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Character Study #8: Soul Weaver - Violetta

Welcome back to my Identity V character study/analysis series where I aim to explore each character in the game. I started this series to no

I finally managed to write up Violetta's character study on my website. As per usual, I'll also just copy and paste it here if for some reason you want to endure reading it through Tumblr's formatting. But you can also click the post above to be taken to the website.

Anyways, the full article is below.

Welcome back to my Identity V character study/analysis series where I aim to explore each character in the game. I started this series to not only better my understanding of each character, but to highlight the talented writing team IDV has because I really do believe their character creation process from backstory to design has a lot of thought and care put into it.

I hope to bring to light that while learning a lot about these characters while refining my own writing and analysis skills. Thus, I also want to preface this article by saying that I am no expert on these characters. This is my own interpretation and you’re free to disagree with me.

With the usual introduction out of the way, I want to get right into my study on Miss Violetta. However, in case you missed it, I have done studies of every other "Hullabaloo" character except for Murro who will be next up! If interested, you can read them by clicking on the character's name: Joker, Mike, and Margaretha.

Backstory: The Endless Embrace of the Cold

Credit: Violetta's Final Performance.

Violetta's sad story starts with her being found underneath one of the many seats of Max's Amazing Cabin, a traveling circus troupe which she would find herself growing up in. Max, the ringleader, instantly recognized the potential to make money off of Violetta because she was perfect for his freak show.

See, Violetta was either born without limbs or had a disability affecting them, but regardless, the lack of limbs made her the ideal candidate for Max's show.

At first, Max would just use Violetta to lure audiences in to watch his show by placing her on top of a wine barrel, forcing her to roll about to keep her balance. As former circus actor at Mike's Amazing Cabin, Pip, puts it, Violetta "…looked like a rolling meatball" (Violetta's 2025 Birthday Letter).

Later, when Violetta was older, she was allowed to have her own performance by Max who made her stand, tumble, and crawl according to his whims. The audiences took sadistic pleasure in watching Violetta struggle to gain her bearings because they merely viewed her as an object whose only worth was to entertain them. Yet, it soon wasn't enough.

Despite the other performers becoming jealous over Violetta's simple but surprisingly popular circus act, they needn't have worried for too long. As Violetta grew older and remained stagnant in her performance, audiences quickly grew bored of the same old act.

Naturally, any good performer understands when they should liven up their act which Violetta tried to do, but unfortunately, the time of disabled performers being exploited in front of the masses became no more.

After the Will Brothers rolled into the city and started performing their act for the people. While it did become popular, so popular that Max wanted to do a similar act with Violetta, the city started to boycott any comical acts by any disabled performer so he abandoned the idea.

This didn't sit well with Violetta who tried to refine her act and do her best to impress not just the audiences, but Max who she regarded as a father. Yet, nothing worked. Not even going to a famed mechanic, Tracy Reznik, who fitted Violetta with prostheses.

Eventually, Max had had enough of Violetta and sold her to the Hullabaloo Circus where she became the charge of Bernard and met his other performers such as Mike, Natalie, Sergi, Joker, and Murro.

Unfortunately, even at Hullabaloo, Violetta lagged behind the others. For a time, her act was enough, but by then, burlesque performances such as hers were no longer palatable by most people and acts like Natalie and Sergi's were all the rage.

Jealous and desperate to reclaim her lost glory after realizing she had no place left to go after being kicked out by Bernard to "calm down for a few days," Violetta receives a letter that invites her to Oletus Manor where she'd surely be able to start a new life and reclaim her lost stage.

A Look Back on The Closing Night

Violetta in The Closing Night practicing the script found on the playbill given to them by the manor staff. It would also be this same playbill that would set in motion the unfortunate events for the Hullabaloo members.

Ironically, despite her unfortunate fate after arriving at Oletus Manor, I do believe Violetta truly stole the show more than anyone in The Closing Night story if the reactions of the general IDV community are anything to go by.

I remember those wishing to know who Violetta's VA is because of her wonderful performance (and truly, if by some miracle the VA is reading this, hats off to you). Her character was immensely sympathetic and despite her shortcomings, they were largely overlooked by those who quickly became fans of the little spider who couldn't.

And yes, I do say shortcomings because if you read my post on Mike Morton, you will understand that due to Violetta's character, adored and sympathized by many, there are those who overlook just how flawed of a character she was in the context of not just The Closing Night but also in her general lore.

