Talk:Hercule Poirot

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 Hercule Poirot was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Reviewed version: October 20, 2006
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(pronounced Er-quele Powr-roe)

confuses more than it helps. it's also wrong, as far as I can twist my tongue round it -- Tarquin

This article is coming along! I wonder if we should try to begin chronicalling the highlights of Poirot's career or perhaps try to discuss the sources and influences on the character (I am think Auguste Dupin, for example).

I removed the phrase "Golden Age" from the second paragraph and replaced it with "early days of mystery fiction" because in the mystery genre "Golden Age" is always applied to the 1920s and 1930s, when authors such as Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen, Rex Stout, John Dickson Carr, Michael Innes, Dorothy L. Sayers, and so on either made their debuts or were at the height of their powers. Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown clearly belong to an earlier era, even if their creators worked into the 1920s.66.1.40.242 19:44, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Suppose we said that Poirot's name in English was pronounced Air-quele Pwah-roe? That would be a pretty close rendition of the French pronunciation.66.1.40.242 19:44, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I don't know about Air-quele, but Pwah-roe is pretty good. How about Air-cyool? (quele to me would sound like kweel) Chewyman 23:32, 4 Oct 2004 (NZT)

Contents

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this article has many problems. most importantly there is nothing said about life of poirot which can be easily found in his stories. specially in the last one(the Curtain). i am gonna add the whole life story of him in a matter of days. but since my english will have some problems and i am using persian versions of book to wrtie i would be happy if some Agatha lovers help me with correcting my mistakes. --Arash red 09:54, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, for starters I've added some details on his early career in Belgium. According to The Big Four, his hometown is Spa, but in "The Chocolate Box" he is clearly working for the Brussels police. I'll try to add more, but it may take a while to sift through the stories in order to determine their chronological order Vremya 09:41, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Address

The last paragraph of the intro, giving Poirot's address, seems to assume that the article is about the ITV series, rather than about Poirot in all his media (though mostly in the novels). Not only does it refer to "the series" before establishing that there is a series (or that there is only one series), and I'm not sure (which is why I'm coming here first), but isn't the "56B" only from the series, and not in any of Christie's works? Binabik80 13:56, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

This article needs cleanup desparately. A whole lot of unsourced opinion and random quotes were added between 13th-15th May [1] which may or may not have merit. BTW how do we know he had green eyes, does it say that in the book, or is it based on an actor who played him? Arniep 17:17, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Most importantly this article needs to be rewritten from an out of universe perspective. DJ Clayworth 18:08, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

On the "green eyes" question, it is repeatedly said in the books (especially the early ones) that Poirot's eyes shine green when he is excited by an idea. --Sordel 07:07, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Does no one edit this article? It's been vandalized. I've just seen the article today for the first time, so I have no idea what was there before the vandal(s) defaced it, or I'd edit it myself -- Charles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.54.151.160 (talk) 12:58, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Holmes

A few fans have noted that in the Labours of Hercules, it was mentioned that Poirot's mother came up with his name while talking to Sherlock Holmes’s mother

Strictly, while the scene does imply (but not conclusively) that the Holmes family are real in the Poirot setting, it doesn't indicate Mrs Holmes and Mme Poirot ever met; it's a bit of whimsy by Poirot's doctor, who believed that Achille Poirot was real, and was musing on the unusual names both women had given their children.

The line about Dr Sheppard being Poirot's Watson doesn't indicate anything about Holmes' reality or otherwise; Sheppard could just as easily be comparing himself to a fictional character.

Incidentally, on the "shared universe" subject, both Holmes and Poirot (and many other literary detectives) appear to be fictional from the perspective of Tommy and Tuppence. Daibhid C 10:46, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Agatha Christie "canon"

According to whose rules of Christie's canon? I have a hard time seeing Christie herself saying that things that appear in her novels don't count. And who decided that the Cards on the Table movie "cannot be considered part of Poirot's universe"? Who is this who is deciding what opinion I can have about Hercule Poirot and his adventures? As the article itself states, Matthew Prichard currently holds the copyright over Hercule Poirot, so he would seem to be the only person who can make a determination like that, but there's nothing in the paragraph attributing it to him. If this is a common fan convention, it needs to say so (& mention how common a convention); if it's not, I'd say it needs to be removed. All in all, for something that is completely unsourced and was added without comment by an anonymous editor who's had multiple, very strong vandalism warnings on his talkpage, this paragraph appears very prominently in the article and takes a very demanding tone. Binabik80 17:54, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Addendum: Looking back over the edit history for the paragraph, I note that the original author actually said, "According to the rules of cannon [sic]", not "Christie's canon" as the article says now. This very much implies to me that the original author seems to think there's some sort of general rulebook of "canon" for all fictional universes, which is not true, and that establishing a canon necessitates rationalising away contradictions in that fictional universe, which is also not true (Conan Doyle fans, for instance,—who were the ones who first started using the word canon in this context—have no problem with the fact Dr Watson's wound migrates around his body from story to story). Binabik80 18:13, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

