Tintin: "Surprising absences" in the stories and plots?

Is anything lacking in the Tintin adventures ?

What gaps, absences or erasures either trouble or surprise you ?

Do these missing elements - by their very absence - paradoxically contribute to the force of the stories ?

I'm not sure if this counts, but I've always wondered why the gypsies suddenly decided to leave Marlinspike in The Castafiore Ememrald.

In The Calculus Affair, Tintin and Haddock find an injured man in the Marlinspike garden who later disappears.
The Thom(p)sons later inform them that the man is a Syldavian. This helps them to conclude that much of their problems are being caused by two groups of agents from different countries but:

1) how did a pair on bungling no-hopers like the Thom(p)sons manage to find the man?

2) What makes Tintin think that the men who dramatically seize Calculus at the Bordurian embassy are on his side - before they knock him out with a cosh?

I never though this was much of a gap or a loss per se - but in Flight 714, something about Snowy always made me curious. After how many books, airplane trips, and treks all over the world and in various buildings at Tintin's side, Snowy is finally required to be put on a leash! As well as suddenly becoming super skittish on an airplane.

Now both things enable some aspect of the story so I can see why they're there but it just struck me as curious because I could have sworn they were not present in any previous adventures..

Greatsnake's point is particularly interesting, given how Snowy evolves to more and more realistically dog-like through the albums.

I wasn't sure how to interpret the thread's question though. My answers (relevant or not) would be :

- The reason for Haddock's arrival in Black Gold. Awesomely unexplained.

- The absence of women and sentimentalism. I've always been very much like that Princess Bride kid, closing my eyes during the kisses as a child, and still complaining today about films getting boring as soon as love interests enter the plot.
Tintin is pure adventures for kids, with none of this "falling in love" nonsense. Great.

- Something I forgot (arrgh ask me again later).

- Calculus's hearing. Seriously. I almost made a thread about it, but what is really fantastic about this lack, is that most of times, instead of being an obstacle, it propels the discussions forward: Calculus doesn't answer the question, but gives further informations instead ("Are you all right?" "Take all night? Nearly as long. In a couple of hours my pills will take effect." or "Isn't he the one with the Rascar Capac mummy in his possession ?" "Oh no, on the contrary, he's the most kind. I'll introduce you to him if you like.").
His hearing impairment is most often the excuse for dialogues - or sometimes plot - shortcuts. Especially convenient when the answer is implied in the question, and a correct answer would be redundant. Hergé moves directly on to the next (unasked) question. It's a real art that Hergé masterizes perfectly. Doing this, he turns Calculus's deafness into a superpower. Well, at least, an asset, pace-wise. And we hardly notice it. It's genius.

- Haddock's pupils. His eyes are two hollow circles. Everybody else's eyes are two dots. I'm not sure why, but it's a graphic aspect of Haddock that I adore.

Actually, Skut has the same eyes. That's also another thing: Why Skut is a pilot when he wears an eyepatch? Pilots are supposed to have good vision? And on the chance that he has perfect vision and simply likes to wear an eyepatch, wouldn't the eyepatch block his view?

Strangely I hadn't noticed it with Skut, but now I'm not surprised, because Haddock's eyes are AWESOME and Skut is AWESOME.

That said, you're right. Apart from blocking the view, the eyepatch would totally cancel 3D vision and the ability to estimate distances. However, this might be compensated by eyepatches being AWESOME.

More seriously, I always assumed this army's standards to be rather poor.

Circles instead of dots as eyes are meant, in Hergé's shorthand, to denote very light coloured eyes. I think it's very effective.

The question of Skut being a pilot wearing an eye-patch is raised here - short answer being that some real pilots have had monocular vision and still flown professionally. The popularity of flight-simulator games played on screens without real depth shows it is actually something that many people could do.

This is came up here too - do you have a reference for this? Because, while I agree with you, it seems to be speculation more than corroborated fact...

I've wondered about Captain's eyes. I wonder how they'll look in the movie...

Have you noticed that in Alph-Art Haddock has black eyes, like Tintin's. Does anyone know if Haddock had black eyes in Herge's sketches for the other albums?