D&D General No One Reads Conan Now -- So What Are They Reading?

[GobHag]

Topic has slightly drifted but I'm throwing a hat into the ring.

I don't think that the problematic elements of Conan is an insurmountable issue for modern audiences--Let's not beat around the bush and say stuff like Isekai and gachas are really that progressive. What I think the issue is that the 'power fantasy' that Conan provides isn't quite what modern audiences want anymore

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Brown University Library The Racial Imaginaries of H. P. Lovecraft

I read this a while back and I think to your point, this was a guy who was deeply preoccupied with race to the point that it was central to his writing and thinking. There was little incidental about Lovecraft's racism, even though people defending him like to fall back on supposed standards of the time.

Yeah and I think ultimately he even sort of sees humanity as a whole as an "inferior race" in a grander scheme of things he creates. I definitely agree that the obsession with race informs significant aspects of his work.

 

[Dioltach]

I really wish I could recommend Saladin Ahmed's "Throne of the Crescent Moon" (and the prequel novella "Where Virtue Lives") as modern sword & sorcery with a non-Western approach. Excellent writing and storytelling.

Unfortunately he's joined the growing list of authors who start series and don't finish them. Grrr!

 

[Bedrockgames]

This is non-responsive to his question, which was about Conan.

Conan has antisemitic tropes

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Honestly I find there's a weird gnawing paranoiac angle to a lot of Lovecraft's racism that connects to his existential fears re: the nature of the universe and that even by the standards of his day seems very strange

Indeed. His racism led to genuine fear, which made his horror effective, and his life sad.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Let's not beat around the bush and say stuff like Isekai and gachas are really that progressive.

Quite. Some of those are pretty vile even (c.f. Jobless Reincarnation/Mushoku Tensei for example, and a lot of gacha games, particularly Japanese ones, are about "collecting" hypersexualized child-faced girls - and I do mean child-faced even by anime standards, not just "anime looking").

What I think the issue is that the 'power fantasy' that Conan provides isn't quite what modern audiences want anymore

That is an element, but I think it's also the racism and sexism, which inherently limits the appeal somewhat, given "modern audiences" are typically no longer just straight white men of the kind who don't even notice that stuff.

 

[TiQuinn]

I really wish I could recommend Saladin Ahmed's "Throne of the Crescent Moon" (and the prequel novella "Where Virtue Lives") as modern sword & sorcery with a non-Western approach. Excellent writing and storytelling.

Unfortunately he's joined the growing list of authors who start series and don't finish them. Grrr!

Too late - you piqued my interest.

Seriously, I know Saladin Ahmed from his work in comics but didn't realize he wrote a fantasy novel, so even if incomplete, I need to check it out.

 

[TiQuinn]

Indeed. His racism led to genuine fear, which made his horror effective, and his life sad.

Dang. That's probably the best, most succinct description of Lovecraft I've read.

 

[GobHag]

Quite. Some of those are pretty vile even (c.f. Jobless Reincarnation/Mushoku Tensei for example, and a lot of gacha games, particularly Japanese ones, are about "collecting" hypersexualized child-faced girls - and I do mean child-faced even by anime standards, not just "anime looking").

That is an element, but I think it's also the racism and sexism, which inherently limits the appeal somewhat, given "modern audiences" are typically no longer just straight white men of the kind who don't even notice that stuff.

And collecting hypersexualized child-faced girl is more gender neutral? I am sorta in those game's fandoms so I know that this new popular media also has racism and sexism but are still popular.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Unfortunately he's joined the growing list of authors who start series and don't finish them. Grrr!

Goddamn what happened in the 2010s that so many authors just stopped writing really cool series for seemingly unrelated reasons.