#godsofterror

[godsofterror]

The Many-Faced God: Part 2

This is the second part of a Gods of Terror theory that posits that the Many-Faced God of the Faceless Men is the Cthulhu Mythos Outer God Nyarlathotep. Review Part One here for more background about how this connection was made and how he has manifested in a major character.

Part of the meta-analysis encompassed by the theory is that GRRM is showing that he can write better than most other heirs to Lovecraft. I think he took the ideas of the Cthulhu Mythos and extended them to include other myths such as the Green Man, and extended it to include his world building from the Ice Dragon and other earlier stories.

For example, he married the masks/forms of Nyarlathotep to create the Many-Faced God, worshipped by the Cult of the Faceless Men. He created the Drowned God to represent memories of Cthulhu. And there are tons of other examples that exhibit GRRM’s vast knowledge of the extensive Cthulhu Mythos stories and characters.

For me, the connections to the Cthulhu Mythos are more than just world building. Sure, it seems at first to be background filler… but the closer I look, the more I realized that the filler is in the foreground as well. If the gods of Terros are directly imported from the Mythos, are worshipped by the people of Terros for their powers as exhibited in the Mythos, and obey the ‘rules’ of the Mythos, than A Song of Ice and Fire takes place within the Mythos.

What does that mean for A Song of Ice and Fire? Importantly, it means that these “gods” are real, and that they are not “gods” in the religious sense. They are actual cosmic beings that exist in the universe of ASOIAF, that have appeared on Terros but mostly live in outer space.

It is important to understand that these cosmic beings mostly hate each other and have great wars that threaten the lives of humans and other lesser beings. These cosmic beings care very little about humans (except Nyarlathotep, who love to torture humans), and humans are caught in the middle of these wars.

Every time humans encounter these beings, horrible things happen, but the power demonstrated by these beings invokes terror and wonder, and the human religions of Terros spring up to worship the beings they have encountered. The Cult of the Faceless Men worship Nyarlathotep, while the Iron Islanders worship the Drowned God, who correlates closely to Cthulhu. The Storm God, the Toad God, the Lord of Light, Shub-Niggurath, He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named: all Great Old Ones, and all worshipped by different groups on Terros.

The Cthulhu Mythos also helps explain the presence of the giant black blocks of stone found throughout the world:

“Old Castro remembered bits of hideous legend that paled the speculations of theosophists and made man and the world seem recent and transient indeed. There had been aeons when other Things ruled on the earth, and They had had great cities. Remains of Them, he said the deathless Chinamen had told him, were still be found as Cyclopean stones on islands in the Pacific. They all died vast epochs of time before men came, but there were arts which could revive Them when the stars had come round again to the right positions in the cycle of eternity.” - HP Lovecraft, “The Call of Cthulhu”

Within the Mythos, Nyarlathotep is special, as all of the other Great Old Ones are sleeping or banished to space. Nyarlathotep can still walk among humans, and he takes many different forms on Earth as he works to spread terror through fear, torture, and pain. As I explained in Part One, Nyarlathothep has been present on Terros throughout history, and is currently inhabiting a number of avatars to work towards his dark ends.

The Long Night and the Bloodstone Emperor

As I wrote in Part One, the Long Night was started by the Bloodstone Emperor, who worshiped a black stone that fell from space. The story The Haunter of the Dark tells of the Shining Trapezohedron, the black stone used to call a god of terror known as the Haunter of the Dark, who is a manifestation of Nyarlathotep. This direct link between the horror of the Long Night, and the Church of Starry Wisdom, which was founded by the Bloodstone Emperor, spells ill omens for the future of the story.

Euron Greyjoy has been taken over by Nyarlathotep. He has either been driven mad by an interaction with Nyarlathotep, or has been taken over completely by the Faceless God.

He is working to secure the Shining Trapezohedron, which I believe is housed in the Hightower of Oldtown, where it has been watched over by the descendants of Uthor of the High Tower, who slew a dragon and established his house on Battle Island in the mythical past of Westeros. Uthor is a corruption of Ulthar, the Mythos god and son of Sothoth sent down to Earth (or Terros) to watch over the Great Old Ones as they sleep.

When the stars were right, They could plunge from world to world through the sky; but when the stars were wrong, They could not live. But although They no longer lived, They would never really die. They all lay in stone houses in Their great city of R'lyeh, preserved by the spells of mighty Cthulhu for a glorious surrection when the stars and the earth might once more be ready for Them. But at that time some force from outside must serve to liberate Their bodies. The spells that preserved them intact likewise prevented Them from making an initial move, and They could only lie awake in the dark and think whilst uncounted millions of years rolled by. They knew all that was occurring in the universe, for Their mode of speech was transmitted thought. Even now They talked in Their tombs. When, after infinities of chaos, the first men came, the Great Old Ones spoke to the sensitive among them by moulding their dreams; for only thus could Their language reach the fleshly minds of mammals. - HP Lovecraft, “The Call of Cthulhu”

In this passage, we can uncover a lot information that relates to the Great Old Ones (the group of cosmic beings to which Cthulhu has been assigned by Lovecraft), and also relates to the prophetic dreams of the Dreamers, whose actions may be influenced by these psychic waves eminating from the mind of Cthulhu as he sleeps in R'lyeh.

The most important bit of information is that someone, or something, must awaken the gods because they are sleeping using spells that prevent them from waking themselves. It has been theorized that after a great battle in the past, the Great Old Ones were put to sleep by the Elder Ones. Could this battle have been the great battle for the Dawn?

The Outer God Ghroth (the Harbinger), an entity introduced by Ramsey Campbell (a Mythos writer and friend and editor of GRRM), is described as a red sphere that passes through space, singing a siren song known as the Music of the Spheres. As he passes through space, he awakens any sleeping Great Old One on the planets that he passes. This has been the cause of mass extinctions on Earth.

Ghroth reminds me strongly of the red comet at the beginning of A Clash of Kings. Perhaps Ghroth passed by Terros, and helped to weaken the spells of the Elder Ones, and awaken the magic of dragons, but the spells require a great blood sacrifice to end them once and for all. With the help of Nyarlathotep and his avatars, the Great Old Ones will be freed from the spells that bind them.

Blood Ritual

As we see in the Aeron sample chapter, Euron is preparing for a blood sacrifice in the sea off Oldtown. He has strapped holy men of many different religons onto the bows of ships, including his own brother, Aeron Greyjoy. What is his endgoal with this sacrifice?

Euron’s treatment of Aeron, and of the 4 warlocks of Qarth, are perfect examples of his ability to torture men to madness. He kills one of the warlocks, to show that he meant business, and then chained them up and made them eat the dead warlock (and probaly themselves). In “The Forsaken”, we see what’s left of Pyat Pree: a man without legs, who has clearly been driven mad:

Last were two warlocks of the east, with flesh as white as mushrooms, and lips the purplish?-blue of a bad bruise, all so gaunt and starved that only skin and bones remained. One had lost his legs. The mutes hung him from a rafter. ?Pree,? he cried as he swung back and forth. ?Pree, Pree!?

His speech to Aeron displays his desire to kill men and replace the gods recalls the role of Nyarlathotep as a trickster gods of terror. Lovecraft’s epic poem Fungi from Yuggoth gives clues about how Euron’s blood sacrifice will begin the descruction of the world, as the “idiot Chaos”, or Nyarlathotep, births death from the sea.

Soon from the sea a noxious birth began; Forgotten lands with weedy spires of gold; The ground was cleft, and mad auroras rolled Down on the quaking citadels of man. Then, crushing what he chanced to mould in play, The idiot Chaos blew Earth’s dust away.

I think that this passage portens both the terrible doom that is about to befall Terros, and the nature of the gods involved in the coming Long Night. The second line (“Forgotten lands with weedy spires of gold”) invokes the Westerlands and the gold of the Casterly Rock, and the fourth line (“Down on the quaking cidadels of man”) I associate with Oldtown, home of the Citadel.

Towers By The Sea

It’s no coincidence that Euron is preparing for the invasion of Oldtown. In fact, it has been hinted about by many major characters.

Melisandre has visions of a tower by the sea overwhelmed by a dark tide that rises from the depths:

Then the towers by the sea, crumbling as the dark tide came sweeping over them, rising from the depths. (ADWD, Melisandre)

I saw towers by the sea, submerged beneath a black and bloody tide. (ADWD, Melisandre I)

Moroqqo, who I have also associated with Nyarlathotep after his transformation in the sea (check out the difference in how he is described between the Tyrion chapters and the Victarion chapters), mentions a similar vision in this exchange with Tyrion:

“Have you seen these others in your fires?” he asked, warily. “Only their shadows,” Moqorro said. “One most of all. A tall and twisted thing with one black eye and ten long arms, sailing on a sea of blood.” (ADWD, Tyrion VIII)

Euron’s ultimate goal is not just to drive men mad and to spread chaos and fear. He is the harbinger of doom, Death, the Lion of Night, here to remake the world again. And he will do this by calling back from the dead the terrible Great Old Ones.

He will have some help with his terrible mission, from a mysterious and dark House of Westeros.

Oldtown and the Hightowers

The plot of The Winds of Winter promises to focus on the taking of Oldtown by the Ironborn. This ancient city, long the domain of the even more ancient Hightower family, has two notable features: the eponymous Hightower, a stone tower built on top of an mysterious black stone fort on Battle Isle, and the Citadel, the major center of learning in Westeros, where all maesters are trained and where Samwell Tarly has been sent at the end of A Dance with Dragons.

I have long suspected that the Hightowers of Oldtown, that ancient family that traces back to Uthar Hightower and Maris the Maid, were involved in worship of the Outer Gods. Not only are they ancient - much too ancient, really, for any of the timelines of the arrival of the First Men to make sense - but they are also known to dabble in sorcery.

Anytime that a wizard or sorceror is using magic in the Cthulhu Mythos, they are attempting to communicate or call one of the Great Old Ones or the Outer Gods. Usually, it takes blood sacrifice to get the attention of the gods. I suspect that the rumours of sorcery by the Hightowers (in particular Leyton Hightower and his daughter, the Mad Maid), are related to the desire to awaken the Great Old Ones.

Ulthar

If you have been following the Gods of Terror theory to this point, it should come as no surprise to learn that there is a Cthulhu Mythos diety named Ulthar (or Uldar or even Ultharathotep), who is a son of Yog-Sothoth and is considered and “Elder God”. Ulthar, according to the (fictional) Sussex Manuscript was sent to Earth to keep a vigil over the sleeping or banished Great Old Ones/Outer Gods.

The words of House Hightower: “We Light The Way”. What way are they lighting? For whom are they lighting the way? It’s worth noting here the definitions of “vigil”:

wakefulness maintained for any reason during the normal hours for sleeping.

a watch or a period of watchful attention maintained at night or at other times:

a period of wakefulness from inability to sleep.

Could the words of House Hightower relate to a vigil for the sleeping Great Old Ones?

Killer of Dragons

Uthar Hightower, according to legends, killed a dragon roosting on Battle Isle and then worked with Bran the Builder to build the Hightower on top of the ancient black stone fort. He then claimed (or stole) Maris the Maid from a giant (who swore revenge on Uthar) and founded the line of Hightowers that continues into the contemporary story.

The Church of Starry Wisdom

Euron and the Hightowers are not the only players in the mission to call back the Great Old Ones and remake the world.

As seen in The Haunter of the Dark, the Church of Starry Wisdom has the Shining Trapezohedron stored in the high tower of the creepy church. And the cultists of the Church perform blood sacrifices to The Haunter of the Dark, the terrible avatar of Nyarlathotep with a three-lobed burning eye with wings.

The Church of Starry Wisdom is present throughout Terros in the modern era, worshiped at port cities by sailors and others. It has been mentioned in A Dance With Dragons and is also hinted at in A Feast for Crows, as it is suspected that Marwin the Mage visits their temple in the port of Oldtown.