In addition, any character who dared to act mean or terrible towards Violetta ended up being thrown under the bus and dragged to pieces. While I understand the feelings of vitriol towards Joker, I feel towards Mike is a little harsh. Actually, I will just copy and paste what I said about her in Mike's character study as there is another important section that I want to add here, too:

All in all, he didn’t do much to exactly move me in the same way Violetta did. For someone who seemed hellbent on making out Margaretha as unpleasant and terrible, Mike acted quite the same, if not worse.

Yet, this is where I was wrong. When I went back to replay the story back a few months after I first played it, I had a better understanding of the Hullabaloo characters and their backstory. I ended up replaying the story on stream which was a little fortuitous because when it got to the scene of Mike yelling at Violetta, one of my regular chatters who loves her a lot, instantly declared they hated Mike over Joker.

Now, that caught my attention. Despite knowing full well that Joker would lead Violetta to her death, this chatter still expressed immense distaste towards Mike over Joker for that one scene. I was more curious, if not a little sad for Mike because I now saw what some others like past me and this chatter didn’t see.

I understand why a lot may have misgivings towards Mike in this scene after seeing Violetta’s reaction. But while it is difficult to be hard on such a character, we can’t allow ourselves to be so susceptible to her charms to overlook Mike’s own feelings and perspective.

Let’s take a look at the dialogue of the scene:

Look, I can understand just exactly why Mike lost brownie points with a lot of people in this scene. Yet, you have to see it from his perspective to understand that he actually may have been perfectly justified in reacting the way he did.

First of all, Violetta comes bursting into the room in character as she recites her line from the playbill given to them by the manor owner. She is clearly into the performance which is all well and good if it wasn’t reality to Mike.

That massacre that she is so eagerly acting out was the whole reason Mike was at the manor in the first place. The day of the incident was the day Mike himself died. His family, his home as he knew it was gone completely and utterly stolen and destroyed by a murderer who he strongly suspected was amongst the ones gathered at the manor.

I mentioned then that Violetta being the newest member of the Hullabaloo Circus would not have been as attached to the place or it people by the time she left it.

Granted, I don't believe she even stayed that long there as we already now acts like hers were already growing out of fashion and there wasn't much of a place for someone like Violetta really anywhere at this point unless she freshened up her act which she tried to no avail.

And going back to the Closing Night, despite the hope she carried to being anew again and stand on the stage she felt she deserved, we have to be real with ourselves, it was pretty obvious Violetta was not making it out of that manor alive.

The last one passed out while they were making a row. That must be the cursed sun, taking a heavy toll.

-The Cursed Sun (EP of The Closing Night)

Amidst these quarrels, the last one fell on the ground. That must be the cursed sun casting doubts around.

-King's Feast (EP of The Closing Night)

Obviously when looking at both Room Music EPs for the story, Violetta as the last child is shown to have met her fate due to "the cursed sun" which is terribly ironic or perhaps purposeful as one of her dislikes is the sun.

In previous character studies of the Hullabaloo characters, I said that the sun is possibly Joker considering his role in the story along with the A-costume he received in the essence during that time being called, "Extinguished Sun."

Anyways, that point is not important at the moment. What really matters is looking at how Violetta a bit more deeply, beyond the almost infantile image some have of her since I'm sure a lot of people wanted to (and still do want to) embrace and protect her from the miserable nature of her upbringing and her sad fate at the manor.

That isn't to say that you shouldn't sympathize with her and feel the urge to be protective of her, that's fine. Yet, remember, she is still a grown woman and I find her similar to Emil in a way that once you actually take the time to listen to the words of these characters who are usually perceived as having little agency or thinking beyond the one dimensional, they're actually more complex than you'd think.

Interlude: The Closing Night Identity Switch Debate: Mike or Violetta?

Credit: 2025 Birthday Art for “Hullabaloo” and Soul Weaver.

But before I move on to the next section to talk a little bit more about Violetta in her own words, I want to address another section I wrote up in Mike's article about the debate on whether she should have been the one to get the Identity Switch and not Mike.

Short answer: No.

Long answer (from which I copied from Mike's article): While an identity switch is given to characters for various personal reasons, the common theme is: change/transformation/revival.

By the way, have you ever heard of the concept of a dynamic character vs. a static character?

To put it simply, a dynamic character changes throughout their story. They go through arcs that causes them to grow as a person and while they don’t necessarily become a completely different person at the end of the story, the changes they go through are palpable to an outsider like you and me. On the other hand, static characters don’t change at all. They stay more or less the same throughout the story.

That’s the deal with Mike and Violetta. Even up to the moment of her death, Violetta remains the same. Why then would they have her become a survivor? There is not much more to explore with her character that wasn’t already accomplished through The Closing Night story.

