History Franchise / Tintin

* BrieferThanTheyThink: Altough Rastapopoulos is considered to be Tintin's main villain and nemesis, he only appears in four comics in the series out of twenty three. There is also a huge gap between his second and his third appearance. Even if you include his wordless cameo in "In America", that's still just five out of twenty-three complete stories.

* TheSavageIndian: Played straight in ''Tintin in America'' where the Native Americans are depicted as scalp crazy buffoons. In the same story, however, they are forced to leave their land when oil is found. Subverted trope in ''Prisoners Of The Sun'', where the Incas are portrayed as clever and determined antagonists, but still able to be open for reason and forgiveness... once tricked with fake divine accomplishments.
* ScaleModelDestruction: Calculus' ultrasound device in ''The Calculus Affair'' is tested on a model of New York.
* ScaredOfWhatsBehindYou: In ''The Crab with the Golden Claws'', Captain Haddock charges a whole band of desert raiders alone. They flee, and he believes for a moment that they did because they were scared of him, while in fact, [[TheCavalry reinforcements]] were arriving behind him.
* SceneryPorn: The art work and detail in the backgrounds of ''Tintin'' are a marvel to look at. Much of it was done by his assistants, though.

* ScrewballSerum: Formula Fourteen in ''Land of Black Gold'' is supposed to be an additive to petroleum that makes it incredibly explosive, but the Thompsons mistake it for aspirin. Their hair starts growing very rapidly and in bizarre colors, and their mouths emit bubbles.
* SecretCircleOfSecrets: The secret society of Kih-Oskh are all MalevolentMaskedMen.
* SeenItAllSuicide: Calculus mentions that after seeing Earth from more than 10,000 kilometers, you can die happy. Tintin counters with it being fine, but he himself would rather wait a few years.
* {{Seppuku}}: [[spoiler:Mitsuhirato]]'s death.

* ShaggyDogStory:
** ''The Castafiore Emerald''. This is deliberate as Hergé created the story as an experiment to see if he could maintain suspense in a story where not much happens.
** ''The Calculus Affair'' is about Syldavians and Bordurians trying to kidnap Calculus to get their hands on the micrograph.
* SherlockHomage: Tintin shares many similarities with Franchise/SherlockHolmes by being an intelligent ChasteHero and BadassBookWorm solving crimes, while Captain Haddock is somewhat of a Watsonian sidekick. Creator/{{Herge}} was a Holmes fan too.
* ShotAtDawn: Plot element in ''Tintin In The Land Of The Soviets'', ''The Broken Ear'' and ''Tintin and the Picaros''.

** In ''Tintin and the Picaros'', masks of Franchise/{{Zorro}}, ComicBook/{{Asterix}}, [[Creator/TheMarxBrothers Groucho Marx]], WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck, WesternAnimation/MickeyMouse and [[ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}} Snoopy]] can be seen in a festival.

** A full page with shout-outs to ''Tintin'' in other media can be found here: ''[[ReferencedBy/{{Tintin}} Referenced By/Tintin]]''.

** Averted in ''[[Recap/TintinTintinInTheLandOfTheSoviets Tintin in the Land of the Soviets]]'' and ''[[Recap/TintinTintinInTheCongo Tintin in the Congo]]''.
* ShrunkenHead: In ''The Broken Ear'', one of the Arumbayas wants to practice this technique on Tintin and explorer Ridgewell.
* SickeningSlaughterhouse: The one in ''Tintin in America''

* SillySimian: The apes in ''Congo'', which leads to infamous silly scenes.
* SilverSpoonTroublemaker: Abdullah, the 6-year-old son of the Emir of Khemed, is a playful [[ThePrankster prankster]]. Abdullah pulls harmless (though annoying) pranks on others because his royal blood allows him to do whatever he wants. He even frequently pranks his father, who doesn't really mind them much.

* SkewedPriorities: There are some things money can't buy for millionaire Laszlo Carreidas in ''Flight 714''.
-->'''Newsie''': "This has been a terrible business for you, Mr Carreidas. You must be greatly upset by the loss of your prototype and the tragic disappearance of your secretary and two members of your crew."
-->'''Carreidas''': "Yes, of course. All very sad but what can you expect? That's life, you know. What really annoys me, though, is that I lost my hat: a pre-war [[BlandNameProduct Brosse and Clackwell]]. And that's absolutely irreplaceable."

* SneezeInterruption: In "Tintin in Tibet", Haddock sneezes while camping in the middle of his sentence about them being "packed like sardines" and rips the tent apart.

* SpeaksFluentAnimal: In ''The Cigars of the Pharaoh'', Tintin carves a trumpet and uses it to communicate with elephants.
* SpellMyNameWithAnS: Thompson and Thomson.
* SpoiledBrat: Abdallah.
* {{Spoonerism}}: A frequent source of humour, at least in the original French, mostly courtesy of the Thompsons and Haddock when he's upset. Even Tintin gets on it from time to time when he's distracted.

* StumbledIntoThePlot:
** In King Ottokar's Sceptre Tintin finds a lost briefcase on a bench in a park and decides to return it, initiating his involvement in the whole Bordurian conspiracy to depose the Syldavian monarchy and invade Syldavia.
** The Black Island similarly has Tintin thrown into the plot when a counterfeit money smuggler's plane crash-lands in a field near where he's taking a walk.
* SuperstitiousSailors: Captain Haddock suddenly gets cold feet before setting out to find the wreck of the ''Unicorn'', citing that it's unlucky (having previously broken a mirror). Fortunately, the Thom(p)sons drop by to deliver an accidental InspirationalInsult.
* SurprisinglyHappyEnding: "Red Rackham's Treasure" has [[spoiler:the crew return home with none of the titular treasure, although they do have parts from the wreck of the Unicorn and a huge supply of incredibly-aged rum as well as Marlinspike Hall now under Captain Haddock's ownership after buying it with Professor Calculus's patent money as thanks for helping him test his submarine. However, a wander around the basement reveals that Francis actually hid the treasure there, upgrading this to EarnYourHappyEnding as Haddock opens a maritime gallery in celebration.]]
* SustainedMisunderstanding: Professor Calculus is deaf and thus he often misunderstoods what is going on around him.

* TalkingAnimal: Snowy talks, but it seems that humans can't understand what he says. This is so strange in the realistic atmosphere of the albums that the animated adaptations have left it out.

* TauntingTheUnconscious: [[PlayingWithATrope Played with.]] After Professor Calculus falls into a hole and loses his memory, Haddock attempts various means to restore his memory, none of which snap Calculus out of his catatonia. The last one is a BedsheetGhost which fails when Haddock trips over his costume, and he angrily calls himself a goat. Calculus' hearing [[EarTrumpet being what it is]], he thinks Haddock called ''him'' a goat, and is InsultedAwake (having fallen in the hole during an extended UnstoppableRage sequence after Haddock learned Calculus' personal BerserkButton was being accused of "acting the goat"), chasing Haddock around the room.
* TechnicalEuphemism: One episode involves a gangster who doesn't like calling himself one, preferring the term "syndicate member".

* ThirstyDesert: ''The Cigars of the Pharaoh'', ''The Crab With The Golden Claws'' and ''Land Of The Black Gold''.

* TickertapeParade: Tintin gets one after cleaning Chicago of gangsters in ''Tintin in America''.
* TongueOutInsult: Subverted in "Tintin in Tibet", when a boy sticks his tongue out at Captain Haddock and he gets offended, but it turns out that where the boy comes from, it's a way of saying goodbye.

* TrampolineTummy: When confined to an asylum in ''The Cigars of the Pharaoh'', Tintin jumps on a fat man's tummy to get over a wall.