I suspect something else. The Shining Trapezohedron, the black stone that fell from Earth and was worshiped by the Bloodstone Emperor, which he used to call the Lion of Night, could be in the Hightower. It would explain Euron’s desire to capture the Hightower: his plan to awaken the sleeping Great Old Ones. With the help of the Hightowers and blood sacrifice, Euron will invoke Nyarlathotep, the Lion of Night.

…and the secret priests would take great Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His subjects and resume His rule of earth. The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom.

The Citadel

The Citadel was founded by decree of the second Hightower, who declared that its mission was to learn the arts of man. It is known to be anti-dragon, and is also suspected to be complicit in the downfall of the Targaryens.

I don’t know the degree of control over the Citadel that the Hightowers hold, but there is a deep association. They were founded by them, and have collected information about the lords and the laymen of Westeros from that beginning. In fact, in reading the Princess and the Queen and The Rogue Prince, there is a lot of innuendo about their role in starting the Dance of the Dragons.

Why do they hate the Dragons so? Is it just because of their institutional aversion to magic? Or does it go much deeper?

Faceless Men and Braavos

Are they an international cult of assasins who are working to hasten the return of the Great Old Ones? I do have my suspicions. The Faceless Men have been trying to get the book on killing dragons, and they probably helped to cause the Doom of Valyria, so they do seem to have it out for the dragon people who might oppose them, whatever their ultimate goals might be.

War Between The Gods

After deep study of the world book, it seems clear that the founders of Norvos and Qohor, while Valyrian, were not dragon-riding Valyrians. In Norvos, they stuck with Hastur, The Great Shepherd. In Qohor they switched to The Black Goat. In Volantis, they worship the Lord of Light.

The followers of the Lord of Light hate the followers of the Norvoshi religion and the Qohorik religion, and the feeling is mutual. While I think that the Norvoshi worship Hastur, the Magnum Innonominandum or He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-named, the Black Goat is Shub-Niggurath, The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young. (It’s worth noting that in “The Mound” by Lovecraft, Shub-Niggurath is described as the wife of the Not-To-Be-Named One, who is Hastur.)

Importantly, the enmity between the followers of R'hllor and these other religions represent the greater war between the Gods of Terros. I don’t say this lightly; I’ve devoted a ton of time over the last few years trying to understand what is really going on in Westeros and Essos and Sothoryos and Leng and beyond; this Tumblr is the result. But this was all building to this point: that these gods are not make-believe, but are instead powerful beings beyond the understanding of humans, that are at war with each other.

Indeed, we see the war between Cthulhu and Hastur in the hatred of the Ironborn for the Storm God; and the battles at Storm’s End between Durran Godsgrief and the Storm God. We see the death cult of the Many-Faced God arise in Valyria as Nyarlathotep battles Cthugha (the Lord of Light), which may have resulted in the Doom of Valyria.

Perhaps some of these beings have aided humans in the past, to score a victory against their rivals? I suspect that may be a possibility, as it is a large part of the Cthulhu Mythos. For example, in the introduction of Cthugha in “The Dweller in Darkness”, August Derleth (a Lovecraft disciple) pitted him directly against Nyarlathotep.

The relationship between the dragonriders of Valyria and the Lord of Light deserves its own essay, but for our purposes here, I’ll just mention three interesting tidbits. Cthugha is a giant ball of fire and is served by the Flame Creatures of Cthugha. Most importantly, his only protegy is Aphoom-Zhah (a Lin Carter diety; Lin is another of GRRM’s friends and editors), who is also known as the Cold Flame, a “vast, cold, grey flame that freezes whatever it touches”.

In a story of Ice and Fire, deep within the Cthulhu Mythos, these two gods are going to be significant.

Conclusions

Why does all of this matter to the story? Isn’t this a story of humans, dragons, ice demons, and telepathic paraplegics?

I suspect something else. The story will have a twist so massive that it’s taken years to get it right.

As Leo Tyrell says in the beginning of A Feast For Crows, the story has changed, and an age of wonder and terror has begun:

Dragons and darker things. The grey sheep have closed their eyes, but the mastiff sees the truth. Old powers awaken. Shadows stir. An age of wonder and terror will soon be upon us, an age for gods and heroes.

As the Others have been lurking over the story for five books, it is both perfectly normal for them to be seen as the old power that have returned. But I suspect that it is a feint, a ruse even, by George, as cruel as that may be to his readers.

In fact, I believe that the Others will not be the ultimate evil faced in the story, and Old Nan will be proven wrong once again. Instead, the evil will come from the “gods” themselves as they seek to return to Terros.

I believe that the great war that will end A Song of Ice and Fire will not happen in the North, against the Others, but will instead be centered around Oldtown and the Riverlands.

Tinfoil Time

Here is my predictions for how all of this will be set up in The Winds of Winter (I’ll save my A Dream of Spring predictions for next time):

Euron’s blood sacrifice will be used to awaken an ancient evil: the Deep Ones. He will call an army of these terrible hybrid beings to help him invade Westeros. The blood sacrifice will not be strong enough to break the spells keeping the Great Old Ones sleeping, but the Deep Ones, the half-human/half-fish descendants of the gods, will come above water en masse for the first time since the Battle for the Dawn. These beings are known as the squishers in the east, silkies in the far north.

He and his hybrid minions will strike at Oldtown, where they will overwhelm the defenders of the city. Euron will capture the Hightower, where he finds a willing partner in the Mad Maid, Malora Hightower.

Euron and Malora will join forces to perform a blood sacrifice using the Shining Trapezohedron. But they need a person with incredibly powerful blood to sacrifice: Daenerys, the Mother of Dragons.

Euron has already set his plan in motion to capture Dany, by sending Victarion to Slaver’s Bay. Using the dragon horn, Victarion will bind the will of a dragon, but he will not capture it himself. Instead, Euron has enchanted the horn to make the dragon respond only to him. Victarion thinking himself strong enough and desiring Dany, will blow the horn and die, and the dragon will fly off to find his new master: Euron.

Dany, mother of dragons, will suspend her war in Essos and her planned invasion of Westeros to find her dragon. She will follow the dragon to Oldtown and will be captured by Euron and the Mad Maid. Her fleet and army will follow, but may be too late, for the blood of kings flows through her veins, and only that magic can break the spell and awaken the Great Old Ones……

End Scene

Post Script

This theory borrows and extends PoorQuentyn’s Eldritch Apolocalypse theory, so I must give him credit. But I’m taking it further, into the Land of Lovecraft, because that’s where I see the ultimate twist occuring: the form of the ultimate evil, and the role of the “gods”, who I believe are the cosmic beings of the Cthulhu Mythos.

More to come!

[godsofterror]

The Land of Souls, Part I: The ghost of Drogo

Drogo was always doomed.

The life of any Khal is short and vicious. Like a king, the Sword of Damocles dangles over the leader of the khalasar, held only by a thread of hair. Lose and the hair is cut.

But Drogo was always going to die, and come back, only to die again on the dragon pyre. Drogo was always going to be a revanant, a zombie, a ghost, a draugr. George named him with his usual care, picking an ancient Norman name that could only mean death for his creation.

Drogo means ghost in English, a word borrowed from the Norman conquerors, French-speaking descendants of Vikings. Drogo comes from the Old Norse word draugr.

Draugr has a more complex meaning than "ghost". It stems from the ancient Proto-Indo European word "*dʰrowgʰos", meaning "phantom" and derived from "*dʰrewgʰ", meaning "deceive". A draugr is also called "aptrgangr", which means "again-walker". It has even been translated as barrow-wight. In modern terms, a draugr is a revanant, or zombie.

The will appears to be strong, strong enough to draw the hugr [animate will] back to one's body. These reanimated individuals were known as draugar. However, though the dead might live again, they could also die again. Draugar die a "second death" as Chester Gould calls it, when their bodies decay, are burned, dismembered or otherwise destroyed. - Gregg A. Smith, The function of the living dead in medieval Norse and Celtic literature : death and desire

Drogo becomes a zombie when Mirri Maz Duur uses blood magic to revive him. His mind was gone, though: for a draugr to come back to life (according to the Norse) the soul, or animate will, must return to the body. His body lived on, but his "hugr", his mind and spirit and soul, never returned, leaving his mind destroyed.

Dany burned the revanant Drogo in her dragon pyre. His second death became an accidental sacrifice, fulfilling the ancient blood rite that required the father, and then the son, to die to give life to dragons. Thematically, Drogo was doomed to die for the Dragon Queen to rise.

This Old Norse concept of "hugr" combined the ideas of soul and spirit and mind to the Vikings. It differs from our understanding of the spirit or soul, as "hugr" also contains the mind as well.

The mind (munr), although a separate concept, is part of the very being called the hugr, which would be best described as a soul or spirit. The hugr was the very essence of an individual’s being that could be separated from the body at will and returned. The mind (munr) stayed with the spirit/soul (hugr) when it left the body (líkami) The hugr, with the munr attached, left the body upon the death of the body (líkami).

Where did the hugr of Drogo go? Why did the blood magic fail to bring it back to his body?

The Hugr is part of the Norse concept of the self. The Nordic and Germanic folk had a deep concept of the self that expanded as a differentiation from the body (líkami), the mind or will (munr) and their very being (hugr). The mind being apart of the very being which would be best described as a soul or spirit. The Hugr was the very essence of an individual’s being that could be separated from the body at will and returned. It left the body upon death.

The hugr can travel outside of the body, and inhabit an animal, during life and especially at death. In A Song of Ice and Fire, the Starks prominently exhibit this trait. They have skinchanging abilities and are called wargs, a Scandinavian word meaning wolf. Other skinchangers appear as well, including Varamyr Sixskins.

As the hugr can take the form of animal or join with an animal, Drogo's hugr probably went into his horse. Expecting this, Mirri Maz Durr had his horse brought into the tent, and slit its throat. She hated Drogo and the Dothraki, and wanted to punish him by destroying his soul and mind. She revived his body as a zombie, to fulfill her promise to Dany. But Mirri made sure that Drogo's hugr, and his son, died in that tent.

This essay isn't about Drogo, or the Vikings. It's about how George uses Norse mythology to give credence to the resurrection of Drogo, and later of Beric Dondarrion, Lady Stoneheart, and Jon Snow. He uses the legacy of the Norse concepts of the body, mind, and soul to legitimize the magic and how it behaves.

It's the introduction of hugr that we are here to discuss. It seems indirect, this travel from Drogo to draugr to hugr. I accept that there may be scepticism. But it's not the only clue to George's use of these concepts. In fact, George introduces hugr more directly, through the first king of the Andals: Hugor of the Hill.

Even the gods and goddesses have Hugr,

Because even the gods and goddesses can die.

Part II, coming soon...

[godsofterror]

Nyarlathotep, the Many-Faced God

In researching the Lovecraft (Cthulhu) Mythos for the inspirations of the terrible Gods of Terros, one name keeps popping up as a central agent of chaos, who appears on Earth to perform the bidding of the Outer Gods: the Outer God know as Nyarlathotep.

Nyarlathotep. The Crawling Chaos, the Faceless God, the Sphinx, the Haunter of the Dark. Who is this mysterious Outer God? Why is he central to the plans of the Outer Gods, whom he openly mocks? Why does he enjoy spreading fear, chaos and terror in the hearts of humans?

In this essay I will argue that the Many-Faced God of the House of Black and White of Braavos is none other than Nyarlathotep. To further the whim of the Outer Gods, a group of powerful cosmic beings that have mostly been banished from Earth, the Faceless God Nyarlathotep roams the world in many forms. His evil aims will become central to the main story of A Song of Ice and Fire in The Winds of Winter, as his one of his avatars mocks both the Gods and humans and bespeaks the end of the world by hastening the return of the Outer Gods and the Great Old Ones (the two main groups of gods in the Cthulhu Mythos - note that the distinction did not originate with Lovecraft but with his successor August Derleth).

