With Gigantic Melancholies And Gigantic Mirth...

Started by Irvius, Dec 21 2006 11:21 AM

Please log in to reply

4 replies to this topic

#1 Irvius

Spear Carrier

Members
32 posts

Location:Rome, Italy

Posted 21 December 2006 - 11:21 AM

Hello all and Merry Christmas!

Since I would write a letter to Scott Allie, the Dark Horse Conan editor, can someone please help me remembering in which moments in Conan original literature, the barbarian showed gigantic melancholies?
So i will have material to discuss with.

Thank you very much!

Edited by Irvius, 21 December 2006 - 11:31 AM.

His true name was Conan
And now he rose in hauberk of black mail.
A sinewy, grim, giant
against the broad silk sail.
That shimmered above his plumed
Corsairs pressed against the rail

Back to top

#2 godzilladude

WarLord

Members
1,184 posts

Posted 21 December 2006 - 02:40 PM

Hello all and Merry Christmas!

Since I would write a letter to Scott Allie, the Dark Horse Conan editor, can someone please help me remembering in which moments in Conan original literature, the barbarian showed gigantic melancholies?
So i will have material to discuss with.

Thank you very much!

I don't think there is one. REH wrote the intro that included that phrase just as he was wrapping up Kull and Black Turlogh, a couple moody guys. Somewhere between the first draft and the final draft of Phoenix on the Sword, REH took out the little lines about Conan being all depressed and feeling hopeless over something, and nothing like it really ever came back into the canon. Conan ever after was never to be defeated emotionally.

Well, till he was hanging on the cross. Even then, he just gave up, he didn't get all moody and teary-eyed about it.
Paul

Back to top

#3 Kortoso

-=Reiver of the Western Marches=-

Members
10,400 posts

Gender:Male
Location:Northern California

Posted 21 December 2006 - 06:08 PM

Yes. From the draft version of Phoenix on the Sword:

The unreasoning melancholy of the Cimmerian fell like a shroud about his soul, paralyzing him with a crushing sense of the futility of life of human endeavor and the meaninglessness of life. His kingship, his pleasures, his fears, his ambitions, and all earthly things were revealed to him suddenly as dust and broken toys. The borders of life shrivelled, and the lines of existence closed in about him, numbing him. Dropping his lion head in his mighty hands, he groaned aloud.

Hope that cheers you up.

Happy Solstice.

Kortoso's Cogitations

Back to top

#4 Ironhand

The Mad Playwright

Members
7,888 posts

Gender:Male
Location:Saint Louis, MO, USA

Posted 22 December 2006 - 06:50 AM

The death of Belit, in Queen of the Black Coast.

"Did you deem yourself strong, because you were able to twist the heads off civilized folk, poor weaklings with muscles like rotten string? Hell! Break the neck of a wild Cimmerian bull before you call yourself strong. I did that, before I was a full-grown man...!" - Conan, in "Shadows in Zamboula", by Robert E. Howard
"... you speak of Venarium familiarly. Perhaps you were there?"
"I was," grunted [Conan]. "I was one of the horde that swarmed over the hills. I hadn't yet seen fifteen snows, but already my name was repeated about the council fires." - "Beyond the Black River", by Robert E. Howard

Read my Conan screenplays at The Scrolls of Ironhand (in particular my transcription of THE FROST GIANT'S DAUGHTER in Act II of "The Snow Devil") at
http://www.scrollsof...d.us/index.html or at
http://www.delicious...ic=ConanProject

Back to top

#5 The Gneech

Spear Carrier

Members
13 posts

Posted 22 December 2006 - 10:00 PM

He spends a fairly large chunk of "Pheonix on the Sword" in a funk about having to be a proper king, I seem to recall. But most of the time his gigantic melancholies are more implied than showed.

-The Gneech

Back to top

Back to Conan: General Discussions