* TunelessSongOfMadness: One of the many possible symptoms of being poisoned with Rajijah Juice, to the point that Tintin is able to effectively fake poisoning by singing insanely in "The Blue Lotus."
* UltimateJobSecurity: Thomson and Thompson. Their incompetence varies from "harmless and amusing" to "screwing up big time" (especially in the Moon arc). Nobody but Captain Haddock seems to realize they are the worst detectives in the galaxy (Tintin seems to, but never says it directly), and they are consistently given important cases all over the world.
* UnderlingWithAnFInPR: : In ''Recap/TintinTheRedSeaSharks'', Captain Haddock finds himself in charge of a cargo ship full of black Muslims. When the villains' buyer (who think Haddock is substituting for the usual captain) comes aboard and starts examining the passenger's muscles and teeth, Haddock angrily tells him the man isn't a slave, and the buyer rebukes Haddock for using the "s" word instead of "coke"[[labelnote:*]]a type of coal and the slavers' codeword throughout the book, in the same way "ebony" (a dark-colored wood) was the euphemism for African slaves in the 19th century[[/labelnote]] in front of witnesses. [[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil Haddock goes ballistic]], bellowing insults at the fleeing slaver even after he's out of hearing range.

* UnknownRival:
** Corporal Diaz in ''The Broken Ear'' begins a vendetta against Tintin and Alcazar, and not only does he do more harm to himself than to them, but half the time, they don't even notice his attempts on their lives.
** The spy leader who listens to the proceedings during the moon rocket mission in ''Destination Moon'' and ''Explorers On The Moon'' is a veritable KarmaHoudini in the sense that all he does is listen to the operations from his secret base and though his sabotage plan fails, he still manages to get away scot free. None of the cast has any idea of his identity.
* UnmovingPlaid: Tintin's coat is drawn like this in Hergé's much cruder early art style, seen today in ''The Land of the Soviets".
* VagueAge: It's never made exactly clear how old Tintin is. He is obviously young, but has no problems going round the world and getting into adventures without any mention of parents or the like. It is known that he works as a reporter, but he's not seen actually performing this job. He does live together with Captain Haddock in his castle, along with Professor Calculus.
* VillainTeamUp: ''The Red Sea Sharks'' turns out to involve Rastapopulous (in disguise as Marquis Gorgonzola), Dr Muller (disguised as a middle eastern warlord), Allen and arms dealer J.M Dawson as part of a large criminal conspiracy of human trafficking.

* YouJustRuinedTheShot: In ''Cigars of the Pharaoh'', Tintin attacks two men whipping a defenceless woman, only to find out it's part of a film.

* NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup: Revealed to be the case with the moon rocket in ''Destination Moon'', which becomes more than a little problematic when its inventor, Professor Calculus, gets amnesia.

* NumberOneDime: Haddock and alcohol, also his hat.

* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome:
** The helicopter pilots rescuing Tintin and the other people on the raft in ''Flight 714''. Making this even more frustrating, the rescue scene was ''actually drawn'': however, Hergé noticed ''Flight 714'' had two more pages than usual and thus decided to remove the two pages showing the rescue.
** Spoofed in ''Land of Black Gold''. We never learn what happened to Haddock on his mission or how he arrived in Khemed... other than that it's "simple and complicated" at the same time.
** ''The Blue Lotus'': As mentioned above, Tintin is imprisoned after accidentally knocking off a guard. Three guards, the smaller of them something like thrice his size, enter the cell to take revenge. Cue a scene with fighting noises followed by a hasty trip to the hospital, where the three said guards lie heavily battered.
** The infamous [[spoiler:HeroicSuicide of Frank Wolffe]]. In this case the offpanel element is [[EnforcedTrope enforced]] because it would have been ''highly'' controversial to depict this on panel.

* OmnidisciplinaryScientist: Calculus. Almost all the Tintin books he appears in depict him as a physicist, though admittedly he has unrealistically wide array of knowledge in various specialist fields. Justified in that making his fortune in ''Red Rackham's Treasure'' would have allowed him to move from inventing to larger projects.
** Tintin also has shades of this trope, though not so much with regard to science. He does seem to know an awful lot about history, art, geography and [[UniversalDriversLicense driving]], though.

* OneHourWorkWeek: Tintin is supposedly a journalist. This is rarely mentioned, and the only time he is ever seen writing an article or explicitly doing actual journalism is in ''Tintin in the Land of the Soviets''. See Literary Agent Hypothesis above, though.
* OutdatedOutfit:
** The Thompsons have tried a few times to blend in when investigating in a foreign country... but their outfits were often too "folkloric", and on at least one occasion, the national dress of the wrong country. Far from blending in, they've been known to attract crowds come to laugh at them. Nowhere more hilarious than in ''The Blue Lotus'', where they come wearing ''17th century Manchu era'' clothes, down to the pigtails and fans! The result...
--->'''Thompson:''' ''[with nearly the entire town parading behind them]'' Don't look now, but something tells me we're being followed...
** Tintin's own plus-fours count, or maybe not since they're similar to the elastic-cuffed joggers in style for teenage boys and young men at this writing (2018).
* OutSick: In "The Castafiore Emerald", Captain Haddock plans to go on a trip to get away from Castafiore, who's visiting, but he can't because he sprains his ankle and is confined to a wheelchair.
* PainfulAdhesiveRemoval: In "Flight 714", Tintin, Captain Haddock are keeping Dr. Krospell and Rastapopolos as adhesive tape- muffled hostages as they hide from Rastapopoulos' henchmen (they also keep Carreidas muffled because the latter was drugged and can put them in danger). Rastapopoulos eventually magages to escape and be found. Moments later, Tintin and Haddock hear a string of bloodcurling shrieks in the woods, with Tintin commenting that "It's enough to make your hair stand on end." It's Rastapopoulos, having the tapes "carefully" peeled off by Alan, his incompetent right arm.
* PaperThinDisguise: Tintin. This was subverted a few times (''The Broken Ear'', ''The Blue Lotus'') by when the suspiciously-dressed person ''wasn't'' Tintin.
* PirateBooty: ''Red Rackham's Treasure''.
* ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything: Tintin is nominally a reporter, but after ''Land of the Soviets'' is never seen to do any actual reporting. The closest is a contemporary advert for the then-upcoming ''Secret Of The Unicorn'', in which Tintin is seen calling his editor to ask for time off and in ''Tintin and the Black Gold'' where he interviews the head of a company at the start of the story, yet without taking notes or recording his answers. However, it's been suggested that the comics themselves are Tintin's reports.
* PoliceAreUseless:
** Thomson and Thompson are the two standout examples.
** The chief of police in ''Temple of the Sun'', although it's more a case of [[spoiler:his being unable to do anything against the Inca]].
** Dawson in ''The Blue Lotus'' is useless, corrupt and racist.

* PowerUpFood: Captain Haddock gets re-energized by alcohol. On one occasion, he is instantly brought to full health from critical life support by just hearing the word "Whiskey"!

* PutDownYourGunAndStepAway: Subverted in ''Land of Black Gold'', as Tintin and Haddock both refuse Muller's demand that they put down their guns even though he has Abdullah hostage. Tintin, however, pointed out that Muller would use this tactic to shoot them if they obeyed (which wouldn't be out-of-character for him).
* PuttingOnTheReich: Borduria, not incidentally.
* {{Qurac}}: Khemed, home to Ben Kalish Ezab and Abdullah.
* RailCarSeparation:
** In ''[[Recap/TintinTheBlackIsland The Black Island]]'', Tintin is pursuing the bad guys on a train, but they uncouple the car between him and them, allowing them to escape.
** In ''[[Recap/TintinPrisonersOfTheSun Prisoners of the Sun]]'', Tintin and Captain Haddock find themselves on a runaway coach while travelling by train on the way to find Calculus. The stationmaster at the next station then mentions it was the first accident on the line, but by that point Tintin is already convinced it wasn't an accident at all (he learned the hard way that the emergency brake had been sabotaged).
* RandomEventsPlot: The first three ''Tintin'' stories are mostly this.
* RansackedRoom: In ''The Secret of the Unicorn''.
* RapidHairGrowth: In ''Land of Black Gold'', Thomson and Thompson find tablets and swallow them, thinking them to be aspirin, causing them to belch bubbles continuously, and grow long hair and beards that change colour. The beards grow so fast that they have to be cut multiple times each day until cured.

