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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8087302" data-attributes="member: 42582">You seem to be talking here about the focus/centre of the story. I'm talking about what the story presents as the relationship between the characters and events. To speak a bit crudely, what does the story tell us about the nature of agency? REH's Conan is an agent par excellence. Whereas what characterises Frodo is that he so often refrains from agency. In the Earthsea trilogy, we see the perils of agency (in Book 1, Ged's agency brings trouble upon himself; in Book 3, Cob's agency brings trouble upon everyone).The Iliad is a story about how fate and the gods overwhelm human agency!Not just moral codes, but "forces" or tendencies in the world.In REH's Conan there are no such forces outside of human action. (The Hour of the Dragon comes close to being an exception, but even there it seems that Conan is an anti-Arthur: it is not that he can wield the powers of kingship because he is fated to do so, but rather he has rendered himself king through his own actions and hence he can wield the powers of kingship.)This is not a tenable reading of either LotR or REH's Conan.Aragorn is the rightful king because of his heritage. This is why providence is on his side. This is why he is able to wield the palantir to frighten Sauron into hasty action. Gandalf (the voice of wisdom) expressly counsels him not to mis-step at the last moment.The contrast with REH's Conan is profound. The point is not that Conan is immoral or amoral - I've repeatedly argued in this thread that he is not. The point is that he is not beholden to any higher power. He is his own source of authority. This manifests itself, in the fiction, in being the self-anointed king of Aquilonia as a result of killing his predecessor.I don't know what REH's person religious beliefs were, but his Conan stories are essentially modernist and atheistic (this is symbolically expressed by Conan's "non-worship" of Crom). Whereas LotR verges on the reactionary and is extremely religious (even though it contains no direct accounts of acts of worship; the closest we get, from memory, is the ceremony observed by Faramir and his rangers).Earthsea is not religious in the same way that LotR is, but as I detailed a bit more above it also clearly expresses a view of the relationship between humans, action and the cosmos that is very different from REH's Conan.As Patrice Louinet explains in his critical edition of REH's Conan stories, it is not a coincidence that Conan is the only Cimmerian to appear in the stories. He is sui generis. (And, to an extent, an insertion of himself by REH into the Hyobrian Age.) In the fiction perhaps he is living a Cimmerian code; but when the stories are considered as literary works, Conan is self-made.************A slightly separate point: [USER=22779]@Hussar[/USER], I agree with some of what you say about cast. REH's Conan stories are in a certain sense personal or initmate. I think this is connected to the short-story/novella form. I don't think this fully connects to "epic" vs S&S: the Earthsea stories are likewise rather personal/intimate but in my view, considered as fantasy stories, have more in common with LotR than REH's Conan.</blockquote>

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