Vanellope von Schweetz is a racer in the video game Sugar Rush within Disney's 2012 animated feature film Wreck-It Ralph. She is the true ruler of Sugar Rush who had been turned into a glitch.
Video Games[]
- Wreck-It Ralph: The Video Game
- Disney Infinity
Background[]
Vanellope von Schweetz was the main character of the video game, Sugar Rush. Not only was she the lead character, she was also the in-game world's princess. However, at some point prior to the start of the film, an old racing video game character named Turbo, hijacked Sugar Rush, turned himself into a character named King Candy, and tried to delete Vanellope's code (but couldn't), turning her into a glitch instead. Once Vanellope became a glitch, King Candy was free to rule the kingdom, having all the inhabitants of Sugar Rush's memories of Princess Vanellope locked away. However, if Vanellope was to ever cross the finish line in an official race, her code will be restored and the throne will be hers once more. To prevent this from occurring, King Candy, with the help of his minion, and Vanellope's former assistant, Sour Bill, had the citizens of the game believe having a glitch race could lead to the game being unplugged. Due to this lie, Vanellope was repeatedly tormented and ostracized by the game's citizens, most notably the racers, led by Taffyta Muttonfudge. Vanellope was able to find sanctuary within Diet Cola Mountain, a volcano that towers over the land of Sugar Rush that also homes an unfinished bonus track.
As a result of her being a glitch, Vanellope was unable to leave the game and escape her tormentors. However, she also gained the unique ability to glitch, or teleport, from place to place in the blink of an eye, though she didn't have much control over it, and it sometimes hindered her efforts to get into races.
Personality[]
Vanellope is an energetic and tomboyishly beautiful little girl filled with life and humor. Sadly, years of bullying has left Vanellope with a sour outlook on life and people, meaning she is often prone to heavy insulting and sassy remarks. Luckily, Vanellope was able to see the goodness in people through the friendship of Wreck-It Ralph. Though she was often bullied by the game's other young racers, Vanellope was apparently more than happy to attempt making amends, referring to the others as her "fellow racers". This shows that Vanellope is a very forgiving person. This is also seen during the scene where Ralph reunites with Vanellope after destroying her kart. It took no time at all for the young girl to forgive Ralph after the Bad Guy admitted he was wrong for what he did. Another example is when Vanellope regains her throne and gladly accepts the citizens of Sugar Rush's apology for tormenting the girl once their memories of her rule were restored.
Vanellope is also incredibly determined, strong-willed, and very loving. Even after 15 years of torment and being told she could never race, the young girl always took the chance to live her dream should a chance come her way. Vanellope's loving ways are best expressed in the scene where Sugar Rush was invaded by Cy-Bugs, yet Vanellope was the only citizen unable to escape. Here, she calmly tells Ralph to go on without her, completely accepting the fact that she was about to die. Ralph's safety was far more important than her own in her eyes, as the Bad Guy was the only person to ever show her kindness at that point, which meant the world to her.
Another example is displayed when Vanellope gives Ralph a gift for helping her create a real racing kart; a homemade medal that reads, "You're my hero." given to the Bad Guy in case she didn't win his original heroes medal back at the end of the Random Roster Race, knowing how much earning a medal meant to him.
She also has a twisted sense of humor, notably shown when she kidded the racers into thinking she was going to have them executed for treating her like dirt.
She declined to be referred to as a "princess", opting instead to be called a president of a "constitutional democracy".
Powers and abilities[]
Powers[]
- Glitching: she gained this ability after King Candy messed with her code, causing her body to pixelate randomly. She can also affect anyone she touches to glitch as well, such as Taffyta, and even temporarily remove a virtual disguise, as seen with King Candy, when he temporarily turned back into Turbo.
- Teleportation: her glitching ability also allows her to teleport through walls and avoid her enemies.
- Intangibility: her glitching also makes her untouchable and able to phase through walls when she teleports.
- Semi-Immortality: as a videogame character, she can never die of age, but is only vulnerable to death if she leaves her game. This was fixed in the case of Slaughter Race when Shank programmed her code into the game so she would be able to regenerate.
- Indomitable willpower: in spite of losing her memory and of what everyone in Sugar Rush told her, she had a strong sense that she was meant to race and proved it to be correct.
Abilities[]
- Agility: she was able to move fast enough to avoid Ralph from grabbing her on a candy tree and from falling off a double-striped branch.
- Racing skills: Vanellope was originally programmed to race, but forgot how to drive after her memory was locked away. Eventually, she retained her racing talents with some help from Ralph and was shown to be very good at it, even better than King Candy himself. Her race car driving also impressed the likes of Shank, who welcomed Vanellope into her family.