I will follow this up in the next few days with a second part, which will contain my speculation on what this means for the story. For now, let's review the roles and forms of Nyarlathotep and correlate them with both gods and humans in A Song of Ice and Fire.

Nyarlathotep Background

"Nyarlathotep, horror of infinite shapes and dread soul and messenger of the Other Gods" - HP Lovecraft, "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath"

Developed by HP Lovecraft in 1920, Nyarlathotep is first described as man of strange powers who has come from the ancient lands of Egypt. He gives demonstrations of his powers that awe and frighten the people, but his reputation spreads quickly, as do the night screams and nightmares of the populace in the lands he visits.

HP Lovecraft wrote 4 stories and one poem where an avatar of Nyarlathotep appears directly: "Nyarlathotep", "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath", "The Dreams of the Witch House", "The Haunter of the Dark" and the poem "Fungi from Yuggoth", where he appears in 2 stanzas.

Though relative to other gods, Nyarlathotep has a large percentage of Lovecraft's writings, as far as direct references we see him appear in 5 different forms:

a tall and swarthy man, who hails from Egypt and gives presentations of strange and powerful instruments while spreading fear and discord among the populace. ("Nyarlathotep")

a dreamy, god-like Pharaoh. ("The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath")

a demon satyr (goat-man) with skin as black as night. ("The Dreams of the Witch House")

a three-lobed burning eye with wings ("The Haunter of the Dark")

the idiot Chaos, who takes the author on a tour of the universe, and through his actions, destroys Earth ("Fungi From Yuggoth")

Quickly adopted by the many other writers who shared the Cthulhu Mythos with Lovecraft (Block, Price, Derleth, Carter, and more), and even other authors who are not known as Mythos writers (such as Stephen King), the role and archetype of Nyarlathotep has been employed to introduce a mocking, malevolent being who takes many forms (or wears many masks, according to some of the Mythos writers) and has many avatars on Earth.

It's worth noting that there is a famous RPG called Masks of Nyarlathotep that also helped spread his fame and infamy. After Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep is the most referenced of Lovecraft's creations.

Let's explore the appearances of Nyarlathotep in some of these stories, and how this will affect the endgame of A Song of Ice and Fire, as well as the numerous avatars of Nyarlathotep present in A Song of Ice and Fire. First, however, to gain understanding of the archetype, let's review the role of Nyarlathotep from another, familiar story: Stephen King's The Stand.

Randall Flagg (Stephen King)

Stephen King, long inspired by the Mythos, used the Nyarlathotep archetype to introduce Randall Flagg. In fact, the language describing Randall Flagg is evocative of the language HP Lovecraft uses to introduce Nyarlathotep. Compare these passages:

There was a dark hilarity in his face, and perhaps in his heart, too, you would think - and you would be right. It was the face of a hatefully happy man, a face that radiated a horrible handsome warmth, a face to make water glasses shatter in the hands of tired truck-stop waitresses, to make small children crash their trikes into board fences and then run wailing to their mommies with stake-shaped splinters sticking out of their knees. It was a face guaranteed to make barroom arguments over batting averages turn bloody. -Stephen King, The Stand

Into the lands of civilisation came Nyarlathotep, swarthy, slender, and sinister, always buying strange instruments of glass and metal and combining them into instruments yet stranger. He spoke much of the sciences - of electricity and psychology - and gave exhibitions of power which sent his spectators away speechless, yet which swelled his fame to exceeding magnitude. Men advised one another to see Nyarlathotep, and shuddered. And where Nyarlathotep went, rest vanished; for the small hours were rent with the screams of a nightmare. -HP Lovecraft, "Nyarlathotep"

...a tall, slim figure with the young face of an antique Pharaoh, gay with prismatic robes and crowned with a golden pshent that glowed with inherent light. Close up to Carter strode that regal figure; whose proud carriage and swart features had in them the fascination of a dark god or fallen archangel, and around whose eyes there lurked the languid sparkle of capricious humour. It spoke, and in its mellow tones there rippled the mild music of Lethean streams. -HP Lovecraft, "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath"

With two very different styles, both King and Lovecraft invoke a being who radiates power and evil that inspires nightmares and terror wherever he goes. A good-looking man ("horrible handsome warmth" vs. "swarthy, slender, and sinister") with evil intentions ("hatefully happy" vs. "capricious humor") who brings pain and terror wherever he goes.

Technically, in universe, he is referred to as "Nyarlahotep", but this is referencing the same character, a man-like being who serves terrible gods but does so mockingly, while tricking humans into following him with "strange instruments of glass and metal" and "exhibitions of power which sent his followers away speechless".

So with that established, let's now review some of the forms of Nyarlathotep.

The God of the Thousand Forms

Nyarlathotep has a true form, but this form is horrifying to humans. He is most frequently encountered as a tall, swarthy man who takes joy in spreading chaos and suffering. In early stories he was encountered as an Egyptian pharaoh-like being, who inspires legions of followers with demonstrations of magical and terrible new technologies. Through rich rewards and magical deception, these followers lose awareness of their surroundings as Nyarlathotep, ambassador of the banished Outer Gods, spreads despair and terror.

It's postulated that he has so many forms because of the many gods that he serves - that each of them, while banished from Earth, can take the form of Nyarlathotep and so the many roles he must play on Earth can represent separate and even disparate missions. Let's review some of the Cthulhu Mythos forms and roles fulfilled by the many faces of Nyarlathotep.

The Faceless God

It was the eldritch scurrying of those fiend-born rats, always questing for new horrors, and determined to lead me on even unto those grinning caverns of earth's centre where Nyarlathotep, the mad faceless god, howls blindly to the piping of two amorphous idiot flute-players. - HP Lovecraft, "The Rats in the Walls"

Here is the earliest and most direct reference to the Faceless God by Lovecraft himself. Lovecraft had developed the character of Nyarlathotep from the initial mysterious man from Egypt into a god, and encouraged other writers to do so as well. This story does not focus on Nyarlathotep, but mentions him as "the mad faceless god" that horrible beings worship.

The Crawling Chaos

Unlike the other Outer Gods, spreading madness is more important and enjoyable than death and destruction to Nyarlathotep.

Nyarlathotep takes great pride in driving men mad and causing chaos. Instead of just torturing people, he aims to drive them mad. In fact, another name or title of Nyarlathotep is The Crawling Chaos.

"What his fate would be, he did not know; but he felt that he was held for the coming of that frightful soul and messenger of infinity's Other Gods, the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep." - H.P. Lovecraft, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

Then, crushing what he chanced to mould in play, The idiot Chaos blew Earth’s dust away. - HP Lovecraft, "Fungi From Yuggoth"

This name partially derives from his role as the messenger (and soul) of the being Azathoth, which is basically a "chaotic" nuclear being that is both "beyond angled space" (i.e. outside of our universe and space-time) while also the creator of the universe, who dreamed it into being. It is also speculated that the Crawling Chaos is another name for the end of the world, that will be initiated by Nyarlathotep.

If Azathoth were to wake, the universe would be blown to dust, so the Outer Gods dance around him to flutes, hoping to ensure that Azathoth does not wake. This overwhelming amount of power is what leads me to believe that Azathoth, while the most powerful of all the gods, is not the Great Other. Azathoth is too important to the universe to involve himself in the squabbles over Earth. Hastur, in my opinion, is the more likely candidate to be the Great Other.

The Black Man of the Witch Cult

And at the last from inner Egypt came The strange dark One to whom the fellahs bowed; Silent and lean and cryptically proud, And wrapped in fabrics red as sunset flame. - HP Lovecraft, "Fungi Form Yuggoth"

In "The Dreams in the Witch House", the protagonist meets the Black Man of the Witch Cult by sleeping in a haunted Salem attic where a witch disappeared centuries before. This is not a man of African descent; instead, he has midnight black skin, hairless and wearing a black robe. He represents the collusion of the witches with an evil worthy of Satan, and even has a satyr-like legs:

"a tall, lean man of dead black colouration but without the slightest sign of negroid features; wholly devoid of either hair or beard, and wearing as his only garment a shapeless robe of some heavy black fabric. His feet were indistinguishable because of the table and bench, but he must have been shod, since there was a clicking whenever he changed position." - HP Lovecraft, "The Dreams in the Witch House"

The Black Man/Dark Man of the Witch Cult was a Christian vision of the being that sealed agreements between witches and Satan; Lovecraft adopted the idea and replaced Satan with Nyarlathotep.

Nephren-Ka

"The Black Pharaoh, an insane pharaoh who secured the Shining Trapezohedron for Egypt, but after being convinced by the resident Haunter of the Dark, he had a lightless temple created to hold the stone and the deity within. That temple became a center of abominable happenings, and the rites carried out there were so monstrous the temple was destroyed and the Pharaoh's name was struck from all records and monuments. The Pharaoh was controlled by the cruel god Nyarlathotep, of whom the Haunter of the Dark was likely an avatar"

The story of Nephren-Ka gives evidence that human characters can be directly controlled by Nyarlathotep, as Nephren-Ka is directed by Nyarlathotep to build a lightless temple to house the Shining Trapezohedron. It is in the darkness of the temple that blood sacrifices are used to call the Haunter of the Dark.

The Sphinx

Nyarlathotep is also known as the Sphinx, and loves to tease humans with riddles, much like the mythical Sphinx of ancient Egyptian lore. Having been created by Lovecraft with a pseudo-Egyptian name ("-thotep" being an Egyptian honorific meaning "honored"), the reference to the mysterious Sphinx, also without a face, was unavoidable.

One story concerning Nyarlathotep is called "The Faceless God". Written by Robert Bloch in 1933, this avatar of Nyarlathotep took the form of a faceless sphinx idol, buried in the Egyptian desert and uncovered by a ruthless archaeologist. The idol, made of a curious black stone, inspires great fear in the native Egyptians hired to uncover and haul the idol. They desert the corrupt archaeologist to his doom that very night, and the sphinx comes alive to hunt him down.

The Dweller in Darkness

In this August Derleth story, a professor studying a haunted lake in Wisconsin disappears and his friend sets out to find him. What he discovers is that the lake and the woods are inhabited by an avatar of Nyarlathotep. To drive him away, the friend is helped by a sullen local Native American who is haunted by the long history of the lake and the terrible Great Old One.

This is also a notable story as it both introduces Derleth's major addition to the Mythos, Cthugha, and sees Cthugha invoked to scare away the avatar of Nyarlathotep. From the beginning, then, Cthugha, the Lord of Light, is at war with Nyarlathotep. I will cover Cthugha more completely in a future essay, as i believe that he is a major component of the pantheon of the Gods of Terror - he is the god of the Red Religion.

The Haunter of the Dark

This is really interesting, as it relates directly to the Church of Starry Wisdom, which exists in Westeros and Essos and has a sinister reputation, according to Master Yandel. In "The Haunter of the Dark", written by Lovecraft in 1935, the diaries of the Spoiler (dead) protagonist are discussed and analyzed for truth. Robert Blake, the protagonist, is a writer in Providence, Rhode Island. He described his fascination with a dark church:

"Of all the distant objects on Federal Hill, a certain huge, dark church most fascinated Blake. It stood out with especial distinctness at certain hours of the day, and at sunset the great tower and tapering steeple loomed blackly against the flaming sky." - HP Lovecraft, "The Haunter of the Dark"

He becomes obsessed with the church and its dark presence. He decides to investigate it finally and what he finds horrifies him:

It was a human skeleton, and it must have been there for a very long time. The clothing was in shreds, but some buttons and fragments of cloth bespoke a man's grey suit.

