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Summary: This Thread is about discussing Conan the Barbarian. It is to focus on the works themselves as well as their relations to then-contemporary works and author and modern works and authors. It can also be used to discuss other works by the author, Robert E Howard. For example, this would be the place to discuss how Conan the Barbarian relates to the works of HP Lovecraft. It would also be a place to discuss your favorite short story of the character. What is Conan the Barbarian?  Conan the Barbarian is a series of short stories written by Robert E Howard in 1932. The stories were pulp sword and sorcery. They followed the adventures of the titular character. The works were an anthology, with the stories written to be read in any order. Conan the Barbarian himself was a powerful, barbaric warrior from the Hyborian Age, an invented age set between the fall of Atlantis and the Rise of the Sons of Aryas. If you're thinking that "Sons of Aryas" refers to the Nazi concept of the "Aryan race, you'd be correct. Due to the time period the stories were written in, problematic elements do exist in the works. However, the stories of Conan often manage to avoid more racist elements of the period and even exalt aspects of non-white culture. Conan's race, for example, is actually disputable and its very likely he is a non-white individual and was more likely intended by Howard to be Mediterranean. It is worth noting that, from an academic standpoint, it is okay to like media with problematic elements as long as you recognize and do not let them color your world view. That said, there are some elements that come from that time period that are problematic, even if more egregious examples of the era are not ever-present. Despite being described as a Barbarian, Conan was depicted as very intelligent, thoughtful, and wise. His physical attributes were as useful to him as his mental aspects. The moniker "barbarian" was simply to denote his place outside of society. His heroic, in the classical sense, nature was due to his barbarism as Howard was critical of many aspect of society and civilization. The character has since taken off from his initial works and has appeared in many forms of media since then. Such as the movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Who was Robert E. Howard?  Robert E. Howard was an American author from Texas who worked on pulp fiction. He is often considered the father of the Sword and Sorcery sub genre. Raised in Texas, Howard lived in a small town where he grew an interest in boxing and ancient history and myth. He had interest in being a pulp fiction, but did not see success for quite some time. His works, during his lifetime, only featured in magazines, but would end up having a big impact on future generations and the genre. He tragically committed suicide at the age of 30 after finding out his mother was dead. His wide range works and his iconic character continue to thrive in the sphere of pop-culture and literature. I admit the OP is a little anemic at the moment. I plan on improving it later. Covok fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Jul 1, 2017 |
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May 25, 2017 00:27
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Fun Conan the Barbarian 1982 film facts: Oliver Stone's original script had Conan adventuring through a post apocalyptic world with mutants and and ruined skyscrapers. Early on in the film's production Mattel started making molds for Conan the Barbarian toys, but then the movie came out and they decided no way in hell they were selling toys based on Conan the Barbarian kids (I guess we didn't reach pure capitalism until the almost x rated Toxic Avenger got a Saturday morning cartoon and NES game), so they created He-Man. Notice how He-Man's rogue's gallery and some of his allies are an assortment of post-apocalyptic mutants, snake men, and people wearing lots of snake accoutrements. Thulsa Doom has a pet leopard you see for just a few seconds in the movie. Originally it was going to be a bit more prominent and our heroes would have to find a way around it while grabbing the princess and leaving, but according to Milius on the commentary track the leopard was a *HUGE VIOLENT rear end in a top hat* any time they were actually trying to film but would be super docile and friendly otherwise so, since it basically acting like all cats do they just said gently caress it. The giant snake was a huge complex animatronic but they hosed up and made it too big to fit the snake's body and mechanism into the actual set which is why it's barely mobile. The way Akiro/Mako has Conan's corpse dressed up during the resurrection scene is an homage to Kwaidan. Whenever Conan/folks travel to Akiro's part of town, there's occasionally some shots of the sea that seem a bit....not quite the same quality? These were unused shots from a previous John Milius film that starred Gary Busey, the surfer movie Big Wednesday. Speaking of Big Wednesday and surfers, Subotai is played by a surfer friend of Milius' named Gerry Lopez previously played himself in Big Wednesday, and for the casting of Subotai they kept wanting someone with the same look Lopez was sporting at the time. But eventually they realized, wait, why not just cast this dude that was already in a movie and looks exactly like what we want? Thulsa Doom's cult was inspired by Jim Jones' Heaven's Gate cult. When Conan and Subotai are high on black lotus they just bought from Ron Cobb, you can briefly see what looks like a guy humping a llama in an open tent. If you watch the director's commentary it seems like Milius is genuinely shocked by this and never noticed til now. The vulture Conan bites was a real freshly dead one they "found" and used on a whim. They spent a lot of time training the horses to do this sort of sideways half fall but crouch instead sort of thing so that, with editing, it would look like they're throwing their rider and falling over after being struck in battle or otherwise thwarted. This was so much fun for the horses that there were a lot of instances where they'd be just sitting around planning/shooting other scenes and the horses would just spontaneously throw everyone off and have a seat and be super happy. Animals are loving awesome. When Subotai is shooting arrows at the snake a few inches from Arnold's head, that's John Milius shooting actual arrows from off screen. Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 01:19 on May 25, 2017 |
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May 25, 2017 01:12
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Don't have a lot of time to read Conan's saga? Try the CROMCAST. A podcast about everything Robert E. Howard wrote, even his boxing stories.  http://thecromcast.blogspot.com/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheCromcast 
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May 25, 2017 05:55
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I should revisit Conan, I've only read a handful of stories, mostly I remember Conan strippin' nude, exploiting someone smarter, and killing just about anything. Mostly I love how he just doesn't give a gently caress about anything. Get drunk, start a fight, kill an ageless being for some trinkets, repeat.
