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Hergé's depiction of amnesia in the albums?

zaveri_tintin
Member
#1 · Posted: 11 Nov 2007 15:11
In the Tintin series there are three cases of people suffering from amnesia.

First in Ottokar's Sceptre where Tintin's strange visitor suffers from the disease. Probably the man was hit on the head by his enemy before Tintin can recieve him?

But in The Land of Black Gold the conspirator on board the Speedol Star suffers from it when he just falls at a height of three feet or less, whereas Tintin who got hit by a brick on the head at the same time was healthy.
jock123
Moderator
#2 · Posted: 12 Nov 2007 12:20
There isn't a lot of truth in the way that amnesia is portrayed in fiction, so it isn't so much an error as a Hergé resorting to a bit of a cliché for plot purposes.

Nothing says that someone who is hit on the head will suffer amnesia, certainly not of a protracted nature - they may have loss of short-term memory, so that they can't recall the immediate events of the trauma itself; total memory loss is very very rare.

It certainly doesn't happen as was once shown in the TV show 24, where someone once suffered total amnesia for an hour... Conveniently the length of one episode...!

So I think we just have to accept that Hergé has used amnesia as a means of developing his plot, not as a depiction of a real, albeit rare, physiological condition.

He needs the visitor to have no memory, so he has amnesia.
He doesn't need Tintin to be amnesiac, so he isn't.
Balthazar
Moderator
#3 · Posted: 12 Nov 2007 14:50
The thing about amnesia is...um...

The thing about amnesia is...er...

I'm sorry; I've forgotten what it was I was going to say.
cigars of the beeper
Member
#4 · Posted: 12 Nov 2007 17:34
Was the third case that you did not mention the scene in Tintin and the Picaros where a monkey throws a bottle of whisky at Captain Haddock, and he subsequently loses his memory? Haddock, that is, not the monkey...
zaveri_tintin
Member
#5 · Posted: 14 Nov 2007 14:11
cigars of the beeper

Well I have not read Picaros.

The third case was in Destination Moon, where Calculus is touring Haddock and Tintin inside the rocket. Calculus falls through a hatch and loses his memory, in spite of landing in the sitting position.
This is indeed strange because his head does not come in contact with the ground.
jock123
Moderator
#6 · Posted: 15 Nov 2007 09:06
zaveri_tintin
This is indeed strange because his head does not come in contact with the ground.
It isn't really possible to say if Calculus hit his head when he fell through the hatch on p.45. He may be in a sitting position when we see, but that doesn't mean he didn't hit his head on the hatch itself as he went through, or on the ladder or wall on the way down, or even on the floor when he landed - he may just have sat up when he is pictured.

However, given that Hergé uses stars and swirling lines to signify people who have been hit in the head elsewhere, the degree to which these are shown in this instance suggests that he has hit his head quite badly - plus he's holding it, which is another sign...

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