The Blog That Time Forgot

Hyborian Musings: Aquiromian Holiday, Part Three

2012-01-30T20:31:00.001Z

Two nobles of Shamar wearing robes reclining on a couch, eating grapes, drinking wine, watching the gladiators in a coliseum, in a comic from the Conan the Savage era. Howard's Conan would probably just let the Kothians raze this decadent cesspit to the ground.

Looking at Part Two, you'd think that there was more than enough evidence to support a Roman interpretation of Aquilonia. But doing so would require ignoring or re-interpreting evidence of a rather later inspiration.*

Medieval Elements: Society

Kingdoms

“Know, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars – Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.”

It should go without saying that one does not usually associate Rome with "kingdom." There was indeed a time where Rome was ruled by kings, up to 509 BC, but it was a mere speck on the map of Italy compared to the lands of the Etruscans, Samnites, Umbrians and Oscans.

Not exactly "reigning supreme in the dreaming west." It was only as a Republic that Rome became a player on the world stage: as a kingdom, it was merely one among dozens of realms and city-states vying for power while the Greeks and Carthaginians battled over Sicily.

Medieval Empires

"Working through them, and through other agents, many of whom have never seen my face, I have honeycombed the empire with sedition and unrest."

There are, of course, many Medieval Empires: the Ottomans, the Mongols, the Seljuks, the Mughals, and beyond. But after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, were there any empires in Western Europe, and called such? There were a few of note: the Holy Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire and the Carolingian Empire are the most famous, but there was also Canute's short-lived North Sea Empire, the Latin or Romanian Empire, the Empire of Nicaea, the first and second Bulgarian Empires, and the Serbian Empire. There were also plenty of states which, while neither ruled by an Emperor nor officially titled an Empire, were colloquially referred to as empires for their aggressive military expansions. "Imperial troops" and "imperial squadrons" are terms which have been used to describe the hosts of the Holy Roman Empire: Aquilonian military elements will be discussed more fully in future posts.

Titles

It's in Aquilonia's titles that one notices the most profound Medieval elements, each of which I'll look at in turn:

In short I, working in the shadows, have paved the downfall of the king who sits throned in the sun.

First of all, Aquilonia is ruled by a king, automatically divorcing it from the Roman Republic and Empire: what's more, from what we learn of the previous king, it's clear Aquilonia followed a traditional monarchical system. The king rules until abdication or death, succession is hereditary, and major positions of power are awarded to members of the ruling dynasty. This is entirely at odds with both the Republic, ruled by elected consuls and advised by a senate of powerful families, and the Empire, with an emperor over the consuls and senate and increased influence by generals. While kings are not the exclusive domain of Medieval governments, they are certainly not associated with the Ancient Romans beyond their humble pre-Republic origins.

Volmana, the dwarfish count of Karaban;

Counts are, again, staunchly Medieval. Though there is indeed a link back to Rome through the Latin title Comes, "companion," it was a title which only came into being in the very last days of the Western Roman Empire: it is far more associated with the Middle Ages, be it Italian Conte, French Compt, Spanish Conde or the English Count. Howard used foreign terms in the Hyborian Age before, such as Voivod and Spahis, so if Howard intended Count to be anything other than the usual definition, I'm sure he would use it.

Dion, the fat baron of Attalus;

While Counts have something of a Roman link, barons certainly do not. Barons date back to the time of the Norman Kingdoms, where they were vassals of the king: this title spread throughout the Norman sphere, and evolved to the noble title which persists to this day. Ancient Rome had no barons, and nothing particularly resembling them.

Rinaldo, the hare-brained minstrel.

Minstrel as a term for a travelling professional musician, poet and singer dates back to the 13th century, a contraction of Old French ménestrel. It's hard to think of anything more Medieval than the wandering bard amusing his lordship with song and ribaldry. The Ancient Romans seemed to be rather complacent when it came to musical innovations, preferring to adopt those of other cultures, especially the Greeks: in any case, while the Romans undoubtedly had entertainers akin to Minstrels, they did not use that name.

Through his princely kin in Nemedia...

Princes, like counts, have a predecessor in Ancient Rome. The princeps senatus was the informal title given to the leader of the Roman Senate in Republican Rome, but the word itself first appears in the old French prince. The exact nature of princes in the Hyborian Kingdoms is a bit more complex: rather than the denomination for the male relatives of a monarch, it appears Howard was using an older definition - a class of monarch below that of a king. Howard would later hint at the presence of a number of princes in "The Scarlet Citadel," but for now, the word is sufficiently Medieval.

... it was easy to persuade King Numa to request the presence of Count Trocero of Poitain, seneschal of Aquilonia...

Seneschal is a very specific Medieval term, and a fairly late Medieval term at that: in France during the Ancien Régime, it was the title for a royal officer in command of the southern provinces. Even in the first story, the use of this term suggests that Howard's primary inspiration for Poitain was the kingdoms of Occitania, especially the Duchy of Aquitaine. This would be built upon in successive stories, most profoundly in "The Hour of the Dragon."

Conan makes a bad mistake in letting men live who still boast descent from the old dynasty, from which he tore the crown of Aquilonia.

Dynasties are a common feature in a great many historical civilizations, from Ancient Egypt to modern times, but the word itself is from the High Middle Ages. By the references to blood relationships and genealogical tracings, it seems the dynasty to which Numedides and Dion belonged was similar to those of the Middle Ages. The closest approximation Ancient Rome had to the dynasty in this sense is the Gentes, but such a specific and complicated organization is so different from traditional dynasties, it may as well be considered something else entirely. For one thing, there were hundreds of gentes, whereas dynasties are usually only used in reference to the ruling house: there are no references to other dynasties vying for control, suggesting that there were none left. For another, completely unrelated individuals could be part of the same gens: if such were the case for Numedides' house, Conan would be swamped with claimants to the throne.

“Gromel! Volmana! Rinaldo!” exclaimed Publius, the high councillor, wringing his fat hands among the corpses.

High Councillor was a rank in many Medieval governments, from Scandinavia to Outremer.** "Councillor" suggests a council, and Howard refers to a council of nobles in "The Scarlet Citadel."

“See first to the dagger-wound in my side,” he bade the court physicians... “Had you seen what he and I saw,” growled the king, sitting up despite the protests of the leeches...

While Physician ultimately derives from Latin physica, "natural science," its immediate origins are actually in - again - old French, this time fisician, from fisique, "art of healing." Rome had its own physicians, true - but not court physicians. While the use of leeches in bloodletting is attested in Ancient Greece, it is most commonly associated with the Middle Ages. Surprisingly, leech was used for doctors first: the earliest evidence that creatures were referred to by that name is found from the 18th Century, although folk etymology has combined the two. That said, though leech in its original etymology has an ancient lineage possibly back to Celtic roots, it seems to be found most commonly in Middle Age texts.***

Then a medley of voices reached his ears, and the room was thronged with the finally roused people of the court – knights, peers, ladies, men-at-arms, councillors - all babbling and shouting and getting in one another’s way.

It's difficult to think of a more quintessentially Medieval word than knight. Think of the Middle Ages, and there's a good chance you might think of knights in shining armour, even if your sum knowledge of the period is all that can be gleaned from Monty Python. The name has Germanic as opposed to Latin roots: Old English cniht, deriving from West Germanic. Since the knights are considered "people of the court," it stands to reason that they could be part of the nobility: Medieval knighthood was largely a military position in the Hundred Years War, and only became associated with nobility in the 1500s. Ancient Rome had nothing quite like the knight. They had heavy cavalry in the later days of the Empire, true, but this was more an adoption of the Eastern Cataphracts' equipment and role in battle than their organization and civil status.

Peers are another fixture of the Middle Ages, at least from the 14th Century, and a reference to nobility. More specifically, "peers" has strong chivalric and romantic connotations, the idea of a group of nobles being of equal standing and rank: the Round Table and Charlemagne's Paladins - the latter even being called the Twelve Peers - being examples. Again, Ancient Rome didn't have a direct analogue to the peerage.

Ladies, in terms of nobility, are the female counterparts to lords: in other words, women of a superior position in society. We know of at least one countess, Albiona of "The Hour of the Dragon," so it's possible there are others: baronesses and princesses in addition to countesses. They are certainly not something you'd see in Ancient Rome: while there were certainly many powerful and influential Roman women - as Howard himself would attest - they did not have the rights or opportunities of women in the Middle Ages, official public offices such as Ladyship being one.

Men-at-Arms can be traced back to the High Middle Ages, as a term for professional warrior, as opposed to a levied or conscripted one, usually one who bought land with military service. The Roman army had a very distinctive, iconic organization of citizens, auxiliaries and mercenaries, and "man-at-arms" doesn't adequately describe any of them.

Councillors has already been discussed in High Councillor, though - again - the word has Medieval origins.

---

This alone proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Howard intended Aquilonia to be Medieval rather than Roman. After all, if Howard intended Aquilonia was intended to be Roman, then surely the Aquilonian court would be more Romanesque? Where are the consuls, senators, legates, patricians, tribunes? Why did Aquilonia have knights instead of equestrians or centurions? Why is there no reference to a senate?

“They will continue to think that I serve them, until our present task is completed. Who are they to match wits with Ascalante? Volmana, the dwarfish consul of Karaban; Gromel, the giant legate of the Black Legion; Dion, the fat tribune of Attalus; Rinaldo, the hare-brained cantor. I am the force which has welded together the steel in each, and by the clay in each, I will crush them when the time comes. But that lies in the future; tonight the emperor dies.”

“Days ago I saw the imperial squadrons ride from the city,” said the Stygian.

“They rode to the frontier which the heathen Picts assail – thanks to the strong liquor which I’ve smuggled over the borders to madden them. Dion’s great wealth made that possible. And Volmana made it possible to dispose of the rest of the imperial troops which remained in the city. Through his gentile kin in Nemedia, it was easy to persuade Rex Numa to request the presence of Consul Trocero of Poitain, Praetor of Aquilonia; and of course, to do him honor, he’ll be accompanied by an imperial escort, as well as his own troops, and Prospero, Emperor Conan’s right-hand man. That leaves only the emperor’s personal bodyguard in the city - besides the Black Legion. Through Gromel I’ve corrupted a spendthrift officer of that guard, and bribed him to lead his men away from the emperor’s door at midnight.

... Then a medley of voices reached his ears, and the room was thronged with the finally roused people of the senate – centurions, equestrians, noblewomen****, legionaries, senators – all babbling and shouting and getting in one another’s way. The Black Dragons were on hand, wild with rage, swearing and ruffling, with their hands on their hilts and foreign oaths in their teeth. Of the young officer of the door-guard nothing was seen, nor was he found then or later, though earnestly sought after.

“Gromel! Volmana! Rinaldo!” exclaimed Publius, the princeps senatus, wringing his fat hands among the corpses. “Black treachery! Some one shall dance for this! Call the guard.”

“The guard is here, you old fool!” cavalierly snapped Pallantides, prefect of the Black Dragons, forgetting Publius’ rank in the stress of the moment. “Best stop your caterwauling and aid us to bind the king’s wounds. He’s like to bleed to death.”

See how the story's tone changes dramatically with the replacement of a few words? Yet there is still more evidence in "The Phoenix on the Sword" alone which suggests Aquilonia was more romantic than Roman. Even if you argue Howard may have intended the use of modern names to facilitate to the readers, that his use of count really meant Comtes, how does that explain the use of the very obscure and specific term seneschal? Howard was historically literate and did not dumb down his language for his audience: this is clearly seen in his historical stories. I'm of the opinion that if Howard wanted to give Aquilonia a Roman veneer, he would've used Roman words, not obfuscate the issue by using commonplace modern European words with ancestry in Latin.

*Because I have no idea how to edit, this five-part series, which was originally a three-part series, will now be a seven part series. If I go beyond that, my brains might leak out of my ears.

**Unfortunately most web searches for High Councillor involve World of Warcraft, which got aggravating in short order. No, fercromssake, I don't want to buy a High Councillor's Sash for my Night Elf Mohawk... That's a thing, right? I don't play World of Warcraft.

***I have decided on the definition of "leeches" as referring to the doctors, as opposed to the creatures: while there's precedent for talking animals in "The Cat and the Skull" and the Golnar fragment, when Howard said the leeches protested the king's sitting up, I don't think he meant the little beasties were voicing their objections. Though such an image would be whimsical and delightful. Then again, comic artists seem to insist that the oliphants in "The Scarlet Citadel" were pachyderms rather than musical instruments, so perhaps we can look forward to that in Truman and Giorello's King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword.

****There's a collective name for influential Roman women who used their guile and wit to manipulate their menfolk which currently escapes me. I'd appreciate anyone pointing it out.

Truly a Phyrric Victory

2012-01-25T00:01:00.003Z

To be frank, I don't know why I decided to enter this particular Topless Robot contest, but something pressed me onward. Some ghostly hand was pushing on my shoulder, and I treated Disqus as a sort of electronic confessional booth. It turns out I got a T-shirt for my troubles!

This may be more of a confessional than an entry, but...

Since July 2010, I've been the site runner for the Conan Movie Blog. I'm also a very devoted Robert E. Howard fan. In November 2009, I read the character sheet and script for the film, and dismissed it as worthless garbage. Why, then, did I take over the site? Because this film was going to be the biggest widespread exposure of Conan in a long time, the first new film in almost 30 years, and already the vast majority of the internet seemed content to believe this was a remake of the 1982 film, blissfully unaware of the franchise's literary pedigree. I felt somebody had to make sure there was a voice in the wilderness spreading the word of Robert E. Howard.

So over the course of 2010 and 2011, I wrote an obscene amount of material on the upcoming film and it's, at times, completely nonexistent relationship with the source material. Every screen cap, every behind-the-scenes photo, every magazine cutting went over with a fine-toothed comb. All for a film that would end up one of the biggest critical and commercial flops of 2011 - and I knew it would be since 2009. It all culminated in a 20,000 word critique of the film written shortly after my initial viewing, though I dread to make a word count of my hundreds of other posts.

The Phyrric victory? I knew that no matter how terrible the film ended up, no matter how poorly received it was, I know that I did my best to promote Robert E. Howard on a wide platform, to educate the masses who thought this was just another '80s remake, and to provide the most information possible. Many news sites linked to my posts, journalists and crew members involved in the film contacted me to clarify reports, I got a press pass to the London premiere, and I made new friends. All for a film I predicted would fail in 2009.

Rob's comment:

Wow. Devoting four years of your life to running a mostly negative website based on film that no one else ever cared about, or will ever care about, and in fact most people have probably already forgotten? That's quite an accomplishment -- and certainly a victory in the sense that you were doing as right as possible for your favorite nerd franchise -- but one that accomplished absolutely nothing. Your hard, meaningless work shall no longer go unrewarded, sir, although I don't believe winning this t-shirt will upgrade your act from "Pyrrhic victory" to "regular victory."

That damned film. Or, rather, that damned me. I was going through all my unfinished posts, of Almuric, gazetteers, filmgoer's guide, barbarians, reviews and whatnot. I wondered how I let everything get so out of hand. Tens of thousands of words on ephemera like Bob Sapp's costume and the CGI matte paintings, yet I still haven't finished the series I started on The Cimmerian. I must've been absolutely mad. So I started working again. I'd been working hard getting Aquiromian Holiday done, as well as working on a few other posts. Then blogger ate a very long post I had started last year* and I quit in a fit of rage. Then I hit a rut with the Encyclopedia. Then I got another cold.

And then (that's enough of "then") I remembered the Don Herron kerfuffle, and a phrase I used in one post is starting to bother me: "this isn't a serious scholarship blog." I don't know how that can be so, considering I take great pride in the scholarly material I've done on the blog, and that the Robert E. Howard Foundation saw fit to grant me a second-place Cimmerian Award. I started to think that saying this wasn't a serious scholarship blog was disrespectful to everyone who voted for me, and disrespectful to myself by proxy. I'm glad I've talked things over with Don, and I really hope nobody was offended by that particular phrase.

Aquiromian Holiday has expanded to five parts now, and I think I might just release certain posts in my Almuric and gazetteer series out of sequence rather than let them fester away in Blogger. I was saving "The Lion Passes" for December, but I realised I didn't have anything appropriate for REH's birthday, so bumped it ahead of schedule - I have something else for Conan's birthday. I really don't want to lose my momentum.

*Why does hitting backspace randomly delete everything? Why does it choose to save the draft RIGHT before I can undo it? And why, oh why, does Blogger not have a draft history function like Wordpress?

The Lion Passes

2012-01-22T19:32:00.002Z

The wails and cries of the kingdom in mourning shook the towers and spires to their foundations. Men-at-arms, knights and barons wrought their hands and screamed to the heavens in anguish; women of the seraglio and serf alike wept into each other's shoulders as they clenched tightly; children and infants mewled with their families, the entire land united in sorrow. The king and his family had returned to the palace, the hearts of the nation shattered as one.

The king was a popular monarch, one loved by peasant and noble alike for his generosity, his courage, and his dedication. His taxes were the lightest in all the world, his patronage of the arts and trades made the kingdom rich and cultured to a degree hitherto unseen. Yet when war came to the doorstep, the King of Poets and Song would transform into a Devil of War and Death, as his blade sang a grisly dirge through the bodies and souls of those who would dare threaten his people. This was an age of empires, and the king was ever ready to ensure that his land would be vassal to none.

The story of how the king came to rule has been told and retold so often, many a child of the kingdom could recite it by heart. Reams of parchment charting the king's early years as a thief, adventurer, mercenary, pirate, bandit and general comprise an entire wing of the Royal Library; minstrels sing sagas of his wars and quests on street corners, some composed by the king himself; frescos and reliefs of his adventures in far-off climes and long-lost ruins adorn city walls, his greatest accomplishments of strength and heroism rendered in marble and bronze statues, re-enactments of his legend performed in street theatre. More than any king the land had ever seen, the present king, called the Lion by many, was a living legend.

In his palace in the capital, the Lion lay dying.

In the mountains of the Border Range lies a plateau, through which runs an ancient road, one of the vital trade routes among the many kingdoms. So prized and strategically valuable it is, the blood spilt over it would fill lakes and oceans: bandits raided caravans bearing jade from the far east; roving tribes of blond-haired barbarians sacked the outlying guard towers; armies clashed over control of the pass, territory exchanging hands back and forth over the centuries. The king's final battle was fought over this plateau.

The kingdom's eastern neighbours were ever mindful of their failed invasions over the last hundred years, and the avaricious eyes of the nobility were ever cast westward. The king had united all the nations against an empire from the shores of an eastern sea - but without a common foe to strive against, those same kingdoms returned to their petty feuds and imperial ambitions. So it was that two of the proudest kingdoms of the world battled over dominion of the heartlands.

This battle was like many the two nations had fought before: the king always fought alongside the infantry, their hearts swelling with pride. The arbalesters of the eastern kingdom were formidable, but the vassal longbowmen of the western kingdom had greater range and armour, keeping the arbalesters from entering the killing range. Nonetheless, they continued to rain their bolts upon the infantry, the missiles mostly rattling harmlessly off the broad shields and strong caps of the pikemen. Volley after volley would come, and the arbalesters would continue to launch until the battle was over.

One bolt found its mark.

None knew which of the archers had loosed the bolt which felled the mightiest king of the age: the matter would be cause for endless and futile debate and speculation. All that is known is that as the eastern infantry started to route, the western infantry began to pursue and break formation. The king sprinted to the cavalry wing, and mounted his great black stallion, leading the cavalry into a charge. Even with the mounting panic at seeing the infantry fleeing, the arbalesters kept firing into the enemy mass, desperately hoping that a bolt may find a gap in the nigh-impenetrable armour as the knights and men-at-arms started to enter the killing range. As the knights thundered across the battlefield, many of the arbalesters started to flee: some remained, resolute and resigned to their fate. The final volley only saw a handful of bolts fly skyward. It was enough. The king suddenly reined in his stallion, losing momentum fast. He slumped backwards. The commander of the bodyguard later recalled seeing the crossbow bolt had struck between the gorget and the helm. The bolt was lodged in the king's neck.

The battle was won: for all the remaining arbalest's bravery, it was all for naught, as they were run down by the raging cavalry. Any hope of identifying the man who felled the Lion was crushed under the hooves of the western destriers.

---

The Lion was never truly at ease with the soft trappings of civilization. Born and raised in a naked land where survival was bought by sword and sinew, the silken luxuries and voluptuous comfort afforded by his station felt artificial and false. Yet now, surrounded by his queen, his sons and daughters, his seraglio, his friends, his most trusted nobles and advisers, his squires and pages: his dark, scarred face was younger than it had been for decades. His body ached with exertion and blood streamed from a ghastly wound in his neck, yet he felt more alive than he had in months - years, even. He knew he would not savour the sensation for long, but he was not done with the earth yet.

He beheld the congregation. The captain of the guard faced the door, ever mindful of his duty, though a subtle acknowledgement only the king could recognize betrayed his true focus. His closest confidant, still young and lithe after all these years, smiled broadly despite the pain evident in his eyes. His seneschal, son of an old friend and just as taciturn and gloomy as his father, did not meet the Lion's gaze. The councillor, a newcomer - the stress of the position has seen many come and go over the years - wrung his hands in characteristic nervousness. An olive-faced priest in black robes stood quietly, nodding slightly. And in the shadowed recesses, an old woman stood, her heel firmly planted on the black outline of some apish shadow. She had been old for a long time.

Closer to the royal bed were his family. Several infants crawled among the covers, curiously quiet and agile for their age; a girl of eight, all of steel springs and whalebone, leaned on a training sword; a boy of twelve clutched his mother's hand. Few of these were legitimate heirs to the throne in the eyes of the kingdom's laws of succession, but to the king, blood is thicker than ink, and all those he sired were raised as he would were he still a pantherskin-clad barbarian of the north. All were brought up as he was - at least, as well as one can be brought up to be independent and strong of will in a civilized land - regardless of what some antiquated custom said. To think that this pack of half-wild wolves were the ruling dynasty of the proudest civilization in the world! This pleased the king mightily, as much for the irony of the situation as for his pride.

Two faces among the gathered held the king's attention most firmly. His wife, closest to him, was stronger than anyone he knew. He never endured slavery; he never bore indignity upon indignity as she was forced to for much of her life; he never truly knew what it was to be powerless as she did. Yet a slave who was once a nameless seraglio girl took to royal life as if it was her birthright. So great and genuine was her love for the king that she did not seek to exploit or manipulate him. What lack of sophist guile or diplomatic deficiencies the king suffered, his queen compensated for effortlessly.

The other face was that of the king's eldest daughter, and heir to the throne. The princess and the king rarely saw eye to eye, and the walls of the palace often trembled with the thunder of their disagreements. The queen had a hard time acting as mediator between the enraged tiger and the strident she-wolf. Yet the frequent contentions between father and daughter belied the truth: that they were most alike of all the family. Her independent spirit, her thirst for learning, even her disdain and incompetence in matters of civilized etiquette and courtesy reminded the king of himself. All the more frustrating for him to feel compelled to temper that fire with a respect for the kingdom that he himself sometimes wonders deserves such an honour.

There were others crowding around - ambassadors, priests, nobles, barons, counts, and various gentry - making quite a display of their grief. If any of the king's closer friends noticed how the songs of grief they sounded now were of a somewhat different cadence than the spiteful and venomous tunes they twittered not a few days ago, they did not deign to acknowledge the occurrence. The king noticed, and ordered them out. He had no time for their nonsense in life, and he did not intend on wasting any of his last moments.

The blackness came more frequently now, claiming the king's consciousness for longer durations. And upon each awakening, the world seemed stranger to him: the once vibrant gold and blue lapis lazuli of the throne room drained into brass and slate; the rich tapestries and velvet hangings faded like cobwebs in mist; the faces of those he loved seemed obscured by the ever thickening veil between worlds. As the faces of his wife, children and brothers-in-arms became blurs, other faces formed and sharpened. Blond-bearded warriors in mail and horned helms roaring and laughing in a great hall; a tousle-headed youth and stalwart mongrel accompanied by saints and a long-bearded sage; an ivory goddess with a black night of hair and burning black eyes, side by side with decadent black-bearded gods.

Blackness again. When the king awoke this time, he was faced with a new phantasm. All the world seemed grey and grim, shrouded in perpetual mist and night. But populating that realm was a seemingly endless host of dark, black-haired figures, wandering cheerlessly in the fog. Foremost of them all were two men and a woman. The king recognized them, at least as they were in life. In life, the woman gave birth to a boy in the midst of a battle. The older man told a boy of the wonders of the lands south of his home, regaling him with tales of adventures and mysteries that inflamed his young mind. The younger man was once a blacksmith without a drop of noble blood, whose son became a king.

Visions of what awaited the king when the final blackness claimed him forever? The delirious fever dreams of a dying man? The king knew not, nor did he care. Whatever lay in wait for him in the world beyond the world, he was not finished yet.

---

The king heard many legends of his reign over the course of his life. As is often the case with legends, any resemblance to the truth is largely coincidental. He listened to bards, minstrels and skalds recite grand and frequently contradictory tales. He heard the saga of a doe-eyed barbarian waif sold into slavery, who undertook a lifelong quest to avenge the murder of his family and slaughter of his people; another - altered for the benefit of those with a genteel temperament - befuddled the king with inanities like talking phoenix chicks, "star-metal" and a lizard-sorcerer; yet another tale told of his village's destruction by a warlord seeking a mask with which to resurrect an ancient kingdom. The kind laughed greatly and deeply at these stories, for who could possibly mistake these just-so stories for those of the true king?

He did not care for the accuracy of the legends, so long as the true chronicles were made available for all, and placed separately from the tall tales. Let the poets and minstrels have their fun, so long as they do not claim to be historians. But the king realised that it was not just he who would be affected by the dilution and confusion of history with legend: what of the kingdom, his family, his friends? What of all those for whom he spilt his blood as freely as that of his enemies?

The eyes of the king rested on his eldest daughter. The king spoke, a rivulet of blood starting fresh from the wound in his neck, a hoarseness evident in his speech. All in the room fell silent. He did not drown his daughter with compliments or praise, nor did he bestow upon her any fine heirlooms or treasures. All that he asked was that she listen to his final commands as king. He recited a litany of demands: foreign policy, domestic affairs, laws, amendments, decrees. She listened intently, wondering why her father was so determined to ensure these trivial concerns would be carried on after his death.

At the end, the king sighed deeply. He grasped his wife and kissed her fiercely. He gathered the infants and children close. The king sighed again, and lay still. He did not breathe again. For a moment it seemed all the warmth and colour in the world drained away, as if the sun closed its eye on the earth. The queen's face twisted in a contortion of grief. After an eternity, the king's daughter walked to the balcony. A hush fell on the gathered crowd outside.

None in the king's chamber looked at the late monarch's face, overcome with grief as they were. The queen buried her face on her husband's shoulder, the youngest children huddled around the king, like wolf cubs settling down for the night. They heard the princess address the throng of mourners, but could not understand the words through the sheets and grief. They did not hear the Princess disobey her father's last wishes: she resolutely ignored or reversed every one as she saw fit. The king heard every word.

As the princess continued to speak, breaking more and more of her father's laws, the Lion finally passed - with his weary and tired expression melted away, revealing a countenance brightened with the proudest of smiles.

*This piece was inspired by Steve Tompkins' outstanding and deeply moving semi-fictional piece on the 75th Anniversary of a certain Texan's most famous creation: in the year of that barbarian's 80th anniversary, I thought it would be nice to post it on his creator's 106th birthday to tie the two together.

Clark Ashton Smith, The Man Who Brought You Ghost Dinosaurs

2012-01-13T19:25:00.000Z

To his further disconcertion, he soon found that he had attracted the attention of a huge foggy monster with the rough outlines of a tyrannosaurus. This creature chased him amid the archetypal ferns and clubmosses; and overtaking him after five or six bounds, it proceeded to ingest him with the celerity of any latter-day saurian of the same species. Luckily, the ingestment was not permanent for the tyrannosaurus' body-plasm, though fairly opaque, was more astral than material; and Ralibar Vooz, protesting stoutly against his confinement in its maw, felt the dark walls give way before him and tumbled out on the ground. After its third attempt to devour him, the monster must have decided that he was inedible. It turned and went away with immense leapings in search of comestibles on its own plane of matter. Ralibar Vooz continued his progress through the Cavern of the Archetypes: a progress often delayed by the alimentary designs of crude, misty-stomached allosaurs, pterodactyls, pterandons, stegosaurs, and other carnivora of the prime.
- "The Seven Geases," in which Ralibar Vooz has to contend with ghost dinosaurs. Ghost. Dinosaurs. Also a carnivorous stegosaurus, apparently predating "Red Nails" by a few years.

What I'd really like for Blogger is a widget which allows you to post certain things on certain days which are relevant to the subject of your blog. Like This Day in History, but with specific events, rather than bringing up things like Orlando Bloom's birthday. That way I won't miss someone's birthday, deathday, publication, or other important events. REH's birthday's on the 22nd of January, and Conan's 80th comes this December.

Today's the 119th birthday of the criminally underexposed third man of the Weird Musketeers, Clark Ashton Smith. Hilobrow, Grognardia, and the Greenbelt all have tributes. Unfortunately, just like last year, I'm just going to have to relink to my Cimmerian tribute, and echo James' desire to reread "The Empire of the Necromancers." For now, I just wanted to provide my favourite passage from "The Seven Geases," for clearly discernible reasons. Hopefully Clark Ashton Smith was received by the Originals of Mankind in the Cavern of the Archetypes with pomp and circumstance, and didn't run into too many persistent megalosaurs.

On Reviewing, Critiquing, Analysing and So Forth

2012-01-12T23:52:00.006Z

Mark Finn posted a most intriguing piece on the art of reviewing. I'm glad I missed the kerfuffle on Good Reads, as it's exactly the sort of thing that would have me spluttering in disbelief and indignation, but Mark uses it as a background to an issue I'd been pondering:

When I was a book seller (for years and years) I was called upon to give my opinion about books on a daily basis. Now, this can be tricky. If I tell someone about a book that I hated, that I think sucked, and I say it's the greatest thing ever, then that's a lie. And if they buy that book based on my lie, and hate the book, then guess what? I've lost all of my credibility.

Over the years, I learned the value of tact. It's perfectly okay to say to someone asking about, say, Henry Miller, that "I'm not the best person to ask for a recommendation. I don't personally care for him. I think he's a little too gimmicky." If they asked for more, I'd tell them what made Miller's writing more of a blog trick than actual prose. But I'd always end with, "But that's just me. Other folks here love Miller and can tell you why he's great." I'm not putting down anyone who likes Miller. I'm just explaining why I don't. See how that works? Let me say this out loud, so there can be no misunderstanding: if you're not capable of doing that every time you hit a movie, or book, or record that you don't like, then you're not going to be an effective critic. You're just going to be another nameless, faceless voice in an already crowded Internet yelling "IT SUCKS" from the other side of the lake.

Take a moment to decide if you're a reviewer, or if you're just a reader. If you want to be a reviewer, then you've got to be brilliant. Or gifted. Or both. But if you just want to be a reader, and just want to be able to say what you think, without all of that other stuff getting in the way, then make the effort to say what you mean and mean what you say. Use your words. You're a reader. You of all people should know the value of written communication.

An issue I'd been wrestling with a bit: am I a reader, or a critic? I've done a bit of both: I've offered my opinions on things without necessarily critiquing them, and I've also done breakdowns and analyses. But which of the two am I aiming for? In fact, why choose?

Marks, Smarts, and Smart Marks

Professional wrestling from the age of Robert E. Howard:

Vic Hill vs Jack Gacek

I'm going to bring in a bit of pro-wrasslin' parlance to illustrate. In the world of wrestling, there were two types of people in the audience: the marks and the smarts. Marks referred to anyone who wasn't affiliated with the business, and smart referred to those who were, but this became looser over time. This dates back to the days when the staged nature of wrestling was a tightly-kept secret: marks were thus the ticket-buyers who went to see an actual competition: smarts were those who knew about it all along. If it sounds a bit like a con-job, it was: it's a bit of a shock to learn that the kayfabe mindset persisted even when it was fairly public knowledge that the bouts were predetermined.

The marks are those who enjoy wrestling purely for the entertainment: they go to see the heroes beat up the villains, thrill in the carnal spectacles of bodies being thrown and tossed and stretched in agony, all with the suspension of disbelief necessary to enjoy a play or film. They don't care that the wrestlers are friends beyond the mat, or that the bouts are predetermined, or that they take incredible care not to injure themselves through the myriad bumps and tumbles they take on a daily basis: it's all about the theatre, the drama, the excitement.