* RealMenWearPink: Well, Villains, instead of Men: Rastapopoulos, in "Flight 714". Which makes him look like an evil CampGay cowboy. According to WordOfGod, this was to let him appear as a ridiculous person.
* RebusBubble

** ''Tintin in the Land of the Soviets'' (most notable example, however [[OldShame Hergé thought it was so poorly written you could barely tell this]].)

* ReplacedWithReplica: In ''The Broken Ear'', Tintin is waiting for an officier near a dock when he sees someone walking away with his suitcase, he starts for it but then sees that his suitcase is still right there. It turns out that the man he saw swapped Tintin's real suitcase for a fake full bombs, and then tipped off the police.
* {{Retcon}}:
** Done a few times with the redrawn versions of the color stories. For instance, the Thompsons are inserted into the first panel of ''Tintin in the Congo'', while a previously anonymous smuggler is turned into Allan in ''Cigars of the Pharaoh''. The original version of ''Land of Black Gold'' didn't occur in [[{{Qurac}} a generic-looking fictional Arabic country]], but in British Mandate Palestine.
** The Belvision cartoon series did this numerous times, inserting characters into stories where they had not yet appeared in the original albums. To wit, Professor Phostle is deleted from ''The Shooting Star'' and replaced by Professor Calculus, who had not been introduced yet in the book.
* RiddleForTheAges: How Captain Haddock rescues Tintin in ''Land of Black Gold''.
* RippedFromTheHeadlines: Several storylines.

* RousseauWasRight: Antagonists prove to be more complex than typical villains.
* RoyalBrat: Abdallah.
* RuleOfFunny: The [[IdenticalStranger identical]] Thompson and Thomson are played by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in [[TheMovie the movie]], who look nothing alike. But it absolutely doesn't matter, considering the movie is being made with [[SerkisFolk Performance Capture]].
* RuleOfSeven: ''The Seven Crystal Balls''.
* RuleOfThree: ''Red Rackham's Treasure'' completes the Trinity of Tintin, Haddock, and Calculus.
* RuleOfTwo: Thompson and Thomson, Tintin and Snowy, Tintin and Haddock... all characters often seen in each others companionship.

** ''The Castafiore Emerald'' itself has quite a lot of these.

* {{Ruritania}}: Syldavia and Borduria.

* InjuredLimbEpisode: In "The Castafiore Emerald", Captain Haddock sprains his leg [[MindYourStep falling on a broken stair]] and has to be in a wheelchair for two weeks.

* InspectorJavert: In some books, Thompson and Thomson embody a particularly incompetent example of this trope.
* InsultedAwake: Captain Haddock awoke Professor Calculus from amnesia by hitting that BerserkButton. The insults weren't even directed at him, which makes it even funnier (the Professor apologises later).

* InTheHood: The Secret Society of Kih-Oskh in ''Cigars Of The Pharaoh'' are all dressed in hoods.

* KidnappedScientist: Professor Calculus in ''The Seven Crystal Balls'' and ''The Calculus Affair''.
* KidnappingBirdOfPrey: In ''The Temple of the Sun'', Snowy is captured by a condor. Tintin rescues the dog, but the condor returns and the bird is even able to carry him.

* KnifeThrowingAct: General Alcazar in ''The Seven Crystal Balls''.

* LanternJawOfJustice: Subverted by General Alcazar, who has a particularly magnificent case of PermaStubble on a prow-like chin, but isn't very heroic or strong-willed (especially once we meet his wife).

* LostAtSea: Happens to Tintin in ''Cigars Of The Pharaoh'' and to him and Haddock in ''The Crab With The Golden Claws'' and ''The Red Sea Sharks''.

* MadameFortune: Madame Yamilah, in ''The Seven Crystal Balls''. She is an Indian clairvoyant that appeared as a cabaret act, during which she correctly predicted that Mrs. Claremont's husband fell ill to the Rascap Capac curse.
* MasterOfDisguise: Tintin, but see PaperThinDisguise below.
* {{Mayincatec}}: Plot point in ''The Seven Crystal Balls'' and ''Prisoners of the Sun''.

* MegaphoneGag: In ''The Red Sea Sharks'', Tintin and Haddock end up on a ship belonging to a slave-trading operation. When one of the slavers boards the ship to inspect the cargo, Haddock drives him off with a volley of insults. After a minute, Tintin points out that the man is out of earshot, but the Captain, not to be defeated, runs to the bridge to continue his tirade through a megaphone.
* MenAreUncultured: While hiding from the police at the opera: "Captain, wake up, it's over!" With a disapproving glare from the neighboring GrandeDame no less.
* MicroMonarchy: The tiny kingdom of Syldavia.
* MindControlDevice : Used in Flight 714 with many MindManipulation capabilities including HypnoticEyes, MindProbe, and FakeMemories.
* MindYourStep: In ''The Castafiore Emerald'', Captain Haddock slips on a broken stair in Marlinspike Hall, leading him to be put in a wheelchair.
* MistakenConfession: In ''Flight 714'', the millionaire Laszlo Carreidas is injected with a truth serum in an attempt to force him to reveal the details of his SwissBankAccount. But instead of revealing the relevant details, Carreidas engages in boastful rants about his underhanded exploits, much to the annoyance of his captors. HilarityEnsues when Rastapopoulos, the mastermind behind Carreidas' capture, is accidentally injected with the serum in a struggle.
* MistakenForBadass: Not that they aren't, but in a deadly game of cat and mouse between the protagonists' ship and a submarine in ''The Red Sea Sharks'', Captain Haddock accidentally gets the ship stuck going astern (backwards). When this results in a torpedo barely missing the ship, the villains marvel at the captain's tactical genius.
* MistakenForInsane: In "[[Recap/TintinCigarsOfThePharaoh Cigars of the Pharaoh]]", the Fakir gives Zloty and Sarcophagus a serum that makes them lose their minds and writes a letter to the sanatorium, saying that Tintin is insane. As such, when Tintin arrives at the sanatorium to drop his friends off, he is [[WrongfullyCommitted locked up instead]].
* MistakenForThief: In "The Castafiore Emerald", Castafiore's precious emerald disappears, as do a pair of gold scissors. Initially, the Thompsons suspect her two servants and Professor Calculus, but then all their suspicions go towards a group of nomads camping nearby. It doesn't help that Miarca, a nomad girl, has the scissors in her possession. [[spoiler:In reality, it was a magpie that stole both items]].
* MoodWhiplash: Done deliberately a few times. For example, in "Land of Black Gold", Dr Muller makes a dramatic "they'll never take me alive" comment, turns the gun he took from Abdullah on himself - cut to Tintin looking horrified and shouting "Don't do it" - then back to Muller whose face is now covered in ink, Abdullah's gun turning out to be a realistic-looking water pistol for one of his pranks.
* TheMovie: ''Tintin and the Lake of Sharks'', ''The Secret of the Unicorn'' and the Peter Jackson film.
* MuggedForDisguise: Tintin does this in ''Cigars of the Pharaoh'' to a hooded leader of the Kih-Oskh gang. He ends up the only one whose identity is ''never'' revealed, as Tintin unmasked him off-page rather than on-page.

