What's the Matter With Batman? An Unauthorized Clinical Look Under the Mask of the Caped Crusader by Robin S. Rosenberg

What's the Matter With Batman? An Unauthorized Clinical Look Under the Mask of the Caped Crusader by Robin S. Rosenberg

Author:Robin S. Rosenberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-06-15T00:00:00+00:00


IF LISBETH SALANDER

WERE REAL

HANS STEINER

Few characters in recent fiction have captured the imaginations of so many in so short a time as Lisbeth Salander, one of the two protagonists of the Millennium trilogy by Stieg Larsson.

A quick web search of her name turns up 1,410,000 results in 0.11

seconds. Comments range from adolescent idolatry to serious and protracted discussions as to whether Lisbeth in fact is a real person.

The rapid production of three Swedish films summarizing the three volumes and their current American remake also supports this contention, which raises the question: What it is about a gun-slinging, boxing, chain-smoking, bisexual, seemingly fearless Gothic prin-cess whose range of emotions is severely constricted that touches the hearts, desires, and imagination of so many? This effect is even more surprising if one considers that the books tend to be dark in their mood and describe a series of events that are clearly outside the range of normative human experience. They are usually of a violent, deeply perturbing nature, and many of these unsettling events are even perpetrated by Lisbeth herself. What is it about a vengeful, tattooed, multiply pierced, diminutive, boyish-in-build character—who is sometimes suspected of suffering from Asperger’s syndrome and is described as paranoid schizophrenic—that elicits our sympathy, interest, and even passion?

There are many possible answers to this question. The most interesting ones for our purpose lie in the deeper psychology and psychiatry of the character, which will be laid out in some detail in the main body of this essay. But another comment might be helpful as well, connecting Lisbeth’s story to one of the oldest Nordic myths, which provides the narrative scaffold for this trilogy. It is the story of Brynhildr and Sigurdr, straight from the oldest Norse epic, the Edda.

The story has been told many times in different forms throughout the Nordic and Germanic countries over the centuries, the latest and perhaps even best known permutation being Richard Wagner’s The 154

Ring of the Nibelungs. The Edda is essentially a story of a rebellious,

IF LISBETH SALANDER WERE REAL

powerful virgin warrior woman (Brynhildr) who stands up against a conspiracy of elders and more powerful gods to protect an innocent, gallant, idealistic, but vulnerable hero (Sigurdr). You almost can hear

“The Ride of the Valkyries” play in volume one of the Millennium series as Lisbeth rides her own racing motorbike in pursuit of her torturers; and again in volume two, riding the Harley of a biker she has just incapacitated. Mikael Blomkvist is her Sigurdr although, for complex reasons to be laid out below, she has a highly ambivalent attachment to and admiration for him. I am suggesting that, at least in part, the attraction of her character to so many is related to this ancient script, one whose popularity never waned in the centuries the story has been told (the poisonous appropriation of the myth by the Nazis notwithstanding).

To get to the heart of the matter, I don’t think there are many readers or admirers of Lisbeth who think she has paranoid



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