Of Fakirs, Faqirs and Fakers

There's been some discussion on the Robert E. Howard Forums about Stephen Lang's, and subsequently Howard's, use of the term "Fakir." Originally, Amra of AmratheLion brought up the connection, recalling Conan's brilliant note to Xaltotun in The Hour of the Dragon:

To Xaltotun, grand fakir of Nemedia: Dog of Acheron, I am returning to my kingdom, and I mean to hang your hide on a bramble.

I had a look through the REH stories for other uses of the term, and found this in "Beyond the Black River":

Who can be sure that all the inhabitants of that black country are natural? Zogar Sag - a sage of the eastern cities would sneer at his primitive magic-making as the mummery of a fakir; yet he has driven mad and killed five men in a manner no man can explain.

This would seem to give the impression that a fakir was not a true sorcerer, or that it was some sort of "low-level" magic user looked down upon by the Sons of the East (who are greater than the Wizards of the West, according to Hadrathus).  In this context, Conan is taunting Xaltotun's skills as nothing more than "the mummery of a fakir."  "Grand Fakir" is then Conan saying Xaltotun is either the greatest Fakir of them all, or a puffed-up fakir with illusions of grandeur.  It could be taken a number of ways, methinks.

Some discussion of the term is necessarily.  Fakir, as I understand it, has become a common insult analogous to "beggar," and indeed, the modern Faqirs are among the most marginalized Muslims in all of India. Howard's usage could have just been used in this sense.  However, faqirs are also holy men who are bereft of worldly possessions.  Xaltotun, too, is without his most important possession in the Heart of Ahriman.  The most powerful artifact of the age and one of the things Xaltotun needs to have.  Conan is effectively taunting Xaltotun about this, from that frame of mind - but Xaltotun didn't know that the Heart was gone.  There's another: fakirs are homeless.  So is Xaltotun.

Xaltotun's Acheron is gone, and it clearly affected him:

Orastes unrolled before the stranger a map drawn cunningly on vellum.
Xaltotun regarded it, and then shook his head, baffled.
"The very outlines of the land are changed. It is like some familiar thing seen in a dream, fantastically distorted."
"Howbeit," answered Orastes, tracing with his forefinger, "here is Belverus, the capital of Nemedia, in which we now are. Here run the boundaries of the land of Nemedia. To the south and southeast are Ophir and Corinthia, to the east Brythunia, to the west Aquilonia."
"It is the map of a world I do not know," said Xaltotun softly, but Orastes did not miss the lurid fire of hate that flickered in his dark eyes.

The confusion at the geographic outlines, the distortion of the national territories initially baffle him.  Then he realises Acheron is history, and the Hyborians rule over the ruins of the empire.  That lurid flicker of hate: they destroyed my home, my people, my world.  They will pay for this.

Steve Tompkins pointed out in The Lion's Den of The Cimmerian print journal that Xaltotun's motivations are rather sympathetic: he was a patriot whose entire world has fallen apart.  And I agree.  The world as he knew it was gone, and he could barely understand this new one.  Dark and terrible as it was, he missed his home.  All he wanted was to bring it back.  The scary thing is, he could bring it back.  Thus the plot of The Hour of the Dragon.  If Xaltotun was the protagonist, this would be a mixture of the Revenge and Journey Home archetypes.

So for Conan to equate Xaltotun with a landless, possessionless beggar is kind of a triple-point score that could've hit pretty close to home, from that point of view.  Did REH plan it this way?  Who knows.  I have an inkling he merely used it in the same terms as in "Beyond the Black River": a minor, insignificant mummer.  Still, it's an interesting thing to ponder.

King Conan: A Necessary Evil?

