P Caesar
said
:
How alien is Xau-tak? Let's try to put him on a level of "alien".
This is actually an interesting question that a lot of your theories have skirted around. I mean, most of you still seem to refer to Xau-Tak by gendered pronouns and ascribe it very ‘human’ goals. This is interesting to see as you are simultaneously going ‘it must be an incomprehensible, Lovecraftian god!’ and ‘I’ll bet we’re going to get to talk to him/her!’
It also kind of addresses some of the power issues that were being discussed recently. As noted, a lot of eldritch horrors tend to have powers that defy rationality, which might push up the danger of confronting them. Consider the ‘Liquid Satan’ from Prince of Darkness. It was basically a pool of evil juice that could take people over and make them go crazy. Nothing much there to write home about. It was also planning of pulling the anti-god into our dimension, and therefore sending everything to literal hell in a handbasket.
Let’s also consider Ghatanothoa. On paper it seems like the kind of thing the players kill as a bit of a boss fight. It’s big, messy, flails around a lot and is only worshipped as a god to keep it from rolling downhill and eating everyone. Not too tricky an issue to deal with, right? Oh, except that looking at it, or images of it, or reflections of it, causes you to mummify instantly. You don’t die, of course. You just live out an eternity of mute, lunatic horror as a living brain trapped inside your leathery shell of a body.
It is this sort of alien nature that people need to consider. Don’t worry though! I have not added spoilers by using the above examples. Liquid Satan, the anti-god and Ghatanothoa are all way, way more human and relatable than Xau-Tak.
How alien is Xau-tak? Let's try to put him on a level of "alien".
This is actually an interesting question that a lot of your theories have skirted around. I mean, most of you still seem to refer to Xau-Tak by gendered pronouns and ascribe it very ‘human’ goals. This is interesting to see as you are simultaneously going ‘it must be an incomprehensible, Lovecraftian god!’ and ‘I’ll bet we’re going to get to talk to him/her!’
It also kind of addresses some of the power issues that were being discussed recently. As noted, a lot of eldritch horrors tend to have powers that defy rationality, which might push up the danger of confronting them. Consider the ‘Liquid Satan’ from Prince of Darkness. It was basically a pool of evil juice that could take people over and make them go crazy. Nothing much there to write home about. It was also planning of pulling the anti-god into our dimension, and therefore sending everything to literal hell in a handbasket.
Plus, it introduced one of the best, subtle horror moments in cinema. During a quiet moment of down time one of the cast is doing the old ‘make a card disappear by flipping it behind your fingers’ trick. They give it a go…then realize that the card has
actually vanished
. Just by being in the same building as the monster means that physics and reality are breaking down around the cast. And that’s before the spiders get involved…
Let’s also consider Ghatanothoa. On paper it seems like the kind of thing the players kill as a bit of a boss fight. It’s big, messy, flails around a lot and is only worshipped as a god to keep it from rolling downhill and eating everyone. Not too tricky an issue to deal with, right? Oh, except that looking at it, or images of it, or reflections of it, causes you to mummify instantly. You don’t die, of course. You just live out an eternity of mute, lunatic horror as a living brain trapped inside your leathery shell of a body.
It is this sort of alien nature that people need to consider. Don’t worry though! I have not added spoilers by using the above examples. Liquid Satan, the anti-god and Ghatanothoa are all way, way more human and relatable than Xau-Tak.
04-Aug-2016 17:22:19 - Last edited on 04-Aug-2016 17:54:45 by Mod Wilson