The smarts, on the other hand, are "in" on it. Their enjoyment comes from an appreciation of the craft: the technique and finesse of a bout, the skill of a villain riling up the crowd, the organization and execution of a feud. They aren't getting caught up in the storyline or theatrics, they care little for the pomp and circumstance. It's like the difference between appreciating a painting for the subject and for the technique. Emotive and critical.

In modern times a middle-gound emerged: the smart mark, or "smark." These are the fans who enjoy both the theatrical and technical aspects of a wrestling bout: while they may criticize a match for blown spots or botched moves, they still cheer as the match reaches a fever pitch. Like many in-betweeners, they can be hated by the two opposing sides: marks hate them for challenging the suspension of disbelief and being overly-critical, while smarts consider them pretentious know-it-alls who think they know more than they do. Many wrestlers, especially those of an old school mindset, despise smarks, while younger generations are more accommodating.

Robert E. Howard, indeed any creative work, has its marks and its smarts. Howard marks are the general fans: this can be the Girls, Grog and Gore crowd who just want to escape their dull lives for a bit of adventure, avid collectors, or those who simply enjoy well-written yarns regardless if they have Conan or not. They may appreciate the fact that Howard has literary merit, and be aware of the technical and literary inspirations, but they aren't particularly invested in that aspect of Howard's work. If we're going with the wrestling analogy, you're not supposed to look at Howard's work for anything beyond the yarn on the page: just sit back and enjoy the adventure.

Howard smarts are the scholars: those who delve into the stories, poems, letters, and Howard's own life, who analyse the possible literary antecedents, influences and parallels, the technical composition of a tale, and the extenuating circumstances leading to its writing and publication. As a rule of thumb, most Howard scholars are professionally involved in the literary realms, as authors, editors, publishers, professors or otherwise, while Howard fans can obviously be from all walks of life.

So we have Howard marks as fans, and Howard smarts as scholars: what about Howard smarks? They'd be those fans who may enjoy the stories, but don't have a professional background in the literary field. Sounds like me, come to think of it (though I'm ecstatic that the relationship between Howard scholars and fans is far more friendly and productive than between smarts and marks) I think this, more than anything, has prevented me from being comfortable with the term "scholar," aside from simple lack of experience. I think I'll only start calling myself a scholar until I'm paid to write something on Howard: until then, I'm still just a fan. A fan with aspirations - nominated for Emerging Scholar, after all - but a fan nonetheless.*

Being a young man, I'm still trying to sort out my voice, my goals in life, my methods, whatnot. For a while, I was captivated by what is termed the Caustic Critic (well, if John C. Wright can use TV Tropes, I figure I may as well give in to the dark side). The Nostalgia Critic, The Spoony Experiment, Phelous & the Movies, Atop the Fourth Wall, the Cinema Snob, Brows Held High, Zero Punctuation, and Red Letter Media presented something very interesting to me.

During that time I put some serious thought into producing my own review show in that vein: I have a background in acting, some technical expertise, and a little bit of knowhow. Naturally, I first thought of Conan-related subjects. There are certainly plenty of targets to unleash my flavour of broadsides against: the 1990s Conan comics, Conan the Adventurer, Conan the Destroyer, Kull the Conqueror, the live-action series, the worst of the pastiches, all of those things which need a good evisceration. I even thought of doing it in "characters," with Good Scot talking about what I liked, and Bad Scot being somewhat less accommodating. The two would be differentiated via elaborate costumes. Bad Scot would wear a bunnet.**

As time went on, my enthusiasm died down. The internet has been inundated with the sires of Doug Walker and James Rolfe, and the legion of Angry Reviewers is only growing. Many have already taken on subjects I pondered addressing, such as Kull the Conqueror and at least one bad Conan comic. Luke Mochrie even pre-emptively "stole" my Good Scot/Bad Scot bit with Film Conscience. This was about the time I realised I was spreading myself too thin over the Encyclopedia, Conan Movie Blog, this corner of the net, and real world commitments. I started to wonder if a review series really was a good idea after all.

Mark's post made me think about these reviews, why I enjoy them, and whether it would be a good idea to follow in their footsteps. What would be gained from doing, say, a video review of the live-action Conan series that couldn't be done in text - or, for that matter, anything that Lagomorph hasn't already covered in his reviews? Is it really worth wasting more time on Kull the Conqueror when anyone with half a brain could see how terrible it is? After all, Blockbuster Buster's review of Kull the Conqueror barely dipped the surface of the many fathoms of failure, and I am most certainly not as generous towards Conan: The Island of No Return as The Last Angry Geek was. But is it really worth pointing out how the film's version of Kull betrays Howard's creation to a staggering degree when the film "homages" The Empire Strikes Back? People can kinda tell the film was bad even if you aren't a Howard fan. Misery loves company, perhaps?

Don Herron's comments and timely intervention from a true friend made me realise I'd been adrift at sea. Perhaps sometime in the future I'll reconsider, but for now, I can't afford to spread my butter over too much bread.

Not Everyone Is Wrong On The Internet

Another thing I'd been thinking about was my somewhat infamous crusading against People Who Are Wrong On The Internet. Now, I make no apologies for calling out people on faulty research, presenting opinion as fact, or perpetuating falsehoods, but at the same time, I worry a bit that I might be seen as a much more unforgiving individual than I am in real life.

Let's take Fritz Leiber: Selected Tales. Neil Gaiman provides the introduction, and Charles over at Singular Points was bothered by a certain section that could be taken as an entirely unnecessary jab at Conan, and I can see his point:

I read Sword of Sorcery, the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser comics that DC comics brought out in 1973, and finally found a copy of The Swords of Lankhmar at the age of thirteen, in the cupboard at the back of Mr. Wright's English class, its cover (I would later discover) a bad English copy of the Jeff Jones painting on the cover of the US edition; and I read it, learned what the tall barbarian and the little thief were like in Leiber's glittering, half-amused prose, and I loved it, and I was content.

I couldn't enjoy Conan the Barbarian after that. Not really. I missed the wit.

Well, on the face of it, it doesn't sound particularly complimentary, but I'm willing to give Gaiman a pass on this one. That Gaiman couldn't enjoy Conan after reading the Lankhmar tales is something that disappoints me, but crucially, Gaiman phrases it so we know that this is his opinion. Gaiman is not saying Leiber is better than Howard, or that Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser are better than Conan, as if this was him speaking from an empirical study of the authors and their works - no, he's saying he liked it more, to the point where he couldn't enjoy Conan after reading it. It's an important distinction.

I can see Gaiman's point. Having read most of his novels like American Gods, Neverwhere, Good Omens, Stardust and enough of his short stories (including his insane Narnia fan-fiction), I think it says more about Gaiman's personal taste than being a jab at Conan per se. Gaiman always struck me as one of those authors who couldn't take things seriously for long stretches: even with issues of immense profundity and seriousness, he couldn't sustain it entirely, and would frequently deflate the tension with some quirky humour. Just look at American Gods. It's kind of telling, because that "glittering, half-amused prose" is precisely what turned me off more than a few of the Lankhmar tales, until I came across the earlier stories with more of a sense of gravitas and urgency accompanying the wit. I can definitely see why he'd like the more "glittering, half-amused" tales.

Of more concern to me in the introduction is when he said Leiber produced some "stinkers," especially citing his science fiction: as would be familiar to anyone who followed the Fenner Flap, I can't understand the thinking behind including this. Why would you bring that up in your introduction that's supposed to be selling me on an author? Especially considering there are SF stories within this very collection? But really, the majority of the introduction is pretty solid, complimentary and fair. No cheap pot-shots at other authors, no decrying of the current state of fantasy.

Best of all, in addition to obviously praising Leiber, he puts Robert E. Howard on the "literary road map" of great genre writers: even if I hate the misuse of "genre," the fact that he places REH alongside Lovecraft and Campbell earns me a thumbs up:

Twentieth-century genre SF produced some recognised giants—Ray Bradbury being the obvious example—but it also produced a handful of people who never gained the recognition that should have been their due. They were caviar (but then, so was Bradbury, and he was rapidly taken out of SF and seen as a national treasure). They might have been giants, but nobody noticed them; they were too odd, too misshapen, too smart. Avram Davidson was one. R. A. Lafferty another. Fritz Leiber was never quite one of the overlooked ones, not in that way: he won many awards; he was widely and rightly seen as one of our great writers. But he was still caviar. He never crossed over into the popular consciousness: he was too baroque, perhaps; too intelligent. He is not on the roadmap that we draw that takes us from Stephen King and Ramsey Campbell back to H. P. Lovecraft in one direction, from every game of Dungeons and Dragons with a thief in it back to Robert E. Howard, in another.

He should be.

All in all, a good introduction. It's a shame Gaiman couldn't continue to enjoy Conan, but it's his loss. Not everyone gets Howard and Conan, and at least he had the good grace to say it in such terms instead of taking the easy route and just belittling the two. So the Eldritch Dark forumers don't need to worry about me tearing into Neil Gaiman for daring not to enjoy Conan. And my moratorium on talking the film means the many - so many - bad reviews of 2011's Conan have a minor reprieve.

That said, I never did get a response from the BBC...

*Of course, that could change easily: I'm planning on getting the Encyclopedia properly published, and while it isn't primarily intended for scholars (since they'd know all this stuff already), it should still work as a scholarly resource. And there's also the prospect of writing for Howard journals like Two-Gun Raconteur.
**I don't think I'd do stories or skits, though: if I wanted to act, I'd act. Not that I begrudge the various reviewers their fun, I just don't think it would be the sort of thing I'd do. My "style" would be more akin to SFDebris: observation, analysis and critique over comedy, narrative and exaggerated criticism. With the occasional Transformers joke.

Hyborian Musings: Aquiromian Holiday, Part Two

2012-01-09T22:06:00.001Z

"My antipathy for Rome is one of those things I can't explain myself. Certainly it isn't based on any early reading, because some of that consisted of MacCauley's Lays of Ancient Rome from which flag-waving lines I should have drawn some Roman patriotism, it seems. At an early age I memorized most of those verses, but in reciting, changed them to suit myself and substituted Celtic names for the Roman ones, and changed the settings from Italy to the British Isles! Always, when I've dreamed of Rome, or subconsciously thought of the empire, it has seemed to me like a symbol of slavery -- an iron spider, spreading webs of steel all over the world to choke the rivers with dams, fell the forests, strangle the plains with white roads and drive the free people into cage-like houses and towns."
- Robert E. Howard, letter to HP Lovecraft, ca. February, 1931

Ancient Romans in Feudal Japan? What is this, The Twilight Zone?

An analysis of Conan's armour in "The Phoenix on the Sword," with its references to plumed casques and moveable visors, should indicate that at least Conan's armour would be more Medieval in tone than Classical. That said, arguments could be made that it isn't enough: the ambiguity of "casque" as a phrase and the presence of Roman helms with masks that functioned similarly to moveable visors offer possibilities. However, when taken in conjunction with other clues in the tale, the support for a Romanesque interpretation starts to lose ground.

Nonetheless, it has to be acknowledged that there are Roman or Romanesque elements in the Conan stories.
"The Phoenix on the Sword" is unusual in that, of all the Aquilonian stories, it contains the most Classical elements. "The Scarlet Citadel," "The Hour of the Dragon" the borderline "Beyond the Black River" and "Wolves Beyond the Border" have practically none outside names. This post will explore and analyse those elements which could be tied to Ancient Rome.

Roman Elements

An Age Undreamed Of

“Know, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars – Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.”

That first paragraph has a lot of classical references in it, and especially a Roman one. We'll look at each in turn.

Nemedia = IRISH. Nemedia is obviously from the Nemedians of Irish Mythology, and so the name can't be considered any more classical than King Arthur.

Ophir = HEBREW. Ophir was famously mentioned in the Bible, as one of the many trade links of King Solomon's court, and likely where Howard got the name (Howard being a fan of Solomon).

Brythunia = WELSH. The most obvious etymological connection is Brython, as supported by "The Hyborian Age" essay. There's a very remote possibility of Bithynia, a Thracian kingdom of Anatolia which became a Roman province, but it should be considered strictly secondary.

Hyperborea = GREEK. The Greek mythological Hyperborea is one of the more clear-cut cases of etymological derivation.

Zamora = SPANISH. Zamora is likely from the Spanish city and province of the same name which came to prominence in the Middle Ages, particularly its role in the story of El Cid. There are a number of successive Zamoras dating to Spanish colonization dotted around Mexico, Venezuela, Ecuador and the United States.

Zingara = ITALIAN. Zingara is the name for a gypsy woman, most famously evoced in the opera and song titled "La Zingara" by Donizetti and Verdi respectively.

Koth = UNKNOWN. De Camp mentioned the city of Koth in Gujarat, India in "Hyborian Names," but it seems unlikely. There is also an ancient town with the name in Ballia, Uttar Pradesh, which seems similarly improbable as an inspiration. It's possible this is a tribute to H.P. Lovecraft's Koth, or simply a completely made up word with no link to history. Whatever the case may be, it isn't Latin.

Shem = HEBREW. Named for one of the Sons of Noah, naturally.

Stygia = GREEK. Obviously deriving from Stygian, an adjective used in reference to the River Styx of Greek Mythology.

Hyrkania = GREEK. Hyrcania was an ancient kingdom of the Caspian Sea region - indeed, the Caspian was known to the Greeks as the Hyrcanian Sea - and the name was derived from the Old Persian Verkâna, "Wolf-land." The kingdom became a satrapy of the many Persian Empires of the classical period, and it was one of the few lands which was never fully conquered by the mighty Islamic Caliphate; nonetheless, it split into smaller realms following the fall of the Sassanid Empire. Thus, while Hyrcania may be of Greek derivation, it is strongly tied to Late Antiquity before falling in the Dark Ages.

Aquilonia = LATIN. Naturally the Italian town of Aquilonia, itself named for Aquilo or Aquilon, the Roman's name for Boreas, the personification of the North Wind.

Cimmerian = LATINIZED GREEK. The name for the Cimmerians naturally stems from the Cimmerians of Greek Mythology, and later the historical Cimmerians of the Crimean.

So of the names in the first paragraph, we have one Irish (Nemedia), two Hebrew (Ophir and Shem), one Welsh (Brythunia), one Spanish (Zamora), one Italian (Zingara), one unknown (Koth), four Greek (Hyperborea, Stygia, Hyrkania and Cimmerian), and one Latin (Aquilonia). Altogether, there are five definitely classical names in that first paragraph, and two Hebrew which could be tied due to the Biblical connection. On the face of it, that could be used as proof that Aquilonia is Roman in name as a method of distinction from the other kingdoms. The other names will be discussed in Part 3.

Kingdoms and Empire

"Working through them, and through other agents, many of whom have never seen my face, I have honeycombed the empire with sedition and unrest."

“Your destiny is one with Aquilonia. Gigantic happenings are forming in the web and the womb of Fate, and a blood-mad sorcerer shall not stand in the path of imperial destiny.”

Aside from "The Hyborian Age" and its description of the later Hyborian Age, these are the only descriptions of Aquilonia as an empire in all the Conan stories. Certainly one of the first things that comes to mind when connected with the word "Empire" is the Roman Empire, and when faced with very classical-sounding names in the first paragraph like, one could get the definite impression that this is set in a classical-tinted age.

At the same time, though, one must remember that there were plenty of other empires in history: preceding Rome there were the many Mesopotamian and Greek empires, and succeeding it the various Germanic ones. Asking someone the first empire that comes to mind, and you may get the British, Ottoman or Persian Empires as much as Rome. Medieval Empires will be discussed in Part 3.

Names

Over the course of the stories, we encounter Aquilonians with distinctly Latin names, most notably Soractus of "Beyond the Black River," Tiberio, Publius, Servius Gallanus, Valerius and Zelata of The Hour of the Dragon, and Valeria of "Red Nails". However, this is not inclusive, as some names are Greek, such as Epe(i)us of the Tombalku typescripts, Thespius and Tiberias of The Hour of the Dragon. Others are Greco-Latin adoptions of Gallic, Germanic or Indo-European, such as Albiona and Amalric of The Hour of the Dragon. Some I can't even tell: Arpello, Attelius, Valannus, and Vilerus all *sound* vaguely Greco-Latin, or at least Indo-European. There are Latin-inspired place names too, such as Pellia, Amilius, and Aquilonia itself, and others like Shamar and Tanasul that aren't.

An Age of Conan player hanging out with Pallantides. At least this version doesn't have a buzzcut...

So, what of "The Phoenix on the Sword"? Here are the Aquilonian names that appear:

Ascalante = POSSIBLY SPANISH. A holdover from "By This Axe, I Rule!" and so could technically be a Valusian as well as Aquilonian name. Etymology is uncertain, but I believe the Spanish Escalante is a strong possibility. Father Silvestre Vélez de Escalante was an 18th Century Fransiscan monk who explored much of what would become the southwestern United States: his name is taken by several places in the region, including a river, desert, city and monument in Utah.

Dion = GREEK. Kaanuub in "By This Axe, I Rule!" Dion has a solid precedence in Greek culture: it is the name of a mythical Laconian king, a Syracusian tyrant of the 4th century BC, and a prominent city and shrine to Zeus in Greece. Notably for the purposes of this post, Dion of Naples was a Roman astronomer mentioned by Augustine of Hippo in De Civitate Dei contra Paganos (Concerning the City of God and the Pagans).

Epemitreus = GREEK. Likely from Epimetheus, the mythological brother of the more famous Prometheus, and husband to the also-more-famous Pandora. It's likely only the name which inspired Howard, since Epimetheus was a fool and dullard compared to his wily and intelligent brother.

Mitra = PROTO-INDO-IRANIAN. Obviously, much has been written in regards to a Mitra-Mithras connection, and on the face of it, it seems to make more sense to connect the Roman Mithras to Aquilonia than the Indo-Iranian Mitra, on account of the Western European connection. A discussion of Mitra deserves much more scrutiny and depth than within the bounds of this post, but suffice to say I believe Howard's Mitra was more complex than an analogue of either the Indo-Iranian Mitra or Roman Mithras. That said, I think the former is certainly the inspiration for the name, given Mitra's mention in Jack London's The Star-Rover, which we know Howard read and reread.

Numedides = GREEK. The first of a few Hyborian portmanteaus, Numedides (Namedides in later stories) could be a conflation of Greek Numa or Numed, and the Greek gentile suffix -ides. Thus, Numedides could mean "son of Numa/Numed."

Pallantides = GREEK. One of the more straightforward ones, as Pallantides was the name given to the fifty children of Pallas in Greek Mythology.

Publius = ROMAN. One of the few truly Roman names, and so common that listing the number of historical individuals bearing the name would be prohibitive.

Rinaldo = ITALIAN. Ridondo in "By This Axe, I Rule!" Rinaldo is a proper Italian name, a cognate of Reynold and Ronald, which gained prominence in the late Medieval/Early Modern period: Rinaldo Conti, who later became Pope Alexander IV; Giovanni Rinaldo, a Venetian economist and antiquarian. One particularly interesting possible allusion is in the cousin of the titular character of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, which translates as The Frenzy of Orlando, or more literally, Mad Orlando. Hmm.

Volmana = POSSIBLY ITALIAN. Another carry-over. It's difficult to discern a possible etymology for Volmana since Howard tended to use much more fantastical names for the Kull tales (Kaanuub, Rotath, Kelka, Murom bora Ballin, Ronaro atl Volante), but Italian Vomano seems a possibility: it's the name of a river and town in Italy, and most interestingly the site of a temple to Hercules.

So of the names of the Aquilonian characters, only one can truly be considered Roman (Publius), one has possible Roman connections (Dion), three are Greek (Epemitreus, Numedides, Pallantides) two are Italian (Rinaldo and possibly Volmana), one is possibly Spanish (Ascalante), and one is proto-Indo-European (Mitra).

However, one must consider the impact of Latin on the Romance Languages in the Middle Ages, as well as the use of Latin in general. There were Medieval Armenian, Bulgarian, Ethiopian and even Scottish kings called Constantine, for example. Albertus Magnus, Albertus Parisiensis, Andreas Vesalius, Carolus Magnus, Duns Scotus, Paracelsus, Paschasius Radbertus, Petrus Abaelardus, Rabanus Maurus Magnentius, Remigius of Auxerre, and Saxo Grammaticus all have Latin names, but none were Ancient Romans.

Imperial Troops

"Days ago I saw the imperial squadrons ride from the city..."

"And Volmana made it possible to dispose of the rest of the imperial troops which remained in the city..."

"...he'll be accompanied by an imperial escort, as well as his own troops..."

"Your only danger is assassination, and that's impossible, with men of the imperial troops guarding you day and night."

These references to "imperial" squadrons, escorts and troops are quite intriguing to me, as they obviously indicate some sort of Imperial slant to Aquilonia, many years before the events of "The Hyborian Age". Both Thoth-Amon and Prospero use the term "imperial" in relation to soldiers, so one can't put it down to one character's personal quirk. This sits somewhat ill-at-ease with Conan's later dismissal of Trocero's plea for empire-building in "The Hour of the Dragon." So if Conan isn't interested in forging an empire, why the Imperial Soldiers?

The most obvious answer to me is that this is a relic of Namedides. This is the first story to feature Conan as King, and also the earliest chronologically, meaning that he hasn't quite made his mark yet. As such, it's likely to me that the imperial soldiers referred to are a result of Namedides' political ambitions. We have an idea of how rough Aquilonia was in the War of the Barons, but we don't seem to know what other countries felt about it. What if one of the reasons for the War of the Barons was a result of attempted conquest of other nations? A costly, failed invasion of Nemedia, Zingara, Ophir or barbarian lands could have ignited the internal conflict. It could also offer an interesting new light on Koth and Ophir's betrayal in "Citadel": perhaps Ophir's nobles felt justified in betraying Aquilonia if they themselves were treated poorly by Aquilonia. Perhaps the chaos Zingara's in in HotD is also a result of Namedides' imperial ambitions. Indeed, Numa of Nemedia seemed quite amicable with Conan: could it be because of his less cordial relationship with Namedides, so sour that he'd prefer a red-handed barbarian as a fellow statesman?

Whatever it is, Imperial soldiers, squadrons and troops are not referred to in either of the other King Conan tales: this suggests that they no longer exist, as artefacts of Aquilonia's aggressive and imperialist nature before Conan came in to shake things up. Exactly what these Imperial Troops were is unclear, but I think it's just a reference to their status than any particular difference in organization, equipment or nature: they're likely composed of the same tough individuals like Valannus and Tiberias, just under a different name.

The Black Legion

On the face of it, the Black Legion sounds like an obvious reference to the Roman legion. The word derives from the latin legio, "military conscription," and was originally used in reference to the legionary cohorts, originally conscripted from Roman citizenry. There is no description of the black legion's makeup, composition or appearance, save what can be gleaned from its commander, Gromel. The fact that Gromel is a Bossonian suggests that individuals from allied or subject provinces like Bossonia, Gunderland and Poitain can be admitted along with genuine Aquilonians: later Roman legions did the same in the expansion of the Empire. Then again, there are historical legions - most notably, ones that are named or nicknames "black legions" - from the Middle Ages and Early Modern times, which will be discussed in Part 3.

Cestus

Considering how often Conan has been depicted as a gladiator, it's surprising that the single closest reference to the classic Roman bloodsport is in a vague reference to the cestus:

He flung aside the dagger-wielder with his left arm, and smashed his broken hilt like a cestus into the swordsman’s temple.

Howard is speaking using the narrative voice here: it's entirely possible that cestuses don't even exist in the Hyborian Age - at least not in the way we normally think of them.

Temples and Mitra

“They have put a statue of that swine in the temple of Mitra...”

“Now in Mitra’s temple there come to burn incense to Numedides’ memory...”

It was the high-priest of Mitra who cried out, and his countenance was ashen...

“It is one of the Mysteries, on which Mitra’s cult stands.”

Age of Conan artist's conception of the Temple of Mitra at Tarantia

The Middle Ages are understandably inextricable from Christianity in many ways, so it can be somewhat jarring to encounter a Medieval setting with "high-priests," "temples," "mysteries" and "cults." A discussion of Mitra and his cult is too broad to be fully encapsulated here, but for now I'll discuss these elements briefly.

Temples are naturally strongly tied to Roman religion, though obviously they have a far greater history in the pre- and post-Christian era. The practise of burning incense to the memory of the dead is truly ancient: the Sumerians, Babylonians and Egyptians burned incense - in particularly, the Babylonian practise of incense burning to divine oracles was carried over to the Greeks and Romans. High priests are a role found in many ancient religions, most notably Ancient Egyptian, Judaism and Zoroastrianism: roles analogous to high priest in Classical religion include the heirophant of Greece and the Pontifex Maximus of Rome. The mysteries of Mitra are perhaps the most Romanesque elements of the religion, if compared to the Greco-Roman mysteries. The strongest correlation is that mysteries are exactly that: the rites, initiation, members, even knowledge of its existence, are kept secret from the world. The high-priest's desire to keep the return of Epemitreus secret may support this. "Cult" is another possible Roman link: the Empire, like the Greeks, had a plethora of cults dedicated to historical heroes as their religion.

But Wait...

Man of the elements discussed above are not unique to Ancient Rome, or even the ancient world. Next time, we'll look at the more Medieval elements of "The Phoenix on the Sword," many of which are connected to some of the supposedly Romanesque features mentioned above: names, empires, temples and so forth. In addition, there are possible Early Modern links in the Black Legion and Black Dragons.

If these were the only clues in "The Phoenix on the Sword," one could see how the Aquiromian interpretation came about. If they were the only clues...

A Century and a Score

2012-01-03T17:31:00.001Z

James over at Grognardia already took the obvious path for a title (damn, wish I thought of that) but I figure Tolkien's twelvetieth birthday was a good time to post some musings I had over Middle-earth. I posted this on another forum, but I figure I'd share it here too, after having made some revisions.

A common complaint I've heard made about Middle-earth, and fantasy settings in general, is stagnation. They claim that there simply isn't enough progress: not enough scientific investigation, no new technological innovations, not even major social upheavals, like you see in "real" history. I never had a problem with Middle-earth's technological progression, personally. It's extremely difficult to progress when, every few millenia (or even centuries), your entire world is torn to pieces in nothing less than cataclysmic events, where countless lives are lost and the very geography of a continent is altered.

Let's look at the First Age, for instance, from the Awakening of the Elves to the War of Wrath. Now, Middle-earth timelines can be problematic due to the nature of the world's creation, not to mention Tolkien changing his mind on the length of a Valian year. The best resource I can find for this is the redoubtable Encyclopedia of Arda, which gives us 4,902 (450 Valian years and 590 Solar years), which supports Tolkien's assertion of the First Age lasting the longest. Including the Years of the Trees complicates matters, as the EA calculates a further 14,325 years. Nonetheless, we can fairly easily say that the development of Elven technology from their awakening during the Years of the Trees (assuming that can be analogous to the dawn of civilization in our world) to the War of Wrath was pretty decent.

At the Elves' finest hour, they could construct gargantuan hidden citadels, forge synthetic jewels superior to natural gems, and flying battleships made of metal and glass. Early drafts of "The Fall of Gondolin" feature Morgoth's forces fielding armoured personnel carriers shaped like dragons. That's under 20,000 years after the equivalent of the Stone Age. However, the end of the First Age halted all that through the sinking of Beleriand. Entire stretches of the north and west continent sank beneath the waves. Everything north and west of Eriador went under. That's a disaster unseen in modern times, like the entirety of Europe sinking. So with such a catastrophic event, it's easy to see civilization was held back a little bit.

I'm not entirely satisfied with either map, but you get the idea.

So we can imagine the beginning of the Second Age to be pretty solidly post-apocalyptic. You have the surviving Edain going west to start afresh in Numenor, the few elves who stayed after the mass exodus to Tol Eressëa founding new settlements, and the Dwarves leaving their destroyed kingdoms to establish Khazad-Dum. The knowledge to craft flying ships and dragon machines was lost. It took Numenor 600 years to travel back to Middle-earth, and another 300 to establish new colonies. Fast forward another thousand years, and Numenor has become the mightiest nation in Middle-earth, with pretty impressive technology: in addition to steel longbows, nigh-impregnable masonry and incomparable armour, an enigmatic mention of "darts" like "thunder" which "pass over leagues unerring" conjures visions of advanced artillery, or even self-propelled rockets. That's when Sauron strikes back. He pretty much devastates half of Middle-earth in his war against the Elves, destroying several kingdoms and running roughshod over Eriador, in constant battling that lasts centuries. A good 1,500 years later, and at its arguable height of power, Numenor sinks under the waves, Aman and Tol Eressëa are "removed" from the world, and the world is made round. Which, again, caused massive geological upheaval.

Like the Second Age, the Third Age starts out post-apocalyptic, only to a far more significant degree. The Elves are a dying breed, restricted to isolated communities deep in the forests; the Dwarves are ever retreating into their mountain homes; Men have been tearing each other apart in warfare. Initially the remnants of Numenor do alright, founding the new kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor: the latter kingdom breaks up into three smaller realms a scant 800 years after its foundation, those realms themselves being destroyed when the Witch-King returns 500 years later. Gondor is being invaded by Easterlings and Corsairs, devastating the population. More disasters - great plagues, invasions, disasters, wars - follow. The period known as "the watchful peace" - one of the only periods of peace Middle-earth has enjoyed - starts 2000 years into the Third Age. It lasts 400 years.

Thus, the First Age: 4902 years. The Second Age: 3441 years. The Third Age: 3021 years. So, using the estimates above, around 11,364 years have elapsed since the Age of the Sun by the time of The Lord of the Rings. Let's assume that the rising of the sun is the rough analogue to the beginning of civilization. The earliest walled city yet known is Jericho, which has walls dating back to 6,800 BC. Byblos was founded around 5,000 BC, Sidon 4,000 BC. The spear has been the killing implement of choice in some form for 400,000 years, while recognizable bows have been around since 8,000 BC - though there's possible evidence of arrowheads from tens of thousands of years earlier. Taking into account the sheer amount of disasters which befell Arda and sent civilization back to the drawing board, combined with the obvious longevity of low tech, I don't think it's at all unreasonable for Middle-earth to still be using bows and arrows, especially considering the role of magic and long-lived Elves and Dwarves.

If I've made a particularly gratuitous error in my dating, I apologise: anyone more well-versed in Tolkien chronologies feel free to point out how badly I've snafud.

The First Scholar Passes

2012-01-01T06:31:00.001Z

Paul Herman has announced that Glenn Lord has died.

Glenn Lord, the World's #1 Howard Fan and Mentor to so many of us, passed away on December 31, 2011.

That's all the details that are available at this moment (11:30 pm in Northwest Indiana).

When more information comes forth it will certainly be posted everywhere.

Rest in Peace, Glenn, our Great and Gracious Friend.

Glenn Lord was the most important figure in the legacy of Robert E. Howard. He provided the source text for almost every surviving manuscript used today. He amassed the largest collection of Howard documents over his life. He ensured Howard was published in scores upon scores of volumes and collections. He battled to promote Howard as more than just the spinner of ripping yarns, that he was a true genius whose work had Real Literary Merit. We Howard fans owe him everything. The Howard Boom of the '70s, Howard Days, the unexpurgiated texts, the wide Conan franchise - Glenn Lord had a hand in everything.

No doubt others will provide more detailed and eloquent tributes, but I feel profoundly saddened that I will never meet him. I shall have to suffice by drinking to his shade.

It's a New Year...

2012-01-01T03:45:00.000Z

My New Year's Resolution is to contain and stifle the great dragon which has been smothering my creativity: Procrastinatrax pejorative. A lot of the time, I'd be working on something, and just never post it: "it just needs more polishing, more work, more tinkering and tweaking." But no amount of tinkering or tweaking ever fully satisfied me. It's a wonder I post anything at all.

I recently put up a post on the Aquiromians. Originally it was much longer, before I decided to split it into parts. I started working on it in April. April 2010. I had a big post on my thoughts on the upcoming Hobbit film's dwarves. I still have tons of reviews of comics, books and the like that I just wasn't happy posting. Well, no more.

And, of course, there's the Encyclopedia. I've amassed tons and tons of notes over the years, but I keep second-guessing myself, so much of the EH as it is now is written from scratch. The temptation was to just take posts I'd made on the REH Forums, The Cimmerian, Hyborian Age Gazetteers, even Conan: Total War previews, and make them fit. That was the original plan. But every so often, I came across some little detail that I had reconsidered. It might've been a pastiche element that slipped through the cracks (Shamar being a pre-Cataclysmic city was one), or a new take (my view of Corinthia had changed dramatically), or even just some weird thing that didn't work out. So I eventually stopped, and decided to just go back to the stories.

But that's been problematic too. The way my mind works, I take time to remember. I can't just draw it forth like CTRL-F on a file: I have to delve through filing cabinets. So this has slowed things down too. But, again, I'm reconsidering my approach.