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May 25, 2017 09:45
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I read some Conan the Barbarian comics back when I was young and innocent. I liked the one where he goes into a wizard's tower and helps an elephant-headed spirit or god or something die so he doesn't have to be forced to give magic to an evil wizard anymore.
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May 25, 2017 11:50
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paradoxGentleman posted:I read some Conan the Barbarian comics back when I was young and innocent. I liked the one where he goes into a wizard's tower and helps an elephant-headed spirit or god or something die so he doesn't have to be forced to give magic to an evil wizard anymore. IIRC, the humanoid-elephant was an alien that had crash landed.
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May 25, 2017 15:04
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The movie soundtrack is a pretty great accompaniment for working out. The slaver kid that sits on the Wheel of Pain looks enough like Ron Weasley that I'm disappointed that there never was a Harry Potter and the Riddle of Steel book.
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May 25, 2017 15:44
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Where is the best place to get started on Conan the Barbarian?
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May 25, 2017 15:45
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Covok posted:For example, this would be the place to discuss how Conan the Barbarian relates to the works of HP Lovecraft.
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May 25, 2017 15:56
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gradenko_2000 posted:Where is the best place to get started on Conan the Barbarian? There's only 21 original and complete Conan stories, and only one of those is a novel, so it's not a huge canon you have to wade through. Generally, these are considered to be the best stories. If you don't like any of them, I'd say you wouldn't care for Conan as a whole: The Tower of the Elephant Beyond the Black River The People of the Black Circle Red Nails I'm quite fond of all of them, plus The Black Stranger, also considered a good one. There are a couple of meh stories in there, but none are outright bad: the worst ones are just sort of by-the-numbers, and most indulge in the sort of excesses that Conan and Sword & Sorcery writing as a whole would come to be known for. It's funny that only the few worst Conan stories would be the real trendsetters (although, to be fair, Red Nails certainly has its share of cheesecake; it's just so creepy that no one cares).
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May 25, 2017 17:22
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lllllllllllllllllll posted:Not 100% related, but I read an unusual cowboy story once, where the hero finds an alien cult in a dessert cave and eventually flees. I thought to myself "hey, this is much better written than usual, lively, full of tension, fast-paced. Maybe Lovecraft's not that bad at writing after all." And then I saw "Howard" as the author's name. He is a much better writer than Lovecraft is what I wanted to say here. Howard and Lovecraft were friends and admirers of each others work, and even though Howard's stories tend to follow powerful men and Lovecraft's stories tend to feature powerless men, there stories have a lot of thematic similarities. Howard's stories, when taken as a whole, portray a cycle where mighty barbaric people slowly become more civilized, decadent, and weak, and are in turn conquered by those who stayed barbaric. Kull was a foreign mercenary who took the Kingdom of Atlantis from its native King. Conan the nationless barbarian raises an army and conquers the kingdom of Aquilonia. Solomon Kane, his latest adventurer (chronologically) left 16th century England for Africa in part because modern England couldn't provide the adventures he sought, and he struggled to rectify his puritan beliefs with his growing respect for pagan customs. In that sense, Howard's stories and Lovecraft's stories take place at opposite ends of a spectrum, with Howard's showing the fitness of the barbarian who is unencumbered by societal restrictions or concerns, and Lovecraft's showing the limits of civilized man's knowledge and artifice and the hubris of believing yourself or your society superior. gradenko_2000 posted:Where is the best place to get started on Conan the Barbarian? The Tower of the Elephant has already been mentioned, and rightly so. It's perhaps the most archetypal Conan story, and one of the most genuinely fantastic. I'd also recommend The Scarlet Citadel, which features rival rear end in a top hat wizards, and Red Nails, which features the rare character that's a match for Conan and is arguably the best of the longer Conan stories.
