Cthulhu and the incident with the boat

[biostem]

That's essentially writer's intent. You're right not many people here will accept that. This is pretty much a WYSIWIG place-what you see is what you get. If the author wanted for his foe to be invincible, he shouldn't have given us a story in which he can clearly be beaten.

Well yes but that doesn't directly apply hear because it isn't clear whether Cthulhu can be beaten or not. What we know for certain is that he can be damaged but heals himself extremely quickly. He isn't explicitly beaten in the story but he isn't explicitly unbeatable either. Going back to your previous statement that all we can say is 'We haven't the foggiest,' I agree that we can't come to objective conclusions but we can certainly make judgements with the evidence at hand and based on that evidence I'm inclined to believe that Cthulhu is pretty tough, too tough to be killed with current human technology in any case.

Do any of the books mention whether Cthulu can influence people without the need to physically manifest? If he/it is sufficiently cunning, and assuming that people catch on and are able to call upon sufficient force to destroy his physical form quickly and reliably, then he may simply change his approach to just screw with people remotely...

[libertyjim]

Do any of the books mention whether Cthulu can influence people without the need to physically manifest? If he/it is sufficiently cunning, and assuming that people catch on and are able to call upon sufficient force to destroy his physical form quickly and reliably, then he may simply change his approach to just screw with people remotely...

He was apparently asleep and dreaming for the majority of 'The Call of Cthulhu.' He gave people insane visions of him and R'lyeh around the world while he was alseep.

[biostem]

Do any of the books mention whether Cthulu can influence people without the need to physically manifest? If he/it is sufficiently cunning, and assuming that people catch on and are able to call upon sufficient force to destroy his physical form quickly and reliably, then he may simply change his approach to just screw with people remotely...

He was apparently asleep and dreaming for the majority of 'The Call of Cthulhu.' He gave people insane visions of him and R'lyeh around the world while he was alseep.

So then, at the very least, he can influence people all across the world - so even if a physical manifestation is required, it can be 1000's of miles away. What about when he was awake?

To the best of your knowledge, what was the maximum distance between where Cthulu appeared and that a person reported dreams/his influence?

[libertyjim]

So then, at the very least, he can influence people all across the world - so even if a physical manifestation is required, it can be 1000's of miles away. What about when he was awake?

To the best of your knowledge, what was the maximum distance between where Cthulu appeared and that a person reported dreams/his influence?

Furthest in the story off the top of my head was probably Britain or middle Europe actually. R'lyeh's coordinates are here (both Lovecraft's and Derleth's): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%27lyeh So that's roughly the other side of the world.

When he was awake he didn't really affect people in the same way. He attacked people, ate them and most people that looked at him went insane. It may be important to note that at the end of the story the main protagonist theorises that Cthlhu has gone back to sleep in R'lyeh and fans take that to be true and that Cthulhu intends to wait for the human race to become extinct. Nothing about the story ever actually implied that Cthulhu intended for humans to come find him or that he was affecting their minds on purpose or with any intent.

[Simon_Jester]

Yith did indeed have energy weapons of some kind: 'An enormous army, using camera-like weapons which produced tremendous electrical effects, was kept on hand for purposes seldom mentioned.' But yeah I think Elder Things were just superior in that sense and the Yith were thinkers more than fighters.

So Yith had weapons, that doesn't mean they desired to use them (indeed, "purposes seldom mentioned" suggests that they didn't). Or that they would relish the prospect of fighting an equally capable race when they could just, y'know, escape to some distant time or space. In real life, nomadic peoples routinely respond to a powerful challenger by wandering off in search of new territory, because finding new territory is much easier than fighting a tough enemy. Even if you have a good chance of winning, there will still be death and suffering.

And the Great Race of Yith are the ultimate nomads.

Good example for real life non-euclidean geometry. It's probably fair to say that Cthulhu isn't so large that we cannot notice some subtle curvature or something. If he is non-euclidean then it would most certainly be in a very unnatural way (or at least in a way that humans can't really comprehend).

I wouldn't say "something humans can't comprehend," but I would say something we are not evolved to perceive. It might be perfectly understandable to someone who knows enough mathematics and geometry... but that doesn't mean the eye is comfortable with them.

