Anarchy in Ultima Thule: Barbarians in Fantasy

I forget why this was brought back to my memory, but deep in the bowels of a thread on what we'd like to see less of in fantasy on BFB, Allan Batchelder said he was conflicted by all the big barbaric northmen in fantasy.

He has a point. People spew venom about dragons and elves, roll their eyes at orcs and dark lords, and on and on and on, but big barbaric northmen appear in more series than the above by my reckoning. Joe Abercrombie might have gone to town on every other fantasy trope in the book, but northmen like Logen Ninefingers and Caul Shivers could have walked right out of a Howard or Leiber book. They are a stereotype that endures with little but happy comments in a genre seemingly jaded and restive for change.

The why of that intrigues me. I love Vikings and the Ancient Celts as much as the next shaggy-haired mead-drinking myth-reading pagan-thinking maniac and know a lot of others do. But the desire to see those cultures exported again and again to the page alone is surely not enough. Not alone.

My favourite five minute theory is that in fantasy worlds aping the complex social natures and subsequent injustices of the real world, the BBN gets to be the one that cuts through the crap. They tell and live it like it is, instead of getting ground down by the system. That's as true for Conan exploiting the weaknesses of the soft civilised kingdoms of the Hyborian age as it is for Logen pointing and laughing at Jezal's ridiculous airs and graces. They are picaresque heroes, sane men in an insane world.

Every author needs an outsider or ten to gawp and ask questions. Its part of why David Eddings recommended making heroes very uneducated. That is one way and it's no small part of the Portal Fantasy's appeal. But outsiders work just as well. Moreover, the uneducated hero is not as well placed as the outsider to question the conventional wisdom they hear. As fantasy increasingly mirrors the world's cynicism and anger, we want those questions from the characters we read.

It might account for why, if anything, BBN seem to be getting even more popular. The 80s/90s fiction I grew up reading featured them, but going from memory not as heavily as Abercrombie or Lawrence.

Of course, these are not the only form of BBN out there. Sometimes they get to be the howling hordes coming to destroy civilisation, akin to the Mierces in Anna Stephens' Godblind. Sometimes the prevailing culture are the BBN, which means they can't be the straight talking outsiders, although that does tend to signal some bloody robust politics - I think this is fair comment on RJ Barker's Age of Assassins.

But in general, I think that when we see the BBN, we know we're going to hear the things we wished we'd see and the arsekickings we'd like to hand out. They're our avatars of contempt and outrage for the compromises we surround ourselves with. Its why the comic Conan is my Spirit Guide is such genius. It speaks directly to that yearning.

Now, in this light, I'd like to see less of this type of BBN. Don't get me wrong - I love them. My unfinished manuscripts are littered with them. There's one called Barbarians that's basically an entire book of this. But they shouldn't be allowed to hog that space. Obviously, you can have BBN and another contrarian in the same book (i.e. Logen and Glokta). And it would be fun to see the Ancient Celtic and early medieval Norse cultures given greater scope than noble heroic barbarians and bloodthirsty villain barbarians. 

But if you want to use a Big Barbaric Northman? Do it. The people aren't sick of them yet and thank gods for that.