Cthulhu Mythos: Time to Debunk one of the Greatest Myths in Versus Debating

[Kepekley23]

Azathoth's feats don't stand up to the Supreme Archetype's description.

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

Been horrendously busy, and realized I never posted my thoughts on anything beyond the Yog-Sothoth = Supreme Archetype thing.

I will try to post my thoughts on the interaction between these higher entities and what should happen in regards to tiers, when I can.

 

[Antvasima]

@Azathoth

Thank you for helping out.

 

[PsychicCipher]

Well, as I have seen, some say Azzy and Yog have never been heard together. The Lurker of the Threshold says otherwise:

"(T)hose daring to oppose the Elder Gods who ruled from Betelgueze, the Great Old Ones who fought against the Elder Gods...were instructed by Azathoth, who is the blind idiot god, and by Yog-Sothoth ... (Y)e blind idiot, ye noxious Azathoth shal arise from ye middle of ye World where all is Chaos & Destruction where He hath bubbl'd and blasphem'd at Ye centre which is of All Things, which is to say Infinity...."

 

[The_King_of_Prudence]

That makes them sound like rivals.

 

[Hykuu]

Isn't that EU?

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

Lurker is by Derleth, based on fragmentary pieces of writing Lovecraft left behind, and was published 8 years after HPL died. Because it is more heavily steeped in Derleth's version of the mythos, which is contradictory to pretty much everyone else's (including Lovecraft's source material), we don't use it. At best we can say it is one of the incomplete perspectives put upon these entities by lesser beings, which Lovecraft himself stated to be a common thing amongst many races.

 

[Planck69]

So, what were the conclusions on Azathoth?

 

[DarkGrath]

Please stop derailing with jokes.

 

[Antvasima]

Help to get this revision finished would be very appreciated.

 

[The_King_of_Prudence]

What can I do?

 

[Antvasima]

I do not know. We preferably need help from FanofRPGs and Azathoth, but they do not seem to have the time available right now.

 

[Roachman40]

I agree with the revision

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

@Ant

Removing the objectively false information isn't too difficult. However, if the revisions include the Azathoth vs Yog-Sothoth stuff, then I guess I'll finally weigh in on that, now that I have a little bit of time. I'll try to keep this relatively short. I apologize if it is rather structureless.

As I said before, a lot in the Mythos is left up to interpretation, and I would not fault anyone for personally viewing Yog as the supreme being (I sometimes like to when taking TtGotSK in a vacuum), but I believe there is some stuff that must be set straight when it comes to making a unifying hierarchy for the Mythos and why most people put Azathoth at the top. It's not like it just started from complete misinformation and was perpetuated only by hearsay.

I have seen some people say that Yog seems more impressive, which I can sort of agree with, but the problem here is that it is based on two vastly different things. Of course the description of Yog (and by extension, the Archetypes) is more "impressive"; it is a major plot point of an entire short story in which Lovecraft spends numerous paragraphs describing the structure of existence and the flawed nature of perspective. Azathoth, by comparison, only appears "in person" within a 14-line poem, as the book he (likely) would have appeared in was scrapped, and possibly recyled into The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. Obviously Yog-Sothoth's description would be far meatier. This does not nullify the fact that something we are told less about can be deemed superior to something we have greater information on if we are simply told it is so.

It is also worth noting that, even within the confines of that short poem, Azathoth is portrayed as something remarkably important; the source of the fundamental laws of each cosmos. It is not like he is totally featless without WoG, or lacks any sort of grand cosmic importance.

"Here the vast Lord of All in darkness muttered

Things he had dreamed but could not understand,

While near him shapeless bat-things flopped and fluttered

In idiot vortices that ray-streams fanned.

They danced insanely to the high, thin whining

Of a cracked flute clutched in a monstrous paw,

Whence flow the aimless waves whose chance combining

Gives each frail cosmos its eternal law." - Fungi from Yuggoth, XXII. Azathoth

Speaking of which, multiple times in-universe, he is referred to as some kind of boundless entity who rules over everything. While we know human knowledge of these beings is incomplete, it may not be entirely wrong. Such knowledge comes from the same source that states Yog-Sothoth to be one with all time and space. Though fractional, the Necronomicon suggests Azathoth to be > Yog-Sothoth, so Lovecraft's choice of Azathoth as the source of all in his "family tree" didn't come from nowhere.

