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An ant doesn’t start babbling when they see a circuit board. They find it strange, to them it is a landscape of strange angles and humming monoliths. They may be scared, but that is not madness. Madness comes when the ant, for a moment, can see as a human does. It understands those markings are words, symbols with meaning, like a pheromone but infinitely more complex. It can travel unimaginable distances, to lands unlike anything it has seen before. It knows of mirth, embarrassment, love, concepts unimaginable before this moment, and then… It’s an ant again. Echoes of things it cannot comprehend swirl around its mind. It cannot make use of this knowledge, but it still remembers. How is it supposed to return to its life? The more the ant saw the harder it is for it to forget. It needs to see it again, understand again. It will do anything to show others, to show itself, nothing else in this tiny world matters. This is madness.
"When my bird was looking at my computer monitor I thought, 'That bird has no idea what he's looking at. ' And yet what does the bird do? Does he panic? No, he can't really panic, he just does the best he can."
I think it's to add to the vibe of guy losing his grip on reality. Unless this comment was just trolling, in that case insert Lovecraft/Cthulhu butt buddy joke here:
@ShadowRulah but... that leads to the babbling... since the ant can't explain those complex subjects to the other ants. It's failure to explain those complex subjects to the other ants makes it seem like it's incoherently babbling.
Also, he gets this gigantic wound, and then heals _instantly._ Imagine if someone rammed something through _your_ head and then you just healed it? Also, the reason why Cthulhu goes away after that isn't because of the boat ramming him, it's because the stars are no longer right.
@@Thunderstonedaking for sure, I've been marking the comments as spam when I see them. As far as I know, that's the only way to really get anything done about them.
The audible version of Shadow out of time is amazing. At the climax of the story the narrator starts to read like he's losing grasp on reality and was one of my top 5 narrations on the platform
Audiobooks get more experimental than i expect, like a warhammer 40k book about Orks has a marrartor get killed by an ork amd the ork takes iver as the narrator
@@alexanderd6793 Quinton Reviews uploaded a 38h long video on April 1st that took two days to upload so it ended up only releasing on April 3rd, however I believe it's now restricted due to copyright but available to members of the channel. It was legit 38 hours of pure content of his dad reviewing the 60s sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies (and Petticoat Junction), took me a week to fully watch it and it was definitely a once in a life time immersive experience
Generally speaking Mountains of Madness and Color Out of Space are considered sort of tied for his magnum opus among fans and critics. At the very least, Mountains of Madness is his best novella and Color Out of Space is (probably) his best short story. I prefer the former as well though.
The way i interpreted the boat being able to "stop" cthulhu, is that this whole story is the great old one equivalent of standing up in the night still half asleep to pee and hitting ur little toe against something.
I learned about Cthulhu in one of the most Lovecraftian ways possible. I was working for an oilfield pipe manufacturer at the Port of Catoosa, OK. I was in the pipe yard watching the flatbed train cars go by. Naturally they were covered in graffiti. One stood out to me. It was a picture of Cthulhu, and underneath someone had wrote "All hail dread lord Cthulhu." I'd never heard of Lovecraft or Cthulhu before, but that lived in my head for months. I finally looked it up about a year later and discovered the stories. I have a complete collection of H.P. Lovecraft on my shelf now. LOL What's weird to me is that I couldn't forget it. It was so weirdly compelling that I remembered it even a year later. I can still recall exactly what it looked like. That was almost 10 years ago. So weird.
please do more cthulhu mythos videos. i browse on youtube to find lore on the great old ones but there’s really not anything that i’m looking for. and hearing the events of this story being retold rather than actually reading or listening to the book paints a clearer picture in my brain. please continue to do more of these with other lovecraft stories
Today was the day of my daughter's 8th birthday. I was going to a local pizza shop to pick up the food for the party, and the guy cashing me out saw my Wendigoon cryptid shirt. He said nice shirt and for a fellow Wendigoon fan, I'll give you a discount! Hopefully he sees this comment. Thanks again man!
I think the point of the statue was that the squid-headed gargoyle shape Cthulhu is so often depicted as was merely the closest approximation of what those who know and dream of him think he looks like. In the end of the book Cthulhu's actual form is still vaguely described as this looming, ever-shifting mass of formless stuff and stretching tendrils.
@@SaraphDarklawsomeone tried to shit on him because he's friends with people like donut operator and that group only to find out that Wendigoon is loved by pretty much everyone and even though he's one of the nicest people ever his group of friends won't just sit by while some random ass dude starts talking hella shit
@SaraphDarklaw it's a long story. There are plenty of TH-camr's who commented on the situation, though. Essentially, a dude made a pseudo-hitpiece on Wendigoon, and a LOT of other TH-camrs tangentially related to or friends of Wendigoon caught strays. They dude "apologized" but was also being extremely snakey behind the scenes at the same time of his "apology".
Something to keep in mind that a lot of readers often forget: _we aren't even sure that was Cthulhu himself._ Other stories by Lovecraft point out that Cthulhu had an entire civilization worth of kids, and subsequent Cthulhu Mythos fiction has portrayed them in a number of sized, from the size of a grizzly bear to... _that._ There's a non-zero chance what Johannson encountered was merely one of Cthulhu's spawn, and that the stars were not quite right enough, only sufficient to partially raise a small part of R'lyeh to the surface before subsiding. *Which, in turn, implies that the real Cthulhu is bigger and scarier still than the eternally regenerating kaiju Johannson rammed.* Alternatively, as one of my favorite recent Mythos stories put it, the prophecies are partially wrong, in that Cthulhu escaped his prison and just flew away. Literally got hit by a boat and said "Fhtagn this shit, I'm out" and left Earth behind.
It's been a long time since I've read Lovecraft but one thing that always stood out to me from Dreams of Unknown Kadath is that Cthulhu is one of the weakest Elder Gods along with Nyarlothotep (the shape shifter one) Cthulhu is a priest and more of a servant of the Elder Gods like Azle'toth. Dreams of Unknown Kadath is what you want to read if you just want a giant lore dump of the Cthulhu mythos. It's pretty good. I think Azle'toth is the most powerful god and he's a big, fat and lazy being. It's been like 6 or 7 years since I read all the stories though so I might be wrong about some of the stuff. Also the racism is eerhh it's pretty bad lol. But I hate when people say he was a bad writer with some good ideas. I think he was a very talented writer with a lot of fascinating ideas, along with some bad ones.
@@lukaszzylik4437Nyarly could be considered pretty strong since he can travel between planes of existence and take physical form at will IIRC which is why he serves as messenger but Cthulhu is one of the weaker ones
Not scary or interesting. All of HP love crafts writings are anti-climatic and the vagueness is a cop out for actual story writing. I'm shocked people call this a horror genre. It reads more like a bad anime
The whole "holding a mic in front of a green screen" thing is done by so many other youtubers it has become a really boring cliche. I really liked the previous setup. All the personality of what you keep in your room and have in view of the camera is infinitely more interesting than whatever is on the green screen.
I agree, if he perfers the look of this that's great, but if he's doing it for viewing purposes he shouldn't. I also like the more natural lived in back drop more aswell
i got here as fast as i could. its a shame wendigoon clawed his eyes out when he was sleep, then woke up and wrote 300 pages of some forgotten language that he didnt speak, then was lifted into the air and was killed by the squid-like tentacles that came out of this air and strangled him, all while he was laughing about something. truly a bizarre world we live in.
@GeneralMisanthropyUTTP I want you look back on this in 10 or so years, by then you should be in your 20s. After you've made a different account, since this one will be forever stained with your spam. I want you to look back on this, and think "why did I spend my time doing this?". Just look back, think on it. Think on why you commented this, why you were such an asshole for no reason.
I think it's not them beating Cthulhu...it's more like he's just groggy from sleeping for a long time, the boat is just the equivalent of "waking up and then going back to sleep after seeing that it's only 3 AM"
Lovecraft heroes, much like Lovecraft himself, are never really the hero. They just kinda do things in fits of madness or pass out. I kind of appreciate that in his work. No true heroes. Except maybe The Dunwich Horror.
Chtuluh is not a physical being, the boat merely dissipated a vision of him like a rock thrown in a puddle breaks the reflection... Only for it to reform instantly because Chtuluh is a multidimensional entity.
@@pnda13 Also a great point. It's possible that what came out of the city was merely a finger of C'thulhu. Gave him a mild 3 dimensional ouchie and retracted his hand.
its a retelling of a retelling of a sole ship survivor who wrote it in his pre death note. there is a reason the story is told in this manner. Can you believe some rando sailor to understand what he saw or did?
Wendigoon PLEASE make ur setup like it used to be. i liked it when it seemed like some dude who lived alone in the woods was telling me stories. it was so home-y
I disagree but completely understand the sentiment of nostalgia. I'm proud of our goon, whatever him and his family is able to do I pray is blessed and prosperous. God bless y'all.
At the end of my freshman year of highschool, my advanced English class was given a project called “hummingbirds and rabbit holes”. Basically you had to make a presentation either deep diving into on topic or jumping through a couple. I did a hummingbird project about 1. ADHD 2. Brandon Sanderson’s magic systems and laws of fantasy and 3.Lovecraftian horror. I really enjoyed reading about him and his works.
I imagine it took a lot of work to do that since much of his prejudices were caused by his mental illness/general fear of everything. The poor dude was scared of air conditioning, he was fighting some demons.
One thing I always found fascinating was how the city of R'lyeh was described, particularly how they traversed it going to and running from Cthulhu's resting place and how none of the geometry makes any sense in terms of size or appearance. One part describes how they come across what looks like a flat expanse of stone but trying to walk across it feels more like an exhausting climb up a steep staircase. When they start running back to the boat, not only does the path seem longer, at one point one of the men trips and falls and appears to simply... "fall into" the corner of a block of stone, or something like that. It unnerved me because it happened so quickly that like the narrator, I didn't have time to comprehend what happened in the moment but it stuck with me ever since.
Wow that reminds me of The House of Leaves and how the house is a few inches larger on the inside compared to the outside. Stuff that defies basic mathematics so casually like that terrifies me so much for some reason.
The Backrooms have ruined that moment for me because the first thing I think when that guy falls is him no clipping. Maybe Azathot is an overworked programmer and reality his barely sticking together romhack.
One of the concepts I like the most in cosmic horror is the idea of knowledge being deleterious. Like, literally cursed knowledge that leads one to madness because the human mind can't handle the truth hiding behind our perception of reality. There's that analogy of an ant on top of a circuit board or a CPU, it cannot even begin to comprehend what it does, it can only see the paths, the terminals, it can only feel the heat the chips produce. The genre definitely superseded the "creator", and it's always interesting to see new takes on the topic because ultimately, fear of the unknown is one of the primordial fears we have.
My RPG group tried out the Call of Cthulhu TTRPG, and one guy just couldn't comprehend this concept of more knowledge being bad. My wife and I, who had both read a lot of Lovecraft tried to explain, but it was one of those things where he just couldn't comprehend the idea
I really appreciate you as a creator. You hit every interesting topic I can think of, plus some. I’ve been watching you for some time and I’m proud to see you gain as much praise and love as you deserve. Thank you so very much for the great entertainment.
Professional audio engineer here. If people are demanding you use a specific mic for a situation like this, they don't know what they're talking about. In my experience, lapels are inconsistent and not that reliable. They'll probably work in a situation like this but so will a shotgun mic. In fact, there's a reason film makers use both simultaneously. Lavs can get a stronger signal but can also pick up a lot of rustling of clothes and what not. Shotguns don't but will also pick up more background noise. If you're in an isolated environment (which I would say you are) shotgun on a stand is the better call. But if you prefer the lav, use that. In the end it's a different tool for a different job.