Hopefully I'll have at least one post a week up, either Encyclopaedia related, or one of those reviews I haven't finished. In any case, Happy Hogmanay, one and all!

Hyborian Musings: Aquiromian Holiday, Part One

2011-12-31T16:02:00.001Z

"When I dream of Rome, I am always pitted against her, hating her with a ferocity that in my younger days persisted in my waking hours, so that I still remember, with some wonder, the savage pleasure with which I read, at the age of nine, the destruction of Rome by the Germanic barbarians. At the same time, reading of the conquest of Britain by those same races filled me with resentment. Somehow, I have never been able to conceive fully of a Latinized civilization in Britain; to me that struggle has always seemed mainly a war of British barbarians against Germanic barbarians, with my sympathies wholly with the Britons."

- Robert E. Howard, Letter to Lovecraft, ca. January 1931...

A wild Aquiromian appears!

One of my pet Hyborian peeves is the meme which dictates Aquilonia is modelled after the Roman Empire. If you've seen any representation of an Aquilonian in a visual medium, that individual is very likely to resemble a classical Roman. It's endemic in illustration, Marvel and Dark Horse comics, role playing games, video games, board games, even action figures. Aquilonian centurions, Aquilonian legionaries, Aquilonian senators, Aquilonian gladiators... All over the place. When King Conan is illustrated, he's often clad in highly Romanesque attire, be it - again - in books, comics, games, action figures, even films. The implication of Conan wearing Roman attire as king, then, supports the Aquilonia=Roman theme.

The problem is twofold: first, the Aquilonians are not described like Ancient Romans, and second, Robert E. Howard absolutely despised the Romans.

So why is this so prevalent, and why is it such a problem?

A Brief (And By No Means Exhaustive) History of the Aquiromian

It all started back in 1932, with Weird Tales' publication of "The Phoenix on the Sword." J.M. Wilcox provided interior illustrations, and can claim the distinction of being the first person to render Conan in visual media. This, then, is how the world first beheld King Conan (edited from an image provided by Jeff Shanks):

Conan and the Legend of the Dog-Faced Demon

It's almost fitting that the great preoccupation with classical elements in Hyborian Age illustration started from the very beginning. Now, while some details are a bit difficult to discern due to the scan and the state of the print after 80 years, I think it's quite clear that Conan's wearing pteruges, and what is either a tunic with a muscled cuirass, or a very short kilt. Pteruges are the thin decorative strips of leather associated with the Roman military, as seen in dozens of etchings and statues of the likes of Caesar. Now, it's possible that Conan isn't wearing a muscled cuirass, but the straps on his chest are just straps, and that we're seeing his muscles: overall, however, I think the illustration makes more sense if we assume it is indeed a muscled cuirass. Pteruges, skirts and muscled cuirasses are going to be elements we see Conan wearing an awful lot over the years.

It seems that successive illustrators have either taken cues directly from Wilcox, or came to the same conclusions: Gnome's Conan the Conqueror and Conan the Barbarian depict our Cimmerian in decidedly Romanesque armour, while the collection of Historical-to-Hyborian conversions Tales of Conan follows suite with a very Roman tunic. The first published work of fan-fiction, The Return of Conan, doesn't have Conan in armour - instead going for one of the earliest sightings of the dreaded fur nappy - but the soldiers he faces are certainly clad in familiar togs. Having spared myself from The Return of Conan, I don't know if those chaps are in fact meant to be Aquilonians, but it certainly seems in keeping with design conventions already established in the Gnome series.

It wasn't just Gnome perpetuating the Aquiromian convention: Ace's Conan the Conqueror/The Sword of Rhiannon double-pack has Conan rescuing Albiona in centurionesque garb,* while T.V. Boardman's Conan the Conqueror gives us quite possibly the limpest, blandest interpretation of Conan I've ever seen.** It makes Brundage's Conan look like Darral Greene's.

Now that I've found you, hear what I have to saaaaay...

By the time Frazetta, Marvel and the films came around, the Aquiromian paradigm was firmly established, and it persists to this day with Dark Horse, Funcom, McFarlane and others. It all reached a head in Conan the Savage, Marvel's last-ditch attempt to revitalize the character, where they seem to have just given up any pretense that Aquilonia is anything other than Rome: it features the character Lucius Vindictus, "First Centurion of the Ninth." His father was Decurion of the Ninth. Aquilonia has conquered all the way to Vanaheim, having established a fort there manned by the "Fourth Cohort." And, of course, everyone is clad in the lorica, sports the gallic helm, wields the gladius and scutum, and pteruges everywhere:

Also Conan kills a woman with a bow without so much as a twinge of reluctance, and apparently had his entire tribe wiped out AGAIN, but it's clear Dixon and company have different priorities than fidelity to Robert E. Howard...

The next issue would feature Conan in gladiatorial combat, in a tale that seems to be some weird commentary on professional wrestling. Conan fights what are clearly Murmillos, he wears what is clearly lorica segmentata, and Shamar apparently has a Coliseum. (Also, I'm pretty sure Lady Antiva was the visual inspiration for Marique, but I'm not talking about that movie). The fourth issue has Conan as Sire (not king) of the Aquilonian Empire... And it goes on like this. If you think that was shameless, then you haven't read the script for King Conan: Crown of Iron. Not only do we have legions, centurions, gladiators and the like, but an emperor, a consul, a pontifex, the Laurel wreath, senators, legates, tribunes, lictors, fasces, even a carnifex. A carnifex!***

It really does seem to be one of those situations where one artistic interpretation dominates all successive ones: like Wood's fur nappy and Frazetta's jewelry were adopted for the comics and films, Wilcox's Aquiromian has worked as visual shorthand for Conan despite being either absent or outright contradictory to Howard's original descriptions. A similar situation occurred with Sidney Paget's illustrations of Sherlock Holmes practically defining the look of the character for a century. Also, when's the last time you saw a dark-haired Heidi, or a blond Lucy Pevensie?

It would be unfair to compare Wilcox's illustration with what we know from later stories, so let's just go with the evidence from "The Phoenix on the Sword" itself. Here's a description of Conan's armour in the story:

True; there had been lack of time to don the heavy plumed casque, or to lace in place the side-plates of the cuirass, nor was there now time to snatch the great shield from the wall. Still, Conan was better protected than any of his foes except Volmana and Gromel, who were in full armor... In the interim one of his comrades lifted a broadsword with both hands and hewed through the king’s left shoulder-plate, wounding the shoulder beneath.

And for comparison, descriptions of the conspirators' armour:

The king glared, puzzled as to their identity. Ascalante he did not know; he could not see through the closed vizors of the armored conspirators, and Rinaldo had pulled his slouch cap down above his eyes... Blade and casque shivered together and Gromel rolled lifeless on the floor. Conan bounded back, still gripping the broken hilt. “Gromel!” he spat, his eyes blazing in amazement, as the shattered helmet disclosed the shattered head...

While side-plates for a cuirass and shoulder-plates could be considered Roman as well as Medieval, plumed casques and closeable visors are more complex. Casque is essentially the French term for "helmet," and hardly the only one: for a country which has been saddled with a woefully uninformed reputation for cowardice, a great number of components in Medieval armour are derived directly from the French. Aventail, sallet, cap-a-pie, gorget, brigandine, coif, cuirass, even the word armour itself.

As for visors, there are examples of Imperial-era Roman helmets such as the Crosby Garrett, Nijmegen, and Newstead helmets (all dating to the 1st to 3rd century, the rough time period of Bran Mak Morn, amusingly enough) which feature an elaborate mask on a hinge. However, if Howard was intending to evoke that particular style of helmet, then I cannot believe he would not mention the powerful visual of youthful metal faces in his prose. It's the sort of thing that's just too evocative to ignore, if Howard intended it.

Overall, the presence of casque alone should give the indication of a Medieval-style helm, and by extention, Medieval-style armour. But, as we shall see, there's a lot more than that...

*Naturally a complete divergence from the text, as Conan was in disguise as the executioner, but I guess Conan clad in grim black silk wasn't "cool" enough or something.
**And even more egregiously, since this is Conan during his captivity in the Pits of Belverus. Maybe putting Conan in nowt but a loincloth would be too racy for 1950s sensibilities or something - in which case, why not illustrate a different scene?
***No, not that kind, this kind. I wish it was that kind.)

Another classic ruined by Al

2011-12-25T00:27:00.002Z

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro' the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of sugar plums danc'd in their heads,

And Mama in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,

Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap —

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash,

Tore open the shutters, and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow,

Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below;

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,

But a steel battlesleigh, and eight giant reindeer,

Whose great grizzled driver stretched his neck with a crick,

I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,

And he whistled, and shouted, and call'd them by name:

"Now! Thrasher, now! Crasher, now! Cancer and Hakon,

"On! Plummet, on! Cesspit, on! Thunder and Blacken;

"To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall!

"Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"

As dry leaves before the wild hurricane fly,

When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;

So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,

With the sleigh full of death — and St. Nicholas too:

And then in a twinkling, I heard on the roof

The thunder and rumbling of each monstrous hoof.

As I drew in my head, and was turning around,

Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound:

He was dress'd all in fur, from his head to his foot,

And his clothes were all tarnish'd with ashes and soot;

A bundle of blades was flung on his back,

Axes and crossbows and swords in his sack:

His eyes burned with balefire, his teeth gleamed like ice,

His thews wrought of iron, his bones hewn from gneiss;

His great savage grin was taut, tight as a bow,

And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,

And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.

He had a grim face, and a great barrel chest

That shook when he laugh'd at some grim pagan jest:

He was massive and strong, a vision from Hell,

And I scream'd when I saw him in spite of myself;

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head

Soon gave me to know I had reason to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

And fill'd all the stockings; then turn'd with a jerk,

And clutching me by the crook of the throat,

He leapt up the chimney like a great mountain goat.

He sprung to his sleigh, and shot into the sky,

And dropped me to earth, to scream ere I die:

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight —

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

(With profuse apologies to Clement Clark Moore. I was compelled to put something up for Christmas, so here's another classic ruined by shameless editing. As ever, I wish all my readers and Howard fans a marvellous Mitramas, a super Set Sacrificial Festival, a solemn, cheerless Cromhain, and of course, a merry Christmas!)

I truly wish I could enjoy this...

2011-12-21T17:12:00.000Z

See, I loved The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring when it came out. I was just so blown away to see an adaptation that actually stuck to the books to a degree most supposed adaptations dismiss as "unnecessary," "unfilmable" or otherwise "undesireable," that I ranted and raved about it for ages. Then The Two Towers came out, and I started to pick at the threads. I started to become bothered by the changes. By the time of The Return of the King, most of my enthusiasm for the franchise was replaced with a nagging preoccupation with a little voice saying "no, this isn't the best possible adaptation of The Lord of the Rings we could hope for." Best we could get given Hollywood's boundless stupidity and soulless money-oriented goals? Perhaps. Best we could hope for, though?

So the trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Two Parter hit the 'net, and the Tolkien fandom rejoiced. And why not? Everything I saw in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy was plain in evidence, in all the good and bad it entails. Lots of gorgeous scenery, astounding attention to detail in the costuming, props and sets, sweeping catchy orchestral score, the occasional direct quote from Tolkien that gets me grinning madly, tempered by maudlin melodrama like Galadriel brushing away Gandalf's hair, lots of cod-Bergman staring-into-the-middle-distance, and needless tie-ins to the previous films.

I just feel like such a Grinch, you know? So many people are looking forward to this, and I'm almost positive that those people are not going to be disappointed. Everything from the Jackson trilogy is probably going to be in this, and while everyone dismisses the stupid alterations and redundant additions as "necessary to the process of adaptation" while they enjoy themselves, I'm just going to be stuck in a huff. There are few upcoming films I wish I could be excited about. I wish I could watch a trailer for The freaking Hobbit and feel the same convulsions of joy I did on seeing, say, the trailer for Jurassic Park. But I can't.

To be frank, I'm feeling something of a malaise. I haven't seen a single trailer that engenders any degree of enthusiasm or excitement in me for any upcoming film, be it anticipated blockbusters like The Avengers or The Dark Knight Rises, appeals to my Scottish sensibilities like Brave, or pleasant surprises like The Wicker Tree. Even the initial "that doesn't actually look that bad" optimism from John Carter and Wrath of the Titans (I'm surprised as you are) is dampened by cynicism. Have I truly become a cynical old grump at last? Did Conan the Barbarian break something in my brain, shorting the Optimism fuse for ever? Or will the anticipated Prometheus trailer restore some sense of excitement?

Oh well.

Hyborian Musings: Mappa Mundi

2011-12-15T17:13:00.003Z

A quickly-rendered composite utilizing the two maps included in Del Rey's Conan collections

The subject of maps for the Encyclopaedia. On the one hand, I'd really like to have a big grand map of the Hyborian Age just to show the breadth and depth of Howard's creation, based upon the best suggestions, ideas and hypotheses. On the other, it seems contradictory to try to separate pastiche from Howard, only to introduce my own theories in the process, muddying the waters.

From a strict "REH-only, nowt but" perspective, the only satisfying answer would be to just use Howard's own maps. The problem is... well, they aren't very detailed, or photogenic. They weren't intended to be either. Howard's maps were his own sketches, drawn in his own time, so he could get a feel for the Hyborian Kingdoms' geopolitical structure while writing the stories. In this, they obviously succeeded - but they weren't intended for publication by Howard himself, since they're just a series of lines overlaid on a map of Europe. Many landmarks, cities, rivers, mountains, and other features are missing, and a good portion of the landmass is left off in the south and east.

Part of me wants to honour Howard's desire to keep the Black Kingdoms and the Blue East vague, mysterious and unknown to the reader. However, another part feels that any future pasticheurs may feel that the lack of a map, even a speculative one, of any given area gives them carte blanche to do whatever they like. So in leaving out any depictions of Vendhya, Hyrkania, Zembabwei, Khemu and beyond, a future comic or book author might get the impression "well, that means I can just stick in a super-advanced kingdom the size of Aquilonia ruled by dragonfly-riding people in the middle of the Black Kingdoms - after all, there's nothing to say there couldn't be such a place, right?"

Thus the dilemma.

I think the best solution is to do both: provide a map based only on Howard's documents, and an expanded map based on current theories - and make sure it's delineated as such. The map based on REH's map is described as being based on REH's map, and thus set in stone, as it were. The map based on various theories, such as the outstanding work by Dale Rippke in the Blue East and Black Kingdoms, however, has a bit of leeway, within reason, and is defined as theoretical. I might have fun with the literary agent hypothesis here.

Projections

Scotty Henderson seems to have nailed down the exact projection of Howard's map of the Hyborian Age down to the precise picture which Howard traced over:

Halfdane of the REH Forums went an extra step, and actually traced the Hyborian outline on a globe. The results were very interesting:

It leads me to wonder what the Hyborian Age would look like using different projections (not to mention a Hyborian globe...) The Vilayet Sea would would veer off in a northeasterly angle, while the Pictish coast would curve northwesterly; the coast of Vanaheim would be located right in the centre of what is now Iceland, and its northern coast would graze Greenland; the general proportions of all the kingdoms would be squished about. It'd be an interesting experiment.

Variations and Details

An important thing to keep in mind is the variation between Howard's three iterations of the map. The one we're most familiar with is the classic map. However, there's a second map from 1932 with slight, but important differences:

It's still the Hyborian Age we all know and love, but subtly altered. Cimmeria now encompasses all of Scotland and northern England rather than just the eastern halves; the Pictish Wilderness has shrunken considerably; Zingara's northern boundaries are either left out, or follow the geographical boundaries of modern Spain; Argos' panhandle is now under the "Great Sea"; Ophir and Koth have shifted south by a few hundred miles; Koth no longer tapers westward, but is cut off by Argos; Turan extends farther north, which is at least consistent with its expansion. most profoundly of all, the Vilayet is twice the size. A third map is known to exist, which was drawn in 1936: this is by far the most detailed map, and the one which provides locations for several cities.*

Accounting for these changes in geography and national boundaries would be sidestepped if we assume Howard was simply changing his mind over time. Prosaic and logical, but that's just no fun. Wouldn't it be fun to imagine that, just as Howard's idea of the Conan stories and Hyborian Age evolved over time, so this could be followed in terms of Hyborian cartography? Perhaps these maps could represent the Hyborian Age at different times - Zingara and Argos' borders could be explained by the two countries' long feud, Koth's shifting mass might be a result of the nation's imperial ambitions, Southern Argos and the west coast of Pictland could have sunken under the sea in a minor cataclysm, and so on. Alternatively, they could be explained by different maps by different cartographers. I had indeed pondered the idea of the contradictions of "The Hyborian Age" essay and the published stories not being discussed as Howard altering his history, but that's for another post.

For now, it seems best just to pick the most detailed map, and use it as the basis. Still...

Another thing to keep in mind is those important elements which are not present on any of the existing maps. The cities of Tarantia, Belverus and Messentia are on at least one of Howard's maps, but not Khemi, Shadizar or Numalia; the Vilayet Sea and River Styx are present, but not the Black, Thunder, Shirki or Tybor rivers; the tundra and deserts east of the Hyborian Kingdoms are noted, but not the Poitanian mountains or Zingaran forest. We can get a pretty fair approximation of those place's locations from close reading of the text, but sometimes there are single-line references. The mountain range between Aquilonia and Nemedia is usually seen on successive Hyborian maps, but not the western mountains of Cimmeria. Should they be included in the "Hyborian Kingdoms" map, since we know they exist and their rough location, even though we don't know the precise extent? Or should they go in the wider "Hyborian World" map?

Style

After I do my allotted work for the Encyclopedia, I sometimes go for a run around Skyrim. Being as I love the Elder Scrolls games, I got a semi-special edition (not the obscene collector's edition with the massive dragon statue, I don't have money to burn) which included a lovely faux-parchment map. It's there that a possible inspiration for a Hyborian map hits me:

The beauty of this map is that the game world is clearly and strongly defined, while the neighbouring nations are a sort of ghostly borderland. This could work magnificently for a variation on Howard's map: the Hyborian Nations and surrounding barbarian lands are defined like Skyrim, while the likes of Stygia, Turan, Shem and the Eastern Desert are defined only as the hazy masses like Hammerfell, High Rock, Cyrodiil and Morrowind are in the above map. This was also used in the map of Cyrodiil in Oblivion, and the ambitious Tamriel Rebuilt mod that aims to create the entire world of The Elder Scrolls.

Another idea is using a faux-Medieval style map. We've seen something like this for Westeros:

A more wild idea - probably not going to make it in the Encyclopedia, of course, but just to illustrate some of the imaginative possibilities - is a caricature map, like Keith Thompson's Grand Map of WW1 (likely inspired by Victorian-era satirical maps by the likes of Paul Hadon):

Imagine Aquilonia as a stylized lion, Nemedia as a dragon, Stygia a coiled snake, the Pictish Wilderness a mass of skulls, snakes, sabretooths and apes, Cimmeria a screaming horde of panthers and wolves. Perhaps not as cartoonish as Thompson's idea, but done in a more Medievalist style. A fun idea, if nothing else.

Even so, there's something to be said for the classy simplicity of Christopher Tolkien's map of Middle-earth:

Maybe keeping it simple is as good an approach as any. It also reminds me that cartographic elements like a compass rose and bar scale would be useful, if I do a Hyborian map without Europe superimposed. Also, a few details like a cartouche and map legend would be nice.

A First Sketch

Long-time lost souls may have noticed I have my own little version of the Hyborian Map: this is the full "Hyborian Kingdoms" version utilizing some of the things I've been mentioning above. Most of Howard's geographical features can be deduced as analogous to modern ones, which I've noted here, but I also took the liberty of adding speculative ones based on modern features (which won't be on the final map, but I put them there as an experiment of sorts):

The Blue Mountains of northern Nordheim may be the now-submerged Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the very highest peaks of which form the island of Iceland
The mountains of western Cimmeria ("The Hyborian Age") are explicitly the modern British Isles, with southeast England perhaps forming the hills of Gunderland and the Goralian Hills
The mountains of Zingara ("The Hyborian Age") may correspond to the modern Cantabrian Mountains, with the Zingg Valley becoming the Meseta Plateau
The Zamorian Mountains ("Rogues in the House") are notable in that there is no corresponding mountain range, only the Russian Central Uplands: presumably the coming of the glaciers sheared away the peaks
The border mountain range separating Aquilonia and Nemedia may be the Alps and Central uplands of Germany: again, glaciation or geological upheaval may have flattened those mountains
The hills of southern Aquilonia in the region of Shamar may be the younger versions of the western Alps
The Kothian escarpment could be composed by the many mountainous components of Italy, Greece and Turkey, as could the Kothian uplands and hills
The "Mountains of the Dead" may well be purely mythical, but it seems possible that they may refer to the great plateau which would become Ireland

I've changed my mind on a number of issues since drawing this map: for one, I think the Border Mountains are far more extensive in the north upon re-reading "The Hour of the Dragon." I also remembered that the nature of Hyborian Age cataclysms means areas which don't correspond exactly could be warped and shaped over the years. A perfect example of this could be the Kothian Escarpment: the Appenines of Italy, Pindus of Greece, Rhodopes of Bulgaria, Balkan mountains and north/west Black Sea Coast could, in Conan's time, have formed a great upland mass with an escarpment corresponding roughly to Koth's border, as in the stories. I'm probably going to make the distinction between hills and mountains more pronounced, such as the hills of Shem/Koth/Hyperborea and so forth. Don't want to be confusing.

Rivers are another matter: I've never been entirely satisfied with current maps, but I can't put my finger on why, and the lack of major bodies of water somewhat perplexed me. Perhaps it's just my Euro-centric viewpoint: most other continents don't have nearly the coastal and archipelagic variety of Europe, so it shouldn't seem at all strange to conceive the Hyborian Age as essentially a big lump of a landmass. Colour might be a good idea, to fully convey the breadth of climate within the age.

Whatever happens, I'm not going to be using any of the pre-existing maps. Much as I appreciate their artistry and aesthetics, most of them are just wrong: the Zaporoska river on the wrong side of the Vilayet, Black Kingdoms in a neat little row, bloated Aquilonia and Khitai and shrunken Nemedia and Stygia, Kosala west instead of east of Vendhya, not to mention pastichery like Drujistan, Venjipur and Pathenia. Howard provided more than enough.

*Originally I mentioned a "mysterious" third map which I had apparently never beheld with mine eyes, but I can only assume some sort of swiss-cheesery was going on in my brain, because I had in fact seen this third map tons of times - as has anyone who's bought the Del Rey edition containing it. This is absent-mindedness bordering on bad comedy. I was under the strange assumption that the two maps in the Del Reys were "1a and 1b," with the erratic second map being map 2, leaving a third/fourth unknown map. Why did I think 1a and 1b? Maybe I was getting mixed up with all the different a's and b's among Howard's drafts, or some such. Perhaps I misinterpreted Scotty's discussion of the third map to mean chronologically, rather than being draft 2. Very weird, and I'm indebted to Tex for shaking the cobwebs out of my head.

Hyborian Musings: The Conan Calendar

2011-12-08T08:07:00.001Z

I've been wrestling with dates in regards to the Encyclopedia. "Three thousand years before the time of Conan," "nine hundred years before Conan's time," and whatnot. While correct enough, it also seemed a bit clumsy and redundant. But what could replace it? Initially I was wanting to knock out a hard timeline, where every major event of the Hyborian Age was listed and put in context, like this one for the Cthulhu Mythos, or this for Tolkien's mythos. My initial thought for the reckoning was using the Cataclysm: after all, what more profound and earth-shattering event could one choose for the timeline than the one which rocked the foundations of the earth? Unfortunately, "The Hyborian Age" has proven immensely difficult to work with due to later stories' contradictions. Published stories take precedents over private notes, true, but so much Hyborian history is found in the essay, one wonders what to do with it.

Then it hit me: I was using the wrong reckoning. Instead of using the cataclysm, why not use the one element which is most constantly used as a marker between events of the Hyborian past and present?

My proposal is to organise everything around Conan. Of course, I thought, it's so simple! We could even include the traditional B.C. to serve as the "ancient time," and the succeeding period starting with A:

B.C. = Before Conan
A.C. = After Conan

The next question is shrinking it down: what time in Conan's life should serve as the reckoning? The traditional Gregorian calendar immediately made me think of using Conan's birth, but many cultures use the start of a ruler's reign. Conan is clearly one of the most important historical figures of the Hyborian Age, if not quite the religious figure Jesus turned out to be, but in any case, it's the perfect marriage of accessibility and simplicity. So perhaps...

B.C. = Before (the reign of) Conan
A.C. = Age of Conan

Using this system, we can then say (for example):

10,000 BC Birth of Akivasha
3,000 BC   Fall of Acheron
                Fall of Kuthchemes
              Foundation of Khorshemish
1,500 BC Death of Epemitreus the Sage
1,000 BC Bossonian Marches first established
900 BC Death of Epeus of Aquilonia
Gazali migrate from Koth
500 BC First of five-hundred-year period of intermittent war between Aquilonia and Nemedia
300 BC Yara captures and enslaves Yogah
100 BC Bloody Tranicos disappears
40 BC Birth of Conan
26 BC Battle of Venarium
23 BC Disappearance of Yara and destruction of the Elephant's Tower
10 BC War of the Barons in Aquilonia
0 AC Age of Conan begins
5 AC Aquilonian-Nemedian War
500 AC Pictish Empire destroys Aquilonia

By Crom, I think this could work.

Comparing "Queen of the Black Coast" Adaptations

2011-12-06T00:01:00.003Z

Charles over at Singular Points wanted to compare and contrast Clood's take on "Queen of the Black Coast" by posting Buscomas' version, while JainkhulTamhair at the Robert E. Howard Forums provided the Savage Sword incarnation (also Buscomas, but in black & white).

Well, I figure I may as well up the ante by providing Petri Hiltunen's marvellous adaptation too, with an English translation provided by Cromsblood, with REH for reference, and Google translate to assist.*

First off, Clood's interpretation, which has naturally been the subject of much debate:

Next, Buscomas:

Finally, the relevant pages from Hiltunen's adaptation:

Personally, I love how all three are very different interpretations of the same scene. I suspect there wouldn't really be a consensus on the "best" one like there can be with other Dark Horse vs Marvel adaptations. I can, and have, voiced my issues with Cloonan's adaptation, but I could easily do the same with Buscomas', and although Hiltunen's is the most faithful adaptation of the three by a substantial margin, even it has some things that I disagree with. It just shows you that this story really deserves not just one great adaptation, but several.

Hiltunen's is my favourite, though, and not just because of the fidelity: it really captures that marriage of the Northern Thing with the exoticism of Belit, the Black Coast and piracy on the high seas. If "Queen" was made into an opera, I see it as a mix of African, Semitic and Celtic musical styles. But I digress, back to work.

*Thanks to Cromsblood himself for reminding me to finish that sentence!

Mark Finn's gearing up: "Southwestern Discomfit" and Blood & Thunder 2.0

2011-12-05T00:01:00.004Z

A couple of Mark Finn-related links I wanted to share.

First is something I find to be of tremendous importance: "Southwestern Discomfit," a response to Gary Romeo's "Southern Discomfort." The interests of impartiality on the REHupa website have meant that the latter essay, despite a few considerable issues (which Mark discusses), is widely available to anyone who comes on the site. Unfortunately, the lack of any counterpoint to the essay means that some have taken this as the Party Line on REH and race, which is certainly not the case.

Bothered by this phenomenon in recent times, Mark decided to offer that counterpoint:

REHupa #173 was a watershed mailing, way back in February 2002, for a number of reasons. Significantly, it was the mailing that featured Gary Romeo's article, "Southern Discomfort." As I read the article, I immediately noticed that Gary, in constructing his argument, was so interested in trawling the bottom that he willfully overlooked so much better stuff closer to the surface. It made me angry, and it made me instantly defensive. What I wanted to do was first ask Gary: what was your point in writing the article? Who is the target audience for it? And then I wanted to take it apart, piece by piece in my next mailing.

But I didn't. I was new, and I didn't want to rock the boat, or make any enemies right away. So I held my tongue. Besides, I wondered, I had no idea what my fellow REHupans thought about any of this. Maybe they agreed with Gary.

As it turned out, they did not. In the subsequent mailings, several of the older and more experienced REHupa members took Gary to task, and took a number of calculated swings at his essay, his methodology, and even his intent. I felt a lot better about my involvement in REHupa, but I regretted never having a chance to tee off on the topic.

When the REHupa website started up, it was determined that more recent, more approachable articles could also be listed on the site, if any member so wanted. Gary was one of the few people who stepped up to the plate and actually handed out articles to post. Along with his other Pro-de Camp essays was "Southern Discomfort." I watched it go up, go live, and bit my tongue. After all, I thought, who was I to say that Gary could list all the rest of his articles, except that one? That's when I got the idea of first doing a counterpoint article, just to balance out Gary's essay, especially now that it was devoid of its context within the REHupa mailings and commentary structure. But at the time, I was working on what would become Blood & Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard, and so, I thought, I had bigger fish to fry.

Now it's 2011. I've been a member in REHupa for nearly ten years now. And it's high time I took a whacking stick to "Southern Discomfort" publically. It has needed it for a long time, particularly since it's one of the most popular things accessed on the REHupa website. The number of links to it from external blogs, websites, and citations used to indicate that yes, Robert E. Howard was indeed a racist, because look, right here, this guy says so on the experts' website, are too numerous to count. That's the problem with Internet research: it's grab and go, and no effort is made to fact-check it.

Well, you may consider this the official fact-check. This article assumes that someone has already read "Southern Discomfort" and want to know more about whether or not Robert E. Howard was a racist or not.

I don't doubt that the issue of Howard and race is something that will be a subject of discussion for as long as Howard himself is, but the more approaches we have to the argument, the more fulfilling and satisfying those discussions may be.

The second piece of news is on the new edition of Mark's outstanding Blood & Thunder: The Life And Art of Robert E. Howard. He made a tantalizing mention that an announcement will be made on Monday, but to tide us over, he revealed the cover for B&T 2.0, courtesy of the indefatigably talented Keegan duo:

I liked the cover for B&T 1.0, but I like this a lot better. Why? Because it has Robert E. Howard on it! That's always good. Plus, while the previous cover had the requisite sanguinary & brontological elements, Conan hacking lumps out of a giant snake isn't representative of Howard's vast library - something Mark himself keenly notes frequently - so rather than pick one aspect of Howard's work, why not pick a quintessential image of Howard which tells you everything you need to know about the man in a single shot? Better than the studio photo, certainly.

Hyborian Musings: Yes, We Have No Dragons

2011-12-02T00:11:00.003Z

Yes, I've been playing Skyrim. No, it hasn't conquered my life, though it isn't for want of trying: I just don't really have the energy or interest for marathon gaming sessions any more. The quests have been dull and lifeless compared to the best stories in Morrowind and Oblivion, the glitches are bad even for Bethesda, and I cannot understand why they don't go the Bioware/Obsidian approach to character animation - but I don't care, because the realm of Skyrim itself, the game world, makes up for it in every way. The scenery, by Crom! The creatures! The dungeons, mountains, forests, skies! I spend most of my time in Skyrim simply wandering about the lovely landscape, watching the sabertooths prowl after elk, giants herding mammoths, the occasional dragon soar overhead, waiting for the Northern Lights to ripple across the night sky, Tamriel's twin moons looming above. But in a way, it helps, since so much of Skyrim is influenced by the "Northern Thing" as Tolkien liked to call it, which naturally led me to consider those elements in REH, and so, the Encyclopedia. Thinking about the dragons in the game led me to ponder dragons in Conan.

Dragons in Howard are a wide subject that warrants further study, but dragons of the Hyborian Age are naturally something I've been delving into for the Encyclopedia. While dragons rarely make an on-stage appearance in the Conan stories - only "The Scarlet Citadel" and "Red Nails" have living, breathing ones drop by - thematic and symbolic dragons are all over the place, be they dragons in heraldry, or colourful metaphors for characters. Nowhere is this more evident than in the singular Conan novel, The Hour of the Dragon.

It has been remarked upon that P.S. Miller changing The Hour of the Dragon to Conan the Conqueror for the tale's single-volume publication debut was, in diplomatic terms, a blasted stupid idea. Like the esteemed Mr Rippke, I think The Hour of the Dragon is a strong, poetic, evocative title heaving with mythic resonance and symbolism. Conan the Conqueror may have alliteration on its side, but it's painfully dull in comparison - not to mention misleading in itself, since Conan doesn't conquer so much as regain what was already his. The reason behind this change, of course, was that the man thought the title was misleading due to the lack of dragons in the text.

Confucius, he say: Whaaaaa?

