| “ | One day you'll regret you crossed my path! Just remember: My name is Rastapopoulos! | „ |
| ~ Rastapopoulos to Tintin |
Roberto Rastapopoulos, or simply Rastapopoulos, is the main antagonist of The Adventures of Tintin comic book series. He is the archenemy of the series' titular protagonist Tintin. He was originally a film tycoon, being the owner of Cosmos Pictures, to which he uses it as a guise for his role as the leader of the Kih-Oskh Brotherhood drug cartel, which go under the guise of cigarette company, Flor Fina. He then assumes a new identity, Marquis di Gorgonzola, he then owns Arabair, an airline situated in the Middle East, he uses it for human trafficking/slave trading operations, and when Tintin crippled the operation, he was bankrupt, so he now seeks Lazlo Carreidas' fortune.
History[]
This section is too long. Visit here for more details: Rastapopoulos's Synopsis on the Villains Wiki.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
- Left his parents jobless and then ruined his three brothers and sisters offscreen, showing a total lack of care for his family.
- Incriminates Tintin of having heroin so Thomson and Thompson would arrest him because he defended Sophocles Sarcophagus from being beaten by him just for accidentally stepping on his feet.
- Orders Allan Thompson to take Tintin, Snowy and Professor Sarcophagus on sarcophagus to mummify them on Kih-Oshk's tomb, where he stored opium to sell inside cigars. He did this to all the archeologists who ended up stumbling upon his operation when looking and researching about the tomb, killing at least 15 of them.
- Sends secretly an assassin to kill Tintin despite supposedly making amends with him for their previous encounter and requested an Arabian colonel to execute Tintin.
- Sends the Fakir to poison Professor Sarcophagus and the poet Zloty with Radjaïdjah Juice, a poison who turns insane whoever is pricked with it, turning them insane.
- When Tintin decides to uncover the drug trafficking operations of the Kih-Oshk Brotherhood and cure Zloty and Professor Sarcophagus, he has the Fakir forge a letter so Tintin would be send to a sanatorium instead.
- Poisons the Maharaja of Gaipajama's father and brother to drive them insane offscreen.
- Sends the Fakir to poison the Maharaja with Radjaïdjah so the Gaipajama government would crumble down. The attempt fails thanks to Tintin warning the Maharaja.
- After failing to turn the Maharaja insane, he and the Fakir kidnap the Maharaja's son.
- Leaving the Fakir to face Tintin, he takes the young prince away and when Tintin follows him, drops a rock boulder in an unsuccessful attempt to kill him.
- Turns Didi, the son of The Sons of the Dragon leader Wang Chen-Yee, insane with Radjaïdjah so he could behead Tintin despite having saved him in two occasions earlier.
- With Mitsuhirato's help, kidnaps Professor Fang Hsi-ying because he was able to cure all victims of Radjaïdjah.
- Upon capturing Tintin and the Chen-Yee family on the Blue Lotus, he and Mitsuhirato give Didi a sword so he could unknowingly behead Tintin and his own parents just to increase the cruelty.
- After adopting a new identity as the Marquis di Gorgonzola, he dedicates himself to sell black men as slaves through the Red Sea to make a profit with them. He also sells war planes through JM Dawson to different people, like General Alcazar, so they can use them for their own goals.
- He assists Bab El Ehr, alongside Dr. Müller, to overthrow the Emir Mohammed Ben Kalish Ezab to take over the Khemed when the Emir threatens to reveal Rastapopoulos' human trafficking operations.
- Has a bomb planted in the plane Tintin and Captain Haddock were in to kill them and all the other passengers present.
- When the captain of his yacht notifies him during a party with his guests that there are three castaways on the horizon and he becomes aware that they are Tintin, Captain Haddock and Piotr Skut, he orders his captain to ignore them and continue with the intended course despite the captain's reluctance. He ultimately decides to rescue them just to impress his guests and not because he had second thoughts.
- Orders Allan to blow up the Ramona, his slave ship, to kill Tintin, Haddock, Skut and his slaves.
- Tries to take over Lazlo Carreidas' Swiss fortune by using Dr. Krollspell's truth serum on Carreidas so he can tell him what his bank details are. Upon getting the numbers, he intended to put Carreidas along with Tintin and his friends back on Carreidas' plane and tow them into the sea so they would drown.
- Didn't plan to leave any witnesses of his scheme to get Carreidas' fortune: he planned to dispose of Dr. Krollspell once his truth serum worked, intended to kill Spalding, Hans Boehm and Paolo Colombani despite that they brought Carreidas to him and lied to the Sondonesians by tricking them to believe that he was fighting for their country only to get them killed by rigging their reeds with explosives. This revelation was enough for Dr. Krollspell to turn on him and join Tintin's party.
- Tries to kill Tintin and his friends with explosives despite that this provoked an explosion on the island.
- Doesn't show any remorse for actions. Quite the opposite, instead he takes great pride in such actions and calls himself the "Devil Incarnate" due to it.
- Even if he has comic moments, he is always taken seriously.
Trivia[]
- Some fans believe that Rastapopoulos doesn't qualify as Pure Evil due to his comedic moments in Flight 714, where he is portrayed in a laughably way like failing to kill a spider or suffering multiple injuries as slapstick comedy. However, none of these moments detract from Rastapopoulos' past crimes and he never stops posing a threat to Tintin and his friends, with his plans to dispose his henchmen proving that he may be presented more comedically than before, he is still indeed a threat to be taken seriously in the story.
- Indeed, according to Numa Sadoul in Tintin and the World of Hergé, presenting Rastapopoulos in a more comedic light when the plot of Flight 714 was being worked on was Hergé's idea, as he started to feel like Rastapopoulos was always a pathetic villain once foiled after drawing Rastapopoulos in a pink de luxe cowboy attire, leading Hergé to write Rastapopoulos as ridiculous and wretched once his attire stopped impressing him. That said, even if Hergé meant for the readers to no longer take Rastapopoulos seriously, in-universe he keeps being the same monster he was back in his previous appearances.
External Links[]
- Rastapopoulos on the Villains Wiki
- Rastapopoulos on the Tintin Wiki
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 Pure Evils
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 Pure Evils
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