Talk:The Secret of the Unicorn

Latest comment: 6 years ago by Jpcase in topic Belgium setting

Untitled edit

There is no reference that I recall to a town in Belgium-like many of Herge's works, the location is generic Europe, and no definitive place names are given. Halfsnail 11:39, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Improving the article edit

Hello fellow Wikipedians! As you may (or may not) have noticed, I have recently been involved in adding to several articles on The Adventures of Tintin, most prominently Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and Tintin in the Congo. As we speak, the former of these is in for FA review, and the latter for GA review. As a film adaptation of Secrets of the Unicorn will be out later this year (2011), I think that this article really needs to be pulled up to scratch, as many interested readers will likely come here then. For this reason, I believe in following the same basic template that I used on the Soviets page, and which appears to be succesful. To this end, I intend to use a wide variety of literary sources at my disposal to add to this article, + I plan to include images from the strip itself. However, whereas the recent work on those pages has been largely alone, here there are others with interests in making improvements, so let's get together and discuss what needs to be done. (Midnightblueowl (talk) 12:10, 24 March 2011 (UTC))Reply

Synopsis edit

I´m making a small change here. It currently says "the captain tells him of how Sir Francis Haddock had stolen the treasure of the pirate Red Rackham somewhere in...", but at this point in the story we are NOT informed that Sir Francis stole the treasure, hence all the diving in the next book.Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:35, 25 May 2011 (UTC)Reply

History/Background section moved to main series article edit

The History/Background section of this article contains well-written text that is truly the history of the entire Adventures of Tintin series. For that reason, this section has been removed from this article and moved to the The Adventures of Tintin article. See the talk page there. —Prhartcom (talk) 16:27, 11 December 2011 (UTC)Reply

GA Review edit

This review is transcluded from Talk:The Secret of the Unicorn/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Ssven2 (talk · contribs) 09:47, 5 February 2015 (UTC)Reply


I will review the article. Looks good at first glance. — Ssven2 speak 2 me 09:47, 5 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Lead edit

  • Can you wikilink "francophone" (which I found out redirects to french language)?

Plot edit

  • "noonday sun" — isn't it spelt as "noonday sunne" in the book?  
    • (talk page stalker) Quite correct. I was the one who added the words of the riddle to the article, and made other little changes to the riddle as well (e.g. I didn't capitalise nearly every other word as was done in the book). If the two of you decide a change is in order, that's fine; it would need to be changed in two places, but please note that my motivation for changing it was to help readability via WP:QUOTE#Formatting": "Exceptions are: trivial spelling or typographical errors that obviously do not affect the intended meaning; these may be silently corrected." Your call. Prhartcom (talk) 19:50, 5 February 2015 (UTC)Reply
  • "Barnaby asks to see Tintin" can be rephrased as "Barnaby requests a meeting with Tintin".
  • "a kleptomaniac who collects wallets." can be rephrased as "a kleptomaniac who has a penchant for collecting wallets." as Silk says in the book, he "adores" them.
    • I'm not so sure on this one; I'm concerned that that additional wording might be a bit superfluous. Midnightblueowl (talk) 14:24, 5 February 2015 (UTC)Reply
  • "His cache of stolen wallets" — does cache mean "Treasure trove" as shown in its disambiguation page?

History edit

Background edit

  • "was based upon Chevrny" — shouldn't it be "Château de Cheverny" as Cheverny is the name of the town and not the mansion.
  • "albeit with the two side wings removed." — this should actually be "albeit with the two outer wings removed" as there are four wings for the Château, two on each side.

Publication edit

  • "The first printing sold 30,000 copies in Francophone Belgium" — can you wikilink Francophone Belgium?
    • Done; I've linked it to French Community of Belgium. Midnightblueowl (talk) 12:28, 5 February 2015 (UTC)Reply
      • At the risk of beating the proverbial dead horse, the French Community of Belgium =/= French-speaking Belgium. Brussels, which is majority francophone, is not included within it. To be honest, no link is probably the best option... —Brigade Piron (talk) 12:39, 5 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

References edit

  • The references from The Daily Telegraph and Ubisoft can be moved to "Footnotes" like the one for Time Out. BTW, for The Daily Telelgraph, the reviewer's name is Robbie Collin. The Ubisoft link is a dead link. Please archive it.

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

  1. Is it reasonably well written?
    A. Prose is "clear and concise", without copyvios, or spelling and grammar errors:  
    B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:  
  2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?
    A. Has an appropriate reference section:  
    B. Citation to reliable sources where necessary:  
    C. No original research:  
  3. Is it broad in its coverage?
    A. Major aspects:  
    B. Focused:  
  4. Is it neutral?
    Fair representation without bias:  
  5. Is it stable?
    No edit wars, etc:  
  6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?
    A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:  
    B. Images are provided if possible and are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:  
  7. Overall: Passed, my queries were met and solved by the nominator.
    Pass or Fail:  

Midnightblueowl Prhartcom Thank you for addressing my comments and congratulations, the article passes the GA criteria. The first Tintin GA of 2015, I believe.  Ssven2 speak 2 me 06:16, 7 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for doing the review Ssven2 - much appreciated! Midnightblueowl (talk) 11:42, 7 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Belgium setting edit

The article currently says, "The Secret of the Unicorn" was set entirely in Belgium and was the last Adventure to be set there until The Castafiore Emerald".

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Secret of the Unicorn also the first Adventure to be set entirely in Belgium? That seems worth noting, if sourcing can be found.

Also, other Adventures in between Secret of the Unicorn and Castafiore Emerald take place in Belgium; Secret of the Unicorn is simply the last Adventure to be set entirely in Belgium until the Castafiore Emerald. So that should be clarified. --Jpcase (talk) 15:24, 25 April 2018 (UTC)Reply