An Analysis of Violet: Motive, Behavior, Impact … Why I Think She Could Be The Antagonist (like for realsies)
Following the release of Off Hours (II), I wanted to write up a lil analysis dissecting the behavior and impact of one of my favorite characters in Cinderella Boy, Violet. In my opinion, Violet is a character whose impact on the plot cannot be overstated. I really do think that she is the key in a lot of ways (no pun intended), and that’s not only a theory, but something proved by the subtle ways her character has embedded itself into the plot (and characters) so far.
Additionally, there are many ways in which Violet’s character adds nuance. She is a lovable diva and brings a lot of humor and push to the story, but she is also a recognizably manipulative character who drives a lot of conflict. I particularly will hone in on the latter aspects of her character (particularly with what Off Hours has shown us!!!) but this is not to hate on her character for causing conflict—it’s to explore the deeper impact of how she acts, which I find SO cool! I genuinely love her character and am excited to explore her, in this analysis, as a “redeemable antagonist” character. (And I'm not just saying the antagonist thing).
For context, I am a fast pass reader and am writing this in the days after that episode came out to fast pass. I will post it on Tumblr, unmodified, when Off Hours (II) is free to read for everyone :)
As of reading it, I’m not gonna lie when I say this episode was hands down my favorite of Season 2 so far, and in terms of pacing and writing quality it definitely holds a strong torch to the series overall. It’s just so good. It reveals so much, both overtly and subtly, about Nox and Violet’s relationship, and I really think that in this episode lies a lot of answers about both the foreshadowing earlier in Cinderella Boy, the current strains on the characters and plot, and where the story could go (as far as a theory about Violet’s role in it that I’ll get to later). I would go as far as to say this episode is quietly cataclysmic to the story… maybe even moreso than an episode like Dreams by Night, which is largely symbolic foreshadowing.
Generally, I’ve seen Violet regarded as a flawed but lovable character for the fun her personality brings to the story. I know there are some people who outright despise her, mainly reasoned as I have seen for being a “racist character”—and she does maintain a hatred for humans that models human prejudice. It is a huge—one of the hugest—parts of her character. While it's not a systematic belief, it is, fundamentally, prejudice. I don’t believe that prejudiced or unkind characters are ever inherently not enjoyable from a fictional standpoint, because Violet’s experience with humans is a fascinating and fluid thing to watch (and not entirely borne of hate), but it’s a fair turn-off for sure if you aren’t going to love the character.
What it does do, without depending on personal opinion from readers, is establish minor conflict within the plot. Violet does not trust or like humans… and it is this belief that influences Nox, and this behavior of Nox’s that drives most of the conflict in season 1.
This is shown in her relationship with Nox, even before Off Hours (II) brings in a lot of answers about how Nox acted towards Chase in early Cinderella Boy. We know from the Little Shadows arc that Nox wasn’t always the snooty, fancy little guy we know him as—that he learned a lot of his behaviors from Violet, both directly in terms of her teaching him things, and indirectly, as he looks to her for admiration.
I touched on this in other analysis, but just look at the ways he replicates her:
@jthealien also had a much more direct comparison here, which I recommend glancing over.
And it’s natural that Nox should copy her so much. To Nox, Violet was his first friend who brought him up from the shame and uncertainty of his new body. She was the first person to look at him in a form and situation that was unfamiliar to him and offer him kindness. It makes sense that Nox should hold her almost in a place of idolization. She has provided his blueprint for existing in this world. At every turn, SHE HAS BEEN THERE. After being turned into a key, Violet was there to show him how to be a key. After messing up in a way that hurt his family and shrouded Nox in painful guilt, his company was again Violet, this time their relationship layered with a lot of complexity. Violet is where Nox has landed after every trauma.
This is something that can quickly turn a relationship very dependant. Real life abusers can use this feeling of dependency and consistency to emotionally manipulate their victims into thinking the abuser is the only person they have in the world—“I was the person who was there for you after xyz traumatic event”. I do think that Nox has this unhealthy dependency towards Violet. I don’t think Violet is intentionally manipulating him, but I think this aspect of their relationship is fascinating to explore. When I start taking Off Hours into account, I’ll talk about the way their relationship mirrors unhealthy relationships a lot more.
Not to mention that we’ve seen Nox be impressionable. He picks up things quickly from people who he admires. You can actually start to see Nox imitate Chase when he gets more familiar with Chase.
This being said, it shows that Violet’s effect on the story shows up far before Violet herself. From the very first episode, there’s a shadow of Violet in Nox’s behavior as he imitates her to get what he thinks he wants. This continues through the story—Nox tells Chase humans are untrustworthy, tells him that he only would want narratonin for a selfish wish. Repeats Violet’s sentiments, of trust being impossible. Repeats them in behavior… but also, I am sure, quietly to himself, part of the reason why his trust issues run so deeply.
