Conan the Barbarian: Queen of the Black Coast #3

Desire Burrows Beyond Beneath the Belt

Response to Conan: Queen of the Black Coast #3

“On the surface of it, the lover wants the beloved. This, of course, is not really the case.” – Anne Carson in Eros: The Bittersweet

Desire is complicated. Sex complicates it further. Sailing, swashbuckling and piracy further add to the complexity. Poor young Conan treads threatening waters by combining all these elements which threaten to envelope and overwhelm him without warning, and his inexperience better serves as a diving belt.

Still, Conan descends into dark deep water, “I’ll sail with you,” he tells Bêit, and he suppresses his desire and acclimates himself to the crew and ship. Conan sets about a sailor’s work, but still waters run deep and his desire for Bêlit the creative team has been building for the last two issues continues placing Conan and Bêlit on the verge of getting it on.

And they do, but as Carson notes, it’s not really the case that the lover wants the beloved.

In literature, hopefully unlike in life, sex is never about sex, but symbolic of something else; Carson’s quote recognizes this point, “On the surface of it, the lover wants the beloved. This, of course, is not really the case.” Conan and Bêlit’s coupling reads as a new life, a fresh beginning exposed to unfathomed and unfulfilled fates. 

Power and control through sex remain absent aboard the Tigress. Bêlit tells Conan “…we become as one.” A unity and equilibrium between Conan and Bêlit continues through this issue, just as it has flowed through the first two issues. Issue three opens with three pages of Bêlit imagining Conan’s life in Cimmeria, a parallel episode of Conan’s imaginings of Bêlit in issue one. Bêlit thinks “She knew she had found her lover.” The choice of her companion rested solely with the pirate queen, her selection avoided influence from concerns about society, class, family, or her crew. The decision to ask Conan “So, answer me Cimmerian, will you take me?” originated solely from Bêlit’s desire.

Conan diplomatically dodges this question by answering “I’ll sail with you.” Standing aboard Bêlit’s ship, surrounded by her crew, Conan’s position appears disadvantageous. Yet a balance of power returns when Conan’s pose at the top of page four is examined. He stands proud, sword in hand, while an unarmed Bêlit leans against him. This panel has a balance both in design and symbolism. Page five (the second panel) has Conan to the far right of the panel and the panel below places Bêlit to the far left. More metaphorical design symmetry occurs in the final two panels that show Bêlit facing the audience in one and another panel Conan faces the reader. The equity of these characters echo their placement on the page.

So if this sex is a symbolic sex of fresh starts, how is this scene sexually symbolic of freedom? Upon seeing Bêlit in a cabin of the ship, the narrator notes, “Conan’s desire swept all else away,” but this desire wasn’t solely for Bêlit. The narrator continues to notes in Conan’s thought block that his desire also includes his want for the quest, sailing the sea with Bêlit, and freedom from land and law. The narrator tells us Conan “caught a glimpse of his future with this Queen of the Black of the Coast.” Conan desires Bêlit, but also freedom, endless possibility, a new self, a better self. A new version of Conan is born in Bêlit’s arms, his younger immature land-locked self has died. The narration states: “The usage of creation and the urge of death are one and the same.” A fresh identity roiling with freedom awaits Conan. Finer words on identity ponderings reside at http://interestedinsophisticatedfun.blogspot.com/. Read them now!

After this lay, what happens to desire after desire has been quenched?

Conan doesn’t know, but the shaman aboard Bêlit’s ship knows how to find out. With a new life, which includes Bêlit, Conan drinks the seer’s concoction and reveals the futures to which he will sail to upon waves of his new incubating desires. But why go to the seer? Tracing trajectories of actions and prognosticating on the potential possibilities with the confines of an experienced and known life remains tricky at the best of times. Yet social standards and laws serve as predictors of the future for what will happen if an individual acts in a specified manner. If one kills a magistrate and steals his horse in Argos, the guard attempt to capture and prosecute the perpetrator. In civilized settings, at least in a small sense, the future becomes a known quantity, a basis of stability setting rhythmic standards of sedentary lives.

Upon the sea, however, stability washes away, especially for Conan whose sailing legs have yet to ascertain the subtlety of standing atop waves.

While freedom, endless possibilities, and fresh beginnings excite, they also carry unsettling consternation; perhaps not fear, but a close cousin that wonders what will happen, a part that yearns to banish ignorance of the future and at least know in some small way what will result from such a bold choice. Since Conan lacks the experience in matters of the sea and this fresh affection shared by him and Bêlit, he needs divine help. Conan bypasses Crom, always indifferent to the fate of his followers, and seeks the seer to serve as an intermediary to Fate. The seer drink unlocks the future that Conan lacks the foresight and experience to predict (it also serves as a fine technique for the creative team to let readers know of upcoming events in the storyline). Conan’s visions provide some stability for his new life, and even if the five future scenes seem sinister, the barbarian at least has some hint of what’s coming.  And by Crom, what more could a barbarian, or his followers, ask of The Queen of the Black Coast as they sail into the future?