Cthulhu Mythos: Time to Debunk one of the Greatest Myths in Versus Debating

[KingPin0422]

Because all what we know about em in the mythos (yes what we used to give them their Tier) is just a small fraction of them.

That on its own would not make them High 1-A, though. I can find more concrete evidence to justify it, but it's gonna take a good while since I have to do homework later today, so I hope you guys can be patient.

 

[The_King_of_Prudence]

We can.

 

[KingPin0422]

Alright, this took a good chunk of my time, but I will now post some quotes to shed some light on the proposed ratings.

First of all, in the short story Hypnos, the protagonist and his friend are studying a more profound universe which runs deeper than the waking world:

Of our studies it is impossible to speak, since they held so slight a connexion with anything of the world as living men conceive it. They were of that vaster and more appalling universe of dim entity and consciousness which lies deeper than matter, time, and space, and whose existence we suspect only in certain forms of sleep—those rare dreams beyond dreams which come never to common men, and but once or twice in the lifetime of imaginative men.
	~ Hypnos​

And this universe is what gave birth to the physical cosmos in the first place:

The cosmos of our waking knowledge, born from such an universe as a bubble is born from the pipe of a jester, touches it only as such a bubble may touch its sardonic source when sucked back by the jester's whim.
	~ Hypnos​

So now the two are exploring this vast, undimensioned universe, and what they're doing is reaching into progressively deeper realities, with each "ascension" making them increasingly aware of the full scope of existence:

Human utterance can best convey the general character of our experiences by calling them plungings or soarings; for in every period of revelation some part of our minds broke boldly away from all that is real and present, rushing aërially along shocking, unlighted, and fear-haunted abysses, and occasionally tearing through certain well-marked and typical obstacles describable only as viscous, uncouth clouds or vapours.
	~ Hypnos​

Another statement of transcending time:

Of the progress of time we kept no record, for time had become to us the merest illusion. I know only that there must have been something very singular involved, since we came at length to marvel why we did not grow old.
	~ Hypnos​

And now, thanks to an unknown "wind," the protagonists are suddenly rushing through an endless series of vacua and straying further and further from the waking cosmos:

There was a night when winds from unknown spaces whirled us irresistibly into limitless vacua beyond all thought and entity. Perceptions of the most maddeningly untransmissible sort thronged upon us; perceptions of infinity which at the time convulsed us with joy, yet which are now partly lost to my memory and partly incapable of presentation to others. Viscous obstacles were clawed through in rapid succession, and at length I felt that we had been borne to realms of greater remoteness than any we had previously known.
	~ Hypnos​

Later in the story, when the two decide to never do this again after Hypnos experiences something totally horrifying past the final barrier, Hypnos himself is compelled to stare off into space in some direction:

Especially was he afraid to be out of doors alone when the stars were shining, and if forced to this condition he would often glance furtively at the sky as if hunted by some monstrous thing therein. He did not always glance at the same place in the sky—it seemed to be a different place at different times. On spring evenings it would be low in the northeast. In the summer it would be nearly overhead. In the autumn it would be in the northwest. In winter it would be in the east, but mostly if in the small hours of morning. Midwinter evenings seemed least dreadful to him. Only after two years did I connect this fear with anything in particular; but then I began to see that he must be looking at a special spot on the celestial vault whose position at different times corresponded to the direction of his glance—a spot roughly marked by the constellation Corona Borealis.
	~ Hypnos​

Then, one fateful day, Hypnos falls into a deep sleep from which the protagonist cannot awaken him. As this happens, he notices that Corona Borealis, something which Hypnos is scared of, is rising in the northeast - and from that direction, the protagonist hears what is likely the Outer Gods:

The tension of my vigil became oppressive, and a wild train of trivial impressions and associations thronged through my almost unhinged mind. I heard a clock strike somewhere—not ours, for that was not a striking clock—and my morbid fancy found in this a new starting-point for idle wanderings. Clocks—time—space—infinity—and then my fancy reverted to the local as I reflected that even now, beyond the roof and the fog and the rain and the atmosphere, Corona Borealis was rising in the northeast. Corona Borealis, which my friend had appeared to dread, and whose scintillant semicircle of stars must even now be glowing unseen through the measureless abysses of aether. All at once my feverishly sensitive ears seemed to detect a new and wholly distinct component in the soft medley of drug-magnified sounds—a low and damnably insistent whine from very far away; droning, clamouring, mocking, calling, from the northeast.
	~ Hypnos​

So basically, since the Ultimate Void is reached and the Outer Gods are met after already breaching an infinite number of metaphysical realms, each one demonstrated to be more profound than the previous, with the final barrier leading up to them being incalculably denser than any of the other barriers, this implies that they utterly transcend the entire sequence of the vacua.

