Historical Art and Symbolism inspiration in CONAN

I am not all too familiar with bronze Chinese armor & weapons, but the style of the Atlantean helm certainly did look rather Ancient Chinese or such.



The style of the hilt and guard also reminded me of certain Chinese swords.



Here's some more chinese sword styles that I came across:

Always thought it interesting why Conan is doing this odd pose for no apparent reason:



Hercules and the Hydra (Pollaiuolo)



Conan is also often referred to as the "Lion of Cimmeria", and in the movie, his Kingly symbolism is the lion:



^This a Chinese/Japanese weapon btw.

Here's some more on those Dionynsos/Jesus/Thulsa Doom connections I could gather up:

*We should note that Thulsa Doom used both a Lion and Leopard in the movie. The lion was supposed to be seen during the Tower of the Serpent scene(killed or bypassed by Conan), and leopard of course is seen in the orgy chamber(was to have been killed by Brak/Rexor).



The Leopard and Lion

All wild animals are connected to Dionysos, but none more so than the lion or Leopard The supple, feline elegance of its body, the ferocious and easily provoked temper, the boundless appetite, and uncanny intelligence of the creature make it uniquely and inevitably linked to the Dionysiac sphere - and indeed, the wild cat is frequently depicted in the company of the wild God.





Here's an interesting piece:

Dionysus and Jesus and the Simultaneous Cosmic Destruction-Creation

Quote :

Dionysus, accompanied by his army of bacchic revellers, was accredited as the universal distributor of his own worship and the knowledge of the vine. Like Noah, he was the inventor of wine, and like Soma, he himself was the ambrosial drink poured out, everywhere releasing mankind from suffering. Below, in one of many magnificent mosaics from the House of Masks in Delos, a youthful Dionysus (He was originally depicted as a bearded man, often carrying a wine cup. From the 5th Century B.C onwards he primarily took the form of an effeminate youth.) rides on the back of a leopard (The Solar Beast), holding up a tambourine, deliberately at an angle, identifying it with the new moon of rebirth.

Some more random images of the god and animal symbolism:

Please keep posting Cromulus, I realliy like this (great) thread.

Cromulus The Destroyer wrote:

Always thought it interesting why Conan is doing this odd pose for no apparent reason:

It's a posture of Iaido - there are two modern katana fencing techniques, Iaido and Kendo, both of them are a derivation from the primitive Kenjutsu that comes from medieval times -. Kendo has very concrete postures, called Kamae. Actually there are 5 with some variants. Iaido by change, shares those 5 postures but is much more fluid and instinctive, with a high level of improvisation. You start with the sword inside the scabbard, and the movement of taking it out is actually an attack. The example is on thousand of movies about samurais. They allways wait until the last moment with the sword inside the scabbard.

In Iaido you actually use your hands and arms as a support for the katana, reinforcing the concentration and the visual perspective. This way you know where exactly is your weapon pointing at. You become more effective in your attack.

The weapon is actually seen as an extended part of your own body.

yes on the surface it appears like some kendo move, but it always looks like Conan is reaching out and is grabbing a neck.

Here's some more:




This Perseus and Andromeda reminds me of when Conan takes the princess down the stairs at the end of the film:

This statue of Menelaus holding up the body of Petroclus, is reminiscent of Conan and Valeria, the part when she dies while he's holding her in his arms, and then he looks towards Thulsa Doom's Mountain of Power:



Another image of Perseus holding up the severed head:

VISIONS FROM HELL - (for a beauty bourgeois Christmas Day )


soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY5KJdWpj2Y


LYRICS FROM "THE KITCHEN / THE ORGY":

Alum dare id Hephaestus, id ire fundi (Give him food to Vulcan, Go deep to him)
fati virum, omni brachium (to the oracle responsible of everything)
pulchris profundis, infernarum servi fati (to the beautiful deep hell of the servant of fate)
Impoteo Infernarum (Stinking Hell)
’ooo’ pulchris infernarum profundis (to the beautiful deep hell)
Impoteo, impoteo fati (Stinking, Stinking fate)

Impoteo Infernarum (Stinking hell)
alum dare, orire, id Hephaestus, id ire, (Give food, Born, Go to him, to Vulcan)
pro profundis fati, (trought the deep fate)
pro pulchris infernarum profundis (trought the beautiful deep hell)
pro pulchris omni fati brachium (throught the beautiful responsible of all fate)
pulchris profundis infernarum servi fati (beautifull deep hell of servants of fate)
profundis, profundis fati (to the deep deep fate)
alum dare, orire id Hephaestus, id ire (Give food, Born, Go to him, to Vulcan)
pro profundis fati. (trought the deep fate)



A god of fire and metalworking. Hephaestus (Vulcan in Rome) was known to the Romans as the fire-god, Vulcan, as well as Mulciber (Gentle Touch).

Some say that Hephaestus was son of Zeus and Hera, but a more popular myth says that he was the son of Hera alone. When Zeus gave birth to Athena without a mother, Hera was jealous and decided to give birth to a child without a father.

