Tintin Forums

'Morning,

I've just had a re-read of Picaros and thought that we haven't talked about the somewhat shady character that is Pablo for a while.

So, to try and include some of the newer members in on this, what do we think of our fine friend?

1. Slightly mis-guided?
2. Morally corrupt?
3. Would Tintin continue to trust him in spite of everything that has happened?

Some food for thought.

Cheers,
Ranko

I think Hergé was trying to create a certain South American 'type' in Pablo. He's basically 'good' but is easily corrupted, when money is involved. One gets the feeling Pablo almost does it involuntarily, as if its the culture he's surrounded by influences him more than his personality. In short, what's known, in Britain at least, as a 'dodgy' character.

What I have always found strange, is some of the people that Tintin calls his friend.
Wasn't the only time Pablo was helpful to Tintin, when he broke him out of gaol in Broken Ear which was direct payback to Tintin for not killing him earlier?
Every other time Pablo has been a major part of a plot to kill Tintin.
Therefore I have to disagree with Claro. I think he is basically bad, however, will repay a favour.
Feel free to correct me as I have not read the collection for a while & they are packed away.

I guess in a way, the situation when Pablo's caught at the end of the book represents the conflict in this story between a cynical view of the world - represented by Haddock's conviction that Pablo is bad and shouldn't be forgiven - and an idealistic one, represented by Tintin's decision to forgive him.

Hergé seems to have put more cynicism into this book than any other - maybe he was feeling a bit old and weary, or had been watching too many depressing TV documentaries! Generally in this book, Tintin represents the side of youthful idealism (with his CND bike helmet and pacifist arguments etc), though interestingly it's Haddock who is prepared to risk flying out to Tapiocapolis to help their friends at the beginning of the book, and Tintin (in a reversal of the Tibet storyline) who stays at home until he's shamed into following.

Although Tintin's bloodless punishment-free coup is successful, the book's last panel of the shanty town slum - identical and unimproved by the new Alcazar regime - suggests that for Hergé, the cynical world view ends up dominant after all.

To return to the Pablo question, it bothers me a bit that Tintin takes it upon himself to play god and makes the decision single-handedly to let him go free. What about all the oher people in the truck (Haddock, Calculus, Alcazar and the handful of Picaros) who - thanks to Pablo - would also have been blown to bits by the mortar shell, had the plan succeeded? Don't they deserve an equal say on whether to prosecute Pablo for his treachery? And what about all the other people Pablo might have betrayed to the Tapioca regime over the years? Don't they deserve justice?

The same goes for Tapioca and his henchmen too, of course. What gives Tintin the right to decide that they should all go free? I'm not suggesting he should have let Alcazar shoot them all, but surely a fairly conducted trial and imprisonment for their crimes would have been in order. How would all Tapioca's victims of torture feel, or all the relatives of disappeared people feel, to see this young Belgian simply letting Tapioca get on a plane to live out his days in luxury on a beach somewhere? The decision Tintin makes on Sponz's future - sending him back to Borduria to take up his old job - is even more morally questionable. There must have been thousands of poor Bordurian civillians thanking Tintin for that piece of idealism!

So, to answer the question about whether Pablo is a genuinely remorseful wretch, or an untrustworthy baddie through and through:
Thanks to Tintin's rather slapdash approach to post-regime-change justice, we just don't know. In order to find out how much good there is in Pablo, we'd need Archbishop Tutu to fly in and hold a truth-and-reconciliation process, so that Pablo could make a full explanation and be made to give a proper apology, before being sentenced to some sort of meaningful community service work - on a project to improve that shanty town slum maybe!

Balthazar
it bothers me a bit that Tintin takes it upon himself to play god and makes the decision single-handedly to let him go free.

Thanks for pointing that out Balthazar. Putting Pablo to one side, I've never really thought of it in that way up until now. I think Tintins repeated "You saved my life and I'll never forget it..." line must be starting to wear very thin to Haddock and Co by this time. Indeed, as he lets Pablo go for the last time on Pg58, his action in completely ignoring the Captains warnings suggests the problem is his and his alone. (Lets work like a team and deal with Pablo my way!) I'm sorry but Pablo would have been laughing all the way to his next victim. I guess we were seeing Herge's world weary, somewhat cynical view, but would this trait continue to be part of Tintin into future episodes? I'll be honest, I didn't really like Tintin in this episode. I can't quite put my finger on it. Maybe others feel the same way?

I'd like to re-read it some time. Balthazar's comments were very interesting, something I hadn't really noticed before. However, I will add that we are not given any evidence to suppose that Tapioca's regime was a cruel and murderous one, save from Alcazar and his men's comments. I think the point Hergé was making in letting Tapioca go was that he was no better or worse than Alcazar - leading us to surmise why exactly did Tintin and co. depose him. The answer is of course to save Castafiore and the Thompsons. In other words, in this final book, we see Tintin acting unidealistically, in that he does not prefer one regime over the other, but deposes one in order to save his friends. I think the scene where Tapioca and Alcazar are lamenting the loss if revolutionary 'ideals' (ie. killing the deposed leader) serves to illustrate that the two men are actually very similar.

ClaroQuerido
we are not given any evidence to suppose that Tapioca's regime was a cruel and murderous one, save from Alcazar and his men's comments.

Aren't Pablo's behaviour and the ambush at the pyramid visible evidences, that confirm what Tintin reports in the very beginning of the story?
("They say Tapioca's a real tyrant... he's cruel and he's vain...", in Picaros p.1, C1).


Ranko
I'll be honest, I didn't really like Tintin in this episode.

If Tintin becomes so strangely and repeatedly not so sympathetic* in his last adventure, maybe there's some reason for him to be shown so patently 'morally questionable' (see above)?