I realize I contradicted myself a bit. While I would use a shotgun over a lav, there isn't really a wrong call was more my point. So people saying the inverse is dumb too
Also in my experience I wouldn't hold a lapel in my hand. Just plant it on your collar. Moving it closer and further constantly changes the reseption quite a bit.
And in the end, because the audio goes through so much shit in the upload process and will be played out of the viewer's dollar store Bluetooth earbuds the small differences in quality won't be felt by most viewers.
You should definitely do one on "At the Mountains of Madness" because it shows that Howard both didn't know what penguins look like but also that he was very afraid of them.
@@lucasvallet4487that’s exactly what they were. From an ancient ocean deep under Antarctica. Where potentially, the last of the Elder Things reside. They weren’t exactly penguins, just an ancient monstrous species unknown to mankind that kinda resemble penguins. Like convergent evolution.
yeahhh i have to agree. there's a lack of softness and feels more... echo-y? but he's new at it! i'm sure he'll get better at playing with sound balancing, working on his room, etc. :)
I mean, it basically did nothing. The supposed wound it caused was healed instantly, and Cthulhu only stops because the stars aren't right anymore. The boat was meaningless and did nothing, which is the part people miss constantly.
I got the Necronomicon on audible to listen to while patrolling the backcountry country as a Wilderness Ranger. I was not into horror, but Lovecraft is such a cultural phenomena that I thought it would be interesting to check out. Anyway, walking around alone in the woods with Lovecraft in one ear is all well and good in the daylight …
I miss the shotgun mic days, that room when ur subscribers were still in the 6 figures (i was there around 150K) that room, that face and that voice got me through some tough times. Completely sparked my obsession w analogue horror and one of the most respectable Christians i know. Keep doing amazing things Wendi
While i think you handled the greenscreen well: it takes away from the "down to earth" feeling you've always had. That feeling of a friend inviting you over to just chat about something they enjoy. That... comfortable feeling was, I'd argue, your greatest strength as a creator in this space. So, yes, while done well: I think it is an overall net negative, and would strongly encourage you to retake what you began with and which quite clearly worked: the... SINCERITY of it all. It was... heartwarming. Put it to you this way: the original 1972 movie version of STALKER was done on a budget of roughly "whatever we have in our pockets and find while filming" but because of excellent heart-felt deep sincerity of all involved, is a million times better than most modern movies with billion dollar budgets. Stay the friendly weird neighbor-friend you've always done. The horror-obsessed Mr. Rogers. It suits you so well. I hope this constructive criticism is indeed what you were asking for!
I agree somewhat but I definitely wouldn't say it's his greatest strength as a creator, I watch wendigoon for in-depth videos on either obscure topics, or topics that have been heavily covered but had key details missing from the other sources that wendigoon always manages to find and convey. The relatable, comfortable style was an added bonus but to call it his greatest strength is kinda insulting to all the work he puts into these videos.
I made a tumblr post about this years ago, but I’ll say it again. I submit that Cthulhu going back into R’lyeh after being struck by a boat is the human equivalent of being 15 mins late to work because there was a wasp outside your door Edit: I meant "Old One equivalent", not "human equivalent". Whoops.
He had to go back because he wasn't even supposed to be outside yet, the stars were only correct for a brief period. So it's more like he woke up at 1 AM, got attacked by a wasp when going outside to check something and then went back to bed
@@hawkticus_history_cornerand you know he's going to be super tired when he has to finally get up later in the morning. The other Great Old Ones are going to be all awake and chipper and Cthulu is going to straggle into the office looking haggard and worn out, making a bee line straight for the coffee pot, and will get some dumb question like "Morning, Cthulu. Rough night?" "You have no idea."
Fun Fact: Lovecraft has references from Conan the Barbarian in some of his stories, because Robert E. Howard and Lovecraft were close friends at the time.
The Conan story "Tower of the Elephant" has Conan climb the tower and he finds an eldritch abomination at the top, who he then helps to get revenge on the sorcerer.
There is also a book (Throne of Bones) which includes the Lovecraft's ghouls. It seems to be a skewed fantasy reality like Conan as well that includes lots of the lovecraft motifs Also the audiobook is read by the narrator of Darkest Dungeon
And vice versa: since it's set so long ago and has so much occult/pagan stuff already, there's a ton of references to the lovecraft mythos in Hyborian Age stories.
getting unskippable TH-cam ads in the middle of an in-video ad read. And people claim that Cthulhu isn’t actively putting madness in the minds of men to this day
Man, this video was so insanely good i hope wendigoon covers more H.P.L. stories, otherwise I'm gonna have to go on a deepdive for more vids like this somewhere else lol
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far." When I first read that I was hooked. This was the first story from Lovecraft I read, and the first paragraph from him got me to read so much more of his work. Lovecraft was a weird dude (to say the least) but he really was an incredible writer
Especially when he found his own voice and stopped aping Dunsany, Poe and Blackwood. Some of the pieces he ghost wrote later in his life are fantastic as well! A personal guilty pleasure is Cool Air.
"I have frequently wondered if the majority of mankind ever pause to reflect upon the occasionally titanic significance of dreams, and of the obscure world to which they belong." Beyond the Wall of Sleep. I had read others before, but this one sunk its claws in and I have never been the same.
@@A.I.Lovecraft It has such depth and narrative richness I did not expect from Lovecraft given his other works. It remains a favorite for me, in part because of that and also because the works have subtle narrative voice switch that is separate from the Cthulhu Mythos or the more....I am not sure how to phrase it. The ones likes Herbert West, Reanimator that aren't explicitly tapping into either of these avenues.
If I recall correctly, some readers feel that the creature Johansen hit wasn’t actually Cthulhu, but one of the lesser creatures; a star spawn of Cthulhu as to why a simple steamer did the damage it did. It was never proposed seriously, humorously suggested to be a shared head cannon. The more probable explanation from inference that has been discussed over decades, was that probably the stars weren’t aligned properly. A particularly strong dream went out from Cthulhu that kicked off the cultists early (who, let’s face it are all too eager for their deity to arrive in their time; it’s behaviour we’ve seen mirrored in real life fundamentalist religious groups). Cthulhu could not awaken completely because it wasn’t the right time. The door opening brought him forth, but the universal cycle and “magics” meant the Great Old One returned to his death sleep and R’Lyeh sank again. I love your videos and thank you for this one, too.I used to edit a couple of HPL fan magazines and websites. I feel that you are mistaking some of the setting with the author. I don’t feel HPL is hateful of mankind or it’s works. In life, he was a great admirer of science and his Collected Letters show us his love of correspondence and helping developing writers. Cosmic horror is really the notion that the universe is uncaring, humanity is of no consequence to the real “landlords”, and we were created as a mistake. This is what Lovecraft weaves through most of his stories, we are but amoeba before an indifferent universe. It is true, however, that HPL’s major weak spot as an author is characters, so maybe this is why some parts of various of his tales fall flat with certain readers. The Mythos as is was created by HPL and he encouraged his friends to add to it if they wished; most famously Robert E. Howard, of Conan fame, Clark Ashton Smith, Fritz Lieber, and a very young Robert Bloch would go on to author “Psycho” as well as many scripts for Star Trek. Lovecraft, I think, wanted the Great Old Ones, etc. mentioned and used as fragments of a global myth pattern, a hint of a bygone world of terror that humanity has forgotten through its sheer age, used only as much as necessary, or occasionally as an in joke between friends. After his death, August Derleth, another friend and author, tried to systematise the Mythos, tried to link it to Western elemental themes, this would be continued sometime in the 60s-70s by author and editor, Lin Carter. I think they meant well, but it just was not Lovecraft’s intent. He did have major issues in his childhood and a precarious financial situation throughout his life. He enjoyed writing, probably initially as an escape, but happily turned it to the pulps as they paid so bought in money on occasion. I highly recommend Algernon Blackwood, M. R. James, Arthur Machen, Ambrose Bierce and William Hope Hodgson to anyone who reads Lovecraft and enjoys it. The biggest impediment, I fear, is that a lot of their material can be in expensive physical copies; so, check for versions on Kindle, or online at sites like Project Gutenberg. I’ve meandered too long. Great video. Keep up the fantastic work!
Idk the first point are usually people of today who always feel the need to needlessly inflate things. Would definitely add Lord Dunsany to the list as he was one of the main inspirations of Lovecraft.
" I don’t feel HPL is hateful of mankind or it’s works. " unless youre a black man right Here, for example, is his description of a black man: He was a loathsome, gorilla-like thing, with abnormally long arms which I could not help calling fore legs, and a face that conjured up thoughts of unspeakable Congo secrets and tom-tom poundings under an eerie moon. The body must have looked even worse in life-but the world holds many ugly things. Or these lines from the Horror at Red Hook During the raid the police encountered only a passive resistance from the squinting Orientals that swarmed from every door. . Suddenly the leader of the visiting mariners, an Arab with a hatefully negroid mouth, pulled forth a dirty, crumpled paper and handed it to the captain.
everyone keeps forgetting this is retelling of a retelling of a madenned suicidal sailor who wrote it on a note, discovered by a cookie uncle and then read by his nephew. The fact that EVERYONE forgets the story is three layers detached to what actually happened is unreal to me. everyone just goes "yes lets take the suicidal, mad sailor's word for granted" when the entire point of the story ARE the layers of separation and the uncertainty and validity of the entire bloody thing.
Wendigoon please continue lovecraft because the creatures that come later on become way bigger and even more interesting. Creatures that cannot be described that even the thought of it makes a person go crazy please i want you to go further in depth
>Wake up from 1000000 year slumber >Pop your head out the sea to get a feel of the new surroundings (still a bit drowsy tbh) *_>Bonkmp3_* >" Ah fuck it, 5 more centuries then I'll wake up. Not dealing with this bullshit rn "
Something to keep in mind that a lot of readers often forget: _we aren't even sure that was Cthulhu himself._ Other stories by Lovecraft point out that Cthulhu had an entire civilization worth of kids, and subsequent Cthulhu Mythos fiction has portrayed them in a number of sized, from the size of a grizzly bear to... _that._ There's a non-zero chance what Johannson encountered was merely one of Cthulhu's spawn, and that the stars were not quite right enough, only sufficient to partially raise a small part of R'lyeh to the surface before subsiding. *Which, in turn, implies that the real Cthulhu is bigger and scarier still than the eternally regenerating kaiju Johannson rammed.* Alternatively, as one of my favorite recent Mythos stories put it, the prophecies are partially wrong, in that Cthulhu escaped his prison and just flew away. Literally got hit by a boat and said "Fhtagn this shit, I'm out" and left Earth behind.
Cthulhu wasn't stopped by a boat. The boat basically just ran through him like a ghost. It just that the "stars aligned" for only like half an hour. That's the point, you can't run a boat through it, you can't do anything.
That’s just a myth set about by the madness of the unreliable narrator. Cuthulhu’s greatest power is the power to make you *think* he is unstoppable or that all hopeless. He shares a lot with Sauron in that regard.
I like the idea that Cthulhu + The Old Ones being "dead" or "asleep" then "waking up" have less to do with sleep/waking the way humans normally understand it. It's more like they barely even *exist* in our physical plane when they're dormant, and when "the stars align" they regain physical existence in our universe (but in the meantime can interact with it through dreams, etc.)
God I’d KILL to see Wendigoon cover more Lovecraft. Especially The Haunter of the Dark, it’s my favorite Lovecraft story, I’m on my knees BEGGING for more!
Please do more Lovecraft stories! The Call of Cthulhu might be the most famous, but there are so many that are arguably even more deeply fascinating, grim, thoughtful and provoking that I would love you to dive into!
Please just fucking read them instead of waiting for him to explain them to you in the most deadpan voice possible. While Lovecraft himself held remarkably hateful beliefs, his writing seeps with the most artistic flow that calls back to his inspiration and love for Poe's body of work. You will not get the same experience listening to Wendigoon tell it to you. It's the difference between having McLovecraft fries at McLovecrafts, and having McLovecraft fries heated up in the microwave. No disrespect to Wendigoon of course, I just think he's a hack.
