The Riddle of Steel in the 1982 Motion Picture “Conan the Barbarian”

Out of respect for the late and great James Earl Jones, I would like to bring attention to one of his greatest films and share my thoughts on the true meaning behind the Riddle of Steel.

Since the legendary Riddle of Steel had long been solved in the real world, it was ripe for conversion to a fantasy world analog.

There’s arguments to be made on how much of the motion picture screenplay was handled by John Milius vs. Oliver Stone, but the answer to the riddle was left open to viewer interpretation on purpose.

And I believe the answer you arrive at may say a lot about who you are as a person.

I mentioned earlier that Sword & Sorcery lends itself best to short stories, but a longform narrative works just fine here. Why? Because of the inclusion of tangible character development and two large story arcs:

• A physical quest to track down the main villain, Thulsa Doom, and seek revenge.

• A spiritual quest to solve the “Riddle of Steel” so that when Conan dies, he can answer the question and proceed to Valhalla.

“If I die, I have to go before him. And he will ask me, ‘What is the riddle of steel?’ If I don’t know it, he will cast me out of Valhalla and laugh at me.”

Clearly the spiritual goal is more important to Conan than the physical one, and it’s also far more compelling to the audience. All Conan can hope is that, perhaps on his journey, the answer will come in time and he’ll be ready to tell his answer to Crom, his god. That’s much like life.

In fact, it reminds me of something I once said in an earlier post:

Turns out we need the spiritual and abstract to find true meaning in our lives. Physical things and material wealth can only go so far; They’re not enough on their own to provide true happiness, let alone stay mentally stable.

While I’m not one of those people who would say this movie is perfect, I believe the Riddle of Steel is one of the more intriguing philosophical questions ever posed in cinema history. (And I’ll be danged if I don’t try and do it justice here.)

Not long after the movie begins, Conan is a young boy, and his father tells him what he believes to be the answer:

…in their rage, the gods forgot the secret of steel and left it on the battlefield. And we who found it are just men. Not gods. Not giants. Just men.

The secret of steel has always carried with it a mystery. You must learn it, little Conan. You must learn its discipline. For no one, no one in this world can you trust. Not men, not women, not beasts. (He shows Conan a steel sword.) This you can trust.

What we have here is a reworking of the Promethean myth, which is the basis for most Pagan belief systems. It’s said here that steel is a secret from the gods handed down to men (“As above, so below”).

But this is a trap. His father believes the answer to the riddle is partly that you can trust no one. In fact, it seems the only thing you can trust is the strength of steel in combat. Or perhaps he means a willingness to fight for self-preservation. Or his willingness to protect his family? Or he means the only thing that can be trusted is nature – Or reliable tools? Or power? Perhaps he refers to forging yourself in the flames and becoming as strong as steel. Or perhaps he’s literally referring to the sword he’s holding, or all swords in general, or just the swords you personally forge… or…

It’s … not made clear at all. And this was done on purpose.

Besides, his words ring hollow. He had to trust his wife in order to get married and have a child. And he’s trusting Conan with the story of his people to carry on their legacy.

His father’s thesis is proven even more false when Thulsa Doom and his cult attack Conan’s village, killing and enslaving everyone.

Conan’s mother is beheaded by the very blade she forged. It leaves Conan cold and shaken not only because he lost his mother to a horrible death, but because it means his parents died not knowing the true meaning to the Riddle of Steel. They didn’t seem to know the question OR the answer, which makes their deaths all the more tragic.

Turns out his father shouldn’t have trusted himself, let alone anyone else, because his interpretation of the riddle and its answer were both false.

That’s quite a heavy lesson for a young boy to carry. Especially as a now orphaned slave. Conan is taken by Thulsa’s men to turn the “Wheel of Woe” and fight as a gladiator, which gives him plenty of time to meditate on the meaning of his parents’ death, and the meaning of the riddle itself. All the while, he can’t let himself die because he doesn’t yet have the spiritual answers he needs.

All grown up, after more than a decade of being a slave and being honed for combat, he wins a gladiator match and is asked what’s best in life.

Conan famously replies:

To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.

The crowd cheers. This is likely what many of these thieves and mercenaries and rubes and cronies of Thulsa Doom believe is the answer to the Riddle of Steel.

Believing him a loyal enough dog to not be a threat to Thulsa Doom, they set him free. This is the second trap people get hung up on. Some step away from this movie thinking that the answer to the Riddle of Steel is hidden within the quote above, but that would mean Thulsa Doom was not only right, but justified in destroying Conan’s village and murdering. It assumes power through annihilation and fear is the answer. It’s “Do as thou wilt” combined with “Might is right”.

Conan said those words in steel chains, however, as a slave. So they meant nothing to him. He’s not afraid of Thulsa and won’t let fear control him. He pretended to be broken, lowered himself. Because patience and humility require great strength which helped forge him in the fires. His virtues ultimately proved himself stronger than the steel that held him. He persevered by staying focused on his two goals.

And that lack of fear is proven immediately after since he wastes no time setting off to track down Thulsa, the man who destroyed his village and murdered his family, the man who placed him in those chains.

During his search, he comes across a woman named Valeria and, despite his father’s advise to trust no one, falls in love.

Thulsa manages to capture Conan and finds it amusing he seeks the answer to the Riddle of Steel. Like Conan’s father, Thulsa believes he understands this riddle and has arrived at the proper answer.

To demonstrate, he orders one of his followers to jump off a cliff to her death at his command. Her life so meaningless, she’d throw it away just to help Thulsa prove a point.

