CONAN THE ADVENTURER SEASON 2 (1993)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological. sociological*

Thanks to the wonders of streaming I was at last able to see the second (and much longer) season of CONAN THE ADVENTURER. I had seen the first season on broadcast TV, but not this one, and I found that I could upgrade the second season to a mythicity rating of "fair." The final 52 episodes still suffer from all the political correctness of the first 13, but there's a little more breadth of imagination this time, though certainly nothing to match the original stories of Robert E. Howard.

I commented earlier that Howard made only one usage of his  "serpent-men masquerading as humans" idea, and that the first CONAN season didn't succeed in transmitting the paranoid quality of that fantasy. However, Season 2 shows the minions of evil Wrath-Amon insinuating themselves in human culture more insidiously, which makes them a somewhat greater threat. Of course, Wrath-Amon-- easily the best-designed character in a visual sense, and well-voiced by Scott McNeil-- is the major menace, constantly scheming to bring the demon-god Set out of the Abyss to overthrow humankind. The serpent-wizard and his human opponents-- Conan and his band of stalwarts-- constantly contend over sources of "star-metal," which can be used both to banish serpent-people out of the world or to bring evil serpent-gods into it.

A fair amount of Howard's mythology gets imported into the cartoon's loose "dungeons-and-dragons" format, though usually only in terms of the names of characters and places. One Howard tale does get adapted in an extremely loose fashion, though.

As my commentary here should make clear, Howard's Conan tale "The Frost-Giant's Daughter" takes place in a world of harsh world, where sex can be used for violent ends. Obviously, none of this content could appear in a mainstream cartoon aimed in part at juvenile audiences. Yet Jean Chalopin (who wrote many of the Season 2 episodes) does manage to capture some aspects of the original story "through a glass darkly."

As part of an ongoing quest for "star-metal," Conan and his Viking-looking buddy Snag arrive at a snowbound village, with Snag filling the Cimmerian's ears with the story of Atali, daughter of the frost giant Ymir, who lures travelers to an icy death. But it's a different type of femininity who enthralls Snag: a beefy Nordic woman, one Britta, who seems as tough as he is. Britta rejects Snag's attempts at courtship and, to get rid of him, tells him to bring her an ice-flower from Atali's garden. Snag talks Conan into undertaking this exploit, which amounts to the two warriors trespassing on the terrain of the ice-giants. When Atali appears, she's somewhat justified in seeking to make both men her eternal prisoners, though Chalopin does at least establish that all the giants are cruel sorts, rather than poor misunderstood wights. The heroes manage to survive and Snag presents Britta with the ice-flower. She gives him more consideration not because he succeeded at her arbitrary task-- she says-- but because he's no longer boastful about it. This I view as eyewash, designed to obscure the fact that Britta is almost as much an example of toxic femininity as Howard's frost-spirit.

Speaking of female characters, Conan's gal-pal Jezmine gets a character-arc not seen in the other subordinate heroes. for the lady acrobat is belatedly revealed to be the offspring of a human woman and a good-hearted serpent-man. This could have made for some good melodrama, but the writers barely get any mileage out of the idea. Similarly, even though it's intimated that Jezmine has a thing for Conan, and vice versa, the writers won't even touch on even G-rated romance here. Another episode has Jezmine compete with an Amazon Queen to keep Conan from becoming the Queen's slave, but the script tries not to show Jezmine being jealous of Conan being possessed by another woman, claiming only that he is her "friend." But even these touches are more interesting than anything that happens with the one-note original characters who go around lecturing Conan for his barbarian shortcomings.

However, the menace of the serpent-god's invasion does have some strong metaphysical awe on occasion, and the common threat forces Conan's group to forge temporary alliances with power-hungry (though still human) wizards Ram-Amon and Mesmira. In fact, although Wrath-Amon and his serpentine deity are ultimately defeated, and Conan's petrified family-members are returned to good health, both of the two human wizards escape to raise havoc some other day. Since I doubt that the producers thought they'd be awarded a third season, I'd like to believe they wanted to show that even a "D&D" version of Conan's world is never made totally safe from all evil-- even if those producers weren't quite able to overcome their own evil of banality.