Conan's Complex Relationship with Red Sonja.

[proteus_lives.insanejournal.com]

Greetings True Believers! I love the old Savage Sword of Conan magazines. Colonel Green's previous post has inspired me to do some Conan posts. This is from SSoC #73. I have always liked this story because it shows several views of what's happening. Enjoy!











































I think it's an interesting story and good art. Also RS is wearing clothes that slightly cover her! Shocking!

Look for Conan in the new romantic comedy, What Wenches Want.

Comments

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

Man, Sonja is just all kinds of wrong with that "I can only be raped" business, isn't she. Not that Reed's "solution" isn't just as bad, but eesh.

Her costuming here is fantastic, though, and the ending is pretty artfully done despite the heebieness of it.

[proteus_lives.insanejournal.com]

Sonja is wrong with the "Only one who can defeat me" business. I take the view that it's sort of a rationaliztion/denial defense mechanism. I don't think she was ever contacted by a goddess. I think her vow is a way to distance herself from man and to avoid getting hurt.
I like her encounters with Conan because she drives him up the wall. I don't think Conan even see her in a sexual way. In every encounter I've read about them, Sonja has either defeated or outfoxed the barbarian. I think Conan just wants to defeat her, he would probably walk away without claiming his "prize."
I go back and forth between whither Conan and Sonja are a OTP or should just be best buds and allies.

[lang_ea.insanejournal.com]

I go back and forth between whither Conan and Sonja are a OTP or should just be best buds and allies.

I myself have been a little too influenced by Plato's idea of 'the ideal love between humans'; though in my case I feel it should encompass all kinds of relationships. I get a little giddy at the idea of two head strong and dependable forces joining as one in an EPIC PARTNERSHIP THAT KNOWS NO BOUNDS...but yeah, um, looking at the realistic side of things--Conan seems to more like prefer his bed mates of the soft wenchy kind (not to mention dismissable). Even I can't imagine him ever wanting to be at the bottom.

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

"Reed"? That's an interesting slip of the keyboard. What made you associate Reed with Conan?

Red Sonja would be so much more palatable without that "I can only be taken by a man who defeats me in combat." I think that was a Roy Thomas idea, I don't remember it in Howard's original story. It gives her a conflict that seems false at heart.

If they do have to draw her so slim, I'd like to see her fighting with two short swords, relying on speed and skill. Seeing her blocking the sword of someone that much heavier and taller never rings true.

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

No slip of the keyboard. Brian Reed is the current writer of the current Red Sonja series being put out by Dynamite. He's posited an interesting "solution" to the whole "redeem her rape by never allowing her to have any other kind of sex" nonsense: the Goddess who saved and empowered Sonja has been retconned to have been a manipulative, evil force who instigated the attack on her family in the first place, and has been stringing Sonja along to her death as part of a long-term conflict with Kulan Gath. Sonja finds out, rejects the Goddess, gets killed, gets reincarnated (sort of) and marries a man who teaches her legends and statecraft before he gets killed, and then her old boyfriend from her last incarnation hunts her down and becomes her warrior mentor.

So, she can have all the sex she wants, now, with anyone she pleases. Of course, she's also now the only female in her entire universe who's neither evil nor a victim (well, she's still a victim, so nevermind), and she's been protected and given everything important in her life (including all her skill and knowledge as well as her wealth and station) by men, usually men who have gotten or probably will get sex out of it, but hey. Two steps back is totally a fair price for one step forward. -_-

Seeing her blocking the sword of someone that much heavier and taller never rings true.

Agreed. I have that problem with the Batclan a lot too. There's a lot of hard martial arts in comics where they don't make sense.

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

Oh, okay. Thank you. I couldn't see a connection between Reed Richards and Conan. I was wondering if you saw some sort of thematic connection between Red Sonja and Sue, and was puzzling over it.

That solution to her vow situation might work. I personally don't see anything wrong with her teachers and mentors being male, although it'd be better if one of them was motivated just by altruism (although Bob Howard seemed to believe everyone in life had a base motive.)

I like the idea of Sonja (and other characters who are usually smaller than their opponents) using speed, cunning and deftness. It was why Modesty Blaise was so convincing. She never slugged it out when she could win with misdirection and strategy. (Come to think of it, I haven't read any Modesty in the longest time...)

[proteus_lives.insanejournal.com]

Motto on the sword bit. Her style should be more "stick and move." Especially with an opponent like Conan. She's always drawn as tall and strong but blocking the sword-swing of a man who can break the necks of bulls with his bare hands? I don't think so.

Sonja can defeat the barbarian but no one beats Conan in a head-on smash.

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

Yeah, Howard's Conan was pretty much n unbeatabler force of nature. That was from Howard's philosophy about civilization making people weak. But I could still see Sonja defeating him with quick thinking and misdirection. She wouldn't play his game, she'd play her own.

[gwalla.livejournal.com (from insanejournal.com)]

Red Sonja really isn't a Howard creation at all, she just has a similar name to one (but Howard's Red Sonya was from the 16th century).