Those Savage Queens

These days, you can’t spit in fantasy art without hitting some variant of a beautiful, barely clad female lounging on a throne, pasties on her nipples, a pout on her pretty face. The strong suggestion is she rules by whim and her power is absolute, a thing which, I’m sure, many of the male artists and male viewers can relate to in their romantic histories.

“Yeah, I’m the Queen of the Moose People. You gotta problem with that?”
(Artwork by Alfonso Azpiri )

But where did she come from?

Before the 20th century, Savage Queens existed only in myth or as characters from the Bible, that repository of culture-sanctioned myth in the Western world. As such, they appeared in oil paintings for the wealthy.

Semiramis Called to Arms, by Giovanni Francesco Guercino, 1645

This painting makes no effort to depict Queen Semiramis of Assyria in anything resembling Middle Eastern garb or period dress of the 8th century BC. Instead, she’s dressed like an Italian noblewoman of the mid-17th century, which may be exotic to us now, but certainly not to the viewers of the time. It would take the Enlightenment, with its curiosity about ancient cultures, for more authentic garb to appear. Yet she is a Savage Queen — lounging about (on a fancy chair if not a throne) as a servant fixes her hair, she is interrupted by a messenger bearing news of a revolt, so she rises, uncoifed, to go to war.  The 17th century being what it was, I’m sure the painting was an allegory intended for some noble.

Depiction of Françoise Marie de Bourbon as Juno, by François de Troy

Once the Enlightenment was underway, we start seeing more patently exotic garb. This painting of Juno, Queen of the Greek gods and wife of Zeus, shows her in toga-like drapes, on a throne, while petting a peacock. But the face and hairdo is that of Françoise Marie de Bourbon, an illegitimate daughter of Louis XIV,  whom the depiction was designed to flatter. I’ll guess the portrait was created at the start of the Neoclassic Age, as the side table her arm is resting on has that ancient Grecian look. Europeans had started poking around in Mediterranean ruins at the time, unearthing many wonders.

 

Salammbô, by Alphonse Mucha, 1896

Czech artist Alphonse Mucha is widely known today for his much-imitated style and JOB cigarette papers girl, a popular poster in the late 1960s. But his artwork was shockingly revolutionary when it first came out. This lithograph depicts Salammbo, a high priestess of Carthage, from the novel of the same name written by Gustave Flaubert — he of Madame Bovary fame.  Though Salammbo stands tall and dignified in Mucha’s depiction, she is clearly a sensual heathen by her bared breasts, elaborate jewelry, and peacock feather crown. And she’s not entirely nice, going by how her lyre-playing slave is shrinking from her.

Orientalism, an art movement popularized by another Gustave, Gustave Moreau, clearly had a hand in this depiction. Orientalism was a wide, European-based art movement that began in the 18th century and had its roots in earlier ages of exploration and colonization. It had a fascination with all things non-European (Japanese block prints, Grecian columns, Polynesian carvings, etc.) using those design motifs and subject matter for the titillation of European minds. One of the most popular in fine art was the idea of the Harem… naked and/or exotically dressed women lolling about amongst pillows and draperies. Another was a fascination with the Near East and the more savage Biblical stories, such as the one of Salome, who has become a potent symbol of female danger and seduction. As a Savage Queen, she is petulant, beautiful, savage, and cruel.

Left to right: Tanz der Salome, Leopold Shmutzler, 1914; Dancer Shafiga Copta; Salome, Anonymous

By the late 1800s ethnic jewelry and costumes were beginning to find their way into European markets for artists to find inspiration from, hence her garb.  Alternately, costume items could have been sketched at their source by painters doing their Grand Tour of the Levant. Notice how peacock feathers appear in Salome’s costume, as they have in Mucha’s and de Troy’s paintings.

A burlesque dancer from the early 20th century dressed in a Salome-inspired costume holds up her hands  in a “pagan” pose.

