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Post by hyrkanian on Dec 16, 2022 9:57:07 GMT -5
Unfortunately in RS movie we probably won't see anything that made that series so good, and certainly not so many naked beautiful women of all types.
As we saw in the RS set photos, the Hyborian girls of MJ will be buttoned up to the neck.
Looks like MJ is making Sonja for the (straight) female crowd.
And unlike men they will probably have something to watch in that sense.
This is a photo from the Insta profile of one of the warriors from the movie.
This picture shows Red Sonja will wear a bikini top and skirt in the movie. ![]()  Yes, probably costume similar to this one, but with mini skirt instead of shorts.  The top of the skirt will probably cover the stomach.
+ those huge, weird boots.
Unfortunately, I'm afraid that only the costume and the red hair will visually distinguish Matilda/Sonja from the other girls in the film.
As I said before - Sonja's physical appearance is her trademark as much as her warrior abilities and character - when she enters an tavern or appears at a court (in comics and in novels) everyone present (kings,warriors, beggars and all women ) begin to stare at her - with fascination, with admiration, with fear, with jealousy.
I simply cannot imagine Matilda in such a scene.
Also, Matilda doesn't have a body for chain mail bikini, so even if MJ wanted to put one on her it would look ridiculous, so as far as I'm concerned she can be in head to toe armor like Brianne from GOT.
Is this gonna be a cheap Gladiator movie? Certainly looks that way. Unfortunately it does. Gladiator v The Chippendale's  |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 17, 2022 0:12:00 GMT -5
The Hyrkanians east of the Vilayet Sea shoulda been warriors on horseback not slaves in some pseudo-Roman gladiatorial arena.
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Post by kemp on Dec 17, 2022 7:53:12 GMT -5
The Hyrkanians east of the Vilayet Sea shoulda been warriors on horseback not slaves in some pseudo-Roman gladiatorial arena. True, very true, but I wonder if I can still get something out of this film as a kind of fun generic heroic fantasy film. |
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Post by boot on Dec 17, 2022 11:24:32 GMT -5
The Hyrkanians are a dual culture people. I don't know if that's how Howard intended them to be, but they've become, though the comics, short stories, novels, and movies, a "white Russian" inspired people who in inhabit city states on the east side of the Vilayet. Then, there are the more "Mongol" inspired nomads of the farther north and east--the horselords of the steppe.
Red Sonja is one of the former. Tamara, from the 2011 film, is also one of these. Subotai, from the 1982 film is one of the latter.
Pseudo-Roman gladiatorial arenas do fit with what's been established of these City-State Hyrkanians.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 17, 2022 23:40:36 GMT -5
The Hyrkanians are a dual culture people. I don't know if that's how Howard intended them to be, but they've become, though the comics, short stories, novels, and movies, a "white Russian" inspired people who in inhabit city states on the east side of the Vilayet. Then, there are the more "Mongol" inspired nomads of the farther north and east--the horselords of the steppe. Red Sonja is one of the former. Tamara, from the 2011 film, is also one of these. Subotai, from the 1982 film is one of the latter. Pseudo-Roman gladiatorial arenas do fit with what's been established of these City-State Hyrkanians. The gladiator thing has been done to death. In recent comics Gail Simone had Conan fight Wonder Woman as Gladiators in Cimmeria of all places Jason Aaron did the same in his very 1st issue with Conan fighting in some kinda gladiator pit, admittedly for some drinking money, not as a slave - Jim Zub did the same in his very 1st issue!! They gotta break away from that Milius stuff. The Hyrkanians are the ancestors of the Huns, Turks, Tatars and Mongols according to Robert E Howard. I think the confusion in comics and other media is due to the fact that the original Red Sonya is of Slavic origin in REH's historical yarn the Shadow of the Vulture and the Hyrkanians of the Hyborian Age are not. That does not mean Red Sonja in the Hyborian Age should look like a Mongolian warrior with red hair (that's what I'd do, but that's another story). Just like the descendants of the Hyrkanians today, the Turkic peoples in the west look more like their western neighbours than their East Asian ancestors. |
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Post by kemp on Dec 18, 2022 17:20:22 GMT -5
Reading the comics way back when I always found it kind of bizarre that Red Sonja looked the way she did, but was descibed as Hyrkanian rather than say Vanir or some Hyborian. The Sonja name is popular in both Slavic and Scandinavian nations. I don't think Roy Thomas gave it much thought, a little inspired by REH's Red Sonya of Rogatino, who was of Slavic origin, but for some reason made his Red Sonja a Hyrkanian, although wanting to keep her tall red haired white in appearance, maybe he just associated the Hyrkanians with Russia/Eurasia, that east of Hyborian ( European nations ), say in the same way that Russia occupies that interesting niche between Europe and China, but it does create confusion as the Turkic peoples are also part of the Eurasian landscape.