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May 25, 2017 17:29
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Schwarzwald posted:Howard's stories, when taken as a whole, portray a cycle where mighty barbaric people slowly become more civilized, decadent, and weak, and are in turn conquered by those who stayed barbaric. The opening to the 2010 (?) Kull the Conqueror comic series has a king besieged by Kull's army open a magical cellar which releases a giant demon trapped since prehistory. The demon then laments how weak men have become as he slaughters everyone. It rules. Howard rules. The fact all the monsters have no rhyme or reason and are unexplainable horrors rules especially in a world where every nerd universe has a wiki and a carefully cataloged bestiary of every made up dumb monster.
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May 25, 2017 20:04
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On that note, Howard's poem "a song of the naked lands" owns, definitely Google it and read it. Phone posting or I'd copy paste.
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May 25, 2017 20:18
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gradenko_2000 posted:Where is the best place to get started on Conan the Barbarian? Start here. This series published the stories in publication order and, more importantly, they published the original text. A lot of the cheapo paperbacks you'll find in used bookstores will have stories that either Lin Carter or L. Sprague de Camp (or both) hosed with somehow. Usually it's painfully obvious where Howard's words end and the hacks' words begin, but other times you'll have situations where they'll take like an El Borak story (a lesser Howard character) and rewrite it as a Conan story. Basically, gently caress Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp.
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May 25, 2017 20:43
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I like the story where Conan hits a wizard/monster with a sword and saves a naked lady. For real though, I really enjoy the original Conan stories for their simplicity. It's nice to read well written short stories instead of thousands of pages of some hack trying to do Epic Fantasy Series #145. Like Dick said a few posts up, not everything needs to have 100 pages of backstory and a wiki article detailing its power level in comparison to everything else. When you do that you tend to lose the feeling of, well, fantasy. I rarely buy books because I read fast and our local libraries have good collections to match my dumb tastes, but I picked up The Complete Chronicles of Conan(the big collection of the original stories with black and gold covers) ten years back and haven't regretted it for a second. Not really sure if I can pick a favourite story, but I'll always love the beginning of Queen of the Black Coast: quote:'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. The the court waxed wrath, and the judge talked a great deal about my duty to the state, and society, and other things I did not understand, and bade me tell where my friend had flown. By this time I was become wrathful myself, for I had explained my position.
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May 26, 2017 08:15
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Ornamented Death posted:Usually it's painfully obvious where Howard's words end and the hacks' words begin, but other times you'll have situations where they'll take like an El Borak story (a lesser Howard character) and rewrite it as a Conan story. I don't have it to hand, but I had a large paperback "complete Conan" compilation thing and it included some of Howard's "unfinished" stories. Someone in their wisdom had decided to tack endings onto them. I swear one of these stories was about 20 pages of slow burn setup and then one page of "...so Conan went up the river, killed everyone, escaped on a dragon and banged the princess - the end". It was seriously jarring to read. Agreeing with the poster that said Red Nails is creepy as gently caress. There's something about that story that gets under your skin and I always wondered how that animated Red Nails with Ron Pearlman would have turned out. I've never read them myself, but I've seen some pages from the Conan graphic novels posted in BSS and they look like a good way to get into the stories
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May 26, 2017 08:45
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Reminds me that I need to read the old Marvel comics for Conan and the other Howard characters who got comics from them
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May 26, 2017 08:49
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Neo Rasa posted:Fun Conan the Barbarian 1982 film facts: I've been told some cats really hate cameras /are nervous around cameras because they think a huge eye is staring at them.
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May 26, 2017 13:50
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The best "pure" Conan story is probably Tower of the Elephant. The best Conan story that really gets to the heart of the character is Rogues in the House. And my personal favorite is The Man-Eaters of Zamboula, just for what happens to Baal-Pteor (it's the single most badass thing Conan ever does, IMO)
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May 26, 2017 17:25
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Dog_Meat posted:I don't have it to hand, but I had a large paperback "complete Conan" compilation thing and it included some of Howard's "unfinished" stories. Someone in their wisdom had decided to tack endings onto them. I swear one of these stories was about 20 pages of slow burn setup and then one page of "...so Conan went up the river, killed everyone, escaped on a dragon and banged the princess - the end". It was seriously jarring to read. 75% chance that was de Camp. Carter was a competent writer to some extent, even if he didn't really get what made Howard's stories so good; de Camp was just a hack.