Even in Season 1, where she isn’t even a character until a tiny snippet at the end of the finale, Violet is fundamentally driving the plot.
She is driving Buddy’s trust issues, which drive the rocky relationship between Chase and Buddy, which drive the larger ebb and flow of what they’re doing and how the story is moving. The reason Chase and Buddy get close in the finale is because they overcome their trust issues—that’s the main narrative accomplishment in Season 1. These trust issues and overcoming them were literally the entire Hero’s Journey of Season 1. And they were that way because of Violet. Already, just in Season 1, when she doesn't have screen time, Violet is given immense narrative power.
I don't think that's accidental or without significance.
With that in mind, let’s talk about the new episode.
It’s hard to even know where to begin with this episode, so forgive the probable lack of structure throughout this analysis. I’ll try my best to make sure I’m sticking to one point at a time to communicate the multitude of things I have noticed. Primarily I’m planning to discuss the things Off Hours has shown us about Nox and Violet’s relationship, and use that to explore their relationship as a whole before funneling into the final part of my analysis, which has to do with my theory for the role Violet is going to play in the later plot.
(Side note, it’s adorable that they laid out gloves to safely land on.)
After Violet displays her frustration at their inability to continue the book, the two of them go upstairs to the library, to lurk on top of the shelves and people watch (if this means next episode we see Chase and Deacon out in town, and they happen to go to the library where Violet and Nox are creeping around, I will SCREAM).
Violet’s fascination with humans intrigues me. Her loathing of them outwardly seems to be comprised of the following components: bitterness, from how humans have treated keys in the past, and disgust, which I think operates as a defense mechanism for her prejudice (addressing “gross” things like lint or fleshiness so that she doesn’t have to dig into the more psychological—and biased—reasons for her hatred). But I think there’s something else there… envy.
Humans have power and the ability to make change. As a key, Violet has to try hard to accomplish those same things. We’ve seen this manifest in different ways for different keys: Bronze, for example, likes reclaiming autonomy by swapping the social roles between himself and the humans, making them get him silly and tedious things to illustrate—and confirm to himself—that they will do small tasks for him. Silver and Goldie, meanwhile, in part gain autonomy by choosing to give their assistance, shown in example by Silver making Chase gifts.
Violet, meanwhile, tries to place herself above them.
To be blatant, I think most of Violet’s prejudice is envy—even to rival her bitterness. She observes how humans maintain a sense of control and replicates it. She and Nox aren’t creeping around underfoot when they go to the library to spy—they’re on top of the shelves. Violet doesn’t want to place herself, physically, in an environment where she is an underling. Too long has she been stared down at—too long has she been the one having to look up.
This brings into recall one of the things she says in this episode, “Humans can’t even look up. Their necks aren’t built for it.” I’d be very surprised if Violet did see humans look up very often—nearly all of the keys’ lifetimes were spent on a table, being looked down on. Now there’s sometimes a blurry line between what Violet actually thinks is true about humans and what she is saying about them to verbally disarm them, which is a great commentary on the fuzzy area between ignorance and prejudice too!! But even so, I thought that was a fun detail :)
Once in the library and after a debate over popcorn, Violet tells Nox all about her made-up stories about the humans. This hits me in two different ways:
As I stated earlier, this could be the result of envy, even fascination, with humans. I‘ll get more into how I think Violet envies, and even desires a replication of, them in the last part of my analysis >:P But secondly,
She is trying to create control over the humans by impressing upon them a new narrative. In her words, “It makes the humans far more tolerable to watch.” How much of this could be Violet trying to give herself an upper hand over humans by taking control of their narrative, the same way the humans of Ex Libris reduced keys down to things they were not?
After Violet rants for a while, Nox tries to bargain with her about trusting Chase. Now it makes complete sense as to why Nox is trying to hard to come to her about this, now—he learned, catastrophically, in the Absentee book that Chase ISN’T getting narratonin for some selfish wish. That’s what Nox has been RELYING on to feel okay in his actions (eve as he is, simultaneously, gripped with guilt). Knowing that Chase is doing the same thing as him, getting narratonin out of desperation for his family’s sake—and for life, not just freedom—changes everything. It’s not just that Nox thinks Chase is cute or has finally decided to commit to loving him. It’s knowing Chase’s true intentions with the wish.
And when Nox tells Violet this, she ISN’T HEARTLESS! She is genuinely concerned and pitying! She’s not some black and white villain—but what I believe she is is sunk so deep into her desperation that it has blinded her. That can make a villain as well as someone who is plain evil.
