Name: Exploring the Cthulhu Mythos: Cthulhu
Uploaded: 2018-06-17T02:38:39.000Z
Duration: 7 min 28 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Chances are very likely that at some point in your life

you've seen a depiction of Cthulhu
or heard a reference to him.

The great green Ancient One is BY FAR the most famous entity in the Cthulhu mythos

and thus a fitting starting point for our series.

We're gonna take a look at the
literary history of Cthulhu

as well as give a brief description of his mythological background within the mythos universe.

Lovecraft himself gave several different pronunciations of the creature's name throughout his life,

including "Kllulluh", 
with a heavy guttural first syllable,

the most common pronunciation, however, is "Ka-thulu", popular as much later after Lovecraft's death.

The truth of the matter is, this is an alien name and
to be spoken in an alien tongue,

Since "Ka-thulu" is the most common pronunciation,
that is what I will continue to use.

Cthulhu is only ever featured in a single story 
by Howard Philips Lovecraft,

"The Call of Cthulhu",
published in 1928.

Lovecraft very rarely showcased any of the Ancient Beings, including Great Cthulhu, in his stories,

so "The Call of Cthulhu" is a bit of a special case.

The story, in typical Lovecraftian fashion, is told through various letters, manuscripts, and conversations.

The climax of the story is the terrifying account of
a sailor directly encountering Cthulhu

as the Great Old One emerges from his home
in sunken R'lyeh.

Cthulhu's name was mentioned in a few others
of Lovecraft's stories and letters,

but it was other writers that really ran with
the concept of Cthulhu and R'lyeh.

Writers such as August Derleth, Robert Bloch,
Charles Stross, Neil Gaiman and many, many others

have taken Lovecraft's foundations and brought Cthulhu to many different locales and situations,

You can easily find collections of books
with just stories featuring Cthulhu.

As for Cthulhu's backstory within the mythos,
let me make one thing clear:

The concept of "canon" doesn't carry
much weight within the mythos.

Many different writers have given wildly varying accounts of Cthulhu, his thoughts and intentions,

What I am going to present to you for Cthulhu's story

is common info that I have available to me,

but feel free to believe or make up whatever you want.

and he fully encouraged others to do the same.

Cthulhu was likely born on the planet Vhoorl,
located in the "twenty-third nebula".

his grandparents Yog-Sothoth and Shub-NIggurath,

and his great-grandfather is Azathoth himself.

At some point he travelled to the binary star of Xoth,

where he mated and produced the Great Older Ones known as Ghatanothoa, Ythogtha, and Zoth-Ommog.

Cthulhu and his children travelled then to Saturn, followed by Earth,

along with a species know as the
"Star Spawn of Cthulhu".

It is unclear where the Star Spawn originated from,

but it's possible that the shape-shifting aliens worshipped Great Cthulhu and changed their form

Regardless, the alien group landed on a continent
in the Pacific Ocean...

... and they built the great stone city of R'lyeh,

made from strange green stones and pieced together in ways that are foreign to any human design.

Upon their arrival, the aliens received immediate resistance from another species known as

who had lived on the planet for millenia.

The Elder Things were no strangers to war
- which we'll cover in a different video -

but eventually the two groups came to an agreement and the planet was shared for the time being.

Cthulhu and his spawn enjoyed the freedom of the planet Earth,

but at some point Cthulhu went into a deep hibernation within R'lyeh.

During his hibernation, humanity evolved on Earth,

and Cthulhu often communicated with individuals through dreams, slowly creating the Cult of Cthulhu.

Disaster eventually struck the corpse city of R'lyeh though, sinking the city, Cthulhu

and much of the continent into the ocean.

or even a secret weapon from The Elder Things.

Regardless though, Cthulhu and his spawn were trapped under the ocean and left with little to do other than wait.

R'lyeh has risen out of the ocean at various times,

The Cult of Cthulhu has continued
to grow throughout the ages,

and as they meet in secrecy, they chant of the day when R'lyeh will rise permanently out of the ocean...

...and Dread Cthulhu will retake the world.

Cthulhu is by far the most popular entity from
the entire Cthulhu mythos,

to the point where the entire fictional universe
is named after him.

Lovecraft himself however favored the term
"Yog-Sothory" to refer to the collection
of entities and artifacts.

I offer two main reasons to why Cthulhu is so well-known in popular culture.

First and foremost is Cthulhu's image itself.

Cthulhu is instantly recognizable in the grand majority of artistic depictions of him

He's almost always depicted as vaguely anthropoidal, with an octopus head, a mass of tentacles in his face

Other entities in the Cthulhu mythos tend to be a bit harder to describe,

Yog-Sothoth, Shub-Niggurath, and Azathoth are often described as just masses of bubbles, tentacles,

flesh, mouth, teeth and other vague appendages.

you generally know exactly what you're looking at.

This has helped a lot with recognition, but it also helps that Cthulhu is often well-regarded for his image.

Whether the depiction is meant to be cool or scary or adorable,  Cthulhu can cover a lot of ground.

Secondly, Cthulhu represents a very real
and tangible fear.

Lovecraft was inspired by his own fear of water and the ocean when he created Cthulhu,

and it's a fairly common fear amongst people.

Sure, pondering on our existence and place within the grand scheme in the cosmos can certainly be scary,