History Literature / Madicken

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* JerkassBall: Madicken is usually a NiceGirl, and her mischief usually comes from thoughtlessness rather than malice, but like the young ghild she is, on occasion she'll grab the JerkassBall with both hands just being a {{Jerkass}} suddenly amuses her. She always regrets it afterwards, though.

* OutOfCharacterMoment:
** Madicken is normally a loving older sister to Lisabet. But occasionally, she's a jerk to Lisabet for no other reason than that being a jerk suddenly amuses her. Then again, this is probably meant to only be typical sibling bickering. And just a moment later, the two sisters will be playing together again as if nothing unusual has happened.
** Similarly, it is made clear that Madicken is SpoiledSweet and mostly a really compassionate person for her young age. But still, she did call her poverty-stricken classmate Mia "Louse Mia" once. She only did that though after having been harassed by Mia for a long time. And still, she would regret it later and eventually became friends with Mia.

* SpoiledSweet: Madicken grows up in a privileged upper middle class household, and her family belongs to the upper crust of their small town. But still, she has been taught by her Bourgeois Bohemian father to treat all people the same and have sympathy for the less fortunate. So she's not above being in love with their charming but poor neighbor Abbe, despite the fact that his father is a hopeless alcoholic. And she also defends her poor class mate Mia against the mean head-master and later becomes friends with her.

* WrongAssumption: Mia believes that Madicken is a stuck-up SpoiledBrat. But even though it's true that Madicken is the richest kid in their class, she also is SpoiledSweet. And because her father is a Bourgeois Bohemian, she has been taught to care about social justice. And in the end, [[spoiler: she and Mia can even become friends]].

[[quoteright:329:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jlpim096_3102.jpg]]''Madicken'' is a character created by Swedish author Creator/AstridLindgren. She appears in two novels and a short story which were adapted into a TV series in 1979 and a movie in 1980. English translations have given her several different names; the British translation of the books names her "Mardie," while the American translation calls her "Mischievous Meg," and the English print of the movies names her "Maggie."

* RichBitch: The mayor's wife believes that she's above everyone else in their small town. She starts a stupid vendetta against Alva, Madicken's family's housemaid, and TheMovieOfTheBook makes it very clear that her husband is hen-pecked.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: In the first chapter of the second book, Madicken's mother is feeling ill and "sorry for herself" one morning -- later in the book it turns out she's pregnant and was suffering from morning sickness. And then it suddenly makes a lot more sense when the girls' father jokingly asks "why so down, was it something I did?" and the mother replies: "Yes, it was, and you perfectly well know what!"

** Similarly, it is made clear that Madicken is SpoiledSweet and mostly a really compassionate person for her young age. But she did call her poverty-stricken classmate Mia "Louse Mia" once. She only did that though after being harassed by Mia for a long time. And still, she would regret it later and eventually became friends with Mia.

** Similarly, it is made clear that Madicken is Spoiled Sweet and mostly a really compassionate person for her young age. But still, she did call her poverty-stricken classmate Mia "Louse Mia" once. She only did that though after being harassed by Mia for a long time. And still, she would regret it later and eventually became friends with Mia.

%% * ParasolParachute: [[spoiler:It does not work.]]

* ParasolParachute: [[spoiler:It does not work.]]

* SpoiledSweet: Madicken grows up in a priviledged upper middle class household, and her family belongs to the upper crust of their small town. But still, she has been taught by her Bourgeois Bohemian father to treat all people the same and have sympathy for the less fortunate. So she's not above being in love with their charming but poor neighbor Abbe, despite that his father is a hopeless alcoholic. And she also defends her poor class mate Mia against the mean head-master and later becomes friends with her.

* HateSink:
** The mayor's wife is a RichBitch extraordinaire, who believes that she's above everyone else in their small town. She starts a stupid vendetta against Alva, Madicken's family's housemaid, and TheMovieOfTheBook makes it very clear that her husband is hen-pecked.
** Madicken's school headmaster also is described as an unlikable person with very old-fashioned views on gender roles and social classes, and he also caned Mia in front of the whole class.

Madicken is an upper class girl who lives with her parents and sister on the outskirts of a small town in Sweden in the 1910's. Her father is the editor-in-chief of the local newspaper and unconventional in so far as he tries to draw his children's attention to social issues and injustice. Madicken is seen as a difficult child because of her temper and her many adventurous ideas that often get her in trouble, but she also has a kind heart and can't stand to see someone else unhappy. Other characters include Madicken's baby sister Lisabet, who admires Madicken's courage and gradually develops a mischievous side, the mother, who is often exhausted by her daughter's energy and stubbornness, the nanny Alva who often deals with the children's day-to-day issues, and Madicken's neighbour and friend Abbe and his parents.

* TheAlcoholic: Abbe's father.

* DaddysGirl: Madicken is the Tomboy older sister, who has developed a growing sense of social justice. So there is no wonder that she has a very special relationship with her socialist father, who happens to also be more lenient than her more uptight mother is.

* RichBitch: The mayor's wife.