And after reading more of her lore, it just solidified my previous opinion on why they didn't bother making a survivor identity for her as so many wanted. Some believe the developers too lazy to create a different model to make her work in game as surely she couldn't look all spider-like as a survivor.

But I'm now sure more than ever that laziness is not a factor. Consider Galatea who we now know looks very "survivor-like" in Divergence's teaser we got back in May. While I know Galatea as a Hunter looks more human than Violetta, we already have seen what a more human-like Violetta would look like through The Closing Night.

Galatea, who is usually wheelchair-bound, as seen in Divergence's Trailer.

Simply put, Violetta doesn't need another identity because she is fine as is and there's not much else to explore beyond the identity she is given. As for why she was made a Hunter in the first place, back in my article on Mike, I was unsure why they made her that way in the first place.

Now, after reading her lore and analyzing it more, it makes more sense considering how even the sweetest minds can be twisted from awful circumstances and the people around them. I do think of the likes of Grace and Michiko when I say this as well.

But time to move on as this section is getting a bit too long.

Christmas Nocturne (2020)

Promotional artwork for Christmas Nocturne (2020).

I actually was not familiar with this Christmas event until I was digging through Violetta's backstory and stumbled across it. It appears to be an event where you could befriend multiple IDV characters during the good ole holiday season. I'd recommend it if your favorite/s are among the ones featured here.

For Violetta, it's real interesting seeing her in this story. Not only does she conduct herself confidently but she is filled with a better sense of self than we see in The Closing Night since she is a very low self-esteem and easily a pushover due to her terrible treatment at Max's "circus." Whether it's bravado or genuine confidence, it is up to you to decide but what struck me was listening to what Violetta truly wanted in life from her own words:

I believe the top Violetta is referring to is the "guernsey top" she receives from Max as a New Year's present (despite the fact she connects it to Christmas here):

'Happy New Year!'"' he threw a dark grey guernsey shirt at me. Clara was mad. She thought Max was inconsiderate and took me for granted. She would never understand what I really needed. I'll never forget this day, no matter what. Not for this '"'present'"', not for Max. It's for me, finally knowing what I needed.

-From Violetta's 2020 Birthday Letter.

For those that didn't know, the date of her birthday is explained in this letter as January 2nd is the day she realized what she needed most, "warmth."

But what is "warmth" to Violetta?

As she mentioned before, it's not the warm embrace of the sun or the fiery touch of fire (both of which are listed as her dislikes), but perhaps it was truly the love, care, and attention from others. And not just that, but with with an impartial touch that looked passed the her physical disability and saw her for who she was: Violetta, a star born for an everlasting stage of her own.

While it may at first seem Violetta saw Max not only as her beloved ringleader, but as a father figure who she'd follow without question, that was not necessarily the case. Nor was she blindsided to how awful he was as a human being.

From Violetta's 2020 Birthday Letter.

Indeed, as long as Violetta got what she wanted then she could endure just about anything. And that's what her core problem is. Just as a former Hullabaloo Circus stage assistant, Elena Ruiz, told Alice in Violetta's 2026 birthday letter, Violetta "longed too much to be seen."

Violetta's pursuit in finding glory and warmth on stage from, funnily enough, the cold masses of those who no longer cared for such burlesque acts such as hers led to her downfall. She couldn't quite move on from the past of her glory days and remained delusionally hopeful that she'd be able to reclaim that.

From Violetta's 2025 Birthday Letter.

Please note that if you read Violetta's 2026 birthday letter on the IDV Fandom Wiki, the written entry you see here shows Bernard's name.

However if you read the attached image of the letter on the site, it'll have Max's name instead. The former is correct, having been changed from the original letter, a letter that remains a point of contention with some Violetta fans.

Not sure why the IDV Wiki editors haven't changed it, unless they wanted to keep proof of the original letter having Max instead of Bernard, but I just wanted to warn you all beforehand.

However, it's honestly interesting how other circus performers and assistants perceived Violetta as unhinged and jealous despite the fact we don't see such behavior from her in The Closing Night.

I haven't brought up that Violetta was the jealous type. This aspect of her is also mentioned in her 2026 letter, but can you really blame her after what she's been through? While she also tried her absolute best to achieve her dreams of the stage.

At this point of time when she meets the others at Oletus, Violetta was desperate to remain appeasing and kowtow to the others because the manor was the "end all, be all" of reaching that stage she so yearned for and she needed the others to go along with the performance requested of them by the manor owner.

Now, this next point may sound a bit controversial, but I do believe despite Violetta herself being called a "tool" in her experimental file, she herself saw the others as tools to achieving her dreams.

