Tintin Forums

All good points doubleT - just put it down to the rules of Tintinland! These are extraordinary stories about an extraordinary person. You don't have to worry about why the chloroform works, just read the story... look, it worked! That's what's important. Tintin, especially in the earlier adventures, is a headstrong young chap and we can assume he discharged himself and avoided or persuaded any doctors that noticed. Similarly, his route to the hospital is not important to the story. Choice scenes and events have been picked for viewing to make the tale only as fat as it needs to be. This is not an authorative view, of course, just my own opinion.

In my opinion, Tintin does indeed have superpowers in the early books but he loses them in the later stories.
For example, in Tintin in America, Pg. 42-43, he climbs at least 209 feet of cliff in about 17 seconds. I got these numbers by comparing Pg.42F.10 (F1) and Pg.42F.11 (F2).

60 = Smiles height in F1
43 = window height in F1
1 = window height in F2
52 = cliff height to bottom of explosion in F2
therefore,
2236 = cliff height in F1

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If we say that Smiles is 67.5" tall, than
48.375 = window height in F1
1.125 = window height in F2
58.5 = cliff height to bottom of explosion in F2
therefore,
2515.5 = cliff height in F1

Convert that to feet and you get this:

Smiles is 5.625' tall
the window is 4.031' tall
the cliff to the bottom of the explosion is 209.625' tall

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I timed myself reading Pg.42F.12-Pg.43F.2 and came up with a total of 16.5 seconds.
209.625 divided by 16.5 = 12.704545
that's just over 12.7 feet per second!

In the later books there is'nt anything like this.

If you think this is a lot of balderdash, please tell me. :)

CC

Captain Chester
I guess your calculations are rather correct, but for me (and probably some more members) which have the metric system and is not familiar with the yard, feet, inch and so on does not see the whole picture. But I get the general idea you are making.

If we say that Smiles is 67.5" tall
I have no clue to how tall that makes Bobby, but I guess Tintin is a fast climber.

You should also take in to the calculation the time passed in between frames, and if the line from Bobby about "Wait a minute..." is meant to be taken literally, 57 seconds is to be inserted between frame 9 and 10 on page 42.

I would say that Tintin seems to climb pretty fast, and his endurance/stamina seems very high since he does not even look tired when he reaches the cabin.

Captain ChesterIf you think this is a lot of balderdash, please tell me. :)

Well hats off to you, Captain: that's possibly the funniest piece of original tintinological research I've read in a long time, and so thoroughly on-topic it is hard to fault it. However, labrador road points out some useful factors which you might like to include in your estimation if you ever choose to re-calibrate it.
Funnily enough it was only yester day I was speculating with Harrock 'n' Roll if it would be possible to estimate Tintin's height using the cover of the volume of German Research he holds in Calculus Affair as a guide, as it matches the real world book in almost very detail. Should I ever come up with a figure, I will let you know, and you could calibrate your estimate against it... ;-)

labrador road 26

Here are the calculations in metric units


4.7625cm = Smiles height in F1
3.413125cm = window height in F1
.079375cm = window height in F2
4.1275cm = cliff height to bottom of explosion in F2
therefore,
177.4825cm = cliff height in F1

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If we say that Smiles is 171.45cm tall, than
122.8725cm = window height in F1
2.8575cm = window height in F2
148.59cm = cliff height to bottom of explosion in F2
therefore,
6389.37cm or 63.8937m = cliff height in F1

Put that together and you get this:

Smiles is 1.71m tall
the window is 1.23m tall
the cliff to the bottom of the explosion is 63.89m tall

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I timed myself reading Pg.42F.12-Pg.43F.2 and came up with a total of 16.5 seconds.
63.89 divided by 16.5 = 3.87234
that's just over 3.87 meters per second!

You should also take in to the calculation the time passed in between frames, and if the line from Bobby about "Wait a minute..." is meant to be taken literally, 57 seconds is to be inserted between frame 9 and 10 on page 42.

if you read carefully, that is before the explosion and the highest Tintin could have been at the time of the explosion was just at the bottom of the explosion, 209.625' or 63.89m below the top of the cliff. I hope that makes sense,

CC

Can't Tintin's height be figured out by Hergé's cameos in the cartoon. If you know Herge's real height, then the cartoon height of Tintin can be figured out!;)

Does Herge make any cameos in the books? I thought that was just in the Eclipse-Nelvana (sp?) cartoons.

CC

toddly6666
If you know Hergé's real height, then the cartoon height of Tintin can be figured out!;)
That might work if he had drawn himself back-to-back with Tintin, but a bit harder to work out otherwise.

Captain Chester
Does Hergé make any cameos in the books?
They certainly beefed up the number for TV, but Hergé appears in both Tintin and Quick & Flupke, which is why he's added to the series (and makes a guest appearance at the start of the Prisoners of the Sun movie too).

For example, in Sceptre, he is shown at the palace in a couple of frames (pp. 38 and 59). The scene on p.59 is a veritable portrait gallery of friends and colleagues, including Hergée (Hergé's wife, Germaine), Paul Remi (Hergé's brother) and E.P. Jacobs. See p.87 of Michael Farr's The Complete Companion for other figures shown.

Of course if anyone has a picture of E.P. Jacobs and Germaine standing back-to-back, with perhaps a metre stick in the background, then we could work out Hergé's height from that...

I get the feeling this is veering a little too off-topic, but could Tintin's height not be calculated by comparing it to buildings that exist in real life, like the Château de Cheverney (Marlinspike) front door, or Topolino's house?

jock123
Of course if anyone has a picture of E.P. Jacobs and Germaine standing back-to-back, with perhaps a metre stick in the background, then we could work out Hergé's height from that...

Those long winter evenings at Céroux-Mousty used to just fly by!

Richard
...could Tintin's height not be calculated by comparing it to buildings that exist in real life...?

See my post of 19th March to this thread.

I haven't been to Geneva since then, though.

As you say, there must be other real buildings inthe series that could be used as accurate measuring gauges. Or cars of course. If we take a picture of Tintin standing next to a known make of car, whose height is known, we could gauge Tintin's precise height from that.