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Tintin: Tied up, but rarely gagged when captured?

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sliat_1981
Member
#1 · Posted: 9 Nov 2008 05:16
Have you noticed that when Tintin is captured and tied up, he is almost never gagged? And this despite the fact that, in that situation, you'd think that he should be!
For example, Lake of Sharks, Crab with the Golden Claws, Explorers on the Moon, Flight 714.
However, he has no qualms about gagging his own hostages!
So Crab, even though his captors spared him that humiliation; Flight 714, Picaros (where there was no need to gag Pablo).
I think it would be too dangerous not to gag him in Crab, because if he regained consciousness before the Thom(p)sons left, he could call out for them to save him - so it seems a big risk, just to spare their captive the humiliation.
The only time I ever remember him being gagged was in King Ottokar's Sceptre.
Another interesting point, despite the numerous times he was knocked out, only once in The Broken Ear, did he ever get a lump on his head.
mct16
Member
#2 · Posted: 9 Nov 2008 14:01
sliat_1981:
there was no need to gag Pablo

Except that it was made at Pablo's request: Pablo told Tintin and his friends to bound and gag him to make it appear as if he had been assaulted and could thus return to spying on General Tapioca without raising suspicion. Of course, it was all a bluff on Pablo's part.

The fact that Tintin gags his enemies and that they do not just goes to show how much smarter he is.
sliat_1981
Member
#3 · Posted: 9 Nov 2008 18:29
No Pablo only ever mentions tying him but, but Tintin insists on gagging him, despite that there was noisy gunfire all around.
cigars of the beeper
Member
#4 · Posted: 9 Nov 2008 18:54
Well, I think that Tintin just gagged Pablo to make the thing look more authentic.
mct16
Member
#5 · Posted: 10 Nov 2008 18:41
Then it just proves that Tintin really is smarter than even Pablo the turncoat villain.
Briony Coote
Member
#6 · Posted: 30 Dec 2008 03:55
I have also noticed that Tintin is hardly every gagged although he is frequently tied up. The only time I have ever seen him gagged is in "King Ottakar's Sceptre", when he is gagged to stop him warning the King.

Captain Haddock is gagged in "Prisoners of the Sun", Calculus is gagged in "The Calculus Affair" and Abdullah binds and gags Nestor in "The Red Sea Sharks". The last has me wondering about one thing - how on earth can a six-year old boy tie up a fully grown man so heavily and effectively?

Both heroes and villains are tied up frequently in Tintin, yet the villains are gagged far more frequently than the heroes. We see this in "The Crab with the Golden Claws", "Land of Black Gold", "Flight 714" and "Tintin and the Picaros."

Herge apparently favours "over the mouth" gags, using pieces of cloth. The only exception to this is in Flight 714, where Haddock uses tape gags on Rastapopoulus, Carreidas and Krollspell.
Cee
Member
#7 · Posted: 13 Apr 2009 23:49
It is strange when you consider most people who're tied up during their kidnapping, their captor/s usually gags them as well.

I too remember the scene where Tintin is tied up in the hold of the ship. If I was his imprisoner, I'd make sure he couldn't make enough noise to attract attention.
Briony Coote
Member
#8 · Posted: 19 Apr 2009 08:43
There are at least two scenes in "Tintin in America" where it would have been ideal for the captors to gag Tintin: the first when he is tied to the railway tracks, and the second when he is abducted during his commemorative dinner and tied up in the cellar. The scene where the American Indians tie Tintin to a post could have been another.
Je suis Tintin
Member
#9 · Posted: 25 Oct 2009 03:24
I think Herge didn't gag tintin in those books because he needed Tintin to be able to speak to make the story go on.
Tintin also needed to talk to snowy in the crab with the golden claws.
Briony Coote
Member
#10 · Posted: 3 Dec 2009 10:37
Je suis Tintin:
I think Herge didn't gag tintin in those books because he needed Tintin to be able to speak to make the story go on.
Tintin also needed to talk to snowy in the crab with the golden claws.

Perhaphs, but we don't deal with reality, and there were several occasions where the bad guys would have shown more sense to gag Tintin. And as one subscriber has already said, kidnappers gag their victims when they tie them up as a matter of course.

By the way, did you notice that Pablo is tied up differently between the book and the Nelvana adaptation? The Nelvana version has Pablo bound in a hogtie, but it looks like Tintin did an intricate rope job on Pablo in the book.

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