THE CITY OF SKULLS

"The City of Skulls" is the next story for our chronology, following from "The Hand of Nergal." It's a creation of L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter in which Conan continues to ride as a mercenary for the Turanian empire. Chronologically speaking, the story explicitly states that it's been seven months since the events of "Nergal," but Conan will travel with the Turanians for about two years, reaching as far as Khitai, Howard's analogue for China.

Conan and his friend Juma are accompanying the princess of Turan to her wedding, to unite the Turanians and Hyrkanians in peace. They're captured on the steppes of Hyrkania and brought south into a mountain range into the country of Meru. The setting is pretty cool- there's a large bowl within the mountains that hosts a hidden jungle and a city where every inch is decorated with skull designs.

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One scene is remarkably similar to Temple of Doom: Conan and Juma crouch in a balcony over an evil ceremony in an underground temple with a gigantic statue of a multi-armed death god on one side and a host of worshippers beneath them, just like when Indy, Willie, and Short Round discover the temple to Kali beneath Pankot Palace.

I can't say I'm a huge fan of this story. I knew eventually that one of these stories would be too uncomfortably racist to really get into, I just expected it to be one of Howard's stories, rather than de Camp or Carter's. Most of the racism is directed toward Juma, Conan's friend and a fellow outlander from Kush who travels with the Turanians. It's far from horrific and it's not the worst we'll see during this chronology, but it sucks some air out of the narrative. Juma's characterization is similar to Conan: he's tall, strong, and clever, but the way the story talks about him always makes sure to other him. He's almost exclusively called "the black." For example, right before Juma kills the evil king Jalung Thongpa:

​"The black was too far from the tableau to interfere, but his frustrated rage demanded an outlet."

Why not "Conan's ally," "Conan's friend," "The Kushite," or heck, just "Juma" than frequently referring to him just by the color of his skin? Did they have to give him a stereotypical hoop earring? Did they have to make sure that the only protagonist Black character thus far had slavery in his past? I have seen praise for this story for Juma not being a complete stereotype, but I don't dig it. I don't even know if Juma represents de Camp and Carter trying to be inclusive with a Black character, seeing as they were writing during the Civil Rights Momement in 1967, but they failed.

I've done some writing on the internet before with a social justice bent to it, and we always got comments saying we were idiots for examining pop culture of the past and not completely ignoring and accepting the racist elements. A professor I had about fifteen years ago always used a phrase that I like: "Just because we historicize, doesn't mean we excuse." Just because we understand that times were different and we can't fairly hold people like Robert E. Howard to the standards to today doesn't mean that we have to excuse their awful behavior. I agree that it would be unfair to expect a perfectly acceptable (by modern standards) depiction of Juma, but we don't have to just accept failures of the past. "The City of Skulls" was already a slightly lesser Conan story, and we can leave it behind.

Next up is "The People of the Summit!"

★★☆☆​☆