Seeker of Thrones 9-108 (MAMMON)
Chapter: 9
“[O]utside the ordered universe [is] that amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan […], whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes.”
The Grand Dragon has lost his sight, it would seem.
N I C E B E A R D
T H E F R E N D L Y P I R A T E
Yarr… Dragon Beard, the bearded Dragon! Yarrrrrr!!
Wondering if he’s counting the people, and if so what for?
Don’t they get bored with just counting stuff? Doesn’t seem like much of a life.
Never interrupt a Dragon from his Accounting.
Hot Piss Lovecraft is a fucking racist asshole and anything he wrote has been written better by better authors.
You seem upset sir. Yes, Lovecraft is a Xenophobe. That is the very inspiration of all of his work. To call him out for it is silly.
Your opinion on his work, I have have to respectfully disagree. He was a wonderful writer and incredibly inspirational to the last century of media.
That would be ‘was.’
And so was every fantasy and horror writer of that benighted time, and times before.
Look at Robert E. Howard, look at E. E. ‘Doc’ Smith, look at Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Hell, look at C. S. Lewis.
When what we considered racism was the norm, it was normal for writers to include protagonists who were racists, casually or actively.
I’m glad it’s no longer considered normal, at least in a non-institutionalized sense.
Imagine what the readers of fifty years hence will make of our greats, and the way they show institutionalized racism and sexism! Quelle horror!
I’ve made a general comment below already, but I do want to highlight some things about R.E. Howards later work that often fly over the heads of modern readers.
At first glance, his tales set in Africa often seem insanely racist, but compared to the consensus of the scientific community of the day, his science fiction diverges on some very insightful points.
Explorers had discovered forgotten stone ruins in the African jungles. Assuming that no black person could be smart enough to build a stone city of castle, scientists assumed that they must have been built by ancient European invaders, using local slave labor.
Howard dared to postulate a lost, BLACK master race. This was still not right, but it was an important step toward actual academics being able to suggest the possibility, that at least some black people were almost as smart as white people.
Baby steps, people! The wheels of academia grind slowly, but grind they do.
Oh, and how did this continental empire fall, in his universe? They were evil and cruel to their slaves, who finally rebelled and destroyed them. You bet your ass that sounded pretty plausible in pre-civil rights movement America.
This master race isn’t noble or enlightened. They aren’t enlightened bringers of wisdom and civilization; they are cruel, imperialistic exploiters. The few surviving clans scheme in secret to summon primordial evils to give them revenge and help them conquer the globe for selfish gain. Howard never called them out in so many words, but I think he had started to see the Nazis for who they were.
Maybe, like his hero Solomon Kane, he could never consciously resolve the dissonance between the beliefs he had been brought up in and the truth in front of his own eyes. Maybe that’s part of the reason he ended it.
We’ll never know what was going on in his head at the end there.
Hell no, Lovecraft was a hysterical super-racist, far beyond Howard, Smith or Lewis. He would have borderline panic attacks if an Italian person walked down the street in his direction.
From his own wife, Sonia: “Whenever we found ourselves in the racially mixed crowds which characterize New York, Howard would become livid with rage. He seemed almost to lose his mind.”
Look at this letter from Lovecraft to Frank Belknap Long and tell me Lovecraft wasn’t biting his pen and quivering with rage and terror inspired by racism: https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2012/09/26/not-lovecrafts-providence
He was far, far beyond his contemporaries in how uniquely racist and messed-up he was.
Hrmm… Y’all need to get yer perspective right. I’m sure you probably know this, but everyone back then was a racist by today’s standards. And I do mean everyone. White, Black, Hispanic, Persians, Asians, etc.
Sure, Lovecraft has been done better by others. And just like those other fellahs, Lovecraft borrowed from and was inspired by other authors. Does that dimish his contribution in any way? Do any of those other authors before or after have an entire genre that is evoked simply by mentioning their name?
Poe? Machen? Howard? Burroughs? Smith? Leiber? Derleth?