From a purely literally-minded perspective, no, there are no actual dragons in the story "The Hour of the Dragon." Just as The Day of the Jackal does not feature an assassination attempt on Charles de Gaulle by an actual jackal, or Silence of the Lambs doesn't feature an actual mute sheep, or One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest does not feature anything to do with actual cuckoos, nests or flying, or... you get the point.* Perhaps he thought fantasy fans are so incredibly dull-witted that they would indeed expect Conan to fight a dragon, and so be tremendously disappointed when the adventure goes by and no gargantuan fire-breathing beasties have an hour to themselves. Part of me thinks Sturgeon's Law led to lowered expectations, and Miller acted accordingly.

However, when ones looks metaphorically (metaphor in literature, dohohohoho, how delightfully absurd), you simply can't move for all the dragons in the story. The most obvious is Nemedia itself:

The Lion banner sways and falls in the horror haunted gloom;
A scarlet Dragon rustles by, borne on winds of doom.
In heaps the shining horsemen lie, where the thrusting lances break,
And deep in the haunted mountains the lost, black gods awake.
Dead hands grope in the shadows, the stars turn pale with fright,
For this is the Dragon’s Hour, the triumph of Fear and Night.

That's really all the reader should need, no? As soon as they see the scarlet dragon banner of Nemedia, I think even the most pedantic readers would guess that the "Dragon's Hour" refers to Nemedia's triumph over Aquilonia, however brief it may be. This is codified in the very text with a title drop. Twice.

“He lives like a foreign prince in the midst of a conquered land,” answered Servius bitterly. “His court is filled with Nemedians, the palace troops are of the same breed, and a large garrison of them occupy the citadel. Aye, the hour of the Dragon has come at last.”
- "The Hour of the Dragon," The Bloody Crown of Conan, p139

A roar went up as Amalric was hurled from his saddle, snapping the lance that impaled him, and the Nemedians gave way as a barrier bursts under the surging impact of a tidal wave. They rode for the river in a blind stampede that swept the plain like a whirlwind. The hour of the Dragon had passed.
- "The Hour of the Dragon," The Bloody Crown of Conan, p239

But it isn't just Nemedia that's compared to a dragon: this story takes place in no less than "the year of the Dragon," with the first chapter starting in "the waning of the Year of the Lion." "The Scarlet Citadel" took place in the Year of the Gazelle, suggesting the Hyborian calendar may have a cyclical organisation not unlike the Chinese calendar (but that's a subject for another post). Yet more fairly obvious symbolism here: Aquilonia and Conan are the Lions, whose years of dominance are about to be supplanted by the Nemedian Dragon, an event mirrored - or predicted? - by cosmic conjunction. It can't just be a happy coincidence that the chain of events which led to Xaltotun's resurrection and Tarascus' ascention and eventual invasion of Aquilonia all took place in such a portentous year.

Dale and more have noted that Xaltotun bears more than a few similarities to the mythic Dragon-Kings of ancient Persia, and Xaltotun himself has the same sort of immense age, antiquity and inhuman intelligence with which some dragons of myth and folklore are imbued. So, while Nemedia is clearly one dragon, Xaltotun himself could be considered one. After all, Conan's hunt to regain the Heart of Ahriman goes through many of the quintessential stages of a hero's journey to a degree unseen in previous tales: is it not fitting that the final foe to be defeated be a metaphorical dragon?

Note, too, that Xaltotun, like other dragons and monsters, is all but unassailable, save for one crucial weakness. Fafnir and his spiritual descendent Smaug were unassailable save for a tiny weak spot; Antaeus was invincible so long as he always touched the ground; Achilles had his heel. Xaltotun is so potent a menace that only the talisman which brought him from the abyss could send him back. Think about that: cold steel was enough to defeat mighty sorcerers such as the Master of Yimsha, Salome, and Thugra Khotan, while Tsotha-Lanti was at least highly compromised by decapitation. Apparently, this just won't be enough against Xaltotun. We can't truly know if Xaltotun was invulnerable to earthly weapons, but it's noticeable that no-one, not even Conan, ever makes the attempt. Considering Xaltotun was undead, I think running him through would go about as well as it did against Thulsa Doom.

There's another dragon that's frequently overlooked: Tarascus. Tarascus' name, to me, gives yet another clue that The Hour of the Dragon has many meanings beyond the first. In Hyborian Names, de Camp offers the following possibilities for Tarascus' etymology:

Tarascus In CC, CA, the brother of the king of Nemedia. Possibly from Tarascon, France, or from the Tarascan Indians of Mexico.

The first is a perfectly reasonable possibility (not sure what de Camp was thinking with the Tarascans, but hey, every possibility's worth mentioning regardless of likelihood), but if de Camp looked a bit further into the etymology of Tarascon itself, he might have found a fascinating third possibility. For Tarascon was named after a dragon - the Tarasque. While the Tarasque sounds like quite a funky dragon (six stubby bear legs, an ox's body, a tortoise's shell, a tail with a scorpion's sting, and the head of a lion - for some reason I'm visualising Terry Gilliam going wild with this design), dragons in Medieval Bestiaries can come in all manner of shapes and sizes. A sextupedal, chelonian, bovine, leonine, scorpionoid beastie has as much right to be considered a dragon as the Lindworm or Zilant.

It's worth pointing out that the Tarasque bears a few similarities to Xaltotun himself: it cannot be slain by earthly weapons, its head is often compared to that of a lion.** It even has a beard and moustache (man, of all the varied countries with dragons in their legendry, I wouldn't have pegged France to be the land of crazy Monty Python horrors). Could Howard have known all this? As ever, difficult to say, but he may have encountered it through the tale of Saint Martha.

So in addition to Nemedia's banner, Nemedia itself, and Xaltotun, we can add the other primary antagonist of the story. But wait - there's even more!

One seemingly unrelated chapter of the story is "The Fang of the Dragon." It's one of a number of vignettes within the tale that might seem to be irrelevant or slow down the narrative, but thematically tie into the story to function as symbolic allusions to the tale. Everything, be it the episode with the ghouls in the forest, Akivasha, or "Drums of Peril," has a place in the story. Here, the titular fang is the unknown trap built into the box - carved and decorated with writhing dragons, naturally, and curiously with one holding a sphere that might symbolise a certain jewel - housing the Heart of Ahriman, a spring-loaded fang dipped in poison. Essentially, the subject holding and keeping the Heart betrayed the person who wrested it from its rightful owner. Now remember that Tarascus betrayed Xaltotun by removing the heart. Then remember that Amalric planned on betraying Tarascus and Valerius, and that Xaltotun planned on betraying everyone...

That box symbolises every villain in the entire story, and one of the main themes of the tale: don't place your trust in dragons, for they're likely to betray you.

The theme of dragons and betrayal is consistent throughout the tale. Remember Conan putting Valannus in armour? The helm he's wearing is a described as having a "wivern crest." Wivern being a synonym for wyvern, a heraldic subtype of dragon. Here, Valannus, Conan and Pallantides are conspiring to fool both armies into thinking Conan is indeed leading them into battle - but when Valannus is slain, the Aquilonians' morale melts away like spring snow. Because that armour, with the helmet with the wivern-crest, fooled them into thinking that Conan was dead, slain by sorcery.

Can't trust dragons, even if they're just designs on boxes and helmets.

*OK, one more: just like To Kill A Mockingbird is not an actual guide to assassinating mockingbirds. That said, I'm not averse to being disappointed by titles that have nothing to do with the story when the title sounds better than what I read or watched. Monster's Ball, for instance - no dancing vampires, werewolves, mummies, zombies, not even a Creature from the Black Lagoon, just an overwrought, exploitative mess of self-congratulations and easy targets. I liked 12 Monkeys, but you can't tell me it wouldn't have been immensely better if all the actors were replaced with hyper-intelligent capuchins.

**Very odd, that Xaltotun is compared to lions and dragons, when the story is so symbolically invested in the conflict between the two: perhaps a commentary on the duality of his nature as a Hyborian who has turned to the dark arts? Or that his human arrogance and patriotic zeal, the "lion" side of his personality, have compromised the arcane and sophisticated "dragon" aspect?

Hyborian Musings: Of Iberians and Cloods

2011-11-30T18:04:00.002Z

I've decided I'm going to periodically share a few random musings in regards to the Encyclopedia, both as a form of soundboard, and to let you all know that yes, I am still typing away and tearing my hair out (that list of Cimmerian names is driving me berserkamad), though hopefully some of my theories won't sound quite so insane as they might in my head.

One valuable resource I've been utilizing is de Camp's "Hyborian Names," which appeared in Conan the Swordsman: lest you think I've gone soft on the Spraguester, I find myself disagreeing as often as agreeing when it comes to derivations that aren't crystal-clear like Khorshemish. A perfect example is in regards to the etymology of Belesa. Here's what de Camp thinks:

Belesa, Beloso Respectively, the Zingaran heroine of TT and a Zingaran man-at-arms in CC. Origin uncertain; remote possibilities are Belesis, a Babylonian priest of -VII mentioned by Ktesias; a Belesa River in Ethiopia; and Berosos (or Berossus, &c.), a Hellenized Babylonian priest and writer of early -III.

It's been remarked upon that de Camp was an extremely intelligent, erudite and well-informed man who has a curious habit of utterly failing to see the simplest of things. As such, while de Camp was struggling to draw comparisons between a fantastical-Spanish noblewoman and Babylonian priests, I think there's a far simpler origin for Belesa.

That explanation: the Spanish word belleza, "beauty," ultimately derived from the latin bellus, "beautiful." It has the Spanish connection to Zingara, and Howard could easily have encountered it at some point. That seems more reasonable than a Babylonian priest or an Ethiopian river, no?

There's another possibility I came across recently, in Walter Montagu's "The Shepherd's Paradise" (with certain interesting parts highlighted in bold):

The King of Castile negotiates a marriage between his son and the princess of Navarre. The former, however, is in love with a lady of the court named Fidamira, who repulses his advances in favour of Agenor, a friend of the prince's. The prince therefore resolves to leave the court and seek the Shepherds' Paradise, a sequestered vale inhabited by a select and courtly company, and induces Agenor to accompany him on his expedition. In their absence the king himself makes love to Fidamira, who, however, escapes, and likewise makes her way to the Shepherds' Paradise in disguise. Meanwhile, Belesa, the princess of Navarre, misliking of the proposed match with a man she has never seen, has withdrawn from her father's court to the same pastoral retreat, where she has at once been elected queen of the courtly company. On the arrival of the prince and his friend they both fall in love with her, but the prince's suit is seconded by the disguised Fidamira, and soon takes a favourable turn. At this point the King of Castile arrives in pursuit, together with an old councillor, who proceeds to reveal the relationship of the various characters. Fidamira and Belesa, it appears, are sisters, and Agenor their brother. The marriage of the prince and Belesa is of course solemnized; the king renews his suit to Fidamira, but she prefers to remain in Paradise, where she is chosen perpetual queen.

There are several interesting parallels to be drawn not only with Bellesa and Belesa, but in "The Shepherd's Paradise" and "The Black Stranger": both feature a noblewoman who has taken flight to a far-off refuge in the wilderness who is negotiated into a marriage, though the refuge is hardly the platonic paradise in the latter story. What's most striking is that Bellesa is a princess of Navarre, a medieval Spanish kingdom - obviously, Zingara is the Hyborian Age's answer to medieval Spain.

Too much of a coincidence? I suppose one must then ask if there is any evidence that Howard read, or even read of, "The Shepherd's Paradise." I don't think it's entirely out of the question: Howard was an extremely well-read man, and judging by the plays in his letters, he had an affinity for the sort of restoration comedy that "The Shepherd's Paradise" exemplified. Yet even if one doesn't buy that Howard read or knew of Montagu's masque, the name Bellesa can't be that uncommon, especially in a state which had a decent number of Portuguese and Spanish populations.

As for Beloso, well, here the dangers of the internet come into play, because I can find a Belloso, but no idea if Howard could possibly have any knowledge of his existence: one Diego Belloso, a Portuguese adventurer and explorer who operated in 16th Century Cambodia. Again, the Iberian nationality and historical period are compelling, but without a "smoking gun" like Howard mentioning the name in the letters or having a copy of a book of Indonesian history with Belloso's name included, it's just a hypothesis. Still, I think Diego Belloso is a far likelier candidate than Belesis or Beroso.

The Age of Clood is Upon Us

Well, it should be no surprise that I'm extremely torn about this. Which is good: it would've been worse if I outright hated it, right?

As Usual, Bad Scot Comes First

One of the few things I really dug about Busiek's run on Conan was that in his pastiche stories, he stuck with the usual comic font for the captions, but when he got to the real adaptations, he used a typewriter-style font whenever he was getting to Howard's prose. The shift in tone was almost palpable: the power of Howard's writing combined with the noticeable change in typeface was subtle, but strong, and you got a distinct "all right, this is the real McCoy" feeling. Here, Wood is using a similar typewriter font... but that ain't Robert E. Howard's prose.

Here's Howard's opening paragraph:

Hoofs drummed down the street that sloped to the wharfs. The folk that yelled and scattered had only a fleeting glimpse of a mailed figure on a black stallion, a wide scarlet cloak flowing out on the wind. Far up the street came the shout and clatter of pursuit, but the horseman did not look back. He swept out onto the wharfs and jerked the plunging stallion back on its haunches at the very lip of the pier. Seamen gaped up at him, as they stood to the sweep and striped sail of a high-prowed, broad-waisted galley. The master, sturdy and black-bearded, stood in the bows, easing her away from the piles with a boat-hook. He yelled angrily as the horseman sprang from the saddle and with a long leap landed squarely on the mid-deck.

And here's how Wood introduces the story:

MESSANTIA, CAPITAL OF ARGOS. Like a gilded pearl glittering against the cobalt waters of the Western Ocean. A city of aristocracy, of finance, of the rule of law and the justice system. A city where great merchant villas adorning terraces high in the hills look down over grimy hovels bordering the quays, crime-infested bazaars where the abstract corruption of the upper classes translates down to a knife lodged in the ribs of a man dying in a dark alley. Conan the Cimmerian does not notice this divide. This barbarian from the north is busy riding for his life.

Alright, on the one hand, I can understand that putting Howard's introduction as it is would be redundant since we can see everything that's Howard's describing. However, does that necessarily mean that there must be any text at all, let alone text that might be mistaken for Howard's own? Again, in fairness, this isn't just Wood: Truman also did this in his adaptations of "Black Colossus," where the divide between Truman and Howard isn't made as explicit. Aficionados don't need a font to tell bona-fide REH from pastiche, but what of the new readers discovering REH through the comics?

Far up the street came the shout and clatter of pursuit, but the horseman did not look back.
- Robert E. Howard, "Queen of the Black Coast"

Another little thing which bothers me is the treatment of Conan's threats. It's something that annoyed me in the recent "Hawks of Outremer" adaptation, too. In both stories, the hero asserts his will and dominance with threats that are conveyed through intent and expression rather than action. In "Hawks," Cormac assures the guard that he is no ghost by grabbing him by the shoulder: in the adaptation, Cormac grabs the guard by the throat. It's needlessly brutish and openly posturing. The only time Cormac grabs someone's throat is when he was intent on choking the life out of that individual.

I bet that Argossean (who isn't exactly "stockily built," is he?) is thinking "weren't you just running away from the High Constable of Messantia?

In "Queen of the Black Coast," Conan assures the captain of the Argus in no uncertain terms what will happen. In this comic, not only is Conan remarkably nonchalant for someone who was apparently running for his life, but he raises his sword to the captain's throat. The entire tone and mood of the confrontation is totally different from the story. In the original story, Conan is livid, desperate and panicking: of course he makes wild threats like that when he thinks the Argossean authorities are catching up to him. But here, it's almost laissez-faire. This is exacerbated by the fact that Conan was smiling as he was fleeing from the authorities - looking back, even, in direct contradiction to the text! - giving the impression that rather than being a wild, chaotic ride of his life, this is just another fun wacky misadventure for Captain Conan Sparrow.

I don't even want to talk about the platform-gaming interlude.

"No no no, that's not the way it happened. Shall I start again?"

Now Good Scot to make up for it

In regards to visuals, I don't hate it. It doesn't blow me away like some of Cloonan's art has, but it isn't bad by any means. It's just different. I'm not going to hate on it for being different. I do hate that Conan has about a third of the armour of the original story (no mail sleeves and cuisses or Kothic greaves I can understand, but the lack of the horned helm is just baffling), but this is something common to all Dark Horse adaptations, not just this one.

While I gave Wood some stick for completely ignoring REH's opening paragraph only to replace it with his own prose, I do commend him for using REH's dialogue, albeit with a few pointless additions (some extra lines that don't really add much, Tito calling Conan "barbarian" despite not actually knowing who or what he is yet, many of the lines that are from REH are altered). I would've preferred he used REH's words entirely without going all de Camp on us, but there you go.

Overall, I don't really know what to think. My immediate thoughts were "this isn't REH's text," "why is Conan smiling as he's running for his life?" "what happened to his horned helmet?" "why is Conan so relaxed after that high-octane chase?" and "why does Conan still look like Adrien Brody?" But at the same time, I really want to give this team the benefit of the doubt. Frankly, though, this looks like a continuation of Truman's run from a writing side: mostly sticking to REH, but making baffling changes, omissions and additions that don't improve on the original.

Time will tell, as always.

A message!

2011-11-24T18:31:00.000Z

First, a sincere apology for the lack of updates. A series of events behind-the-scenes have been mounting, particularly one situation which started in August (not what you think) but didn't really escalate until a few months ago. It's a deeply personal family matter, so I won't get all morose or maudlin, but suffice to say I've been in a somewhat erratic and unpleasant state of mind. I had hoped to keep this off the blog, but it spilled out in some unpredictable ways: again, I can only apologise.
Secondly, and more pleasantly, I have a renewed sense of purpose. This is going to be the final post I make regarding the film for the foreseeable future. I've said before that I felt a tremendous sense of futility when the film came out: all that time analysing screen captures, set photos, cast documents, script pages and magazine interviews. Thousands of words of analysis and conjecture based on every morsel of detail I could get. I must've written something like a hundred thousand words at the end of it all. All for a film that I personally considered barely a Conan film at all.

I was distraught. Actually, it was worse than that: I felt destroyed. I felt like I had wasted over a year of my time on something that didn't deserve all that effort. Look at all the things that fell by the wayside: my look at Almuric, the Hyborian Age Gazetteers, Barbarians of Middle-Earth, Frazetta & Howard, the Newcomer's Guide - how much more work could I have done in those series? The Encyclopedia didn't suffer as badly since I was determined to work bit by bit on that every spare moment, but I certainly would've spent more time on it without the film. All those posts, articles, essays, drawings and projects took a back seat to The Wrath of Zym.

If I found the film good enough on its own merits, that may have helped; if it was at least a box office success, I could take solace in the fact that many more potential Howard fans may use it as a gateway. But it was a disaster critically and commercially. It didn't matter that Howard fans and scholars whose opinions I respected enjoyed it, found it an enjoyable enough film, even found it better than the 1982 film - I didn't enjoy it. I didn't see what they're seeing. For all the good it did in being freer from the 1982 film's influence than the series or films before it, and for Jason Momoa being closer to Howard's creation than Arnold could ever be, I couldn't help but think: just how many people are going to go out and buy a Howard collection?

It may be that I'm being unfair on the film. The filmmakers seemed to be happy enough with the product despite the problems in the production. I don't doubt that they thought they were making the best film they could. Yet, well, the numbers speak for themselves. If there's anything good I can glean from the experience, it's the knowledge that I felt I did my best. I sought to mention or bring up Robert E. Howard as often as possible, explaining the divergences and similarities to his work, and bringing up all the books and essays I could. I met a lot of new Howard and Conan fans, and I feel I must've done some good being one of the few blogs reporting on the film from a different point of view from the Remake Brigade.

But, as they say, onwards and upwards. There isn't any upcoming news apart from the Blu-Ray/DVD/Digital release. If a sequel's coming out, it won't be for a long time - and I honestly don't know if I'll be covering it if it does. Solomon Kane fooled me once. Conan fooled me twice. I have serious concerns about Kull and Bran Mak Morn (if the latter's still coming). And I'm absolutely terrified by what Christophe Gans might have in store for Sword Woman. I just don't think I could muster the enthusiasm, knowing that any or all of those films could be at best as "good" as Solomon Kane, and at worst as bad as Conan.

But that's in the future. For now, I have more time to dedicate to the Encyclopaedia, and I'm going to use the blog as the central news network: previews, sketches, queries, the works. I may do cross-posts on other sites to maximise saturation and get the most possible feedback. Since I'm kicking the Encyclopedia into overdrive, however, this means that the Blog may not be updated as often: I'll endeavour to keep you all informed, but if you don't see new posts for long stretches, know that this is because I'm hard at work on the Encyclopedia behind the scenes.

I may be knocked for six, but I'm not licked yet. Conan didn't kill me, and it isn't going to kill the Encyclopaedia.

8-Year-Old Reviews: The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn

2011-11-08T18:53:00.000Z

As we wait for the Beeb to respond, here are my thoughts on my most recent trip to the cinema, which again can only be expressed through the medium of 8-year-old.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH BEST FILM EVER BEST FILM EVER IM DOING ROLLY POLLYS ON THE CARPET MY HEADS SPINNING AND MY EARS ARE WAGGLING BEST FILM EVER

Oh for pity's sake, Aly, not this again: the poor reader's ears will be bleeding!

NO THEY WONT YOU PRIZE PURPLE JELLYFISH WHILE CAPITAL LOCKS MAY MENTALLY EVOKE THE ACT OF SHOUTING IM NOT ACTUALLY MAKING A SOUND THEIR COMPUTERS DONT TRANSMIT SOUND UNLESS IM SPEAKING INTO A MICROPHONE OR THEY HAVE DICTATION SOFTWARE ITS A CURIOUS PHENOMENON ALL THINGS CONSIDERED BUT THEN IM ONLY 8 SO I DONT UNDERSTAND NET ETTIQUETE YET I DONT EVEN HAVE INTERNET YET ITS STILL 1991 IN MY MIND

This is getting too confusing, so I'll just huddle in this corner while you review.

SURE THING 27-YEAR-OLD ALY

AND AWAAAAAY WE GO

GREAT SNAKES I LOVE THE TINTIN COMICS I HAVE LOTS OF THE ALBUMS MY FAVOURITES ARE THE CRAB WITH THE GOLDEN CLAWS FLIGHT 714 THE CASTAFIORE EMERALD CIGARS OF THE PHARAOH TINTIN AND THE PICAROS KING OTTOKARS SCEPTRE THE CALCULUS AFFAIR AND OF COURSE THE BLACK ISLAND THATS THE SCOTTISH ONE ITS SO COOL SEEING TINTIN IN A KILT I ALSO WATCHED THE ANIMATED SERIES IT WAS GREAT EVEN THOUGH TINTIN WITH AN AMERICAN ACCENT FELT REALLY WRONG THOUGH CAPTAIN HADDOCK SNOWY AND THE PROFESSOR WERE MY FAVOURITES ANYWAY

BUT I DIGRESS THIS IS BASED ON THE SECRET OF THE UNICORN I DONT REMEMBER MUCH ABOUT THIS PARTICULAR STORY BUT HAVING REREAD IT THE FILM WAS PRETTY FAITHFUL TO THE SOURCE MATERIAL ILL GET TO THAT BIT LATER IN ANY CASE THIS IS DEFINITELY AN ADAPTATION OF AN EXISTING TINTIN STORY NOT LIKE OTHER SUPPOSED ADAPTATIONS I COULD NAME BUT AGAIN I DIGRESS

ANYWAY I WONT SPOIL THE FILM BUT I WILL SAY THIS IS TOTALLY THE HOLLYWOOD VERSION OF TINTIN ITS PACKED WITH ACTION AND CRAZY SPECIAL EFFECTS AND PREPOSTEROUS STUNTS THAT ARE SO RIDICULOUS I CANT HELP BUT LOVE THEM THE PROBLEM IS A LOT OF THE MYSTERY SUBTLETY AND INTRIGUE IS LOST BUT I KIND OF EXPECTED THAT SINCE MODERN FILMS ARE REALLY ACTION PACKED TO A DEGREE THEY NORMALLY ARE NOT ALSO THE CHARACTERISATION WAS BLUNT AND HEAVY HANDED BUT AGAIN TO BE EXPECTED

EVERY CHARACTER WAS PITCH PERFECT MORE OR LESS TINTIN WASNT MY PERSONAL VISION OF TINTIN BUT HE WAS CLOSE ENOUGH HADDOCK WAS ABSOLUTELY PITCH PERFECT TEN THOUSAND THUNDERING TYPHOONS AND BILLIONS OF BILIOUS BLISTERING BLUE BARBECUED BARNACLES HE WAS GREAT A LOT OF PEOPLE WERE KVETCHING ABOUT HIM BEING SCOTTISH BUT I THINK LIKE TINTIN HERGE WAS DELIBERATELY VAGUE ABOUT HIS ANCESTRY JUST FOR THIS PRECISE REASON AND WEIRDLY I ALWAYS READ HADDOCK IN A SCOTTISH OR WEST COUNTRY ACCENT BUT REGARDLESS OF ACCENT ISSUES HADDOCK WAS BRILLIANT THOMSON AND THOMPSON WERE UNCANNY AND HILARIOUS OF COURSE SNOWY WAS FANTASTIC ALTHOUGH I HOPED THERE WOULD BE A SLY ALLUSION TO SNOWYS COMMENTARY ON THE ADVENTURES DIFFICULT TO DO I ADMIT BUT OH WELL

ABOUT THE ONLY DISAPPOINTING THING IS THAT THERE SIMPLY ISNT ENOUGH ROOM TO CALM DOWN BETWEEN ACTION SCENES THE PACINGS ALL WRONG BUT THE ACTION IS JUST SO WELL DONE THAT YOU CANT HELP BUT LOVE IT I MEAN SNOWYS PURSUIT ESCAPING THE KARABOUDJAN THE PIRATE BATTLE THE BAGGHAR CHASE THE CRANE DUEL ANY ONE OF THOSE SCENES COULDVE BEEN HIGHLIGHTS OF ANOTHER FILM BUT ALTOGETHER THEY CAUSE SENSORY OVERLOAD AND YOURE TOTALLY EXHAUSTED AT THE END

IN TERMS OF FIDELITY THEY DID A BIT OF TWEAKING AROUND THEY COMBINED THE VILLAINS INTO ONE CHARACTER AND INTRODUCED A TWIST THAT SEEMED VERY SILLY AND GRATUITOUS BUT IT WASNT TOO OFFENSIVE PLUS IT LED TO A BLOOMING SWORD FIGHT SO I CANT HATE IT THAT MUCH FOR SOME REASON THEY DECIDED TO MAKE THIS THE CAPTAINS FIRST MEETING WITH TINTIN EVEN THOUGH THEYD MET A LONG TIME BEFORE THIS I GUESS THIS MEANS NO CRAB WITH THE GOLDEN CLAWS ADAPTATION THOUGH GIVEN THE AMOUNT OF EASTER EGGS PERHAPS WE SHOULD ALREADY CONSIDER IT AN ADAPTATION

THATS ONE OF THE THINGS I CANT DECIDE WHETHER I LOVE OR DONT LOVE ABOUT THE FILM THE EASTER EGGS THE FILM WAS CRAMMED TO THE GUNWALES WITH LITTLE HINTS AND SNIPPETS OF THE STORIES HERES A TASTER

SNOWY KNOCKS OVER A CRATE OF TINS WITH A VERY FAMILIAR LABEL
A CERTAIN PRIVATE CONCERT HAS A VERY FAMILIAR GUEST
THE HOST HAS A VERY FAMILIAR STATUE IN HIS PALACE
THE NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS IN TINTINS OFFICE REFER TO VERY FAMILIAR ADVENTURES
THE ENTIRE OPENING CREDITS HAVE SOME VERY FAMILIAR BITS AND PIECES I SHOULD MENTION THE OPENING CREDITS WERE THE BEST PART OF THE FILM FROM A TINTIN FAN PERSPECTIVE

I CANT TELL IF IM ANNOYED THAT THE PRODUCERS PLAYED ME LIKE A HARP A HARP I SAY BY DROPPING ALL THESE REFERENCES IN OR IF IM HAPPY THAT THEY ACTUALLY TOOK THE EFFORT OF SLIPPING IN THESE LITTLE MORSELS FOR THE BIG TINTIN FANS NOW THINK HOW DIFFERENT THE CONAN FILM MIGHTVE BEEN RECEIVED IF YOU SAW THINGS LIKE A STATUE OF YAG-KOSHA IN THE BACKGROUND OR A BLACK RING WITH SERPENT COILS IN THE THIEVES GUILD OR A HORNED HELMET LYING ON A BATTLEFIELD OR A PECULIAR SMALL GREEN FIGURINE AT THE MARKET OR A SERPENT WITH IRIDESCENT SCALES CRAWLING IN THE FOREGROUND OF AN ESTABLISHING SHOT THAT WOULD TRIGGER SYNAPSES IN CONAN FANS AND MIGHT COLOUR THEM MORE FAVOURABLY TO THE FILM BUT THEN AGAIN THIS WAS OBVIOUSLY MADE NOT ONLY BY PEOPLE WHO LOVE TINTIN BUT ARE ACTUALLY COMPETENT FILMMAKERS WITH A BUDGET RATHER THAN A HERD OF MACROCEPHALIC BABOONS WHO SHOUT DOWN THE PEOPLE IN THE PRODUCTION WHO ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT THEYRE DOING

BUT

I

DIGRESS

ALSO THERE ARE OTHER REFERENCES TO CLASSIC LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD CAPTAIN HADDOCKS FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH SNOWY IS PERHAPS THE FUNNIEST THING IN THE ENTIRE FILM WHICH I SIMPLY SHALL NOT SPOIL SUFFICE TO SAY A TINTIN SHERLOCK HOLMES CROSSOVER WOULD BE SPECTACULARLY AWESOME JUST THROW IN PROFESSOR CHALLENGER AND BRIGADIER GERARD'S GREAT GREAT GREAT GRANDSON TO PLAY OFF CALCULUS AND HADDOCK AND IT WOULD BE BEST CROSSOVER EVER

EVERYTHING WAS REALLY GOOD YOU COULD REALLY TELL EVERYONE WAS A FAN ALL THE ACTORS AND WRITERS AND STEVEN SPIELBERG MAN THIS IS A MOVIE MADE FOR 8 YEAR OLDS OF ALL AGES I CANT WAIT FOR RED RACKHAMS TREASURE IF THEY DO IT I REALLY HOPE THEY GET AROUND TO DO MORE OF THEM OH MAN NOW IM IMAGINING THE NEW ADAPTATIONS THEY COULD DO I REALLY HOPE THIS DOES WELL IN AMERICALAND IT IS A VERY EUROPEAN FILM BUT THERES ENOUGH ACTION IN IT FOR ALL AUDIENCES SEE HOLLYWOOD THIS IS HOW YOU DO ADAPTATIONS DO MORE LIKE THIS MORE LIKE THIS THIS THIS THIS

THIS THIS

THIS

BWAAA

*THUMP*

Oh dear, I'm afraid 8-year-old Aly has collapsed in a heap and is now sound asleep. Don't worry, I'll just throw a blanket over him.

S.H.I.E.L.D.W.A.L.L. Operation Auntie

2011-11-05T15:49:00.001Z

============================

WARNING: CLASSIFIED MATERIAL

UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS WILL BE DETECTED, OBSERVED, AND SEVERELY DEALT WITH TO THE FULL EXTENT OUTSIDE THE LAW

THIS IS YOUR SOLE WARNING
============================

05/11/11

Shieldbearers,

Agent Taranaich here. I felt strongly enough about the recent episode of The Review Show to contact the BBC directly through their complaints facility. A transcript of the document follows below:

I wish to complain about the final segment of "The Review Show," where Stewart Lee is introduced by Kirsty Wark. She makes the claim that the works which Lee will be discussing are out of print: a simple internet search would prove that this is hardly the case. In fact, Robert E. Howard's work has been printed in dozens of easily attainable collections and anthologies in the past decade alone, the most recent of which was published last month. Arthur Machen's work is similarly prolific, and can be found in many publications from the last ten years, including this year. Of the three, Nina Hamnett is the least available, but even her novel "Laughing Torso" has been published five times since 2004. All of these works can be purchased new from Amazon.co.uk.

