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Captain Haddock: His nationality?

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sliat_1981
Member
#31 · Posted: 19 Jun 2007 21:16
Herge's name was George, which could be mistaken for an English name. I'm sure there are French people called Archibald. That couldn't make him British because he coull also be Canadian, American or Australian with that name. I'm not saying I'm right, but I never had any reason to believe this Capatin living in Belgium was anything but a Belgian.
In The Secret Of The Unicorn, Haddock's decendant was called François in the original French version. If he had meant him to be English shouldn't he have used the English spelling, Francis, even in the original one? Also in the original French one the ship was French. The translators (or whoever) may have wanted to present him as English (they put a Union flag on the ship), but it seems to me, Herge intended him to be Belgian (or French). They also find out François used a French chart. It seems the Haddock is obviously decended from a French ancestory. I know this could still make him British with French ancestory, but I just don't see any concrete evidence that he was English. I'm not saying I'm right, I'm just saying I'm just not sure.
Harrock n roll
Moderator
#32 · Posted: 21 Jun 2007 00:15
sliat_1981
Herge's name was George

Hergé's first name is Georges. Don't forget the s, it's crucial!
Mike1
Member
#33 · Posted: 28 Jun 2007 16:04
If you have the French edition, «L'affaire Tournesol», there is a following exchange between Haddock and Lampion that might suggest that Haddock is British. Since I can read French I don't need or have the English edition so I don't know what it says there.

Anyway, Haddock and Tintin was in Switzerland and in a helicopter trying to chase Tournesol and his kidnappers who was fleeing by boat. Haddock was calling Lampion asking for assistance and pleading that the call was not a prank which Lampion thinks it was:

Here is the dialogue if you can read French:

Haddock: Fichez-moi la paix avec vos assurances, mille sabords!... Je ne plaisante pas... Prévenez la police suisse et la police française... Il faut qu'on arrête ces gaillards...

Lampion: Ha! ha! ha!...Pendant que j'y suis, vous ne voulez pas que je téléphone à l'Amirauté britannique pour qu'on vous envoie la Home Fleet?... Sacré Haddock, va!...

I would say he is British, perhaps on the Scottish side. Very few people in Belgium has a name like that or drinks whisky.
Balthazar
Moderator
#34 · Posted: 29 Jun 2007 10:28
That's very interesting Mike. My school French is rusty (and was never very good anyway), but I think Lampion is saying something like, "Are you sure you don't want me to phone up the British Admiralty and get them to send you the Home Fleet?"

2 minutes later... My translation was OK. I've just gone and checked what the English translators do with Lampion/Wagg's phrase in the UK version of the Calculus Affair, and it's much the same, though they just put "Admiralty", rather than "British Admiralty".

Lampion's phrase in the original could be a jokey reference to Haddock's nationality, though I'd guess Lampion could just be picking the British Navy as a famous example of a major force to make his ironic joke, without it being a particular reference to Haddock's nationality. The British Navy was one of the dominant military forces of the19th and early 20th Century, and sending out a battleship was a well-known (almost clichéd) British Empire solution to any problem. Presumeably, Wagg saying, "are you sure you don't want me to send for the Belgian Navy" wouldn't have the same historical resonance. (No disrespect to the Belgian Navy intended.) In a similar way, a British person of this period might ironically say, "send for the Marines" if some minor crisis had occured at a village fete, or, "here come the US Cavalry" if some boy scouts were rushing in to sort it out. Neither phrase would imply there were Americans present or involved. These phrases would simply be ironic references to famous forces typically seen saving the day in Hollywood war films and westerns.

But I could be wrong and, as you suggest, Lampion could be making a specific jokey reference to Haddock being a British retired sailor.

As you'll see from my last post on this thread (a few months back) I'm one of those who was unconvinced that Hergé saw Haddock as being anything other than a Belgian of Belgian-French ancestory. However, that list of British-sounding Christian names that Hergé was considering for Haddock when writing Picaros that Harrock'n'roll posted has swayed my view a bit, and this Lampion quote you've just posted does sway the argument that way a bit more, even though it's not conclusive.

Maybe Hergé originally automatically thought of Haddock as Belgian, which would explain why he doesn't specify him as anything else in the early books (unlike specifically non-Belgian characters like Oliveira, Zloty, Gibbons, Muller etc who tend to have their nationalties spelt out), and why Hergé has Haddock's ancestor serving in the French navy and being given a mansion in the Belgian countryside, without any explanation of this. But in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, as Hergé became something of an Anglophile (feeling more at home in London than in Paris, he said), and saw his books becoming very succesful in Britain, maybe he decided that Haddock should be British, and started putting in hints that this was the case, such as having him drink whisky almost exclusively (rather than rum etc), such a Lampion's reference in The Calculus Affair, and such as the British-sounding christian name in Picaros.

However, if you're saying that the name Haddock would by itself have suggested to Belgian readers that he was British right from his first appearance, maybe I'm wrong, and maybe Hergé did always intend Haddock to be seen as British after all.
Mike1
Member
#35 · Posted: 29 Jun 2007 23:58
Wow,

good analysis, Balthazar.

When you put it that way, the issue of Haddock's nationality is still inconclusive.

Like someone in this thread has mentioned, someone should ask the English translators what Hergé had in mind about Haddock or ask a Tintinologist still alive that had a close relationship with Hergé.
sliat_1981
Member
#36 · Posted: 10 Aug 2007 10:01
He'll always be Belgian to me. Until someone told me that Herge said he was British, not Belgian.
Mikael Uhlin
Member
#37 · Posted: 10 Aug 2007 20:21
My theory is that Haddock is Belgian albeit with a British ancestor, i.e. Francis Haddock who joined the fleet of Louis XIV as Francois de Haddock. Reminds me a bit of one of Napoleons generals, Etienne Jacques Joseph Alexandre MacDonald, later Duke of Taranto, descended from a Jacobite family from the Hebrides.

BTW, I've been looking for the name of the actual fish, Melanogrammus aeglefinus, in different languages. In French it's aiglefin, in Spanish and Portuguese eglefino. An alternative Portuguese name is arinca while haddock apparently also can be used in French.
German and Dutch has schellfisch and schelvis, Swedish and Finnish has both - curiously - kolja, Danish kuller while the western Scandinavian languages has hyse (Norwegian), hysa (Faroe) and ysa (Icelandic).

Interestingly, the English haddock seems most related with Irish Gaelic cadóg and Scottish Gaelic adag.

French Wikipedia adds another interesting thing when it mentions the Latin phrase ad hoc ("for this purpose") in the listing for haddock. Knowing Hergés fondness of word plays I'm sure he didn't miss this out.
Mikael Uhlin
Member
#38 · Posted: 12 Aug 2007 10:07
Harrock n roll wrote: his former sea-mates having English names like Allan Thompson, Jumbo and Chester,

Two more examples (both from Crab) are Tom, Allan's right hand man, and Herbert Dawes, the drowned sailor mentioned in the beginning.
Mirirocks67
Member
#39 · Posted: 14 Aug 2007 18:01
Maybe he could be from England,but when i was reading the books i never imagine him with English accent.
sliat_1981
Member
#40 · Posted: 29 Aug 2007 11:23
That still doesn't explain why his ancestor was French (or Belgian).
If Hadoque was a British name, why did they feel the need to anglisise it as Haddock?

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