The Temple of Dagon

I just read in the forward of I believe The Essential Lovecraft, that there has been a debate going on for sometime about wheather or not the Old Ones as origially thought up by Mr Lovecraft were meant to be elemntal in nature as some of his imitators and confidants have implied, most notable among these being Mr Derlath, seeing as how I am amongst those that share my enjoyment of things Lovecraftian, I was wondering what the forum at large's view point was on this matter that appearently goes back to the time of Mr Derlath's work.

Nothing anyone writes is new. It has all been said before, in one context or another. Plagurism is unavoidable in our world.

Ideas have a finite loop.

As far as I'm concerned, it's all Derleth's idea. To me, nothing about Lovecraft's Old Ones says 'elements' at all.

I agree with JP. The elemental connections are utter crap from Derleth.

That is completely true. Lovecraft never intended them to be seen that way. Nor did he intend for the whole thing to be a good versus evil thing either. That was 100% Derleth. And while I do enjoy a lot of Derleth's work, it has caused a lot of misconceptions about the "real" mythos.

I have alwasy had the distinct feeling that Lovecraft was not setting the mythos up as a good versus evil, so much as it was fear of the unknown, and his was of commenting on the expanding ideals of science at the time, saying beware of how far you delve in the quest for knowledge.

wizard76 wrote:I have alwasy had the distinct feeling that Lovecraft was not setting the mythos up as a good versus evil, so much as it was fear of the unknown, and his was of commenting on the expanding ideals of science at the time, saying beware of how far you delve in the quest for knowledge.

Exactly.

Another modification for which Derleth's critics cannot forgive him is his apportioning of the Lovecraftian entities among the hackneyed catagories of the four elementals, so that Cthulhu becomes a water-elemental, Nyarlathotep an earth elemental, etc. 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.

-Robert M. Price "Introduction" Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos (Ballantine Books, 1992)

So, according to this, Derleth is responsible, but it was not his idea

I just can't see Lovecraft writing something as prosaic as associating his creations with the four Greek elements.

It seems to me that someone (no names) may have been setting up a conflict within the ranks of the Old Ones, or planning to include mention of dissent between them - and what better factioning method than the elements? Not black-and-white, but still too neat to be Lovecraft's work.

Hmm, I don't really think that setting up a conflict between some of the Old Ones really made it necessary to force them into some sort of elemental architecture. Heck, there are plenty of people I despise without them having to be made out of another element.

I always thought it was especially stupid to have Cthulhu as a water elemental. According to the Call of Cthulhu story, he wasn't living underwater because he liked it. He was basically trapped because Rlyeh had sank. Not very water-elemental-like really.

nortonew wrote:He was basically trapped because Rlyeh had sank. Not very water-elemental-like really.

I think coming to that realization requires too much thought for some readers. The squidlike features probably don't help, either.