True, there are many modern Turkic speaking peoples that look like Red Sonja, but it's not how I envisioned REH's Hyrkanians, direct ancestors of the Turkic Hun and Mongol peoples as stated above.
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Post by kemp on Dec 18, 2022 17:22:40 GMT -5
I think the confusion could have been avoided if Thomas had made the comic Red Sonja a Brythunian, Hyperborean or even Vanir, as opposed to Hyrkanian.
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Post by BlackHeart on Dec 18, 2022 17:33:06 GMT -5
I think the confusion could have been avoided if Thomas had made the comic Red Sonja a Brythunian, Hyperborean or even Vanir, as opposed to Hyrkanian. The Turks are an Asian tribe by origin, and the old writings here in the Balkans mention them as such, blackish-brown, with slightly slanted eyes, not too tall and broad-shouldered. Black hair and dark eyes were also a feature. Modern Turks look like they do today because they are half mixed with Serbs, Bulgarians, Greeks and Bosnians. There was something called "blood tribute", where young and able-bodied boys were taken to Turkey to be trained as janissaries, and masses of families, even entire towns, were moved to Turkey to be guardians of springs, masons, blacksmiths... In the case of Red Sonja, Thomas was just going for a variant of the proto Russian-Mongolian state where his Sonja retained all the features of Howard's original Sonja of Rogatino. His choice was not illogical, if I may say - as with Howard, there is a historical counterpart. |
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Post by kemp on Dec 18, 2022 20:36:15 GMT -5
I think the confusion could have been avoided if Thomas had made the comic Red Sonja a Brythunian, Hyperborean or even Vanir, as opposed to Hyrkanian. The Turks are an Asian tribe by origin, and the old writings here in the Balkans mention them as such, blackish-brown, with slightly slanted eyes, not too tall and broad-shouldered. Black hair and dark eyes were also a feature. Modern Turks look like they do today because they are half mixed with Serbs, Bulgarians, Greeks and Bosnians. There was something called "blood tribute", where young and able-bodied boys were taken to Turkey to be trained as janissaries, and masses of families, even entire towns, were moved to Turkey to be guardians of springs, masons, blacksmiths... In the case of Red Sonja, Thomas was just going for a variant of the proto Russian-Mongolian state where his Sonja retained all the features of Howard's original Sonja of Rogatino. His choice was not illogical, if I may say - as with Howard, there is a historical counterpart. Yes, agree about the Turks as per Turkey, modern day Turkey spans a small part of Balkan Europe and covers all of the Anatolian penninsula, centuries of association with Europeans, pre Turkic Anatolians, Armenians and Arabs would differentiate them from the more central Asian Turkic people, say Turkmens. Myself, I tend towards REH's description of the Hyrkanians from his Hyborian Age essay ...'The Hyrkanians are dark and generally tall and slender, though a squat slant-eyed type is more and more common among them, resulting from admixture with a curious race of intelligent, though stunted aborigines, conquered by them among the mountains east of the Vilayet, on their westward drift.' There is some assertion by a component of Conan and REH aficionados that Hyperborea was based on medieval Russia, specifically the Novgorod Republic, there may be elements, I personally don't hold that view in absolutist terms, but I have known diehards that thought that way. After all, Slavs are an Indo European people, so Hyborian age quasi European counterparts makes sense. Some of them also claimed Olgerd Vladislav, a kind of proto Slav, was Hyperborean, but I have never heard of him being described as such by Howard, or even Hyrkanian, in REH's 'A Witch Shall Be Born' Olgerd is referred to as a Zaporoskan, which has a Slavic ring to it. Interestingly enough there is a district of Zaporoska in Poland, but I think REH took the name from it's association with the Zaporozhian Cossacks. Going back to Red Sonja, and now that I think of it, I suppose Roy Thomas could have given her similar origins to Olgerd Vladislav, the Zaporoskan/Zapatsko River tributory. |
