Cthulhu: Education wanted

Cafe Society
41

IIRC, Yog-Sothoth is the gateway through whom Hastur or Nyarlhotep can return. I believe that by invoking Yog-Sothoth a adept might be allowed a glimpse of the mindless gibbering chaos at the centre of Creation, or hear a few strains of the piping of the eldritch polyp-like being dancing around the immobile festering bulk of Asathoth…

Cthulhu and his ilk are alien gods who had at one time dominion over Earth and other worlds on this plane. They lost their hold here because they used black magic, which weakened them enough to be defeated by a group or coalition of marginally less repulsive beings who imprisoned them in various places. Unfortunately, many of the races of wardens are extinct, at least on Earth, although the Fungi of Yuggoth (Pluto) seem to be doing well, and other species have arisen which are working to release the Old Ones from their dungeons. Some humans are corrupted into helping one side of another, but that usually results in the the humans being blasted into madness or skinned alive…

42

Yog-Sothoth is another of the Great Old Ones. He never appears on-camera in any of HPL’s stories, but he’s deeply involved in “The Dunwich Horror,” in a way I won’t spoil. Cthulhu is a being with a more-or-less physical body who resides on Earth; Yog-Sothoth is a more ethereal, extradimensional being. Other major GOO, who never appear on-camera at any time in the stories, are Azathoth, a sort of cosmic being who resides in the chaotic void; Dagon, a water being and patron of the piscine-batrachian-humanoid Deep Ones; Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young; and Nyarlathotep, a kind of wizard-prophet.

As for whether the Great Old Ones are gods or aliens – in HPL’s fiction, the distinction is neither clear nor important. None of the Old Ones are “gods” in the sense of having a spiritual role to play in the universe – Dagon and Cthulhu are associated with the element of water but they are not gods “of” the sea like Poseidon. Nor do the Great Old Ones expect human worship, for reasons discussed above. But in the Cthulhu Mythos universe, the GOO are the most godlike creatures that exist – there are no “true” gods.

There are other beings which are simply aliens, extraterrestrial or extradimensional, but much less powerful than the GOO: The Old Ones of Antarctica (an antedeluvian sentient species, associated with Cthulhu and his ilk but not to be confused with them); and the Mi-Go or “Fungi from Yuggoth” (which is probably the planet Pluto). Then there are supernatural (or at any rate extremely creepy) beings who, so far as we can tell, come from this Earth: the aquatic Deep Ones (discussed above), who are immortal and sometimes interbreed with humans; the wolflike corpse-eating ghouls of “Pickman’s Model”; the prehistoric, time-travelling Great Race; and others. And then there are the denizens of “Dreamland,” such as the Night-Gaunts. Some of the stories take place in what is quite literally a dream-universe – accessible to only the most inspired dreamers, but the same for all of them – see the novella, “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath.” And then there are fantasy stories such as “The Cats of Ulthar” and “The Doom that Came to Sarnath,” set in an ancient magical world much like that of Robert E. Howard’s Hyborian Age, only creepier and more poetic.

Lovecraft never tried to build a rational, systematic structure for the Mythos universe, he simply made up new monsters and new blasphemous grimoires as the inspiration struck him, while sometimes throwing in some cross-references to monsters and grimoires from other stories – some names and references would pop up in the antediluvian fantasy-world stories AND the dream-world stories AND the more contemporary stories set in the world of the 1930s. It’s all much more fun to read that way, isn’t it?

43

He’s is an alien, but he is powerful like a god(Some cultists worship him like a god) So he’s more or less both.

Deep ones are rather low on the totem pole of the lovecraft universe. They apparently can live forever, but it’s hypothecially possible that they can be killed with mortal weapons(e.g. Tommy Guns), Considering the federal raid on Innsmouth. Other then that, they aren’t anywhere near Cthulhu or the GOO’s, more like the level of Ghouls or possibly Mi-Go(roughly on the same level as humans).

44

I got the impression that if you met Cthulhu, you’re more or less screwed already. If he were to fully awake, I get the impression that humanity would go insane more or less en masse just from his telepathic communications(normally blunted by the miles of seawater over R’lyeh).

45

I found this site:
http://www.logicalcreativity.com/jon/plush/01.html
…and now I know what I want from my sweetie for Xmas!!

Del Ray has a recent/decent 4-book set of H.P. Lovecraft stories, (Bloodcurdling tales of Horror & the Macabre, Dreams of Terror and Death, The Road to Madness) along with a Cthulhu Mythos book. If you wanna go the cheap route, you can find his stuff in any library.

