Violet Parr

Violey Parr/Violet Incredible
Close-up of Violet
Publication information
Publisher	Dark Horse Comics/Pixar Animation Studios
First appearance	The Incredibles
Created by	Brad Bird
In-story information
Alter ego	Violet Parr
Team affiliations	Incredible Family (genetic member), National Supers Agency (ties), Edna Mode (manufactured custom-made super suit), Frozone (long-time family friend), Mirage (ally)
Notable aliases	Vi (nickname), The Queen of the Unseen
Abilities	invisibility, force field generation

Violet "Vi" Parr is a fictional character from the movie The Incredibles. She is 5 feet, 3 inches tall (1.60 meters) and weighs 90 pounds (41 kilograms). Her superpowers are similar to those used by the Invisible Woman, one of the members of the Fantastic Four.

Character history

Movie

Template:Spoiler When she is first introduced in The Incredibles, Violet is depicted as gloomy, uncertain, and socially withdrawn, and prefers to hide behind her long hair, which she wears hanging in front of her face. She has a crush on one of her classmates, Tony Rydinger, but is too shy to approach him and turns herself invisible whenever he looks her way to avoid attention.

After Violet and Dash discover the extraordinary properties of the supersuits designed for them by Edna Mode (in Violet's case, her suit can turn invisible along with her, rendering her totally unseen, without disrupting her force fields (the force field part is discussed in AMKA), they stow away on their mother's jet when she leaves to find their father, who has been doing secret hero work behind his family's back. Shortly after they are discovered by Helen, the plane is attacked by Syndrome's missiles, and Helen calls upon Violet to put a force field around them for protection. Violet is reluctant to try to generate such a large force field, however, and is still too nervous and underconfident to successfully carry out the order. The family is forced to abandon ship just before the missiles destroy the plane. When Violet later apologizes to her mother for failing her, Helen reassures her by saying that she has more power than she herself realizes, but also warns her that in their situation, doubt is a luxury they can no longer afford.

Her confidence bolstered, Violet practices her power on the fire in the camp, but she and Dash are nearly burnt to a crisp when Syndrome launches a rocket carrying a highly capable battle robot—the Omnidroid 9000—to the City of Metroville; the cave that the two were in is also the exhaust tube for the rocket.

After some time, Syndrome's henchmen discover the children after their curiosty triggers an alarm and pursue them across his island base (their mother left them alone to go in search for her husband), and one of them (after being attacked by a stick-wielding invisible Violet), uses dirt to find Violet while she is hiding in a pond, however, Dash stops one of the soldiers from killing her. Immediately afterwards, Violet (after returning the favor) and Dash combine their powers to create the IncrediBall (named in the video game), where Violet generates a force field around herself and Dash, who runs super-fast so that they both move at an incredible pace and block out anything attacking them.

After they are reunited with their parents (both of whom are briefly flattened by the IncrediBall), Syndrome captures them. Violet, however, manages to free everyone by hovering over to the control panel with a force field.

During the battle with the Omnidroid, Violet is knocked unconscious while defending herself and Dash, but she recuperates very quickly. After Helen trip-wires the robot, Violet (in her invisible state) grabs the remote used to control it. As the Omnidroid gets closer to an ideal range for Mr. Incredible to pierce it with its detached claw, Violet refuses Helen's order to hide.

Finally, after stopping Syndrome from abducting Jack-Jack, they apparently destroy Syndrome (by taking advantage of his cape) and have successfully saved the world. Three months later, Violet is courageous enough to talk to Tony (and Tony is now the shy one about Violet), and they plan to go to the movies on Friday. Violet tells Tony that she will buy the popcorn.

The IncrediBall is likely to become a favorite tag-team attack of Violet and Dash.

Events after the movie

In the video game, Rise of The Underminer, Helen, Violet, Dash, and Jack-Jack are told to evacuate Metroville after they are surrounded by The Underminer's robots, but the four return just in time to watch as Mr. Incredible and Frozone seemingly slay the Underminer by crashing his machine onto a bigger machine, which creates an explosion.

In the short comic, The Incredibles in Holiday Heroes, Violet is briefly seen sun-basking in her invisible state when Mount Tiki Toki (where the family is vacationing) suddenly reemerges from dormancy. She is told to use a force field to protect Jack-Jack from lava bombs, which she does while Bob, Helen, and Dash collect ocean water to re-hydrate Lucius. This eruption forces the family to vacation somewhere else.

They pick Walt Disney World in A Magic Kingdom Adventure and are made Grand Marshalls for the Main Street Parade (against the wishes of both parents, who wanted the family to maintain a low profile). While they are on a jungle cruise, Violet gets clever with the family by turning invisible, sneaking off the boat, and performing a brief double-drum solo before Baloo the Bear arrives. Later, the family realizes that they are late for the Parade, but when they arrive, Mickey and Minnie Mouse have already been kidnapped by a robot version of Syndrome.