@@abreathingcoffin8089 Mate I am saying this as someone who has read 20+ Lovecraft stories. I am a huge fan. It's my hope that Wendigoon's videos will reach those who struggle with Lovecrafts writing style - and may even encourage people to go read more of his stories themselves. I fully encourage everyone to buy some Lovecraft story collections and read for themselves, but Wendigoon exposure wont hurt. Some personal recommendations; - At the Mountains of Madness - The Case of Charles Dexter Ward - Re-Animator - The Hound And of course, all the popular favourites such as Innsmouth, Dagon, and Whisperer in the Darkness. So many more to name, really.
@@abreathingcoffin8089 .........I think the OP commenter HAS read the books. That's why they called them deeply fascinating and thought provoking. And coming to a youtuber's own comment section to call them a hack? What's wrong with you lol
@@abreathingcoffin8089 this person has very obviously read them, otherwise they wouldn't be making this fuckin comment. You dont get to say "no disrespect" when thats literally what your entire comment is including whats said immediately after, thats like "Im not racist, but..."
@@abreathingcoffin8089 lil wannabe literature elite, let people enjoy these summaries. Most people wouldnt even know what the story is about if they didnt watch these kinds of videos. I would have never read shadow over innsmouth if I wasnt interested through these kinds of videos in the first place
As a long time fan now. I'll say I love the evolution. But there's something magical and nice about the little corner room view that makes it feel like a chat. The green screen is a bit overwhelming but I totally understand trying new stuff. Just one random dudes pov. Youre my favorite channel on TH-cam
Once did an audiobook version of this on my "Trunk of Horrors" channel, which doesn't sound all that hard until you get to “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn." Definitely one of the best horror pieces ever written.
A friend of mine has been working on a cult leader dnd character, and JUST started going through Lovecraft for ideas and inspiration. And due to the timing of this upload, he said "THE OUTER GODS CALL FOR ME BY NAME. MY MADNESS WAS MEANT TO BE."
I read this story as a 13 year old. It blew my mind, and I've loved Lovecraft ever since. Somehow the story exuded a creepiness that I had never experienced before. The idea that something could be so utterly alien and life-denying to humanity, but not out of malice or jealousy, like the devil. Just out of complete indifference. It's a force that doesn't challenge, but simply negate all human aspirations and struggles. Like the boot of a hiker crushing two warring ant nests without even noticing, without even having a mind of it's own. And it's so corroding to the human mind that people even further its goals, or just go completely mad when they are exposed to it. It's complete and merciless dissolution.
I love the idea that society as a whole knows exactly where Cthulu will spawn and has a boat ready for him. I like to imagine it’s every couple years like the Olympics and each time a different country is responsible for taking him out in different ways and the whole thing is televised.
@@aidanshea5942 tell everyone who's mad at lovecraft to stop using his work and make their own brilliance. Oh wait, they can't. So they keep using his work while attempting to Criticize. Lovecraft country was a hilarious joke at least.
Lovecraft understood theology better than most theologians today, at least in the sense that the origins of intelligible things are not intelligible. God’s transcendence is not circumscribed by human comprehension, and to think that we can even grasp that unapproachable darkness that surrounds the heavens is the madness of R’lyeh.
I think Lovecraft has this subtle interpretation of the cosmic horror he writes about with how easily they can be taken out with modern weaponry. Another example of this would be from his short story, "From Beyond" in which a machine capable of revealing the existing world around us featuring terrifying monsters that would turn you to ash looking at them was easily shut off from a single gunshot.
That part of the reason I think the '20s are the sweet spot for cosmic horror. If it's set earlier, the inability of the characters to beat the horror can be written off as them being technically primitive. If it's set in the modern day, we have nukes and stuff, so mankind's powerlessness can feel unbelievable unless you're clever. Nuking Cthulhu is like blowing the head off a werewolf. It shouldn't work, but the lizard brain will think it works.
@@zephlodwick1009 what do you mean, the humanity cannot be insignificant in the face of cosmic horrors beyond our comprehension and at the same time able to take them down. It cant work that way.
But, that was just a machine; he didn't destroy the cosmic horrors, he merely blinded himself to them, out of the hope that they wouldn't kill him if he couldn't see them. As for taking out Cthulu, that was only a small roadblock; it was the earthquake that ultimately stopped him.
What about The Whisperer in Darkness, The Shadow out of Time, The Colour out of Space? None of them are like that, and there are many others where that isn’t true at all. And like the other person said, closing your eyes doesn’t destroy what you were looking at
I love how most lovecraft stories start with the main character telling the story as they go mad one last time. That and his use of like 3-4 adjectives for everything to describe how utterly awful, unhinged morbidly grotesque something may be
Just got done with a 3 hour drive, rewatching the serial killer video thinking “man, I’m too early in the week for the Red Thread.” Then, right before I drive another hour, this bad boy drops. Thank you Mr Goon 🎉
I've read a fair few of Lovecraft's work and personally I think the reason a lot of his concepts and ideas became popular, rather than the stories themselves (as the intro was discussing) is because Lovecraft was more of an ideas man than a writer. I think he was someone with a great imagination, who could conjure phenominal ideas, descriptions and themes. But his ability to form a coherant narrative from them was his weakness. I've not really found many of his works, in isolation, to be scary or particularly impactful. But I do love the works of other people who have taken Lovecraft's unique and horrifying ideas and used them to form a better narrative. I think Lovecraft's original work is best used as a worldbuilding or lore piece rather than a traditional 'story'.
Indeed the only reason we have any of Lovecrafts stories at all, is because the writers circle be was in collected and published them and kept adding to the Mythos themselves for decades. And unlike Lovecraft these guys were known and successful authors, like the guy who made Conan the Barbarian. Besides Cthulhu and a few other monsters, most the Mythos we know and is popular is from Lovecrafts writings but his friends decades later. It was never Lovecraft himself, he was so bad at writing and especially the business side of it he spent almost his entire life destitute and a nobody
Agreed; I would put the finer point on it that in many of Lovecraft's stories, his protagonists don't actually DO anything, they just find out things and then run away/go crazy. The principle objections to this stance I've seen are 1) The whole point of Lovecraft's stories is that you CAN'T do anything; or 2) "That's just the way stories were back then." However: 1a) I'm not suggesting the inaction is unfaithful to the premise, just that it isn't very interesting to read about; 1b) Often what the protagonists learn about is other people who at least TRIED to do something, and those are the people who SHOULD have been the protagonists; 2) That point would be valid if true, but it only would have been true if Lovecraft had been ~150 years older. Even praise for Lovecraft's abilities to evoke weirdness are overstated in my opinion. You could undermine half of it if you disallowed the use of the terms "cyclopean" and "non-Euclidean" (the latter of which doesn't even mean what Lovecraft seemed to think it meant). Interesting ideas, poor execution, and I refuse to defend it just because a lot of people think cosmic horror is cool (without, in many cases, having even read the actual stories, as Wendigoon points out).
@@shanecoffey8314 things would be simpler if people would just like a thing without insisting on defending it. We can like flawed things, I enjoy Lovecraft even though narratively and technically sucks, because the ideas are neat and sometimes it lands
@@Rynewulf That's completely fair. I've always been of the idea that preference isn't always linked to the belief that a thing is objectively "good." People like what they like, but too often cross the line to insisting that I MUST like it, too.
@@shanecoffey8314 Yeah I think that might be a bit of the ol' anonymous internet syndrome. Face to face most people wouldnt expect everyone else to like a thing or get it, or get upset that other people disagree, but online everyone must enjoy all things in the same way to the same amount.
I really loved how Pilgrim Pass pointed out Cosmic Horror is simply theophobia, the realization that, even under our current scientific understanding of things, nothing bars the existence of potentially hostile superhuman entities beyond our understanding. Incidentally technology, while often related to human science can also be read simply as "the tools and methods to achieve something", in other words Clarke's Third Law can be applied to gods too.
Hey wendi, sound guy for my church here, the lapel works approximately 2 buttons down on a button up shirt, or the collar on a regular shirt, however beards do tend to Scratch at the collar, great video as always
@@astrid1660 it sounds good on mobile. I see what you mean, though. The older mic seemed more clear. The new mic sounds like it is higher quality, but it may need some touchup in its software.
Hey Wendigoon, I just wanted to let you know I've been watching you for a long time. I grew up christian but always thought it was so stupid as I grew up. I couldn't believe people actually believed something like that and thought they were all dumb. But watching some of your videos, especially the most underrated book of the bible video, really opened me up to the idea. I've always held you in very high regard and seen you as an intellectual so it threw my worldview of Christianity. Ever since you made that video God has been slowly trickling into my life. I am so greatful for you and what you do, and just wanted to thank you!
Same thing, though I often felt like Christians were prudes about entertainment and what we could like, but Wendigoon has opened my eyes to so many interesting horror stories and weird history, as well as being a nerd interested in Bible Stuff When I first saw his Biblical Theory iceberg, i thought he was an Atheist. Lo and behold, I was proven wrong. I hope that he and his wife are doing well and have a great year!
@@goobadoobYeah. I like Isaiah a lot, and he's definitely not dumb by any means! but I can totally see why he would look like a genius compared to most other TH-cam personalities😂😂
@jakeheye4931 Yep, my best friend is a devoted follower of Jesus, but she is so anti church it isn't even funny. You'd think she was an atheist, like you said, but much like Wendigoon she was an educated Christian who was very secure in her faith, and those people come off as not religious weirdly enough even tho their faith is probably the strongest. Just a thing I noticed about really passionately religious folks, it's cool.
Cthulhu wasn't meant to awaken yet and that's why the Alert crew wanted them to change course, they proceeded towards Rlyeh because they were short on supplies and a boat so they though the pirates had a base nearby or would be able to signal another passing ship for rescue. I recommend the Gou Tanabe manga version because it's easy to get confused among so many flashbacks and he makes the battle look badass.
even-though a boat being able to take out Cthulhu doesn't make the most sense, I think the action of fighting back against is why i enjoyed it. Imagine, the rest of your crew has gone mad, and you just unleashed an unstoppable force. Instead of giving up, they chose to fight back, even if survival wasn't realistic. I think this defiance in the face of true horror, is a reflection of humanity.
Hey Wendigoon, the video was great! The lapel mic however, sounds a little sharp and low quality to my ears. The mic you used for your typical voiceovers sounds much warmer and delightful, and typically in your scenario, a good quality shotgun mic works best. Lapels work fine, but usually are used for onstage speeches or presentations, not really prerecorded videos that are based heavily on voice work. Again, great video!
I mean, Lovecraft *was* racist. But towards like almost everyone who wasn't proper and British enough. Dude was a weeb, just for Ye Olde England. He wasn't just xenophobic, he was practically a panphobic near shut in. Raised by his eccentric mother after his father was basically committed to an asylum after likely contracting contacting syphiliactic insanity, left with mostly only his grandfather's old outdated books to understand the outside world. No way was he going to just turn out "normal". But people in current year always want to harp on about him being racist, as if that's the end all be all of the man and his personality. Today he for sure would have been the equivalent of the terminally online weird quiet homeschooled kid that spends most of his time on 4chan.
Great video and looking sharp! As horror enthusiasts, it's hard to avoid the influence of Lovecraft on our genre. Whether directly inspired by him or by someone influenced by his eldritch style, his impact is undeniable. Although his works can be challenging to read and fully absorb, I recommend starting with "The Dunwich Horror." It's my favorite and much easier to unpack than most of his other stories.
