\u00a0[Note: this article contains spoilers for both the Violet Evergarden<\/em> TV series and Violet Evergarden: The Movie<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n Violet Evergarden<\/em> is the story of a former child soldier learning to understand the last words her commander said to her: \u201cI love you.\u201d By becoming a ghostwriter in a post-war era, Violet has helped numerous people convey their feelings to those they love\u2014and in the process learned what those last words meant. Unfortunately, she\u2019s also come to understand that everyone believes her commander, Gilbert, died in the war, despite no body being found. While this information wounds her deeply, she decides to still hold out hope that this is not the case, even as she lives on without him\u2014helping others through the power of the written word.<\/p>\n Violet Evergarden: The Movie<\/em> picks up a few years after the events of the series (and after the events of the spin-off film, Violet Evergarden: Eternity and the Auto Memory Doll<\/em>). Violet has continued to work over the years, easily outshining all her contemporaries. Even now, business for her is booming. However, it\u2019s plain to everyone that their work will soon become little more than a novelty before fading away into memory. With rising literacy rates and the invention of the telephone, ghostwriters like Violet and her companions are simply no longer needed. Sooner or later, they will all need to move on.<\/p>\n However, that\u2019s something Violet is incapable of. The years have done nothing to lessen her obsession with Gilbert. As he taught her how to be human, it\u2019s impossible for Violet to forget about him\u2014lest she ignores the very core of her being. Worse yet, she is plagued by PTSD\u2014not of her actions on the battlefield but of her time spent with Gilbert and the emotions she was unable to understand at the time.<\/p>\n In a very real way, her entire life is built around maintaining and exploring her connection with him. Every letter she writes for someone else\u2014i.e., everything she learns about love\u2014helps her better understand what she meant to him and what he meant to her. So it\u2019s no surprise Violet is a workaholic and rather antisocial. She works or stays in her room\u2014not usually going out unless invited by one of her coworkers. On her rare days off, she spends them taking on Gilbert\u2019s responsibilities\u2014like visiting his mother\u2019s grave\u2014growing closer to him in that tiny way.<\/p>\n And then comes word that Gilbert is still alive.<\/p>\n Of course, this sends Violet into a near panic. She has so much she wants to say and so much she wants to know. She is emotionally overwhelmed. But when Violet arrives to meet Gilbert, he turns her away\u2014refusing to even look at her.<\/p>\n While Violet was found by allied soldiers and returned home, Gilbert was taken to a local, formerly \u201cenemy,\u201d hospital and was lost in the system. After adapting to having only one eye and arm, he began helping his fellow patients\u2014never revealing he was on the other side in the war. When that work dried up, he wandered around before eventually settling on an island filled with vineyards where the entire young male population had died in the war. There he became a teacher to the fatherless children and a field hand for the aging population.<\/p>\n Gilbert\u2019s problem is that he was never meant to be a soldier. He regrets everything he did in the war and all the suffering he caused. His life since the war has been his self-imposed atonement. He may have not made these specific children fatherless but he is determined to do what he can to make up for his part in the war.<\/p>\n Of course, it\u2019s not like he had to fake his death to do this. The reason he chose to never correct the assumption he was dead is entirely because of Violet. In Gilbert\u2019s mind, Violet is his greatest sin. While he claimed she was a normal girl and berated his brother at the idea of using her as the weapon she was made to be, he still had her fight by his side during the war. Even as he worked to teach her to be human\u2014even as he fell in love with her\u2014he nonetheless relied on her to do the killing he could not. This hypocrisy tears at his soul still.