When the family is fighting an army of Syndrome's footsoldiers, they find that the soldiers are too great in number for Violet's force field to hold back, and she pays for this error by using up too much of her energy. The footsoldiers are then diverted by guests who are wearing a red wristband and press an orange button. It is not until well after the termination of the robot Syndrome and the liberation of Mickey and Minnie that the family goes to the Enchanted Tiki Room (Helen wanted the family to see it first, but the others rejected the idea).

Personality

Violet's character development constitutes a major side-story in the movie, despite the fact that Violet herself isn't shown in very many scenes (some speculate that this is due to the extreme complexity involved in animating her long, flowing hair).

At first, Violet is shy and timid, and, stuck at the cross-roads between girl and woman, Violet desperately wants to be like everyone else, to blend in with normal people and not to stand out.

However, after she becomes bolder and more outgoing, she is proud of who she is. Violet loves her family and even though she constantly butts heads with Dash, she cares for him very much. She would hate to see her relatives hurt or killed and always tries hard to help them.

Powers

Violet's superpowers allow her to instantly render herself partially (at one point in the movie, Violet turns her left hand invisible to see if her Super-Suit can turn invisible) or entirely invisible and to generate spherical force fields (transparent violet in color). These force fields apparently have some sort of anti-gravitational effect on her (Violet has been known to float inside them) but not others (her brother Dash can propel a sphere he and Violet are in by running); they also allow her to move particularly heavy objects, as she is seen doing so in some Incredibles merchandising. In some pictures, the palms of Violet's hands glow a pale violet whenever she uses her force fields.

Weaknesses

Unfortunately, Violet's force fields are also her Achilles heel. While exceedingly sturdy, they can be "broken" by very heavy blunt force (as seen in the film), and they can also sap her physical energy if she tries to maintain them under sustained heavy assault (as seen in A Magic Kingdom Adventure).

Trivia

• Violet is voiced by the following actresses:
  • Sarah Vowell in the original English-language version of the movie and the Disney on Ice play.
  • Felicitas Woll (German)
  • Laura Pastor (Castilian Spanish)
  • Leyla Rangel (Latin American Spanish)
  • Lorie (French)
  • Csifó Dorina (Hungarian)
  • Alessia Amendola (Italian)
  • Haruka Ayase (Japanese)
  • Karolina Gruszka (Polish)
  • Lina Mendes (Brazilian Portuguese)
  • Elina Raeder (Swedish)
• In A Magic Kingdom Adventure, Violet is played by Lea Nightwalker.
• Violet was, by far, the most difficult character to animate in the movie when it came to hair animation. She had some of the longest hair in the movie, and the animators tried several methods, but none of them worked the way that they wanted. Finally, they managed to use a method that they thought would not work.
• In a deleted scene from the Incredibles film, Syndrome is depicted as trying to abduct Violet while she is still in infancy but is foiled when the baby Violet, in her invisible state, spits up into his face, distracting him long enough for Bob and Helen to retrieve her.
• The Special Edition DVD for The Incredibles includes a video essay by Sarah Vowell, entitled "Vowellett". She explains that Pixar sent her test footage of Violet using audio from one of Vowell's This American Life broadcasts. The radio program featured Vowell and her father firing a cannon. The test footage shows Violet nervously exploring the hideout of a fellow superhero. She accidentally knocks down the friend's phaser gun. After turning invisible to avoid being spotted and putting it back on its stand, she decides to wield it and shortly after becomes visible again. Saying "This is like a cartoon," she accidentally pulls the trigger on the phaser (the cannon), releasing a green energy beam and a cloud of thick smoke ("It's like the Fourth of July!"). After putting the phaser back on the display, she turns invisible once more and starts singing "America the Beautiful".
• In a deleted scene also included in "Vowellett", Helen tries to cheer up a gloomy Violet ("Don't be silly! You're beautiful!"), but Violet lashes back, saying "I'm gangly and I'm growing ganglier. I'm ugly, I have no curves, my friends are dorkier than I am, I can't talk, but my brain won't shut up!"
• Violet's name is probably derived from the term "shrinking violet", meaning an extremely shy person. The name also refers to the violet color of her force fields.
• Violet herself is currently thinking of a superhero alias for herself, candidates include Violet Incredible (used in this article) and Miss Invisible. On Incredibles merchandise, she is nicknamed the "Queen of the Unseen", and uses invisibility-related catch phrases include "See ya!" and "Gotta disappear!" In a poster included with Violet action figures, Violet, after levitating Dash with a force field, says "You're making my good attitude… disappear!"
• One of Violet's favorite pastimes is music. She often listens to musical CDs. She also likes to read fashion magazines.
• When Violet was unconfident, she often had her hair in front of her face and dressed conservatively (which did not do justice to her extremely slim figure (see directly below)), but after she became daring, her hair was pulled back and she now dresses freely.
• Violet's body is disproportionate compared to her head. This has led some to say that she appears (and possibly could be) anorexic.
• Near the end of the movie, Violet pulls her hair back with a head band, though this accessory was never shown previously and was never explained where it came from.