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I’m shy, so shy,
I’m shy and I don’t know why
I’m shy, so shy,
Guess you can say I’m just a shy guy...
Painfully shy and quiet, the Shrinking Violet is the withdrawn character, often female, who walks through the school hallways with her head down and wants nothing more than to blend in with the scenery to avoid all attention because she believes that her presence is worthless or unwanted. Expect her to Apologise A Lot. The reasons for her (lack of) self-confidence vary, but they usually include intimidation by the popular ones, being the youngest and more sheltered daughter in the family, and in more dramatic cases, a personal event that convinced her that the world would be better off if she just shut up. The Shrinking Violet usually doesn't suffer the brunt of bullying or taunts that more vocal outcasts take, presumably because she's so quiet that she might as well be invisible.
She will usually be better than average in scholastic classes, though not necessarily at genius or nerd level. Her appearance will often be pretty in a bookish sort of way. Bonus points if she has long dark hair that hides her eyes.
Some Shrinking Violets will accept their status, but be plagued with that nagging feeling that they can be more than they assume. Other Shrinking Violets will hate their crippling insecurities and want to reach out to others, but be paralyzed by fear of rejection. They didn't choose to be alone unlike The Daria, but feel powerless to change it. They may even harbor a secret crush on a popular male classmate which they, time and time again, cannot spit out. Prone to blushing.
One advantage to being the Shrinking Violet is that, being outside the viciously popular circle, the few friends she manages to make are the loyal, lifelong ones who'd give their right arms to help a true friend in need. Which they will, because the Shrinking Violet is invariably of the sweet-tempered, delicate type who makes a great friend and a lousy criticism taker from The Libby or her Girl Posse.
In the end, the Shrinking Violet will always find her inner beauty and strength with the help of her newfound friends or lover, and blossom into a mature, self-confident woman who would make her parents proud. Well... not always. But generally. The Beautiful All Along discovery is optional but highly recommended.
In rare cases, a superficial Shrinking Violet's mousiness will conceal a frightening and/or violent personality. Sometimes, this is also used to conceal the extremely creepy Uncanny Valley Girl.
A male version of this trope may be treated as an instant Butt Monkey for everyone to martyr, or he might be given the role of sympathetic Plucky Comic Relief and overlap with a Lovable Coward. A male Shrinking Violet protagonist will usually face a conflict that finally forces him to come out of his shell, or he'll be thrown headlong into sociability and adventure at the start of the series by a Genki Girl or Magical Girlfriend.
When their shyness is cranked Up To Eleven, the Shrinking Violet becomes a Fragile Flower.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
- Pictured above: Sakuno Ryuzaki in Prince Of Tennis. This is more evident in the anime, which puts emphasis in her clumsiness and chronic shyness and her crush on Ryoma, which didn't work well with Western fans and especially with rabid Ryoma slashers. Her still quiet, but more mature manga self is closer to a traditional Yamato Nadeshiko, and quite more well-regarded in the West.
- The main girl from the Dating Sim Doki Doki Survival: Sanroku no Mystic, Tsugumi Obinata, is also a bit of a Shrinking Violet (and a mild Dojikko) as well. Same goes to Shizuka Hirose, the main chick from Gakuensai no Oujisama, though this depends heavily on which male you're pairing her up with.
- Hinata Hyuuga from Naruto embodies this trope, including the damage her ultra-strict father's family did to her self-esteem, as well as her huge crush on Naruto. When she first saw Naruto after nearly three years she fainted...twice.
- Nozomi and Mayu from "Elfen Lied".
- Shinji is a male version of this in Neon Genesis Evangelion, but he just ends up being a Buttmonkey.
- In Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, Meru Otonashi is this trope taken to its parodic extreme: A cute, fidgety girl who can't get a word out of her mouth in the simplest social situation, which doesn't prevent her from constantly sending floods of nasty, abusive, Fourth Wall-breaking SMS messages to her classmates with her cellphone. And what happens to when she loses signal isn't pretty...
- While on the topic of SZS, it's almost a crime not to mention Kiri Komori on this page. She even has the hair for it.
- Not to mention Kaga Ai. I mean, her entire character is apologizing profusely for being a bother- especially when she isn't. She apologizes for being born.
- Sakaki of Azumanga Daioh can be best described as a Shrinking Sunflower, due to being self-conscious about her size.