Physical Appearance[]
From left to right: Vanellope's regular outfit; Vanellope in her princess gown.
Vanellope is a 9-year old girl whose overall appearance is often described as adorable, even by Ralph himself. Being a child, she is short in stature and has raven-black licorice-binding ponytailed hair with candy sprinkled over it. She has fair skin and hazel eyes that are rather large with an Anime influence and also carries a slender body. She noticeably has an overbite as well as a small pink chipmunk-like nose, as do most of the Sugar Rush racers. As said before, Vanellope's design, as well as the other Sugar Rush racers, were inspired by Japanese/Anime influences, notably by the art style of Chibi. Similar to how the other leads in the movie have their faces based off their voice actors, Vanellope's face and hair are designed to make her look like a kidified version of Sarah Silverman.
Vanellope's signature "glitch" outfit is a mint green hoodie with a double-layered brown skirt that resembles the wrapping of a peanut-butter cup (many of the girls have skirts like this), green, white and purple leggings, and small black boots. It is notable that her leggings are mismatched, one covered in broad mint green bands, the other in thinner mint bands and purple lines. They are designed to resemble candy cane stripes. Her hoodie laces and stitches are red and resemble licorice candies, such as Twizzlers. Underneath said hoodie is a violet shirt, it's only seen in a "blink and you'll miss it" scene in the video game's last cut scene. Her ponytail is also tied with a Twizzler. The pink squiggles under Vanellope's boots resemble icing. Vanellope also owns red racing goggles that were seen during the Random Roster Race's coin depositing.
On the side of the Sugar Rush game cabinet, Vanellope can be seen in her royal racing attire which is a teal, orange and white jumpsuit with brown gloves. In the film's concept art, Vanellope's racing attire comes with a white helmet with a golden crown design detailed onto it.
As a princess, Vanellope wore a beautiful full skirted glittery long-sleeved gown with lacy white gloves. Her gradient pink petticoat is noticeably covered in pink, white and red gumdrops, sprinkled everywhere like beads. However, chocolate sprinkles can be seen on the lower end of the petticoat. The skirt has many layers and opens in the front to show a deep pink underskirt. Her gown was also given a pink, flowing cloak, and a large, high, white lace heart collar, resembling Elizabethan royal attire. The collar is edged in a cut-out pattern of candy canes and lollipops, and in addition she wears another, somewhat smaller, white ruffled collar. In this outfit, Vanellope's hair is up in a bun instead of a ponytail, and is covered in sprinkles that are various shades of pink. She also wore a red tiara. With the outfit, Vanellope also owns a pink lollipop scepter with a noticeable crown symbol over it. Although she dislikes it, she wore it at Calhoun and Felix's wedding as her maid of honor outfit.
Disney Parks[]
Vanellope as she appears at the Disney Parks.
Vanellope and Ralph are currently making appearances at some of the Disney theme parks, dressed as how she appears during most of the movie but is now around 4' tall. At Walt Disney World, Vanellope was present at Disney's Hollywood Studios' Magic of Disney Animation attraction and greeted fans who walk through a making of exhibit in a Wreck-It Ralph themed area, until being discontinued in October 2014. Vanellope is also seen driving the trams in Disney's Hollywood Studios. Both she and Ralph also took part of the Disneyland Christmas Day parade in the winter of 2012.
On October 31, 2013, Vanellope, along with Ralph and a few other Disney characters, made guest appearances in DisneyQuest (where Ralph has gone to become the mascot) for a special Halloween event.
Vanellope and Ralph also appear in the nighttime spectacular, World of Color in Disney California Adventure in the winter rendition Winter Dreams.
In 2014, Vanellope, along with Ralph, was added to the Magic Kingdom's annual Mickey's Boo-to-You Halloween Parade, as well as Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party in November.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
Vanellope models by Suzan Kim.
- According to director Rich Moore and Sarah Silverman, Vanellope is 9 years old. However, according to executive producer John Lasseter, she is 12 years old.
- However, it is hard to tell, as she could have been inspired by the Chibi style (see below).
- Vanellope is the only main character that never called Ralph by his title 'Wreck-it'.
- Vanellope is also the only character who knew about Ralph's origins that didn't accuse him of going/believe he had gone Turbo.
- Vanellope's hands only have four fingers, as opposed to Ralph and the other main characters' five.
- Vanellope had no memory of being Princess of Sugar Rush because Turbo locked up the memories of all the racers, including hers.