* NearlyNormalAnimal: Snowy. He seems able to [[TalkingAnimal speak to Tintin]] in the very first books, but after that he mostly behaves like an extremely clever animal: he has inner, intelligible thoughts (for the reader), and understands enough of what is going on around him to be of invaluable help to Tintin every time. He is however not above stealing food whenever the occasion presents, occasionally misunderstands what Tintin wants, and can't resist a good bone (or spilled whiskey. Seriously, that doggo was almost as big a lush as Haddock) even when given a particularly important mission. He also likes to chase cats and other animals even when Tintin asked him to follow a trail.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: While deputising for the ill General Alcazar in ''The Broken Ear'', Tintin turns down an offer from an American oil company on the grounds that it would require starting a war with a neighboring country. Later, after Alcazar turns on him, Tintin flees to the country in question using a stolen armored car... and ends up ''causing'' the war with that country, after they mistake it for an act of aggression by Alcazar's government. (However, Alcazar was shown to be sympathetic to the emissary from the oil company, suggesting that the war would soon have broken out anyway.)

* NoOneCouldSurviveThat: Regularly, mostly about Tintin, but some of his foes occasionally do it.
* NoOneShouldSurviveThat: All the time. Almost half of Tintin escapes from death are due to pure dumb luck or a ContrivedCoincidence of sorts.

* GoingInCircles: The Thompsons in ''Land of Black Gold'', when they accidentally follow their own tracks while driving through the desert.
* GoingNative: [[spoiler:Ridgewell the explorer]] in ''The Broken Ear'' and ''Tintin and the Picaros''.
* GoodAngelBadAngel: Afflicts both Snowy and the Captain in the presence of whisky. Also subverted when [[SuperSerum Tintin uses booze to either rally the Captain or get him to agree to something]].
* TheGoodCaptain: Haddock.

* GorgeousPeriodDress: The Balkan outfits in ''King Ottokar's Sceptre''.

* GreatWhiteHunter: ''Tintin in the Congo''

** The Thompsons start out as Tintin's enemies (''Cigars of the Pharaoh''), but eventually form a friendship with him.
** Dr. Krollspell in ''Flight 714''.

** This is played with in the case of Nestor: [[spoiler:he initially helps the bad guys, but only because he believes that Tintin himself is the actual villain]].
** Rastapopoulos is a jerk at the beginning of ''Cigars of the Pharaoh'', but later apologizes and is nice for the rest of the book, [[spoiler:although his kind nature is really an act to throw Tintin off the trail]].

** TheMole in ''Explorers on the Moon''.

* HeroicDog: Snowy
* HeroicSacrifice:
** TheMole in ''Explorers on the Moon'', who [[spoiler:throws himself out the airlock in an attempt to ensure that the rest have enough oxygen for the return trip]]. It's a case of SneakyDeparture, too.
** Haddock attempts one in ''Tintin in Tibet''.

* HeterosexualLifePartners: Tintin and Haddock.

* HisNameIs: ''Cigars of the Pharaoh'' and ''The Secret of the Unicorn'' do this.

* HollywoodMirage: ''Cigars of the Pharaoh'', ''The Crab With The Golden Claws'' and ''Land of Black Gold''.

* HumiliationConga: Allan and Rastapopoulos are subjected to a long, escalating series of painful and embarrassing mishaps over the course of ''Flight 714''.

* HurtFootHop: Captain Haddock, after accidentally breaking and then failing to fix the steering wheel on the Ramona, fumes in Angrish and lets the "confounded rattletrap... tin-can contraption" have it with his right foot. The next panel has him clutching his foot while howling in pain.

* HypocriticalHumour: We will NOT add this one to the tropes on this page... Er, I mean, it would be absolute hypocrisy to claim we don't need a separate page to list '''some''' of the examples.
** ''Tintin in Tibet'' - Every time Captain Haddock tells Tintin he's not going to come with him... He goes.
** In ''The Shooting Star'', Captain Haddock is the President of the Society of ''Sober Sailors''.

* {{Identical Twin ID Tag}}:
** Thomson and Thompson.
** Identical twins also appear in [[spoiler:''King Ottokar's Sceptre'']].

* ImprobableHairStyle: Tintin's quiff, which never seems to fall flat again.

* InevitableWaterfall: Tintin encounters one in ''Tintin in the Congo''.
* InjunCountry: ''Tintin in America''.

* EasyAmnesia: Calculus in ''Destination Moon''.
* {{Egopolis}}: The capitals of San Theodoros and Borduria.
* EmpathyDollShot: ''Tintin in Tibet''.
* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: When we first meet Haddock, Tintin manages to make him cry by asking him what his mother would think of him drunk.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: In ''The Shooting Star'', the rival profit-focused expedition, backed by a corrupt South American banker, is more than willing to sink to a lot of lows to sabotage the scientific one. During the race to the meteorite, when Tintin is parachuting onto the meteorite, a member of the rival expedition takes out a sniper rifle to shoot him down, only for the horrified captain to push it away and say "Have you gone mad?!"

* EverybodyLaughsEnding: Happens in several stories, like ''Red Rackham's Treasure'' and ''Explorers on the Moon''.
* TheEveryman: Tintin himself. His name is quite appropriate, as it is a somewhat outdated colloquialism for "nothing" in French.
* EvilColonialist: The villains of several stories, specially the ones set in Africa, Middle East and China.
* EvilerThanThou: Between Rastapopoulos and Carreidas in ''Flight 714'' while they are under the effect of the truth serum.
* EvilTwin: [[spoiler:In ''King Ottokar's Scepter'', Alembick's twin brother takes his place to steal the sceptre]].

* ExtremelyShortTimespan: All except the last three pages of ''Flight 714'' take place within 24 hours.
* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler:Pablo in]] ''Tintin and the Picaros''
* FakeFaint:
** After a bomb goes off, Tintin fakes being knocked out to be carried outside by paramedics, then evade capture.
** In "Flight 714 to Sydney", Rastapopoulos collapses while being marched through the jungle at gunpoint. Haddock isn't having any of it, and jabs a thorn into Rastapopoulos' backside to get him moving again.
* FaintingSeer: Mrs. Yamilah from the ''The Seven Crystal Balls''.
* FamousNamedForeigner: Pianist Igor Wagner, named after Music/IgorStravinsky and Music/RichardWagner.
* FascistButInefficient: The nation of Borduria.
* FatherNeptune: Captain Haddock

* {{Fireballs}}: The lightning shoots off a ball of lightning through the chimney in ''The Seven Crystal Balls''.
* FloweryInsults: Captain Haddock specializes in them.
* FowlMouthedParrot: The parrot the captain got as [[MyNewGiftIsLame a gift]] from the Castafiore learns to swear like the captain at the end.
* FrancoBelgianComics
* FrothyMugsOfWater: Averted; Haddock is shown drinking whiskey and characters are frequently shown being intoxicated.
* FullBodyDisguise:
** Done in ''The Broken Ear'', where Tintin successfully disguises himself as a waiter. A ''black'' waiter.
** Before that, in ''The Blue Lotus'', he successfully disguises himself as a Japanese general.
* FullCircleRevolution: ''Tintin and the Picaros''. Although that's the only time we see it firsthand, earlier stories show that Alcazar and Tapioca were mutually ousting each other for years.

* FunnyBackgroundEvent: Not humorous, per se, but every episode of the Nelvana cartoon would have an animated version of Hergé in the background, usually as part of a crowd scene or just simply walking by.

* GadgeteerGenius: Professor Calculus' inventions are sometimes useful, but sometimes cause more harm than good.
* GagNose: Recurring antagonist Roberto Rastapopoulos has a comically large nose. This is used for a gag in ''Flight 714 to Sydney'', when Allen sees a proboscis monkey and laughs at its nose, saying that it reminds him of someone, only to have an OhCrap reaction when he realizes that said someone is Rastapopoulos, [[RightBehindYou who is standing next to him]].

* TheGeneralissimo: Tintin has encountered several of these, notably General Alcazar (although he becomes relatively more heroic later) and General Tapioca.

* GenreDeconstruction: Most notably in ''The Castafiore Emerald''. WordOfGod says it was an attempt to write a story where nothing actually happens.