- Miyazaki Nodoka of Mahou Sensei Negima fits this trope fairly well, complete with the Hidden Eyes in her early appearances. Currently, however, she's developed more, coming out of her shell around Negi and the others.
- Suzuka of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, especially before meeting Nanoha.
- One really tragic case is Akira Sakura from Naru Taru.
- In the case of Code Geass, this was Nina Einstein's original personality before she went all crazy after the death of her idol and crush, Euphemia..
- Ill Girl Misao in the Pretty Sammy series. It brings quite a contrast to her alter ego of Pixy Misa, a gleefully over the top Card Carrying Villain.
- Similarly, Aimi Komori is an example of this trope until she puts on her magic eye shadow and transforms into the brash, sexy Classy Cat Burglar Shadow Lady.
- Yukino Kikukawa from Mai-HiME, in contrast to her loud and brash best friend and partner, Haruka Suzushiro. Yukino has other friends on campus, but she doesn't speak to them as often, and even when she does, it's usually quietly.
- Machi Kuragi from Fruits Basket. A male example is Wholesome Crossdresser Ritsu Sohma, skirting the line between being played for laughs and being portrayed sympathetically.
- In Suzumiya Haruhi, Yuki Nagato is this in the Alternate Universe. Also gives us plenty of romance.
- Kazumi Yoshida from Shakugan No Shana.
- Hiromi from Diabolo is of this type, to the point of depression.
- Latvia from Axis Powers Hetalia. So much that it's scary
 ◊. Total Chew Toy.
- Also Ukraine, Russia's prone-to-tears older sister. She doesn't fare much better than Latvia, either.
- Koyomi Hare Nanaka from the anime, Girls Bravo.
- Shinobu Maehara from Love Hina.
- Makiko Endou from Hana Yori Dango.
- Miya Alice from Dangaioh. Unless she's piloting the titular Super Robot or somebody threatens her and her partners.
- Jacuzzi Splot from Baccano is so horribly shy and scared of other people that he breaks down into tears just trying to introduce himself.
- One of the rare male Shrinking Violets who are not Butt Monkeys is Yuzo Morisaki from Captain Tsubasa. He's very insecure and was badly traumatised by Hyuga deliberately shooting a ball to his face to intimidate him, but Wakabayashi and Tsubasa openly protect Morisaki from possible bullies, and with time he gets over his trauma and becomes a professional GK. In fact, his nickname in the team is "The Courageous Goal Keeper".
- Another male Shrinking Violet is actually the lead of Hajime No Ippo. He starts boxing actually to find his inner strength. Of course, he's quite the Butt Monkey.
- Later we're introduced to Ippo's biggest fanboy, Naomichi Yamada, who's even more of a Shrinking Violet than Ippo. And another Butt Monkey.
- Massively subverted in Deadman Wonderland, where Mitsuki passes herself off as one when she's actually a sadistic killer. However, her faked personality fits this trope to the T.
- Bitter Virgin Hinako Aikawa is this wherever men are concerned.
- Asuka Mizunokouji from Urusei Yatsura. With added bonuses: she has Super Strength, a huge fear of men thanks to Ataru, and incestuous feelings towards her older brother Tobimarou. All of these are played for comedy.
- Hatsumi from Hot Gimmick, to pathological degrees.
- Zashiki Warashi from XXX Holic, especially in regard to Watanuki.
- Dennou Coil actually has two of these, both male: Denpa, the large but quiet member of the Hacker's Club who is often the victim of his friends' bullying, and Haraken, who winds up on the unfortunate victim end of the plot so often that it makes him something of a woobie.
- Shannon from Umineko No Naku Koro Ni.
- Meiko Rokudo from Ghost Sweeper Mikami, though she might be a parody of the trope more than a straight example.
- Manami in Sprite: Between Two Worlds (Japanese title Sprite: Manami to Nami) combines this with Split Personality — in her youth, Manami's cousin convinced her to play doctor and other risque games by getting her to pretend to be Nami, an over the top self confident alter ego. Manami grew up to be a textbook Shrinking Violet. When The Libby decides to push her too far this combined with her cousin calling out her old nickname causing the outrageously self-confident Nami personality to appear.
- Himeko from Kannazuki No Miko. It is implied that her serious lack of self-confidence is the result of being abused by her foster parents when she was younger.
- Momoko of Saki, so much that she gained the ability to disappear from sight, though her relationship with Yumi has been helping her get out of her shell more.
