30 replies to this topic

[RJMooreII]

From another thread:

Genetic engineering and cybernetics would make a machine that could smash Conan without slowing down. This is what always makes me call bullshit on 'the outer demons have to assume an Earthly form' in the Conan stories. So what? They could make themselves nanobots or invincible carbon-vanadium-iridium tanks. There's nothing other than plot reasoning to make them so weak - certainly Set could figure out how to build a hydrogen bomb after a few billion years. Hell, a college physics student and a couple of engineers could do it, now that the principle's understood.

This has always been the most glaring plot-induced-nonsense in a Howard story. Generally speaking I go along with much of it as semi-realistic, if a bit fantastic. But anything that can travel through dimensions and form complex, combined biological machines can VERY EASILY build a tank. Or a nuke. Or a supercarbon, hydrogen powered monster that could literally kill everyone on Earth by itself (given enough time). I guess you can rationalize it with some sort of superdimensional pact, but in that case why are modern humans allowed to be so much more powerful than them?

Lovecraft doesn't often have this problem. His truely outer-monsters (as opposed to Earthy-Alien stuff) really could just rip through human beings like carbon paper. So why doesn't Conan have to fight a Colour Out of Space? The only answer I can think of is "because he'd die and Howard didn't want to write that story".

[deuce]

So why doesn't Conan have to fight a Colour Out of Space? The only answer I can think of is "because he'd die and Howard didn't want to write that story".

Yeah, basically.

[Konorg]

For the LOVE OF CROM.why not just read the story let yourself get carried away into it and not get technical..and stop ruining it for the rest of us with silly suppositions.

thanks now it'll be a full week before i can read any Howard stuff

[thatericn]

Conan stories are FANTASY stories - not S.F. - so there!

And what makes anyone think that a demon, etc., in a S & S story is actually intellectually making superscientific decisions, and not just following instinct? Each of our bodies do amazing chemical and neurological things every second, yet we have no control over it... We create life with one of our most non-intellectual life functions. If you think about it, eternal beings would possibly be more creatures of habit than any human could imagine.

This kind of stuff is idle fanboy preening. Show some respect, and even sympathy and love towards the storyteller and the art being presented to you.

[Kortoso]

I think that it's okay to ask questions of any great author's works. It's the lesser authors that are more fragile.

The monsters didn't turn into M1 Tanks because it wouldn't fit into the story, and the story's the thing.

Howard's intent with the monsters, I think, was to create something that we know would kill most Hyborians, but probably not Conan, although we are supposed to wonder how Conan manages to survive it.

Do you know of any fantasy monster that cannot be defeated and winds up destroying everything in its path? Even Godzilla doesn't succeed in destroying everything.

[Ironhand]

I think REH assumes that the gods and demons of his stories have the same intellectual limitations as the standard mythological gods. What happens if these limitations are waived? Then you get Ymir the Frost Giant, who casually KO'd Conan when he snatched his daughter back.

REH doesn't postulate demonic Abrams tanks or A-10 ground attack bombers because he never heard of such things. If you wanted to upgrade the demons every time humans upgrade their hardware, then you just see Conan blown into tinier and tinier flinders.

Actually, I think if Conan was faced with an M1A1 armored war chariot, he would have the sense to run and hide. Then, the next time a tank crewman got out to take a pi$$, Conan would be waiting at the latrine to kill him, steal his uniform, climb into the tank, and wreak havoc.

Edited by Ironhand, 19 June 2012 - 02:16 AM.

