7. Supernatural Horror in Literature
by Red Emma
When I began this series so many weeks ago, I promised to discuss whether anyone has cause to believe the Old Ones are real entities.
The Old Ones are the beings from the void, the chaos of the universe, who are malevolent only in their indifference to the fragility of life on Earth. I’ve discussed Azathoth in a previous week – Lovecraft’s incarnation of a senseless, uncaring universe, the progenitor of all life who does so without purpose or meaning. That we are a cosmic mistake or joke is the most powerful blow Lovecraft could ever have delivered to the delicate human ego, and the true horror of his stories often derives from the full frontal exposure to our own meaningless in the vastness of the cosmos. Cthulhu, his most famous creation, is an Old One, as is Nyarlathotep.