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Post by Von K on Dec 18, 2022 22:54:41 GMT -5
The Turks are an Asian tribe by origin, and the old writings here in the Balkans mention them as such, blackish-brown, with slightly slanted eyes, not too tall and broad-shouldered. Black hair and dark eyes were also a feature. Modern Turks look like they do today because they are half mixed with Serbs, Bulgarians, Greeks and Bosnians. There was something called "blood tribute", where young and able-bodied boys were taken to Turkey to be trained as janissaries, and masses of families, even entire towns, were moved to Turkey to be guardians of springs, masons, blacksmiths... In the case of Red Sonja, Thomas was just going for a variant of the proto Russian-Mongolian state where his Sonja retained all the features of Howard's original Sonja of Rogatino. His choice was not illogical, if I may say - as with Howard, there is a historical counterpart. Yes, agree about the Turks as per Turkey, modern day Turkey spans a small part of Balkan Europe and covers all of the Anatolian penninsula, centuries of association with Europeans, pre Turkic Anatolians, Armenians and Arabs would differentiate them from the more central Asian Turkic people, say Turkmens. Myself, I tend towards REH's description of the Hyrkanians from his Hyborian Age essay ...'The Hyrkanians are dark and generally tall and slender, though a squat slant-eyed type is more and more common among them, resulting from admixture with a curious race of intelligent, though stunted aborigines, conquered by them among the mountains east of the Vilayet, on their westward drift.' There is some assertion by a component of Conan and REH aficionados that Hyperborea was based on medieval Russia, specifically the Novgorod Republic, there may be elements, I personally don't hold that view in absolutist terms, but I have known diehards that thought that way. After all, Slavs are an Indo European people, so Hyborian age quasi European counterparts makes sense. Some of them also claimed Olgerd Vladislav, a kind of proto Slav, was Hyperborean, but I have never heard of him being described as such by Howard, or even Hyrkanian, in REH's 'A Witch Shall Be Born' Olgerd is referred to as a Zaporoskan, which has a Slavic ring to it. Interestingly enough there is a district of Zaporoska in Poland, but I think REH took the name from it's association with the Zaporozhian Cossacks. Going back to Red Sonja, and now that I think of it, I suppose Roy Thomas could have given her similar origins to Olgerd Vladislav, the Zaporoskan/Zapatsko River tributory. Re Hyperborea and Russia it's called the Russoborean Theorum and I find it convincing enough that I subscribe to it myself though I don't hold anyone else to the notion. It's based on a combination of info from other sources in REH's opus, not just the Hyborean Age material. Certainly has much more substance than the Hyperborea = proto Finland of the early pastiches. We have a whole thread here on the topic if you're interested. REH's original Red Sonya was from Rogatino so you could draw rough parallels from that. It would likely place Red Sonja's birthplace as eastern Hyperborea or north western Hyrkania depending on which map you use. Personally I'd have her come from eastern Hyperborea with mixed Vanir blood from one of her Vanir ancestors having been enslaved by the Hyperboreans. Red Sonja having spent some years among the Zaporoskans in her youth would be a good idea imho. |
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Post by kemp on Dec 19, 2022 0:33:12 GMT -5
