Goodman Games and Tales From the Magician’s Skull are honored to report that this essay by Jason Ray Carney, Dehumanizing Violence and Compassion in Robert E. Howard’s “Red Nails,” has been nominated for a 2022 Robert E. Howard Award in the category of Outstanding Achievement, Essay — otherwise known as The Hyrkanian! The Robert E. Howard Awards 2022 will be presented this weekend, June 10 at Howard Days in Cross Plains, TX, the annual celebration of the life and work of the founder of sword-and-sorcery, Robert E. Howard. Naturally, we just had to rerun Jason’s terrific essay as we wish him the best of luck in this weekend’s fierce competition — for The Hyrkanian category also includes work from TFTMS regulars Brian Murphy and C.L. Werner! Competition like that will test the surest steel — and congratulations to all of the nominees justly celebrated for their work in enriching the legacy of one of the twentieth century’s most distinct and enduring literary voices. Dehumanizing Violence and Compassion in Robert E. Howard’s “Red Nails” by Jason Ray Carney Robert E. Howard’s sword and sorcery tale “Red Nails,” published as a three-part serial in Weird Tales in 1936, tells the story of the city of Xuchotl, the enduring, blood-soaked war between the Tecuhltli and the Xotalanc, and the dehumanizing effect of sustained hatred and violence. “Red Nails” engages with several ancient literary tropes, but the one that centers “Red Nails” is what I term “the stalemate war.” By focusing on the stalemate war between the murderous Tecuhltli and insane Xotalanc, I hope to bring into focus a surprising facet of Robert E. Howard’s most famous sword and sorcery character, Conan of Cimmeria: the way the barbarian maintains his humanity through compassion. First, let me briefly clarify what I mean by the literary trope of “the stalemate war.” Identifying tropes and patterns in literature and popular culture is more an art than a science, but it’s fun and often reveals surprising dimensions to works. Why storytellers hew to these enduring patterns, who knows? Some speculate that these mythic patterns are evolutionary residues, instinctual psychological narratives that unconsciously narrate the crucible of our evolution. Their origins notwithstanding, there are undeniable recurring structures of story that resonate with us, and so storytellers return to them over and over, hone them, and reinvent for their...