King Ottokar's Sceptre

King Ottokar's Sceptre (Le sceptre d'Ottokar)
File:Tintin cover - King Ottokar's Sceptre.jpg Cover of the English edition
Date	1939
Series	The Adventures of Tintin (Les aventures de Tintin)
Publisher	Casterman
Creative team
Writers	Hergé
Artists	Hergé
Original publication
Published in	Le Petit Vingtième
Date of publication	August 4, 1938 - August 10, 1939
Language	French
ISBN	2-203-00107-0
Translation
Publisher	Methuen
Date	1958
ISBN	1-4052-0807-4
Translator	Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper and Michael Turner
Chronology
Preceded by	The Black Island, 1938
Followed by	The Crab with the Golden Claws, 1941

King Ottokar's Sceptre (French: Le Sceptre d'Ottokar) is the eighth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring the young reporter Tintin. It was first serialized as a black-and-white comic strip in Le Petit Vingtième on 4 August 1938. A new colour version was drawn and published in 1947.

Synopsis

Tintin finds a lost briefcase and returns it to the owner, Professor Hector Alembick, who is a sigillographer, an expert on seals (as in the sort used to make state documents official). He shows Tintin his collection of seals, including one which belonged to the Syldavian King Ottokar IV. Tintin then discovers that he and Alembick are under surveillance by some strange men. Tintin's flat is even bombed in an attempt to kill him. Suspecting a Syldavian connection, Tintin offers to accompany Alembick to Syldavia for research.

On the plane Tintin begins to suspect his companion. The Alembick travelling with him doesn't smoke and doesn't seem to need the spectacles he wears, while the Alembick he first met smoked heavily and had very poor eyesight. During a layover, Tintin fakes a fall and grabs Alembick's beard, thinking it is false and Alembick is an imposter. However, it is (for Alembick) painfully real. Tintin decides to let the matter drop but then, while flying over Syldavia, it is the pilot of the plane who opens a trap door and Tintin drops out, landing in a haywagon.

Tintin has a hunch that a plot is afoot to steal the sceptre of King Ottokar IV. In Syldavia, the reigning King must possess the sceptre to rule or he will be forced to abdicate, a tradition established after a past king used the sceptre to defeat a would-be assassin. Every year he rides in a parade during St. Vladimir's Day carrying it, while the people sing the national anthem. Tintin succeeds in warning the reigning King Muskar XII, despite the efforts of the conspirators. He and the King rush to the royal treasure room to find Alembick, the royal photographer and some guards unconscious and the sceptre missing.

Tintin's friends Thomson and Thompson are summoned to investigate but their theory on how the sceptre was stolen — the thief throwing the sceptre through the iron bars over the window — proves bad and painful for them. Later on, Tintin notices a spring cannon in a toy shop and this gives him the clue. Professor Alembick had asked for some photographs to be taken of the sceptre, but the camera was a spring cannon in disguise, which allowed him to 'shoot' the sceptre out of the castle through the window bars into a nearby forest.

Searching the forest, Tintin spots the sceptre being found by agents of the neighbouring country, Borduria. Following them all the way to the border, he wrests the sceptre from them. In the wallet of one of the thieves he discovers papers that show that the theft of the sceptre was just part of a major plan for the taking over of Syldavia by their long-time political rival, Borduria.

Tintin steals a Me-109 from a Bordurian airfield (whose squadron is being kept ready to take part in the envisioned "Anschluss" of Syldavia) to fly it back to the King in time. He is shot down by the Syldavians who have naturally opened fire on an enemy aircraft violating their airspace. He manages to make the rest of the journey by foot.

Meanwhile the Interior Minister informs the King that rumours have been spreading that the sceptre has been stolen and that there have been riots against local Bordurian businesses, acts which would justify a Bordurian takeover of the country. The King is about to abdicate when Snowy runs in with the sceptre (which had fallen out of Tintin's pocket).

Tintin then gives the King the papers he took from the man who stole the sceptre. They prove that the plot was masterminded by Müsstler, leader of the Iron Guard, a unit of the military. The King takes action by having Müsstler and his associates arrested and the army mobilised along the Bordurian frontier. In response, the Bordurian leader pulls his own troops back from the border, though he stresses his own country's "desire for peace" and criticises Syldavia's "strange" behaviour (in the same room is a map and details of the planned invasion of Syldavia).

The next day is St. Vladimir's Day and Tintin is made a Knight of the Order of the Golden Pelican, the first non-Syldavian to receive such an honour. Further inquiries by the authorities reveal that, in a classic Ruritanian plot device, Professor Alembick is one of a pair of identical twins: Hector Alembick was kidnapped and replaced with his brother Alfred who left for Syldavia in his place.

Tintin and Snowy return home by a flying boat with Thomson and Thompson, who suffer momentary panic when the aircraft appears to be falling into the sea at the end of the flight. The reader is treated to a rare "wink to the camera" from Tintin, who points out their error, and they laugh about it so much that they do indeed fall into the sea as they disembark.

Politics

Like earlier stories such as The Blue Lotus, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and The Broken Ear, King Ottokar's Sceptre had a political subtext. The theft of the Sceptre is just part of a plot by Borduria to plunge Syldavia into a major political crisis and clear the way for a foreign invasion.

