#Elric vs Conan

[tomoleary]

Alfredo Alcala and Alex Niño "Elric vs Conan" Illustration Original Art (1976)

Source

“Niño drew Elric here and Alcala drew Conan.”

[ross-hollander]

A comparison...

Average Elric story: "Corpse-pale and heavy with grief did Elric stare out into the lazy mists. All the world, he felt, was as insubstantial as these vapors, but as apathetic; they would part with the wave of a hand, but as quickly would they return to their place, not sensible to the blow except for an instant. His strength was sapped, by blood-curse or the rigors of his journeys in this fog-laden, clammy, hateful world, he did not know, nor made little differentiation between. Almost better, he mused, to wither away and have done with this destiny that dragged him shackled towards ends he did not dare guess at, than remain alive but in its tedious thrall.

"With the black sword his only company, he arose and walked out through the mist-cloaked wastelands. No living thing stirred here, save abominable brutes, mishaps of a god playing at creation, or perhaps decrepit and twisted servants of some cult too long outcast to keep human shape. Four times did the growling brutes accost him and as many were their hearts' blood drunk by Elric's blade, though scarcely his hand, for his heart was impassive and perhaps even pitiful of the wretched creatures as they gurgled and slumped down to the accursed earth to die. His goal lay further on..."

Average Conan story: "It was a frightful, majestic figure that rode out the gates of Polisium that morning, the sun's first rays shining on his sinewy brown back, with nothing to his name but scarlet riding breeches and the naked sword in his hand, black square-cut mane billowing behind him. Conan had come here a slave in the hand of the dreadful Jekanites, and toiled a miserable season before joining what he took for a regular brawl, but was in fact a tourney for the queen's hand, and the last evening had seen him escorting the beauteous woman up to the palace's bedchamber to satiate her appetites for wild tales of far lands, and hardy Cimmerian vigor.

"Tragically, as he arose in the purple-gray dawn and descended to the palace kitchens for a morning repast, an oafish cook had wailed "'ware, burglar!", and in a trice the guards had been upon him. With a roasting spit and heavy shank of meat he had knocked half of them senseless, before a cavalryman made to run him through as he fought into the courtyard. Like a wolf which was also a tiger he had wrenched lance and rider together from the saddle and mounted the horse himself, and thereon turned only to spit at the pursuing guardsmen before riding hard for the gates, bowling over brigands and scattering smugglers creeping home after a night's thievery. Now, he set his eyes far down the royal highway..."

[forthegothicheroine]

In another world, the big fantasy book rivalry/discourse is Conan vs Elric.

[weeb-polls-with-pip]

Autistic Anime Boys Round 1 Matchups!

Side A

L Lawliet (Death Note) VS Muichirou Tokito (Demon Slayer)

Gohan (Dragon Ball Z) VS Kiibo/K1-B0 Idabashi (Danganronpa)

Haruka Sakurai (Milgram) VS Seishirou Nagi (Blue Lock)

Satoru Gojou (Jujutsu Kaisen) VS Seto Kaiba (Yu-Gi-Oh!)

Umetarou Nozaki (Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun) VS Tamaki Suoh (Ouran High School Host Club)

Gin Gagamaru (Blue Lock) VS Taisei Yoshida (Assassination Classroom)

Itona Horibe (Assassination Classroom) VS Souichi Tanuma (Those Snow White Notes)

Light Yagami (Death Note) VS Tenma Matsukaze (Inazuma Eleven)

Shouto Todoroki (My Hero Academia) VS Sunny (Omori)

Broly (Dragon Ball Super) VS Kaworu Nagisa (Neon Genesis Evangelion)

Yu Narukami/Souji Seta (Persona 4) VS Sechs (XBlaze)

Kiyotaka Ishimaru (Danganronpa) VS Kento Nanami (Jujutsu Kaisen)

Nate River/Near (Death Note) VS Kyouya Ootori (Ouran High School Host Club)

Mash Burnedead (Mashle: Magic and Muscles) VS Noiz (DRAMAtical Murder)

Edward Elric (Fullmetal Alchemist) VS Kabuto Yakushi (Naruto)

Lan Wangji (Mo Dao Zu Shi) VS Rui Kamishiro (Project Sekai)

James (Pokémon) VS Monkey D. Luffy (One Piece)

Yuusuke Kitagawa (Persona 5) VS Tsubasa Yuunagi (Hirogaru Sky! Pretty Cure)

Hitoshi-san (Nyan~ Neko Sugar Girls) VS Illumi Zoldyck (Hunter x Hunter)

Mikazuki Augus (Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans) VS Wakatoshi Ushijima (Haikyuu!!)