As the metal-smith of the gods, he made many pieces of armour and weapons for the gods as well as building their beautiful palaces in Olympus. He also made armour for mortal heroes as Achilles.

Hephaestus was quite ugly; he was crippled and misshapen at birth (though some believe it was a result of his fall): in the vase-paintings, his feet are sometimes back-to-front. In art, Hephaestus was shown lame and bent over his anvil. He walked with the aid of a stick. Another Homeric version of Hephaestus's myth has that Hera, mortified to have brought forth such grotesque offspring, promptly threw him from Mount Olympus. He fell many days and nights and landed in the ocean. (Hephaestus’s physical appearance indicates arsenicosis, low levels of arsenic poisoning, resulting in lameness and skin cancers. Arsenic was added to bronze to harden it and most smiths of the Bronze Age would have suffered from chronic workplace poisoning.)






The underworld is a place associated with Hell, demonized after the arrival of christianism and described as a place of eternal suffering and pain. But there was also a place for carnal pleasures, as we can see in the orgy of the movie. Cannibalism, zoophilia and all kind of grotesque aberrations could be enjoyed by the usual burgueous without any fear of being punished by laws or any other fantasy of morality.


The Trolls were usually associated with the Underworld, as they lived in caverns and feared the light of the sun. (Have you ever watched a movie called "The Descent").






Trolls, associated in the Milius movie with Neaderthals, share a similar bone structure with these ancient human beings.


Troll head.




Fossilized neanderthal skull.




Trolls are described as hairy humanoids, with ugly and sisgusting manners and sadisctic desires.









Linking the tale of Valeria with the Trolls myth of Subotai, the Trolls feared the light of the sun because they became into stone when touched by it.





Trolls with a cauldron - with human flesh, presumably.






Now we find a picture of the movie that is closely related with tons of canibalism imagery from previous centuries.

















These anthopophagous imagery was associated to savage cultures, as the civilized european dreamed them.
















Now we find the cauldron. A typical image associated with the underworld sinze celtic times -maybe even older-.

















And as a thought, I think there could be a link between the charismatic and retard cannibal Leatherface and the Leatherfaced cannibals from the Orgy Chamber of Doom. Maybe it's me, or they both like to hide his ugly ass-like face behind masks made with human skin?








This is Goya, a spanish painter from the XVIII-XIX century. The artwork is called "Saturn devouring his son".





how many of you are still afraid of embracing Emptiness?

Yes, Ape-men have been used extensively by recent fantasy writers, like HG Wells or Burroughs. Examples are Mahars(they are Evil Reptoid super race) who control and use the Sagoths to do their dirty work, whom are a race of gorilla-men who speak the same language as Tarzan's apes. They are seen in "AT THE EARTH'S CORE". HG Wells used the Morlocks, as seen in "THE TIME MACHINE".

For reasons unknown, Milius seemed to have dropped the Neanderthal idea, and just inserted regular men with leather mask's that dont look like human faces, but rather like S&M leather masks(which fit the scene for a modern audience,lol). The supposed Neanderthal's in the movie just look like wild inbred savages that lived in the cave. In the 13th Warrior, instead of Neanderthals, they too look like inbred American Indians.

The mythic shared associations with Conan and Thulsa Doom is always recurrent throughout the movie.

Vulcan is said to have resided in in Mt. Etna, but a pre-Roman or even Greek version, was already present. He was called Adranus. Some writer's linked this diety to Adramelech a sun god of Sumaria, or even Baal. This diety was put into Christian Demonology, where supposedly , "The enemy of God, greater in ambition, guile and mischief than Satan. A fiend more curst — a deeper hypocrite."

But the reality is, it goes back to Typhon:



After the war with the Titan's, Typhon(a monstrous version of Hephaestus) was cast under Mount Etna. He basically just a Chthonic configuration of volcanic forces.

*Surely none of this is coincidence, and Cobb didnt pull these things out've his own mind, nor did Howard. Cobb never really explained how or where he got these images, I think he left a remark that he invented them, and his cult of Set symbol was close to one of Howard's descriptions(lol). But to Cobb's credit, he did state that he borrowed and mixed a lotve of Greek, Roman, Persian, Aztec & Egyptian stuff. However it wasnt sloppy it was very well deliberately articulated, so obviously a lotve thought and meaning went into this movie than is mentioned by either Cobb or Milius.

Cobb also used the Triangle symbolism here:



Its another important symbol from the Ancient world and in the Occult.

Quote :

The triangle is one of the most easily recognized religious symbols in the West, most commonly associated with the Christian trinity or Freemasonry. The triangle is the simplest geometric shape, and also the first purely theological symbol. To the ancient pythagoreans, the triangle was, as the first complete polygon, the womb of number and the essence of stability.

Quote :

The upward moving triangle is sometimes called the blade (the chalice and blade figure ceremonially in many ritual magic operations). It is a symbol of aspiration or rising up, male force, and fire. It is purely phallic in origin. The triangle represents aspiration, rising forcem and the male principal.

