page_title: The Blue Lotus
section_title: Critical analysis
hierarchical_section_title: The Blue Lotus / Critical analysis
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: L'auteur Benoît Peeters au Salon du livre de Paris lors du débat Le droit d'auteur a-t-il encore un avenir&#160;? English: The author Benoît Peeters at the Paris Book Fair, during the debate Does copyright have a future?
context_page_description: The Blue Lotus is the fifth volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé with aid from Zhang Chongren. Commissioned by the conservative Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle for its children's supplement Le Petit Vingtième, it was serialised weekly from August 1934 to October 1935 before being published in a collected volume by Casterman in 1936. Continuing where the plot of the previous story, Cigars of the Pharaoh, left off, the story tells of young Belgian reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy, who are invited to China in the midst of the 1931 Japanese invasion, where he reveals the machinations of Japanese spies and uncovers a drug-smuggling ring.
  In creating The Blue Lotus, Hergé exhibited a newfound emphasis on accuracy and documentation in his portrayal of foreign societies. He was heavily influenced by his close friend Zhang Chongren, a Chinese student studying in Belgium, and the work both satirises common European misconceptions about China as well as criticising the actions of the Japanese invaders.
context_section_description: Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier commented that The Blue Lotus was "unarguably Hergé's first masterpiece". They felt that for the first time in the series, "one senses that the story has become important" as Tintin first expresses "a purpose, a mission" to his adventure. Commenting on the character Chang, they thought that he was an "endearing personality" despite having little relevance to the plot, also believing that Dawson and Gibbons were the most loathsome characters in the Adventure. They compared the scene in which the Japanese invaded China with that in Tintin in America where the U.S. army force Native Americans off of their land, and praised the linear illustrations of the story, although also opined that the original black-and-white version was better than its colour counterpart. Overall, they awarded The Blue Lotus four stars out of five.
  Harry Thompson noted that some people believed that Hergé's depiction of the Japanese as buck-toothed and inherently violent in The Blue Lotus was racist. He nevertheless thought that these accusations "stupidly" missed "the point of the story", which was to counter widespread racist attitudes toward East Asians among Belgians. Due to the inclusion of actual historical events, he thought that the comic lacked the "timelessness" of other Adventures but that for 1934 it was "a marvelous piece of comic strip art". Hergé biographer Pierre Assouline thought that the book combined "social realism" with the spirit present in the work of Charles Dickens and Alexandre Dumas.
  Hergé biographer Benoît Peeters thought that there was an obvious difference in The Adventures of Tintin before and after The Blue Lotus, and that it represented "an essential turning point both graphically and ideologically" as Hergé shifted from his former "classically right-wing" ideas. Also feeling that the work was "exceptionally moving," he noted that The Blue Lotus was far from Tintin in the Congo in its attitude to non-Europeans, while other Belgian comic strips like Blake and Mortimer and Buck Danny would continue to perpetuate negative stereotypes of East Asians for decades. Elsewhere, he stated that it was the first Adventure where Hergé "really took control" of the story, also opining that it was the "most politically involved" entity in the series.
  Michael Farr stated that there was a "general agreement" that The Blue Lotus was Hergé's first masterpiece, being "better planned" than its predecessors and for the first time having "a carefully devised structure". At the same time he thought that it retained the best qualities of the earlier works. Thinking it "much more serious" than Tintin's prior Adventures, he nevertheless thought it "no less enjoyable", being the first story to bring "emotion and tragedy" to the series. Farr thought that Hergé's "total absorption" in his subject resulted in him gaining an "extraordinary feel" for it and allowed him to foresee future political events in China much like a "finely tuned" political commentator. He singled out the depiction of the Mukden Incident for particular praise, thinking it "a marvellous example of political satire". Philippe Goddin thought that this depiction of the build-up to invasion was "brilliantly" done, also comparing it to the scene of ethnic cleansing in Tintin in America.
  Literary critic Tom McCarthy thought that The Blue Lotus showed evidence of Hergé's "left-wing counter-tendency" that rejected his earlier right-wing worldview. He believed that this was partly due to the influence of Zhang, who had destroyed Hergé's "European absolutism", and overall thought of it as "the most visually rich of all the Tintin books". Literary critic Jean-Marie Apostolidès of Stanford University thought that Wang signified the forces of good in the story while Rastapopoulos represented evil, and that the character Didi – who was poisoned with Raijaijah – inverted "the model of justice ruling the world of the Good". He saw a similarity between Didi and Tintin, who both have "feline suppleness, a devotion to good causes, and the patience of an animal stalki
caption: Hergé biographer Benoît Peeters considered The Blue Lotus to be a turning point in The Adventures of Tintin "both graphically and ideologically."
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