In "Tintin in the Congo" Tintin is rather cruel towards animals: he shoots a chimpanzee just to use its skin as a disguise, and he also blows up a rhino by drilling a hole into its hide and placing a stick of dynamite there. In "Tintin in Tibet" all the people in the plane crash except Chang die obviously, but this happens off-page. Also, the final fate of Rastapopoulos and his cronies is left unclear in "Flight 714", since it isn't shown what happens to them after they're abducted.
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 14:09 (nineteen years ago) link
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 14:19 (nineteen years ago) link
― Chriddof (Chriddof), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 19:38 (nineteen years ago) link
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 19:44 (nineteen years ago) link
in prisoners of the sun, the aztec bandits who waylay tintin&haddock become human snowballs and tumble into a ravine (but rastapopoulos survived a similar fall in cigars of the pharaoh, so maybe they all just got bumps on their heads w.little stars and birdies circling)
isn't one of the two similar-looking japanese villains in the blue lotus executed, or something? (plus also: are they twins? i have only ever read this one in french, and don't entirely follow it)
in fact 6. twins who aren't exactly quite twins?(thomsons/alembicks/bird brothers?
(i mean, are the thomsons even BROTHERS? their surname is difft!!)
― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 14:03 (nineteen years ago) link
what is his ADDRESS? (possibly more than one answer) (also very likely difft between french/english/whatever, but gimme one to justify yr love)
― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 14:42 (nineteen years ago) link
I'm pretty sure the address of Tintin's old flat is mentioned in one of the stories, but I can't remember what it is.
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 15:04 (nineteen years ago) link
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 15:06 (nineteen years ago) link
Hmm, I think in this case it was implied the bandits die, Tintin of sixties was clearly more realistic than Tintin of the thirties.
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 15:09 (nineteen years ago) link
what nationality is capt.haddock in the original? cz his ancestor surely way more resembles an english (or possibly dutch) privateer than whatever the belgian equiv.wd have been
ok as you were: "The city of Port Royal at Jamaica, the base of Belgian pirates, was regarded as "worst town of the world""
― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 16:30 (nineteen years ago) link
― Chrchuckis Tatum (Chuck Tatum), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 18:15 (nineteen years ago) link
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 22:49 (nineteen years ago) link
― Chrchuckis Tatum (Chuck Tatum), Thursday, 13 January 2005 04:29 (nineteen years ago) link
possibly he moved in w.the captain later (once CH got past his rather unfanciable monocle-sporting stage)
i also plan to take issue w.tuomas's "gets more realistic" argt: i can see what is meant but i think it is more complex than that
however i have a morning's actual real work to get on with first :(
(if haddock is english then is marlinspike in england?) (i know this question is all bitched up since english translation editions imply w/o ever plainly stating that tintin is english and that the action is taking place in the uk)
― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 13 January 2005 10:41 (nineteen years ago) link
in 7CB, when they are waiting for the magician and bianca castafiore sings, TT reminds CH that they met her in the Red Sea - but surely this was years after? (oddly enough they appear to be ordered chronologically on the backs of the UK issues currently)
were they published - rewrites not counted - in the order they "happened"?
― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 13 January 2005 10:45 (nineteen years ago) link
He is called Archibald Haddock in the original Belgian version, as well as in the Finnish translation, but I don't know about other editions.
Well, obviously it doesn't get altogether more realistic, but I think it gets more realistic as related to death. In the later albums people don't escape deadly situations in funny ways like they used to in the earlier stories.
That's a good question! Haddock seems to be English in the original stories as well (why else name him Haddock?), but Moulinsart (Marlinspike), his family castle, seems to be located in Belgium; even the name of the castle comes from the name of an actual Belgian small town, Sarmoulin. Maybe Hergé just wasn't thinking about all this too deeply?
In Belgium The Red Sea Adventure was published years after Seven Chrystal Balls (and the internal chronology of the Tintin stories runs exactly in the order they were published, so the Red Sea Adventure takes place later), but if the order was reverse in the UK, maybe the translator didn't want to confuse the kids who had just read an story where the Captain and Tintin met Castafiore. In the Finnish translation (and no doubt in the original) Tintin tells Haddock that he has met Castafiore (during the Ottokar adventure), but the Captain doesn't know her.
