Tintin Forums

Please could someone tell us what type of bird is seen in Flight 714, page 22 (B1, i.e. 4th frame)?
Thanks in advance.

I'm a bit of a bird person. I can tell you it looks a bit toucan like to me. The most I know is that its an Indonesian species of Hornbill.
I hope that helps a little.

God Bless!

Tintinrulz
Thanks for your answer.
Imho too, this bird takes more after an toucan (South America) than after a hornbill (East Indies)...
(not to mention this implies kind of an unseen passage...)

This toucan appears during Tintin's brief unseen passage*, together with his 'off' voice that tells directions, directions meant to help Haddock to walk in an Indian file* (p.22, A3 original version), in kind of a cruel tracking game*...

Haddock's eyes covered with a hat match with his own obscure passage*, during which the word 'gauche' can mean 'something else'*...

When a toucan can phonetically echo an unseen character ('two can' indeed matches with 'tin + tin'), and when a character's action, namely a 'gauche' bang into a tree is able to echo a word's unseen meaning ('l'autre gauche', p.22, B3, original version rendered by 'right left'), some adult readers might realize some day they are actually facing what has been called a unique world*...

Errr... such an unseen transmission system* can be refered to as rebus-like*, or humanesque*...


* please search for related posts...

Or the bird could just be there to set the scene that they are infact in a jungle and there is exotic fauna there.

Tintinrulz
Or the bird could just be there to set the scene that they are infact in a jungle and there is exotic fauna there.

I'm afraid you're still what the initiates call an aniconete, Tintinrulz...

yamilah
I'm afraid you're still what the initiates call an aniconete, Tintinrulz...

In the interests of fair play I'd ask that you explain what you mean by that, as it might be construed to be insulting; given that initiates to your way of thinking appear to be few and far between, what do they mean when they call people aniconete...?

As it happens the explanation Tintinrulz offers has the benefits of succinctness, relevance, plausibility and logic - which I'm afraid makes it more likely than yours, which has to look to other unsubstantiated hypotheses.
I feel I can say this with some authority as you cite my rather poor pun on "Tintin/ can-can/ toucan/ two-can", which is without doubt an unsubstantiated hypothesis...

jock123
what do they mean when they call people aniconete...?

Sorry my keyboard can't sent you the proper accent on the first 'e' of 'aniconete', and I've just realized that -lack of it- you couldn't google ...

It wasn't my intention to offend anyone, jock123, for I've been myself an aniconete for decades, and I must say Singh's Code Book was a better help for Tintin than the whole body of theory I could read before and after it...

Imho, someone is 'still' an aniconete when he can't 'still' believe his own eyes when they see a series of relevant-and-plausible images that prefigurate the system developed by Herge 'to say what he had to say', via translations that show images and words talking about 'something else', and transmit invisible data via unseen languages, in the way the Black Island* echoes the East Indies*...

succintness

How could a space-occupying* and time-consuming* system be described succintly? Maybe some other readers can do better? I'm looking forward to hearing them...

my rather poor pun on "Tintin/ can-can/ toucan/ two-can", which is without doubt an unsubstantiated hypothesis...

For the sake of Hergé, I wouldn't call it a 'poor pun', jock123, but a 'syllabic sequential translation' that matches rather well with the announced childish and very heavy system ('see Tintin et Moi'*) of the clear line's writing and reading, whereby 'images are written and text is drawn', as the author would say in 'Comment nait une aventure de Tintin'*...

The toucan is just a marker meant to disclose almost openly the invisible rebus' reading mechanism, just like the 5-legged* Snowy in the beginning of the Soviets: both are clearly delineated and visible (at least the toucan, as proven by your personal discovery and translation ;-), but have nothing to see directly with the message's indicible syllables, that doubtlessly match with far more subtle avatars of Tintin, Kuifje, Tim, or Tintim... So you're actually correct when you say your hypothesis is unsubstantiated...

Tintin & Co most hidden avatars should be found by anyone interested in tracking games* and in Tintin's Archipelago's* languages, namely in multilingualism*, just as Hergé was...