- Vanellope is the third young Disney Heroine to be openly picked/bullied/ridiculed on. Others are Melody and Lilo.
- Vanellope's name is actually a portmanteau of "vanilla", a type of dessert flavoring, and "Penelope", a Greek-based girl's name (which means weaver). According to Greek mythology, Penelope was the wife of Odysseus, who was constantly waiting for her husband to return from the battle of Troy and subsequently, his Odyssey. During Odysseus' Odyssey, many people thought that her real husband was dead and sent many suitors to try to marry her, but were ultimately driven out by Odysseus upon his return and proving them to be her real husband. Vanellope also sounds similar to "vanilla bean."
- Also, her title, "von", is actually German for "of", which is often used by German nobility.
- Her last name, "Schweetz", is a pun of the word "sweet" with a slightly German touch (Schweetz). "Schweetz" may also be the way a young child would pronounce the word "sweets".
- Vanellope, along with the other Sugar Rush racers, are partly based on the Chibi style; a style used in anime that depicts characters as small, cute and, at most times, childish.
- Upon close inspection, Vanellope's skirt is made of Reese's Peanut Butter Cup wrappers.
- Although it is stated that Vanellope is unable to leave her game due to her being a glitch, at the end she can be seen attending Felix and Calhoun's wedding as Calhoun's maid-of-honor. In fact during the credits she can be seen traveling with Ralph, Felix and Calhoun to different video games, this is due to her reintegration after the game reset, leaving her "glitchy" (i.e. capable of teleporting within the game) but no longer a glitch.
- When creating Vanellope, she was described as having "a hint of Sarah (Silverman), a hint of Cindy Lou Who, combined with this grubby little Pippi Longstocking moppet kid."
- Despite having hazel eyes in the movie, posters, etc., Vanellope can clearly be seen with bright green eyes when she is shown on the side of the cabinet after Ralph throws away his medal.
- Interestingly enough, Vanellope is never shown racing in her white tracksuit after she resets the game, nor is she seen racing in her original cart which was stolen by King Candy. It's implied that the kart that she and Ralph created was eventually incorporated into the game and her supposed original (King Candy's) was presumably destroyed when King Candy transformed into a Cy-Bug and was killed.
- Vanellope is the only character in Sugar Rush who wears a hoodie, as the other characters wear jackets, and she is also the only one who does not wear a helmet or cap in her head, instead she wears red goggles.
- When Vanellope refers to Ralph as "Gladys", she is possibly referencing the main antagonist of the Portal series, GLaDOS. However, if that is true, then she mispronounced the name, as it is most likely pronounced "Glah-Dos", and is actually an acronym (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System).
- Vanellope's princess dress resembles the dresses worn by royal women during the 16th-17th century. (Ex. Queen Elizabeth.)
- Originally, Vanellope was going to have grayish-green skin to show viewers that she was a glitch, but her animators eventually decided against it since they thought it would make her look too much like a zombie.
- Also, Vanellope is the only character from Sugar Rush to see in person King Candy's real identity as Turbo; however, she does not seem to know anything about Turbo's origin much less recognize him, whereas the majority of the inhabitants of the video game world do, which can be seen in the cases of Wreck-It Ralph and Fix-It Felix. Thus, it is unknown if Vanellope saw Turbo before he snatched her throne and locked her memories, though another possible theory suggests that Turbo supposedly disappeared years before the Sugar Rush game console was first plugged in the arcade, explaining the girl's ignorance of the rogue racer.
- Throughout the whole movie, Ralph usually refers to Vanellope as "kid" instead of her real name. He only refers to her as "Vanellope" twice in the whole film.
- Vanellope is the third Disney heroine to be unaware that she was a princess. Aurora was the first and Rapunzel was the second.
- Vanellope's princess dress vaguely resembles one of the dresses of young Charlotte La Bouff from The Princess and the Frog. Whether this was intentional or not, or if the dress was used as the basis for Vanellope's gown design, is unknown.
- Vanellope is similar to Midna from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, as they are both imp-like princesses who both accompany the hero after being cursed by their villains, who are the false rulers of the place they came from. Near the end of their stories, both are revealed to be the true rulers of their respective realms, and remain within their kingdom to allow a new rule from them.
- Vanellope is the second well-known Princess to be live in modern world after Princess Leia from Star Wars.
- In 2013, there were 63 babies name Vanellope in the US, up from zero in previous years.
- Vanellope's Latin-American Spanish voice actress is Maria Antonieta de las Nieves, best known for her portrayal of "La Chilindrina" in the highly popular TV show "El Chavo del Ocho".
Credit[]
- Disney Wiki