• "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." - The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

• "There were suggestions of the vague, twilight abysses, and of still vaster, blacker abysses beyond them—abysses in which all fixed suggestions of form were absent. 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." - The Dreams in the Witch House

• "Gilman wondered, too, whether he could trust his instinct to take him back to the right part of space. How could he be sure he would not land on that green-litten hillside of a far planet, on the tessellated terrace above the city of tentacled monsters somewhere beyond the galaxy, or in the spiral black vortices of that ultimate void of Chaos wherein reigns the mindless daemon-sultan Azathoth?" - The Dreams in the Witch House

• "Before his eyes a kaleidoscopic range of phantasmal images played, all of them dissolving at intervals into the picture of a vast, unplumbed abyss of night wherein whirled suns and worlds of an even profounder blackness. 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." - The Haunter of the Dark

Now, I think it's important to mention that some people wish to ignore the Family Tree. While fine for personal reasons, I don't think this works very well when trying to make a unified Mythos. For starters, it is the only time in canon Yog and Azzy are mentioned together. It is the only direct comparison we have between the two, with a slightly less than direct comparison in the Necronomicon. People have mentioned that it is a joke. Yes, the joke is that Lovecraft's Welsh ancestor is a descendant of eldritch monstrosities, as is the ancestor of HPL's friend, Clark Ashton Smith. The joke is at the very bottom. There is nothing to support "Azathoth being at the top" as part of the joke, as it is a sentiment that actually goes along with the little we know about it. One could not argue that Lovecraft had not yet finalized his idea of Yog-Sothoth either, as both dates I could find for the family tree letter come from after Through the Gates of the Silver Key was written.

The OP attempts to use another joke letter about Yog-Sothoth to cast doubt upon the family tree letter, but I think in doing this, missed much of what made the Yog-Sothoth letter a joke. It is an amusing story in which an outer god is compared to a dog, which can be seen through the comparions made within the letter. Hence part of the reason specifically to use the term "pedigree" when responding to a question on Yog's family. After all, a dog can't really be purebred if it was not bred. Despite this, the joke letter actually contradicts Yog itself more than it contradicts its relation to Azathoth.

• "Has Yog-Sothoth a pedigree? No. He has always existed."

Correct. This is true of every archetype/other god. Because time and perspective are lies of limited beings. "Time, the waves went on, is motionless, and without beginning or end. That it has motion, and is the cause of change, is an illusion. Indeed, it is itself really an illusion, for except to the narrow sight of beings in limited dimensions there are no such things as past, present, and future. Men think of time only because of what they call change, yet that too is illusion. All that was, and is, and is to be, exists simultaneously."

• "Since he has no parents, I've never met 'em."

Correct. He does not have parents. Even if Azathoth > Yog-Sothoth on the family tree, Yog does not have "parents".

• "He isn't housebroken, so I generally try to chain him outside. When he sends forth a pseudopodic tentacle (which can pass through the most solid walls) and begins to grope around inside the house, I usually call his attention to something going on in another galaxy——just to get his mind off local things. Yog doesn't always have long, ropy arms, since he assumes a variety of shapes——solid, liquid, and gaseous——at will. Possibly, though, he's fondest of the form which does have 'em. I've never encouraged him to scratch my back, since those whom Yog-Sothoth touches are never seen again...at least, in any recognizable shape."

The rest of this paragraph contradicts absolutely everything about the actual nature of Yog-Sothoth that we know about from the Mythos, making it clear just how much more of a joke this letter is than, say, the family tree. Even if we assume that only the first few sentences are legitimate and the rest are jokes, said sentences can be directly validated in universe without changing Yog's position in relation to Azathoth. I also think it's kind of weird to say that because this letter is jokey and contradictory, and that some letters are jokier and more contradictory than others, we can't trust Lovecraft in his letters period. It's not that hard to distinguish which part of something is meant to be a clear joke or have no merit, and not every letter Lovecraft ever wrote was as comical as the Yog-Sothoth one.