A note in the man's tattered pocket contained a sordid history of the presence of the Church of Starry Wisdom in the town. It describes how its cultists use an ancient Egyptian "box" that "can't exist in light", and that these cultists used this "box", which they called the Shining Trapezohedron, as a window to see all of space and time. This window, and the knowledge that could be gained by looking into it, came at a terrible price. For Nyarlathotep, in his avatar The Haunter of the Dark, demanded monstrous blood sacrifices for the use of the Shining Trapezohedron.

What form does this avatar take? A three-lobed burning eye with wings.

Does that remind you of anyone's sigil, just a little? (Euron. It's Euron.)

The many roles of Nyarlathotep

To understand Nyarlathotep, you must understand the roles he plays in the Mythos stories. Much like his forms, they are varied and sometimes confusing or conflicting.

The Messenger of the Gods

"I am His Messenger," the daemon said, As in contempt he struck his Master’s head. - HP Lovecraft, "Fungi From Yuggoth"

Because Nyarlathotep can walk among mortals, Lovecraft and the other Mythos writers employ Nyarlathotep as the interface between humans and the Outer Gods. He appears in more stories than most of the Other Gods (that is, the Outer Gods and the Great Old Ones, which are not exactly distinct as there is no real order to the Mythos, but that is an issue for another day).

Bringer of Chaos

"... the gigantic ultimate gods, the blind, voiceless, tenebrous, mindless Other Gods whose soul and messenger is the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep." - HP Lovecraft, "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath"

Nyarlathotep spreads not just doom but chaos as well, to help spread fear and distress within the populace. In the first story, HP Lovecraft describes how screams and nightmares filled each city visited by Nyarlathotep as he gave his demonstrations of power.

Harbinger of Doom

"If there are gods to listen, they are monstrous gods who torment us for their sport. Who else would make a world like this, so full of bondage, blood, and pain? Who else would shape us as they have?" - Tyrion XI, A Dance With Dragons

The Gods of Terros are terrible. Their indifference to the suffering of humanity, and the even more sinister enjoyment of suffering shown by Nyarlathotep, are not even the worst part of their plans.

According to Derleth, the Outer Gods and the Great Old Ones were banished from Earth in an ancient war with the Elder Gods of Earth. Some of the Outer Gods/Great Old Ones are sleeping on Earth, like Cthulhu, and others were banished into outer space, but they want to return to take their revenge. However, they are prevented from doing so without outside help.

Only Nyarlathotep is free to roam the earth and interact with mortals, doing the bidding of the Gods. He is working to reverse the banishment, and to awaken the sleeping gods. And it's for this reason that he appears in A Song of Ice and Fire.

Nyarlathotep in A Song of Ice and Fire

"And through this revolting graveyard of the universe the muffled, maddening beating of drums, and thin, monotonous whine of blasphemous flutes from inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond Time; the detestable pounding and piping whereunto dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic, tenebrous ultimate gods-the blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles whose soul is Nyarlathotep." HP Lovecraft, "Nyarlathotep"

If you have been reading my Gods of Terror theory series, you understand that George RR Martin is a huge Cthulhu Mythos fan. I have already identified two major Mythos gods in the pantheon of Gods present in A Song of Ice and Fire (Hastur is The Great Other and Tsathoggua is the Toad God), and Cthulhu is so generally seen as the Drowned God that I haven't had to write it up yet. Dagon is another

The Many-Faced God and the representations of Death

This connection is at the heart of the relationship between Nyarlathotep and mortals. In fact, it is the main role that Nyarlathotep takes in A Song of Ice and Fire: that of the God of Death. From the beginning, the roots of the cult of the Faceless Men is about Death.

The story told by the Kindly Man to Arya about the beginnings of the cult of the Many-Faced God in the House of Black and White indicates that The Many-Faced God gave the first "gift" of death to a slave. Where was he encountered? Deep in the earth where slaves of Valyria toiled for the dragon masters.

But before he gave the gift, he trained this first Faceless Man in the ways of the masks. And from this interact came the cult of the Faceless Men and the religion of the Many-Faced God.

Not every god represented in the House of Black and White is directly associated with the Cthulhu Mythos. The Pale Child of Bakkalon is a call out to an older GRRM story, though I don't know what to make of that yet.

The Faceless Men

"It is understood in the land of dream that the Other Gods have many agents moving among men; and all these agents, whether wholly human or slightly less than human, are eager to work the will of those blind and mindless things in return for the favour of their hideous soul and messenger, the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep." - HP Lovecraft, "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath"

In the Cthulhu Mythos there is a group of cultists called the Dark Brotherhood or Black Brotherhood, who are dedicated to hastening the return of the Great Old Ones. They are an international group of assassins, made of people of all ethnicities and all ways of life, who adopt a mask to disguise themselves.

Now, this being an August Derleth story (while it's credited to both him and Lovecraft, it's his story from HP's rough idea), all of the assassins wear a mask that stupidly looks like Edgar Allen Poe. Yes, the writer. It's also worth noting that Poe wrote a story called "The Sphinx" which may have influenced Nyarlathotep's background.

However stupid the origin, the Faceless Men fit this model closely. And their presence throughout the story, and especially in Oldtown, speaks to their importance to the endgame of the gods.

The Stranger

The Thing, they whisper, wears a silken mask Of yellow, whose queer folds appear to hide A face not of this earth, though none dares ask Just what those features are, which bulge inside. Many, in man’s first youth, sought out that glow, But what they found, no one will ever know. - HP Lovecraft, "Fungi From Yuggoth"

The representations of the Stranger - a man with a veiled face - correlate closely to the King in Yellow and the High Priest Not To Be Described. It is easy to make the connection to Nyarlathotep, who is often associated with the King in Yellow and the High Priest Not To Be Described. Most importantly, however, is the association with Death.

The Black Goat?

The association of the Black Goat with the Many-Faced God at the House of Black and White is a bit confusing, as Shub-Niggurath is seen as female, and the Black Goat is seen as male in the World of Ice and Fire.

However, this confusion is usually resolved by picturing this Black Goat (of a Thousand Young), a Pan-like satyr or half-man/half-goat, as the incarnation of Shub-Niggurath on Earth. This horned 'Lord of the Woods' copulates with worshipers to produce horrible offspring. And he demands blood sacrifices from beasts and man alike. It is very possible that the Black Man of the Witch Cult avatar of Nyarlathotep, who appears as a pitch-black satyr in "The Dreams of the Witch House", might be the same being as the Black Goat. If so, that would mean that Shub-Niggurath sends Nyarlathotep to Earth to interact with her followers and to father her "thousand young".

The Black Goat, then, may not be one of Nyarlathotep's forms, but she/he is definitely a god of Death and is one of the avatars of an Outer God.

Lion of Night

Because the Many-Faced God is directly associated with the Lion of Night, and Nyarlathotep is associated with the Many-Faced God, then Nyarlathotep may be directly associated with the coming of the Long Night as described in the Yi Ti story of the Great Empire of the Dawn, from The World of Ice and Fire.

Yhoundeh, the Wife of Nyarlathotep

I'm not sure exactly how this fits in yet, but it's worth noting that Nyarlathotep has a wife, the horned elk-goddess Yhoundeh. She was worshiped in ancient times in Hyperboria after her priests banned the worship of Tsathoggua. However, the fall of the Hyperborean civilization lead to the abandonment of the religion of Yhoundeh. She is mainly mentioned in the The Door to Saturn by Derleth.

Apparently, Yhoundeh had an affair with Darkness, which birthed Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young. The Black Goat is worshiped in Qohor, of course, and this means that Yhoundeh could exist in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire. In fact, she is my vote for the Maiden Made of Light (while of course, the Maiden Made of Light represents the Sun, she might also be a Mythos God).

The Bloodstone Emperor?

I'll cover this more in part two of this essay, but the story of the Bloodstone Emperor of the Great Empire of the Dawn is full of Nyarlathotep allusions. The Bloodstone Emperor worshiped a black stone that fell from the sky. This is a direct allusion to the Shining Trapezohedron worshiped by the Church of Starry Wisdom in "The Haunter of the Dark". In fact, the Yi Ti legend states explicitly that the Bloodstone Emperor was the first priest of the "sinister" Church of Starry Wisdom, which exists in the main story throughout the port cities of Essos and Sothoryos and Westeros.

What could this mean? Well, in "The Haunter of the Dark", the protagonist discovers that the Church performs human sacrifices over the Shining Trapezohedron to call the Haunter of the Dark, who gives them visions of the future in exchange for that most terrible of coin: blood.

I'll have a lot more on this in the second part of this essay, where I will postulate as to what this reference will mean for A Song of Ice and Fire.

In The Main Story???

Faceless Men and Braavos

It's clear that there is more to the story of the first Faceless Man and the cult that was formed to worship the Faceless God (excuse me, the Many-Faced God). For instance, how did the moon singers of the Jogos Nhai receive the visions of the lagoon that was to become Braavos? How does the House of Black and White relate to the Iron Bank of Braavos?

Did they cause the Doom of Valyria? And if so, why?

The obvious Cthulhu Mythos comparison is the Dark Brotherhood, even with it's Derleth-imposed limitations. The idea of an international brotherhood of assassins that wear masks and are working to bring back the banished Gods seems to be a direct inspiration for the Faceless Men (without the Poe bullshit to hold it down).

Littlefinger?

The emphasis on causing chaos, and his background in Braavos where they worship the Many-Faced God among other gods, makes me suspect that Petyr Baelish might be some form of Nyarlathotep, but in the end I don't think he fits the archetype. He's just a scheming man (though no ordinary schemer, to be sure), and not a god intent on the destruction of humanity.

However, I do wonder exactly which gods Varys is referencing in this quote from Arya III:

"This is no longer a game for two players, if it ever was. Stannis Baratheon and Lysa Arryn have fled beyond my reach, and the whispers say they are gathering swords around them. The Knight of Flowers write Highgarden, urging his lord father to send his sister to court. The girl is a maid of fourteen, sweet and beautiful and tractable, and Lord Renly and Ser Loras intend that Robert should bed her, wed her, and make her a new queen. Littlefinger ... the gods only know what game Littlefinger is playing"

Given that it hasn't been established exactly which gods Varys prays to, and the fact that he is talking privately (he thinks) to Illyrio, this should not just be taken as a reference to the Seven. Is it a reference to the Outer Gods? I don't know. But I don't think that Petyr is a Nyarlathotep avatar.

Moroqqo

The strange dark One to whom the fellahs bowed; Silent and lean and cryptically proud, And wrapped in fabrics red as sunset flame.* - HP Lovecraft, "Fungi Form Yuggoth"

This is my choice for a second avatar of Nyarlathotep. His description is very close to the Dark Man or Black Man of the Witch Cults version of Nyarlathotep. When we first meet him, he is with Tyrion on the Selaesori Qhoran. His skin is not brown or tan, but is instead coal black, as black as night:

A huge man, taller than Ser Jorah and wide enough to make two of him, the priest wore scarlet robes embroidered at sleeve and hem and collar with orange satin flames. His skin was black as pitch, his hair as white as snow; the flames tattooed across his cheeks and brow yellow and orange. His iron staff was as tall as he was and crowned with a dragon’s head; when he stamped its butt upon the deck, the dragon’s maw spat crackling green flame. -Tyrion

When he joins Victarion, the crew is incredibly afraid of him, much like the natives of Egypt who fear the black stone Sphinx from "The Dweller In Darkness". He is not the same man that Tyrion encountered on the Selaesori Qhoran.