Quote :

The downward pointing triangle is sometimes referred to as the chalice. It is the symbol of water (as it flows downward), the grace of heaven, and the womb. it is one of the most ancient symbols of female divinity, as a representation of the genitalia of the goddess.

Crescent symbol was used also by Thulsa Doom as well. It was a symbol made famous by the Roman calvary legions

Quote :

The Crescent -represents the powers of the moon- reflective and receptive. (An example of this symbol taken to its highest symbolic meaning would be the Holy Grail) A reversed crescent often represents emptiness and illusion.

http://altreligion.about.com/library/weekly/aa062003a.htm

*Interestingly enough, I remember Cobb mentioning in a magazine how he originally wanted two interconnecting triangles for Conan and/or the Cimmerians, but he said his design looked too close to Ming's symbol from the "FLASH GORDON" movie.



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Roman Calvary, also often wore face mask's and carried the Dragon standard:




Here is the real Lucius Artorius Castus wearing the unique Dragon/Serpent helmet. This carving was found in his ancestral home in Campania, Italy. (which incidentally is were the real historiical Aquilonia is located)


He is famous for leading a mixed Roman and Sarmatian Auxiliary Legion in Amorica(Britain), where he wiped out a huge uprising of Picts near Hadrian's Wall. He's also one part of the inspiration for the legendary King Arthur figure.

I nearly have no clue as to why a Norseman is using a Roman Standard:



I assume Milius fancied King Osric as some kinda lost Varangian Guardsman that served in the Eastern Roman Empire that now took a throne of some oriental kingdom, or alternatively some Kievian Rus king.

Here's some images of the Roman Standards:






Crescent again;

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The Roman's also used wooden fence called a "Palisade". From the Latin words palos (literally “stake”) or palorum referred to a stake, prop, stay, or pale sharpened at one end and stuck in the ground .

Quote :

A fort would be set up with a large ditch around the outer edge. Dirt from the ditch was used to build a rampart. On the top of the rampart, a wooden wall would be built. If the Romans planned to make the fort permanent, a stone wall would be built to replace the wood. The gates would have guard towers on both sides. The Romans also dug deep holes and put in sharpened wooden stakes. They also would put sharp branches and timbers in a shallow ditch to make it difficult for infantry to approach the walls.

http://www.historylink102.com/Rome/roman-army-forts.htm

http://www.thearma.org/essays/pell/pellhistory.htm


This method of warfare was reintroduced in the Middle Ages.



Milius' battle of the Mounds:

Cromulus The Destroyer wrote:

Interestingly enough, I remember Cobb mentioning in a magazine how he originally wanted two interconnecting triangles for Conan and/or the Cimmerians.

That would be the April 82 Cinefantastique issue (and the symbol was for Crom):

COBB: "I also tried to work out a symbol for Crom [the god of the Cimmerians], two interlocking triangles, but I had to change my first design because it was almost identical to the sign of Ming from FLASH GORDON. The symbol is still on the sword. We now have a simpler symbol for Crom."

The final version of the symbol can be seen engraved on the blade of the Father's sword, right after the word "Crom":



The same symbol is also on the elk's head:

https://2img.net/r/ihimizer/img141/5404/epedupereae9mb8.jpg

That is exactly what the Father is sculpting during the opening credits:



The Crom symbol can also be spotted here and there in William Stout's unfinished storyboards:

on Young Conan's belt buckle


on a Cimmerian hut


also on Conan's father shield...

Here's the Freemason Symbol:


US $1 bill(For a thousand years I have watched you,lol)


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Thulsa Doom and Vlad the Impaler(ie Dracula):


(really only shot we know that Doom staked people)
Staked Cimmerians


Staked victims from the Mounds(novel and comic book)

Quote :

"This ornament features a turquoise mosaic on a carved wooden base, with red and white shells used for the mouths. Probably worn across the chest, this ornament measures 20 cm by 43 cm (8 in by 17 in). It was likely created by Mixtec artisans from an Aztec tributary state. 1400-1521, from the British Museum."

http://www.answers.com/topic/aztec

Here's a reproduction of an original:


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Caduceus, the symbol of medicine today. The staff of Asclepius, the Greek god of healing, had one serpent entwine his staff. His daughters included Hygeia, the goddess of health and Panacea, the goddess of healing.



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Here's an interesting Islamic piece I came across



http://www.sonic.net/~tallen/palmtree/ayyarch/ch5.htm
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You guys should also check out this Greco-Roman Alexandrian Egyptian Catacombs named, The Catacombs of Kom el-Shuqafa, or the "Mound of Shards."


http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/komelshuqafa2.htm

Found this same style coiled Serpent on Roman coins, its also used by modern day Gnostic's:

I've been reading some shit lately, and I founded some interesting things about the "Primitive Man", a very symbolic image of the masculine unconcious. It is depicted as a Troll, or a Neanderthal -tall, hairy, brute but deeply intelligent-. It is closely related with the character of the Yeti or the Bigfoot.

Is described as a man with "a Will of Iron".