- Ami Mizuno/Sailor Mercury from Sailor Moon is a quiet and withdrawn Lonely Rich Kid who's always buried in her books, and her peers actually mistake this for arrogance and never approach her. Then comes Usagi Tsukino and pulls her out of her shell, alongisde recruiting her for the Inner Senshi...
- Tsuna from Katekyo Hitman Reborn is a cute, Moe Moe male version of this. He's shy to the point where he's always blushing whenever he talks with girls (and in many instances, guys even), is incredibly shy, and tends to hate standing out, only wanting to live life as a normal boy. And yes, for a long part of the series, he was the series' Butt Monkey.
- Oashii Tomoko of Shitsurakuen.
- Tiffa Addil from After War Gundam X. A good part of her Character Development is centered on her attempts to stop withdrawing from others and starting to reach out for them willingly.
- Maria Ortega in Aoi House, especially when it comes to her breast size.
Comic Books
Fan Fiction
Film
- The titular character of Stephen King's Carrie starts out as a normal Shrinking Violet and is pushed over the edge into supernaturally psycho territory by a malicious prank pulled by the popular girls.
- Cadet Hooks from the first Police Academy movie spends almost the entire film unable to look other characters in the eye and barely speaking above a quiet whisper, until very near the end when arresting a suspect when she screams "DON'T MOVE, DIRTBAG!". She continues to do that in every other Police Academy movie she's in. (Really, if someone that quiet started yelling like that and had a gun, wouldn't you feel like doing what they said?)
- Mui, the female lead of Shaolin Soccer. Hair in the face, mumbling, acne, withdrawn, eventually pulling out of life in public to become a nun. Until the final showdown, of course.
- The titular character of Densha Otoko is a rare male example. He's a cripplingly shy Otaku who's perfectly content with living in his own little world and only talking to people online. That is until he meets a kind and beautiful girl who's actually...*gasp* interested in him! With encouragement and advice from the members of his online community, he pursues her and finally learns to open up a little.
Literature
- In the novel Speak, the main character goes through almost the entire school year basically trying to make it seems like she doesn't exist, because she called the cops at a party over the summer and her old friends and many people she doesn't even know hate her, even though her reason was that she was raped.
- Lirael. A Second Assistant Librarian who, with borderline Wangst bemoans her lack of the Sight, which prevents her from being a Mad Oracle like the rest of the Clayr. Admittedly, it's not like the rest of the Clayr do anything to make her feel loved in the slightest. She gets... better.
- Neville Longbottom from the Harry Potter series started out like this before he took a level in Badass.
- Ginny is this, as well, when we first meet her until about the third or fourth book, when she has become friends with Hermione and learned that she needs to Get Over Him. Of course, transcending from her position as the Shrinking Violet makes her desirable to Harry, so she gets him in the end anyway.
- It's slightly played with though: it's stated by the Weasleys that Ginny acts as a Shrinking Violet when around Harry, but is more or less normal when not in his surroundings.
- Elizabeth "Beth" March of Little Women finds it very difficult, even painful, to talk to people outside her immediate family, and even stops going to school out of shyness. She gets... a little better, but not too much. And then, she becomes an Ill Girl and dies. Sniff.
- "Mother" in the Phule's Company series by Robert Asprin. Nearly the only time she speaks at a normal volume is over the communication network (she's also been a radio DJ). Talking to people in the same room is nearly impossible for her, except under serious emotional stress. Subverted in the sense that "Mother" is revealed to actually have an extremely confident and outgoing personality - she just has a neurological tic that renders her unable to talk if she can hear the sound of her own voice, which is why she's only chatty with her headphones on. (The woman once did a nude photo shoot, fer gossake.)
- Little Miss Shy from the Mr. Men and Little Misses Books (and also in the 80's and 90's TV series.)
- Hal in Havemercy is a rare male representative of this trope.
- Christine in Phantom by Susan Kay describes herself once as a shrinking violet, another time as a "wilting marigold," and again as a shrinking mouse.
- Axel from The Princess 99 is shy, especially around boys but this is because she's insecure. Of course this changes the longer she hangs around Maree-Celee and Skye, the embodiment of a loud-mouthed woman. An adult example would be Prof. Colette, who barely speaks above a whisper but don't piss her off.