That whole section, and indeed most of this article, really REALLY is in need of references. I do think that generally a lot of fiction is considered canon only in the media form in which it first appears, such as the 56 short stories and 4 novels for Sherlock Holmes (utterly disregarding plays written by Conan Doyle or William Gillette), the TV shows and movies ONLY for Star Trek (where Roddenberry decided before his death that The Animated Series didn't count; there has been some debate on novels written by one of the creators of spin-off series Star Trek: Voyager), the six movies ONLY for Star Wars (though there have been arguments in favor of treating the radio play adaptations of the original trilogy as canon). So here, I think it would be safe to say that only the printed works (and arguably the play Black Coffee as Christie wrote that herself) are canon, and everything else is just an adaptation. This would eliminate such goofy POV statements about TV adaptations that currently appear in that part of this article (or at the very least, get rid of a bunch of OR, as I think Binabik80 is suggesting). Sorry for rambling, but I wanted to make my point. --JohnDBuell 04:33, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I think we're in agreement that the sillinesses about disregarding things that actually appear in Christie's novels or about TV series can go, which is by far the most important thing. I do think it's worth noting, though, that the canons we've cited so far have all appeared as a result either of discussions in fandom or explicit statement from the show's/books' creator. Conan Doyle fans sat down and deliberately created a definition for the Sherlock Holmes canon (without including our modern notion that once considered canonical, a story should not contradict information already included in the canon). Star Trek has its rigid definition of canon because that's what Gene Roddenberry and the Paramount Pictures press office decided it should be. Lucasfilm has a complex multitiered canon hierarchy to show the relation between the six films and the spin-off universe. In Doctor Who fandom, for instance, there's a massive debate that's been going on for about the past decade over what constitutes the Doctor Who canon; probably a majority of fans choose to include the spin-off novels published while the programme was off the air from 1989 to 2004, and a sizable chunk also include the audio plays of the same period.
I'd agree with the statement that "generally a lot of fiction is considered canon only in the media form in which it first appears," but I think there are enough significant exceptions that that doesn't mean we can apply it here without providing a source (the lack of which JohnDBuell mentions). I think you'd have a good argument, staying within the British mystery genre, that Midsomer Murders now "counts" more than the DCI Barnaby mystery novels. And Buffy the Vampire Slayer leaps to mind, where the original movie doesn't count, but the subsequent spin-off TV series does.
I guess I have two questions: (1) Has Christie fandom ever asked, in a notable way, what "counts" as being the "true" adventures of Hercule Poirot? And if so, then (2) how did fandom and/or Christie or her heirs answer? If the answer to question 1 is yes, then I'd like the answers to appear in the answer with proper sources (or at least with the word of a someone much more familiar with Christie fandom than myself). But if the answer is no, and Poirot "canon" has therefore never been a source of serious debate, then I don't see what relevance the paragraph in question has that would merit its continued inclusion in the article. I can ramble with the best of them! Binabik80 13:15, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
The decision to ignore obscure points in the novels that contradicts other points, which most don’t notice by the way, and not allow the TV series to gain a toe hold in the Poirot cannon is not silliness. The fandom has seriously asked and has come up with rules. Part of the problem comes from the facts that Agatha Christie never put down any ground rules in writing, although there are plenty of verbal statements from her which are hard to pin down and reference, and the fact that, despite apparently outselling Sherlock Holmes, the (serious) fan base is small, hence the lack of press conferences on the decisions made. As one of the serious Poirot fans I can attest to that personally.
The fact that only works written by her are considered the "true" adventures of Hercule Poirot by the Fandom is based on the fact that Agatha Christie refused to acknowledge, and in some cases (the Austin Trevor and Peter Ustinofe movies) protested over all the TV and movie adaptations. This well documented refusal to except Poirot in any other media other than her novels, by his creator, has become a rule among fans which is continued to this day. But I must point out that there is an exception, the Albert Finney movie, which fans do accept, having little option, because Christie herself stated it WAS Poirot and give her seal to it.
The first novel overrides any other novels rule, was concocted in an attempt by fans to clarify the dates given in her "last" two novels. Christie rarely gives dates so it’s become procedure by fans to say the events of the novel happened in the year in which the book was published. But that created difficulties with regards to the two novels published post humorously years after they where written - Colonel Bantry being alive in 1970 where as he died in 1940 being the major one. Hence the dates in the previose novels are considered to override the dates of the later novels - Sleeping Murder is considered to take place before the 1940’s novel despite technicaly being puplished after it - otherwise the Miss Marple timeline does not make any sence. This rule stuck to Poirot through the debate over his age, he’s an old man in some novels despite other novels stating that he was only 30 at that time. Hope this clarifies things. Nubula
Hello... I've been doing some clean up and copy-editing on the page, and having read this discussion and noted that there were still no references regarding canon, I have taken the section out. I hope this will only be temporary, as it was quite an interesting read. It may also be more appropriate to include it in future on Hercule Poirot in Literature instead, which is a page I created to make the flow of this one better.
I think that given the wealth of information provided about Poirot on this page, it will work better broken down into sections (so now the other characters in his universe have their own page, as do the books). At some point I will add categories to the bottom of the page so that everything still holds together.
As you can see, the statements that have been left in and tagged with {{Fact}} are mostly things that can be clarified by a reference to the novel or story in question. I haven't access to these at present, but I hope that someone who does may be able to put these in.
Getting carried away with typing now, but my other edit notes are further down this page. Feel free to discuss any issues here or on my talk page. Curiousbadger 13:31, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Further cleanup

