Talk:The Red Sea Sharks

The Red Sea Sharks has been listed as one of the Language and literature good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Review: October 17, 2015. (Reviewed version).

This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

A fact from The Red Sea Sharks appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 26 October 2015 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Hergé was inspired to develop the plot for The Red Sea Sharks after reading a magazine article detailing the continued existence of the slave trade within the Arab world?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2015/October. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/The Red Sea Sharks.

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Was Piotr Skut being from Estonia, not the Soviet Union censored in Eastern Bloc translations?

Because Piotr Skut is presented as a pilot from Estonia, not the Soviet Union, I always for 30 + years assumed The Red Sea Sharks was written during the interwar period when Estonia was independent. Not in 1958. Was this censored in the translations behind the Iron Curtain, or was Tintin banned altogether by the communist regimes? --46.194.117.40 (talk) 22:42, 1 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Untitled

Why I removed the "Elision of WW2" sector-- the editor who included this wrote about how different language versions of "The RSS" has the US captain say either "I didn't know there was a war on" or "I thought the war was over", and automatically infers this is a reference to WW2, when the rest of the story makes it clear that the war in question is a LOCAL conflict(the attempted coup in the fictitious country of Khemed), and the WW2 Mosquito airplanes are explicitly described as being war surplus, i.e., left over from after WW2 was over.

Thus, RSS's storyline does NOT conflict with Calculus Affair's explicit reference to WW2 being over, and the US captain's different remarks could be taken to mean he wasn't aware of the local conflict, or sarcastically referring to WW2, because obviously it had been over for some time. Jonathan Versen 02:51, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

references

Are there any? The stuff about racism, in particular, should be sourced. Howunusual (talk) 19:53, 16 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, and there are references, but they haven't been added. This needs to be done and you have the sources please add them. Prhartcom (talk) 13:16, 18 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:The Red Sea Sharks/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: J Milburn (talk · contribs) 18:54, 14 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Happy to offer a review. Josh Milburn (talk) 18:54, 14 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"there to aid the Emir Ben Khalish Ezab in regaining control after a coup d'état" This is a slightly odd construction; do you mean perhaps "with the intention of aiding" or "where they aid"?
- I'm going with "with the intention of aiding", I think that that works best. Midnightblueowl (talk) 18:16, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"and that he has accordingly sent his son" Which he? Presumably the former?
- The Emir; I've made this clear in the prose. Midnightblueowl (talk) 18:16, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"from J. M. Dawson" Who is this? If it's a new character, how about something like "a man[?] named J. M. Dawson"?
- He's a character who had previously appeared in The Blue Lotus; I've linked his name to List of The Adventures of Tintin characters#Dawson. Midnightblueowl (talk) 18:16, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"city of Wadeshah" The capital of Khemed, I'm guessing?

slave trade redirects to history of slavery, which isn't particularly useful.
- I've changed the link to slavery. Midnightblueowl (talk) 18:30, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"they are attacked by fighter planes, with Tintin shooting one down and rescues its mercenary Estonian pilot, Piotr Skut." Tenses all over the place
- Good point; I'll standardise it all. Midnightblueowl (talk) 18:30, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Just a tiny thing, but you mention Snowy in the lead but he's absent from the plot.
- Again, good point. I'll add mention of him in the plot section. Midnightblueowl (talk)

"As the submarine attacks, Haddock captains the ship as it takes evasive manoeuvres" A little clumsy
- I've made some alterations to the prose in this section. Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:06, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"the MS Reine Astrid" Should "MS" be italicised? I'm genuinely not sure
- From the looks of other Wikipedia articles (i.e. MS Arrow and the like) it would appear that it should not be italicised, so I'll make a change. Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:06, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"a motor yacht which Hergé had collected press clippings of." This doesn't quite work.
- Agreed. I've rewritten that sentence. Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:06, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Hergé's illustration of a frogman in the story was based on a press clipping of Lionel Crabb which he had collected." This hasn't been mentioned yet
- It's a fairly minor plot element, and thus I don't think that it warrants a mention in the actual "Plot" section. However, I will ammend the prose at the suggested juncture in order to deal with the fact that the scene is not mentioned. Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:06, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Upon the story's British publication in 1960, it was renamed The Red Sea Sharks from Coke en Stock ("Coke on Board").[22]" Could this perhaps be merged with the paragraph before? Two short paragraphs in a row on basically the same topic...
- I think that that's a good idea. Done. Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:23, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"who worked at L'Afrique et le Monde ("Africa and the World")" What do you mean?
- I've made some alterations to "In preparing the latter story he had consulted a colleague who worked for an African-themed magazine, L'Afrique et le Monde ("Africa and the World"); they translated some of the passages that Hergé wished to include in the story into Yoruba." Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:23, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

At what point of the story are the sharks? How about the cover image? These are surely important aspects!
- Although a shark makes a brief appearance in the latter half of the story, I think the reference to "the Red Sea Sharks" is more metaphorical than literal; it is the slave traders who are the sharks, as it were. Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:23, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"leaving little room for Professor Calculus" When does he appear?
- He makes cameo appearances in the scenes set in Marlinspike, and these are too small to warrant a mention in the Plot section. I'll add a link at the point in the article where we mention him, however. Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:20, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"had regained the pace and rhythm of his most creative period" What does this refer to? What was his creative period?
- I'm not entirely sure on this one, unfortunately. Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:27, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"this included with Chang in The Blue Lotus and with Miarka in The Castafiore Emerald" I don't follow.
- I've expanded this section to better explain what these two scenarios were. Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:20, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A silly point, maybe, but your adaptations section doesn't actually specify that The Red Sea Sharks was adapted
- I've added mention of it there. Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:43, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You link some authors in every citation, but Farr is linked only once. Consistency would be good!
- Good point. Changed. Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:43, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if Category:Works about slavery would be appropriate?
- I think so - added! Midnightblueowl (talk) 18:16, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Images are fine, sources are great. A really nice read. I'm seeing a few bits on Google Scholar (mostly, I think, about the possible racism) and the writing is a little choppy in places (paragraph 3 of the background section is a bit listy, for example) but these are things to think about if you're heading to FAC; I'm not going to hold up the GA nomination for them. If you're able to deal with the small issues above, I'd be happy to promote. Josh Milburn (talk) 19:41, 14 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Josh! Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:20, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ok- I've made some last tweaks and I'm now happy to promote this to GA status. My one outstanding question is this: we have an article at Wadesdah. I've linked this in the article but not changed your spelling. Which is right? Or are they both right? I'm not going to hold up promotion over this- just something to look into. Josh Milburn (talk) 09:52, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks User:J Milburn; it is definitely "Wadesdah", so I shall correct the article type, however why we even have a Wadesdah article I don't know - it could probably be incorporated into the Khemed article without problem. Midnightblueowl (talk) 18:27, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]