Now, I vaguely knew who Red Sonja was. She was a kind of a female version of the character of Conan the Barbarian. When Arnold Schwarzenegger was cutting his teeth as Conan in 1980s cinema, they even made a movie about her, with Brigitte Nielsen cast in the title role.
A few minutes on the Internet, however, showed me that I knew a lot less about Red Sonja that I thought I did. My copy of The Ring of Ikribu contains an introduction that describes the birth a Red Sonja as a character and the genesis of the series of paperbacks that begin with The Ring of Ikribu. Perhaps you already know it. First there were the Conan stories, a creation of Robert E. Howard. Then there were the Conan comic books, an adapted creation of some people at Marvel Comics. Then there was Red Sonja as a recurring character in the Conan comic books. And now, writing in 1981, there are Red Sonja stories -- the demands of a fan base driving the change from fiction to comics and back to fiction again.
So these were the expectations that I brought to The Ring of Ikribu and how it came into my possession. I wanted to see Lovecraftian horror in a fantasy context. And although there is certainly a cosmic horror subtext to the novel, the bulk of it more properly viewed as Red Sonja’s origin story.
On the Lovecraftian side, there is Ikribu and his ring.
“This god, Ikribu -- he was said to be a god of blood and battle. The black armies of ancient Kheba and Ishdaris worshipped him as a war god and sacrificed thousands to him in sacrificial battles, and even before then he was said to be one of the Elder Ones -- those beings who created man and all other life forms in order to feed on the energies generated by suffering and death. Some of their artifacts were especially created to draw men into paths of madness and doom -- to channel these energies the Elder Ones crave -- the Ring is said to be one of these. A Ring of power, a Ring of madness!”
It is an interesting idea, and the novel certainly does contain men struggling to possess the ring, men who come to and cause enough suffering and death to temporarily satisfy the cravings of the Elder Ones. But that story is the novel’s B plot. The A plot clearly goes to Red Sonja and her odd and somewhat anachronistic devotion to sexual purity.
She was tall and fair-skinned with a head of long, tousled, flame-red hair -- and she was armored. A long-sword swung in the scabbard at her side, a knife at her hip. She wore a brief vest and skirt of silvery scale-mail that covered her breasts and hung from her waist, but left her limbs and midriff bare -- good armor, but too little of it for practicality and evidently worn less for protection than as a symbol of her untamed spirit.
This is Sonja’s first introduction to the reader, as yet unnamed, a stranger happened across in a tavern, about to defend herself and her “spirit” from the predations of raucous men. What follows aligns with many of the tropes we are all familiar with. Good has pure motives. Evil is a slave to violent passions. A hero only kills when threatened by the treachery of a villain.
Eventually, however, we are allowed to learn Sonja’s full story.
“Olin, I suffer from a destiny.”
“Tell me your destiny, Sonja.”
She looked him in the eyes, read concern and love and torment there. She told him: “When I was a woman-child -- when my family was destroyed by mercenary bandits -- I wished that I could wield a sword and thereby equal my father and younger brothers.”
“I know that.”
“When they were destroyed, only I was left alive. The brigands forced me to endure their pleasure, and then left me to die in our house. They set it afire, but I escaped.”
“How does this--”
“I wandered into the forest, Olin, sobbing and broken and bleeding, thinking I would soon die -- wanting to die one moment, the next wanting fiercely to live for vengeance.”
Olin said no more.
“I was visited by a Vision -- a spirit or a god, perhaps. I do not know. It filled up my soul and gave me the strength to become what I yearned for in my heart. With my father’s sword I slew one of the brigands, and in the following years tracked down the others. But within that instant of the Vision, Olin, I was transformed from a whimpering, broken young girl into a woman whose sword skill could equal any man’s in the world.”
Olin was silent, trying to imagine such a thing.
“I took up the wandering way. In my years of travels since then I have seen much, suffered much, been to hell many times, followed roads mired with gore and others paved with gold and splendor -- but never, Olin, never in all that time have I given myself to any man. Were I to do so, I feel I would damn myself, sever myself from my destiny and my past. In return for my skill with the sword, Olin, I swore a vow of chastity to that Vision in the night. And no man has ever touched me since that night when I was defiled while my parents and brothers were slain and burnt.”
Her quest is therefore one of vengeance -- another overused trope -- fueled by an artificial shroud of purity that her vow of chastity bestows. And it is, I am somewhat sad to realize, yet another man attempting to control the sexuality of yet another woman. In the story, Sonja is independent, free and in open conflict with the oppressive characterizations of men. But it doesn’t take much critical analysis to realize that it is the form of the story itself that provides Sonja’s tiresome and anachronistic subjugation. The story, after all, is written by men, and features a woman bound by the sexual ethics of their own making.
And Sonja’s full vow -- going beyond the simplicity of chastity -- doesn’t much help.
“Sonja,” said Olin gently. “Sonja. Can no love ever win to you?”
She looked him straight in the eyes, with an honesty that went beyond mere truth. “Should I be meant to love a man, Olin, then that will be proved by his besting my in swordplay.”
Ugh. Exactly how is this a “woman worthy of Conan,” as the paperback epigraph proclaims?
In a world where other woman accept what they are given, Red Sonja gets what she wants. And woe to the man who thinks that her sleek body and mane of flame-red hair could be his for the taking -- for her sword-arm is as strong as her will, and Red Sonja belongs to no man.
Clearly, she belongs to no man. But neither do any men belong to her. But you’re not fooling me. Neither situation is an expression of her will or untamed spirit. They are the exact corners of the sexual prison that the authors have penned her in.
There are five more books in this series. Perhaps I will give one or two more a try, looking for more of that Lovecraftian horror than any kind of release of Sonja from her jail cell. There is some hope of that. At the end of this chapter, after the battle against Ikribu and his slavish thralls has been won, Sonja confronts the very idea that brought about so much suffering and death.
“You presume to despise us,” said the Stygian, “yet you and all other humans enjoy life to the extent that you do because of Orders like ours dedicated to appeasing the Elder Ones. Be thankful that our burden rests not on your shoulders.”
“Perhaps someday,” said Sonja, her eyes blazing, “we may find the strength and knowledge to oppose and destroy these monstrous beings, rather than ‘appease’ them. Would that my sword might be employed in that conflict!”
Indeed. Now that would be a novel worth reading.
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This post first appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can follow him on Twitter @ericlanke or contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.
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