During the German occupation of Belgium during World War II, and the subsequent restrictions this imposed, Hergé was forced to focus on characterisation to avoid depicting troublesome political situations.
Sheikh Bab El Ehr is an Arab insurgent who fights Emir Ben Kalish Ezab, ruler of the fictional Arabian state of Khemed; though overall he comes across as a villain rather than a noble fighter.
Bab El Ehr plays a major behind-the-scenes role in The Red Sea Sharks, having used Mosquito fighter planes provided by Mr. Dawson to carry out a successful coup d'état and overthrow the Emir.
See Alonso Pérez and Ramón Bada, (French: Barnabé) Barnaby is the man hired by the antique dealers, the Bird brothers, to acquire the three parchments from the three model ships of the Unicorn—the first of which he finds in the Brussels Place du Jeu de Balle old market in The Secret of the Unicorn.
At one point of the early development of what became Tintin in Tibet, Hergé originally considered bringing back the Bird brothers in a story in which they frame Nestor for a crime he did not commit.
As the owner of a major banking concern and a petroleum firm called Golden Oil, he uses his wealth and resources to attempt to beat Tintin and his friends in the race to find a recently fallen meteorite.
[17] (French: Taupe-au-regard-perçant) Big Chief Keen-eyed Mole is the sachem of the Blackfoot Native Americans in the United States and is convinced by crime boss Bobby Smiles that Tintin is attempting to steal their land.
He owns a women's clothing shop on the Street of Tranquility in Shanghai and appears friendly to Tintin, but Mitsuhirato also plots with Dawson and is involved in a drug trafficking cabal with Rastapopoulos while working for the Japanese government.
Dr. Müller is based on Dr. Georg Bell [de], a Nazi counterfeiter of Scottish descent whom Hergé had learnt about from the February 1934 issue of Le Crapouillot, a source of information for him at the time.
[25] Literary critic Jean-Marie Apostolidès of Stanford University asserted that the inclusion of the Iron Guard evoked Colonel François de La Rocque's Croix-de-Feu,[26] noting that the figure of Müsstler was "the Evil One without a face".
[26] Omar Ben Salaad is a wealthy Arab merchant based in the fictional port city of Bagghar in French Morocco, who appears in The Crab with the Golden Claws.
When the main characters meet Mik Kanrokitoff, he explains that he has hypnotised and freed the Sondonesian guards (whom Tintin and Captain Haddock had bound and gagged) and let them spread fear among their compatriots.
He is now being helped by Colonel Sponsz of Borduria, an old foe of Tintin and Captain Haddock, who was assigned by Marshal Kûrvi-Tasch to San Theodoros and serve as Tapioca's technical adviser.
Trickler attempts to engineer a war in order for San Theodoros to seize total control of the supposedly oil-rich Gran Chapo region from neighbouring Nuevo-Rico and hand it over to his company.
Tintin, though uninterested in his cause, devises a stratagem to return him to power in order to rescue his friends: Alcazar drives a tourist bus through the carnival, infiltrates the palace, confronts Tapioca, and carries out a coup d'état.
(French: Isidore Boullu) Mr. Arthur Bolt is a stonemason who appears in The Castafiore Emerald, hired by Captain Haddock to fix the broken step in Marlinspike Hall, but who repeatedly fails to arrive and instead offers a continuous sequence of excuses.
He is drugged by Dr. Krollspell to reveal his Swiss bank account number, rescued then bound by Tintin and Captain Haddock and marched as a hostage, and hypnotised by Mik Kanrokitoff to think that he still wears his hat.
His unassuming figure notwithstanding, Carreidas is revealed to be a cunning individual with a long history of unscrupulous behaviour not limited to the business world; he is not above cheating Captain Haddock at a game of Battleships with the help of closed-circuit television.
Chester is captain of the Sirius, a merchant trawler, and uses it to secretly refuel Haddock's research vessel in Iceland when their competitors block the supply, allowing his friend to continue his voyage.
They make a cameo appearance in the redrawn version of The Black Island; Willoughby-Drupe is shown interviewing the old man in the pub while Rizotto is in the crowd of reporters welcoming Tintin at the docks (page 61).
Upon returning home, Sir Francis concealed a treasure stolen from Red Rackham in the cellars of Marlinspike Hall, hiding clues to its location in three model ships of the Unicorn that he gave to his three sons.
Despite giving a meek impression, she has a strong sense of personal pride: when Thomson and Thompson accuse Irma of stealing Castafiore's emerald, she becomes angry and assaults them with a walking stick.
Upon hearing of the plot, the monarch was fair-minded enough to investigate Tintin's claims, which turned out to be true: the sceptre had been stolen, a constitutional crisis was imminent, and Syldavia was about to be plunged into an invasion by its long-term enemy Borduria.
In 2000, on one episode of the French-language version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, 73 percent of the voting audience correctly identified Dr. Patella (French: Docteur Rotule) as the doctor who treated Captain Haddock in Explorers on the Moon.
[43] This led to allegations that the show was rigged: one Tintin fan questioned how such a large portion of the audience could pick from four options the correct answer, especially given Dr. Patella's very minor role in the series.
After observing a ball of fire making its way towards Earth, Philippulus goes insane, dresses himself in white sheets, and goes around town beating a gong while claiming to be a prophet tasked with announcing the end of the world.
Philippulus later escapes a mental asylum and makes it to the expedition ship Aurora, eventually taking refuge up the main mast and nearly setting off a stick of dynamite in the belief that it is a firework.
(French: Les membres de l’expédition Sanders-Hardtmut) The Sanders-Hardiman expedition members brought the Incan mummy Rascar Capac back to Europe in The Seven Crystal Balls.
Although reluctant to risk the perilous attempt to find Chang, whom he believes to be dead, Tharkey leads Tintin and Captain Haddock to the crash site of the aircraft.
As the rocket ship is returning to Earth without enough oxygen for Tintin and his friends, Wolff, still overcome with guilt over the way he had betrayed his companions, redeems himself for his past mistakes and sacrifices himself for the survival of the group by throwing himself into space leaving a note of apology.