Kudos to those editors taking this seriously! I'm only a casual fan, I haven't even watched all of the Suchet performances yet, though I have seen the 70s "Murder on the Orient Express" film and I've read the novelization of Black Coffee as well as the original "A Mysterious Affair at Styles." Anyway, some suggestions - the lead is WAY too long now. It should be trimmed to three paragraphs at the MOST. Perhaps a section about the detective's characteristics could be broken off to become the first section after the lead paragraphs. Second, be sure to follow the guidelines for writing about fiction and fictional characters. I'd also consider breaking the list of books and short stories into its own article (especially if anyone wants to push this article for GA or FA). Lastly, References References References! Please start using ref tags - I KNOW specific pages can be cited, and I'm sure there's a LOT of available secondary literature about Poirot and his portrayers. Good luck! --JohnDBuell 14:26, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tidying up

Hello,

I have edited the top section to 'Overview'. Most of the same information is still there unless it sounded speculative, although it still requires a lot of references.

Regarding these, I don't believe it's enough to name the book within the text, I think there should be a bibliographical reference towards the bottom of the page (still fairly new to this though, so please correct me if this is wrong). I don't own any of the texts though, so I can't reference these myself and would appreciate someone who can adding these where necessary.

If you have any feedback on the way I've tidied these inital part up, please let me know. I'll happily do some more cleanup as long as I'm not treading on anyones toes! Curiousbadger 11:23, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Just done a bit more cleanup of the 'Portrayals' section, have also made two separate pages; Recurring Characters in the Hercule Poirot Stories and Hercule Poirot in Literature to make the page flow better. Curiousbadger 13:01, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
I can assure you that your not stepping on my toes at least. I am trying to provide citations for the Poirot Cannon and page referances for the main article but its slow going as its hard to pin down quotes from Christie herself and I'll be cut of from the bulk of my book collection as I return to university, so if you can please bear with me, and by all means continue to do some more cleanup yourself, I'll be very greatfull. Nubula213.122.36.21 01:20, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Good work so far, Curiousbadger! Statements about the play Black Coffee and why she created it I believe actually appear in notes with the novelization of the same play. I don't recall where trivia about approving Albert Finney and disapproving of Peter Ustinov appears, other than probably iMDB, which I would loathe to include as a source. Of potential use: Black Dog & Levanthal Publishers are putting a number of the Poirot works out in hardcovers starting this fall. --JohnDBuell 04:57, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

