 The violet or the flower of Ayo in Greek mythology is the flower of love, symbol of sensibility, modesty, and humility. A violet flower in early Spanish ballads was sometimes used as a love token. As its color, violet is the color of love. It represents a deep and true everlasting love. This was the name given to the young orphan warrior maiden and future auto-memories doll by the major Gilbert Bougainvillea, a name that violet evergarden spends the entire series trying to grow into. Live and be free. Major Gilbert sent violet off with these words, these orders. Living can often be the hardest thing in the world. Living under the weight and the burden of all the emotions we carry inside us every day. It's unimaginable sometimes. And each day you live to try and reach the epitome of human emotion, joy, happiness. More than that, bliss. That feeling where nothing can bring you back down to earth, where time and space are lost. Happiness is the most universally understood and yet unattainable goal. Some days you might even ask yourself if you deserve it. Have you been good enough to deserve that happiness that you seek? Do you deserve the right to live? The right to soak in life's greatest pleasures. Violet Evergarden is a series that approaches the wide range of human emotion with care and with love. It looks at the many forms of love, deals with guilt, forgiveness, empathy, and to me it's a story that begins with loss and guilt and ends with atonement and love, in that order. But the magic lies in the path that violet takes to get there. The overarching story of Violet Evergarden, which is for violet to understand emotion, is set up to reach a very specific breaking point, when violet has to learn and eventually come to terms with the fact that major Gilbert is dead. Before she can come to terms with this loss, she needs to first have the emotional intelligence to come to terms with it. The first nine episodes teach her this. It begins with her own desire displayed at the end of the first episode, when she firmly states that she wants to learn what I love you means. It's followed by empathy shown in her first letter for Leculia, courage and heartbreak with Iris, love and adventure with Princess Charlotte and Leon, and finally grief alongside the playwright Oscar and his daughter Olive, where Violet cried for the first time, tears that felt like a victory. Each of these experiences were vital and were set up for us to reach the core of the person that is Violet Evergarden, and that core is the orphan who was never seen as anything more than a tool until she met the major, who would teach her how to read and write and who treated her as more than a warrior maiden. Major Gilbert encouraged her to one day embrace life for all that it is, but Violet never knew anything other than war. Life in the military came with a strict set of rules and orders, its reports, not letters. Objective, not subjective. Being a soldier has a very clear role and purpose, to receive orders, to fight, to kill, there's no room for anything else. That's the world Violet grew up in, and the one she came to know. Violet probably killed hundreds, but her not being burdened by emotions left her free from that burning sensation that Hodgins eventually warned her about. Of course this all changed when the major was killed in that final battle, where his orders were of course for Violet to live and to be free, whatever that meant. As we reach the 9th episode, we come to the breaking point. Here Violet was experiencing the most agonizing of human emotions, loss, guilt, grief and regret, but it goes further than that, as this revelation goes against her very nature. This is a loss of her very identity, she feels betrayed even. The major died and he ordered her to live. But how could Violet live without the one person who allowed her to experience life? When Cataleia tells Hodgins that Violet has lost everything, she's absolutely right. Gilbert was her everything, the only person to treat her with humanity, with kindness. He gave her a name, a purpose. The only person to give her a chance, Violet lived because of him, she adored him. When she was confronted with the thought of living without the major, she said that she'd die. Before Violet could understand what the word beautiful meant, she attached it to the major's eyes. She saw that his eyes sparkled with generosity and kindness, with warmth, with love. That to her is beauty. That's what she's reminded of every time she looks at her brooch. How could she live without the person who gave her a chance to know beauty, to know life? From her point of view, that's just not possible. In addition to her grieving for the major, there is this guilt that is eating her up inside. Violet was remembering the war in the episode prior, and in the one before that, Violet recognized that she prevented others from their own promises, to their loved ones. This soldier aspect of Violet sort of felt like an afterthought up until this point. Because she had left that life behind. Violet as Hodgins tells her, the things you have done can never be undone. We have come to know her as the girl, the doll who was learning about human emotions. But everyone else knew her as the major's killing machine. This episode reminded us of that fact. And not only was she feeling guilt over the lives that she took, she was also feeling survivor's guilt. Violet couldn't save Major Gilbert. And the hands that she looks at, and that she puts to use every single day, are a reminder of that failure. To add