Faith doesn’t necessarily just have to be devotion to god, it can also be a deep friendship. One formed between two individuals who both changed each other’s lives. Get cosy, I am about to tell a story of true friendship. I am going to tell the story of Tintin in Tibet.
The story of Tintin, the greatest hero of Belgian comics isn’t complete without the story of its creator, Georges Remi alias Hérge. In 1929 he started writing Tintin as a weekly comic strip for The Twentieth Century(Le Vingtième Siècle). From these humble beginnings, Tintin quickly grew to become the biggest newspaper strip in all of Europe. In these early comic strips, Tintin was just a vessel for the far-right propaganda of the newspaper. Remi was a conservative and regressive person, close-minded and content to indulge in casual racism.
Everything changed when he met a Chinese exchange student called Zhang. They both stuck a friendship over their shared love of art and became thick friends. Zhang awoke a sense of heroism and responsibility in Remi, he also made him open-minded and accepting of all nationalities.
This change in mindset is immediately obvious in the next book ‘The Blue Lotus’ where Remi bravely condemned the unlawful invasion of China by Japan at a time when racism of China and glorification of Japan’s actions were common in Europe. However this wasn’t the only improvement, the artwork had greatly improved the portrayal of foreign nationalities was greatly improved thanks to the training of Zhang. Their friendship was so deep that Remi even wrote Zhang in ‘The Blue Lotus’ as a character called Chang and made him Tintin's friend. Yet sadly Zhang had to leave to fight in WW2 and Remi was heartbroken. He would never see his friend again.
Years later in 1958, Remi was in a period of deep depression and longing for his lost friend Zhang. It was in such a mode that he wrote ‘Tintin in Tibet.”
The story starts in an alpine resort when Tintin returns from a hike. He talks enthusiastically about hiking to a disinterested Haddock who retorts, “ You have always got to come down again. What’s it all in the aid of anyway?”
Then he mentions the recent news of a plane crash in Nepal and expresses his disdain for mountains.
Later that evening, Tintin and Haddock are engaged in a game of chess. Tintin dozes off and wakes up screaming, “CHANG!”
He explains, 
Haddock comforts Tintin and tells him to sleep it off. The next day, Tintin says he couldn’t get any sleep but Haddock gives him some happy news. He has gotten a letter from Chang, he’s coming to visit him soon!
But wait, Tintin reads the letter and it mentions Chang is first going to meet his relatives in Nepal first. Then he grabs the newspaper and reads the heartbreaking news:
“Among those missing in the plane crash is a young Chinese boy called Chang.”
Tintin breaks down crying but then sobers up, he is convinced that Chang is alive and decides to go in search of him.
Haddock tries to stop Tintin, he follows him to the hotel room and all the way they hear Chang’s name first as the name of a dog then as the sound of a sneezing housemaid. Finally, Haddock relents and they both go to find Chang.
After landing in Kathmandu Tintin seeks out Chang’s uncle. There’s a moment of confusion when he calls his son Chang and Tintin clarifies he’s looking for someone else when the uncle breaks down into tears. He laments that the search party found nothing and that his nephew is well and truly gone. However, Tintin is adamant that Chang is still alive and wants to go to the crash site. They meet Tharkey who led the expedition to the crash site.
At first Tharkey refuses, he calls it a waste of life as the trek is dangerous and arduous. Tintin taking the lead decides to go alone. However at the last moment before he leaves he is joined by Haddock along with Tharkey and his porters, despite his reservations Haddock did not have the heart to send his friend alone to a certain death.
The hike towards the plane crash is long and filled with plenty of mishaps. Haddock is unable to adjust to the tents and the physical strain of walking on steeper and steeper terrain. At one point, he gets a fever dream and walks straight into a tree. Despite all of this he shoulders on.
The group come to a chorten(a tomb for monks), and Haddock unknowingly passes on the right which is a bad omen. He quickly corrects to the left before losing his balance and sliding down the mountainside. Evantually,he crashes into another chorten whose tip breaks and falls down on his bag, destroying all of his precious whisky.
That night however Haddock has something to cheer! He has a spare bottle, his last one and is about to open it when everyone hears some eerie howling in the distance. The porters quickly panic and claim that it’s the yeti while Haddock dismisses them. In this chaos he forgets about the whisky and goes to sleep.
The next day they start for the crash site when snowy growls at a set of footprints. They are giant and shaped like monkey paws, the porters shout,” Footprints of the yeti!”
Haddock is the only one brave enough to follow the footprints and in the end, find his missing whiskey bottle now empty. In anger, he screams at the mountain triggering an avalanche and nearly getting buried. After this incident the porters get cold feet( pun intended), drop the loads and run away. Tharkey says it’s impossible to go on, but Tintin finds a solution by distributing one load to each person and carrying only the essentials.
