I'm probably biased here, but I honestly can't imagine coming to grips with the way python handles variables without thinking of them as pointers and references

I'm probably biased here, but I honestly can't imagine coming to grips with the way python handles variables without thinking of them as pointers and references (i.e. mutable vs. immutable, deep copy vs. shallow copy etc.) It would just seem to be a bunch of random special cases unless you know the machinery underneath. But definitely, C can be very frustrating. It takes weeks or months before you can do anything actually useful (not just nerdy fun, like calculating pi or something.) That being said, how do you explain the difference between an array and a linked list to someone who only knows python? to take a trivial example. Sure, you could, but it's extremely unintuitive. Whereas with C you're so close to the hardware that the distinction is obvious.