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Introduction
Cthulhu Mythos will stand out as one of the most prominent fictional works in regarding of Multiversal Debates on the internet, having a defined reputation as being one of the strongest verses ranted on this wiki and in general media. The problem when analyzing its feats, statements, etc, comes with the fact that Howard Phillips Lovecraft himself is noted to write complex horror tales that, while contribute to showing the scope and size of his works, are often filled with elements that require a large amount of time to actually understand and apply in Fictional Discussions. Fortunely, on this wiki, we have a stablished Explanation Page for those who want to check its high rantings based on the Tiering System page.
In this thread, however, I will point out what I think it's wrong in said Explanation Page, based on interpretation issues, and mostly not involving any issue with the Tiering System page itself. Do note that, since this thread is about a literature piece of fiction, I will not post links (a.k.a scans) that lead to Imgur or any other image hosting server. All the information cited on this thread is taken out from The H.P. Lovecraft Archive (mostly in specific the Electronic Texts section), which anyone can read online without problems. The citations will be quoted below from Lovecraft's works. Without further ado, let's begin.
Universe, "Multiverse" and the Gates
Before anything, I would like to mention a regular idea when people generally scale the size of a certain cosmology based on the aforementioned Tiering System page: Hierarchy. The idea of hierarchies lies in the fact that certain fictional cosmologies only properly get their Tiers because there is a hierarchy within said cosmologies, and in some cases, Composite Hierarchies that play a major role in getting a verse's ranting. Cthulhu Mythos is no different from that, after all, the reason because the verse has a Tier 0 ranting is because of the existence of a High 1-A structure to be transcended by it; the High 1-A structure exists because there is a 1-A+ hierarchy to be in turn transcended; and said hierarchy only exists because there is in the first place a High 1-B hierarchy. With that said, taking away a single hierarchy from all the scheme above would lead to a big downfall in both rantings and cosmological aspects. Those things in specific are what I'm going to elaborate.
For starters, in the Explanation Page we got seven quotes talking about the Universe/Multiverse, with only three of them fitting in the justification for High 1-B and Low 1-A respectively:
#1:
I have said that there were things in some of Akeley’s letters—especially the second and most voluminous one—which I would not dare to quote or even form into words on paper. This hesitancy applies with still greater force to the things I heard whispered that evening in the darkened room among the lonely haunted hills. Of the extent of the cosmic horrors unfolded by that raucous voice I cannot even hint. He had known hideous things before, but what he had learned since making his pact with the Outside Things was almost too much for sanity to bear. Even now I absolutely refuse to believe what he implied about the constitution of ultimate infinity, the juxtaposition of dimensions, and the frightful position of our known cosmos of space and time in the unending chain of linked cosmos-atoms which makes up the immediate super-cosmos of curves, angles, and material and semi-material electronic organisation.
#2:
The waves surged forth again, and Carter knew that the BEING had heard. And now there poured from that limitless MIND a flood of knowledge and explanation which opened new vistas to the seeker, and prepared him for such a grasp of the cosmos as he had never hoped to possess. He was told how childish and limited is the notion of a tri-dimensional world, and what an infinity of directions there are besides the known directions of up-down, forward-backward, right-left. He was shewn the smallness and tinsel emptiness of the little gods of earth, with their petty, human interests and connexions—their hatreds, rages, loves, and vanities; their craving for praise and sacrifice, and their demands for faith contrary to reason and Nature.
#3:
Then the waves increased in strength, and sought to improve his understanding, reconciling him to the multiform entity of which his present fragment was an infinitesimal part. They told him that every figure of space is but the result of the intersection by a plane of some corresponding figure of one more dimension—as a square is cut from a cube or a circle from a sphere. The cube and sphere, of three dimensions, are thus cut from corresponding forms of four dimensions that men know only through guesses and dreams; and these in turn are cut from forms of five dimensions, and so on up to the dizzy and reachless heights of archetypal infinity. The world of men and of the gods of men is merely an infinitesimal phase of an infinitesimal thing—the three-dimensional phase of that small wholeness reached by the First Gate, where ’Umr at-Tawil dictates dreams to the Ancient Ones. Though men hail it as reality and brand thoughts of its many-dimensioned original as unreality, it is in truth the very opposite. That which we call substance and reality is shadow and illusion, and that which we call shadow and illusion is substance and reality.
The problem here is pretty straightfoward: None of those quotes are actually referring to the regular universes or the "multiverse". Those quotes have a full context that is not actually mentioned directly through the page, but due to Deductive Reasoning it can be asserted that the missing context invalidates the entire premisse right from the start.
