Talk:Cthulhu mythos/Archive 1

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I tracked down a copy of the short story The Nameless City, and filled out the article about the eponymous city, The Nameless City. Does anyone know if there's a canonical name for the creatures that live in that city? In the short story, they're as nameless as their city. I thought maybe they were the Serpent People, but the creatures in that article don't sound like the same creatures. In any case, if the Nameless City creatures do have a recognized name, they should perhaps be added to the list of "Non-human species of the Mythos".

Actually, now that I google for it, I find there's a copy of this story in Wikisource: http://wikisource.org/wiki/The_Nameless_City .--67.188.65.218 19:26, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sorry for dragging this on but there is, really, cause for confusion. In his story At the Mountains of Madness, H P Lovecraft talks about some barrel shaped beings, not to be confused with the Great Old Ones, as mentioned in the article, and refers to them as the Old Ones. Old Ones, Elder Things seems alright to me but it is easy to confuse them with the Great Old Ones. --Kalasklas 10:58, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)



The article about Leng now says Elder Things. This seems correct to me. --Kalasklas 18:14, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)



There is some confusion in the pages about Cthulhu and the mythology. The plateau of Leng is mentioned in connection with Antarctis (At the Mountains of Madness) and is said to be built by the Great Old Ones. In the article about the Mythology the Great Old Ones are something different from the beings that in the story are said to have built the ancient city. In At the Mountains of Madness there is mentioned a second arrival of beings to the Earth and, to me, those beings seem to correspond more to the Great Old Ones and other associated beings than the creatures in the city. --Kalasklas 10:23, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • Actual location of Leng is never certain, especially as there is such a place in the Dreamlands too... personally, I think the myths about it are a mix of 3 places (possibly wearing the same name) : Leng of the Dreamlands, Leng of the Asia, and the place found in the antarctic, with the possibility of the ancient chroniclers being mixed up, or of the Elder City having been an influence on the Asian place. --Svartalf 03:11, 3 January 2006 (UTC)



Er, you should be careful with Dunwich. There are (at least) 2 Dunwiches: the one you certainly don't want to point to is Dunwich, England


The King in Yellow isn't part of the mythos: its from Robert W. Chambers' stories around the late 1890s, predating the mythos by several decades. Though Lovecraft certainly read it, and adopted the theme of a book that drives men mad, he didn't explicitly include it in his stories. Unless later writers incorporated it?

August Derleth incorporated it. I don't believe it's in Lovecraft's stories anywhere, but he does borrow "Hastur" from Chambers. Also Lovecraft in his real-life correspondence used to state that "The King In Yellow" was inspired by the Necronomicon. Just some of his play-acting, of course. Derleth then took that another step and made the King in Yellow (the character, not the book) an avatar of Hastur. Chaosium played it up further in CoC if I remember correctly.-- Paul Drye

OK then. I think the name Hastur was originally from Ambrose Bierce, and what with Chambers. Derleth and Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover stories, he/it has certainly had a long career. Perhaps we could mark canonical Lovecraft characters from other authors - IIRC Dagon is actually an ancient Phoenician fish god, and not invented by Lovecraft. -- Malcolm Farmer

Hastur's just everywhere, yes (See Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman). And correct on Dagon: also, it's believed the demon Dagoth of some Judeo-Christian myth is meant to be Dagon, in the long tradition of saying the god of whoever you don't like is a demon. -- Jake 11:36, 2003 Jul 30 (UTC)

  • While Chambers' writings certainly weren't made with the Mythos in mind, it's an indiscutable fact that they have been co opted and elements from them have found their way into later mythos works, so now, it's better for students of the mythos to know where those things come from, first hand. As for Dagon, HPL included a lot of stuff from real life, myth, books... all the better to mix in his own inventions unnoticed, or "explain" old legends and religions as mythos inspired. --Svartalf 03:11, 3 January 2006 (UTC)



Altered the wording on the elemental theory. Though Derleth whole-heartedly embraced it, James Turner and Robert M. Price both mention in introductions that it was actually Laney who came up with the ill-fitting theory. -J.65.189.251.176 07:08, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Focus on Lovecraft