* GentleGiant: The Yeti, who sheltered Chang after the plane crash in ''Tintin in Tibet''.
* GiantSpider: ''The Shooting Star''.
* GildedCage: ''Tintin and the Picaros''. Also the Bordurian hotel in ''The Calculus Affair''.
* GilliganCut:
** In ''Tintin in Tibet'', Captain Haddock flatly refuses to help Tintin look for Chang in Kathmandu. The scene ''immediately'' cuts to him and Tintin getting off the plane in said city.
** In ''The Calculus Affair'', Thomson and Thompson promise not to tell anyone about the self-shattering glass. The next picture shows the story on the following morning's front pages.
* GivingThemTheStrip: The pickpocket in ''The Secret of the Unicorn''.

* ''Tintin Reporter - Cigars of the Pharaoh'' (2023, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC)

* CreditsRunningSequence: At the end of the opening credits of the Nelvana cartoon series.
* CrossingTheDesert: Done in ''The Cigars of the Pharaoh'', ''The Crab With The Golden Claws'', ''The Land Of The Black Gold'' and ''The Red Sea Sharks''.
* CultureEqualsCostume:
** The Thompsons' 'disguises', are the worst possible mismatches that can ever be considered for camouflage, since they are in the habit of travelling through countries in ludicrously outdated/stereotypical traditional costumes.
** Nowhere more hilarious than ''The Blue Lotus'', where they come wearing '''17th century Manchu era clothes''', complete with pigtails and fans!
--->'''Thompson:''' ''[with nearly the entire town parading behind them laughing]'' Don't look now, but something tells me we're being followed.
** In ''Destination: Moon'', they even wear costumes from ''the wrong country'':
--->'''Thomson:''' Greek costumes? But we specifically ordered the tailor to make us Syldavian ones...\\
'''Thompson:''' I told you he didn't seem very bright.
* CuttingTheKnot: From "Explorers on the Moon". Being back on Earth, MissionControl Mr. Baxter mostly has to use rather creative methods to help the protagonists in space. But when rocket finally lands and the crew can't open the doors because they've already passed out from lack of oxygen, Baxter just elects to hack the rocket open with electric saws to get them out in time.
* DarkestAfrica: ''Tintin in The Congo''.
* DeadlyDustStorm: In ''Land of Black Gold'', Tintin and both Thomson and Thompson get caught in one. They nearly miss each other until both detectives turn back after realizing mirages don't speak, so the cry for help from Tintin was a very real one.
* DeathGlare: Captain Haddock attempts one on a llama. Unfortunately for him, it counters by chewing his beard off.

* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: In the first half of the series, whenever one of the Thompsons says something, the other will add "To be precise", followed by either the same statement, or a rephrasing of it. In the later books, this evolves into a mangling of what the first twin said, usually as a {{Spoonerism}}.
* DesertedIsland: ''The Black Island'' (though it turns out to be inhabitated after all), ''The Shooting Star'' (though it's actually a piece of a meteorite) and ''Red Rackham's Treasure''.

* DinosaurDoggieBone: In ''King Ottokar's Sceptre''.

* DirtyCommunists: ''Tintin in the Land of the Soviets'' is essentially a anti-communist propaganda piece.
* DiscreetDrinkDisposal: Captain Haddock pours his glass of Sani-Cola in a potted plant at the beginning of ''Flight 714'', which then [[ThatPoorPlant wilts dramatically and dies within seconds]].

* {{Dissimile}}: Thomson without a p, as in Venezuela.
* DitchTheBodyguards: ''The Calculus Affair''. And the characters would have liked to in ''Tintin and the Picaros'' too.

* DoesntLikeGuns: Tintin, although he doesn't hesitate to use a pistol when necessary, and is very proficient in handling any firearm he obtains.
* DoorJudo: In ''Tintin in the Land of the Soviets''.
* DotingParent: Emir Mohammed Ben Kalish Ezab of Khemed is this to his son, Abdullah. He even threatens to cancel Arabair's flight route to his country, and expose their owner's involvement in slave trading, because they refused to heed his son's request... to have Arabair passenger jets ''[[ImpossibleTask loop the loop before landing in Khemed]]''.
* TheDragon: Allan (his last name was Thompson in the French version) to Omar Ben Salaad (initially) and Rastapopoulos later.
* DreamSequence: Many and surreal! Sometimes scary, other times amusing moments - sometimes both at the same time...
* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:Mitsuhirato in ''The Blue Lotus'', Frank Wolff in ''Explorers On The Moon''.]]
* DrivesLikeCrazy:
** The Italian driver with the OverlyLongName in ''The Calculus Affair''. [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Tintin_BadItalianDriver_4258.jpg This utterly indescribable picture]] says it all!
** Calculus turns into a roadhog when he's [[BerserkButton acting the goat]], notwithstanding the fact that he doesn't know how to drive a car!
* DrunkenSong: Tintin and Haddock sing one of these after inhaling wine-fumes in ''The Crab with the Golden Claws''.
* DubNameChange:
** Virtually every translation of the works gives new names to the characters. This was done a lot to preserve PunnyNames (and create a few new ones). [[http://www.tintinologist.org/guides/characters/names.html A full list can be found here]].
** Tintin's name is the same in the original French, but pronounced differently, but is known as Kuifje (lit. 'little quiff') in Dutch and Tim in German.
** Thompson & Thomson's names are generally real names in the relevant language with a difference of only a letter or two between them.
*** French: Dupond & Dupont.
*** Dutch: Janssen & Jansen.
*** German: Schulze and Schultze.
*** Spanish: Hernandez y Fernandez (also used in Basque).
*** Afrikaans: Uys & Buys.
*** Bengali: Jonson & Ronson.
** Snowy was originally Milou in French, after an ex-girlfriend of Hergé's, and becomes Struppi in German and Bobbie in Dutch.
** Calculus's original name is Tournesol, or "Sunflower" -- the English translators decided that this sounded silly and gave him a PunnyName instead. He's called Zonnebloem in Dutch, which also means Sunflower.
** Tournesol's first name Tryphon alliterates with his surname and has long gone out of fashion. This pattern tends to be emulated in most translations, thus it's Cuthbert Calculus in English, Balduin Bienlein in German, Teofilus Tuhatkauno in Finnish. In Dutch it is Trifonius Zonnebloem though.
** The story ''Coke En Stock'' (''Coke in Stock'') has been translated to ''Tintin and the Red Sea Sharks'' in English.
* {{Eagleland}}:
** The America portrayed in the books is a combination of this, {{Gangsterland}} and InjunCountry.
** General Alcazar's overweight, haircurler-wearing, shrill-voiced shrew of a wife was based on a particularly virulent KKK member Hergé saw on television.

[[AC:Five video games:]]

->''Tintin is neither a surname nor a first name; it is much more than that. Tintin is a totally unique world, a myth or a saga. Tintin is created from Hergé's subconscious desire to be perfect, to be a hero. The hero who everyone between 7 and 77 years old wants to be, or become, while reading the Adventures of Tintin.''

* OffModel: A big problem with the Belvision animated cartoon series; the animation director apparently took a ''lot'' of liberties with Hergé's character designs, often giving the characters a bizarre and overly cute look. Some of the animators worked against this, however, meaning that, occasionally, you see sequences that look almost as if they could be taken directly from the books. Fortunately, ''Tintin and the Sun Temple'' and ''Tintin and the Lake of Sharks'' (which both had higher budgets and a better director) don't suffer this problem nearly as badly.

* BrotherChuck: King Muskar XII of Syldavia, who is inexplicably absent from later stories involving that country, even when his appearance would be expected (''Destination Moon'' and/or ''Explorers on the Moon'') or useful (''The Calculus Affair''). This is possibly a reflection of RealLife politics in the Balkans before and after WWII: Former monarchies were replaced with republican (in practice: communist) governments. (Syldavia does not seem to have a communist government in its later appearances, though).

