Not too long ago, and on a whim, I picked up Elric of Melniboné once again. I was two pages in, and this passage stuck out to me:
“If the young emperor has found any advantage in his lifelong weakness it must be in that, perforce, he has read much. Before he was fifteen he had read every book in his father’s library, some more than once. His sorcerous powers, learned initially from Sadric, are now greater than any possessed by his ancestors for many a generation. His knowledge of the world beyond the shores of Melniboné is profound, though he has as yet had little direct experience of it. If he wished he could resurrect the Dragon Isle’s former might and rule both his own land and the Young Kingdoms as an invulnerable tyrant. But his reading has also taught him to question the uses to which power is put, to question his motives, to question whether his own power should be used at all, in any cause. His reading has led him to this ‘morality,’ which, still, he barely understands. Thus, to his subjects, he is an enigma and, to some, he is a threat, for he neither thinks nor acts in accordance with their conception of how a true Melnibonéan (and a Melnibonéan emperor, at that) should think and act. His cousin Yyrkoon, for instance, has been heard more than once to voice strong doubts concerning the emperor’s right to rule the people of Melniboné. ‘This feeble scholar will bring doom to us all,’ he said one night to Dyvim Tvar, Lord of the Dragon Caves.”
–Michael Moorcock, “Elric of Melniboné” (p.13)
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Somehow, over the years, I had forgotten the fact that one of the reasons Elric was different was that he was well-read and knowledgeable about the world at large. More importantly, this knowledge was also a regulator on his use (or abuse) of power, which put him at odds with both his decadent culture and amoral society. And I love this introduction.
Is there a great character introduction that you remember? If so, please share it in the comments!
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I will always have a very soft spot in my heart for the six DAW paperbacks I either bought or traded for as a kid, which still sit proudly on my paperback bookshelf.
