Dagoth the Gug

Few different interpretations I seen around as far as what an illustrated Lovecraftian Gug looks like:

Is clearly lovecraftian.

His hands were amphibian-like, right? That would connect the beast with Dagon or the Deep Ones...

Dagon... Dagoth... Whatever.

In the script I have and according to the original Roy Thomas version, now known as " The Horn of Azoth", the creature was a gargoyle.

Somewhere in production we must assume it became a Gug because the original flying creature wasnt working or whatever. However theres Lovecraftian touches used by Marvel Comics, as this movie Dagoth looks reptoid/amphibian as Dagon and Dagoth.


DAGOTH
http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/dagoth.htm

DAGON
http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/dagon.htm

Dagon in the Mythos is an aquatic creature -(who by the way loves to give huges to giant phalic monolithes)-.





Lovecraft hated the sea, the fishes -(because once he got sick extremely eating them)- and of course by education he rejected sex. Now we have some very powerfl freudian image there.

The amphybian-like hands are close to Dagoth... Because he had hands like that, yeah? It was so long since I watched that movie... And I just don't feel like watching it again.

Cool pic, reminds me a bit of the movie Kraken from "CLASH OF THE TITANS". Dagon is/was of course Philistine Sea deity. Lovecraft plucked most of his mythology from the Ancient world as did Howard.

Here's a larger pic

Queen Taramis' battle helmet was bird-like, possibly representative of the gargoyle-like Dagoth creature. She and some of her guards mainly had bird & reptilian motifs clothing . Serpent helmets also appear with Togra and some of her royal guards seen at the end of the movie have Serpent designed helmets.

Can see the birdnecklace with the Reptilian headpiece here:



Here's she's wearing the Bird motif again:

The human shape of Dagoth is also interesting, as he would incarnate some kind of Adonis -specially important is his Horn, which as the unicorn's one would symbolize sexual power-.

If the unicorn is a symbol of beauty and pure love -in a woman's mind, it would incarnate a lost of virginity with a perfect beautiful "prince" who would do it with love, tendernes and no pain-.

It's interesting how when the horn is back in the head of Dagoth -that is, when he has an erection- he is not a beautifl prince anymore and becomes a disgusting monster.

Heh, i think that happens to all of us, in one or two moments of our life as men.



I think it would be connected with the role of Jenna in the movie. She is a virgin -who must be continue virgin at all costs- in order to be given to Dagoth. The monster would probably rape her and then she would give birth his spawn. That is very lovecraftian.





I don't think the role of Jenna would be just be eaten by Dagoth. That's silly. The simbology of the Horn is clear, I think. Just take a look at the Dagon picture I posted before. Those monsters are really obssessed with sex. Not a extrange thing if we consider the creator of these monsters (Lovecraft) was so represed in his life.



In the Horn of Azoth he is a absolutely a classic gargoyle as Cromulus say:





Here's Dagoth in the comic adaptation, still a gargoyle but more like a D&D Troll with wings or something like that:





By the way, Cromulus, if you like Giger, Dagoth in the cover of "Horn of Azoth" is an alien.






Creature which by the way has a very deep sexual meaning symbology, and even "rapes" the woman of the picture in the first movie.

The human statue of Dagoth resembles an ancient hindu sculpture, from India, very sensual.







But it also resembles a Chac Mool, statues from ancient precolumbian civilizations like Mayan or Toltec. These where, apparently, statues where sacrifies where offered -in the plate they hold in his hands-. That could be human hearts, but it also could be fruit or jade.

Interesting comparison with Chac Mool and Adonis, Turd. Theres a scene cut from the movie(was filmed), with Taramis spilling blood on the statue and masturbating herself in mock love with the lifeless statue. Its definitely a demonic god.

Judging from Taramis' initial response when the statue came alive, she had a look of shock and revulsion. We assume that she wasn't aware that it would've turned into a hideous monster or was banking on Jehna's sacrifice to prevent it from occurring. She was quite wholly mad right before she died too as she said, "Kill her , she must be sacrificed"-- Like in disbelief of awe and lust.

Be carefull with the sexual interpretation of Howard's mind, he was totally aware of the fact that putting sex in his stories would made them sell better ! He wrote a few ones for Spicy-Adventure Stories, telling in letters that he was doing it for money.
In another thread you wrote FT that Howard was not knowing women. Well, maybe he was not very fond of their way of seing life, but he knew them "physically" as some letters to his friend Tevis Clyde Smith prooves. There was a prostitutes house in Brownwood he visited several times, according to several sources.
Please, try to forget Dark Valley Destiny, the biography by De Camp, in which many errors are made. Was better for the legend to make him a very complexed man, who was beatten at school and grew into a more than 7 feet high barbarian. He was 6 feet, no more, and knew sexuality at least in a certain form.

