>>808058
>>808061
>>808067
>>808107
See, this is something I don't understand. The worldbuilding is sloppy at best, the pacing can be very jarring, the episodic drama is sometimes be very shallow to the point of being melodramatic, but Violet has gotten a fairly good characterization and development through mostly showing rather than telling, this may be why some people think her character is all over the place, but the cues are there.
I'm guessing by off-screen development you mean from episode 4 to 5. There was a timeskip, but her basic characteristics and character traits were still appropriate. Violet is shown to be a very literal character in the beginning, a bit self-centered, and she can be perceptive, and later in the show, empathetic, that is when something directly relates to her, like in 1st pic related. This is why she was very eager to know how the story ended in episode 7, it was basically about her, and we later see her finally 'getting' it, not by putting herself in other people's shoes, but vice versa. She projected her own experience and unfulfilled promises onto all the people she's killed as the catalyst to understand why she was 'burning'. We see her struggle during the first 3 episodes, trying to understand what an auto memoir doll does, but we also see her commit herself to her role. She isn't just trying to "find what love is" through that profession, she's focused. She manages to pass the course, but it wasn't because she wrote one letter, it is established that she's the best in class at grammar, vocabulary, typing speed, etc. It is also established that a doll not only ghostwrites but it can be used for many other things; Violet's technical skills alone could land her a job in that industry as a Jr already. She doesn't do an amazing job with that letter, but she showed the headmaster that she's committed and that he can in fact express a client's true feelings on paper. The headmaster "HOPES Violet becomes an optimal doll", she wasn't one yet at that point. You have to remember that was a short term course, this is stated at the end of episode 2, the same episode where Violet learned that people can be contradictory.
Episode 4 was very bad, holy shit I hated it, but it confirmed that Violet had become a decent doll. She's still very literal, specially when it comes to anything relating to love, in that regard she's not only literal but ignorant, the difference here is that she's already aware of that. She's a decent doll now because at the very end, when Violet asks if her letters were good and Iris nods, we realize those letters weren't dictated, but ghostwrited by Violet. In summary, she went from not knowing what a doll was, to completely blowing her first job in episode 2, in episode 3 she showed many character traits that are essential to understand why there was no actual development off-screen, she's focused, committed and extremely proficient in the technical aspects of letter writing. In episode 4 we see her admit her own failings but we also see her perform a very competent job. This is all a setup for the timeskip. What we didn't see in the timeskip was more of the same.
Her growth in episode 5 has to do with her experience as a doll, not as a human being. She's still literal, she still doesn't have a clue what love is, and this is made evident when she makes the princess write her own letters, she's out of her zone and she knows it (something she learned through episodes 2-4), but what's more important, she uses that opportunity to see more aspects of love, she breaks the rules of a doll and lets Charlotte write her own letters not only because that would be best for the princess' current situation, but also for her (Violet's) own sake. She's very involved and attentive with everything that goes on between Charlotte and the prince, she watches them as they confess their love and get engaged in person, then makes a remark with how their love came true. She knows her prose, grammar and structure, it is made clear that she has spent the timeskip working with clients AND reading novels, THAT is as far as her off-screen development goes. Second pic is another example of how she projects other people into herself, that's the only way she can empathize and understand other people at the beginning.
>>808131
Her inhuman abilities were shown since episode 1, I think we all knew what we were getting into and while I agree with you that her superpowers seem mostly unnecessary, they were there from the very beginning, so Violet's backstory didn't really derail the show, it was setup from the get go.