Bamse/Characters

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Being a long-running comic with Loads and Loads of Characters, Bamse has a fairly large multi-generational cast. Comic Book Time ensures confusion.

The main Power Trio

The main characters, who form the central cast for most stories, especially the older and the more adventure-centric ones:

Bamse

Bamse, the ego of the Power Trio, is a small brown bear, usually dressed in blue. He's actually pretty small for a bear (but was apparently quite large at birth) He is described as "The world's strongest, and nicest, bear." and prefers the latter title to the former. He becomes incredibly strong by eating a special honey ('Dunderhonung,' which loosely translated means "Thunder Honey") cooked by his grandmother. Married with four children. While having had a variety of jobs, Bamse most commonly works as a lumberjack. His name means "big" and is also a euphemism for "bear".

  • The Big Guy: Despite being rather small.
  • Does Not Know His Own Strength: Occasionally (there are amusing scenes of him attempting carpentry while super-strong and simply breaking stuff)
  • Fearless Fool: Although self-aware enough to know this
  • The Hero
  • Nice Hat
  • Nice Guy: He values kindness over everything else, to the point of almost being a Wide-Eyed Idealist at times.
  • Papa Wolf
  • Parental Abandonment: Due to shipwreck
  • Power-Up Food: Dunderhonung. It only works for him, though; with very few exceptions, anyone else who eats it gets a stomachache that lasts for three days.
  • Super Strength: Temporarily
  • Technical Pacifist: Hitting people is wrong, but throwing them several miles is perfectly OK.
  • Wide-Eyed Idealist: The world of Bamse isn't quite cynical enough for this trope to be played completely straight, but Bamse does have a tendency to think better of people than they really deserve, and has often been manipulated or played for a fool by villains who knew how to exploit his desire to see the best in everyone.
  • World's Strongest Man: Well... bear

Skalman

The id of the Power Trio, is a tortoise of indeterminable age. Definitely brains of the group, although his effectiveness and borderline Deus Ex Machina nature is often checked by his obsessive adherence to a complicated schedule of eating and sleeping, governed by his "Eat-and-sleep clock". Directly translated his name becomes "Shell-man".

Lille Skutt

Is the superego of the Power Trio, and the youngest of a large litter of rabbits (most of which have punny names about jumping) in the adventure stories his task is generally to fetch things, as he's the fastest of the group. He is usually the person to complain about heading into dangerous situations but inevitably follows anyway. Married since 1985 to Nina Kanin ("Nina Rabbit"). When not doing something else, he works as a mailman. His name means "little hop" or "little jump".

Families

The families of the main trio, who play important parts in the comic and -- in the case of the children -- are the main faces of the second-generation Cast Herd.

Farmor

Bamse's paternal grandmother, who raised him after his parents were lost at sea, and who makes the dunderhonung. Even in her old age, she is incredibly strong and agile, and more than capable of taking care of herself -- as most of the villains who have tried interferring with her have discovered.

  • Badass Grandma: And how.
  • Cool Old Lady
  • Honorary Grandma: Most of the cast call her "Farmor" (Grandma), no matter if they're actually related to her or not. Only a few of the senior citizens regularly call her by her real name, Augusta Beata.
  • Parental Substitute: To Bamse. (Later on, his parents proved to still be alive.)
  • Trickster Mentor: She occasionally shows signs of this, though only towards villains who try messing with her or her family.

Brummelisa

Bamse's long-time girlfriend who eventually became his wife.

  • Action Mom: Not the most obvious example, but in later years she has become more of one.
  • Limited Wardrobe: While all the characters in the comic follow this trope, Bummelisa has an interesting variant in that she changed her regular outfit for a different one when she got married.
  • Mama Bear: Literally. Though she is less obvious about it than Bamse or Farmor, you threaten her family at your own risk.

Brum

One of Bamse's triplets, a talented artist and sensitive soul; the Ego of the secondary Power Trio.

  • Afraid of Blood: In one story, he faints at the sight of it (though it later turned out to be ketchup and not blood at all).
  • Nice Guy: Of all Bamse's children, he's probably the closest to his father in temperament.
  • Non-Action Guy: His sister is the very model of an Action Girl and his brother a Badass Bookworm, leaving him as this.
  • True Art Is Angsty: Usually, Brum's artwork is pretty cheery, but the trope was invoked in the story where he went through a "dark" period due to a rejection from a girl he liked and was promptly "discovered" as an artist.

Teddy

The second of Bamse's triplets; The Smart Guy of the younger generation (or sometimes even to the adults when Skalman is not around). An avid reader and collector of knowledge, he's the definite Superego of the secondary Power Trio.

  • Badass Bookworm: With a heavy accent on the "bookworm."
  • Blind Without'Em: When he was very young, his parents and siblings thought he was The Klutz because he kept tripping over things. Turned out he simply had very bad eyesight, and after he got his glasses his clumsy streak lessened considerably.
  • Mr. Exposition: Occasionally, but nowhere near Skalman's level.
  • Intergenerational Friendship: All Bamse's children have these, but Teddy's friendship with Skalman is by far the most notable.

