For the second time since the beginning of Elder Sign, I didn't read the tale, but just listened to the episode (it had to do with not finding a cheap version of the story and already having a REH-book, which I didn't like very much, though it wasn't bad). But the recap and discussion were clear enough.
I really liked the episode, although the tale wasn't weird. And though ethics of a tale have been discussed earlier in Elder Sign, they hadn't been discussed at this scale. It was interesting to compare medieval chivalric literature with 'modern' chivalric and 'post' chivalric; and old, less old and new views on ethics (and gender) when talking about murder, justice and the (not) divine status of human beings.
I love the work of Alan Moore, who was one of the first persons in 'pulp' fiction to make a point of the questionable status of the hero (esp. in Watchmen). I think since postmodernity took its place in culture, there isn't a serious chivalric hero anymore in the Solomon Kane sense of the term. There are of course those revenge-and-violence types of things, like the Tarantino movies (Kill Bill), to which I personally have a love-hate relation: they give bad example, but it depends on the viewer how to interpret this I guess (though I fear it can make violence/resentment seem excusable for angry, thrill seeking people). Postmodernity indeed shows the thin line between ethics and arbitrariness, and the rise of uncertainty what to do as a not-divine human. I do think this existentialist questioning is not only there in noir, but also in new weird (esp. Thomas Ligotti) - so there we are back to weird fiction still ;-)
And though this episode wasn't on storytelling, it made me think on how to treat the ethical questions of the protagonists in my own writing, so I thank you for that also.
I'm still not sure how I managed to pick the one Solomon Kane story that doesn't involve fighting monsters, but that means next time we're guaranteed to get some! And I really am looking forward to seeing how I feel about the character when he's not murdering humans for his own self-righteous pleasure.
The anti-hero has really risen to prominence in popular culture since the 1970's, based on my American cultural experience, of course.
Speaking of comics, I'm 100% sure that Solomon Kane was a Marvel comic publication back in the late 70/early 80's. They had good success with Conan, so another Robert E Howard adaptation would have made sense.