Cthulhu
Cthulhu is a fictional cosmic entity created by writer H. P. Lovecraft and first introduced in the short story "The Call of Cthulhu", published in the American pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928. Considered a Great Old One within the pantheon of Lovecraftian cosmic entities, the creature has since been featured in numerous popular culture references. Lovecraft depicts it as a gigantic entity worshipped by cultists, in shape like an octopus, a dragon, and a caricature of human form. Its name was given to the Lovecraft-inspired universe where it and its fellow entities existed, the Cthulhu Mythos.
Etymology, spelling, and pronunciation
Invented by Lovecraft in 1928, the name Cthulhu was probably chosen to echo the word chthonic, as apparently suggested by Lovecraft himself at the end of his 1923 tale "The Rats in the Walls".Lovecraft transcribed the pronunciation of Cthulhu as Khlûl′-hloo and said that "the first syllable pronounced gutturally and very thickly. The u is about like that in full; and the first syllable is not unlike klul in sound, hence the h represents the guttural thickness." S. T. Joshi points out, however, that Lovecraft gave several differing pronunciations on different occasions. According to Lovecraft, this is merely the closest that the human vocal apparatus can come to reproducing the syllables of an alien language. Cthulhu has also been spelled in many other ways, including Tulu, Katulu and Kutulu. The name is often preceded by the epithet Great, Dead, or Dread.
Long after Lovecraft's death, the spelling pronunciation became common. Others use the pronunciation Katulu/Kutulu spelling pronunciation
Description
In "The Call of Cthulhu", H. P. Lovecraft describes a statue of Cthulhu as "A monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind." Cthulhu is said to resemble an octopus, a dragon and a human caricature, hundreds of meters tall, with webbed human-looking arms and legs and a pair of rudimentary wings on its back. Its head is depicted as similar to the entirety of a gigantic octopus, with an unknown number of tentacles surrounding its supposed mouth.Publication history
The short story that first mentions Cthulhu, "The Call of Cthulhu", was published in Weird Tales in 1928 and established the character as a malevolent entity, hibernating within R'lyeh, an underwater city in the South Pacific. The imprisoned Cthulhu is apparently the source of constant subconscious anxiety for all mankind, and is also the object of worship, both by a number of human cults and by other Lovecraftian monsters. The short story asserts the premise that, while currently trapped, Cthulhu will eventually return. His worshippers chant "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.Lovecraft conceived a detailed genealogy for Cthulhu and made the character a central reference in his works. The short story "The Dunwich Horror" refers to Cthulhu, while "The Whisperer in Darkness" hints that one of his characters knows the creature's origins. The 1931 novella At the Mountains of Madness refers to the "star-spawn of Cthulhu", who warred with another race called the Elder Things before the dawn of man.
August Derleth, a correspondent of Lovecraft, used the creature's name to identify the system of lore employed by Lovecraft and his literary successors: the Cthulhu Mythos. In 1937, Derleth wrote the short story "The Return of Hastur", and proposed two groups of opposed cosmic entities:
According to Derleth's scheme, "Great Cthulhu is one of the Water Elementals" and was engaged in an age-old arch-rivalry with a designated air elemental, Hastur the Unspeakable, described as Cthulhu's "half-brother". Based on this framework, Derleth wrote a series of short stories published in Weird Tales and collected as The Trail of Cthulhu, depicting the struggle of a Dr. Laban Shrewsbury and his associates against Cthulhu and his minions. In addition, Cthulhu is referenced in Derleth‘s 1945 novel “The Lurker at the Threshold” published by Arkham House. The novel can also be found in “The Watchers Out of Time and Others”, a collection of stories from Derleth’s interpretations of Lovecraftian Mythos published by Arkham House in 1974.
Derleth's interpretations have been criticized by Lovecraft enthusiast Michel Houellebecq, among others. Houellebecq's H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life decries Derleth for attempting to reshape Lovecraft's strictly amoral continuity into a stereotypical conflict between forces of objective good and evil.
In John Glasby's "A Shadow from the Aeons", Cthulhu is seen by the narrator roaming the riverbank near Dominic Waldron's castle, and roaring. The god appears totally different from its depiction by other authors.
The character's influence also extended into gaming literature: games company TSR included an entire chapter on the Cthulhu mythos in the first printing of Dungeons & Dragons sourcebook Deities & Demigods. TSR, however, were unaware that Arkham House, which asserted copyright on almost all Lovecraft literature, had already licensed the Cthulhu property to the game company Chaosium. Although Chaosium stipulated that TSR could continue to use the material if each future edition featured a published credit to Chaosium, TSR refused and the material was removed from all subsequent editions.
