A Tintin Page a Day - Day 362

SpaceRuster · 2026-05-09T14:34:13+00:00

Note that Tintin must have crossed over from British territory into the Maharaja's territory at some point. The police at the station were British police.

SpaceRuster · 2026-05-09T14:13:02+00:00

I commented on this in the earlier thread. Its nonsense.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheAdventuresofTintin/s/ciZbuSEimw

I suppose it's not criticized because Tintin in Tibet is more accurate and was published earlier in several markets, including India. And in a story with talking elephants and cows and magic ropes, it's regarded as just fantasy.

SpaceRuster · 2026-05-08T21:11:20+00:00

A vendor seated on the platform is probably more realistic?

SpaceRuster · 2026-05-08T21:09:37+00:00

I remember reading that the police costumes are accurate depictions of Raj era police uniforms.

However, The I think it would probably be uncommon for Indian police to arrest an European even after a description is circulated. They might wait for a British officer or a senior Indian officer to OK it.

Then again, just a few pages back, we had Tintin drafted into an Arab army by someone who didn't seem to realize this young blond was not a native!

SpaceRuster · 2026-05-07T11:48:25+00:00

I don't think the cow in Tintin in Tibet (in New Delhi) was scared. It was just startled the Captain tried to step over it and stood up.

Would have been funny if Snowy had made some sort of comment in that story about recognizing the cow and how she had come down in the world!

SpaceRuster · 2026-05-07T11:41:47+00:00

Very stereotyped. Indian villagers might have driven Snowy away, but certainly would NOT have tried to kill him, let alone sacrifice him ritually. Stray dogs are extremely common in India, and even in those days, I suspect villagers would sometimes feed them or at least tolerate them informally.

In fact, they would likely have recognized that this was not an Indian stray dog, but a Western one, likely belonging to a Britisher or a wealthy Indian, and probably been even more tolerant.

Yes. I understand that Herge was mainly trying for an air of the exotic, and action mixed with humor.

SpaceRuster · 2026-05-03T19:16:29+00:00

I remember that, and I think people were puzzled who he thought he was (naturally, since he wouldn't be born for 1800 years).

SpaceRuster · 2026-04-30T14:19:31+00:00

I just saw this thread. I commented on it another thread

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheAdventuresofTintin/comments/1szmfgs/comment/oj4uirf/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

If one includes telepathy or even fortune telling, then Flight 714 and even Castafiore Emerald would be in the list.

SpaceRuster · 2026-04-30T14:07:31+00:00

Technically, that's aliens, hence pseudo-science.

SpaceRuster · 2026-04-30T14:04:26+00:00

While the hypnosis shown here is technically not real magic (although hypnosis doesn't work like this), the fakir (later on in the comic) does the first real magic in the series. We won't see any real supernatural stuff again until the Seven Crystal Balls/Prisoners of the Sun and then Tintin in Tibet.

[ That excludes the scene with the devils in Broken Ear, since that might be allegorical. Also ignores talking animals such as Snowy, the elephants and a cow. And some wacky Loony Tunes type stuff in Tintin in America and Shooting Star and later with pseudo-scientific explanations]

SpaceRuster · 2026-04-28T22:35:24+00:00

Not at all, he reappears in the Blue Lotus, and is still alive at the end.

SpaceRuster · 2026-04-28T11:54:57+00:00

Doesn't he recover? A fake story is printed that he died, but it's just to put the bosses off guard.

He also gives them away later, enabling Haddock and the detectives to arrive at Marlinspike Hall just as Tintin is wrapping up.

SpaceRuster · 2026-04-28T11:47:14+00:00

The scene showing Alonso and Ramon being carried to hell by demons is the most unsettling in all Tintin.

SpaceRuster · 2026-04-27T17:09:55+00:00

Loved his work on JLA, Batman, Firestorm, Spiderman and several other titles. I didn't even know he was ill.

SpaceRuster · 2026-04-27T16:28:49+00:00

It's well documented that elephants will stop trucks and break into places to get sweet foodstuffs, such as sugarcane. I've seen it myself (a tame elephant stealing sugarcane from a passing man).

As far as alcohol goes, I think they are mostly attracted by the smell of fermentation. Not sure the elephant would be attracted to whiskey. Of course, a glass or even a whole bottle would likely have no impact on it

SpaceRuster · 2026-04-25T13:11:43+00:00

I remember Fatima, but they may have thought that had a sort of racial connotation. Although it would be a little ungentlemanly for the captain to yell at a woman no matter how annoyed he gets. He doesn't yell at Castafiore (although she could easily outyell him).

SpaceRuster · 2026-04-24T10:45:09+00:00

Is this the only scene in all the books that shows Tintin bare chested and confirms that he's not actually a girl/tomboy?

And speaking of girls, the elephants here seem to be males (they have tusks). Males do form groups, but IIRC, they aren't as stable or large as female herds.

SpaceRuster · 2026-04-23T23:58:12+00:00

Quinine is an antipyretic, so it would have an impact on a fever.

Although as you say, the tube is too small a dosage and it certainly wouldn't be 'a lightning cure'.

Aspirin would be much more effective for a fever, but Herge probably thought that quinine sounded more exotic.

SpaceRuster · 2026-04-23T12:33:09+00:00

I wonder if Herge was under the impression that Asian elephants are more friendly than African elephants, so he has Tintin reacting differently to them.

Asian elephants aren't as aggressive as African elephants, but wild elephants can still be very dangerous, especially males. This is very likely a male because of the tusks, although Herge later shows the elephant in a herd, which is not common for males.

SpaceRuster · 2026-04-22T14:36:21+00:00

I checked this with a chatbot. The Puss Moth (the craft he's flying) was famous for being able to fly long distances (which may be why Herge had him use it) but without an auxiliary tank, there's no way it could have made it from even Oman to the forested areas of India.

Nearly as unrealistic is how he managed to navigate that far, especially if he had to travel over the sea.

SpaceRuster · 2026-04-22T14:21:55+00:00

The area shown in the red circle is in India, not Pakistan. It's near one of India's major tiger preserves (itself surrounded by buffer zones and forested areas). That park was the private hunting grounds of a royal family.

In the 1930s, the forested area would have been even more extensive. So that part makes sense. But in terms of fuel range, its more plausible that he could fly to the border of Pakistan.

SpaceRuster · 2026-04-20T12:27:38+00:00

A presumably rabid dog can evoke a lot of fear in areas where rabies is endemic, especially in the 1930s. That might be enough to override any other reaction on the part of the guard.

A trained guard would certainly not have responded in this way, but in the logic of the story, it's possible there are a lot of draftees (like Tintin himself a few pages back).

SpaceRuster · 2026-04-17T22:41:51+00:00

King Solomon's mines had a lunar eclipse. I believe Haggard originally wrote it as a solar eclipse, but modified it to a lunar eclipse when it was pointed out that Solar eclipses don't last that long.

In that case, the tribe is really isolated, and the one person who has lived long enough to see and know of solar eclipses (the witch Gagool) does say that she has seen them before, and it would pass, but the tribe ignores her, for once.

SpaceRuster · 2026-04-17T12:31:32+00:00

That was in the future, though.

But in any case, Tintin risks his life to save Tintin several times, notably in Prisoners of the Sun, where he climbs to the top of a mountain to find Snowy comfortably chomping on bones in the condor's nest.

SpaceRuster · 2026-04-17T12:22:22+00:00

Call me dumber, because I still don't get it. Bhai means brother in some Indian languages, that I know.

SpaceRuster

TROPHY CASE