Homare Arisugawa (A3!) VS Kamille Bidan (Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam)

Subaru Mikazuki (My Roommate is a Cat) VS Atsushi Murasakibara (Kuroko no Basket)

Tanaka (Tanaka-kun is Always Listless) VS Natural Harmonia Gropius (Pokémon)

Haru (Tsuritama) VS Giorno Giovanna (Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure)

Floyd Leech (Twisted Wonderland) VS Laios Touden (Dungeon Meshi)

Touma Akechi (The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.) VS Trafalgar D. Water Law (One Piece)

Lotte “Roy” Carmine (BlazBlue) VS Gon Freecss (Hunter x Hunter)

Nahoya “Smiley” Kawata (Tokyo Revengers) VS Senkuu Ishigami (Dr. Stone)

Ash Ketchum (Pokémon) VS Mafuyu Satou (Given)

Alhaitham (Genshin Impact) VS Shichirou Balam (Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun)

Shintarou Kisaragi (Kagerou Project) VS Izuku Midoriya (My Hero Academia)

Toshinari Seki (Tonari no Seki-kun) VS Takashi Natsume (Natsume’s Book of Friends)

Side B

Haruka Nanase (Free!) VS Tsukasa Tenma (Project Sekai)

Takeo Gouda (My Love Story!!) VS Karna (Fate)

Shintarou Midorima (Kuroko no Basket) VS Kim Dokja (Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint)

Roronoa Zoro (One Piece) VS Junpei Tenmyouji (Zero Escape)

Sig (Puyo Puyo) VS Kanata Shinkai (Ensemble Stars)

Kyoujurou Rengoku (Demon Slayer) VS Yugi Mutou (Yu-Gi-Oh!)

Legoshi (Beastars) VS Gaien "Enkidu" Enkidou (Under Night In-birth)

Doppo Kunikida (Bungou Stray Dogs) VS Hiroshi Odokawa (Odd Taxi)

Kusuo Saiki (The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.) VS Katsuya Serizawa (Mob Psycho 100)

Nagito Komaeda (Danganronpa) VS Haruhito Yano (Odd Taxi)

Yotasuke Takahashi (Blue Period) VS Manjirou "Mikey" Sano (Tokyo Revengers)

Kyouya Onodera (Talentless Nana) VS Misumi Ikaruga (A3!)

Miles Edgeworth (Ace Attorney) VS Shu Itsuki (Ensemble Stars)

Meguru Bachira (Blue Lock) VS Ren Mihashi (Big Windup!)

Ranpo Edogawa (Bungou Stray Dogs) VS Kaito (Vocaloid)

Zero (Puyo Puyo) VS Masayoshi Hazama (Samurai Flamenco)

Genos (One Punch Man) VS Jotaro Kujo (Jojo's Bizarre Adventure)

Vivia Twilight (Master Detective Archives: Raincode) VS Sora Harukawa (Ensemble Stars)

Satori Tendou (Haikyuu!!) VS Miles "Tails" Prower (Sonic X)

Houtarou Oreki (Hyouka) VS Kabane Kusaka (Kemono Jihen)

Ghiaccio (Jojo's Bizarre Adventure) VS Tenya Iida (My Hero Academia)

Malleus Draconia (Twisted Wonderland) VS Tetsuya Kuroko (Kuroko no Basket)

Kensuke Aida (Neon Genesis Evangelion) VS Goku (Dragon Ball)

Shinichi Kudou/Conan Edogawa (Detective Conan) VS Toya Aoyagi (Project Sekai)

Rei Suwa (Buddy Daddies) VS Gin Ibushi (Your Turn to Die)

Jade Leech (Twisted Wonderland) VS Akihiko Sanada (Persona 3)

Xiao (Genshin Impact) VS Loid Forger (Spy x Family)

Souya "Angry" Kawata (Tokyo Revengers) VS Sabro Sabnock (Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun)

Apollo Justice (Ace Attorney) VS Tobio Kageyama (Haikyuu!!)

Kurapika (Hunter x Hunter) VS Saitama (One Punch Man)

Sol Badguy (Guilty Gear) VS Langa Hasegawa (Sk8 the Infinity)

Subaru Natsuki (Re: Zero) VS Yusei Fudo (Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds)

[gonegrove]

The majority of people who like Eddie are the same people who make alignment chart meme jokes having never even read 1 page of a dnd corebook and have no idea that the idea of order vs chaos/that whole chart is literally ripped straight from the pages of the Elric saga.

They’re the people who, when they hear “the white wolf”, they think of Geralt (Netflix edition) with no idea that the first truly famous usage of that was elric of melniboné in the 60s-70s to the point where the company white wolf publishing (makers of the trpg series world of darkness which they also don’t know about) got their fucking name from Elric. There’s even talk of Geralt being Kinda Plagiarizismy in regards to Elric. Literally all of Valyria in asoiaf/got/hotd? Elric of Melniboné.

These are the people who’ve likely never heard of Elvira or Vampira or Vampirella. They’ve never heard of Swamp Thing, if we’re lucky they know about Constantine/Hellblazer from the shitty DC shows. They’ll never read the original comics of Watchmen or The Sandman. They have no idea who Alan Moore is or that he literally does ritual magick. They don’t even know what that is. They have no idea what was in issues of Heavy Metal or how impactful it was. They’ve got no idea who Conan the Barbarian is outside of a vague pop cultural figure and a saying. They’ve never read the Silmarillion, they’ve only seen the movies and probably only the theatrical releases and only a handful of times or their entire lives at best. They’ve never even heard of The Young Ones. They’re people who gush about the MCU and how he’d love it “because he’s a nerd” as if he wouldn’t have been the biggest hater from day one because he read the comics. They’ve never seen a Hammer or Universal horror movie and if they did they’d think they were dumb. They’ve never seen The Munsters or the OG 60s Addams Family.

