She is a former child soldier who happens to be an orphan; she was enlisted in the Leidenschaftlich army and fought in the war, where she was treated as nothing more than a weapon because of her extraordinary fighting capabilities. After the war, Violet became an Auto Memories Doll at the CH Postal Company, seeking to understand the meaning of the words "I love you," which was told by the person she holds dearest, Gilbert Bougainvillea, during the War's final leg.
She tries saving Gilbert during the battle even when she lost her arms, to the point of dragging him with her teeth, but was reluctant to make a promise for him to keep living. She would accept it with will once she continued learning what "I love you" means.
While she wasn't good at her job as a Auto Memory Doll at first, such as accidentally sending a rejection letter for one of the clients and breaking off a potential relationship, this is due to her time as a soldier dulling her emotions. After better understanding human emotions, she becomes a very good Auto Memory Doll, writing several letters for people and bringing them joy.
She writes a letter for Luculia to her brother, Spencer, thanking him for being alive. Spencer is driven to tears of joy at this letter, and Luculia later hugs her in gratitude for writing the letter for her.
She apologizes to Iris for sending an invitation letter to Emonn Snow and telling her family about her inner turmoil, creating an awkward conflict for Iris. She then helps Iris write apology letters to all the guests and her parents.
She feels incredible guilt over having killed so many soldiers during the war, crying over their deaths and vowing never to kill anyone ever again.
While rescuing Aiden, she does not kill the soldiers who were attacking them and allows them to escape peacefully.
She helps numerous people during her services for them such as:
Helps Leon Stephanotis during their assigned project together. When some of Leon's colleagues mock him behind his back over being an orphan, she defends him by saying she's an orphan too who's lived a hard life like he has. Leon is extremely grateful for her and eventually reveals he's in love with her, and while she admits she can't reciprocate his feelings, she thanks him for telling her. She also makes it clear that she does support him and his goals and wishes him well in his travels across the world.
Helps and assisted Princess Charlotte to write a letter to her future husband, encouraging to actually write the letters themselves and allowing them to open up to each other.
Comforts Oscar and made his daughter "one day" wish come true, giving him the motivation to continue writing his play.
Assists a mother with cancer named Clara to write letters for her daughter, Ann, in secret. When Ann breaks down, Violet comforts her, embracing her while telling her everything will be okay as her mother will continue watching over her, as well as being willing to spend time with Ann. She then gives Ann her mother's letters to her as she read them each by the time she grows up and have a family of her own. After finishing the job and returning to the workplace, she breaks down over Ann losing her mother and being forced to live alone now.
Saves a soldier named Aiden Field when he was shot by the soldiers who worked for Merkulov. Before dying in Violet's arms as she tries to heal him, he requests her to write letters for his girlfriend and his parents, which she promised as Aiden slowly passes away peacefully. As he passes away, she holds his hand and kissed him on his forehead. When his loved ones' mourn for his loss, she is equally saddened by Aiden's death and tearfully apologizes to them for not being able to save Aiden.
Violet never shows any hatred towards Dietfried despite him constantly belittling her and deriding her as nothing but an unfeeling tool of war.
She assists Dietfried in his mission to stop a group of terrorists, the same ones that killed Aiden, and their leader Merkulov Brigadier from preventing a peace ceremony.
When one of the terrorists mocks Aiden and states that no one would mourn his death, while she is enraged, she does not kill him when given the opportunity, only punching him instead.
While fighting the terrorists, she makes sure not to kill them, even saving one of them from falling off the train, which allows the others to attack and detain her.
After taking out Merkulov and his men, she removes all the bombs placed on the train to prevent any deaths that would have resulted from them going off.
While she was once lethal and cold back at her soldier days, she only did so because she didn't possess a sense of morality due to being trained as a weapon. However, she begins changing after spending time with Gilbert and when he says "I love you" to her. This causes her to develop and begin cherishing life to the fullest. She also learns to live for herself and gradually gains self-worth from helping others rather than just for Gilbert, after spending time with her friends she gained at the CH Postal Company and meeting numerous people over her time at the company.
Trivia[]
She can be compared to the main character from Vinland Saga, Thorfinn, who was a violent mercenary as a child, but grew to become a pacifistic, empathetic and kind person in his adulthood. He is essentially the 11th century Viking version of Violet Evergarden. Though, the difference between the two is that while Violet was partly molded into a weapon by Dietfried after killing all his men, Thorfinn chose revenge against his father's wishes when his father was killed by Askeladd, willingly following Askeladd for a decade, assisting him on pillaging and killing thousands of innocent people and soldiers for the sake of "honorable revenge" in a duel against Askeladd. This arguably makes Thorfinn worse than Violet, though it is important to note that, like Violet, he was a very young child when he made this decision, meaning he lacked moral agency and foresight in his decisions to remain a murderer.
In addition, upon being forced out of their circumstances in different ways, with Thorfinn witnessing Askeladd killed and being sold into slavery, while Violet was saved and discharged from war by Claudia, a friend of Gilbert, they were emotionless shells until they spent more and more time around the right people, allowing them to develop and become better people.
Another difference between the two is that with Thorfinn, the audience saw the atrocities he committed, which makes it easier to add more moral ambiguity to his character, while all of Violet's violent deeds as a weapon are offscreen, with the main point of the story being that she was able to mature into an independent, empathetic, and selfless heroine able to move on from her trauma. While redemption is one of the themes in Violet Evergarden, it's main theme is perseverance through loss, allowing the narrative to depict Violet and all other characters far more sympathetically without needing to emphasize her dark past. Vinland Saga, on the other hand, revolves entirely around pacifism and Thorfinn's redemption, which requires the narrative to acknowledge his horrific deeds while also acknowledging he is tragic in his attempt to make up for his past sins.
The duality between the two characters is that while Thorfinn chose to stay on the battlefield through hatred of Askeladd, Violet Evergarden was motivated to stay on the battlefield through her mutual love with Gilbert.
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