His skin was black. Not the nut brown of the Summer Islanders on their swan ships, nor the red-brown of the Dothraki horselords, nor the charcoal-and-earth color of the dusky woman’s skin, but black. Blacker than coal, blacker than jet, blacker than a raven’s wing. Burned , Victarion thought, like a man who has been roasted in the flames until his flesh chars and crisps and falls smoking from his bones . The fires that had charred him still danced across his cheeks and forehead, where his eyes peered out from amongst a mask of frozen flames. Slave tattoos, the captain knew. Marks of evil. - The Iron Suitor, A Dance With Dragons

When he is fished from the sea and brought to Victarion, he is wearing a faded red garment. Later, in an attempt to make him seem less evil, Victarion has a new robe made for Moroqqo from black cloth. However, this does not help to inspire the ship's crew to trust him:

Clad in black from head to heel, with a mask of red-and-orange flames tattooed across his face, the priest appeared more sinister than ever. The firelight made his black skin shine like polished onyx, and sometimes Victarion could swear that the flames tattooed on his face were dancing too, twisting and bending, melting into one another, their colors changing with every turn of the priest’s head. - Victarion I, A Dance With Dragons

Note that the flame tattoos on his face have change from yellow and orange to red and orange.

Here is the description of the Black Man of the Witch Cult:

a tall, lean man of dead black colouration but without the slightest sign of negroid features; wholly devoid of either hair or beard, and wearing as his only garment a shapeless robe of some heavy black fabric. His feet were indistinguishable because of the table and bench, but he must have been shod, since there was a clicking whenever he changed position. - HP Lovecraft, "The Dreams in the Witch House"

So does this mean that Moroqqo is working with Euron? It's hard to say exactly, given the confusion surrounding the relationship of Nyarlathotep and the other gods of the Cthulhu Mythos. Moroqqo is an adherent to the red religion, and Nyarlathotep is seen to be in opposition to my choice for the Lord of Light, Cthugha. But it is hard for us humans to understand the motives of these gods, so I can't be sure of why Moroqqo would be helping Victarion.

I do think that it is part of the plot to bring Dany and her dragons to Westeros for Euron. I don't believe that Moroqqo is helping Victarion for Victarion's sake. But there remains the possibility that different Outer Gods can invoke their own avatar of Nyarlathotep to do their bidding on Earth, and that Moroqqo is now an avatar of the Lord of Light who opposes the other, more important avatar of Nyarlathotep: Euron.

Euron Greyjoy

That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die. - from the Necronomicon

"What is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger."

It's clear that the Ironborn have the most direct relationship with the Cthulhu Mythos. Beyond just the similarities of the quotes above, the Greyjoy family name Dagon is directly taken from the Cthulhu Mythos. The Ironborn believe that they are the descendants of the Mer-people. In fact, in The World of Ice and Fire, the Deep Ones are directly referenced as the ancestors of the Ironborn (though Maester Yandal dismisses it). So is it a surprise that the worst Ironborn of all is now in the thrall of Nyarlathotep, or has even been replaced directly by the tall, swarthy man?

Who in the story is the seed of evil, the spreader of chaos and lies, who tricks men into following him to their doom using strange instruments of glass and metal? Who sees himself as both better than humans and the gods, but at the same time is performing the will of the gods using blood rituals?

Euron has returned from his banishment, but he is not fully human anymore, if he ever was. His visit to Valyria was his own doom, and he has become an avatar of Nyarlathotep. And he is here to torture, to kill, to drive men mad, as we see when he is alone with Aeron in The Winds of Winter sample chapter. But torturing and killing humans isn't the purpose of Nyarlathotep, nor of Euron: instead, he has come to start the process of awakening the Gods from their slumber to remake the world.

Leader of Men

"Since the Dawn Age, the ironborn have followed the Drowned God, who plucked fire from the sea, and made us to reave and sack, and carve our names in blood and song." ―Yara Greyjoy

Though he is a terrible person, Euron inspires legions of followers by demonstrating great powers using strange and wonderful technologies. The dragon horn Dragonbinder, which he claims to have gotten from the ruins of Valyria, are used to establish his claim to the kingship of the Iron Islands. The suit of Valyrian armor he wears in "The Forsaken" serves to increase his stature.

But more than just the powerful instruments and armor that he controls is the ability to forgo any reward for himself when they capture castles and land. He gives out riches and titles like candy. He cares little for the earthly riches that others desire; instead, he

Tormentor of Men

Euron's treatment of Aeron, and of the 4 warlocks of Qarth, are perfect examples of his ability to torture men to madness. He kills one of them, to show that he meant business, and then chained them up and made them eat the dead warlock (and probably themselves). In "The Forsaken", we see what's left of Pyat Pree: a man without legs, who has clearly been driven mad:

"Last were two warlocks of the east, with flesh as white as mushrooms, and lips the purplish?-blue of a bad bruise, all so gaunt and starved that only skin and bones remained. One had lost his legs. The mutes hung him from a rafter. 'Pree,' he cried as he swung back and forth. 'Pree, Pree!'"

But his ultimate goal is not just to drive men mad and to spread chaos and fear. He is the harbinger of doom, Death, the Lion of Night, here to remake the world again. And he will do this by calling back from the dead the terrible Gods of Terror using blood sacrifices, and the collusion of a famous family in Westeros, which I will cover in part 2 of this essay.

Messenger of the Gods

"Who knows more of gods than I? Horse gods and fire gods, gods made of gold with gemstone eyes, gods carved of cedar wood, gods chiseled into mountains, gods of empty air... I know them all. I have seen their peoples garland them with flowers, and shed the blood of goats and bulls and children in their names. And I have heard the prayers, in half a hundred tongues. Cure my withered leg, make the maiden love me, grant me a healthy son. Save me, succor me, make me wealthy... protect me! Protect me from mine enemies, protect me from the darkness, protect me from the crabs inside my belly, from the horselords, from the slavers, from the sellswords at my door. Protect me from the Silence." He laughed. "Godless? Why, Aeron, I am the godliest man ever to raise sail! You serve one god, Damphair, but I have served ten thousand. From Ib to Asshai, when men see my sails, they pray." - George RR Martin, A Feast For Crows

This is a famous quote, which I have always loved. And at first I saw the "served ten thousand gods" line as only relating to the fear he inspires in his victims and their pleas for help from their gods. But in the light of the role that he is to play in the story, and the role of Nyarlathotep as the messenger of the gods, it's clear that it has two meanings.

It's clear that, while Euron has little respect for the gods, a la Nyarlathotep, he also is their messenger. He is the ultimate evil of A Song of Ice and Fire, and it's him and his minions that Job and Bran and Dany will be fighting, in a quest to save the world from Doom.

Harbinger of Doom

Euron makes blood sacrifices to the Storm God (who I believe to be Hastur), according to the whispers of sailors, to receive favorable winds. At the end of The Forsaken, he is preparing to make an even greater sacrifice. This is the first part of his plan to bring back the Gods of Terror. For the banished gods cannot release themselves from their imprisonment.

My Conclusions:

Nyarlathotep, the Faceless God, he of a thousand terrible forms, has been present throughout the stories in many forms - all representing death and despair. And currently he has taken over two humans and is using them to help bring back the banished Other Gods.

The Long Night was started by the Bloodstone Emperor, who worshiped the Shining Trapezohedron, and used it to call the Haunter of the Dark (Nyarlathotep), or the Lion of Night as the Yi Tish call him. This direct link between the horror of the Long Night, and the Church of Starry Wisdom, which was founded by the Bloodstone Emperor, spells ill omens for the future of the story, and especially Dany, who may be the return of the Amethyst Empress.

Euron is no longer the brother of Aeron and Balon. He has been taken over by the Crawling Chaos, the god of a thousand faces, the tall, swarthy pharaoh-like man who brings chaos and wins legions of followers through demonstrations of terrible, magical technology. And it is Euron, who serves the Gods, who will awaken them from their slumber.

When the Ghost of High Heart sees a man without a face on a bridge, with a crow on his shoulder, she's not describing a Faceless Man. She is talking about the Faceless God.

She is describing Nyarlathotep, who has become Euron. And its through Euron that Nyarlathotep will fulfill his role of harbinger of doom, and awaken the sleeping Outer Gods. While Euron denies his direct involvement in "The Forsaken", Nyarlathotep, in one of his forms, was responsible.

Moroqqo, after he was washed into the sea and taken on board the Iron Fleet, is no longer human (if he ever was), but has instead become one with Nyarlathotep. His power and visions are derived from his new association with the god of death.

Nyarlathotep is directly associated with masks, and has himself many faces and forms. While they call him the Many-Faced God, the Faceless Men serve Nyarlathotep, the Faceless God, and are working to hasten the return of the gods and the end of the world. All men must serve, they say.... and all men must die.

The main question out of all of this is: Why? Why does Nyarlathotep have to use Euron and Moroqqo? Why do the Outer Gods and the Great Old Ones need to be present in A Song of Ice and Fire? I will answer that, and more, in part 2 of this essay.

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Nyarlathotep

And the last from inner Eygpt came

The strange dark One to whom the fellahs bowed;

Silent and lean and cyriptically proud,

And wrapped in fabrics red as sunset flame.

Throngs pressed around, frantic for his commands,

But leaving, could not tell what they had heard;

While through the nations spread the awestruck word

That wild beasts followed him and licked his hands.

Soon from the sea a noxious birth began;

Forgotten lands with weedy spires of gold;

The ground was cleft, and mad auroras rolled

Down on the quaking citadels of man.

Then, crushing what he chanced to mould in play,

the idiot Chaos blew Earth’s dust away.

By H.P. Lovecraft, 1931

XXI, Fungi from Yuggoth

[godsofterror]

Tsathoggua and the Isle of Toads

On the Isle of Toads, one of the Basilisk Isles, there are three strange features worth a quick discussion. First, there is the ruins of an ancient civilization on the Isle. Second, the modern humans residents have an "unpleasant, fishlike aspect to their faces, and many have webbed hands and feet". Third, there is a giant ("40 feet high") stone statue of a Toad God, the Toad Stone, made of greasy black stone (which is probably the same stone used to build Asshai).

Question 1: What was the ancient civilization that left ruins on the Isle?

I can't answer this with confidence yet, though I did read a great theory on Westeros.org that links it to a Lovecraftian literary origin. But like the history of Asshai, Lorath, Battle Isle, the Seastone Chair, and the Five Forts, I'm unsure about the ancient civilization that created them and why they were abandoned.

I do have some tinfoil speculation below, however.

Question 2: Who are the people on the Isle of Toads?

They are Deep Ones, half-human hybrids born on human women that look human and live on land, but transform into Deep Ones as they age, gaining "an unpleasant, fishlike aspect" to their faces and bodies. Their skin turns to scales and their necks develop folds which become gills. Eventually, they transform completely and go to join the other Deep Ones in the underwater cities.

Here I'll remind you of the squishers of the East Coast of Westeros:

"They look like men till you get close, but their heads is too big, and they got scales where a proper man’s got hair. Fish-belly white they are, with webs between their fingers. They’re always damp and fishy-smelling, but behind these blubbery lips they got rows of green teeth sharp as needles. Some say the First Men killed them all, but don’t you believe it." - "Nimble" Dick Crabb, A Feast For Crows

There are Deep Ones in Terros, beyond a doubt. On the Thousand Islands, the people have green, scale-like skin and are terrified of the sea. They will sacrifice any sailor that they catch to their sea gods.

The Sister Isles and their "mark" also suggests Deep One ancestry:

Godric is a big, fleshy, ugly man with massive shoulders. Coarse white hair grows from his cheeks and chin. He is bald on the top of his scalp, with a lumpy red-veined nose and webbing between his three middle fingers.

Also, there is a ton of references to Deep Ones ancestry for the Iron Isles. Dagon, the Lovecraft Fish God, is an ancestral name on the Isles. In the Cthulhu Mythos, the Deep Ones worship Dagon as well as the Great Cthulhu.Also, the priests of the Drowned God religion declare that they originated from Merlings, and not the nebulous "First Men" as decreed by the Citadel.