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* ButtMonkey:
** If there's a way for a character to have a humourous accident or injury, it'll happen to Captain Haddock. In ''Red Sea Sharks'', he gets hurt '''32 times''' in all! Eventually, ''everyone'' {{Lampshades}} this.
** Thompson and Thomson. In contrast to the Captain, they generally bring about their own misfortune through their clumsiness.
** Several other main characters get the ButtMonkey treatment. Even Calculus and Snowy. [[http://www.angelfire.com/super2/animorphs/hurt.html This site]] even records the countless examples!
** Rastapopulous is this of the Tintin villains, he is constantly humiliated and injured, especially in his final appearance in ''Flight 714''.
* TheCaligula:
** In his first appearance, General Alcazar, the military dictator of San Theodoros, has a shade of this, though mostly he is more of a paranoid Stalin type than a sadist. However, he does indulge in such jokes as throwing a tantrum and shooting a military aide [[spoiler:([[FalseRoulette with blanks]], though [[{{Gaslighting}} he did not know that]])]] for [[DisproportionateRetribution beating him at chess]].
** He mellows considerably in later appearances, at least in his interactions with Tintin, but sometimes has throwbacks to this, firing weapons in the air and throwing around reckless death threats. These are taken all the more seriously by subordinates who ''can't'' know whether he will carry them out or not, even if Tintin ignores them as mere histrionics.
** And he remains a megalomaniac to the very end, renaming the capital of his country [[EgoPolis Alcazaropolis]] once he seizes power in ''Tintin and the Picaros''.

%%* CanineCompanion: Snowy.
* CanineConfusion: In "Tintin in Tibet", Snowy drinks some whiskey, mistaking it for water. A real dog would have been able to smell that it wasn't water.
* TheCatCameBack:
** Bianca Castafiore for Captain Haddock.
** The annoying bit of sticking-plaster in ''The Calculus Affair'', also for Captain Haddock.
* CatchPhrase:
** There are lots of them
--->'''Captain Haddock:''' "Blistering Barnacles!", "Thundering Typhoons!"\\
'''Tintin:''' "Great snakes!", "Crumbs!"\\
'''Thompson/Thomson:''' "To be precise..."\\
'''Bordurian thugs:''' "By the whiskers of Kûrvi-Tasch!"\\
'''Syldavian thugs:''' "By the sceptre of Ottokar!"\\
'''Rastapopoulos:''' ''(upon hearing bad news)'' "Diavolo!"\\
'''Mitsuhirato:''' "Flaming Fujiyama!", "Suffering Samurais!"
** Tintin would often say "This time I'm done for" or "I never thought I would see you [Snowy] again".
** In the original French, Captain Haddock's catchphrases were ''"Tonnerre de Brest!"'' and ''"Mille sabords!"'' (literally, "Thunder of Brest!"[[note]]Brest is a coastal city near the westernmost edge of mainland France. The "thunder" likely refers to the sound of the cannons on the historical ramparts.[[/note]] and "A thousand portholes!").
** In the Dutch translations, Captain Haddock's full catchphrase was ''"Honderdduizend bommen en granaten!"'' (literally, "A hundred thousand bombs and grenades!").
** Even the German one can be re-translated nicely into ''Hundred thousand howling hounds of hell!''
** And in each translation, the phrase can be extended indefinitely, giving rise to such beauties as "Billions of bilious blue boiled and barbecued barnacles!" or "Mille milliards de mille millions de mille sabords!"
** The Thompsons' catchphrase is for one of them to state something and then the other to say "To be precise:" and repeat it, but often not quite get it right. For example:
--->'''Thompson:''' You forget, my friend, in our job there's nothing we don't know!\\
'''Thomson:''' To be precise: we know nothing in our job!
** Another catchphrase of theirs is for one of them to say they have to be secretive about what they're currently investigating ("Mum's the word"), the other to repeat it but say "Dumb's the word", instead, and then for them to inadvertently let slip what it is to Tintin anyway in an IllNeverTellYouWhatImTellingYou fashion.
** In the original French, Calculus is known for his use of "sapristi!" and "saperlipopette!"
* CatchphraseInsult: More than one specific insult, Haddock is a [[EncyclopaedicKnowledge walking encyclopaedia]] of insults, especially if they're SesquipedalianLoquaciousness type, becoming integral part of the character (Haddock without throwing insults isn't Haddock at all). Out of Haddock's many, many insults he uses, the most frequently-used one seems to be "Bashi-bazouk". He made that one up,[[note]]Bashi-Bazouks were a corps of particularly undisciplined ottoman mercenaries.[[/note]] just like most of his other colourful curses.
* CelibateHero: Tintin has no relationships because was created as a role model for Catholic Boy Scouts.
** In fact, Snowy (in the original Belgian) is named Milou, which was the name of a well-endowed girl with whom Hergé went to school (and, according to some sources, dated). Since he obviously couldn't give Tintin a girlfriend because of the awkward questions that it may raise, Milou became a male dog.

* CharacterDevelopment: For both Tintin and Hergé by ''The Blue Lotus''
* CharacterizationMarchesOn:
** The Thompson and Thomson duo provided a bit of slapstick but weren't comedically incompetent in their first appearance in ''Cigars of the Pharaoh'', later on, they become the main source of slapstick and visual humour in the series.
** Tintin himself was very cruel to animals and condescending to natives in his earliest adventures, in contrast to his more humane attitude in the rest of the series.
* CharacterSignatureSong: Bianca Castafiore is usually seen and heard performing the Jewel aria from Charles Gounod's opera ''Faust''. In the English Nelvana dub, she instead sings "How I love to see her lovely eyes!"
* CharacterTitle

* ChekhovsSkill: Professor Calculus has practiced savate in his youth, and he is pretty much a BadassBookworm. He demonstrates this trait when he is being annoyed

* ClingyAquaticLife: In ''The Red Sea Sharks'', Captain Haddock falls off the raft and comes up spitting out a fish. He falls off again later, coming up wearing a jellyfish as a hat, allowing Tintin to make a pun on [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raft_of_the_Medusa the raft of the medusa]].
* ClingyMacGuffin: The piece of sticking plaster in ''The Calculus Affair''. When Captain Haddock tosses it off, it sticks to someone else, who in turn shakes it off. And so it goes all over the bus, before coming to the Captain's cap. It then follows him aboard the plane, eventually makes its way to the cockpit (causing the pilots to momentarily lose control), lands on the Captain again by the end of the flight, is thrown away at the police station, only to return '''yet again''' on the captain's clothes in the hotel room!!
* CloudCuckooLander:
** Professor Calculus in ''Red Rackham's Treasure''. In the other books, they toned it down considerably.
** Professor Sarcophagus in ''Cigars of the Pharaoh'' and Philippulus the Prophet in ''The Shooting Star'' really are insane. In ''Cigars of The Pharaoh'' and ''The Blue Lotus'' several people are injected with a poison that makes them insane.

* ComedicSociopathy: Intentional or not, all the hunting scenes in "Tintin in the Congo".
* ComicallyMissingThePoint: Professor Calculus often misunderstands the others because of his deafness, creating a lot of funny situations.

* CompositeCharacter:
** In the film version, Ivan Sakhrine has kept only his name and appearance, while filling the role of the Bird Brothers and being a modern-day version of Red Rackham.
** In ''The Black Island'', Ranko is a cross between [[Film/KingKong1933 King Kong]] and the Loch Ness Monster.

