From: bcannard@hppcb36.mentorg.com (The Human Mi-Go)
Subject: Re: DREAMLANDS GEOGRAPHY AND OTHER OXYMORONS
Originator: bcannard@hppcb36
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 07:28:43 GMT
Reply-To: bob_cannard@mentorg.com
Organization: Best Buy Byakhees Inc.
Keywords: 
Followup-To: 


In article <1992Nov12.165819.17383@husc3.harvard.edu>, garcia@husc10.harvard.edu (Javier Garcia-Torres) writes:
|> In article <1992Nov12.112939.1@hamp.hampshire.edu> mgrossman@hamp.hampshire.edu writes:
|> >
|> >Or it's possible that when the corpse eating cult was driven into the
|>      mountains
|> >of Tibet (or wherever, and assuming they were driven), they thought they had
|> >come to Leng, since they only had a vague description of what Leng was (racial
|> >memories, maybe?  The elder things did keep humans as slaves).
|> 
|> 	Did they, though?  The only connection I recall was that the failed
|> genetic experiments of the Elder Things( the guys who lived in that city
|> in the Mountains of Madness) accidentally started the evolutionary
|> processes which eventually led to reptiles, birds, and mammals.  Please
|> correct me if I'm wrong.

No, as far as I can tell they didn't. They sometimes used our prehuman
ancestors for food or amusement - this much is recorded in the ancient
city - but by the time true humans came on the scene the elder things
had retreated into the sea to become sea-shoggoth chow. (Tell the truth,
me & my friends back on Yuggoth miss the critters, they put up a good
fight).

|> >So what made the city dissapear?  The Great Ones, maybe?  After all, they
|> >wouldn't want explorers mucking around at the very feet of Kadath. 
|> >They might have just asked Nyarlathotep to put them somewhere else.
|> 
|> 	If you mean Great Old Ones when you say Great Ones, I would think
|> that they would simply (step on/rend limb from limb/devour) any explorers that
|> came too close to Kaddath.  That's just in my humble opinion, though.  

The term "Great Ones" is used in the Dream-Quest to refer to the "mild
gods of earth" who just want to be left alone and have a good time;
"The Other Gods" by HPL gives a graphic description of what Nyarlathotep
does to people who invade their privacy. TOG & the Dream-Quest suggest
that once their privacy has been violated, they simply go somewhere else,
in accord with M. Grossman's theory. The problem I have with his theory
is that the Great Ones have a strictly Dreamlands feel to them - they're
just too *nice* to emerge into the real world full of star-spawn, elder
things, deep ones... and mi-gos, of course.

This description clearly is not applicable to the "Old Ones" referred to
by the Necronomicon (see "The Dunwich Horror", HPL) who as far as I can
make out are the collection of all prehuman ultranasties including the elder
things, Cthulhu and company, etc. Whereas "great Old Ones" as used in AtMoM
refers specifically to the elder things, and to really confuse things we
have the "Great Old Ones" of common usage - i.e. Cthulhu, H*st*r, etc -
I'm not sure where that term originated, probably "The Call of Cthulhu"
or "The Dunwich Horror". And then of course there's the "Great Race" but
that's another story ("The Shadow Out Of Time", ackcherly).

Confused yet? Yuggoth knows I am...
-- 
bob_cannard@mentorg.com			"More dynamite!" - Theron Marks
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