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Post by stubbs on May 3, 2018 4:52:01 GMT -5
I've often though Conan could be a bit like a northerner who lives in London and complains about the cost of a pint, but is never going to be moving home. I bet he'd be accused of going soft if he went back to Cimmeria!
I think he enjoyed what civilisation had to offer as a young man, wine, women, easy pickings for a barbarian-raised thief. Later in life he seemed to gravitate towards the edges of civilisation without returning to truly barbaric culture, until becoming a king of course. I imagine his relationship with the civilised world was complex, never quite at home there but appreciating what it had to offer and never feeling like he could return to a barbaric culture.
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Post by zarono on May 4, 2018 15:19:47 GMT -5
I never thought about that, but it's obviously right. Conan must have composed "The Song of Bêlit". In the Hyborian world, just as the Zingarans are prehistoric pseudo-Spaniards and the Picts are pseudo-Iroquois, the Cimmerians are prehistoric pseudo-Gaels. Like the Dark Age Irish, despite their gloomy nature and probable obsession with death and dirges, they might well have had poets among them and regarded them highly -- made them a privileged class as the Irish did. While not outstandingly talented in that area, the young Conan might still have tried his hand at the craft, and been inspired by grief to compose a eulogy for Bêlit after her death. And he might have taken an interest in the music and poetry of civilized nations during his later travels. Since "The Road of Kings" is recounted in first person, he very likely did compose that too. It's clear that he appreciated poets enough to give even the crazed would-be assassin Rinaldo a break he didn't give the others. '"Rinaldo!" His voice was strident with desperate urgency. "Back! I would not slay you -- " '"Die, tyrant!" screamed the mad minstrel, hurling himself headlong on the king. Conan delayed the blow he was loth to deliver, until it was too late. Only when he felt the bite of the steel in his unprotected side did he strike, in a frenzy of blind desperation.' "What do I know of cultured ways?" he asks in "The Road of Kings." Well ... something, anyway. I know you are a busy man but maybe someday we'll see an essay from you on this subject REH's Hyborian Age mentions the Atlanteans having attained a highly advanced barbarism then after the cataclysm their surviving culture is deprived of metal so they resort to working in flint but still have a high artistic level even in that medium, it also mentions they left behind painted pictures and ivory carvings as a contrast to the picts who apparently had little or no artistic qualities in general. Maybe Conan is so different from other cimmerians because he is a throwback to the original Atlantean type with an underlying artistic nature and a far more inquisitive mind than his countrymen (similar to how Bran Mak Morn is a throwback to the original pictish type), being different in this way might have caused Conan to become bored with Cimmeria and seek a wandering adventurous lifestyle with little regret or homesickness. As Conan got older he began to pursue his artistic side with poetry and song in the later years of his kingship when life was slightly less of a struggle for survival. Although I have no doubt he made up a few bawdy songs here and there during his younger years of tavern crawling!
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Post by Aryeh on May 5, 2018 2:42:29 GMT -5
I never thought about that, but it's obviously right. Conan must have composed "The Song of Bêlit". In the Hyborian world, just as the Zingarans are prehistoric pseudo-Spaniards and the Picts are pseudo-Iroquois, the Cimmerians are prehistoric pseudo-Gaels. Like the Dark Age Irish, despite their gloomy nature and probable obsession with death and dirges, they might well have had poets among them and regarded them highly -- made them a privileged class as the Irish did. While not outstandingly talented in that area, the young Conan might still have tried his hand at the craft, and been inspired by grief to compose a eulogy for Bêlit after her death. And he might have taken an interest in the music and poetry of civilized nations during his later travels. Since "The Road of Kings" is recounted in first person, he very likely did compose that too. It's clear that he appreciated poets enough to give even the crazed would-be assassin Rinaldo a break he didn't give the others. '"Rinaldo!" His voice was strident with desperate urgency. "Back! I would not slay you -- " '"Die, tyrant!" screamed the mad minstrel, hurling himself headlong on the king. Conan delayed the blow he was loth to deliver, until it was too late. Only when he felt the bite of the steel in his unprotected side did he strike, in a frenzy of blind desperation.' "What do I know of cultured ways?" he asks in "The Road of Kings." Well ... something, anyway. I know you are a busy man but maybe someday we'll see an essay from you on this subject REH's Hyborian Age mentions the Atlanteans having attained a highly advanced barbarism then after the cataclysm