This "Primitive Man" is the instictive side of the men. It's not the machism -the part that wants to posses, and conquer-, and it's not the sensitive "femenine" side that we all men also have. No, it's a third part that is has been very underrated by our culture.

The example is the way the Neanderthal men are seen today: "retards, cruel, disgusting gorillas".


The "Primitive Man" is apparently the part of men where real strength lies. We are trying to find the "Secret of Steel" everywhere: in the woman we love, in teachers, in God, wahtever. But as Thulsa Doom founded, that Secret is not in weapons or masters, is inside ourselves.

I can see more of the machism in Thulsa Doom than in Conan. Doom is the one who wants to posses things, and persons, and conquer the world -even though he sells himself as a "saviour"-. Meanwhile Conan is far more instinctive and moves by passions like survival -when he is a gladiator- or desire of revenge.

Even though Conan as Arnold is not too "neanderthal-like", it's clear he is a primitive man in essence. Has long hair and wear leather clothes -when not wolf skins-.


Another interesting description of the "primitive man" was associated with Greek myths, and is in Apollo. (It's interesting that we actually talked about this in previous posts, Cromulus). Apparently, Apollo was depicted as a Gold Man who is standing over the top of a mountain of dark and eerie energy called Dionisus. He feeds from that energy, and is strong because of it.

Somehow i thought about this image:






There are also some diferences between "savage" and "primitive man", what made me think about the conflict in Howardian tales about "savage vs civilized men".

Apparently, "savage man" and "primitive man" is not the same.

"Savage" is more like an old civilized man who has been hurted by his own civilization, so he comes back to the primitive in order to fight against the civilization. He is moved by hate and cruelty, and in nature he is still a civilized man, because he never really was born in the nature.

"Primitive Man" by change was born in nature and is not driven by cruelty, even though he could smash your brains with one hand.

I think lot of Howardian characters are more related to the "Savage Man" than to the "Primitive Man", and I think Howard could be called himself a "savage", a man hurted by his own civilization and culture, who turned himself into an outsider. A lot of his characters share this soul and his hate for the civilization.

The real "Primitive Man" is the true man in his deeper state.

Meanwhile REH's characters can't tolerate civilization, and are allways fighting against it, the true "Primitive Man" has no real conflict with civilization. It's not his home, but it doesn't mean he can't live there. He does NOT want to destroy it. And he does NOT want to conquer it, either.


I remember you made a very goo interpretation in some old post, Cromulus, about how REH changed the character of Conan from being a wanderer, more close to the real "Primitive Man", and then he turned out into the ruler of the first nation of the world. You said, if i remember right, that you think that was Howard's ambition and betrayed somehow the true spirit of Conan. I think that could be true. I prefer the Conan in the movie, where he refuses to become king with Yasmela, and goes away trying to find his own destiny.

We must remember that Conan in the first movie is driven by a very deep search of himself.

In psychological terms, he is looking for his own father energy, metaforically symbiolized by his father's sword.

But when he finally gets the sword, it is broken. (HE, himself, breaks it! So, he is stronger than his own father steel!)

So, he finds the Secret is not in the tool, but in his own arm. Remembering who his real father is, he finds strenght enough to decapitate his "false father" with a broken sword.

Anyway, Doom plays a very important role in the way of Conan, as he teaches him the intellectual answer to the Riddle of Steel. I mean, maybe Conan already knew what the asnwer was, but Doom gives him the words. I think that is important, and somehow Doom is a teacher for Conan.

He also gave him "the gift of Fury", a gift of pain and sadness that later becomes into incredible strength.

That is why Doom say "I made you as you are". Well, he is right in some way, but he is not his real father. That is the lie.

Conan won't find his strenght in Doom. He will find his strength in his real father, as he felt with the vision of the broken sword. That strenght he felt was the strenght of the "Primitive Man".



Now this is a very hard topic to talk about, at least for me, as I am only an amaterur in psychology and it's mostly because i'm a method actor so I need to know some psychological terms to work, but the "search for the father's energy" is apparently a very common topic in ancient myths.

The "Primitive Man" shares the same energy that our fathers had when they created us -when they got our mothers pregnant-.

In the actual world, this search for the "father's energy" is forgotten. In primitive cultures, the young boys had a ritual of manhood, where they were took by the ancient men of the tribe, and they touched him "what to be a man is". For example, in African cultures, they took the boy away from his mother for weeks, even months. The boy was left without food for a long time. Then, in a ritual they took a knife, and they all cut their arms, and put the blood of all of them in bowl.

Then the boy drank that blood.

So he learned two very important things: one, a knife is not only a weapon, is a tool and can be used for several things like being generous.

Two, the food not only comes from the mother. The males can also give food.


In ancient Greece, the males who teached this to the boys where priest of Dionisos.

Thulsa Doom is a false Dionissian priest, who says that he will teach people, but what he really wants is to eat them. He is a "false father".

Cromulus The Destroyer wrote:

In the 13th Warrior, instead of Neanderthals, they too look like inbred American Indians.