* please search for related topics...

he can't 'still' believe his own eyes when they see a series of relevant-and-plausible images that prefigurate the system developed by Herge 'to say what he had to say'

I think the problem is that you are still abitrarily setting terms - chosing things which are totally random and seeing sytems in them, and ignoring things which don’t fit. If this truly were a code it would have to be systematic, and there would have to be a solid framework for it to work - and nothing you say gives even the impression of a system, let alone hard evidence for it.

Given that you still cite my toucan, I think you are giving your argument even less credibility, but more tellingly you continue to give the Soviets example which a) even you said you had doubts about, and b) when it was discussed previously you could not counter the many other anomolies in the drawings - the balance of evidence therefore suggests that the “five” feet on Snowy is no more significant than Tintin not having an arm or his collar changing…

This finding systems in the random is a known human phenomenon, and is best demonstrated I think by the tendency for people to look at patterns in wallpaper, carpets or wood and see “faces”. The faces aren’t there, but people see them none the less - clearly deliniated and visible, but meaningless…

To be taken seriously, if that is indeed what you want, you need to demonstrate that there is a system, before criticising others for not seeing it, initiate or not.

jock123
I think the problem is that you are still abitrarily setting terms - chosing things which are totally random and seeing sytems in them...

Err... choosing 'rebus-like' and 'cross-matchable' items is precisely noways random, imho and good faith...


...and ignoring things which don't fit.

Err... the ignored items are noways rebus-like and are noways cross-matchable, and thus have to be taken as 'nulls', the purpose of which is to make the author's message unseen by hiding it into a bigger one (the 24 adventures), according to the principles of steganography, namely the writing of a story in the story, in order to conceal it...

It's up to people to have no personal interest in Tintin's unique world, and one may perfectly have no empathy with Herge announced message, nor find it sympathetic (!), but one shouldn't discourage others' potential interests in the archipelagos' various languages, and to find out by themselves there is 'something else' in Tintin, as well as 'another means' to study him, as Herge would say...

choosing 'rebus-like' and 'cross-matchable' items is precisely noways random

It is completely random, as you can demonstrate no process by which you select those items which are rebuses and those that aren’t. If there is no system to it, there is no system…

the ignored items are noways rebus-like and are noways cross-matchable

If you can’t demonstrate why Snowy (debateably) having five paws is more significant than Tintin having no arm, then they are of equal significance, and your entire thesis is null… For example, it might mean that Tintin is armless or “(h)armless” - again as “good” a pun, but of no significance… But as long as you can decide what is and isn’t a rebus, there is no rigour, and no plausible code. It is also significant, I think, that you choose to ignore the counter-argument of seeing systems in the random which I exemplify above.

Equally, my toucan pun is wholly nonsensical, and shoe-horning it into your message doesn’t help your case.

the archipelagos' various languages

Again, reason suggests that until you can show demonstrably that Hergé was in any way versed in the study, practice or even had looked into “the archipelagos' various languages” prior to starting Tintin in 1929, in addition to having worked out how to use it in some over-arching code, then your suppositions are without foundation. This is a man who never undertook any tertiary education, and who, even when he later studied art under T’chang, never grasped Japanese, Chinese or any oriental language. How did he work it all out in advance - he didn’t know there was going to be one book, let alone 24? How did he get it past the Abbé? How did he accommodate it into the books which were re-drawn, re-written, given false-starts, and even abandoned? In other words, how did this rather ordinary, unworldly fellow from the Brussells’ suburbs gain such ability?

Surely that is a key element of your case, and the evidence should go a long way to making your argument stand up?

Let’s face it, there just isn’t any concrete evidence - not a shred - of Hergé encoding anything in his books; no notes, no rough working, nothing in the pages of original work to show that Hergé was deliberating, no marginal notes, no annotations (and I’ve seen quite a few of the original pages, including all of the B&W Lotus, and the entire Crystal Balls/Prisoners and Tibet, as well as the odd pages for Tintin at Sea) - in fact a total absence of anything pointing to encoding. It is random…

no empathy with Herge announced message
Again, until you can come out with an unequivocal statement from Hergé to that effect, there isn’t anything to be empathic with.