Conan the Vicarious

Conan the Vicarious

By Dale E. Rippke

This essay originally appeared in REHUPA #195

Of all of the articles and essays written over the past fifty years about Robert E. Howard and his famous creation, Conan the Cimmerian, the most fascinating, yet frustrating, deal with the ephemeral idea; “What does it all mean?’ It is fascinating because it feels like it’s dancing on the edge of some great revelation, yet frustrating because there isn’t any way to prove it to everyone’s satisfaction. It’s always amounts to complete speculation since any actual answers died with Howard back in 1936.

From a personal perspective, I’ve always tried to avoid rationalizing what Howard’s writings meant and usually just stuck to discerning the patterns between facts and clues that makes the Conan saga coherent. I’m about to skew that approach and come at this based more on my impressions than on any provable facts. This is only my opinion, folks.

Arguments have been made in the past concerning the allegorical nature of the Conan stories; its overarching theme of civilization versus barbarism. Stating the allegory in those simple terms does it much injustice. Civilization versus barbarism is merely the hook that Howard hung his Conan tales on. The real allegory is collectivism versus individualism.

The Conan stories always presents civilized culture as being corruptible and in decline due to either the disparity between components of the culture (the power of haves over the have-nots) or because the security of the collective brings about a sort of ennui that attempts to fulfill its desires through decadence. Nearly every notable character that represents the civilized point of view outside of the Cimmerian and his small circle of acquaintances is corrupt in some way (The God in the Bowl and Rogues in the House are practically primers on corrupt behavior).

In contrast, the barbarous Conan is shown as being practically adamantine in his manner and interaction with the world. He is an individual, not a part of the collective, and doesn’t buy into civilization’s laws and bullshit. By definition, Conan is completely amoral and self-centered. He functions as a law unto himself and even though he preys on civilization wholesale, he doesn’t come across as especially evil, since his victims are essentially corrupt. This tends to color him as a bright ray of light in a very dark world.

Howard claims that he modeled his character after various men he knew; oilfield workers and the like. Each provided traits that made up the amalgam called Conan the Cimmerian. While this is a true statement on the face of it, the Conan character also contains elements that are pretty iconic, if not downright archetypical.

The biggest problem in making Conan a sympathetic character is that his motivations seldom come across as altruistic, and usually appear pretty self-centered. Howard needed to give the individualistic Conan a set of values that could supplant those of civilized behavior, yet not appear too amoral and self-serving. He tried to solve this by taking the model of the rugged individualist and moving it to its logical extreme. In my mind, Conan is based on the idea of the Alpha-male. The interesting thing to me is that it isn’t the human “top-dog” type of alpha-male, but one based on the way animals actually behave in nature. He exhibits several different traits that belong to the “alpha-male of a pack” model.

The most obvious trait is that Conan always attempts to rise to the leadership role of any group that he is a part of by direct conflict with the group’s current leader. We see excellent examples of this in his fights with Sergius of Khrosha in Iron Shadows in the Moon, and with Zaporavo in The Pool of the Black One. The best example of this trait occurs in A Witch Shall Be Born. Conan usurps the command of the Zuagir tribesmen from Olgerd Vladislav in a scene that conjures the best elements of being the alpha-male of a pack of animals, right down to Conan’s statement that “There’s no room for a fallen chief on the desert. If the warriors see you, maimed and deposed, they will never let you leave the camp alive.” The apex of this trait is, of course, Conan strangling King Namedides to take the throne of Aquilonia.

Another trait Conan exhibits is his absolute refusal to ever submit to another person’s will. The man, in the entire saga, never once surrenders to an antagonist. He always goes down swinging, even when it seems to be in his best interests not to. He may leave a fight by tactical withdrawal, but he never submits or surrenders. In nature this would be considered “baring your throat” and its something an alpha-male would never do. He’d rather die first.

A third trait concerns the alpha-male’s responsibility to protect the members of his “pack” from outside dangers. Anyone who accepts Conan’s leadership status becomes a member of his “pack” and he will protect them to the point of laying down his life for them. This trait is most obviously illustrated by how fiercely he protects his women satellites, but also shows in his refusal to abandon his beleaguered tribesmen in The People of the Black Circle, even though they are howling for his blood. It even manifests itself in The Hour of the Dragon when Conan recognizes his responsibility toward protecting “his subjects” from the depravations of the invading Nemedians. This is an important trait in viewing the Conan character; he isn’t the king of the nation of Aquilonia as much as the people of Aquilonia are members of his “pack”.

The final trait is in regards to how Conan relates to the women of his “pack”. In nature, the alpha-male has the right to mate with any female of his choosing that enjoys his protection. And we sort of see Howard broach this issue several times in the series. The most obvious example is Octavia in The Devil in Iron. Conan protects her from Khosatral Khel and afterwards considers her to be “his woman”. Even the fact that she was only playing at being enamored of him doesn’t really faze him much; he still expects to have sexual relations with her. A similar scene appears in The People of the Black Circle after Conan rescued the Devi Yasmina from the seers of Yimsha and returned her to his protection. They eventually realize that she is no longer useful as a hostage, so Conan decides to keep her as “his woman”, and states quite frankly that she doesn’t have any choice in the matter. Even The Vale of Lost Women alludes to this a bit when Conan realizes that Livia doesn’t want to play by “his” rules and so gallantly kicks her out of the country because of the rationalization that she isn’t “the proper woman for the war-chief of the Bamulas”.

