Kull of Atlantis – Conan of Cimmeria with an Idiot Ball
I read the collection of Robert E. Howard’s “Kull of Atlantis” stories this week. Kull, a barbarian of Atlantis, flees from his homeland, and is at various times a slave, a gladiator, a mercenary, a general, and finally seizes the throne of the ancient kingdom of Valusia for himself. Once sitting on the throne, he brings new prosperity and order to the tottering Valusian kingdom, but the Valusian nobility decides that they miss their good old incompetent native-born tyrants after all, and busy themselves trying to depose Kull.
Kull is very obviously an earlier, less-developed version of Howard’s Conan of Cimmeria; in fact, one of the Kull stories, “By This Axe I Rule!” gets transmuted directly into “Phoenix on the Sword”, the first Conan story. Howard obviously improved his skills as a writer by the time he got to Conan, especially with stories like “The Hour of the Dragon” and “Red Nails”.
Despite that, Kull is his own man. Unlike Conan, who has a strong practical intelligence, Kull is more abstract, more cerebral. Like Conan (and Howard himself), Kull suffers from paralyzing bouts of melancholia. Unlike Conan, who deals with his difficulties with frenetic activity, Kull has a tendency to brood, and so in some ways is a more realistic character.
On the other hand, Kull tends to overthink things, which gets him into trouble. In other words, he occasionally picks up the Idiot Ball for the sake of the plot. Conan rarely did so. Part of this was the fact that Howard had progressed as a writer by the time he got to Conan. But a big part of this was Kull’s own habit of overthinking. In “The Cat and the Skull”, he is taken in by an incredible obvious ruse simply by his own tendency to philosophize. In “The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune”, he is enspelled by a wizard’s enchanted mirror, unable to decide if he is real or an illusion. Conan’s response to a wizard threatening him with an enchanted mirror would have been to sensibly smash the mirror, kill the wizard, and then to loot the wizard’s home.
You can see the difference in Kull’s and Conan’s philosophical outlooks quite readily. In “The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune”, Kull says while gazing into the wizard’s mirror:
“He is I, a shadow of myself, part of myself – I can bring him into being or slay him at my will; yet” – he halted, strange thoughts whispering through the vast dim recesses of his mind like shadowy bats flying through a great cavern – “yet where is he when I stand not in front of a mirror? May it be in man’s power thus lightly to form and destroy a shadow of life and existence? How do I know that when I setup back from the mirror he vanished into the void of Naught?
“Nay, by Valka, am I the man or is he? Which of us is the ghost of the other? Mayhap these mirrors are but windows through which we look into another world. Does he think the same of me? Am I no more than a shadow, a reflection of himself – to him, as he to me?”
Conan discusses the same sort of philosophical conundrum to his lover Belit in “Queen of the Black Coast” – and his attitude is quite different:
“I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.”
That may explain why Howard experienced more success with Conan than with Kull, and why Conan remains fairly well-known to this day – vigorous action makes for more engaging reading than philosophical brooding. The protagonist has to take action, after all, and it’s easier to write epic operatic soundtracks* for characters who take action.
-JM
*Incidentally, I highly recommend the “Age of Conan” soundtrack, even if – like me – you have no desire to play the game whatsoever.