Conan vs Lord of the Rings

[Iron_Chef]

That didn't happen in any of Robert E. Howard's Conan stories, and if it didn't happen in those, I don't consider it Conan canon.

Lin Carter and L. Sprague deCamp's Conan stories pretty much sucked, but I enjoyed the Robert Jordan Conan books quite a bit,m and the Marvel comics were fun, particularly SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN (B&W mag).

 

[Geoff Watson]

For them Harry Potter is the penultimate fantasy novel.

Maybe you should explain to them what 'penultimate' means.

Geoff.

 

[jester47]

Actually the concept of conan was the noble savage. He was designed to show how civilisation was not civilised. He only takes a woman by force once and she is not even human. After REH met N. Price, many of his women characters became very fleshed out. The helpless woman completely disappears after the appearance of Valeria. The character Conan is completely different after the hands of De Camp are done with it. There is a huge ammount of history in Howards Conan work, you just have to know how to find it and know what histories to look for. And it is documented somewhere that Tolkein was aware of Howard's work when he was alive and writing. A little experiment you can conduct is to go and read the REH only conan stories. Then read some of the others. You will find that they are very different characters.

Another factor is that the characters in the original Conan stories did develop, but REH characterises different than JRRT. One who is more receptive to the other is more likely to find the characters of the one they are less receptive to to be less developed.

Aaron.

 

[William Ronald]

Actually the concept of conan was the noble savage. He was designed to show how civilisation was not civilised. He only takes a woman by force once and she is not even human. After REH met N. Price, many of his women characters became very fleshed out. The helpless woman completely disappears after the appearance of Valeria. The character Conan is completely different after the hands of De Camp are done with it. There is a huge ammount of history in Howards Conan work, you just have to know how to find it and know what histories to look for. And it is documented somewhere that Tolkein was aware of Howard's work when he was alive and writing. A little experiment you can conduct is to go and read the REH only conan stories. Then read some of the others. You will find that they are very different characters.

Another factor is that the characters in the original Conan stories did develop, but REH characterises different than JRRT. One who is more receptive to the other is more likely to find the characters of the one they are less receptive to to be less developed.

Aaron.

Aaron, while I forget the name of the book, Lin Carter did a book on Tolkien and his writings a long time ago. (I think it came out in the late 1960s or early 1970s.) In it, Carter mention that Tolkien enjoyed Robert E. Howard's Conan stories but that they were not the sort of stories for the world he was creating. (Forgive me if this rambles a bit, it is very late where I am.)

I think both authors have their respective strengths and weaknesses. REH did have more than a few nubile slave girls, and I laughed when thinking what most of the women in my life would make of them. On the other hand, REH was a master at pacing and creating a sense of peril in combat.

There is a nobility of spirit to Conan, but at times, it seems that knowledge is scorned in favor of strength. I remember reading that Howard meant Conan to win just by brute force, not by ingenuity. Perhaps one of Conan's least acknowledged traits is his loyalty to his friends. (Although Robert E. Howard sadly never had a chance to read the Lord of the Rings, I think he would have liked it. I think the common threads of loyalty and courage run deep through the works of Tolkien and Howard. )

Tolkien was better in creating a history for his world, and villains such as Saruman and Grishnakh have real world analogues. Saruman was an appeaser who desired power for himself, perhaps showing how people can sometimes become corrupted in fighting an enemy. (At the risk of invoking allegories and skirting the issue of politics, ask what historical figures are a bit like Saruman.) Grishnakh struck me as a rather greedy mercenary character, while Sauron himself seemed much like an impersonal force, much like industrialization or a philosophy of hate. Indeed, Sauron can be seen as the embodiment of the desire to control and use everything for his ends.

Gollum came across to me as a truly tormented character, at war with himself and never truly able to find peace. I cannot recall a character by REH that brought me to revulsion and pity as much as Gollum.

One theme that runs through the LOTR is that of the willingness to sacrifice all -- even when everything seems lost. I would argue that the quiet heroism of Frodo and Sam going to Mordor, expecting to die to save a world that they love is at least as heroic as charging into battle. Although he lives after the Ring is destroyed, Frodo finds he can never truly go home again -- adding a touch of realistic poignancy to the trilogy. The LOTR shows both the bold heroism of great warriors such as Aragorn and the quiet heroism of more ordinary men, or hobbits in this case.

So, I think REH and Tolkien both contributed much to latter fantasy authors as well as role playing games. I like both authors, and others besides -- there is room on my bookshelf both for Cimmerians, giants, hobbits, and Numenoreans.

 

[hong]

And people like that misunderstand Conan (and Cyberpunk, BTW)

Sure, sure.

Conan was the baddest. But he didn't try to be.

You don't need to try, when you have Robert A. Howard to do it all for you.

He did the right thing.

As long as it paid well, anyway. Which, you have to admit, is an eminently practical way of conducting one's affairs.

