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A report from halfway through Yours Until Death
Going from the Varg Veum Wikipedia article and the thrillingdetective.com bibliography, you can immediately pick up on a few of the crucial differences between Din Til Døden, the movie, and Yours Until Death, the translation of the novel Din Til Døden.
The chronology's been switched around: the first movie was made from the eighth book, followed by the second movie, made from the third book, and then the third movie, Din Til Døden, made from the second book.
So this is the earliest available look at Varg, in terms of internal chronology! Which is sort of exciting! At least if you're me.
- Apparently 'Varg' means 'Outlaw'. Varg refers to it as his father's sense of humor and seems used to being ribbed about it. In the book, his name is given professionally merely as V. Veum.
- Hamre doesn't show up until page 97, by which time I'd started to fear he had been made up out of thin air for the movies. Book!Varg describes him thus:
...It's possible book!Varg has a crush. Um. Not that movie!Varg doesn't...
So far, there's been no other hint regarding how Varg and Hamre first encountered each other; it's either in the first book or just totally unremarkable.
There isn't a cop named Isachsen so far. The only named cop other than Hamre was a Jon Andersen, which was really great because he showed up while they were talking to Wenche Andresen.
- Oh my God, the movie actually minimizes Varg's bonding with Roar; in the book Roar is actually the first member of the Andresen family to contact Varg, taking a bus to Varg's city office to hire Varg to retrieve his stolen bike. Which Varg does, part and parcel of returning Roar home to his mother, and then gets dragged into subsequent iterations of family drama.
- Varg drinks aquavit, except in bars, where he drinks whiskey. Except when conducting interviews in bars, in which case beer and then later aquavit. Unless you serve him vodka, in which case vodka. And then probably aquavit.
- Varg's ex-wife is named Beate.
- Varg's son (!!!!!!!!!) is named Thomas. Varg and Beate divorced four or five years ago, and Thomas is seven. Beate is remarried and Varg has virtually no contact with Thomas, but Roar reminds him of his son, which contributes to Varg's instant bond with him and with his mother.
I'm pretty sure movie!canon is that Varg has no children, though he has made reference to being divorced, so I suppose Beate is movie-canon and Thomas is sadly not. UNLESS VARG WAS LYING ABOUT HAVING CHILDREN OF COURSE.
- It's 1979, not 2008, so Varg was born in 1942 and grew up in a post-War city just beginning to pull itself together; his father was a trolley conductor and his mother died of cancer when Varg was fairly young.
- Varg is kind of... maudlin? Profound? Scandinavian? Something.
- Head injury count so far: one, to the back of the head, no loss of consciousness or visible bleeding.
This entry is crossposted at http://dsudis.livejournal.com/524640.html.
The chronology's been switched around: the first movie was made from the eighth book, followed by the second movie, made from the third book, and then the third movie, Din Til Døden, made from the second book.
So this is the earliest available look at Varg, in terms of internal chronology! Which is sort of exciting! At least if you're me.
- Apparently 'Varg' means 'Outlaw'. Varg refers to it as his father's sense of humor and seems used to being ribbed about it. In the book, his name is given professionally merely as V. Veum.
- Hamre doesn't show up until page 97, by which time I'd started to fear he had been made up out of thin air for the movies. Book!Varg describes him thus:
First Officer Jakob E. Hamre was one of the best they had. He was one of the ones they always called in to save their faces when there was a royal mess. If it was a complicated matter involving the interests of other countries or the hunting preserves of other government agencies Hamre was sent to the front lines.
He spoke three languages. Not perfectly, but better than most people. And for a policeman he was unusually sensitive. Intelligent. He also had faults but I hadn't discovered them. On the other hand, I didn't deal with him often. They usually sent out the field artillery when it concerned me.
I had no idea what the E. stood for. When you pronounced it it sounded as if you were hesitating over his last name. Jakob-eh-Hamre.
He was in his late thirties but looked younger. He was one of those good-looking young cops they would have used for their recruiting posters, if they'd had them. Be like Jakob E. Hamre and you too can be a cop. Maybe it would have helped.
His dark blonde hair was combed from his forehead but a lock fell to one side. He was well dressed. Grey suit, light blue shirt, black and red tie. He wore a light trenchcoat and was bare-headed.
Regular features. A sharp, hooked nose, strong chin and quite a wide mouth.
...It's possible book!Varg has a crush. Um. Not that movie!Varg doesn't...
So far, there's been no other hint regarding how Varg and Hamre first encountered each other; it's either in the first book or just totally unremarkable.
There isn't a cop named Isachsen so far. The only named cop other than Hamre was a Jon Andersen, which was really great because he showed up while they were talking to Wenche Andresen.
- Oh my God, the movie actually minimizes Varg's bonding with Roar; in the book Roar is actually the first member of the Andresen family to contact Varg, taking a bus to Varg's city office to hire Varg to retrieve his stolen bike. Which Varg does, part and parcel of returning Roar home to his mother, and then gets dragged into subsequent iterations of family drama.
- Varg drinks aquavit, except in bars, where he drinks whiskey. Except when conducting interviews in bars, in which case beer and then later aquavit. Unless you serve him vodka, in which case vodka. And then probably aquavit.
- Varg's ex-wife is named Beate.
