Editing Stormbringer (section)

==Analysis==
The theme of a cursed [[Magic sword|magical sword]] which causes evil deeds when drawn goes back to the sword [[Tyrfing]] in [[Norse mythology|Norse Mythology]], with which Moorcock was likely familiar.<ref name="scroggins" /> Stormbringer was influential in popularizing this trope in the [[fantasy]] genre.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Wise|first=Dennis|title=A Brief History of EPVIDS: Subjectivity and Evil Possessed Vampire Demon Swords|url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/2537697296|journal=Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts|volume=31|id={{ProQuest|2537697296}} |via=ProQuest}}</ref> Moorcock intended the sword character to serve as a key element of his discussion of "how mankind's wish-fantasies can bring about the destruction of... part of mankind".<ref>{{cite book|last1=Riley|first1=James|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RVtqDwAAQBAJ&q=stormbringer|title=The 1960s: A Decade of Modern British Fiction|date=2018|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=9781350011687|editor1-last=Tew|editor1-first=Philip|page=277|chapter=Terminal Data: J.G. Ballard, Michael Moorcock and the Fiction of the Decade's End|access-date=6 March 2020|editor2-last=Riley|editor2-first=James|editor3-last=Seddon|editor3-first=Melanie}}</ref> Claiming influence from [[Sigmund Freud|Freud]] and [[Carl Jung|Jung]] he says: "The whole point of Elric's soul-eating sword, Stormbringer, was addiction: to sex, to violence, to big, black, phallic swords, to drugs, to escape. That's why it went down so well in the rock’n’roll world".<ref>{{Cite web|date=2015-07-24|title=Michael Moorcock: "I think Tolkien was a crypto-fascist"|url=https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2015/07/michael-moorcock-i-think-tolkien-was-crypto-fascist|access-date=2022-02-15|website=New Statesman|language=en-US}}</ref>

Literature scholar Dennis Wilson Wise wrote that "a weapon like Stormbringer reinforces liberal selfhood in a particularly concrete way. It carries a continuous external threat to personal autonomy, and it subverts a fully rational [[self-determination]]. Modern fantasy heroes, especially in epic fantasy, often rail against "destiny" or a prophecy, but such destinies and prophecies lack Stormbringer's sentient specificity."<ref name=":0" />

[[Ontologist]] [[Levi Bryant]] stated that Stormbringer belongs to a special class of magical items which also appear in ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'', which are not "merely passive tools", but have will, goals, [[Alignment (role-playing games)|alignment]] and a personality of their own. Stormbringer talks to, influences and struggles with its wielder Elric. Bryant saw the sword as an active entity, not unlike "some of the artificial life we are developing today", and also compared it to "technologies unleashed on the world that are agents in their own right".<ref name="Bryant" />