Played by Richard Pearce (BBC Radio Series 1 and 2), Jean-Pierre Talbot (''Tintin and the Golden Fleece"), Colin O'Meara (90's animated series), Jamie Bell (Spielberg/Jackson film)
Great snakes!
The Ace - Hergé admitted Tintin was an idealized version of himself (even though Haddock was his favorite character).
Characterization Marches On - In his first two books, he was originally something of a rude, inconsiderate troublemaker who didn't mind getting into fights.
Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: It's frightening to imagine what sort of (drunken) trouble Captain Haddock would get into if Tintin wasn't there to keep an eye on him.
Determinator - In Tintin Tintin In Tibet, as well as in the Spielberg/Jackson film. He inspires Haddock not to give up, which in turn inspires Haddock to encourage Tintin to do the same the one time he does almost give up.
Guile Hero - Throughout the course of the series, he would lie to the bad guys, disguise himself, trick the bad guys, fool the bad guys etc... A typical scene in an adventure could have him pointing behind a villain and yelling "Look out!" after they make him crash his car, and then he would steal their car while they were distracted.
He would also use whisky and reverse psychology to get the Captain to cooperate.
Incorruptible Pure Pureness - Immune to any kind of vice whatsoever (except getting drunk, once, in Tintin and the Broken Ear...and for his initial racism, although that was more Characterization Marches On than anything else).
Intergenerational Friendship: All of his friends are either significantly older than him or significantly younger.
Pintsized Powerhouse - He's slighter and younger than many of the people he encounters... but he's capable of taking on two gorilla-henchmen at the same time!
The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything - For someone who is supposedly a reporter, he doesn't get to do a lot of story writing. Most of the places he visits are because of his job, though.
Chalk it up to Literary Agent Hypothesis. The stories about his adventures are his reports, or at least are based on them; when they originally appeared in newspapers, Herge occasionally wrote fake articles that had Tintin interviewing some of the other characters on the finer details of what was going on — an opportunity for Herge to show his research.
Technical Pacifist - While he is willing to fight, he goes to great lengths to avoid conflict.
Vague Age: He's old enough to enter a pub and drink a beer (The Black Island) and old enough to live alone with his dog in his own apartment. However, he is still referred to as a "young boy", and a "puppy." Hergé stated that when he first thought about Tintin, the character was 14 or 15 years old, but in an interview he stated: "but now, let's say that he is 17."
Snowy
Milou
Played by Andrew Sachs (BBC Radio Series 1 and 2), Susan Roman (90's animated series)
Animal Talk - Only in the original comics and in the radio adaptations.
Determinator - If Tintin gets into trouble, nothing can stop him from helping his master. The best example is the way Snowy tracks Tintin to Marlinspike after the Bird brothers kidnap him in Secret of the Unicorn. In the Spielberg/Jackson film, he jumps onto a truck in the middle of a busy intersection, leaps through a herd of cows, and sneaks onto a ship to find him.
Played by Andy Serkis (Spielberg/Jackson film), Leo McKern (BBC Radio Series 1), Lionel Jeffries (BBC Radio Series 2), David Fox (90's animated series)
Billions of blue, blistering barnacles!
Agent Scully - In Tintin in Tibet, he refuses to acknowledge the existence of the Yeti.
Happens again in Flight 714 when he states his disbelief in both aliens and hypnosis.
Alcohol Induced Idiocy: Haddock, we're looking right at you. Literally. You're the picture on the trope page. Dry, he's a force to be reckoned with. Let him swallow a drop of liquor, though, and he's capable of starting a fire in a wooden lifeboat. And breaking the oars for fuel. And when he realizes what he's done, he'll try to put out the fire... With whiskey. ker-WHOOMP
At the end of the Spielberg/Jackson film, he gets so excited over finding what Sir Francis Hadoque salvaged of the treasure that he actually mixes up his own catchphrase!
Characterization Marches On: When first introduced he was a weak and pathetic alcoholic, but after he dried out he became the salty-mouthed, assertive, somewhat bullheaded sea dog everyone knows him as.
Father Neptune - Actually a bit of a subversion. As soon as Haddock settles down in Marlinspike Hall, he finds he much prefers solid ground under his feet over a seafaring life — although he remains a very capable navigator when his services are called for.
Genius Ditz: As troublesome as he may be, no one can deny that he's an excellent sailor.
Unusual Euphemism - The author originally wanted Captain Haddock to, well, swear like a sailor, but he had to keep the comic family friendly. He compromised by using this strategy, which ended up becoming Captain Haddock's signature character trait.
Alliterative Name - Cuthbert Calculus. Tryphon Tournesol in the original version.