Finally, there is one other character who is straight up a Deep One hybrid of some sort: Biter. You see, not only do Deep Ones rape human women to produce half-human hybrids, they also eat humans. And that is Biter's disgusting specialty. I think he is a not fully transformed Deep One, some sort of hybrid squisher/human.

The description of Biter fits exactly within the Deep One themes:

Biter is enormous and bald, with soft, doughy flesh. His tongue had been cut and he does not speak, except to hiss. His teeth have been filed into points.

He is controlled by Rorge, the other prisoner of the Black Cells set free with Jaqen H'aghar. Not coincidentally, his description matches that of a man of Ib (which is itself a Lovecraft Deep Ones reference ):

Rorge is described as squat, bulky, and hairy, with black hair covering most of his body. He is also described as thick and powerful. He is missing his nose, and the nasal bar of his iron half-helm does not completely conceal the hole.

The Ibbenese are usually described as hairy and squat, with rasping voices.

So we have Deep Ones and their hybrids running around all over the place on Terros, and not just in the far-flung places: right in the middle of the story, even, in the form of some of the Brave Companions. And I also don't think it's a coincidence that we see Rorge and Biter with Jaqar H'ghar, who is nominally from Lorath, where there is a lot of evidence of Deep One activity, as well as the ruins of an ancient civilization.

Question 3: What is The Toad Stone, and who is the Toad God?

Now that we have established that there are Deep Ones all around, and that the inhabitants on the Isle of Toads are Deep Ones (or are on their way to becoming Deep Ones), the last question can be answered: the Toad God is Tsathoggua.

In the Cthulhu Mythos, there is ancient being known as Tsathoggua (probably pronounced Sith-AGUA), that takes the form of a toad-like being on Earth. Often, he is worshipped through stone toad idols:

"This was a squat, plain temple of basalt blocks without a single carving, and containing only a vacant onyx pedestal… It has been built in imitation of certain temples depicted in the vaults of Zin, to house a very terrible black toad-idol found in the red-litten world and called Tsathoggua in the Yothic manuscripts. It had been a potent and widely worshipped god, and after its adoption by the people of K'n-yan had lent its name to the city which was later to become dominant in that region. Yothic legend said that it had come from a mysterious inner realm beneath the red-litten world—a black realm of peculiar-sensed beings which had no light at all, but which had had great civilizations and mighty gods before ever the reptilian quadrupeds of Yoth had come into being." —H. P. Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop, "The Mound"

One of the backstories of Tsathoggua is that he used to live on the contient of Hyperborea and dwelled deep under a mountain range (Mount Voormithadreth) and was worshipped by the Voormis (who are Children of the Forest-like humanoids of the Mythos). However, Hyperborea iced over, and he left to go inhabit a lightless cavern in N'kai, deep below the earth.

The Serpent Men of Yoth, who fled after the destruction of Valusia, brought up idols of Tsathoggua from N'kai and abandoned the snake god Yig. Yoth was then destroyed, and only ruins remain, as Yig in his wrath cursed his former worshippers.

Creation of Tsathoggua

Tsathoggua was created by Clark Aston Smith, but all of the writers contributing to the Mythos used the Toad God as a major presence in many of their stories, including an enthusiastic Lovecraft himself. But Smith depicted Tsathoggua as more of a toad/bat cross, while Lovecraft preferred to focus on just the toad-like aspects of the god.

Why is Tsathoggua's idol on the Isle of Toads?

Short answer: I don't know.

Longer answer: I think it has to do with the story of the Serpent Men. We know from the World of Ice and Fire that there were people who worshipped a serpent god (probably Yig) and fought a war with the acolytes of a spider goddess (probably Atlach-Nacha) in Essos in the ancient past. Perhaps they had to escape the destruction of Lyber, and all their other lands, when the conquests of the Tagaez Fen or Tall Men (also called the Sarnori) destroyed their civilization.

You'll note that the Isle of Toads are part of the Basilisk Isles, and basilisks are a fierce reptile that used to be all over the Isles. It is also stated that there used to be basilisks on Sothoryos, but now they are contained on Basilisk Point. And it is hinted that there were lizard men on Sothoryos as well:

Some say that there were other races here once-- forgotten peoples destroyed, devoured, or driven out by the Brindled Men. Tales of lizard men, lost cities, and eyeless cave-dwellers are commonplace. No proof exists for any of these. - Sothoryos, The World of Ice and Fire

Speculation/Tinfoil: Yeen was established by the Serpent/Lizard Men of Sothoryos after they fled the destruction of their homeland by the Sarnori. But after they brought up the idol of Tsathoggua from the depths of Terros, and began to worship the Toad God instead of Yig the Serpent God, the curse of Yig destroyed the civilization of the Serpent Men. They were either driven underground, or turned into basilisks by Yig. They ruins on the Isle of Toads were also built by the Serpent Men.

Conclusion:

The people of the Isle of Toads are Deep Ones.

The Toad Stone on the Isle of Toads is an idol of Tsathoggua, of the Cthulhu Mythos.

There are a ton of notable connections between the Cthulhu Mythos, and the Gods of Terros, which I explore in my blog, Gods of Terror.

*Planetos fans: I just like Terros better.

[godsofterror]

There is one more connection between ASOIAF and the Mythos that is a seemingly small detail, but that I think is incredibly important. I haven't...

Here is the gist of my upcoming Hightower theory. I think that the Hightowers, who have been living on Battle Isle since before anyone can remember, are not completely human and are working to hasten the return of the Great Old Ones.

[godsofterror]

Original got taken down for bad spoiler warning, so let's try again. People seem quite happy with the idea that the Red Comet of aCoK was nothing...

This is a great post from Reddit user Shroom Soul, who postulates that the red comet could have been Ghroth, the Ramsey Campbell-authored Mythos diety that can awaken any sleeping Great Old One by passing close to its resting place. This might explain the re-emergence of magic in the world of Ice and Fire.

[godsofterror]

Drink from the Deep Well

A Song of Ice and Fire is one of the best fantasy series ever written. George RR Martin is a master of creating compelling characters and weaving rich, descriptive imagery with political intrigue, magic, and even cosmic horror. Best of all, the deeper one dives into the background details of the stories, the more rich it becomes. Thousands of theories have been spawned from the interwoven details that George masterfully builds his world upon.

In appreciation of this richness, and to seek more information about the world of Terros, I have begun the exploration of the influences on A Song of Ice and Fire, and in doing so I discovered that George has borrow liberally from a deep well: the powerful shared literary universe created by HP Lovecraft and his friends, which he called the Yog-Sothoth, but is known better as the Cthulhu Mythos.

Huge fan of the Mythos

It's important to understand that George RR Martin is a huge Lovecraft Mythos fan, in all its many and varied forms. The strong and early influence of HP Lovecraft and his collaborators on fantasy as a genre, and on George in specific, can be traced back to the first fantasy book George ever read.

According to a great essay he wrote in his "Starter Kit" collection of stories, his love of fantasy began in 1963, when he purchased Swords and Sorcery, edited by the famous writer and polymath, L. Sprague de Camp. With a story of Conan the Barbarian by Robert E. Howard, bundled with other stories of fantasy and terror by Poul Anderson, Henry Kuttner, Clark Aston Smith, C.L. Moore, Lord Dunsany, and H.P. Lovecraft (emphasis mine on writers who both borrowed and extended the Mythos), this first fantasy anthology inspired his great love for the genre. It also influenced A Song of Ice and Fire, especially the terrible Gods of Terros.

Themes of the stories

Throughout the fabulous, fun, and sometimes boring stories of the Cthulhu Mythos, there are multiple reoccuring themes that resonate strongly throughout A Song of Ice and Fire.

Terrible Gods

Snake gods, toad gods, gods of fire, gods of cold, gods of cruelty and revenge, gods of darkness and chaos: these are the terrible gods of the Yog-Sothoth or Cthulhu Mythos. Throughout the varied stories by the Friends of HP (Lovecraft himself, Derleth, Smith, Howard, Bloch, Camp and more), the gods are ancient and terrible cosmic demons who care nothing for humans and little for their worship. These human worshipers, craving power and understanding little of the true nature of the gods, invoke their presence with secret rites designed to capture their power. However, the humans usually find out that they can't control what they call, with terrible results.

There was a later divergence from the strong trait of cosmic indifference by these beings after the death of Lovecraft in 1937, when August Derleth introduced a controversial morality as he published and expanded Lovecraft's works posthumously. This did not reduce the sheer terror that the Outer Ones, the Great Old Ones, and the Elder Ones, induced in humans.

Gods and man interacting

Because the "gods" are cosmic demons who inhabit Earth when it was younger, they interacted directly with humans. While (most of) the gods are now sleeping or banished into outer space, and can't interact with modern humans, these ancient interactions and demonstrations of the powers of the gods spawned human religions. Humans, unable to control their lust for power, worked mysterious and ancient rites to borrow the power of the gods, without understanding the true nature of the space demons they are invoking.

Ancient and lost civilizations and continents

Atlantis, Hyberborea, Thule, Lemuria: these are all famous mythical lands with lost civilizations that are used throughout the stories of the Mythos to both set the stage of the story and root them in lost ages that are beyond the memory of modern man.

A Homeric reference, Hyberborea was a mythical place to the ancient Greeks where a paradise awaited "beyond the North Wind" (the literal translation of Hyperborea). It was said to be a warm, winterless place in the midst of the winds and snows of the north. It has been associated with Greenland, as well as mythical lands north of Ireland and Britain. Famous Atlantis was first described by Plato in ancient Greek times, but became famous through the writings of the Romantics of the 19th century. Thule was a mythical land in the far north of classical cartography, identified at times with Norway or the Shetlands but mainly indicating a land beyond the borders of the known world. Lemuria was a later addition to the mythical cartography, an Indian Ocean continent that was lost in the ancient past.

Conan the Barbarian and the love of fantasy

Conan the Barbarian was George's first love, and its worth a refresher on the story to see how Howard developed Conan and drew from the Mythos to create his world and gods, and the peoples that worship them. The time is ancient and the place is a mystical land full of peoples both similar and different than modern humans. Known as the Hyborian Age, it is a violent Iron Age setting with swordsmen, mysterious sorcerers, and religions with terrible gods that demand blood sacrifices, set 10,000 years or more before Caesar (though some editors placed it even further back to before the last Ice Age).

Hyborians

The Hyborian Age began after the sinking of the ancient civilizations of Atlantis and Lemuria, which set back humanity to a primitive state "hardly above Neanderthal". These people, the Hyborians, escaped the destruction of the ancient civilizations and fled to the north, where they fought a race of snow apes. Defeating the snow apes and driving them north of the Arctic Circle, they adapt to the land and multiply. Eventually, the Hyborians begin return to lands south of them, and wars between the dispersing tribes of Hyborians became frequent.

A thousand years having past, the snow apes of the Arctic Circle had become fair-haired and tall men, who return to attack the Hyborians, setting the stage for the stories of Conan the Barbarian.

Conan the Cimmerian

Conan was a Cimmerian, one of the many peoples of the Hyborian Age. Based on Celtic and/or Gaelic influences, the Cimmerians descended from the Hyborians and are a hard people with black hair and gray eyes (and are probably white, as most of these early — and recent — fantasy stories tended to be). They are located about where Ireland or Scotland would be in the map of the world developed by Howard.

Born the son of a blacksmith, he eventually becomes a great warrior and even the King of Aquilonia. No man is stronger, and the giant man uses his strength and his cunning to improve his lot in the hard world. He speaks many languages and is a born leader, with a humor and wit streaked with "grim" irony.

