[nobody9999]

>I think what's liked about Pippi is her independence and how she believes she can do almost anything

Absolutely. I read Pippi as a child (in English) and always thought she was wonderful.

Amusingly, a friend and I both came to the conclusion that Lizbeth Salander[0] was Pippi all grown up.

I wonder if Stieg Larsson had Pippi in mind?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisbeth_Salander

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stieg_Larsson

Addendum: I found Larsson's Salander novels to be quite good, and thought the Swedish TV movies (with Noomi Rapace) were pretty faithful to the novels. I didn't bother with the American version, as American movies are mostly crap (then again, Sturgeon's Law[2] applies everywhere)

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law

[oriolid]

I don't have a source at hand, but I remember reading an interview where Stieg Larsson confirmed both influence of Pippi and that Mikael Blomkvist was inspired by and named after Astrid Lindgren's character Kalle Blomkvist (translated to English as Bill Bergson).