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May 26, 2017 18:26
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drrockso20 posted:Reminds me that I need to read the old Marvel comics for Conan and the other Howard characters who got comics from them I would recommend the Savage Sword of Conan titles first. These were black and white magazine format and had superior artwork in my opinion to the regular monthly Marvel line. A lot of the stories were lifted straight from Howard ("The Tower of the Elephant" was in November '77) and aside from Conan there were often cool poems, quick and dirty shorts, and occasionally Kull or Solomon Kane would get a feature. Also, I think because SSOC was a magazine format and didn't have to conform to the Comics Code meaning you get way more violence and nudity for that time. I have a lot of happy memories sitting at my grandmother's house drinking Dr. Pepper and binging on SSOC for days.
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May 26, 2017 18:56
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Ornamented Death posted:75% chance that was de Camp. Carter was a competent writer to some extent, even if he didn't really get what made Howard's stories so good; de Camp was just a hack. During his lifetime, Carter was almost a poster child for fannish enthusiastic writing that completely missed the point. Many reviews of his books were horribly cruel; people really brought out their knives whenever another Thongor title came out. He did enjoy a decent reputation as an editor/anthologist, however. Anyways, a lot of Conan anthologies mix Carter/de Camp/Nyberg material in with the originals (and even the originals were edited posthumously by de Camp). The only readily available collections of the untouched originals are the Gollancz centenary edition omnibus and the 2003-2005 Del Rey trilogy.
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May 26, 2017 21:57
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hatelull posted:I would recommend the Savage Sword of Conan titles first. These were black and white magazine format and had superior artwork in my opinion to the regular monthly Marvel line. A lot of the stories were lifted straight from Howard ("The Tower of the Elephant" was in November '77) and aside from Conan there were often cool poems, quick and dirty shorts, and occasionally Kull or Solomon Kane would get a feature. Also, I think because SSOC was a magazine format and didn't have to conform to the Comics Code meaning you get way more violence and nudity for that time. My local variety store kept Savage Sword on the upper shelves of the magazine racks, alongside Playboy and Oui. I remember being around 12 and reaching up to grab a copy and the store owner clearing his throat very loudly.
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May 27, 2017 01:59
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I remember in one of the Conan comics, Conan had to traipse through a evil-god infested ruin just to deliver a jeweled scorpion necklace to a rich merchant. Of course once the exhausted Conan handed the gemmed scorpion to the merchant, it grew in size to that of a bear and ran the merchant through with it's stinger. By Crom, then Conan had to fight the monster scorpion and the merchant's guards to get out of the place, all without payment! In another comic Conan had to fight crab men. That's all I remember.
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May 27, 2017 02:49
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Man I am re-reading my unedited unabridged edition, and to me Howard is just flat-out a much better writer than Tolkien or Lovecraft. I mean I love the other two as well, but there is something that is just so brilliant/vivid about his prose. And I really dig the world all these stories take place in. This was brought on by catching the 1982 Conan film on cable a while back. Arnie is an action hero god, and some of the fights in that film are cool, but Arnie even back in his heyday was just simply not an athletic man. He was just about being big and strong, and this isn't really the impression you get from Conan in the books. Not that he's weak, he's a man's man but he's also QUICK. So how is the Jason Momoa Conan? I never did see that and now I'm interested.
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May 27, 2017 07:10
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MrMojok posted:So how is the Jason Momoa Conan? I never did see that and now I'm interested. The movie itself is extremely bland and forgettable, but I did enjoy Momoa's performance more than Schwarzenegger's. If you saw him in GoT, he plays it very similar to that which in my opinion works. Basically he comes across as a better fighter and as someone who enjoys fighting, rather than Arnie's stonefaced performance. I got nothing but love for 80s Schwarzenegger movies, but Conan works better with a livelier actor imho.
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May 27, 2017 07:27
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I remember Mamoa as being a great Conan, but the movie was 1000% awful.
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May 27, 2017 11:06
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"The Slithering Shadow" is probably my favorite because in it you have an incredibly industrious and technologically advanced society which is so committed to distraction that it tolerates a sure and creeping death in the form of an evil god. Conan shows up and is like "that's loving stupid, deal with the problem" and beats the gently caress out of the god. Plus it has a closing line of dialog that belongs at the end of a CHIPS episode.