Thulsa has enthralled his cult members with power, fear, and ignorance through mind control, turning them into radicalized fanatics. He explains that steel is indeed strong, but a hand must wield that steel or it is useless, which makes flesh stronger than steel. Then he argues that he who controls the minds of those who would wield steel is strongest, thus that is the true answer to the Riddle of Steel.

While well-reasoned, this is also a trap. Thulsa is referring to using True Will, revealing himself a Magus. He sees ignorant people as tools for his own ends because he believes himself outside of Plato’s Cave, therefore much stronger than steel.

Thulsa believes he has the Promethean knowledge handed down by the gods. To further prove his point, he orders Conan nailed to the “dead tree”, to be crucified and die. But before Conan expires, he viciously bites the neck of a bird that had meant to peck out his eyes, once again showing his conviction is strong.

But it is Valeria, the woman he fell in love with, who pays the blood price to the gods and resurrects Conan. This represents a spiritual rebirth (which is often required in rituals to gain true wisdom). And this once again proves false his father’s earlier thesis that “you should trust no one”, since it is his trust in Valeria that helped him conquer death.

Thus, it seems love is also stronger than steel. But this explanation is yet another trap simply because it’s not the whole and final answer to the riddle, and that there may even be something stronger yet.

During a battle, his sword gets shattered, proving definitively the answer to the riddle is not the strength of steel itself (which should come as no surprise by this point in the tale). None-the-less, Conan decides to keep what’s left of the weapon, which amounts to little more than a hilt. But to him, it means much more.

He also loses Valeria, but their love survives.

In the final confrontation, Thulsa Doom tries to enthrall Conan with mind control, but it fails because looking at the broken weapon with conviction gives Conan the spirit he needs to break free.

And Valeria appears temporarily in the glittering armor of a Valhalla knight, which means she somehow managed to solve the Riddle of Steel. She asks in despair if he wishes to live forever, but Conan does not fear death. Not anymore, because he understands the answer.

Thulsa Doom, on the other hand, as a magus, wishes to live forever because, deep down, he knows he doesn’t have the true answer, that what he’s been doing in the Hyborian world has been for his own selfish gain. Thulsa has chosen the physical world over the spiritual. The religion of his cult is merely window dressing; Crom will laugh him out of Valhalla.

But Thulsa smugly tells Conan that it’s only because his village was attacked and his family was killed that Conan mustered so much resolve in his heart in the first place. This is also viewing the situation from a purely worldly lens.

In response, Conan beheads the villain – It’s clear Thulsa has no more answers for him. Thus ends Thulsa’s reign of terror for good while simultaneously proving all of Thulsa’s theories false.

Conan, who–thanks to his journey and rebirth–values the spiritual world over the physical, will one day accept death and join Valeria in Valhalla.

Conclusion

The question-half of the Riddle of Steel is almost certainly: “What is harder, tougher, and more resilient than steel?”

But there are several possible answers. Conan will have to choose the correct one if he wishes to join Valeria in Valhalla when he dies.

The first option is that if you have enough conviction, you can harden your heart until it’s tougher than steel. But I think that answer alone would get you laughed out of Valhalla. A hardened heart is not enough on its own to defeat someone like Thulsa, who had amassed so much power over flesh and blood.

Besides, conviction can’t be the answer alone. Thulsa Doom’s followers also had conviction. So much so that they were willing to pay their lives for his meaningless cause. But they fell to Conan.

The second option is love. After all, Valeria solved the riddle, and she and Conan were both in love. But I think the reason she reached Valhalla goes beyond that.

The third option is trial by fire. That is, forging yourself in the fires, surviving hardships until you’re indomitable. This kind of goes hand-in-hand with hardening your heart. Conan survived adversity and impossible odds to claim his revenge, gaining wisdom along the way.

But that represents the journey, not the destination. Therefore it is not a complete answer. Perhaps it is half.

Some go too far with the woman who jumps off the cliff and think the film teaches nihilism, that the riddle–and therefore life itself–is meaningless. But this is disproven when we see that Valhalla is real and that Valeria succeeded in her spiritual journey.

Others go the Nietzschean route, believing that Conan won by proving himself the superior übermensch to Thulsa, having the strongest Will. After all, the movie starts with a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche himself:

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

But, again, hardening yourself is only part of the answer. And Conan proved himself not a magus when he told Valeria he had no desire for eternal life. Will alone helps with the physical, worldly journey, but not the spiritual one.

To find the rest, we must think about why Conan was able to persevere through a Hellish childhood of slavery, why he was able to break Thulsa’s mind control, and why Valeria made it to Valhalla.

The answer lies in a paragraph I wrote earlier:

That’s quite a heavy lesson for a young boy to carry. Especially a now orphaned slave. Conan is taken by Thulsa’s men to turn the “Wheel of Woe” and fight as a gladiator, which gives him plenty of time to meditate on the meaning of his parents’ death, and the meaning of the riddle itself. All the while, he can’t let himself die because he doesn’t yet have the spiritual answers he needs.

Conan was able to survive that harrowing experience and suffer a life of slavery because he held more than just conviction in his heart. He held spiritual conviction.

Crom wishes to recruit into his army those with indomitable spirits.

Both Conan and Valeria had such strong conviction of spirit that fear, and slavery, and even death itself could not hope to quell them. Valeria stood against the will of the very gods by rescuing Conan’s soul.

So the indomitable spirit found in someone with such conviction is what’s stronger than steel, stronger than flesh, stronger than the mind, stronger than the heart, and even stronger than love.

If that’s not the #IronAge in a nutshell, I don’t know what is.