Secondly, and much more seriously, Lee claims that Robert E. Howard was "mad" and "insane," two highly inflammatory descriptions which are downright libellous, but more importantly unsubstantiated by any research or scholarship from Howard experts in modern times. Lee supports this statement by claiming that Howard "maintained that he didn't write" any of the stories, but instead was dictated to by characters standing over his shoulder: this is a gross misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Howard's complex writing process, and ignores the fact that Howard made pains to ensure no-one took his metaphorical descriptions literally:

http://rehguide.wordpress.com/2010/12/22/robert-e-howard-and-the-ghost-of-conan/
http://www.thecimmerian.com/milius-mentions-howard/

Robert E. Howard has long been the subject of much misrepresentation and misunderstanding in the years since his death, be it from biased critics to well-meaning but inept biographers, and it was difficult to separate fact from fiction for many years. However, Howard scholarship has made great strides in the past 30 years through the efforts of Glenn Lord, the Robert E. Howard United Press Association, the Robert E. Howard Foundation (I am a member of both organisations), and countless others of professional and amateur backgrounds who work tirelessly to dispel the myths and rumours and uncover and uphold the truth. By bringing up an old, easily disproven myth, this program has undermined its integrity, and failed to provide an accurate representation of its subject.

If Wark, Lee et al were discussing a present-day author in such a careless manner, I think they would be served with papers suing them for libel. In this day and age, it is unacceptable to broadcast inaccurate and damaging statements about historic individuals when it could have been easily avoided by a minimal amount of research.

I would like an on-air clarification of the facts of Robert E. Howard's life as understood by the latest research by experts in the field, and an acknowledgement that the statements presented by Wark and Lee were erroneous and inaccurate. I would also like an on-air acknowledgement of the availability of Howard's, Machen's and Hamnet's work in recent years.

The corporation warns that a response will be made within the next ten days: my goal is that the next episode of The Review Show will acknowledge their mistake on-air, and hope to undo the damage such statements may have made. I request all S.H.I.E.L.D.W.A.L.L. agents in Alba Division to follow the same procedure, and for international agents to consider a similar means of action through BBC Worldwide, or the local branch. As ever, keep the mantra of savage courtesy in mind.

Shields Up,

--Agent Taranaich

The Review Show does a drive-by on Howard

2011-11-05T13:26:00.007Z

After all that heavy emotional lifting Germaine does, it's time to send you into the weekend on a slightly lighter note. Here's comedian Stewart Lee with a selection of his favourite books, most of which appear to be out of print - should that tell us something?
- Kirsty Wark's condescending lead-in to Stewart Lee's discussion of Robert E. Howard, Arthur Machen and Nina Hamnett on The Review Show, and yes, it should tell us that The Review Show needs to learn how to use %&$@ing Google

The more I think things are getting better, that people are finally starting to let go of the old myths, the more angry I get when something like this comes up. Mike Chivers of Necronomania sent me this, and I simply have to discuss it.

Warning: I am seriously ticked off by this.

I rarely watch The Review Show, mostly because it's the kind of simpering, simplistic pandering I've come to expect from the BBC: no teeth, no bite, no willingness to challenge its own preconceptions. On every occasion I tuned in, hoping to find something interesting, I'm disappointed. It perpetuates everything I dislike about mainstream literature, and this episode is no different.

I'm not going to talk about the first 40 minutes: I don't think I could keep my head from exploding, and in any case there's little point. But I am going to talk about what happens around the 42 minute mark, where Stewart Lee bumbles his way through the most preposterously ill-informed Show and Tell I've seen.

Robert E. Howard, who wrote Conan, was brilliant: he was a mad bloke from Texas who committed suicide at the age of 30, but in the 12 years he was writing wrote more stuff than you'd be able to read in a lifetime. Because he was insane, he maintained that he didn't write any (of the stories) - these characters stood over his shoulder, and dictated to him.

This is The Green Rounds by Arthur Machen, who was a Welsh writer of mystery and horror and weird tales from the late 19th/early 20th century. Most of his stuff's been out of print for years. This is about a guy who goes on holiday to Wales, has a weird experience, and goes home to Islington, North London, and feels that he's being perpetually stalked by a small, sinister dwarf. And the whole thing just totally changes the way you look at London - I have to pass my way through that bit of London every day on the bus, and it's much more exciting after I read this book.

This is a book called The Laughing Torso by Nina Hamnett, an artist and writer from Fitzrovia: basically, all the writers and artists in Fitzrovia, North Roxford Street and west of Tottencourt Road, were on pints of bitter and cannabis, and everyone east of it, in Bloomsbury, was on champagne and cocaine. So this is a kind of catalogue of the lives of those fantastically interesting drunks in the '20s and '30s.

I think you could guess that my chief problems lie with what he says about Robert E. Howard. And indeed, I have problems with this. It is absolutely unacceptable that a completely preposterous, libellous misconception about Howard which paints him as insane and completely deluded is trotted out on a major BBC television as if the last thirty years of Howard scholarship and biography didn't happen. It's one thing for Howard not to be lauded as a visionary writer, or to discuss him critically: it's quite another to perpetuate known myths and misconceptions as facts. If Stewart just said "they're not high literature, they're just great stories," that would be one thing. If he said "I loved these as a boy, but they don't stand up to adult scrutiny," it would at least be an opinion to disagree with. But he didn't: he asserted, as fact, that Howard was hallucinating the ghost of dead fictional characters who compelled him to write the stories, extending this beyond the Conan anecdote to all his characters. It's the difference between saying "Shakespeare is overrated" and "Shakespeare actually didn't write any of his stories": one is opinion, the other is falsehood masquerading as fact.

But there's something just as insidious going on: not only does Stewart come up with the same old myths and misconceptions about Howard's life, but the context of Kirsty Wark's lead in seems to suggest that Steward thinks the stories have been out of print for years. While it may be redundant to point out that the Conan stories have, in fact, been published sometime since the 1960s, actually listing them shows how profoundly preposterous the idea is. Here is a list of all the major Conan publications, which include Howard stories collected in the Sphere paperbacks, published this century:

The Conan Chronicles Volume 1: The People of the Black Circle - August 2000
The Conan Chronicles Volume 2: The Hour of the Dragon - April 2001
Complete Conan of Cimmeria Volume 1 - 2002
The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian - December 2003
Complete Conan of Cimmeria Volume 2 - 2003
The Bloody Crown of Conan - December 2004
The Conquering Sword of Conan - November 2005
The Complete Chronicles of Conan - Centenary Edition - January 2006
The Conan Chronicles Volume 1 - April 2008
Hours of the Dragon: The Weird Works of Robert E. Howard, Volume 8 - July 2008
"...and their memory was a bitter tree ..." - August 2008
The Hour of the Dragon: The Weird Works of Robert E. Howard Volume 4 - September 2008
Heroes in the Wind: From Kull to Conan - September 2009
Conan the Barbarian - January 2010
Complete Conan of Cimmeria Volume 3 - March 2010
Conan the Barbarian: The Original Unabridged Adventures- November 2010
Conan the Barbarian: The Classic Original Stories That Inspired The Film - July 2011
Conan the Barbarian: The Stories that Inspired the Movie - August 2011
Conan the Destroyer - October 2011

And that's not even including the phenomenal Del Rey "Best of Robert E. Howard" dualogy, or the many collections that include one or two Conan stories (like the Weird Works series from Wildside, or non-Howard collections like The Big Book of Adventure Stories), or the single-story publications from Dodo Press and others, or the print-on-demand cash grabs, or any collections I'm forgetting, or the upcoming Conan the Berserker and Conan the Dominator due for release later this year. The latest one on the list was published last month. Last month! And most of them even have Conan in the title! "Out of print for years" my eye.

Now, one could argue that Stewart's talking about the Ace/Lancer/Sphere/Whatever Conan books, not the Conan stories specifically, and that if one considers the stories written by De Camp, Nieberg, Carter and others, those stories are indeed largely out of print. Stewart is holding a copy of the Sphere Conan of Cimmeria, which might give support to that idea. But Stewart Lee didn't mention any other authors, he only talked about Howard. And Howard's Conan stories have seen nothing short of a boom in recent years.

I could accept this from a sheltered schoolboy in the 1980s, back when we didn't have the internet to check things. But a 43-year-old man in 2011? Inexcusable. Is it really any wonder he comes up with the old "REH was a nutcase who actually believed the ghost of a warrior king was forcing him to write" when he seems blissfully unaware that the Conan stories have been enjoying a spectacular renaissance?

Lest you think I'm only concerned about Howard, I'm also perplexed that Stewart thinks that "most of Machen's work is out of print." Well, to pull the old Rashōmon, that's not the way I remember it.

The Green Round - August 2000
The Three Impostors and Other Stories - 2001
The White People and Other Tales - 2003
The Great God Pan - 2003
Ritual: Expanded - 2004
The Terror and Other Stories - 2005
The Great God Pan - Apr 2005
The Great God Pan and The Hill of Dreams -2006
'The Red Hand' and 'The White People' - 2006

The Great God Pan and The Hill of Dreams - Jan 2006
The Great God Pan - Aug 2006
The Great God Pan - 2007
The Great God Pan - Nov 2009
The Great God Pan - 2010
N - May 2010
The Terror - July 2011

There are countless others, but we'd be here all day, and I think you get the point. And we can look forward to The White People and Other Weird Stories from no less than Penguin Classics in December of this year. Long overdue, if you ask me. You know what? Looking up Arthur Machen's work at his page on the Internet Speculative Fiction Database shows that a hell of a lot of the short stories, far from being out of print, have actually been collected in multiple publications within the last decade! Be it famed masterworks like The White People, The Shining Pyramid, The Novel of the Black Seal, The Great God Pan, The Three Imposters, or less prominent ones like The Green Round - which Stewart specifically mentions in the program - Machen's work has been very prolific in the last ten years. For Crom's sake, you can even find new ones in a canny search on Amazon!

Unlike Howard and Machen, I'm entirely unfamiliar with Nina Hamnett. However, I'm going to do what someone on this bloody show should've done, and do a quick search to see if The Laughing Torso is out of print. And lo and behold:

Laughing Torso - October 2004
Laughing Torso: Reminisces of Nina Hamnett - March 2007
Laughing Torso: Reminisces of Nina Hamnett - November 2008
The Laughing Torso - September 2010
The Laughing Torso - February 2011
The Laughing Torso - August 2011

But this isn't all on Stewart's head. A person has the right to be mistaken, even when they're going on national television and figured "what could possibly have changed in the past 30 years to justify me spending five minutes on an internet search engine to ascertain everything I learned as a lad is so today?" What bothers me most is this: did nobody on a program called THE REVIEW SHOW think to double-check what their talking heads were saying? Aren't they concerned that broadcasting inaccurate information in regards to books might be somewhat counterproductive to their aims?

The Review Show is one of the premier arts discussion shows in the United Kingdom, broadcast on BBC2, one of the major terrestrial channels. It has a fairly high profile with many guests from the world of culture and celebrity, drawing in many viewers who wouldn't necessarily go for reading. As such, anything said about any given author carries a lot of impact. It's telling that while Stewart goes into detail about the story of The Green Round and Laughing Torso, he says nothing about Conan of Cimmeria: everything he says is about Robert E. Howard, parroting the old nonsense that should've been left in the 1980s. It gives the distinct impression that the life of the author is more interesting than the stories within, leading one to wonder why they should bother reading the stories when the biography sounds better...

And when Howard is painted as a hallucinating madman and Machen is presented as languishing out of print, that does nobody any good: it tarnishes the legacy of Howard and ignores the continued relevance of Machen.

*After posting this, I decided to have a look around to see if Stewart Lee's brought up Howard before. It turns out he has: Howard is mentioned on his official website, and I can't believe I forgot this interview, linked in my "In Praise of Robert E. Howard" post. At least one blogger also claims to have sold him some Howard books, noting that Lee was eyeing his pile of Howard paperbacks.

I'm pretty sure Lee isn't being malicious in describing Howard as being mad or insane, but he is perpetuating long-discredited falsehoods, and it would be nice if he read a book about Howard that wasn't written in the shadow of De Camp or "Conan Unchained." I can sympathise: it can be tough being told long-held beliefs were wrong, and one can be resistant to such changes. But that doesn't stop falsehoods from being wrong.

Dark Ideas

2011-10-31T21:47:00.000Z

"Daddy, I had a bad dream."
You blink your eyes and pull up on your elbows. Your clock glows red in the darkness—it's 3:23.
"Do you want to climb into bed and tell me about it?"
"No, Daddy."
The oddness of the situation wakes you up more fully. You can barely make out your daughter's pale form in the darkness of your room. "Why not, sweetie?"
"Because in my dream, when I told you about the dream, the thing wearing Mommy's skin sat up."
For a moment, you feel paralysed; you can't take your eyes off of your daughter. Then the covers behind you begin to shift…
- Bad Dream

There seems to be a subtle difference between terror and horror. There are lots of horror stories, films, games and comics out there, rightly considered to be finely-tuned and crafted pieces of work. But I can deal with horror. The concept of werewolves, vampires, zombies, and the like can provide certain amounts of scares, for sure. I loved the horror tales of Poe, Lovecraft, Machen, and the films of Carpenter, Dante, Miller and more. But they don't always stay with me in quite the way others do.

I know that there are some stories that, once read, causes the sun of my mind to creep a little closer to the horizon, casting shadows a little longer, dimming the light of the world a little more. "Graveyard Shift," or "The Faces," or "Day of Reckoning." "The Wendigo." "Sticks." "Pigeons from Hell." "The Statement of Randolph Carter." "The Captain of the Polestar." Half of Ray Bradbury's work and Roald Dahl's fiction. There are films which can be frightening in ways literature cannot. Night of the Demon. The Haunting. The Innocents. Suspiria. Black Sunday. Ringu. Too many Hammer films and Italian horrors to name. In this age of the internet, meta-fiction can take strange and terrifying new turns. The SCP Foundation is responsible for more than its fair share of sleepless nights: The Stairwell, The Red Sea Object, A Ticket To Ride, The Hanged King's Tragedy, The Flesh That Hates, 13'' Chef's Knife, Cargo Ship, and the most terrifying interpretation of Bigfoot I've ever read.

But this idea I had...

I still don't know how the idea came to me. Perhaps it was reading all the alternate histories, fringe scientific theories, and crackpot musings coalescing in my brain. Perhaps it was reading all those dreadful, horrendous horror tales that posited truly monstrous possibilities. There are some stories... some things I've discovered, and I'm sure my life is a little bit darker having known them. Once in my mind, they can't get out. And sometimes I wonder if they should.

It's a shame, because this idea I had... it could be a pretty powerful short story. But I can't write it, because I just know that it would be trouble. People would be outraged, accusing me of any number of horrible, terrible things that aren't true - are they? After all, my mind conjured the idea, surely I must be considered accountable? Yet one doesn't accuse the horror author of murder, any more than one would suggest a mystery writer could solve crimes. Still, this idea, this concept, is so psychologically revolting that I just don't know what to do with it. It isn't a matter of gore, or obscenity, or anything like that - the source of the horror comes from the idea that everything you thought was so may not be what you thought... and that you were wrong. Everyone was wrong.

Here's an analogue. There's a brilliant sketch from That Mitchell & Webb Look which exemplifies a rough idea of the sort of thing I'm talking about:

This is about the most terrifying thing I could imagine: the idea that you're the bad guy. Being someone who takes pride in his general being a nice chap, I've had few problems conceding when I'm proven wrong, or mistaken. But there's something about not only being wrong, but being the bad guy, which is an existential crisis too far for me. Of course, I'm not talking about simple human faults, like taking criticism too far or taking too much joy in someone's misfortune: I mean being the guy who joined a rebel cell, only to discover one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. Or the soldier who signed up to defend his country, but ended up being a cog in a murderous machine.

This is the ultimate terror. The fact that, despite honest, good people wanting to think there's no way they could kill another human being just because they were told to, all it takes is the wrong sequence of events to turn someone into a monster. That someone can believe themselves to be above prejudice or all the -isms, but that assurance is all too brittle when forced. That not even the people making those experiments are exempt from this. We can try to lie to each other, that the Bathorys, Mengeles, Hamiltons, Shipmans and Breiviks are abberations, that there's some profound difference between humans and monsters. It would be nice to think that could be true. But just as men and women are capable of great, wonderful, saintly things, so are they capable of... others.

Happy Halloween.

Back again, Mr Herron?

2011-10-29T09:47:00.002+01:00

Hee hee, this is fun.

Meanwhile, over in the World of Robert E. Howard Studies (or at least one encampment where skin-clad knuckle-draggers sit around and devour the latest issue of the Conan comic book in cannabalistic fashion — yum-yum, eat-em-up):

Oh noes, Don Herron is disparaging the faithful Lost Souls! Good sir, I respect your pre-eminent authority in Howard scholarship, but this slight shall not go unanswered. They may be skin-clad knuckle-dragging cannibals, but by thunder, they're my skin-clad knuckle-dragging cannibals!

I see that Al Harron has tossed together a response to my previous Lightin’ Al post — if you follow this sort of thing, hop over to this bit and make sure to read the comments, too, they’re priceless. Got to love the commentator who suggests I lurked in egomaniacal fashion on Al’s site for month after month waiting for him to reply to an even earlier post — now there is someone who has no idea how this new-fangled Internet works. Al does explain about contraptions like Google Alert, and even reveals that he has his name programmed into Google Alert so he knows instantly every time his name pops up anywhere. Wow. Does that make Al an egomaniac — or is that just what almost everyone does these days?

I bet he’s an egomaniac. Come on, Al, really — you have to know every time your name graces some website?

It may be a shock to Mr Herron, but I'm not really, you know, that famous. Sure, I run the Conan Movie Blog (blatant cross-promotion!), but I'm hardly that much of a public figure that putting my name into Google Alert would result in me being bombarded with scores of results for my name. In fact, I can recall that my name has only turned up in Google Alerts a shocking half dozen times in the past year, and in each instance, I felt obligated to respond, mostly because they bore responding to: one was actively calling me out on my alleged plagiarism of the news of Frazetta's death (as if you can plagiarise news), another few were from James Maliszewski regarding posts I had made on this blog, and the last two were from Don Herron, so here we are. If I am indeed an egomaniac, then my poor fragile ego must be utterly devastated by the dearth of websites singing my glorious name.

But again, two points of clarification: I don’t actually read Al’s blog, because it’s about stuff like the Conan comic books that I don’t care about one way or the other (during Howard Days one year they were giving away comp copies when you checked in, and I didn’t take any — honest, I don’t need to read that stuff). I’m not on Google Alert, and only heard about the Al posts because Damon Sasser told me about the first one and Brian Leno spotted the next one. They’re more dedicated to patrolling the Howardian Web than I’ll ever be.

Damon, Brian, thanks! I'm glad you passed this along to Don. Even though it seems Don isn't a regular or even casual reader, I choose to take the fact that Don Herron is aware that I've recently been talking about the upcoming Becky Cloonan/Brian Wood "Queen of the Black Coast" series (even though this is one of maybe a score of posts I've actually discussed the Conan comics, maximum, certainly one of the handful I've talked about them in a wholly positive light) as being evidence that he's at least done a bit of cursory browsing. Don Herron has browsed my blog!

And Al is correct that I don’t think he’ll ever become a major critic, certainly not with his laid-back If I Inspire Even One New Fan style (Golly Gee, I helped a new guy discover REH, and now he’s reading the comic books!). Yeah, one new guy every now and then, that’ll really set Howard on the road to literary acclaim — if you live longggggggg enough.

Well, at least he thought I was correct in something. Still, I feel I need to defend my style: yes, I prefer to take the approach I tend to describe as "good cop." I just talk about how great I find REH, and I generally like to be positive because I'd just spent a good 10 years being an angry young man, and I was sick of it.

But that isn't always the case. Sometimes, someone really riles me up, and that's when I get angry. I don't like me when I get angry. But sometimes, I feel it's necessary: be it when some random blogger decries REH fans for daring to not like the 1982 film, a silly journalist on The Guardian makes judgements on Conan while admitting she hasn't read all the stories, Daily Mail columnists who'd rather delete criticism than deal with it, film journalists who clearly haven't read any Howard, discussions on how Howard's racism/sexism precludes him from consideration as "worth preserving," or just about anything you read under my "Confounded Imbeciles" label.

Sure, I'm a kitten next to the likes of a Dennis McHaney or Leo Grin or, well, Don Herron when they get going, but I don't think you could call my responses to those articles or posts particularly laid-back. The difference is, I tend to save my ire for the DeCampistas and Maggies V.O.s of the web, especially of late. Could I go nuts on every stupid thing some journalist or reviewer says? Sure, I could. But building up negativity isn't something I enjoy doing. Could I bring up good pieces of Howard news more often? I guess - but other Howard websites are dedicated to this sort of thing, so I'd just be following in their stead, and couldn't really add anything to proceedings.

Still, I think the Good Cop approach can do wonders. Recently I hit upon an idea: using the Good Cop approach to address criticism. My Back to the Future-inspired post would be an example of that, highlighting how a phrase or idea can be so daft, the only reasonable explanation is some sort of anomaly in the space-time continuum which made it so. And believe me, there's more than enough fodder for that kind of ridicule. In fact, here's one from that esteemed organ The Grauniad, one which I might roast in a future post:

But it's not all sorcery and swordplay. Along the way, Conan finds brief moments of respite, whether it be arm-wrestling his brawny buddy into chuckling submission or carousing with the sort of nubile slave girls who look as if they were abducted on their way to a swimwear photo-shoot. In this regard, the Conan upgrade is entirely in keeping with the spirit of the original pulp novels and comic-book spin-offs – all of which shone a similarly inquisitive light on those learned genre tenets of gore-porn and what scholars refer to as "teen-masturbatory erotica".

In the comments, Justin Geoffreys (presumably no relation of that Justin Geoffrey) comments:

I can't believe the ignorance of this review.
...the Conan upgrade is entirely in keeping with the spirit of the original pulp novels and comic-book spin-offs – all of which shone a similarly inquisitive light on those learned genre tenets of gore-porn and what scholars refer to as "teen-masturbatory erotica"
Which scholars exactly? Can we have references? Well, probably not because Robert E Howard wrote but one Conan "novel" and the rest of the tales were short stories and certainly not "teen-masturbatory erotica" or erotica of any description (is there such a thing as non-masturbatory erotica, btw?)

And Mr Xan Brooks responds:

@JustinGeoffreys, thanks for your post. Feel free to soothe your 'strong suspicions': I have seen the film I reviewed.
Neither did I say that it was a 'remake' of the Schwarzenegger film. Also, I seem to recall that there were a number of spin-off Conan books published after Howard's death - most of them, I think, written by the great L Sprague De Camp.
But well-spotted - you are entirely right to pick me up on the very first point. Those lofty scholars poring over their annals of teen-wank erotica and writing their learned discourses? As you correctly surmise, I totally made them up. Hence the lack of references.

I may be mistaken, but it looks like Brooks is asserting that Robert E. Howard scholars do not exist. He certainly doesn't seem to have redacted his assertion that Howard's work is little more than "teen-masturbatory erotica." Truly, the timeline is in worse shape than I thought!

Sadly, the comments section is now closed (Lightin' Al's done it again, I guess), so I can't address some of the breathtakingly stupid comments directly, but hey, it might make for a fun post all the same.

Anyway, back to Don.

Al is confusing being a general REH fan booster with being a critic. You want to review new Conan comic books for the people who read them, knock yourself out. Have fun. Keep up with movies and video games.

You want to lift Howard higher in critical regard in the wider world, you’ve got to do more than that to have any impact.

There's a reason I haven't been doing a lot of serious REH criticism on my blog - this isn't a serious REH criticism blog. This isn't Two-Gun Raconteur, The Cimmerian, REHupa, or anything like that: it's a personal blog, a daft, whimsical little corner of the 'net that occassionally delves into something more heady, usually by accident. Don obviously knows this, but I may have given him the impression that I don't know this. Do I engage in some criticism? Sure: I'd like to think that series like The Filmgoer's Guide to Conan the Barbarian is, while certainly nothing new to the REH reader, another resource that prospective new REH readers can draw upon. But what I write here is not, nor is it meant to be, my true foray into Howard scholarship, any more than I suspect Don's own blog is meant to represent his most recent scholarly essays.

Something that had been festering in me since the last post was the fact that Don, at my age, had already written "Conan vs Conantics" and was duking it out with de Camp. The thing is... this was 30 years ago. Think about how much has been written in those thirty years, when "Conan vs Conantics" was considered a bold, new idea instead of this . Think about how different it was when there were no pure REH texts being published, how De Camp still had a stranglehold on everything, a time before vast reams of information were available at the touch of a button. Don was living in a world that cried out for a revolution, and he was one of the spearheads of that revolution.

Now? The war is won. Paradox has been publishing pure, unexpurgated Howard texts for the past decade or so. The boxing stories, westerns, detective yarns and spicies are back from a long limbo. Robert E. Howard's name is starting to be taken seriously in academic circles. Rather than being the domain of a rabid few, Howard purism is considered to be practically the party line. Howard's work is even being printed in the Library of America and Penguin Classics, fercryinoutloud! Perhaps there hasn't been an equivalent of "Conan vs Conantics" in recent years because they're no longer possible. The new generation of Howard scholars don't have a great foe to assail, one who belittles and dismisses their ideas, who considers the author who made him rich to be merely a decent pulp writer who made one good creation. Is it any wonder there hasn't been a new "Conan vs Conantics"?

Lest it sound like I'm complaining about how it's so much harder for new REH scholars, I'm certainly not trying to downplay the importance of Don's work, nor imply that he had an easier job of it: far from it. What I'm trying to say is that new Howard scholars might be feeling a profound sense of redundancy. Take the case of my good pal, Jeff Shanks, who wrote a piece for The Cimmerian blog where he suggests that 1933's King Kong may have been an influence on "Cupid of Bear Creek": he was later mortified to learn that Brian Leno had discussed this exact correlation in an issue of The Cimmerian journal. I know I've had the feeling where some observation I was positive had never been brought up turned out to be anything but. It can be disheartening to know that people have already made this discovery, and you start to feel a bit irrelevant.

Still, this isn't an excuse. Saying there's nothing left to discuss with Howard is doing a disservice to his genius: the new Howard fans just need to keep digging. Paradox and CPI have made it easier than ever to delve through the extant Howard manuscripts, and the internet has allowed Howard fans, scholars and critics to contact each other directly with greater ease. It just so happens that Don Herron and his ilk have done most of the work already.

EDIT: And here's Don's reply.

So what did you all think?

2011-10-26T19:12:00.001+01:00

I really haven't been keeping up to date with my replies to comments, but hopefully this post will provide one I can't ignore: what did you think of Conan the Barbarian 2011?

I've already expressed my thoughts at ridiculous length, and frankly, I don't think they've changed much from my initial reaction. What little that was good in the film was swamped and consumed by everything that wasn't as good, and the infuriating thing is, it's easy to see why it went wrong. Well, easy for this armchair analyst who really has no business talking about why a film flopped, but maybe a few shots in the dark will actually hit their target.

Fandom Confusion

First of all, the producers seemed to think that appealing to the hardcore Conan fans meant taking the elements from the 1982 film. They figure "well, the HARDCORE Conan fans don't want to see a Conan film unless it has the essential Conan elements - that means we have to have Conan going on a quest for revenge against the warlord who killed his father! There we go, that'll keep the real hardcore fans happy!" Now they're all shocked and surprised that the Conan fans didn't turn up in droves to see what the "hardcore fans" considered a remake of their beloved 1982 film!

It simply didn't seem to occur to them that the hardcore Milius/Schwarzenegger fans simply aren't interested in a Conan film without Milius or Schwarzenegger involved. Without them, it wouldn't matter if it was a shot-for-shot retelling Gus Van Sant style - without those two, it isn't a film they'd be interested in. So why even bother with those elements in the first place, especially since trying to make it more Howardian ends up diluting and compromising both elements, the story?

A common complaint I hear about the film is that the 1982 film had a lot of pathos with young Conan: a sweet, innocent, doe-eyed little boy who has his parents murdered, people slaughtered, home destroyed, and childhood lost as he's sold into slavery, forced into manual labour for 20 years, and turned into a ruthless killer through years of abusive training. That's a pretty brutal upbringing, and you gain sympathy for the little boy who was transformed through no will of his own into a violent warrior, and watch him rediscover things like friendship, love and laughter over the course of the film.

This film has no such development, and it's intensely problematic because it spans over 20 years of Conan's life. None of Howard's stories show a marked development of Conan's character because none of Howard's stories take place over such a long time, but if you combined, say, "The God in the Bowl" with "A Witch Shall Be Born" and account for the time difference, one can see that Conan at each age was very different. There's nothing like that in the new film: Conan at twenty-something is about the same sort of guy he was when he was a precocious preteen. Thus, by removing Conan's slavery, gladiatorial training and martial arts schooling, you're removing that sense that Conan's been developing as a human being. The film basically condenses the considerable character growth Conan undertook from his thieving days in Zamora to the period in the film (which is stated to be after "Queen of the Black Coast") with a black screen and voiceover.

It's infuriating, because Howard fans know how Conan developed and changed during that period, but new filmgoers aren't going to have a clue. "Show, don't tell" is the mantra, and while I applaud Sean Hood for putting in the references to Conan's pirating days and Venarium, I can't help but wish the filmmakers decided to, you know, film Conan's pirating days and Venarium.

Remake Confusion

But then, this is all because of the innate problem of the origin story. The filmmakers were trying to compromise in an uncompromising situation: make it closer to Howard, or a remake of the 1982 film. Compromise just ends up in confusion and dilution: removing the most egregious elements of the 1982 film's origin (slavery, Wheel of Pain etc) may make it more palatable for REH fans, but at the expense of making the 1982's origin story watered-down and limp. Consequently, using the 1982 film as a basis means that the film would never be truly Howardian no matter how many alterations were made. This really was an "all or nothing" situation: either just go for a straight remake, or just make up an entirely new origin (preferably) based on what we know from Howard.

The problem is, I don't think a remake of the 1982 film would've made things any better, creatively or financially. Say they got Djimon Honsou for Thulsa Doom, Jaime Alexander for Valeria, John Foo for Subotai, Sonny Chiba as the Wizard, and so forth. With Marcus Nispel still directing, Tyler Bates doing the score, the same screenwriters etc, would it have any more interest? Would people go to the film when they see Thulsa Doom turning into a snake and getting in the inevitable final fight (having completely missed the point of the original film's understated climax), seeing Subotai and Valeria engage in preposterous wire-fu, a POV shot of the snake-arrow flying through the air, Valeria actively fighting the new CGI demons come to claim Conan's soul, all to a horrendous soundtrack?

Many of the things people miss from the 1982 film - Conan's prayer to Crom, "What is Best In Life," the Wizard, Valeria, Thulsa Doom - are things that people just assume would be in a film whose plot, according to the film's own promotional material, is about the exact same story arc as the 1982 film. Why wouldn't they assume it's a remake, and then think that the lack of the best things from the 1982 film was a case of the film being "unfaithful to the source material"?

I'd been bending over backwards trying to explain to people that this isn't a remake of the 1982 film - even the Arnold Fans are saying this isn't a remake - but when faced with the film's own promotional material concentrating on "the tale of Conan the Cimmerian and his adventures across the continent of Hyboria on a quest to avenge the murder of his father and the slaughter of his village," sometimes I feel at a loss. I just think, why even bother? Remake, reboot, reimagining, reincarnation, reinvention, reinvigoration, reconstitution, repeat, retread, rehash - it doesn't matter, it's just not even worth the effort of proper terminology.

The Little Things

As with Solomon Kane, sometimes the little things could be just as irritating as the big things. I was planning on doing an Unanswered Questions post on Conan, but there were just so many that simply couldn't be answered satisfactorily outside of "it's in the Vilayet Sea Scrolls, so we don't consider it Canon" and they just kind of bugged me too much.

Note that none of these have anything to do with deviations from Howard. They'd take up their own page. These are examples of the story just not making sense by itself, given the information we have in the film, independent of any divergences from the source material.