The history of the King Conan movie has been one long, drawn-out tease since the late 1990s. Milius' script, King Conan: Crown of Iron, was intended as the first of two films, followed by King Conan: Beneath My Sandalled Feet. Another script was, apparently, the disaster which would become Kull the Conqueror, leading many to note the hilarious irony of Kull the Conqueror being a rewrite of a Conan adventure when the literary Conan's first adventure was a rewrite of a Kull story - not helped by the fact that Milius stole a lot of Kull's back-story to supplement his Conan. However, neither came about, because Arnold decided Batman & Robin was a better use of his time - and I have to admit, he was the best thing in that wreck.  When it came to finalizing trilogies before he conquered the Proudest State of the American Continent that Reigned Supreme in the Dreaming West Coast, he settled for Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. When Schwarzenegger ran for office, plans for a King Conan film were doomed, at least for the 2000s. I'm glad it didn't happen.

"Dammit, they stole my idea!": Hyperborean Mice

 Curse you, David Petersen!

This happens occassionally.  Sometimes I think up some cool little idea that I think nobody else could've come up with.  It might be whimsical, horrific, bizarre or just plain weird, but I feel like I just might have thought of something new.  (Shut up, Ecclesiastes.)  And then someone comes out with an idea pretty much just like what I was thinking.  Dammit, they stole my idea.  Or, in South Park speak, DEY TUK MAH DEER!

Such were my sentiments reading about Hyperborean Mice over at the Black Gate blog, by way of Scott Oden.

Return of the Flood, and something that'd been bothering me

A while back, I discussed Alison Flood's discussion of Conan, along with her rather amazing admission that she hadn't read all the stories.  Sheee's baaaaack.

Testosterone Poisoning: The Expendables and what it might mean for Conan

I'm of two minds about The Expendables.  One enjoys it for what it was: another hates it for the same reason.  There are ramifications for further action movies, including Conan - ramifications I'm not enjoying the prospect of.

So Why The Hell Am I Doing The Conan Movie Blog Anyway?

Ever since the Conan film script was leaked and the resulting character casting sheet released, the film's kind of beyond the point of no return for me.  Generally, if I'm talking about the upcoming Conan film, chances are it's tinged with a mixture of resentment and resignation.

"It looks just like Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.  Of course it looks just like Hercules: The Legendary Journeys."

Another Conan Kerfuffle

Originally reported by Hollywood Reporter, and shamelessly parroted by Todays (sic) Hot News, the Montreal Gazette and Business Inside, no doubt to be followed by others.

Case closed, right? Not quite. Let's say O'Brien wants to call his show "Conan," which TBS's "Conan is coming this November" promos seem to suggest is a distinct possibility. Simple, straightforward, it's how everyone will refer to the show anyway ("Did you see Will Ferrell take his shirt off on Conan last night?").

Just one problem: Our quick search of the Patent and Trademark Office website reveals O'Brien doesn't own the trademark on "Conan." Despite his 17 years on television hosting NBC shows with "Conan O'Brien" in the title, use of the "Conan" mark for "entertainment" purposes is owned by a European company called Conan Properties International, which for decades has used the "Conan" mark in connection with the Conan the Barbarian films.

Will we see a Conan vs. Conan fight to the death? Probably not. If Team Coco wants to name the show "Conan," it could decide to plow forward and test the legal waters. At the very least, there is a good argument that the average person watching a commercial for something called "Conan" would know to expect self-pleasuring-animal humor, not heavily-accented barbarians (unless maybe Arnold Schwarzenegger was a guest). But there is another Conan the Barbarian movie in the works, and this one's called just "Conan." So the owner of the Conan mark might argue that the O'Brien show could confuse the public and damage the movie.

Given the legal fracas that led to O'Brien leaving NBC in the first place, we're guessing that if he wants to name the show "Conan," his team will probably just pay Conan Properties International a little money so it doesn't sue. Or they could just go with "Conan O'Brien," which not even the most clueless TV viewer would mistake for a sword-and-sandal adventure.

Problem solved. Unless, of course, Conan decides to call the show "Jeff Zucker and Jay Leno Wouldn't Know Funny If It Smacked Them In Their Big Fat Heads."