There is also the argument of principle but I'm not sure if that will fly here. The argument goes 'As humans we aren't supposed to be able to beat Cthulhu therefore we can't on principle.' Suggesting that Cthulhu can be beaten is against the author's intention to make a creature we cannot defeat. I would say however that Lovecraft could have designed the creature a little better if that was his intention; he could have made it more clear that we could not do anything more than inconvenience Cthulhu.

Since Lovecraft wrote many antagonistic forces that could be thwarted or sabotaged by human actions, I don't think there is anything like adequate support for the notion that he specifically intended Cthulhu to be impossible to thwart or stop.

And, well, in this forum the convention is to ignore authors' intent and pay attention to stated capabilities. The main reason for this is that there are a LOT of authors who intended their creations to be world-ending threats... but not all of them are equally powerful or credible in this role. So you can't just assume that all world-ending abominations are inherently invincible because "the author intended" that they be invincible.

Anyway, the authorial intent with Cthulhu is pretty clear. He is a monstrous entity by human standards, whose very dreams, and the architecture of his creations, are so psychically corrosive to humans that they are toxic and destructive of our mental integrity. He was old not only when the human race was young, but when the continents we live on were young... and will remain long after we are gone.


*Of course, a human would be pretty monstrous from the point of view of the ladybugs living on a bush we'd decided to throw into a woodchipper because it's blocking our view of the garden...

[libertyjim]

Good point about the difference between comprehension and perception. I really meant perception in this context but didn't realise I was conflating the two. You are right about how Cthulhu and his city are essentially toxic to the human mind and he has a much longer lifespan, ect but what is your opinion on whether he can be killed by human weapons Simon_Jester? Specifically a nuke as the most extreme example. You mentioned indirect evidence against his death earlier but I don't think you mentioned your own opinion on the matter.

[Zeropoint]

I once had the opportunity to witness something like the blasphemous geometries of Lovecraft.

I was playing Second Life, and teleported in the game to hang out with a friend. I arrived at a tranquil riverside pier where everything looked calm and normal, except for one . . .thing at the pier's end. From the angle at which I first saw it, it looked more or less like a two-dimensional image, as of a three-dimensional sofa projected onto the surface of the pier instead of onto my viewing surface. However, as I rotated the camera, the shape distorted weirdly, in ways that made no sense to my eyes or mind, but which displayed a certain queasy consistency. It clearly existed in at least three dimensions--at least from most angles--but didn't obey the normal laws of three-dimensional projective geometry. For a few bewildering moments, I beheld something constructed according to internally consistent but utterly alien geometries, its cozy floral print serving only to throw its otherworldly form into stark contrast.

And then the rendering glitch corrected itself and it looked like a perfectly normal sofa.

[biostem]

I once had the opportunity to witness something like the blasphemous geometries of Lovecraft.

I was playing Second Life, and teleported in the game to hang out with a friend. I arrived at a tranquil riverside pier where everything looked calm and normal, except for one . . .thing at the pier's end. From the angle at which I first saw it, it looked more or less like a two-dimensional image, as of a three-dimensional sofa projected onto the surface of the pier instead of onto my viewing surface. However, as I rotated the camera, the shape distorted weirdly, in ways that made no sense to my eyes or mind, but which displayed a certain queasy consistency. It clearly existed in at least three dimensions--at least from most angles--but didn't obey the normal laws of three-dimensional projective geometry. For a few bewildering moments, I beheld something constructed according to internally consistent but utterly alien geometries, its cozy floral print serving only to throw its otherworldly form into stark contrast.

And then the rendering glitch corrected itself and it looked like a perfectly normal sofa.

OK, so now imagine that you could actually conduct tests on that "thing" - would it have weight, could you touch it or move it? I mean, truth be told, it sounds more like one of those chalk drawing, where it appears to be an actual 3-dimensional object when viewed a certain way, but is just a flat drawing and looks "off" when viewed from any other angle...