all of this onto the fact that this is her first time experiencing all of these emotions, and all at once, is a part of the reason why her reaction is so volatile, as she tried to take her own life. Violet wants nothing more than to erase the pain that she feels. And she doesn't feel like she's earned the right to live anymore. Her body was burning, and she wanted nothing more than to douse the flames. Violet then asks Hodgins if she deserves to live, if she has the right to. Living as difficult as it may be, is still a luxury that only the living have. One that the dead wish they could regain. Hodgins never tells her outright that she is or isn't deserving of life. I think he too is also wondering that himself, as he is also burning. Hodgins the willing participant and lieutenant in the war, but is also the same man who turned around to create this business that does nothing more than to bring people together. So in many ways, Hodgins was the perfect person to answer Violet's question. He left her alone with that decision, and instead he tells her that yes, she cannot change the past, but the work that she's done as an auto-memory doll will never change either. And Violet begins to forgive herself, the first step coming at the end of that episode. She's recognized the harm that she's done, and next is having the ability to keep going, to atone. The episode that follows in what is one of the standouts of this series, Violet meets Anne and her dying mother, and writes 50 letters for the girl's future in which her mother won't be there. And at the end she states how hard it was for her to hold it all in. Violet consoled the young girl, gave her a hug, her first hug. Violet showed a great amount of empathy and sensitivity as she wept for the girl's future. Violet is beginning to grow into her name, and has finally forgiven herself. Loss is one of the most profound, shared human experiences. We all experience loss at one point in our lives. But what Violet comes to understand is that we carry these people in our hearts, and we have a duty to honor them. In order to do that, we have to live our lives to the fullest, to cherish the luxury that only the living have. Violet has learned what it means to live, and whether she deserves it or not, she is alive, and is under strict orders to be free. To preserve Gilbert's memory. She knows loss first hand, and Luculia, Oscar, Maria, and the family of Aiden Field. Violet needs to live so that she may experience a love similar to the princess, so that she may travel the world like Leon. Live to one day find the happiness that Major Gilbert can't have anymore. And for Violet's own conscience, live to a tone. Letters are products of intimacy. They are personal and from the heart. Found Mexican painter Frida Kahlo sent intense, passionate, and personal love letters, or she would write to Diego that only one mountain can know the core of another mountain. Beethoven once wrote an unsent 10 page letter to his immortal beloved, one of tragedy and deep longing. About a year ago I wrote an unsent letter to a friend. I wanted to express the gratitude and love I had for this friend. The process of writing gave me time to reflect on some of our fondest memories, and had me appreciating them so much more. In Violet Evergarden, letters do all of these things, but most commonly they help individuals grieve and let go. This series demonstrates that a letter is a message that can exist beyond the constraints of time, age, or distance, whether it be to those who've passed, to friends, to lovers, or even to the past itself. Letters are tools of clarity. Sometimes it's so difficult to choose the perfect words, but in a letter there's time to decipher our jumbled brains, pass the barriers and the blocks to say what we truly feel, what we sometimes lack the courage to say, or what we are finally strong enough to say. Violet's writing style, one that is direct, succinct, poignant, but eventually develops to become wildly empathetic, these letters became her tools of atonement. As Hodgins told her, the work that she does won't go away, and because she knows regret and guilt, she searches for this atonement, almost with reckless abandon, and slowly her title shifts from The Warrior Maiden to Violet the Doll. I said that the hands that she looks at and puts to use every day are a reminder of her failure. They are the embodiment of her new life, her new beginning. When Deed Freed first sees her after the war, he says that with the same hands that she took lives with, are the very same hands she brings people together. But these aren't the same hands. Violet's human hands were tools for war. This was a life that she had no say in. Her and by extension her hands were tools made to kill. The one time her prosthetic hands were bloodied were because of her guilt. Her post-traumatic stress, her depression, was causing her to have illusions. Violet's human hands are symbolically shown so many times soaked in blood, but when they got destroyed it was a new beginning for Violet. She got new prosthetic arms and hands, now made for her to atone for what she had done. Metal hands to bring hearts together, to learn how to truly be human. During episode 9 when Violet tries to take her own life and the shot focuses on her hands, first around her neck and then by her side after her failed attempt, it reminded me of full metal alchemist. Particularly when Winry is debating on whether she should kill Scar and Edward intervenes telling her that her hands weren't made to kill. That made me