Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

I am not convinced it is as successful as Thor: Ragnarok, which has similar meditations on the provenance of empire and power and its propagation to following generations. Moorcock has ambitions above and beyond his typical Eternal Champions stories, and while aspiring for Spenser's The Faerie Queene and Peake's Titus Groan with elements of Elizabeth I, the layers of irony and alternating light (Romance) and darkness (realpolitik and real disturbing grimdark) eventually traps him into a forced happy ending when the pure tragedy would either be more poignant or more natural.

I don't buy the ending, and I don't buy how he gets to the ending. And I'm reading the post-2016 revision removing a rape scene that, if I understand how it originally stitched together, would be even worse, something repugnant instead of unnaturally forced and kind of silly.

Still, one watches this story in motion, watches it fold transgressive and countercultural elements into this structured Romance, watching the Romance strip away to realpolitik machinations and eventually some truly dark events and material. Horrors underpin this Chivalry and Romance and those horrors claw their way to the surface just as a series of intricate plans collide and annihilate one another.

The sprawling, overwritten style infected with lists and enumeration of detail, it lulls the reader into complacency before smashing with the transgressive, extravagant sensuality and driving a spike with the darkness underneath.