Violet, Sunny, and Klaus Baudelaire.
For me the books of A Series of Unfortunate Events are special. It not only marks the first series of books that I became addicted to, it also contains some of my favourite themes, tropes and characters.
One of these characters is Violet Baudelaire, the eldest Baudelaire orphan. Whilst in many stories, the eldest is often the “bossy” character who is constantly in charge, with Violet you don’t get this. She is a team player whose skills work well with her other siblings, not outranking them so that they can reach their aim. Although she does feel responsible for her younger siblings, a trait which many older siblings have, it is not an overbearing one.
One of my favourite things about her is her interest and skill in inventing. A repeated mantra in the series is that of Violet tying her hair up out of her way so that she can invent a solution to get out of their sticky situation. But to those characters who don’t know Violet, this was often their downfall. They might think this is out of vanity but it is in fact her way of clearing her mind so that she can invent ways to get her and her siblings out of their sticky situation, with frequently that bad characters who underestimated her getting into a worse situation.
Throughout the series we see her impressive inventing mind create a number of different inventions to get the Baudelaire orphans out of each new situation. Whilst many of them do work they sometime still end up being trapped by Count Olaf, and I also enjoyed this; not only does it create suspense, which is sadly a little smaller as an adult, but it also shows you how it ok to fail, even if you have the best inventing mind of anyone below 18. However Violet’s skills often work best when were used alongside her brother Klaus love of reading and researching and her younger sister Sunny‚Äôs love of exploring the world through her mouth. This team aspect not only held the series together, but it also held the orphans together and saw them through to the end of the series of unfortunate events!
-Mary Horrell
Junior Girl
Girl Museum Inc.