Anyone Got a Moment for Our Dark Lord and Savior Cthulhu?

 

 

All ages fun.

         I feel that most people, at least in my generation, have heard of the fictional mythical creature known as Cthulhu is, at least in passing. He’s that weird, squid dude who is apparently supposed to be scary, but is usually just used as part of tired internet memes. The origins of Cthulhu are actually from the American Author H.P. Lovecraft, considered by some to be the father of the modern horror genre, starting with his short story The Call of Cthulhu. Obviously, the point of the character is to be spooky as possible, Lovecraft was trying to sell stories, but as I have stated before nobody really finds it scary anymore. Unfortunately this is not because people have grown out of their fear of what goes bump in the night but rather out of ignorance of what Cthulhu actually is.

He's just misunderstood...Probably

            Cthulhu is not supposed to be scary like other monsters. It is not some creature from the black lagoon knockoff who plays off your fear of drowning. It is not like modern urban legend Slenderman, who plays off the human fear of being alone in the dark. It most certainly is not like all the various movie monsters that are only scary because they can kill you in really gory ways. Cthulhu is not scary because of anything it can do to you, and it is not supposed to be. The real fear Cthulhu is supposed to inspire comes from what it represents. Cthulhu is scary because it is unstoppable. In a world where mankind stands as the top of the food chain we are not even dust before Cthulhu. Nothing we could ever possibly do can ever hope to stop it, and the worst part is that it doesn’t even hate us, it kills simply because that is what it does. In the face of the existence of a something so terribly beyond humanity’s grasp of power, that cannot be reasoned with, stopped, or even comprehended what other alternative is their but to be driven insane?

How long has it been there?

            I am completely aware that everything I just said was not in the least bit actually scary, because at the end of the day Cthulhu is still just some imaginary squid guy. What I want you to do now is take every time I said the word, “Cthulhu”, in the previous paragraph and now substitute it with the word death. That is why Cthulhu is actually frightening, because it appeals to the fundamental human fear of death. I am not referring to the act of dying, very few people are afraid of the act of dying, but rather the fear of knowing that death exists. There is always a chance at any moment we could die. Nobody knows exactly how they are going to end up dying. It could happen on the way to the bus stop next Tuesday, in a home robbery that that you were not supposed to be there for, or maybe one night we all will simply not wake up. Death comes to all equally and without prejudice. Young or old, rich or poor death is beyond caring about what something as insignificant as a human life has to offer before it snatches someone up. Living with the constant realization that at any moment our stories might suddenly end would be maddening, so in order to cope we force death out of our minds. We trivialize it into some far off event that all life must eventually experience, something that is not to be feared but to be accepted graciously. Cthulhu is the concept of death that cannot be ignored. It is death right in front of you in all its weird, squidy glory, so real and intense that it cannot be rationalized away or ignored. Cthulhu is scary because it is the dilemma of accepting the unacceptable which can only lead to madness, well that and squids are in fact just plain spooky.



The Horror!