Apocalypto and Conan - warrior myths

Posted by Guest Blogger on Saturday, 08 February 2014 00:56.

by Neil Vodavzny

The costume I wear is so mythic it belongs to every culture of a warrior society ... It’s like, is this an animal or a man?
Raul Trujillo, Zero Wolf

I’m replying to comments indirectly as there’s a lot of ground to cover, some of it left-field (my favourite). It is remarkable the number of similarities between Apocalypto (Gibson) – set in a re-imagined Mayan kingdom at the time of the Conquistadors – and the original Conan film of 1980 (Milius), based on Robert E Howard’s prehistoric Hyborian age of bejewelled kingdoms and barbarians.

Apart from the visual resemblances which I’ll get to, they are worlds of spirits and living gods. Over the course of Apocalypto, Jaguar Paw becomes imbued with the spirits of the jungle, enduring swamps and racing through greenery, his naked skin changing colour accordingly, using mud, hornets’ nests, poison toads, blow-darts as weapons to defeat Zero Wolf and his henchmen. He calls on the forest to give him strength, which it does.

Conan may be of a less superstitious bent, but when the ‘living god of Set’, Thoth Amon, tells him, “I am your father, you are nothing without me”, his resolve is almost fatally compromised. Milius’s theme is that his belief in the power of his sword-arm is stronger than the superstitions of Set-worshippers, but without his belief he is still nothing.

Both heroes are primeval, in living close to nature and relying on their wits. In other words, they are savagery personified, highly intelligent and resourceful, almost the Superman of Nietzsche’s poem, physically and mentally coordinated with surroundings, mind attuned to a pitch of keenness unknown to modern Man.

You really have to have read Howard to get a sense of the zest. These men are the best that nature has to offer, irrespective of race or creed. They are warriors born, and you get the same feeling from Braveheart and Spartan epic 300.

All of these societies, of whatever era, are tiered. So you have peasants living with the land, aristocracy or Squires (landowners), kings or rulers. This is very apparent in the look of both films, obviously with hamlets and hovels dotting the landscape. The journey through ford and forest to the great Mayan city is a ferocious contrast, a pell-mell fandango of fantastical body-ornament, dancers, drummers and pitiless crowds, through which the hapless sacrifices are led up the steps of a giant pyramid to where the demi-god sits, where their living hearts are dutifully torn out by the high-priest of Kukulcan.

The other common ingredient is that sets (not Set) are real constructions – vast edifices with a great sense of weight and tactility, cameras roaming around in them as our eyes and ears. Now, there’s an odd similarity to Conan when the heads clatter down the steps of the pyramid. At the end of Conan, he beheads Thoth Amon, casting his head down the processional stairway to his appalled followers.

The Mayan society is a fantastically ornamental, baroque affair, Conan is more grim. But, the idea you get is these great spectacles are the product of tiered societies, of peasants and rulers, demi-gods and high priests, whether nefarious or more benign. So, they are very unequal societies, as is true of most (on the other hand, you can be born a slave and then kill your master).

I’m not saying we don’t get spectacle nowadays, but these are socially significant spectacles, like a coronation. Roles are socially/mythically validated, between ruler and ruled (or follower). Now, these societies are irrational and extremely structured. You can almost see it in the architecture. What I’m saying is that modern Man is in a type of Enlightenment trap – irrespective of race. The Randian creative intellect is still a product of that rationalising, and thereby limited.

The more holistic society is ornamental, even fantastically so. The structure of the society is the means whereby creative-intellect functions, not in a vacuum of problem-solving - the brain is not like a computer that just works on problems, it’s put to dynamic use.

The societies are also based on peasant farmers and the land, without which nothing can thrive. IQ is not the be-all-and-end-all and any arguments to the contrary belong to a rational world, which cannot see what is truly vital. Zest, spirit, the active process of living with the land, and thereby using intellect to some good purpose.

All the products of Man that have stood the test of time are part of that world - the picturesque heritage sites tourists flock to. I suppose you could say our products may endure, but not the sense of belonging to the geography and climate of the land, as with a Mayan temple.

The entire romantic movement in Europe would be unthinkable without this connection to geography and climate – the Alps, the Scandinavian myth-cycles, Byron’s pilgrimage to Italy in Childe Harold. They are poetic responses to a world that is not capable of being tamed. In order to view this world of iconic forces, we have to see beyond a rational one of genes, IQ, cyber-tech (or all three!) The context is never rational. That’s not to say all is chaos – nothing to excess. See image of Cimmeria by Robert E Howard, illustrated by Barry Windsor-Smith.

Have a look at this link.  This is the rationalisers at work, blind to the spirit being trampled. I’ve no strong opinion as to miscegeny, except that it may be part of the same rationalising process that on the one hand ignores race, and on the other deems it capable of scientific investigation. It’s the same argument advanced by Clifton, applied to spirit – not to question the answers we’ve intuited, but to challenge the questions of the doubting mind.

Gibson makes a comment on the “old soul” in the eyes of a Mayan youngster (playing the prophetic witch). That is the spirits of her ancestors. Lineage and dynasty are a mysterious form of communion with ancestors, something not as rational as race, and to my mind more interesting. At worst you’re a snob. It’s something you find in Edgar Allan Poe (no friend to the demos), and is indefinable.