They are my interpretations. I'm not a proffesor, so we are only guessing. What's wrong with that?

Nothing wrong (I am not a professor either ) But these few information could help us to guess better !

Howard was indeed an oddball and blew is brains out, but yet did a sloppy job at that.

Turd, I pretty much agree with your assessments over those comments, also as Chrysagon says, was to sell his stories. Howard was a contradictory man, and surely suffered from certain afflictions, dont think thats deniable. Kull was chivalrous and treated women with respect( and some say Kull was asexual), while his CONAN morph was a whore monger and women opened their legs just at the sigh of this dirty barbarian, but sometimes Howard showed some of Kull's personality.

Cromulus The Destroyer wrote:

Howard was a contradictory man, and surely suffered from certain afflictions, dont think thats deniable.

And that is not the legend, that's the truth.

Now, I agree with you Chrysagon, as I, and I think we all, are more interested in the real human being, not in the "freak".

The sexuality in REH I think is interesting not as a trivia thing, beyond he was virgin or not, you know, that is not really important. It's interesting in this concrete thread when we can better understand what the monsters or enemies of the heroes could represent. A lovecraftian monster like Dagoth is allways a symbol of a very deep uncious fear. Not being an expert it's very hard to analize them without making mistakes, but we can try.

And for me it doesn't matter, as I said, if the persons who made the artworks was "anything", that is not important. I don't judge REH because I can't do that. We can talk about facts, but I'm sorry If you or anybody could feel that i'm trying to steal his dignity or respect. Because the main objetive is understand things a little bit deeper. Not judging anybody.

Anyway, you can allways disagree with these or any other theories. Any nformation which could bring some light to these topics is allways a pleasure. You know.

Flaming Turd wrote:

I'm sorry If you or anybody could feel that i'm trying to steal his dignity or respect.

I've never thought that, no problem ! I was just adding my stone in the comprehension of that complex personality.

Hey, Carlo Rambaldi, who built Dagoth, also built the ALIEN itself.

(Oh, and also he built E.T. with who Dagoth also shares some physical resemblance).

Well, only wanted to add this little trivia, as I compared Dagoth with an Alien some posts before.



The Cthulhu creatures are allways extraterrestrials, who arrived to the earth aeons ago, and are hibernating inside caves, in the deeps of the ocean, or in a paralell dimension. With the right words or objects, they can awake.

Dagoth is in fact called "The dreaming god". He is sleeping inside the form of that statue.

The humans who serve them are very sensitive people who contacted with them telepatycally. The extraterrestrials are dreaming, but still have very strong mental power over sensitive humans. These humans are lied, they believe they are gods when they are only aliens, and promised a lot of power if they help them to awake. They believe they can control them after their awake, but that is not true. The awake of these aliens is the end of the whole humanity.

Also, the servers of the Cthulhu aliens are "seduced", when not raped, by them in order to give birth to a new offspring of hybrids. Also, they are allways depicted as genitalia looking like creatures, but in a very disgusting way: flaccid tentacles, wet and cold rubberish skins, very bad smell... (Look at the GUG itself, Cromulus, it's mouth).


The Alien itself is a very lovecraftian creature, who hibernates and changes its form after its awakening. It uses humans bodies in a very violent sexual way, and its forms are allways genitalia looking like. In the sequels and in the comics, some scientifics believe they can control the aliens, but the premise is that they can't be controled, as their spreading would be the end of humanity.





Giger first Alien painting was made for a book called Necronomicon.






That is why I thought that Dagoth would wanted to rape Jenna and give birth to some kind of Anticrhist.

That may of been the Doom and Yasmina plan.

The Stone script is more Lovercraftian.

Here's some funky looking Gug figure from Entertainment Earth:



Looks more like something outve John Carpenter's "The Thing" movie. Carpenter though is a huge Lovecraft fan supposedly.

Dagoth, man was he scary. But not as scary as the terror dogs from GHOSTBUSTERS and the Brundlefly from GHOSTBUSTERS. Dagotha looks like THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON.

The Terror Dogs from Ghostbusters, they were frightening. I think the scene where Sigourney Weaver is attacked in the chair and we see Zuul the terror dog come out of the fridge, that was one of *the*most scariest scenes in a film.
CLOVERFIELD (2008) that was scary as hell.

