Quote from: GeekyBugle;1092446They aren't quoting him, they are reinterpreting his writing.

My most sincere apologies for not knowing it was from 2010 oh all knowing being.

They are quoting him. The first section is an excerpt from Robert E. Howard's essay "The Hyborian Age". Here's the wikipedia entry on the essay,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hyborian_Age

And here is a wiki version of the full text,

https://aoc.fandom.com/wiki/The_Hyborian_Age_(Howard_Essay)

The excerpt starts about a quarter of the way down. You can search on the phrase ("the kingdoms of the world are clearly defined").

Quote from: jhkim;1092450They are quoting him. The first section is an excerpt from Robert E. Howard's essay "The Hyborian Age". Here's the wikipedia entry on the essay,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hyborian_Age

And here is a wiki version of the full text,

https://aoc.fandom.com/wiki/The_Hyborian_Age_(Howard_Essay)

The excerpt starts about a quarter of the way down. You can search on the phrase ("the kingdoms of the world are clearly defined").

Yes, there's an extrac of the poem, now kindly show us where the racism is?

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1092451Yes, there's an extrac of the poem, now kindly show us where the racism is?

I've never seen a group of ridiculously privileged people complain so much about what some Depression-era author who was barely scraping by in bumblefuck Texas thought about fictional racial groups in some antediluvian world he made up.

Quote from: Brad;1092475I've never seen a group of ridiculously privileged people complain so much about what some Depression-era author who was barely scraping by in bumblefuck Texas thought about fictional racial groups in some antediluvian world he made up.

You've apparently never spent any time in academia.

Quote from: Pat;1092476You've apparently never spent any time in academia.

Oh I have, and RPG messageboards take the cake.

Quote from: Brad;1092475I've never seen a group of ridiculously privileged people complain so much about what some Depression-era author who was barely scraping by in bumblefuck Texas thought about fictional racial groups in some antediluvian world he made up.

I find this kind of hilarious given the thread.

"Someone said something bad on the Internet about R.E. Howard nine years ago!  Quick, rush to his defense!"

I think R.E. Howard was a great author, but I don't think there's any doubt that he was racist. What confuses me is why it should be controversial now over 80 years later. This was from a time of segregation and blackface, when the KKK had hundreds of thousands of members. This essay has some details from Howard's letters:

http://www.robert-e-howard.org/SandRoughs4.html

For example,

QuoteHoward's attitude toward violence inflicted on non-whites is visible in some of his letters. In a letter to H. P. Lovecraft, Howard talks about a rancher who was investigated for the murder of a Mexican."[…] just why so much trouble was taken about a Mexican I cannot understand."[iv] In reference to a trial in Honolulu where native Hawaiians were accused of rape, Howard wrote, "I know what would have happened to them in Texas.  I don't know whether an Oriental smells any different than a nigger when he's roasting, but I'm willing to bet the aroma of scorching hide would have the same chastening effect on his surviving tribesman."[v]  There is also a conversation between Howard and Novalyne Price that is remembered in her memoir on Howard.  Howard tells Novalyne,"[…] I guess you know if a Negro is found on the streets after dark in Coleman, Santa Anna, and several other towns around here, they run him out of town.  Chances are they might tar and feather him."  When Novalyne reacted negatively, Howard returned, "Let me tell you something, girl, that you don't seem to know. Those people come from a different line.  They have different blood - "[vi]  That Howard would have participated in any racial violence is highly doubtful.  "In real life he was squeamish about violence and bloodshed."[vii]  But he writes approvingly of racial violence in more than one instance and in the letter to Lovecraft he has implied that he knows the smell of a "nigger" when he's roasting.

Quote from: jhkim;1092486I find this kind of hilarious given the thread.

"Someone said something bad on the Internet about R.E. Howard nine years ago!  Quick, rush to his defense!"

I think R.E. Howard was a great author, but I don't think there's any doubt that he was racist. What confuses me is why it should be controversial now over 80 years later. This was from a time of segregation and blackface, when the KKK had hundreds of thousands of members. This essay has some details from Howard's letters:

http://www.robert-e-howard.org/SandRoughs4.html

For example,

I asked you to show where in the part they are quoting is any racism.