[Zeropoint]

Well, no. If you had something like that, it might look confusing at first, but all the points in the image would move around on your viewing projection plane (i.e. your retinas) in a manner entirely consistent with points on a normal two-dimensional plane embedded in normal three-dimensional space. As far as I could tell, this thing didn't do that. From certain angles, I could see parts of it in places that they couldn't have been if it were a flat anamorphic image. I don't know WHAT was up with it, because while I could perceive it, it stopped acting that way before I could comprehend it.

[NecronLord]

When discussion of fighting Cthulhu comes up I always think of the Elder Things (the Old Ones in Mountains of Madness and Shadow over Innsmouth). With Madness written in Lovecraft's later career, when he became more interested in science fiction than cosmic horror, these aliens are, while distinct from humans, recognizably akin to us in many respects; they are made of conventional matter, dwell in habitations, read books and practice scientific inquiry, they value their own kind and educate their children, and even practice socialistic government!

Being nonpairing and semivegetable in structure, the Old Ones had no biological basis for the family phase of mammal life, but seemed to organize large households on the principles of comfortable space-utility and - as we deduced from the pictured occupations and diversions of co-dwellers - congenial mental association. In furnishing their homes they kept everything in the center of the huge rooms, leaving all the wall spaces free for decorative treatment. Lighting, in the case of the land inhabitants, was accomplished by a device probably electro-chemical in nature. Both on land and under water they used curious tables, chairs and couches like cylindrical frames - for they rested and slept upright with folded-down tentacles - and racks for hinged sets of dotted surfaces forming their books.

Government was evidently complex and probably socialistic, though no certainties in this regard could be deduced from the sculptures we saw. There was extensive commerce, both local and between different cities - certain small, flat counters, five-pointed and inscribed, serving as money. Probably the smaller of the various greenish soapstones found by our expedition were pieces of such currency. Though the culture was mainly urban, some agriculture and much stock raising existed. Mining and a limited amount of manufacturing were also practiced. Travel was very frequent, but permanent migration seemed relatively rare except for the vast colonizing movements by which the race expanded. For personal locomotion no external aid was used, since in land, air, and water movement alike the Old Ones seemed to possess excessively vast capacities for speed. Loads, however, were drawn by beasts of burden - Shoggoths under the sea, and a curious variety of primitive vertebrates in the later years of land existence.

[...]

What a facing of the incredible, just as those carven kinsmen and forbears had faced things only a little less incredible! Radiates, vegetables, monstrosities, star spawn - whatever they had been, they were men!

Pretty similar to us in mental outlook. 'Limited' manufacturing is notable; were they heavily industrialized?


The Elder Things at War:

With the upheaval of new land in the South Pacific tremendous events began. Some of the marine cities were hopelessly shattered, yet that was not the worst misfortune. Another race - a land race of beings shaped like octopi and probably corresponding to fabulous prehuman spawn of Cthulhu - soon began filtering down from cosmic infinity and precipitated a -monstrous war which for a time drove the Old Ones wholly back to the sea - a colossal blow in view of the increasing land settlements. Later peace was made, and the new lands were given to the Cthulhu spawn whilst the Old Ones held the sea and the older lands. New land cities were founded - the greatest of them in the antarctic, for this region of first arrival was sacred. From then on, as before, the antarctic remained the center of the Old Ones’ civilization, and all the cities built there by the Cthulhu spawn were blotted out [on Elder Things' maps]. Then suddenly the lands of the Pacific sank again, taking with them the frightful stone city of R’yeh and all the cosmic octopi, so that the Old Ones were again supreme on the planet except for one shadowy fear about which they did not like to speak. At a rather later age their cities dotted all the land and water areas of the globe - hence the recommendation in my coming monograph that some archaeologist make systematic borings with Pabodie’s type of apparatus in certain widely separated regions.

[...]

During the Jurassic Age the Old Ones met fresh adversity in the form of a new invasion from outer space - this time by half-fungous, half-crustacean creatures - creatures undoubtedly the same as those figuring in certain whispered hill legends of the north, and remembered in the Himalayas as the Mi-Go, or abominable Snow Men. To fight these beings the Old Ones attempted, for the first time since their terrene advent, to sally forth again into the planetary ether; but, despite all traditional preparations, found it no longer possible to leave the earth’s atmosphere. Whatever the old secret of interstellar travel had been, it was now definitely lost to the race. In the end the Mi-Go drove the Old Ones out of all the northern lands, though they were powerless to disturb those in the sea. Little by little the slow retreat of the elder race to their original antarctic habitat was beginning.

