Play a game on Tumblr...

[ingebjorg9]

Search for "Wallander", then see how many pages you have to scroll down before you come to a picture that's NOT of Tom Hiddleston.  I had to scroll about 12 times before I finally found sirbranagh's photo of ol' Ken smiling quite happily to himself.

Whereas I might have been willing to give the Branagh adaptations a try (in spite of their liberal interpretation of the books), the Hiddleston fangirls that have overrun that corner of the fandom have completely put me off.  It's telling that an awful lot of the Tom Hiddleston stuff that I see thrown around is also from the other things he has appeared in, like The Avengers, but still ends up tagged with "Wallander" and "Magnus Martinsson".  (As an aside, I think I actually prefer him as the unpleasant Loki than as the BBC's grossly inaccurate portrayal of Martinsson, but that's still not saying much.)  He gets a disproportionate amount of attention because he's young and (apparently some people's idea of) pretty.  But I still don't get what's supposed to be so damn attractive about the guy, and I guess I never will.

On another note, the "Martinsson" he plays is NOT the Martinsson of the novels, who is a married family man.  He begins the series as a young offcer, but over the course of the books he ages, has several children and in Firewall eventries to betray Wallander.  Anyone, in fact, who romanticises his relationship with Wallander probably hasn't read Firewall.  The Martinsson of the books is also pretty unlikely to be shipped with Linda because, well, squick.  Also, his name is not Magnus.  His first name is actually never given in the books, and Magnus is certainly not mentioned.  The Swedish series might not be to everyone's taste, but Douglas Johansson is to my mind a lot closer to the original Martinsson.

I put it to you, then, that "Magnus Martinsson" is an impostor.  Just an irreverent thought!

It's not all bad on Tumblr, though.  I found this nice picture of Krister Henriksson and Henning Mankell on set together.  There are also some really pretty pictures of Ystad.  And once I get on Tumblr and start spamming it with Swedish Wallander all will be right with the world! >:-D

Comments

[eve_n_furter]

To me, Lassgård is the "right" Wallander. Haven't seen the BBC version, so I won't say anything too specific about that, but I agree as a book-verse fan: Wallander/Martinsson doesn't compute. Wallander put much too much value on integrity to ever seriously consider Martinsson as a partner. Wallander needs someone who he can look up to, not another person seeking guidance or easy solutions. Mutual respect is the clue and cornerstone of all Wallander's deep relationships and his respect for book-Martinsson is declining throughout the books (in my view).

(Oh, how wonderful to get to geek about the Swedish version Wallander! Hiddleston who? (and other f-listers would wash their hands of me if they read this).)

[ingebjorg9.livejournal.com]

Good point, I'd never thought much about the changing dynamic between the two of them, but I did notice that Wallander seems less patient with Martinsson as time goes on, and more likely to be annoyed by him. A romantic friendship it ain't :-P

I've never seen the Lassgård adaptations, but I've heard good things about them, and Mankell himself says that Lassgård helped him understand his own character. I might see if I can get my hands on some of the DVDs, as it would be interesting to compare Lassgård with Henriksson.