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

[Bedrockgames]

I do not think this is a city vs rural argument. I disagree about the percentage of population living in a barbaric frontier. There are still significant people living in barbaric conditions compared to what is available in much of the western world.

It is a whole other topic but yeah, there are people living without running water or electricity (or without consistent access to them). And there are places that have level of poverty some of us can't even imagine. At the same time, I doubt living in such conditions suddenly makes Conan have more resonance.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Obviously, some issues are more complex that a messageboard can handle.

This. And this is the problem if you try applying lessons from Conan to the real world. There are no simple solutions. It’s a nice fairy tale, but that’s all it is.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I do not think this is a city vs rural argument

I do think Conan was largely about this though

 

[Belen]

I do think Conan was largely about this though

True. It is a fun fantasy if you do not think to closely about the effects of loss of civilization. It can also be used to deconstruct the root problems with civilizations as well.

 

[Voranzovin]

But the point I was responding to was about people living in cities. Not people living in loin clothes on the edge of actual civilization. Conan is a story from printed magazines. He is a feature of modern civilized living. Most of the people who read him and loved him over the years as a character, were living in places that had running water, professional police and electricity. This part of the argument, just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. History can still have appeal to people. But there are still things that resonate enough that people like seeing Ancient Rome in movies and it has an influence on things like gaming. People have a longing for the past, and they have a longing for characters who embody something simple and romantic about earlier times, before things got so interconnected (I would argue if anything, something like the internet and the constant interconnection of things, makes these kinds of fantasies more powerful, not less). You only have to look at the volume of people on say youtube, who are re-enacting what it was like to make bread in Colonial New England, or all the channels where people intentionally get away from civilization in the wilderness, to see its appeal. Yes we have running water, yet people will forgo running water deliberately to go camping and get away from the conveniences and rush of civilization. And Conan I think is about someone who is able to live outside the constraints of modern society, which is going to be appealing to people living in modern societies. Conan doesn't have to put up with traffic tickets. And even when he does, he can cleave his way out of the problem.

The other issue here is no real valid reason is being given for why this idea that we have grown too civilized for Conan to remain relevant needs to be true. Someone just kind of suggested it, and now it has weight, despite not really being given any genuine evidence.

I think you've deeply misread the arguments being made here, or at least mine. I am not asserting the idea that changing times have made the desire for freedom from civilization less appealing as an unquestionable fact: I'm taking the OP's assertion that Conan is no longer as relevant as read, and suggesting a reason why that might be the case. My own experiences suggest that this assertion is true, but if the data @Enaknomolos has posted is accurate, then it probably isn't, in which case this particular hypothesis has been falsified. There's really nothing more to it then that.

And the distinction between civilized/uncivilized and city/rural is pretty crucial here: you've made the assertion several times, I think, that the idea that the conflict between civilized and uncivilized worlds is a less relevant trope in the 21st century is countered by the reality that there are still differences between rural and city life. So it's completely relevant to point out that being rural and being uncivilized are completely different things.

I don't claim that Conan and the idea of freedom from the constraints of civilization holds no appeal--I claim that it holds less appeal for a generation that grew up on the internet. This claim may turn out to be based on a faulty premise, but please attack the claim I'm actually making.

 

[TiQuinn]

True. It is a fun fantasy if you do not think to closely about the effects of loss of civilization. It can also be used to deconstruct the root problems with civilizations as well.

Aren’t most of the villains in Conan stories despots, warlords and corrupt priests and rulers? Those things exist today, and they’ve probably always existed but isn’t any deconstruction of that for root cause bound to be simplistic?

 

[Belen]

Aren’t most of the villains in Conan stories despots, warlords and corrupt priests and rulers? Those things exist today, and they’ve probably always existed but isn’t any deconstruction of that for root cause bound to be simplistic?

We are basically saying the same thing. The villains are the root problems we still have today that are propped up by "civilized" power structures although I would argue that they are really barbaric people using the levers of power to fulfill their needs at the expense of others.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think you've deeply misread the arguments being made here, or at least mine. I am not asserting the idea that changing times have made the desire for freedom from civilization less appealing as an unquestionable fact: I'm taking the OP's assertion that Conan is no longer as relevant as read, and suggesting a reason why that might be the case. My own experiences suggest that this assertion is true, but if the data @Enaknomolos has posted is accurate, then it probably isn't, in which case this particular hypothesis has been falsified. There's really nothing more to it then that.

And the distinction between civilized/uncivilized and city/rural is pretty crucial here: you've made the assertion several times, I think, that the idea that the conflict between civilized and uncivilized worlds is a less relevant trope in the 21st century is countered by the reality that there are still differences between rural and city life. So it's completely relevant to point out that being rural and being uncivilized are completely different things.

I don't claim that Conan and the idea of freedom from the constraints of civilization holds no appeal--I claim that it holds less appeal for a generation that grew up on the internet. This claim may turn out to be based on a faulty premise, but please attack the claim I'm actually making.

I am not saying rural and city are the same as uncivilized and civilized (hope it is clear from my posts). But I think when you read Conan, Howard is using Conan to as a vessel to contrast urban and rural values (he is using the uncivilized barbarism symbolically and kind of inverting things by making that more desirable than civilization)

 

[Bedrockgames]

We are basically saying the same thing. The villains are the root problems we still have today that are propped up by "civilized" power structures although I would argue that they are really barbaric people using the levers of power to fulfill their needs at the expense of others.

Edit: Scratch my initial response. I don't think I read this as clearly the first time around. Will get back to this point when I have more time

 

[Clint_L]

I would call it “heightened”. “Purple Prose” implies poor quality, but this is quite deliberate, in order to establish gravitas. Howard’s ability to write like this was actually a strength. It perhaps suffers a bit by lack of context.

Lovecraft used similar techniques - which would generally be considered over-writing by modern standards.

It was considered over-writing back then, too. Neither is exactly a wordsmith; Lovecraft's prose is infamously purple.