So much final strangeness* might be a chief clue to a writing constraint* made visible via amplifications* or repetitions of series of four* items, objects or avatars* -among others.

Well, there´s good and evil in all of us.

Maybe the idealism of Tintin can be read against that background? To accept ourselves with our faults, we must be ready to forgive the faults of other people?

An innocent person only sees evil as something from the "outside" (evil people, satan etc). And when labeling self as a "pure good" and some other people as "purely evil" actually fails to understand the nature of evil.

Pacifism and extreme forgiveness are in fact very strong moral statements. They might be different to your views, but that doesn´t make them "morally questionable".

Relativism would be "morally questionable", but that´s something Tintin distances himself from.

mondrian
Pacifism and extreme forgiveness are in fact very strong moral statements. They might be different to your views, but that doesn't make them "morally questionable".
To clarify: I wasn't suggesting that Tintin's decision to forgive Pablo, Tapioca and Sponz for trying to kill him personally was morally questionable. Actually, I've a very high regard for pacifism and extreme forgiveness and I hope that if anyone ever tried to kill me, I'd be able to at least try to show the same sort of pacifist forgiveness towards them as Tintin shows. But I think it's generally accepted that you only have the "right" to grant people forgiveness for wrongs they've done to you (and possibly your family), not wrongs they've done to others. What seems rather arrogant about Tintin's behaviour is his decision to grant forgiveness to Pablo, Tapioca and Sponz on behalf of their other intended victims (Haddock, Calculus, Alcazar, etc), and on behalf of all their past actual victims - ie: the population of San Theodoros and, in Sponz's case, the population of Borduria. (I take CalaroQuerido's point that we're given little direct evidence that Tapioca's regime tortures and murders people, but I think there are plenty of hints that this regime is pretty typical of many South American regimes of the time - the Nazi-style uniforms, the description of Tapioca given by Tintin, the poor bloke being led away from the tobacconist at gunpoint, etc.

A person might choose to forgive someone who's torturered them or killed one of their relatives, but they can't really forgive that person on behalf of all the person's other victims. And they shouldn't - no matter how much they forgive the person personally - deliberately give that person a chance to go on and harm others, which is what Tintin does with Sponz. Surely Tintin forgiving Sponz and then sending him - completely unreformed - back to Borduria to run the secret police is the moral equivalent of a bishop "forgiving" a child-abusing priest, then sending the priest to a new parish where he'll have the opportunity to abuse more children. This is what I was suggesting was morally questionable, not the concept of personal forgiveness.

It's relatively easy for Tintin to forgive Pablo etc, since he personally comes out of the adventure without a scratch on him. I'm not suggesting that Tintin should be encouraging the population of San Theodoros to indulge in revenge, excecutions, scapegoating or humiliation against Pablo and the others. (Hergé would have seen first hand at the end of the second world war how terrible that sort of thing can be.) But real forgiveness by real victims of real crimes is hard, and can usually only come - as has been seen in the South African example I mentioned earlier - in a system that first establishes truth and justice. By granting forgiveness on behalf of everyone else and simply letting all the "baddies" go free, before hopping on the first plane back to Europe the moment his own friends are OK, Tintin sort of denies the people of San Theodoros any chance of having this truth and justice process.

It's true that Alcazar's regime seems likely to be little better than Tapioca's, but this fact doesn't make Tintin's simplistic handling of the "baddies" seem any better. Flying over that unreformed slum at the end of the book whilst agreeing with Haddock how good it'll be to get back to Marlinspike, seems a very long way from the Tintin who, in earlier books, rushes to the aid of downtrodden rickshaw drivers and orange-sellers!

This strange, unhelpful mix of rather priggish self-appointed moral spokesman and world-weary cynic does make Tintin seem a less-likeable character in this book than in the other books, even Tintin in the Congo.

Excellent posts, and important questions, Balthazar. Forgive me for wandering off-topic, but I think these questions go rather deep into political philosophy, and that interests me greatly.

In modern societies the right to punish has been taken away from individuals. Or to phrase it differently, the people have agreed a social contract (which of course contains many other things apart from crime and punishment), and by doing so given away their right to punish other individuals. The state has the right (and duty) to punish criminals within the law. For example, if I´m being killed, my relatives have no right (within the modern justice systems) to punish the killer as they think appropriate.

As for the case in San Theodoros, it seems the justice system is in no state to work properly. Tintin seems to have authority based on his charisma (and the antabus-medicine invented by Calculus). I can only suppose that he chooses the pardon as better option than possible (probable?) executions that could follow after he´s left.

It seems to me that Alcazar & Tapioca see the executions as a revenge (and a tradition), not a legal punishment for crimes. Tintin probably wants to end that neverending series of revenge, and sees the amnesty as a way to do so. As we know, there are similar circles of violence going on in various crisis areas around the world. Both sides think they have the right to punish the other side for several wrongs done during the years (and centuries).

Personally I´m with Tintin in this: if you want to stop that circle of violence, total amnesty and new start is the only way. If you want to end the violence, you better stop using it yourself. Trying to force (using violence!) other side to stop the violence will end in tears.

I like the example you brought up: I understand that the truth and reconciliation commission has done great job in South Africa, and similar processes are ongoing (or planned) at least in Rwanda.

So in short: the right that Tintin has to forgive is based on moral superiority (over Alcazar and his government). Although the more important thing seems to be the power to do it. Tintin is trying to start a social contract between the people of San Theodoros. Unfortunately we don´t know how it works, the second last frame of the album suggests that Hergé himself wasn´t too convinced. Maybe the people of San Theodoros shouldn´t have been left on their own?