Yep, it's true. In the 13th warrior they are not exactly neanderthals as they painted the walls of the cave. Cave painting belongs only to Homo Sapiens, but it's unknown if some other human species like the Neanderthals could have had some other kind of art, that was made for the specific moment and was not preserved: like singing, dancing, acting... I believe they had.

What we have to take into consideration is that the problem with Howard, was of course that he was odd character, compiled with his own personal feelings about certain ethnicities/races/racism and no doubt the type of audience he was writing too.

Lovecraft was a notorious racist, mainly out've xenophobia and nativism, who hated immigration, so he disliked Italians, Spanish, Greeks, Russians, Jews ect..in fact I read somewhere that much to his own dismay, he found out he may of had some "Celtic" ancestry. Lovecraft was a typical Anglo-Saxon(ie English) supremacists, they didnt even like Scottish or Irish people very often too. Though Lovecraft wound up marrying Ukrainian Jewish woman..so go figure.

Howard himself always liked throwing out anti-Latin remarks, possibly to sound hip, or make himself sound like he was a rogue, as the anti-establishment or like a backwater out law type from the Wild West as he fancied himself. Rome also represented Law, Order, Civilization, Colonialism, Slavery, Military Power and even Catholicism/Christianity. The USA, Britain and even Nazi's modeled themselves on the Roman Empire and the whole Colonial thing, its often nice to be anti-Roman, if your attempting to be Anti-Government or even some folk hero writer.

Interestingly the Roman General Agricola also used some Irish allies in his conquest of Britain, a man named Tuathal Teachtmhar, a legendary High King of Ireland(Hibernia).


But Howard often boasted of his supposed Gaelic/Celtic(Irish) idealism, despite that fact he(as well as Lovecraft) culled through and rehashed mostly everything he(they) could from ancient Greece, Italy, Philistine as well as Babylonia, Sumeria, Persia and even some Meso-American lore as well as some Norse. They liked putting a Northern spin on things, by inserting the cliche indomitable Northern European or North Western European as the hero and victor over the lower races. In the end CONAN was Civilized and "Latinized", in fact its Conan's first appearance as an essentially Romanized Barbarian King.

In my own opinion about Howard, was that he was full of shit, I never bought into his views, but thats not to say I didnt like reading some of his stories, which I did.

At the time, the "Noble Savage was very popular in the "intellectual" circles of the late 18th-early 20th century in both parts of Europe and USA. Mainly because of the works of the Roman author Tacitus were being widely distributed, as he wrote his (mixed positive and negative)views on the Barbarian tribes, mainly the Germanics. So this would later go into the construction of Aryanism, Nordicism and eventually early Nazism along with various ethno-Nationalist ideas .

Howard himself played with Aryanism of course. As he was more a Celtist and not as blatant with his own brand of racism which seemed to be more loose, mental and culture based, while Lovecraft was totally infatuated with the physical "Nordic-Teutonic Aryan" types and more vocal(in his early years, later on his views changed somewhat).

*Howard had mixed & contradictory feelings about the Picts too for example. In his Pre-Hyborian Age incarnation, the Picts were like his typical portrayal of Celtic warriors, smart, brave, fearless ect, while his Hyborian Age incarnations they were blood enemies to his Cimmerians(ie Irish Celts) and completely Apish, and written up like Amerindian savages.

Historical Cimmerians are believed to be Thracians(modern day Romania), or a hyrbid mix of Thracian and Scythian from around the modern day Crimea. Scythians were an Iranian people, a far cry and far away for the Irish. But many British Celticists liked linking themselves to the Scythians and Cimmerians(hence Howard's fascination/creation).

( My bet is that you'll find that Howard based his CONAN and even Proto-Conan's on, one or more of these semi-flat out mythical or even semi-Historical "Conan" characters from history and mythology:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan


Howard also loved mixing up bits of pieces of various cultures, peoples and nations(Past or modern). He had the Middle Ages with Classical and Pre-Classical ancient Europe and Asia. He has Pointain(Pointiers, France) placed in a semi- Middle Ages France which he dubs, "Aquilonia", which is like a mix of the Kingdom of Aquintania and the Roman Italy/ Empire.

Sometimes this works, other times it doesn't. Its the same problem with the Conan movie, as both Howard's and Milius picture is more like alternate Earth world than straight up fantasy version of Pre-history.

*HG Wells was also into Aryanism and wrote about it as well.

Frederick Nietzche praised the Romans, and wasnt anti-Civilization at all, complete opposite of the glory of Barbarism which supposedly appealed to Howard or even Milius. Much of his work was corrupted by his Nazi Party sympathizing sister, who bastardized his works to appeal to German Racial-Nationalism at the time. Though its obvious Milius has a fondness for Rome too, perhaps more than his "Viking" love which he always talked about. His Conan is more like some kinda mix of Gothic-Hunnic(german?) with elements of greco-Roman heroes.

The dark Vanir warriors also serve as some kinda quasi reference to Romanized barbarians, with their use of the Rottweiler dogs(whom where bred by the Romans) and Gladiatorial Arenas, with the Thulsa Doom character being the Roman warlord..though his Teutonic Christian knight references to "Alexander Nevsky is still present, with Conan being the Tartar-Russian rather than German-Teuton.