- Matthew Cuthbert from Anne Of Green Gables. He's an incredibly shy, older gentleman who gets unbearably nervous whenever talking to women or children (or even other men, sometimes). It's implied that he never had any romance in his life due to this. Of course, deep down, he's one of the biggest softies in the story. But he certainly has it bad - one notable scene includes him being sent to the store to buy a bit of brown sugar. Unfortunately for him, the clerk is a woman, and he's shy to the point where he stammers and tutters that he wants to buy a... garden rake, and... hayseed... and eventually he gets enough courage to say what he actually wants to buy. And even then, he got flustered to the point where he bought twenty pounds of it.
- Actually, he went in to buy Anne a pretty dress for Christmas, since he had actually noticed that all of her dresses were made for her by Marilla with practicality in mind, not fashion. He ends up having to go to a neighbor who he knows well enough to speak to and asks her to take charge.
Live Action TV
- One episode of (all together, now) Buffy The Vampire Slayer had a girl who acted this way; nobody in the school noticed her, or for that matter even knew she existed. Through a combination of quantum physics Techno Babble and the nature of the Hellmouth, she became invisible and snapped, taking revenge on the popular girls. The end of the episode revealed that she apparently wasn't the first girl this had happened to.
- Tara also fits this trope, especially in her early appearances (in season 4 and early season 5).
- Willow also began the show as a painfully shy and innocent Shrinking Violet, but as her self-confidence and magical abilities improved, she evolved into more of a live-action Cute Witch (complete with a temporary transformation into a Dark Magical Girl.
- Keith Dudemeister for his debut episode in Scrubs. His character gets major development after that.
- Young Ned from Pushing Daisies. His shyness, albeit to a lesser degree, extends into adulthood.
Theater
- Laura from The Glass Menagerie fits this to a T. She is so shy that she cannot leave the house or get a job, and (hooray symbolism) spends a lot of time caring for her collection of fragile, delicate glass animals.
Video Games
- In Persona 3, there's Fuuka Yamagishi, the team's resident Mysterious Waif and Mission Control, who has a school reputation for being frail, shy and easily bullied. She's actually much more resilient and headstrong than her reputation suggests, but when Junpei "Leisure Suit Larry" Iori points out how developed she looks in a swimsuit, she can only manage a panicked, inarticulate squeak and quickly hides behind the other female party members in embarrassment.
- And possibly topping Fuuka is "Justice" social link NPC Chihiro Fushimi, the painfully shy student council treasurer who literally can't speak to any male character about anything at all without stammering. Completing her social link sidequest helps her get better, and reveals that she's also a (very mild) Type B tsundere. By Persona 4, she's overcome her shyness enough to become Student Council President.
- And a third, surprising, example in Persona 3 is Akihiko Sanada. The team's Spirited Competitor and school boxing champion, most of the time he's an Aloof Big Brother sort that most of the girls in the school would love to date ...at least, until he actually tries to impress a girl, and falls into a nervous stammer. A character video late in the game shows him reading books in his room on how to talk to girls and trying, and failing, to rehearse a conversation without getting flustered.
- Mio Kisaragi, Megumi Mikihara and Miharu Tatebayashi from the first Tokimeki Memorial. Each, in their own ways: Mio is a Meganekko Ill Girl, Megumi is very sheltered and naive, Miharu is clumsy and awkward.
- Fire Emblem has a few:
- Mia Ausa from Lunar: The Silver Star.
- Despinis, one of the Homunculus of Duminuss in Super Robot Wars fits this trope to a T. Even when attacking, there's not a chance she'll not slip up the phrase "I'm sorry". All with a face of a half-sick, super shy Lolicon bait. On the bright side, she does have some sort of kindness streak and this proves to be beneficial that in OG Gaiden, instead of dying like in her original role in R, she ends up surviving.
- Male Example: In Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, Emil fits this trope squarely. It probably doesn't help that everyone else in his hometown, his own aunt and uncle included, believe he's a worthless scum who'd be better off dead.
- Emil also subverts this trope in Ratatosk Mode, where he becomes a very blunt Jerk With a Heart of Gold, and pretty much the exact opposite of the "Normal" Emil.
- Ron Delite of the third Ace Attorney game was this, to the point that his dialogue often trails off into inaudibility (represented by the text fading into the background). This is rather ironic because his alter ego is the flamboyant thief Mask☆DeMasque.
- In Pokemon there's Jasmine, the Gym Leader of Olivine City, to the point where her gym has no other trainers in it besides herself. She makes a cameo appearance in the fourth generation games and proves to be just as timid as ever.
