Conan the barbarian was just about metallurgy

In a dark time , full of terror and dread, rose a fearless hero. Rising out of the snow mountain slopes of the Austrian alps, With his oiled muscles and limited english, he defended what was right and true. Then he turned to a soulless robot, then became a governor. His name was....

In the beginning, Conan’s dad, forges a great sword. In between work sessions, wanting his son to follow in the family business, he indoctrinates the young boy into the importance of resolve, by telling him that some day he will need to come before their god, Chrom, and answer what is the riddle of steel. He tempers his swords in snow, rather than oil, which causes the blade to be very hard and sharp, but also relatively brittle. The sword looks cool though. it is taken by Thulsa Doom , along with the young boy, just after he kills his parents and massacred his entire village.

Great guy, that Thulsa Doom..

Conan is taken as a slave. Later, his talent for killing becomes apparent and he wins his freedom. He enters an ancient burial mound and finds a sword for himself. It is so old that he just needs to hit it on a rock, for the original sheath to fall apart. Conan sets off to find fortune and revenge. At one point he is caught by Thulsa (the amazing James earl Jones) and the wizard explains to him the riddle of steel, before sending him to die of starvation as he is crucified

. (“That’s the least i could do”) .

Doom explains that steel and sword are meaningless. All that matters is the will of the person. He demonstrates this by asking a young girl to jump off a cliff, thereby crashing into a wooden stage. Her will to take action is supposed to be the reason why the wooden deck was demolished. Finally there is a showdown. Conan with his ancient sword and Doom with Conan’s father’s sword. They fight and at the climax Doom’s sword shatters. Conan kills him.

Now, could you say in this battle, whose will to action is greater?

It’s a fight to the death! Both of them have advantages on their sides. Both want to survive. What gives Conan the victory was the simple fact that Doom’s sword was made of such poor quality that it didn’t hold up even to an ancient sword.

Lesson from this is that there are truths that can be beyond what we can objectively measure. But when we are presented with irrefutable proof that the physical nature of things is present AND measurable, there is no need to go into convoluted explanation. Positivism is not a lie, just because it doesn’t have the tools to all our answers. All ye deniers of science beware. The riddle of steel is mainly a manufacturing question.