Nalle-Maja

The third of Bamse's triplets, and one of the very few characters in the comic to gain super-strength from dunderhonung (though in her case, she also gets the three-day-long stomachache, after the strength had faded -- which is why she only eats the honey if it's an emergency). She's the Id of the secondary Power Trio.

  • Plucky Girl: By far the most adventurous and fearless of Bamse's children; she saves the day roughly as often as she gets into trouble.
  • Little Miss Badass: Even without superstrength, she more than qualifies for this trope.
  • Tomboy: Though she does wear a dress, she is definitely one.

Brumma

Bamse's youngest daughter, Friend to All Living Things, and utterly adorable Cheerful Child with a smile that can melt the hearts of even the most hardened crooks. Some time after her birth, she was revealed as intellectually handicapped with serious communication and learning disabilities, which famously led to what's often regarded as the comic's Crowning Moment of Heartwarming; the story "A Liberating Smile." She is the only character in the comic on whom dunderhonung has no effect whatsoever; it doesn't make her strong and it doesn't give her stomachaches.

  • Children Are Innocent: She is utterly incapable of seeing the bad in anyone, and is always the first to go and hug anyone who's looking upset.
  • Hulk Speak: She sometimes uses this and sometimes not.
  • Imaginary Friend: She often visit the anthropomorphic household articles who live in an imaginary land under the kitchen sink.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Blue, with her best friend Mini-Hopp being the red half. Their fur colors are light brown and white, respectively, but their usual clothes are a perfect match.

Nina Kanin

Lille Skutts's wife, and the second half of the series' Beta Couple. For the longest of time, they were in a Cannot Spit It Out courtship, until he finally managed to propose (and promptly fainted when she immediately said yes).

  • Intrepid Reporter: Averted. While she does work as a newspaper reporter, she largely avoids the trope, and has also been seen as sharing the mail route with her husband.

Mini-Hopp

The son of Lille Skutt and Nina Kanin; he's Brumma's age and her best friend. He has inherited his father's speed and ability for large leaps -- making his name, which means "Mini-Jump" a largely ironic one. (This was at one point Lampshaded by Teddy, who wondered if the kid shouldn't have been named "Maxi-Hopp" instead.) Unlike his father, he is not afraid of anything and will cheerfully leap into and out of any danger he may encounter.

  • Fearless Fool: And, due to his age, far less self-aware about it than Bamse.
  • Keet: Probably the purest example of the trope in the entire series.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Red, to Brumma's blue. He's impulsive and energetic while she's calm and serene. Their favorite clothes are, naturally, red and blue.

Others

Vargen

Initially the main antagonist, this wolf made a Heel Face Turn and became the fourth ranger to the Power Trio.

Katten Jansson and Husmusen

Farmor's pet cat and mouse, who frequently act as Team Pets on various adventures. Unlike the other main characters, they are (fairly) non-anthropomorphic animals, adding to the Furry Confusion of the comic.

  • All of the Other Reindeer: Other cats mock Jansson for being friends with a mouse. He usually gets his comeuppance.
  • Ambiguous Gender: Or possibly a very strong case of Viewer Gender Confusion. Husmusen is usually identified as male, but in several stories and adaptations (and even sometimes on the letter page) is referred to as female.
  • Animal Talk: The most obvious example here, as Katten Jansson and Husmusen can talk to each other and to any other non-anthropomorphic animals, but not to the anthropomorphic ones. They are shown to perfectly understand what Bamse and Farmor say to them, though.
  • Art Evolution: Husmusen is possibly the only character in the comic to be notably affected by this -- unlike just about everyone else, he looks markedly different in later appearances.
  • Cats Are Mean: Mostly averted; Jansson can be selfish and mischevious, but is basically good-hearted.
  • Expy: Jansson looks and acts almost exactly like Colombus, the pet cat of Lille Rickard (a previous comic by Rune Andreasson), and Husmusen owes a lot of his appearance (especially in earlier comics, before the Art Evolution kicked in) to the toy mouse Pip, from Pellefant (yet another earlier Rune Andreasson comic). Furthermore, their friendship is a lot like that of Pellefant and Pip from that comic, with Jansson's personality being a lot like a toned-down version of Pellefant's.
  • Furry Confusion
  • Those Two Guys: Or possibly Those Two Team Pets?
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: Type 2, mild case. They love to prank, trick and tease one another, but are still the best of friends. In addition, they occasionally team up in a similar Vitriolic Best Buds relationship with Lurvas, Lille Skutt's pet dog.

Krösus Sork (Croesus Vole)

Rich capitalist and Corrupt Corporate Executive who will do anything for profit. He's probably the closest thing the comic has to a Big Bad -- there have been several villains who were both more evil and bigger threats, but they were usually One Shot Characters -- and is consistently portrayed as one of the very few characters with little or no hope for redemption.

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