[BasilBJr]

I don't think Howard's monsters were that weak. Most of the time Conan survived through a combination of his own great vitality, his not giving into unreasoning panic, and sheer luck. He was only able to defeat the Winged Ape because of the intervention of Belit's ghost. He defeated Khoestrel Kel the Devil in Iron, because he was lucky enough to find the enchanted knife. He defeated the ape in the dungeons of Belvarus in "Hour of the Dragon" because he was fortunate enough that Zenobia slipped him a decent dagger, and his natural vitality kept him from being torn apart. He had the presence of mind to rouse the pirates, to fight back against the giants in "Pool of the Black One". His lack of panic enabled him to acess the situation and come up with effective counter-measures. One could speculate that the above named creatures never had to face much resistance prior to Conan, and that may have put them off balance. Additionally, he wasn't interested in proving what a great fighter he was, he was more interested in surviving. With the dragon in "Red Nails", once he poisoned it with Derketo's apples, he got out of Dodge, he didn't hang around to try and collect a trophy. All in all, he was able to fight the monsters in his terms, not theirs.

[Mark Finn]

St. George killed a dragon. Beowulf defeated Grendel. David slew Goliath. Conan, the underdog, wins in the same literary tradition that allows for the others mentioned to win. It's the way of the hero, if you want to get monomythic.

If you want the lit-crit reason why Howard's Conan never dies, go read his boxing stories. Conan (like most of Howard's heroes) is an Iron Man. An Atavist.

Here endeth the lesson.

[thatericn]

St. George killed a dragon. Beowulf defeated Grendel. David slew Goliath. Conan, the underdog, wins in the same literary tradition that allows for the others mentioned to win. It's the way of the hero, if you want to get monomythic.

If you want the lit-crit reason why Howard's Conan never dies, go read his boxing stories. Conan (like most of Howard's heroes) is an Iron Man. An Atavist.

Here endeth the lesson.

Amen.

[Almuric]

It's not that they're weak. It's that they're so powerful, they can only be defeated by Conan.

[Alhazred]

I find Set to be many times more powerful than an atomic bomb. To assume the old serpent expends any large degree of power towards the destine of men seems a little arogant.

[Konorg]

I find Set to be many times more powerful than an atomic bomb. To assume the old serpent expends any large degree of power towards the destine of men seems a little arogant.

And who are we to known the will of the Gods??

[Ironhand]

My theory is that Set doesn't even know that Conan exists, except when Thoth-Amon calls His attention to him. And even then, Set only responds according to how adroitly TA bribes Him.

[Herk]

Conan is also a sort of unwitting champion for Crom and Mitra it seems to me.

[RJMooreII]

Conan is also a sort of unwitting champion for Crom and Mitra it seems to me.

Well, I'd say yes for Mitra but I don't know how Crom could have a 'champion'. Crom probably sits on his mountain and grins when Conan lops the face off of some fool who thought to depose him, much as we-the-readers do.

I agree that Set probably pays scant attention to Conan, but in the stories Conan says that the demons have to assume earthly guise, which is fine but there's no mechanical distinction between a tank and a cat except the latter mainly has chemical components that are dissolvable in water and is much more complex. Given that demons can do amazing feats of biological grafting and building there's no reason they wouldn't just be a brain in a giant robot body or something. It'd actually be easier to do than making a gorilla-bat-goat, who don't even have the same numbers of chromosomes and stuff.

There is always the possibility that Conan doesn't know what he's talking about and 'demons' are really just aliens, but then you have to wonder where the aliens with lazer-beams are.

As to Howard not knowing about A-Bombs and tanks he certainly knew about the latter and the former was well within his grasp as a general principle of 'energy weapon'. Red Nails has what is essentially a ray-gun in the hands of a 'wizard'.

Edited by RJMooreII, 25 June 2012 - 04:02 AM.

[Mark Finn]

I think you're missing, or at least misreading, something fundamental to the Conan series: It's about what MEN do, sometimes in the name of a higher power, to other men. Divine intervention only shows up in one instance: The Frost Giant's Daughter. Howard's stories are not about the gods playing chess with the lives of men. It's about men taking destiny into their own hands.

This is a very weird topic.

