init method in kotlin dependent on order of variables and init method declaration

Question

In kotlin, for any class which has an init method (I found this example in a ViewModel) why is the following valid:

val variable1 = "nothing"

fun example1() {
    variable1
    variable2
}

val variable2 = "nothing"

the order in which I declared the variables and the method did not make a difference, I can still access variable2 inside the method, however,

val variable1 = "nothing"

val variable2 = "nothing"

init {
    variable1
    variable2
    variable3
}

val variable3 = "an issue"

gives an error saying that variable3 must be initialized? See this image, I know that example1() isn't used, but it doesn't make a difference if I use it somewhere

Answer 1

Thanks to CommonsWare for pointing it out.

initializer blocks are not constructors, they are simply used for initializing values, you can even have multiple init blocks as well. However, an initializer block is not a function and therefore it is dependent on the order of variables being declared and used