I think a point to address with Lovecraft's racism isn't just that he was a wannabe-Anglo dude from the 1930s, but he was also extremely mentally ill, seemingly scared of anything that didn't fit into his status of normalcy. I won't say this makes it okay, but it does make it a bit less worse. Viewing him as merely a product of his time is reductive, as he was truly a product of an awful life, giving him issues we perhaps can't fully understand having.
I'm fairly certain most of the stories in The King in Yellow cross over with one another, and I'd love to see him break down the timeline and who's connected, because, honestly, I'm too lazy to go back through every story myself.
@@b.a.m.4135 that would be pretty useful. I’ve read the entire Robert W Chambers book, and I had a hard time connecting everything. Granted, I didn’t really spend that much time studying it to put things together, but it would still be fascinating to know how all of the stories are connected. The first story’s literally a madman/unreliable narrator that commits murder thinking he’s some sort of eldritch royalty, and the last story boils down to a freshman in college eloping with a lady of the night.
@Bragituba the only two I remember are that the best freind in the second story is the same guy that made the statues at the sewer slide machine in New York in the first story, and I think it's implied that the painter in the forth story lost his wife to the bombings in the student district that happens in one of the later stories.
When I opened the vid I got so excited that I showed my normal, functioning member of society sister “look he’s wearing a suit!!!!” Vid looks amazing. It’s so great to see how far you’ve come!!!!
The concept of the Cthulhu Cycle is one of the most important ideas of modern horror. "The Thing" at least pays sideways homages to At The Mountains of Madness. The monster is very Lovecraftian in concept and the idea of aliens being found in the ice of Antarctica is there.
I have a hard time sitting down to read a full story because of my ADHD. And I'll often wind up reading the same sentence over and over in an attempt fully understand or absorb what's being said. Especially if it's an older book with words I've never heard. So I haven't completely finished a novel since I was maybe 18. I'm 24 now. This sort of format is a dream come true for me. You read and fully explain what's being said. And I've always wanted to get more into Lovecraft stuff so this was a perfect video. Thank you. Please please please do more. TLDR: my brain don't like books or big words. Video is good and make brain happy. Do more like this.
hello! fellow adhd-haver! sometimes i can read books (through hyperfocus) but not aoften, so usually i rely on audiobooks. what i do is get my phone out and a really dump app with a forefer maze or smth - just any neverending game to stim with, if the phone idea is bad then a regular stim toy. earbuds in and then enjoy! : ) i also liked 'reading' lovecrafti this way
I've gotten through some of Lovecrafts work in written text despite my ADHD, but I have to say that Audiobooks are a massive help. Due to the nature of Lovecraft's work, a lot of it is up on TH-cam entirely free.
I remember being interested in the Cthulhu stuff, and reading the actual book a while back. I could really understand what the hell was going on in the book partially because I was too young and because I’d read when I was very tired. But this video is honestly more cohesive than the actual book to me with how many layers of “character stumbles across a letter, that tells a story of character’s uncle, who tells a story about a dude he met, now we’re reading a note about ancient gods getting hit by boats!”
"The case of Charles Dexter Ward" is one of H.P's hidden gems I don't hear discussed as much. Probably because it doesn't involve any of his outer gods, except a hint of Yog Sothoth. But the scene where the family doctor recounts his trip into the tomb and losing his flashlight is legit great horror literature. And the climax is also fantastic when the entire town confronts the big bad, and we only get second hand accounts of what happened since they we're all so traumatized they never spoke of it again.
Lovecraft is one of my favourite authors. I've probably read his stuff a hundred times and my literature thesis in high school was on him. I got so excited when I saw the video title
Read Lovecraft. Reading when you’re a woman, by yourself in an isolated house in rural Australia on dark winter’s night … especially “Rats in the Walls” … when you hear skittering noises in the ceiling. EDIT: must read collection again. Winter here again.
Click my link to get a 1-year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D3K2 & 5 travel packs FREE with your first purchase if you order this month! drinkag1.com/wendigoon
Hey, It’s Wendigoon!
Wendigoon wassup, make a video on the 911 cover up pls
What's the cat's name?
hi wendigoon how would you feel if you were stung by let’s say 1000 bees
WENDIGOON: PLEASE MAKE THE PLANET SHEEN ICEBERG 🧊 VIDEO NEXT
RIP to the classic Wendigoon whiteboard
Ong
What is up with these terrible bots
@@dadjokes7581idk, my theory is that it’s just a bunch of edgy nerdy teenagers tryna be cool or something?
I miss the white board too
F
The best description of cosmic horror is the idea of an ant seeing a circuit board not knowing the complexity of the thing it is observing.
An ant doesn’t start babbling when they see a circuit board. They find it strange, to them it is a landscape of strange angles and humming monoliths. They may be scared, but that is not madness.
Madness comes when the ant, for a moment, can see as a human does.
It understands those markings are words, symbols with meaning, like a pheromone but infinitely more complex. It can travel unimaginable distances, to lands unlike anything it has seen before. It knows of mirth, embarrassment, love, concepts unimaginable before this moment, and then…
It’s an ant again.
Echoes of things it cannot comprehend swirl around its mind. It cannot make use of this knowledge, but it still remembers. How is it supposed to return to its life? The more the ant saw the harder it is for it to forget. It needs to see it again, understand again. It will do anything to show others, to show itself, nothing else in this tiny world matters.
This is madness.
@@ShadowRulah that’s the one
"When my bird was looking at my computer monitor I thought, 'That bird has no idea what he's looking at. ' And yet what does the bird do? Does he panic? No, he can't really panic, he just does the best he can."
I think it's to add to the vibe of guy losing his grip on reality. Unless this comment was just trolling, in that case insert Lovecraft/Cthulhu butt buddy joke here:
@ShadowRulah but... that leads to the babbling... since the ant can't explain those complex subjects to the other ants. It's failure to explain those complex subjects to the other ants makes it seem like it's incoherently babbling.
In defense of Cthulhu and the boat, wouldn't you be off your game if you were asleep for a thousand years, woke up, and then got smacked in the face?
@@Thunderstonedaking Don't engage with that. It's just a bot
@@Thunderstonedaking It's a bot, just don't try
I mean still tho. It should be banned
Also, he gets this gigantic wound, and then heals _instantly._ Imagine if someone rammed something through _your_ head and then you just healed it?
Also, the reason why Cthulhu goes away after that isn't because of the boat ramming him, it's because the stars are no longer right.
@@Thunderstonedaking for sure, I've been marking the comments as spam when I see them. As far as I know, that's the only way to really get anything done about them.
The audible version of Shadow out of time is amazing. At the climax of the story the narrator starts to read like he's losing grasp on reality and was one of my top 5 narrations on the platform
Audiobooks get more experimental than i expect, like a warhammer 40k book about Orks has a marrartor get killed by an ork amd the ork takes iver as the narrator
Horror Babble is a good audio version of Lovecraft books.
@@markhirsch6301 I be loving these audiobooks lately. Feels like a play in my head.
Which narrator on audible? There’s two! I’d love to download it
Lovercraft, the slightly more romantic brother of Lovecraft.
Did you mean Warcraft or did you mean to type Lovecraft twice? Because if so it's a very good joke either way.
@@wolfdemexico no he meant lovercraft cause wendigoon accidentally spelt it wrong in the title 😅
@@wolfdemexicolover, lover craft
And yah know, less racist and such
@@wolfdemexico They wrote LoveRcraft first, but I needed like 10 tries to read it right so I get your confusion
there aren't a *ton* of channels where a 55 min video is "kind of a shorter video", but Wendigoon sure is one of them
That's pretty much what I was going to comment myself, I'll give that a like for it.
For Quinton Reviews a 55min video is a 5 second ad, specially after the 38h video
@@geegeepHe did a what now?
@@alexanderd6793 Quinton Reviews uploaded a 38h long video on April 1st that took two days to upload so it ended up only releasing on April 3rd, however I believe it's now restricted due to copyright but available to members of the channel. It was legit 38 hours of pure content of his dad reviewing the 60s sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies (and Petticoat Junction), took me a week to fully watch it and it was definitely a once in a life time immersive experience
I love a Wendi Quickie
Who would win:
A formless incomprehensible eldritch god
OR
one small boat
Me with a solar flare and 14 potions
Boat has a form and can't comprehend anything. Smart money's on the boat.
To be fair it was a small boat
You try to fight someone after just waking up and immediately being stabbed in the face.
What if you, wanted to continue being an unfathomable eldritch entity, but boat said; *N O*
There's a charm in your old setup in your room with only a whiteboard and mic, and I appreciate keeping the green screen exclusively for book reviews.
My favourite Lovecraft story is mountains of madness because of the line "These things might not have been human but they were men"
Goes hard as the kids would say
In a spooky ghoul voice over a crackly radio reciever - "You fool! Warren is dead."
For me it’s Dunwich Horror.
That’s my favorite story as well.
Generally speaking Mountains of Madness and Color Out of Space are considered sort of tied for his magnum opus among fans and critics.
At the very least, Mountains of Madness is his best novella and Color Out of Space is (probably) his best short story. I prefer the former as well though.
The way i interpreted the boat being able to "stop" cthulhu, is that this whole story is the great old one equivalent of standing up in the night still half asleep to pee and hitting ur little toe against something.
Omfg
Lmao 😂 Perfect description
Yup, that checks out
I'm more of a 'stepping on legos' guy. It isn't at all harmful, but simply greatly inconvenient and so they'll steer clear entirely.
Cthulhu just woke up to take a leak and some hairless ape decided to smack with a boat.
I learned about Cthulhu in one of the most Lovecraftian ways possible. I was working for an oilfield pipe manufacturer at the Port of Catoosa, OK. I was in the pipe yard watching the flatbed train cars go by. Naturally they were covered in graffiti. One stood out to me. It was a picture of Cthulhu, and underneath someone had wrote "All hail dread lord Cthulhu." I'd never heard of Lovecraft or Cthulhu before, but that lived in my head for months. I finally looked it up about a year later and discovered the stories. I have a complete collection of H.P. Lovecraft on my shelf now. LOL What's weird to me is that I couldn't forget it. It was so weirdly compelling that I remembered it even a year later. I can still recall exactly what it looked like. That was almost 10 years ago. So weird.
random oklahoma reference observed (i live in oklahoma and forget other people exist here sometimes)
Have you applied to Miskatonic University for your post-graduate studies yet?
Crazy
I like twains
@@retirednavychief6983 sadly, my application was denied. Medieval Metaphysics 101 is full for the semester. 😔
please do more cthulhu mythos videos. i browse on youtube to find lore on the great old ones but there’s really not anything that i’m looking for. and hearing the events of this story being retold rather than actually reading or listening to the book paints a clearer picture in my brain. please continue to do more of these with other lovecraft stories
Yes i agree!!
So you go out of your way to find info on stuff like this but won't read a book or listen to an audiobook?????????
@@jsml337g05u yeah i use videos like this to fall asleep so i just prefer stuff like this
@@jsml337g05u it do be like that sometimes
Today was the day of my daughter's 8th birthday. I was going to a local pizza shop to pick up the food for the party, and the guy cashing me out saw my Wendigoon cryptid shirt. He said nice shirt and for a fellow Wendigoon fan, I'll give you a discount! Hopefully he sees this comment. Thanks again man!
It’s true, I was the pizza
It's true, i was the cash register
It’s true I was the shirt
It’s true, I was
it's
Lovecraft: Cthulhu is an unknowable and indescribable being
Also Lovecraft: Describes Cthulhu in great detail
well its the features of Cthulu we can process he describes
@GeneralMisanthropyUTTP Zane you made a alt to spam? Yep.
@GeneralMisanthropyUTTPword
I think the point of the statue was that the squid-headed gargoyle shape Cthulhu is so often depicted as was merely the closest approximation of what those who know and dream of him think he looks like. In the end of the book Cthulhu's actual form is still vaguely described as this looming, ever-shifting mass of formless stuff and stretching tendrils.
