon and Penny took many by surprise. The actor who plays Sheldon, Jim Parsons, has previously stated that he thought of Sheldon as being asexual. The show’s co-creator Chuck Lorre has also echoed this opinion, saying in an interview that Sheldon had chosen to operate beyond human sexuality. Kaley Cuoco, the actress who plays Penny has joked that a relationship with Sheldon would only exist in Penny’s nightmares. Yet the fans immediately latched onto this pairing. On paper, you wouldn't think it would work. Penny is a free spirit, very physical in her affections, and rarely thinks ahead. Sheldon has his life scheduled out to the minute and likes to make detailed plans for nearly any future event. Sheldon is all brains and lives inside his head. He is bad at understanding emotions, feelings or social norms. Penny is his opposite in this regard, as she is all heart. While she is not stupid, she makes her decisions based on emotion instead of logic.
The pair being opposites in many ways is a classic trope of fiction. Boy meets girl, boy and girl aren’t too fond of each other, they fuss, argue and eventually they fall in love. Sheldon and Penny, in many ways, banter and argue like couples do in classic romantic comedies. There are times when they don’t understand each other or don’t get along, but underneath that, we get the sense that they’re both still having fun. Especially in one of the fan’s favorite episodes, "The Panty Pinata Polarization".
VIDEO: Penny, Sheldon and some of that snark we love so well! (Embedding disabled, please click to view!)
However, if you look at their backgrounds as provided by the canon, they actually have more in common than the rest of the group. Both Penny and Sheldon weren't the sons their fathers wanted, although the men did their best to mold their offspring to fit the mold. Penny and Sheldon have hunting skills and they are portrayed as more athletic than the others ("The Cushion Saturation", "The Wheaton Recurrence"). Presumably, based on what we've seen of Mary Cooper and Penny's celebration of Christmas in "The Bath Item Gift Hypothesis", they were also both raised in some form of the Christian faith. It is likely that Penny reminds Sheldon a little of the female members of his family. He listens to her and she can handle him and his quirks better than his other friends ("The Panty Pinata Polarization", "The Guitarist Amplification", "The Excelsior Acquisition"). Their friendship has great importance to both of them. Sheldon has specifically chosen to maintain a friendship with Penny, the person who seems most externally opposite to him on more than one occasion. He chooses her over Raj in "The Friendship Algorithm" and resorts to deceit to keeping hanging out with her after she and Leonard break up in "The Spaghetti Catalyst". He also refers to her as one of his closest friends (while Howard is just a treasured acquaintance) in "The Bozeman Reaction". Making friends is not something that comes easy to Sheldon, but it is clear that he and Penny care for each other.
Chemistry may be considered subjective, but it’s hard to deny the sparks between Parsons and Cuoco in scenes together. Even those who only see Sheldon and Penny as friends and nothing more agree that they bring out the best in each other as actors. Episodes that feature their two characters in central roles often score higher ratings and acclaim from television critics.
Parsons and Cuoco also seem to genuinely enjoy being around in each other in real life which is evident in their media appearances together and in the DVD outtakes. This real life camaraderie spills over into their characters and gives the viewer the impression that if Penny & Sheldon only stopped being so stubborn, they'd wake up and realize they were perfect for each other. Penny could interject some spontaneity in Sheldon's life and Sheldon could ground Penny in reality. The showrunners have provided brief glimpses at how this relationship could function if they ever chose to run with it. "The Adhesive Duck Deficiency", a favorite episode of many Sheldon/Penny fans, shows how far Sheldon would go for Penny and that maybe he’s not nearly as asexual as Parsons would have us believe. He does choose to peek after all.
Penny demonstrates a near perfect recall of Sheldon's schedule and preferences throughout the second and third season of the series. We see how well she knows him in episodes like "The Panty Pinata Polarization", "The Dead Hooker Juxtaposition" and "The Gorilla Experiment".
Sheldon has also gone out of his to assist Penny in a number of episodes ("The Financial Permeability", "The Gorilla Experimentation", "The Adhesive Duck Deficiency"). He is rarely flexible, but for Penny he often makes exceptions. For her part, Penny often returns the favor, even though it often comes with a lot of sarcasm attached to it ("The Euclid Alternative, "The Terminator Decoupling", "The Excelsior Acquisition"). They have also proven that they can work together to reach a common goal, whether planning a birthday party in "The Peanut Reaction" or creating a business in "The Work Song Nanocluster".
VIDEO: Penny & Sheldon reaching out to each other & trying to understand one another. (Embedding disabled, please click to view!) While Sheldon and Penny have not been shown to have any romantic inclinations towards each other in canon, fans have taken great pleasure in creating fanworks that showcase these two characters. In fact, the appeal is so wide that the number of fanfics for this pairing outnumber any other pairing on "The Big Bang Theory". Fans have gone to great lengths to create work in almost every genre imaginable. You can find AUs, Crossovers, Parodies, Comedy, Romance, Angst, Science-Fiction and so much more. The fanworks also range from showing them as friends, rivals or in romantic situations.
While we could spend a lot of time recommending fanworks in every genre and style, we decided to stick to a few that show some of the simple reasons fandom has latched on to this pairing. Many fans of this pairing have even said that they became shippers because the of the great works the fandom has created.
FAN FICTION
The Effervescent Chlorine Submersion by fujiidom
The Driving Lessons series by dashakay
Experiments on Gravitation by cereal
The Earth Moved 1,117.7 Miles in our Kitchen by rashaka, illustrated by irrel Spoiler Alert by d_sieya
The Punnett Square Venture by boonies
ARTWORK
renisanz - Sheldon + Penny, Effloresce, Just the Rain, The Asteraceae Appreciation
irrel - Handholding, Kissing With Rubber Gloves On, Chaos Theory comic
FANMIX
Effloresce - created by team_blossoms for Session 1 of Paradox-o-Rama. Includes original fic and art. And yes, we have no shame in linking to our own work. We think it makes a pretty good argument.