Despite going on and on about this, I believe that in general, varying views of the Mythos are good. The problem is that we are trying to give these entities a clearly defined tier and position, so we must use what we know. In regards to the relationship between Yog-Sothoth and Azathoth, we know:

1. They never appear together/have any interaction in any of the Mythos stories we consider canon.

2. We are given exponentially more information about Yog-Sothoth.

3. Despite this, Azathoth is repeatedly suggested to be higher by the (albeit fractional) Necronomicon.

4. The single piece of information about their relationship we have from the author himself places Azathoth higher.

With this considered, I believe it is generally safer to consider Azathoth the top being of the Mythos, with Yog an extremely close second. If one wants to create a version of the Mythos with Yog at the top using only what we consider canon, it would genuinely be easier and safer to remove Azathoth entirely than place him somewhere arbitrarily below Yog, despite the limited information we have on him giving him higher standing. I would, of course, prefer the former.

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

This next comment was originally going to be part of the original, but I feel it's better off as its own distinct thing.

While my previous comment focused on what we could know and what was heavily implied, I'd like to also throw together a quick comment on why one could use intent and themes to argue for Azathoth's position, as well. Of course, that is not quite as close to what this site is focused on, and I do not expect this comment to be taken nearly as seriously by those who do not care about potential narrative undertones, but I thought it would be interesting, nonetheless.

As many may know, the term "Cthulhu Mythos" didn't come about until after HPL died. Lovecraft himself often humorously referred to his tales as "Yog-Sothothery", and sometimes simply "Yog-Sothoth". All things considered, this is quite fitting for Yog-Sothoth's position as something allied with the unbound sweep of existence.

In a letter to Frank Belknap Long, Lovecraft admitted that "Yog-Sothoth" was not serious literature, while simultaneously defending its creation in comparison to reliance on existing mythology.

• "I really agree that Yog-Sothoth is a basically immature conception, & unfitted for really serious literature. The fact is, I have never approached serious literature yet. But I consider the use of actual folk-myths as even more childish than the use of new artificial myths, since in the former one is forced to retain many blatant peurilities & contradictions of experienced which could be subtilised or smoothed over if the supernaturalism were modelled to order for the given case."

He immediately followed it with what he believed the purpose of Yog-Sothothery to be.

• "The only permanently artistic use of Yog-Sothothery, I think, is in symbolic or associative phantasy of the frankly poetic type; in which fixed dream-patterns of the natural organism are given an embodiment & crystallisation... But there is another phase of cosmic phantasy (which may or may not include frank Yog-Sothothery) whose foundations appear to me as better grounded than those of ordinary oneiroscopy; personal limitations regarding the sense of outsideness. I refer to the aesthetic crystallisation of that burning & inextinguishable feeling of mixed wonder & oppression which the sensitive imagination experiences upon scaling itself & its restrictions against the vast & provocative abyss of the unknown. This has always been the chief emotion in my psychology; & whilst it obviously figures less in the psychology of the majority, it is clearly a well-defined & permanent factor from which very few sensitive persons are wholly free.... Reason as we may, we cannot destroy a normal perception of the highly limited & fragmentary nature of our visible world of perception & experience as scaled against the outside abyss of unthinkable galaxies & unplumbed dimensions—an abyss wherein our solar system is the merest dot..."

Dream-patterns given form. Our limited perception against an unthinkable abyss we do not understand. Those are Lovecraft's tales. That's Yog-Sothoth(ery).

How fitting then for Azathoth, the being placed at the top of Lovecraft's loose hierarchy, to be the dreamer.

"Out in the mindless void the daemon bore me,

Past the bright clusters of dimensioned space,

Till neither time nor matter stretched before me,

But only Chaos, without form or place.

Here the vast Lord of All in darkness muttered

Things he had dreamed but could not understand,

While near him shapeless bat-things flopped and fluttered

In idiot vortices that ray-streams fanned.

They danced insanely to the high, thin whining

Of a cracked flute clutched in a monstrous paw,

Whence flow the aimless waves whose chance combining

Gives each frail cosmos its eternal law.