@@aidenmcdaniel4641you’re not agreeing with this degenerate, I hope.
In a video about Lovecraft Wendigoon accepts 'the french language scares me' is such a Lovecraft thing to say on such a deep meta level I love it.
Bouuuh , je te fait peur avec le plus effrayant et angoissant langage au monde.
@StupidKiwl this is basically a one sentence horror story
Hating the French is one of the signs of true intelligence
@@pootzmagootz
Magnus archives posting
*Lovercraft
18:25 That’s Vietnamese and it translates to "In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming"
Edit: 18:55 Nevermind
have you ever seen vietnamese before
@@bubblezxallxaroundx usually no
Somewhere in South Carolina a man is boiling with rage that you made another successful video
What this all about?
Don't even give him the time of day. Let that crackhead fade into obscurity while hurting itself in anger.
@@SaraphDarklawsomeone tried to shit on him because he's friends with people like donut operator and that group only to find out that Wendigoon is loved by pretty much everyone and even though he's one of the nicest people ever his group of friends won't just sit by while some random ass dude starts talking hella shit
You missed a lot of drama then! @@SaraphDarklaw
@SaraphDarklaw it's a long story. There are plenty of TH-camr's who commented on the situation, though. Essentially, a dude made a pseudo-hitpiece on Wendigoon, and a LOT of other TH-camrs tangentially related to or friends of Wendigoon caught strays. They dude "apologized" but was also being extremely snakey behind the scenes at the same time of his "apology".
Something to keep in mind that a lot of readers often forget: _we aren't even sure that was Cthulhu himself._ Other stories by Lovecraft point out that Cthulhu had an entire civilization worth of kids, and subsequent Cthulhu Mythos fiction has portrayed them in a number of sized, from the size of a grizzly bear to... _that._ There's a non-zero chance what Johannson encountered was merely one of Cthulhu's spawn, and that the stars were not quite right enough, only sufficient to partially raise a small part of R'lyeh to the surface before subsiding. *Which, in turn, implies that the real Cthulhu is bigger and scarier still than the eternally regenerating kaiju Johannson rammed.*
Alternatively, as one of my favorite recent Mythos stories put it, the prophecies are partially wrong, in that Cthulhu escaped his prison and just flew away. Literally got hit by a boat and said "Fhtagn this shit, I'm out" and left Earth behind.
Imagine if the real Cthulhu decided to just pluck Johansson out of the afterlife for a second to smack him for what he did to his kid
So Cthulhu is like that one spider that had a lot of baby monsters and one of them was Shelob in The Lord of the Rings?
It's been a long time since I've read Lovecraft but one thing that always stood out to me from Dreams of Unknown Kadath is that Cthulhu is one of the weakest Elder Gods along with Nyarlothotep (the shape shifter one)
Cthulhu is a priest and more of a servant of the Elder Gods like Azle'toth.
Dreams of Unknown Kadath is what you want to read if you just want a giant lore dump of the Cthulhu mythos. It's pretty good. I think Azle'toth is the most powerful god and he's a big, fat and lazy being.
It's been like 6 or 7 years since I read all the stories though so I might be wrong about some of the stuff.
Also the racism is eerhh it's pretty bad lol. But I hate when people say he was a bad writer with some good ideas. I think he was a very talented writer with a lot of fascinating ideas, along with some bad ones.
@@lukaszzylik4437Nyarly could be considered pretty strong since he can travel between planes of existence and take physical form at will IIRC which is why he serves as messenger but Cthulhu is one of the weaker ones
Not scary or interesting. All of HP love crafts writings are anti-climatic and the vagueness is a cop out for actual story writing. I'm shocked people call this a horror genre. It reads more like a bad anime
The whole "holding a mic in front of a green screen" thing is done by so many other youtubers it has become a really boring cliche. I really liked the previous setup. All the personality of what you keep in your room and have in view of the camera is infinitely more interesting than whatever is on the green screen.
I agree with you, I liked the old Wendigoon setup more
Yup
I agree, if he perfers the look of this that's great, but if he's doing it for viewing purposes he shouldn't. I also like the more natural lived in back drop more aswell
I like the old set up too
THIS EXACTLY
You should absolutely cover more Lovecraft, your channel is a perfect place for it.
i got here as fast as i could. its a shame wendigoon clawed his eyes out when he was sleep, then woke up and wrote 300 pages of some forgotten language that he didnt speak, then was lifted into the air and was killed by the squid-like tentacles that came out of this air and strangled him, all while he was laughing about something. truly a bizarre world we live in.
Lmao
(Don't pay those bots any attention, they're just lil kids who wanna sound cool and edgy
@GeneralMisanthropyUTTP I want you look back on this in 10 or so years, by then you should be in your 20s. After you've made a different account, since this one will be forever stained with your spam. I want you to look back on this, and think "why did I spend my time doing this?". Just look back, think on it. Think on why you commented this, why you were such an asshole for no reason.
And screamed for several days straight
@GeneralMisanthropyUTTP Fattest thickest cringe ive seen on the internet this year my guy
@@zuanesparta243 yup just report
The most iconic horror boy finally covers the most iconic horror creature.
These bots are outta hand
@GeneralMisanthropyUTTP sanest wendigoon fan
@@Schrader_myguyYou live in a bubble, pop it.
@@miodragpetrovic1447 Real
@@Schrader_myguyIn Praise of Shadows sent you, didn’t he?
Petition to bring back a bigger whiteboard for occasional story time
*THE ROOM ITSELF IS NOW WHITEBOARD*
@GeneralMisanthropyUTTP dawg, you're not funny, just weird
@@blankhole5145 he's not even human
@@Slappapyou so right
Report him for child abuse or harrasment or terroris.@@blankhole5145
I think it's not them beating Cthulhu...it's more like he's just groggy from sleeping for a long time, the boat is just the equivalent of "waking up and then going back to sleep after seeing that it's only 3 AM"
I don't know, facing down an eldritch cosmic horror and the certainty of death and then ramming it with your ship is kind of badass
Lovecraft heroes, much like Lovecraft himself, are never really the hero. They just kinda do things in fits of madness or pass out. I kind of appreciate that in his work. No true heroes. Except maybe The Dunwich Horror.
The Freebird solo was definitely playing at max volume in that moment
Chtuluh is not a physical being, the boat merely dissipated a vision of him like a rock thrown in a puddle breaks the reflection...
Only for it to reform instantly because Chtuluh is a multidimensional entity.
@@pnda13 Also a great point. It's possible that what came out of the city was merely a finger of C'thulhu. Gave him a mild 3 dimensional ouchie and retracted his hand.
its a retelling of a retelling of a sole ship survivor who wrote it in his pre death note. there is a reason the story is told in this manner. Can you believe some rando sailor to understand what he saw or did?
The moral of Call of Cthulu is that you need to be a midwit to avoid being taken over by an elder god.
Lifegoals
For real though, ignorance and foolishness are ridiculously powerful against the Eldritch
Hey at least im doing SOMETHING right!
Me looking directly at the incomprehensible cosmic horror without fear (I don't get it):
Wendigoon PLEASE make ur setup like it used to be. i liked it when it seemed like some dude who lived alone in the woods was telling me stories. it was so home-y
Nah, new set up is better.
@@davemccage7918Unfathomably incorrect.
I get you 😂❤
But he is trying something out, lets support him in this cute suit phase he has going on
I disagree but completely understand the sentiment of nostalgia. I'm proud of our goon, whatever him and his family is able to do I pray is blessed and prosperous. God bless y'all.
@@chilledburritoUnfathomably incorrect
At the end of my freshman year of highschool, my advanced English class was given a project called “hummingbirds and rabbit holes”. Basically you had to make a presentation either deep diving into on topic or jumping through a couple. I did a hummingbird project about 1. ADHD 2. Brandon Sanderson’s magic systems and laws of fantasy and 3.Lovecraftian horror. I really enjoyed reading about him and his works.
On the upside Lovecraft was convinced to let go of his racism by his friends and actually felt bad about it later in life.
I imagine it took a lot of work to do that since much of his prejudices were caused by his mental illness/general fear of everything. The poor dude was scared of air conditioning, he was fighting some demons.
@@sourdrop Yeah, I forgot about the air conditioning thing. Guy had a very sad life.
@@sourdropI’m scared of toilets and especially public bathrooms, but I get by.
@@davemccage7918is that what happens when you watch skibidi toilet
Im gonna name my first cat after his
One thing I always found fascinating was how the city of R'lyeh was described, particularly how they traversed it going to and running from Cthulhu's resting place and how none of the geometry makes any sense in terms of size or appearance. One part describes how they come across what looks like a flat expanse of stone but trying to walk across it feels more like an exhausting climb up a steep staircase. When they start running back to the boat, not only does the path seem longer, at one point one of the men trips and falls and appears to simply... "fall into" the corner of a block of stone, or something like that. It unnerved me because it happened so quickly that like the narrator, I didn't have time to comprehend what happened in the moment but it stuck with me ever since.
Wow that reminds me of The House of Leaves and how the house is a few inches larger on the inside compared to the outside. Stuff that defies basic mathematics so casually like that terrifies me so much for some reason.
The Backrooms have ruined that moment for me because the first thing I think when that guy falls is him no clipping. Maybe Azathot is an overworked programmer and reality his barely sticking together romhack.
It's why I love "The dreams in the witch house" so much.
R'lyeh is not cthulus resting place though, it's the resting place of the ancient beings cthulu sent to earth
You should listen to the rock opera
One of the concepts I like the most in cosmic horror is the idea of knowledge being deleterious. Like, literally cursed knowledge that leads one to madness because the human mind can't handle the truth hiding behind our perception of reality. There's that analogy of an ant on top of a circuit board or a CPU, it cannot even begin to comprehend what it does, it can only see the paths, the terminals, it can only feel the heat the chips produce. The genre definitely superseded the "creator", and it's always interesting to see new takes on the topic because ultimately, fear of the unknown is one of the primordial fears we have.
Bloodborne
My RPG group tried out the Call of Cthulhu TTRPG, and one guy just couldn't comprehend this concept of more knowledge being bad. My wife and I, who had both read a lot of Lovecraft tried to explain, but it was one of those things where he just couldn't comprehend the idea
“You can’t handle the truth!”
- Col. Cthulhu
Such madness does not infect the mind of the humble.
Shadow out of time is pretty a man scared of australian alien bookworms
I really appreciate you as a creator. You hit every interesting topic I can think of, plus some. I’ve been watching you for some time and I’m proud to see you gain as much praise and love as you deserve.
Thank you so very much for the great entertainment.
Professional audio engineer here. If people are demanding you use a specific mic for a situation like this, they don't know what they're talking about. In my experience, lapels are inconsistent and not that reliable. They'll probably work in a situation like this but so will a shotgun mic. In fact, there's a reason film makers use both simultaneously. Lavs can get a stronger signal but can also pick up a lot of rustling of clothes and what not. Shotguns don't but will also pick up more background noise. If you're in an isolated environment (which I would say you are) shotgun on a stand is the better call. But if you prefer the lav, use that. In the end it's a different tool for a different job.
I realize I contradicted myself a bit. While I would use a shotgun over a lav, there isn't really a wrong call was more my point. So people saying the inverse is dumb too
Also in my experience I wouldn't hold a lapel in my hand. Just plant it on your collar. Moving it closer and further constantly changes the reseption quite a bit.
Both of these guys get it 🔥
And in the end, because the audio goes through so much shit in the upload process and will be played out of the viewer's dollar store Bluetooth earbuds the small differences in quality won't be felt by most viewers.
@@colin-halter I actually mix my videos through my tv speakers for this exact reason. No one watches you with $400 monitors
You should definitely do one on "At the Mountains of Madness" because it shows that Howard both didn't know what penguins look like but also that he was very afraid of them.