It is here that we come to what I most wanted to talk about (ahahah it’s an hour and a half before Off Hours III drops so I’d better HURRY): Violet’s wish.
Here is Violet’s dialogue when she reveals what she and Buddy are using their stolen narratonin for:
“When you broke into Ex Libris’ building, it was the last night before we keys were put under heavier guard. After your threat, they realized how lax their security was, and doubled it. That is the last night when you might still be able to get ahold of us. If we go back to that night, you will be human again… and be given a second chance to take us all and run far away. … Even if we could trust him [Chase], our own wish afterward would simply undo his anyway. Thanks to Ex Libris’ meddling with the rule of wishing, we cannot wish a new villain key into existence, nor with for the old one to just reappear. But with this wish, we will have our original villain key back, so we can still make wishes to safeguard ourselves against future human threats. We must go back in time to reclaim our former brother, and change you back into a human. It’s the only way. And we MUST go back. We don’t belong here. YOU don’t belong here. You belong back where and when you were born.”
Essentially, her plan is this: wish for them to go back in time to the night Buddy was robbing Ex Libris, so instead of getting caught he can steal the keys and bring them to freedom, where Ex Libris could never use them again, and they could use magic to protect themselves. Buddy would stay a human, and the original villain key would never be combined with him.
But the devil is in the details, and in addition to the broader pain, I’m very intrigued by the specifics of what Violet SAID here, because the implications are WILD AND FASCINATING. My brain stopped working in between sitting down to work on this, so I’m going to try my best lol. I hope this isn’t boring I have so many thoughts and am struggling to lay them down cohesively.
Now, a lot of this will have to do with specific rhetoric Violet uses that I believe reinforces her relationship with Buddy NEGATIVELY. I talked a little about toxic relationships before—I do think that in a lot of ways, their relationship is toxic. Again, this is not to say that Violet is a black and white terrible person or an abuser—but by getting into this, I want to inspect how it may play a role in the plot later.
One thing that Violet tells Buddy in this conversation is, “you will get your second chance.”
Which just hits… so hard. Because remember, Buddy is sitting with this KNAWING, ROTTING feeling of guilt deep down in his stomach. After everything that happened with him extending that trust to the person who betrayed them, resulting in their family being scattered and Silver getting hurt, I imagine he is primarily trying to seek a feeling of FORGIVENESS. And Violet—who I imagine does hold some resentment towards him for it, for being so gullible and falling victim to a human—is telling him, “do what I want and that serves as your second chance.”
It’s a really fascinating and dangerous power dynamic. Buddy is craving forgiveness like a drug, and Violet is offering it—at the expense of his own choice.
This isn’t just Buddy going along with pushy older sister behavior. He NEEDS her validation and forgiveness. She is the one person who has ever demonstrated that she COULD give it to him, in his life… except for, now, Chase. That’s why these cracks are starting to show, why they’re starting to disagree with each other.
Now I don’t think Violet is INTENTIONALLY trying to manipulate Buddy with this idea of redeeming himself via doing her bidding, but I think it’s subconsciously there. She is USING him and neither of them have acknowledged it’s happening.
There’s also a very black and white sentiment here—very “us vs them”. Violet doesn’t give Buddy the option to waver, telling him that if they go back in time and change things, Chase and Deacon and the others are essentially of no further relevance to them. Buddy will have to LOSE that. This is such a HUGE CATASTROPHIC choice for Buddy—he would have to choose to give up Chase completely.
Violet tells him—“We must go back in time to reclaim our former brother, and change you back into a human. It’s the only way. And we MUST go back. We don’t belong here. YOU don’t belong here.” No choice—black and white. And she’s subconsciously drilling into Buddy’s head that they don’t BELONG in this world… that they can’t choose their own lifetimes, really, they should just keep trying to go back to what was and not forwards to reconcile with what has happened.
And the last thing I’ll talk about for this dialogue… the “reclaim our former brother” bit. It comes off pretty dang cold. I mean, Violet has spent YEARS bringing Buddy into the key family… he’s experienced the same mistreatment as they have! He sees them as family! And yet she’s still kind of… sitting in the shadow of the Other Key He Could Have Been, at the expense of suggesting, to his face, that she wants this to go back to how they were BEFORE he had that family. Even after saying Buddy is “forgiven for being a human”, she wants him to go back to one. It’s just fascinating. She’s so fascinating. God.
And WITH the original villain key—you kind of get why she would feel that way! Violet never had her counterpart, and she should have. Silver and Goldie were the heroine and the hero—and she was just Violet, the villainess. Her counterpart was broken. She was alone in it—and this, I think, feeds an internal motive to want the original, broken key (who I’ll call Onyx for ease) back and everything to be normal, what with the time travel wish that’s introduced.
