Tintin Forums

and a café...
Can't argue with that! :D

I was told that Wolff was saved by aliens as he jumped out of the rocket.
These are the same aliens that paid a visit to the earth in Flight 714 to Sydney.
They said Hergé made a mistake featuring a Russian scientist, the man with the wee antenna, meeting Tintin in the volcano: it should have been Wolff himself.

It would have been in the tradition of Hergé; for instance, Rastapopoulos disappeared and came back too.

As I see it, the only way Wolff could have survived would be if Mik Kanrokitov and his spaceship were nearby and picked him up in the crucial seconds before he died.

Actually, you don't suppose Mik Kanrokitov and his spaceship were quietly watching our heroes' trip to the moon from a distance, do you? Hmm, I'm going to start a whole new thread on this possibility.

The Doctor could have saved him, I suppose. Poor old Wolff.

There's a very small chance of Wolff surviving.
I mean, he could survive on the asteroid for like two or three days, but he would die of thirst and starvation.

Wolff appearing in Flight 714 would have been a good twist.
You could have all the characters appearing again and again. Al Capone was in the same amount of books as Colonel Jorgan.

But then he would have had to take enough oxygen to last that long, which would have defeated the whole purpose of his sacrifice. I think Hergé originally intended us to think that Wolff jumped into space without a spacesuit. It's only the line "perhaps by some miracle I shall escape too" that leads us to think otherwise.

Al Capone only featured in Tintin in America, but Colonel Jorgen/Boris was actually in three books; Ottokar's Sceptre, Destination Moon (very briefly) and Explorers on the Moon.

A slightly old thread, but this topic just came around again on Twitter, where a strong case was put for the suicide note to be re-instated in its original form, as better reflecting Hergé's intention.

I can}t say I agree, as I still hold to the position I made back at the start of this discussion here; however, there may be some justification.

I realize now (having been gently disabused of the notion) that the change was made for the book edition, and not at the intial publication in the Tintin magazine, where it appeared as first written; I'd assumed that the version of the note which Hergé first wrote had been altered by intervention by the magazine editorial staff.

It now appears that the change was at the behest of Casterman, ostensibly for the social and religious reasons which have already been given here.

However, it would be interesting to know now if Casterman acted independently, or if it was motivated by any substantive issues around that strip: had complaints been recieved, or objections made when the issue with the letter appeared? Did any groups or organizations (the Church, a chain of book-sellers, etc.) suggest that they would be unwilling or unable to carry the title as it originally came out?

Might the request have been as much a practical solution to avoid a possible publishing problem, as an attempt to minimise a moral dilemma?

It would be good to know!

jock123
I don't have my copy with me, but I'm fairly sure in Anders Østergaard's film of Tintin et Moi the subject is raised, so logically it's also in the book edition (unless that was one of the things Hergé edited out; seems unlikely though). Interested to find out more...

Just to clarify, here's the note translated from the original French as it was published in Tintin magazine in November 1953:

"When you find these lines, I will have thrown myself out into the void. There is no point in looking for me, you know that I will have gone into space forever. With me gone, you might have enough oxygen to reach earth safe and sound. Farewell, and forgive me for the harm I have done you - Wolff"

Very blunt and final I have to say. The first half of the note does appear to indicate mere suicide (guilt for all his betrayals) and he only touches on the self-sacrifice in passing towards the end.

The note as written in the book edition:

"By the time you read this I shall have left the rocket... When I am gone, I hope you will have enough oxygen to reach earth alive. Perhaps by some miracle I shall escape too. Forgive me for the harm I have done you - Wolff"

Does give more of an impression of giving up his life for the sake of his companions and is more moving (for me at least).

It is possible that the publishers of Tintin magazine received letters of complaint over the bluntness of the original note. Hard to tell, because as far as I can see readers' letters were not published in the magazines - unlike some American ones in which readers could debate for months whether or not Doctor Octopus should come back from the dead.

I think that Hergé's annoyance was that he did not like the idea of a scientist like Wolff putting faith in unrealistic miracles.
He'd already dealt with the subject with Philippulus the crazy prophet in Shooting Star who, upon seeing the ball of fire in the telescope, switches from scientist to religious fanatic. Wolff may have been a weak man who could be blackmailed into betraying his friends, but he was not crazy.

It's funny how the Catholic church objects to self-sacrifice, especially when we are always being told that Jesus died on the cross in order "to save us all" - though that is not the impressions I get from reading the Bible in which he is arrested, sentenced and crucified with hardly any reference to self-sacrifice in order to prevent a greater catastrophe. Besides which, he for one does come back from the dead anyway. Does anyone know of an actual Biblical story in which someone sacrifices his life for others or is it something that is discouraged?

Moderator Note: While theological debate has its time and place, the issue isn't really within the scope of this discussion, especially as the terms being used throughout this thread are vague, and thus a not necessarily entirely accurate picture of teachings of the Catholic and other churches.
Therefore, as we're largely amateur comic-book fans rather than theologians, looking for Biblical examples of self-sacrifice is really too discursive for the subject at hand; ;-)

The Tintinologsit Team