It was curious to note from the pictured battles that both the Cthulhu spawn and the Mi-Go seem to have been composed of matter more widely different from that which we know than was the substance of the Old Ones. They were able to undergo transformations and reintegrations impossible for their adversaries, and seem therefore to have originally come from even remoter gulfs of the cosmic space. The Old Ones, but for their abnormal toughness and peculiar vital properties, were strictly material, and must have had their absolute origin within the known space-time continuum - whereas the first sources of the other beings can only be guessed at with bated breath. All this, of course, assuming that the non-terrestrial linkages and the anomalies ascribed to the invading foes are not pure mythology. Conceivably, the Old Ones might have invented a cosmic framework to account for their occasional defeats, since historical interest and pride obviously formed their chief psychological element. It is significant that their annals failed to mention many advanced and potent races of beings whose mighty cultures and towering cities figure persistently in certain obscure legends.

They were defeated by the Cthulhu spawn, before R'lyeth sank, and presumably with Cthulhu himself in residence. The Elder Things, surely the beings in the best position to know, describe the Cthulhu spawn's reintegration abilities as the cause of their defeats; which of course, Cthulhu begins to do immediately in the boat incident. From that I always took it to mean that yes, physical damage was inflicted on Cthulhu, but that such damage wouldn't allow one to defeat him reliably, just as the Old Ones were unable to win the war (though obviously they must have had some tactical victories) against the Cthulhu spawn for the same reason.

Presumably there's a limit to such reintegration abilities, or the Elder Things would have been totally destroyed; the Elder Things were able to survive attack by Cthulhu's spawn, after all, but they are described in other conflicts as using curious weapons of molecular and atomic disturbances, so presumably something similar was tried with only limited success against the Cthulhulid invasion of Earth by the Elder Things. Perhaps a more heavily industrialized culture (perhaps the modern day Elder Things on another world in Witch House have the munitions for it, they've presumably been around a few more millions of years, and are even somewhat friendly to human witches!) could produce weapons that would overwhelm this ability but I would doubt present day Earth has the means to do so.

[Simon_Jester]

Good point about the difference between comprehension and perception. I really meant perception in this context but didn't realise I was conflating the two.

Right. I mean, I personally could describe geometries that, were you to experience them, you would find counterintuitive and uncomfortable. It's a fairly trivial exercise to create objects, even within Euclidean space, that defy our instinctive mental model of how geometry works. Many optical illusions work on those principles, as do M. C. Escher paintings, as do a variety of mazes and weird modern art sculptures.

The ability to warp time and space is a very significant power, and make no mistake about it. But in itself the mere fact that humans are uncomfortable looking at something and have a hard time understanding it at a glance doesn't mean that space and time are being warped in a way that "shunts" energy or weapons fire away, or somehow renders them immune to harm.

Just because a Klein bottle has weird topological properties doesn't mean you can't smash it with a hammer, in other words.

You are right about how Cthulhu and his city are essentially toxic to the human mind and he has a much longer lifespan, ect but what is your opinion on whether he can be killed by human weapons Simon_Jester? Specifically a nuke as the most extreme example. You mentioned indirect evidence against his death earlier but I don't think you mentioned your own opinion on the matter.

I figure, if the Elder Things couldn't do it, we would have extreme difficulty doing it. They were pretty badass.

The only thing that might make it possible is the prospect of ambushing him in his sleep somehow, without the protection of an entire civilization of minions to support him.

Pretty similar to us in mental outlook. 'Limited' manufacturing is notable; were they heavily industrialized?

Perhaps. I like the speculation by Charles Stross in A Colder War that the Shoggoths were actually big blobs of nanotech. From the point of view of a 1930s narrator (in At the Mountains of Madness) it would be nearly impossible to deduce just from looking at wall murals how a nanotech-heavy civilization even made things.

[NecronLord]

I figure, if the Elder Things couldn't do it, we would have extreme difficulty doing it. They were pretty badass.

