Connor Coyne's Oberservations on Conan

I thought I'd share this interesting little link by author Connor Coyne (what a name!) which discusses Howard in context with Tolkien. I can't seem to log in to comment, so I'm going to take the liberty of doing so here.
Of course, Connor is only discussing The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, and so he still has some great stories to look forward to should he wish to go on to the next stories.

In terms of the writing: Tolkien’s epics took place in “Middle-Earth” which had hints of but little direct connection to the present world, while Howard’s Conan stories took place in the Hyborian Age which was explicitly placed in a period of barbarism and empire-building that occurred between the fall of the continent of Atlantis and the rise of the ancient civilizations we know; these explicit references are most conspicuous in names we recognize from legend and history: Argos, Corinthia, Himaleya, Zimbabwe, and others.  Not only did Tolkien write novels, but he envisioned all of these novels being joined by subject matter and common history into an organic whole. Howard works were almost uniformly short stories, and while it is possible to read these as part of an organic whole, he preferred an episodic presentation that emphasized narrative unreliability.  Tolkien was quite comfortable deferring to magic as accounting for miraculous events; Howard posits a sort of invisible cosmic ground-state which makes magic-seeming events possible. Tolkien’s gods are unassailable, unreachable, and in fact, only angelic (and demoniac) messengers for a higher power that is only mentioned by name once. Howard’s gods intrude upon the world, and do battle with mortals in a way that is not only corporeal, but which expands the definition of the physical rather than constricting that of the spiritual. And so forth.  There are many differences.

 While it is indeed not as explicit as in the Hyborian Age, Tolkien's Middle-earth is indeed set in the distant past of this world. Also, it's the Himelian mountains, not "Himaleya," and Zimbabwe was later rendered Zembabwei in "The Servants of Bit-Yakin," but I left my pedant-lock key on as I was typing.

The most significant difference, however, I thought, is the different take on morality. I recall Carpenter’s biography of Tolkien, at least, saw much significance in his Catholicism, and that the various ranks and orders of beings, good and evil, in Middle Earth, was a validation of the Catholic cosmological order via Tolkien’s own thoroughly British upbringing.  Whereas in Conan, while morality is present, it is subjective, in flux, and almost post-modern.  The main conflict is not so much good vs. evil as barbarism vs. civilization.  The chief difference here between barbarism and civilization isn’t any notion of mercy, or compassion, or empathy, or cooperation; it is a difference of regimentation, and as a result, barbarism doesn’t dissemble. So we are meant to relate to the barbarian, and not the sorcerers, monarchs, pirates, and monsters with whom he contends.

In fact, Conan himself is often not sympathetic, although he probably has something closer to what we’d call a “conventional” morality than most of the other characters. But he’s not above, say, genocide (as in “Vale of the Lost Women”).

I definitely disagree that Conan was advocating genocide in "Vale." Obviously Conan's at his most dastardly in this story, but the destruction of the Bakalah by the Bamula is really little different from the endemic warfare of countless historical tribes throughout history. Obviously hardly morally defensible, but there's a difference in degree here. Conan hates the Picts more than any other people, but you never hear him call for their extermination as king despite him being entirely capable of doing so.

Curiously, this solved a big problem I have with most high fantasy: How is it that characters meant to embody all that is good and pure — to the extent of making huge personal sacrifices to save the world — are grim killing machines. And I don’t even mean “the good soldier” so much; you don’t see hints of pathos or PTSD after Aragorn, or Drizzt Do’Urden, or Aslan, or whoever kills their 999th orc. This is most often explained away as “all members of X race are evil,” and maybe that passed as acceptable in the decades surrounding the Civil Rights era, but in 2012 it seems deeply troubling on even casual examination. Other high fantasy strategies to reconcile this seem equally wanting.

Tolkien wrestled with the matter of the orcs all his life, but the reason you don't see hints of pathos or PTSD after Aragorn because this is a world where evil is practically a quantifiable matter, and an entire race is evil explicitly because they were "created" (or rather, abducted and raised en masse) by a supremely evil being, that perversion of life and robbing of free choice being considered one of Morgoth and Sauron's greatest crimes. Aragorn can sleep at night because he knows that if he doesn't, all he loves will be lost or destroyed. That said, there's definitely an element of regret when it came to the Haradrim and Easterlings, who were either deceived or actively enthralled to Sauron.

Conan partially solves this problem by making the protagonist consistently erratic and violent (though surprisingly, never amoral). I never see him as embodying all that is good and pure, but rather all that is barbaric and pure, and this makes his internal logic plausible. It also gives some measure of cover to Howard writing as a product of his time and place, which is to say, often much more explicitly racist than Tolkien ever was (we’re talking about a man who grew up in rural Texas boom-towns, and witnessed lynchings).

There is no evidence Howard ever personally witnessed a lynching, but the sheer pervasiveness and virulence of racism in the world during that time period and environment means that Howard's views must be properly contextualised.

However, the real reason I'm doing this post is to give proper praise to this:

...this being “low fantasy” did not prevent it from engaging in poetic, powerful language and grand philosophical themes. Although action-oriented in the manner of (though with much better craft than) TSR-fare, there is a tightly controlled correspondence between the words and actions of the characters.  Conan typically prevails because he is typically direct and straightforward; his battle prowess is as much a symptom of this transparency of character as it is his upbringing. Other characters weave byzantine plots only to dramatically fail when they learn that the realities the universe has created for the villains are no more stable than the “realities” they use to trap their victims. A sort of cosmic version of “getting caught in a lie.” There’s a lot of lush, powerful, rich, almost pungent imagery here, but beneath the beautiful writing is an ongoing discussion of Things That Matter.  And also interestingly (I’m using that word a lot) this comes forth all the clearer in the “weaker” Conan stories — those featuring little plot except an extra-dimensional monster and a naked damsel — because the Big Questions continue to get play even when the pulp clichès ride heavy.  So the lesson there, I suppose, is that I can depart from a “high fantasy” writing style without abandoning, or even mitigating, thematic depth.

Couldn't agree more, Mr Coyne.