Cthulhu Mythos definitely feels as close as we can get to a modern mythology with pantheons and such in today's secular world. Corporate owned media is too structured and self aware, they can't even adapt existing myths or epics well usually (or I'm just bitter about my favorite specific figures never being done well). I know someone who argues it's more of an 'anti mythology' since most mythology infuses the world with meaning while the Mythos is generally known for life being meaningless but I feel you'd disagree.
Of my very limited experience I find Hastur one of the most mythical feeling Lovecraftian figures to me (though I believe Lovecraft himself had nothing to do with the development of Hastur) due to how completely different Hastur in Haita the Shepherd is from the later King in Yellow depictions, which lines up with my own experiences of looking into mythical figures and finding vastly different versions within mythology. Like The Eddas vs Gesta Danorum.
I find the idea of writing something that feels like a myth fascinating precisely because a perfect replication is impossible, so it comes down to what part of your experience with it you choose to focus on. My approach has been to write myths framed as being from another world entirely and trying to leave enough blank space and unexplained/unelaborated references for people to imagine a wider corpus it's part of. Or to have footnotes from an imagined translator to mime my own experience reading the sagas and such.
I'm actually considering having my own depiction of Hastur in one of my fantasy settings as a nod to Haita the Shepherd, since it's a short story very relevant to one of my current projects. And because I want to engage with the mythos in my own small way.
I think that Lovecraft's cosmicist philosophy gets confused with nihilism (though he definitely expressed some feelings of the latter in his personal life). In my opinion, it's more that the universe is filled with life and concepts that are difficult for the human mind to hold or to reach. Space to us is impossibly vast and we can't really predict what we might run into (if anything at all) or what might have tread there before we ever will.
The King in Yellow has such a rich mythology; I really enjoyed Chambers' collection as many of the stories were content to let the eldritch elements remain in the background while it demonstrated what happens to humans when they come into contact with it. The HBO series "True Detective" did justice to the King in Yellow (and the mythos as a whole) by sticking to a similar route. I actually plan on discussing the series in another post this month.
That is a great way to look at it. For all intents and purposes, Earth's own myths could be considered alien to us from a time, space, and cultural perspective. We're so removed from these stories as readers (or audience-members in general) that most of our theories are simply guess-work rather than hard fact. Tolkien likely had a similar approach when writing Middle Earth.
It's hard to resist giving a nod to Lovecraft especially when writing in weirder fiction. Though, as iconic as his own inventions are, Hastur is a bit subtler especially when drawing off Chambers' or Bierce's interpretations.
Tolkien was what inspired me to go for the approach, reading an article on the metafiction aspect of his writing made me appreciate it enough to try my own take on something similar. I've even toyed with having it that character names aren't the original language names and having footnotes explaining what the original meant, similar to how Tolkien had it that the Hobbits had different names in their own language.
One of the things I love about reading the Norse Myths, in many forms, is trying to take them seriously and to speculate about how they might be interpreted as more than stories.
For example, we know from reading many of the stories that Odin is as much a trickster as Loki is and that being a trickster is often viewed as a moral good. After all, being predictable in battle is foolish. This led me to wonder if Odin's invitation of the Volva to recite the Voluspa in the court was a deception of a kind. Not that there wouldn't be a war between the Gods and Giants, but that by having a public tale stating that the Giants would win no matter the time frame that Odin might be allowing himself to stock up enough to win. Additionally, the visions could be lies regarding the betrayals. After all, why not just kill the betrayers now?
Of course not killing the betrayers and accepting inevitable doom instead is also a vital part of the Norse myths, so maybe that's the lesson.
Since Odin's name does mean "mad one" it does make sense he would do some baffling or paradoxical things in order to ensure his success. Jackson Crawford has also talked about how mythology has a "dream logic" where characters will do things that wouldn't make sense in real life but happen because they need to for the sake of the story. He also likened it to "railroading" in D&D where the DM (as a storyteller) wants to ensure a specific scene or encounter happens because he thinks it would make for a better story regardless of what his players might think
Cthulhu Mythos definitely feels as close as we can get to a modern mythology with pantheons and such in today's secular world. Corporate owned media is too structured and self aware, they can't even adapt existing myths or epics well usually (or I'm just bitter about my favorite specific figures never being done well). I know someone who argues it's more of an 'anti mythology' since most mythology infuses the world with meaning while the Mythos is generally known for life being meaningless but I feel you'd disagree.
