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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 2842 Views


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Description:

Lisbeth Salander is a tough nut to crack. Hero? Villain? Somewhere in the middle? We're not sure, but we're hesitant to accuse her of anything...especially after what she did to the last guy.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:05

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, a la Shmoop. We all know what heroes are supposed to look

00:14

like in fiction. They fly through the air...

00:17

...or shoot arrows and catch fire...

00:18

...or take out He Who Should Not Be Named.

00:20

But what if a character's behavior makes it tough to tell if he or she is a hero?

00:28

In Stieg Larsson's book, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo...

00:34

...disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist <<meh-kale bloam-quist>> and troubled computer hacker

00:38

Lisbeth Salander <<liz-bith sal-in-der>> join forces to find a girl who went missing decades

00:43

ago...

00:43

...and end up on the trail of a serial killer.

00:47

Uh, wrong kind of cereal. While on the quest to find the missing girl,

00:55

Lisbeth shows that not only is she a brilliant researcher...

00:58

...but she also has a gift for using violence to get what she wants...

01:02

...which leads us to the question: Should Lisbeth be considered a hero?

01:13

While the abuse inflicted on her by her guardian was terrible, Lisbeth's decision to take the

01:19

law into her hands...

01:20

...in a very creative way...

01:22

...shows us that she's a ruthless individual.

01:32

Wouldn't a true hero use legal means to punish a rapist, rather than Lisbeth's more brutal

01:38

methods? Okay, so it's true that Lisbeth is violent

01:38

and willing to resort to criminal behavior in order to achieve her goals...

01:40

...but she also demands justice for herself and helps those she cares about.

01:46

Doesn't saving Blomkvist from death at the hands of a serial killer count as heroism?

01:51

If Blomkvist hadn't had Lisbeth's assistance, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo would have

01:53

had a very different ending.

01:56

When all's said and done, it's really Lisbeth who saves the day.

01:59

So, which is it?

02:02

Should Lisbeth be excluded from hero-dom because she violently metes out punishment herself

02:09

rather than leaving it to the authorities?

02:14

Does she occupy a gray area, where some of her actions are heroic, but not others?

02:21

Or is Lisbeth the real hero of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, because the good things

02:23

that happen in the book happen because of her?

02:27

Shmoop amongst yourselves.

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