lombano wrote:Haakan never made any attempt to actually connect with Eli, to actually get to know Eli. You'd think you'd at least try to make conversation not about demands and bargains with someone living under the same rood, but Haakan never did. In essence, his conversation never seems to have changed from the initial meeting - "I can't afford such a beauty" in response to "you're going to be with me." Why would Haakan not make even the least attempt to actually get to know Eli (contrast this with Oskar's conversation)?
How do you know that Håkan never did try to connect?
However, I have to acknowledge that Håkan appears quite self centred, so you might be right. But absence of evidence is not evidence of the contrary.
Håkan believed that Eli was an old person in a child's body, because Eli was behaving that way at first. And Eli must have told Håkan about his chronological age, while apparently keeping the fact that he still was a child inside a secret. Finally, Håkan did notice when Eli started to change in response to Oskar's influence, so he wasn't totally blind to that.lombano wrote:He didn't see that Eli was a child in a child's body instead of an ancient person in a child's body - and he was careful not to see.
Well, Håkan indeed seems to try to force Eli into loving him here. At least that is what it sounds like. But you should not forget what Eli was asking for. Furthermore, Håkan was upset, felt inadequate, and was under rather hard pressure from Eli. So maybe that "you'd better start loving me, then" wasn't more than some thoughtless words, a mean reply from a very frustrated man.lombano wrote:For me, the defining moments are when Eli bluntly answers yes, she only "loves" Haakan to the extent he helps her stay alive, and Haakan saying "you'd better start loving me, then" is response to Eli's protests about being too weak to provide her own blood. Eli is, whatever else, clearly honest. At any rate, even her definition of love seems more wholesome than Haakan's de facto definition.