Quote"Know, oh prince, that between the years when the
oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the
years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age
undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread
across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars --
Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora
with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-
haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that
bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its
shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore
steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of
the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the
dreaming west. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian,
black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a
reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and
gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the
Earth under his sandalled feet."
-- The Nemedian Chronicles.

To make it racist they had to reinterpret it, in ways that don't reflect his writing. And now you are trying to make it about his personal beliefs and not his writings in Conan, nice attempt at moving the goal post.

It's not just the last paragraph in the image, it's all their reinterpretation. I'm happy to give you that a man of his time shared views that were very common in his time.

Now again, where in the only part of his writings they quoted is the racism?

And in Conan the theme is against civilization, lets count the decadent civilizations shall we? First of it's the hiperboreans, white and fully decadent steeped in magic and evil. So no huwhite supremacy there. Then there's the Stygians, blacks being oppressed by a non black decadent, steeped in magic and evil lot. So again, no huwhite supremacy there.
Then there's Kithai, civilized, not white, so he's not making the civilized = good = huwhite.

Now lets see other parts of their re-interpretation

QuoteThe Hybori peoples are the possessors of a civilization so
virile that contact with it virtually snatched out of the wallow
of savagery such tribes as it touched. The most powerful
kingdom is Aquilonia, but others vie with it in strength and
mixed race; the nearest to the ancient root-stock are the
Gundermen of Gunderland, a northern province of Aquilonia.
But this mixing has not weakened the race. They are supreme
in the western world, though the barbarians of the
wastelands are growing in strength.

Really? All of the Conan writings are against civilization, even when Conan becomes King he longs to be rid of the trappings of civilization and to go back to being a pirate, raider, bucaneer.

And the part that should have tipped you they weren't quoting him was this:

Quote- Adapted from "The Hyborian Age" by Robert E. Howard.

Also

Quote from: rgalex;1092492Yeah, WotC is going to go down fast if this is any indication.
https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2019/06/dungeons-and-dragons-designer-convinced-staff-to-use-sjw-tumblr-blog-as-resource/86571/

The general gist of the article is that D&D game designer Kate Welch convinced all of the other game designers at Wizards of the Coast to read through an SJW Tumblr blog as a useful resource for writing "ethnically diverse" characters.



Part of that blog said (emphasis mine):



Now, it's specifically talking about writing other cultures but I can easily see it being applied on a wider scale.

Quote"In real life he was squeamish about violence and bloodshed."

I find that quote about Howard odd, considering he was a dabbling boxer, mentions brawls he was involved in in various letters, and IIRC was known to carry a gun.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1092495I asked you to show where in the part they are quoting is any racism.



To make it racist they had to reinterpret it, in ways that don't reflect his writing. And now you are trying to make it about his personal beliefs and not his writings in Conan, nice attempt at moving the goal post.

It's not just the last paragraph in the image, it's all their reinterpretation. I'm happy to give you that a man of his time shared views that were very common in his time.

Now again, where in the only part of his writings they quoted is the racism?

And in Conan the theme is against civilization, lets count the decadent civilizations shall we? First of it's the hiperboreans, white and fully decadent steeped in magic and evil. So no huwhite supremacy there. Then there's the Stygians, blacks being oppressed by a non black decadent, steeped in magic and evil lot. So again, no huwhite supremacy there.
Then there's Kithai, civilized, not white, so he's not making the civilized = good = huwhite.

Now lets see other parts of their re-interpretation



Really? All of the Conan writings are against civilization, even when Conan becomes King he longs to be rid of the trappings of civilization and to go back to being a pirate, raider, bucaneer.

And the part that should have tipped you they weren't quoting him was this:

Take a gander at this excerpt from the original essay:

QuoteLook at the world five hundred years later. Tribes of tawny-red-haired Hyborians have moved southward and westward, conquering and destroying many of the small unclassified clans.

Absorbing the blood of conquered races, already the descendants of the older drifts have begun to show modified racial traits, and these mixed races are attacked fiercely by new, purer-blooded drifts, and swept before them, as a broom sweeps debris impartially, to become even more mixed and mingled in the tangled debris of races and tag-ends of races.