The quote of Yog-Sothoth showing the Infinite-Dimensional nature of the cosmos to Carter is not referring to a regular universe, but rather what can be perceived beyond the First Gate, which is outside the standard tri-dimensional world and constitutes a region of dimensions beyond those conceivable to the eye and brain of man (i.e beyond three-dimensional space):
While most of the impressions translated themselves to Carter as words, there were others to which other senses gave interpretation. Perhaps with eyes and perhaps with imagination he perceived that he was in a region of dimensions beyond those conceivable to the eye and brain of man. He saw now, in the brooding shadows of that which had been first a vortex of power and then an illimitable void, a sweep of creation that dizzied his senses. From some inconceivable vantage-point he looked upon prodigious forms whose multiple extensions transcended any conception of being, size, and boundaries which his mind had hitherto been able to hold, despite a lifetime of cryptical study. He began to understand dimly why there could exist at the same time the little boy Randolph Carter in the Arkham farmhouse in 1883, the misty form on the vaguely hexagonal pillar beyond the First Gate, the fragment now facing the PRESENCE in the limitless abyss, and all the other “Carters” his fancy or perception envisaged.
Note that this quote is right below the paragraph used to prove that regular universes are Infinite-Dimensional, when, in fact, the word "cosmos" in this case is taking about regions beyond the universe as a whole, beyond the First Gate. Furthermore, the #3 quote actually confirms exactly that, because it is said that the three-dimensional world of men and of the gods of men is an infinitesimal portion whose totality is reached by the First Gate. Instead of proving the universes being High 1-B, the quote itself negates that idea by asserting that all of the 3-D space only reaches the First Gate. Not only that, but the text right before also supports that. Here:
Then the waves increased in strength, and sought to improve his understanding, reconciling him to the multiform entity of which his present fragment was an infinitesimal part. They told him that every figure of space is but the result of the intersection by a plane of some corresponding figure of one more dimension—as a square is cut from a cube or a circle from a sphere. The cube and sphere, of three dimensions, are thus cut from corresponding forms of four dimensions that men know only through guesses and dreams; and these in turn are cut from forms of five dimensions, and so on up to the dizzy and reachless heights of archetypal infinity.
Basically, it is explained through finite dimensional values how a structure can possess three, four and five dimensions, respectively, until reaching the unattainable heights of the archetypal infinity; which demonstrates that the totality of the archetypal infinite is simply Infinite-Dimensional and that all its manifestations are Finite-Dimensional. Those manifestations, or archetypes, being on the low-dimensioned worlds/gates, in the Ultimate Abyss:
The archetypes, throbbed the waves, are the people of the ultimate abyss—formless, ineffable, and guessed at only by rare dreamers on the low-dimensioned worlds. Chief among such was this informing BEING itself . . . which indeed was Carter’s own archetype. The glutless zeal of Carter and all his forbears for forbidden cosmic secrets was a natural result of derivation from the SUPREME ARCHETYPE. On every world all great wizards, all great thinkers, all great artists, are facets of IT.
That's not all, the manifestations are noted to be Finite-Dimensional, being aspects of one archetypal and eternal being in the space outside dimensions:
All descended lines of beings of the finite dimensions, continued the waves, and all stages of growth in each one of these beings, are merely manifestations of one archetypal and eternal being in the space outside dimensions. Each local being—son, father, grandfather, and so on—and each stage of individual being—infant, child, boy, young man, old man—is merely one of the infinite phases of that same archetypal and eternal being, caused by a variation in the angle of the consciousness-plane which cuts it.
In regards of what Lovecraft treat as a Universe or "Multiverse", based on quotes above, he literally writes it as a concept that only reaches the First Gate, which is were Yog Sothoth's avatar dictates dreams to the Ancient Ones. It only encompass the three-dimensional world, as anything above that is also beyond the First Gate, seen on how Carter was in a region of dimensions beyond those conceivable to the eye and brain of man which is directly cited to be beyond the First Gate.
Of course, there is a infinite hierarchy, but the first "layer" of said hierarchy it's not High 1-B. The hierarchy begins in a three-dimensional world (reached by the First Gate) and goes until the Ultimate Gate which is the reachless heights of archetypal infinity:
Randolph Carter’s advance through that Cyclopean bulk of abnormal masonry was like a dizzy precipitation through the measureless gulfs between the stars. From a great distance he felt triumphant, godlike surges of deadly sweetness, and after that the rustling of great wings, and impressions of sound like the chirpings and murmurings of objects unknown on earth or in the solar system. Glancing backward, he saw not one gate alone, but a multiplicity of gates, at some of which clamoured Forms he strove not to remember.
And then, suddenly, he felt a greater terror than that which any of the Forms could give—a terror from which he could not flee because it was connected with himself. Even the First Gateway had taken something of stability from him, leaving him uncertain about his bodily form and about his relationship to the mistily defined objects around him, but it had not disturbed his sense of unity. He had still been Randolph Carter, a fixed point in the dimensional seething. Now, beyond the Ultimate Gateway, he realised in a moment of consuming fright that he was not one person, but many persons.