Legacy
Games
In 1981, Chaosium released their role-playing game Call of Cthulhu. It has now reached its 7th edition with a large amount of supplementary material also available, and has won several major gaming awards. In 1987 Chaosium published the co-operative adventure board game Arkham Horror, based on the same background, which has since been reissued by other publishers.In 2006, Bethesda Softworks, Ubisoft, and 2K Games jointly published a game by Headfirst Productions, , based on the works of Lovecraft. Cthulhu himself does not appear, as the main antagonists of the game are the Deep Ones from The Shadow Over Innsmouth, and the sea god Dagon, but his presence is alluded to several times, and viewing a statue of him in one of the temples will undermine the player's sanity. Also, one of Cthulhu's Star Spawn, of similar hideous appearance, appears as a late-game enemy.
On March 19, 2007, Steve Jackson Games released an iteration of their card game Munchkin called Munchkin Cthulhu. The game presents Cthulhu and its surrounding mythos with a cartoon art style and comedic tone, heavily playing upon themes of madness and cultism. Great Cthulhu features as a standalone monster in the deck, alongside various parodies of Lovecraft's creatures. Cthulhu is depicted as an overweight, bright green creature with a large, bulbous head, and a pair of disproportionately small wings.
Cthulhu is the main inspiration for the zombies in the video game '.
The massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft has numerous references to Cthulhu and the Mythos, with one of the game's "Old Gods" named N'Zoth resting in a sunken city.
In Scribblenauts, Cthulhu is summonable. He is much smaller than described in Lovecraft's works but is much stronger than most other aggressive objects.
Terraria refers to Cthulhu in three boss fights: the Eye of Cthulhu, Brain of Cthulhu, and Moon Lord, implied to be Cthulhus brother steve.
In 2016, Z-Man Games released an alternate version of the board game Pandemic. This new adaptation, ', is set in the Cthulhu Mythos and explorers race to save the world before Cthulhu returns.
In 2018, a survival horror role-playing video game called was developed for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows PC.
In June of 2019, an open-world horror detective game called The Sinking City, which is based on Cthulhu Mythos was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It was also released for Nintendo Switch in September of that year.
In 2020, Cthulhu was released as a playable character in the MOBA Smite.
Politics
Cthulhu has appeared as a parody candidate in several elections, including the 2010 Polish presidential election as well as the 2012 and 2016 US presidential elections. The faux campaigns usually satirize voters who claim to vote for the "lesser evil". In 2016 the Troll account known as "The Dark Lord Cthulhu" submitted an official application to be on the Massachusetts Presidential Ballot. The account also raised over $4000 from fans to fund the campaign through a gofundme.com page. Gofundme removed the campaign page and refunded contributions. The Cthulhu Party, another pseudo-political organisation, claim to be 'Changing Politics for Evil', parodying the Brexit Party's 'Changing Politics for Good'; a member of The Cthulhu Party holds the position of Mayor of Blists Hill. Another organisation, Cthulhu for America, ran during the 2016 American presidential election, drawing comparisons with other satirical presidential candidates like Vermin Supreme. The organisation had a platform which included the legalisation of human sacrifice, driving all Americans insane, and an end to peace.Science
The Californian spider species Pimoa cthulhu, described by Gustavo Hormiga in 1994, and the New Guinea moth species Speiredonia cthulhui, described by Alberto Zilli and Jeremy D. Holloway in 2005, are named after Cthulhu.Two microorganisms that assist in the digestion of wood by termites have been named after Cthulhu and Cthulhu's "daughter" Cthylla: Cthulhu macrofasciculumque and Cthylla microfasciculumque.
In 2014, science and technology scholar Donna Haraway gave a talk entitled "Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene: Staying with the Trouble", in which she proposed the term "Chthulucene" as an alternative for the concept of the Anthropocene era, due to the entangling interconnectedness of all supposedly individual beings. Haraway has denied any indebtedness to Lovecraft's Cthulhu, claiming that her "chthulu" is derived from Greek khthonios, "of the earth". However, the Lovecraft character is much closer to her coined term than the Greek root, and her description of its meaning coincides with Lovecraft's idea of the apocalyptic, multi-tentacled threat of Cthulhu to collapse civilization into an endless dark horror: "Chthulucene does not close in on itself; it does not round off; its contact zones are ubiquitous and continuously spin out loopy tendrils."