As yet the conquerors have not come in contact with the older races. To the southeast the descendants of the Zhemri, given impetus by new blood resulting from admixture with some unclassified tribe, are beginning to seek to revive some faint shadow of their ancient culture. To the west the apish Atlanteans are beginning the long climb upward. They have completed the cycle of existence; they have long forgotten their former existence as men; unaware of any other former state, they are starting the climb unhelped and unhindered by human memories. To the south of them the Picts remain savages, apparently defying the laws of Nature by neither progressing nor retrogressing. Far to the south dreams the ancient mysterious kingdom of Stygia. On its eastern borders wander clans of nomadic savages, already known as the Sons of Shem.

This is very clearly anti-miscegenation screed, but not of the modern sort. REH ties in miscegenation with his theme of degeneration "upward" into civilization, which oddly enough is the exact opposite of modern anti-miscegenation beliefs. I find it quite fascinating how REH tied together such seemingly opposing views.

I get that you like REH and his work. But we shouldn't excuse his peculiarly racist beliefs in life nor how those beliefs colored his work. REH clearly took the scientific racism of the 19th and early 20th century and retroactively applied it to his mythical vision of an antediluvian past, ignoring that people back then probably didn't have similar beliefs.

Attacking a dead man or trying to censor his work is stupid. What would be more productive is to challenge his beliefs in prose.

Quote from: jhkim;1092486I find this kind of hilarious given the thread.

"Someone said something bad on the Internet about R.E. Howard nine years ago!  Quick, rush to his defense!"

I think R.E. Howard was a great author, but I don't think there's any doubt that he was racist. What confuses me is why it should be controversial now over 80 years later. This was from a time of segregation and blackface, when the KKK had hundreds of thousands of members. This essay has some details from Howard's letters:

http://www.robert-e-howard.org/SandRoughs4.html

For example,

Nice deflection, but I'd expect as much. I said nothing about him being racist/not racist whatsoever. And I didn't defend REH at all. I merely pointed out that people who literally have nothing to worry about in their lives except GrubHub taking 20 minutes too long to deliver the porterhouse from the fancy steakhouse are wringing their hands over how fictional fucking characters are depicted in stories written a hundred years ago.

But go ahead, pretend you have some moral high ground because you're pointing out how racist he was. Win points from your Marxist overlords.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1092557Take a gander at this excerpt from the original essay:

Oh, I will

QuoteLook at the world five hundred years later. Tribes of tawny-red-haired Hyborians have moved southward and westward, conquering and destroying many of the small unclassified clans.

So far so good no racism and no anti-miscegenation

QuoteAbsorbing the blood of conquered races, already the descendants of the older drifts have begun to show modified racial traits, and these mixed races are attacked fiercely by new, purer-blooded drifts, and swept before them, as a broom sweeps debris impartially, to become even more mixed and mingled in the tangled debris of races and tag-ends of races.

This is the tidbit you are taking as anti-miscegenation right? I would agree with you if it wasn't for the next part. (Emphasis mine)

QuoteAs yet the conquerors have not come in contact with the older races. To the southeast the descendants of the Zhemri, given impetus by new blood resulting from admixture with some unclassified tribe, are beginning to seek to revive some faint shadow of their ancient culture.[/U]

If he was or wasn't against interracial marriage I don't know and don't care, the argument is that this is present in his writings in Conan, so now someone has to explain how this piece of text is "clearly" anti-miscegenation while at the same time he writes "the descendants of the Zhemri, given impetus by new blood resulting form admixture with some unclassified tribe"
 You see, taking one small bit of a poem, to claim X is very easy, but when you read the very next paragraph and it contradicts your claim of X then all your argument falls to the ground.

QuoteTo the west the apish Atlanteans are beginning the long climb upward. They have completed the cycle of existence; they have long forgotten their former existence as men; unaware of any other former state, they are starting the climb unhelped and unhindered by human memories. To the south of them the Picts remain savages, apparently defying the laws of Nature by neither progressing nor retrogressing. Far to the south dreams the ancient mysterious kingdom of Stygia. On its eastern borders wander clans of nomadic savages, already known as the Sons of Shem.  

This las part has nothing anybody could reasonably misconstrue as racism even out of context.

QuoteThis is very clearly anti-miscegenation screed, but not of the modern sort. REH ties in miscegenation with his theme of degeneration "upward" into civilization, which oddly enough is the exact opposite of modern anti-miscegenation beliefs. I find it quite fascinating how REH tied together such seemingly opposing views.

I find quite fascinating how you can ignore the part that contradicts your claim.

