 As portrayed by Burroughs, Opar is ruled by the high priestess La, with whom Tarzan develops a prolonged love/hate relationship.The city itself is a decayed remnant of ancient greatness; it is suggested, though not conclusively, that it is a cut-off colony of Atlantis.Farmer seizes on Burroughs' ambiguity over the issue to recast Opar as a member city of an otherwise unknown local civilization that flourished in central Africa during the last Ice Age.