You mean Lovecraft?
Howard is different.
Pretty sure the penguins in that story are supposed to be a weird mutated underground subspecie and not your regular penguin.
@@NathanCassidy721 His full name is Howard Philips Lovecraft
@@NathanCassidy721HP Lovecraft = Howard Phillips Lovecraft
@@lucasvallet4487that’s exactly what they were. From an ancient ocean deep under Antarctica. Where potentially, the last of the Elder Things reside. They weren’t exactly penguins, just an ancient monstrous species unknown to mankind that kinda resemble penguins. Like convergent evolution.
*Uses a green screen to show pictures of Cthulu*
Wendigoon: "He's right behind me, isn't he?"
7:45 too late, I’ve eaten 30 books already
i can't believe people bullied you away from the shotgun mic. i honestly think it sounded better and cleaner
yeahhh i have to agree. there's a lack of softness and feels more... echo-y? but he's new at it! i'm sure he'll get better at playing with sound balancing, working on his room, etc. :)
It's probably because the lapel mic isn't ... On the lapel..
That boat was charged with all of the indomitable human spirit
"Fuck it, we ball" ~ boat
I mean, it basically did nothing. The supposed wound it caused was healed instantly, and Cthulhu only stops because the stars aren't right anymore. The boat was meaningless and did nothing, which is the part people miss constantly.
@@eeyuupthat’s what Cthulhu wants you to think. Were he really as powerful as he claims he’d have no need to use madness as a weapon.
@@Quincy_Morrisif the Cthulhu is so big then why won’t he fight me?
The real boat is the cathulu we made along the way.
I got the Necronomicon on audible to listen to while patrolling the backcountry country as a Wilderness Ranger. I was not into horror, but Lovecraft is such a cultural phenomena that I thought it would be interesting to check out. Anyway, walking around alone in the woods with Lovecraft in one ear is all well and good in the daylight …
Did a similar thing driving through the empty places of the country at night in my semi... alone. During the day I listened to music lol
May I ask how you got that job?
That’s cool that your outfit lets you run with headphones while patrolling
@@PHAToregon 1 ear. It's fairly common.
The Necronomicom is a fictional book that doesn't exist!!! Whatever you heard was not written by Lovecraft!!
I miss the shotgun mic days, that room when ur subscribers were still in the 6 figures (i was there around 150K) that room, that face and that voice got me through some tough times. Completely sparked my obsession w analogue horror and one of the most respectable Christians i know. Keep doing amazing things Wendi
While i think you handled the greenscreen well: it takes away from the "down to earth" feeling you've always had. That feeling of a friend inviting you over to just chat about something they enjoy. That... comfortable feeling was, I'd argue, your greatest strength as a creator in this space.
So, yes, while done well: I think it is an overall net negative, and would strongly encourage you to retake what you began with and which quite clearly worked: the... SINCERITY of it all. It was... heartwarming.
Put it to you this way: the original 1972 movie version of STALKER was done on a budget of roughly "whatever we have in our pockets and find while filming" but because of excellent heart-felt deep sincerity of all involved, is a million times better than most modern movies with billion dollar budgets.
Stay the friendly weird neighbor-friend you've always done. The horror-obsessed Mr. Rogers. It suits you so well.
I hope this constructive criticism is indeed what you were asking for!
Couldn't put it in better words! Also, stalker is soo good
wtf are you talking about
Hard agree
I agree somewhat but I definitely wouldn't say it's his greatest strength as a creator, I watch wendigoon for in-depth videos on either obscure topics, or topics that have been heavily covered but had key details missing from the other sources that wendigoon always manages to find and convey. The relatable, comfortable style was an added bonus but to call it his greatest strength is kinda insulting to all the work he puts into these videos.
Never watched the blood meridian vid then Have you?
I made a tumblr post about this years ago, but I’ll say it again.
I submit that Cthulhu going back into R’lyeh after being struck by a boat is the human equivalent of being 15 mins late to work because there was a wasp outside your door
Edit: I meant "Old One equivalent", not "human equivalent". Whoops.
He had to go back because he wasn't even supposed to be outside yet, the stars were only correct for a brief period.
So it's more like he woke up at 1 AM, got attacked by a wasp when going outside to check something and then went back to bed
@@hawkticus_history_cornerand you know he's going to be super tired when he has to finally get up later in the morning. The other Great Old Ones are going to be all awake and chipper and Cthulu is going to straggle into the office looking haggard and worn out, making a bee line straight for the coffee pot, and will get some dumb question like "Morning, Cthulu. Rough night?"
"You have no idea."
yeah I bet you made a tumblr post by the looks of you
@@thegrimharvest We better hope he doesn't talk to Azathoth any morning. If he wakes our existence is gone.
This dude is flexing a tumblr post lol please get real
Fun Fact: Lovecraft has references from Conan the Barbarian in some of his stories, because Robert E. Howard and Lovecraft were close friends at the time.
The Conan story "Tower of the Elephant" has Conan climb the tower and he finds an eldritch abomination at the top, who he then helps to get revenge on the sorcerer.
There is also a book (Throne of Bones) which includes the Lovecraft's ghouls. It seems to be a skewed fantasy reality like Conan as well that includes lots of the lovecraft motifs
Also the audiobook is read by the narrator of Darkest Dungeon
And vice versa: since it's set so long ago and has so much occult/pagan stuff already, there's a ton of references to the lovecraft mythos in Hyborian Age stories.
I am 100% down for watching you dive into more Lovecraft stuff. "Rats In the Walls" and "Pickman's Model" have alway had a special place in my heart.
Dressed like you're ready for a show called "Name! That! Cryptid!"
Our little ice berg boy is pretending to be an iceberg man it's so cute
getting unskippable TH-cam ads in the middle of an in-video ad read. And people claim that Cthulhu isn’t actively putting madness in the minds of men to this day
Man, this video was so insanely good i hope wendigoon covers more H.P.L. stories, otherwise I'm gonna have to go on a deepdive for more vids like this somewhere else lol
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far."
When I first read that I was hooked. This was the first story from Lovecraft I read, and the first paragraph from him got me to read so much more of his work. Lovecraft was a weird dude (to say the least) but he really was an incredible writer
Well said, in our cyber punk dystopia comments like this are valuable nuggets of hope.
I felt the same way friendo!
Especially when he found his own voice and stopped aping Dunsany, Poe and Blackwood. Some of the pieces he ghost wrote later in his life are fantastic as well! A personal guilty pleasure is Cool Air.
"I have frequently wondered if the majority of mankind ever pause to reflect upon the occasionally titanic significance of dreams, and of the obscure world to which they belong." Beyond the Wall of Sleep. I had read others before, but this one sunk its claws in and I have never been the same.
@@lextenou It's such a good story! Beyond the Wall of Sleep is another unsung banger! His dream cycle stuff is such a good collective narrative!
@@A.I.Lovecraft It has such depth and narrative richness I did not expect from Lovecraft given his other works. It remains a favorite for me, in part because of that and also because the works have subtle narrative voice switch that is separate from the Cthulhu Mythos or the more....I am not sure how to phrase it. The ones likes Herbert West, Reanimator that aren't explicitly
tapping into either of these avenues.
If I recall correctly, some readers feel that the creature Johansen hit wasn’t actually Cthulhu, but one of the lesser creatures; a star spawn of Cthulhu as to why a simple steamer did the damage it did. It was never proposed seriously, humorously suggested to be a shared head cannon. The more probable explanation from inference that has been discussed over decades, was that probably the stars weren’t aligned properly. A particularly strong dream went out from Cthulhu that kicked off the cultists early (who, let’s face it are all too eager for their deity to arrive in their time; it’s behaviour we’ve seen mirrored in real life fundamentalist religious groups). Cthulhu could not awaken completely because it wasn’t the right time. The door opening brought him forth, but the universal cycle and “magics” meant the Great Old One returned to his death sleep and R’Lyeh sank again.
I love your videos and thank you for this one, too.I used to edit a couple of HPL fan magazines and websites. I feel that you are mistaking some of the setting with the author. I don’t feel HPL is hateful of mankind or it’s works. In life, he was a great admirer of science and his Collected Letters show us his love of correspondence and helping developing writers. Cosmic horror is really the notion that the universe is uncaring, humanity is of no consequence to the real “landlords”, and we were created as a mistake. This is what Lovecraft weaves through most of his stories, we are but amoeba before an indifferent universe. It is true, however, that HPL’s major weak spot as an author is characters, so maybe this is why some parts of various of his tales fall flat with certain readers.
The Mythos as is was created by HPL and he encouraged his friends to add to it if they wished; most famously Robert E. Howard, of Conan fame, Clark Ashton Smith, Fritz Lieber, and a very young Robert Bloch would go on to author “Psycho” as well as many scripts for Star Trek. Lovecraft, I think, wanted the Great Old Ones, etc. mentioned and used as fragments of a global myth pattern, a hint of a bygone world of terror that humanity has forgotten through its sheer age, used only as much as necessary, or occasionally as an in joke between friends. After his death, August Derleth, another friend and author, tried to systematise the Mythos, tried to link it to Western elemental themes, this would be continued sometime in the 60s-70s by author and editor, Lin Carter. I think they meant well, but it just was not Lovecraft’s intent.
He did have major issues in his childhood and a precarious financial situation throughout his life. He enjoyed writing, probably initially as an escape, but happily turned it to the pulps as they paid so bought in money on occasion. I highly recommend Algernon Blackwood, M. R. James, Arthur Machen, Ambrose Bierce and William Hope Hodgson to anyone who reads Lovecraft and enjoys it. The biggest impediment, I fear, is that a lot of their material can be in expensive physical copies; so, check for versions on Kindle, or online at sites like Project Gutenberg.
I’ve meandered too long. Great video. Keep up the fantastic work!
Idk the first point are usually people of today who always feel the need to needlessly inflate things.
Would definitely add Lord Dunsany to the list as he was one of the main inspirations of Lovecraft.
@@Flaschenteufel Indeed, Lord Dunsany, too. A great influence on HPL’s Dream-Cycle stories. Have a great day 👍.
" I don’t feel HPL is hateful of mankind or it’s works. " unless youre a black man right
Here, for example, is his description of a black man:
He was a loathsome, gorilla-like thing, with abnormally long arms which I could not help calling fore legs, and a face that conjured up thoughts of unspeakable Congo secrets and tom-tom poundings under an eerie moon. The body must have looked even worse in life-but the world holds many ugly things.
Or these lines from the Horror at Red Hook
During the raid the police encountered only a passive resistance from the squinting Orientals that swarmed from every door.
.
Suddenly the leader of the visiting mariners, an Arab with a hatefully negroid mouth, pulled forth a dirty, crumpled paper and handed it to the captain.
everyone keeps forgetting this is retelling of a retelling of a madenned suicidal sailor who wrote it on a note, discovered by a cookie uncle and then read by his nephew.
The fact that EVERYONE forgets the story is three layers detached to what actually happened is unreal to me. everyone just goes "yes lets take the suicidal, mad sailor's word for granted" when the entire point of the story ARE the layers of separation and the uncertainty and validity of the entire bloody thing.
@@ravenseeker8267 heh that's a good point, too :)
I enjoyed the dramatic pause at 22:17, the dark screen a metaphor for the darkness the character is witnessing.
Love your vids mate. Especially the hat man one
@@gocomitdead thanks, I enjoyed making that one
Wendigoon please continue lovecraft because the creatures that come later on become way bigger and even more interesting. Creatures that cannot be described that even the thought of it makes a person go crazy please i want you to go further in depth
Wendigoon in his cosmic horror era.
Ignoring the disgusting comment above my comment, you wrote cosmic* horror wrong.