Yeah, pretty much. They must almost by default have had the same top tier weapons as we do, as Lovecraft while not knowing the nature of future atomic weapons from 1931, clearly intended them to possess some weapons based on an advanced understanding of atomic science, and of course they also have had extensive access to the Elder Sign which they gave their name to, described as 'magic' in Shadow Over Innsmouth.

Of course the Cthulhu spawn fought them after a ruinous earthquake devastated them on a continental level, perhaps the Cthulhoids had been waiting to strike while they were weakened. But it seems unlikely that humans could manage anything their more advanced civilization couldn't.

Perhaps. I like the speculation by Charles Stross in A Colder War that the Shoggoths were actually big blobs of nanotech. From the point of view of a 1930s narrator (in At the Mountains of Madness) it would be nearly impossible to deduce just from looking at wall murals how a nanotech-heavy civilization even made things.

Quite. I'd go so far as to say that it's basically canon. Frankly, the fact that shoggoths are a form of biological engineering fundamentally makes them so close to what we call nanotechnology that it hardly matters. It's explicit in the text that the Elder Things cultured the cells that formed them, after all. Also looking at that passage again:

They had lived under the sea a good deal, building fantastic cities and fighting terrific battles with nameless adversaries by means of intricate devices employing unknown principles of energy. Evidently their scientific and mechanical knowledge far surpassed man’s today, though they made use of its more widespread and elaborate forms only when obliged to. Some of the sculptures suggested that they had passed through a stage of mechanized life on other planets, but had receded upon finding its effects emotionally unsatisfying. Their preternatural toughness of organization and simplicity of natural wants made them peculiarly able to live on a high plane without the more specialized fruits of artificial manufacture, and even without garments, except for occasional protection against the elements.

It was under the sea, at first for food and later for other purposes, that they first created earth life - using available substances according to long-known methods. The more elaborate experiments came after the annihilation of various cosmic enemies. They had done the same thing on other planets, having manufactured not only necessary foods, but certain multicellular protoplasmic masses capable of molding their tissues into all sorts of temporary organs under hypnotic influence and thereby forming ideal slaves to perform the heavy work of the community. These viscous masses were without doubt what Abdul Alhazred whispered about as the "Shoggoths" in his frightful Necronomicon, though even that mad Arab had not hinted that any existed on earth except in the dreams of those who had chewed a certain alkaloidal herb. When the star-headed Old Ones on this planet had synthesized their simple food forms and bred a good supply of Shoggoths, they allowed other cell groups to develop into other forms of animal and vegetable life for sundry purposes, extirpating any whose presence became troublesome.

"Multicellular protoplasmic masses" are pretty much indistinguishable from nanotechnology as we understand it anyway, except that Shoggoths also share beneficial animal traits which let them operate in environments around them.

It may simply be cultural that they seemed to be comparatively short on industry, evidently, as their structures lasted so long, they had built to last, so perhaps consumerism was something they had passed, and as it mentioned they hardly wore clothing. We've no reason to think that they were foolish enough to neglect their armaments industry, especially given the universe they live in.

So yeah, my perspective is pretty much 'it may be possible to harm Cthulhu with physical force, but he and his spawn have won a war against a more formidable civilization before, so we're pretty much fucked.'

[libertyjim]

Wow. Learnt a lot about the Elder Things (star-headed Old Ones) from you just now NecronLord. Very helpful. Good things to bring up in any future talks about Cthulhu and that boat. It was my impression that the Elder Things became less and less advanced over time oddly enough. 'Whatever the old secret of interstellar travel had been, it was now definitely lost to the race.' Didn't this keep happening until in modern day they are basically animals? Doesn't mean they weren't incredibly advanced when they fought the star-spawn but interesting none the less.

Nice name and profile pic by the way.

[NecronLord]

They, like the Mi-Go, had a biological ability with some preparation to travel through space on wings (a common theme in Lovecraft, there are even riding beasts, Shantaks that can do this; it's worth noting that he wrote in a time when ether theory was still accepted, though it's obviously fanatastical, even so.