"I am His Messenger," the daemon said,

As in contempt he struck his Master's head." - Fungi from Yuggoth, XXII. Azathoth

Yog-Sothoth is Lovecraft's stories; the boundless expanse of dreams and unplumbed experience reaching beyond that which we can hold within the confines of our fragile worldview.

Of course, then, Azathoth's meaning is expanded upon. He is not just Lovecraft's view of an uncaring creator of a cosmos we could never hope to grasp, but a creator who is, in some small but noteworthy way, like us. Us "very few sensitive persons who are wholly free". A dreamer of things vast and majestic, which he either cannot fully understand, or simply cares not to. The ultimate dreamer in a world governed by such fanciful things.

This is far from the only interpretation, but I figured I'd share it to show that even from a philosophical perspective, Azathoth is not randomly just slapped at the top. Also, it was kind of fun.

 

[ArkhamDC06]

Ok, i'm not really as knowledegable about the Mythos and Lovecraft's work as most people here...but i can say this is good. VERY good. And the last part is a very good interpretation of Azzy's role i think. Granted i have not such an extensive knowledge but still.

 

[Antvasima]

I think that Azathoth (the bureaucrat) makes perfect sense here, and that we should keep Azathoth (the entity) above Yog-Sothoth.

I would greatly appreciate if he could write an official Cthulhu Mythos Explanation Page for us, regarding the reasons for its tiering here, preferably in collaboration with FanofRPGs.

 

[DarkGrath]

I'm more inclined to believe that Azathoth (the entity) is correct here, and that Azathoth (the bureaucrat) should be above Yog-Sothoth.

Jokes aside, I would like to hear Fan's response, but I am leaning towards agreeing with Azzy here. The second comment is... eh, like, at least some mild supporting stuff. But I agree with his points overall, and it should be noted that trying to tier these characters properly is almost an absurd task (considering things like their depictions intentionally being beyond human comprehension + no direct comparisons). Azzy's point on this is probably about as close as we can get.

 

[Antvasima]

Yes. Agreed.

 

[The_King_of_Prudence]

By the way, the joke with the family tree is that his ancestry was a mistake.

 

[ArkhamDC06]

DarkGrath Lovecraf's work being that nebulous and not exactly based on logic or tiering (even if there is a logic there) is consistent with what we know about the author's view of life and men so yeah.

 

[Kepekley23]

No offense, but I still think putting Azathoth above Yog-Sothoth requires mostly unbacked speculation as opposed to solid feats or descriptions.

 

[Genericstickman]

Having Azathoth as the supreme god seems like the type of thing Lovecraft would do, making the god of everything a complete idiot that sleeps

 

[EmperorRorepmeThree]

I agree with Azathoth and Dark.

 

[Agnaa]

Though fractional, the Necronomicon suggests Azathoth to be > Yog-Sothoth, so Lovecraft's choice of Azathoth as the source of all in his "family tree" didn't come from nowhere.

How do those quotes even suggest that Azathoth is > Supreme Archetype? Also, those quotes aren't even from the Necronomicon.

I don't really follow the point you were trying to make with them, and without this crucial information, only having the family tree to back up Azzy > SA isn't enough for me.

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

@Agnaa

"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."

Then you have the "ancient legends" of The Haunter of the Dark, which come from the protagonist reading the Necronomicon and other such dark tomes.

The reason most people know about Azathoth, just like Yog-Sothoth, is because of the Necronomicon. The exact same Necronomicon which refers to Yog-Sothoth as containing past, present, and future refers to Azathoth as the being who "rules all time and space" and as "Lord of All Things".

Again, the Necronomicon is fractional, but suggests Azathoth to be at the top, which Lovecraft did, as well.

The issue with putting Yog-Sothoth somewhere above him is that it is not backed by any actual statements in-universe (Azathoth is never mentioned in TtGotSK) nor author statements (the single comparative thing we have between them from Lovecraft places Azathoth higher).

If this is more an issue about "none of these quotes mention the Supreme Archetype", I will again mention that the Supreme Archetype is Yog-Sothoth; every name used to refer to the same creature in TtGotSK is written in all caps. "YOG-SOTHOTH", "BEING", "ENTITY", "PRESENCE", "SUPREME ARCHETYPE", etc.

