Tintin Forums

Well, going through my Tintins recently, I noticed that adventures sans Haddock show a much better plot, better layout and don't uselessly waste scenes depicting whisky or unclassy humour (not to mention words like ectoplasm, carpet-seller etc.).
Although there is a thought that Tintin wouldn'tt have had as many adventures without him, like Red Rackham's Treasure and The Secret of 'The Unicorn' etc.
I wonder whether anyone else agrees?

Um, no.
Haddock has great character development and humour. That's the point of those scenes. They aren't useless or even a waste and his rantings are great.
Haddock is one of the most loved characters in the adventures, if not the most.

I generally like having Haddock around. This is what enables Tintin to have a continuous relationship with another human being (I mean, how often does Chang come around?). Besides, Haddock is so much fun as a person (I mean when not drunk)...

Sorry, I don't think many people will agree with you. Repeated whisky incidents may be repetitive, but Haddock also adds a dimension which is unmatchable. The earlier books have their charm, yes, because Tintin is always on the run, but they clearly do not have better plot and better layout. Anyways, Haddock is just a great character who provides lots of things, humour, friendship, and etc.

I would like to thank fellow tintinologists for their suggestions.

Perhaps there is a grain of truth in what you say, but I think it owes more to graphing “books over time”, than the good Captain himself as a character.

As the years passed, Hergé accumulated more and more characters; for better or worse, he felt it neccessary for them all to be included in every story - this tends (in my opinion - others disagree!) to hold back the action, and makes later books less satisfactory. It is one thing to write a boring character such as Wagg - it is another for that character actually to be boring to the reader (which is what he became to me…).

But many of the books with the Captain (the Rackham pair, the Moon adventures and Calculus) are exemplary in terms of their plot, so it can’t be laid at Marlinspike’s door…

As I have said elsewhere, I would have liked Hergé to mix it up more, and alternate solo, or minimum cast books with the full “family” ones, just to keep things interesting.

Tintin is more mobile and agile in the solo series. He moves from one place to another briskly, unencumbered by an old sailor or a near-deaf professor. In addition, the story jumps from one sub-plot to another in a quicker pace.

I like Haddock in general, and he's my second-best character in the Tintin universe. Unfortunately, Herge made him bear the brunt of the most unpleasant and crass dialog in the Tintin adventures. Herge made Tintin very idealistic and polite that you won't find him using racist stereotypes and uttering demeaning epithets. Other characters had to do the dirty job, especially Haddock.

The problem with Wagg is he's meant to be boring but with Herge's usual hyperbole he turned up quite irritating and reprehensible. I doubt any Tintin fan likes him. In fact, Baudouin de Duve, the author of the gross "Tintin in Thailand", wiped the floor with him and his family.

I´ve always thought that tintin himself is a rather dull character, in a sense just too "perfect" to identify with. That wasn´t so in the earlier adventures when tintin had weaknesses (f. ex. getting drunk in broken ear) and a tendency to be anarchistic every now and then (blowing up the rhino).

I think that as Tintin became more and more famous, Hergé had this need to make him someone to look up, be an example for everyone. Haddock, Tournesol, Dupon(d)ts et al had to be there, to give the story some balance. The idea of having "solo-tintin" later on is nice to toy with, but i quess it wouldn´t make an excellent read.

Because in his later years Tintin was, let´s face it, an one-dimensional person. Full of virtues, and one virtue (fairness) the only thing driving him forward. When he does sport, he does so firstly so because of an end and only secondly because it´s fun or enjoyable (Prisoners of the Sun, p. 54). In my opinion that scene explains perfectly why Haddock is needed: he has true emotions and sometimes (quite often) he let´s them guide him. Whereas I can´t think of an single situation in later adventures where Tintin would let his emotions overrule his reason. In life that would make you an virtuous person in an Aristotelian sense, which is great, but as a comic book character that doesn´t make you very interesting.

I don't think Tintin became dull or one-dimensional in the later adventures. His personality evolved through time. There's a book that analyzes this in some detail, Les Metamorphoses de Tintin by Jean-Marie Apostolides.

One example of Tintin letting his emotion overrule his reason in the later adventures is Tibet, where he goes on a very dangerous mission to rescue Chang, even though it seems logically futile. He persisted based on pure gut feeling.

One example of Tintin letting his emotion overrule his reason in the later adventures is Tibet, where he goes on a very dangerous mission to rescue Chang, even though it seems logically futile. He persisted based on pure gut feeling.

Partly agree with that, partly disagree.

Firstly because whatever is this "gut feeling" that's taking him to Tibet, i wouldn't say it's an emotion, at least if we understand emotions to be such things as love, hate etc. You're right saying his personality evolved through time, but that's a different thing to being a very emotional character.

And secondly, it's of course true that Tintin has emotions (particularly shown in Tibet), but I'd like to maintain that Tintin lets his reason guide him.
As I understand Tibet he does the following reasoning: 1. T'Chang is alive 2. Nobody knows that and he's about to die 3. As his friend it's my duty to help him if I can 4. Therefore I'm going to Tibet to try to save him.