Vanellope Von Shweetz

Vanellope von Schweetz is the deuteragonist of the 2012 Disney animated film Wreck-It Ralph, and is voiced by Sarah Silverman. She is the 6th Official Member of the Junior Disney Princesses.



Official Disney Bio
Known as “The Glitch”, Vanellope is a pixelating programming mistake in the candy-coated cart-racing game Sugar Rush. With a racer’s spirit embedded in her coding, Vanellope is determined to earn her place in the starting lineup amongst the other racers. Only problem: the other racers don’t want her or her glitching in the game. Years of rejection have left Vanellope with a wicked sense of humor and a razor-sharp tongue. However, somewhere beneath that hard shell is a sweet center just waiting to be revealed.

Background
Vanellope von Schweetz is the central character of the video game, Sugar Rush. Not only was she the lead character, she was also the world's princess. However, at some point, an old video game character named Turbo, hijacked Sugar Rush, turned himself into a character named King Candy, and tried to delete Vanellope's code, turning her into a glitch. 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 up. However, if Vanellope was to ever cross the finish line in an official race, her codes will be restored and the throne will be hers once more. To prevent this from occurring, King Candy 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, where an unfinished bonus track is located.

As a result of her being a glitch, Vanellope was unable to leave the game and escape her tormentors. She also gained the ability to glitch, or teleport, from place to place in the blink of an eye, though she didn't have much control over it.

Personality
Vanellope is an energetic, cute and tomboyishly beautiful little girl filled with life and humor. Sadly, despite her cuteness and beauty, years of bullying has left Vanellope with a sour look 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".

Trivia

 * According to Rich Moore and Sarah Silverman, Vanellope is 9 years old. However, according to 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'.
 * It is apparent that Vanellope has no memories of being a princess. A possible explaination could be that when King Candy locked up the racers memories, her's were erased as well.
 * Vanellope's name is actually a portmanteau of "vanilla", a type of dessert flavoring, and "Penelope", a Greek-based girl's name. 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.
 * Also, her title, "von", is actually German for "of", which is often used by German nobility.
 * And plus, her last name is a pun, because is "sweet", but with a slightly German touch (Schweetz).
 * 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, you will see that 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.
 * Supposedly, when Vanellope refers to Ralph as "Gladys", she is actually 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).
 * When Ralph sees Vanellope on the side of the game console, she isn't wearing her dress like the scene where Vanellope gets her code back and finally becomes an actual game character.
 * Vanellope appears to share some similarities to Midna from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess as the two are both impish females who help the hero on his quest, and are ultimately revealed to be a princess that was cursed by the villain (Midna by Ganondorf, Vanellope by Turbo).
 * Vanellope's princess dress resembles the dresses worn by royal women during the 16th-17th century.

Similarities with other Disney characters

 * Vanellope is the fourth main character Disney child to have black hair, the previous three being Pinocchio, Mowgli from The Jungle Book, and Lilo from Lilo & Stitch.
 * Vanellope is the second princess to have hazel eyes, after Belle.
 * Vanellope shares a few other similarities with Lilo from Lilo & Stitch. Both girls were picked on by a group of "popular girls", and they both made friends with unlikely characters who were deemed bad and deemed to destroy (Vanellope with Ralph, and Lilo with Stitch).
 * Vanellope is somewhat like Princess Merida in several ways:
 * Both Vanellope and Merida have somewhat messy hair (Vanellope's being covered in bits of random candy, Merida's being red and frizzy).
 * Neither Vanellope nor Merida have love interests, unlike most Disney Princesses.
 * Vanellope and Merida both debuted in 2012.
 * Both Vanellope and Merida are tomboys and prefer to do things their way rather than how others do (Vanellope would rather race than be reviled as a glitch, and Merida would rather do less ladylike things than be a stereotypical princess.)
 * Both Vanellope and Merida change their fate in some way (Vanellope saves her game and Game Central Station as a whole, as well as redeems her proper place as princess, and a spell changes Merida's fate, turning her mother and brothers into bears, forcing her to try and figure out how to reverse the effects.)
 * Vanellope and Merida are both princesses, but are unorthodox (Vanellope being a Glitch, Merida being tomboyish and rebellious.)
 * Vanellope shares some similarities with Princess Rapunzel from Tangled.
 * Both were Princesses, but were unaware. (Vanellope's mind was wiped by Turbo, whilst Rapunzel was kidnapped by Mother Gothel as an infant.)
 * Both Rapunzel and Vanellope made a deal with those who were thought of a criminal (Ralph being a wrecker; Eugene being a thief).
 * The friendship between Vanellope and Ralph, is also similar to the friendship between Zugor and Tarzan.
 * Vanellope is the second princess to move out of the princess title, after Kida. (Kida becomes a queen, while Vanellope becomes a president.)
 * Vanellope's princess transformations resembles that of Cinderella's and the Beast's.