In that living societies have inherited customs, the endurance of tradition is completely key. “Without traditions we cease to exist”

Connecting with the spirits of the past takes us out of what I see as the ideological trap which both sides seem to inhabit.

The year revolved around the village, the festivals round the year, the church round the festivals, the Squire round the church, and the village round the Squire.The Squire was ourcentre, a crumbling moot tree; and few indeed of our local celebrations could take place without his shade.
Cider With Rosie, Laurie Lee

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1

Posted by Morgoth on Sat, 08 Feb 2014 13:09 | #

Conan the Barbarian is probably the most wonderfully Right Wing film ever made by Hollywood, regardless of Milius ethnic background, it is almost unthinkable that it would be made today, indeed, it was remade a few years ago with a Mulatto as Conan. Right from the opening credits we get Nietzsche’s line ‘‘That which does not kill us makes us stronger’’ followed by suitably bombastic and blood pumping theme.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oIWi3IK3RI

How many films today would have one African who was also the the central antagonist, and leads a cult that is predominately based on brainwashing young White girls? and race does matter here like it does in Tolkien each race has an origin and carries baggage. When ‘‘Thulsa Doom’’ calls on young White’s to kill themselves it is, according to him, true power, true strength, more powerful than the secret of steel, which was Thulsa Doom’s previous preoccupation. He has since decided that power over flesh is better than power over steel. Conan of course holds that the will of flesh, when free, is more powerful by far and proves this point by brutally slaying all of the High Priests and eventually Thulsa Doom himself. The point is clear, sheer animalistic rage and will can beat a brainwashed horde.

As we travel through Conan’s world we see the Snake Temples popping up everywhere, calling the gullible young whites to join the cult and take Thulsa as their God, the viewer gets the impression of something suffocating settling on the land, the cities are starting to look similar, the people are afraid. Conan, however, has no respect at all for this new power, robbing one Temple and killing its Priests and giant snake merely for the loot, you don’t tame or intimidate Conan.

In today’s big budget movies the man with strength and willpower will be the bad guy, while the good guys work for the Government or UN. In the recent Avengers movie our hero’s actually fly around in a gigantic aircraft carrier funded by the US Government with African Samuel L Jackson as their commander, it’s as if Thulsa Doom defeated Conan and his reign has lasted 10,000 years.


2

Posted by Lurker on Sat, 08 Feb 2014 20:41 | #

He has since decided that power over flesh is better than power over steel

Strictly speaking it’s “What is steel compared to the hand that wields it?”

Power of the flesh gives you power over the steel.


3

Posted by neil vodavzy on Sun, 09 Feb 2014 10:59 | #

In the recent Avengers movie our hero’s actually fly around in a gigantic aircraft carrier funded by the US Government with African Samuel L Jackson as their commander

In the comics, the Avengers lease Avengers mansion from Stark Industries. Whiz kid Scot Mark Millar came in in the 90s with Ultimate Avengers and the films are more or less based on his governmental version. He also brought in violence with no moral Authority (another comic title by DC) sanctioned by the UN. He also seems almost indecently successful.


4

Posted by Morgoth on Sun, 09 Feb 2014 14:03 | #

Neil,

Yes and of course the ‘‘Shield’’ organization is a covert Government organization though I hadn’t quite figured out the Stark Industries angle as I’m not into comics, but I do know movies. So in the end the real heroes of Hollywood’s largest franchise are a Multinational cooperation and the US Government. There is even a scene in which 6 or 7 people appear to direct Shield from around the world, their faces are blocked out, they are literally in shadow. The world is facing a threat, so ‘‘humanity’’ has to rely on a secretive and powerful click who rule the world to save them.

And then there’s the villain, Loki, who for some contrived reason, goes to Germany and tells the locals he is their new ruler, to which an old man steps up above the kneeling and terrified mass and says something like ‘’ I’m old enough to remember the last time a powerful man gave speeches about ruling over the people and we beat him as we will beat you’‘. Loki=Hitler, the bad guy is always Hitler.

Counter Currents has an interesting review of Avengers, they asked the question, what are the Avengers actually fighting for ? I guess the answer is, they are fighting for a powerful world ruling body to stop a rival entity enslaving the masses in its place and abolishing the Globalist order.

Nolan’s Dark Knight movies are far superior, and have quiet rightly caused a stir among Nationalist circles. The masses are always portrayed as stupid, cowardly, greedy, corrupt and weak. Throughout the Trilogy the antagonists attempt to prove this point and succeed time after time, Batman seems to know it, he seems to know the masses are pathetic but he, unlike the other ‘‘Supermen’ doesn’t want them to be destroyed, he believes that by being a symbol he can lift up the dumb useless herd to greatness.

Liberals screeched about the ‘‘Fascist Propaganda’’  and they are right, we have a strong man leading the dumb heard, the Bat sign is beamed out into the sky like a gigantic swastika and even the music is Wagnerian. This has led many in the WN movement to ask ‘’ Just what the hell is Nolan up to?’‘

In the Avengers Universe the masses are not moving towards anything else than more consumerism and egalitarian absurdities, in Nolans DK they at least have a chance to break through into higher sense of being.


5

Posted by Daniel A on Sun, 09 Feb 2014 14:41 | #

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