Character Analysis
An Old-Fashioned Girl
Quendy. Loga. Calista. Violet. Which of these things is not like the other? (Hint: it's the one with the grandma name).
Violet may be making a comeback, but it's still an old-fashioned name that matches perfectly with her gray wool dress and black stockings (3.4).
Srsly tho: this girl is so retro that we would probably think she was in some sort of a cult if we didn't know better. Her parents objected to all of the popular toys. She doesn't go to SchoolTM, but is homeschooled. And she didn't even get a feed until she was seven years old, both because her parents could not afford it, and because they morally objected to it.
Despite all this weird granola stuff, she's still pretty youch, as the guys would say. Link and Marty fall all over themselves to flash her their grody lesions (4.29-35), and Titus describes her own lesion as "beautiful [...] like a necklace. A red choker" (4.22).
Hot and Smart
Violet doesn't just have a sexy lesion; she's also super smart, with a lot of curiosity compared to Titus and his slack-jawed friends. They're all "meh" in the low-gravity lounge, but she can't get enough of it:
She just opened her mouth and pushed [the juice] out with her tongue. The juice came out of her lips as if it was being extracted real careful by a rock-star dentist who she loved. Her eyes were barely open, and it came out in lo-grav/no-grav as a beautiful, purple wobble.
It hung in front of her, her juice. It stayed inches from her face. Her tongue was close behind it, perched in the air like a pink slug gargoyle.
With her eyes almost shut, she watched traces on the drink's round surface swirl. (3.13-15)
She's clearly interested in exploring this low-grav/no-grav environment, and is experimenting with the juice like she's some kind of gravitational artist slash two-year-old discovering food for the first time. Ten points to Violet for basic curiosity in the world around her.
Violet also shows off her intelligence several times throughout the book, to the point where Titus not-so-jokingly remarks that she was "learning ancient Swahili or building a replica of Carthage out of iron filings or finding the cure for entropy" (25.48). And unfortunately we do kind of mean "show off": Violet seems to lack the basic social intelligence that tells you to adapt to the world around you.
On the other hand, that refusal to adapt lets her resist the feel. Sure, it makes her unpopular—but it also makes her a righteous rebel. She's grown up in a whole other world, one that keeps up with current events and doesn't buy into every hot, but stupid, consumer trend like wearing big fake teeth over your real teeth. That's why she comes up with the idea of resisting the feed by making herself invisible to it. Pretty smart, right? (Sure, up until it backfires on her.)
Slummin' It
If you're thinking that Violet sounds suspiciously perfect, don't worry. Like we said, she's a little bit show-offy and a lot condescending to Titus and his friends. She wants to check out how the other half lives, but Titus can tell that her motivations might be more than a little messed-up:
You wanted to mingle with the common people. Just latch on to this one dumbass, and make fun of his friends for being stupid, while all the time, having this little wish that you could be like us, without thinking about what we're like, or what our problems are, or that we might be like saving the environment or anything, but we have our own problems—now you're—you know? You know? (53.61)
In other words, Titus is accusing Violet of treating the other kids like a tourist sideshow, instead of seeing them as real people who may be shallow but still have their own problems, and their own wishes, hopes and desires. In the end, Violet acknowledges it in a roundabout way. She emails Titus, "I always thought that you could teach me things. I was always waiting. You're not like the others. You say things that no one expects you to [...] But there's always time to change. There's always time. Until there's not" (54.2-4).
Okay, so she still kind of throws the others under upcar, but she admits that (1) Titus has some depth to him, and (2) change might be possible, given enough time. Too bad for both of them that there's definitely not time enough.
Resistance is Futile
Ironically, in the end Violet's rebellion does her in. Because she interferes with FeedTech's profile of her shopping habits, they (and other corporations) are unable to "get a handle" on her buying habits, and so she's deemed a bad investment risk for having her feed repaired for free. (Think about that next time you turn off cookies on Amazon.)
Talk about corporate power: in the end Violet is just another commodity, a cold equation on some corporate balance sheet. And she's in the red.