Why the Witcher Left Me Cold and Elric of Melniboné Still Burns Like Witchfire

I recently picked up Heavy Metal #2, Variant
Cover A — Featuring Elric by Gerald Brom

While sick in bed with a cold for a couple of days, I took the opportunity to binge-watch The Witcher, a streaming series I’d heard both praise and condemnation for. Itching for a “new” sword-and-sorcery tale to disappear into, I found myself, halfway through season two, wondering why I didn’t simply return to old favorites—Excalibur, Conan the Barbarian, or The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Still, somewhat invested—and clearly weakened and confused by my sickness—I chose to see it through, foolishly hoping the show would improve. In hindsight, it was a poor decision on my part.

Assured by hardcore fans that “the books are way better” (a refrain I also heard from Harry Potter cultists—I did not like those movies, by the way), I found myself even less inclined to invest precious time reading Andrzej Sapkowski’s stories. Instead, the show—admittedly due to superficial similarities—nudged me toward something far richer: a desire to re-read Michael Moorcock’s Elric Saga, a dark-fantasy childhood favorite that shaped me as deeply as J.R.R. Tolkien, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Robert E. Howard.

For those who don’t know, Elric of Melniboné is doom made flesh—the last, sickly emperor of a languishing empire, sustained by drugs until he binds himself to Stormbringer, the runesword that drinks souls and feeds him stolen vitality; an antihero in the truest sense. Albino, red-eyed, frail as parchment yet terrifying in sorcery, Elric wanders a dying world as both savior and scourge.

A tragic figure, he is a philosopher-king born into a race of decadent sadists, cursed with a conscience they never had. His victories leave ash, his morality damns him, and his Black Blade—his greatest strength—hungers for those he loves. Yet there is a stark beauty in him: a lone, pale figure against apocalyptic skies, wrestling with fate itself. In an age of disposable fantasy protagonists, Elric still feels dangerous, lyrical, and alive.

Considering how atrocious most film and television adaptations have become, I am genuinely relieved no studio has yet sunk its claws into Elric. The list of butchered sci-fi, fantasy, and sword-and-sorcery properties grows longer every year. While not all recent adaptations are disasters—Nosferatu, Frankenstein, Hellboy—these successes are rare flashes of integrity amid the slop the industry churns out.

If anything, revisiting Elric reminds me that some worlds are better left on the page, untainted—where the imagination can still conjure storms worthy of Stormbringer.

~ By Giovanni di Napoli, December 10th, Translation of the Holy House of Loreto