In the movie Girl With The Dragon Tattoo(the original 2009 Swedish film) there are scenes early on with Lisbeth meeting with a new probation agent assigned to her. He says that from now on her salary will be put into an account he controls, he will dish out living expenses and so on to her(he is using this to extract sex from her).
Is this a normal practice in Sweden? I’ve never known anyone on probation in the USA that had this as part of it(I imagine there might be financial crimes or such that include it as a term but not for everyday probation).
That skeevy doctor is not exactly a “probation officer”. And she is not “on probation”. She is under guardianship because she is deemed mentally unsound.
I don’t know specifically about Sweden, but I know about other similar countries. There, a guardian may be appointed by the state to manage the affairs of an adult who is (presumed) mentally/psychologically incapable of looking after their own affairs. Sometimes these positions of guardianship involve financial control as well, like in the movie, but they are very closely monitored by independent authorities, unlike in the movie, it seems.
Just to add, the movie really stretched credibility in this respect - that it would be very unlikely for such a highly functioning 23 year old to be a ward of the state. You could fan-wank a background that would give rise to such a possibility (and I have done so ), but still, it’s not really believable. I would be staggered to find that there was a country where an adult who can legally ride a motorcycle could also be a ward of the state.
Mostly, adult wards of the state are mentally and/or physically incapable of gainful employment, are on government assistance and have no immediate family to support them. Hence the need for a guardian to look after them. In the Movie itself, Blomkvist even asks her after they have sex, “What’s a 23 year old doing as a ward of the state?” (or something like that). Then she gives the brief story of killing her father. It’s not really a sufficient explanation.
I fan-wanked it that, as a teenager, she killed her father to stop him beating her mother to death (who was still alive in the time-line of the book, I think, but not in the movie) and then (because she is so smart) passed herself off as a completely insane homicidal maniac, to save her mother from the embarrassment of domestic abuse revelations that would happen if the truth were known. She avoided criminal charges by being declared insane and served time in a clinic for the mentally insane, rather than serving a fixed jail term. At the clinic, she displayed facets of normality, leading to her eventual supervised release, hence the guardianship.
In the later books it is revealed that precisely she was put under guardianship not for any legitimate reasons but because of deep levels of government corruption.
Right. Suffice it to say, without going into spoilers, she is a very special case, not meant to be interpreted as typical of Sweden’s normal practices.
I’m going to pick up the third book from the library today, and can’t wait to see how things pan out.
), but still, it’s not really believable. I would be staggered to find that there was a country where an adult who can legally ride a motorcycle could also be a ward of the state.