There's been good work done on this page since I first looked at it about a month ago. I don't agree with the view that more than the title of the work is necessary as a reference; reading through I recognise many of the examples given to be correct. The purpose is surely to provide an overview of the topic, not to provide a bibliographically scrupulous document of the sort that might be submitted at postgraduate level. At the moment, the many demands for citations here are making the article look contentious or badly based in the texts, and this is not the case. --Sordel 21:22, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying that. Wikipedia seems so keen on everything being sourced and referenced and it's been some time since I read most of the novels so a lot of the information seemed unfamiliar - sorry for going a little overboard with the citation tags! Curiousbadger 14:20, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Novels Project Box

The Novels Project box was removed by an editor on the grounds that Poirot is a character not a novel. The Novels Project includes some characters (e.g. Harry Potter, Sherlock Holmes) and the box should remain. Please do not remove it again. --Sordel 21:28, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Previous Edit on The Big Four

I have today removed the following text on The Big Four which I felt to be inappropriately detailed in the context of this account of Poirot's career:

Poirot was then to face the biggest threat of his life, a gang of super-villains called The Big Four. Number One was a Chinese political mastermind, Number Two was an American tycoon, Number Three was a French nuclear scientist and Number Four was a British assassin and master of disguise known by those few who have survived him as the Destroyer. Together these criminals sought world domination.
It was during this ongoing battle that he again encountered Vera Rossakoff. She had made a deal with Poirot’s unholy enemy. However, Poirot was able to convince the countess to betray her dark masters, in exchange for her long lost son who Poirot had found. With her help, Poirot overcame the Big Four and achieved international fame.
It should also be noted that although the bodies of Number Two and Three were recovered, the remains of Number Four were never positively identified and that Poirot and Number One, Li Chang Yen, the mastermind behind the gang, never met face to face. Poirot only read about Li's demise in the paper, so it is possible that both of the villains could still be alive and at large even though they never crossed paths with Poirot again. After considering that possibility, Poirot did contemplate marriage to the Countess, but finally let Rossakoff go once again. Poirot was never to see her again for twenty years and was sadly, never to marry.

--Sordel 07:08, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unidentifiable Quotation

I have removed the following quotation from the article. By rights it should come from Curtain, the only book in which it could have appeared, but I can't find it there. If anyone knows where this comes from - perhaps a film? - please reinstate it. --Sordel 13:35, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

"It was a solemn and moving ceremony, and the extraordinary number of floral tributes passed belief. They came from high and low alike, and bore striking testimony to the place my friend had made for himself in the country of his adoption." — Arthur Hastings


-Actually, this is from The Big Four, where Poirot fakes his own death and funeral.

[edit] Possible copied text?

I was just hunting around for references for the remaining 'citation needed' tags and I came across this page... it sounded awfully familiar...

http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Hercule_Poirot

How much change needs to be made to the text on Wikipedia to avoid copyvio? Or does anyone know if the Wikipedia author and the author of this page are one and the same? Curiousbadger 14:13, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I could have been completely mislead here - the bottom of the page has the following text:
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia © 2001-2006 Wikipedia contributors (Disclaimer)
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. Last updated on Tuesday September 26, 2006 at 11:12:52 PDT (GMT -0700) View this article at Wikipedia.org - Edit this article at Wikipedia.org - Donate to the Wikimedia Foundation
I presume that means this site is pinching from Wikipedia and not the other way around? Curiousbadger 14:15, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
It looks that way to me ... on top of which it has the old text, some of which was very misleading! --Sordel 19:46, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Failed for GA

Although I'm a fan of the subject's creator, as of 20 October 2006, per WP:WIAGA, I failed this article for the following reasons:

  • (criterion 1.a) A lot of portion of this article comes from the fictional universe. Per WP:WAF, wikipedia articles should describe fiction and fictional elements from the perspective of the real world, not from the perspective of the fiction itself. And this is my main concern about this article for GA. It is mainly due that editors only selected sources from Christie's novels to describe the subject and thus has strong non-real word perspective. For example, in the Method section, where it should be a study of how Agatha Christie chose her style to solve and to present criminal mysteries for the subject (Poirot). I've put a tag to remind the editors to fix this major problem.
  • (criterion 1.b) The lead section is too short to summarize the whole article, to stand as its own and it is unsourced. Please read again WP:LS.
  • (criterion 1.c) I found some WP:MOS problems:
    • per WP:FOOTNOTE, footnotes should be placed directly after punctuations, without space in between.
    • per WP:MOS#Headings, headings should not repeat the article's title, as in Herculet Poirot's life.
    • please consider to have more wikilinks to other WP articles.
    • please standardize the citation list. Citation items are not sufficient for verification. Please read a preferred WP:CITET templates for citation.
    • please also standardize inline citation style. I see footnotes and embedded links are mixed in this article. Please read WP:CITE for citation style guideline.
  • (criterion 1.d) What is the meaning of: casus belli ? Who is Hasting ? Please explain briefly neccessary jargons and introduce briefly some names.
  • (criterion 2.a) I found some sentences that need a citation:
    • Not only did his coming from a country occupied by Germany provide a good reason why such a skilled detective would be out of work and available to solve mysteries at an English country house, but also at the time of writing it was considered patriotic to express sympathy with the Belgians - since the invasion of their country had constituted Britian's casus belli for entering WWI. → clearly needs a citation and also the sentence is too long.
    • The whole section of Major novels is completely unsourced and the section needs inline citations to support claim of famousness facts. Also read again WP:PEACOCK to avoid peacock words.
  • (criterion 3.a) Please expand the Popularity section, as I can't see where this popularity is explained.
  • (criterion 4.a) Almost all sources come from Agatha Christie's novel (I assume, because citation is not complete). It therefore has strong POV from fictional side. Reduce these sources and provide more sources from a neutral point of view. Critics, reviews, etc. of Christie's novels can be considered as NPOV sources.
  • (criterion 6.a) I found all images are copyrighted, but without fair use rationale for this article. Please supply it, per WP:FAIR. Besides that, their captions are not enough to describe their illustration to the subject of this article.

As soon as the above matters are resolved, this article can be renominated back. If you feel disagree with my review, you may want to submit this article in WP:GA/R. Cheers. — Indon (reply) — 16:15, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Christie and Ustinov

In the article it says "Christie was less sanguine about Ustinov's portrayal, given that Poirot, written as short, slim, and with coal-black hair..." If Ustinov's first portrayal was in 1978, and Christie herself died in January of 1976, do we know this to be accurate? Does anyone know when filming actually began, and can we find a reference for Christie's comments about Ustinov? Did Christie know that Ustinov had been offered the part, or that filming had commenced? Asta2500 04:37, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] First Meeting with Hastings

In The Mysterious Affair at Styles chapter 2, it is written that "The 16th of July fell on a Monday". The only year during WW I when this happened is 1917 thus it is more likely that Hastings and Poirot met in England in 1917 (and Hastings could have been confused about the year by the time of Curtain because of advancing age). Binand 11:16, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Death

I thought he shot himself, not died from a heart condition, although he did suffer from it and would have died eventually in Curtain. What happened? Istillcandream 04:43, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

You are right I think (though my copy of the book is 6000 miles away). How about rewriting the section on his death as "Poirot commits suicide by shooting himself in the middle of his forehead (he makes a reference to the Mark of Cain in his final letter to Hastings) since he didn't wish to continue living; he was suffering from complications of the heart and he had just commited the first murder of his career." enclosed in spoiler-tags? - Binand 05:41, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I think this section actually needs a re-write. It has copied part of the plot sumary from Curtain, but out of context it doesn't make sense (at least not to me!) Million_Moments (talk) 09:19, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:The Labours of Hercules.jpg

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[edit] Doubt on the conclusion of Hercule Poirot beïng Walloon.

Beïng a Flemish Belgian I would like to express my doubt on the conclusion that Hercule Poirot would be Walloon because his native language would have been French.

At that time, most of establishment, of which Hercules was a member spoke French as native language in Belgium, no matter which region.

A lot of the "Nouveaux Riches", the people that became rich by succesfully taking advantage of the new possibilities that arose with the industrial revolution, were dutchspeaking but they took over quickly French as primary language, to adapt and fit in to the french speaking establishment, where they could find their trading partners or employers.

The business center of Belgium was Brussels at that time and the business language was French.

Compare it like Latin beïng the language of government and trade in Roman empire or English being the primary business and technical language in the post World War 2 era.

Dutch was spoken by the lower class north parth of Belgium, known as Flanders or "Southern Netherlands".

In the Southern part of Belgium, the lower class spoke French but not exactly like the upperclass, it was (is) no pure French, rather a typical Walloon slang in many varieties just like Flanders had (has ) many slang varieties of dutch slang.

I Believe the best estimate on Hercule poirot's origin would be "Brussels(or maybe another major city) upper class", since he is a typical upperclass citizen, speaking standard French not Walloon slang.

57.67.177.33 11:36, 4 December 2007 (UTC)