The film can't seem to decide whether Acheron was an ancient evil empire, or a relatively modern evil empire that was destroyed just a generation before. The Acheronian bloodline is apparently old enough so that purebloods are exceedingly rare and unaware of their dark origin, the Mask is old enough to foster a prophecy of being remade, and the last remnants of Acheron appear to be subterranean ruins accessed by a skull cave; on the other hand, Khalar's soldiers wear exactly the same armour, bear the same standards, and use the same methods as the Acheronian soldiers in the prologue. This is not helped by the fact that some get the impression Corin himself led the Cimmerians against Acheron, as in the film's Wikipedia page, and that the attack which resulted in Fialla's death was somehow connected to Zym, making him responsible for the deaths of both of Conan's parents. So is Acheron ancient or modern? Making it the former jives more with Howard, but making it the latter just makes more sense in the context of the film.
Why do the barbarians not just, you know, destroy the Mask of Acheron? They've already broken it, they're barbarians so they have a hatred and fear of magic... why didn't they just keep cutting it into pieces until there's nothing left?
It sure was nice of the ~~Vanir~~ Generic Barbarian Marauders to give Corin and Fialla some alone time as Corin delivered his son. What smarts is we see the Cimmerians make a shield wall in the battle at the village: would it have been so difficult to have the other Cimmerian warriors realise Fialla was giving birth, and instinctively form a ring around her, showing the solidarity of the Cimmerians and not leaving Corin and Fialla completely open to attack?
Conan is meant to be an untrained warrior. The whole point of the Egg Race was to see which of the Cimmerians would be given the right to train with the warriors, and since they're completely unarmed and no reference is ever made of prior training, it stands to reason that they are indeed raw recruits. So where did Conan learn his lovely kata from? From whence did this allegedly untrained warrior get his perfect form?
Conan screaming, chomping and opening his mouth during the fight with the ~~Picts~~ Beast-Men, yet somehow never breaking, swallowing or spitting out the egg. Crom almighty, was the continuity editor drunk, sleeping or just shouted down?
In an early iteration of the script, Conan kills three of the Picts, and the other escapes. That Pict is later seen leading Khalar's army to the Cimmerian village, with the promise to take "all the Cimmerian heads he wishes" as payment. He assures Khalar that there is only one head he desires.
In the final film, there is no such plot: Conan defeats all four Picts, and the way the scene is cut suggests Conan kills the final survivor. However, he comes back to the village with three heads... and the Pict he "killed" turns up later with Khalar's army. It isn't even as if it could've been some other Pict, it's very clearly the same character, and there's definitely something more going on than what we see in the final film. It isn't even as if he's seen in the background: he's front and centre in a crucial shot of the army roaring in triumph. You've seen it in the trailers. Instead of just cutting that shot out, they leave it in, presenting us with a Dead Character Walking. And here I thought only Transformers had that problem...
So Conan's been searching for Khalar Zym. Zym, it transpires, has been running roughshod over the Hyborian Kingdoms and set himself up as king somewhere in Zingara/Argos/Shem/TheDirectorObviouslyDoesn'tCareSoWhyShouldYou. You'd think that Conan might have encountered him before that, what with Zym being a freaking king and all, and that word from his conquest of the hitherto unconquerable Cimmerians (the same barbarians that destroyed Acheron, don't forget, in this film continuity) would've reached his ears sometime in the last decade. How on earth did Conan only now discover that the man who's set himself up as king after a wave of conquests was the same man who destroyed his village?
Whenever the film has a major battle scene involving many extras, they always cut it short. The Cimmerian village battle and the Monastery siege were about two minutes apiece, while fights with maybe a dozen or so warriors get much longer, and are essentially variations on a theme. Couldn't they have taken out ten or so of the meaningless fights from elsewhere in the film and combined them into the bigger battles to make them more satisfying?
For that matter, if Conan believed Khalar was just a "common bandit," then how could his village be so easily destroyed? You'd think they'd be set up for defence against those sorts of things. Did Conan really believe that a common bandit could so easily rampage through Cimmeria? Did he truly believe that a common bandit's army would boast hundreds, if not thousands, of soldiers from all over the world clad in plate armour and wielding the finest weapons?
Conan's "no man should live in chains" mantra strongly suggests that Conan's anti-slavery. So why does he insist on not only calling Tamara his property, but treating her like his property? He even ties her up and gags her. Maybe he's just taking it literally, implying that no men should live in chains, but women were perfectly fine: after all, he did get Lucius killed through proxies, saying that "I wouldn't kill you."
Let's suppose Marique as seen in the flashback scene shows her at about five, at the very youngest. Marique can't have been older than 15 during the attack at Conan's village. During that time, at most ten years, Khalar has conquered Ukafa's, Akhun's, Cherin's and Remo's people, all of whom are evidently from many different parts of the world. Once he has the mask, it takes him twelve years to find the monastery which is hiding Tamara... and which happens to be within a few day's marching distance from his own fortress. It takes Khalar Zym longer to find the last pureblood a stone's throw away from his capital than it does to conquer half a dozen barbarian tribes hundreds of miles apart. What.
Why does Khalar Zym haul that giant ship over land anyway? Why is it imperative that he have thousands of slaves and dozens of elephants dragging this gargantuan boat hundreds if not thousands of miles? If it's so he can breach the walls of the monastery... dude, battering rams. Look into them. Requires roughly one thousandth of the effort, resources and manpower for the same effect. Hell, even if we're supposed to think "he's an eccentric warlord with a flair for the ostentatious," you'd think someone would at least mention the elephant(-drawn warship) in the room.
Tamara: helpless damsel in distress, or competent woman warrior? The film never could make up its mind. In some scenes she's cowering in terror screaming for Conan to save her: in others she's taking as many heads as Conan himself. Sometimes she's timorously holding a dagger like someone completely unfamiliar with weapons, others she carries herself with the assurance of combat experience. Totally inconsistent.
Marique conjures four Sand Warriors from a handful of dust. She never does this again. See, Jason and the Argonauts dealt with this easily, since the skeletons were spawned from the Hydra's teeth, and there was only a finite amount of Hydra-gnashers. But sand is everywhere, and there's no indication that this was magic sand, or that the magic had a limited time offer.
Marique also dips a blade into poison, which she uses to incapacitate Conan, with enormous success. It never seemed to occur to her to use that poison again. It would've been handy in her scrap with Tamara. Nor did it occur to Khalar to coat the edge of his sword in it, especially since Conan was kicking his arse until the poison kicked in.
Considering we get a reference to Conan's days as a notorious and dangerous thief, what on earth could he possibly need Ela-Shan for, especially when it transpires that he isn't really much of a thief at all, and especially especially since Conan's thieving reputation was referenced before we meet Ela-Shan in the first place?
Where did Khalar Zym's army go, and why was nobody guarding Khor Khalba? Khalar's massive army conquers all over the place, invades a monastery, a few forces get dispatched by Conan, and then... nothing.

ARGH, I've ranted enough.

So anyway, over to you folks.

Video Interview with Clood

2011-10-25T08:07:00.002+01:00

Oh, boy: Geeks of Doom put up a video interview with Becky Cloonan and Brian Wood. While -ood has discussed some of his plans and ideas, Cloo- has been a bit quiet: it's good to hear from her. In particular, she states her plans for Conan: he's going to be "sexier" and "prettier" than previous interpretations, with a particular aim at getting more female fans into the fold.

The more I see of Brian & Becky, the more excited I am about what they're up to... and the more apprehensive. It's just... I've been burned so many times before, you know?

In any case, I suspect a few alarm bells might be ringing for some when Becky explains how her Conan will be prettier for the ladies. Now, while I've explained why I don't think Conan should ever be thin, I don't have any objections to Conan being handsome. There really is little to go on in the text regarding Conan's facial features beyond eye colour: all we really know is he has a "low, broad brow," "black brows," "thin lips," and a "scarred, almost sinister face." In my estimation, Conan could be a neanderthalic brute or a Tall Dark Stranger. My own interpretation of Conan has a lot of Sean Connery and Oliver Reed in him - definitely not Rudolph Valentino, but not Wallace Beery or Louis Wolheim either.

Just as long as we don't end up with Bishie Conan. We don't want that.

Margaret Atwood talks Conan!?!

2011-10-24T23:54:00.000+01:00

I meant to post this a while ago, but I prefer to stagger my posts so there's at most one or two a day. In any case, I'm absolutely stunned by this: not only does Margaret Atwood have something to say about Conan... but that something is good. Taran of One Last Sketch sent this interview along, and I'm quite impressed. I'll try and get a transcript up and running, but be forewarned it's two minutes or so of Conan after a half-hour of other subjects, so don't expect this to be a Conan lecture: even so, I found the entire podcast very interesting.

More from Clood on Conan

2011-10-23T00:01:00.027+01:00

Io9 has an interview with Clood on "Queen of the Black Coast." They certainly don't seem intimidated by fans, for they make a couple of pretty bold statements. Do I agree or disagree? Only one way to find out!

Another big project you have coming down the line is Conan the Barbarian. How did that come around?
Brian Wood: Dark Horse asked me to take it on almost a year ago. It took a while, but my schedule eventually freed, and Becky was the obvious choice. Dark Horse's goal is to have not your typical sort of Conan look and vibe. The comic adapts the old story, Queen of the Black Coast. It's a young Conan, he's about 25. He falls in with this pirate band, and the first love of his life is this tough, awesome pirate queen. There's a lot of sex, a lot of adventures — it's this time in his life when he sees the world with a hot girl at his side. It's an adaptation, but we're also creating a lot of new stuff.

It's kind of weird, because of all the stories to pick as "not your typical Conan series," I would've thought taking a gamble on one of the lesser stories would pay off better than taking one of the iconic Conan tales. Truman gambled with the idea of turning "Iron Shadows in the Moon" into first-person perspective from Olivia's point of view, and I think that aspect of the adaptation worked tremendously. Again, I'm interested in seeing what Clood do with this, but to be frank, I don't think people would mind too much if they did something outlandish with, say, "Xuthal of the Dusk" or "The Man-Eaters of Zamboula," whereas messing about with something as beloved and complex as "Queen of the Black Coast" is about as tricky as altering "Beyond the Black River" or "The People of the Black Circle." Maybe that's the plan: take one of the most famed, loved and admired Conan stories, and put it all on black. Gotta admire their mettle.

Becky, what sort of design are you bringing to the pirate queen, Bêlit?
Becky Cloonan: She's great. It's kind of difficult because she's a sexy, strong character, but you don't oversexualize her because it can easily turn into cheesecake. I'm trying to make her look as dangerous as possible. She's hot, but she also looks like she would kill you just to watch you die.

The problem, unfortunately, is that in American culture, nudity is equated with sexuality, which is obviously problematic. Thus, even depicting women with a lot of skin can be considered sexualizing, which strikes me as somewhat preposterous: by this logic, a bland bikini worn at the beach is more sexualised than a little black dress, despite the one being intended to be functional and the latter for display. Weird world, I guess. But putting Belit in non-sexual poses should be fine: make her stand proud, defiant and dominant, languid and lazy, and crouched like a tigress ready to pounce, instead of the usual cocked-hip stuff.

Still, there are ways: Belit seems to have quite an attachment to Conan's scarlet cloak. She's seen sleeping under it at least once, and Conan lays her on it in her funeral pyre. So, if you run out of ideas, just have her play with Conan's cloak. Wear it as a cape, a cloak, robes, a skirt, a toga, a sari, whatever. Do a variation of that scene from Spartacus where Varinia tells Spartacus she's pregnant, and they're both in the same robes. Have fun with it.

Brian Wood: In the book itself, she's naked around the clock. Obviously, we can't really draw that, so we have to find creative ways of depicting this. Also, the [Conan] books are really old. Obviously, what's going to fly in the 1930s isn't going to fly now when you show a woman like that. We're trying to find the right balance.

Becky Cloonan: She's supposed to run around topless, but I can't just be like, "Oh, here are two word balloons! Oh, here is a plant in front of the left boob!" I want to find creative ways of depicting this.

Alarm bells! Alarm bells! Alarm bells! Alright, calm down... Sorry, I just tend to get a bit tense whenever people keep talking about "updating" the classics. After all, not only were these stories written in the 1930s, they were set in a pre-industrial age with mores and customs alien to modern times. It seems preposterous to complain about "what's going to fly in the 1930s" when the story's setting is an age where women were treated as property, chattel and second-class citizens. Especially when said story notes that this isn't a good thing.

I may be overly nervous: I just hope Clood don't muck about with Belit's characterisation out of a misplaced sense of "modernising" the character, when I think it would be more creatively satisfying to explain those actions in a modern context. For example, a lot of people give "Queen" flak for Belit and Conan being implied (in the old "fade to black" fashion) to have sex right on the deck of the Tigress shortly after the battle of the Argus. "That's completely unrealistic! It's totally childish! It's an adolescent fantasy! No woman would act like that!" Some would suggest, for example, having Belit mistrust Conan, and just make him another corsair forcing him to work his way up the ranks, or a captive in the brig, or even her personal slave.

From my point of view, it's cheating to change that: it's admitting defeat, admitting that "yeah, this is totally unrealistic, nobody would buy that." It belies a lack of faith in the source material. Wouldn't it be better to try and explain Belit's sudden actions? Howard left more than a few hints that Belit considered this to be some sort of divine providence or cosmic conjunction: being a daughter of the Kings of Askalon as well as clearly versed in Shemite religion, wouldn't it be more fun to try and explain her actions from a religious-prophetic point of view, instead of dumbing it down for readers who can't grasp the idea that things may have been different in prehistoric times, or that Belit's actions are meant to be unusual?

Curses, sorry, I'm doing it again. Suffice to say, I note that they haven't brought up the fact that the black corsairs are all naked. All eighty of them. Belit is the only naked woman in a sea of giant naked black men! It would be a shame if they didn't take this chance for equal-opportunity nudity - hell, it's all the more reason to show Belit being nude, if only to offset the sheer volume of black flesh on display. Or are they going to cover up the black corsairs, for fear of scaring away the young male demographic, but leaving Belit unclad? Well, that would be sexist. In fact, I'd actually be offended that they covered up the Black Corsairs and not Belit, if that situation comes to pass, especially for all that talk about stuff flying in the '30s and not now. I'm serious.

That said... it isn't strictly necessary for Belit to be naked for the entire 25-issue run. She should just be naked for any issues that are direct adaptations of "Queen of the Black Coast," and an argument could be made that only the first chapter applies. Howard never really mentioned Belit's attire after the first meeting with Conan, so it's possible that she was topless then, or you could go the old gold bikini route. Belit is noted as wearing copious ornamentations, after all.

Becky Cloonan: So maybe. Right now, I'm working on another Dark Horse book, The Guild: Zaboo one-shot, which is really fun. I made a minicomic Wolves at my website, it's in the genre of Conan.

Brian Wood: If anybody wants to get a sense of what Becky's Conan will be like, check out that minicomic.

You heard the Clood.

Brian Wood: And some people are like "Emo Conan!" because you drew too much hair in his eyes. I actually saw that in a comment, "YOU DREW TOO MUCH HAIR IN HIS FACE!"

Becky Cloonan: Whatever! I didn't want him to look like the Hulk with a bad haircut.

There have been plenty of comparatively slight Conans who could still fit a given description of being massively muscled, tall, broad-shouldered, deep-chested and heavy-limbed: Barry Smith's Conan is probably the most famous example, along with Margaret Brundage's, but there's also P. Craig Russell's and Darral Greene's interpretations. Jason Momoa is another example, at least in comparison to more gigantic physiques like those of Arnold and Ralf Moeller. The sketches I've seen so far aren't even close to those Conans, and depict Conan as almost anorexic - that said, they are only sketches, and not definitive by any means. I don't know, something about this response rubs me up the wrong way a bit. Cloonan just seems to be speaking as if there's no middle ground between Adrien Brody in Predators and Lou Ferrigno.

Just saying, you don't have to choose between two extremes!

Sorry, sorry, it's hard to stop when I start. In any case, nah, Becky's Conan doesn't look emo. I do wonder why his hair is constantly plastered to his head, but it could just be the salty sea or sweat or whatnot.

However, Brian came to the Robert E. Howard Forums to address some of the concerns made, which is mighty nice of him, and really puts my mind at ease:

Those sketches, as some of you have assumed, are first-round rough takes on Conan, not final executed pieces. So yeah, they are rough and she is clearly trying out a range of facial expressions and looks for the benefit of the client (in this case Paradox). Really, this sort of sketch should never be made public, since it is so far removed from what you will actually see in the book. It's like looking at scraps of fabric on the floor and jumping to a conclusion as to what the article of clothing must look like.

That said, the direction she was given, and that I was given, is to take the "panther-like" description of REH's and apply it to this younger Conan, rather than make him so beefy. He's still impressively built, but in more of an athletic way than a bodybuilder way. All this talk here of "cute" and "anime" and "waif" doesn't apply. I get it if someone doesn't like Becky's art, because no one likes everything, but that's a decision I hope people make based on the art in the book, not the art in her sketchbook she made before she was even hired!

I suspected this would be the case: in the absence of full-body completed art, there wasn't much to go on, but it's good to know all the same that the sketches won't be the final thing. It's a shame this was one of the first things to be released (though I have a soft spot for Conan doing the batusi for some reason!)

I also wanted to say something about my lack of knowledge, apparently, regarding Conan and REH. I guess I must have said something to that affect in an interview? I know I did close to 20 interviews at this last New York Comic Con. Anyway, its true that I am no expert and I'm sure a bunch of you here could run circles around me in this regard, but I am not completely ignorant. I do have to, have done, and am still doing research, and this is what writers do for a living. It's not like we can only ever write about the things we are already experts on and never grow beyond that. And I have editors at Dark Horse checking my scripts, and the people at Paradox as well. I can say that in the first 3 scripts I've written, the only changes that I was asked to make were (very) minor geographical ones... place names and such. I seem to be doing a pretty solid job all things considered.

Perhaps it's the way I read it, but the "apparently it's a pretty famous story" gave me pause, and me being the eternal pessimist, I was starting to be concerned. Nonetheless, given what I've read of DMZ and what people have told me of Northlanders, I do get the impression that Brian's very thorough and meticulous when it comes to research, which is really all any REH fan could possibly want - that, and a good story, of course.

One of the mandates I was given, in general, is to bring a more well-rounded humanity to Conan, the whole "gigantic mirth and gigantic melancholy" thing, and to keep in mind he is young and prone to error as much as anyone. This is what made Dark Horse want to hire me, this same sort of approach that I employ in my viking series Northlanders. Conan is not a superhero; he is not infallible. That, combined with the events of the story I'm adapting, are going to call for a lot of ups and downs for him.

I'm signed on to Conan for 25 issues. I think I'll do a good job. I know Becky is. We both love the material, and the genre, and feel blessed to have been given the responsibility of adapting this well-loved story. But like I said, its not going to appeal to everyone, but just know we are taking it seriously, and the REH estate holders are approving it every step of the way.

It could be that some of us REH fans are a bit burned by the promises of the film and Roy Thomas' return, or that we're used to a more painterly style rather than an inked one, but knowing that you're taking it seriously instead of treating it like a fun diversion is assuring.

I typically avoid visiting forums like this... I feel that readers should feel free to discuss and criticize and otherwise comment on books without the author breathing down their necks, so if you don't hear from me often at all, that's the reason. BUT, I will check back in for a little while now in case anyone has any questions I can answer.

I'm hoping Brian does come around every so often: he's here for a long haul. Kurt Busiek commented on the forums, as have other comics authors and artists, so it'd be good to see him explain this or that decision and answer questions. I'm really very excited, and the thing is, I know I'm still probably going to have problems with it - but because Brian is doing something different instead of, say, bringing back some pastiche retreads like using "The Hand of Nergal" as a title, I feel it's at least a new thing to discuss.

This is going to be fun.

The Lost Conan Adventures: "Queen of the Black Coast," Part 4

2011-10-22T00:01:00.001+01:00

But That's Another Story
Every Conan story leaves a few loose ends before the end. Sometimes they're obvious, like Olgerd Vladislav in "A Witch Shall Be Born": the last time we see him is his ominous ride into the desert. Others are more subtle: the fate of Altaro, Orastes' acolyte in The Hour of the Dragon, is never explicated. The roots of future adventures are ripe for exploitation, as Olgerd and Conan crossing paths once again could form the core of an entire story, while Altaro could be biding his time and consolidating his power for future malevolence. Sometimes, it's as simple as wondering what happened when the story ended: what did Murillo get up to after "Rogues in the House"? Did Conan and Muriela go to Punt to continue their little con game after "The Servants of Bit-Yakin"? Where did Conan take the Wastrel after "The Pool of the Black One"?

But That's Another Story

"Queen of the Black Coast" concludes with Conan watching the Tigress sail out to sea, burning into the horizon, his future uncertain.

Grim Wanderings

Bêlit had been of the sea; she had lent it splendor and allure. Without her it rolled a barren, dreary and desolate waste from pole to pole. She belonged to the sea; to its everlasting mystery he returned her. He could do no more. For himself, its glittering blue splendor was more repellent than the leafy fronds which rustled and whispered behind him of vast mysterious wilds beyond them, and into which he must plunge.
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p145

Conan clearly has no intention of continuing his career as a corsair, at least for the foreseeable future. The only option open is to go into the dark, dense jungle, uncharted and unknown: how long would Conan roam through the trees before discovering humanity again? Would he be alone in the wilderness for weeks, months? What else is lying in wait for him in Kush?

To Shumballa?

Her escort were murdered,and she was dragged from her saddle and stripped naked by the mob, who were about to tear her to pieces when she was rescued by Conan, who had just arrived in Shumballa, a wandering adventurer who had recently been a corsair.
- "Untitled Synopsis," The Bloody Crown of Conan, p374
“I came here to seek my fortune. I was formally a corsair.”
“We have heard tales of you, whom men call Amra the Lion. But if you are no longer a corsair, what are you now?”
- "Untitled Synopsis," The Bloody Crown of Conan, p382

It seems possible that the "Shumballa" story was intended to be a direct sequel to "Queen of the Black Coast" in the manner that "The Black Stranger" was a sequel to "Beyond the Black River": however, there are problems. Conan's armour is slightly different, and he's wearing a scarlet cloak, which he had burned on the Tigress with Bêlit: did he have a spare? The fact that the story is unfinished might account for inconsistencies.

Blackest Treachery

“Truces in this land are made to be broken,” he answered grimly. “He would break his truce with Jihiji. And after we’d looted the town together, he’d wipe me out the first time he caught me off guard. What would be blackest treachery in another land, is wisdom here. I have not fought my way alone to the position of war-chief of the Bamulas without learning all the lessons the black country teaches. Now go back to your hut and sleep, knowing that it is not for Bajujh but for Conan that you preserve your beauty!”
- "The Vale of Lost Women," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p290
“It was a foul bargain I made. I do not regret that black dog Bajujh, but you are no wench to be bought and sold. The ways of men vary in different lands, but a man need not be a swine, wherever he is.
- "The Vale of Lost Women," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p296

A personal belief of mine is that "The Vale of Lost Women" occurred shortly after "Queen," as in my mind, it explains a lot about Conan's behaviour. Losing Bêlit and leaving the sea must have had a profound effect on Conan's personality, and I'd wager he might descend into a black depression. This would culminate in him losing a sense of self, a much greater lack of care for decency and human life, and degenerating from barbarism into savagery. It's only when faced with Livia that he remembers the man he once was: a man with a barbaric code of honour, who would not harm a woman, who would not betray his friends, which he had lost after years of murdering, pillaging and slaying. Juxtaposing "Queen of the Black Coast" with "The Vale of Lost Women" goes some way to explaining Conan's despicable personality in the latter if one considers that he lost the love of his life only shortly beforehand.

This is obviously contradictory to Dale Rippke's Darkstorm chronology, where he thinks that the story takes much later in Conan's life:

This is a Conan story that didn’t appear in the original Miller-Clark outline, because it wasn’t published until long after Howard’s death. Sprague deCamp placed the story between the death of Bêlit and Conan’s adventure in Shumballa. The story is grim and bloody and Conan is not shown in the most favorable light. It is almost certainly the least popular Conan story that Howard wrote. That being said, I am in total agreement with Howard scholar Joe Marek that this story takes place far later in Conan’s career than when deCamp places it. Marek argues that Conan has an appearance, attitude and outlook that is similar to the Conan that appears in another tale placed about this time called The Pool of the Black Ones. In fact, the two tales have a similar plot; Conan killing a leader for the possession of an attractive woman, with a supernatural element thrown in at the end. Marek also notes that Conan is missing the red cloak that he should have been wearing; a cloak he is wearing in Snout in the Dark (which comes after this tale in deCamp’s chronology). While those are good reasons, my opinion as to why this tale should have a later placement is because the Conan we see in this story is the natural outgrowth of his attempting to bring what worked for him in the East into the black kingdoms and finding out that it doesn’t work so well when everyone’s a brigand. He clearly doesn’t care much for where he is. The Cimmerian war-chief describes this place as “hellish”, and he claims that he’s “sick at the guts” with the native women. There are no gold and jewels here; wealth is measured by cattle and horses. Conan is so immersed in the native paradigm that it takes a girl from the Hyborian lands to make him realize who he was as opposed to who he is now.

I believe those things which are used to justify a later placement can apply to an earlier one: where Dale sees this as a natural outgrowth of Conan bringing his eastern paradigm to the black kingdoms, I see it as a natural extension of Conan's time as chief of the black corsairs. Since Conan cannot stand the sight of the sea, it stands to reason that in his immaturity, he tries to replicate his success on the waves inland: however, he is not yet mature or confident enough to assert his dominance over his environment, instead allowing himself to be changed. Why would Conan bother attempting to replicate the success of the east, which brought him gold and luxuries, in the Black Kingdoms, where the spoils are cattle and staple foods - and if Conan had already spent time in the black kingdoms, why wouldn't he know this? Conan's attitude in "The Pool of the Black One" doesn't strike me as particularly similar to that in "Vale," either: in the former, he is still hearty, lusting for life and cheerful. In the latter, he is dour, cheerless and brutal, with nary a sign of the laughter and enjoyment in his occupation that he showed in "Pool."

Still, REH timelines are complex things, and it's doubtful we'll ever end up with one that's totally satisfactory.

Crimson Fruit

And survivors of butchered Stygian ships named Bêlit with curse, and a white warrior with fierce blue eyes; so the Stygian princes remembered this man long and long, and their memory was a bitter tree which bore crimson fruit in the years to come.
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p129

The nature of the Stygian's "crimson fruit" is tantalizing, because it indicates that the Stygians did indeed result in some terrible, bloody event after the story ended. But what? Did the Stygians discover that the king of Aquilonia was Amra, and exact their vengeance upon him? Did Bêlit's predations on the Stygian navy result in the kingdom rebuilding their fleet to rival the rest of the Hyborian Age?

The Legend of Amra Grows

Conan's fame had preceded him, even into distant Keshan; his exploits as a chief of the black corsairs, those wolves of the southern coasts, had made his name known, admired and feared throughout the black kingdoms.
- "The Servants of Bit-Yakin," The Conquering Sword of Conan, p15

If one goes with the combined Amra-Bêlit theory, then Amra's legend among the black kingdoms was surely assured by the time of the Zarkheba voyage. One wonders if Conan encountered problems as he wandered the black kingdoms on his way back to the Hyborian kingdoms...

I'm still somewhat astonished that Don Herron has read my blog...

2011-10-21T18:57:00.000+01:00

I deliberated over waiting to post this until February, so as to keep up my newly-appointed nickname "Lightin' Al," but I figure it'd be more fair to address things now than to let them fester.

I’m getting the distinct impression that good old Al Harron, over in the World of Robert E. Howard Studies, isn’t the fastest blade out of the scabbard. Back on February 11 I addressed some concerns he had raised about where I stood in the Howardian action, and I see that on October 17 he suddenly discovered that he had been answered.

If this had been a debate, people would have died of boredom in the interval.

Just as well this isn't a debate! Then again, if I wasn't the fastest tortoise out of the scrub (hey, I can make my own metaphors), then Conan Movie Blog would be in a bit of a sorry state, only now bringing us the news of Jason Momoa's casting and shooting beginning in Bulgaria. But then, that isn't really Robert E. Howard studies related.

But in answer to a couple of Al’s “points” — the idea that we couldn’t possibly be related in any way because our last names are spelled Herron vs. Harron indicates someone who isn’t familiar with names or how inconsistent they have been historically. While I don’t have the time or interest to explore the issue today, within my own family my father was one of eight siblings — half of those brothers and sisters spelled the last name “Herron” and the rest spelled it “Herren,” and I met some cousins once who spelled it “Herrin.” I have some Scots roots (Al is over in Scotland), so don’t regard his statement as in any way definitive.

Evidently my light-hearted quotation from The Simpsons went over like a lead balloon, and was taken to be an definitive statement on my belief on genealogy. That's what I get for not sourcing my attempted cartoon references.

Al’s only 27 years of age at this point, so he hasn’t been around the block much as yet (though by that age I had written “Conan vs. Conantics” already and duked it out with L. Sprague de Camp in the letter column of Two-Gun Raconteur, so I probably expect more out of potential Howard critics than most people).

My block perambulation deficiencies are more pronounced considering I hadn't begun studying Howard seriously until around 2007, having only discovered REH in earnest in the late 2000s after an adolescence dominated by science fiction. So if I haven't created a defining piece like Conan vs Conantics, well, I can happily say it's because I'm not Don Herron, and I dare say few people ever will be Don Herron. I can only assume that what I have written on The Cimmerian and here has left Mr Herron wanting in terms of Howard criticism. Ah well, not much I can do about that except try harder. That said, it's kind of hard for me to duke it out with de Camp on account of him currently being indisposed, and there isn't really a comparable figure with whom to duke in current Howardom. Leaves me in a bit of a spot.

Then there’s the idea that Al doesn’t get that I get it. It might be the American vernacular throwing him, but who in Western Civilization doesn’t understand the concept of What Have You Done For Me Lately???
I guess we can put Al on that list. . . .

Oh dear, another failure of communication on my part. What I was trying to say, in my roundabout way, was that I couldn't understand how Don could interpret my bemoaning his absence as a criticism, that I felt some sense of betrayal or defection from the Shieldwall, when in fact I felt nothing of the sort. Thus, my lack of understanding of "What Have You Done For Me Lately???" isn't in reference to the phrase itself, but the application. I get that he gets it, I just don't get how he got it from this instance.

And somewhere in those long months I do recall Al taking the side of Professor Frank Coffman in a little dust-up I had with him — my only advice, Al, is that no one who really knows Howard Studies would ever side with Frank over me about anything. Honest.

I can't really talk about the background of the kerfuffle, but suffice to say, I place more stock in making up my own mind and being proven wrong, than taking someone's word for it and being right by proxy. That said, I've disagreed with Frank and I've disagreed with Don on various myriad details and sticking points, and I'm likely to continue to do so. I don't particularly want to be on anyone's side: if there's anything reading the Lion's Den has taught me, it's that I'm not interested in making enemies among Howardom, when Howard studies has enough to contend with - far less than in previous decades, for sure, but no reason to be complacent.

Nonetheless, I do have rapturous news, for Don actually compliments me on a post I made! Me! Al Harron! Oh fraptious day, calloo, callay!

But I must compliment Al on another recent post he did — very funny, and spot on — concerning the upcoming book of essays Conan Meets the Academy, where the initial blurb says flat-out that it is the first scholarly investigation of Conan. The only way you could suggest that it is “first” would be if you consider the idea that the essays are written by academics (including Professor Frank) and that only professors can do litcrit (some people apparently believe that — the poor saps, the poor deluded saps). To me, it just looks as if the profs are cribbing the pattern that L. Sprague de Camp used in books such as The Conan Reader, The Blade of Conan, and The Sword of Conan — sorry, academics, but it’s been done, decades ago.

Seriously, I'm thrilled to bits. It might be hard for Don to understand, but being a young Howard fan, I still hold his generation of Howard scholars to a somewhat mythical pedestal. Going to Cross Plains and meeting individuals like Rusty Burke, Mark Finn, Damon Sasser, Dennis McHaney, Bill Cavalier, Rob Roehm, Frank Coffman and more felt - if you'll indulge in a bit of hyperbole - a bit like I was Jason appearing on the playing board of the Olympians in Jason and the Argonauts. All I could do was look up in wide-eyed wonder at these people that seemed so tall and huge to me - literally in Rusty Burke's case - and I felt like, "what am I doing here?"

Since that first Scottish invasion of Cross Plains, the veil of mystery and awe surrounding those scholars has dissipated, but like the wizard beyond the Great and Powerful Oz, the humans behind the gods are no less intelligent and wise: I felt less like a lowly mortal, and more like an aspiring champion. But Don's taking me to task reminds me not to rest on my laurels: I still have a long way to go.

The Lost Conan Adventures: "Queen of the Black Coast," Part 3

2011-10-21T00:01:00.001+01:00

Weaving a Tapestry
Just as any one story can inspire future adventures, sometimes a story can be tied into earlier or later tales in Conan's life. Howard would develop the reference to Conan's adventures as Amra of the Black Corsairs in "The Scarlet Citadel" into an entire story, "Queen of the Black Coast." "The Phoenix on the Sword" has references to Conan's thieving in Zamora, fighting with the Æsir, and as a mercenary soldier would be expanded into "The Tower of the Elephant," "The Frost-Giant's Daughter," and "Black Colossus." Other examples are more abstract: Conan's reference to having seen "death strike a king in the midst of thousands" may technically apply to a previous story, or it could be an original adventure.

