/lit/ - Literature

Why do normalfags love this guy so much?

Like, Lovecraft is definitely an iconic writer and endlessly influential in the genre of cosmic horror, but why Cthulhu? He isn't that notable in the proper mythos and shows up personally in all of one story, but "Call of Cthulhu" and Cthulhu in general is used as a term to describe everything from Lovecraft-adjecent works, to his entire mythology, to random video and tabletop games revolving around either Lovecraft's general mythos or the fucking Shadow Over Innsmouth, which doesn't even have anything to do with Cthulhu, just Dagon. Even in his own story he comes off as a chump and gets owned and re-sealed by a boat hitting him. If all it takes to keep him sealed away is to just hit him with something every time he wakes up, he serves zero threat whatsoever even if you can't really kill him.

I don't get it. Is it just because he has a cool design? Cthulhu isn't very interesting in the story either and doesn't even really carry the tropes of insanity and forbidden insight and shit that people associate with his iconography when they constantly cast him as the "villain" of any vague eldritch horror themed work. Why didn't Nyarlathotep get that kind of fame and respect instead? Not only is he much cooler in how he acts and far more mysterious and interesting, but he appears frequently in various stories and I also actively interact with humanity as a way of furthering sinister plans that mankind fundamentally will never understand by their very nature.

I just don't get why out of everything, Cthulhu caught on so hard.

soooo i just ended lovecraft full antalogy and i feel empty, do you guys know an author or maybe book with same vibes

>>12987330
what would Cthulhu do

>>11138829
The Call of Cthulhu

How should I start with the Lovecraft sagas?