Like Salome, Mata Hari too became the epitome of the man-eating femme fatale in her “Oriental” costume (this one standing in for Malaysia) even though the truth of her life was far different.

Cleopatra’s first appearance in film was, for the time, shockingly sexually forward. Silent movie actress Theda Bara designed many of the costumes herself, which while not authentic, are interesting for their mishmash of Arabic, Indian, and Central Asian sources. Bara might seem too plump and homely for today’s taste in Savage Queens (compare her to the Joe Jusko version below) but at the time she created a sensation. Her depiction of a Savage Queen was also one of the first to reach a mass audience. (The discovery of King Tut’s tomb in 1922 led to more accurate costume depictions.)

But it took the pulps for Savage Queens to really make a mark.

Pulp literature had its heyday in the early decades of the 20th century and was named for the cheap paper the magazines were printed on; later “pulp” also referred to the subject matter, which was lurid, exploitive, sensational, and imaginative… perfect for science fiction and fantasy. This mass-market fluff regularly featured stories of heroic adventurers in exotic lands, the fertile ground Steven Spielberg paid homage to with Indiana Jones. Writers didn’t have to look far for inspiration, as tombs were being found and lost cities discovered at a high rate. H. Rider Haggard’s She was perhaps the first Savage Queen in print, in part inspired by the apex years of the British Empire when Africa was undergoing colonization.

Ursula Andress as Ayesha,1965.

Ayesha in many ways set the template for a Savage Queen: she ruled a lost, barbaric kingdom in the jungle, was incomparably beautiful and powerful, and, most importantly for pulp fiction, harbored an attraction towards the male adventurer of the story.

When the British Empire began to crumble, the Americans took up the reins. Among them was a  young writer named Edgar Rice Burroughs who created not one but several pulp series featuring lost worlds and fantastic adventures. Tarzan of the Apes is Burrough’s best-known hero, and he had run-ins of his own with a Savage Queen named La, ruler of the lost city of Opar.

Queen La made several appearances throughout the series. She ruled over Opar as its high priestess and became attracted to Tarzan because the males of Opar were, unfortunately, ugly and deformed. True to form, her dangerous nature emerges (she attempts to sacrifice him, and then Jane, with a knife) and later weeps with frustration when Tarzan rejects her.  It’s interesting to trace her depiction over the years.

An early book cover. A rosy-cheeked Queen La stands in a typical flapper pose. Tarzan looks very young here, maybe nineteen, and his legs are impressively muscled. The artist was not afraid to depict nipples.

A later illustration. Both Tarzan and Queen La have curly, movie-star hair; Tarzan resembles Buster Crabbe, and Queen La, Myrna Loy. As per the movie code of the time, she shows no cleavage or nipples and her navel is hidden. Tarzan has lost the wiry savagery of the earlier depiction, appearing more like an office worker who occasionally plays golf.

From a 1960s comic. Tarzan has certainly met his match! Queen La’s headdress of linked disks seems inspired from the fashions of Paco Rabanne.

From a 1970s comic. Queen La wears what is basically a bikini. Her headdress has increased in size to showgirl proportions.

Joe Jusko’s version. More muscles, more undress, and… pasties! One with a dangly thing. Tarzan is freshly oiled as if from a posing session at Gold’s Gym. His physique is truly excessive for an ape-man that makes his bread and butter swinging through the trees. No vine could hold the weight of those massive pecs and thighs.

Humor here from cartoonist Gary Larson, showing how far the trope has penetrated.

By the ending decades of the 20th century, Savage Queens were well established and featured regularly like  this cheesecake, but very worthy, depiction by Chris Achilleos. This Queen is a ballbuster and will clearly take no quarter from an undeserving man.


I’ll leave this photo essay with one of the many modern depictions. Note the recurring elements of throne, peacock feathers, and  exotic headdress.

