Background
The Seven Crystal Balls was written during World War II. With Belgium under German occupation, Hergé decided to avoid the overt political content that he had included in previous Tintin stories, such as The Blue Lotus, The Broken Ear and King Ottokar's Sceptre.
As the opening sequence of the book indicates, The Seven Crystal Balls and its theme of an ancient curse, was inspired by the "curse of the pharaohs", the speculation that members of the Howard Carter expedition, discoverers of the tomb of Tutankhamun, died in tragic and mysterious ways due to a curse.
Read more about this topic: The Seven Crystal Balls
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)