Despite not having a lot of time, I figured I'd comment on this again because I think the whole discussion is interesting due to the varied interpretations that can be taken from the mythos.
First of all, I'd like to talk about the quotes that people are saying suggest Yog is a different being entirely from the Supreme Archetype, and not just people looking at an incomplete view of it.
The quote from
Ubbo-Sathla mentions that "Yok-Zothoth" came "from the stars", which puts him more in line with a Great Old One (as described in stories such as
Call of Cthulhu) than an Archetype/Other God. This feels directly contradictory to the description we're given in
The Dunwich Horror, which pins him as being distinctly more abstract, even in comparison to the Old Ones described in said story.
- "Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. He knows where They have trod earth's fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread." - The Dunwich Horror
Additionally, near the end of the same story, Armitage says the following:
- "It has been split up into what it was originally made of, and can never exist again. It was an impossibility in a normal world. Only the least fraction was really matter in any sense we know. It was like its father—and most of it has gone back to him in some vague realm or dimension outside our material universe; some vague abyss out of which only the most accursed rites of human blasphemy could ever have called him for a moment on the hills." - The Dunwich Horror
Everything we're told in this story about "Yog-Sothoth" is just a lesser, incomplete description of the Supreme Archetype. But the purpose is much the same. The "key and guardian of the gate" line seems like a pretty direct reference to the fact that the being's manifestation, the Ancient Ones, guard the Ultimate Gate, while the Supreme Archetype is allied with the entirety of existence on every level, just as the quote says "
Past present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth." There is no other "Yog-Sothoth" that fulfills these purposes in Lovecraft's writing; the quotes from
The Dunwich Horror just refer to the Supreme Archetype and its manifestations, but fail to grasp the full scale of the entity.
- "The Affair that shambleth about in the night, the Evil that defieth the Elder Sign, the Herd that stand watch at the secret portal each tomb is known to have, and that thrive on that which groweth out of the tenants within—all these Blacknesses are lesser than HE Who guardeth the Gateway; HE Who will guide the rash one beyond all the worlds into the Abyss of unnamable Devourers. For HE is'UMR AT-TAWIL, the Most Ancient One, which the scribe rendereth as THE PROLONGED OF LIFE." - Through the Gates of the Silver Key
- "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." - Through the Gates of the Silver Key
As for the quote that refers to Yog-Sothoth as "
only a congeries of iridescent globes", I would like to once more point out these quotes about the Ancient Ones, who are a manifestation of the Supreme Archetype.
- "It was a large sphere or apparent sphere of some obscurely iridescent metal, and as the Guide put it forward a low, pervasive half-impression of sound began to rise and fall in intervals which seemed to be rhythmic even though they followed no rhythm of earth. There was a suggestion of chanting—or what human imagination might interpret as chanting. Presently the quasi-sphere began to grow luminous, and as it gleamed up into a cold, pulsating light of unassignable colour Carter saw that its flickerings conformed to the alien rhythm of the chant. Then all the mitred, sceptre-bearing Shapes on the pedestals commenced a slight, curious swaying in the same inexplicable rhythm, while nimbuses of unclassifiable light—resembling that of the quasi-sphere—played round their shrouded heads." - Through the Gates of the Silver Key
- "Despite his intimations of body, he had no audible breath; and the glow of 'Umr at-Tawil's quasi-sphere had grown petrifiedly fixed and unpulsating. A potent nimbus, brighter than those which had played round the heads of the Shapes, blazed frozenly over the shrouded skull of the terrible Guide." - Through the Gates of the Silver Key
Carter then compares speaking to the Supreme Archetype as a more intense version of this experience.
- "And now the BEING was addressing the Carter-facet in prodigious waves that smote and burned and thundered—a concentration of energy that blasted its recipient with well-nigh unendurable violence, and that followed, with certain definite variations, the singular unearthly rhythm which had marked the chanting and swaying of the Ancient Ones, and the flickering of the monstrous lights, in that baffling region beyond the First Gate." - Through the Gates of the Silver Key
Finally, I'd like to remind people that Carter believes that the ENTITY is the thing he's heard whispered of as Yog-Sothoth, and that is has had many other names, just that the conceptions limited beings have of it are all fractional and incomplete. He does not suggest these conceptions are all separate entities. The Ancient Ones, who
are an actual manifestation of the thing, are not included in the list, and are later confirmed to be extensions of itself by the Supreme Archetype.
- "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." - Through the Gates of the Silver Key
- "MY manifestations on your planet's extension, the Ancient Ones, have sent you as one who would lately have returned to small lands of dream which he had lost, yet who with greater freedom has risen to greater and nobler desires and curiosities." - Through the Gates of the Silver Key
While I don't believe it is out of the question for someone to believe Yog-Sothoth is different from the Supreme Archetype due to the nature of the Mythos, I do not believe the text itself supports this. Two of the three quotes being used as evidence are just incomplete descriptions of the Ancient Ones and Supreme Archetype, while another does not even call the being "Yog-Sothoth", is vague, and contradicts even the fractional interpretation from
The Dunwich Horror if taken at face value. We should likely treat Yog-Sothoth and the Supreme Archetype as the same, with the latter being the "more correct" title in-universe, while the former is the more widely known moniker.
I have more to say on the topic as a whole, but this comment was already getting too long.