And they will not fucking shut up about an Eddie who doesn’t exist. An Eddie who would like and respect them. Who is kind and funny and quirky always. Who they can treat like their little blorbo meow meow darling and will only be as nerdy as is interesting and acceptable to them. Who bats his pretty cow eyes at them and calls them cute names. Who gives up dealing or only deals weed. Who’ll listen to their music and like their things while putting away the majority of his own. Who’ll never mock them or look down on them or their interests no matter how much he should given his past behavior— which also doesn’t exist in this fake Eddie. There is no interest in learning about the things that act as his building blocks, no interest in anything but his looks and the idea of a metalhead/nerd boyfriend.

Except I can guarantee if they actually met him they wouldn’t like him, wouldn’t respect his interests and would talk down to him. And Eddie would not be as nice as they think he is, nor would he want to know them or respect their interests since they’re generally “mainstream”. If you like Taylor Swift— he WILL not respect you AT ALL. Like I get it— y’all want a manic pixie dream boy and you chose him. But don’t think I will not be throwing rocks at you the entire time you shit down the neck of things I care about to do it.

[mask131]

Read-list for an "old school D&D" fantasy (plus bonus)

This is a remake of an earlier post of mine, that I decided to update (some additional books were suggested to me, others I found out about later).

This is a reading-list of various literary works that heavily inspired or were heavily used in the creation of the first editons of Dungeons and Dragons - and thus, reading them will allow you to plunge back into what the original D&D was meant to look what/what it tried to emulate.

J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit". No surprise here, Tolkien's works were the start of modern fantasy and thus the main source of old-school D&D. In fact, D&D was originally created to be just a Lord of the Rings role-playing game - or to be precise a LotR wargame. This was the original intention. Which is why, quite famously, the very first version of D&D included elements such as the hobbits, the mithril and the balrogs. And when the Tolkien Estate pointed out the consequences of what was plagiarism, D&D changed these concepts to... "halflings", "mithral" and "balors". The only Tolkien-element D&D could preserve vaguely unchanged were the orcs, because the Tolkien Estate could not prove Tolkien had invented the term "orc". But even beyond that, D&D's dwarfs and elves and ents (sorry, treants) and wights and rangers all were heavily inspired by Tolkien - the gods of the orcs even use symbols such as an "eye of fire" and a "white hand"...

Poul Anderson's "Three Hearts and Three Lions". Poul Anderson was quite influential on early 20th century fantasy, and this specific book influenced D&D in three ways. On one side, it was one of the two sources for the "Order versus Chaos" conflict of D&D (the other being Moorcock). On the other the D&D trolls were inspired by the Three Hearts and Three Lion trolls. And finally the Paladin class was inspired by Anderson's Holger Carlsen character (the same way the Ranger was Tolkien's Aragorn). [This book also seems to have had some influence over the Fey of D&D?]

Michael Moorcock's "The Elric Saga". With Anderson's work, it was the other main source of the Order vs Chaos, Lawful vs Chaotic division of the D&D game. It also served as the main inspiration behind the D&D Drows, due to the Elric Saga shaping the original image of "Dark Elves" in fantasy, through its Melnibonéan Empire. D&D also originally collected references to the Elric world - creating many variation of Elric's evil magical sword Stormbringer through a variety of cursed soul-drinking weapons.

Robert E. Howard's "Conan the Barbarian". The source of heroic-fantasy the same way Lord of the Rings influenced epic fantasy, the world of Conan was also a huge source of inspiration for D&D - the most obvious reference being the Barbarian class, shaped for those who wanted to play Conan.

Fritz Leiber's "Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser". Originally intended as a parody of the Conan-style heroic fantasy, but promptly becoming a serious and admired work that created its own sub-genre of fantasy (the "sword and sorcery" genre), they also were inspirational for the first editions of D&D. Sometimes it is indirect - the "Thief" or "Rogue" classes were inspired by Leiber's Gray Mouser character - other times it is MUCH more direct. For example, among the numerous pantheons you could choose to use in early D&D, one was the various gods of Newhon and the city of Lankhmar, the universe of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. And the fantasy trope of "Thieves' Guild" made famous partially by D&D was originally an invention of Leiber.

Jack Vance's The Dying Earth. This emblematic series of the "science-fantasy" genre offered to D&D its magic system, which is generally known as "vancian magic". It was Jack Vance who had the idea that a wizard had to learn/store spells in their mind, with a limited number of spells they could carry in their brain, and that once cast the spell had to be re-learned or restored. Several spells and items of early D&D were also directly taken from the Dying Earth books - the "prismatic spray" or the "ioun stones".

H.P. Lovecraft's "Cthulhu Mythos". No need to explain how Lovecraft's brand of eldritch horror and alien-fantasy shaped the creatures and deities of early D&D, to the point that early on the deities and monsters of the Cthulhu Mythos were part of the pantheons you could chose to use - listed alongside the Newhon gods of Leiber, or the gods of the Conan universe.