Yes, agree about the Turks as per Turkey, modern day Turkey spans a small part of Balkan Europe and covers all of the Anatolian penninsula, centuries of association with Europeans, pre Turkic Anatolians, Armenians and Arabs would differentiate them from the more central Asian Turkic people, say Turkmens. Myself, I tend towards REH's description of the Hyrkanians from his Hyborian Age essay ...'The Hyrkanians are dark and generally tall and slender, though a squat slant-eyed type is more and more common among them, resulting from admixture with a curious race of intelligent, though stunted aborigines, conquered by them among the mountains east of the Vilayet, on their westward drift.' There is some assertion by a component of Conan and REH aficionados that Hyperborea was based on medieval Russia, specifically the Novgorod Republic, there may be elements, I personally don't hold that view in absolutist terms, but I have known diehards that thought that way. After all, Slavs are an Indo European people, so Hyborian age quasi European counterparts makes sense. Some of them also claimed Olgerd Vladislav, a kind of proto Slav, was Hyperborean, but I have never heard of him being described as such by Howard, or even Hyrkanian, in REH's 'A Witch Shall Be Born' Olgerd is referred to as a Zaporoskan, which has a Slavic ring to it. Interestingly enough there is a district of Zaporoska in Poland, but I think REH took the name from it's association with the Zaporozhian Cossacks. Going back to Red Sonja, and now that I think of it, I suppose Roy Thomas could have given her similar origins to Olgerd Vladislav, the Zaporoskan/Zapatsko River tributory. Re Hyperborea and Russia it's called the Russoborean Theorum and I find it convincing enough that I subscribe to it myself though I don't hold anyone else to the notion. It's based on a combination of info from other sources in REH's opus, not just the Hyborean Age material. Certainly has much more substance than the Hyperborea = proto Finland of the early pastiches. We have a whole thread here on the topic if you're interested. REH's original Red Sonya was from Rogatino so you could draw rough parallels from that. It would likely place Red Sonja's birthplace as eastern Hyperborea or north western Hyrkania depending on which map you use. Personally I'd have her come from eastern Hyperborea with mixed Vanir blood from one of her Vanir ancestors having been enslaved by the Hyperboreans. Red Sonja having spent some years among the Zaporoskans in her youth would be a good idea imho. I do agree that medieval Russia has more substance than proto Finland for a number of reasons when it comes to the aloof northern Hyborian nation. Given the option of Hyrkanian or Hyperborean background for our she devil with a sword I would opt for Hyperborea, or even Brythunia, I like the idea about mixed Vanir blood from enslaved ancestors. I guess at the end of the day we are stuck with a Hyrkanian Red Sonja. |
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Post by boot on Dec 19, 2022 8:50:25 GMT -5
Some of them also claimed Olgerd Vladislav, a kind of proto Slav, was Hyperborean, but I have never heard of him being described as such by Howard, or even Hyrkanian, in REH's 'A Witch Shall Be Born' Olgerd is referred to as a Zaporoskan, which has a Slavic ring to it. Interestingly enough there is a district of Zaporoska in Poland, but I think REH took the name from it's association with the Zaporozhian Cossacks. Going back to Red Sonja, and now that I think of it, I suppose Roy Thomas could have given her similar origins to Olgerd Vladislav, the Zaporoskan/Zapatsko River tributory. Where is where? Southern Vilayet region? Not that its a source to be heeded, but the Mongoose RPG lists Olderd as a Hyrkanian. It seems that the dual cutlure of the Hyrkanians that I mention above is similar to that of Shem, where the Nomads range across the desert of the eastern part of the country and the settled Pelishites enjoy the city-states of the more green Pelistia in the west. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2022 13:49:42 GMT -5
Another problem in the comics is that in Red Sonja's origin story from the 3rd issue of Kull and Barbarians her family live in an area that is nowhere near the Vilayet Sea. They live...