He was in many places at the same time. On earth, on October 7, 1883, a little boy named Randolph Carter was leaving the Snake-Den in the hushed evening light and running down the rocky slope and through the twisted-boughed orchard toward his Uncle Christopher’s house in the hills beyond Arkham—yet at that same moment, which was also somehow in the earthly year of 1928, a vague shadow not less Randolph Carter was sitting on a pedestal among the Ancient Ones in earth’s trans-dimensional extension. Here, too, was a third Randolph Carter in the unknown and formless cosmic abyss beyond the Ultimate Gate. And elsewhere, in a chaos of scenes whose infinite multiplicity and monstrous diversity brought him close to the brink of madness, were a limitless confusion of beings which he knew were as much himself as the local manifestation now beyond the Ultimate Gate.
Summary
With that said, I consider the interpretation of each Universe being High 1-B flat out wrong, as the quotes used to prove it are actually referring to the hierarchy of gates and only in the very end of it the High 1-B ranting shows up, as anything before that is a manifestation in a finite dimension. The #1 quote in the previous section directly states that the cosmos is linked to a chain that in the end constitutes the "ultimate infinity", which is pretty much the Ultimate Gate/Last Void outside all universes:
By the time the rite was over Carter knew that he was in no region whose place could be told by earth’s geographers, and in no age whose date history could fix. For the nature of what was happening was not wholly unfamiliar to him. There were hints of it in the cryptical Pnakotic fragments, and a whole chapter in the forbidden Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred had taken on significance when he had deciphered the designs graven on the Silver Key. A gate had been unlocked—not indeed the Ultimate Gate, but one leading from earth and time to that extension of earth which is outside time, and from which in turn the Ultimate Gate leads fearsomely and perilously to the Last Void which is outside all earths, all universes, and all matter.
TL;DR
The 1-A+ ranting falls to High 1-B (the quotes used are the same hierarchy), the High 1-A ranting falls to Low 1-A and the Tier 0 ranting falls to 1-A, because by lacking a hierarchy in their lowest structure (The Universe), the entire scaling chain is reduced to only one hierarchy providing Finite-Dimensional rantings for its manifestations while the totality of infinity is High 1-B.
Bonus
As stated in the Explanation Page, the Ultimate Void is High 1-A, while here it is being converted into Low 1-A. However, as I stated on this thread, the Ultimate Void is the top of the hierarchy of gates whose totality (archetypal infinity) is High 1-B. Then why I don't consider it to be transcendent over said hierarchy? Well, because is not.
According to the page, The Ultimate Void exists beyond the Dreamlands, a hierarchy of "limitless vacua" and "endless voids" of pure dreams, and for that it should be above the hierarchy. However, the quotes themselves only provide actual proof of it being unreachable to said dreams because, directly speaking, those dreams/layers are finite within the hierarchy. It does not matter how much of them you stack up, they will not reach infinity itself (the "top" of the hierarchy), which is why the text speaks of Azathoth as being at the centre of the infinite, not actually above it:
There were, in such voyages, incalculable local dangers; as well as that shocking final peril which gibbers unmentionably outside the ordered universe, where no dreams reach; that last amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the centre of all infinity—the boundless daemon-sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin, monotonous whine of accursed flutes; to which detestable pounding and piping dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic ultimate gods, the blind, voiceless, tenebrous, mindless Other Gods whose soul and messenger is the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep.
That's why it is called "genuine infinity" in the first place. We know due to Through the Gates of the Silver Key that Carter's self was annihilated just from "seeing" Yog Sothoth's True Self, which is described as beyond the Ultimate Gate, which in turn is described (as showed previously) to be outside all (finite-dimensional) universes:
He knew that there had been a Randolph Carter of Boston, yet could not be sure whether he—the fragment or facet of an earthly entity beyond the Ultimate Gate—had been that one or some other. His self had been annihilated; and yet he—if indeed there could, in view of that utter nullity of individual existence, be such a thing as he—was equally aware of being in some inconceivable way a legion of selves. It was as though his body had been suddenly transformed into one of those many-limbed and many-headed effigies sculptured in Indian temples, and he contemplated the aggregation in a bewildered attempt to discern which was the original and which the additions—if indeed (supremely monstrous thought) there were any original as distinguished from other embodiments.
In the face of that awful wonder, the quasi-Carter forgot the horror of destroyed individuality. 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—yet in a flash the Carter-facet realised how slight and fractional all these conceptions are.
Which would suggest that the only thing above the reachless heights of the archetypal infinity is the Supreme Archetype itself.
The Actual TL;DR
Universe/First Gate: Low 2-C
Hierarchy of Gates: Low 1-C to 1-B
Ultimate Gate/Abyss/Last Void: High 1-B
The Supreme Archetype: Low 1-A