*Of course the "Ben-Hur" inspirations and elements are present during the Column of Sadness/Wheel of Pain sequences.

Milius seemed to have deliberately wanted to make Thulsa Doom not as cardboard cut-out but rather multidimensional/Multifaceted . In one of the magazines he talks about this. This both duel father/teacher figure and Evil Tyant killer characteristics of Doom, seems to be a recurring theme in Milius mind. I remember an interview, where Milius talks about writing and Directing a Star Wars prequel. He wanted Anakin to be like Julius Caesar, and wanted a Gaius Marius teacher figure as either the Sith Lord or Ben Kenobi( I forget which). Also the character of Gaius Metalus from his CONAN III movie, was also another father/teacher figure as he was the main villain.




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In the 13th Warrior, they should just made them Lapps or Sami folk, whom are like the Amerindians of Northern and North Eastern Europe, they're a semi-Mongoloid people that have lived their for many thousands of years.

*In the movie the 13th Warrior, the Neanderthals or mutants or whatever they are supposed to be, were using the Neolithic Venus statue, and riding on horses and lookign way to much like the American Wild West Indians. I have no idea, as these things are certainly not associated with Neanderthals, Sami's, and even Native American Indians(horses were introduced by Europeans). The Neolithic, is believed to be the time of the introduction of farming and Civilization along with the Indo-European speech.

PS

Flaming Turd wrote:

Yep, it's true. In the 13th warrior they are not exactly neanderthals as they painted the walls of the cave. Cave painting belongs only to Homo Sapiens, but it's unknown if some other human species like the Neanderthals could have had some other kind of art, that was made for the specific moment and was not preserved: like singing, dancing, acting... I believe they had.

Yes, your right Turd about the wall paintings. Those are only associated with Cromagnons(early Homo-sapiens whom co-existed alongside the Neanderhtals in Europe and Asia and out lived them).

One also gets the impression that rather than Neanderthals in the movie they were some kinda Cromagnons, whom are popularly erroneously conflated with Neanderthals..even Anthropology often fucked up with them too. Some also liked thinking that Cromagnons looked like Amerindians,lol. Another misconception about the Cromagnons, was that they rode horses, they didnt, they ate them..they were very large consumers of horse meat.

So in this fair regard, I can understand the anachronism of the movie & Hollywood..and even the author and or director( or writer). One can never expect Hollyweird to ever get history right--sadly even when many in academia make moronic mistakes as well:mrgreen:

Anyway he's some of the images and versions of so-called Neolithic Venus Statues(found all over Europe):

The Greek hero and demi-god, Cadmus. He slayed a Serpentine dragon. Famous for the story of sowing the Dragon's teeth into the earth and giving rise to the Spartan's.

He was also the grandfather of the god, Dionysus.




Jason and the Golden Fleece:

Again the Teutonic Knights..represented by the "Grandmasters" of the Order, Rexor and Thulsa Doom:





The Soviet Propaganda movie, "Alexander Nevsky", the Grandmaster:



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Near Eastern art:

Sumerian Snake-headed goddess-statue. Itsrather reminiscent of Thulsa Doom's transformation as seen in the Orgy Chamber:


Thulsa Doom:


*I am also reminded of Queen Taramis from Oliver Stones(and John Milius' ?) script:

Quote :

Yasmina glances at a mirror and, to her horror, it reveals Taramis' inhuman snake head and form. [4] Yasmina reaches for her dagger, but Taramis grabs her hand, and then makes Yasmina look at her hand, and the dagger turns into a snake that coils around her wrist.

Gudea(Mesopotamia)-base relief

Back to Howard and Lovecraft fascination toward celtic culture and religion : let's not forget the wave of occultism that came from the 19th century up to our days, with the revival of druid stuff and famous magician figures like Aleister Crowley ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley ). Occultism was also a construction in opposition to our completely modernized and overscientist world and to christian society. HPL and REH works are seen by some scholars partly like heirs of 19th century occultism.

No, actually Nietzsche was not anti-civilization, but anything that he believed was anti-life. That means every stablished idea that could not be changed by actual circunstances, and forced humanity "to be" in a certain way all the time. He believed in contradiction as a right. In fact, he said contradictory things depending of the moment.

But actually the Conan of REH is not exactly a Nietzschean superhuman, as it was described by Nietzsche as a man "without a ruler, and is not the ruler of any man". When Conan becomes the ruler of the first nation of the world, then we have no nietzschean superhuman anymore.

The actual true literary superhuman I know is Buck, the dog.





The concept of the "Noble savage" was also used by Jack London, who REH admired so much (and in my humble opinion, a much better and mature writter than Howard). One of his books was an all time favourite of mine: "The call of the wild" wrotte by 1930. I also love "White fang" but the first one worked even better for me. It's the tale of Buck, a great family dog that is kidnapped and forced to fight as a "gladiator" . He scapes and soon he becomes the ruler of a dog sled, to finally join a wild wolfs pack. It's a very simple tale about survival, without complicated and too abstract words. But its simplicity is so powerful and full of poetry that I don't get tired of read it from time to time. (There was a nice movie with Rutger Hauer as the master of Buck).