With all of this… forcing people to be things, trying to take control of reality… I think it is fantastic kindling for a character, gone too far, and accidentally falling into the role of an antagonist. I think that Violet is a lot closer to paralleling Ex Libris’ traits, becoming the very thing that has brought her grief, than she realizes. And I think her black-and-white thinking is going to mean that she isn’t protected when she starts to hurtle towards that event horizon.
Which brings me to my final point:
My theory is that Violet is going to become the driving antagonistic force of the story.
KEEP IN MIND that in many ways, SHE ALREADY IS! She has driven the plot SO FAR! In Season One Violet drove the conflict between Chase and Buddy—now, she’s driving a lot of Buddy’s internal conflict and decision-making, in addition to driving the fundamental divide between the two protagonists. Chase and Buddy could WORK TOGETHER if Violet were open to it. Violet and the other keys could be reunited and talk over their options moving forwards together—but Violet isn’t going to hear them. Deep down, I think she knows that they would argue with her—and she’s terrified of losing that control, losing the one lifeline she’s been clinging to, the one definitive way she can think of to “make everything okay”.
She’s not an evil or bad person! She’s not without her own justifications! Violet has her reasons and while she is causing harm, I do genuinely believe she at heart wants the best for herself and her loved ones. She, like Buddy, has lived a very complicated life full of a lot of observation of very inherent prejudice and manipulation. She HAS to fight for her basic rights. And for so long her ability to defend herself has been STIFLED and TAKEN FROM HER and I seriously think that she’s slowly being edged towards a point of no return. She is trying and she’s trying so hard. But she has trapped herself in a mindset, as caging as any physical barrier, and she’s subconsciously trying to rope others in with her. Buddy’s who she’s around, so Buddy is getting the blunt of it.
But Violet appears not to want to truly go to the other keys about her plan. She just wants it to happen. It’s this PIT of desperation and survival and I just. I just. I just want to watch her go that far. I LOVE antagonists that TRULY BELIEVE they are doing the right thing until they’re almost too far gone. The emotional pull of desperation eroding critical thinking. I can absolutely see Violet reaching a point where she is, even physically, FORCING her siblings into that wish, reasoning with herself and them that it will save them even though deep down she knows it won’t. I can see it working, and Chase and Deacon and the others having to go back in time somehow through a history book…? (this part is a crack theory) to fix things. I can see the others reasoning with Violet.
I can see her becoming the thing that she has always hated—someone emotionally and even physically forcing the keys into wishes for what she wants, even if they don’t want it. Convincing herself it’s for their own good—but doing exactly what her past abusers did, really.
I mean—do y’all remember that one part, early in the season?
When Violet kicks over the snowglobe, shattering the princess character and stealing the crown for herself?
While talking about Silver?
Remember how we were all like, “this feels like ominous foreshadowing”? “This feels like it’s on purpose”?
What if it symbolizes Violet taking Silver’s personal autonomy, out of desperation to seize her own goals? What if it symbolizes an antagonist arc?
It’s a fascinating concept and thought project over cycles and repeating mistreatment and prejudice. And the themes of CB deal a LOT in characters having to work past their own egos, characters having to figure out how to turn desperation into a tool, characters having to figure out how to walk it back from mistakes. So how cool and fitting would it be for the real enemy of CB, beyond the old man or Ex Libris, to be a much more generalized idea of losing control and taking others’ autonomy—reflected in the most unlikely subject of all, Violet, as she goes beyond her limits?
And, furthermore, Buddy and Chase finding forgiveness for themselves as they find a way to recover and forgive Violet?
I don’t see her being defeated in a way that sacrifices her. I imagine her being redeemed, if she does go the antagonist route. And of course there’s no way to know where the story will go! I DO think that Violet will have to, at the very least, reconcile with her prejudice and behavior. There’s no way out of that; she’s demonstrated a disregard for Nox’s feelings.
But at the same time, she is a protector. One of the older keys, always so sure of herself, always so protective. I’m not making this post to be like “Violet is such a terrible person, boo!!!!” I just wanted to dissect her behavior to think about her role in the plot.
This thing is 4000 words long and it’s not even everything I wanted to say, but the next episode is releasing in half an hour and I don’t want any future plot stuff to taint what I’m trying to say right now. I applaud you if you read all of this! I would be delighted to hear further thoughts and have further discussions about this amazing character :)
baratheonpilled
areudirty
turnnoffyourmind
ellievsbear
snowghoul
jbbartram-illu
theartofmadeline
dailybridgerton