There was a case a while back where the anime known (in English) as "Detective Conan" - a Sherlock Holmesian little number named in homage of Arthur Conan Doyle - changed its name to "Case Closed" when shown in the US.  Contrary to popular opinion, however, this was not a case of CPI throwing its weight around - rather, it was the anime's US distributors, 4Kids, which mandated the change, likely so they could have a trademark they could use.  Because, of course, nobody's going to confuse a cute little bespectacled detective with the Damnedest Bastard Who Ever Lived.

This isn't comparable to that situation.  Is this news? Is this seriously what counts as news? They're really stretching if they think there's any sort of possibility for legal problems.

I particularly love that third-to-last paragraph, where they say that the fact Conan O'Brien is more well known than Conan is a decent argument.  As if that somehow invalidates the fact that the trademark predates Conan O'Brien's birth.  And frankly, I'd even contest that.  Sure, among the clueless frat boys and teenyboppers O'Brien may be the first that springs to mind, but this is Conan we're talking about. Conan's been a pop culture icon for over half a century, with dozens of books, comics, games, films, tv shows, action figures, lunchboxes! You can't tell me that O'Brien dwarfs the other Conan's popularity, even in this day and age, to the point where it's worth contesting trademarks.

Finally, thwarting any possibility for this news to be worth a fig, the article solves the "problem" by itself, suggesting that Conan might just use his full name: "Conan O'Brien."  So... what was the point of that discussion?  Is there any indication that O'Brien would go with plain old "Conan" as the title of his show?  From what I gather, O'Brien's a comic genius who contributed to the best years of The Simpsons - I doubt he'd go with such a plain title as "Conan."  Meaning this entire report was completely pointless.

I hate journalism sometimes.

A Belated Happy Birthday to Ray Bradbury

Wow, 90 years old.  I was alerted by Morgan Holmes, but unfortunately I never got around to it until just now.

Collectormania '10: Disappointments and Pleasant Surprises

As you might know, Alice Krige couldn't make it, and I was sad.  It turned out Joe Flanigan landed a movie role, and had to fly out at the last second, robbing me of the chance to cheekily grill him about Momo.  So I was sad.  Indeed, I was so sad that I didn't even actually attend any of the talks, or go to meet any of the other guests - not even Chris Barrie or Danny John-Jules.  I'm probably going to regret that pretty soon, but I just didn't have the heart for it.  What was quite strange was I didn't feel that strange rush one gets when in the presence of someone famous or well-regarded, certainly not like last year.  Am I becoming desensitized to celebrity, or was I just too low to fully appreciate them?  I met a ton of famous folks at Cross Plains, and was a teeny tiny mini-celebrity-of-sorts at Cross Plains - four people came up to me saying how much they enjoyed my work, which is just the most wonderful feeling in the world even when the annoying self-consciousness and self-deprecating modesty sets in.  Or maybe someone needs to prick my head for fear of it carrying me into the stratosphere...

Weird Crime Theatre and Savage Sword

Weird Crime Theatre's review of Savage Sword is interesting, but as you'll see, has a few shockers too.

Conan was the role Arnold was born to play. Anyone who says Terminator is talking out of their ass. Why would Skynet program all the T-800 units with Austrian accents?! Is that supposed to make them less detectable?! No — in Conan, Arnold works because of the exotic accent and the physique. Anyone who doubts Arnold’s range as an actor in this movie needs only look at the 1997 Conan TV series starring Ralf Moeller to see real cardboard acting. And at least Ralf had the size and an accent — I am gravely concerned about the newest movie version coming out, though it’s one which I will surely never see.

It never ceases to amaze me whenever I come across people who've read the comics, and yet still assert that Arnold was the ideal Conan. I just can't see it, folks.  The exotic accent and the physique - maybe, at a stretch.  But you're seriously telling me that there was nobody around in 1982 who couldn't have done a better role than Arnold?  Anyone?  Anywhere?  Because I can name at least one: Clancy Brown.  Now he would've made an interesting Conan. But let's play the "who would I have rather seen play Conan in an actual Robert E. Howard adaptation in 1982" game later.