Written in 1938, the story may reflect the annexation and invasion of neighbouring states by Mussolini's Italy and Nazi Germany. However, at this point in time Mussolini had not attempted to annex a European state. The unseen leader of the conspiracy is called Müsstler, a blend of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler. Müsstler is the head of the Iron Guard. The name implies that it is a pro-fascist paramilitary group, similar to the SA or Blackshirts, which were common in Europe between the wars. An actual fascist and anti-Semitic group called the Iron Guard was very active in Romania in the years leading up to the Second World War . The Romanian Iron Guard was often in violent conflict with the King of Romania, King Carol II, who they accused of corruption and being influenced by his Jewish mistress. In fact the year the repression of the Iron Guard commenced was 1938, the year King Ottokar's Sceptre was first serialised. The leader of the Iron Guard, Codreanu, was executed for treason by the Romanian government. The Iron Guard briefly formed the government in 1940 under Horia Sima after the King's abdication but Hitler ended up backing the more conservative General Antonescu in January 1941 and the Iron Guard was eliminated from government and purged.

The German censors did not obstruct the book during the occupation of Belgium during World War II. This could be because there were frequent schemes, plots, wars and coups in the history of the Balkans, many of which had native fascistic movements or governments during the 1930s, and it was not clear to the German occupier that Hergé was specifically targeting National Socialist Germany. Moreover, as discussed above, Germany supported the authoritarian regime in Romania under the aegis of a King, a regime that actually violently repressed the Romanian Iron Guard.

Publication history

This adventure was originally published under the name Tintin en Syldavie ("Tintin in Syldavia") and appeared in black-and-white in the newspaper supplement Le Petit Vingtième between 1938 and 1939.

The story was redrawn and colourised in 1947. For this edition, Hergé was assisted by Edgar Pierre Jacobs, a highly-regarded artist in his own right. Jacobs is credited with much of the Balkan feel of the new edition.

In terms of the plot and appearance of the characters, the two editions are generally similar. The principal aesthetic difference, aside from the colour, is that the backgrounds in the 1938-39 edition were generally blank, whereas in 1947 the streets of the towns, the countryside and the interior of the flats and palaces are more detailed.

Other changes affected the appearance of the Syldavian court. In the 1938 version, the Royal Guards are dressed like British Beefeaters; the 1947 version has them dressed in a more Balkan-like uniform. In 1939, Tintin is knighted while dressed in his raincoat, and a tear comes to his eye when he receives his medal in a ceremony which, aside from the Queen, is attended only by men; in 1947, he wears a suit, shows embarrassment but no tears, there are ladies attending, and there are also caricatures of Hergé and Jacobs in uniform, along with a number of colleagues and relatives.

All the aircraft featured in the book are carefully drawn from real contemporary designs. In the 1939 version, the plane Tintin uses to escape from Borduria, seems to resemble a Heinkel He 118. However, in the 1947 version, the Heinkels are replaced by the more famous Messerschmitt Bf 109s.

Connections with other Tintin books

Although the twin detectives had first appeared in Cigars of the Pharaoh in 1934 and had featured in the three adventures that followed, they were not given actual names until the 1938-9 King Ottokar's Sceptre when Tintin introduces them by name to Alembick at the airport.

Two recurring Tintin characters are introduced in King Ottokar's Sceptre: Bianca Castafiore, and Colonel Boris, who was to re-appear under the name of Jorgen in Destination Moon and its sequel Explorers on the Moon.

Syldavian language

Main article: Syldavian language

Like many of the fictional languages in the Tintin books, the Syldavian language is based on the slang of the Marolliens, the people of the working class quarter of Brussels, with the addition of some s and z sounds to make it sound more Slavic. For example, the Syldavian motto, "Eih bennek, eih blavek", means "If you gather thistles, expect prickles" according to the book, but the 'Syldavian' words in fact resemble Marollien dialect for "Here I am, here I stay."

Adaptations

A semi-animated film based on the book was released in 1956, produced by the company Belevision, who would later produce the first Tintin television series, Herge's Adventures of Tintin. The film was produced by Karel Van Millegham and Anne-Marie Ullmann.

The 1990s Adventures of Tintin animated series changed the story. There is no 'Anchluss' aspect whatsoever, although it is clear that those scheming to steal the sceptre are based in a neighbouring state, as that is where they attempt to flee once they have it in their possession. Also, the Alembick twin who smokes becomes the bad one of the two.

Errors

The brochure on Syldavia read by Tintin states that Syldavia, along with the rest of the Balkans, was invaded by the Turks in the 10th century. As the Turks were not to invade the Balkans until the second half of the 14th century, this seems improbable.

While sheltering from a rain storn in the entrance of a museum, Snowy steals a bone from a Diplodocus, a "Giganticus" bone. Although the genus (Diplodocus) exists, the species (giganticus) doesn't. However, it might have been written that way for amusement.

External links

• Hergé's Syldavian: A grammar by Mark Rosenfelder

External links

• King Ottokar's Sceptre at Tintinologist.org