QuoteI get that you like REH and his work. But we shouldn't excuse his peculiarly racist beliefs in life nor how those beliefs colored his work. REH clearly took the scientific racism of the 19th and early 20th century and retroactively applied it to his mythical vision of an antediluvian past, ignoring that people back then probably didn't have similar beliefs.

I like his work yes, and I'm not excusing shit, I'm talking about his work and you failed to demonstrate your claim of racism and anti-miscegenation being present in the part YOU choose to use as an example.

QuoteAttacking a dead man or trying to censor his work is stupid. What would be more productive is to challenge his beliefs in prose.

And yet here you are "attacking" him, look, show me evidence that he was a racist and I will say well shit, he was a racist, I have already said I wouldn't be surprised if a man of his time held some beliefs that were sadly very common in his time.

My argument from the start was that they are misinterpreting his writings in Conan, nobody has been able to show I'm wrong. but you're welcome to try and find another part that you think really demonstrates that his racism percolated to his writings in Conan.

Now let us examine that tidbit used to claim RACISM! and ANTI-MISCEGENATION! under a less prejudiced lens, and what I will try to be the most impartial exam I'm capable off.

QuoteAbsorbing the blood of conquered races, already the descendants of the older drifts have begun to show modified racial traits,

Okey, so the conqueror is mixing with the conquered and their descendants exhibit modified racial traits, RACISM! right? Not so fast my friends, are you going to argue that the children of an Ugandan and a red haired white as bread Irish wouldn't exhibit modified racial traits? Wouldn't the offspring of such marriage be a little like the father and a little like the mother? Descent with modification, or in short evolution. So I find no RACISM!tm in this small part, but lets jump ahead and see if we can find some.

Quoteand these mixed races are attacked fiercely by new, purer-blooded drifts,

"purer-blooded"? Fucking what? This must be that RACISM! and ANTI-MISCEGENATION! right? Or, if you're not looking for a hint of racism it could be just the fact that the new waves of conquerors haven't yet mixed with the conquered and REH is describing this and not making a moral judgment. Still no RACISM!tm lets continue.

Quoteand swept before them, as a broom sweeps debris impartially, to become even more mixed and mingled in the tangled debris of races and tag-ends of races.

So the conqueror sweeps before them the conquered, impartially, who become even more mixed with other races. You see, when you take the meaning without trying to search for confirmation of your world view things look different. But you could take the poetic description to claim RACISM!tm. And you would still need to ignore the next part of the poem "the descendants of the Zhemri, given impetus by new blood resulting form admixture with some unclassified tribe" in order to be able to do so.

Quote from: Brad;1092564I said nothing about him being racist/not racist whatsoever. And I didn't defend REH at all. I merely pointed out that people who literally have nothing to worry about in their lives except GrubHub taking 20 minutes too long to deliver the porterhouse from the fancy steakhouse are wringing their hands over how fictional fucking characters are depicted in stories written a hundred years ago.

So...  Who are you saying has nothing else to worry in their lives? Simon Carryer? GeekyBugle? Me? Others?

I have no idea really, what Simon Carryer or GeekyBugle's lives are like. Maybe they're rich - maybe they're not. It doesn't matter to discussion here. I'm here to shoot the shit about RPGs and other topics like ninety-year-old fantasy stories. I presume you are too. Is it a waste of time? Yeah, sure - but no moreso than other activities for amusement.

Quote from: jhkim;1092641So...  Who are you saying has nothing else to worry in their lives? Simon Carryer? GeekyBugle? Me? Others?

I have no idea really, what Simon Carryer or GeekyBugle's lives are like. Maybe they're rich - maybe they're not. It doesn't matter to discussion here. I'm here to shoot the shit about RPGs and other topics like ninety-year-old fantasy stories. I presume you are too. Is it a waste of time? Yeah, sure - but no moreso than other activities for amusement.

Yeah, it's not that I need to distract myself from my country turning into Venezuela2.0 300 medical units of the IMSS closed, no textbooks for elementary school next school year, and our president prays to mother earth for permission to build a fucking train. Also the crime rate skyrocketed because the fucking lefties decided to pardon don't know how many thousands of criminals.

Somehow I doubt Brad (wasn't there a skit by George Carlin about Brad?) has ever lived like I lived as a kid, teenager, adult or now approaching my old age.