- Alternate Character Interpretation:
- Is Cardamom Town really as idyllic and happy as presented, or is it a gently oppressive Crapsaccharine World? Several critics have pointed out that Constable Bastian, who seems to be the only actual authority figure in the town (he not only enforces the laws, he wrote them himself, and he acts as the town's sole judge with no jury in sight — and he can even decide to pardon criminals without consulting anyone else) can be interpreted as a dictator.
- Likewise, the robbers' status as feared and distrusted outsiders that the regular townspeople paint as terrible villains has been seen as an example of how a society like Cardamom Town might freeze out people who have problems conforming; the robbers have to live outside the town and don't get to join in on the town parties and festivals, and are only re-integrated into society after they've literally risked their lives to help out. We don't really get any sort of backstory for them; we know they used to be street musicians, and that they sold their instruments and then became robbers, but we don't get any clear idea on why.
- Thorbjørn Egner himself hated any sort of attempt at Alternate Character Interpretation and insisted that the characters were exactly as he said they were, with no room for alternate interpretations — which infamously made him really hard to work with whenever adaptations were made of his work, because he utterly refused to let actors or directors interpret the characters in any way that wasn't his. After his death, though, a lot of stage productions have become a lot more lax here. It's not uncommon to add a low-key romance between Jonathan and the baker (who is a man in the original but becomes a woman in many modern productions), and some productions turn Constable Bastian into a clear Stepford Smiler whose smile gets stiffer and stiffer whenever he gets bad news. In the filmed stage production from 2003, Kamomilla — who is portrayed as a demure and obedient Cheerful Child in the original — has become much more rebellious and disobedient, and is downright bratty at times; it's pretty clear she's acting out because Aunt Sophie is too strict.
- Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The robbers' song is quite popular in Sweden, making many covers. The director of the 1988 movie was also Swedish.
- Sweetness Aversion: While the story is regarded as a classic and one of the most important works of children's literature in Norway, it has drawn plenty of criticism for just being too nice and sweet and wholesome — especially when listening to the readings by Thorbjørn Egner himself, whose voice is the eptiome of mild, comforting, non-threatening; narrating his stories completely without any form of drama or negativity. This might also be why so many critics are eager to present Cardamom as an oppressive Crapsaccharine World where the negative things are just hushed down and shooed out of sight. This might not be completely fair since you do have elements like Aunt Sophie whose constant angry complaints and Killjoy tendencies are in no way oppressed or hushed away, but the presentation of the story is traditonally extremely mild and practically toothless in its eagerness to present Cardamom Town as a Sugar Bowl.
- Values Dissonance: Thorbjørn Egner's writing in general has seen a lot of criticism for having a gender-essentialist "boys are brave and girls are nice" attitude, and when it comes to When the Robbers came to Cardamom Town, the gender roles and general attitudes towards the female characters (of which there are only three — Kamomilla, Aunt Sophie and Mrs Bastian) makes it very obvious that the story was written in The '50s. Both Aunt Sophie and Mrs Bastian are homemakers who mainly cook and clean (even if their attitudes are total opposites), while Kamomilla is a very pretty and very passive little girl whose only real role in the story is to be "rescued" by Tommy and Tobias so she can attend the Cardamom Festival. Later adaptations, such as filmed 2003 stage play and the 2022 animated movie, try to tone down the sexism by giving Kamomilla a slightly more active role in the story and by turning the originally male Baker into a woman.
- Woolseyism: The Danish translations by Halfdan Rasmussen are pretty faithful to the Norwegian text (Norwegian and Danish being very similar languages), but Rasmussen gets a lot more creative when translating the songs, which tend to include a lot more comedy and humorous exaggerations than the Norwegian originals. A few examples:
- The Parrot from America in the Norwegian version tells of how the bird-catcher who caught him taught him how to talk and sing — the Danish translation adds that the reason the bird-catcher did this was because he was too shy to sing himself, and wanted the parrot to sing for him. The Danish translation also adds a lot of surreal and exaggerated asides such as the parrot becoming an operetta singer, and how the seaman who eventually bought the parrot paid 25 kroner and a plum, which the parrot ate before he flew off.
- The robbers' song in Norwegian is all about how they only steal the things they need, and how they take as little as they can. The Danish robbers also start singing about how they only ever take as little as possible, but then go on to describe how they take a 40-pound steak, several hams and an entire pig ("only a small one, of course!"), hinting that they're not quite as careful and frugal as they claim to be.
- When Aunt Sophie sings about cleaning up in the robbers' house, the Norwegian original has her threaten to take a brush and scrub Jasper's neck herself if he doesn't wash himself willingly — the Danish translation has her declare that if normal soap doesn't do the trick, she'll use scouring powder, benzine and sandpaper.
- Perhaps most notable: In the Searching Song, where the robbers go around their messy house and complain that they can't find anything in this mess, Rasmussen exaggerates the text so that the in the final verse the robbers even start complaining that they don't know where North and South is. Thorbjørn Egner, who was usually extremely controlling with his material and hated having any changes made, seems to have decided that in this case Rasmussen's version was better than his own — because in later editions of the Norwegian original, the final verse of the Searching Song is Rasmussen's verse, translated back to Norwegian.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Ymmv/WhenTheRobbersCameToCardamomTown
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