- Varg's son (!!!!!!!!!) is named Thomas. Varg and Beate divorced four or five years ago, and Thomas is seven. Beate is remarried and Varg has virtually no contact with Thomas, but Roar reminds him of his son, which contributes to Varg's instant bond with him and with his mother.
I'm pretty sure movie!canon is that Varg has no children, though he has made reference to being divorced, so I suppose Beate is movie-canon and Thomas is sadly not. UNLESS VARG WAS LYING ABOUT HAVING CHILDREN OF COURSE.
- It's 1979, not 2008, so Varg was born in 1942 and grew up in a post-War city just beginning to pull itself together; his father was a trolley conductor and his mother died of cancer when Varg was fairly young.
- Varg is kind of... maudlin? Profound? Scandinavian? Something.
Her smile hung in the air after she was gone. It was like the cat's smile in Alice in Wonderland. One of those smiles that drill right into you and never die away until you're lying in your grave. One of those smiles that spring up as beautiful flowers from the earth you're lying under. When it's spring again. And when you're dead.
When you're dead and the mountains all around the city stand there as they always have, and the sky bends down over houses that have been demolished and houses that have been built.
And there'll be Mondays when you're dead. And people will walk and drive to their jobs. And they'll stand around in shops and they'll sit in offices, and they'll take buses and trolleys. When you're dead and it's spring and all your women are dead. Except one.
- Head injury count so far: one, to the back of the head, no loss of consciousness or visible bleeding.
This entry is crossposted at http://dsudis.livejournal.com/524640.html.
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This isn't where I kinda wish Varg's character were coming from, alas. In the fanon that I've been building for the last... two days? Three days? Since watching Bitre Blomster (with subtitles!).
While Varg having a crush on Hamre may work in the books and for fic purposes, in the first movie it seems much more like they are family members -- with an abiding connection and a certain affection, but they seem annoy each other the way only family can. (Supposition: Varg towards Hamre as Archie Goodwin towards Saul Panzer? One could draw parallels, although Varg seems more combatative while Archie is more straight-out boycrush towards the objects of their affection.)
And if a big part of Varg's tenderness towards kids comes from having his own son, that makes it slightly less interesting to me than if it's something that grabbed him earlier. He's still a woobie, of course, but that, combined with the divorce and the drinking seem much more stereotypical.
Thinking about it... I think one of the scenes that most attracts me to Varg in Bitre Blomster (okay, trying to be vague to avoid spoilers) is when Hamre and Isachsen and Varg are all at Karsten's apartment. His lack of action/reaction really makes it for me.
Do the books offer any clue about Varg's accent? Is that book canon, or an actor thing?
I may need to ask you for spoilers about children in peril, for the movies.
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I think the accent is purely Trond Espen Seim's; in the books Varg grew up in Bergen and presumably sounds just like everyone else.
Spoilers for minors in peril, movies #2-6, highlight to read:
2. Tornerose - begins with Varg rescuing a sixteen-year-old girl who has run away from home and turned to prostitution.
3. Din til Døden - an eight-year-old boy witnesses his father's violent death.
4. Falne Engler - a seventeen-year-old girl and an eight-year-old girl, as well as an adult woman, are killed. Twin toddlers are kidnapped with the intention of killing them. The motive for the murders is revenge for the rape of a fourteen-year-old girl, which is discussed but not shown.
5. Kvinnen i Kjøleskapet - there is a little boy and nothing bad happens to him or to his parents!
6. Begravde Hunder - the movie opens by showing an altercation in which police forcefully restrain a seventeen-year-old boy, resulting in his death; the political ramifications of his death set up the plot of the movie.
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Re Varg's accent: apparently there is a Bergen dialect, Bergensk, that sounds distinctive from the Norwegian of other areas, although it's dying out in the face of more eastern-Norwegian dialects.
I've got thoughts about how movie-version Hamre and Varg could have met, back when Hamre was a fairly young cop and Varg was a teenager...
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I STILL need to borrow the other one that has already been published from
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I didn't know about abebooks, but it's been forever since I had to buy/sell used textbooks, so no wonder. Thanks for the tip!
I would be happy to mail-lend you my copy of Writing on the Wall, if you like.
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I'm stuck on the idea of reading ~in order~ inasmuch as that's possible, so I'm going to try to get my hands on At Night All Wolves Are Grey first, but I may come begging for Writing on the Wall later!
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Yay reading in order!
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...I can't quite decide whether I'm more amused or baffled by the idea of an English language Varg Veum fandom. *g*
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So is there a Norwegian-language Varg Veum fandom? I feel like there logically must be, and I was sort of worried that the universal law of Yes There Will Be Fanfic About Everything was somehow being broken.
Anyway, there are about six of us, we're not too much of a phenomenon yet... *g*
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I honestly have no idea if there even IS Norwegian fanfiction. I suppose there must be, right?
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I mean, that or fanfiction is like hockey and Nords just aren't that into it. ;)
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I am also very bemused whenever I see English-speaking people slashing something Scandinavian. It's like I assume stuff produced in Scandinavia is automatically not interesting!
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*puts head down*
Ahem. Yeah, I was thinking about that today, how NORMAL English-speaking fans, when they get fannish about something in a foreign language, it's, you know, Japanese or maybe Korean, but NOT ME, OH NO. For me it's Norwegian detective movies. :)