* ChildrenAreCruel: As is typical of AstridLindgren's works, all the child characters (especially the girls) have their moments of this. As it ''also'' typical of her works, this doesn't mean they're bad people. Lisabet doesn't quite understand how bad she's being, and Mia and Mattis lash out because they have a difficult life.

Madicken is an upper class girl who lives with her parents and sister on the outskirts of a small town in Sweden in the 1910's. Her father is the editor-in-chief of the local newspaper and unconventional in so far as he tries to draw his children's attention to social issues and injustice. Madicken is seen as a difficult child because of her temper and her many adventurous ideas that often get her in trouble, but she also has a kind heart and can't stand to see someone else unhappy. Other characters include Madicken's baby sister Lisabet, who admires Madicken's courage and gradually develops a mischievious side, the mother, who is often exhausted by her daughter's energy and stubbornness, the nanny Alva who often deals with the children's day-to-day issues, and Madicken's neighbour and friend Abbe and his parents.

* ParasolParachute: [[spoiler: It does not work.]]

Notable because while Lindgren depicts an idyllic and sheltered childhood for the main character, many social issues are addressed as well through the family's neighbours and a poor classmate that always tries to pick up fights with her.

* HateSink: The mayor's wife is a RichBitch extraordinaire, who believes that she's above everyone else in their small town. She starts a stupid vendetta against Alva, Madicken's family's housemaid, and TheMovieOfTheBook makes it very clear that her husband is hen-pecked.

* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Madicken is the tomboy, Lisabet is the girly-girl.

* ChildrenAreCruel: As is typical of AstridLindgren's works, all the child characters (especially the girls) have their moments of this. As it ''also'' typical of her works, this doesn't mean they're bad people; Madicken is usually just thoughtless, Lisabet doesn't quite understand how bad she's being, and Mia and Mattis lash out because they have a difficult life.

* [[NiceGuy Nice Girl]]: Madicken, in a way that doesn't clash with her mischievous side; she's temperamental and often thoughtless, she get into fights, she misbehaves, she sulks and can at times be a bit of a DramaQueen -- but she's a genuinely generous and empathic person who can't stand it when she sees or even hears about someone else being unhappy. She's also very perceptive, and can often sense that something's wrong with a person long before someone else can.

[[quoteright:329:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jlpim096_3102.jpg]]''Madicken'' is a character created by the Swedish author Creator/AstridLindgren. She appears in two novels and one short story, which were adapted into a TV series in 1979 and a movie in 1980. English translations have given her several different names; the British translation of the books names her "Mardie," while the American translation calls her "Mischievous Meg," and the English print of the movies names her "Maggie."

Madicken is an upper class girl, who lives with her parents and sister in a house in a small town in Sweden in the 1910's. Her father is the editor-in-chief of the local newspaper and unconventional in so far as he tries to draw his children's attention to social issues and injustice. Madicken is seen as a difficult child because of her temper and her many adventurous ideas that often get her in trouble, but she also has a kind heart and can't stand to see someone else unhappy. Other characters include Madicken's baby sister Lisabet, who admires Madicken's courage and gradually developes a mischievious side, the mother, who is often exhausted by her daughter's energy and stubbornness, the nanny Alva, who often deals with the children's day-to-day issues, and Madicken's neighbour and friend Abbe and his parents.

* {{Bowdlerisation}}: ''Mischievous Meg,'' the American translation of the first book, is noted for making cuts and ommisions to the original text to remove "offensive" material; most notably an entire chapter has been removed -- the chapter that depicts Madicken and Lisabeth's first meeting with the poor children Mia and Mattis, and which not only depicts a class-conflict but also features the girls swearing at one another. The British translation, ''Mardie's Adventures'', keeps the chapter and is a far more faithful translation, however.

* HenpeckedHusband: The mayor really isn't as much into social events as his wife is, but she pushes him to do them anyway.

* TookALevelInKindness: From Madicken's point of view at least, Mia does this in the second book. Though Madicken does admit that Mia remains the quarrelsome and bad-behaviored troublemaker in school, she completely stops fighting with Madicken because Madicken shows her kindness. It's perfectly illustrated in the differences between their interactions in the first and the last chapter: In the first chapter, they get into a fight and Mia steals one of Madicken's sandals -- in the last chapter, which takes place exactly one year later, they run around together like the best of friends.

* TookALevelInKindness: From Madicken's point of view at least, Mia does this in the second book. Though Madicken does admit that Mia remains the quarrelsome and bad-behaviored troublemaker in school, she completely stops fighting with Madicken because Madicken shows her kindness.

* {{Bowdlerisation}}: ''Mischievous Meg,'' the American translation of the first book, is noted for making cuts and ommisions to the original text to remove "offensive" material; most notably an entire chapter has been removed -- the chapter that depicts Madicken and Lisabeth's first meeting with the poor children Mia and Mattis, and which heavily features the girls swearing at one another. The British translation, ''Mardie's Adventures'', keeps the chapter and is a far more faithful translation, however.