@@Greendalewitchhe was probably sent here by In Praise of Shadows.
@@petarmilich8684no, that account is a bot
@@petarmilich8684nah those UTTP bots have been around for a bit and spam any large-ish channel.
I feel like there has to be a increasing amount of reporting him and he still does this?
Wendi’s outfit and his overall presentation in this vid makes him look like he’s trying to sell us a time share in R’lyeh 😂
You have C'thulu as your roomate
>Wake up from 1000000 year slumber
>Pop your head out the sea to get a feel of the new surroundings (still a bit drowsy tbh)
*_>Bonkmp3_*
>" Ah fuck it, 5 more centuries then I'll wake up. Not dealing with this bullshit rn "
Underrated
Something to keep in mind that a lot of readers often forget: _we aren't even sure that was Cthulhu himself._ Other stories by Lovecraft point out that Cthulhu had an entire civilization worth of kids, and subsequent Cthulhu Mythos fiction has portrayed them in a number of sized, from the size of a grizzly bear to... _that._ There's a non-zero chance what Johannson encountered was merely one of Cthulhu's spawn, and that the stars were not quite right enough, only sufficient to partially raise a small part of R'lyeh to the surface before subsiding. *Which, in turn, implies that the real Cthulhu is bigger and scarier still than the eternally regenerating kaiju Johannson rammed.*
Alternatively, as one of my favorite recent Mythos stories put it, the prophecies are partially wrong, in that Cthulhu escaped his prison and just flew away. Literally got hit by a boat and said "Fhtagn this shit, I'm out" and left Earth behind.
That was so great!! I'd read the story last year, but it was nice to get a recap. Really appreciated the set up as well, well done
Cthulhu wasn't stopped by a boat. The boat basically just ran through him like a ghost. It just that the "stars aligned" for only like half an hour. That's the point, you can't run a boat through it, you can't do anything.
That’s just a myth set about by the madness of the unreliable narrator. Cuthulhu’s greatest power is the power to make you *think* he is unstoppable or that all hopeless. He shares a lot with Sauron in that regard.
I like the idea that Cthulhu + The Old Ones being "dead" or "asleep" then "waking up" have less to do with sleep/waking the way humans normally understand it. It's more like they barely even *exist* in our physical plane when they're dormant, and when "the stars align" they regain physical existence in our universe (but in the meantime can interact with it through dreams, etc.)
I love how the incomprehensible eldritch horror known as Cthulu was beaten by a boat
Hey guys n gals - pls report the comments above...?
@@newworldorderltd.-branchha8016I reported this idiot.
You certainly weren't able to comprehend what that boat scene was trying to imply if you simply think that.
@@acedias12sure but it's still funny.
wasn't he beaten by mintberry crunch?
"Lovercraft" implies that he wants a more intimate relationship with Cthulhu with the way he describes him.
Going off the fanart, he's not the only one
It's the tentacles.
They made a Cthulu dating sim, so some other people agree
@@SpoopySquid i was about to say we have websites for that
what if HP Lovecraft was called HP freakcraft and he wanted to eat cthulus ass and suck his toes
He didn't name the god damn cat
N man
God I’d KILL to see Wendigoon cover more Lovecraft. Especially The Haunter of the Dark, it’s my favorite Lovecraft story, I’m on my knees BEGGING for more!
Lovecraft:🐙🐙
Lovercraft: 🐙❤🫶
Oil up big boy
@GeneralMisanthropyUTTP i think you might wanna go to sleep in a permanent kinda way
@@agonyaaa
-cuthulu to the old ones
"I've seen enough hentai to know where this is going" - Cthulhu
@@agonyaaadon’t respond it’s a bot from 12year olds just looking for attention.
Please do more Lovecraft stories!
The Call of Cthulhu might be the most famous, but there are so many that are arguably even more deeply fascinating, grim, thoughtful and provoking that I would love you to dive into!
Please just fucking read them instead of waiting for him to explain them to you in the most deadpan voice possible. While Lovecraft himself held remarkably hateful beliefs, his writing seeps with the most artistic flow that calls back to his inspiration and love for Poe's body of work. You will not get the same experience listening to Wendigoon tell it to you. It's the difference between having McLovecraft fries at McLovecrafts, and having McLovecraft fries heated up in the microwave.
No disrespect to Wendigoon of course, I just think he's a hack.
@@abreathingcoffin8089 Mate I am saying this as someone who has read 20+ Lovecraft stories. I am a huge fan.
It's my hope that Wendigoon's videos will reach those who struggle with Lovecrafts writing style - and may even encourage people to go read more of his stories themselves. I fully encourage everyone to buy some Lovecraft story collections and read for themselves, but Wendigoon exposure wont hurt.
Some personal recommendations;
- At the Mountains of Madness
- The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
- Re-Animator
- The Hound
And of course, all the popular favourites such as Innsmouth, Dagon, and Whisperer in the Darkness. So many more to name, really.
@@abreathingcoffin8089 .........I think the OP commenter HAS read the books. That's why they called them deeply fascinating and thought provoking. And coming to a youtuber's own comment section to call them a hack? What's wrong with you lol
@@abreathingcoffin8089 this person has very obviously read them, otherwise they wouldn't be making this fuckin comment. You dont get to say "no disrespect" when thats literally what your entire comment is including whats said immediately after, thats like "Im not racist, but..."
@@abreathingcoffin8089 lil wannabe literature elite, let people enjoy these summaries. Most people wouldnt even know what the story is about if they didnt watch these kinds of videos. I would have never read shadow over innsmouth if I wasnt interested through these kinds of videos in the first place
As a long time fan now. I'll say I love the evolution. But there's something magical and nice about the little corner room view that makes it feel like a chat. The green screen is a bit overwhelming but I totally understand trying new stuff. Just one random dudes pov. Youre my favorite channel on TH-cam
15:00 "French names scare me. There's like 18 letters and you pronounce two that aren't in there." god me too bestie
Oh don't even get me started on Slavic or Finnish...or Gaelic. Who the f**k came up with those languages???
@@retirednavychief6983For me, as a french and russian speaker, finnish and gaelic is confusing, but after a while you kind of get used to it
@@retirednavychief6983I've never seen a Slavic name where you don't pronounce all letters
Once did an audiobook version of this on my "Trunk of Horrors" channel, which doesn't sound all that hard until you get to “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn."
Definitely one of the best horror pieces ever written.
@GeneralMisanthropyUTTP
Wait. What?
@@SADreamer2006 don't interact with it, it's a bot
@@The.Heart.Unceasingor In Praise of Shadows using a sock puppet account.
@@petarmilich8684What do you mean by that?
@@LSSD1292do you know what happened?
A friend of mine has been working on a cult leader dnd character, and JUST started going through Lovecraft for ideas and inspiration.
And due to the timing of this upload, he said "THE OUTER GODS CALL FOR ME BY NAME. MY MADNESS WAS MEANT TO BE."
Not gonna lie “THE OUTER GODS CALL FOR ME BY NAME” goes pretty hard, so kudos to him.
Honestly as a table top gamer nerd myself, it is a pretty great base for a dnd character.
@@bryguy1502 "MY MADNESS WAS MEANT TO BE" is pretty good too.
@@bryguy1502That needs to be a line in a book it is such a good one
I read this story as a 13 year old. It blew my mind, and I've loved Lovecraft ever since. Somehow the story exuded a creepiness that I had never experienced before. The idea that something could be so utterly alien and life-denying to humanity, but not out of malice or jealousy, like the devil. Just out of complete indifference. It's a force that doesn't challenge, but simply negate all human aspirations and struggles. Like the boot of a hiker crushing two warring ant nests without even noticing, without even having a mind of it's own. And it's so corroding to the human mind that people even further its goals, or just go completely mad when they are exposed to it. It's complete and merciless dissolution.
The ending of Call of Cthulhu was so iconic with the boat they actually recreated it in Disney's The Little Mermaid.
So you're saying that Ursula is actually Cthulu? Hmm...each name has six letters. Each has two "U"s and an "L"...maybe, maybe.
I think even the video game Crusader Kings 2 references it as your character can be the main character and ram inti Cthulhu
The idea that savages and cannibals are unapologetically correct about the universe adds a lot to the horror
That’s what they want you to think
My therapist: John Wick Wendigoon isn’t real. He can’t hurt you. Me:😨
Just dont touch his dog
John Wicgoon?
John Wickigoon
@@lukalovric2463"Natural enemy of the ATF"
This style 'suits' him well!
:')
I love the idea that society as a whole knows exactly where Cthulu will spawn and has a boat ready for him. I like to imagine it’s every couple years like the Olympics and each time a different country is responsible for taking him out in different ways and the whole thing is televised.
What a talented writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft was, I sure hope he named his cat something normal.
His grandfather named the cat
@dylancole3430 I didn't know that, doesn't make it better, but that is interesting
His uncle actually named it
Actually, my brother named the cat
@@aidanshea5942 tell everyone who's mad at lovecraft to stop using his work and make their own brilliance. Oh wait, they can't. So they keep using his work while attempting to Criticize. Lovecraft country was a hilarious joke at least.
Lovecraft understood theology better than most theologians today, at least in the sense that the origins of intelligible things are not intelligible. God’s transcendence is not circumscribed by human comprehension, and to think that we can even grasp that unapproachable darkness that surrounds the heavens is the madness of R’lyeh.
I think Lovecraft has this subtle interpretation of the cosmic horror he writes about with how easily they can be taken out with modern weaponry. Another example of this would be from his short story, "From Beyond" in which a machine capable of revealing the existing world around us featuring terrifying monsters that would turn you to ash looking at them was easily shut off from a single gunshot.
That part of the reason I think the '20s are the sweet spot for cosmic horror. If it's set earlier, the inability of the characters to beat the horror can be written off as them being technically primitive. If it's set in the modern day, we have nukes and stuff, so mankind's powerlessness can feel unbelievable unless you're clever. Nuking Cthulhu is like blowing the head off a werewolf. It shouldn't work, but the lizard brain will think it works.
@@zephlodwick1009 what do you mean, the humanity cannot be insignificant in the face of cosmic horrors beyond our comprehension and at the same time able to take them down. It cant work that way.
But, that was just a machine; he didn't destroy the cosmic horrors, he merely blinded himself to them, out of the hope that they wouldn't kill him if he couldn't see them.
As for taking out Cthulu, that was only a small roadblock; it was the earthquake that ultimately stopped him.
Cthulhu also isn't Yog-sototh tier.
He's more Space Zeus, or specifically a priest-god.
There's bigger fish out there.
What about The Whisperer in Darkness, The Shadow out of Time, The Colour out of Space? None of them are like that, and there are many others where that isn’t true at all. And like the other person said, closing your eyes doesn’t destroy what you were looking at
“Sorry, looks like the squid thing, is, at the bottom of the ocean. So what’re you gonna do with that?” Has me ROLLING at 4AM.
46:34
I love how most lovecraft stories start with the main character telling the story as they go mad one last time. That and his use of like 3-4 adjectives for everything to describe how utterly awful, unhinged morbidly grotesque something may be
Just got done with a 3 hour drive, rewatching the serial killer video thinking “man, I’m too early in the week for the Red Thread.” Then, right before I drive another hour, this bad boy drops. Thank you Mr Goon 🎉
Conspiracy theory iceberg is my go to
I've read a fair few of Lovecraft's work and personally I think the reason a lot of his concepts and ideas became popular, rather than the stories themselves (as the intro was discussing) is because Lovecraft was more of an ideas man than a writer. I think he was someone with a great imagination, who could conjure phenominal ideas, descriptions and themes. But his ability to form a coherant narrative from them was his weakness. I've not really found many of his works, in isolation, to be scary or particularly impactful. But I do love the works of other people who have taken Lovecraft's unique and horrifying ideas and used them to form a better narrative. I think Lovecraft's original work is best used as a worldbuilding or lore piece rather than a traditional 'story'.
