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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9229740" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>Personally, I think the Shadows are <em>really obviously</em> Fiend-type beings rather than GOO. They aren't even slightly incomprehensible (nor are the Vorlons), they just couch all of their really quite plain motives behind seventeen unnecessary layers of metaphor. There's always a clear reason why they're doing what they're doing, especially when it comes to Londo. (Indeed, the fact that their 'avatars' are reduced to practically child-like dialogue after getting told off by Delenn and Sheridan--"Will you...come with us?" [...] "Then...we will not be alone?"--shows to me that, for all their metaphor, their desires remain <em>very</em> comprehensible.)</p><p></p><p>The closest example (of media I actually <em>know</em>, e.g. I've never read Bartimeus books, I never watched Buffy, etc.) mentioned above is Zorg from <em>The Fifth Element</em>. Even there, the horrible thing, "Mister Shadow," comes across as being quite aware of its servants and, again, having pretty straightforward, albeit evil, motives. It wants to destroy all life, and is cunning enough to manipulate others into helping it achieve these aims. However, it only speaks once, generally is beyond comprehension other than "absolute evil," and has weird powers that don't really seem to be traceable to a physical cause (the "black goo" stuff, mostly.) So you could argue that its appearance of understandable-ness is simply because it's a particularly <em>malicious</em> eldritch horror, a la Hastur, rather than because it really is all that comprehensible to us.</p><p></p><p>Outside of outright Lovecraftian stories (or the seeds from which his work grew, like Robert W. Chambers' reinterpretations of Ambrose Bierce's Hastur), however, it's pretty rare to find things that truly fit the mold of Great Old One type beings, rather than the other two main patrons, Fiend or Archfey. Alien beings prior to the 19th century tended to be fairies, which while certainly alien were not that kind of alien. Some of it, I suspect, comes from the flowering of scientific understanding in the 18th and 19th centuries, but some of it also comes from the ennui of the industrial era and the horrors of 19th and early 20th century warfare. Some likely also comes from the long-term hegemonic status of the Abrahamic religions in Europe and the Near East and the "god is dead" stuff that had cropped up in the 19th and early 20th. In prior millennia, you could have your (good!) gods and the enemy's (evil!) gods, but that just gets bound up with the Fiend pact now (note where many demons'/devils' names come from.) Great Old One stuff is of a different caliber--the yawning void itself, given sapience. An entity that truly would prefer to destroy everything, as opposed to wanting to topple the existing order and replace it with a distinct but still <em>existing</em> order.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 9229740, member: 6790260"] Personally, I think the Shadows are [I]really obviously[/I] Fiend-type beings rather than GOO. They aren't even slightly incomprehensible (nor are the Vorlons), they just couch all of their really quite plain motives behind seventeen unnecessary layers of metaphor. There's always a clear reason why they're doing what they're doing, especially when it comes to Londo. (Indeed, the fact that their 'avatars' are reduced to practically child-like dialogue after getting told off by Delenn and Sheridan--"Will you...come with us?" [...] "Then...we will not be alone?"--shows to me that, for all their metaphor, their desires remain [I]very[/I] comprehensible.) The closest example (of media I actually [I]know[/I], e.g. I've never read Bartimeus books, I never watched Buffy, etc.) mentioned above is Zorg from [I]The Fifth Element[/I]. Even there, the horrible thing, "Mister Shadow," comes across as being quite aware of its servants and, again, having pretty straightforward, albeit evil, motives. It wants to destroy all life, and is cunning enough to manipulate others into helping it achieve these aims. However, it only speaks once, generally is beyond comprehension other than "absolute evil," and has weird powers that don't really seem to be traceable to a physical cause (the "black goo" stuff, mostly.) So you could argue that its appearance of understandable-ness is simply because it's a particularly [I]malicious[/I] eldritch horror, a la Hastur, rather than because it really is all that comprehensible to us. Outside of outright Lovecraftian stories (or the seeds from which his work grew, like Robert W. Chambers' reinterpretations of Ambrose Bierce's Hastur), however, it's pretty rare to find things that truly fit the mold of Great Old One type beings, rather than the other two main patrons, Fiend or Archfey. Alien beings prior to the 19th century tended to be fairies, which while certainly alien were not that kind of alien. Some of it, I suspect, comes from the flowering of scientific understanding in the 18th and 19th centuries, but some of it also comes from the ennui of the industrial era and the horrors of 19th and early 20th century warfare. Some likely also comes from the long-term hegemonic status of the Abrahamic religions in Europe and the Near East and the "god is dead" stuff that had cropped up in the 19th and early 20th. In prior millennia, you could have your (good!) gods and the enemy's (evil!) gods, but that just gets bound up with the Fiend pact now (note where many demons'/devils' names come from.) Great Old One stuff is of a different caliber--the yawning void itself, given sapience. An entity that truly would prefer to destroy everything, as opposed to wanting to topple the existing order and replace it with a distinct but still [I]existing[/I] order. [/QUOTE]
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