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Violetta
"You aren't allowed to commit suicide! Only I must kill you!" ✣
| Violetta | |
  Added by Ravenhull | |
| Name | Violetta |
| Occupation | Smoke Knight |
| First Appearance | Insulting Tarvek ✣ |
| Relatives | Grandma, somewhere |
Violetta is a relative newcomer to the story, a trained Smoke Knight (whatever that may be), and apparently a fairly experienced adventurer. She is related by blood to Tarvek Sturmvoraus, though the exact nature of this relation (apparently some sort of cousin ✣ ) is unclear. She has a great deal of animosity directed at him, primarily for forcing her back into some sort of active duty, for which she says she has no affinity whatsoever, but also for being an all around (according to her, anyway) annoyingly suicidal nitwit. Nonetheless, and despite her contrariwise attitude,[1] she does everything she can to keep him alive.
Her bag of tricks[2] includes the same kind of grapnel gun as used by Veilchen much earlier. This may or may not mean that Veilchen, too, is/was a Smoke Knight, particularly given their apparent links to House Sturmvoraus.
In releasing her to House Heterodyne upon the possiblity of his impending death, Tarvek reveals that he is a member of The Order and that her position is directly in fealty to them. He also reveals that he, himself, as "King" (Storm King?) is still under authority of The Order.
Although Violetta is aware of her own incompetence as a security operative, she is not yet aware that that incompetence extends to being unable to follow her own suspicions and actually deduce the merely figurehead role of the Mechanicsburgermeister despite being his secretary for an extended period of time.[3]
Recent actions have cast some doubt on Violetta´s self-description as incompetent. She is at least good enough in misdirection and sleight-of-hand to remove Theo DuMedd from Agatha´s grasp and replace him with an inflatable doll, without Lucrezia, then the dominant occupant of Agatha´s body, noticing until two panels after the fact. This, in turn, poses an interesting (and perhaps disquieting) question: if Violetta is a rather incompetent Smoke Knight, what kind of tricks do the really competent ones have up their figurative sleeves?
Possibly relevant outside information
Edit
"Violetta" means "violet", just like "Veilchen" does - only, in this case, in Italian instead of German.
Most real-world stage magic is, in fact, nothing but "misdirection and sleight-of-hand", yet its practitioners are capable of a number of astounding feats that the uninformed have no way of explaining if they are not in on it. The part of stage magic which is not nothing but misdirection and sleight-of-hand is instead misdirection and sleight-of-hand plus some fancy clever gadgets - a category of equipment which, one must presume, the story´s Smoke Knights probably have some access to, as they serve a line of powerful Sparks.
Purple smoke is used by the military to mark places where rapid egress is required--or at least it was in Vietnam.