While not fantasy works, the most famous creations of Edgard Rice Burroughs - Tarzan on one hand, and John Carter of Mars on the other, were claImed by Gygax to have been very influential to his creation of D&D.

Another author Gygax mentionned as being a huge influence for D&D was Fletcher Pratt - through his Harold Shea fantasy series, about a main character being carried away in various magical and fantastical worlds very different from each other, in which he has to adapt himself to new settings and learn new rules to avoid dangers and threats... Sounds familiar? The idea of world-travelling might also have been inspired by the science-fiction series by P.J. Farmers' World of Tiers: the rules of travel in D&D between the various planes of reality seem to have been inspired by Farmers' own rules for dimension-travel.

One of the lesser known influences of D&D is the fantasy series "Kothar" by Gardner Fox: Gygax explicitely said that the idea of the "Lich" as a D&D monster came from Fox's Kothar series.

Not a book, but movies: the Sinbad movies of the mid 20th century were influential on early D&D. Various monsters and creatures referenced pictures such as "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" or "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad".

"The House on the Borderlands" by William Hope Hodgson was explicitely referenced by Gygax's 1979 module "The Keep on the Borderlands", and it might have heavily influenced the original depiction of the D&D orcs as pig-men...

The Shannara series by Terry Brooks has also been pointed out as an influence on D&D - while not on the very first edition, elements of the Shannara world seem to have influenced later ones...

Mind you, this is but a fragment of a much longer list known as the "Appendix N" composed by Gygax, and that lists all the books and pieces of work he took inspiration from when designing D&D. Beyond the most famous works evoked above he also listed:

Poul Anderson's "The High Crusade" and "The Broken Sword"

John Bellairs' "The Face in the Frost"

Leigh Brackett's works

Fredric Browns' works

I evoked before Burrough's Mars series, but Gygax also listed his "Venus series" and his "Pellucidar series".

Lin Carter's "World End" series

L. Sprague de Camp's "Lest Darkness Fall" and "The Fallible Fiend" and "The Carnelian Cube"

August Derleth's continuation of the Cthulhu Mythos.

Lord Dunsany's writings, of course.

Gardner Fox's "Kyrik" series

Sterling Lanier's "Hiero's Journey"

A. Merritt's "Creep, Shadow, Creep", "Moon Pool" and "Dwellers in the Mirage"

Michael Moorcock's "Hawkmoon" series (which is technically part of the wider universe of which the Elric Saga is the central piece)

Andre Norton's works

Fletcher Pratt's "Blue Star"

Fred Saberhagen's "Changeling Earth"

Margaret St. Clair "The Shadow People" and "Sign of the Labrys"

Stanley Weinbaum's works

Manley Wade Wellman's works

Jack Williamson's works

Roger Zelazny's "Amber" series, and "Jack of Shadows".

In 2007, Gygax even updated his Appendix N with a handful of new titles reflecting elements added to later editions of D&D:

Sterling Lanier's "The Unforsaken hiero"

Piers Anthony's "Split Infinity" series

And of course, Terry Pratchett's Discworld series

And since this post is all about updates, I will also include a list of works that were used as inspiration for current day/modern D&D - especially the fifth edition. Like that, you'll have the evolution of "old school D&D versus new school D&D". This list is taken from fragments here and there of interviews given by Mike Mearls, the Appendix E "Inspirational Reads" of the fifth edition, and Rodney Thompson's interviews.

Appendix E replaces several elements Gygax talked about in interviews or in his Appendix N: Leiber's work, Burroughs's Mars series, Howard's Conan, etc...

Appendix E adds among other things China Mieville's "Perdido Street Station", and Elizabeth Bear's "Range of Ghosts".

Mike Mearls said that what inspired him in his design work of modern D&D was Ursula LeGuin's "Earthsea" series, Patrick Rothfuss "The Name of the Wind", Saladin Ahmed "Throne of the Crescent Moon" and Octavia E. Butler's "The Parable of the Sower".

But Mearls also repeated several of the picks already used by Gygax. He invoked again The Elric Saga, and Roger Zelazny's Amber series, and Tolkien's Legendarium of course...

Rodney Thompson rather insisted on returning to the Anderson roots of the D&D fantasy: mostly "Three Heart and Three Lions", but also "The Broken Sword".

[comiccrusaders]

Alfredo Alcala and Alex Niño "Elric vs Conan" Illustration Original Art (1976) #comicart #comicbookart

[saltineofswing]

I was talking about this with my boyfriend last night and one of the things that we agree on, is that in my opinion a lot of the problems that Destiny’s narrative currently has connecting to its audience can be traced back, in part, to a decay of its genre influences.

Destiny 1 had an incredible clarity of genre. I think everybody who plays the game can easily identify that it is many parts Fantasy AND Sci-Fi. But it’s not 50% sea, 50% weed — there’s a third genre in the mix, and it’s extremely important to counterbalance and equalize the other two, and that’s Pulp.

