The Filmgoer's Guide to Conan the Barbarian (1982): Cimmerian Mythology

Fire and wind come from the sky, from the gods of the sky, but Crom is your god. Crom, and he lives in the earth. Once giants lived in the earth, Conan, and in the darkness of chaos, they fooled Crom, and they took from him the enigma of steel. Crom was angered, and the earth shook, and fire and wind struck down these giants, and they threw their bodies into the waters. But in their rage, the gods forgot the secret of steel and left it on the battlefield, and we who found it. We are just men, not gods, not giants, just men. And the secret of steel has always carried with it a mystery. You must learn its riddle, Conan, you must learn its discipline, for no one, no one in this world can you trust, not men, not women, not beasts... This you can trust.

It's all very nice and evocative, but aside from the name Crom, absolutely nothing comes from Robert E. Howard. Indeed, much of Cimmerian theology and philosophy in the film is entire the creation of Oliver Stone and John Milius, with many divergences from what we know from Howard.

The Filmgoer's Guide to Conan the Barbarian (1982): The Nemedian Chronicles

The first stop on our journey through Conan the Barbarian starts, inscrutably enough, at the beginning, before the title appears on screen. The first words uttered in the film also happen to be the most tied to Robert E. Howard's work. Let's compare and contrast.

Two Towers: Addendum

As a follow-up to my Tolkien post, I want to give props to sword-brother Brian Murphy.  Brian's talking about the Argonath of Modern Fantasy, J.R.R. Tolkien and Robert E. Howard, over at Black Gate, and he mentions the seminal Tompkins essay.  A really excellent, heartfelt overview that chimes with my own thoughts.  Good on ya, Brian!

As an aside, be sure to check the comments section, where Scott Taylor makes the... interesting suggestion that Minas Rowling somehow topples Barad-Howard and Tolkiengard in terms of impact on fantasy fiction.  Erm, okay.

The Filmgoer's Guide to Conan the Barbarian (1982): Introduction

Thus far, there hasn't been a single Robert E. Howard adaptation in cinema.

None of the five cinematic adaptations ostensibly based on the work of Howard actually adapt any of his stories at all. Some films claim to be Howard adaptations, but all they truly amount to are pastiches, or adaptations in name only.  At best, they take a few plot elements and characters, greatly altered, and put them into a new narrative; at worst, they take mere names, and seem to make an effort to warp and distort them from their original iterations.

In the name of the wee man...

The unthinkable has happened: they're going to censor Huck Finn.

Publishers Weekly reported on Monday that a soon to be released edition of Mark Twain’s classic of American literature, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, will replace all instances of the ‘n-word,’ “the singularly offensive word” used to refer to African Americans throughout the late 19th-century text. Editors have also decided to do away with the word “injun,” replacing it as well with “slave.”

Yeah.  Now, I'm normally one who has to wait, count to ten, calm down, and then make a ruling on something.  After all, there are plenty of "classics for tots" series that take the bare bones of a great story, and present it in more simple language for tinies.  That, I don't mind too much, though I'd rather kids waited to experience the story as it was originally written. This isn't that, though.  This is the original text, except with a Find/Replace on all uses of the word nigger - the mere fact these people use "the n-word" shows they fundamentally lack the maturity to even discuss it - as well as injun. In other words, bowdlerisation.

I particularly have to laugh at this final paragraph in the National Post's article:

We’d like to know what you think. Is taking the n-word and other slurs out of Mark Twain censorship, or a step in the right direction in terms of getting younger people better acquainted with literature of the U.S. Civil War era? Let us know in the comments below.

Are they kidding? A group of people are seeking to subvert Mark Twain's* freedom of expression by mangling his literature.  This is practically the very definition of censorship.  As for the latter statement, how on earth are younger people supposed to get better acquainted with literature of the U.S. Civil War era if you're going to remove the language of that era? The literature of the period included words like nigger, which are naturally highly insensitive today, but it's an important lesson.  You can't whitewash history: all you can do is wait until a child is old and mature enough to be able to deal with it.

In attempting to make history more palatable for children, they're making a mockery of the real struggle the Civil War was about, in many ways.  Are they going to censor To Kill a Mockingbird next?

*As if accusations of my preoccupation with Howard weren't loud enough, I mistakenly put Mark Finn here.  Not that I think I do either Mark much a disservice, of course.

Other Projects: Filmgoer's Guides

It's easy for those who've read the Howard stories to know just why Conan the Barbarian was such a massive divergence from the source material. Crom knows I've talked about it on this blog all the time.  I've tried doing analysis of the Howardian content via synopsis to discussions of Milius/Stone's origin story, and whatnot, but it feels like I'm preaching to the converted, so to speak.

So, since I've been a bit on fire as of late with the Newcomer's Guide and Encyclopaedia, I feel I may as well strike while the iron's hot, and get The Filmgoer's Guide to Conan the Barbarian out on the 'Net. Technically this project's still on the backburner, and it won't take any time from my two other projects, but I've completed much of it already, I've considered posting it over at the Newcomer's Guide. The problem is, it's huge: I'm only partly done, and it's 6,600 words already.  Therefore, I'm of two minds with how to proceed.

 - Write the whole thing up as a complete page
 - Do it in installments

The latter seems like a good choice, since it would allow me to do parts of it without having to wait until the whole shebang's finished.  What do you think?

I haven't really done anything on Conan the Destroyer or Red Sonja, mostly because... well, what's the point?  With Conan the Barbarian it's important to point out the divergences so that those unaware can understand why we might respect or appreciate the film on its cinematic merits, and yet decry it as an adaptation.  Why even bother to point out how Conan the Destroyer and Red Sonja make a hash of the original works, when they don't have the cinematic qualities going for them?

I've been working (a bit) on a Kull the Conqueror one, but it had been taking a lot longer, due to a) the new Conan film coming out, meaning discussion and comparison to the 1982 film will follow, b) because I don't want to put too much effort into even destroying that ungodly film, and c) because the film is painful for me to watch.  I mean it.  No other adaptation has made me froth with rage like Kull the Conqueror.  A Solomon Kane one is another I considered, but since Bassett was gracious enough not to stripmine REH for his story like the other films, it'd likely be something of a short article.

Again, these will all be background material secondary to the Newcomer's Guide and Encyclopaedia.

"All they done was block out the light... they can't block out the light in here."

Aw, man, not Pete.  64.  Too soon, dammit.

Pete Postlethwaite's one of those actors whom you never forget.  No doubt his fascinating facial features have something to do with it, but that should by no means diminish his considerable acting talent.  The man was very good at what he did, and what I loved most about him was that he always resisted the temptation to "steal the show," as it were, whenever he was inevitably called upon to lend some Shakespearean gravitas to a supporting role.  Whenever he was the focus, however - protagonist, antagonist, mentor, student, hero, villain - he was riveting.

While I'm sure most would point to his roles in Brassed Off, The Usual Suspects, In the Name of the Father, Romeo + Juliet and The Shipping News, deservedly so, I'm going to point to two others.

The first was Rat, a rather fascinating little fantasy that saw Pete turning into a rat.  This is one of those very British comedies that manages to have great tenderness and sincerity mixed in with somewhat incongruous harshness and severity.  It's a wonderful little fable that's like a cross between Roald Dahl and Jean-Pierre Jeunet.  I loved it, and Pete's performance as the titular rat tied it all together.

The second was Roland Tembo in The Lost World: Jurassic Park.  That was a problematic film for many reasons, but it had its moments - and they all involved Tembo.  Here was one of the most understated, yet, commanding, Great White Hunters I've seen in film: you know this man's in charge, but nonetheless, there's a strange, haunted look in his eyes.  A man who's spent his life in the company of death.

Plus he had all the best lines:

Somewhere on this island is the greatest predator there ever lived. The second greatest predator must take him down.

Remember that chap about twenty years ago? I forget his name. Climbed Everest without any oxygen, came down nearly dead. When they asked him, they said why did you go up there to die? He said I didn't, I went up there to live.

A true hunter doesn't mind if the animal wins. There weren't enough escapes from you and me, Ajay. We were like a firing squad, don't you think?

Requiescat in Pace, Pete.

The Shortest Distance Between Two Towers

It's that time of year again: J.R.R. Tolkien's birthday.  I really wanted to get a Barbarians article done, but as you may have noticed, I've been a bit preoccupied.  So instead, I'll point you to some of my favourite Tolkien links.

First, the Encyclopedia of Arda.  This was my inspiration for the Encyclopaedia Hyboriana, in that it would be "like that, but for the Hyborian Age."  It's the only Tolkien resource I really trust: Yavanna's blessings on the Tolkien Gateway and myriad Tolkien Wikis out there, but you never know what weird fanboy musings will end up contaminating a perfectly good wiki.

Second, Lalaith's Middle-earth Science Pages.  This is another site in the vein of the EoA, except it takes it a step further, and presents scholarly theories on Middle-earth ethnology, natural history and geography.  It's pretty much the Hyborian Age Gazetteer for Middle-earth.

My last link isn't to a site, but an essay. I'm delighted to discover that Steve Tompkins' award-winning masterpiece, "The Shortest Distance Between Two Towers," is now online and freely available for anyone to read.  In my mind, this is the Tolkien-Howard essay.  In just under 9,000 words, Tompkins details exactly why, although both authors are very different in many ways, they absolutely deserve to be considered on equal footing with each other.  Too often you get the snooty Lord of the Rings fanboys who decry Howard's work as little more than Puerile Adolescent Wish Fulfillment, but just as wrong to me are the Conan fanboys who consider Tolkien's work as nothing but Childish Mollycoddling Fairytale.  Tompkins also puts forward why he considers Tolkien and Howard both as Sword-and-Sorcery (and, contrarian that I am, I have taken to it myself), as well as some brilliantly insightful comparisons of the two authors' work and lives.

I know it must get grating for me to constantly harp on about Tompkins' genius, but honestly, it speaks for itself.  I might disagree with one or two things, but they're vastly outnumbered by the agreements.

Encyclopædia Hyboriana FAQ

Right, lads and lasses, I figure I might as well post a few factoids about my intentions for the Encyclopædia, just to give you a better idea of what it'll entail.

How many separate entries are there?

As of right now, 1,052. This may change as entries are conflated or divided, based on whether a given entry deserves its own spot, or should be absorbed into another.

What's the word count so far?

The master document, which has a fair portion of the information on it, is almost 54,000 words: out of that, about 10,000 is completely neat and tidy. There's still a metric boatload of information spread across dozens of files which hasn't been collated and applied, though.

In sculpting analogy, the 54,000 is the giant block of clay, with the 10,000 representing the completely carved sections -- but there's still a lot of clay in the studio to pile on.

Will it be as extensive as the Hyborian Age Gazetteers?

If they were, I'd never get the thing done!  The average length for each entry is about 200 words, though that can vary from as little as 100 to as much as 2,000. So while it'd be awesome to do something like a Hyborian Age Gazetteer in book form, it would take a lot longer.

Does the world really need an Age of Conan Encyclopædia?

I think it does, and I think it's been a long time coming too.  There are Hyborian Age resources out there, but they all utilize the work of other authors, leading to confusion.  There are times when one can easily believe, for example, that Howard called the City of Thieves "Arenjun," or called the tribes allied with Tombalku "Mindango," and "Bigharma." There have been calls for such a resource on the Conan Forums, and such great Howard minds as Steve Tompkins believe it to be necessary.  Indeed, there have been previous attempts, the most recent being Scott Oden's, but he eventually decided to concentrate on his historical fiction.

So you're essentially doing this because you hate pastiches?

Not at all - in fact, I hope this will make better pastiches.  The pastiches which have come before have persisted through to new continuities, and this leads to its own problems.  Let's take Age of Conan as an example.  The developers say that their aim is to use mostly Robert E. Howard material, and use elements from the comics and pastiches only to fill out the world.  However, where does the line between using some pastiches stop?  In filling out the north, they use elements of de Camp stories, such as the Yakhmar of "The Lair of the Ice Worm."  But if "The Lair of the Ice Worm" is canon, does this mean other de Camp stories - like the hated Conan the Liberator - are canon too?  If not, why not?  And if de Camp stories are canon, does this mean other pastiches are canon - even the very bad ones? This is bad enough when one considers quality, but then there are the cases where pastiches conflict with the game itself.  A famous example is the use of a quote describing Cimmeria as "a treeless land"... which kinda contradicts the very wooded hills of the game, not to mention Howard's description.

So many RPGs, games, books and other pastiches have been influenced by the pastiches that have gone before. The Encyclopædia will allow new pasticheurs to start from the ground up: just Howard, nothing from anywhere else.  No more Brylukas, Hydragons, Giant Mantids, and Spider-Things of Poitain running about the wilds of "Hyboria"; no more Arenjun, Haloga, Ianthe, Pathenia, or Uttara Kuru muddling up the map; no more Queen Vammatar, King Ferdrugo, Jenna, Thulandra Thuu or Sigurd of Vanaheim photobombing group photos; no more Cobra Crown, Herat of Tammuz, Atlantean Sword, or Mamajambo's War Club littering the treasuries of the age.

Besides, I'm sick of the Yakhmar turning up everywhere, and I even think it's one of the cooler* de Camp creations.

Are you going to publish it through Hulu, the REH Foundation, or another publisher?

That all depends on how Paradox/CPI want to do it (assuming they let me!): hopefully I can get a license and permission to do so.

Will the Encyclopædia be a super-elite-collector's-limited-extended edition hardback, or an affordable paperback?

Given the choice, the latter.  I'd rather take after Barbara Barrett's Wordbook or Paul Herman's The Neverending Hunt than the lavish, gorgeous tomes A Means to Freedom and Collected Poetry.

Why "Encyclopædia" instead of "Encyclopedia"?

It's a tip to the hat towards the Encyclopædia Britannica and other tomes using the spelling. Besides, I love the æ ligature. I played about with different ideas: Lebor Hyborianach, Codex Hyboriana, The Hyborian Lexicon, even something quirky like Cyclopedia Hyboriana. I wasn't sure whether to go with Nemedian Chronicles or not, but I'm fairly satisfied with Encyclopædia Hyboriana.

Why "Encyclopædia Hyboriana" instead of "Encyclopædia Hyboria"?

Hyboria is a pastiche term, and is loaded with all sorts of possible misinterpretations: the idea of the land, or even the planet, being called "Hyboria" paramount among them.  Rather than contribute to any possible misinterpretation, I decided to use a cod-Latin term with the "-a" suffix to give a general feel without using "Hyboria."

Anyone else with any questions, feel free to fling them over!

*I never apologise for puns.

New Year's Resolutions

Another year down in the books, and it's been a great one for me. I was nominated for a Venarium Award, I got to Cross Plains, I've announced my long-running book, the blog's been going strong. I'm hoping to ride that wave of momentum all the way into 2011 before the 2012 conspiracy theorists decide to destroy the world at the end of the year just to say they told us so.

So, my New Year's Resolutions, which will hopefully be dealt with before 31st December:

The Newcomer's Guide to REH
Between this and the Encyclopaedia, I might be in danger of becoming thin, sort of stretched... like butter that has been scraped over too much bread. However, I believe both are entirely necessary, and so I shall be working on both.

The Encyclopaedia Hyboriana
I still have to figure out where and with whom I'm going to try publishing it, as well as get everything tidied up, but now that it's been announced, I kinda have to get the thing finished, now don't I?

Continue the series started on The Cimmerian
I haven't done any "Hyborian Age Gazetteer," "Barbarians of Middle-earth," "Dark Worlds Unguessed by Man," or "The Art of Frank Frazetta and Robert E. Howard" articles since The Cimmerian closed its doors.  While the Guide and Encyclopaedia will undoubtedly take up most of my free time, I'll endeavour to do at least some of these this year.

More illustrations
I keep lamenting about the lack of illustrations for Howard characters on the internet, especially since most of the excellent stuff is in fanzines. Well, why shouldn't I do some more? I have a whole bunch of ideas.  For instance, everybody and their dog draws Conan in a few select poses: atop a pile of bodies, leaping into action, struggling with a giant snake/ape/beastie, posing with a girl.  Yet nobody seems to draw Conan with his sensitive side: when he takes Natala's hand at the end of "Xuthal of the Dusk," or when he listens in on Zamorian philosophers debating existentialism, or when he shows Prospero the map he made with childish glee.  Similarly, plenty of pictures of Red Sonja, Valeria and Belit, but not so many of Dark Agnes and Red Sonya.  I don't know if I've even seen Tarala, Conchita or Helen Tavrel on the internet.  I'll endeavour to do more unusual Howardian illustrations this year.

Read more authors
I'm giving Fritz Leiber another go of it, naturally, but I've also decided I should re-read and expand my reading of Poul Anderson, Jack Vance, Gene Wolfe, C.J. Cherryh and Keith Taylor too.  I've read some of their work, but not nearly enough.

Get back to Cross Plains
It's the big 25th-50th-75th-100th Anniversary celebration this year, not to mention the 1st Anniversary of the Scottish Invasion.  I've been saving up since coming back from CP this year, so hopefully round 2 will be just as fun.

Here's hoping, and Happy New Year to all!