![]() I love the way they are used here a lot, while for Lovecraft these sometimes shapeless beings are a very close, visible and terrifying metaphor for an uncaring, unbalanced and unfair cosmos, Wolfe's entities are a very close but invisible 'villain' who is, in the end, rather impotent, limited by the fate Sev brings and profane issues like physics.Ī handful of occultists over the years have drawn inspiration from Lovecraft's work (Kenneth Grant, Micheal Paul Bertiaux for example), so I think it's very interesting to see how much the perspective changes when they're being utilised by a Christian author. The single biggest difference between the nature of these 'cosmic horrors' would be the beings in Lovecraft's stories having no morals/feeling/agenda, which is basically even the polar opposite of at least the megatherians we hear about.īut there's so many similarities, the names for example (compare to Dagon or Mother Hydra), the communication via dreams, the locations and origins. I see this as similar to the Lucifer/Judas-like understanding that such rebellions and betrayals of God/The Increate are part of the Plan and necessary to it. ![]() This tiny Tzadkiel has been broken off from the larger being and, apprently, she was rebellious against the larger angel and has been banished to this realm for doing that. I interpret this disconnect between Typhon and the megatherians in light of the tiny Tzadkiel angel that Severian encounters at the Brook Madregot. Typhon assures Severian that these beings will soon be his abject slaves. But when Typhon wakes up and is discussing the current state of Urth with Severian, he is told that the world is ruled by gigantic sea beings (one of whom is Scylla, as mentioned by the Caloyer of Saltus). Mythologically, and in Long/Short Sun, Scylla is the daughter of Typhon. I'll risk over-dissecting the enigmatic nature of these beings to note that the text probably doesn't allow us to consider megatherians to be Typhon's pets exactly. Each view being an alternate perspective of the same thing. I think Wolfe was highly influenced by Lovecraft and I think he might consider the Cthulhu Mythos to be another way of perceiving our spiritual universe, cognate rather than separate from Biblical, Greek, Hindu and Zoroastrian cosmologies. ![]() That's a refreshing take that I can appreciate.
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