Geez, generalize much?
I linked to MW because it's an agreed upon and authoritative definition, one that disagrees with your own. And it's your presumptions that I disagree with. A barbarian does not equate rape, pillage, or slaughter.
Really, let's not go down this road any further.
Sorry, I hadn't realized I was really bothering you.
I'll just say one more thing about "barbarian" and then I will say no more. I am trying to understand why I think of "barbarians" as having certain traits. To me, when I hear "barbarian", I think "someone who is barbaric". This is confirmed by Merriam Webster, under the definition of "barbaric" it says "of, relating to, or characteristic of barbarians". Also under "barbaric" it says "marked by a lack of restraint". It says nothing further about this, but this seems like the briefest possible way to describe what I had taken for granted as barbarian behavior. Rape is a result when there is a lack of restraint of sexual appetites. So is plundering, a lack of restraint of appetites for collecting wealth. Slaughter is perhaps a bit less along those lines, but Conan slaughters enough in this story that I don't that part of his nature is in question.
To me, it seems that the common usage of "barbarian" is generally a word used by a third party to denigrate a person or social group, to say that they have no control over themselves. If someone else calls you a barbarian, it doesn't necessarily mean anything. But if you call yourself a barbarian, to me it implies that you are embracing barbaric traits, namely what Merriam Webster refers to as "lack of restraint".
Okay, I'm done with that now.
"Brothers!" cried the girl, dancing between them. "Look who follows! I have brought you a man to slay! Take his heart that we may lay it smoking on our father's board!"
And the story makes it pretty clear she's done this before.
"It was Atali, the daughter of Ymir, the frost-giant! To fields of the dead she comes, and shows herself to the dying! Myself when a boy I saw her, when I lay half-slain on the bloody field of Wolraven. I saw her walk among the dead in the snows, her naked body gleaming like ivory and her golden hair unbearably bright in the moonlight. I lay and howled like a dying dog because I could not crawl after her. She lures men from stricken fields into the wastelands to be slain by her brothers, the ice-giants, who lay men's red hearts smoking on Ymir's board. The Cimmerian has seen Atali, the frost-giant's daughter!"
Hmmm... yes, those words of hers are the sort of thing that give a defense lawyer panic attacks when the secret recording is revealed. Perhaps there's some kind of loophole that can strike them from the record. Which is to say that you are entirely right that her intent was there from the beginning. I was enjoying trying to figure out what defense I might muster on her behalf, but that line you quoted makes her position very hard to defend.
I really think that neither of them are blameless; I do still find the "The gods made me do it" defense hard to swallow.