…Lovecraft. IA! IA! Speak his name and awaken the Elder Gods!
in fairness, Lovecraft was racist even by the standards of his time. like, spitting-rages-when-he-saw-an-Italian racist. final solution to the Spaniard Problem racist. racist enough that Robert Howard, no stranger to race-mixing-as-source-of-horror himself, decided after a collaboration with him “uh, christ, maybe I ought to tone this shit down, you go hard enough on this and you come off as a real fucking weirdo.”
Lovecraft’s a fuckin’ genius who created entirely new mythology and approached horror as no one dared before; regardless all the prejudices, infantilism and delusions the man had.
Yeah, someone has a clearer vision of the future of science fiction and religious syncretism than others of his day, and people expect that vision to be a crystal clear prophecy that exempts the genius from all human foibles.
It turns out that geniuses are people too.
Don’t fuck with the count
Don’t fuck with the count
It was her!
Mammon is the still, quiet voice that whispers lies to you at night in your bed. Mammon is the beating of a great drum. Mammon is the flame of a burning ship, sinking in the wet desert of the ocean. Mammon cannot be called. Mammon cannot be dispelled. Mammon slides a tentacle, finer than the thinnest human hair, into your dream and drives it into the moraine of your subconscious, pulling from it the merest fraction of your baser self. We are meat and drink to Mammon. We are poison and manna, anathema and avatar. Mammon hates us. Mammon loves us. Mammon fears us. Mammon loves us.
holy fuckin shit yo. what a guy
Quick! Find a hat and get in line!
Yes! figure out the pattern of the rule maker and follow it as quickly as possible so as not to be noticed. My first thought as well. We obviously have far to go on the path of Royalty!
I can’t help but imagine him with Smaug’s (or rather, Benedict Cumberbatch’s) voice.
That just changed Lord of the Rings And this comic for me….
The worship of Mammon is one so very clammorous. Although a clerk Priest first the great vault was always so very loud.
Piety announced loudly and worn on ones sleeve just as the great wealth held there. A fine and holy clamour indeed, though it would eventually drive me to seek more quiet faiths.
Come to wonder, only when the count stopped did the clamour dim…
Mother Mottom forgive her, for the dragon so pitied is now rpused… Ia,Ia.
he is still not as big as I, the Most Enormous Child
Are you familiar with Bor the Very Large? He resides in a realm called “Overside.” Perhaps you and he could exchange stories of your significant volume and mass.
The king in his TOWER that hides from the world ceases to be a king at all but a hermit. Mammon relishes his count in his own world safe from the outside. What can our Risinng King learn from this?
That you can’t COUNT on having privacy?
To cut off all that makes you weak. To become invulnerable. To become a creature of unquestionable power, reigning over a terrified priesthood, among wonders incomprehensible to lesser beings.
To die, and never even notice it yourself.
I’m so happy this comic exists
I imagine him having the voice of Father Ariendel from Dark Souls 3. It seems appropriate.
Such a Clamorous covenant that of Mammon and the Dragon Bank. When I was young and born in that Vault it was filled with sound at all hours. Clinking coins, counting Priests and, when deep within, the faint sounds of Mammons Holy tread upon his endless count, may he be pitied.
Come to think it was perhaps the lack of Silence that would drive me on to seek quieter faiths later on, though there was occasionally silence… when the count stopped…
Praise be to merciful Mottom, Ia, Ia, we pray the pitied dragon sleep…
By size and swords he seems half a match for Jagganoth.
Not that appearances are any way to judge demiurges.
He’s about to kill literally all of those priests.
Just like Allison, we don’t know what number Mammon was on (and how long it is) when he got “interrupted”
In fact we don’t even know if he’s sane or not. For all anyone (including his followers) know he could be completely mad and rambling about numbers that don’t exist or relate to anything… Simply counting for the sake of itself.
How often does this happen and who does he blame over it? Well, I guess we’ll have to make due with a half-answer on that one…
They prey for him, they guard him, they pity him. Perhaps the dragon is not what we expect?
Is Mammon blind?
This happened to me once. Not, of course, with a being such as mighty Mammon (then I would be Orlandu the THRICE-dead, heh), but with a small church of numismatists whose sacred grove of algebra I mistook for a public latrine. I was most embarrassed by my trespass, as I am sure Al-YISUN is here.