Conan and Thulsa Doom (enemy and vendetta)

The enmity between Conan and Thulsa Doom is the central engine of the narrative, a blood-feud that begins in the snow of a Cimmerian village and ends in the heart of a cult's temple. It is a relationship defined not by a single act but by a lifetime of consequence: a boy's trauma becomes a man's purpose, and a sorcerer's casual cruelty becomes the seed of his own destruction. Their conflict transcends the personal, embodying a clash between two irreconcilable worldviews—Doom's doctrine of death and spiritual domination against Conan's creed of steel, suffering, and the unbreakable individual will. The vendetta is the story's spine, and its resolution is the story's climax, a beheading that is both a personal revenge and a philosophical vindication.

Origins of the Vendetta

The enmity is forged in the brutal raid on Conan's village, an event that shatters his childhood in a single morning. The raiders, Vanir horsemen in iron-scaled leather armor, sweep down upon the hamlet, and among them is a figure of terrifying authority. As the grim apparition passes, the raiders bow and chant, "Hail to Commander Rexor! Hail to Rexor! And to Doom... Doom... Tulsa Doom...." It is Conan's first encounter with the name, and he perceives that it is no mere word of welcome but "a portentous name—a name to conjure with, a name to fear." The raid culminates in the murder of his mother, Maeve. Doom, a lithe figure in serpentine mail, walks past her with casual indifference, ignoring her upraised sword, and with a single, effortless sweep of the great blade, he strikes. Maeve falls "as a tree falls before the axe of the forester," her severed head rolling in the mire at her son's feet. The boy, hate-filled, aims his small knife at Doom's broad back, but the Vanir are upon him, dragging him into a snowdrift and wresting the weapon from his grasp. This moment—the murder of his mother and the theft of his father's sword—plants the seed of a vendetta that will consume his life.

The Forging of the Enemy

The years that follow are not a preparation for revenge but a crucible of suffering that Doom himself will later claim as his own work. Conan is chained to the Wheel of Pain, a massive millstone turned by slaves, where he toils alongside other ragged captives. The experience hardens him, and his spirit is not broken. When a Hyrkanian general asks him what is best in life, Conan's answer is a declaration of his warrior ethos: "The best of life is to confront your enemy face to face, to see his hot blood spill upon the earth, and to hear the lamentations of his women!" The general warns his master, Toghrul, that the Pit has not broken the young tiger's spirit, and that he may one day turn and rend him. This defiance is the raw material of the vendetta. Conan's hatred is not a passive grief but an active, shaping force, honed by every lash and every day of toil. The enemy is not merely the man who killed his parents but the system of slavery and suffering that Doom represents, a system that was meant to break him but instead forged him into a weapon.

The Confrontation of Philosophies

The vendetta reaches its intellectual peak when Conan, having followed Doom across the world, finally stands before him in his citadel. Doom, who has just demonstrated his power by commanding a young girl to leap to her death, offers his own philosophy. "That is strength, boy—that is power!" he declares, dismissing steel as nothing compared to the hand that wields it and the mind that commands it. Conan is unimpressed, retorting that Doom has never met a real man on equal terms. He lists his grievances: "You slaughtered my people. You chained me to the Wheel of Pain, under the lash of the Vanir. You doomed me to be a slave fighting in the Pit, wondering whether each day would be my last...." Doom's response is a chilling inversion of the vendetta. He claims credit for Conan's very strength, arguing that he has made him a champion, a hero, a demigod through pain and suffering. "Such a waste! Such a pity!" he laments, that Conan would waste this gift on mere revenge. This is the heart of their conflict: Doom sees suffering as a tool of domination, a means to create obedient instruments of his will, while Conan sees it as the forge of an independent soul. The vendetta is not just a matter of blood but of meaning—who owns the suffering, and what it produces.

The Final Confrontation and the Serpent Revealed

The vendetta culminates in the great temple, where Doom addresses his faithful followers, proclaiming the day of doom and the Great Cleansing. When Conan confronts him, Doom attempts one final act of domination, using his hypnotic power to claim Conan as his son. "Who is your father if not I?" he asks, asserting that he is the wellspring of Conan's strength and that without him, Conan's life would have no purpose. For a long moment, Doom's dark eyes hold Conan spellbound, but the Cimmerian summons all his courage and tears his gaze free. In that instant, he flings up his left arm, suspending the Eye of Set before Doom's face. The sorcerer stares at the jewel, and then his true nature is revealed: his neck lengthens, his jaws elongate, his nose shrinks, and his lips vanish, until he bears the scaly serpent head of the ancient snake-men. The revelation is a shock to the congregation, but for Conan it is the final confirmation of the enemy's nature. With a single, sweeping arc, his sword cleaves the swaying snake head from the human body. The body falls backward, writhing like a trampled serpent, and the severed head rolls down the long flight of stairs to rest beside a fountain pool. The vendetta is complete.

The Meaning of the Victory

The beheading of Thulsa Doom is not merely the end of a feud but the resolution of a philosophical argument. As Conan watches the gory object fall into the shadows, he speaks his final judgment: "My father was the light of day; Thulsa Doom, my night. Yet in one thing he spoke true. What matters is not the steel within the blade, but the steel within the man." This is the riddle of steel, the lesson his father imparted on that lightning-riddled night—that the heart of a man must be forged by adversity until it becomes as strong as steel. Doom believed in the power of the hand and the mind over the blade, but Conan's victory proves a different truth: the steel within the man is not the power to command others but the will to endure, to resist, and to act. The vendetta, born of a child's helplessness, ends with a man's self-possession. Conan does not become Doom's heir or his opposite; he becomes his own man, having faced the enemy who claimed to have made him and proven that the making was his own. The enmity is resolved not by the death of the enemy alone but by the affirmation of the self that the enemy sought to own.