Weaving a Tapestry

Adventures on the Black Coast

The Sea-Coast Dialect

The black spoke in a sea-coast dialect, and Conan replied; he had learned the jargon while a corsair on the coasts of Kush.
- "The Scarlet Citadel," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p98

It might seem obvious that Conan would learn the local language, but it's good to have explicit proof all the same.

Breaking the Python's Neck

"Strong beyond the comprehension of civilized man, he had broken the neck of a python in a fiendish battle on the Stygian coast, in his corsair days."
- "The Scarlet Citadel," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p97

The fact that the creature was killed via broken neck, as well as no references to temples or Set, would indicate this was not the giant snake of "Queen of the Black Coast" or the Son of Set from "The Hour of the Dragon". This fight could be linked to the Abombi, Khemi or Thutmekri storylines, or be independent. Perhaps King Ajaga had a pet snake, or the Stygians used a (dream?) snake to assassinate Bêlit and incurred Conan's wrath. Or maybe there was a lost temple on the Stygian shore that had a guard snake, like Xapur in "The Devil in Iron".

Black Coast Trading

"Why did you grow wealthy so much quicker than your competitors? Was it because you did a big business in ivory and ostrich feathers, copper and skins and pearls and hammered gold ornaments, and other things from the coast of Kush?
- "The Hour of the Dragon," The Bloody Crown of Conan, p179
“The Venturer, out of Messantia, with a cargo of mirrors, scarlet silk cloaks, shields, gilded helmets and swords to trade to the Shemites for copper and gold ore.
- "The Hour of the Dragon," The Bloody Crown of Conan, p190
"He trafficked in ivory, gold dust and slaves, and would cheat the devil out of his eye-teeth..."
- "Untitled Fragment," The Bloody Crown of Conan, p309"Sometimes they trade ostrich plumes they got from the Stygians, who in turn got them from the black tribes of Kush, which lies south of Stygia."
- "Beyond the Black River," The Conquering Sword of Conan, p77
... the Kushites were the first black men with whom the Hyborians came in contact - Barachan pirates trafficking with and raiding them.
- "Letter to P.S. Miller," The Conquering Sword of Conan, p343

This, in conjunction with the Argus' cargo, show that the primary exports of the Black Coast are either resources or exotic items such as ivory, ostrich feathers, copper, copper ore, copra, gold ore, gold ornaments, gold dust, skins, pearls and slaves, while the imports seem to consist of luxuries and weapons: beads, silks (especially scarlet silk), sugar, mirrors, shields, helmets and swords. It could be that each settlement on the Black Coast specialises in one thing or another: one may be close to savanna, giving it access to animals for their skins, ivory and feathers; another may have rich deposits of gold and copper.

The Lion and the Tigress

... a corsair in a dragon-prowed galley that trailed a crimson wake of blood and pillage along southern coasts...
- "The Scarlet Citadel," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p91
He had also sailed with the Zingaran buccaneers, and even with those wild black corsairs that swept up from the far south to harry the northern coasts, and this put him beyond the pale of any law.
- "The Hour of the Dragon," The Bloody Crown of Conan, p177
In that moment he was not king of Aquilonia; he was again lord of the black corsairs, who had hacked his way to lordship through flame and blood... King of Aquilonia he might no longer be; king of the blue ocean he was still.
- "The Hour of the Dragon," The Bloody Crown of Conan, p192
Conan's fame had preceded him, even into distant Keshan; his exploits as a chief of the black corsairs, those wolves of the southern coasts, had made his name known, admired and feared throughout the black kingdoms.
- "The Servants of Bit-Yakin," The Conquering Sword of Conan, p15

Something worth mentioning is that even though Howard created the name Amra before "Queen of the Black Coast," Conan is never referred to by that name in the story itself. The closest one comes to it is when Conan's wrath is compared to that of "a wounded lion." Why would Howard not call Conan Amra through the entirety of the only story starring him as a leader of the black corsairs? Similarly, none of the references to Amra mention Bêlit, and refer to Conan as chief or leader of the corsairs: why was Bêlit never brought up? Conan is said to become chief of the black corsairs "through flame and blood": how can this square when Conan was essentially appointed to be Bêlit's mate? Conan is said to have commanded "a dragon-prowed galley": why not mention the Tigress by name, and if the Tigress had such a dragon-shaped prow, why isn't that mentioned in "Queen"? Combined with several other clues, this could be considered evidence that Conan has had at least two periods among the black corsairs, once with Bêlit, and another, later one under the name Amra.

Whether an adapter chooses to think all Conan's adventures with the Black Corsairs take place over a single period, or two, it's worth considering that Conan made multiple visits to different parts of the world. As such, any of the following stories could be considered separate from Conan's time with Bêlit as a later adventure on the Black Coast, or Conan's Amra period is one and the same with his time on the Tigress, with any inconsistencies waved away as simply being anomalies. Conan not being called Amra may just be an oversight; Bêlit's lack of mention in later stories could be because she took a more strategic role, whereas Conan took a more active and prominent role in their adventures; Conan being referred to as "chief of the black corsairs" may just mean he was the leader of the fighting crew, not the captain or overall leader; attaining lordship "through flame and blood" may refer to the bloody first meeting with Bêlit; the "dragon-prow" may be a later addition, or simply not mentioned in "Queen."

My personal belief is that there were indeed two corsair periods: in the first, Conan is merely known as "the mysterious white warrior" who served under Bêlit on the Tigress. In the second, Conan himself has become the terror of the Black Coast, taking the name Amra as a new identity, commanding a dragon-prowed galley, trading with Publio, and terrorising the Stygians. Every instance of Conan's corsair period which explicitly mentions Amra is of that second period; every instance that doesn't use the name could be from either. That said, I will happily accept an adaptation that reconciles the Amra references with "Queen of the Black Coast" to form one grand saga.

The Legend of Amra

“Long have I wished to meet you, Amra,” the black gave Conan the name – Amra, the Lion – by which the Cimmerian had been known to the Kushites in his piratical days.
"I demand of you a blood-price, Amra!"
"I will have your head, Amra!"
- Chief of Abombi, "The Scarlet Citadel," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p98

"We have heard tales of you, whom men call Amra the Lion."
- Tananda, "Untitled Draft," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p382

"Many who won’t know me as king of Aquilonia will remember me as Conan of the Barachan pirates, or Amra of the black corsairs."
- Conan, "The Hour of the Dragon," The Bloody Crown of Conan, p165

"Mitra! Conan! Amra!"
"Let Argos forget Amra, and let my dealings with him be lost in the dust of the past."
- Publio, "The Hour of the Dragon," The Bloody Crown of Conan, p183

"Amra! It is Amra! The Lion has returned!"
- A black corsair, "The Hour of the Dragon," The Bloody Crown of Conan, p191

The blacks were frothing crazy now, shaking and tearing at their chains and shrieking the name of Amra like an invocation.
"Amra! Amra!" chanted the delirious blacks, those who were left to chant. "The Lion has returned!"
- Black corsairs, "The Hour of the Dragon," The Bloody Crown of Conan, p192

"You rowed in chains for the Argossean dogs: will you row as free men for Amra?"
- Conan, "The Hour of the Dragon," The Bloody Crown of Conan, p193

They would slay him merely for being a stranger; if he were recognized as Amra, the corsair chief who had swept their coasts with steel and flame...
- "The Hour of the Dragon," The Bloody Crown of Conan, p198

The negro stared at Conan, and greeted him by the name of Amra, the Lion.
-Sakumbe, "Untitled Synopsis," The Bloody Crown of Conan, p288

"At this the black king roused and sat up and stared at me, and then he rose and shouted: "Amra!" and I knew him – Sakumbe, a Suba from the Black Coast, a fat adventurer I had known well in the days when I was a corsair along that coast."
"Then he announced that I was Amra, the Lion, his friend, and that no harm should come to me."
- Conan, "Untitled Draft," The Bloody Crown of Conan, p309

One thing leaps out when comparing each instance: Conan is referred to as "Amra" frequently, but "Amra, the Lion" less frequently. The only people to refer to Conan as "Amra, the Lion" are the Kushites, Tananda, and Sakumbe - all black people. Conan never refers to himself as "Amra, the Lion," nor does Publio. The narrative voice seems to switch between the two depending on who is referring to Conan. In The Hour of the Dragon, Conan fears that the Stygians will recognize him as Amra, as opposed to "Amra, the Lion." Curiously, the Chief of Abombi from "The Scarlet Citadel" does not refer to Conan as "Amra, the Lion," but the narrative voice does, in reference to the Kushites' name for him.

So overall, one can make the case that it is blacks who call Conan "Amra, the Lion," while other nations such as the Argosseans, Stygians and Conan himself merely go by "Amra." Because it is the name Conan is known by to the Kushites and Black Corsairs, combined with the phrasing “Amra, the Lion” being interpreted to mean “Amra, or, the Lion,” Amra is commonly believed to be a Kushite word meaning “lion.” However, there are several issues with this theory. For one, it is not similar to any known African words for “lion.” For another, Howard uses the name in non-African or Kushite contexts, such as the Atlantean Am-Ra and Akbitanan Amra of “Gods of the North.” In addition, Conan is fully known as “Amra the Lion,” as stated by Tananda, and “Amra, the Lion” by Shukeli and others: this would translate as, effectively, “Lion the Lion,” a clumsy tautology, and would necessitate the Kushites switch from their native tongue to whichever foreign one is predominantly used in the stories. That would be akin to an Afghan referring to Francis X. Gordon as "El Borak, the Swift," or an Irishman referring to Turlogh as "Turlogh Dubh, the Black." So if Amra isn't Kushite, what language is it? And if Amra doesn't mean lion, what does it mean?

Looking for Amra in various historical sources, none seem to be satisfactory: there's a settlement in Kathavar with the name Amra, western India; the Arabic El-Amra, a town which gave its name to the Amratian period of Ancient Egypt; the Arabic 'umara or 'amara, meaning "princess"; Amara, the Abyssinian name for paradise; the name given for a type of elegy for certain Irish saints, typically panegyric in nature, the most famous being the Amra of Coluimb Cille – St. Columba. The first one seems like it can be discarded. The second makes some sense given the Stygian connection, but it's inconclusive. The third is vaguely concordant with Conan's occupation as chief of the black corsairs, but the Arabic derivation renders it inappropriate. The fourth is intriguing, but doesn't make much sense in context. The fifth is most interesting to me. Howard's love of Irish history has impacted tremendously on the formation of the Hyborian Age, be it through the Nemedian Chronicles, the Aquilonian capital of Tamar, and other references to Irish legend in the lands beyond Cimmeria.

I would like to put forth a new theory on the meaning of Amra: it is not Kushite in origin, but Cimmerian. If one assumes that Amra has a similar context in Cimmerian language that it has in Irish Gaelic, then it could roughly translate to something akin to “legend” or “honour.” It could be a Cimmerian proper name, or perhaps Conan deliberately took a legendary nickname. That said, it's far from conclusive: however, I'm of the opinion that it's no less justifiable than the common "lion" translation. The point is, whatever choice an adapter wishes to make in regards to the meaning and origin of Amra - a name of Conan's own invention, one taken from the Kushites, a title, a pseudonym - it needn't be the same choice that's been made in the past.

Sack of Abombi

"Do you not remember the sack of Abombi, when your sea-wolves swarmed in? Before the palace of King Ajaga you slew a chief and a chief fled from you. It was my brother who died; it was I who fled. I demand of you a blood-price, Amra!"
- "The Scarlet Citadel," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p99

Abombi could well be one of the many place Conan and Bêlit raze: it would seem to be quite a prominent city. The tale of the man, his brother and King Ajaga and the events which led to its demise could be just the tale of a pirate raid, or something more complex. Since this is one of the few concrete examples of Amra's piratical exploits, it seems thematically appropriate that it would be the core for a larger adventure rather than a minor one.

Sakumbe

The negro stared at Conan, and greeted him by the name of Amra, the Lion. The black man’s name was Sakumbe, and he was an adventurer from the West Coast who had been connected with Conan when the latter was a corsair devastating the coast... Sakumbe, once a man of remarkable courage, vitality and statescraft, had degenerated into a mountainous mass of fat, caring for nothing except women and wine. Conan played dice with him, got drunk with him...
- "Untitled Synopsis," The Bloody Crown of Conan, p288

Sakumbe is a very interesting character, as he shows a sort of mirror to Conan himself: he too is a gregarious, outgoing adventurer, immensely courageous, a master of statescraft, and full of vitality, who later becomes a king himself. He could be considered, effectively, a "black Conan." Unlike Conan, however, he allows the luxuries and excesses of civilization to consume him, his love of wine and women getting the better of him, causing him to grow fat and decadent from years of lolling contentedly on his throne. These strengths and weaknesses would be evident in Sakumbe's early years, and it's clear he and Conan got on famously all the same.

Trade with Publio

“’We had too many dealings in the old days. Am I such a fool that I’m not aware that this fine mansion was built on my sweat and blood? How many cargoes from my galleys passed through your shop?’
‘All merchants of Messantia have dealt with the sea-rovers at one time or another,’ mumbled Publio nervously.
‘But not with the black corsairs,’ answered Conan grimly.’
For Mitra’s sake, be silent!’ ejaculated Publio, sweat starting out on his brow. His fingers jerked at the gilt worked edge of his robe.
‘Well, I only wished to recall it to your mind,’ answered Conan. ‘Don’t be so fearful. You took plenty of risks in the past, when you were struggling for life and wealth in that lousy little shop down by the wharves, and were hand-and-glove with every buccaneer and smuggler and pirate from here to the Barachan Isles. Prosperity must have softened you.’
‘I am respectable,’ began Publio.
‘Meaning you’re rich as hell,’ snorted Conan. ‘Why? Why did you grow wealthy so much quicker than your competitors? Was it because you did a big business in ivory and ostrich feathers, copper and skins and pearls and hammered gold ornaments, and other things from the coast of Kush? And where did you get them so cheaply, while other merchants were paying their weight in silver to the Stygians for them? I’ll tell you, in case you’ve forgotten: you bought them from me, at considerably less than their value, and I took them from the tribes of the Black Coast, and from the ships of the Stygians – I , and the black corsairs.’
- "The Hour of the Dragon," The Bloody Crown of Conan, p179

Conan and Publio seem to go way back, and while they may not have much love for each other, it's clear they both benefitted: Publio started off in a meagre shop in the wharves, but quickly flourished by illicit trade with Conan and the black corsairs. How did the two manage to pull this scam given the notoriety of the Black Corsairs? What was their system? How did the two meet?

The House of Servio

“He sleeps in the house of Servio.’ ‘I know that dive of old,’ grunted Conan.
- "The Hour of the Dragon," The Bloody Crown of Conan, p182

It seems logical that the house of Servio may have been visited by Conan when he was trading with Publio, though this isn't strictly necessary: he may have been there on his first visit to the city with his soldier friend.

Ajonga, Yasunga and Laranga

""Who am I?" he yelled. "Look, you dogs! Look, Ajonga, Yasunga, Laranga! Who am I?"
And from the waist rose a shout that swelled to a mighty roar:
"Amra! It is Amra! The Lion has returned!""
- "The Hour of the Dragon," The Bloody Crown of Conan, p191

These three men know Conan, and Conan knows them, in "Hour of the Dragon": it's undoubted that Conan sailed with them at one time. For Conan to instantly pick them out from a sea of black galley slaves within moments strongly suggests that Conan knows these men very well, enough to identify them from other galley-slaves who were, for all intents and purposes, identical (all black with shaven heads and naked). While Conan has a brilliant mind, it isn't photographic, and he sometimes has to think a minute to remember something obscure or minor: Ajonga, Yasunga & Laranga made enough of an impression on him for him to more or less instantly recall them and their names.

The circumstances of how Conan came to know and remember them are a mystery, as well as why they left Conan's crew and ended up on the Venturer, but plenty of possibilities arise. The obvious is that they were recruits from the Island Kingdoms who left for home or were captured, though they could also have been friendly Black Coast chieftains, allied/rival Corsair captains, kings of Black Kingdom nations, freed slaves, mercenaries-turned-pirates, or anything. They could've been instrumental in any of Conan's other adventures, or fulfilled a role similar to Juma in the pastiches. In any case, if the three were part of the Tigress' crew, they would have to leave Bêlit's employ before the voyage up the Zarkheba: considering the ship was severely undermanned through raid and battle, it seems possible that they could have been captured and enslaved: either that, or they left on their own accord sometime earlier.

Swords Against Stygia
Conan shows much knowledge of Stygia in The Hour of the Dragon and other stories, and we know he's had dealings with them as a black corsair. The many pieces of knowledge Conan displays could have been learned during his time with Bêlit.

Khemi Ablaze

"In my galley manned by black corsairs I crept to the very bastions of the sea-washed castles of black-walled Khemi by night, and burned the galleys anchored there."
- "The Hour of the Dragon," The Bloody Crown of Conan, p181

The most audacious of Conan's escapades, the black corsairs set the Stygian fleet alight, crippling their trade and navy. Such a daring raid would surely make a tense and thrilling story, though this would necessitate an explanation for why Conan would engage in such a dangerous adventure. Was this an act of retribution against the Stygians, the aftermath of a raid, a diversion for a heist, covering up another crime by destroying the evidence, a way to keep the Stygians off their backs, or simply done on a whim? Was it at the request of the Argosseans, to prevent the Stygians from threatening their maritime domination? Was there a reason at all, or just Bêlit's chaotic lust for destruction?

The Black Hand of Set

His shirt was torn open, and on his brown, muscular breast was the print of a black hand, thumb and four fingers plainly distinct. Conan glared in silence, feeling the short hairs bristle at the back of his neck.
“Crom!” he muttered. “The black hand of Set!”
He had seen that mark of old, the death-mark of the black priests of Set, the grim cult that ruled in dark Stygia.
- "The Hour of the Dragon," The Bloody Crown of Conan, p184

Where had Conan seen the black hand of Set before? Given that he battled the Stygians frequently as a corsair, it seems logical that he may have encountered it then. Perhaps, in one ill-fated adventure, he raided a city or castle that housed a priest of the Black Ring, and discovered that terrible mark.

Hideout on the Styx

“The Venturer, showing no lights, stole past the port in the night, and before dawn discovered her, anchored in a small bay a few miles south of the city. It was surrounded by marsh, a green tangle of mangroves, palms and lianas, swarming with crocodiles and serpents. Discover was extremely unlikely. Conan knew the place of old; he had hidden there before, in his corsair days.”
- "The Hour of the Dragon," The Bloody Crown of Conan, p195

A pirate always has hideouts, but finding one so close to Khemi must've been a coup for the black corsairs. How did Conan find this small bay? Was it one of Bêlit's haunts, or did he find it himself?

Black Hand, Black Ring

If he were discovered his fate would be ghastly. They would slay him merely for being a stranger; if he were recognized as Amra, the corsair chief who had swept their coasts with steel and flame – an involuntary shudder twitched Conan’s broad shoulders. Human foes he did not fear, nor any death by steel or fire. But this was a black land of sorcery and nameless horror. Set the Old Serpent, men said, banished long ago from the Hyborian races, yet lurked in the shadows of the cryptic temples, and awful and mysterious were the deeds done in the nighted shrines...
“That the man he had seen there had been the priest he was certain. Only occultists high in the mazes of the hideous Black Ring possessed the power of the black hand that dealt death by its tough; and only such a man would dare defy Thoth-Amon, whom the western world knew only as a figure of terror and myth.” – The Hour of the Dragon
- "The Hour of the Dragon," The Bloody Crown of Conan, p197-198

Conan's knowledge of the Black Ring, the Black Hand, and Set worship may go hand in hand with his predation of the Stygians as a corsair. Bêlit may have told him much of that dark land and its denizens - or he may have firsthand knowledge.

Stygian Life

Conan knew that most of the people lay on the flat roofs, among the palms of artificial gardens under the stars.
- "The Hour of the Dragon," The Bloody Crown of Conan, p198

This subtle remark is revealing: evidently Conan knew not just of Stygian religion and the priesthood, but the daily lives of the people. Conan may have learned this from Bêlit or another source, or he could have discovered it as he steals through the rooftops of a Stygian city...

Legends of Set

The Cimmerian recoiled, remembering tales he had heard – serpents were sacred to Set, god of Stygia, who men said was himself a serpent. Monsters such as this were kept in the temples of Set, and when they hungered, were allowed to crawl forth into the streets to take what prey they wished.
- "The Hour of the Dragon," The Bloody Crown of Conan, p199

This is explicitly a tale Conan heard, rather than personal experience. From whence did Conan hear these tales? Bêlit displays much knowledge of Shemite religion and an acquaintance with the myths of the Old Ones, but she may know more.

Heiroglyphics

He was staring at the mummy-case, on which the countenance of the occupant was carved in ivory with the startling vividness of a forgotten art. There was a disquieting familiarity about that carven mask, and with something of a shock he realized what it was; there was a startling resemblance between it and the face of the girl lolling on the ebon couch. She might have been the model from which it was carved, but he knew the portrait was at least centuries old. Archaic hieroglyphics were scrawled across the lacquered lid, and, seeking back into his mind for tag-ends of learning, picked up here and there as incidentals of an adventurous life, he spelled them out, and said aloud: ‘Akivasha!’
- "The Hour of the Dragon," The Bloody Crown of Conan, p206

A knowledge of Stygian hieroglyphics would be most helpful when raiding and attacking Stygian ships, but why would Conan know archaic hieroglyphics? Perhaps much of Bêlit's plunder was ancient Stygian treasure; knowledge of archaic languages may be useful when poring over old texts and maps, or deciphering the contents of Stygian vessels and containers. There are some examples of exiled or rebellious Stygians who have moved outside Stygia: Tothmekri, Kutamun and Thoth-Amon are the most famous, but there may be more.

Thutmekri the Stygian

"Thutmekri was a Stygian, an adventurer and a rogue whose wits had recommended him to the twin kings of the great hybrid trading kingdom which lay many days' march to the east. He and the Cimmerian knew each other of old, and without love."
- "The Servants of Bit-Yakin," The Conquering Sword of Conan, p15

As with Sergius and Olgerd, there is no definite placement for where or when Conan met Thutmekri, nor the reason for their cold relationship. Since they knew each other "of old", it would have to be many years before "The Servants of Bit-Yakin". One could even place the meeting as part of the "Khemi Ablaze" storyline: Thutmekri was a notorious mercenary general hired by the Stygian government to stop the Tigress. Hounded by Thutmekri and thwarted by his machinations, eventually Conan and Bêlit set Khemi ablaze. Thutmekri would then cause problems for Conan, but not so great so as he has the opportunity to survive until "Servants."

The Treasure of Tranicos

"Did you ever hear of Bloody Tranicos, the greatest of the Barachan pirates?" asked Zarono.
"Who has not? It was he who stormed the island castle of the exiled prince Tothmekri of Stygia, put the people to the sword and bore off the treasure the prince had brought with him when he fled from Khemi."
"Aye! And the tale of that treasure brought the men of the Red Brotherhood swarming like vultures after a carrion - pirates, buccaneers, even the black corsairs from the South. Fearing betrayal by his captains, he fled northward with one ship, and vanished from the knowledge of men. That was nearly a hundred years ago.
"But the tale persists that one man survived that last voyage, and returned to the Barachans, only to be captured by a Zingaran war-ship. Before he was hanged he told his story and drew a map in his own blood, on parchment, which he smuggled somehow out of his captor's reach.
This was the tale he told: Tranicos had sailed far beyond the paths of shipping, until he came to a bay on a lonely coast, and there he anchored. He went ashore, taking his treasure and eleven of his most trusted captains who had accompanied him on his ship. Following his orders, the ship sailed away, to return in a week's time, and pick up their admiral and his captains. In the meantime Tranicos meant to hide the treasure somewhere in the vicinity of the bay. The ship returned at the appointed time, but there was no trace of Tranicos and his eleven captains, except the rude dwelling they had built on the beach.
"This had been demolished, and there were tracks of naked feet about it, but no sign to show there had been any fighting. Nor was there any trace of the treasure, or any sign to show where it was hidden. The pirates plunged into the forest to search for their chief and his captains, but were attacked by wild Picts and driven back to their ship. In despair they heaved anchor and sailed away, but before they raised the Barachans, a terrific storm wrecked the ship and only that one man survived.
"That is the tale of the Treasure of Tranicos, which men have sought in vain for nearly a century. That the map exists is known, but its whereabouts have remained a mystery.
- "The Black Stranger," The Conquering Sword of Conan, p116

While the truth about Tranicos and his treasure would not be revealed until "The Black Stranger," the legend has been persistent for a century. Pirates from all corners of the world have heard the tale, and many have sought the treasure over the last hundred years - why shouldn't Bêlit be one of them? Bêlit could tell Conan the tale, and they may endeavour to search for Tranicos' lost treasure - unsuccessfully, of course, but that needn't mean an adventure be lackluster. Perhaps in the search for the treasure, they manage to set in motion the events which would culminate in Zingelito's flight from Zingara: so close, yet so far. Or perhaps they travel to a place they believe to be the treasure's resting place, which turns out to be an unpleasant surprise: island of monsters, castle of sorcerers, city of crabs, what have you.

Ends of the Earth

South of the Black Kingdoms

"I've roamed in the unknown countries south of the black kingdoms of Kush..." -
- "Beyond the Black River," The Conquering Sword of Conan, p77

The nature of these unknown lands is a mystery, but the fact they are not counted among the black kingdoms hints that they could be of a different ethnicity: perhaps Lemurian or Proto-Stygian. It could even be the Atlantean colony which would become Negari in "The Moon of Skulls." They may be connected with the "fires of the ultimate south," or not. Exactly when he does is unknown, but it could be around either his time among the Corsairs.

South of Khitai, North of Hyrkania

"He travelled to Khitai and Hyrkania, and to the even less known regions north of the latter and south of the former..."
- "Letter from Robert E. Howard to P.S. Miller," The Conquering Sword of Conan, p344

From context, it may be that Howard meant Conan travelled to Khitai, Hyrkania, and the lands beyond during his reign, but it might be worth consideration all the same. While it may be difficult to imagine the Tigress going north of Hyrkania, south of Khitai - perhaps modern-day Indonesia - is not outside the realms of possibility. Exactly what Conan and Bêlit might find there is, of course, a mystery: the remnants of the Lemurian's slavemaster's civilization, a pre-Cataclysmic colony, or something stranger entirely?

The Nameless Continent

He even visited a nameless continent in the western hemisphere, and roamed among the islands adjacent to it.
- "Letter from Robert E. Howard to P.S. Miller," The Conquering Sword of Conan, p344

As with the above, Conan may only have visited the Nameless Continent in his kingship, but it's worth considering all the same. The Nameless Continent has been explored in "Marchers of Valhalla," albeit during a time long after the age of Conan: nonetheless, the geography and general milieu may well be similar even before Asgrimm's Horde leaves Asgard. As such, Conan visiting this land should expect to see ancient Khemuri, the Painted Ones, and perhaps other, more ancient lands.

The Lost Conan Adventures: "Queen of the Black Coast," Part 2

2011-10-20T00:01:00.002+01:00

Stories Within The Story
Howard's economy of writing meant that a great deal could be described in a few words, but there are times when one could imagine any number of things happening. Sometimes, it's a few months condensed into a paragraph, as frequently happened in The Hour of the Dragon; others, entire years go by between chapters, most famously in "Queen of the Black Coast." Other possibilities include what happens to other characters over the course of a tale, explanations for seemingly incongruous anomalies or plot holes, reconciliations with other stories - anything.

Stories Within The Story

Adventures on the Black Coast

The Tigress ranged the sea, and the black villages shuddered. Tom-toms beat in the night, with a tale that the she-devil of the sea had found a mate, an iron man whose wrath was as that of a wounded lion.
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p129

There are a few things that happen between the two periods of "Queen of the Black Coast", all of which could be great adventures in their own right. The "wrath of a wounded lion" may be linked in some part to Conan's alter ego.

Bitter Trees

And survivors of butchered Stygian ships named Bêlit with curse, and a white warrior with fierce blue eyes; so the Stygian princes remembered this man long and long, and their memory was a bitter tree which bore crimson fruit in the years to come.
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p129

It's interesting that Howard chooses to mention the survivors of Stygian ships to name Bêlit and Conan with a curse, rather than Argossean or Zingarian ones: did Bêlit prey particularly heavily upon those sleek, black-hulled galleys? Why would Bêlit allow any survivors, when her modus operandi seems to be total destruction, to judge by the ruined Black Coast settlement the Argus encountered - were the Stygians just lucky enough to escape in lifeboats, or did Bêlit deliberately let them go to spread terror and fear about her?

Trade and Plunder

I am bound for Cush, to trade beads and silks and sugar and brass-hilted swords to the black kings for ivory, copra, copper ore, slaves and pearls.”
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p122

Since the Argus seemed fairly typical for a Black Coast trader, it's reasonable to suppose that her cargo was also typical of the goods traded. Obviously there would be more unusual or exotic items, as well as more mundane goods (some of which will be mentioned in Part 3), but it's good background fodder. It's worth noting that Howard was always consistent in trading resources: for instance, the Hyborian kingdoms seem eager to trade in copper. Not only do they trade with the Black Kingdoms for the ore, but with the Shemites and even Picts. One then wonders what they do with all that copper. Also of interest is copra, a meal made from the dried meat of the coconut: this suggests that there were coconuts on the Black Coast, possibly indigenous, or introduced by the proto-Stygians or Kosalans on their westward drift. Copra is in use even today as animal feed for its high protein content, which suggests it may a similar use in the Hyborian kingdoms.

Trading-craft

The Argus was a small sturdy ship, typical of those trading-craft which ply between the ports of Zingara and Argos and the southern coasts, hugging the shoreline and seldom venturing far into the open ocean.
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p123

It seems like the Argus is one of many such ships sailing from the maritime Hyborian countries to the Black Kingdoms: it's likely the Argus won't be the last to be preyed upon by the Tigress of the sea. "Seldom venturing far into the open ocean" is interesting: are we to assume that some do travel further out? If so, for what reason? Purely accidental, pirate evasion, exploration... or do they know something other traders don't?

Brains of the Operation

Conan agreed. He generally agreed to her plans. Hers was the mind that directed their raids, his the arm that carried out her ideas. It mattered little to him where they sailed or whom they fought, so long as they sailed and fought. He found the life good.
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p130

Conan and Bêlit may be partners, but Conan is the junior partner in this relationship. The Queen of the Black Coast is still in rule, and Conan is her consort, not her master: while he may disagree with her on occasion, he seems mostly happy to carry out her orders. In later stories, Conan calls himself "Chief of the Black Corsairs," rather than, say, "King of the Black Coast": this suggests that despite Bêlit's promise to make Conan her "king," and the talk of him "conquering and crushing her" in his lovemaking, it's just talk. In practise, she's lord and master, and Conan her subordinate, albeit highest-ranking and most trusted. It's quite different from Conan's other relationships, where he tends to be in charge.

The Island Kingdoms

Battle and raid had thinned their crew; only some eighty spearmen remained, scarcely enough to work the long galley. But Bêlit would not take the time to make the long cruise southward to the island kingdoms where she recruited her buccaneers.
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p130

This shows that just prior to the voyage up the Zarkheba, the Tigress had been involved in more than one battle and/or raid before they had the chance to replenish their numbers. What battles did they fight, and what plunders did they raid? They'd likely be either too close to the Zarkheba for Bêlit to resist the allure, or north of it, too far from the island kingdoms.

We also hear the first of the island kingdoms, home of the Black Corsairs. Little is known of the kingdoms themselves, but more information on their residents can be gleaned from The Hour of the Dragon, which will be discussed in part 3.

An Empress' Ransom

Like a true queen she lay, with her plunder heaped high about her: silks, cloth-of-gold, silver braid, casks of gems and golden coins, silver ingots, jeweled daggers, and teocallis of gold wedges.
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p141

Bêlit seemed to have amassed a grand personal fortune by the end of her life, with a particular taste for jeweled daggers and woven precious metals: the story of how she gained all those casks of gem an gold would surely be recounted. The silks may have been pillaged from Argossean ships bound for Kush, or even Khitan junks from a jaunt around southern Kush to the oceans south of Vendhya, while the various gold and gems could come from anywhere. "Teocallis" may simply be Howard's poetic description of the shape they were stacked in (a terraced pyramid), or could it be a subtle hint at the Tigress' making a voyage to the Nameless Continent?