Myth or otherwise, the sculptures told of the coming of those star-headed things to the nascent, lifeless earth out of cosmic space - their coming, and the coming of many other alien entities such as at certain times embark upon spatial pioneering. They seemed able to traverse the interstellar ether on their vast membranous wings - thus oddly confirming some curious hill folklore long ago told me by an antiquarian colleague.

The colleague is a reference to the protagonist of The Whisperer in Darkness who deals with the Mi Go, who have (and retain to the present day) the ability to traverse space using their wings.

It seems like the ability atropied in the Elder Things on Earth, though it may be still fully present in their extraterrestrial cousins (a witch visits an off-world colony of Elder Things that are alive and well and living in towers thousands of feet high) in The Dreams in the Witch House

You can read the whole of Mountains of Madness, for free (and many of Lovecraft's others) legally here. Well worth it.

[libertyjim]

You can read the whole of Mountains of Madness, for free (and many of Lovecraft's others) legally here. Well worth it.

I've got most of Lovecraft's collective works in one large text affectionately called the Necronomicon but thanks anyway.

[Zeropoint]

Hmm, from some of the descriptions recently posted here, I wonder if the various Lovecraftian races had progressed beyond nanotech to what we're calling femtotech?

[Simon_Jester]

[rolls eyes]

"Femtotech" doesn't mean anything. It's just an inane word for "technology that permits the alteration of what we currently believe to be physical laws."

Within the context of Lovecraft's stories it is impossible to tell whether these beings are breaking physical laws, or whether they simply have physical properties that are based upon laws of which we are ignorant. One of the key concepts informing Lovecraft's fiction was that he was working and writing in the early 20th century, a time when science was opening up vast new vistas of time, space, and reality. Things which a classically educated individual raised in the late 19th century was often ill-equipped to understand or internalize.

During Lovecraft's lifetime, the size of the 'known universe' as described by astronomers increased by a factor of roughly a hundred thousand or more.

The laws of Newton and the geometry of planes and lines as described by Euclid were proven to be wrong and an inaccurate description of our universe on the largest and smallest scale. Lovecraft would have been taught in school that these were absolute mathematical laws governing reality in a predictable, clockwork fashion.

The atom, which by definition had been supposed to be the basic building block of all matter, was revealed to have structure, and our suppositions about the nature of this structure were evolving so rapidly that you could have asked the greatest scientists of the era "what are atoms made of, and how do they work" at five to ten-year intervals for several decades and gotten different answers each time.

All manner of exotic species of plants and animals were revealed to have existed on Earth in the distant past, including many which resemble no species now living. Not only did this great upheaval of life occur once, paleontologists would tell Lovecraft, but it occurred repeatedly, with several totally different biospheres of radically different organisms evolving and being wiped out in cataclysms which, at that time, no one really understood or had an explanation for.

It is difficult to describe just how comprehensively mind-blowing this could be, to someone who was actually trying to sit down and understand how all this affected man's place in the universe.

So when you read a Lovecraft story, you need to understand that the author, the protagonist, and the reader are all assumed to be educated men of the early 20th century. Which means that all three of them accept as a basic premise of their intellectual life that they do not now understand the basic workings of the universe, that their current ideas about how the universe works are probably wrong, and that the real answers are much, much weirder than the already weird and alarming things they already believe that they know.

So it's impossible to say, pointing to a given example of a Lovecraftian alien doing something we had thought to be impossible, whether:

1) This entity is violating the 'true' laws of the universe by using technology that bends those laws, or
2) This entity is violating things we would like to think are 'true' laws of the universe, but which in reality are not the true laws of the universe, and are merely the fond delusions we continue to harbor as a result of our own ignorance.


____________________

Addressing the previous posts...

Basically, then, the loss of interstellar travel seems to have little relation in itself with any other technology the Elder Things did or did not possess. Since that ability was in large part a biological feature of their species, not a physical device they had to operate. Indeed, from NecronLord's quotes (some of which I remember from my own reading), it sounds like the Elder Things retained all the technologies they would normally use for deep space travel, tried to use them, and found themselves incapable of doing so because they now lacked the necessary biological ability.

