#oswald bastable

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Urban!Champions

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Moorcock's approach to grief is underrated. I don't think a lot of people actively acknowledge how many of his main male characters are just allowed to be vulnerable and express emotions. I'll list some of the characters that are the most fresh in my mind.

Elric is the most obvious example. It's precisely what makes him stand out among his people. He hurts so deeply because he feels just as deeply, and him having a conscience just amplifies it. He doesn't deny his actions, and yet he cannot reach full acceptance of his grief, because it just keeps resetting over and over again, making him stuck on depression. He shows acceptance by the end of his story, which is unfortunately cut short by Stormbringer's sudden last devious deed.

Corum's grief manifests as anger. His family dead before his eyes, his body defiled by humans whom he never even gave second thoughts about. The only way he can keep himself together is to focus all his pain into resolve to kill the man who ruined his life. Once he does, and when his wife dies, leaving him alone, he too gets stuck on depression, and it lasts quite long with him. I do believe he spent the Silver hand trilogy in denial, as he tries to convince himself that he belongs with Tuha-na-Cremm Croich, despite being shown otherwise, and knowing otherwise.

Oswald Bastable is the best example of denial. He spends the most of his first novel in it. Whether it's about his predicament of being displaced in a time he does not understand, or being shown glimpses of the true nature of the British empire he's so loyal to, or accidentally becoming an accomplice to a group that opposes his ideology, or the fact that he is once again displaced in a time that rejects him. He has a period of acceptance, and yet he's once again back to square one at the end of Warlord of the air, this time actively indulging in opium that he adamantly refused for the entirety of the novel, just to be able to keep himself together.

What sets each Eternal champion apart despite their experiences having an obvious pattern due to them being aspects of the same archetype, is how they deal with all of it, and they all do it in different ways that don't feel repetitive, and I think it's great.

So yeah, veteran of the psychic wars is extremely fitting with these characters, and Moorcock indeed is a great writer who gives his characters depth.

[ankh-morporkianpostalworker]

With the idea of tbe multiverse becoming more and more popular in fiction, I'd like to suggest a property to whatever network company social media interns may be reading this: Michael Moorcock's Multiverse and the Eternal Champion.

Quick recap for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about - for essentially the latter half of the 20th Century, British author Michael Moorcock put out a bunch of novels that focused on different incarnations of the same figure - the Eternal Champion. The Eternal Champion was a figure who's purpose was to maintain the balance between Law and Chaos (the two major forces in the multiverse, either of who's victory spells the end of that universe), reincarnated over and over throughout time across the multiverse, damned to fight unending battles.

The Eternal Champion came in many forms in many genres, from the sword and sorcery of Elric and Corum to the secret agent Jerry Cornelius to airship pilot Oswald Bastable and more.

The way one could pull a series based on this figure off is to make it an anthology-driven franchise, with different arcs focusing on different incarnations until you eventually have some massive crossover or something. You can use a repeating set of imagery to convey to the audience what characters are incarnations, as many are unaware of the role they play.

You'd get all sorts of genres, so people who like dark fantasy get something, people who like spy media get something, people who like steampunk get something and so on and so forth.

[quietflorilegium]

"You will not catch me saying, "thus the sad days passed slowly by"--or "the years rolled on their weary course" -- or "time went on" -- because it is silly; of course time goes on -- whether you say so or not. So I shall just tell you the nice, interesting parts -- and in between you will understand that we had our meals and got up and went to bed, and dull things like that. It would be sickening to write all that down, though of course it happens. I said so to Albert-next-door's uncle, who writes books, and he said, "Quite right, that's what we call selection, a necessity of true art." And he is very clever indeed. So you see."

Oswald Bastable, E. Nesbit, “The Story of the Treasure Seekers”

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Elric and Bastable in that 'bubble style'

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Captain Oswald Bastable

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Opium poppies

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Misc champions doodles