Harry Hole and Sos's Sibling Relationship

Harry Hole and Søs Hole are siblings whose closeness is shaped by an affectionate imbalance: Harry regards Søs as his most enthusiastic, unreserved admirer, while she increasingly takes the steadier, more protective role. As their father approaches the end of his life, childhood memories and hospital visits expose both Harry’s reluctance to let her see him vulnerable and Søs’s confidence that she can manage without him.

Attachment and reluctance

Harry’s hesitation to contact Søs is not presented as indifference. He has not yet called her, and recognizes that he is avoiding the call because he does not want to show himself to her. He thinks of her as his most enthusiastic and unconditional admirer, and as the one person he never wants to disappoint. The distinction matters: Harry’s withdrawal is an attempt to preserve her image of him, not a sign that she matters less to him. His regard for her makes the possibility of disappointing her especially difficult.

The narration describes Søs as a young woman who refers to herself as having a slight trace of Down syndrome, yet manages life much better than Harry does. That contrast unsettles the role Harry might imagine for himself as the older sibling who should be the capable one. His reluctance to let her see him is tied to a wider vulnerability: he is not sure he can meet the expectations he believes she has of him. The relationship therefore carries affection and self-consciousness together; her admiration comforts him, but also makes him feel accountable to her.

Childhood remembered by their father

At their father’s bedside, Søs’s place in Harry’s life is described in a family history that reaches back to childhood. Olav Hole tells Harry that Søs had visited and, after hearing Harry had returned, said that she would now have to look after him because she was grown and he was small. Harry answers by calling her wise and asks how their father is doing. Her remark makes their changed roles explicit: the younger sister claims the responsibility of care, while Harry accepts the reversal with humor rather than rejecting it.

Olav’s recollections also distinguish the siblings’ temperaments. He describes Søs as consistently sweet and kind, and Harry as strong-willed. Harry had been afraid of the dark but did not want anyone to know. His parents would stand outside his room and listen as he cried and cursed at invisible monsters. They believed that going in to comfort him would make him angry; he would shout that they were ruining everything and throw them out. Olav summarizes the pattern by recalling that Harry always fought the monsters alone. The memory gives context to Harry’s present reluctance to let Søs see him in distress: isolation was part of how he met fear even as a child, though his sister’s attention now offers a different kind of support.

Olav adds another childhood story: Harry did not speak until nearly five, then suddenly began speaking in complete sentences, slowly and seriously, using adult words. His parents never understood where he had learned them. Olav connects that silence to the present, observing that Harry has become like the little boy again and is not talking. In the conversation, Søs is part of the family’s shared understanding of Harry: her observation that she must care for him sits alongside her father’s memories of his guardedness and childhood silence.

At their father’s bedside

The siblings sit together beside Olav at Rikshospitalet as his condition worsens. Flowers fill the room, including a card addressed to him as a beloved man and signed by Lise, a woman Harry had never heard of. Other bouquets have come from colleagues and neighbors who know that the end is approaching. Harry reads the cards and regards the flowers as a gathering of vultures around a dying man, an image that contrasts with the actual presence of his children at the bedside. Søs is beside him in the vigil, sharing a private family crisis amid the gestures of people who have not made time to visit.

Søs keeps watch while Harry leaves to attend to work. When he returns, she is still there, reading a magazine and eating an apple; more flowers have arrived. She tells him he looks exhausted and should go home. Harry laughs quietly and tells her to go instead, because she has sat there alone long enough. As he turns to leave again, he nearly asks whether she can manage without him, then recognizes how misplaced the question is: when has she ever failed to manage without him? The moment makes his protective impulse visible while correcting it. He wants to check that she is all right, but knows that concern can disguise an assumption that she needs him more than she does.

Care, independence, and the sibling bond

Søs’s care is not expressed only in serious declarations. During another visit, she remembers that Øystein Eikeland brought a bar of milk chocolate for her, not for their father, and admits that she has already eaten it. She laughs so heartily that her eyes squeeze shut. The small story gives her a moment of appetite and pleasure within the hospital vigil, and shows Harry receiving an account of her day rather than simply watching over her. Their bond includes this ordinary exchange as well as the grave business of their father’s illness.

Søs also takes on the role of correcting and directing Harry. When he uses his phone in the hospital, she quietly reminds him that mobile phones are not allowed there. The rebuke is minor, but it fits the broader reversal: she notices his needs and conduct, tells him when he should rest, and does not treat him as the unquestioned guardian of the family. Harry’s own actions show that he is still attentive to her—he returns to the bedside and considers asking if she can cope—but he increasingly recognizes that her independence is not something he grants or supplies.

The relationship’s emotional pattern is therefore not a simple exchange of older-brother protection for younger-sister dependence. Harry’s wish not to disappoint Søs, his childhood habit of facing fear alone, and his impulse to worry about her coexist with her demonstrated ability to care for herself and to care for him. At their father’s bedside, the sibling bond is carried by both speech and presence: Søs names the reversal, Harry accepts it, and each continues to show up for the other without resolving their closeness into a fixed hierarchy.