 

[Kepekley23]

This is false.

> If this is more an issue about "none of these quotes mention the Supreme Archetype", I will again mention that the Supreme Archetype is Yog-Sothoth; every name used to refer to the same creature in TtGotSK is written in all caps. "YOG-SOTHOTH", "BEING", "ENTITY", "PRESENCE", "SUPREME ARCHETYPE", etc.

• 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.

The text makes it explicitly clear that Yog-Sothoth, aka the BEING/Carter's archetype, is itself naught but a facet of the Supreme Archetype.

This is not meant as an offense, but it really seems as if your entire argument is almost entirely centered around your personal interpretation of the extremely vague lines we do have for Azathoth, and then attempting to apply those quotes/finding a common ground with Lovecraft's wider cosmology and authorial intent, and not solid evidence.

 

[Agnaa]

Doesn't this quote show that BEING is a derivation of SUPREME ARCHETYPE?

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.

I'm pretty sure there's other quotes that back up this separation.

More than anything, this would more suggest SUPREME ARCHETYPE > Azathoth > Yog.

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

Kep, Carter's Archetype is the Supreme Archetype. That is why its name is in all caps. The BEING and SUPREME ARCHETYPE are the same thing. It literally says Carter himself has his glutless zeal because he is derived from the SUPREME ARCHETYPE. The BEING is not Carter's beyond the Gate fragment. The BEING is the thing informing Carter's beyond the Gate fragment.

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

@Agnaa

I think you are misreading that paragraph without the context of the greater story.

 

[Agnaa]

@Agnaa

I think you are misreading that paragraph without the context of the greater story.

Upon rereading, I think I am, yeah.

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

@Agnaa

You are mixing up Carter and Carter's Archetype.

The Carter who still thinks of himself as Carter beyond the Gate is referred to as stuff such as "Carter's beyond the Gate fragment". He is still, in some way, Carter. Carter's Archetype is YOG-SOTHOTH/BEING/SUPREME ARCHETYPE. It is why it is referred to the same way, and why the story mentions that Carter is derived from it.

Edit: I'm too slow.

 

[EmperorRorepmeThree]

Is there an explicit distinction made between the SUPREME ARCHETYPE and Yog-Sothoth? I was under the impression that "Yog-Sothoth" was just one of the names given to it. SUPEREME ARCHETYPE is simply another.

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

Is there an explicit distinction made between the SUPREME ARCHETYPE and Yog-Sothoth? I was under the impression that "Yog-Sothoth" was just one of the names given to it. SUPEREME ARCHETYPE is simply another.

They are the same thing, but the Necronomicon description of Yog-Sothoth is incomplete due to its nature. YOG-SOTHOTH (all caps) is just one of the many titles TtGotSK uses to refer to something without a name.

The Mythos does this, a lot. The entity known as Azathoth is not actually called Azathoth. The name Nyarlathotep is just the name of the true "Nyarlathotep's" avatar. Nothing at that scale actually has a name. They're all just so we can hopelessly try to define them.

 

[Kepekley23]

> Kep, Carter's Archetype is the Supreme Archetype. That is why its name is in all caps

Seems as if it's not. The text calls Carter's archetype, the BEING, the chief among "normal" archetypes, and then describes that as derived from the SUPREME ARCHETYPE.

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

> Kep, Carter's Archetype is the Supreme Archetype. That is why its name is in all caps

Seems as if it's quite clearly not. The text calls Carter's archetype, the BEING, the chief among "normal" archetypes, and then describes that as derived from the SUPREME ARCHETYPE.

No, that is blatantly untrue. The text calls Carter's Archetype many things. YOG-SOTHOTH. ENTITY. BEING. PRESENCE. Every single one is in all caps to denote that it is the same thing being referred to under many names. Immediately after telling us that the BEING is Carter's Archetype, we are told Carter is derived from the SUPREME ARCHETYPE. The BEING is the SUPREME ARCHETYPE. The only way this paragraph would suggest they aren't the same thing is if the rest of the story didn't exist.

It even says Carter is the one derived from the SUPREME ARCHETYPE, not the BEING.