He killed the evil. Freed the girl. Made a kingdom where the commoners were better off than they were before. That sort of thing.

Next you'll be telling me he always went to church on Sundays and helped old ladies cross the street.

 

[Dark Jezter]

Actually the concept of conan was the noble savage. He was designed to show how civilisation was not civilised.

Indeed. One recurring theme in REH's Conan stories is that "civilized" men can often be more cruel and ruthless than co-called savages.

He only takes a woman by force once and she is not even human.

I am not familiar with the event you are referring to. Are you sure it didn't happen in one of the non-REH Conan stories?

Howard's Conan didn't take women by force. In The Vale of Lost Women, Conan states that he has never taken a woman against her will.

After REH met N. Price, many of his women characters became very fleshed out. The helpless woman completely disappears after the appearance of Valeria.

Considering that Red Nails, the story in which Valeria appeared, was the last story REH wrote before his death, you are very right.

There are a lot of helpless women in REH's stories, but there are also some very intelligent and strong ones, such as Yasmina, Belit, Zenobia, and the aforementioned Valeria.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Maybe you should explain to them what 'penultimate' means.

Geoff.

... LOL

 

[Farland]

Iron Chef said:

As to Conan vs. Lord of the Rings, here's my take: I loved Fellowship, but got bored with Two Towers and never bothered to finish reading the series. It got wrapped up in things and characters I didn't care about, and the villains were all predictable lackluster henchmen with little personality. Sauron sucks as a villain, IMO. Here's a giant flaming eyeball who never leaves his Tower and says maybe two sentences in the whole trilogy. Boring! I felt nothing when he died, except ripped-off. Saruman was a much better villain, yet he disapears completely and nothing is mentioned again of him except "his power is broken." Boring! Anybody as wise and powerful as Saruman should have been able to have dealt with the Ents, or at least had a back-up plan ready. It just isn't logical.

No offense, but try actually reading the books. All of the things you complain about are more than adequately explained in the books, which are, of course, truly amazing.

 

[Iron_Chef]

No offense, but try actually reading the books. All of the things you complain about are more than adequately explained in the books, which are, of course, truly amazing.

Amazing to you, and many others, but not to me. Fellowship was good, I'll admit, but I got bored and gave up on the series after Two Towers put me to sleep. Never made it more than halfway through as it was so DULL (don't get me started on The Silmarillon). I found myself skipping ahead in TT for scenes with the bad guys so something interesting would happen, but gave up in frustration at how many pages were being tossed out as a result. I never did that with ANY Conan story, even the crappy non-REH ones. And I read the first seven GOR books without complaint (until the seventh, but that one had no Tarl Cabot, so who can blame me?).

The LotR movie versions I enjoyed---but again, Fellowship was best. Afterwards, too many unconsequential, uninteresting characters (Eowyn, Faromir, Denethor, Treebeard, to name a few whose names I can remember) crop up and make things confusing. I thought Return was the weakest movie (never read the book). Denethor was barely in it and just plain crazy from frame one; who cares? The death of Sauron made me feel nothing, and the smarmy crap with them taking thirty minutes to say goodbye after Sauron dies put me to sleep. ZZZZZZZZ. I wanted more Saruman and Grima, but got nothing. Also missing (but present in the cartoon) were Sam and Frodo shanghaied into an orc army (while they're wearing the orc armor), messing with the magical Guardian statues at the Tower where Sam rescues Frodo, and "The Voice Of Sauron" (evil guy who comes out of the Black Gate to "parlay" with Aragorn). IMO, it would have been far more effective for Sauron to have regained his physical form and fought with Aragorn and Gandalf, etc., in a titanic battle before being killed; the way it's written is anti-climactic as hell, and it seems rather far-fetched to me that his whole land falls apart within seconds of his demise (a problem I had with Return of the Jedi as well). As for Sauron, an uncommunicative giant eyeball just doesn't cut it as an arch-villain in my book. What the Return of the King movie really needed to liven things up was a techno-dance remix of "Where There's A Whip, There's A Way" (the best part of the cartoon).

What's this about Saruman changing his name to Sharkey? Sounds lame (not as lame as the Ents, though). Somebody clue me in, as I'm NOT reading the book. Is that gonna be in the extended Return of the King movie? It's just really a major disappointment to have the one main archvillain I can identify with completely disappear from the third movie! I was bummed enough by his cowardly handling of the Ent attack on Isengard in TT, but to totally disappear in RotK is ridiculous and bad filmmaking/writing as far as I'm concerned.

 

[barsoomcore]

Iron Chef: all I'm going to say is that the books are hundreds of pages long and they very little filler. The questions you are asking cannot be easily answered.

Dark Jetzer: I would greatly appreciate a list of REH Conan publications -- I want to buy and read these stories, but I've always been concerned as to how to know if I'm getting the "real deal", so to speak. If you have a list of books that feature REH's Conan writings as they were originally published, I'd be very grateful.

Thanks!