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Does Tintin have any family?

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Whistler
Member
#1 · Posted: 6 Aug 2009 04:55
So, I was reading Explorers on the Moon the other night, and I suddenly came up with the strangest thought. Tintin's family has never been introduced or even mentioned in the books. Now, this may just be because I have not read all the books (I know, blasphemy, right?) but in every story I've read, he doesn't say a thing about them!

It could just be that Mr. Herge decided not to introduce them. As a writer I have to admit, coming up with a backstory is quite a difficult job: you make it to dramatic, you mess up the character, you make them to chipper, and you still mess up the character.

But I still wonder, what kind of family did he come from? Did he come from a family that moved around a lot (this would explain his many travels) or maybe a military family (would explain the punch that knock out full grown men). Maybe he was a loner as a child, and that's why he surrounds himself with friends: perhaps to make up for lost time?

Families can shape the way you are as you grow older. I'm just wonder what type of family did Tintin come up to make him into the adventurous reporter we all know and love :)
number1fan
Member
#2 · Posted: 6 Aug 2009 10:57
I cant remember where i read this but here it goes the father of Tintin wanted him to be a boxer Tintin refused and hes father dis homed him.I doubt that's true maybe Tintin just appeared maybe hes Father was Captain Haddock though it seems like the way Haddock can be sometimes Tintin is a father figure to him.
mct16
Member
#3 · Posted: 11 Aug 2009 18:17
In the books there is no mention of Tintin having a family, friends or a past prior to his getting on the train in the opening scene of "Land of the Soviets", his very first adventure.

When he met old acquaintances in the stories they would always be characters whom he had met in previous adventures.

One of the best non-canonical theories that I have come across regarding Tintin's past is that he was a scout in his youth (hence his strong sense of right and wrong) and that this encouraged his love of travel and adventure (becoming a reporter would be a good way of combining both these elements).

Personally I don't see Haddock as a father-figure, especially given his somewhat childish outbursts and the fact that it is Tintin who has to try and curb his whisky input.
cigee
Member
#4 · Posted: 12 Aug 2009 00:54
Hergé's other series, "Jo, Zette & Jocko" was created at the request of his French editor, specifically because Tintin did not have a family.

Hergé eventually found it too difficult to have the whole family travel, and he commented to (I believe) Numa Sadoul that not everyone is lucky enough to be an orphan.

I think we can take that to be the official word on Tintin's family.
NikkiRoux
Member
#5 · Posted: 12 Aug 2009 08:35
I don't think it was ever mentioned in the 24 official books by Hergé. I might be remembering it wrong, but in Tintin in the New World, it was said that he was raised by his mother.
cigars of the beeper
Member
#6 · Posted: 12 Aug 2009 16:05
It has always seemed to me that Tintin was something like an orphan, without any brothers and sisters either. His parents were either dead, or lost or something.
varietyonline
Member
#7 · Posted: 15 Aug 2009 20:45
both Michael Farr's books and the documentary 'Tintin et moi' comment on him being an orphan..
Biglu
Member
#8 · Posted: 26 Aug 2009 23:31
Biglu
Member
#9 · Posted: 26 Aug 2009 23:35
Biglu
Member
#10 · Posted: 26 Aug 2009 23:41

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