When Destiny is at its best, it has a healthy slice of pulp weirdness in the mix, balancing against the Fantasy and Sci-Fi. I’m talking about stuff like ‘So… think you can kill a god?’ Or the original characterization of the Exo Stranger. Or the fact that Rise of Iron deals with green/brown/gold Viking samurai knights fighting uhhh [checks notes] evil red nanobots. Or, like, It’s also very present in the entire design ethos behind Venus as a garden world — early sci-fi/pulp stories featured Venus as a jungle or swamp or some mixture of the two, and often used a color scheme that is dead on for in-game Venus. The retro ‘golden age’ design of the colony also lends itself to this, and then you have the main enemy groups on Venus being ‘endless automaton scourge vs. space pirates’.

The Books of Sorrow have a lovely pulp veneer over them that would skew them almost towards, like, sword and sorcery if it weren’t for the sheer scope of them. They feel like Conan the Barbarian or Elric of Melniboné. I mean, goddamn, Bungie just straight up calls the Awoken home the DREAMING CITY. Forsaken was DRIPPING with pulp. Destiny managed to pull this really cool trick where they stayed true to the pulp genre tenet of exoticism and exploration, while also sidestepping the biggest problem with the pulp genre (and IMO one of the reasons it's fallen by the wayside so much), which is the. Uh. Xenophobia and racism that is often endemic to narratives about exploring ~weird foreign lands~.

The Hive have a really well-built and stable foundation of pulp weirdness, thanks to all of the work put into their lore early in the game’s lifespan, that allows newer writers to iterate on them without losing that pulp feeling. The other races Do Not, to various degrees of loosely established canon. The Fallen/Eliksni had the second-most present pulp influence in early canon, but I would consider them a casualty of modern-era Destiny retcons. The Cabal have weirdly wrapped back around now that we mostly have Caiatl and her crew, who are mostly decked out like space gladiators to match all their name theming. The Vex are barely more than a concept, and I think there’s another whole post about why the Vex haven’t been important to the narrative since, arguably, the first game (the real enemy of Curse of Osiris was the weak narrative).

So, sorry, how does this relate to all of the above, the post to which I am responding/adding on? An important part of the pulp genre, is that it naturally works very well with other genres — it’s a very effective amplifier (so is one of its descendent genres, the superhero genre). Fantasy, especially sword and sorcery which Destiny mostly seems to draw from most heavily, oftentimes has a very direct clarity of ethos. The good guys are good and the bad guys are bad, and the good guys save the world from the bad guys. Symbolically, these good guys and bad guys can be portrayed in a very strict visual dichotomy. Bright spheres and dark pyramids. This is where we find the baseline Destiny moral ethos of the first game — Light good, Darkness bad. Bungie did a good job of leaving themselves plenty of wiggle room, and there were grey factions that didn’t fit the moral dichotomy, but every time somebody looked at the camera, they said ‘The Light is good and the Darkness is evil.’ But the narrative of the original game was no God of War, it probably wasn’t anybody’s absolute favorite thing about the game. So, the foundational lore wasn’t so sacrosanct that it couldn’t be adjusted.

The early rumbles of this were in Forsaken, but the real shockwaves didn’t hit until probably around Beyond Light. The drastic way in which Exo lore was retrofitted to the modern era Destiny narrative is the canary in the coal mine, IMO, for writers beginning to carve away the pulp genre from the game’s base ethos — or squirreling it away in ever-deeper layers of content. As Fantasy and Pulp genre took a backseat to the Science Fiction of it all, narratively-speaking, it feels like the people steering the ship decided that we needed to explain everything in very concrete and grounded terms. Modern sci-fi has a lot less room for ‘this is just the way it is because we sez so’. I looooove me some nitty-gritty sci-fi explanations (I was invested in Exo mouthlights to the point that I wrote a big post about em), but I do feel like the casualty of throwing off the foundational genre balance of Destiny is that the writers felt like they suddenly needed to kill the mystique that had allowed the unsubtle ethics of the world to remain so straightforward. Bright spheres and dark pyramids was too ethically black and white, ironically.

I think it was mostly handled well in Beyond Light because, in my opinion, a perfectly valid reading of Beyond Light was just that, like… you’re too cool and tough to succumb to the allure of using Darkness for nasty crimes. Stasis may be a neutral force, but it’s being given to you by the bad guy who has an ulterior motive. You were lured into a trap of using a corrupted weapon, and instead you take that weapon and you un-corrupt it by sheer force of will. Stasis in the background makes people violent and paranoid. Lore surrounding Beyond Light talked a LOT about other Guardians who were not as on the ball as you were succumbing to the temptation of using Stasis for bad and naughty things… that’s kinda gone away because it doesn’t fit the current narrative, where no, actually, the Witness just gave you a powerful weapon that allowed you to ass-blast one of its most powerful servants just for shits and giggles I guess?