Setting aside the various men that Howard modeled Conan on, as well as the iconic attributes of the character, the most debated aspect about Conan is whether he was an idealized version of Howard himself. This is an interesting notion with no clear-cut answers, but several parallels come to mind so I will examine them. Once again I will caution the reader that this is only speculation-based opinion.

First off, let me make the point that I feel that the character that Howard most invested himself into wasn’t Conan but Kull of Atlantis. There are several aspects of this character that parallel Howard’s life to a certain degree. Kull’s grappling with metaphysic and philosophic questions echo Howard’s fascinations with those subjects. Kull’s continual struggle with the straightjacket of Valusia’s tradition reflects Howard’s hatred of small-town prejudices and politics (the “get a haircut and a real job” variety).

By contrast, Conan is practically a cipher compared to Kull. There really isn’t any particular aspect of the Cimmerian’s personality that screams “Howard”! Bob’s investment with the Conan character seems to be of a more subtle and personal level; vicarious gratification.

One of the mysteries surrounding Howard concerned his obsession with “enemies”. None of his acquaintances seemed to feel that there was any real substance to his preoccupation. Novalyne Price stated that anyone who wasn’t Howard’s friend automatically fell into his “enemy” category. Apparently Howard felt that the world was filled with people who would either harm him or screw him over given half a chance.

With Conan, Howard was given an outlet for his feelings of betrayal and ideations of revenge. Conan settled his scores in bloodletting and the odd cesspool dunk. A corrupt nobleman denies that you are in his employ and he loses his head. A judge pressures you to besmirch your honor and is left with a cleft head. Conan never seems to forgive or forget a slight; everyone pays in the end. And Howard gets a bit of emotional gratification.

Living vicariously through a character sometimes appears to reflect subconscious yearnings on the part of the author. During the years that Howard was turning out his Conan tales he was also personally providing care for his increasingly invalid mother, who was succumbing to tuberculosis. This struggle was internally painted across the Hyborian landscape.

Since Howard apparently had little social interaction with members of the opposite sex until late in his life, the only actual model that he could use for Conan’s women was his that of his mother. The downside of that was that the women in the stories tended to suffer from Howard’s lack of social experience. For the most part, they come across as helpless satellites of the Cimmerian; someone that he needs to provide for, lest they die from their own inadequacies. And it is because of this that the plot-points concerning the various women in the Conan stories take on a veneer of wish fulfillment.

In real-life, Hester Howard was wasting away from a terminal disease and as much as Bob wished otherwise, he was helpless to prevent it. Compare this to Conan’s female companions in the series. In nearly every story, the woman is personally threatened with physical and emotional annihilation from an implacable, monstrous enemy and it is up to Conan to save her from it, often fighting to the utmost limits of his endurance in order to defeat it. With every story, Bob Howard vicariously fights to successfully save his mother from her inevitable meeting with the grim reaper. It’s all right there.

During the latter part of the three years that Howard spent writing about Conan, he had a relationship with a young teacher/aspiring writer named Novalyne Price. Their close connection ended due to their differing personalities and Howard’s inability to commit to her. At the time of the writing of Howard’s last Conan tale, Red Nails, the duo had ceased dating, but were still sporadically making an effort to determine the nature of their relationship.

Unlike most of his women, the character of Valeria in Red Nails is a superbly realized character. I truly believe that she was inspired by Novalyne. There are several interesting parallels between the two. Valeria is feisty, opinionated, and independent; all traits shared by Novalyne. Novalyne was an aspiring writer while Bob was successfully making a living at it. Conan and Valeria also share a similar vocation; he’s a successful pirate captain while she’s having trouble being taken seriously as a buccaneer.

The lack of a sexual relationship between the two Texans is addressed by Howard in the story. Conan wants a sexual pairing while Valeria rejects it out of hand. It is interesting to me that the story makes several subtextual allusions to lesbianism on Valeria’s part, leaving the impression that the duo’s failure to hook up is entirely her fault. Perhaps Howard thought the breakup in their relationship was Novalyne’s fault in some way, but I’m reasonably sure that she wasn’t gay (although to be fair, I have heard men use that excuse as a rationalization before).

To me, the most fascinating part of Howard vicariously reliving his relationship with Novalyne in print is how the story ends. Howard falls back into his cliché of putting Valeria in danger and having Conan appear to rescue her. But this time, despite his great efforts, Conan appears to fail in his effort and Howard lets Valeria kill Tascela, in effect rescuing herself and saving Conan. It makes me feel that on a subconscious level Howard really believed that Novalyne could save him. The story ends with the two as a promising pair; equal partners setting out to plunder the world.

If only reality could be so neat…

10/15/05 09:40 AM