So, About That 'Amra' Thing... BY DEUCE RICHARDSON

[Deleted]

Check out this excellent article by our Deuce:


So, About That 'Amra' Thing...
dmrbooks.com/test-blog/2021/1/21/so-about-that-amra-thing

[Von K]

Jan 25, 2021 3:11:52 GMT -5 @hunnu said:

Check out this excellent article by our Deuce:


So, About That 'Amra' Thing...
dmrbooks.com/test-blog/2021/1/21/so-about-that-amra-thing

Thanks Hun. Great article by Deuce. Yourself and older members will recall the general consensus on the old message board was that Conan had three runs as a black coast corsair, one with Belit and another as Amra later in his career, and the last brief excursion during the events of Hour of the Dragon. Deuce alluded to this in his post. Taranaich/Al Harron had some additional speculations on the meaning of the title 'Amra' on his blog - theblogthattimeforgot.blogspot.com.

I also enjoyed reading Bill Ward's original post a few days ago linked from Dave Ritzlin's weekly roundup DMRtian Chronicles.

[Deleted]

Jan 25, 2021 19:33:05 GMT -5 Von K said:

Jan 25, 2021 3:11:52 GMT -5 @hunnu said:

Check out this excellent article by our Deuce:


So, About That 'Amra' Thing...
dmrbooks.com/test-blog/2021/1/21/so-about-that-amra-thing

Thanks Hun. Great article by Deuce. Yourself and older members will recall the general consensus on the old message board was that Conan had three runs as a black coast corsair, one with Belit and another as Amra later in his career, and the last brief excursion during the events of Hour of the Dragon. Deuce alluded to this in his post. Taranaich/Al Harron had some additional speculations on the meaning of the title 'Amra' on his blog - theblogthattimeforgot.blogspot.com.

I also enjoyed reading Bill Ward's original post a few days ago linked from Dave Ritzlin's weekly roundup DMRtian Chronicles.

Thanks Von K.

There's an awful lot of potential there for some great pastiche work beyond the Belit saga. 

I forgot all about the post by Bill Ward, here's the link:
Amra Who? Inside Conan’s Secret Identity
goodman-games.com/tftms/2021/01/12/amra-who-inside-conans-secret-identity/


I managed to find Tarniach's The Lost Conan Adventures: Queen of the Black Coast series:

Introduction:
theblogthattimeforgot.blogspot.com/2011/10/lost-conan-adventures-introduction.html

Part 1
theblogthattimeforgot.blogspot.com/2011/10/lost-conan-adventures-queen-of-black.html

Part 2
theblogthattimeforgot.blogspot.com/2011/10/lost-conan-adventures-queen-of-black_20.html

Part 3
theblogthattimeforgot.blogspot.com/2011/10/lost-conan-adventures-queen-of-black_21.html

Part 4
theblogthattimeforgot.blogspot.com/2011/10/lost-conan-adventures-queen-of-black_22.html

[johnnypt]

It is a situation that does require some kind of explanation. In many other cases in the Conan stories, Occam's Razor tends to work, the simplest explanation is correct. In this case, if you assume that Amra comes from Conan's time with Belit, you then have to come up with an explanation for why no one ever mentions her, or why Howard didn't either. It's one thing she's not mentioned in Scarlet Citadel since it was written before Queen. It's possible the mention of Amra by the former corsairs in Dragon is they just yelled it out without going into detail, but why didn't Howard mentioned it there? Same thing with the Tombalku fragment, Sakumbe just mentions his name, but again Howard doesn't go into detail either.

Now if it describes another time in his career, you'd need to figure out a period where these exploits could have taken place. But would a reader who'd read all the stories think this era was the same as the Belit era unless they really delved into the details? Chances are yes. So was it describing another time or Howard just not going into detail about the past? My "excuse" has been Conan let it be known that Belit's name is NEVER To be mentioned again. Rock solid? No, not at all but it'll work in a pinch if you don't look too hard. 

[Grim Wanderer]

Great article. I just finished rereading The Hour of the Dragon again and I've always been struck how Howard created huge swaths of Conan's history simply by making short comments about it here and there. It's not perfect, but it does give Conan past a depth readers can only speculate about.

[Von K]

Jan 26, 2021 8:36:21 GMT -5 johnnypt said:

It is a situation that does require some kind of explanation. In many other cases in the Conan stories, Occam's Razor tends to work, the simplest explanation is correct. In this case, if you assume that Amra comes from Conan's time with Belit, you then have to come up with an explanation for why no one ever mentions her, or why Howard didn't either. It's one thing she's not mentioned in Scarlet Citadel since it was written before Queen. It's possible the mention of Amra by the former corsairs in Dragon is they just yelled it out without going into detail, but why didn't Howard mentioned it there? Same thing with the Tombalku fragment, Sakumbe just mentions his name, but again Howard doesn't go into detail either.