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 13 January 2005 13:14 (nineteen years ago) link
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 13 January 2005 13:23 (nineteen years ago) link
anyway: 8. tintin and the nature of realism
Tintin in the Land of the Soviets [never read it] (Tintin au Congo): [never read it] Tintin in America: [never read it] Cigars of the Pharaoh: highly implausible in a standard comic-book comedy thriller type way but not "unrealistic" i don't think (problems: raijaijah juice/tintin "talks" to an elephant/tintin gets from egypt to india a bit quick)The Blue Lotus: background politics very realistic (except raijaijah juice)The Broken Ear: realistic in a light opera/borges fable type way The Black Island: realistic (problems: the thomsons airshow/wd a gorilla threive on a remote scottish island?) King Ottokar's Sceptre: realistic (tintin falls from a plane into a haystack) The Crab with the Golden Claws: realisticThe Shooting Star: impossible science on the star fragment itself, plus it wd have caused much more damage when it landed if it's big enough to stick out of the ocean surely; other than this realistic The Secret of the Unicorn: implausible in a treasure-island type way but realisticRed Rackham's Treasure: ditto (calculus's ashakr sub = based on an actual real machine) The Seven Crystal Balls: even if ball lightning exists - which it may - it doesn't behave the way it's shown to on the cover; plus also a MYSTICAL AZTEC PROPHECY comes true!! Prisoners of the Sun: Turns out the liquid in the crystal balls themselves gives the Aztecs power over people thousands of miles away, provided they have made little models of them to torment!! (So Tintin may amaze the Aztec High Priests by ordering the sun around, but cold demystified rationalism doesn't exactly have the last word) Land of Black Gold: ahem an untraceable pill to make petrol more explosive plus if you take it internally it causes yr hair to grow at mad pace and yr skin and hair colour to change rapidly: otherwise realistic Destination Moon: realistic i guess Explorers on the Moon: but actually i am a bit torn here - yes man got to the moon (only ten-plus years later), so all this was possible give or take, ands yes it is v.carefully researched, but still, it is a fantasy of the unknown at the time hergé wrote it The Red Sea Sharks: realistic The Calculus Affair: realisticTintin in Tibet: the migou? OK this is borderline "science" if you cross yr fingers (there's nothing impossible abt the existience of such a creature), BUT tintin's mystical connection w.chang? And the far-seeing monk who floats up into the air? The Castafiore Emerald: realisticFlight 714: hullo aliens and telepathy!!!Tintin and the Picaros: realistic
As i said, i can see the point tuomas is making: there's an increasing attention to technical-drawing precision down the series, which functions as a kind of ahem mise-en-scene realismus-miasma in front of which to play out all kinds of fantasy shenanigans (like eco's famous essay on the james bond books - fleming is very precise about the marmalade and the drinks and the make of gun and the feel of place, in order to allow him to be super-fantastical in plot terms)
BUT i think there's if anything an increase in weird science...
― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 13 January 2005 13:39 (nineteen years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 13 January 2005 13:41 (nineteen years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 13 January 2005 13:42 (nineteen years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 13 January 2005 13:51 (nineteen years ago) link
Yes.
About realism: as I said, I was talking about increasing realism towards death and violence. The earlier albums (especially the first) are full of near-death escapes which, while not totally unrealistic, are highly implausible. There's also plenty comics-style funny scenes where a bomb explodes too early, yet the people near the bomb only get black faces. Stuff like this, or like Tintin falling from a plane into a haystack and surviving, never happen in the later adventures.
ii. at start of CwGC, a japanese detective is murdered as he tries to contact tintin
He is shot, yes, but he survives and is hospitalized. Tintin meets him at the end of the story. The Syldavian agent in King Ottokar's Sceptre dies, however.
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 13 January 2005 14:02 (nineteen years ago) link
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 13 January 2005 14:03 (nineteen years ago) link
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 13 January 2005 14:13 (nineteen years ago) link
and actually i think the first three possibly skew it back the other way
surely there are bomb-explodes-w/o-death scenes in calculus affair (when they're in the tank just at the border) and red sea (when the aircraft by mistake bomb their own troops/plus also the shark swallowing the mine possibly)?
HOWEVER i am still dubious abt what we're meant to think of the snowball deaths (or not) in PoS: it's true that TT and CH can't actually be blamed for them if they are deaths, but if the aztec bandidos DO die, it wd surely kinda dilute the "TT as a friend of our people" meme which later works for him. I mean, OK, they wd be set free (cz they can control the sun), but wd they be loaded down w.treasure?
― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 13 January 2005 14:19 (nineteen years ago) link
but yes, it mainly works as dark slapstick if yr used to the idea that bombs don't kill ppl in tintin, they just give them black faces
― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 13 January 2005 14:28 (nineteen years ago) link
It's been ages since I read Prisoners of the Sun, but was it ever implied that the bandidos were Incas (not Aztecs, the story doesn't take place in Mexico)? Maybe they were just some other bad guys?