If Stasis is a totally neutral force that you just Learned To Harness, it directly contradicts BL’s central narrative hook of ‘using the weapons of the enemy at high risk but with high reward’, and the Witness has no reason to give it to you. Well, no GOOD reason. “SEE… THE TRAVELER HAS BEEN LYING TO YOU ABOUT UHH… [flips through pages of background lore] ABOUT THE DARKNESS BEING EEEEVIL!!” Uh no dude, the Traveler hasn’t actually told me anything, you are projecting. If anything, I the player am more likely to go ‘well this is just inconsistent narrative building’.

Back before the lore around the Winnower and the Witness was less consistent and we were trying to determine if they were separate entities, we had a lot more uncertainty that the world narrative was able to use to its advantage more. The constant demystification and de-pulpification has actively harmed the narrative any time the writers have tried to go back to pulp or fantasy genre. I think you can see that Lightfall was an attempt to recapture the pulp influences of the early game — think of it as, like, D1 thru BL are kinda like early golden age pulp, and then Lightfall ages the game forward to 80s-era pulp. Shadowkeep and Witch Queen are sword and sorcery. But the foundational pulp influences in the game have been eroded to the point where, now, the writing is struggling to adapt not-so-sci-fi concepts into the modern state of the universe. I don’t… think I need to know in detail how Ahamkara work, as much as my brain loves the mechanics of feeding on the gulf between desire and reality. It’s a very fantasy-forward explanation, but it’s still a sci-fi style mechanical explanation. I was willing to accept at face value that they just grant wishes and don’t fuck and eat desire. Lightfall wanted to have it’s cake and eat it too, and the writers don’t know how to properly apportion the genre balance to make that happen, so the result is a collection of flavors that are so mixed up and varied that it just kind of tastes like nothing.

I think the game would have been fine if they had decided to keep the good vs. evil dichotomy more straightforward (Gardener good Winnower bad), and just focused more audibly on the fact that actions and their repercussions matter more than intentions or expectations. The Winnower would still be evil if it chose the Witness as its main agent in the universe, and then made no attempt to stop it when it started doing evil stuff. Or, god forbid, we not even be TOLD who is evil and who is good, and just be asked to decide on that fact for ourselves.

Look, I was willing to give the Veil a shot. I was. I was willing to let Bungie cook. But they made the Veil the Travelers opposite, and I couldn't figure out why I didn't like that. Until a random ass reddit comment and it clicked.

The visual storytelling between the Pyramids and The Traveler is such a beautiful way of portraying two opposing forces without explicitly saying what those forces represent. It's all in their design.

Angular/Spherical

Many/One

Black/White

They have "We are opposites" written on their forehead and the Veil kind of fucked it up.

While I'm on the subject, I've been revisiting my favorite lore book "Unveiling" and MAN, that shit was awesome.

I really really really liked when the overarching conflict was about two Gods giving themselves physical form in the universe to win a cosmic argument on whether the conplexity of life made it worth living. I also really liked its interpretation of the Vex: the manifestation of the perfect pattern. Microorganisms that always came out on top before a new rule were forced upon the game. And yeah, i get it, "Unveiling had no reason to be truthful. The Witness had every reason to lie to us to make us fight each other. Untrustworthy narrator." Blah blah blah.

But, I think it would've been way cooler and scarier if it wasn't lying. It would show that The Winnower truly believes what it's saying. It's simply acting in its nature. It doesn't even know if it's 100% correct, but chooses to follow its path anyway.

This part altered my brain chemistry fundamentally. I am NOT normal about this section and I never will be.

Ok. I'm done. You can tear me a new one or pick my apart. You can tell me the new story is better in every conceivable way. But the Unveiling lorebook was P E A K to me

[nem0c]

the standalone adventures of elric just take the binaries established in earlier heroic fiction, particularly conan (strength vs weakness, honesty vs duplicity, might vs sorcery, the barbarian vs the aristocracy etc) and invert them, such that elric is a weak, effeminate, duplicitous little sorcerer who talks like a wilde character, begins as a legitimate aristo and becomes a wanderer, betrays his Racial Loyalty, kills the girl he's supposed to save, both successes and failures the result of outside intervention etc then injects a little pop freudianism

the crossover stories foreground the narrative structures that have become common across moorcock's heroes and directly comment upon them, become a metafiction to the fiction

yes, I only read sophisticated postmodern fiction (looking up from my copy of New Worlds SF magazine)

[dberl]

Elric of Melnibone vs Conan the Barbarian by Robin Riggs. 2014 New York Comic Con

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

Death Battle suggestions (Demon Slayer/KNY edition)

1) Tanjiro Kamado vs. Geralt of Rivia (The Witcher)

Reasoning: Main protagonists who are both swordsmen traveling the countryside and focused on wiping out their respective universe’s monsters. Both are also loving family men.  

2) Nezuko Kamado vs. Alphonse Elric (Fullmetal Alchemist) 

Reasoning: The younger siblings of the main protagonists. Their respective series focuses on their older siblings’ attempt to restore them to their original self (Tanjiro wants to turn Nezuko back into a human, Edward wants to restore his brother’s body)

3) Inosuke Hashibira vs. Drax the Destroyer (Marvel)

Reasoning: Shirtless feral men who prefer to rush into battle without thinking about strategy. Both wield dual blades, they laugh at almost everything, and they both secretly have a heart of gold.

