Dagoth the Gug

Oooh, according to the wikipedia, the symbol of AZOTH was the CADUCEUS... the two confronting snakes!!!

Closest one I can find is Astaroth,

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

*I hate using the wiki as a source though, have to shell out money and get the Britannica one day.

Been playing lately to CALL OF CTHULHU: DARK CORNERS OF THE EARTH some kind of adventure mixed with first person "doom" shooting. The game wasn't finished, took like 3 years of developement and finally the company broke up, so the game lacks for some more polished things but overall has an excellent ambientation.

DAGON appears in some kind of "Godzilla" attack to a boat.



DAGON symbolizes the FATHER -a monstruous father, say like "Darth Vader" or "Thulsa Doom"-. In the case of DAGOTH his paternal features are clear -(the sexual male statue, the penis-like horn)-.



Horns similar to the one from the movie were used in prehistory as fertility fetishes. Probably given to the male who wanted to become a father. This particular one had a penis sculpted in the tip.



Also, this "venus" -another fertility fetish of the paleolithic for woman pregnancy- holding a horn is pretty similar to JENNA holding the horn in the ceremony.



Again i'm pretty sure the ceremony of DAGOTH in the movie had some kind of fertility objective. Say, an hybridation or something like that, maybe like "Rosemary's baby" ceremony where the virgin got pregnant by the devil, or the "Dunwich Horror" ceremony were there's again this same "nude virgin" presented to a "phalic" horrible entity. It's a so well known thing, in fantasy, that kind of ceremony though the heroe allways arrives early enough to thwart the climax and kill the summoner, so we never really see what was going to happen.

Is the objective to create an antychrist, who will destroy humanity?

Also comes to my mind, a "nude virgin" presented to a monster by the comunity, in some kind of "holy ceremony", ok, this could be just a methaphor for an arranged wedding between a young virgin and an old disgusting rich dude.



HYDRA from the videogame "Call of Cthulhu: dark corners of the Earth".



Then, HYDRA is the "dark mother", say like the monstruous mother Coatlicue from the aztec myth, or Kali from India who eats her own children to have flesh to give birth to some more, or like the "rat mother" from the movie "Braindead who also had a "vagina dentata" in her womb to "eat his son" back to her body.

In the movie of MILIUS the face of the "dark mother" is the Wolfwithc, though she is never called "mother" in any way -as Doom was indeed called "father"- but is clear the symbol in the character, careful Conan, that one BITES.

I think these "FATHER DAGON and MOTHER HYDRA" entities of the lovecraftian myth speak a lot about the way the writter saw his parents. Fact is, no parents appear in his tales, but these two huge, dark and ugly sinister entities. Another interesting fact is Lovecraft inherited some sickness from his parents. Something he was allways afraid some day will happen. I hope there isn't any "lovecraft.com" forum that comes here to make bad comedy because i said that.

Not bad Turd, actually the monster in the film never bothered me much.

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Off topic but I happened to have been watching "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and noticed that in the scene in the crypt of that golden indian monkey creature thingy, there is surrounding the area a twin serpent motiff stands all over the place--- that look like Rexor's helmet:

That Inca temple on Riders was designed by Ron Cobb. I'lll check it out.

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I found this digital artwork by a guy called COREY JOHNSON:



http://coreyj3d.com/2.html

Yeah, I dont know how to take screen shots from movies, otherwise it's good to check out that scene and see twin serpent motif things laying around surrounding the area. There is also what appears to be bearded warriors holding a spear or something in the background, but cant make them out too good.

*With Dagoth, too bad there isnt much concept art, many of the "Making of CONAN THE DESTROYER magazines do not feature too much like they did the first movie sadly.

Johnson's rendering isnt bad, its nice to see some people remember and use thes things all these years later,lol.

Cromulus The Destroyer wrote:

Yeah, I dont know how to take screen shots from movies.

http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2005/03/capture-images-from-windows-media-player/

I don't know if the windowsmedia trick worked for you, it depends on the computer and not sure, in fact it actually doesn't work for me... Though it did a couple of months ago...

Anyway you can also use a dvd player with screenshoting options, like WinDVD. That's the program i am using, and it's excellent, takes a very good quality screen in a very easy way (a button with a camera image).

I'm actually too lazy these days to bother to be honest man. But yeah, throw Raiders into your DVD player and watch that scene and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Comparison with fertility religion from paleolithic:

Scaryest film ever: "The Haunting".

Most disturbing scene ever: in "The Turn Of The Screw" when the governess looks out across the lake and sees a woman standing over there, and YOU KNOW IT'S A DEAD WOMAN THERE LOOKING BACK AT HER.

How do I relate these films to Conan? Um... well... umm...

Something to add to the theory of "sexual intentions" of Dagoth with Jenna (to get her pregnant with some kind of antichrist or something like that):

I just read THOMAS and CONWAY took the name of DAGOTH from a REH's tale ("The Scarlet Cidatel"), but it's the name of a mountain, "Mountain Dagoth". In that mountain, apparently A WOMAN HAD SEX WITH A DEMON and later GAVE BORN TO A HYBRID who become a dark malefic sorceress.




Also Thomas said they chose DAGOTH instead of DAGON because they wanted to avoid the biblical connotations of "Dagon" and because "Dagoth" sounded more Egitian...

The name "Dagoth" comes from classical mythology and christian theology.

Howard simply combined the two Near Eastern demons Astaroth with Dagon. Thats also were Thomas gets his Azoth/Dagoth from his CTD/ Marvel stories.

To the Philistines I think Dagon was a god of agriculture before being demonized by the Jews and hence our modern or Lovecraftian interpreation.

Lovecraft wrote some kinda pastiche of Cobbs and Bourroughs short story back in 1917 called, "Dagon":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagon_%28short_story%29

*Astaroth was supposed to be some feathered and dragon winged and clawed man beast abomination. In the original scripts Dagoth is a winged beast as well.

Here is, presumably, our very first glimpse at the Dagoth-costume-first-attempt by Carlo Rambaldi... (I'm talking about the winged-gargoyle design) (on the right side of the photo; left side is part of a 3rd stage Guild Navigator for David Lynch's DUNE)



https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MU2UuqqqDZA/Vj-gPvElWeI/AAAAAAAAHR0/QbPpG4a17lM/s1600/expo_Rambaldi.JPG

Again, sorry if this has already been posted on the board... (or if the photo doesn't show up!)