the coming of conan the cimmerian by robert e howard

His only redeeming quality is the fact that he gives men courage and the will and might to kill their enemies. Conan’s god Crom is a gloomy and savage entity that hates weaklings. Many of the early Conan tales would be more rightly termed as being “swords and Lovecraftian horror” or even “swords and evolution.” The backdrop of Conan’s world is thus starkly nihilistic. Howard’s Conan stories are marked not just by the breadth and height of the hero’s adventures, but range even beyond the boundaries of what we now call swords and sorcery. When I led her armies to victory as a mercenary, Aquilonia overlooked the fact that I was a foreigner, but now she can not forgive me. Now no paths are straight and my sword is useless…. In the old free days all I wanted was a sharp sword and a straight path to my enemies. I had prepared myself to take the crown, not to hold it. When King Numedides lay dead at my feet and I tore the crown from his gory head and set it on my own, I had reached the ultimate border of my dreams. He led armies into battle and tribesmen on raids, he captained ships and even became a king:

He was a mercenary, an adventurer, a thief, and a pirate. Conan did just about everything and he was rarely “just” a barbarian.

(page 122)īut even that is just a snapshot of a single phase of the character’s career. Under the horned helmet a square-cut black mane contrasted with smoldering blue eyes. A broad shagreen belt with a golden buckle held the scabbard of the broadsword he wore. From the mailed shoulders fell the scarlet cloak, blowing in the sea-wind. He saw a tall powerfully built figure in a black scale-mail hauberk, burnished greaves and a blue-steel helmet from which jutted bull’s horns highly polished. In spite of this muddying of the waters, the iconic helmet and cloak of the character should still be immediately recognizable even to the more casual fantasy fan: Just as Sherlock Holmes is now indelibly linked to his iconic deerstalker, so to is the original fantasy swordsman now wedded in our collective imaginations to Arnold’s Schwarzenegger’s atrocious accent. When most people think of Conan they tend to think of a wild, black-haired man running around with very little in the way of clothing or armor.

The coming of conan the cimmerian by robert e howard