His great love was the woman Valeria, a pirate and adventuress and a member of the Red Brotherhood of pirates. She is a superior swordswoman who can even best Conan, being faster and more agile. She is his love in the 1982 movie Conan the Barbarian.

Gods of the Hyborian Age

There are a great many gods worshiped by the many cultures of the Hyborian Age. They are at war with each other, just like the gods of Terros. These wars take form through their followers and through direct intervention by the gods, to destroy the territories of the followers of rival gods.

The major gods of the Hyborian Age were a mix of mythical ancestors such as Crom for the Cimmerians and Bori for the Hyperboreans, figures of sacrifices, and evil demons and snake gods. This is linked to the ancient gods of the Nordics and/or the Celtics by geography and rituals. Crom is seen to judge warriors before they are allowed into Valhalla in later stories.

In the major kingdoms of Aquilonia, Argos, Nemedia, and Zingara were Mitra and Father Set. The diety called Mitra is worshiped as a cross between a Christ-figure and Mitra/Mithras of the Zoroastrian and Vedic, and later Roman, mythos. Mitra even speaks directly to a love interest of Conan's to help her and him defeat their enemies and lead Conan to become King of Aquilonia. Notably, there are no blood sacrifices to Mitra, and his adherents spread his religion to other lands at great personal peril.

Father Set is a seven-headed snake god, mainly worshiped in the dark lands of the Stygians. His dark followers offer Set human sacrifices "and sorcerous obscenities". In previous ages (discussed below), Set created a race of Serpent Men to serve him, but they were defeated by humans and disappeared. Even so, his worship continues and was even featured in the first Conan movie.

Father Set is identified with the Great Old One Yig, and was either directly borrowed by Howard for Conan or was a major influence on Set.

Naga the Sea Snake

In the Marvel Comics version of the Conan universe, there is a sea man/snake god known as Naga. First published in 1969, Naga is the ruler of the Homo mermanus or water-breathing merpeople who live in the remains of Lemuria, which had sunk into the sea before the Hyborian Age. He finds in the ancient ruins of Lemuria the ancient Serpent Crown of the followers of Set. Through this crown, Set controls Naga though he has been banished to another dimension. Naga is transformed into a snake-like merman, with green, scaly skin instead of the blue skin common to the merpeople. Naga gains immortality and control over his people, whom he converts to the worship of Set. Naga's people become green in color and also have scales.

The idea of the Nāga is an ancient one that dates back even to the Mahabharata of India, but the best story of the Nāga is from Cambodia:

In a Cambodian legend, the nāga were a reptilian race of beings under the King Kaliya who possessed a large empire or kingdom in the Pacific Ocean region until they were chased away by the Garuda and sought refuge in India. It was here Kaliya's daughter married an Indian Brahmana named Kaundinya, and from their union sprang the Cambodian people. Therefore, Cambodians possess a slogan "Born from the naga". As a dowry, Kaliya drank up the water that covered the country and exposed the land for his daughter and son-in-law to inhabit and thus, Cambodia was created.

Other Gods

Multiple other gods, from the Cthulhu Mythos or inspired by it, appear throughout the Conan stories. Nyarlathotep is one of the gods worshiped in the mythos of the Hyborian Age. Dagon, a Fish or Water God with a long history, was added to the Conan universe by Marvel in the 1970s. He can raise the dead as zombies and uses them as servants - a common motif in Mythos stories.

Tsathoggua

Tsathoggua, the Toad God, or Seven-Eyed Tsathoggua, makes an early appearance (1932) in the Conan stories, where he forms an alliance with Set and his minions. Conan is his enemy, or one of them, but Tsathoggua has his worshipers as well. In the Conan stories, he carries all of the back story from the Mythos, where he is related to Cthulhu and other Great Old Ones. Tsathoggua was created by Clark Ashton Smith, who created the Hyperborean Cycle discussed below.

Development of Conan

Robert E. Howard wrote 21 short stories and 1 novel about Conan the Barbarian before his suicide in 1936.

After Howard's unfortunate death, the copyright passed to a few different men. L. Sprague de Camp, the editor of the Swords and Sorcery anthology that welcomed George to the world of fantasy, was one. Another was Lin Carter, who became one of George's editors and friends in the 1970s.

Howard's original stories had more direct relationship to the Cthulhu Mythos, but many of the references were removed in the reworking and rewriting of the material by the later editors. However, these editors borrowed liberally for place names from the Hyberborian Cycle by Clark Aston Smith and kept many of the references to Mythos Gods.

The crossover was not one direction. Lovecraft mentions "Crom-Ya, a Cimmerian chieftain" in The Shadow Out of Time in 1924.

A great amount of development of the world of Conan also took place in the Marvel Comics version of the Hyborian Age. This should not be dismissed as an influence as it's clear that George has had a love affair with comics that might still be ongoing.

Other writings by Howard

Howard wrote other stories that were similiarly set in a familiar fantasy setting.

Thurian Age

The Thurian Age was set in the epoch before the cataclysm that destroy Atlantis and Lemuria. It is, like A Song of Ice and Fire, a mixture of a fantasy Iron Age setting with Lovecraftian gods. Kull, an Atlantean barbarian, is one of the main heroes of the stories.

Thuria is the dominant continent, home of the "Seven Empires". There are six kingdoms in the Thurian Age: Commoria, Grondar, Kamelia, Thule and Valusia. Together with a seventh, unnamed kingdom, these kingdoms form the "Seven Empires".

There were three main tribes of "barbarian" men: Atlantis, Lemuria, and the Pictish Islands. Each represents an area in the "real" world, and the current inhabitants of those regions are the descendents of these ancient peoples.

The Atlanteans, based mainly on a small continent to the west of Thuria, have colonies on Thuria. Lemuria is a large island chain east of Thuria.

Valusia was founded and ruled initially by the Serpent Men. Finally overthrown by their human slaves, the Serpent Men tried to regain rule for centuries but were finally defeated by Kull the barbarian.

The Thurian Age Cataclysms

As mentioned above, marking the end of the Thurian Age was a great cataclysm that sunk the lands of Atlantis and Lemuria. This brought about the barbarism of the Hyborian Age and the stories of Conan:

Following the cataclysm that destroys the Thurian Age, Atlantis sinks beneath the sea. The survivors on the Thurian continent are forced back into the stone age by lack of resources but become skilled in this medium and develop an artistic culture. They soon enter a war with the surviving Picts and lose to their superior numbers and stone-age military technology. The survivors of the war devolve back into apes. They eventually re-evolve into humans to become the Cimmerians of the Hyborian Age. In turn the Cimmerians become the Celts, Gaels and Scythians of modern, real world, history.

A great cataclysm ends the Thurian Age some time after the Kull stories. Several countries sink into the sea, others rise from it, and the rest is devastated by earthquakes and volcanoes. Civilization is destroyed and the survivors attempt to build a new culture but warfare and a Lesser Cataclysm strike, creating the Hyborian Vilayet Sea and destroying any last remnants of Thurian society.

Basis of the Thurian Age Cataclysms

The Kull stories in the Thurian Age reflect many of the lost continent theories that were popular in the early 20th century. Tales of Atlantis were ancient, certainly, and the loss of its fabled civilization has been discussed for centureis. Lemuria is a later invention of early paleo-biology, a lost continent used to explain the presense of primates (especially the Lemurs of Madagascar) on continent far apart.

Red Sonja

Red Sonja was developed from an original story by Howard called "The Shadow of the Vulture", published in 1934. She was added to the Conan Universe in 1973 by Roy Thomas, a writer for Marvel Comics. Red Sonja was recast as a warrior woman from Hyrkania, an ancient, eastern land of steppes and forest, placed in modern day Ukraine. This Hyrkania is based on the real-world kingdom of Hyrcania that was located at the southern tip of the Caspian Sea.

Bran Mak Morn

Howard's King of the Picts, Bran Mak Morn, was written about in 5 of his stories. Stories of the Picts overlapped with the Thurian Age and Hyborian Age stories, but the Bran Mak Morn stories borrow more from the "real" world. Throughout all of the stories, the Picts are seen as analogous to the Native Americans as well as ancient Celtic tribes. They are given the role of the noble savage, who lost technological know how with the fall of Atlantis. In some of the stories, the Picts are closer to a cave-man archetype than the noble savage. Their priests are known to burn people alive, a desire born of a twisted revenge mindset that takes place after they are driven from their original lands to the current Pictish territories.

Notably, many Pictish warriors are werewolves. They could change into wolves of their own free will.

Bran Mak Morn is a Pict but is less savage than his peers. He desires a peace with the other tribes of Briton, to create an alliance against the invading Romans. His name derives from Brennus (the Gaul who sacked Rome) and from the Brittonic word meaning "Raven."

Mentions of Lovecraftian gods and locations are included throughout the Bran Mak Morn stories, and Lovecraft himself references Bran Mak Morn in The Whispers in the Darkness.

Other stories in the Swords and Sorcery anthology

L. Sprague de Camp's Swords and Sorcery contained other stories that are even more deeply involved in the Cthulhu Mythos. Clark Aston Smith's "The Testament of Athammaus", set in fabled Hyberborea and concerning the outlaw Knygathin Zhaum. The Doom that Came to Sarnath, by HPL himself, describes the return of a Great Old One and the doom that commenced. C.L. Moore, one of the first women writing fantasy at the time, contributed "Hellsgarde". While other early fantasy writers such as Poal Anderson and Lord Dunsany made strong impressions, the contributions by Lovecraft, Smith and Howard opened the door to the Cthulhu Mythos.

Hyberborean Cycle

Clark Aston Smith's collections of Mythos stories are known collectively as the Hyperborean Cycle. With a solid Mythos universe background, Smith expanded the universe greatly to include important Great Old Ones such as Tsathoggua. Like the stories of Conan, they also portray an Iron Age setting with layers of cosmic horror. In the continent of Hyperborea, terrible gods demand blood sacrifices and prey on humans.

Right there in Swords and Sorcery, that first fantasy collection, was one of the Hyberborean stories: The Testimony of Athammaus. It concerned the city of Commoriom, the capital of Hyberborea. An evil, outlaw descendent of Tsathoggua and a snake god is found and beheaded, only to return again and take what he desired. Eventually, due to the evil of the outlaw Knygathin Zhaum, Commoriom must be abandoned.

Other Humanoids

In Smith's writings, he details two other humanoid peoples that have fought against humans in the past: the Voormi and the Gnophkeh.

The Voormi, who were fleshed out much later by Lin Carter (one of George's editors), are described as three-toed, umber-colored, fur-covered humanoids who communicate by dog-like howls.

The Voormi live on the continent of Hyberborea, in caves deep within the Eiglophian mountians, under the extinct volcano called Mount Voormithadreth. Worshipers of Tsathoggua, they built a civilization on the surface of Hyberborea but it came to its demise through constant warfare with the Gnophkeh. Later, they were hunted by humans for sport and driven to the Eiglophian mountains.

The Gnophkeh are their great enemy, especially before humans encroach on their land. Cannibals covered in hair with large noses, the Gnophkeh fought against the Voormi and later the humans. Pushed by war with the humans to the far north, they encountered Ithaqua, the Great Old One known as the Wind-Walker or Wendigo, and began to worship him instead of their original god, Rhan-Tegoth.

The Gnophkeh were finally destroyed when Ithaqua and the god of the Cold Flame, Aphoom-Zhah, brought about the Ice Age.

Sarnath and Bokrug

One of the earliest short stories by Lovecraft is The Doom That Came to Sarnath, published in 1920. It's a clear influence on The World of Ice and Fire and the main story, and it concerns an ancient war against inhuman beings who worship one of the Great Old Ones, Bokrug. It too was included in Swords and Sorcery.

It concerns the people of Sarnath, a race of shepherd people who live along the river Ai in the land called Mnar. In a search for more lands, the people pushed their borders to a vast lake at the heart of Mnar. There they built the crowning glory, the metropolis of Sarnath. It was there that they encountered the people of Ib, a strange people who lived across the lake.