46

I think it’s been somewhat overlooked so far in this thread that, while Lovecraft was the guiding spirit in creating the Cthulhu Mythos, it was still foremost a collaborative effort. Several authors working together created it. Other major contributors include Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch (of Psycho fame), Ramsey Campbell, and August Derleth (terrible author, but he founded Arkham House, which kept Lovecraft and the other Mythos authors in print for decades before the public “rediscovered” him.) I forget the specfic details, but one of Lovecraft’s friends (Smith?) mentioned the Necronomicon in one of his stories as a wink to Lovecraft. Lovecraft responed by mentioning one of the other author’s boogeymen in one of his own stories. Other writers got in on the game, and the next thing you know, you’ve got the Cthulhu Mythos.

What made the Mythos stand out was, not the nihilism Wang-Ka mentioned (although that is significant), but the collaboration. Imagine you’re twelve, it’s 1930, and you’re reading the lastest issue of Weird Tales. It’s all supposed to be fiction, right? Except, this guy in this one story talks about the Necronomicon, which is also in this other story by this completely different guy! Okay, sure the monsters aren’t real, but maybe the book is. Maybe there are people somewhere who really worship this “Cthulhu.” I mean, they worship all sorts of weird things all the way over in Asia, right?

What made the Mythos was that feeling of frission you got from wondering, “Just how much of this is really fiction?” Which, in a story about giant man-eating squids with wings, is a pretty amazing feat.

47

Mmm… yeah… but I’m not sure I’d call it “collaboration,” per se.

Y’see, Lovecraft invented his own stuff, and Clark Ashton Smith invented HIS own unrelated stuff, and Robert Howard was off writing Conan stories and suchlike, right?

Now, these guys never met, but corresponded heavily by mail. If Lovecraft was alive today, he’d be the king of the email junkies.

These three guys read each others’ work in the pulps, and admired each others’ styles quite a bit, and often included homages to each other. Lovecraft in particular invited his chums to use his weird names and imaginary books, which is why the Necronomicon pops up in Smith’s stories… and “De Vermis Mysteriis” pops up in Lovecraft’s, despite the fact that Howard originated it. Oh, yeah, and at one point, in a Lovecraft story, we hear about the mad Egyptian wizard, Klarkash-Ton…

In fact, based on some of these interlinks, you could make a pretty strong case that Conan’s Hyperborea is a part of the Cthulhu Mythos!

…but they were NOT collaborations. They were simply a bunch of chums swapping ideas and having fun with each others’ creations, with permission.

After Lovecraft died, though, his unpublished stuff fell into the hands of one August Derleth, who finished several Lovecraft projects, and published them as “posthumous collaborations,” which I guess is true enough… although he finally reached a point of writing his own Mythos stuff, popping a quote from Lovecraft in there somewhere, and publishing it as A NEW WORK FROM LOVECRAFT AND DERLETH…

It’s been said that Derleth is largely responsible for the “Cthulhu Mythos” concept, in that he wrote a lot of material that unified the concepts and fleshed out the idea of the Old Ones vs. the Outer Gods, and suchlike. Lovecraft’s stories, although they had concepts in common (Cthulhu, Necronomicon, etc) were pretty much unrelated to each other.

Derleth’s critics damn him for this, saying he weakened Lovecraft’s terrifying nihilist cosmic vision by doing so, and simply turned the Mythos into a good gods vs. evil gods series, like a cosmic Cowboys and Indians saga.

Then again, without Derleth’s creation of Arkham House Publishing, it’s possible that Lovecraft would, today, be largely forgotten… so read the stuff and judge for yourself.

48

That’s more or less what I said in my post. Personally, I’d call that a collaboration. YMOV.

I also pretty much said exactly the same thing in my post. Derleth was a better editor than a writer. And considering his writings, that’s really not saying much.

49

I’m not a huge Lovecraft fan, but every person who enjoys horror or SF should read “The Colour Out of Space.” It’s one of the creepier stories I’ve ever read, bar none. The fact that it was written in 1927 somehow makes it even more chilling.

50

I’m sorry, Miller. Didn’t mean to be redundant.

Derleth was actually a not-bad pulp writer; he did numerous stories for Weird Tales, and did a fair number of reasonably spooky “traditional” style scary yarns. I know that one of them, “Mr. George”, a comical/creepy examination of a little girl’s “imaginary friend” who may or may not be her late stepfather, ranks as pretty good, and was made into an episode of “Boris Karloff’s Thriller” for TV.

But yeah, he really shone more as a writer. Today, his Cthulhu fiction is still in print. His more original stuff, written before he went Cthulhu-happy, is largely forgotten.

51

Robert E. Howard’s contributions were recently reprinted in a collection entitled Nameless Cults.

I own a copy, and I can recommend it.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1568821301/qid=1067867244/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-3539648-6944703?v=glance&s=books

52

And as an amusemtn for the fans of the Great Old Ones out there, check out chthululives.org, a website of eldritch horror where you can pick up Shoggoth on the Roof, and A Very Scary Solstice.