'...in Hyrkania to the east, across the burning deserts and beyond the shining Sea of Vilayet'.
Her father is a retired Hyrkanian Mercenary called Ivor (sounds more Slavic than Turko-Mongol). They wanna recruit Ivor for a campaign against Khitai (Hyborian Age China) - in the comics Sonja's family must live confusingly well beyond the cultural influence of the Hyperboreans and other potential candidates for Proto-Slavic peoples of the Hyborian Age. The only way I can kinda explain it, is that her father is simply a mercenary from the west (of Proto-Slavic origin) that lived among the Hyrkanians east of the Vilayet, not too far from the border of Khitai.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2022 15:04:57 GMT -5
I think the confusion could have been avoided if Thomas had made the comic Red Sonja a Brythunian, Hyperborean or even Vanir, as opposed to Hyrkanian. The Turks are an Asian tribe by origin, and the old writings here in the Balkans mention them as such, blackish-brown, with slightly slanted eyes, not too tall and broad-shouldered. Black hair and dark eyes were also a feature. Modern Turks look like they do today because they are half mixed with Serbs, Bulgarians, Greeks and Bosnians . There was something called "blood tribute", where young and able-bodied boys were taken to Turkey to be trained as janissaries, and masses of families, even entire towns, were moved to Turkey to be guardians of springs, masons, blacksmiths... In the case of Red Sonja, Thomas was just going for a variant of the proto Russian-Mongolian state where his Sonja retained all the features of Howard's original Sonja of Rogatino. His choice was not illogical, if I may say - as with Howard, there is a historical counterpart. the Ottomans called it devşirme. I can think of a couple of reasons why the Ottomans created the Janissaries (Yeni çeri in Turkish). The 1st is that numerous Turkic people were victims of the same thing in Central Asia when Islam spread east beyond Iran in the 7th century towards China. So, it is only natural that they followed the same example. The second is just as important and is a problem that all nomadic empires face after the initial expansion. How do you control the numerous tribes within the confederation if you wanna establish an empire? Sometimes these tribes will not turn up for a major battle or form an alliance with the enemy, be it Rome, China or Iran. After the Ottoman conquest of Bursa (1326) in north-west Anatolia in the modern day Turkish Republic, the son of the founder of the Ottoman Empire Orhan, decided to loosen ties with the Turkic tribes of Anatolia and form an elite force from the newly conquered Christian population of the Balkans. The Turkic tribes were not as reliable as the kids from the Balkans. |
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Post by kemp on Dec 19, 2022 16:57:55 GMT -5
Some of them also claimed Olgerd Vladislav, a kind of proto Slav, was Hyperborean, but I have never heard of him being described as such by Howard, or even Hyrkanian, in REH's 'A Witch Shall Be Born' Olgerd is referred to as a Zaporoskan, which has a Slavic ring to it. Interestingly enough there is a district of Zaporoska in Poland, but I think REH took the name from it's association with the Zaporozhian Cossacks. Going back to Red Sonja, and now that I think of it, I suppose Roy Thomas could have given her similar origins to Olgerd Vladislav, the Zaporoskan/Zapatsko River tributory. Where is where? Southern Vilayet region? Not that its a source to be heeded, but the Mongoose RPG lists Olderd as a Hyrkanian. It seems that the dual cutlure of the Hyrkanians that I mention above is similar to that of Shem, where the Nomads range across the desert of the eastern part of the country and the settled Pelishites enjoy the city-states of the more green Pelistia in the west. The southern Vilayet region, on the eastern side. The Mongoose RPG might list Olgerd as Hyrkanian, but REH never did. I get where you are coming from though, if one were to give Red Sonja a Hyrkanian background it would make perfect logical sense to have her amongst the settled city state Hyrkanians of the more westerly parts, less steppe warrior so to speak. |
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