Howard or Tolkien, Which of them Had The Greatest Impact On Modern Fantasy ?

[olive]

Conan = toxic masculinity.

Hahaa. I know, right? A sensitive, kind barbarian sharing his inner feelings, childhood issues in positive light, often crying to let it go after killing, asking their permission before saving the damsels in distress, constantly refusing to objectify them oh so honourably, may be doing yoga and going vegan while explaining the evil forces of Hyboria why they should all get along and keep the diversity of monsters in a zen attitude could be a good example of possible character development in Howard's work.

Jokes aside, taking a character like Conan the Barbarian from Hyboria and putting him in a real world to supposedly 'criticise' the character or the work is producing toxic material in itself. It doesn't have a critical value. Because while toxic masculinity is real, its source is not comic book fantasies like Conan. So it is another fake conflict. Fake problem. A problem that doesn't exist in real world, but just created to trigger esp. young gender groups against each other. What I keep defining as 'fake conflicts built on bastardised notions'. It's annoying me to no end.

 

[BAYLOR]

Conan = toxic masculinity.
Ironically he was probably considered by Marvel because he was set in ancient times so was deemed something of a caricature compared to other Marvel characters who had angst or science-enhanced powers. The old pulp illustrations of Conan was not a Frazetta muscle-bound type--I think he looked kind of skinny in some covers
I read What If Conan Walked The Earth Today? Very refreshing. Amusing when he goes into a modern art gallery and uses an abstract sculpture to clobber some thieves. That comic would not be acceptable publishing for Marvel now, especially the scene where he takes on some looters.

Lost of interesting veriations with Conan . There is one series where he meets Elric of Melnibone and Stormbringer. There's are comics where he meets Solomon Kane , Red Sonja and even one or two with King Kull , One with Thor. There is also a What if Conan Battled Wolverine .

Robert E Howard would amazing and probably quite happy at the longevity and popularity of the characters he created .

 

[BAYLOR]

Hahaa. I know, right? A sensitive, kind barbarian sharing his inner feelings, childhood issues in positive light, often crying to let it go after killing, asking their permission before saving the damsels in distress, constantly refusing to objectify them oh so honourably, may be doing yoga and going vegan while explaining the evil forces of Hyboria why they should all get along and keep the diversity of monsters in a zen attitude could be a good example of possible character development in Howard's work.

Jokes aside, taking a character like Conan the Barbarian from Hyboria and putting him in a real world to supposedly 'criticise' the character or the work is producing toxic material in itself. It doesn't have a critical value. Because while toxic masculinity is real, its source is not comic book fantasies like Conan. So it is another fake conflict. Fake problem. A problem that doesn't exist in real world, but just created to trigger esp. young gender groups against each other. What I keep defining as 'fake conflicts built on bastardised notions'. It's annoying me to no end.

Conan the Hour of the Dragon by Robert E Howard was the only full length Novel of Coen that Howard ever wrote and its terrific novel . Its got everything you could possible want in a good rousing old school fantasy story.

Under Pastiches

Conan The Real by Pula Anderson . This a prequel to Queen of the Black Coast and Poul Anderons did a really spectacular job with the characters , setting and story.

Conan The Grim Grey God By Sean Moore

Conan The Rogue By John Maddox Roberts

Conan The Road of Kings by Karl Edward Wagner he wrote only one Conan novel , but its a fun read. Wagner also did Pastishe novel about another of Howards Characters Bran Mak Morn. Bran Mak Morn Legion From the Shadow . This too is terrific read .

and some of the Robert Jordan Conand books are fun to read,

 

[olive]

Thanks for the general review Baylor. Noted. Honestly, I don't think I would enjoy Conan the way you do and I already have a huge list of books not just I will enjoy immensely, but also which I am in desperate need to read. Even with them, I'll need to make priorities, there is no time, I have so much material to catch up.

 

[BAYLOR]

I always have too many books to read.

 

[Vince W]

I always have too many books to read.

I have too many books for a small country to read.

 

[BAYLOR]

I would love to see an new Conan Novel.

 

[Vince W]

Well, no new novels are planned but there will be a couple of novellas published next year. They were the serials printed in the Marvel Conan the Barbarian and Savage Sword of Conan. I read the first couple of chapters of each but never finished them because the comics were pretty appalling really, both the art and the stories.

 

[BAYLOR]

Well, no new novels are planned but there will be a couple of novellas published next year. They were the serials printed in the Marvel Conan the Barbarian and Savage Sword of Conan. I read the first couple of chapters of each but never finished them because the comics were pretty appalling really, both the art and the stories.

The Conan Pastiche novels stopped a coming out a few years ago. I think that if the 2011 film film had been a hit, it would revived the Conan novels . Oh well, someday they will come back. Ive read a few Conan Comic over the years. One that Ireally like was one which Conan Enemy ended becoming the hero of the story. The enemy was a Warrir Sharkman who Coanan had killed in pensions battle and brought back by his followed wunforutely thir method of biting him back openedthe world up to destruction at the hards of a very powerful malevolent entity. The Warrir know the world would die sacrificed himself stop the entity.

I would also love ot see a King Kull novel. But thats never happening.

 

[Vince W]

If Amazon had bothered to develop a Conan series and it had done well then we might have seen a King Kull film. Or maybe even a great Solomon Kane film.

 

[BAYLOR]

If Amazon had bothered to develop a Conan series and it had done well then we might have seen a King Kull film. Or maybe even a great Solomon Kane film.

Yeah, im not to happy with Amazon over that. I finally got to see the Solomon Kane . Awful film.

Ive seen the Kevin sorbo Kull film , which was a mash up of a Kull story and Howard's novel , The Hour of the Dragon. I think it would have been better had Kevein so played Conan in that film and they had done a faith adaptation of Hour. Sorbo would have been okay in the role of Conan .