4) Zenitsu Agatsuma vs. Usopp (One Piece)

Reasoning: Cowardly characters who end up befriending the main character and become an integral part of the crew 

5) Kanao Tsuyuri vs. Hinata Hyuuga (Naruto) 

Reasoning: The shy, socially awkward, soft-spoken love interests of the main protagonist of their respective show. They both have a complicated family history and both have lost someone in their family during a battle. Also, both have special abilities regarding their eyes

6) Muzan Kibutsuji vs. Thulsa Doom (Conan the Barbarian)

Reasoning: Legendary villains who kickstarted their series’ respective hero’s journey by wiping the heroes’ families out.

7) Genya Shinazugawa vs. Kyoko Sakura (Madoka Magica)

Reasoning: Stubborn lone wolves who eventually learn to open up to people and help the main group of heroes 

8) Giyu Tomioka vs. Jin (Samurai Champloo)

Reasoning: Battle of the stoic, reserved expert swordsmen 

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

You are not tripping. GRRM is a fan of Moorcock - he even read the Elric saga before LOTR was released in the US.

It was actually through a fanzine, Cortana, that I first heard about Tolkien-- it was a fanzine for fans of Sword & Sworcery fiction, and I was that because I was reading Conan and I was reading Elric and I was reading some of the other heroes. And it talked about this book called Lord of the Rings by this British writer... —GRRM's Podcast, 2006

It's also been noted before that the Melniboneans bear a strong resemblance to Valyrians (in appearance and philosophy), and the Melnibonean Ruby Throne may have been an influence on the Iron Throne. Furthermore, Brynden Rivers (Bloodraven, the three-eyed crow) bears a strong resemblance to Elric himself, and the enmity between him and his half-brother Aegor Rivers, Bittersteel, bears a strong resemblance to the famous fantasy nerd "who'd win" scenario of Elric vs Conan the Barbarian.

And not to forget, GRRM's blatant tribute to Elric within ASOIAF, as it's mentioned in TWOIAF that a name for Azor Ahai (bearer of Lightbringer) in some cultures is Eldric Shadowchaser. Maybe more will come in the future, who knows...

surely I CANNOT be tripping

[fantasyinvader]

One of the thing in the whole Elric vs. The Witcher debate I don’t think gets addressed is the nature of the two series.

The Witcher is a deconstruction, taking apart the usual trappings of fantasy stories and giving them an examination. Elric is more of a subversion, where it went against the grain of the fantasy genre. It was surprising, with readers at the time not knowing what to expect next since it wasn’t the story they usually got. Elric was built as an antithesis of Conan the Barbarian and his imitators, being the kind of character good guys usually fight and slay.

I don’t consider Elric a deconstruction, honestly I feel that (and the talk Elric focuses on politics) is the result of people trying to make the Saga feel more modern than it actually is. And I say this as someone who is likes the Elric saga more.

[weeb-polls-with-pip]

Autistic Anime Boys Round 2 Matchups!

Side A

L Lawliet (Death Note) VS Gohan (Dragon Ball Z)

Haruka Sakurai (MILGRAM) VS Seto Kaiba (Yu-Gi-Oh!)

Umetarou Nozaki (Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun) VS Taisei Yoshida (Assassination Classroom)

Itona Horibe (Assassination Classroom) VS Light Yagami (Death Note)

Sunny (Omori) VS Kaworu Nagisa (Neon Genesis Evangelion)

Yu Narukami/Souji Seta (Persona 4) VS Kiyotaka Ishimaru (Danganronpa)

Near/Nate River (Death Note) VS Mash Burnedead (Mashle: Magic and Muscles)

Edward Elric (Fullmetal Alchemist) VS Rui Kamishiro (Project Sekai)

Monkey D. Luffy (One Piece) VS Yuusuke Kitagawa (Persona 5)

Hitoshi-san (Nyan~ Neko Sugar Girls) VS Wakatoshi Ushijima (Haikyuu!!)

Kamille Bidan (Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam) VS Subaru Mikazuki (My Roommate is a Cat)

Natural Harmonia Gropius (Pokémon) VS Giorno Giovanna (Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure)

Laios Touden (Dungeon Meshi) VS Touma Akechi (The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.)

Gon Freecss (Hunter x Hunter) VS Senkuu Ishigami (Dr. Stone)

Ash Ketchum (Pokémon) VS Shichirou Balam (Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun)

Shintarou Kisaragi (Kagerou Project) VS Takashi Natsume (Natsume’s Book of Friends)

Side B

Haruka Nanase (Free!) VS Takeo Gouda (My Love Story!)

Kim Dokja (Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint) VS Roronoa Zoro (One Piece)

Sig (Puyo Puyo) VS Yugi Mutou (Yu-Gi-Oh!)

Legoshi (Beastars) VS Doppo Kunikida (Bungou Stray Dogs)

Kusuo Saiki (The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.) VS Nagito Komaeda (Danganronpa)

Yotasuke Takahashi (Blue Period) VS Misumi Ikaruga (A3!)

Miles Edgeworth (Ace Attorney) VS Ren Mihashi (Big Windup!)