Indeed the only reason we have any of Lovecrafts stories at all, is because the writers circle be was in collected and published them and kept adding to the Mythos themselves for decades. And unlike Lovecraft these guys were known and successful authors, like the guy who made Conan the Barbarian.
Besides Cthulhu and a few other monsters, most the Mythos we know and is popular is from Lovecrafts writings but his friends decades later.
It was never Lovecraft himself, he was so bad at writing and especially the business side of it he spent almost his entire life destitute and a nobody
Agreed; I would put the finer point on it that in many of Lovecraft's stories, his protagonists don't actually DO anything, they just find out things and then run away/go crazy. The principle objections to this stance I've seen are 1) The whole point of Lovecraft's stories is that you CAN'T do anything; or 2) "That's just the way stories were back then." However: 1a) I'm not suggesting the inaction is unfaithful to the premise, just that it isn't very interesting to read about; 1b) Often what the protagonists learn about is other people who at least TRIED to do something, and those are the people who SHOULD have been the protagonists; 2) That point would be valid if true, but it only would have been true if Lovecraft had been ~150 years older. Even praise for Lovecraft's abilities to evoke weirdness are overstated in my opinion. You could undermine half of it if you disallowed the use of the terms "cyclopean" and "non-Euclidean" (the latter of which doesn't even mean what Lovecraft seemed to think it meant). Interesting ideas, poor execution, and I refuse to defend it just because a lot of people think cosmic horror is cool (without, in many cases, having even read the actual stories, as Wendigoon points out).
@@shanecoffey8314 things would be simpler if people would just like a thing without insisting on defending it. We can like flawed things, I enjoy Lovecraft even though narratively and technically sucks, because the ideas are neat and sometimes it lands
@@Rynewulf That's completely fair. I've always been of the idea that preference isn't always linked to the belief that a thing is objectively "good." People like what they like, but too often cross the line to insisting that I MUST like it, too.
@@shanecoffey8314 Yeah I think that might be a bit of the ol' anonymous internet syndrome. Face to face most people wouldnt expect everyone else to like a thing or get it, or get upset that other people disagree, but online everyone must enjoy all things in the same way to the same amount.
I really loved how Pilgrim Pass pointed out Cosmic Horror is simply theophobia, the realization that, even under our current scientific understanding of things, nothing bars the existence of potentially hostile superhuman entities beyond our understanding. Incidentally technology, while often related to human science can also be read simply as "the tools and methods to achieve something", in other words Clarke's Third Law can be applied to gods too.
Hey wendi, sound guy for my church here, the lapel works approximately 2 buttons down on a button up shirt, or the collar on a regular shirt, however beards do tend to
Scratch at the collar, great video as always
The comment we needed
i prefer podcast wendigoon, having you chill in a room is a lot more fun and disarming. it lets me relax to the story
Drunken podcast Wendigoon ftw...
Yeah, and I don't like the new mic either. Maybe it's just my speakers but the lapel mic is very tinny. His voice sounds so much better with the OG
@@astrid1660 it sounds good on mobile. I see what you mean, though. The older mic seemed more clear. The new mic sounds like it is higher quality, but it may need some touchup in its software.
Hey Wendigoon, I just wanted to let you know I've been watching you for a long time. I grew up christian but always thought it was so stupid as I grew up. I couldn't believe people actually believed something like that and thought they were all dumb. But watching some of your videos, especially the most underrated book of the bible video, really opened me up to the idea. I've always held you in very high regard and seen you as an intellectual so it threw my worldview of Christianity. Ever since you made that video God has been slowly trickling into my life. I am so greatful for you and what you do, and just wanted to thank you!
Same thing, though I often felt like Christians were prudes about entertainment and what we could like, but Wendigoon has opened my eyes to so many interesting horror stories and weird history, as well as being a nerd interested in Bible Stuff
When I first saw his Biblical Theory iceberg, i thought he was an Atheist. Lo and behold, I was proven wrong.
I hope that he and his wife are doing well and have a great year!
"seen you as an intellectual"
I like his videos and all, but that's the overstatement of the decade right there.
@@goobadoobYeah. I like Isaiah a lot, and he's definitely not dumb by any means! but I can totally see why he would look like a genius compared to most other TH-cam personalities😂😂
@jakeheye4931 Yep, my best friend is a devoted follower of Jesus, but she is so anti church it isn't even funny. You'd think she was an atheist, like you said, but much like Wendigoon she was an educated Christian who was very secure in her faith, and those people come off as not religious weirdly enough even tho their faith is probably the strongest. Just a thing I noticed about really passionately religious folks, it's cool.
@@goobadoob I'd love to hear why you think that's such an egregious overstatement.
Cthulhu wasn't meant to awaken yet and that's why the Alert crew wanted them to change course, they proceeded towards Rlyeh because they were short on supplies and a boat so they though the pirates had a base nearby or would be able to signal another passing ship for rescue. I recommend the Gou Tanabe manga version because it's easy to get confused among so many flashbacks and he makes the battle look badass.
even-though a boat being able to take out Cthulhu doesn't make the most sense, I think the action of fighting back against is why i enjoyed it. Imagine, the rest of your crew has gone mad, and you just unleashed an unstoppable force. Instead of giving up, they chose to fight back, even if survival wasn't realistic. I think this defiance in the face of true horror, is a reflection of humanity.
Hey Wendigoon, the video was great! The lapel mic however, sounds a little sharp and low quality to my ears. The mic you used for your typical voiceovers sounds much warmer and delightful, and typically in your scenario, a good quality shotgun mic works best. Lapels work fine, but usually are used for onstage speeches or presentations, not really prerecorded videos that are based heavily on voice work. Again, great video!
It's funny to me that people are like "oh Lovecraft is racist".
Like bro, did you expect H.P Lovecraft to be well-adjusted?
I mean, Lovecraft *was* racist. But towards like almost everyone who wasn't proper and British enough. Dude was a weeb, just for Ye Olde England. He wasn't just xenophobic, he was practically a panphobic near shut in. Raised by his eccentric mother after his father was basically committed to an asylum after likely contracting contacting syphiliactic insanity, left with mostly only his grandfather's old outdated books to understand the outside world. No way was he going to just turn out "normal". But people in current year always want to harp on about him being racist, as if that's the end all be all of the man and his personality.
Today he for sure would have been the equivalent of the terminally online weird quiet homeschooled kid that spends most of his time on 4chan.
@@thegrimharvest Exactly. We just have to accept that some artists we really like were pretty out there and went through some stuff.
It’s called separating the art from the artist. Something most people can’t do these days.
Great video and looking sharp! As horror enthusiasts, it's hard to avoid the influence of Lovecraft on our genre. Whether directly inspired by him or by someone influenced by his eldritch style, his impact is undeniable. Although his works can be challenging to read and fully absorb, I recommend starting with "The Dunwich Horror." It's my favorite and much easier to unpack than most of his other stories.
I think a point to address with Lovecraft's racism isn't just that he was a wannabe-Anglo dude from the 1930s, but he was also extremely mentally ill, seemingly scared of anything that didn't fit into his status of normalcy. I won't say this makes it okay, but it does make it a bit less worse. Viewing him as merely a product of his time is reductive, as he was truly a product of an awful life, giving him issues we perhaps can't fully understand having.
his xenophobia mellowed out in his later stories
@@boop004Lol no it didn’t shadow over innsmouth is a metaphor for race mixing
@@jeebusthegreat8819Based
Yeah a dude did write a whole book about how AC systems are scary. He was off his rocker.
@@frosthammer917 The AC system was more or less a sci-fi gimmick; the real horror was still the sort of old-world occult stuff
I think you covering the whole concept of king in yellow would be amazing
I'm fairly certain most of the stories in The King in Yellow cross over with one another, and I'd love to see him break down the timeline and who's connected, because, honestly, I'm too lazy to go back through every story myself.
@@b.a.m.4135 that would be pretty useful. I’ve read the entire Robert W Chambers book, and I had a hard time connecting everything. Granted, I didn’t really spend that much time studying it to put things together, but it would still be fascinating to know how all of the stories are connected. The first story’s literally a madman/unreliable narrator that commits murder thinking he’s some sort of eldritch royalty, and the last story boils down to a freshman in college eloping with a lady of the night.
@Bragituba the only two I remember are that the best freind in the second story is the same guy that made the statues at the sewer slide machine in New York in the first story, and I think it's implied that the painter in the forth story lost his wife to the bombings in the student district that happens in one of the later stories.
When I opened the vid I got so excited that I showed my normal, functioning member of society sister “look he’s wearing a suit!!!!”
Vid looks amazing. It’s so great to see how far you’ve come!!!!
Freaking spawn camping chuthulu is my new writing prompt
The concept of the Cthulhu Cycle is one of the most important ideas of modern horror.
"The Thing" at least pays sideways homages to At The Mountains of Madness. The monster is very Lovecraftian in concept and the idea of aliens being found in the ice of Antarctica is there.
In Praise of Shadows : “Wendigoon should be sent to prison because he read Lovecraft”
IPOS worships Lovecraft. Ironically enough lol
"As we all know, Lovecraft named his cat the n-word. Therefore, wendigoon hates cats."
I think IPoS sent a bot to spam the comments.
@@petarmilich8684 Could be that channel opened two weeks ago.
@@stephenpmurphy591 those filthy nucleatoids
I have a hard time sitting down to read a full story because of my ADHD. And I'll often wind up reading the same sentence over and over in an attempt fully understand or absorb what's being said. Especially if it's an older book with words I've never heard. So I haven't completely finished a novel since I was maybe 18. I'm 24 now.
This sort of format is a dream come true for me. You read and fully explain what's being said. And I've always wanted to get more into Lovecraft stuff so this was a perfect video. Thank you. Please please please do more.
TLDR: my brain don't like books or big words. Video is good and make brain happy. Do more like this.
Bro same, audio books are one of the only reasons I can read anything lol
hello! fellow adhd-haver! sometimes i can read books (through hyperfocus) but not aoften, so usually i rely on audiobooks. what i do is get my phone out and a really dump app with a forefer maze or smth - just any neverending game to stim with, if the phone idea is bad then a regular stim toy. earbuds in and then enjoy! : ) i also liked 'reading' lovecrafti this way
I've gotten through some of Lovecrafts work in written text despite my ADHD, but I have to say that Audiobooks are a massive help. Due to the nature of Lovecraft's work, a lot of it is up on TH-cam entirely free.
Have you ever heard of audiobooks?
I remember being interested in the Cthulhu stuff, and reading the actual book a while back. I could really understand what the hell was going on in the book partially because I was too young and because I’d read when I was very tired. But this video is honestly more cohesive than the actual book to me with how many layers of “character stumbles across a letter, that tells a story of character’s uncle, who tells a story about a dude he met, now we’re reading a note about ancient gods getting hit by boats!”
"The case of Charles Dexter Ward" is one of H.P's hidden gems I don't hear discussed as much. Probably because it doesn't involve any of his outer gods, except a hint of Yog Sothoth. But the scene where the family doctor recounts his trip into the tomb and losing his flashlight is legit great horror literature. And the climax is also fantastic when the entire town confronts the big bad, and we only get second hand accounts of what happened since they we're all so traumatized they never spoke of it again.
Lovecraft is one of my favourite authors. I've probably read his stuff a hundred times and my literature thesis in high school was on him. I got so excited when I saw the video title
Read Lovecraft. Reading when you’re a woman, by yourself in an isolated house in rural Australia on dark winter’s night … especially “Rats in the Walls” … when you hear skittering noises in the ceiling.
EDIT: must read collection again. Winter here again.
I like the new set up! I hope the old whiteboard walls make a reappearance every now & then though (: