/lit/ - Literature

>>20000081
Cont.
They are chaos incarnate, and the only being capable of translating and enacting their impossibly insane will is their "soul" and "messenger" Nyarlathotep (who is never explicitly stated to be their "mind" as well). Another reason for their strange and seemingly contradicting descriptions is that these beings are above the concepts of "thinking", "reason" and "logic" anyway. Because Ultimate Chaos. This leads into the second point of the strange usage of the word "idiot". This one is interesting and is usually ascribed to Azathoth. It could be interpreted in a number of ways, but I think that its usage is related, again, to the ideas of Chaos, which is what Azathoth and the Other Gods are all about.
>"It was the eldritch scurrying of those fiend-born rats, always questing for new horrors, and determined to lead me on even unto those grinning caverns of earth‘s centre where Nyarlathotep, the mad faceless god, howls blindly to the piping of two amorphous idiot flute players." - The Rats in the Walls
>"He thought of the ancient legends of Ultimate Chaos, at whose centre sprawls the blind idiot god Azathoth, Lord of All Things, encircled by his flopping horde of mindless and amorphous dancers, and lulled by the thin monotonous piping of a daemoniac flute held in nameless paws" - Haunter of the Dark
>"Then, crushing what he chanced to mould in play, The idiot Chaos blew Earth’s dust away." - Fungi from Yuggoth XXI
>"While near him shapeless bat-things flopped and fluttered In idiot vortices that ray-streams fanned." - Fungi from Yuggoth XXII
It seems this word is used as another description of the Ultimate Chaos, Azathoth and its inhabitants in general - a reinforcement of the nonsensical, chaotic, incomprehensibly otherness of their dark domain. Another interpretation I've heard is the meaning of "idiot" itself, which might also have a more archaic meaning - uncaring, ignorant of others and separate from the whole. This interpretation definitely could fit in well. My third point is regarding what Azathoth itself is and what his role is. Many often peddle the notion that Azathoth is constantly asleep and if he wakes the whole universe ceases to be. This is a interpretation made by later authors and the RPG game from Chaosium, and not necessarily by Lovecraft himself, although it does contain some ounce of truth. Azathoth is described as the central nuclear Chaos, the boundless Daemon Sultan who rules all time and space from his black throne at the centre of infinity. The idea of him sleeping comes from two quotes: "...Here the vast Lord of All in darkness muttered Things he had dreamed but could not understand" - Fungi From Yuggoth XXII
>"..., and lulled by the thin monotonous piping of a daemoniac flute held in nameless paws." - Haunter of the Dark

From this, it could definitely be seen that Azathoth's in a in dormant state, muttering incomprehensible dreams he "cannot understand" (this, I think, is a poetic way of saying he is the source of Chaos and generates the laws of existence). However, he is also stated to "bubble and blaspheme", "gibber" (mutter), "rule all of time and space" and be "ravenous" and "gnaw hungrily". All very vague terms like the rest of the descriptions given to him and his Other Gods, some of which seemingly contradict eachother. When contradictions arise, its important to remember one thing: Azathoth is innately chaotic, nonsensical and contradictory as such as he is unbound by such concepts. Azathoth serves as the be-all and end-all of the Mythos, above everything, completely unapproachable and unknowable, completely alien and above any notion of reason, thought, logic etc. And everything that is known about this entity may be a mask to hide a even more terrifying truth: "... I started with loathing when told of the monstrous nuclear chaos beyond angled space which the Necronomicon had mercifully cloaked under the name of Azathoth." Funny how even the accursed Necronomicon can act as a tool of mercy for far more sinister and blasphemous truths.
Concerning the realm/dimension/reality that these beings inhabit. The story Through the Gates of the Silver Key goes into a in-depth exploration through the cosmology, but was also only partially written by Lovecraft, and has many of E Hoffman Price's ideas and philosophy interwoven throughout it, so I'll stick to pure-Lovecraft penned stories. The Ultimate Void of Chaos, as it is commonly called, is the place that these unfathomable entities reside in. It is also described as "the Ultimate Void of Blackness, the spiral black vortices of Ultimate Chaos", the "mindless Void" etc. This realm is seemingly above and outside all of the rest of Lovecraft's cosmology, outside the Dreamlands, outside "time", past the "bright clusters of dimensioned space". It seems to transcend even the concept of dimensions, which can be seen in "The Dreams in the Witch House":

>>20000099
>" He had been taken there by the bubble-congeries and the little polyhedron which always dogged him; but they, like himself, had changed to wisps of milky, barely luminous mist in this farther void of ultimate blackness. Something else had gone on ahead—a larger wisp which now and then condensed into nameless approximations of form—and he thought that their progress had not been in a straight line, but rather along the alien curves and spirals of some ethereal vortex which obeyed laws unknown to the physics and mathematics of any conceivable cosmos. Eventually there had been a hint of vast, leaping shadows, of a monstrous, half-acoustic pulsing, and of the thin, monotonous piping of an unseen flute—but that was all. Gilman decided he had picked up that last conception from what he had read in the Necronomicon about the mindless entity Azathoth, which rules all time and space from a curiously environed black throne at the centre of Chaos."Out of all the location in the mythos, the final and most terrifying peril is the this Ultimate Chaos, unbound by all laws, above all logic, a true "infinity" that exists outside Cantorian cardinality, and residing therein the unfathomable, terrifying, nameless blasphemies that are the Other Gods, dancing, fluting and drumming mindlessly and insanely around the ultimate black throne of Azathoth, and whose soul and messenger is the Crawling Chaos Nyarlathotep.

>>20000081
Not reading because I haven't finished many stories yet and I don't want any spoilers, but keep up the effortposting man.

>>20000081
>If they are "mindless" as in "unintelligent", how can they be in such a lofty position?
https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2000/09/28/189608.htm

Intelligence is overrated.

>>20000132
I think what Lovecraft is insinuating is less about "intelligence" per se, but more to do with the fact that any human logic or reasoning is unable to ascribe anything to these entities that make any sort of ordered sense.

>>20000121
Nothing here is really plot-centric to the stories, more background stuff i'm autistically analysing.