Year: 1935

Important Characters: Tintin, Snowy, The Thompsons, General Tapioca, General Alcatraz, Ridgewell, Pablo

French Title: L'Oreille Cassée

For this book, Hergé returned to pure adventure. Fantasy was an important element, and Hergé continued to make his readers participate in the development of the story. He placed at the bottom of the weekly double page a short question testing his readers wits: "What is your opinion on the death of Mr Balthazar? Why do you think Tintin wanted to buy the parrot?" By arousing the curiosity of the reader, he was heightening the suspense and making The Adventures of Tintin even more immediate to those who read them.

This adventure sent Tintin to South America, and to one of the imaginary countries that Hergé was to become so adept at portraying. San Theodoros is a pastiche of many South American idioms. The operetta-like conspirators, the dashing uniforms and the rivalry between two interchangeable generals, Tapioca and Alcazar, whom we are to come across again.

In the setting he portrayed, San Theodoros and its neighbour Nuevo-Rico, Hergé had the opportunity to deal with something that had fascinated him since he discovered it in the magazine, Le Crapouillot: The Gran Chaco War. This bloody conflict between Bolivia and Paraguay began in 1932 when two rival oil companies disputed over drilling rights. 100,000 died in the three years of war which followed.

Hergé turns Gran Chaco into Gran Chapo and transforms the names of the two oil companies, but the rest is exact. He also introduces into the story Basil Bazarov, the arms dealer. This character strongly resembles Basil Zaharoff, who was relentlessly denounced by Le Crapouillot in the 1930's. This Greek, who was knighted by the King of England, made a fortune during World War One selling arms to all sides. In The Broken Ear he sells an identical quantity of the 75 TRGP to the governments of both San Theodoros and Nuevo-Rico.

In this adventure, unlike its predecessor, politics remain secondary to action. The narrative is full of mastery and the plot falls together so well at the end that the planning behind the plot cannot help but be fully appreciated.