think of Violet. Her new hands weren't made to kill, not anyone. They were made to bring people together. In episode 11 Violet writes a letter for the dying Aidenfield and as he's losing blood he asks to hold her hand and Violet doesn't hesitate. And you can hear the clinks in her hand as she moves it towards his, but there was also no doubt that in his dying moments Aidenfield felt the warmth of a human's touch one final time. Violet's new hands are a reflection of her humanity, and this moment was an illustration of her newfound empathy, of her love. It's easy for us to downplay the importance of community when solitude has become a new normal, especially considering the past year. But we are made to create bonds, companions, friends, made to desire love in all of its forms, platonic, romantic, or familial. The playwright Oscar and his daughter, as well as Anne and her mother, really highlighted strong familial bonds, as did Deed Freed and Gilbert. Princess Charlotte and Prince Damien showed the sheer joy and passion that is romantic love, and Violet's community supported her through everything. There was no greater act of love than what each of them gave to Violet during her depression. Hodgins who of course gave her a job and found her brooch, provided her with much needed support when she was grieving, being someone who had experienced much of the same things that she had. Hodgins told her exactly what she needed to hear in order to begin healing, Cadalea checking in on her and cooking for her, and it was through Erika and Iris's letter that taught Violet the joy of receiving a letter, and it was the delivery man who helped her find her purpose through their delivery. When Iris and Erika's letter, they wrote that they were worried for her, and awaited her return. We want to be needed, to be loved. Gilbert's mother helped Violet find solace in the fact that her son still lives inside their hearts, and that his death is not her fault. She gave Violet the okay to finally let go. Violet's friends, their love, the love of her community, saved her life. Every person that Violet has encountered, you can see that not only has Violet made an impact on their life, they've made a great impact on her own. From cold and emotionless in her beginning, to someone who is empathetic by the end, Violet is a mosaic of all of these people and their emotions. They've all formed Violet Evergarden. Violet is the byproduct of their love, a word that Violet spent each and every episode trying to learn the meaning of. I love you is a phrase, a feeling, a moment of courage. In romantic relationships it's often a milestone. You always hear about the one who said it first. It's a phrase that carries so much weight and sometimes is thrown around, but that's okay if the person on the other end understands it, and they reciprocate it. If they don't it can feel earth shattering, much like Iris felt. That's the weight of this phrase, it's a declaration of vulnerability and gratitude, the one phrase that can mean something completely different to every single person. These were the final words uttered by Gilbert to Violet, before pushing her out of the way of a falling pillar, saving her life. And I think that act, that final act, is the meaning of I love you. I've always said that love is more than just a feeling, it's the action. And so many times love is said as putting another person before the needs of your own. In his dying moments Gilbert did just that. He put Violet's healing, her childhood that she was robbed of, her life ahead of his own. That's the meaning of I love you. To pair this love with the love she's felt given by her community and all of those she's met, Violet in the final episode of the anime comes to appreciate this. All of it. You can understand the meaning of those words, and in that final episode, you can see that Violet Evergarden has finally and fully grown into the name given to her by the major. She is sensible, modest, humble, and her work echoes the love that she's felt. She has embodied that flower. The major giving Violet a name that represents a deep, true and everlasting love is the meaning of I love you. To close, I want to appreciate Violet Evergarden on a technical level. I'm no expert on animation or music, but it doesn't take one to tell that this adaptation, this aesthetic that Kyoto Animation has created, is simply beautiful. It's so pretty. The colors are so vivid and warm. The details are so, for a lack of better term, detailed. I can confidently say that Violet Evergarden is the most beautiful show I've ever watched in that department. Even the backgrounds are incredibly stunning. There's this one shot of the flower shop that always takes my breath away. There's no other word than beautiful to describe this dreamlike show. And when I think about the soundtrack, it's breathtaking. Again, one of the most beautiful soundtracks I've ever heard, as it blends daily life with a sense of magic and other worldliness. This soundtrack alone romanticizes life. An interview with its composer Evan Kahl revealed that Kyoto Animation hired a 50 piece orchestra for this adaptation, and it makes so much sense. It's why the soundtrack is so full and rich. It's just a touching and perfect backdrop to such an endearing anime. I can only say that Violet Evergarden is a beautiful, beautiful piece of work, evidently made with so much care and love. One that we should be thankful for to all of those who were involved, and especially the staff of Kyoto Animation who will always be remembered.