their surviving culture is deprived of metal so they resort to working in flint but still have a high artistic level even in that medium, it also mentions they left behind painted pictures and ivory carvings as a contrast to the picts who apparently had little or no artistic qualities in general. Maybe Conan is so different from other cimmerians because he is a throwback to the original Atlantean type with an underlying artistic nature and a far more inquisitive mind than his countrymen (similar to how Bran Mak Morn is a throwback to the original pictish type), being different in this way might have caused Conan to become bored with Cimmeria and seek a wandering adventurous lifestyle with little regret or homesickness. As Conan got older he began to pursue his artistic side with poetry and song in the later years of his kingship when life was slightly less of a struggle for survival. Although I have no doubt he made up a few bawdy songs here and there during his younger years of tavern crawling! Actually, I wrote an essay on this subject not that long ago -- an essay about, among other things, Conan being a poet-warrior. In it, I was also focusing on what I previously mentioned here, namely, that Conan is most likely an author of "The Song of Bêlit". The essay also had to do something with Milius, not just REH, since colonel Kurtz is described as "poet-warrior" by the Dennis Hopper character in "Apocalypse Now" film that Milius wrote; then, Conan is said to be a warrior-poet in the second draft of "King Conan: Crown of Iron" (according to IGN: "Conan is taken in by the Picts where he passes himself off as "Herodion," a poet-warrior."). ...I was in contact with one of the major culture magazines in the U.S. and they were thinking of publishing this essay (I exchanged some 4-5 e-mails with the editor-in-chief); however, it did not end well: the editor-in-chief found some quotes in which Milius was describing his fantasy about driving a tank through a burning village, etc. and after that I received a message from that editor, which could be summed up as: "An article about this guy? He's just nuts, so... No way!"
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Post by zarono on May 7, 2018 17:07:47 GMT -5
I know you are a busy man but maybe someday we'll see an essay from you on this subject REH's Hyborian Age mentions the Atlanteans having attained a highly advanced barbarism then after the cataclysm their surviving culture is deprived of metal so they resort to working in flint but still have a high artistic level even in that medium, it also mentions they left behind painted pictures and ivory carvings as a contrast to the picts who apparently had little or no artistic qualities in general. Maybe Conan is so different from other cimmerians because he is a throwback to the original Atlantean type with an underlying artistic nature and a far more inquisitive mind than his countrymen (similar to how Bran Mak Morn is a throwback to the original pictish type), being different in this way might have caused Conan to become bored with Cimmeria and seek a wandering adventurous lifestyle with little regret or homesickness. As Conan got older he began to pursue his artistic side with poetry and song in the later years of his kingship when life was slightly less of a struggle for survival. Although I have no doubt he made up a few bawdy songs here and there during his younger years of tavern crawling! Actually, I wrote an essay on this subject not that long ago -- an essay about, among other things, Conan being a poet-warrior. In it, I was also focusing on what I previously mentioned here, namely, that Conan is most likely an author of "The Song of Bêlit". The essay also had to do something with Milius, not just REH, since colonel Kurtz is described as "poet-warrior" by the Dennis Hopper character in "Apocalypse Now" film that Milius wrote; then, Conan is said to be a warrior-poet in the second draft of "King Conan: Crown of Iron" (according to IGN: "Conan is taken in by the Picts where he passes himself off as "Herodion," a poet-warrior."). ...I was in contact with one of the major culture magazines in the U.S. and they were thinking of publishing this essay (I exchanged some 4-5 e-mails with the editor-in-chief); however, it did not end well: the editor-in-chief found some quotes in which Milius was describing his fantasy about driving a tank through a burning village, etc. and after that I received a message from that editor, which could be summed up as: "An article about this guy? He's just nuts, so... No way!" Sounds interesting, you should post it on the forum.
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Post by Aryeh on May 8, 2018 6:44:27 GMT -5
Actually, I wrote an essay on this subject not that long ago... Sounds interesting, you should post it on the forum. I'll see if I can edit something for the forum. The thing is, the essay I wrote touches on politics at some point, and politics is divisive, so I'm not sure it would be a good thing for a forum. I'll see if I can just select some parts (which are about particular motifs, like Conan being a poet, etc.) and how well they can stand on their own.
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