Supposed the late Karl Edward wager did a screen a screenplay for Conan The Iron Throne which they didn't use.

 

[Vince W]

Sorbo is too goofy to make a good Conan. He always looks like he's just about to deliver the punchline of a joke that no one but him will find funny.

Solomon Kane was such a disappointment.

A KEW screenplay? If I had some money I'd make that film in a hot second.

 

[BAYLOR]

Sorbo is too goofy to make a good Conan. He always looks like he's just about to deliver the punchline of a joke that no one but him will find funny.

Solomon Kane was such a disappointment.

A KEW screenplay? If I had some money I'd make that film in a hot second.

One bit fo uncertainty on KEW screenplay, I can't find the place where read about it. so it might be in the same realm as his novel Queen of the Night which was a supposedly never published sequel to Bran Mak Morn Legion from the Shadow. This screenplay like that Queen novel may , not exist at all. I didn't mean to get your hopes up .

 

[Vince W]

A KEW screenplay may be unlikely but stranger things have happened.

 

[Extollager]

I ran across this, from a book on Wagner by the late Roger Scruton, and while it's a bit more of a think-piece than this thread usually invites, and doesn't mention Howard or Tolkien, I think it suggests one of the differences between them. I have contended that Tolkien is more influential than Howard. But it may be that, as sexual customs, laws, and norms continue to distance themselves from the seriousness of vows, Tolkien's work will become less influential (because of being out of step with "progress" -- ha!), while, if not Howard, Howard-type fiction may become even more prevalent.

Scruton:

----Erotic love, in its true inter-personal form, does not belong in the world of contracts and deals. Its foundation is not a contract but a vow. Contracts have terms, and when the terms are fulfilled they are at an end. Vows do not have terms, and cannot be undone by any calculation. The unity created by them is, as Hegel put it (in his discussion of marriage), a ‘substantial unity’: not a unity of purpose or place or pleasure but a unity of being. Lovers dedicate themselves to each other, and it is in part for this reason that they are so much at risk: to place a commission in another’s hands is to risk something; to place yourself in another’s hands is to risk everything. […]

In the world that we know today sex is widely viewed as a commodity, and the act of love as a ‘transaction’ involving pleasure in the sexual parts – a matter of desire and satisfaction, rather than existential commitment. We find this view already in Freud’s Three Essays on Sexuality, and shaped as orthodoxy in the writings of Alfred Kinsey. It is embodied in a certain kind of sex-education, which seeks to relieve young people of the burden of shame and guilt, and to open the path to pleasure.-----

Conan's world is one in which sexuality is absolutely without risk to the soul; indeed, the soul hardly exists to begin with, other than as some vague thing that a wizard might capture and put in a bottle. But sexuality -- for all that it is not in-your-face in Tolkien -- is a much profounder matter in Middle-earth. It may even (cf. Beren and Luthien) be stronger than death. Curiously, there's a suggestion of this in the romance of Conan and Belit. Howard had to kill her so that Conan could go back to having sex-as-commodity.

 

[KGeo777]

Conan is a wanderer like Odysseus but he has no Penelope to return home to.
I think of Belit as being like Circe crossed with Dido and Camilla. She was too wild to be someone to last in Conan's life-and he eventually became ruler of a kingdom (but had no queen?).
Solomon Kane was a solitary figure too.
Haven't read much else of REH--do all his characters fit the same loner pattern?

 

[Extollager]

Kull, as I recall, is pretty much a loner, but with a couple of trusted associates -- Brule, a fighter like himself, and an old counselor. I don't remember about Bran Mak Morn.

 

[BAYLOR]

Kull, as I recall, is pretty much a loner, but with a couple of trusted associates -- Brule, a fighter like himself, and an old counselor. I don't remember about Bran Mak Morn.

My favorite story with Kull is Kings of the Night. In this story , the Wizard Gonar who serves Bram Mak Morn (who is descended from Brule the Spear slayer )summons, King Kull from 100,000 in past to help Bran defeat the Romans. In tis story you have 3 of Howard's Heroic characters together in one story, You Bran Mak Morn, King Kull and Cormac art. The Wizard Gonar who served Bran may also be the the wizard who also served Brule 100,000 years ago. This story is terrific.

 

[BAYLOR]

Pah! has nothing on the Great-Grand-daddy, The epic of Gilgamesh.

I just thought of this now . Years back there was fantasy Anthony series , I think it was edited by Janet Morris, not sure on that though . The In Hell series . Heroes in Hell . Generals in Hell ect. In one the anthologies ther was story in which Robert E Howard and H P Lovecraft were driving though hell and they encountered Gilgamesh. That's about all I can remember . I can't remember in which of the anthologies it was in nor who wrote it .

 

[KGeo777]

Recently I saw a list posted of sword and sorcery movies--but many titles on the list I would not consider sword and sorcery. Like LOTR or Excalibur. To me, sword and sorcery is about someone (preferably carrying a sword) who goes around on adventures hacking people and monsters. Might have a companion or two but the focus is the character with the sword. It is all about him or her.
LOTR is not focused on a sword-carrying character. How many monsters are in Excalibur?
I thought LOTR was considered High Fantasy, not Sword and Sorcery.
If you check the list, there are a number of others that are questionable. Willow/Legend/Dragonslayer/Dragonheart.
In the old Italian Peplum films, Hercules rarely carried a sword-so is that sword and sorcery? How about a Sinbad movie?
I consider Sinbad films to be sword and sorcery--he has a sword and fights monsters and sorcerers (yet Arabian Nights Fantasy is more to the point), but I am hesitant to call a Greek mythology film that--since the hero is usually swept up in the will of the Gods to a point where it lacks a sense of being an independent warrior tale.