YMMV / Bamse

• Broken Base: Among the many anvils dropped by Rune A., the most famously divisive among readers (or, more likely, their parents) was his editorial comic about the necessity of paying taxes.
• Fridge Brilliance: Grandma has stated that she made sure that if Bamse had an intention of doing something nasty, the dunderhonung's effect would fade in a snap. Bamse has to be a Technical Pacifist for it to work.
• Genius Bonus: As a genius inventor character in an educational comic book, Skalman often delivers this trope. Notable examples:
  • Brumma is initially non-verbal but will occasionally exclaim a phrase Skalman has taught her: Hakuna matata! When her parents comment that only she and Skalman know what that means, Skalman says "Well, us and a few million others!". In 1989, before a certain Disney movie popularized the phrase and long before Google was invented, finding out what he meant by that would not have been easy.
  • Skalman's workshop usually has a number of Genius Bonus references tucked away on book spines, notes, and signs on the wall. There's the ubiquitous E=mc2, and often a sign declaring "This time Hypatia will be defended!". Hypatia who? ^note You know, the fourth century Neoplatonist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician, who according to legend was murdered by a Christian mob for heresy.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Bamse's fourth child Brumma, introduced as having a intellectual disability which as of the 2010s has since been canonically defined as Asperger's Syndrome is particularly heartwarming and striking as Bamse's voice actor at the time of Brumma's introduction was Olof Thunberg, whose granddaughter, Greta, born in 2003, would later be diagnosed and go on to become arguably the world's most famous aspie.
• Memetic Mutation: "'I have a built-in compass,' said Skalman - and flew out through the window!"^Explanation In the early days of YouTube, some fans would take sound clips from the heavily narrated animated stories and put them together in nonsensical ways for Surreal Humour. One of the most viewed videos of this is simply called "Skalman brags" and features the above line and permutations repeated several times, making just as much sense in context.
• The Woobie: Vargen. Just Vargen. Orphaned at an early age, raised by abusive stepfathers into a life of crime, befriends girl, stepparents decide to rob a girl's house, Vargen escapes with the girl's help. He tries to reform but is treated as a criminal, decides to take up a life of crime seriously, becoming World Champion of Nastiness, gets foiled by main character until he does a Heel–Face Turn... And in the end, he does not even get the girl as she grew up and married someone else. Prior to his Heel–Face Turn this made him a Jerkass Woobie as well.

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