Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death, graphic violence, sexual violence, rape, physical abuse, bullying, gender discrimination, antigay bias, ableism, and cursing.

A “root” satisfies an equation and converts it to an “identity,” an equation that is always satisfied with any value for its unknowns.

Lisbeth stays in her new apartment on Fiskargatan and follows the news, shocked to see that her personal life is now common knowledge. When Lisbeth was 17, a man assaulted her in a train station, and she kicked him in the face. She was arrested for assault, did not speak to the police, and was only released when another passenger testified that the man had assaulted her. Afterward, Lisbeth was declared incompetent and put under guardianship. Now, the news paints Lisbeth as someone who has a severe mental illness, and Mimmi is portrayed as deviating from social norms.

Lisbeth sees news stories with comments from a teacher and a classmate from her former school. Once, when Lisbeth found an error in a textbook, she alerted the teacher, who refused to listen. When the teacher physically shook Lisbeth, Lisbeth hit her with the textbook. Similarly, the classmate bullied Lisbeth, beating her up in front of other students.