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As a longtime Cthulhu cultist, I've always thought that the mythology is much more interesting that Lovecraft's actual writing. I consider Alan Moore's Providen
by ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
As a longtime Cthulhu cultist, I've always thought that the mythology is much more interesting that Lovecraft's actual writing. I consider Alan Moore's Providence to be the ultimate interpretation of Lovecraft's mythology.
- Obscurity4340 3y agoCthulu the Titan like god thing, from South Park?
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoYes - He features in a lot of different popular media and was first portrayed in H.P.Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu (published 1928). The mythology of Great Old Ones etc. is usually referred to as the Cthulhu Mythos, though Cthulhu is definitely not the most powerful being. (That honour would probably go to Azathoth - a blind, mad sleeping god who happened to create our universe as part of his dreams - don't wake him up!)
- Obscurity4340 3y agoIm def a fan after South Park XD
- OfSanguineFire 3y agoHorses for courses. When I had my Lovecraft kick as a teenager, I had zero interest in going on to read the stuff that later authors set in the same universe. Derleth et al. seemed like mediocre talents just riding on Lovecraft's coattails.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoYeah, I haven't read any Derleth, though I am a fan of Charles Stross' Laundry Files series. Also The King in Yellow by Robert W Chambers is in my opinion an essential addition to Lovecraft's mythology.
- momentoftop 3y agoI'm the opposite. One of the things I love about Lovecraft is how oblique the mythology is in his writings. I don't know much about Azathoth, save that he's somehow "Lord of all Things", while being a "Blind Idiot God." That seeming contradiction is tantalising and the last thing I want is to see it fleshed out. It's fear of the unknown, after all, not fear of the things that have detailed wiki pages.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoI find the extra detail adds to the horror, though I'd generally agree. The scariest horror films are the ones that hint rather than depicting everything. With Azathoth, I find it more disturbing to consider that our entire universe is just a fragment of a dream by Azathoth, and the pipers play a tune to keep him asleep, as what happens to a dream when the dreamer awakes?
- nextaccountic 3y agoWhat I find most disturbing is that it makes more sense than most creation myths, at least from my modern point of view; and it paints humanity hanging by a thread, like 20th century fears of being hit by a supernova, or a meteor, etc (of course we had apocalyptic themes through all of history though) Or rather, anyone that had a dream with a person that said "don't wake up, or I will die" can relate
- momentoftop 3y agoI love the idea of hanging by a thread, of complete existential and cosmic precarity. To again quote the opening of Call of Cthulhu, science will reveal "our frightful position [in reality]". I like the fact that, for Lovecraft, the answer to such terrifying revelations is mostly to draw the curtains and ideally brick up the window and insist "nothing to see here." The opening quote offers that as one solution, but it's recurrent in his stories. It's what the protagonists end up doing in the Dunwich horror mentioned in the blogpost.
- nextaccountic 3y ago
- dclowd9901 3y agoYou’re probably already aware of it, but I think his take on Swamp Thing was also rare and incredible.