For instance, in her 2023 birthday letter, she says this:

"Sometime later, I read the report on the fire, and it filled me with terror — If everyone in Hullabaloo is dead, then who is left to prove that I was once a performer?"

And that stuck with me because her first thought wasn't one that mourned their deaths or expressed concern for the lost Hullabaloo Circus, it was her terrified that no one would remember she was once a wonderful performer. Even reading the letter again, paying attention to her language and her usage of "I this and I that" makes me think that she's quite selfish actually.

Mind you, similar to what I said in Margaretha's piece, I'm not trying to use the term "selfish" in a negative light though I know its connotations. I am simply observing that Violetta is putting herself first and is more concerned for her own survival and memory (of being remembered as a performer to others). There's nothing wrong with being somewhat selfish especially given her background.

Violetta here actually reminds me of Margaretha who more people view as insipidly selfish due to her more obviously going for worldly desires.

Yet, both woman would go through great lengths to achieve their deepest wish and if that means using people in order to get that then so be it. Though both ladies had little choice in the matter as both are rather helpless and had to rely on others to try and achieve their dreams.

However, Violetta never really did become as independent as Margaretha with even the way they died as the latter chose to go out the way she did while Violetta had zero choice.

Mind you, Violetta truly is, at her heart, a kinder and more naive soul than Margaretha but I think due to how she is presented in The Closing Night, what I say may come across as blasphemy to those who believe Violetta is too pure and sweet-hearted to do or even think such things.

Yet, you have to remember that by the time Violetta reaches the manor, she's at the end of her rope. She had tried to claim her rightful stage with Max, she had tried with Bernard, she had tried and tried again and nothing worked.

No one cared for her and truly, they never did. Violetta was, from the very beginning when she was found under that seat at Max's Amazing Cabin, a tool of the audience's pleasure.

Deep down, Violetta knew she was no better than an object to be laughed and gawked at with none seeing the person she was behind all that pageantry.

That warmth she longed for was something she would never be able to receive in reality and thus, the way her mind coped was to tuck itself inside a grand delusion unbreakable by even the harshest cold truth--in her world she was a lingering phantom who could reach out for that stage as much as she could, but it no longer wanted her as it was indifferent to her from the very beginning.

Conclusion: The Illusory Stage

Violetta in The Closing Night as she fantasizes her dream performance just before she succumbs to the cold.

Well, the last section was a rather gloomy way to end things so in this conclusion I'll do my best to be more cheerful.

Still, analyzing Violetta was awfully hard and as you can see it took me some time to really wrap my head around things to truly sit down and write up this piece on her. Granted, as with anything IDV lore-related, this character study is a far cry from being an extensive dive into Violetta who surely has more details and characteristics to talk about that I missed.

Like I've said before, I'm no expert and these studies are more for me to learn more about the character while also making my own suppositions. In other words, just consider this an entry-level summary into a character's lore.

As for Violetta, in the end, I'm happy to have discovered a more complete side to her then what we saw in The Closing Night story because while she is quite endearing in it, I wanted to know about how she came to be that way and why. Yet, I also understand why they wanted to focus on a specific aspect of her since these side stories serve to show us more facets to a character than we can receive through letters alone.

Admittedly, I did not mention in detail Max's awful behavior towards her either. I will highlight the facts that he not only purposefully starved her for her act to make her lighter to balance herself for her ball act (which didn't work, of course), but he took advantage of her naivety before selling her off like some expired product to Bernard who didn't treat her any better. His circus, or really freakshow, was just a front for his human trafficking of mentally and physically disabled people like Violetta who suffered immensely for it.

From Violetta's Deductions.

Violetta reminds me of Mike's vision of Bernard. Despite both ringleaders being awful human beings, their adoptive "fathers" still shone brightly in their eyes even through the abusive relationship. Grooming isn't a term that is above what they were doing with the children. (Important note: Not all grooming is of the sexual kind which is not what I'm talking about here.)

Anyone would have the mental, if not physical scars that would never leave them from experiencing such a thing and whether she was fully aware of it, Violetta was no different. Her outbursts and "unhinged" nature were honestly desperate cries for help from a soul that just wanted to be seen. There is nothing wrong with wanting someone, anyone, to turn their eyes to you with a warmth that would make the sun jealous.

Violetta sought that from others until the day she died but sadly, there was no one who really was able to grant her that wish. More than the stage, that "warmth" was truly the key to her happiness. While her fate is a sad one, at least she was able to reach that stage and bask in the warm gazes and applause from the audience in the end, even if it was just in her dreams.

And that would have to be enough for our dear Violetta.

Violetta's Final Performance in The Closing Night.

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