[RJMooreII]

I get it from a literary standpoint, I'm saying its logically weak. If you don't want to answer questions about interdimensional aliens who inexplicably suck don't use interdimensional aliens. It's like how sci-fi writers always want to use FTL travel when 'Russian' and 'Klingon' can be used interchangeably; they end up creating problems and nonsense because they want to employ tropes without the trouble of thinking about them and recognizing their consequences. Most of the time Howard doesn't do that, Conan is very much 'you want to know what a hero-warrior of legend would REALLY be like?' but he does have weak points specifically because most of his 'magic' is clearly some kind of weird science; yet if the weird science is there at all it should spread infectiously.

Howard is very much of a mind about human beings and barbarism as their animal history, but I don't know if he ever considered that 'mankind' can be replaced by machinery by its own free will and lose the inhibitions of civilization and barbarism altogether. Humans only suck in civilization because they're evolved ape-idiots. Deliberate engineering, sufficiently sophisticated, could create something as wary as a cat that can shoot lazers out of its eyes. The weaknesses of the human race are genetic and physiological, and genetics and physiology are just another thing to be overcome. And this is where I tend, both in value and literal physic, to prefer more of a Nietzschean stance. If human beings can't handle civilization than civilization will have to replace human beings. Set > Stygians.

Edited by RJMooreII, 25 June 2012 - 05:43 AM.

[Ironhand]

In REH's Conan stories, the "scientist" races always wander off into the wilderness, build miracuous isolated cities, and then degenerate and die out from their own corruption.

[RJMooreII]

In REH's Conan stories, the "scientist" races always wander off into the wilderness, build miracuous isolated cities, and then degenerate and die out from their own corruption.

Which might be reflective of how real civilizations decline due to human psychological frailties, but it's not necessary at all. People get fat and lazy and listless because we're built for living in jungles, if you built something differently it could be a thousand times stronger than a man and as ruthless as any Pict.

I've never thought much of the human race anyway, so I just don't jive with that aspect of Howard. I like Conan because he uses civilization but cares nothing for its arbitrary restrictions, but that kind of existentialist ubermensch doesn't need to be the product of luck and circumstance. Everyone could be like that, if they'd give up being apes.

I wonder what R.E. Howard would have thought of transhumanism, lol.

Edited by RJMooreII, 25 June 2012 - 05:50 AM.

[Gin-Wulf]

I don't think Howard's monsters were that weak. Most of the time Conan survived through a combination of his own great vitality, his not giving into unreasoning panic, and sheer luck. He was only able to defeat the Winged Ape because of the intervention of Belit's ghost. He defeated Khoestrel Kel the Devil in Iron, because he was lucky enough to find the enchanted knife. He defeated the ape in the dungeons of Belvarus in "Hour of the Dragon" because he was fortunate enough that Zenobia slipped him a decent dagger, and his natural vitality kept him from being torn apart. He had the presence of mind to rouse the pirates, to fight back against the giants in "Pool of the Black One". His lack of panic enabled him to acess the situation and come up with effective counter-measures. One could speculate that the above named creatures never had to face much resistance prior to Conan, and that may have put them off balance. Additionally, he wasn't interested in proving what a great fighter he was, he was more interested in surviving. With the dragon in "Red Nails", once he poisoned it with Derketo's apples, he got out of Dodge, he didn't hang around to try and collect a trophy. All in all, he was able to fight the monsters in his terms, not theirs.

this is my thoughts as well on the topic.
and thinking why gods didn't make a tank or war plane, i feel is because they had no idea to form them, building weapons to defeat your enemy is think is a rather human thing were as a god would just "poof" make you be gone, or blast your soul from your body.
even if an old one can see threw time and space to see a modern blackbird style plane, i wonder if they could just make one, from nothing,without knowing all the mechanics of it. not saying they aren't smart enough , but tech being alien thing to them, there powers being more primal and natural , so instead of a plane they would create a giant winged tentacle monster that could rip a plane or tank in half with out a thought.