“She trusted him. Maybe. It was troubling that one of the few people she trusted was a man she spent so much time avoiding. Then she made up her mind. It was absurd to pretend that he did not exist. It no longer hurt her to see him. She opened the door wide and let him into her life again.”
Mikael Blomkvist is practically the only man Salander has ever truly trusted and fallen in love with. Through the initial encounters, she bared her soul to another and they become lovers but the relationship was short-lived by ensuing events. Subsequently, she felt betrayed and closed herself again not letting her guard down again during her escapades. But now again, she knows she still trusts him and even though now as just friends and not lovers anymore. It frightens her the feeling of being vulnerable to him especially Mikael being a man, as all the men she trusted in her childhood betrayed and abused her. She figures if there is one person whom she should trust at this point, that person is him.
“Don't call me crazy. I’m a survivor. I do what I have to do to survive.”
Salander’s father utters these words about himself which is rather a poor justification for his predatory and vile actions throughout his life. But this statement is rather more of a representation of who Lisbeth Salander actually is, a survivor. Facing abuse, both physical and emotional, from predatory men all her life she has had to endure and come out the other side a tougher individual. In this point in the trilogy, Salander is at her most vulnerable since she took the position of being a crusader against the injustices done to defenseless women. In the hospital recovering while facing a possible triple murder charge, Salander has to do what she has done all her life, survive. Even though almost everybody around her sees her as crazy akin to the assertion.
“What irritated her most was that they kept brushing off her arguments with patronizing smiles, making her feel like a teenager being quizzed on her homework. Without actually uttering a single inappropriate word, they displayed towards her an attitude that was so antediluvian it was almost comical. You shouldn't worry your pretty head over complex matters, little girl.”
The focus of Larsson’s novels has been about addressing the issue of women subjugation, toxic masculinity, and the patriarchal nature of our society. In this statement, he makes it apparent the thoughts that run through Salander’s mind every time she is belittled or marginalized by sexist men. Salander has suffered in the hands of egotistical, sexist, and abusive men thus is aware of the subtle belittling gestures that comes with this territory. To her this is laughable, as she sees through the condescending attitudes which she somewhat counts on to fuel her pursuits for justice.