- The fourth generation also has Marley, who only speaks just enough to get the point across.
- Male example: Vivi from Final Fantasy IX.
- Hanako of Katawa Shoujo most definitely counts.
- Mr. Lopez from Fallout 3.
- Another male example: Shizumaru Hisame from Samurai Shodown.
Web Comics
Web Original
- Erika Swanson of Erika's New Perfume is definitely one of these, though she is very gradually coming out of it. Still not helped by the situation she wound up in trying to magically resolve it, even if it is slowly doing the trick.
- Subverted in Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. The titular character is painfully shy, and has been quietly in love with a girl from his laundromat for months. Ironically, his alter ego is a megalomaniacal villain who wants to rule the world.
Western Animation
- The appropriately-named Violet Parr from The Incredibles. Not only is she incredibly shy, she has the hair, the mumble, and a desire to be just another girl. Her family are superheroes in hiding, and her powers are invisibility and forcefields. Needless to say, she embraces her abnormalities and puts her hair back by the end of the film.
- A rare male, yet non-Butt Monkey example: Austin from The Backyardigans also embodies this trope. Not only he's purple (violet), during the first season he was very shy and didn't speak a lot (heck, he had songs about that). Uniqua, however, helps him get over his shyness. Because of that, you can say Austin wants her more than just a friend.
- Sheila the Thief from the Dungeons And Dragons animated series.
- Boo from Mighty Orbots.
- Stacy from Daria, the shy and sweetest member of Quinn's Fashion Club.
- Male example: Shifty Dingo in the 2nd season of Blinky Bill after his Heel Face Turn easily qualifies as one of these. He's much more quiet than the rest of the gang and also has a Lovable Coward side to him.
- Male example: Jimmy from Ed Edd N Eddy
- Another male (kinda) example from Futurama would be Kif Kroker, who is usually a Deadpan Snarker when dealing with his boss Zapp Brannigan, but seems to show this side when his Love Interest Amy is around. In the episode that brought them together as a couple, she kept getting phone calls of someone breathing and panting heavily on the other end; she assumed they were prank calls, when it was really Kif calling to tell her how he feels, and hyperventilating too much to manage a single word before she'd hang up.
Real Life
- In what must have been a freak coincidence or a mass collective consciousness outburst, a recent online poll asking the citizens of Israel to pick their national flower was confidently led by the bold, bright red Anemone-coronaria, until the very last hours of the voting where people saw the anemone was winning and started voting en masse for the Cyclamen - a flower which has about it a long-established folk mythology of female shy and purple anthropomorphism, going back to an ancient legend of King Solomon praising "her" for her shyness and purpleness and humility and whatnot. In essence, this was the triumph of the Shrinking Violet by a twisted form of voter preference backlash culminating in The Casey Effect. Wow.
- Well, if we want to get technical, the vast majority of us nerdy/geeky types(of both genders, even!) seem to suffer from this to some degree or another, possibly making this a case of Truth In Television.
- I definitely disagree with the "vast majority" claim. If anything, it's probably more that when confronted with a severely shy person, others are prone to think, "I bet they're a geek, too."
- Partially a case of truth in television, the condition is known as Avoidant personality disorder, these people have a crippling fear of rejection and constant worries of looking foolish or bad, they closely monitor everything they say, and every reaction from anyone they're speaking to, (on the rare occasion that they even do speak to others) this often results in broken speech patterns and a lack of fluency, due to having their attention split between tasks. These people will often wind up choosing to be lonely, rather than risk rejection. However, where the trope fails the reality test is in the "growing out of it" part. In reality, the condition usually just becomes worse and worse. Sufferers rarely seek help, either because they don't want to waste a therapist's time, or they are worried they'll be rejected by them (Although, in TV land, there's another reason). In a painful irony many sufferers, due to their lack of speaking or participating in activities, are viewed as aloof or arrogant. When really, they're so nervous when they're spoken to that they may be rendered literally incapable of speech. This is of course, the most severe form of this anxiety disorder; there are plenty of others who remain functional, but very shy, isolated from society and unhappy with their situation. With a proper support network involving family and friends, such people can be coaxed into therapy, where counseling and medication can alleviate many of the symptoms.
- A more common and less severe version that also results in people that fit this trope is Social Phobia (also known as Social Anxiety Disorder). Encountering unfamiliar people or being placed in a situation where the sufferer is possibly subject to scrutiny leads to intense anxiety or panic attacks.
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