<\/p>\n Knowing second hand that Violet has made a life for herself since the war, his conclusion is an understandable one: she is better off without him.<\/p>\n What he doesn\u2019t understand is that she has grown in his absence\u2014grown enough that while she wants to be with him with every fiber of her being, just him being alive is enough for her. She knows that there is good she can do out there in the world and will continue to do that, no matter if he will meet with her or not.<\/p>\n So she writes a letter to Gilbert, explaining her feelings and the person she has become before leaving to return to her life.<\/p>\n While Gilbert may think what he did to Violet was unforgivable, she doesn\u2019t see it that way. His feelings\u2014the love he showed her when she was incapable of understanding it much less responding to it\u2014laid the foundation for who she has become. But more than that, his words\u2014his confession of his love for her\u2014is the reason she is more than just a mindless soldier. Without his so-called \u201chypocrisy\u201d she would have lived and died as the tool she was raised to be.<\/p>\n And all this ties back to one of the main themes of the overall story: the power of the written word. A simple letter is able to convey her true feelings in a way she is unable to do in person. Even in the emotional moment when they finally meet face to face. All she can do is cry: she can\u2019t even get out the words \u201cI love you\u201d no matter how she tries. Yet, he knows. She wrote it all down and her feelings have been conveyed.<\/p>\n The continuing power of words is likewise explored in the film\u2019s framing device, which follows Daisy, the granddaughter of Anne (from episode 10 of the series), in the days after Anne\u2019s death. Finding the 50 years of birthday letters from Anne\u2019s mother before her untimely death, Daisy is overcome by the need to find more about the ghostwriter behind these letters as a way of dealing with her own grief.<\/p>\n Over the course of Daisy\u2019s journey, we see that even decades after the disappearance of ghostwriters, the words Violet wrote continue to help people\u2014even if she as a person is almost entirely forgotten. There is no greater legacy she could hope for.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pbs.twimg.com\/media\/EiPUlv7XkAEpCts.jpg?w=700&ssl=1\")
Image source: \u300c\u30f4\u30a1\u30a4\u30aa\u30ec\u30c3\u30c8\u30fb\u30a8\u30f4\u30a1\u30fc\u30ac\u30fc\u30c7\u30f3\u300d\u516c\u5f0f<\/a> on Twitter.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pbs.twimg.com\/media\/EiRG8TGUYAIl0Tt.jpg?w=700&ssl=1\")
Image source: \u300c\u30f4\u30a1\u30a4\u30aa\u30ec\u30c3\u30c8\u30fb\u30a8\u30f4\u30a1\u30fc\u30ac\u30fc\u30c7\u30f3\u300d\u516c\u5f0f<\/a> on Twitter.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pbs.twimg.com\/media\/Eia5gzyU8AEQDLy.jpg?w=700&ssl=1\")
Image source: \u300c\u30f4\u30a1\u30a4\u30aa\u30ec\u30c3\u30c8\u30fb\u30a8\u30f4\u30a1\u30fc\u30ac\u30fc\u30c7\u30f3\u300d\u516c\u5f0f<\/a> on Twitter.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pbs.twimg.com\/media\/EiaEB0EU4AIGyX3.jpg?w=700&ssl=1\")
Image source: \u300c\u30f4\u30a1\u30a4\u30aa\u30ec\u30c3\u30c8\u30fb\u30a8\u30f4\u30a1\u30fc\u30ac\u30fc\u30c7\u30f3\u300d\u516c\u5f0f<\/a> on Twitter.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pbs.twimg.com\/media\/EiRJ5W0UcAASbtH.jpg?w=700&ssl=1\")
Image source: \u300c\u30f4\u30a1\u30a4\u30aa\u30ec\u30c3\u30c8\u30fb\u30a8\u30f4\u30a1\u30fc\u30ac\u30fc\u30c7\u30f3\u300d\u516c\u5f0f<\/a> on Twitter.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pbs.twimg.com\/media\/EiaE3CmU4AEXqnc.jpg?w=700&ssl=1\")
Image source: \u300c\u30f4\u30a1\u30a4\u30aa\u30ec\u30c3\u30c8\u30fb\u30a8\u30f4\u30a1\u30fc\u30ac\u30fc\u30c7\u30f3\u300d\u516c\u5f0f<\/a> on Twitter.<\/em><\/p>\n
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