The first part of this article seems to be mostly a rant against Derleth's interpretation and augmentation of the works of Lovecraft rather than a discussion about Lovecraft's system itself. The information about how Derleth developed the mythos on his own probably should go in a subcategory on this page, but we need some more paragraphs about the feeling of the Lovecraft stories as a whole. --The demiurge 22:21, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

You are correct. I would have done it myself if not for being buried under homework. Please feel free. --Yath 04:03, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Can anybody add info about significant contributions (IE: not just adding new elements, but redefining the whole system) made by other authors than Lovecraft & Derleth? --Tydaj 18:19, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Oh, it would be great to have a section that explains the whole philosophy behind the Mythos: the insignificance of humanity, the limits of the human mind to ever fully comprehend the universe, and the difference between Lovecraft’s horrors and those of modern horror-stories (i.e. modern horror uses lots of gory details and Lovecraft barely ever describes the monsters; modern horror is about being terrified that things will come out and kill you, while Lovecraft’s monsters are more horribly, not because they’ll mutilate you and kill your loved ones, but because accepting them as a natural part of the universe, is so impossible that it’ll drive you mad). I’ll do it, if someone isn’t already planning to. -- Master Rune 20:45, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Phew! There's still some things lacking (influences by other authors) but I think it's a vast improvement. I have one question, was "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" actually a Lovecraft story, or was it one that was "channeled" by another author? --Tydaj 22:59, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)


Series of Books category?

I think this article doesn't belong in this category. Did Lovecraft have any particular story continuity between any of his mythos books? They all stood on their own, if I recall correctly. Even if some of the other authors, such as Derleth, wrote some mythos books in series (I don't know), this article shouldn't go in the category. --Yath 21:50, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Fictional religions

Would it be apropriate to add this article to the Fictional religions category? I'm currently just running though articles linked from List of fictional religions and adding the category where missing, but I'm a tad unsure how apropriate the fictional religion label would be for this particular article? Any thoughts? --Sherool 08:34, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Things to do (recommended)

To cut down the size of the article, the following entries should be split into separate articles, along with their respective tables (these subjects probably deserve their own articles anyway):

Otherwise, other entries should probably remain (?), since we don't want to trim down the article too much—that is, the article should be as informative as possible, yet within Wiki's recommended size constraints.

Gate2ValusiaOh?..(contribs) 12:49, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

  • Done and done. -,-~R'lyehRising~-,- 15:36, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Concerning the relationship between the Cthulhu and the Cthulhu Mythos wiki articles

I suppose it makes more sense to the initiate for us to discuss the details of the formation of the popular "Cthulhu Mythos" in the Cthulhu article; but, I am in doubt.

In other words, I seem to observe the fact that some portions of the articles Cthulhu and Cthulhu Mythos are jumbled together, with Cthulhu talking about the Mythos, Derleth, and all that, while only briefly touching the fact that Lovecraft and his "cohorts" were in fact sharing a loose mythos, and with Cthulhu Mythos more or less skipping straight to the meat of the matter.

Due to my uncertainty, I am unable to add this little comment which I think is important:

Though the suitability of the Mythos' rather exclusive name is arguable, a mythos of sorts is evident from Lovecraft's writing philosophy and the writing itself.

Pronunciation.

Has anyone ever considered giving information regarding the pronunciation of the names of each of the creatures in the mythos? Does anyone know the correct pronunciations for them all? Does anyone have a copy of Encyclopedia Cthulhiana (ISBN 1568821697) they could pull the info out of?

Matthew king 01:51, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

As I understand, the proper names of these beings cannot be correctly pronounced. Names like Cthulhu are approximations given the language it's found in. In other cases like Azathoth, it's just names that humans have given them. I'm not sure how Hastur fits into all this. --Tydaj 02:36, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
  • I have a copy of Harms' Encyclopedia Cthulhiana, 2nd edition (in fact, I've been using it as a sort of bible on the Cthulhu mythos!). While Harms provides a very detailed and comprehensive analysis of the mythos, he does not go so far as to provide pronunciations for the various beings and beasts. Gate2ValusiaOh?..(contribs) 05:18, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
  • That's interesting. The info at Amazon which says there is a pronunciation guide in the book is obviously incorrect. I guess the reviewer was mistaken. Thanks for clearing that up. Matthew king 10:47, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

The Space-Eaters

I just noticed that the space eaters aren't included in "Other species". Are they significant enough to put them in? Dali 03:09, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Added today. (Why not?) -,-~R'lyehRising~-,- 15:34, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Text removed from "Derleth's elemental theory"

I removed the following (unreferenced) information (contributed by 65.189.251.176) from the article. If you can provide a citation for where this came from, I would like to see it:

Derleth also promoted the concept of elementals; a fan, Francis T. Laney, had written a glossary tying the deities of the mythos to the four elements of air, earth, fire, and water.

