Tintin Forums

Sorry if I totally fell off the boat, but...

Where do we ever learn that Tintin is Belgian, and that he lives in Belgium? I don't recall any specific instance of the canonical books explicitly saying that. I just took for granted that he's Belgian on account of Herge being Belgian.

Sometimes I get the impression that Herge is trying NOT to specify the characters' "home base." Yes, we know it's Marlinspike in the later books, but Where Is Marlinspike?

Did Herge intend for Marlinspike to be English? I know there is some Anglicization that took place when it was translated into English, but "Moulinsart," while I don't know what it means, is definitely French-ish. Captain Haddock is certainly English.

Marlinspike is referred to as being from "Western Europe," which baffles me. Why not just say the name of the country it's in? This downplay is in such stark contrast with how specific Herge was about the places his characters traveled to.

One more thing: Why did he make up places? Borduria, San Theodoros, etc. Why not just refer to Albania, for example, or Honduras, etc.

Hi waveofplague

You must have read my question in which I said Tintin lives in Brussells.

First, it is the most logical alternative, it explains more than raises new questions. Think about the distances and travelling, in Black Island there is a train Köln-Bruxelles-London and Tintin is heading for England. It is reasonable to suppose that Tintin is travelling from Brussells to London. There are more similar examples, but not this obvious.

Again, take look at Unicorn, p.45, there is a letter and a stamp on it. I don't have a magnifying class but is there Belgium written on the stamp? If so, I'll rest my case. Please, could someone (who have younger eyes) check what is written on the stamp?

My argument is basically based on intuition. Ignoring my childhood I've always think Tintin is Belgian and he will be Belgian for me in the future.

I wish I didn't break your illusion and spoil something important.

bye :-)

Hi, tuhatkauno, Oh, I do believe he is Belgian too. It just seems downplayed, whereas foreign locales in the book seem, I don't know, upplayed, for lack of a better term. What do you think, tuhatkauno?

I suppose I should read more about the Anglicization of Tintin when it was translated into English.

Köln-Bruxelles-London
I'll have to double-check but I don't think this was included in the English version.

If Tintin is published in a Belgian newspaper, maybe it isn't necessary emphasize him to be Belgian. I don't know, I just read Tintin. Balthazar or someone wiser will give you a lecture on the issue. :)

And the imaginary countries, it is reasonable to be careful when criticizing other countries. Remember the time albums are written. Hey now I start lecturing myself.

By the way, I thought I'm the only one here who likes Ace Ventura, Borat and stuff like that.

You are definitely not alone in liking Borat, although I have not seen the movie. Anyway, do you think that Hergé made up countries if he felt as though their portrayal in an album may come off in a negative way?

Certainly, San Theodoros fits this bill. It is shown to be a stinking dump, before and after a regime change.

To me, Borduria is the epitome of corruption and graft.

How about those Sondinistan rebels? We don't know anything of their country except that they want a regime change.

do you think that Herge made up countries if he felt as though their portrayal in an album may come off in a negative way?

Sure, Herge criticized dictatorships and he had to be very careful with Nazi-Germany and diplomatic with these South-American countries. After all the message and referencies were clear enough inspite of imaginary names.

tuhatkauno
Balthazar or someone wiser will give you a lecture on the issue.

Sorry, I don't have time to type a lecture at the moment!

But the subjects of Tintin and Moulinsart's original Belgian location, the reasons for their anglicization in the UK translations, Hergé's approval of this anglicization, and related debates have been covered quite a lot in various previous discussion threads on this forum. (Search using words like location of Marlinspike, nationality of Tintin/Haddock etc, and you'll find them).

The reasons for the aglicizations are perhaps best given in a really interesting interview with one of the UK translators, Michael Turner, which is in the articles section (I think) of this site.

This reference guide is turning into a lecture-length post after all, so I'll stop!

If you've read Soviets, there are umpteen mentions of Brussels therein, not to mention when Tintin and Snowy arrive home on the train and Tintin mentions to him, something like Brussels is the next stop, where they're greeted by a parade.

In Crab with Golden Claws (if not only in the movie) the pilot of the hydraplane who shoots at Tintin and Haddock sees Snowy and asks himself where he came from and Tintin surprises him and says, 'from Brussels, of course!"

There can be no doubt that tintin is Belgian.

Thanks Isabel

You're right in Soviets on the last two pages the border of Belgium, Liege, Brussels and finally Tirlemont (a sugarfactory) are mentioned. I hardly read Soviets though I have had it for many many years.

But in Crab (Finnish edit.) there are no references to Brussells and I don't yet have the English album so how knows :-)

Tuhatkauno, the writing on that stamp says BELGIË BELGIQUE which is Flemish and French for Belgium. (I managed that withoout a magnifying glass, so I feel like I've passed some sort of Tintinologists' eye-test!) As has been discussed elsewhere in this forum, there's no doubt that Hergé intented the city Tintin lives in to be Brussels and for Moulinsart to be located quite near Brussels in the Belgian countryside. Details such as the police uniforms in several books clinch this beyond any doubt. And there's no real reason to think that Tintin is meant to be anything other than Belgian himself.

All that said, it's quite true that in books after Soviets and Congo there aren't that many direct references to Belgium, or portrayals of famous Brussels landmarks and locations. I wonder if the reason for this is that, as early as the mid 1930s, Hergé had his eye on breaking into a readership beyond Belgium and wanted to make Tintin seem more of an everyman (or everyboy!) character in terms of his nationality. I'm not meaning the UK market at this date (that came later, in the late 1950s); I'm thinking of the French market. This would have been a big market to get into for a French-speaking Belgian author, and we can see how keen Hergé was to appeal to a French readership in the way he agreed to create the more family-based Jo, Zette and Jocko series, specifically at the request of the French magazine Cours Valiant. (Hope I'm spelling that right.) I'm not suggesting Hergé was trying to make Tintin seem French - just that he may have been trying to make the locations seem a bit more general.

This willingness on Hergé's part to have Tintin's Belgian-ness played down went a stage further in the 1950s, of course, when he agreed (very happily apparently) to allow his English translators to anglicize place names, eg: Westport and Marlinspike, and for them to overtly give Marlinspike a definitely English address on that envelope in Unicorn.

Although I think it's rare these days for the original locations in children's books to be changed when they're translated into other languages, I believe that general, unspecified locations are often preferred by editors of young-age-range picture books. (Being colour, these are expensive to produce compared to children's novels, and often rely on international co-edition deals to be viable.) I've been told by picture book illustrators that they're sometimes asked to to draw things like police uniforms, fire engines and post boxes as unspecifically as possible, for this very reason. There are exceptions though.