Lisabeth Salander

The author shows that you can't judge a book by it's cover. Lisabeth is the sort of girl who appears like a punk-rocker chick, with died black hair and skin covered in tattoos. In fact, she seems very much useless. She dropped out of high school and comes and goes as she pleases to work. Despite her appearance she works as a private investigator. Her boss almost fires her before realizing what she is capable of. It isn't just her intelligence or her mysterious ways of finding information on people that make her more than meets the eye. Her boss Dragan Armansky notices that she is almost pretty despite everything. She is almost delicate. She doesn't seem like much but she is very smart. She can get information described as being like "sheer magic" and "never once fumbled a job or turned in a single mediocre report."

Despite her differences between her and Mikael she handles conflicts with a similar matter-of-fact way. She is about to investigate whether or not he actually was guilty. Her reports are very matter fact similarly to how matter-of-factly he deals with his problems. Her reports are emotionless like how he reads his judgement thinking of how to deal with money and his company but barely his own emotional well being. When Lisabeth was about to be fired she convinced her boss to keep her three more days so that she could prove what she could do. Most people wouldn't try anything like that with their job on the line. She appeared as though she didn't care if she was fired but I think she did but didn't show it because she knew that it wouldn't get her anywhere. Lisabeth wrote a report on a pedophile with only pure facts and "dropped the bombshell" with the same "dry-dust tone she used to report that he lived in Sollentuna and drove a dark blue Volvo. Mikael gives very emotionless, vague answers in his interview after the trial when the court rules him guilty. It had just been officially confirmed he has to spend three months, basically ruining his reputation and he handles the press and his problems calmly. If only we could all face our own conflicts that attitude.