Cthulhu in a new light

[polymorphikos]

http://www.hello-cthulhu.com/?date=2003-12-01

 

[Brian G Turner]

It's certainly a little...different.

Might have worked better with Nyarlathotep, though.

 

[Mors Profundis]

EEEEEEK!, GIBBER, Regurgaitate and howl stark, staring barking mad!
I kinda like it.

 

[Cyril]

The cute part of Cthulhu is becoming obvious with these decorative ribbons Excellent!

 

[BAYLOR]

I liked South Parks take on Cthulhu.

 

[BAYLOR]

You might want to check out the The Cackle of Cthulhu edited by Alex Shvartsman

On the cover of this book you have Cthulhu as Elvis Presley .

 

[thunderbyrd]

I feel the Big C is not so much evil as just ... misunderstood.

 

[BAYLOR]

I feel the Big C is not so much evil as just ... misunderstood.

He's largely indifferent to mankind .

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

He's largely indifferent to mankind .

Cthulhu is evil and/or indifferent by reputation. But who is really spreading that reputation?

Of course, all we believe we know about Cthulhu is that he has lain in R'lyeh for longer than there have been homo sapiens on earth and that he sometimes enters people's dreams. Sensitive people exclusively. That may suggest something quite different than "evil" or "indifference." But that is for a qualified xenopsychologist to figure out.

 

[BAYLOR]

Cthulhu is evil and/or indifferent by reputation. But who is really spreading that reputation?

Of course, all we believe we know about Cthulhu is that he has lain in R'lyeh for longer than there have been homo sapiens on earth and that he sometimes enters people's dreams. Sensitive people exclusively. That may suggest something quite different than "evil" or "indifference." But that is for a qualified xenopsychologist to figure out.

On the subject of Cthulhu, Lovecraft left things a little vague. He's basically a very gigantic humanoid creature with an octopus head who can drive people batty if they look upon him directly. In other words, he'd have a very hard time getting a date . He also has no marketable job related skills .

 

[Randy M.]

I feel the Big C is not so much evil as just ... misunderstood.

Cthulhu is evil and/or indifferent by reputation. But who is really spreading that reputation?

Of course, all we believe we know about Cthulhu is that he has lain in R'lyeh for longer than there have been homo sapiens on earth and that he sometimes enters people's dreams. Sensitive people exclusively. That may suggest something quite different than "evil" or "indifference." But that is for a qualified xenopsychologist to figure out.

So ... from this perspective, HPL was a purveyor of fake news?

 

[thunderbyrd]

So ... from this perspective, HPL was a purveyor of fake news?

Exactly! it's an outrage!

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

So ... from this perspective, HPL was a purveyor of fake news?

Robert Block et al are the purveyors of fake news in this perspective, not HPL.

from The Dunwich Horror (Events in 1928, three years after the events of The Call of Cthulhu)
"Great Cthulhu is Their cousin, yet can he spy Them only dimly."

At the Mountains of Madness describes a history of Cthulhu in great battles during the "vigintillions" of years before homo-sapiens appeared on Earth.

As far as HPL stories go, Cthulhu is mentioned in five stories, The Call of Cthulhu, The Whisperer in Darkness, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, At the Mountains of Madness, and the historical treaties The History of the Necronomicon.

The only appearance of Cthulhu outside of R'yleh during the era of homo-sapiens in HPL's writings is in 1925 when Cthulhu storms out of his house to yell, (in translation), "Get off my mossy lawn" to some pesky sailors. (mere zygotes to Cthulhu's reckoning of age). And then these sailors have the temerity to ram him with a steamship. As far as the only living witness (Johansen) knows Cthulhu returned to his home and sank back down to the ocean floor. Think of the story from Cthulhu's point of view. Johansen and his crew murdered Cthulhu's houseguests while they were traveling for a visit, stole his houseguests' steamship, and then came knocking on Cthulhu's door.

Cthulhu's worshippers seem insane, but according to HPL Cthulhu did in fact rise again, looked around for what appears to be an hour or so, and then returned home and went back to sleep.

from The Call of Cthulhu
Cthulhu still lives, too, I suppose, again in that chasm of stone which has
shielded him since the sun was young. His accursed city is sunken once more,
for the Vigilant sailed over the spot after the April storm; but his ministers on
earth still bellow and prance and slay around idol-capped monoliths in lonely
places.

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

HPL, in his letters, spoke about Cthulhu much more broadly.
As an example see the following passage from a 1930 letter in which HPL explains that comparing cottage cheese and cheddar cheese is "a parvenu thing like mankind as compared to the Elder Ones of Cthulhu and Tsathoggua."

Temple of Azoth
Octr. 17, 1930
To Frank Belknap Long,
...As for the problem of cottage cheese-this is a complex matter which
one cannot hope to adjudicate intelligently if one takes too artificially
simple a view of the subject. It is natural, of course, for the superficial
observer to class this commodity with other products bearing a cognate
designation, on the classic principle embodied in the axiom that 'pigs is
pigs', including even the guinea variety. But in all truth no sophisticated
gastronomer could for a moment countenance so gross a confusion.
Cheese proper- the normal Cheddar variety produced by a long process
of mellowing and bacterial action-is one thing; but so-call'd "cottage
cheese", the soft, slushy parvenu result of a little sour-milk curdling, is
a very different proposition! Correctly speaking, it is only an embryo of
real cheese-a rude, unform'd inchoate thing - the rudi indigestague
moles of the Ovidian cosmogony, as it were. It is a parody, a caricature,
a blasphemy - a parvenu thing like mankind as compared to the Elder
Ones of Cthulhu and Tsathoggua....

 

[BAYLOR]

So ... from this perspective, HPL was a purveyor of fake news?

What Cthulhu really needed was a a good PR Fish Man.