Lisbeth's walk of shame after her second encounter with Bjurman.
Harriet's history: Being raped repeatedly by her father and brother - once by her brother immediately after she'd murdered their father (while "his body was still floating in the water), to boot!
And that her mother did nothing about it. When Harriet reappears, Anita Vanger accuses her daughter of being an imposter.
Lisbeth's No Sympathy attitude towards Harriet; in response to Blomkvist's question about what she would have done in Harriet's shoes with a murderous father and brother, she says, "I would've killed the bastard!" Harsher in Hindsight when it turns out she and Harriet's histories are not so different, and Lisbeth tried to kill her father to protect her mother.
So Lisbeth is finally happy, as she tells her previous guardian, possibly for the first time ever, has just realized that she's in love with Blomkvist. So she buys him a beautiful, expensive leather jacket for Christmas, goes to give it to him. . .only to see him arm-in-arm with his on-again, off-again lover Erika. The look on her face is heartbreaking.
The worst part? After Lisbeth's reaction and the kick to the end credits, it plays "Is Your Love Strong Enough?" by HTDA. Sniff.
Martin Vanger's death in the original movie. There is really nothing redeeming about him, he's a complete and utter monster who has raped and killed a bunch of women, so many that he can't even count them himself. Peter Haber is such a great actor though that you actually feel bad for the guy and you want Lisbeth to save him despite all he's done. "I can't move... Help me... please help me... please help me..." while desperately crying... yeah. That's sad even for a mass murdering rapist.
The Girl Who Played With Fire
Mikhail is sad and confused when Lisbeth breaks off contact with him for more than a year, and he wanted to stay friends with her. He then becomes A Friend in Need when she's accused of murdering his friends, because although there's forensic evidence, he trusts her.
Miriam Wu does NOT get a break at all in this book: her girlfriend is accused of murdering three people, leading to the police ransacking the apartment; a sexist policeman spreads rumors that "Mimi" is a sadomasochistic dyke; and she nearly gets hacked to pieces with a chainsaw despite not knowing Salander's location. Despite all that, she forgives Lisbeth and worries about her.
The story of Lisbeth's mother: falls in love with an abusive former KGB agent who beats her regularly, bearing twins that witness said abuse and have differentreactions to it, and ending up in a nursing home because the last beating caused severe brain damage.
Lisbeth not seeing Camilla for more than seven years, and the fact that the two girls may very well be Cain and Abel the way that Lisbeth and Niedermann are.
Lisbeth's guilt towards unwittingly causing Dag and Mia's deaths, since her telling them about Bjurman created a chain of events that involved Niedermann silencing them. As Blomkvist herself put it, they were doing work on women whose profiles matched that of Lisbeth's mother, and taking down the woman-haters that Lisbeth likes to destroy.
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
During the trial, Gianinni describes Lisbeth's attempted murder of her father as a last resort to protect her mother, since no social worker or police officer bothered to look into the situation and the Section found it in their best interests to cover up the crime.
Erica's Break the Cutie stint at SMP, courtesy of her new stalker. She powers through it, though, quitting after publishing an expose on the man who hired her.
Palmgren's reaction on seeing the DVD in court of advocate Bjurman raping Lisbeth which proves her accusations against the lawyers. There's a lot of concern that the young woman in your care, always treated as less than a person, got even worse treatment when a stroke incapacitated you, and that she never told anyone suspecting that no one would help.
He first asks her, "Why didn't you tell anyone?" in a shocked tone, and then gives the court a righteous "The Reason You Suck" Speech about how the system covered up Zalachenko's crimes and destroyed Lisbeth's trust in asking ANYONE for assistance.
