[off] Moorcock and drugs (was Re: HW: The Quest for Levitation/Needlegun)

[Allan T Grohe Jr]

On Tue, 18 Jun 1996, Christian Mumford wrote:

> OK. First of all, both Jerry Cornelius and Elric are (soul) junkies.
> Cornelius used to shoot speed and heroin and snort cocaine. Both Elric
> an Yrkoon had a black sword, Stormbringer and Mournblade, and both Frank
> and Jerry Cornelius each had a black Needlegun (but they also used
> vibraguns and heat guns). Like most of the Eternal Champion's weapons,
> they were splinters of some evil, sentient hell-thing which plagued all
> of the Eternal Champions to some extent, most noticably Cornelius and
> Elric.

I wouldn't say that Jerry was ever concerned about his use of drugs or
the assorted armaments that MM gave him.  It was the fantasy characters
who suffered the doom of the Eternal Champion--while JC was an aspect of
such, he never felt to me like he was too worried about using the Black
Sword (and in fact probably never really knew about the larger issues
lurking in the EC background and resolved in _The Quest for Tanelorn_).

> I believe these weapons are Moorcocks
> metaphors for certain drugs being weapons against one's own inner
> demons, but all to often with a bad catch in the end (if drugs are taken
> for that reason alone- escape from oneself, they'll catch up with you in
> the end).

If you limit the interpretation to drugs, I think you're missing the
point of the symbols:  power, in any form, corrupts, and has its price;
reliance on external sources of power/definition of self/morality/
whatever, ultimately results in the destruction of freewill (which is
why the EC kills off the gods of the worlds in which he
manifests--religion being just another drug/tool/weapon in MM's
symbology).

Allan.

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Allan T. Grohe, Jr.                     RPG Writer/Reviewer.  Outer God.
iscladoc at falcon.cc.ukans.edu            Nomad of the Time Streams.  Poet.

Visit the Dreaming City: http://falcon.cc.ukans.edu/~iscladoc/imrryr.html

        "Farewell, friend.  I was a thousand times more evil than thou."
                        - Michael Moorcock, _Stormbringer_
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