Hyborian Bridge 102

When the head becomes the body, steel becomes flesh (prev.) This is the opposite of “the riddle of steel” (Pictorial 87) whereby the warrior trusts his sword over his head, which can be deceived by foul sorcery.

This seems to imply we live in the age of sorcery, stemming from Newton’s induction from a light box. Everything else – words of acolytes, material goods – is part-and-parcel of the sorcerous reality. Outside of this are the feminine dreams of blood and savagery.

The feminine element in heroic fantasy is the romantic harmonic of the universe (of sun, moon and planets and constellations of Earth-myth). Sun and moon together are a mix of masculine and feminine, the Earth-spin.

The feminine element is indispensable as it is simply half of the physical universe. The universe we inhabit is not physical; it is a convincing illusion of light (reflection) which subdues the physical. The ego is seduced by the numerical illusion, which has the appearance of physical boredom. The physique can’t be denied, and the numerical and the sexual become one. Hygienic weakness invites the dragon which feeds the ego through “the mirror of nothingness”.

Data is the dragon the ego feeds off in the hygienic world of materialism (electromagnetism). Materialism is convincing to the ego, which exists in a state of physical boredom; the numerical becomes sexual.

This sorcerous reality of metal and numbers is opposed by feminine blood and savagery. While metal and numbers have the appearance (Apollo) of reality, the feminine moon (Artemis) reflects the sun and so has an innate harmonic.

It is this harmonic which goes to the heart of heroic fantasy. If Kull has the decadence and dreamy romance of Valusia, possibly the most decadent of them all was dreamed-up by Clair Noto for Red Sonja #s 10-13.

In the lead-up to “Red Lace”, Sonja is rescued form lynching in the triple-walled Argosian city of Skranos by smooth-chinned Suumaro, rebel scion of Apah Alah and half-brother to hairy Oryx.

One detail I noticed in #8 was that the women in Suumaro’s seraglio wore metal fetters which Sonja, with her steel, slices asunder. The savage use of metal that frees metal shackles.

In #9 Sonja is drawn by Apah Alah into her root-roofed kingdom under the forest; but this is merely a prelude to #10 when she and Suumaro encounter Apah Alah’s forgotten temple to Quillos, her paramour and Suumaro’s father, who’s betrayal caused her to contort the temple into a fantastic symbiosis of tree and stone Aspects3

The temple harbours probably the most savagely female fantasy-world ever put to paper (no offense to Ghita of Alizzar!) Noto creates nothing less than a savage lifecycle of blood born of the dainty aspect of nature. Or, more precisely, the workshop of a fabled artisan (Vulcan?) who here takes the shape of a centaur.

 

  Red Sonja #10

There is the scent of decay in this land of gnarled wood and stone; the age-old patina of things left to intertwine (vines, roots). Death in this land is also wood, in the form of Narca’s bow. The bald huntswoman likes nothing more than shooting down the rocs which grow serenely out of the dainty piped eggs.

The lifecycle takes the form of the blood of the slain rocs which feeds the bizarre ecology of the plant-kingdom. Into this spring the lithe warriors Sonja and Suumaro – the only ones to bear metal swords – along with the japing and insidious thief Marmo.

Sonja eventually kills the leering Narca, after her sight is restored by the heartblood of a dying roc. It is this mixture of evil and good that gives the story its unquiet mystery. Even Cat Yronwode in a letter to #13 was sorely struggling with the oddity of the bloodletting!

The blood imagery of #210 and 11 pulls deep chords in any woman, yet I was again left wondering why. Why did Narca kill the Big Birds and tumble them into a vat of blood? Why did the heart’s blood of one of the birds cure Sonja’s blindness?

The whys and wherefores are completely tricky. Is the dragon Kthon, who desires the emblem, a force for good or evil – and what is the emblem? When it is lost, the temple disintegrates – Sonja feels this is a rebirth of sorts Hyborian Bridge 15

It’s difficult to say apart from the fact that a universe that is innately decadent contains withing it the seeds of rebirth. Blood and death feed rebirth because they are strong and of the earth – of the roots. Evil lurks there, but good can conquer evil – as Sonja’s sword does Narca.

Strength conquers the dragon; weakness invites it. The emblem is unspeakably powerful, and this was the force that Sonja and Suumaro succeeded in keeping from the vengeful Apah Alah.

In the end, the Greek tragedy of jealousy and vengeance is dispelled as Apah Alah’s powers are deprived and she is reconciled to her love for the aged Quillos.

Red Sonja #13

The motto could be that blood and decay are strong and can be both good and evil. Within them is the harmonic of the universe which the warrior, with metal sword in hand, encounters.

The harmonic of the universe is a cycle; like the forest a labyrinth of ways; it is a hunt; it is love and death. It is all these things, and they are all seen by the light of the moon (that reflects the sun).

We essentially live in a half-world that is the sun (reflection) but not the reflection by a physical reality (moon).

The sun represents materialism, but it is an illusion, a harmonic silence without the moon, blood, decay and rebirth.