The Umbrella Academy is taking over Netflix. The comic book adaptation gives life to a group of seven extraordinary children who were all born on the same day and under the unusual circumstance that none of their mothers were even pregnant prior to the day they were born.
Sir Reginald Hargreeves adopted seven of the 43 babies born in this strange circumstance with the intent of raising them up to save the world.
Number Seven, Vanya, was raised to believe she didn’t possess any power at all, unlike her six adopted siblings — but that couldn’t be more wrong.
Why did Sir Reginald Hargreeves hide Vanya’s power?
Instead, it turned out that Vanya was more powerful than any of her siblings, something that her adopted father, Reginald Hargreeves, knew and tried to conceal.
Due to the intensity of Vanya’s power and the fact that it was tied to her emotions, he worried that she was far too powerful and if left unchecked, she could (and did) destroy the world.
He even employed the power of her sister Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman) to cause Vanya to believe that she was ordinary and didn’t possess any power at all after formulating a pill for Vanya to take each day to suppress her power.
In one scene, we saw Vanya as a young child as her mother told her, “You have to take your medicine. It will help calm your nerves.”
We learn much more about Vanya’s powers after she meets Leonard Peabody, whose real name is Harold Jenkins. He’s not a good guy and his intention behind befriending Vanya helped lead them to the destruction of the world — something her siblings are trying to stop.
What is Vanya’s power?
Leonard/Harold helps Vanya to realize just how powerful she is after finding a journal kept by Reginald Hargreeves. It turned out that Vanya’s powers were tied to her emotions. The more upset she becomes, the more destructive she can be.
When Vanya is feeling a strong emotion, like we see on The Umbrella Academy when she gets angry, she is able to channel that energy through the elements.
She first used her power when Leonard was getting beat up in the parking lot. Vanya’s fear was channeled into a rainstorm that she was then able to direct in order to hurt the mean who were beating Leonard.
Still, Vanya didn’t seem to understand her gift but Leonard did. He started pushing her harder to train and learn how to harness her powers in order for him to use them against her own family.
Leonard wanted Vanya to spend all of her time on her newfound power even though she had other things to do, which ultimately exposed him for what he already knew about Vanya and why he befriended her in the first place.
That only came after Vanya nearly killed her sister Allison, who confronted her in an effort to get her away from Leonard and back to their family. After admitting that she played a role in Vanya’s long-held belief that she was ordinary, Vanya lost her temper and lashed out at her sister, nearly killing her.
When Vanya found the journal that Leonard had been hiding, she realized that he was manipulating her all along. Again, her intense anger was turned into energy which she ultimately used to kill him.
After Vanya killed Leonard Peabody/Harold Jenkins, she headed back home to explain her actions to her siblings and to ask them to forgive her.
Before she could make amends, Luther (Tom Hopper) locked her up, which ended up making her angry again, resulting in the destruction of the academy and the death of their chimpanzee assistant Pogo, who also had a part in concealing her power.
Then, Vanya went to her concert, where she took her seat as the first-chair violin. There we learned that it’s not just her anger that effect’s Vanya’s power. The intense emotion that she felt while playing her violin again ignited Vanya’s ability to harness the elements.
As fans of the comic book series already knew, during this concert is when Vanya reached her full potential. As she played her violin, the wind started welling up and as Vanya played with pure intensity.
Her eyes grew intense then her clothing and violin turn white, finally transforming her into The White Violin.
As The White Violin, Vanya was still playing as the elements crashed around her, causing the destruction of the world.
Season 2 will see the