The Temple of Dagon

He's too damn Earthling-like! Now, "The Call of Cthulhu" is an excellent story; well-written, well-paced, and accomplished the admirable goal of adding a seriously epic tone to a horror story, a second example of which I can't think of at the moment. But Cthulhu him/her/itself is probably one of Lovecraft's biggest mistakes as a monster. Yeah, I said it, and I'll say it again; Howie dropped the ball with the physical appearance of Cthulhu.

It's general knowledge among Lovecraft fans that in his fiction, he aimed for utter strangeness, something not only extraterrestrial but compeltely UN-terrestrial in every way. Something purely alien. So what do we have with his most famous monster?

A tentacled, octopus-like face - Bad enough to give him appendages that can be found on Earth creatures, but to have him imprisoned underwater with all the other tentacle-bearing Earth critters is tough to reconcile. The only possible reconciliation here is the say that maybe the squid and octopi are in some way descended from Cthulhu, which is suitably weird but also kind of silly.

Leathery wings - Another Earth-creature attribute, but at least these aren't connected to his watery home. And perhaps the biggest mistake . . .

A roughly human figure (!?!?!?!) - Try as I might, I can in no way reconcile a roughly bipedal "human charicature" with the idea of an utterly and impossibly alien creature, and I can't imagine what Lovecraft was thinking. Once again, you could play the "descended from the Old Ones" card, but in that case they're not really all that alien, which kind of ruins the whole point.

An infinitely better example of a really Lovecraftian monster / entity / thing? The . . . whatever-it-is in "The Colour Out of Space" (which is also, as far as I'm concerned a much creepier and more disturbing story than "Cthulhu,"; while "Cthulhu" may be a great story, "Colour" is much more effective horror). Now THAT'S alien. So alien we don't even really know whether it's alive or conscious or what, and it's impossible to form a mental image of the thing. I think I can say with confidence that there will, gratefully, never be a plush "Colour Out of Space" doll.

Criticizing Cthulhu among Lovecraft fans is probably a good way to get pelted with rotten veggies, but I had to get it off my chest. Let the stoning commence.

I don't really care myself. What's the point? That his alien came out earth-like? I don't see the problem.

It could be just that he did not like fish, so he choose to make certain creatures have aquatic characteristics.

Hello,

(no stones thrown, no need to duck!)

Actually, Lovecraft's characters tend to describe Mythos monsters by comparing them to the closest thing they could think of - and rightly due to the un-earthly nature of those creatures, generally they were described 'piece by piece' - as "chimerae".

You should note that, even if Ctrhulhu is described as having some sort of "wings", nowhere in the novel it is said to be able to fly by their means. What are described as wings may very well be external lungs, or communication organs, or sensitive organs - we'll never know, but the closest thing you may think of when seeing them is a pair of wings. Same thing with the other parts of Cthulhu.

Look, for another example, at the description of a Byakhee in "the festival". Taking the description literally, this creature would seem composed by an unlikely patchwork of body parts from insects and animals. Yet, the good reader knows that this description is nothing but the attempt of a rational mind (and note, when i write 'rational', i mean "rationally LIMITED" - in Lovecraft, reason is the wall that protects us from open-minded comprehension, acceptance and subsequent insanity!) to "ground" something which is otherwise totally beyond common experience - in other words, 'unspeakable'.

About the humanoid appearance of Cthulhu, I'd have two things to say.
First thing - hey, 4 appendices, a trunk and a head make humanoid. You may say that a statue of a "sitting frog" looks humanoid in this respect. Then does this imply that humans and frogs are similar? Of course not, they're very different both in appearance and biologically.
In addition, I may be mistaken as I don't have the story with me, but if i remember well the only point where we get a clear description of Cthulhu is just when the odd ritual statuettes are described. You may agree that many cults and religions have anthrophomorphized (depicted as humanoid beings) several animals including crocodiles and cats, or even abstract concepts like death. My idea, which of course is debatable, is that cults - the more ancient, the likelier - have been prone to think to their gods as humanoids, because humans are generally 'above' most other creatures (intellect), so depicting a powerful god as human-like would represent both the spiritual affinity between the god and the worshippers, and an acknowledgement of superior wisdom. So, even if the odd statuettes are humanoid, this of course does not necessarily imply that they are exactly depicting the true form of Cthulhu.

My two cents...

That was a very good response! Well thought out.

Good points, although I do have issue with this:

Raymond wrote: the only point where we get a clear description of Cthulhu is just when the odd ritual statuettes are described. You may agree that many cults and religions have anthrophomorphized (depicted as humanoid beings) several animals including crocodiles and cats, or even abstract concepts like death. My idea, which of course is debatable, is that cults - the more ancient, the likelier - have been prone to think to their gods as humanoids . . .

This works if the human cults actually made the statues, but I thought they were brought to Earth by the Old Ones. "They brought their images with them," as it were. The stone that the statues are made of is plainly non-terrestrial, and I thought the statues were too. I could be wrong though.

I like this topic. I agree with the response raymond gave!

Mankinds mind cannot correctly correlate what it would see when viewing cthulhu!
It would quickly grsp on the closest thing in our experience.
That would automatically makeit humanoid and earth like.

Hence the term - 'unnameable'

I am going to go out on a limb and bump up this post. I risk this based on the fact that the postcount here is not something to worry about (:P), and there is a point I would like to make.

Lovecraft made a distinction between beings such as Cthulhu, Dagon, etc, and more Outre beings such as Shub, Azathoth, and the like. While the latter may not have physical forms per se, Cthulhu and his buddies are on a lower tier than those, and have very physical forms.
So a big difference could be drawn between the two apparent mindsets of Lovecraft. It may well be he was on different creative levels during the creation of Cthulhu than he was getting into Azathoth, but it is quite possible that he made the consious effort to seperate them as different rungs on his 'pantheon'.

Keep in mind I used the Wiki for some of this speculation, and the authors do not always excel at keeping straight Lovecraft seperate from creations of other authors.

Or to avoid possible allsuion between the two - they do have a plethora of alternate names, creating some confusion.

i don't think the statue description was hpl's earnest attempt to describe the form of cthulhu itself, but of an archaological artifact.

near the end of 'the call of cthulhu' the boat and crew encounter something that is thought to be cthulhu. this action narrative (as opposed to the still-life description of the graven image earlier in the story) is in relatively vague terms of the monster's physical characteristics and focuses more on impressions of movement: flabby claws, flopping, floundering, slid greasily, the pursuing jelly, scattered plasticity, and so on.

i take this to be something closer to lovecraft's own conception of cthulhu; and the earlier description was of a piece of artwork, just a prop in the story to suggest an ancient, advanced people that would desire such an idol - so the significance of the greater passage is not really centered on the features of the statuette.

i read somewhere that Lovecraft didnt like fish

He hated them.

I bet he didn't like swimming in the ocean much either.

i don't mean to hijack the bus in the name of salacity, but there is a pretty famous psuedo-psychological 'test' in which a person's impression of the ocean is supposed to indicate their subconscious feelings about sexuality.

one time i took the test and i described the ocean as 'vast and forbidding.'

you should see my girlfriend.

badoom-tsch