This seems to imply that the fan, Francis T. Laney, advocated the elemental theory and that later Derleth picked up on this and endorsed it. However, based on my sources, the elemental theory was in fact originally conceived and developed by August Derleth himself.

First, Francis T. Laney's essay ("The Cthulhu Mythos") was first published in The Acolyte (Winter 1942). Secondly, in the Encyclopedia Cthulhiana, Daniel Harms indicates on pg. 101 ("Elemental Theory") that the first mention of elementals appears in Derleth's "The Thing That Walked on the Wind", which was published 9 years before Laney's essay appeared.

With regard to the aforementioned essay, Laney wrote in Ah, Sweet Idiocy (1948) (emphasis added):

During this time, I corresponded extensively with Derleth, and somehow or other got him innoculated with the mythos bug, too, for one day he sent me a bulky envelope with the carbons of new Lovecraftian stories he had just sold to [Weird Tales], mentioning that my compilation had showed that no fire entity had yet appeared so he created Cthuga (sic).[1]

According to David E. Schultz: "In other words, Laney's essay... inspired Derleth to write The Trail of Cthulhu and "The Dweller in Darkness."[2] It is worth noting that the first "chapter" of The Trail of Cthulhu ("The House on Curwen Street") and "The Dweller in Darkness" mention the fire elemental Cthugha.

We may infer from this that Laney recognized Derleth's elemental theory in his stories, and simply pointed out that Derleth had neglected to include a fire elemental. Thus, Laney's contribution was Derleth's fire elemental (Cthugha) but not the theory itself.

In fact, this is reiterated by Robert M. Price in The Ithaqua Cycle[3]. Price says that the elemental theory was crafted to suit the air elemental Ithaqua (first appearing in "The Thing That Walked on the Wind"): "Ithaqua is the mythic-narrative embodiment of the 'elementals' schema. The whole business seems to have existed for the sake of Ithaqua and wouldn't have been invoked apart from him."[4] Later Price states: "...Cthugha the fire-devil was made to order, after the fact, to plug a gap in the Derlethian Table of the Elements once Francis T. Laney had pointed it out to Derleth."[5]

Notes

  • 1 David E. Schultz, "Notes toward a History of the Cthulhu Mythos, Crypt of Cthulhu #92 (Vol 15 No 2, Eastertide 1996, West Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Press), Note #41, pp. 27–8.
  • 2 Ibid, pp. 28.
  • 3 The Ithaqua Cycle, Oakland, CA: Chaosium, 1998. ISBN 1-568-82124-7.
  • 4 Ibid, Price, "Ghost Riders in the Sky", pp. ix.
  • 5 Ibid, pp. ix.


Postscript
It could be argued that Laney was one of the first to categorize the mythos, but we have to be careful here. A secondary source would have to definitively confirm this before it could appear in the article.


-,-~R'lyehRising~-,- 23:12, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Update

  • I added a footnote about this issue in the article's "Derleth's elemental theory" section (see part about Cthugha).
    -,-~R'lyehRising~-,- 05:12, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

The plot thickens

  • Robert M. Price seems to contradict himself in the "Introduction" to Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos (New York, NY: Random House, 2002, ISBN 0-345-44408-6). On page xv, Price writes:

    Another modification for which Derleth's critics cannot forgive him is his apportioning of the Lovecraftian entities among the hackneyed categories of the four elements, so that Cthulhu becomes a water-elemental... Actually this was not Derleth's idea. He accepted it from Francis T. Laney, a fan whose glossary of the Lovecraft Mythology Derleth read, liked, and reprinted. In fact we owe Derleth's fire-elemental Cthugha to Laney: Derleth created him... to plug the gap left by Lovecraft who had not obliged Laney by creating any fire-elementals . . . or, come to think of it, any air-elementals, either!

    -,-~R'lyehRising~-,- 02:39, 26 February 2006 (UTC)