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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. I was under the impression Conan was like a lot of Lovecraft's stuff? That the original stories are public domain, but the additional stuff by other authors is not.
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May 31, 2017 16:40
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Howard was undoubtedly a racist, but I think he was fairly progressive for the time. Schwarzwald put it pretty well, and yeah, you can see in the Conan stories a lot of racism, but it does seem of a different sort of racism to what was prominent then - and now. I have no doubt that Howard believed in the innate superiority of the white man, but I also don't think he held non-whites in contempt or even necessarily in pity/disdain. His views are more complex and interesting to discuss than Lovecraft's, who was - as noted - a virulent piece of poo poo even by the standards of the time. Lovecraft absolutely hated blacks and found them repugnant savages, while I'm not entirely sure what to say Howard felt of them. I've never really read any of the non-Howard Conan stuff; how do they handle some of the racialist/racist themes of the setting? I always found Stygia one of the more egregious offenders since not only is it an Egypt of white people - something not that uncommon even today for Hollywood and pop culture - but an Egypt ruled by white people with an explicit underclass of black and brown peasants.
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Jul 18, 2017 02:05
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DeadFatDuckFat posted:UNTRUSTWORTHY HOOK NOSED SHEMITES WITH BLUE BEARDS. And yet, like Lovecraft, Conan ends up getting with a Jewish girl. And, like Lovecraft, it doesn't last terribly long, despite both having been apparently happy in the relationship.
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Jul 22, 2017 03:17
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Hogge Wild posted:So it would resemble the Ptolemaic Egypt. Their Kings even had a Greekish name 'Ctesphon'. And I don't remember the Stygian ruling class being white. Where is it stated so? Off hand, I know for a fact it's mentioned in Hour of the Dragon. When Akivasha shows up he immediately pegs her for a Stygian noble 'cause she's white. And eh, I imagine he was just more racist than actively going for Ptolemaic Egypt. Other than that, there's no real Hellenistic vibes to Stygia. Most of the names we associate with Ancient Egypt are, in fact, Greek approximations/versions of the actual Egyptian names and words. Like 'Anubis' is Greek; the Egyptian would have been something closer to Anapa. Ausar/Asaru/Ausir for Osiris, and the list goes on.
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Sep 20, 2017 20:08
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Zoro posted:I know this is John Carter, not Conan, but I feel they would be a lot of overlap in readers between those series. I bought one of his collections today and -- whoo boy -- is this book old school racist. "Reds", "savages", "fiendish tortuous ways", etc. and the hero is a fictional Confederate solider who was "rightly worshiped" by Edgar Rice Bourgh's slaves in the introduction. And I'm not even done with chapter one. Just a warning to anyone considering picking up this series: this guy don't like nor respect non-whites. And yet - minor spoilers ahead but really between the generalness of them and the fact these books are so ancient I dont feel the need to tag them - he describes the Black Martians as the most physically perfect of all the Martian races. And the Red Martians are clearly noble savages. Don't get me wrong, ERB was definitely racist and explicitly is a Confederate apologist there, but there's actually a lot of interesting things going on with his views regarding race, for the time anyway. I haven't read any of his non-Martian stuff so I can't comment too much, but he definitely seems to me like he's even more progressive, in some ways, than Howard. Needless to say, definitely more than Lovecraft. Still awful awful awful stuff that hampers otherwise entertaining stories, though.
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Jan 16, 2018 03:31
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