Rastapopoulos, an embarrassing name, is described in almost all the comments: an evil genius who plays tricks on Tintin. His life is very big, and he can always beat Tintin after a narrow escape.
Rastapopoulos made his official debut in Tintin's fourth story "The Pharaoh's Cigar" (he made a guest appearance at the end of the last episode). At that time, he was a rude, bossy and cigar-smoking tycoon. He introduced himself to Tintin: "One day, you will regret being in my way. My name is Rastapopoulos. " Rastapopoulos is a typical movie giant. After seeing Tintin on the deck of the Essex, Tintin described him like this: "Millionaire, the boss of the famous Cosmic Film Company." He wore a hat, breeches, riding boots, a silk scarf and a monocle, and smoked an exaggerated cigar in the first edition, which accorded with Hollywood's self-righteous tyrant image. This neat dress is also very suitable for him as Tintin's iconic opponent. Laura showed her insidious side the first time she went out. In the story of filming in the desert, in the European Palace-the second edition of the Palace Hotel-the bad guys deceived Tintin's feelings and made our little reporter think that he was a kind and open-minded person.
However, in Blue Lotus, in the basement of the opium den, Ye Ping Song Cheng announced the arrival of Rastapopoulos to a small reporter: "Ah! Your old friend is here. He doesn't want to miss your execution! ..... that's him, big boss! " Tintin exclaimed, "Mr. Rastapopoulos!" At this time, the villain threw the hypocrisy he showed when he saw Tintin out of the cloud nine. Tintin watched him lift his sleeve to reveal the tattoo on his forearm: the Pharaoh's mark-the clue that runs through the whole text in Pharaoh's cigar. At the end of Blue Lotus, after being taught a lesson by Tintin, the villain Ping Ye Songsen and his accomplices managed to escape.
After Blue Lotus, Rastapopoulos disappeared for a long time. Twenty years later, he reappeared as a super-rich yacht owner-the owner of Arabian Airlines in the Red Sea Shark. Rastapopoulos, alias Zola, Marquis Gauguin, became a member of the upper class with many titles: "The king of shipping, the king of chain newspapers, the boss of radio and television industry, film companies and airlines, the dealer of pearls and guns, the slave trader, the villain who encouraged Bell to seize power ..." Rastapopoulos and his men Allen, two shameless people who turned a blind eye to any moral norms, were perfectly suitable to run the dirty and despicable slave trade. His wealth was accumulated by the meanest means. His yacht "Xie lazare" is hung with modernist paintings to show off. At the end of the story, he escaped the pursuit of the US Navy by submarine.
This mortal enemy was last seen on the 7 14 flight two stories later. This time, Rastapopoulos began to hijack and kidnap billionaires. At the end of the story, Rastapopoulos was taken away from the universe by a UFO. As flight 7 14 is Tintin's penultimate story, he never appeared before the author died. Later, Herge Studio drew another story, Tintin in the Shark Lake, which made Rastapopoulos appear again. But die-hard Tintin fans don't quite agree with this pirated sequel. So much for Tintin's sequel. He never painted it again.
As a story with great time and geographical span, Tintin's adventures are highly compatible with the real elements of the real society, so there is no unified opposition group against the protagonist. Although Rastapopoulos only appears in four stories, he is recognized as Tintin's sworn enemy, because he runs through the whole story of Tintin, just like Sherlock Holmes and moriarty. Although there are many criminals who appear repeatedly in Tintin's stories, such as Dr. Miller (The Black Island and the Land of Black Gold), Colonel Jorgen (The Staff of King Otto Card and the Exploration of the Moon) and Colonel spence (The Carl Kurus Case and Tintin and the Tramp), their abilities are limited, unlike Rastapopoulos's plan of a shocking case every time.
We can feel that Herge has a special liking for this villain, just like his attitude towards Wiig and figura, there are also differences between hateful and lovely villains, so we can see that Herge decisively "executed" several villains, but repeatedly resurrected the role of Rastapopoulos. In Sharks in the Red Sea, he once again escaped at the last minute like Sherlock Holmes' moriarty and became the "elite" of all the villains in Tintin series.
In the process of "creating", I realized that Rastapopoulos and Allen were just two poor guys. Yes, I discovered this after dressing Rastapopoulos up as a cowboy in beautiful clothes. In my opinion, it's ridiculous that he dresses like this. He doesn't surprise me anymore! Bad guys shed their mysterious veil: in fact, they are both sad and ridiculous. You see, this is where I have improved. In addition, in my opinion, my bad guys look a little more amiable after their reputation has been destroyed: they are bad guys, but they are just poor bad guys. "(quoted from an interview with Herge, page 79)
On flight 7 14, the author arranged a funny story: Rastapopoulos was accidentally stabbed by an "honest injection", so he had an argument with his kidnapped billionaire Caredda, who is the biggest villain in the world. He introduced himself that he destroyed three brothers and two sisters and his parents, and said, "I am a real devil without any shame." He also asked Ding Ding to testify for him: "Ding Ding, you have known me for so many years. Tell him, am I the big devil? " Although Rastapopoulos is full of evil, in the author's works, all the wicked people are also the objects of ridicule, so he is also a despicable figure.
This article is partly taken from Mike Farr's Tintin Forever.