Tommy, Zombie Hakan, Elias

[Klesk]

I reread some passages of the novel and what attract my attention was the scene at the end of the novel where Tommy defeats Zombie Hakan. In the darkness of the basement he faces his greatest fear and he is singing this elephant song. This is very strange. Where does it come from? Why he is singing this? It seems that it is a kind of children’s song. Was Tommy being abused and humiliated by his Father as a child and he fears that his Father would return as a zombie? How was his relation to his father? At the end he smashes Zombie Hakan with the prize cup of Staffan. Much symbolism here.

Before this, Eli is in the same situation like Tommy and this reaction seems to me more "natural" as he says “All this. To be able to jack off.” Whereas Tommie’s reaction, especially for a seventeen years old, seems to me as there is a really big traumata.

Is Tommy somehow the real life incarnation of Elias?

[Dominic]

Hmm.. never thought about that from this point of view. I think Tommy is still very traumatized by his father's death in general. This and the situation when he has to face a real undead being might have somehow mixed up in his head.

[Opeth]

I'm sure there is a longer thread about what Tommy went through down in the basement or an analysis of his character, I'll have a dig and try to find it for you. I could be wrong but I remember someone talking about the song being on a popular children's show; I think there might be a video somewhere or I've stumbled upon it before.

[metoo]

Tommy had fond memories of his father, but for the last period when the father was dying and withering away.

About the song: It's sung in kindergarten, perhaps while playing an accompanying game. Here's the song (sans game):

Before that, Tommy remembered a children's TV show, called "Five ants are more (numerous) than four elephants". Here's a video excerpt:

Here's another one featuring the big and the small elephant:

[gattoparde59]

That part made sense to me, in that when I am lying awake late at night and I am either very sick, or very unhappy I often have some silly song running through my head.

[Ash]

"Love for his dad that through death had been transformed into a fear of him. Of his body."

I guess Tommy was, thought that song, trying to mask the fear of his father resurrected.

"..he saw the face of the corpse and it met his expectations of how one would look after having been in the earth for many years. .. . Dad..."

Tommy first tried appealing to God, apologising for the Church incident, and that not forthcoming, substituted a fictional character (the elephant) to disassociate himself from the need to destroy the thing [Hakan].
Note that the lighter he used in the church to piss off the parishioners was the same he now needed so desperately in the cellar. There's irony for you. No wonder God never turned up to save him LOL.

[a_contemplative_life]

Locked in a lightless room with a flesh-eating zombie. Betcha he needed life-long therapy!

[Klesk]

Well, it is a children’s song. Of course. Indeed, Tommy has fond memories of his father, but maybe there were some conflicts in their relationship too. When Oscar’s father is drunken, he sees him as a werewolf. I think it is a very good metaphor. Oscar loves his father, but this is something he does not like. Oscar’s relationship to his father is ambivalent and maybe it was the same with the relationship between Tommy and his father. He, too, loves him, but he is full of fear he could return as a monster, because his father had some characteristics he feared or did not like.

When I read sentences like:

This is the eeend! Blow the trumpet, trunk, tooot!

In a situation where he is alone together with a zombie, which has an erection …, I do not know what to think.
It could be a trigger. Something that happened in his past. Why this comes to his mind in this situation?

[metoo]

[...]because his father had some characteristics he feared or did not like. [...]

I find none of that in the novel. On the contrary, Tommy actively held the memory of his father alive:

Nowadays it happened that [Tommy] went down here alone, sat for a while beside the gravestone and stroked his fingers over the engraved letters that made up daddy's name. That was why he came. He didn't care for the can in the earth, but the name.
The contorted man in the hospital bed, the ashes in the can, none of that was dad, but the name meant the person he remembered, and therefore he sometimes sat and stroked his index finger over the cavities in the stone that created MARTIN SAMUELSSON. My translation

[Klesk]

[...]because his father had some characteristics he feared or did not like. [...]

I find none of that in the novel. On the contrary, Tommy actively held the memory of his father alive:

Nowadays it happened that [Tommy] went down here alone, sat for a while beside the gravestone and stroked his fingers over the engraved letters that made up daddy's name. That was why he came. He didn't care for the can in the earth, but the name.
The contorted man in the hospital bed, the ashes in the can, none of that was dad, but the name meant the person he remembered, and therefore he sometimes sat and stroked his index finger over the cavities in the stone that created MARTIN SAMUELSSON. My translation

Would Oscar act different at this point? He, too, would held the memory alive although his father was an alcoholic.

Of course, I (extremely) guessing at this point.


In this context there is a second scene, after the incident in the church Tommy has a conversation with his mother. Staffan is aware that Tommy is responsible and he wants to hide in the basement.

In the english translation, Yvonne says:

You look like when … you would come and ask. The words caught in her throat. Tommy stood still.

In the german translation, she says (my translation):

You look like back then, when … when you came and…

I do not know which translation is closer to the original. To which incident in the past does Yvonne refer? Was it a time where Tommie’s father was alive und he in a similar situation hiding in the basement?