Yog-Sothoth
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Yog-Sothoth (The Lurker at the Threshold, The Key and the Gate, The Beyond One, Opener of the Way The All-in-One and the One-in-All) is a fictional character in the Cthulhu Mythos. The being was created by H.P. Lovecraft and first appeared in his novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (written 1927, first published 1941). The being is said to take the form of a conglomeration of glowing bubbles.
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[edit] Mythos summary
Imagination called up the shocking form of fabulous Yog-Sothoth — only a congeries of iridescent globes, yet stupendous in its malign suggestiveness.
—H. P. Lovecraft, "The Horror in the Museum"
Yog-Sothoth is an Outer God and is coterminous with all time and space yet is supposedly locked outside of the universe we inhabit. Its cosmic nature is hinted at in this passage from "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" (1934) by Lovecraft and E. Hoffmann Price:
It was an All-in-One and One-in-All of limitless being and self — not merely a thing of one Space-Time continuum, but allied to the ultimate animating essence of existence's whole unbounded sweep — the last, utter sweep which has no confines and which outreaches fancy and mathematics alike. It was perhaps that which certain secret cults of earth have whispered of as YOG-SOTHOTH, and which has been a deity under other names; that which the crustaceans of Yuggoth worship as the Beyond-One, and which the vaporous brains of the spiral nebulae know by an untranslatable Sign...
Yog-Sothoth knows all and sees all. To "please" this deity could bring knowledge of many things. However, like most beings in the mythos, to see it or learn too much about it is to court disaster. Some authors state that the favour of the god requires a human sacrifice or eternal servitude.
The essay In Rerum Supernatura in the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game suggests that Yog-Sothoth's name may be a rough transliteration of the Arabic phrase "Yaji Ash-Shuthath," meaning "There is no peace at the gates."[1]
[edit] The Old Ones
Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. He knows where They have trod earth's fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread.
—H. P. Lovecraft, "The Dunwich Horror"
Yog-Sothoth has some connection to the mysterious Old Ones mentioned in "The Dunwich Horror" (1929), but their nature, their number, and their connection to Yog-Sothoth are unknown. Nonetheless, they are probably allied to him in some way, since Wilbur Whateley, the half-human son of Yog-Sothoth, tried to summon them so that they could control Wilbur's more tainted twin and make it reproduce.
In The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, its name is part of an incantation that could revive the dead:
Y'AI'NG'NGAH
YOG-SOTHOTH
H'EE-L'GEB
F'AI TRHODOG
UAAAAH
[edit] Avatars of Yog-Sothoth
[edit] Aforgomon
Aforgomon is an obscure avatar of Yog-Sothoth invented by Clark Ashton Smith. He was revered by many cultures past, present, and future as the God of Time because of his praeternatural ability to manipulate time and space. Little is known of this being's appearance because he only reveals himself to those who have angered him. However, it is known that he is accompanied by a blinding light. He is the mortal enemy of Xexanoth.
[edit] The Lurker at the Threshold
This is the name given to Yog-Sothoth in the eponymous story by August Derleth and H.P. Lovecraft. In the story, Alijah Billington describes Yog-Sothoth's appearance as
- great globes of light massing toward the opening, and not alone these, but the breaking apart of the nearest globes, and the protoplasmic flesh that flowed blackly outward to join together and form that eldritch, hideous horror from outer space, that spawn of the blankness of primal time, that tentacled amorphous monster which was the lurker at the threshold, whose mask was as a congeries of iridescent globes, the noxious Yog-Sothoth, who froths as primal slime in nuclear chaos beyond the nethermost outposts of space and time!
[edit] 'Umr at-Tawil
'Umr at-Tawil (The Most Ancient and Prolonged of Life), also spelt Tawil At-U'mr or Tawil-at'Umr, is described as an avatar of Yog-Sothoth in the story "Through the Gates of the Silver Key", by Lovecraft and E. Hoffman Price. In the story, he presides over the timeless halls beyond the Gate of the Silver Key and the strange, near-omnipotent Ancient Ones that dwell there. He is described as the silhouette of a man behind a strange, shimmering veil.
[edit] Popular culture
Though not as ubiquitous as Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth sometimes appears in popular culture as a way to evoke Lovecraftian themes.
[edit] Literature
Yog-Sothoth occasionally appears in fiction outside the Cthulhu Mythos milieu. The Illuminatus! trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea, Yog-Sothoth describe as an extradimensional entity, whose attributes differ widely from those described in the Mythos. Worshipped as a god by some incarnations of the Illuminati, it is known as the Eater of Souls for its habit of feeding from human sacrifices. It is bodiless and invisible, but can possess humans, and can be imprisoned in pentagonal shapes; for several decades, it was imprisoned in The Pentagon by the Illuminati, and fed on traffic fatalities.