Ranpo Edogawa (Bungou Stray Dogs) VS Masayoshi Hazama (Samurai Flamenco)

Jotaro Kujo (Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure) VS Sora Harukawa (Ensemble Stars)

Miles “Tails” Prower (Sonic X) VS Kabane Kusaka (Kemono Jihen)

Tenya Iida (My Hero Academia) VS Tetsuya Kuroko (Kuroko no Basket)

Goku (Dragon Ball) VS Shinichi Kudou/Conan Edogawa (Detective Conan)

Gin Ibushi (Your Turn to Die) VS Akihiko Sanada (Persona 3)

Loid Forger (Spy x Family) VS Sabro Sabnock (Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun)

Apollo Justice (Ace Attorney) VS Saitama (One Punch Man)

Langa Hasegawa (Sk8 the Infinity) VS Yusei Fudo (Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds)

[sewerhawk]

Conan the Barbarian vs. Elric of Melnibonē from Conan #14 pg. 11 Pencils by Barry Windsor-Smith

[mask131]

Reading-list for an “old-school D&D” fantasy

Aka, here is the list of the fantasy books that MASSIVELY influenced the original D&D and its first editions. Or, if you want to put it another way, the books that were the ingredients to create D&D/that were copied by D&D.

# J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” (+ “The Hobbit”). The source of modern fantasy, and THE main influence and source of old-school D&D. In fact, the creation of D&D was basically the creation of “The Lord of the Rings: The Role-Playing Game”. Very famously (or unfamously), in its original edition, D&D included a LOT of elements taken from the work of Tolkien, that then had to be re-shaped due to being under the copyright of Tolkien’s work. In the first edition D&D you’ll find “hobbits”, “mithril” and “balrogs” for example - that D&D had to change to “halflings”, “mithral” and “balors” to legal reasons. The only Tolkien-specific creatures D&D could keep were the orcs. Overall a LOT of D&D comes from Tolkien: the original depictions of elves and dwarfs, the ents (sorry, treants), the wights, the symbols of the “eye of fire” and “white hand” for the gods the orcs worship... And of course, the “Ranger” class was originally just the character of Aragorn as a class.

# Poul Anderson’s “Three Hearts and Three Lions”. This book was one of the two sources for the alighnment system of D&D of “Order versus Chaos” in a fantasy world. The D&D trolls were also heavily influenced by the depiction of trolls in this novel, PLUS the “Paladin” class was influenced by the character of Holger Carlsen.

# Michael Moorcock’s “The Elric Saga”.The other main source of the “Order vs Chaos”, “Lawful vs Chaotic” alignment of D&D - but also the main inspiration behind the Drow and the D&D-shaped image of “Dark Elves” in general (in the novels, they are the Melnibonéan Empire). D&D also contains several other references to the Saga - for example “Blackrazor” is inspired by Elric’s iconic sword, “Stormbringer”.

# Robert E. Howard’s “Conan the Barbarian”. The source of heroic fantasy the same way Tolkien’s LotR was the source of epic/high fantasy - the Barbarian class of D&D (and the image of a Barbarian in fantasy in general) all comes from Conan. 

# Fritz Leiber’s “Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser”. The origin of the “Sword and Sorcery” genre (at least, as called as such), originally intended as a parody of the Conan-style heroic fantasy genre, but then promptly becoming itself a serious and admired genre-creating classic, Leiber’s works were another major inspiration for D&D (the “Thief” class was heavily inspired by the character of the Gray Mouser), and there is a good number of supplements and books in D&D entirely centered around this book series - introducing the characters of the books, the gods of Newhon, or the city of Lankhmar, into the D&D world. 

# Jack Vance’s “The Dying Earth” series. The magic system of D&D was heavily influenced by how Vance re-imagined magic and spells in this unique sci-fi feeling fantasy: some spells and items are directly taken from the books (the prismatic spray, the ioun stones) and the entire concept of needing to “re-learn” or “re-charge” a spell once it is cast is the Dying Earth magic system (called by some “Vancian Magic”). 

# H.P. Lovecraft’s work (especially anything tied to the “Cthulhu Mythos”). Lovecraft’s brand of eldritch horror and alien fantasy has also been a big influence over the creatures and deities of early D&D - to the point that the various gods of the Cthulhu Mythos were included as one of the pantheons that could be used in the early editions of D&D (alongside other pantheons such as the gods of Newhon from Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, or the gods of the Conan world). 

# Gary Gygax, one of the creators of D&D, also listed other authors as direct influence for his game, but given I am less familiar with them I will just list them here: Fletcher Pratt (I think it might be his “Harold Shea” series, quite famous in the fantasy genre), L. Sprague de Camp, Edgar Rice Burroughs (the creator of some of the most famous American fictional characters, such as John Carter of Mars, or Tarzan) and A. Merritt. 

(Finally, not a literary work, but a series of movies that also influenced early D&D: the “Sinbad” movies of the mid-20th century. If you look through the creatures, monsters and illustrations of early editions D&D you’ll find several references to movies such as “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad“ or “The Golden Voyage of Sinbad”)