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

Just gonna dump some quotes to show that I'm not talking out of my ass. Everything is from Through the Gates of the Silver Key, obviously.

First, some mention of how Carter's beyond the Gate fragment and the entity he's speaking to are separate things. While the being his fragment is speaking to is "part of himself", it is a different entity that is also "coexistent with all time and coterminous with all space".

• "Then, in the midst of these devastating reflections, Carter's beyond-the-gate fragment was hurled from what had seemed the nadir of horror to black, clutching pits of a horror still more profound. This time it was largely external—a force or personality which at once confronted and surrounded and pervaded him, and which in addition to its local presence, seemed also to be a part of himself, and likewise to be coexistent with all time and coterminous with all space. There was no visual image, yet the sense of entity and the awful concept of combined localism, identity, and infinity lent a paralysing terror beyond anything which any Carter-fragment had hitherto deemed capable of existing."

Immediately after, we get Carter's continued description of the entity, in which he refers to it by the name he knows; YOG-SOTHOTH. Note the caps.

• "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."

Carter, realizing how fractional the idea of such a thing is in comparison to its full scale, refers to it by another title. Caps are kept to denote that it is the same thing.

• "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."

It gets its third and fourth titles, both still in caps.

• ""Randolph Carter," IT seemed to say, "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.""

BEING is used, again.

• "A sudden shutting-off of the waves left Carter in a chilling and awesome silence full of the spirit of desolation. On every hand pressed the illimitable vastness of the void, yet the seeker knew that the BEING was still there."

Another use of BEING, and a use of MIND, which fits, as Carter notes the thing does not seem to have distinct physical presence, and his interaction with it is like that with some kind of disembodied force.

• "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."

The term PRESENCE is used to describe the same thing, and Carter's beyond the Gate fragment is once again specified to be the thing talking to the entity, not the entity itself. He is just one of infinite Carter fragments.

• "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."

Further separation between facets that can be identified as "Carter" and the BEING itself.

• "Anxious for clearer knowledge, he sent out waves of thought, asking more of the exact relationship between his various facets—the fragment now beyond the Ultimate Gate, the fragment still on the quasi-hexagonal pedestal beyond the First Gate, the boy of 1883, the man of 1928, the various ancestral beings who had formed his heritage and the bulwark of his ego, and the nameless denizens of the other aeons and other worlds which that first hideous flash of ultimate perception had identified with him. Slowly the waves of the BEING surged out in reply, trying to make plain what was almost beyond the reach of an earthly mind."

Finally, we reach the paragraph being disccused. In context, this is simply clarifying that the BEING Carter has been speaking to has been his own Archetype. The reason Carter and those like him have such zeal and thirst for knowledge is because they are derived from the SUPREME ARCHETYPE, which is just a new title given to the same entity (alongside IT).

• "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."

The very next sentence, Carter honors the ENTITY, now knowing he is derived from it. Said ENTITY being the SUPREME ARCHETYPE. They are clearly the same thing, with Carter immediately using one of the terms he's already been using to identify it.

• "Almost stunned with awe, and with a kind of terrifying delight, Randolph Carter's consciousness did homage to that transcendent ENTITY from which it was derived."

After this, Carter returns to calling the thing ENTITY/BEING/PRESENCE. SUPREME ARCHETYPE was used simply because Carter realized that his own Archetype was "Chief among such", as before that paragraph, he had no idea the ENTITY was the one from which he was cut.

 

[Antvasima]

I still think that Azathoth makes sense.

 

[Matthew_Schroeder]

Same.

 

[KingPin0422]

One thing I have noticed is that, within two separate works by Lovecraft, two eerily similar statements are made:

They danced insanely to the high, thin whining Of a cracked flute clutched in a monstrous paw, Whence flow the aimless waves whose chance combining Gives each frail cosmos its eternal law.
	~ Fungi from Yuggoth​

And beyond all else he glimpsed an infinite gulf of darkness, where solid and semi-solid forms were known only by their windy stirrings, and cloudy patterns of force seemed to superimpose order on chaos and hold forth a key to all the paradoxes and arcana of the worlds we know.
	~ The Haunter of the Dark​

Hmm... could this mean anything?