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May 27, 2017 16:07
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MrMojok posted:
It's already been said, but echoing the sentiment that Mamoa was a better Conan than the movie deserved. He really did come across as a force of nature from a different world and nailed the balance between built like a brick poo poo house with the coiled, athletisism of a panther. You got the feeling he was fast as well as strong, but also had the flexibility to be a believable thief. On top of that, the charisma and cunning he really made him an amazing Conan. Film itself is standard swords and scorcery, but to be fair you were never going to capture the unique vibe that made the 82 movie. Even Conan the Destroyer fails to capture the feel of the 82 version. In fact, I'd put the modern Conan film on the same teir as Destroyer. I could never put my finger on what the vibe of the 82 film was, then someone on the forums nailed it. 1982 Conan is a Spaghetti Western in a fantasy setting.
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May 27, 2017 19:41
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I'm making a d100 pen and paper game tonight out of Howard's world, specifically I'll be throwing the characters into something similar to the Tower of the Elephant. That however brings up the idea of magic. How would you guys handle magic in Howard's world? I don't quite remember any wizard throwing a fireball at someone.
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May 27, 2017 22:54
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There was a Hero System setting book that tackled this idea. The idea was magic is slow to use, and costly to the user. There also often involves summoning something powerful to do what you want, rather than actually channelling pure energy to create the result directly. So, while in D&D you just have the wizard wave his hands, say a few words, and a few seconds to a minute later something amazing happens, in a more swords & sorcery setting it a guy sacrificing animals / people to a dark power over the course of some day-long ritual that might only work at the right time of the day or month and then some demon appears who will do the thing you want (and may or may not be angry at you afterwards for bothering it).
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May 28, 2017 00:20
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Pastry Mistakes posted:I'm making a d100 pen and paper game tonight out of Howard's world, specifically I'll be throwing the characters into something similar to the Tower of the Elephant. That however brings up the idea of magic. How would you guys handle magic in Howard's world? I don't quite remember any wizard throwing a fireball at someone. I think there was a wizard/sorcerer who did throw fireballs, but that was achieved by means of alchemy/chemistry, not through sorcery
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May 28, 2017 00:54
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drrockso20 posted:I think there was a wizard/sorcerer who did throw fireballs, but that was achieved by means of alchemy/chemistry, not through sorcery Was that in The Hour of the Dragon? I still haven't read that story yet :/
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May 28, 2017 12:47
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Xotl posted:There was a Hero System setting book that tackled this idea. The idea was magic is slow to use, and costly to the user. There also often involves summoning something powerful to do what you want, rather than actually channelling pure energy to create the result directly. Yeah, since I didn't want to make magic too involved, I gave the character a magic ring that gave him access to three spells novice level spells from the Lore of Metal in Warhammer Fantasy Role Play 2e, that could only be used as long as the ring was in his posession, and he had to roll more dice in order to account for the Tzeentch's Curse table just because I wanted there to be a backfire effect for trying to tap the rings power. Yara the Sorcerer ended up having spells that were aligned with his description as in The Tower of the Elephant, but thankfully they ended up playing that true to how the story ends and not fighting a guy who could gently caress them over in a heartbeat. Two out of the three adventurers ended up falling off the side of the tower as it was falling apart though and died on impact lol. Thank heavens their falling bodies didn't hit the guy who actually survived climbing down the rope!
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May 28, 2017 12:50
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The important thing about Conan is to read it in a book with a Frank Frazetta cover.       http://imgur.com/a/lR5nq
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May 30, 2017 14:06
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:The important thing about Conan is to read it in a book with a Frank Frazetta cover. The old Ace paperbacks that include de Camp and Carter's...additions...have Frazetta covers, so while well-meaning, your post is somewhat inaccurate.
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May 30, 2017 14:28
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Can I talk about Kull in this thread?
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May 31, 2017 00:25
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Ornamented Death posted:The old Ace paperbacks that include de Camp and Carter's...additions...have Frazetta covers, so while well-meaning, your post is somewhat inaccurate. There's something about the Frazetta covers that makes up for it though. You're thirteen years old in a used bookstore, you see that cover, you think "oh poo poo, that looks like the poo poo," then you crack it open and inside there's dialogue like "Free my hands and I'll varnish this floor with your brains!"
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May 31, 2017 05:20
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What's the best omnibus of Conan works? Realized I gave my old collection away to one of my nieces. Also, is Conan public domain yet?
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May 31, 2017 07:43
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Covok posted:What's the best omnibus of Conan works? Realized I gave my old collection away to one of my nieces. This one has all the original REH stories(including unfinished ones) with no additions from other authors. Comes with a few illustrations, though nothing at the level of Frazetta.
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May 31, 2017 14:38
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