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 13 January 2005 14:33 (nineteen years ago) link
will have to reread to be honest: i took it to be that true-born incas run a kind of nation w/i a nation (ie the police captain who won't help them), and hadn't the bandidos kidnapped the little (non-inca?) indian kid? ie they are part of the conspiracy?
haha Maybe Hergé just wasn't thinking about all this too deeply? Noooooooo don't say that!! Everything collapses if you start down that path!!
Nestor the butler seemsw v."English" (tho i know nothin abt french or belgian retainers, style-wise). I don't recall any channel-crossing in Secret of the Unicorn though. Are the Bird brothers english?
(Oh: there's a death in SotU also, isn't there!!) (A particularly gratuitous one, in fact...)
― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 13 January 2005 14:45 (nineteen years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 13 January 2005 14:57 (nineteen years ago) link
No, I think it is quite clear that Secret of the Unicorn takes place in Belgium, and hence Moulinsart/Marlinspike is located there as well. Maybe Haddock's forefather just decided, for some reason, to live in Belgium and required that there should always be an English butler in his castle... ;)
Can't remember, you'll have to remind me on that.
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 13 January 2005 15:01 (nineteen years ago) link
certainly one of the brothers is notably more murderous than the other
― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 13 January 2005 15:04 (nineteen years ago) link
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 13 January 2005 15:10 (nineteen years ago) link
in english: tintin lives at 26 Labrador Road (address mentioned in 7CB and T in Tibet: Chang's letters is addressed to Labrador Rd, the forwarded to Marlinspike, then to wherever they are holidaying together)
of course I forgot what Marlinspike actually LOOKS like: there is no country house in the whole of the British Isles w.that high raked gable style - it is certainly in Belgium (or France).
v.long-running weird science gag: calculus's pendulum
the name archibald is originally german not british (it means "very brave")
― mark s (mark s), Friday, 14 January 2005 10:47 (nineteen years ago) link
Anyway, sorry to be a spoilsport, but this seems to prove that Tintin isn't English.
Also, I was told once by a French BD fan, that T and T are in fact "typical Belgian stereotpyes", and not as everyone thinks "typical Englishmen" -- any Belgians out there agree/or not?
― Chrchuckis Tatum (Chuck Tatum), Saturday, 15 January 2005 01:47 (nineteen years ago) link
― Snappy (sexyDancer), Saturday, 15 January 2005 16:28 (nineteen years ago) link
(except actually i think the english translaters seem sometimes to be hoping that you do mistakenly assume he is English, for reasons that baffle grown-up mark s)
my only reasons for wondering about haddock and marlinspike, respectively, were that "sir frances haddock" somehow looked more of an english privateer (bcz i didn't know that belgium wz notorious for pirates in the 18th century); and that nestor somehow looked more of an english butler, dress-wise
― mark s (mark s), Monday, 17 January 2005 11:49 (nineteen years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Monday, 17 January 2005 12:05 (nineteen years ago) link
FIW, The Avengers TV series was known in France as Chapeau Melon & Bottes de Cuir (Bowler Hat and Leather Boots).
― Michael White (Hereward), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 00:42 (nineteen years ago) link
― Michael White (Hereward), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 00:44 (nineteen years ago) link
the deaths in explorers haunted me as a kid, frank wolfe's anyway ("by some miracle i will escape too")
i still get anxiety shakes when i think about explorers on the moon, let along pick it up and read it
― max, Monday, 2 February 2009 04:39 (fifteen years ago) link
According to Hergé, he inserted the "perhaps by some miracle I shall esacape too" line on the orders of Tintin magazine. Suicide was still taboo in Catholic Belgium, even if heroic. Hergé later regretted adding this cop out, saying something along the lines of "Wolff was condemned and he knew it".
― Richard Jones, Wednesday, 4 February 2009 11:03 (fifteen years ago) link
Yeah, I read that in Harry Thompson's excellent Herge biog.
― chap, Wednesday, 4 February 2009 12:01 (fifteen years ago) link
That's where I got it from too, I think- but the original source is probably Entretiens avec Herge, for which an English translation is long overdue.
― Richard Jones, Friday, 6 February 2009 16:17 (fifteen years ago) link
another theme in tintin--something gets broken, then fixed, then immediately broken again. happens to the thom(p)son twins all the time
― max, Friday, 6 February 2009 16:21 (fifteen years ago) link
Haddock falls over/walks into something.
― chap, Friday, 6 February 2009 16:50 (fifteen years ago) link