Violet

Violet (Chen) (Chinese: 陳堇; pinyin: "Chén Jǐn") is a Chinese member of the Thea Sisters, an adventurous group founded by Thea Stilton.

Biography

Violet was born in Beijing, China and eventually moved to Hangzhou, China at some point. Her life involved a lot of traveling to other countries, most likely because of her parents' occupations. How this affected her childhood education is unknown.

She went on to pursue her studies in Mouseford Academy, Whale Island, and along with her were four friends: Paulina, Nicky, Colette, and Pamela, who became her closest friends in the academy.

Family

Chen Lu is a famous orchestra conductor while Chen Li is an opera singer. Both of them are native to Beijing.

Violet has a complicated relationship with them. As they travel a lot and are rarely able to work together, they aren't exactly the most present in Violet's life, leaving her grandfather to care for her. They're very passionate about their jobs, and the general business of their work schedules leaves much to be desired in a family life, especially in regards to their daughter.

When she meets her parents, however, both sides are very happy to see each other and very clearly cherish the small and short moments they get to spend together. Violet instinctively runs to hug her mother as a greeting, and her father is consistently described as "gentle, tender and loving" in personality.

Her Grandfather Chen is a notable mentor figure in Violet's life, and Violet in the present day still quotes him and his proverbs of wisdom.

Physical appearance

Violet has light grey and white fur and long hip-length bluish-black hair with bangs up front. She is notable for her almond-shaped purple eyes (that are sometimes depicted as brown or "black"). She is described as having a slender build and the "body of a dancer" by Professor Ratyshnikov in the Mouseford book The Dance Challenge, and her skill in ballet and interest in yoga imply that she's very flexible.

Her first main outfit consists of a violet turtleneck sweater with long bell sleeves, a violet double-slit skirt, and white pants beneath; and the second one in the redesign consists of a purple puff blouse, a black-and-white striped pleated knee-length skirt, and purple ballet flats.

Personality

Just like Geronimo, she is an intellectual and is fascinated with books. She likes studying a lot, to the point where she is sometimes called a walking encyclopedia by her peers, and this fact is further supported when her sheer boredom and desire to go back to studying like normal was expressed during her “forced” extra day of absence from school due to a flu in The Secret Notebook.

She is very shy and has a severe problem with stage fright, as shown in the Mouseford Academy series multiple times, as well as one scene in The Dancing Shadows, where she blushes bright red because she “hated being in the center of attention”. However, as the series progresses, she is shown to become more open and less shy.

She is sensitive, and will be ticked off easily if teased. She can ease up and cool down with a cup of green tea, but if she doesn't get enough sleep, she can be really grouchy. In the later books, her sleepy-headedness becomes a running gag of sorts, like in Phantom of the Orchestra, where Paulina jokingly calls her “our Sleeping Beauty”; and her semi-regular comments about wanting to sleep and her always being the first person to go to sleep for the most part. She is very observant of her environment, as she can notice very small details, and she even tends to have a hunch when something bad is about to happen in the later books. She is also a perfectionist, as seen in Mice Take the Stage (her perfectionism being one of the main conflicts in the book) and The Great Tulip Heist, where Jan describes her as one.

Skills and Abilities

Knowledge on various topics- Due to her reputation for being a bookworm, Violet has a wide array of topics she is well-read on and can pull out this information when needed. She is called the Thea Sisters' "walking, talking encyclopedia" because of this.
Words of Wisdom- She has a lot of Chinese proverbs or simply proverbs from her grandfather that have been proven to be right time and time again.
Music- Her passions and lifestyle heavily revolve around music (specifically classical music), and she has the skills to boot. She is capable of playing the violin and the piano, the former being to the extent where she's performed in semi-formal to formal settings on multiple occasions. She's also capable of composing music, as she's undergoing a Music Composition course in the Stars Academy series.
Dance- She can dance ballet on a competitive level and specializes in classical dance.
Languages- She is fluent in English, Mandarin Chinese and has studied Japanese.
The Arts- She is not just skilled in music as a performing art, but she's also extended towards other aspects of the arts as well. She can draw, paint, assemble impossible bottles, and act.
Observation- she has a very keen sense of sight and hearing, being able to pick up on the softest sounds and the subtlest of details that oftentimes hint towards something important.
Strategy and Analysis- She is skilled in analytic games like chess and checkers, and her regular indulgence in these games adds to her ability to analyze, theorize and strategize in real-world scenarios.
Prediction- She has an almost uncanny ability to predict events, to the point where some of her dreams end up leading to epiphanies relating to the ongoing plot.
Botany- She has an affinity for botany and flowers, as well as flower arranging.

Trivia

Her name was chosen for her by her grandfather, who found a violet blooming in his greenhouse the day she was born despite violets being out of season.
There is a dispute pertaining to Violet's Chinese name.
- The English books simply say it's 紫羅蘭 (pinyin: "Zǐluólán"), the literal Chinese word for violets.
  - This name isn't accurate to the Chinese naming system, as it completely disregards her surname Chen and implies her surname would be 紫, which isn't an existing Chinese surname.
- The Dutch and Spanish books say the name is some sort of variant of "Chin Sai" or "Chin ts'ai" (characters not found).
  - The romanization of the characters may be in a language like Wu/Shanghainese rather than Mandarin, as attempts to search the name using Mandarin records turn up empty. (needs confirmation)
- The Chinese translation of the books cite her Chinese name as 陳堇 (Chinese: 陳堇; pinyin: "Chén Jǐn")
Her grandfather used to assemble ships in glass bottles.
- She was taught how to do this as well, the result of which was a glass ball ornament with a perfect replica of Mouseford Academy inside it that she made.
She has a pet cricket named Frilly that appeared in small cameos in the early part of the series (which is a reference to Chinese keeping pet crickets for good luck). Unfortunately, Frilly and his pumpkin house stopped making appearances in the later part of the series, his last appearance being in Mice Take the Stage. The original Italian books still preserve his appearance in books, however.
- He makes a cameo in the original Italian release of The Secret Notebook, as Violet's only companion when she's sick in her dorm.
Despite her favorite type of music being classical music, Violet seems to also be fond of jazz, as this was her choice for her segment of the girls' school program in The Dance Challenge.
Violet had a crush on Professor Ian Van Kraken in The Ghost of the Shipwreck.
- Though the English translation of the book left things vague about whether or not Violet still has a crush on him, the other translations have an extra chapter where it turns out Violet had gotten over her crush on the professor after meeting his girlfriend in a video call.
She's a big fan of Vígmar Ratsson's books like her friends, however her fangirlism is to the point where she has memorized events that happened in the series, and even the book in which it happened.
Who her roommate is is inconsistent; Missing Diary directly states that Tanya is her roommate, but she's shared rooms with both Nicky and Paulina in Sea Turtle Rescue and The Secret Notebook.
- This error only exists in the English translation- her roommate in the Italian books is and always has been Tanya.
Her favorite subjects according to the Italian-released Secret Diary of the Thea Sisters is Music and Arts, but she says English is her favorite in The Secret Notebook.
- This latter detail doesn't exist in the original Italian.
She gets motion-sick from bumpy and/or twisty roads very easily.
She is very acrophobic, the trigger being high places without railings, and the response is nausea, pallid skin, and feeling like fainting.
Her favorite flower is her namesake, the violet.
- In the English release of Cloud Castle, however, she says her favorite is the purple orchid.
She always carries sugar cubes in her pockets for her tea time breaks.