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The Seven Crystal Balls: Have the Captain and General Alcazar met before?

hadtins
Member
#1 · Posted: 5 Oct 2014 18:38
Well, firstly, if you see, in page 10 of the book The Seven Crystal Balls, in the 2nd panel, Tintin tells captain, "Alcazar...Don't you remember", and secondly, in page 13, in the 2nd panel again, when Alcazar asks Tintin who Captain Haddock is, Tintin says, "You remember...". Even the expression on Captain Haddock's face is such that he is surprised that the General has forgotten him. Yet in none of the previous albums have they seen or even heard of each other.
So, did they really meet each other before? Could it have been possible?
mct16
Member
#2 · Posted: 5 Oct 2014 21:20
"7 Crystal Balls" was first published in French in 1943-44 and Tintin introduced Haddock and Alcazar to one another for the first time.

"The Red Sea Sharks" was first published in 1956 and Haddock and Alcazar meet again at the street corner and (off-scene) at the hotel.

When the books were published in English in the UK, "Red Sea Sharks" first appeared in 1960, followed by "Crystal Balls" in 1962. Thus the translators took the liberty of assuming their own chronology rather than the original.

One thing that has always struck me about this scene is how Alcazar and Tintin are so friendly with one another given the fact that the last time they met in "Broken Ear" Alcazar wanted Tintin shot. Let bygones be bygones I suppose.
Lochlomondwhisky
Member
#3 · Posted: 22 May 2015 01:24
I'm glad someone posted this, I've wondered a lot about it! Thanks, mct16, for clearing that up!
Rei002
Member
#4 · Posted: 27 Jul 2017 22:28
mct16:
One thing that has always struck me about this scene is how Alcazar and Tintin are so friendly with one another given the fact that the last time they met in "Broken Ear" Alcazar wanted Tintin shot.

That's the question I have always asked myself. From Tintin's side, as you said, let bygones be bygones. But from Alcazar's, I can't still understand.

The last time we saw General Alcazar, before the book The Seven Crystal Balls, was in The Broken Ear, where he was left with the impression Tintin was a traitor, first ordering his execution and later that he be killed.

Yet when Tintin and General Alcazar re-encounter each other in The Seven Crystal Balls, they greet each other as good old friends, as if that later part of the previous episode had never happened, or as if they had already cleared the misunderstanding - but Tintin says that the last time he saw Alcazar was in San Theodoros (in The Broken Ear), and what happened to Alcazar (which led him to be a knife thrower), confirms that they haven't been in contact till this current encounter.

Why did General Alcazar receive him well?
Didn't he consider him a traitor?
And if he did know the truth, who told him, or how did he know it?
mct16
Member
#5 · Posted: 29 Jul 2017 19:34
In "Broken Ear" war breaks out as a result of Tintin crossing the border into Nuevo-Rico in a car with a machine gun. He has just escaped from prison in San Theodoros where he was jailed for espionage.

It is possible that this was raised during the peace negotiations and that the Nuevo-Ricans persuaded the San Theodorans that they had had nothing to do with Tintin and thus that there had been a gross deception. Tintin, as an interested party, would have heard of this and thus decided that he could approach Alacazar without there being any recrimination, since apart from that incident they had gotten on reasonably well.

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