The people of Ib were green of skin, with bulging eyes and curious ears and other odd features. They remind me of the people of the Thousand Islands in far Essos.

Eventually, the people of Sarnath destroyed the city of Ib, and killed all its inhabitants. They also stole a statute from Ib, a sea-green stone idol of Bokrug (the great water lizard who was said to inhabit the lake) to celebrate their victory over both the people, and the old gods, of Ib.

That night, something terrible happened. The next morning, the idol was gone, and the high priest of Sarnath was found dead in the scrolled "DOOM" on the temple floor. No murderer was ever found, nor was the idol. The incident was hushed-up and forgotten over time, though some priests of Sarnath swore they saw strange lights in the lake from their high tower.

Ten centuries later, the civilization of Sarnath is at its height. To celebrate the conquering of Ib, one thousand years previous, the king of Sarnath has a grand celebration. Giant lake fish was served on plates inlayed with rubies and diamonds. Caravans of princes came from far and near to celebrate the glory of Sarnath.

But strange shadows came down from the moon, and a green mist hovered over the lake. The foreign princes were allowed to escape, and as they left madness showed on each shocked face. A terrible and ancient being had returned to Sarnath. Did Bokrug come from another dimension or from the bottom of the lake - or both?

Sarnath was subsumed by the nameless lake, and the King of Sarnath and feasters were turned into people with green skin and bulging eyes. The idol of Bokrug, thought forever lost, appeared again along the lake. These transformed residents of Sarnath, resembling the original inhabitants of Ib, began to worship Bokrug, the giant water lizard. The doom, long promised to Sarnath, had come.

My Conclusions and Suppositions

The role of the Cthulhu Mythos plays in A Song of Ice and Fire is still to be determined, but it is obvious that there are many great connections between the Mythos and a Song of Ice and Fire. Both the gods and the humanoid peoples of Terros are borrowed liberally from the Mythos.

Influences on A Song of Ice and Fire

It would be hard to recount all of the obvious influences of the Cthulhu Mythos upon A Song of Ice and Fire, but a few deserve to be highlighted explicitly.

Cymmeri People of Essos

In the World of Ice and Fire, the Cymmerians are included as an ancient people of Essos, who banded with the Tall Men of Sarnath, also known as the Sarnori. Known as the first people to work iron, the Cymmeri married into the Sarnori when the daughter of their king became one of Huzhor Amai's three wives.

Huzhor Amai

Huzhor Amai (the Amazing) was said to be the first king of the Sarnori, and the descendent of the Fisher Queens. The Fisher Queens ruled the ancient inland sea that covered what is now the grasslands of the Dothraki Sea. Only three lakes remain of the Silver Sea, the great ancient inland sea, another sign that Terros is much drier than it used to be in the past. Huzhor bound together three tribes through his marriages, the Cymmeri, the Gipps, and the Zoqora, and battled the Qaathi and Old Ghis.

The people of Ib

While the people of Ib in HPL's story of Sarnath sound a lot more like the Deep Ones than the people of Ib in A Song of Ice and Fire, the name was obviously borrowed directly from HPL.

The Patrimony of Hyrkoon

The Patrimony of Hyrkoon is closely related to the stories of Hyrkania from both the Thurian Age stories and the Conan stories. They are located in roughly the same place in the world (east of the main kingdoms) as the Patrimony, and are even related to the ancient real-world civilization of Hyrcania, south of the Caspian Sea.

Lemuria, Lemurs, and Little Valyrians

Curiously, there is a lemur of the Forest of Qohor that is described in the World of Ice and Fire. Said to resemble Valyrians because of their silver hair, the lemurs are known as the Little Valyrians. A stuffed Little Valyrian is housed at the Citadel, where the students have rubbed it (for good luck) until the silver hair fell out.

This is an interesting inclusion by George, and it makes me think that there could be a connection between the Valyrians and the Lemurians of the Thurian Age.

The Gnophkeh and the Voormi

While the Voormi change in description from their early appearances in the Clark Aston Smith stories, their form in the Lin Carter stories resembles the Children of the Forest: three-toed, fur-covered, and umber-colored. However, this itself is not a strong connection, though their residence in the cave system of the Eiglophian mountains reminds me strongly of the Children (the Children also have some similarities to the Picts of the Mythos). The Voormis sound more like mole people than the Children do. The Children do have some of the elements of the mythical Picts of the Thurian and Hyborian Ages.

The Gnophkeh, on the other hand, are a dead ringer for the Giants of Westeros, as described in the World of Ice and Fire. Covered in hair, with large protruding ears and a "proboscidean" noses, the Gnophkeh were hunted by man and forced from their original lands. Similarly, the Giants are covered in hair and have large ears and noses. Hunted by man, they only exist in the far north and are a dying, nearly mythical species.

The Hyborians and the Thenns

The Hyborians sound a lot like the wildings of the North, specifically the Hyberborian tribe, who sound a lot like the Thenns. If you compare a map of the Hyperborean Cycle lands with a map of the North, it looks a lot like the lands beyond the Wall. In fact, The Frostfangs strongly resemble the Eiglophian mountians, and this comparison is bolstered by the presence of the vast cave system of the Children.

The valley of the Thenns, a warm valley in a land were there should not be such a valley, is very reminiscent of the idea of Hyberborea (and of Thule), which were both ancient lands in the far north romanticisied by ancient writers.

Red Sonja and the women of Hyrkoon

It's easy to sea a relationship between the Hyrkania of Conan and Red Sonja and the warrior women of the Patrimony of Hyrkoon in far Essos. Red Sonja will only love or have sex with a warrior who can defeat her in battle. Similarly, the warrior women of the Patrimony geld 99 of every 100 men born, with only the most powerful keep whole to mate with the warrior women.

Mitra and Mithras

The strong Mithraic symbolism that runs throughout the story arcs of Jon Snow and Bran was influenced by the religon of Mitra in Hyboria, and of real-world Mithraism. This symbolism is covered in great detail by a favorite writer of mine, Lucifer Means Lightbringer, and I can't add much more too it. Check it out if you haven't already.

The Fisher Queens were Deep Ones or even Giant Water Lizards

The Fisher Queens (who "were favored of the gods", according to Maester Yandel), sound like hybrids of the god Bokrug (the giant water lizard) from the Lovecraft story, "The Doom of Sarnath", and Deep Ones. These Queens might be the result of the couplings between the gods and human woman, like the warrior women of Hyrkoon.

If Maester Yandel thinks that kings and other heroes visited them for their wise counsel, it makes me suspicious, as do all Citadel-inspired views on these ancient rulers.

Cymmeri and Andals?

The working of iron, and the similarity of the name Hugor (of the Hill) to Huzhor (Amai), and even to Mazor (Alexi), last king of the Sarnori, makes me suspect that there is some relationship between the Cymmeri and the Andals.

Huzhor Amai and the Bloodstone Emperor

Like the Bloodstone Emperor, Huzhor Amai was the last of a long line of royalty that descended from ancient rulers. Also, the similarities between Huzhor Amai (and Mazor Alexi) to Azor Ahai is really hard to dismiss. I'll have a major follow-up to this theory in the future.

Necromancy is commonplace in the Mythos

Many of the stories in the Mythos involve the raising of the dead. Sometimes, depending on the perspective of the character we are experiencing the story from, this sounds almost normal, and just something that is a part of their culture, while others they encounter are fearful of this power.

This makes me think that the raising of the dead by the White Walkers has a completely different context to them then to the humans of Westeros, and by extension, we the readers.

Continents and islands, lost or found

Throughout these stories there are instances of islands or even whole continents sinking beneath the sea, or rising from it. These cataclysms set the stage for later action and remove whole civilizations and their technological progress from history, making barbarism dominant.

This reminds me greatly of the Hammer of the Waters, which caused the land bridge from Westeros to Essos to be subsumed by the Narrow Sea, as well as the submersion of the Neck.

Naga the Sea Dragon?

The stories of Naga, king of the Homo mermanus, remind me so much of the stories of Nagga the Sea Dragon on the Iron Islands, as well as the mythical Nāga of East Asia lore. The Nāga is a snake that can be a human or marry one to produce a people from a land that used to be under the sea.

The fact that Naga was a selkie or merman is very telling about the origins of the Ironborn. They are not just worshipers of the Drowned God - they might be his descendents, much like the Cambodians. Did a nāga drink up water to expose the land for its people? Or try to drown the land somehow?

I also wonder if the Nāga and Nagga the Sea Dragon are related to the idea of the Uktena, the Horned Serpent. In my theory The Dead Direwolf, I suppose that the direwolf mother that died in Bran I of Game of Thrones was not killed by a stag, but was instead killed by a uktena, which can turn into a man, and that there is a relationship to Garth the Green, who was a green-horned man like the greenmen of the Isle of Faces. Check it out, it's a fun read.

Sothoryos and the Yog-Sothoth

Sothoryos, which sounds like south and therefore seems to fit nicely into the Westeros/Essos naming scheme, is not named after the direction. It is instead named after the Yog-Sothoth, which is the name that Lovecraft himself gave to the Cthulhu Mythos (a name later coined by Derleth).

George is using Sothoryos as a literary Africa, where these fantastic beings and ideas are born.

Bran Mak Morn

The King of the Picts, Bran Mak Morn, has some deep influences on the character of Bran Stark, even beyond the name. The ability of the Picts to turn into wolves is one strong connection, and the psuedo-historical relationship of the Picts to real ancient Britons, especially as they resisted the Roman invaders, reminds me strongly of the First Men of the North. Overall, the joy that Howard took in writing about the Picts and Bran Mak Morn should be counted as a powerful influence on readers like George.

The Gods of Terros are Eldritch Deities

The Gods of Terros, worshiped by the people of Terros in its various religions, are all based on the terrible gods of the Cthulhu Mythos known as the The Great Old Ones. All, of course, except for the Old Gods of the Forest. They will be approached in an upcoming essay, which will discuss the role of August Derleth and L. Sprague de Camp in furthering the work of Lovecraft, and in introducing the idea of a war between the Great Old Ones and the Elder Gods.

These eldritch deities are born of cosmic horror, and care little or nothing for the humanoids that worship them. In the current age, these monsters are mostly sleeping (like Cthulhu), or banished to outer space (like Hastur). Only Nyarlathotep roams the Earth, enacting the will of the Great Old Ones and the Outer Gods. But all have their worship, even Tsathoggua, who is worshipped on the Isle of Toads.

The Drowned God of Ironborn, the Lord of Light, the Great Other, the Great Shepherd, and the Toad God of the Isle of Toads, among others, are all versions of these eldritch monsters. These Gods of Terror are not going to stay sleeping or banished forever. Instead, they will return, and humanity will suffer.

George loves the Mythos

George loves the Mythos, and his embrace of it is encoded deeply within A Song of Ice and Fire. From the very beginning of his love for fantasy writing, the Cthulhu Mythos and its many writers helped shaped what he expected from fantasy, and what he produced of it. The Lovecraftian elements in Terros are clearly not just homage; instead, these themes and characters are used intentionally to flesh out the background of the books, and to help guide the powers and magic that each god can access. The roles of magic and the gods from which it derives on the past, present and future of Terros are shaped deeply by the powers described in the Mythos.

However, George, like all of the other Mythos writers, uses the shared universe as a starting point, and adds many details to flesh out both the gods and their roles. It's not a paint-by-numbers operation; instead, George has used this set of ideas and characterizations that help guide the stories.

We can, however, make a lot of use of this background within our theories, as the framework of the Mythos helps to guide our guesses. With this understanding of the deep literary universe that George is both borrowing and expanding, we can better understand what he is planning to do with our favorite characters.