Duke Elric - Michael Moorcock [124]
Throughout the Elric saga the hero constantly struggles to meet the needs of Stormbringer (the id) in a controlled way, attempting to minimize the damage to those he cares for.
By the age of five the superego develops. The superego or conscience drives us to conform to the laws, moral and ethical restraints placed on us by our caregivers and society. If necessary this drives us to behave in ways that run counter to our desires and can even harm our self-interest in real terms.
In a healthy person, according to Freud, the ego needs to be the strongest element of the personality so that it can satisfy the needs of the id while striking compromises with the superego to reflect the practical realities of life. Not an easy job by any means. However, if the id becomes too dominant, impulses and self-gratification take over the person's life. As the stories make quite clear, Elric is not a healthy person, and he loses the battle with the demands of his id many times.
It is Elric's weak ego that wins over the reader's sympathies and gives him his odd quality of vulnerability. We all know how hard it is to resist the insistent cravings of habitual pleasures.
As I followed Elric through the six books that make up this volume there were sections which reminded me of Arthurian legend and other elements reminiscent of Norse mythology. However, what sets the Elric saga apart from action fiction of any period is the extent of the underpinning philosophical thought that evidently went into executing the war between the forces of Law and Chaos and its outcome.
In a sense two parallel wars develop and are fought throughout the saga. One is the external war between Law and Chaos and the other is the parallel internal conflict within Elric's personality.
As the system of checks and balances that stabilize the cosmos fail and the Lords of Law and Chaos clash in increasingly bitter conflict, Elric's ego is increasingly losing the strength needed to successfully mediate the conflicting demands of his superego (the drive for moral law) and his rampaging id (the drive for moral chaos), culminating in the climactic final pages of Stormbringer.
In the closing paragraphs, cosmic balance is preserved because external victory for the Lords of Law is immediately offset by the internal collapse of Elric's ego and defeat of his superego. This results in total breakdown and “his whole personality being drawn into the runesword.”
As the story concludes, Elric is left “a sprawled husk” while his id spears onwards and upwards. I can imagine Freud smiling knowingly at this final tour de force of phallic symbolism in a seminal work by an author called Moorcock.
Adrian Snook
ORIGINS
Early artwork associated with Elrics first appearances in magazines and books
Cover painting (c) 1976 by Michael Whelan, all rights reserved.
Cover artwork by Michael Whelan, for The Sailor on the Seas of Fate, first American edition, DAW Books, 1976.
“Sailor on the Seas of Fate: Book Two: No. 3,” by James Cawthorn, believed drawn circa 1979 for Die See des Schicksals, Heyne, Germany, and previously unpublished.
Cover artwork by Dalmazio Frau, for The Sailor on the Seas of Fate, first audiobook edition, AudioRealms, 2006.
Michael Moorcock's Multiverse published by DC Comics.
A page from “Duke Elric,” by John Ridgway (written by Moorcock), for Michael Moorcock's Multiverse, DC Comics preview, 1997.
Michael Moorcock's Multiverse published by DC Comics.
Cover artwork by Walter Simonson, for Michael Moorcock's Multiverse, DC Comics, 1999.
A “Zenith the Albino” advertisement collage, designed by John Coulthart, for Monsieur Zenith the Albino, Savoy Books, 2001.
“Los Reinos Jóvenes” (“The Young Kingdoms”) map by Carlos