I'm currently writing something that involves a fair quantity of barbarians, and so last night I decided to watch the original Conan with a notebook at hand as part of my research. I'd not actually seen it before, and let me tell you: Conan is a fucking *weird* movie.

So let's get this on the table first of all: Conan is riven through with indefensible sexual politics, which I won't celebrate. It was bloody uncomfortable viewing. But the intensely unpleasant moral landscape they contribute to is part of what makes Conan so fascinatingly odd.