Queen, by Studio Smugbug on DeviantArt

Sideways Roller Coaster


This unique sideways roller coaster was the only one of its kind produced. It was abandoned, along with the amusement park, after the final cataclysm hit the city.

Worldbuilding Wednesday 1/9/19: Fantasy Fruits

Buddha’s Hand, a relative of the citrus fruits

To come up with some exotic fruit for a fantasy kingdom it is not necessary to look beyond this world. The strange-looking fruit above, known as a Buddha’s Hand, is a cultivar (a genetic variant encouraged by fruit growers) of the citron tree, and in the same general family as oranges and limes. It looks a bit like a lemon that has exploded. It contains little pulp or juice, but the skin is highly fragrant and can be used to make candy. You’ll probably never see it in your local supermarket, but it may occasionally be found in specialty Asian grocers.

Other odd, exotic fruits may be found closer to home. Take the Osage Orange. Never heard of it? It’s a native of North America that was once restricted to East Texas. When English colonizers discovered it (the Native Americans, of course, already knew of its uses) it was decided to be an exceptionally nifty tree for wood and landscaping use and thus disseminated all over the US. The fruit is large, green, and wrinkled, with a dry texture and cucumber-like flavor. It doesn’t taste too good to modern humans or livestock, but in the Pleistocene, some scientists say, it was very appealing to the fauna of the era like ground sloths and woolly rhinos.

If real-life examples are too mundane for you, here are some randomgen ideas.

 

Fantasy Fruits

Thurzle: A scarlet fruit that grows only in the tropics. It has a  squat, almost lenticular shape and its skin is heavily creased. The flesh is sweet and crunchy. The inside is studded with small black seeds, giving it a slightly gritty quality. Thulze must be picked off the tree; by the time it falls, it has begun to rot.Jarten: A small, oval-shaped melon with ridged skin raised in a hexagonal patten. Its flesh is a dull orange in color and very fibrous. When cooked, the fibers dissolve and form a thick pudding.

Servia: A globe-shaped melon with a  green rind and pale interior spotted with pink seeds. The flesh is stringy but very sweet.

Mafakla nut: Medium-sized, round, smooth nuts that grow on dense bushes in the evergreen rain forest. The shell of the nut is tan with beige speckles, and is very hard. The nut itself has a cheesy, sour taste. It is not eaten on its own, but prepared with other foods.

Sangra: A long, tapered citrus fruit with yellow-green, heavily wrinkled skin. On the tree, it is covered with a papery husk. The flesh is orange and has a sweet, slightly salty flavor.

Jidnaberry: Smooth-skinned, reddish-purple berries produced on a low bush in late summer. The berries are tart, and need sweetening if eaten raw. They are full of vitamin C. They are often dried and pounded into fruit leather with the addition of some honey. Jidnaberry is common in woodlands.

Zhaczva: A small, round pine cone that is edible when green.  Its taste is like spiced, sugared rosemary.

Vilsang: A pear-shaped, heavy fruit grown on a relative of the ginkgo tree. It is sweet with taste of lemon and lime combined, though it is not a citrus fruit. Its thin skin is a shiny pale gold in color. It is most prized when fully ripe as it takes on a soft, custard-like texture.

Cendhaz: A large oblong melon with a tough rind that hides a sweet, refreshing interior. Cendhaz are usually red with irregular white stripes. The flesh is pink. Some have been known to reach 30 pounds in weight.

Tulanj: A hard-fleshed tree fruit that ripens in late fall. Tulanj has brown, hairy skin and a pale orange interior concealing a single large seed.

Dragon’s Brain: A globular, wrinkled fruit with a noxious odor that disappears when it is soaked in vinegar. It is usually dark green in color. It grows on a mountain cactus.

Rujujia: A large tropical nut with a reddish-orange shell that must be sliced open with a machete. Its flesh is oily and dense. The nuts grow in clusters and fall from the tree when they are ripe.

