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In his only interview, the author of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo stated that Pippi Longstocking was the inspiration for the character of Lisbeth Salander. This involved Lisbeth's genius and overall exceptional capabilities, including the ability to inflict violence more effectively than physically stronger adversaries. There is also the factor that Lisbeth's father is a rogue/outlaw character, analogous to Pippi's buccaneer father.

It seems that the character Hanna from the 2011 film and 2019 television series fits the template even more closely, being literally imbued with the superhuman strength that is Pippi's chief attribute.

Hanna's adoptive father is also a rogue/outlaw, having broken with the state and private interests that created Hanna in a secret program.

Further, although the television series initially bases Hanna and her father in a forest in Poland, in the original film this location was Finland, a Nordic country. (Pippi is based in Sweden.)

I'm wondering if there are additional referenced I've missed, or additional thematic elements that support this idea.

  • Is Hanna a form of Pippi Longstocking?

Pippi, Lisbeth & Hanna fall into an archetype of the strong girl (aka the "fearless girl"):

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  • I'd agree that they are all part of the 'strong/fearless girl' stripe, but I don't know that I'd consider Pippi to be quite the same. From what I remember it was very much a kids book/show, and Pippi was primarily an agent of chaos, more of a trickster figure than anything else, her strength was mostly secondary. I don't know much about Hanna or Lisbeth but I believe they're more vengeance-oriented? It is very interesting to realize they're all Nordic though. – fifthviolet Jun 25 '19 at 23:02

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