Turd, Frazetta's Sea Monster is another good one:




Also the other Lovecraftian creature which the movie Dagoth seems to be related to is this frog-like apish living Statue god from Saturn:



Real Name: Tsathoggua

Identity/Class: Extra-Dimensional Demon

Occupation: Deity of the savage Tcho-Tcho, Guardian of the Cobra Crown

Affiliations: Great Cthulhu, Old Ones, Set and the Serpent Men (all allies), the Tcho-Tcho tribesmen (worshippers), Thulandra Thuu (invoked him for power)

Powers: Tsathoggua has the power to travel between dimensions and the power to survive and move through the vacuum of outer space faster than light. What other powers Tsathoggua has are uncertain but it is safe to assume they are on a par with other inhuman Elder Gods such as Cthulhu, Chthon, and Set. It is hinted at in the Necronomicon and the Book of Eibon (and perhaps in the Book of Skelos as a copy of it was found at the feet of an idol to Tsathoggua) that rites involving human sacrifice and cannibalism were performed in worship of Tsathoggua. Tsathoggua’s idol moved with inhuman speed for something made of stone and was as strong as one might expect based on its composition.

History: Tsathoggua travels from his dimension of origin to the realms of physical matter arriving on Saturn before the rise of man on earth. Growing bored upon Saturn which is ruled by more powerful, but related beings Tsathoggua departs through space for earth. Finding the surface of the planet not to his liking Tsathoggua takes up residence in the caverns of the subterranean world beneath earth.

- Tsathoggua forges some sort of alliance with the Elder God Set and his minions the Serpent Men. Upon the Nameless Isle, before the rise of mankind, the Serpent Men erect a black shrine to Tsathoggua and leave the Cobra Crown there guarded by a living stone idol of the Toad-God.

Quote :

Comments: Tsathoggua was created by science fiction and fantasy writer Clark Ashton Smith and first appeared in the story "Door to Saturn". He appeared as a living stone idol guarding the Cobra Crown in the adventure novel Conan the Buccaneer by L. Sprague DeCamp and Lin Carter. Later this Conan story was adapted by Roy Thomas and John Buscema in the pages of SsoC.

http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/tsatho.htm

Tsotha-Lanti(Decamp's Thulandra Thuu) was also born on (Dagon)Dagoth Hill.

*

Quote :

TSOTHA-LANTI of the Hyborian era - wizard of the Scarlet Citadel, allegedly the daughter of a girl of Shadizar who slept too near the pre-human ruins of Dagoth Hill and awoke in the grip of a black demon, possessed/mutated by spirits in a well below the Scarlet Citadel, worked in Koth alongside Strabonus, drugged + imprisoned Pelias, helped Strabonus in assault on Aquilonia, slain by Conan with Pelias’ aid.
Used the purple lotus
*D*--Scarlet Citadel; Savage Sword of Conan#30 (30(fb4, 3), 30d

http://www.marvunapp.com/master/tstv.htm


Marvel's Dagoth who fought against Dr.Strange:

Also in the CONAN THE DESTROYER script there is mention of Saturn and Jupiter:



Also, Akiro's deleted piece of the writing on the wall in the crypt sequence:



Then he read the jewels on the wall, which are set up like astrology chart.



Taramis in the script is surrounded with priests and astrologers along with her Grand Vizier (who is a wizard).

Being that this creature is related to Set, so now maybe the usage of Thulsa Doom's guards and even Thulsa Togra here makes just a wee bit more sense?




** Toth-Amon uses the eye-sun symbolism:

That tsathoggua creature was a creation of Clark Ashton Smith, and lived supposely in the prehistoric Hyperborea -not the same one from REH-, in some cave. It was a subterranian entity related with amphibians. Probably related also with the Deep Ones from Lovecraft.

I think Ashton Smith was a very interesting writter, very original and mixed science-fiction, horror and fantasy. It was the precursos of the script for the Ridley Scott's movie "ALIEN", in a tale called "The cripts of Yoh-Vombis" I guess... Not sure if that was the name. The tale was about some archaeologists who find a catacomb in Mars, and there they found fossilized mummies covered with some alien parasite, that of course ends killing all of them.

Not as obsessive as Lovecraft in his descriptions, and much more enjoyable than REH. I can read a whole book of tales from Ashton Smith without getting tired. With REH, it's allways the same story again and again, in the end. Also with Lovecraft, now I think.

Ashton Smith also had "Serpent Men" races and other CTB related stuff.

Yes, it seems some elements of the occult were retained for CTD. Azoth was also used in some form by Aleister Crowley too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azoth

Think there's some kinda real Sumerian Demon by that name.