* ContrivedCoincidence:
** These happen constantly. A classic example occurs in ''Cigars of the Pharaoh'': as it turns out, the [[TheSyndicate gang]] which Tintin has been tracking down is based in India. At this stage, Tintin has not had any inkling of an Indian connection, but when he makes his escape by plane from an Arabian town, he fortuitously chooses to fly in that direction, and crash-lands ''right outside the town where they have their headquarters''. [[ArtisticLicenseGeography In India]].
** Lampshaded in ''The Red Sea Sharks'', in which Tintin and Haddock go and see a film which, coincidentally, stars an actor who [[IdenticalStranger looks very similar to]] General Alcazar, as Tintin notes. Haddock complains about how contrived the coincidences in the film seemed, taking Alcazar as an example, shortly before bumping into Alcazar himself in the street.
* CoolOldGuy: Captain Haddock.
* CoolPlane: The Carreidas 160, Laszlo's personal aircraft in ''Flight 714'', is a supersonic business jet, and furthermore has been shown to be a more or less workable design.
* CoolShip: The Moon Rocket, the [[spoiler:UFO that briefly appears]], The Unicorn, Rastapopolous' yacht (the ''Scheherezade'').
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Rastapopoulos, Carreidas, Gibbons, not to mention every single one in ''Tintin in America''.
* ACrackInTheIce: In ''Tintin in Tibet'', Tintin falls into a crevasse during a blinding snowstorm. He climbs his way out two hours later, after having found in the ice cave below a stone on which Chang had carved his name.
* CrapsackWorld:
** America in ''Tintin in America''. Crime runs rampant, and meat producers put dogs, cats and rats in the [[MysteryMeat meat]].
** The Soviet Union in ''Tintin in the Land of the Soviets''.

* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Professor Calculus. Downplayed on the former in that he's not stupid or ignorant, he's just a little [[CloudCuckooLander Cloudcuckoolander-ish]] and more of a peaceful guy. When angered, however, he can lift up a man ''double his size and weight'' or can brutally beat up someone (as Carreidas in ''Flight 714'' learned).
** A great deal of the "moron" perception is due to his hearing. In ''Destination Moon'', acknowledging the importance of hearing given the seriousness of the situation, he consents to wearing a hearing aid, and is thereafter shown as far more competent ("badass") than he usually is. In subsequent adventures, he goes back to considering himself "only a trifle deaf in one ear", and only using the ear trumpet, and his competence takes a nose-dive.
* CrushingHandshake: Tintin and Captain Haddock get their hands crushed upon meeting a BoisterousBruiser type archeologist. It's noted that he's not being competitive or mean spirited, he just has a very strong grip.
* CryptidEpisode: ''Tintin in Tibet'' prominently features the Yeti.

* BrieferThanTheyThink: Altough Rastapopoulos is considered to be Tintin's main villain and nemesis, he only appears in four comics in the series out of twenty three. There is also a huge gap between his second and his third appearance. Even if you include his wordless cameo in "In America", his disguise as Endaddine Akass in the unfinished "Alph-Art" and his turn in the animated "The Lake of Sharks", that's still just seven out of twenty-seven stories.

* AccidentalAstronaut: In ''Recap/TintinExplorersOnTheMoon'', shortly after Calculus's rocket has taken off, the protagonists realize that [[ThoseTwoGuys the Thompsons]], who were supposed to be on guard before the launch, are still inside because they mistook the time of the takeoff. The two end up being obliged to participate in the exploration of the Moon.
* AccidentalMisnaming:
** Bianca Castafiore gets people's names wrong, especially [[http://www.angelfire.com/super2/animorphs/names.html Haddock's]]
*** "The name's Harrock, ma'am. Captain Harrock'n'roll!"
** Often Haddock gets his own back by referring to her as "Castoroili", or (behind her back) "Catastrofiore".

* ActingOutADaydream: In "Tintin and the Secret of the Unicorn", when Captain Haddock tells the story about his ancestor's fight with Red Rackham and his pirate school. He gets so caught up in the mental image that he acts it out, even to the extent of Tintin and Snowy thinking he's play-acting when they first see him doing it.

* AddictionPowered: Give a few drops of alcohol to a tired Captain Haddock, and he'll be good as new.
* TheAlcoholic: Captain Haddock.
* AllForNothing: ZigZaggedTrope on ''The Calculus Affair'': while rescuing the Professor to prevent the bad guys from using him to develop weapons, the microfilm with the plans for the ''specific'' piece of technology [[MacGuffin that was central to the plot]] never even left Marlinspike (the spies barged in looking for it but couldn't find it before Tintin and Haddock fought them off, and Calculus forgot that he didn't put it in the secret pocket of his umbrella).
* AlwaysIdenticalTwins:
** A strange example are Thompson and Thomson who, apart from their mustaches, look exactly like twins. They dress, act and move the same and often finish each others' sentences. They also appear to live in the same house and even in the same bedroom! Still the linguistic difference in the spelling of their name suggest they are not related to each other at all. Furthermore, in the original French, they were known as Dupont & Dupond, which are even ''pronounced'' identically -- this was kept up at least to some extent in most translations, not just English.
** A better example are [[spoiler:Alfred and Hector Alembick in ''King Ottocar's Sceptre'']], who are a good and evil twin, looking exactly alike, save for the fact that the good one smokes and is far-sighted.

* AncientAstronauts: The twist at the end of ''Flight 714'', aliens have been visiting Earth since ancient times and are acting through selected mediators until they deem us ready for official introductions.
* AndHereHeComesNow: In ''Recap/TintinTintinAndThePicaros'', Captain Haddock is saying to Professor Calculus that Tintin was wise not to come along with them to the GildedCage they're being held at:
-->'''Calculus:''' I can see our hosts have a true sense of hospitality. That's what I just said to him... And he entirely agrees with me.\\
'''Haddock:''' WHO agrees with you? And about WHAT?!\\
'''Calculus:''' Exactly, and what's more, he'll tell you so himself!\\
'''Tintin:''' Buenos dias, Captain!
* {{Angrish}}: Haddock occasionally yells a string of unintelligible syllables or consonants instead of his usual FloweryInsults when he's particularly upset.

* ArtisticLicenseBiology:
** While Herge usually did his research, once he made a blatant mistake: Tintin, the captain and Skut are shipwrecked on the ocean, and Tintin suggests that they drink ''sea water'' to survive. Yes, Tintin, who usually knows everything. And to make things worse, the captain only objects to the taste, not the fact that drinking salt water would only make them more thirsty[[note]]Briefly, the reason you can't drink seawater (to take care of thirst, that is) is because when your body sees all the salt in the water, it needs to get rid of it, so it does so in the only way it can - by ''flushing'' it out of the body, diluting it and carrying it away with the water already in your body, causing you to have ''less'' water in your body[[/note]]. '''Haddock''' of all people should know this, due to being an experienced ''sailor''. However, they ''do'' refer to the studies Dr. Alain Bombard did on a sea water diet, so it may just be that ScienceMarchesOn.
** In ''The Broken Ear'', Hergé drew the bananas on a banana tree upside-down.
** In ''Tintin in Africa'' a boa snake (which are New World snakes, Africa has pythons) swallows Snowy alive, tail first.
* ArtisticLicenseEngineering: In ''Tintin and The Shooting Star'', you shouldn't be able to see the spider covering the telescope. Real telescopes don't work that way. The telescope would focus on the objects in a large, almost infinite distance (i. e. the stars), something covering the telescope would only result in a blur on its location.

* AsianSpeekeeEngrish: Mitsuhirato talks like this, but only in the English translation.

* BadassAdorable:
** Tintin himself. Who knew that such a baby-faced innocent could be so agile and deadly with his fists?
** And so is Snowy.
* BadassBookworm:
** Although he is a short, wiry reporter without muscles, Tintin is rarely (if ever) bested in a fair fight, even when his enemy is twice his size. He is also an excellent shot. During his visit to America he single-handedly laid waste to crowds. During his visit to India he subdued an attacking tiger and restrained it in a straitjacket despite being caught by surprise. During his visit to Russia he killed a bear with his bare hands. And in China he took on three burly prison guards at once and sent all three of them to the hospital. It has been stated that he has at least a working knowledge of judo and western boxing.
** Professor Calculus is also a force to be reckoned with when he is enraged, most notably in ''Flight 714'' where Carreidas makes the mistake of arousing his ire and it then takes two men to subdue him. He has practised ''savate'' in his youth.

