Tintin Forums

In the part of the story where Tintin meets the Emir in his mountain hideout, the Emir reveals that the reason for the dispute between his government and Arabair was that they refused to comply with his son's demand that the DC3s loop the loop before landing in Wadesdah. Then he threatens to terminate their contract and reveal that they are indulging in Slave Trading and using Wadesdah as a base point.

So from this I have some questions:

1. If the Emir knew they were in Slave trading why did he give Arabair the contract in the first place? And even if he didn't know in the beginning about their activities, why doesn't he terminate once he finds out about their activities?

2. He uses the threat of exposing them to blackmail them to comply to his son's wishes rather than on moral grounds. Had the coup not occured, wouldn't the Emir have continued with the contract, thus being a knowing, willing party to their activities?

So doesn't this make the Emir actually a party to the crime of Slave trading? Had Abdullah not had this childish desire to see planes doing aerobatics over Wadesdah, would the Emir have continued working with Arabair knowing fully well their illegal trafficking in human beings?

So was he worthy of being rescued by Tintin? Hmmmm....

Similar rather to the moral relativity between Alcazar and Tapioca. That rather seems to be the case in Herge's depictions of some of these fake countries, especially in some of his later books. Even Syldavia is not a real pot of cream, as we see in The Calculus Affair.

Yes, that's quite a reasonable assumption. I think the distinction between "good" and "bad" guys get increasingly blurred in the later stories -- an indicator to Herge's maturity perhaps? Even in Flight 714, the character of Carreidas is a good example. He is on Tintin's side, but he's one of the most despicable characters in the whole series.

There is no proof that Bab El Ehr was a bad leader. We were only hearing one side of the story.

That's also true. But by association/collaboration with the Marquis De Gorgonzola in his illegal trafficking, he is probably worse than the Emir in that regard.