Tintin Forums

Tintinologist.org Forums / [Archive/read-only] Tintin Trivia Challenge /

Q200: Poor boy...

Page  Page 2 of 2:  « Previous  1  2 

Balthazar
Moderator
#11 · Posted: 29 Apr 2007 11:00
Hang on.

jock123
You asked who declared themselves an orphan ... which Chang does by saying he has lost both his parents

What Chang actually declares when Tintin meets him is that his parents were "lost". Admittedly, this use of the word "lost" could well be a euphamism for "killed", but it could simply mean "missing". (Presumeably it's later decided that his parents must be dead, as he's adopted by someone else, but because of the ambiguity of the word "lost", it's not entirely clear that Chang has reached the conclusion that his parents are dead at the time he speaks about them to Tintin.)

Alvarolino's condition was that the person has to declare themselves to be an orphan, which surely means they either have to use the word "orphan" to describe themeselves, or have to unambiguously declare both their parents to be definitely dead. And Chang doesn't quite do either of these things, in my humble opinion.

I may be deemed wrong, and jock may well be right (his reading of the word "lost" may well be the one Hergé intended), but maybe you should hold fire with a next questiion for just a wee bit, Toydreamer, at least until this one has run its course. :-)
toydreamer
Member
#12 · Posted: 29 Apr 2007 11:16
No problem. Will read the outcome in the Australian morning... in about 12 hours. :) (Finger's crossed)
jock123
Moderator
#13 · Posted: 29 Apr 2007 14:32
I take on board what you say, Balthazar, but it seems to me a fair response to the question as set to be able to take the notion of someone having lost their parents to being a declaration that they are an orphan. I don’t know if this what Hergé intended either, but then again he’d not been given alvarolino’s question…

The very fact that alvarolino chose to state the question as there's a declared "orphan" actually adds to toydreamers case, as the solution thus calls for someone making a statement that suggests they are an orphan, not that they are in actuallity an orphan.
Add to that the word orphan being in inverted commas gives a sense of ambiguity (an orphan of sorts, as it were), so I stand by my ajudication.
toydreamer has the point and the next question.

However others may feel that they want to play on a bit longer for fun rather than points, so I won’t lock the thread down just yet.

Over to you, toydreamer!
Balthazar
Moderator
#14 · Posted: 29 Apr 2007 15:42
Yep, fair enough, jock. And also, checking back to the question, I see that I was wrong to state that alvarolino said that the character had to declare themselves an orphan. She only said that they are "a declared orphan." Even if Chang's original statement leaves some ambiguity about whether he believes himself to be an orphan, Mr Wang's speech near the very end of the book, when he talks of Chang's sadness at losing his parents and announces that he and Mrs Wang are adopting him, seems to be a pretty definite declaration of Chang's orphanhood. (If Mr Wang or anyone else really believed at this point that Chang's parents were lost in the "missing" sense rather than in the "dead" sense, they'd surely be out looking for them, which they aren't.)

So I was wrong. Sorry everyone for holding up Toydreamer from setting the next question. (I was thinking we ought to to wait for alvarolino to give her response and verdict to jock's intervention, but I was forgetting jock's forum moderator status. No disrespect intended, jock.)

It would be good to see if anyone can work out which boy character alvarolino did have in mind, for the fun of it.

Hang on, whilst typing that, I think I might have thought of it. The only character I can think of who is directly referred to as an orphan, is Alvaro, the made-up nephew of Oliveira whom Tintin pretends to be in Land of Black Gold. He certainly "seems to have had a hard life" (ie: according to Oliveira's yarn), and the fact that he doesn't really exist might explain alvarolino's placing of inverted commas around the word orphan in her original question. But if this is the answer, I should re-state that I'm certainly not after Toydreamer's point.
alvarolino
Member
#15 · Posted: 29 Apr 2007 16:21
The only character I can think of who is directly referred to as an orphan, is Alvaro, the made-up nephew of Oliveira whom Tintin pretends to be in Land of Black Gold. He certainly "seems to have had a hard life" (ie: according to Oliveira's yarn), and the fact that he doesn't really exist might explain alvarolino's placing of inverted commas around the word orphan in her original question.

Absolutely right, Balthazar!!! This is the answer I was looking for!!!! But I agree with you, jock... My question should have been more clear. So, toydreamer has the point and the next question. Over!
jock123
Moderator
#16 · Posted: 29 Apr 2007 16:42
Balthazar
No disrespect intended, jock.
Absolutely none taken - your wise counsel was appreciated, if not accepted!
I don’t want to be taken as an abrbitrary decision-maker, so I am always open to another point of view - it just so happens that this time it was toydreamer’s point I took…
Kudos also for getting the intended answer, by the way!
tintinspartan
Member
#17 · Posted: 29 Apr 2007 19:03
How about Zorrino? He does not have parents. Evidence shows that in Prisoners Of The Sun, pg 59, he stayed behind at the Inca Temple of The Sun to live with the Incas when asked by Tintin about where's he going. When we first meet Zorrino, he was alone selling oranges and was get pushed around by Jauga village bullies. This could show that he was alone-an orphan-he can't do anything till our good, old Tintin came and put an end to this. We know Tintin, treating humans fairly, even if you're black or white, rich or poor. Talking about it, is Tintin an orphan? Well, to me yes. Why? Because in Tintin in The New World, he confessed that his mother died right before his eyes.

Page  Page 2 of 2:  « Previous  1  2 

This topic is closed.