"Steppenwolf" by Herman Hesse is another novel about a man who desires to become a nietzschean superhuman, but is allways tortured because he feels that his will is not strong enough, and he allways sucumbs to his dark desires. He doesn't fit in the bourgueous civilization, but he can't live without it.



There was a movie were the "Steppenwolf" was played by the King Osric himself. But I actually haven't watched it, as I was told is not a very good one.

I think this novel is superb as the description of how Nietzsche's dream of the superman is actually an uthopy that can't be conquered, as Nietzsche himself was so far away of being a true superhuman. He was weak and ill, and all that real weakness was transformed into the dream about his superhuman.

Some phylosopher said about Nietzsche that his problem was that "he didn't wanted to be a teacher, he wanted to be a superhero".


The "Primitive Man" I was talking about in the previous post is not that romantic "Noble Savage", it's not the same. And actually is not either a "Nietzschean superhuman".

The "Primitive Man" is an archetype of the psyche.

Quote :

"Archetypes have been present in mythology and literature for thousands of years and appear to be present in prehistoric artwork. The value in using archetypal characters in fiction derives from the fact that a large group of people are able to unconsciously recognize the archetype, and thus the motivations, behind the character's behavior".

The concept of psychological archetypes was advanced by the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, c. 1919. In In Jung's psychological framework archetypes are innate, universal prototypes for ideas and may be used to interpret observations.

Jung outlined four main archetypes:

• The Self, the regulating center of the psyche and facilitator of individuation
  
• The Shadow, the opposite of the ego image, often containing qualities that the ego does not identify with but possesses nonetheless
  
• The Anima, the feminine image in a man's psyche
  
• The Animus, the masculine image in a woman's psyche
  

Although the number of archetypes is limitless, there are a few particularly notable, recurring archetypal images:

• The Syzygy
  
• The Child
  
• The Hero
  
• The Great Mother
  
• The Wise old man
  
• The Trickster or Ape
  
• The Puer Aeternus (Latin for "eternal boy")
  
• The Cosmic Man
  
• The artist-scientist
  

It's amazing how all these archetypes are presented in the humans psyche since prehistoric times, see the example of the Great Mother that you posted earlier:





(By the way, the venus, the fat nude woman, is from the paleolithic. But the cult of the Great Mother continued in the Neolithic and was also presented in the Iron Age and so. Even the romans had some incarnations of the Great Mother. It is believed to be the oldest cult in the history, and... surprise! It's related with the cult of the snakes -specially in Meso-America).

It was believed -apparently- that the Earth itself was a living female creature and the caves were paths to her womb. The use of blood and brown colours in the cave paintings could be associated with that idea, and the holiest places in the deeper parts of prehistoric caves are full of symbols of genitalia, masculine and femenine, related to the idea of fecundation.




That is a Neolithic european sculpture of the Great Mother. And below there's an oureboros, reptilian Thulsa Doom-like figure that is related to the Great Mother cult.




I remember in the movie "Excalibur" that Merlin talked about the energy of the Great Mother Earth as "The Dragon". And it was an energy that could be positive and negative, depending of the use.

After Christianism "The Dragon" was changed into the energy of Satan, a masculine entity, and losed all the positive side becoming just evil.


Even though Cristianism reduced the archeype of the Great Mother to an inferior place, actually no one can deny the power this image has today. The Virgin Mary is actually venered with high intensity in the country side, at least here in Spain, specially in towns with agricultural activities. That veneration has its roots in the neolithic.




The archetypes are presented in almost every culture, in its mythology. Comparing mythos from different parts of the world is very interesting as you finally start to see similarities that makes you think we as humans are not so different in our insides. These amazing similarities makes a lot of people believe the ancient cultures should have had some kind of connection, or even were "teached" by aliens. In my opinion that belief is crap and I personally hate all that kind of pseudo-mongoloid sci-fiction that a lot of people likes to take as possible.

Some have said that similarities in old cultures may simply come from common situations : fighting the elements, acknowledgment of women giving birth, finding food and hunting, etc. (I think for example about Leroy Gourhan who explains the possibility of melting the snake and the eagle to create a dragon, and many other things).
One very interesting question is to decide when can we consider that man has lived in society. Because ethlogists found that many animals have society sometimes in very complicated ways.

Chrysagon wrote:

One very interesting question is to decide when can we consider that man has lived in society. Because ethlogists found that many animals have society sometimes in very complicated ways.

Well, that is true. See the wolves, or apes. They have codes and rules, and every member of the pack has a place.

It's the same even in some insects.

The diference is that the rules and manners in these animals "tribes" are unconcious, they are written in their genetic code before they are born, meanwhile we must learn the codes and rules intellectually after being born, with the culture.

So, the first time that a mother or a father told a story to his child, using that tale -or song- to teach him "what is right and what is wrong", that's the first root of a culture. Later, the child as a father would tell the tale to his son, and so on and on and on.