* BananaPeel: A joke used in ''Tintin in the Land of the Soviets''. Also used in ''Cigars of the Pharaoh'' when Tintin escapes from the asylum.

* BearsAreBadNews: Tintin has an unfortunate encounter with bears in ''Destination Moon''. At first, he is covered with cuddly bear cubs who want to get their paws on his lunch (sandwiches with honey), but he goes OhCrap when he sees the mean-looking parents coming.
* BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: A number of characters adopt this attitude towards Tintin -- most notably Captain Haddock (though he'd never say it outright).
* BedouinRescueService: Happens in ''The Crab With The Golden Claws''.

* BeQuietNudge: Tintin to Haddock in ''The Calculus Affair''.
* BerserkButton:
** The normally mild-mannered Professor Calculus has at least two; being told he's "acting the goat", and having his hat knocked off by the {{Jerkass}} millionaire Carreidas.
** Ironically in the latter case, losing his hat is a BerserkButton for ''Carreidas''.
** Haddock being deprived of his whisky, especially in earlier volumes.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: Calculus, when hitting the aforementioned BerserkButton. He lifts and hangs a guard twice his size on a coat rack in ''Destination Moon''.
* BigBad: Roberto Rastapopoulos, a Moriarty/Blofeld-type recurring bad guy. Many of the other villains in the RoguesGallery work under him at some point.

* BigfootSasquatchAndYeti:
** The yeti in ''Tintin in Tibet'' is portrayed as a GentleGiant.
** Played with in ''The Black Island'', the titular island supposedly being menaced by one of these.
* TheBigGuy: Captain Haddock is a big man, and though he isn't especially skilled in a fight, those he does hit ''stay'' hit. He once [[DoesNotKnowHisOwnStrength ripped a wooden chair in half with his bare hands]] when angered. While the director of the space center was still sitting on it.

** In ''The Red Sea Sharks'', the kidnapped pilgrims argue in authentic Yoruba.
** The Chinese writing in the backgrounds of ''The Blue Lotus'' is authentic (and contains anti-Japanese messages).

** In ''The Castafiore Emerald'' Calculus names his new breed of white rose after Bianca Castafiore. Her name literally means "White, Chaste Flower".

* {{Blackface}}: Tintin disguises himself as a black cabin boy in ''Broken Ear''.

* BottleEpisode: ''The Castafiore Emerald'' takes place in and around Marlinspike Hall.

* BrattyFoodDemand: In "Land of the Black Gold", Emir's son gets kidnapped but is a brat, and at one point, he demands ice cream and when he doesn't get any, he derails the car.
* BrawnHilda: Castafiore is a much more realistic portrayal of this trope - she is indeed large, but [[ShownTheirWork this is common for opera singers with her level of vocal vigor]].
* BreakingTheFourthWall:
** Tintin winks at the audience near the end of ''King Ottokar's Sceptre''.
** ''The Secret of the Unicorn'' ends with Tintin telling his fans to read about his next adventure in ''Red Rackham's Treasure''.
** A lot of what Snowy says counts too, especially at the end of ''Flight 714'', because [[spoiler:Snowy is the only one who remembers what happened]].
** The cover of ''The Castafiore Emerald'' has Tintin in the foreground, looking directly at the reader, with a smile and a finger to his lips.
** A bizarre instance occurs in ''Cigars of the Pharaoh'', when Tintin meets Sheikh Patrash Pasha. The Sheikh knew of Tintin by reading of his adventures, and he actually shows Tintin ''one of the real-world Tintin albums'', complete with cover art. In earlier versions of the comic, the Sheikh showed the cover art of ''Tintin in America'', then ''Tintin in the Congo''; modern versions of the comic now show ''Destination Moon'', which came out ''after'' the release of ''Cigars''.

* BirdPoopGag: In one book, one of the Thom(p)sons asks what quano is and Captain Haddock is not sure how to put it, and then a bird poops on the detective's hat and Haddock says, "Guano? Well, that's a free sample!".

** ''The Castafiore Emerald'' is an intentional RandomEventsPlot where Tintin and Haddock stay at Marlinspike Hall for nearly the entirety of the story. It's full of anticlimaxes such as how Haddock's attempt to escape Castafiore by going to Italy is foiled by an accident, the Roma community plight is immediately solved by Haddock’s generosity, Haddock never has the chance to make AnAesop about tolerance because of little distractions and the emerald’s thief turned to be a harmless magpie.
** ''Flight 714'' has Tintin and Haddock involved by a ContrivedCoincidence into a plot to blackmail a millionaire, recurring villains Rastapopoulus and Allan suffer intentional VillainDecay by being depicted as ridiculous and stupid, all of them would have died in an eruption but are saved by [[DeusExMachina aliens]], and only Snowy remembers how they were rescued. For everyone else, it was a ShaggyDogStory.
** ''Tintin and the Picaros:'' Tintin, the GentlemanAdventurer, no longer enjoys adventures and [[RefusalOfTheCall refuses the call]] for some days with almost all the supporting cast in [[BananaRepublic San Theodoros]], Haddock cannot drink alcohol, [[SeriousBusiness and the worst is that Tintin]], [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking instead of his plus fours pants, now wears jeans!]] The second to last panel shows that San Theodoros has had a FullCircleRevolution and it was all a ShaggyDogStory.

** Tintin and Haddock. The former is a neat, organized teenaged/young adult, chaste hero and morally upright. The latter is a bad-tempered, middle aged sailor, an alcoholic (while not always drunk, he's incapable of drinking water or non-alcoholic drinks), prone to spouting (made up) profanities at the slightest provocation. TheyFightCrime!

[[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php/BestEpisode/tintin You can vote for your favourite episode here.]]

!!Some of the many tropes in Tintin have included:

** ''Flight 714'' has Tintin and Haddock involved by a ContrivedCoincidence into a plot to blackmail a millionaire, recurring villains Rastapopoulus and Allan suffer intentional VillainDecay by being depicted as ridiculous and stupid, all of them would have died in an eruption but are saved by [[DeusExMachina aliens]], and only Snowy remembers how they were rescued. For everyone else, it was a ShaggyDogStory. (However, in the Nelvana version of the story, Snowy forgets it like everyone else.)

* BrieferThanTheyThink: Altough Rastapopoulos is considered to be Tintin's main villain and nemesis, he only appears in four comics in the series out of twenty three. There is also a huge gap between his second and his third appearance.

* BittersweetEnding: "Red Rackham's Treasure" has [[spoiler:the crew return home with none of the titular treasure, although they do have parts from the wreck of the Unicorn and a huge supply of incredibly-aged rum as well as Marlinspike Hall now under Captain Haddock's ownership after buying it with Professor Calculus's patent money as thanks for helping him test his submarine. However, a wander around the basement reveals that Francis actually hid the treasure there, upgrading this to EarnYourHappyEnding as Haddock opens a maritime gallery in celebration.]]

* EverythingsBetterWithLlamas: In ''The Temple of the Sun'', there's a RunningGag where Captain Haddock gets spat on by annoyed llamas. At the end of the book, he returns the favor by spitting water on one (who ''hadn't'' done anything).

* ''WesternAnimation/{{The Adventures of Tintin|1991}}'', a 1990s French-Canadian-Belgian series coproduced by Ellipse and Creator/{{Nelvana}}

* ''Tintin and the Sun Temple'' (1969), by Belvision and made from the combined storyline of ''The Seven Crystal Balls'' and ''Prisoners of the Sun''.

* PowerUpFood: Captain Haddock gets re-energized by alcohol. On one occasion, he is instantly brought to full health from critical life support by [[UpToEleven just hearing the word "Whiskey"]]!