In 2015, an elongated, dark region along the equator of Pluto, initially referred to as "the Whale", was proposed to be named "Cthulhu Regio", by the NASA team responsible for the New Horizons mission. It is now known as "Cthulhu Macula".
In April 2019, Imran A. Rahman and a team announced in Proceedings of the Royal Society B the discovery of Sollasina cthulhu, an extinct member of the ophiocistioids group.
Film and TV
Several films and television programs feature the threat of Cthulhu returning to dominate the Universe. A notable example is three episodes of the adult cartoon series South Park in which Eric Cartman turns out to be so irredeemably evil that he is able to tame Cthulhu and direct him to annihilate personal enemies. In those episodes Cthulhu is faithfully represented as the monstrous tentacle-mouthed god-like being Lovecraft describes. In the popular adult animated science-fiction sitcom Rick and Morty, a depiction of Cthulhu can be seen in the opening sequence, immediately prior to the title card. In Cartoon Network's animated show The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Cthulhu has a dedicated double-length episode called "Prank Call of Cthulhu". Cthulhu also made a short appearance at the beginning of The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror XXIX".In season 2 episodes 18 and 19 of Gravity Falls, Cthulhu is briefly seen destroying a giant ear with a mouth-laser and then walking, respectively.
On October 27, 1987, Cthulhu appeared in season 2 episode 28 of The Real Ghostbusters animated cartoon entitled "The Collect Call of Cathulhu", in which the Ghostbusters went up against the Spawn, and Cult, of Cthulhu.
Cthulhu is featured in Arcana Studio's Howard Lovecraft animated trilogy beginning with Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom, and ending with the upcoming Kingdom of Madness.
The Call of Cthulhu is a 2005 independent silent-film adaptation of the eponymous short story, produced by Sean Branney and Andrew Leman.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_a_Deadly_Spell
Cast a Deadly Spell is a 1991 noir film featuring private detective H. Philip Lovecraft, in a fictional Los Angeles where magic is real, monsters and mythical beasts stalk the back alleys, zombies are used as cheap labor, and everyone—except Lovecraft—uses magic every day. The plot revolves around a scheme to use a copy of the Necronomicon to summon an ancient god that might be Cthulhu.
The 2007 film Cthulhu is loosely based on Lovecraft's 1936 novella The Shadow over Innsmouth, which is a part of the Cthulhu Mythos.
The creatures in the 2018 Netflix film Bird Box are strongly implied to be related to Cthulhu.
Cthulhu appears in season 4 episode 7 of The Venture Bros., battling The Order of the Triad.
Cthulhu appears in season 2 episode 14 of Night Gallery, Professor Peabody's Last Lecture.
Cthulhu appears in the climax of the film Underwater, worshipped by a civilisation of underwater humanoids.
Cthulhu, or at least his star-spawn, are set to appear in Lovecraft Country.
Music
Heavy metal band Metallica reference Cthulhu in the song "Dream No More" from their 2016 album Hardwired... To Self-Destruct, as well as on the 1984 album Ride the Lightning with the instrumental track "The Call of Ktulu", inspired by H. P. Lovecraft's novella The Shadow over Innsmouth, which was introduced to the rest of the band by Cliff Burton, and on the 1986 album Master of Puppets with the song "The Thing That Should Not Be".The fifth studio album by Canadian electronic music producer deadmau5 features the song "Cthulhu Sleeps".
American Metal band The Acacia Strain features a song titled "Cthulhu" on their album "Continent"
The second album of British steampunk band The Men That Will Not Be Blamed for Nothing features the song "Margate Fhtagn". The song describes the band's meeting with Cthulhu while on holiday in Margate.
English extreme metal band Cradle of Filth's fourth album, Midian, features a song titled "Cthulhu Dawn", although the lyrics seem to have nothing to do with Lovecraft's sea-monster.
The song "Last Exit for the Lost" by British gothic rock band Fields of the Nephilim references Cthulhu.
The British progressive rock band CARAVAN released the song "C'Thlu Thlu" on the album For Girls Who Grow Plump in the Night.
The penultimate track on the 2011 self-titled debut album by New Zealand sludge metal band Beastwars is titled "Cthulhu".
The album "Stairway To Valhalla" by Nanowar of Steel features a song titled "The Call of Cthulhu".
The song "Cthulhu" by German power metal and "SUPERHEROMETAL" band Grailknights mentions the city of Rlyeh.
The song “Angel of Disease” by American death metal band Morbid Angel references The Ancient Ones, Cthulhu, and Shub-Niggurath.