How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"You are cowards. Five of you attacking one boy! That's cowardly. Then you begin to push a helpless girl around. Oh, how mean!" (2.60)
We love that Pippi refers to herself as a helpless girl. That's a laugh, but then Bengt had no reason to suspect Pippi was anything other than average which, when faced with a ring of six older boys, would make her somewhat helpless. And she is a girl. So by phrasing it that way, Pippi makes it clear that she's standing up on behalf of girls—and underdogs—everywhere. Equality, kindness, not taking advantage of those that may be weaker? Those are some pretty good principles.
Quote #5
"What's the matter? You don't really think that I'm sitting here telling lies, do you? Just tell me if you do," said Pippi threateningly and rolled up her sleeves.
"Oh, no, indeed," said the girl, terrified. […]
"But it's just what I'm doing. I'm lying so my tongue is turning black […]. You mustn't let people fool you so easily." (5.29-31)
Pippi turns her lies around pretty quickly here, making them a lesson in gullibility and self-confidence. If instead of saying no out of fear, the girl had said yes, how do you think Pippi would have responded?
Quote #6
"Once in Arabia he [Mr. Nilsson] ran away from me and took a position as a maidservant to an elderly widow. That last was a lie, of course," she added after a pause. (6.47)
Here we see that Pippi can both respect Annika's stance that lying is wicked, and maintain her zest for storytelling. Sure it's a lie, and she's fine with admitting that, but it's also a pretty amusing idea, and isn't that fun? It's kind of like she's trying to help Annika see that while it's wrong to lie about important stuff, tall tales aren't all bad.