Reading Challenge 2019


It’s the time to clean out my To-Read drawer and boxes for this year’s Challenge. Mostly the drawer and the first box I got my hands on. I’m hoping this year’s list will be easier than last year’s. One of the attributes I have to keep in mind for these 12 months is that a book must not be a torture. I read on my lunch hour, and I need that escape… something to look forward to, not dread. The torture happened with Twilight. I don’t want to repeat it. So here are this year’s selections!

Cobalt Jade’s 2019 Reading Challenge List

4. What you will read to your grandchildren: A children’s book (middle grade or younger).
A Swiftly Tilting Planet, by Madeleine L’engle.
Picked because it’s been hanging around for a while and I want to see what’s going on with the Murry kids.

5. East meets West: A book taking place in Asia (Turkey to Japan, Siberia to Vietnam)
The Last Samurai, the Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori, by Mark Ravina.
Japanese history.

6. Just the (alternative) facts, Ma’am: An alternate history.
The Years of Rice and Salt, by Kim Stanley Robinson.
What if all of Caucasian Medieval Europe had died during the Great Plague?

9. Best friend: A book with a dog on the cover.
Being a Dog, by Alexandra Horowitz.
Loved her previous book, Inside a Dog.

14. Crossing the (color) lines: A book about a person of color (PoC), any variety, written by an author of the same variety.
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, by N.K. Jemison.
Wanted to read this author for a while.

17. Back in the day: A historical of any genre.
A Murder in Thebes, by Anna Apostolou.
Alexander the Great turns amateur detective!

18. Do you deliver?: A book where food, cooking, restaurants, chefs, etc. play a major role.
American Pie, by Pascale Le Draoulec.
A gift from a now-deceased friend.

25. Flights of fancy: A book in which airplanes figure prominently.
Jet Age, by Sam Howe Verhovek.
The rivalry between the British Comet passenger jet and the Boeing 707.

28. Keep up with the Joneses: A book everyone else seems to have read but you have not.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, by Hunter S. Thompson.
I don’t know what I will find in here.

39. Tuesdays with Balaam’s Ass: A book with a non-human (animal or fantastic creature) main character.
Tales from Watership Down, by Richard Adams.
Talking rabbits.

48. Matryoshka books: A book mentioned or discussed inside another book.
Reading Lolita in Teheran, by Azar Nafisi.
Self-explanatory.

49. What you read: A book you loved as a child.
A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. LeGuin
How will this one hold up through my adult eyes?

Leviamoth

Life on other planets follows rules we may not expect, like this filter-feeding leviathan-behemoth from the Cygnus 3 system.

Worldbuilding Wednesday 1/2/19: Savage Queens


Lost kingdoms and hidden cities are a staple of pulp adventure fiction — and SFF! — as are their rulers, which, most of the time, are gorgeous, powerful, scantily clad women. Often they serve as foils for the male adventurers and, occasionally, romantic interests. The magazine cover above illustrates Phorenice, the ruler of Atlantis. With her hypnotic Claudette Colbert stare and Tamara Lempick curls, she’s a worthy opponent for the characters of Cutcliffe Hyne’s “The Lost Continent.”

(Fantasy writer Richard Adams paid homage to this character by naming the evil, sexually deviant Priestess-Queen of the Beklan Empire Fornis after her.)

Other powerful ladies include Ayesha, of H. Rider Haggard’s She, Queen La of Opar from the Tarzan books, and Princess Yazmela and Queen Tamaris, creations of Conan writer Robert Howard.  Even C. S. Lewis played with the trope in The Magician’s Nephew, where Mage-Queen Jadis of the dead world of Charn emerges amusingly into Edwardian London, charming and dominating the old Magician of the title. (Later, she winds up as the White Witch in the original Narnia tale, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.) Fantasy art abounds with these ladies because of their dramatic and photogenic qualities, for which I’ll do a later post.