In case there are still doubts that Hypnos met the Outer Gods, the association of the Outer Gods with the stars and the sky is made elsewhere. In The Dreams in the Witch House, our protagonist, named Walter Gilman, is compelled to stare off into the direction of a certain point in space, which makes it more evident that it was the Ultimate Void which Hypnos went into because he did the same:

Some unknown attraction was pulling his eyes in a seemingly irrelevant direction, for he could not help staring at a certain vacant spot on the floor. As the day advanced the focus of his unseeing eyes changed position, and by noon he had conquered the impulse to stare at vacancy. About two o'clock he went out for lunch, and as he threaded the narrow lanes of the city he found himself turning always to the southeast. Only an effort halted him at a cafeteria in Church Street, and after the meal he felt the unknown pull still more strongly.
	~ The Dreams in the Witch House​

The southeastward pull still held, and only with tremendous resolution could Gilman drag himself into the old house and up the rickety stairs. For hours he sat silent and aimless, with his eyes shifting gradually westward. About six o'clock his sharpened ears caught the whining prayers of Joe Mazurewicz two floors below, and in desperation he seized his hat and walked out into the sunset-golden streets, letting the now directly southward pull carry him where it might. An hour later darkness found him in the open fields beyond Hangman's Brook, with the glimmering spring stars shining ahead. The urge to walk was gradually changing to an urge to leap mystically into space, and suddenly he realised just where the source of the pull lay.
	~ The Dreams in the Witch House​

It was in the sky. A definite point among the stars had a claim on him and was calling him. Apparently it was a point somewhere between Hydra and Argo Navis, and he knew that he had been urged toward it ever since he had awaked soon after dawn. In the morning it had been underfoot; afternoon found it rising in the southeast, and now it was roughly south but wheeling toward the west.
	~ The Dreams in the Witch House​

And while we're talking about this story, there is this quote to consider:

There were suggestions of the vague, twilight abysses, and of still vaster, blacker abysses beyond them—abysses in which all fixed suggestions of form were absent. He had been taken there by the bubble-congeries and the little polyhedron which always dogged him; but they, like himself, had changed to wisps of milky, barely luminous mist in this farther void of ultimate blackness. Something else had gone on ahead—a larger wisp which now and then condensed into nameless approximations of form—and he thought that their progress had not been in a straight line, but rather along the alien curves and spirals of some ethereal vortex which obeyed laws unknown to the physics and mathematics of any conceivable cosmos. Eventually there had been a hint of vast, leaping shadows, of a monstrous, half-acoustic pulsing, and of the thin, monotonous piping of an unseen flute—but that was all. Gilman decided he had picked up that last conception from what he had read in the Necronomicon about the mindless entity Azathoth, which rules all time and space from a curiously environed black throne at the centre of Chaos.
	~ The Dreams in the Witch House​

So, given all that I have presented, I think that there is reason to believe that the Outer Gods - not even the eternal, static Archetypes themselves, but the local beings called "Other Gods" which are merely fractions of the Archetypes - qualify for a High 1-A rating.

 

[QuasiYuri]

Would Azatoth's reasonning change too?

 

[The_King_of_Prudence]

Yes! Yes! Yes! Oh my God!

 

[Obscenly]

So it's still Azzy>Yog?

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. Thank you for the explanation, but why is the initial infinite hierarchy 1-A+ and not High 1-B?

 

[KingPin0422]

So it's still Azzy>Yog?

In reference to the Outer Gods? I would say yes.

In reference to the Archetypes? No. I think that they are both the Supreme Archetype.

 

[KingPin0422]

Okay. Thank you for the explanation, but why is the initial infinite hierarchy 1-A+ and not High 1-B?

I have to do more homework and then move in to my new house, but I think I can address that tomorrow, if not tonight.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. Thanks.