Other non-Mythos appearances are allusions or in-jokes. Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel Moving Pictures mentions an "outerdimensional being" named Yob Soddoth. A graffito in Stephen King's 1991 book Needful Things proclaims "Yog-Sothoth Rules," while a sign in his 1980 short story "Crouch End" reads "Yogsoggoth." "Eggs Sothoth" are served in H.P.'s Cafe, mentioned several times in the novels of Christopher Moore. In Zenith, a series in the comic 2000 AD, Iok Sotot is one of the Many-Angled Ones, extradimensional entities who correspond, in the Zenith universe, to the ancient gods described by Lovecraft.
The Doctor Who novel Millennial Rites by Craig Hinton identifies the Doctor Who villain the Great Intelligence as, in actuality, Yog-Sothoth.
[edit] Music
Bands in the heavy metal genre frequently make reference to Yog-Sothoth. The Morbid Angel album Abominations of Desolation opens with a chant:
- Yog-Sothoth, Lord of Lords, I summon thee, make the gate appear! Yog-Sothoth is the gate in which the spheres meet! Open wide the gate! The ancient ones ruled of old and shall rule again! Come forth through the gate!
The Finnish doom metal band Thergothon has an album entitled Fhtagn Nagh Yog-Sothoth. "Yog Sototh" is the name of a song by Nembrionic Hammerdeath. Yog-Sothoth is mentioned in songs by many other metal bands, including Electric Wizard, Celtic Frost and Orphanage.
The Spanish symphonic metal band "Dark Moor" makes a reference to Yog Sothoth in their song "The Silver Key"
The Dayglo Abortions, on their album Here Today, Guano Tomorrow, employ backmasking to embed a call to Yog Sothoth at the start of the song The Spawn of Yog Sothoth (Oh, awaken, Yog Sothoth!); the lyrics of the song quote the being's vital statistics as listed in the original edition of the D&D game manual Deities & Demigods.
Outside of metal, musical references to Yog-Sothoth are rare, though the 1979 song "Spectre vs. Rector" by post-punk band The Fall does name check Yog-Sothoth. "Yog Sothoth" is also the name of a song by The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, a Lovecraftian rock band. A French Rock in Opposition band calling themselves Yog-Sothoth released a single eponymous album in 1984; their style was somewhere between Univers Zero and Graham Collier. Another band from France, calling themselves Shub-Niggurath after another of Lovecraft's alien deities, had a song titled "Yog-Sothoth" on their disc Les Morts Vont Vite. One of Stephin Merritt's bands, The Gothic Archies, mention Yog-Sothoth in "We Are The Gothic Archies" on 2006's The Tragic Treasury.
The HP Lovecraft Historical Society released a comedy "Cthulhu Christmas" collection, included are the songs "I Saw Mommy Kissing Yog-Sothoth," performed by Lance J. Holt and "Here Comes Yog-Sothoth" by The Dunwich Children's Chorale.
[edit] Movies
Yog: Monster from Space is the American title of the Toho Studios film from 1970, now known as Space Amoeba. It features an amoeba-like space creature that attacks Earth and possesses several normal animals, turning them into Gezora, Ganime and Kamoebas.
Yog also appeared in Cast a Deadly Spell from HBO.
[edit] Video Games
In the Xbox RPG Fable, a headstone that may be found in a haunted graveyard reads "Yuggoth Sunnog, sleeper of the dark, awake," which is a possible reference to Yog-Sothoth.
One of the imprisoned gods in the PC game Stonekeep is named Yoth-Soggoth.
[edit] Television
The cartoon The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy mentions a creature named "Yog-Sawhaw" after Billy reads one of Grim's books, and becomes possessed and then obsessed with resurrecting it.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Petersen, Sandy and Willis, Lynn (1992). “In Rerum Supernatura”, Call of Cthulhu, 5th ed., Oakland, CA: Chaosium, pp. 189–92. ISBN 0-933635-86-9.
[edit] References
- Harms, Daniel (1998). "Yog-Sothoth", The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana, 2nd ed., Oakland, CA: Chaosium, pp. 345–7. ISBN 1-56882-119-0.
- Pearsall, Anthony B. (2005). "Yog-Sothoth", The Lovecraft Lexicon, 1st ed., Tempe, AZ: New Falcon, pp. 438–40. ISBN 1-56184-129-3.
- Petersen, Sandy; Lynn Willis, William Hamblin (1992). "In Rerum Supernatura", Call of Cthulhu, 5th ed., Oakland, CA: Chaosium, pp. 189–92. ISBN 0-933635-86-9.
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