Of my very limited experience I find Hastur one of the most mythical feeling Lovecraftian figures to me (though I believe Lovecraft himself had nothing to do with the development of Hastur) due to how completely different Hastur in Haita the Shepherd is from the later King in Yellow depictions, which lines up with my own experiences of looking into mythical figures and finding vastly different versions within mythology. Like The Eddas vs Gesta Danorum.
I find the idea of writing something that feels like a myth fascinating precisely because a perfect replication is impossible, so it comes down to what part of your experience with it you choose to focus on. My approach has been to write myths framed as being from another world entirely and trying to leave enough blank space and unexplained/unelaborated references for people to imagine a wider corpus it's part of. Or to have footnotes from an imagined translator to mime my own experience reading the sagas and such.
I'm actually considering having my own depiction of Hastur in one of my fantasy settings as a nod to Haita the Shepherd, since it's a short story very relevant to one of my current projects. And because I want to engage with the mythos in my own small way.
I think that Lovecraft's cosmicist philosophy gets confused with nihilism (though he definitely expressed some feelings of the latter in his personal life). In my opinion, it's more that the universe is filled with life and concepts that are difficult for the human mind to hold or to reach. Space to us is impossibly vast and we can't really predict what we might run into (if anything at all) or what might have tread there before we ever will.
The King in Yellow has such a rich mythology; I really enjoyed Chambers' collection as many of the stories were content to let the eldritch elements remain in the background while it demonstrated what happens to humans when they come into contact with it. The HBO series "True Detective" did justice to the King in Yellow (and the mythos as a whole) by sticking to a similar route. I actually plan on discussing the series in another post this month.
That is a great way to look at it. For all intents and purposes, Earth's own myths could be considered alien to us from a time, space, and cultural perspective. We're so removed from these stories as readers (or audience-members in general) that most of our theories are simply guess-work rather than hard fact. Tolkien likely had a similar approach when writing Middle Earth.
It's hard to resist giving a nod to Lovecraft especially when writing in weirder fiction. Though, as iconic as his own inventions are, Hastur is a bit subtler especially when drawing off Chambers' or Bierce's interpretations.
Tolkien was what inspired me to go for the approach, reading an article on the metafiction aspect of his writing made me appreciate it enough to try my own take on something similar. I've even toyed with having it that character names aren't the original language names and having footnotes explaining what the original meant, similar to how Tolkien had it that the Hobbits had different names in their own language.
One of the things I love about reading the Norse Myths, in many forms, is trying to take them seriously and to speculate about how they might be interpreted as more than stories.
For example, we know from reading many of the stories that Odin is as much a trickster as Loki is and that being a trickster is often viewed as a moral good. After all, being predictable in battle is foolish. This led me to wonder if Odin's invitation of the Volva to recite the Voluspa in the court was a deception of a kind. Not that there wouldn't be a war between the Gods and Giants, but that by having a public tale stating that the Giants would win no matter the time frame that Odin might be allowing himself to stock up enough to win. Additionally, the visions could be lies regarding the betrayals. After all, why not just kill the betrayers now?
Of course not killing the betrayers and accepting inevitable doom instead is also a vital part of the Norse myths, so maybe that's the lesson.
Since Odin's name does mean "mad one" it does make sense he would do some baffling or paradoxical things in order to ensure his success. Jackson Crawford has also talked about how mythology has a "dream logic" where characters will do things that wouldn't make sense in real life but happen because they need to for the sake of the story. He also likened it to "railroading" in D&D where the DM (as a storyteller) wants to ensure a specific scene or encounter happens because he thinks it would make for a better story regardless of what his players might think