Hello and welcome back to Life’s Biggest Questions, I’m Ron McKenzie-Lefurgey.
Today we’ll be continuing down the disturbing road of the Cthulhu Mythos.
Nyogtha is a Great Old One first appearing in The Salem Horror by Henry Kuttner.
This Haunter of the Red Abyss is as mysterious as it is disturbing, but what if it actually
existed?
Let's explore.
If you want more What If videos, check out our “Biggest What Ifs” playlist on the
channel.
Now get ready, it’s time to ask the question: What if Nyogtha was Real?
Unfortunately, descriptions of Nyogtha are extremely vague.
It seems to be a giant beast covered in tentacles, living beneath the earth, and has been known
to influence happenings on Earth.
Sadly, while there have been a number of depictions, they tend to look at the various rites of
summoning and banishment, without actually highlighting specific powers of the beast.
However, many believe that it uses its tentacles in order to manipulate people and objects
around it, and this is the interpretation that we’ll look into today.
It should be mentioned that some believe Nyogtha to simply be an avatar of the Great Old One
Nyarlathotep, but this video will assume it to be a separate entity.
With that out of the way, let’s hop in.
First of all, I don’t know about you, but this idea of a creature manipulating its surroundings
with far-reaching tentacles reminds me of an episode of Futurama, entitled The Beast
with a Billion Backs.
In this episode, a rift opens, connecting the main gamma universe to an alternate one,
inhabited by Yivo, a giant creature with a multitude of tentacles.
Yivo then used Fry to spread its tentacles across the universe, attaching to and influencing
the actions of every living being.
Yivo has been compared to other Lovecraftian dieties like Azathoth and Yog-Sothoth, but
I think the tentacle aspect would make Nyogtha a more apt comparison.
The problem is, while Yivo from Futurama was just looking for companionship, and was relatively
benevolent, Nyogtha would likely only be looking out for itself.
If it managed to get its hands, or rather, tentacles, on the people of Earth, we would
likely be in for a good deal of pain and suffering.
Luckily, Nyogtha doesn’t have quite the same power as some of the other Great Old
Ones we’ve talked about.
It's believed by some that the trip to Earth weakened Nyogtha, and it had to seek help
from the Elder Things to regain strength.
They helped, hoping to control it, but when it became clear that Nyogtha didn't intend
to obey, they locked it up underground in New Zealand, and threw away the key.
This leads many to see Nyogtha as among the least powerful of the Great Old Ones, since
what power it does have is seriously limited.
However, it’s possible that Nyogtha would only have to control a select few people in
order to have secondary control of many more.
We’ve seen in recent years the power a charismatic leader can have over their followers.
Mormonism, Scientology, even modern political groups have convinced people en masse to act
against their own interests, by convincing them that the organization had their best
interests at heart.
Nyogtha would attempt to take control of someone with a huge number of loyal followers, like
Donald Trump or even the ridiculously popular K-pop group BTS.
A few words of support from them would have their followers clamouring to join the ranks
of Nyogtha’s legion.
Fortunately, there would be a way to fight back.
Basically the one thing writing on Nyogtha is explicit about is the summoning and banishing
of the Great Old One.
If people were to say the correct words to expel the beast from Earth, this calamity
could be avoided.
However, this would require people to learn that Nyogtha was real, and it might be difficult
to convince the populace of the existence of this slimy underground puppetmaster.
Of course, this is not a new idea.
For years, conspiracy theorists have claimed that the rich and powerful are part of some
outside group trying to manipulate society to meet their own goals.
Some claim this to be the Illuminati, others have and continue to blame Jewish people for
whatever reason.
Still others believe that they aren’t people at all, but rather a shapeshifting race of
lizard people in the midst of infiltrating society.
However, considering most people don’t believe in these theories, correctly in my humble
opinion, it might be difficult to convince them that this was the case.
On the bright side, that may not be necessary.
Since the writing is rather limited and vague, it’s hard to say for sure how many people
would be required to perform the incantation, or how long its range would be.
It could be that one person saying it would remove the presence of Nyogtha worldwide,
or it could require several people to separate it from a single host.
However, it’s likely that just a few believers, in the right place at the right time, would
be able to banish Nyogtha from its hosts, who could then profess the truth to the world.
This would then allow everyone around the world to chant the incantation, which would
likely remove the presence of Nyogtha from the Earth, at least for a time.
This might have long-lasting consequences.
In order to prevent future attacks from Nyogtha, we would want to make sure the rites continued
to be said, so that it wouldn’t have a chance to infect any more of the population.
It might even become something spoken routinely, perhaps being said alongside the national
anthem before a football game, or even before meals, alongside or in the place of saying
grace.
Meet up with a group of friends?
Better banish Nyogtha, just to be safe.
Becky HAS been acting pretty strangely…
And now we return to our question: What if Nyogtha was Real?
Well fortunately, it’s likely that it wouldn’t be too powerful, having been trapped beneath
the Earth.
If, however, it managed to ensnare a few charismatic leaders, we could have millions of people
willingly but unknowingly joining the cult of Nyogtha.
On the bright side, it’s likely that this could be stopped by using the incantation
to banish the Great Old One, which could then become an effective preventative measure to
keep the creature at bay.
It might be an uncertain time for a while, but eventually, the world would probably go
back to normal.
It wouldn’t be ideal, but it would be a heck of a lot better than Cthulhu.
Thank you for watching Life’s Biggest Questions, I hope this was interesting and informative,
and maybe even inspired you to look into it further on your own.
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While you’re down there, let me know what YOU would do if Nyogtha was real.
Until next time, I’m Ron McKenzie-Lefurgey with Life’s Biggest Questions, wishing you
the best of luck, on your quest for answers.