Now if it describes another time in his career, you'd need to figure out a period where these exploits could have taken place. But would a reader who'd read all the stories think this era was the same as the Belit era unless they really delved into the details? Chances are yes. So was it describing another time or Howard just not going into detail about the past? My "excuse" has been Conan let it be known that Belit's name is NEVER To be mentioned again. Rock solid? No, not at all but it'll work in a pinch if you don't look too hard. 

My memories of those old discussions could be filtered through my own perceptual haze. While I prefer the three phases corsair interpretation favored by Deuce and Taranaich, having Amra as his title during the Belit years is just as valid an interpretation with those rationalisations you mentioned. If it ever makes for a season of the TV series that might be the option they’d choose since, as you observed, it’s likely the general view of most readers and text to screen adaptations tend to combine and optimise similar elements.

YCTMV (Your Conan Timeline May Vary)?

REH seems to track certain background details instinctively as he's writing which is why there's that unexplained consistency to the Amra references hinting at another spell with the black corsairs, a consistency which even crosses from internal dialogue to narrative description and across multiple yarns. A kind of untold worldbuilding that he never had time or opportunity to elaborate on. The linguistics of it reminds me a little of the subtleties Deuce mentioned involving how REH uses the names Yag Kosha and Yogah of Yag.

[Von K]

Jan 26, 2021 1:26:47 GMT -5 @hunnu said:

I managed to find Tarniach's The Lost Conan Adventures: Queen of the Black Coast series:

Introduction:
theblogthattimeforgot.blogspot.com/2011/10/lost-conan-adventures-introduction.html

Part 1
theblogthattimeforgot.blogspot.com/2011/10/lost-conan-adventures-queen-of-black.html

Part 2
theblogthattimeforgot.blogspot.com/2011/10/lost-conan-adventures-queen-of-black_20.html

Part 3
theblogthattimeforgot.blogspot.com/2011/10/lost-conan-adventures-queen-of-black_21.html

Part 4
theblogthattimeforgot.blogspot.com/2011/10/lost-conan-adventures-queen-of-black_22.html

That's it - one of Taranaich's best. Thanks for the additional linkage Hun. Don’t know if you’ve read it yet. He covers the legend of Amra stuff in part 3.

[johnnypt]

Jan 26, 2021 20:29:04 GMT -5 Von K said:

Jan 26, 2021 8:36:21 GMT -5 johnnypt said:

It is a situation that does require some kind of explanation. In many other cases in the Conan stories, Occam's Razor tends to work, the simplest explanation is correct. In this case, if you assume that Amra comes from Conan's time with Belit, you then have to come up with an explanation for why no one ever mentions her, or why Howard didn't either. It's one thing she's not mentioned in Scarlet Citadel since it was written before Queen. It's possible the mention of Amra by the former corsairs in Dragon is they just yelled it out without going into detail, but why didn't Howard mentioned it there? Same thing with the Tombalku fragment, Sakumbe just mentions his name, but again Howard doesn't go into detail either.

Now if it describes another time in his career, you'd need to figure out a period where these exploits could have taken place. But would a reader who'd read all the stories think this era was the same as the Belit era unless they really delved into the details? Chances are yes. So was it describing another time or Howard just not going into detail about the past? My "excuse" has been Conan let it be known that Belit's name is NEVER To be mentioned again. Rock solid? No, not at all but it'll work in a pinch if you don't look too hard. 

My memories of those old discussions could be filtered through my own perceptual haze. While I prefer the three phases corsair interpretation favored by Deuce and Taranaich, having Amra as his title during the Belit years is just as valid an interpretation with those rationalisations you mentioned. If it ever makes for a season of the TV series that might be the option they’d choose since, as you observed, it’s likely the general view of most readers and text to screen adaptations tend to combine and optimise similar elements.

YCTMV (Your Conan Timeline May Vary)?

REH seems to track certain background details instinctively as he's writing which is why there's that unexplained consistency to the Amra references hinting at another spell with the black corsairs, a consistency which even crosses from internal dialogue to narrative description and across multiple yarns. A kind of untold worldbuilding that he never had time or opportunity to elaborate on. The linguistics of it reminds me a little of the subtleties Deuce mentioned involving how REH uses the names Yag Kosha and Yogah of Yag.

It would probably make sense from a visual storytelling point of view to put a lot the pirate stuff that's not specifically Barachan into the Belit basket. They have to streamline and elaborate at the same time. Kind of like in Gone With The Wind, Scarlett has three children in the book while in the movie she has the one. They'd need Conan and Belit to have adventures together, so here's a bunch of things that happened while Conan was this type of pirate. Makes things easy to put them on a board as checkpoints while figuring out a season.  Plus they can always sneak some of those off to use in his other pirate phases, since they need to be elaborated as well.



If they end up covering his whole career, you'll have the Belit corsair phase, the time as a Kozaki turned pirate on the Vilayet, the time with the Barachan pirates that transitions into a Zingaran buccaneer and some indetermined amount of time with the Red Hand (wherever you want to place Black Stranger, he's still on the boat at the end of the story). Now on top of this, you're going to put ANOTHER pirate era in the mix here? If we put all those other things with Amra attached to it in this new era, what are we going to do with Belit?  You use what's at your disposal.