In this manner, they finally make it to the crash site and start searching. Tintin finds a cave some distance away from the crash site and goes inside where he finds the name Chang written on a rock. He comes out overjoyed but gets stuck in a blizzard, he sees a darkened figure in the distance and goes after it but falls down into a cavern. Snowy starts crying for help, and eventually, he gets Haddock and Thakrey to rescue Tintin.
The next day Tintin shares his experience with the black figure who he thinks is Haddock, but Tharkey clarifies that it was the yeti. Then they check out the cave and find a bunch of animal bones, Tharkey reasons that the yeti might have taken Chang away and eaten him somewhere else.
With no other clues, Tintin agrees to call off the search and they all leave home the next morning. However, Tintin suddenly stops as he finds a yellow scarf on a cliff face. Tharkey warns that it’s not possible to climb this cliff with their current equipment and decides to leave while Haddock sees the yeti and initially seems interested but ultimately decides to go with Tharkey. Tintin manages to convince Haddock to stay and together they try to scale the cliff.
However Haddock tries to step on a rock and loses his grip, Tintin tries his best to hold on to the rope but is slowly losing his grip. Realising that both of them are in danger Haddock tells Tintin to cut the rope but he refuses so Haddock takes his knife and tries to cut the rope but the knife falls down and lands in Tharkey’s hand. Tharkey saves Tintin and Haddock, then when Tintin asks him why he came back to which he replies:-
The path ahead is treacherous, when they try to camp for the night their tent gets blown away in the wind. Then it falls on the yeti which runs away screaming in distress. With no other go they all huddle into Tharkey’s small emergency tent which unfortunately gets destroyed due to Haddock sneezing. For the next two days, they trek non-stop and Haddock is at the end of his strength when they find a monastery in the distance, an avalanche suddenly occurs which buries them all. Tharkey’s arm is broken and Haddock is knocked out . On the verge of death and unable to move, Tintin sends Snowy with a message to get help from the monastery.
On the way Snowy gets distracted by a bone and loses the message! With no other option, Snowy runs towards the monastery anyway and hopes to get help.
At the same time, Blessed Lightning a monk in the monastery gets a psychic vision and sees a great heart, a sherpa and rumbling thunder stuck in the snow. He also sees their pet dog ‘powder snow’ heading towards the monastery for help.
Initially, when Snowy enters the monastery they try to chase him away but a monk realises it’s the dog Blessed Lightning saw in his vision and quickly the monks go with Snowy to rescue the party.
After 2 days of rest, Tintin has an audience with the grand abbot. Tintin starts to explain but Haddock interrupts and mentions how Tintin basically dragged out to the middle of nowhere for the sake of a dream and nearly got everyone killed in the process. The grand abbot is impressed by Tintin’s kindness and bravery but advises him to return saying that Chang is most likely dead and also that the monastery can’t keep strangers.
Hence the three go back, Tintin is stopped by Blessed Lightening who wants to return the scarf. At that moment he was in a vision where he saw a boy in a cave on a bed of branches who was visited by the yeti! Jolted by seeing the yeti, Blessed Lightening snaps out of his meditation quickly returns the scarf and runs away. Tintin and Haddock go back to the abbot and tell about the new vision, the grand abbot warns that Chang is better off dead as he’s a prisoner of the yeti who never lets go of his prey.
Despite the danger, Tintin takes charge once more to save Chang. He makes his way to the cave and is joined by Haddock who once again overcomes his trepidation to help his friend. They find the yeti leaving the cave, now’s their chance. Haddock stays outside as a scout while Tintin heads inside with his camera. Here he finds:
He helps Chang get up however they are trapped inside by the yeti!
It tries to grab Tintin and instead grabs his camera and turns on its flash! The blinding light frightens the yeti who breaks the camera and runs away screaming in pain!
Bringing Chang out of the cave, Haddock joins them and together they walk towards the monastery. They hear the yeti crying out in sorrow and Chang tells his story. He explains how after the crash it was the yeti that took care of him and kept him alive. When Tintin came to the crash site, the yeti took Chang away by climbing on the rock face, Chang threw his scarf in order to draw Tintin’s attention. However, the party doesn’t know that the yeti is waiting to pounce on them.
Haddock takes a moment to sneeze which scares the yeti away! Then they meet the monks who have come out in a procession led by the grand abbot who gifts a scarf to Tintin. He praises Tintin’s kind heart and bravery and Haddock’s unwavering faith and agrees to shelter them and safely take them back to Nepal.
In the end, as everyone makes their way back to civilization they hear the final cry of the yeti, a teary goodbye. Chang tells how everyone has misunderstood the yeti and how it’s actually kind and might even have a human soul to which Tintin simply replies: “Who knows?”
The tale ends with the yeti looking over the procession.
In an age where we fight with each other over the simplest of differences in opinion, this tale shows the true friendship between a boy who wouldn’t abandon his friend and a misunderstood yeti who cares for an injured stranger. It shows that faith can indeed move mountains and brave all odds.