For now, I’ll include a list of suitable savage names for these characters, which are at once exotic and a little unpleasant, full of sibilant S’s, soft J’s, hard T’s, K’s, and V’s, and open-mouthed Ays.

 

Savage Queens

Shandazis

Shödna

Chalna

Jumanza

Tasza

Phosphania

Sadanza

Iphis

Kabrana

Shenlaz

Thurna

Velza

Gadamrija

Sochosis

Senra

Shulza

Diralva

 Vaszina

Penangra

Aycha

Aytes

Mudhazya

Chunda

Tryphna

Lakaytes

Oceansa

Ailata

Kurvia

Angklar

Jekasia

Sungma

Arhoë

Lutrene

Byrolis

Mari Lwyd

Mari Lwyd an original painting by Laura Zakroff

Mari Lwyd was a Welsh Christmas and New Year tradition in which a group of male singers carried a hobbyhorse — a horse’s skull mounted on a pole, cloaked and decorated — to houses around the village, with singing and refreshments. Happy New Year!

2018 Reading Challenge Conclusion

My bonnet is this large to accommodate my brain.

This year’s Challenge was full of challenging (read: Difficult) reads for me. Of the twelve here three were substitutions for books I had to drop for various reasons. I think I should have vetted the originals better.

As a reader, most of my choices surprised and delighted me. As a writer, the good ones showed me what was possible and the bad ones, what to avoid. And the worst of the list, Twilight,  was very, very bad, so bad I had to live up to my firepit promise for it:

BURN! BURN! BURN!

The book that has stuck with me the most was Where Wizards Stay Up Late, even though I could not rate it highly. It illustrated to me both the optimism of the development of Internet technology and, in hindsight, how that free-wheeling openess has gotten out of control and grown into something sinister since when the book was published (1994) and now (2018.)

2018’s books, with final ratings:

1. Get on with it already: A book that’s been on your TBR (to be read) list for over a year.
Hermetech, by Storm Constantine

2. Freebies: A book you (legally) obtained without paying for.
The One Gold Slave, by Christian Kennedy (A giveaway from the author)

3. Setting sail: A book taking place mostly or all on water.
City of Fortune, by Roger Crowley (a history of Venice)

4. I remember that!: A book about a historical event that took place in your lifetime.
Where Wizards Stay Up Late, by Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon (about the creation of the Internet)

5. My hometown: A book by a local author.
Reamde, by Neal Stephenson

5. My hometown: A book by a local author.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie

8. Bits and pieces: An anthology (poetry, short stories, whatever).
Undead Worlds, A Reanimated Writers Anthology (Zombie stories)

24. War is hell: A book about war, on the lines or the homefront, fiction or nonfiction.
A Delicate Truth, by John le Carre

24. War is hell: A book about war, on the lines or the homefront, fiction or nonfiction.
In Pharoah’s Army, by Tobias Wolff

34. Who was that, again?: A book about a person you know little about.
The Other Boleyn Girl, Philippa Gregory

29. Keep up with the Joneses: A book by someone everyone else seems to have read but you have not.
Twilight, by Stephanie Myers
NO STARS. This book didn’t deserve any.

31. Nonfiction of any kind: Nonfiction of any kind.
Octopus! The Most Mysterious Creature in the Sea, by Katherine Harmon Courage

38. Coming to a theater near you: A book made into a major motion picture.
Albert Nobbs, by George Moore

48. The butler might have done it: A mystery.
Antiques Swap, by Barbara Allen

49. Pixies and Dryads and Elves, oh my!: A high fantasy.
The Worm Ouroboros, by E. R. Eddison. That’s as High Fantasy as it gets.

Octopus! [Reading Challenge 2018]

Octopus!
The Most Mysterious Creature in the Sea

by Katherine Harmon Courage
Current, Penguin Group, 2013

[Substitution: Challenge # 31: Nonfiction of any kind]

I was having a lot of trouble finishing Undead Worlds, the collection of zombie short stories I intended as Challenge # 8, because it was only on my iPad and my boyfriend kept borrowing it to watch Amazon Prime. So I chose another challenge at random which came up as # 31: Nonfiction of any kind. I decided to sub this book which I had acquired, as I had The Other Boleyn Girl,  from a local Little Free Library.