Later that tale would be written -or painted- so we actually can say objetively that there was a culture there... Happens with the Cromagnons, the first culture that we have noticed, but it's very possible that older human species would have had oral storytellers, or singers, as a way to remember the tribe what the codes and the rules are.

Art (or culture) also could have been created as a joyful way to spend the cold cold nights. There's a teaching side in culture, but there's an entertaining part too, and that is related to a high level of intelligence. As more intelligent the animal is, more impractical things he would do -just for the pleasure of doing it-. For example, dolphins, they play a lot and make tons of unnecesary jumps and things, only because they feel pleasure.

I don't agree with everything written here and don't have enough time right now to adress all points made. A lot of interestings things though, and very meaningfuls posts. But some misconceptions too.

The "Noble Savage": REH wasn't "Rousseauist". J.J. Rousseau (who didn't coined the term "NS") believed that humanity in his primal sate was pure of sin. REH didn't. He portrays dark barbarians, not unspoilt do-gooders.

(I already posted this somewhere else)

For those who want to read it, here's a link to Don Herron's Dark Barbarian essay.

He discussed -among other things- those three paragraphs from The Garden of Fear, I copy-paste the quote (and his comments) here:

REH wrote:

...But as I lie waiting for death to free me from my long disease, I see with a clear, sure sight the grand panorama of lives that trail out behind me. I see the men who have been me, and I see the beasts that have been me.

For my memory does not end at the coming of Man. How could it, when the beast so shades into Man that there is no clearly divided line to mark the boundaries of bestiality? At this instant I see a dim twilight vista, among the gigantic trees of a primordial forest that never knew the tread of a leather-shod foot. I see a vast, shaggy, shambling bulk that lumbers clumsily yet swiftly, sometimes upright, sometimes on all fours. He delves under rotten logs for grubs and insects, and his small ears twitch continually. He lifts his head and bares yellow fangs. He is primordial, bestial, anthropoid; yet I recognize his kinship with the entity now called James Allison. Kinship? Say rather oneness. I am he; he is I. My flesh is soft and white and hairless; his is dark and tough and shaggy. Yet we were one, and already in his feeble, shadowed brain are beginning to stir and tingle the man-thoughts and the man dreams, crude, chaotic, fleeting, yet the basis for all the high and lofty visions men have dreamed in all the following ages.

Nor does my knowledge cease there. It goes back, back, down immemorial vistas I dare not follow, to abysses too dark and awful for the human mind to plumb. Yet even there I am aware of my identity, my individuality. I tell you the individual is never lost, neither in the black pit from which we once crawled, blind, squalling and noisome, or in that eventual Nirvana in which we shall one day sink -- which I have glimpsed afar off, shining as a blue twilight lake among the mountains of the stars.

I don't subscribe to all DH's views, but I think he was absolutely right when he wrote after this quote:

Don Herron wrote:

This passage evokes a feeling very much like Smith's "Ubbo-Sathla," but shows Howard's clear sympathy with man, with the individual -- with an apprehensive note about man's darker urges, "the beast so shades into Man. . . . " Howard's great accomplishment in his fantasy stories was that he made a grim, shadowy wonderland out of human history and set his Dark Barbarian striding through the ages, sword drawn. This brutal presence sounds a warning knell about the dark side of humanity -- a sober note that is as true in today's violent world as it was in Howard's day -- and at the same time stands as a grand symbol of adventure, of human courage and determination.

In The Hyborian Age essay, after Gorm's invasion of the West:

REH wrote:

Conquest and the acquiring of wealth altered not the Pict ; out of the ruins of the crushed civilization no new culture arose phoenix-like. The dark hands which shattered the artistic glories of the conquered never vied to copy them. Though he sat among the glittering ruins of shattered palaces and clad his hard body in the silks of vanquished kings, the Pict remained the eternal barbarian, ferocious, elemental, interested only in the naked primal principles of life, unchanging, unerring in his instincts which were all for war and plunder, and in which arts and the cultured progress of humanity had no place.

In the "Exile of Atlantis" fragment, when Kull talked to the Atlantean barbarian members of the Sea-mountain tribe, he stated: "Animals are neither gods nor fiends, but men in their way without the lust and greed of the man"... Kull, who was raised by "tigers and wolves", IS closest to nature than Conan. He knows that even the barbarians of Atlantis are men driven by dark impulses.
From the top of my head, there was this other line of dialoque between two characters (I have to check but at least it's a paraphrase) "When will the bloodshed cease ? When the race ends." And the character wasn't specific, he talked of the human race as a whole. A really pessimistisc/misanthropist view of mankind.

No "Noble Savage" archetype. REH's barbarians prevail above other people because they're stronger, more "pure" (and I'm NOT denying some racist elements, he also talked a lot of some breeds superior to others), closer to their "bestiality" and not weakened/lessened like civilized are.
His barbarism vs civilization theme wasn't as simple as "good" barbarians vs "bad" civilized people. Humans weren't inherently good for him. He believed that barbarism was the natural state of mankind, but no one is innocent here...