Cthulhu Mythos: Difference between revisions

Soon the Old Ones come again!|[http://www.journalfen.net/community/the_hms_stfu/239597.html From "Climbing from the depths abyssal"], a [[Filk]] of [[Gilbert and Sullivan]]'s "Climbing over rocky mountain" by Adam Cuerden.}}

 

 

Lovecraft had already incorporated small elements of [[Robert W Chambers (Creator)|Robert W Chambers]]' earlier ''[[The King in Yellow]]'' and the writings of [[Arthur Machen (Creator)|Arthur Machen]] by way of [[Shout Out|Shout Outs]], and as time went on, Lovecraft and his friends began referring to his [[Eldritch Abomination|Eldritch Abominations]] and [[Tomes of Eldritch Lore]] in their writings, though usually not actual characters, and to share references made in his friends' stories or private letters. [[Mythopoeia]] defined the abstract, and original, cosmic setting.

Due to the [[Shared Universe]]'s informal nature there have arisen several rather divisive conceptions of the Mythos, generally categorized as the Lovecraft purists' version; the version including the broad post-1930s expansions by later writers like August Derleth (who is a controversy unto himself) and Ramsey Campbell; and then there's the rigidly codified and de-mystified [[Tabletop RPG]] adaptations which crunch down [[Mind Screwdriver]]-style to produce orderly game rules from an inherently disorderly canon. Information from the latter has tended to proliferate across the Internet disproportionately, resulting in simple Google searches producing a majority of pages derived from the game and its various campaigns, which are not always labeled as such.

 

 

See also the [[Call of Cthulhu|Call of Cthulhu RPG]]

** [[Clark Ashton Smith]].

** [[Donald Wandrei]]. Co-founder of ''Arkham House''.

** [[Henry Kuttner]].

** [[Frank Belknap Long]].

** [[Lord Dunsany]]: Inspired Lovecraft's dream-prose period and the idea of creating a pantheon of his own.

** [[Robert W Chambers]]: Wrote ''[[The King in Yellow]]'', which was a great inspiration for Lovecraft, and was, in turn, inspired by Bierce.

* [[Brian Lumley]]: Whose [[Titus Crow]], ''Primal Land'', and ''Hero of Dreams'' forms a part of the mythos.

* [[Chiaki Konaka]], who has written several Mythos stories in addition to his work as an anime screenplay writer.

* [[Covers Always Lie]]: Lovecraft anthologies (such as the ''Del Ray'' ones) tend to have weird, surreal imagery that often doesn't have anything to do with anything in the stories. Though, it does communicate the atmosphere of the books well enough.

* [[Cult|Cults]]: The Mythos is filled with Old One worshipers with [[Religion of Evil|horrible rituals]]. They range from the ''Arkham Witch Coven'', various madmen like the Whateleys, ''The Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign'', and the English ''Temphill Cult'' to name a few.

* [[Dark Fantasy]]: Really Dark.

* [[Death By Adaptation]]: {{spoiler|Inspector Legrasse}} in the 2005 silent film adaptation of ''[[Lovecraft On Film|The Call of Cthulhu]]. {{spoiler|In the literature, he not only lives, but also stars in a series of short stories.}}''

** Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror". Yog-Sothoth mates with a human woman {{spoiler|and produces the offspring who will be known as Wilbur Whateley.}}

** Michael Shea's "Fat Face". An "escort" seeks comfort from a large, seemingly kindly man. {{spoiler|It's not a man, and it doesn't end well.}}

* [[Genocide Backfire]]: ''The Doom that Came to Sarnath''.

* [[Go Mad From the Revelation]]: [[Trope Namer]].

* [[He Knows Too Much]]: Whoever finds out too much about the Mythos (such as the Cthulhu Cult) [[Killed to Uphold The Masquerade|tend to be hunted down and killed]]. That is, if the person in question doesn't go insane first or get eaten.

* [[Historical Domain Character]]: It's common for Mythos stories by later authors to feature Lovecraft himself as a character, often with the premises that he wrote truth disguised as fiction. ''[[Lovecraft Is Missing]]'' is a prominent example.

* [[Mushroom Man]]: The Fungi from Yuggoth.

* [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast]]: Pretty much all of them, unsurprisingly.

** Lovecraft's stories contain virtually no hanky-panky. His narrators are universally chaste. Females characters are consistently abominations in disguise. On the very rare occasions that sexual activity is implied, it is depicted negatively and guaranteed to result in inhuman hybrid demon spawn.

** There's the poor Lavinia Whatley in ''[[The Dunwich Horror (Literature)|The Dunwich Horror]]'', who goes over her head under the coaxing of her grandfather, and meets a grisly ending later one because she's not happy with the idea of destroying humanity. Most of the time women aren't so much evil as completely absent from Lovecraft's stories, since he had no idea how to write female characters. {{spoiler|Even Asenath Waite was actually a man's spirit inhabiting the body of his daughter.}}

* [[Occult Detective]]: Several characters attempt this, but often it doesn't end well. [[Titus Crow]] is a traditional example, while Teddy London is a private detective that got case involving the Mythos.

* [[Our Vampires Are Different]]: The fungoid creature in "The Shunned House" is Lovecraft's version of a vampire. It bears little resemblance to the undead humans of other works. Other authors added "Star Vampires" and "Fire Vampires", which are even less conventionally vampire-like.

* [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism]]: Most of the time, so cynical you could use the scale as a trebuchet, competes with Warhammer 40k for the title of most Cynical popular body of fiction.

* [[Spared By the Adaptation]]: {{spoiler|The narrator}} in the 2005 silent film adaptation of ''[[Lovecraft On Film|The Call of Cthulhu]]''. {{spoiler|At the beginning of the original story refers to the "late" Francis Wayland Thurston. How he died is not revealed. The movie doesn't really hint at this at all.}}

* [[Starfish Aliens]]: All of HPL's aliens, and quite a few earth-dwelling creatures. Howard, for such an early writer, was good at ensuring his aliens were actually alien. And in the case of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elder_Things Elder Things,] one of the more sympathetic species, almost ''literal'' [[Starfish Aliens]]. Latter authors have followed suit.

* [[Stuck in Their Shadow]]: In-universe example: The protagonist of ''Black Man With A Horn'' feels that his literary career was overshadowed by his friend, H.P. Lovecraft.

* [[Tuckerization]]: In addition to all the Author Avatars and Shout Outs, the Lovecraft Circle tossed out references to their pals:

** Lovecraft mentions the Atlantean priest ''[[Clark Ashton Smith|Klarkash-ton]]''.

** A ''[[August Derleth|Comte d'Erlette]]'' wrote the ''Cultes des Goules''.

* [[Trope Overdosed]]: Think this page has a lot of tropes? Check out the character page.

* [[Weird Tales]]: Many of Lovecraft and pals wrote for the magazine.

* [[When the Planets Align]]: The Great Old Ones will return when ''The Stars Are Right''.

* [[Wolverine Publicity]]: Cthulhu only appears in one story, yet his name is used for the whole body of fiction.

** He only appears in one, but he's mentioned, by his name or by events from The Call of Cthulhu in many others,