Not a bad book, I definitely learned a lot about octopuses (not octopi) in it, but ultimately it was a little too colloquial for my taste. I did like that alongside the natural history, there was also a culinary history. I’d say it was a good introduction for the layman but I would have liked something more along the lines of She Has Her Mother’s Laugh, by Carl Zimmer (not part of this challenge) the excellent history of genetics I read a few months ago. I felt a wider scientific  background was missing. Though the latest (2012) research was included for Octopus! I would have liked to see more evolutionary history.  (Incidentally, although I like the taste of octopus, a few years ago I vowed never to eat them again after reading of how sensitive and intelligent they were.)

Thus concludes the 2018 Reading Challenge.

 

In Pharaoh’s Army
[Reading Challenge 2018]

In Pharaoh’s Army

by Tobias Wolff
Vintage Books, 1995

[Challenge # 24: A book about war, on the lines or the home front, fiction or nonfiction.]

For my War is Hell selection I originally chose A Delicate Truth by John le Carré, and was stoked to read it because I had recently enjoyed the 2016 BBC adaptation of The Night Manager starring Tom Hiddleston. In my perpetual juvenilia I always considered le Carré one of those grown-up writers that all intelligent grown-ups should read, eventually, to be a well-rounded grown-up who understood the cold-blooded machinations of the Cold War and the deceitfulness of human nature. The truth is though, I couldn’t get into it. I filed it under “an acquired taste. “ And that’s OK. I love fantasy writer Tanith Lee, and for many people, she’s an acquired taste. Oddly, the two authors are thematically and stylistically very similar – tart verging on sour, cynical, floribund in prose – that I wonder why one and not the other.

The replacement book, In Pharaoh’s Army, by Tobias Wolff, was a collection of personal memoir stories, almost essays in human psychology, about the author’s experiences during the Vietnam War. They weren’t vivid and full of action as I expected from the cover blurb but dry, ironic, sometimes bitter, and often humorous. Esquire or Playboy magazine material. They was some great writing in them, and by that I mean the author could describe an event or personality precisely and concisely… prose that was liquefied almost, rendered into basic nutrients. One particular essay I’d give four stars to. It would have been great in a college-level textbook anthology. Here’s an excerpt from it where he describes a well-off friend of his who is visiting a Vietnamese elder in his home:

More than ever I was struck by his fluency, not just in the flow of his words but in the motion of his hands and the set of his mouth; the way he ate and took his tea; his elaborate courtesies. He did it all with such a flourish, such evident pleasure – how happy and assured he was in his possession of these peoples’ admiration, how stylishly at home in this alien place, on this hard floor, surrounded by wonder-struck villagers, Yet I could see that his greatest pleasure came not from mastery of this situation but from out observation of his mastery.

However, I didn’t get the war flavor that I wanted. The stories could have been happening in the present day.  They didn’t convey the writer as a callow young man born in a certain time and place. They weren’t too self-reflective and didn’t come to any conclusions. The writer seemed to acknowledge that his younger self was something of a jerk, yet he came across as a far bigger jerk than what he said he was. I can guess it’s because the book was published in 1994. If he’d written it today, there’d be more about race and class and how females were treated. For example, in one essay, the author was harassing a Vietnamese woman who clearly didn’t want to talk to him, and that made me uncomfortable. There was also a part where he adopts a dog the Vietnamese soldiers he is working with want to eat, and at the end of his service there, they do cook the poor dog in a stir fry and serve it to him at his going-away dinner. That was something I did not want to read about, at all, dog lover that I am.

So, an ambiguous read for me. I did not care for the events overmuch but enjoyed the writing style.