Morality in the Cthulhu Mythos

We’re back and we’re in a moral quandary. It’s fair to say that the gods and monsters of the Mythos are beyond human comprehension. The problem is that we are human (or at least that’s our story) but we still need to find ways to write and talk about morality in the Cthulhu Mythos. Is our only option to talk about the ineffable from a human perspective? Or do we get meta and accept that the Mythos is a human invention and any moral opacity is of our own creation? Ultimately, we’ll probably just argue a lot and go off on tangents. That’s served us well enough for the last nine years.

Main Topic: Morality in the Cthulhu Mythos

We’re continuing last episode’s discussion of morality. This time, we’re looking at the role of morality in the Cthulhu Mythos. Do the entities of the Mythos follow any kind of morality we can comprehend? How do we best use antagonists who exist outside our concepts of good and evil? And do they always have to be antagonists anyway?

Links

Things we mention in this episode include:

* Morality in RPGs* “The Call of Cthulhu” by HP Lovecraft* Mythos Deities: Cthulhu* Quatermass and the Pit (1967)* Event Horizon (1997)* “The Dunwich Horror” by HP Lovecraft* Kult* The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by HP Lovecraft* Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys* The Private Life of Elder Things by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Keris McDonald and Adam Gauntlett* At the Mountains of Madness by HP Lovecraft

* “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” by HP Lovecraft* The Two-Headed Serpent* All Flesh Must Be Eaten* Dawn of the Dead (1978)* “The Hounds of Tindalos” by Frank Belknap Long* Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)* “A Warning to the Curious” by MR James* Mythos Deities: Nodens*