Berserk Button - For all his alleged gentleness, he has a lot of buttons and a Hair-Trigger Temper, albeit a fairly mild one. You don't want to mention his family members in inappropriate situations (including ones he doesn't have). You'll want to avoid knocking off his hat, as well. And for the love of God, never tell him he's "acting the goat". Of course, there's always the chance he'll mishear you, for better or worse.
Beware the Nice Ones - Most of the time he's a very good-natured and polite person, but push one of his Berserk Buttons and you'll quickly regret it.
Bunny-Ears Lawyer - He may be eccentric and severely hearing impaired, but nobody doubts his genius.
Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass - When his Berserk Button is pressed, NO ONE can stand in his way. He becomes hyper competent, is able to scare off Haddock and even appears to have gained super strength and lifts a man twice his size.
Cloudcuckoolander - Due to his curiously selective hearing impairment rather than his intelligence.
Hidden Depths - As mentioned above, Destination Moon and The Calculus Affair proved that the good professor is very down-to-earth indeed whenever the world is threatened. He has even less concern for his personal safety in these situations.
I Know Savate - In Flight 714. But he's admittedly gotten rather rusty since his lycee days.
Kidnapped Scientist - In the Calculus Affair. Also technically in Prisoners of the Sun, though his kidnapping there isn't because of him being a scientist.
No Celebrities Were Harmed - Herge based the character on scientist, inventor, and enthusiastic balloonist Dr. Auguste Piccard.
Throwing Off The Disability - In Destination Moon, he makes himself a hearing aid so that he will be able to hear the radio transmissions perfectly, the device is never seen again in any of the subsequent books.
Determinators - While their competence is questionable at best later on, they won't let that slow them down. At one point (Prisoners of the Sun) they were canvassing the world trying to track down Tintin and Co.
Early-Bird Cameo - Hergé retroactively added Thomson and Thompson to a single panel when he redrew Tintin in the Congo.
Evil Counterpart - In the BBC radio adaptation of The Calculus Affair, the Bordurian guards asigned to escort Tintin and Haddock are essentially evil versions of the Thompsons, right down to mannerisms, ineptitude, and the voice actor.
Flanderization - Their first appearances showed them to be clumsy, comedic, but also quite capable, even busting Tintin out of prison at one point. Later depictions made them generally incompetent.
Talking to Himself - Both men are played by the same actor (Charles Kay) in the BBC radio adaptations.
Those Two Guys Which is why they're played in the CGI Motion-Capture film by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, who are Those Two Guys themselves!
Ultimate Job Security - They stay on the force and are consistently given major cases no matter how incompetent they really are.
Write Who You Know - They were based on Hergé's father and uncle, who were identical twins and also endeavored to dress identically — right down to the bowler hats.
Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass - To an extent. She doesn't seem to fear authority figures, which may be why she was so successful at getting information out of Col. Sponsz (The Calculus Affair) and taking just 6 panels to shut down her own trial in San Theodoros (Tintin And The Picaros).
Dreadful Musician - Tintin, Haddock and Snowy certainly think so, though the fact that she's a world famous Opera diva may indicate that this is subject to opinion in-universe.
Fat Girl - A positive example. Despite her hilariously over-the-top antics, she is mostly a well-meaning ally to the main characters.
Gratuitous English - She dabbles a bit in this in the original French-written version.
Kavorka Woman - She may be an extremely Rare Female Example of the trope. Despite neither being much of a looker nor very compelling company, she has quite a few male characters clearly enchanted, including Calculus and Colonel Sponsz. Granted, Calculus's reaction to General Alcazar's wife Peggy suggests he just may have a very unique taste in women.
Malaproper - Gets a lot of peoples' names wrong, with the apparent exception of Tintin and important members of government. Especially noticeable with Captain Haddock in The Castafiore Emerald, although he did stumble a bit when he first introduced himself in The Calculus Affair.
Self Made Woman: To her credit she's done well for herself, since the series takes place in a time where it was difficult for unmarried women to make their own living, let alone become world-famous singers.
The Smurfette Principle - One of the only female recurring characters, and certainly the only notable one.
Surprisingly Good English - Given her usual personality, you'd expect more Gratuitous Italian from her.
The Thing That Would Not Leave - The Castafiore Emerald is all about her inviting herself to live in Marlinspike Hall for several weeks.
Nestor
Badly Battered Babysitter: Abdullah's stay at Marlinspike in The Red Sea Sharks is "a little trying" on him.
Battle Butler - He tries to be this in Secret of the Unicorn.
Heel Face Turn - Played with. In his first appearance, he is working for the villainous Bird brothers, but as it turns out, he had no idea about their criminal activities.
Hawaiian Shirted Tourist - In Tintin and the Picaros. See, it's not only America that exports annoying boorish tourists in ugly shirts, Belgium apparently does too.
