Tintin Forums

To keep the game running after Ranko, here is Q87:

Admitting there are two guns connected with two different persons on board the Moon Rocket (Explorers on the Moon, p.42 to 52), there's an inconsistency concerning those guns.

What and where is the 'mistake'?

Here's the clue:
The 'mistake' can be spotted on page 52.

I don't quite see what you're getting at, yamilah. Do you mean that Jorgen starts off with his square-nosed automatic (p43-p44), but is later using the longer-barrelled pistol after he escapes from the hold and comes back up (p51-p52)? If so, I don't think this is an inconsistency or a mistake. The square nosed gun is Jorgen's own but presumeably this is locked safely away after Tintin has knocked it from his hand with the spanner and let the others back into the rocket. The longer-barrelled gun that Tintin arms himself with before throwing the spanner presumeably belongs to the rocket's supplies or, more likely, belongs to one of the Thompsons (who were making a security check of the ship before it took off from Earth). So it's natural that this is the gun the Thompsons take down to the hold with them when they foolishly attempt to change Jorgen and Wolff's ropes to handcuffs, and therefore this is the gun that Jorgen then takes possession of.

So if this is the inconstency/mistake you were wanting us to find, I don't think it is one! But if you were meaning some completely different (and genuine) inconsistency with the guns, which I've totally missed (more than likely!) let me know and I'll keep looking for it.

Balthazar
Your analysis of the situation is quite sensible indeed, and should lead you to the answer!

Hopefully the original 'mistake' is rendered in the English version too...

yamilah
Hopefully the original 'mistake' is rendered in the English version too...

Yamilah, just to check -
In the French version you're working from, does someone refer to the gun as being Jorgen's on that page, ie: Jorgen saying to Wolff , "let go of my gun!" or Tintin telling ground-control "Jorgen had his gun in his hand", or something like that?

If so, the English translators didn't translate any such error and the gun is only referred to "a" gun or "the" gun on this page in the English version.

Again, let me know if that's not what you were getting at and if I'm missing something else!

Balthazar
If so, the English translators didn't translate any such error and the gun is only referred to "a" gun or "the" gun on this page in the English version.

Was does Calculus say about it in frame D1, please?

Moon-Rocket to Earth... Calculus here... I... It's terrible... Jorgen managed to free himself... He wanted to kill us... and Wolff intervened... There was a fight... Jorgen had a gun in his hand... and in the struggle it went off... Jorgen was shot right through the heart.

Thanks Tintinrulz.
Contrary to Calculus, the original Tournesol asserts Jorgen shot himself accidentally with his gun while fighting (see p.52-D1)
'Jorgen avait son pistolet a la main' / Jorgen hold his gun in his hand, not just a gun.

This gun is actually Tintin's one, Jorgen's one is thicker (see both guns on p.44)

Thus the English version shows no mistake liable to point to the fact that Jorgen (='George', possibly Georges Remi) is killed by the heroes' gun, a fact that somehow matches the animosity expressed sometimes by Herge towards his characters, as reported in his biography.

yamilah
'Jorgen avait son pistolet a la main'
Firstly, even in the French language original, this is not necessarily a mistake. Tournesol (Calculus) might simply be meaning 'his' gun in the sense of the gun that he (Jorgen) had taken possession of. A perfectly good way of expressing the situation in colloqual speech.

Secondly, the quiz rules clearly state that we're using the English translated books, not the French ones, so if anyone's setting a text based question they should have the English version of the book to hand when they set it.

yamilah
This gun is actually Tintin's one
Thirdly, as outlined in my first post to this thread, we've no reason to think that the gun is Tintin's personal property. He says he armed himself with it and the spanner, not "I got my gun and a spanner" . If it was Tintin's own gun, how come the Thompsons could borrow it to go down to the hold without Tintin knowing?

yamilah
Thus the English version omits the fact that Jorgen (='George', possibly Georges Remi) is killed by the heroes' gun
Therefore this theory about any significance to this, based purely around the spurious fact that it is the hero's gun, becomes equally spurious. (And, by the way, I think that your claim that Jorgen necessarily represents Georges is an equally speculative piece of unprovable guesswork on your part.)

yamilah
It seems this subtle but interesting point suffers from some language barrier problem!
I think you're trying to distract us from the point that you set a duff question, yamilah! The only "language barrier" is your inability to stop writing in pseudo-intellectual psychobabble, and the only "problem" is that this is now spilling over into the quiz. I don't mind ploughing through your ludicrous theories in general forum threads - the arguments add spice to the website - but I thought it had been agreed to limit the quiz to clear unambiguous questions, based on the English versions of the books, with clear unambiguous answers, based on fact! ;-)

I read the entire section twice and saw no inconsistency, the best I could come up with is that Jorgens original gun is never picked up by anyone and seems to just lie on the floor.

R