Individuals

N'Yaga

""Ho, N'Yaga!" her voice twanged like a bowstring. "Fetch herbs and dress your master's wounds! The rest of you bring aboard the plunder and cast off." As Conan sat with his back against the poop-rail, while the old shaman attended to the cuts on his hands and limbs..."
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p128
“A winged ape,” said old N’Yaga uneasily. “Better we had cut our throats than come to this place. It is haunted.”
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p133

N'Yaga is one of several prominent black characters in "Queen of the Black Coast," and seems to function as an advisor, priest and healer to the crew. N'Yaga would have doubtless imparted wisdom, advice and knowledge to Conan. It's curious to note that his fate was not directly revealed at the end of the story: presumably he was slain along with the spearmen, but without seeing N'Yaga's body, you never know.

N'Gora

“...Go ahead,” he grunted to a sub-chief, N’Gora. “March straight on until you can no longer see me; then stop and wait for me. I believe we’re being followed. I heard something...”
...Even as he wondered, the scene shifted abruptly to a jungle glade where N'Gora and nineteen black spearmen stood, as if awaiting someone...
Then he saw that it was a giant black man that crouched ape-like, long arms dangling, froth dripping from the loose lips. It was not until, with a sobbing cry, the creature lifted huge hands and rushed toward him, that Conan recognized N’Gora. The black man gave no heed to Conan’s shout as he charged, eyes rolled up to display the whites, teeth gleaming, face an inhuman mask... For a little space Conan stood motionless. Then he wheeled and ran back the way he had come, flinging himself with reckless haste through the tall grass and bushes, hurdling creepers that sprawled snake-like across his path. His sword swung low in his right hand, and an unaccustomed pallor tinged his dark face.
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p135, 138-139

N'Gora is a sub-chief, indicating that there may be a number of them: as Conan is referred to as chief of the Black Corsairs in other stories, this might reveal part of the heirarchy of the Tigress, with sub-chiefs possibly akin to mates on historical vessels. Little of N'Gora's personality is revealed, but he appears to be as nervous as his men. All that we do know is that he was driven mad by the mere sight of the Winged One: was this the inevitable outcome of an already troubled psyche pushed too far, or did the creature deliberately render the sole survivor of his troop insane through some sorcery in order to torture Conan? There are subtle hints that the creature was leaving Conan to last: this is just the sort of morbid touch to further demoralise and terrorize a victim. The death of the N'Gora seemed to affect Conan quite a bit: though it could just be chalked up to the horrific circumstances of his death, it's not unreasonable to assume Conan would become friendly with his shipmate, and he may be losing a close friend as well as dog-brother. In any case, N'Gora is more or less a blank slate, and one can imbue him with more backstory to fill out the cast of the Tigress. N'Gora is not mentioned in the first chapter of the story: was he always part of the crew, or a new recruit? What was his relationship to Bêlit, N'Yaga, and eventually Conan?

The Mystery of Bêlit

Kings of Askalon

“Wolves of the blue sea, behold ye now the dance – the mating-dance of Bêlit, whose fathers were kings of Askalon!”
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p129

Given the etymological similarity to Asgalun, as well as geographic probability – it seems reasonable to suggest that Askalon was a coastal city given Bêlit’s occupation – it’s possible that Asgalun and Askalon are one and the same. Since Asgalun is the spelling used in the later story “The Servants of Bit-Yakin,” the later spelling may be assumed to be Howard’s final word on the matter. Alternatively, Asgalun may be the common name, with Askalon being a variant: possibly archaic. It's even possible that Askalon was a former kingdom which has been conquered or otherwise lost, perhaps even legendary.

However, even more tantalising is the revelation - or at least the boast - that Bêlit is a daughter of "kings of Askalon." This seems to suggest a royal lineage to a Shemite kingdom, and the circumstances around why Bêlit is not in Askalon now. Is she the last heir of a lost kingdom of Shem, a queen without a realm? Is she an outcast or illegitimate offspring of royalty? Has she been usurped from her rule by a jealous rival, or did she run away to join the pirates to be queen of a greater domain than any constrained by land? Is there any real answer, or is this another aspect of the mystique of Bêlit? The possibilities are endless.

A Cloak for a Queen

... his gorgeous scarlet cloak could have been spun nowhere but in Ophir...
... He called Bêlit, who slept on the deck, wrapped in his scarlet cloak, and she sprang to his side, eyes blazing...
But on the deck of the Tigress, on a pyre of broken benches, spear-shafts and leopardskins, lay the Queen of the Black Coast in her last sleep, wrapped in Conan’s scarlet cloak.
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p124, 132, 140-141

Bêlit is seen wrapped in Conan's scarlet cloak twice: once as she slept on the deck of the Tigress, and on her funeral pyre. It strikes me that Bêlit has something of an attachment to this cloak: presumably it's something just as simple as being a genuine Ophirean scarlet cloak, or because it's her man's cloak and thus an extension of their intimacy, but it could be something else. These might not be the only times Bêlit has worn Conan's cloak: the fact that Conan wraps her in it for her funeral suggests that. Perhaps Conan's continued preference for scarlet cloaks in future stories can be at least partially attributed to his love for Bêlit. Conan also used a scarlet cloak to warm Yasmela in "Black Colossus."

Discovering the Zarkheba

"Once a Stygian galley, fleeing from me, fled up the river and vanished. I anchored in this very spot, and days later, the galley came floating down the dark waters, its decks blood-stained and deserted. Only one man was on board, and he was mad and died gibbering. The cargo was intact, but the crew had vanished into silence and mystery. "
“My lover, I believe there is a city somewhere on that river. I have heard tales of giant towers and walls glimpsed afar off by sailors who dared go part-way up the river. We fear nothing: Conan, let us go and sack that city!”
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p129-130

This is another hint of Bêlit's life before meeting Conan, but of interest is why Bêlit is so sure there is a city along the Zarkheba. Did Bêlit go searching for clues about what could be lurking in the jungle, quizzing tribes on legends and folklore, poring over the books of Skelos? Is this a reason why she hunts Stygian ships? The Stygians, of course, have had ties with the Winged Ones' city since their prehistory - did Bêlit learn of the city from them?

Ape Mythology

And once an inhuman voice was lifted in awful mockery – the cry of an ape, Bêlit said, adding that the souls of evil men were imprisoned in these manlike animals as punishment for past crimes.
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p130

An interesting morsel of trivia from Bêlit, and thematically tied into the true origin of the Winged One, but one wonders if this is something she picked up from the blacks, or if it's an aspect of Shemite religion. A more unusual, if unlikely, possibility is that she's personally witnessed such an act of hideous reincarnation. There are examples of men's souls being trapped in those of animals in the Conan tales, most notoriously snakes in "Beyond the Black River," and other Sword-and-Sorcery stories by Howard have soul transference. It doesn't seem outside the realms of possibility that Bêlit may have witnessed such a thing, or a weird incident which she rationalized in terms she could understand.

Bêlit knows no fear

“I am not afraid either,” she said meditatively. “I was never afraid. I have looked into the naked fangs of Death too often. Conan, do you fear the gods?”
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p131

It may seem redundant to point out Bêlit's skills and experience in leading her crew, but here is a direct example of Bêlit explaining her fearlessness, borne from frequent acquaintance with the spectre of death. This does not necessarily mean battle - what we know of Bêlit marks her as the strategist, tactician and mastermind, not warrior - but the high seas are hazardous enough. Storms, squalls, freak waves, falling overboard, sea creature attacks (in the Hyborian Age, that doesn't just mean whales), even simple dehydration or heat exhaustion when trapped out at sea too long.

Bêlit's Religion

“But the gods are real,” she said, pursuing her own line of thought. “And above all are the gods of the Shemites – Ishtar and Ashtoreth and Derketo and Adonis. Bel, too, is Shemitish, for he was born in ancient Shumir, long, long ago, and went forth laughing, with curled beard and impish wise eyes, to steal the gems of the kings of old times.
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p131

This is a glimpse into Bêlit's religious beliefs, which appears to be the same of other Shemites in the stories. Bêlit's Shemite heritage would be a logical place to explore, in conjunction with her possible royal heritage. The corsair's veneration of Bêlit goes beyond that of crew to beloved captain, but worshipper to goddess. Other black kingdoms, such as Keshan and Punt, also worship ivory goddesses. Is Bêlit manipulating her own crew, convincing them of her godhood through her theatrics, driving them on with guile and technique that convinces them of her powers? Indeed, given that she comes back from the grave to aid Conan, is it not possible that she is versed in certain sorceries, or privy to ancient knowledge, which allowed her to crawl back from the abyss to aid her love - and if so, what else does she know, and could do? It would certainly explain her stilted and theatrical mannerisms when addressing Conan, if she was used to speaking in the imperious tones of a goddess.

The Lost Conan Adventures: "Queen of the Black Coast," Part 1

2011-10-19T00:01:00.002+01:00

The Tigress ranged the sea, and the black villages shuddered. Tom-toms beat in the night, with a tale that the she-devil of the sea had found a mate, an iron man whose wrath was as that of a wounded lion. And survivors of butchered Stygian ships named Bêlit with curse, and a white warrior with fierce blue eyes; so the Stygian princes remembered this man long and long, and their memory was a bitter tree which bore crimson fruit in the years to come.
But heedless as a vagrant wind, the Tigress cruised the southern coasts, until she anchored at the mouth of a broad sullen river, whose banks were jungle-clouded walls of mystery.
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p129

Perhaps more than any other Conan tale, "Queen of the Black Coast" is the one most ripe for expansion. In a way, it's actually two tales in one: the story of Conan's first meeting with Bêlit, and the story of their last adventure. An entire saga could be spun between the first chapter and the rest of the yarn, and Conan's time among the corsairs is one of the most commonly referenced periods in other Conan stories. It seems clear that Conan's time with Bêlit was a significant and lengthy period of his youth, and there are copious clues which could be teased into the legend of Amra and the She-Devil.

Before Our Story Begins

Prologue Expansion
The most obvious route for expansion would be the prologue: Conan relates his judicial woes to Tito, but the tale could be expanded into a story of its own.

Travel to Argos

“I came into Argos seeking employment, but with no wars forward, there was nothing to which I might turn my hand.”
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p122

Conan hears of war in Argos, and so he travels there, perhaps along with Amalric's mercenary army ("Black Colossus"). What is the nature of this war? Is it a brawl with their nemesis Zingara, an attempt to bully some rebellious Shemite cities, an expansion inward to Ophir, or was it an aborted first strike at Stygia, which would be delayed for another several years (the Tombalku typescripts)? Maybe it was a war against Koth: Conan is no friend of the king, and it's likely Amalric wasn't either considering his time in Khoraja, and it could provide an impetus for Koth's betrayal of Argos in the Argossean-Stygian war. It could also be an internal conflict: a peasant revolt, a succession crisis, a baronial uprising, an idealogical revolution, or attempted usurpation.

A Young Soldier

“Well, last night in a tavern, a captain in the king’s guard offered violence to the sweetheart of a young soldier, who naturally ran him through. But it seems there is some cursed law against killing guardsmen, and the boy and his girl fled away. It was bruited about that I was seen with them, and so today I was haled into court, and a judge asked me where the lad had gone. I replied that since he was a friend of mine, I could not betray him."
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p123

Somewhere on the way to Argos, he befriends a young soldier while he waits for mobilization. Was he a fellow mercenary he merely met in Argos, or was he a veteran of Amalric's army? Could this friend of his turn out to be a certain Poitanian whom Conan would meet again? Mobilization of the army would take a while, so Conan would have to hang out in Argos a bit: here he may learn of Publio, the merchant supporting his business with black market dealings. A captain of the king's guard makes trouble for the young man, who slays him: since there is a law against killing guardsmen the boy and the girl fled, possibly with Conan's help. For his trouble, Conan gets hauled into court...

Trouble in Messantia

“But I choked my ire and held my peace, and the judge squalled that I had shown contempt for the court, and that I should be hurled into a dungeon to rot until I betrayed my friend. So then, seeing they were all mad, I drew my sword and cleft the judge’s skull; then I cut my way out of the court, and seeing the high constable’s stallion tied near by, I rode for the wharfs, where I thought to find a ship bound for foreign parts.”
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p123

After what I'm sure was a great deal of patience on the Cimmerian's part, he makes a bloody escape. Conan seems to recognise the High Constable's stallion, which indicates some amount of familiarity with him. Most intriguing to me is the identity of the young soldier: while it's possible Conan never sees or hears from him again, I think it's also possible he's someone he meets again. Could this be the first meeting between Conan and Prospero, and strengthens the two's bond with each other?

Other Adventures
There are a few bits and pieces which suggest, due to context, adventures which took place before the story began, and not necessarily during Conan's time with Bêlit.

Other Cimmerians

The wanderer was no less of interest to the sturdy seamen, few of whom had ever seen one of his race.
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p124

Though Conan is the only Cimmerian ever encountered or discussed individually in the Conan stories, it's clear from this and other clues (his grandfather's tales, other references to Cimmerian raids) that he was not the only Cimmerian to travel south in his lifetime. While Argos seems awfully far south for the Cimmerians to travel, one must remember that the Argosseans are hardy and far-travelled, so they could have encountered Cimmerians further north in some fashion. Did Conan encounter any other such Cimmerian wanderers in his journeys?

Apparel for a Cimmerian

Young in years, he was hardened in warfare and wandering, and his sojourns in many lands were evident in his apparel. His horned helmet was such as was worn by the golden-haired Æsir of Nordheim; his hauberk and greaves were of the finest workmanship of Koth; the fine ring-mail which sheathed his arms and legs was of Nemedia; the blade at his girdle was a great Aquilonian broadsword; and his gorgeous scarlet cloak could have been spun nowhere but in Ophir.
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p124

The origin of Conan's fine clothing and armour could be integrated into their own adventures: did he go to each of the realms mentioned on his journey to Argos, were they plundered from the battlefield, or just bought with a sudden windfall of gold? Were they bought individually, or at the same time? Horned helms are not frequently seen outside of Nordheim, but Conan could have picked it up on either a second stay with the Æsir, or on his journey home to Cimmeria.

Could the hauberk and greaves have been forged in the flaming mountains of Khrosha, speculatively placed in Koth ("The chest forged in unholy fires among the flaming mountains of Khrosha; the metal no chisel can cut." - The Hour of the Dragon, The Bloody Crown of Conan, p170)? Was the fine Nemedian ring-mail the garb of an Adventurer - possibly the spoils of battle, where Conan first discovers firsthand what a deadly foe they are ("Conan knew that he could have been discovered by no more dangerous a foeman." - The Hour of the Dragon, The Bloody Crown of Conan, p124)? Was the Aquilonian broadsword of the same nigh-unbreakable steel as the sword he wielded as a thief in Numalia ("It seems less destructible than Aquilonian steel..." - "The God in the Bowl," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p59)?

Ominous Portents

So they beat southward, and master Tito began to look for the high-walled villages of the black people. But they found only smoking ruins on the shore of a bay, littered with naked black bodies. Tito swore... "The wildest she-devil unhanged. Unless I read the signs a-wrong, it was her butchers who destroyed that village on the bay..."
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p124

Exactly how could Tito know that the ruined town was the handiwork of the black corsairs? Was it simple forensic observation based on their particular manner of destruction, or something more sinister? Did they make some form of message or signature, warning other pirates or traders, as a fearmongering tactic? Did they leave some grim token or symbol?

The Hardy Argus

“Mine is no warship. We run, not fight. Yet if it came to a pinch, we have beaten off reavers before, and might do it again..."
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p125

Tito and the Argus are clearly experienced in repelling pirates, though they'd rather avoid them altogether: one wonders what sort of escapades the Argus got to before its final voyage.

Learning Archery

“It’s not my idea of a manly weapon, but I learned archery among the Hyrkanians, and it will go hard if I can’t feather a man or so on yonder deck.”
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p125

It's something of a matter of concern exactly when Conan learned archery among the Hyrkanians: most of the stories set in the east appear to be set later in his career than "Queen." Presumably it was during his mercenary period: perhaps he sojourned in the Turanian army for a space before or after "Black Colossus," or during the Yaralet period. The fact that Conan refers to archery as effectively "not manly" is curious: does he imply it's a feminine weapon, or that it's a cowardly one? It's quite thematically appropriate that Conan would use a weapon he considers "unmanly" against the inhuman horrors in the story's climax.

Not his first dance

The men shouted in confusion, and Conan took command in characteristic fashion.
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p126

"Characteristic fashion" indicates that Conan has taken command before: while it might not indicate Conan being in command of anything more than a crew of bandits, this has been considered a clue that "Black Colossus" and possibly "A Witch Shall Be Born" take place before this tale, not to mention the mercenaries of Corinthia as stated in the former.

The Fires of the Ultimate South

“Who are you?” she demanded. “By Ishtar, I have never seen your like, though I have ranged the sea from the coasts of Zingara to the fires of the ultimate south. Whence come you?”
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p127

The Fires of the Ultimate South is certainly an evocative, suggestive phrase, and one wonders what Bêlit could mean by it. What are these fires, and where is the ultimate south? Could they be the Hyborian ancestors of modern volcanic ranges, such as what are now the French Southern and Antarctic Islands? Or are fires metaphorical, indicating a particularly hot region? Bêlit's territory tends to range along the Black Coast, so they could even be a volcanic range on the southern tip of the Thurian continent. Bêlit could return to those lands with Conan, or tell him the tale of her visit.

Conan's Barbarian Women

Yet in his heart he did not fear; he had held too many women, civilized or barbaric, in his iron-thewed arms, not to recognize the light that burned in the eyes of this one.
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p127

That Conan has known the hot embrace of civilized women is, naturally, well-known: this is proof that Conan had done the same with barbarian women. It seems logical to suppose that Conan had a Cimmerian sweetheart, or a lover among the Æsir: it's too early in his career to encounter Kushite or Afghuli women. It is notable that Conan doesn't seem nonplussed that the terror of the Black Coast was a woman, also suggesting an earlier age for Conan. It also suggests "Queen" was set after "Black Colossus," since not only did Conan fully expect Princess Yasmela to don armour for battle, but he didn't retort with the example of Bêlit as a leader who led her warriors into the thick of combat. It is likely that Conan's comparatively dismissive treatment of certain civilized women is not because they're women, but because they can't compare to the likes of Bêlit and the barbarian women he's known.

Barbarian Raids

To the people of the exotic climes, the north was a mazy half-mythical realm, peopled with ferocious blue-eyed giants who occasionally descended from their icy fastnesses with torch and sword. Their raids had never taken them as far south as Shem, and this daughter of Shem made no distinction between Æsir, Vanir or Cimmerian.
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p128

This is an example of the extent of northern barbarian raids, and how the facts were distorted the further south one travelled: the Aquilonians knew Cimmerians were real, but almost doubted the existence of Æsir and Vanir; the Shemites viewed all three as half-mythical.

Ends of the Earth, Ends of the Sea

"Go with me to the ends of the earth and the ends of the sea! I am a queen by fire and steel and slaughter – be thou my king!"
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p128

Bêlit obviously has plans for Conan: perhaps with him by her side, she can go to places uncharted and undreamed even by her.

Hyborian Cities

"Mitra of the Hyborians must be a strong god, because his people have builded their cities over the world."
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p131

Conan would have to have visited a substantial enough portion of the Hyborian Age world to come to such a conclusion. Since Conan is imparting this to Bêlit, it seems logical that this is personal experience, rather than one shared with Bêlit: otherwise, why would he mention it?

Bel, the Good God

And Bel, god of thieves, is a good god. When I was a thief in Zamora I learned of him."
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p131

This is a direct reference to "The Tower of the Elephant," where the Kothian scoundrel and Taurus both mentioned the deity: evidently, Conan learned more of Bel during his time in Zamora.

Nemedian Skeptics

I seek not beyond death. It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Crom’s realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of the Nordheimer’s Valhalla. I know not, nor do I care.
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p131

We can guess that Conan learned of Valhalla from his time among the Æsir, but where did he encounter the Nemedian skeptics and their theory of a blackness beyond death? Who were these skeptics - were they Hyborian-era atheists, or something closer to agnostics? Did Conan listen into the skeptics' debates in Nemedia as he did with Zamorian philosophers?

Black Lotus

From a cluster of green, curiously leafed stalks, great black blossoms nodded at him. One of these had touched him. They seemed to beckon him, to arch their pliant stems toward him. They spread and rustled, though no wind blew. He recoiled, recognizing the black lotus, whose juice was death, and whose scent brought dream-haunted slumber.
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p135

Conan's first encounter with the Black Lotus was "The Tower of the Elephant," but in powder form: evidently Conan learned to identify the lotus' blossoms at some point, or he simply recognized its scent from Yara's garden. Where did Conan encounter a Black Lotus flower so far from Khitai and Stygia?

The Well of Skelos

By what godless alchemy these beings had been brought into existence, he could not guess; but he knew he faced diabolism blacker than the Well of Skelos.
- "Queen of the Black Coast," The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p142

Skelos is a figure of much mystery in the Hyborian Age: his incantations, votaries and iron-bound books have been used by sorcerers from all over the world. The first mention of him in the Conan stories, however, was one of the most vague: the Well of Skelos. From context, it seems that Skelos was either a sorcerer, or some form of demonic horror like the Master of Yimsha; as such, the Well of Skelos could be a great cavernous opening, from which "black diabolism" issued. There are many examples of demons emerging from, or returning to, great wells in the ground: Thog ("Xuthal of the Dusk"), Thaug ("A Witch Shall Be Born"), and the many horrors of the Scarlet Citadel being the most notable. The Well of Skelos could be the most notorious of these. The real question is, is Conan speaking figuratively, merely knowing of the Well - or did Conan actually lay eyes upon this well? Was this during his reign of terror on the Black Coast, or before?

The Lost Conan Adventures: Introduction

2011-10-18T00:01:00.001+01:00

This is part of yet another new series I'd been working on in the background, but the announcement that Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan would be working on "Queen of the Black Coast" galvanized me into action. While Wood emphasises that most of the 25 issues will be used to fill out the 2 years between "Queen of the Black Coast"'s "bookends," he shouldn't forget that Howard provided enough inspiration to fill an entire saga within the tale itself. I guess I'm just hoping that if either Wood or Cloonan are reading what the rabid REH fanboys are writing about their comic, then they'll either take some of the ideas I bring up here into the comic, or that they've already come up with them. Some elements might have been already used by Roy Thomas in either the past Marvel comics, or even in the recent Road of Kings arc: some might not be used at all. All I can do is get my thoughts out there, so I can say that I did.

So, here's my latest Toad-of-Toad-Hall Mania. I'd already done a lot of these in-between the Encyclopedia, but I figure it would be a good time to bump up this particular entry.

The Lost Conan Adventures

Every work of fiction has at least one allusion, one mysterious reference, which sends the audience's mind wild. It may be an off-the-cuff remark about some mysterious incident of the distant past, referencing a legendary figure or iconic individual, or recalling a distant location: a skilled author can offer glimpses of countries, histories and myths with a few words. The audience would debate and discuss just what these riddles mean, each with their own ideas and conceptualisations they inspired. With some of the great mythmakers, it goes beyond enthusiastic amateurs to professional admirers, as dozens of authors could follow the originals with new adventures and novels: Tarzan, Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, and more have had new chronicles published, while the Cthulhu Mythos remains a popular playground for Lovecraftian authors.

So it is with Robert E. Howard's Conan. Who doesn't wonder just what the destruction of Venarium was like? What were the secrets ensconced in the Iron-Bound Book of Skelos? Just what manner of lands were those south of the Black Kingdoms of Kush? In the pages of Weird Tales, Howard left all these plots hanging, tantalizing readers while amply expanding the richness and variety of the Hyborian Age with economic poetry. Sure enough, many of those hints were the germs of entire books: Harry Turtledove chronicled Venarium's fall in Conan of Venarium, the mysterious Skelos became a focus in books by Andrew J. Offutt and others, and the lands south of Kush were explored in a number of de Camp and Carter pastiches. Over the years, there have been multiple interpretations of these elements in the Conan canon across multiple media: the Marvel comics, Dark Horse comics, and De Camp/Carter pastiches all have different accounts of many of them, and no doubt many more will come in the future.

With so many interpretations, it can be easy to get lost in the labyrinthine continuities of Conan and the Hyborian Age. However, Howard always remained the core, as he should, and so any future pastiches should generally look to Howard for inspiration, first and foremost, as it provides the most common ground. Having a Howard-created character appear in a pastiche merely means the story is in-canon with the Howard stories, but if one included, for example, Skulkur from "Conan the Adventurer," does that mean the rest of the cartoon is canon? What about Xotli from Conan of the Isles, Hissah Zuhl from "Conan: The Adventurer," Wrarrl from the Marvel comics? Ultimately, it's better when starting a new line of pastiches to start from scratch. Leave the Hyperborean Witch-Men in "Legions of the Dead" and Bombaata in Conan the Destroyer: there are enough clues and hints in Howard to fuel enough new creations.

So we come to The Lost Conan Adventures. At it's core, The Lost Conan Adventures will look at the Conan stories, and search for those inspirational launching points for Conan tales. Some I've discussed before, in my reports on the progress of the Encyclopedia Hyboriana; others have been expanded into the Hyborian Age Gazetteers; still more could be developed into biographies, histories, chronicles and the like. However, for the purposes of the TLCA, the focus will be on possible adventures. These will be divided into
the following categories:

Before Our Story Begins
These are those events which happen before the story begins, which are not directly chronicled in other Howard stories. Some refer to a distant time in Conan's past, such as the sacks of Abombi and Venarium in "The Scarlet Citadel" and "Beyond the Black River" respectively. Others take place just prior to the beginning of the tale, such as Conan's betrayal in "Rogues in the House" and the destruction of Almuric's army in "Xuthal of the Dusk." The most flexible and tantalising are those which could have happened at any time or any place: Conan reading the book of Skelos before "The Devil in Iron" allows for Conan to encounter that tome just about anywhere and any time before the tale begins.

Stories Within The Story
Howard's economy of writing meant that a great deal could be described in a few words, but there are times when one could imagine any number of things happening. Sometimes, it's a few months condensed into a paragraph, as frequently happened in The Hour of the Dragon; others, entire years go by between chapters, most famously in "Queen of the Black Coast." Other possibilities include what happens to other characters over the course of a tale, explanations for seemingly incongruous anomalies or plot holes, reconciliations with other stories - anything.

Weaving a Tapestry
Just as any one story can inspire future adventures, sometimes a story can be tied into earlier or later tales in Conan's life. Howard would develop the reference to Conan's adventures as Amra of the Black Corsairs in "The Scarlet Citadel" into an entire story, "Queen of the Black Coast." "The Phoenix on the Sword" has references to Conan's thieving in Zamora, fighting with the Aesir, and as a mercenary soldier would be expanded into "The Tower of the Elephant," "The Frost-Giant's Daughter," and "Black Colossus." Other examples are more abstract: Conan's reference to having seen "death strike a king in the midst of thousands" may technically apply to a previous story, or it could be an original adventure.

But That's Another Story
Every Conan story leaves a few loose ends before the end. Sometimes they're obvious, like Olgerd Vladislav in "A Witch Shall Be Born": the last time we see him is his ominous ride into the desert. Others are more subtle: the fate of Altaro, Orastes' acolyte in The Hour of the Dragon, is never explicated. The roots of future adventures are ripe for exploitation, as Olgerd and Conan crossing paths once again could form the core of an entire story, while Altaro could be biding his time and consolidating his power for future malevolence. Sometimes, it's as simple as wondering what happened when the story ended: what did Murillo get up to after "Rogues in the House"? Did Conan and Muriela go to Punt to continue their little con game after "The Servants of Bit-Yakin"? Where did Conan take the Wastrel after "The Pool of the Black One"?

It's always possible, likely even, that I've missed some bits and pieces out there. So, I invite anyone who's read the stories and thought "I wonder..." to contribute. Be it fairly reasonable things, like "did Conan ever ransom the Star of Khorala" to wild ideas like "what if the Kings of Yag came to earth in a search for Yogah," anything goes. The more the merrier.

I had originally started with "The Phoenix on the Sword," naturally, but due to the coming of "Queen" to Dark Horse, I decided to march it forward. The post will be up sometime this week: in the mean time, why not post your own ideas and ruminations inspired by Howard's stories?

Eh, some people aren't cut out for detective work.

2011-10-17T00:01:00.000+01:00

Better late than never: glib, but necessary, I think.

Remember a while back I talked about how great Don Herron was, how I felt his work was fantastic, and that it was a major influence on my paddling into the deeper waters of Howardom? And I even made a little Where on Earth is Don Herron cartoon, to complement Damon Sasser's Where in the World is Don Herron?* Well, I don't know how I didn't notice this the first time around, but the man himself formed a response. I'm not entirely sure how to feel about it.

“Where on Earth is Don Herron?” asked Al Harron (no relation, or none that I know of — I have been remiss in my geneaological studies the last few years) on his blog just last month.

I don't think so sir, we pronounce and spell our names differently. Sorry, tangent. Anyway...

Damon dealt with my physical whereabouts and activities, but Al was more concerned with seeing — or not seeing —my name specifically in connection with Robert E. Howard Studies. Yeah, What Have You Done for Me Lately? I get it.

The way I look at it, if I never do another word about the creator of Conan, my rep in that arena is secure. The Dark Barbarian. The Barbaric Triumph. “Conan vs. Conantics.” To name only a few. Maybe Al is experiencing withdrawal symptoms after the excellent REH magazine The Cimmerian closed up shop — I appeared in those pages almost every issue.

"I get it?" Well that makes one of us... If I gave any impression that I was resentful or even vaguely irritated by the lack of new Don Herron material, then I apologise, because it was surely not my intent. I just think it would be, you know, cool to see him back, like how I think it would be cool to see Leo and others back. They don't have to come back, and I don't feel they have some sort of obligation to Howardom. It would just be cool.

At the moment, you don’t see any activity in Howard studies equal to the run of The Cimmerian, but for what action there is I think I’m keeping my gunhand in. Last summer I did a review (a pretty funny review) for Damon’s annual issue of Two-Gun Raconteur, and have another long review (also funny) coming up this summer. I’ve got two pieces being prepped for a couple of other Howard-related projects. And if I am not recognised enough for all the work I do on the side with advice and so on, let me at least inform Al that last year I made no less than two excursions up to Sacramento to drink Jack Daniels with J. Dan Price, the only begotten son of pulp great E. Hoffmann Price, because Rob Roehm wanted to get permission to use some of Ed Price’s letters in a volume he is working on about Doc Howard.

Cool. I'm really glad to know that. Even though I'm only discovering it 10 months later due to me being, shall we say, extremely inconsistent in my thoroughness.

And I don’t know how a Robert E. Howard fan could miss them, but I also stepped in to introduce the two volumes of Two-Gun’s pulp detective and weird menace tales just published by The Robert E. Howard Foundation. My copies rolled in a couple of days ago. 150 copy print runs for each, sold out by publication, but second printings are in the pipeline. I toss in some nice remarks about Hammett, track down an influence that got me on the road to writing books-about-books — my usual. And the intros are in hardcover editions of Robert E. Howard.

Honest, I don’t think my presence is that hard to detect in Howard studies, if you’ve got any detective skills at all.

Hey, I never claimed to be a gumshoe, mack! I have a hard enough time with Cluedo and choose-your-own-adventure books!

Don has a point, though: how did I miss his presence in Steve Harrison's Casebook and Weird Menace? Mostly because I don't have them. I'd like to think I'm a Robert E. Howard fan, certainly, but there are various factors that are too preposterous and silly to recount in detail, mostly financial and quite a few technological, which mean that I haven't bought an awful lot from the Foundation. Most of my purchases have been in person, where I physically handed over currency and bundled the books into my suitcase. Combined with not exactly having a disposable budget, I simply don't have enough money to splash out on even fairly affordable hardbacks like those, especially when shipping costs come into play.

For this reason, I actively shied away from reading much about those two volumes after the initial announcement specifically because I didn't want to torment myself more. I'd already torn my heart out on missing Collected Poetry due to my monetary and mechanical gremlins, and I really didn't want to torture myself over being unable to read the restored(ish) version of "Black John's Vengeance." All I knew at the time, and for quite a long time after that, was the story contents, and that's all I was willing to know at that point.

However, I did learn later, probably in the lead up to Howard Days, about Don's introductions - and at Howard Days, I found his contribution to Dreams in the Fire. I was pleasantly surprised to see his name, and frankly, it was as if he never left. Mostly because, as he stated above, he never really did. But even with my absent-mindedness, it was nice to see his name in print hot off the press, however late I was in recognizing it. Again, better late than never.

And do you know what? It was cool.

*If you don't get it, I equated Damon's original post Where in the World is Don Herron with Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego: naturally, I felt compelled to make my own version, by utilizing the Saturday morning cartoon spinoff Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego as inspiration for my own spinoff. Not to mention the logo. So any connection to Damon's post is completely intentional.