Gold Digger - Though technically non canonical, in an original draft of Tintin and The Picaros he explians that he married his wife because she is very wealthy and connections to an arms dealership.
Satellite Character - Slightly less so than Irma, but outside of The Castafiore Emerald, he has no character beyond being Castafiore's pianist.
Irma
Battle Butler - Despite being treated like dirt by Bianca Castafiore, she possesses an unshakeable loyalty to her...and will beat the stuffing out of anyone who dares suggest otherwise.
Small Role Big Impact - He only actually appears in two stories (The Blue Lotus and Tintin in Tibet) and is mentioned in a few others, but in the latter, it is obvious that he is one of the people Tintin cares for the most.
Heel Face Turn: Befriends Tintin and Haddock so quickly it's easy to forget he was technically a Punch Clock Villain for the first two pages he appeared on.
Punny Name: In the original French, his name sounds like "zut", making Haddock think he's being difficult when he's actually introducing himself. In the English translation, Haddock misunderstands the name as a rude command to "scoot".
Recurring villains
Roberto Rastapopoulos
Bad Boss - In Flight 714, under the influence of Truth Serum, he reveals that he was going to have all his henchmen killed after he would complete his evil plan.
Breakout Villain - He is not in a whole lot of albums and only briefly in most of them, but he made enough of an impression to be universally considered Tintin's Big Bad.
Chekhov's Gunman - A man looking very similar to Rastapopoulos appears in Tintin in America, a book before his actual introduction, sitting next to Tintin at a banquet. It is unclear whether Hergé actually meant this character to be Rastapopoulos, but it's worth noting that he's sitting next to the actress Mary Pikefort, which makes sense given his job as a movie producer, and that in the English translation of Cigars of the Pharaoh, Tintin states that he has met Rastapoupoulos before*
explanation for this is that Cigars of the Pharaoh was only published in English after some other stories featuring Rastapopoulos, but it makes for a good Watsonian explanation]].
Evil All Along - He is introduced in Cigars of the Pharaoh as a short-tempered but benign movie producer, then revealed in The Blue Lotus to have been the Big Bad all along. Surprising, eh?
Bond Villain Stupidity - All Tintin villains like to spend quality time with the ol' Villain Ball, but it is Allan who really loves this trope. In all albums he's in, he has Tintin at his mercy at some point, and decides to just leave him alone for him to escape.
The Dragon - First to Omar Ben Salaad, then to Rastapopoulos.
Dragon-in-Chief - He is by far a more prominent villain than his boss in The Crab with the Golden Claws, and Tintin's final struggle is against him. He is less proactive when he becomes Rastapopoulos's lackey.
Gratuitous English - Obviously not evident in the English translation, but he does this sometimes in the original French.
The Heavy - In The Crab with the Golden Claws, Allan is The Dragon as well as The Heavy. The Big Bad makes only a brief appearance, doesn't do much, and is defeated before Allan is.
One Steve Limit - In the original French, his name is Allan Thompson. To avoid obvious confusion, the English translation left out his last name entirely.
Retcon - He was Ret Conned into being the villain that threw Tintin overboard in a newer edition of Cigars of the Pharaoh, even though canonically this album takes place before The Crab with the Golden Claws, Allan's introduction.
Hitchhiker Heroes - Although he ultimately subverts this by leaving the group shortly after he shows up, he initially comes across as a Debut Queue variation.
One-Scene Wonder - He only appeared in The Calculus Affair, and even that appearance was very brief; despite this, he still made enough of an impression to show up on some of the series' promotional material.
Guile Hero - A very minor case, but he improvised a lie to get past the Thompsons and used his technological expertise to make his Heroic Sacrifice without being interrupted or further endangering the other crew members.
My God, What Have I Done? - His words right before the rocket launch, where he regrets getting into this dangerous ordeal, which makes sense as the other characters were also having second thoughts about going into space. Afterwards, it turns out the danger he was referring to was actually his espionage.
Mr. Exposition - Does this once in each of the moon books, the second instance being very different from the first.
Pride - Not explicitly stated, but if he'd just told his employers about his gambling debts and about the man who approached him, he could have avoided all his problems; apparently he was too ashamed to do this.
Redemption Equals Death - Technically, Herge left a loophole where he might have survived, but this trope otherwise fits. However, this loophole only exists in Wolff's farewell note in the collected album version: in the original magazine-published version (later changed under pressure from Catholic organizations) Wolff's last note makes it absolutely clear he has no hope of survival.
Rounded Character - He's...complicated, and that's as much as we dare say without spoiler tags.
Perpetual Frowner - Known in-universe as "the man who never laughs", though Calculus's antics do manage to get several laughing fits out of him (for the first time in many years, apparently).
