Cohen the Barbarian
| Characters from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series | |
| Character details | |
| Full name: | Cohen the Barbarian |
| Description: | An old (but still great) barbarian |
| Associations: | The Silver Horde |
| Location: | Agatean Empire and around the Discworld |
| Story appearances | |
| First seen: | The Colour of Magic |
| Also in: | The Light Fantastic Interesting Times The Last Hero "Troll Bridge" |
| Other details | |
| Notes: | Conquered and ruled the Agatean Empire for a time |
Cohen the Barbarian is a fictional character in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. He began as a parody of the famous pulp hero Conan the Barbarian.
Genghiz Cohen, known as Cohen the Barbarian, is the Discworld's greatest warrior hero, renowned across the Disc for his exploits rescuing maidens, destroying the mad high priests of dark cults, looting ancient ruins, and so on.
On his first appearance in the series he is already an old man, but still tough enough to handle anything the world can throw at him; his opponents often underestimate him because of his age, realising too late that a man who does for a living what Cohen does and nevertheless survives to such an age must be very good at it indeed.
The greatest problems Cohen faces come from outliving the heroic age and finding himself in a civilised modern world where great battles and astonishing rescues happen rarely except in stories. One of the rare Discworld short stories, "Troll Bridge", tells of Cohen setting out to slay a troll, only to end up reminiscing with it about the good old days when things were black and white and everyone respected the traditions.
In Interesting Times Cohen became Emperor of the Agatean Empire, having conquered it with his Silver Horde of eight other elderly barbarians. This is possibly a reference to Conan becoming King of Aquilonia, as well as Genghis Khan's Golden Horde and the conquest of China (it was in this book that we learnt Cohen's first name). This was intended to be a sort of retirement plan, but it did not last and Cohen and his chums abandoned the Empire in The Last Hero, in which Cohen decides to express his displeasure with the modern world by "returning fire to the gods".
Given a barbarian hero's attractiveness to nubile young maidens, Cohen likely has quite a lot of children. The only one mentioned in the novels is Conina, who appears in Sourcery. She wishes to be a hairdresser, but Discworld-style genetics keep getting in the way, causing her to instinctively kill people who threaten her. She was last seen in an amorous relation with Nijel the Destroyer.
External links
Categories: Discworld characters | Fictional emperors and empresses