 

[KingPin0422]

Alright, since I have some free time, and since the move is taking longer than I thought it would, I'm gonna push out this post real quick.

Since I was questioned on how the infinite hierarchy of vacua is 1-A+ and not High 1-B, I'm going to post some quotes from Through the Gates of the Silver Key that talk about dimensions.

So first off, when Randolph Carter accepts the Supreme Archetype's offer to receive ultimate knowledge, right off the bat, it is stated that there are an infinite number of dimensions:

He was told how childish and limited is the notion of a tri-dimensional world, and what an infinity of directions there are besides the known directions of up-down, forward-backward, right-left.
	~ Through the Gates of the Silver Key​

It is then explained that each figure of space in a given dimension is merely a phase of a corresponding form of the next dimension up:

They told him that every figure of space is but the result of the intersection by a plane of some corresponding figure of one more dimension—as a square is cut from a cube or a circle from a sphere. The cube and sphere, of three dimensions, are thus cut from corresponding forms of four dimensions that men know only through guesses and dreams; and these in turn are cut from forms of five dimensions, and so on up to the dizzy and reachless heights of archetypal infinity.
	~ Through the Gates of the Silver Key​

Right after this, Carter is then told that the three-dimensional Earth experienced by humans and their "gods" is but an infinitesimal phase of an archetypical Earth, which in itself is considered a "small wholeness" and something derived from the ultimate abyss:

The world of men and of the gods of men is merely an infinitesimal phase of an infinitesimal thing—the three-dimensional phase of that small wholeness reached by the First Gate, where 'Umr at-Tawil dictates dreams to the Ancient Ones. Though men hail it as reality and brand thoughts of its many-dimensioned original as unreality, it is in truth the very opposite. That which we call substance and reality is shadow and illusion, and that which we call shadow and illusion is substance and reality.
	~ Through the Gates of the Silver Key​

This original Earth, which the three-dimensional Earth and its analogues on all levels of dimensionality, is called "many-dimensioned." But it is more consistently referred to as something outside of all dimensions of time and space, as we see in these quotes:

By the time the rite was over Carter knew that he was in no region whose place could be told by earth's geographers, and in no age whose date history could fix. For the nature of what was happening was not wholly unfamiliar to him. There were hints of it in the cryptical Pnakotic fragments, and a whole chapter in the forbidden Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred had taken on significance when he had deciphered the designs graven on the Silver Key. A gate had been unlocked—not indeed the Ultimate Gate, but one leading from earth and time to that extension of earth which is outside time, and from which in turn the Ultimate Gate leads fearsomely and perilously to the Last Void which is outside all earths, all universes, and all matter.
	~ Through the Gates of the Silver Key​

Memory and imagination shaped dim half-pictures with uncertain outlines amidst the seething chaos, but Carter knew that they were of memory and imagination only. Yet he felt that it was not chance which built these things in his consciousness, but rather some vast reality, ineffable and undimensioned, which surrounded him and strove to translate itself into the only symbols he was capable of grasping. For no mind of earth may grasp the extensions of shape which interweave in the oblique gulfs outside time and the dimensions we know.
	~ Through the Gates of the Silver Key​

Now, I do have reason to believe that the Gates form a hierarchy which is "parallel" to that of the vacua, but that is wholly irrelevant to the purpose of this post. What I want everyone here to understand is: there are an infinite number of dimensions; higher dimensions are treated as being qualitatively superior to lower dimensions; and those vacua which Hypnos delved into should logically be superior to all dimensions, as they are defined in terms of space and time, two concepts which the vacua trivialize on any level.

 

[Agnaa]

Or in short, the base level of the vacua is a more fundamental reality which transcends space and time, i.e. is 1-A? And hence, transcending the vacua is transcending a 1-A hierarchy, which is High 1-A?

 

[KingPin0422]

Well, simply transcending space-time, even on the conceptual level, is not instantly 1-A, nor is High 1-A as simple as "I transcend infinitely many levels of 1-A," but both tiers are supported by the text, yes.

 

[Roachman40]

So is everything settled?

 

[Agnaa]

So is everything settled?

No. We're still waiting for others to comment.

Please just let this happen as it happens. People sometimes take a while to respond.

 

[Roachman40]

So is everything settled?

