Speculation

In these dozens of posts, I've purposely avoided the Mythos genre. There are many sites, movies, books - Ia! the books! - on great Cthulhu and the hosts of eldritch gods. Frankly, what Lovecraft started out as a means to dispel tired mythology has become oh so familair and cuddly. The fearsome Dagonish Cthulhu has become a Ty(TM) stuffed animal.

Lovecraft would be both amused and sad, I guess.

I think it began because HPL loathed fish. He must have been one of those folks whose olfactory senses were overwhelmed by the high amine content of fish. I'm sure you know many who just can't eat a shrimp, lobster or even a sardine. One day we'll understand just which gene causes this.

But I dabble in Mythos writing and you can catch a few of my stories if you scan to the margin and click over to them. I think that when Cthulhu arrived, s/he/it looked about and saw a gentle intelligent creature and decided to assume that form - the architheuthis.

Copper-blooded, tentacled, sensitive, changeable as its surroundings, this animal plied the seas living its short existence in a hostile environment. Lonely. Surrounded by sharks, mono-brained fish, Devonian relics of anemonae and coral - the poor octopus, the giant squid, the tiny cuttlefish and myriad more pined awaywith no companionship in coves and caves - lonely.

Great Cthulhu - on a quest that is unfathomable to mere homo sapiens - took compassion and transmogrified. S/he/it coalesced out of dark energy and took the form of the octopus. Our foolish pride sketches it with arms and legs and even a face - but how stupid we are. The octopus is more noble, more aesthetic, more altruistic than we are. It is blasphemy to paint Cthulhu in our image.

Beware!

So remember, the next time you munch a fried tentacle at that fast food Chinese restaraunt - Cthulhu and the Old Ones and the Great Ones and the Deep Ones ... might ... just ... deep fat fry you ... and ... eat you.