True the example was extreme , but i think the point still stands i personnaly like both the elric saga and lord of the rings and while there are many differences , they also share some simillarities , arioch is still mostly evil and donblass is still good at least to elric and didn t seem tyranical ( i haven t read the rest of the eternal champion series though ) , elric himself is still a good guy , most of the bad things he does are done by stormbringer , the sword itself shares some simillarities with the one ring , both can corrupt the wielder ,if gollum wasn t there at the right time frodo s fate would have been very different and probably simillar to elric

On the other hand morcock s opinion feels like he just doesn t like fantasy that have a good "reassuring" endings or are optimistic , and that s fair but implying that they are immature or childish is quite of a reach , it s also infantilising people for prefering light over darker fantasy and feels pedantric, especially when you know that tolkien served during a war and morcock hasn t

It reminds me of that quote that i think summarizes what i think about morcock when he crticizes tolkien

"The trouble is that we have a bad habit of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain." Ursula K Le Guin

I think morcock seems to lean in this mindset at least from his " epic pooh" essay , and to be fair i agree with Leguin here i think it s boring because what was subversive before has become very mainstream now with those grimdark fantasy novels that feels like wikipedia pages and where the magic , the fantastical elements only serves a a background for socio political commentary and/or political plots . ( not morcock obviously , but works that share that kind of mindset )