No. We're still waiting for others to comment.
Please just let this happen as it happens. People sometimes take a while to respond.

ah ok, my apologies.

 

[KingPin0422]

Yeah, we kinda can't move on without Azzy (the ex-bureaucrat) giving his thoughts on what has just been presented.

 

[Roachman40]

ok

 

[DarkGrath]

I want Azzy (the entity) giving his input though

 

[Monarch_Laciel]

I dunno why, that guy's an idiot

 

[Roachman40]

I dunno why, that guy's an idiot

lol

 

[Antvasima]

Azzy is technically still a bureaucrat, just not an active one.

 

[The_King_of_Prudence]

They're talking about the character by Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

 

[Andytrenom]

He's referring to kingpin's comment

 

[The_King_of_Prudence]

Noted.

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

Oh God oh **** I have to read more of this?

I'll try to check back on this, in the next few days.

 

[Elizhaa]

It is cool, man

 

[Antvasima]

No problem. Thank you for helping out.

 

[Planck69]

Everything seems fine to me.

 

[KingPin0422]

Bump

 

[Antvasima]

Let's hope that Azathoth replies soon.

 

[Planck69]

"Lights still out—must be five minutes now. Everything depends on lightning. Yaddith grant it will keep up! . . . Some influence seems beating through it. . . . Rain and thunder and wind deafen. . . . The thing is taking hold of my mind. . . .


"Trouble with memory. I see things I never knew before. Other worlds and other galaxies . . . Dark . . . The lightning seems dark and the darkness seems light. . . .


"It cannot be the real hill and church that I see in the pitch-darkness. Must be retinal impression left by flashes. Heaven grant the Italians are out with their candles if the lightning stops!


"What am I afraid of? Is it not an avatar of Nyarlathotep, who in antique and shadowy Khem even took the form of man? I remember Yuggoth, and more distant Shaggai, and the ultimate void of the black planets. . . .


"The long, winging flight through the void . . . cannot cross the universe of light . . . re-created by the thoughts caught in the Shining Trapezohedron . . . send it through the horrible abysses of radiance. . . .


"My name is Blake—Robert Harrison Blake of 620 East Knapp Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. . . . I am on this planet. . . .


"Azathoth have mercy!—the lightning no longer flashes—horrible—I can see everything with a monstrous sense that is not sight—light is dark and dark is light . . . those people on the hill . . . guard . . . candles and charms . . . their priests. . . .


"Sense of distance gone—far is near and near is far. No light—no glass—see that steeple—that tower—window—can hear—Roderick Usher—am mad or going mad—the thing is stirring and fumbling in the tower—I am it and it is I—I want to get out . . . must get out and unify the forces. . . . It knows where I am. . . .


"I am Robert Blake, but I see the tower in the dark. There is a monstrous odour . . . senses transfigured . . . boarding at that tower window cracking and giving way. . . . Iä . . . ngai . . . ygg. . . .


"I see it—coming here—hell-wind—titan blur—black wings—Yog-Sothoth save me—the three-lobed burning eye. . . ." - The Haunter of the Dark

The only excerpt I could find that mentions both Yog-Sothoth and Azathoth together at once. Azathoth is also referred to as the Lord of All in the same story . Might be useful for interpreting the both of them.

 

[KingPin0422]

It barely makes any relation between Yog-Sothoth and Azathoth. The protagonist is madly begging for mercy due to the threat of the Haunter in the Dark, and he evokes the names of Azathoth and Yog-Sothoth in vain hopes that one of them will come to his rescue(?)

Basically, this proves nothing.

 

[Planck69]

Woah, I'm not trying to prove one is superior to the other. This is just the only work they're mentioned together and I thought that might be of some interest. I'm perfectly fine with them being equal or whatever was decided.

 

[The_2nd_Existential_Seed]

I won't interfere for long, just came to follow this thread. I 100% agree with the rating proposed for the upgrade.

 

[The_King_of_Prudence]

"Upgrade."

 

[Antvasima]

I would still appreciate if Azathoth and/or FanofRPGs write(s) an explanation page for this verse.

 

[Antvasima]

Bump.

 

[The_2nd_Existential_Seed]

Bump.


Should I remind them or do we wait for them to respond on their own ?

 

[Antvasima]

It is probably best if you politely remind them.