/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.9788101]

Need a quick rundown on Elric of Melnibone.

[Anonymous No.9788363]

Emo as fuck hungry skelton develops a morphine addiction to stay alive, except this morphine source is a bloodthirsty sword that forces him to slaughter thousands of people mercilessly, which makes him endlessly butthurt. Elric is awesome by the way. Michael Moorcock is by far one of the best fantasy writers.

[Anonymous No.9789081]

>>9788363
heh.

the Elric books are pretty good. he does things he's not proud of. he agonises over having done them. he's not a single-minded sociopath who believes he's always doing the right thing. not only is he addicted to the life-force from his sword, his patron is a Chaos lord and gradually Elric realises he's fighting on the side of the bad guys. i can't think of many fantasy heroes who ever went through that - perhaps Lord Gro from Eddison's "The Worm Ouroboros".

also, Moorcock isn't about poking fun at Elric now and then. if you can find the version illustrated by Rodney Matthews, "Elric at the End of Time" is funny.

Elric: "I have a doom-laden destiny."
Werther de Goethe (eagerly) "I, too, have a doom-laden destiny!"
Elric (disdainfully) "I doubt it is as doom-laden as mine."

[Anonymous No.9789161]

>>9788101
You should read it, great series. So are the Hawkmoon, Erekose and Corum books.

[Anonymous No.9789174]

It's pretty good if you're 14. Elric is one of the major foundations of modern edgelord fantasy.

IMO the best thing about Elric is how pulpy he ultimately is compared to Moorcock's stated desire to lead a glorious revolution of Literary SFF. That's just me though.

[Anonymous No.9789197]

>>9789174
>edgelord
That word has no meaning at this point.

[Anonymous No.9789201]

>>9788101
Shit books by a shit author. The original Conan stories are better in every conceivable way.

[Anonymous No.9789306]

>>9789201
Why not both? Elric hits a mark that contrasts with Conan significantly.

[Anonymous No.9789436]

>>9789174
they were pot boilers to be honest. He wrote to feed himself and also would fluff out his magazine. But he has works that are more serious and his pulp stuff. Its just that in North America its it hard to play both sides.

[Anonymous No.9790145]

>>9788101
He's just a rip-off of Witcher and Malus Darkblade

[Anonymous No.9791248]

>>9788101
He's got nothing you need.
He's gonna make you bleed.

[Anonymous No.9791257]

>>9789436
>they were pot boilers to be honest. He wrote to feed himself and also would fluff out his magazine.
That doesn't apply to most Elric stuff he did. Only to the stories that make up Bane and Weird was this ever the case. The novels, of Melnibone and Stormbringer came from a genuine love of Conan, Zenith and the works of Poul Anderson.

[Anonymous No.9791276]

Elric soldiers on through all this, having been told by his mystical mentor Sepiriz—who keeps popping up like a jack-in-the-box to tell Elric what he needs to do next—that his miserable journey is all part of his destiny as Fate’s tool in the great battle between Law and Chaos. But it’s a battle where all of Elric’s world loses no matter what—whether Law or Chaos wins, all will be wiped away and forgotten. The question is whether it will be replaced by a “plunging, unsettled world of sorcery and evil hatred” or by a more orderly world, one in which Chaos does not dominate and in which, perhaps, humanity might have a better chance of creating a better world on its own terms.

For someone who has desperately sought meaning for his existence throughout the books, wondering what purpose he serves, it’s a meaning of sorts, but it’s a cold comfort at best—and Elric is left with an answer from Sepiriz that’s not really an answer at all:

[Anonymous No.9791277]

>>9791276

“Who can know why the Cosmic Balance exists, why Fate exists and the Lords of the Higher Worlds? Why there must always be a champion to fight such battles? There seems to be an infinity of space and time and possibilities. There may be an infinite number of beings, one above the other, who see the final purpose, though in infinity, there can be no final purpose. Perhaps all is cyclic and this same event will occur again and again until the universe is run down and fades away as the world we knew has faded. Meaning, Elric? Do not seek that, for madness lies in such a course.”

“No meaning, no pattern. Then why have I suffered all this?”

“Perhaps even the gods seek meaning and pattern and this is merely one attempt to find it. Look—” he waved his hands to indicate the newly formed Earth. “All this is fresh and moulded by logic. Perhaps the logic will control the newcomers, perhaps a factor will occur to destroy that logic. The gods experiment, the Cosmic Balance guides the destiny of the Earth, men struggle and credit the gods with knowing why they struggle—but do the gods know?”

Elric is, ultimately, subject to an existential paradox—one which is really a heightened (and rather pessimistic) version of the human condition. His purpose is that of a chess-piece in the struggle between Law and Chaos, but what that purpose means within the larger cosmic scheme is forever a mystery to him, and even to the forces he serves and fights. Law and Chaos in the Moorcock cosmology—something he continues to explore with increasing nuance in future novels—move through history in a constant give-and-take, sweeping up mortals in their currents, and they may or may not be subject to something greater. Elric may as well be acting in the service of a hurricane. And in the end, as dawn rises on the new world for which he has paved the way, he must die as he has lived—by Stormbringer, which drinks his soul and binds him forever to the runeblade-demon which, in its parting words “was a thousand times more evil” than he.