It is clear that the Elder Things' civilization declined and fell in Lovecraft's canon,* since otherwise they would still be masters of the Earth as they were hundreds of millions of years ago. Indeed, this is true of all the prehistoric alien civilizations of Lovecraft's canon.

If they still existed, then either homo sapiens would never have evolved at all, or would now be their slaves, just as (Lovecraft had reason to think) humans would probably have enslaved or exterminated any developing intelligent species that were in the process of rising to sentience and technology during our own Iron Age or Steam Age.

For the Elder Things, what wrecked them seems to have been a combination of biological degeneration, technological decay in the last phase of their empire, and climate change causing the Antarctic center of their civilization to freeze over and be reduced to ruins.
___________________________________

*Which I believe he once called "Yog-Sothothery" as a joke...

[libertyjim]

Just came across an interesting theory. A guy called Fred Lubnow suggests that Cthulhu and his star-spawn are made up of plasma rather than solid/liquid or gas. Source here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ6YGXNVxqE (at around 7:30).

He suggests that that might be why they're called star-spawn and talks about how it accounts for their ability to change size and reform themselves. Interesting idea. Not sure if it really changes our discussion but I thought it was worth mentioning.

[Simon_Jester]

The problem is that there's no canon evidence for them being high-temperature beings, and plasma dense enough to be able to have effect on normal matter will necessarily be quite hot.

[libertyjim]

Yes he also suggested that they're releasing the heat into some other pocket dimension (I'm paraphrasing). The theory requires a few assumptions but is still interesting.

[Simon_Jester]

At that point it's a contrived and stupid theory. It's not just that they'd somehow generate energy which has to be 'released,' it is that they would be physically hot, and things that touch them would be heated, just as if they came into contact with any other hot object.

Claiming that Cthulhu and the star-spawn are made out of plasma is no more sensible than claiming they're made out of lava.

Like lava, plasma doesn't form complex solid shapes without some kind of containment. And like lava, plasmas are hot, enough so that ramming a big blob of them with your ship is going to get you killed, or at the very least leave your ship burning and wrecked.

If we claim that there is some containment around the hypothetical plasma making up Cthulhu's body, and that this plasma somehow protects everything Cthulhu touches from the heat... why not just assume Cthulhu IS the containment, is literally just a big bubble made out of force fields? That would be simpler, since it requires only one physically weird thing, not two.

[Elindos]

Internet led me to this place when investigation the "boat scene" with Cthlhu.

There is something I would like to share here.

HP Lovecraft is an author who made research, used high level literacy and often had numerous implications and intents in what he writes.

Please reread the extract you mentioned:

'The awful squid-head with writhing feelers came nearly up to the bowsprit of the sturdy yacht, but Johansen drove on relentlessly. There was a bursting as of an exploding bladder, a slushy nastiness as of a cloven sunfish, a stench as of a thousand opened graves , and a sound that the chronicler would not put to paper. For an instant the ship was befouled by an acrid and blinding green cloud, and then there was only a venomous seething astern; where - God in heaven! - the scattered plasticity of that nameless sky-spawn was nebulously recombining in its hateful original form, whilst its distance widened every second as the Alert gained impetus from its mounting steam.'

This is frustrating to me when people emit a number of conclusions (and divisive conclusions) before first having spent more time to study the source material. HP Lovecraft deserves this time, believe me.

When it begins with "There was", there seems to be something going on.


1)
"there was a bursting as of"
"there was a slushy nastiness"
"there was a stench"
"there was a sound"

it is as if the witness comes in a third person view. To me, first it sounds as if he actually closed his eyes in terror. We only have some kind of "audio feedback" and smell feedback of what happens. Some time after, "the ship was befouled by an acrid" (smell again) and blinding green cloud ; when he mentions "blinding", I guess he found his sight again. Sorta. Because it's blinding. And that almost happens "passively" ; the ship was befouled ; as if he cannot gather exactly when the green cloud appeared, did it come first at the moment of the "exploding bladder", or the "cloven sunfish", or the "sound", the appearance of the cloud is disconnected from the source event, the cloud was definitely here, definitely as a consequence, but the witness only seems to gather this passively.

And then ("God in Heaven!") he is relieved to see the creature was "gaining in distance", as it's distance widened ; which according to me, is something you say when the creature is already in some distance (and you are out of reach) and it again gaining distance, as if it's ignoring you or can't pursuit.

We don't know if it's because the blinding green cloud lasted, or because there was some time before he opened his eyes already and found there was a blinding cloud

Now, it's just a theory, but instead of interrogating some theorycrafting in our own imagination, we first have to study the source material. And I believe people really did not care to study the source material enough in this case. It seems to give us some meaning in that the witness speaks more of his relief, and may have actually closed his eyes during the event itself and heard sounds and things.



2)
From the vague description of what happened, he heard something explode, something get torn, he smelled cloven sunfish, he saw a blinding cloud, and when he turned to see behind, we can definitely understand something had a wound and that the wound was closing in a terrifying fast way.

I saw many people conclude on the internet that "Cthulhu is weak and can get killed by a steamboat", but that's really not what I understand here.

this does not speak of the gravity of the wound by much. Fishes emit that horrible smell whenever you get close, and of course when opened, but even a long scratch could do that. Did they actually burst though its head and mouth? hence the "exploding bladder"? Did they split the skull in two? Or were they carried over, as would be the case by rising waves, and drove a long scratch on it? we can only speculate. it seems there was something still (as it "recombined" to close the wound).

what it does state in a certain way though, is an impressive healing power. but on that matter, we don't yet know how much of Cthulhu is on the physical world, how much is on the dream part, how much of the recombination occurs because the word may not have been there, we are lost to understand such things (as should be)


3)
I have an odd feeling that people are under the heavy influence of game systems used much in the US in old times (but really not that much in my time in Europe) such as Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. They want to guess "how much HP did it lose", "oh we can damage it with non-magical weapons? so a harpoon missile would kill it!"

It saddens me to see that people compare a lovecraftian cosmic horror to anything which can be killed by a boat. The horror certainly exists even out of time and space. It fought species which existed beyond time and space too. The most probable thing to take as a first golden rule, is that "we don't understand a thing about it", and must make human / euclidean theories.

Which is interesting of course, I don't want to limit the debate here, please debate!
But I would hate to see anything come as some kind of conclusion based on anything which does not have a study at least as deep as Cthulhu is.

[Elindos]

I wanted to add something, I reread myself and I forgot to add some information.
I find that my post was written in a more direct way that I intended.

First of all, wanted to say, I appreciate all the debate going on here.
Also, warm hello to you all

Secondly, when I mentioned This is frustrating to me when people emit a number of conclusions (and divisive conclusions) before first having spent more time to study the source material. this was actually in no way something I meant regarding OP. OP actually shared the extract, which actually allows us to look at it further and deeper. Just like it allowed me to take another look at it.

So, I did not want to mean anything regarding OP or any specific person here.
It is just that I see this very often discarded in other internet talks about this situation.

I did not want with an odd tone to sidetrack the conversation here!
Please continue, and don't mind the little odd tone. English is also not my first language.

My intent was to focus on the extract and share a few more information... "the Truth is Out There"

[Khaat]

Easiest explanation: Lovecraft's author's voice is to drop into passive voice ("object-verb") when describing that which is meant to be beyond understanding. Rather than using active voice ("subject-verb-object") and connecting the actor to the action. The witness *can't understand* what they experienced. Easy trick of author's voice, and not a deep one [pun intended].

This is independent of the mechanics of what happened. The eyewitness testimony here is broken and highly unreliable (by design).

One could easily suggest they in fact passed *through* Cthulhu, but as C is "from beyond", they didn't pass through all of the form (some or even most being ephemeral or in tech-speak "out of phase" with the boat and crew), and the reforming wasn't healing of physical damage, but reforming in the witness's mind of the form they "ghosted through". Like stage magic, they mentally put the sawn-in-half boxes back together, the beautiful assistant doesn't just stand up from the box she's actually in *because it's magic*.
Could also just as easily suggest the form the boat passed through was an astral projection of the slumbering god. Can a fisherman explain that? Can they explain their mind being touched by the mind of an entity so old, so alien as to be only described in the basest, raw sensations of horrid sounds and familiar stench of fish? That the "blinding green cloud" was the astral form of the entity?