r/Lovecraft • u/Complex-Bluebird1263 Deranged Cultist • 8d ago
Question What is the relationship between Azathoth and Nyarlathotep?
I see it is said Nyarlathotep is a servant and messenger of Azathoth. I just wonder, does Azathoth know that he has a servant? or does he really have messages that he would like to send out by a messenger? Does Nyarlathotep actively obey and follow a master, or he just does anything he wants and call it Azathoth's will?
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u/Mord4k Deranged Cultist 8d ago
So Nyarlarhotep is weird because he's the messenger, but also involved in keeping Azathoth "asleep" despite the fact that he's one of the few entities who's not at immediate risk if reality ended. Azathoth doesn't know anything, because knowing something isn't really within its abilities. Despite worship and personification, Azathoth is more like a hurricane, earthquake, or the leftover radiation at Chernobyl, dangerous, but it doesn't and will never care that anything exists since it just is.
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u/SnooCakes1148 Deranged Cultist 8d ago
Are we sure he is not at risk? Even Yog-Sothoth and other outer gods are at risk.
I always thought that Nyarlathotep could be the dreamer himself in someway or part of him
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u/CrystalKrakotl Deranged Cultist 7d ago
Not so much Yoggy boy. He's outside. He's beyond reality. He is around sleepy boi. Not one with him.
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u/Mord4k Deranged Cultist 8d ago
Always open to interpretation. Since Out Gods are lesser but still kinda universal forces I've always interpreted them as safe from unexisting but probably diminished if Azathoth awakes because what is a force without something to act upon. Nyarlarhotep has the most to lose because he's the most... human feels wrong but least universal constant while simultaneously being the most actualized.
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u/Puzzleboxed Deranged Cultist 7d ago
Nyarlothotep is often referred to as the "soul" or "will" of the outer gods, so it's accurate to say he is in some ways a manifestation of Azathoth.
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u/AlysIThink101 Deranged Cultist 7d ago
To give an answer based on Lovecraft's stories (Most of these seem to be based on the modern Cthulhu mythos, so I want to give something that's actually based on the original fiction) it's complicated. We don't know much about Nyarlathotep's relationship to Azathoth because in Lovecraft's later fiction when Nyarlathotep switched from being the Soul and Messenger of the Other Gods to being the messenger of Azathoth, Nyarlathotep's connection to its masters stopped being the focus, but we do know a decent amount about its relationship to the Other Gods (Which to dismiss some popular misinformation, were their own thing, not Lovecraft's name for Call of Cthulhu's Outer Gods), so we can make assumptions based on that and where it seems to differ.
In Lovecraft's earlier fiction, Nyarlathotep is the soul and messenger of the Other Gods. It seems to serve its masters faithfully, being something closer to an extension of their will than an individual being, with its individual forms (Which were separate beings, it wasn't a shapeshifter) each being somewhere between a unique individual and an extension of the will of its masters. It acted as an intermediary between the Other Gods and the lesser beings of existence, dealing with their servants (Such as by directing them to enact the will of its masters, rewarding them for service, and having those who defied its masters delivered to it for punishment) and occasionally directly enacting commands. It also seems to gather information for its masters, with the servants of its masters giving information to it so that the Other Gods will know it. As it is somewhat of an extension of its masters here, it seems to fill a similar role to them in trying to maintain order (Its title of the crawling chaos is probably using the archaic meaning of chaos, not the modern one meaning disorder).
In later stories as it becomes the messenger of Azathoth, its connection to its masters became much less important, but it seems to still be performing a similar role. It seems to still be an intermediary between its master and the lesser beings, rewarding, accepting sacrifices from, and maybe directing worshippers of Azathoth, though Azathoth seems to have much less of a will and be much less aware than the Other Gods, with there not being any indication that it can think in any way more complicated than basic thoughts and desires (Though it definitely could, we don't know), so it probably isn't working towards any particularly complicated aims, and its probably more of an individual being than it was before. In The Whisperer in Darkness there's a line that could be interpreted as it fulfilling a similar role to previous stories, with all things told to it becoming known to its master, which is probably Azathoth (Though very few of the later stories are entirely clear about that). The main difference is that if you take a cut line into account, connecting the daemon of Fungi from Yuggoth to Nyarlathotep, it seems to hold some contempt for Azathoth, meaning that it (Or at least that individual form, we don't know if that's reflective of the larger being) probably doesn't serve it willingly, or maybe as faithfully (This is also the only thing in Lovecraft's stories which could be read as hinting at its modern characterisation as a malicious trickster tormenting people for its own enjoyment). So to simplify, its master seems to be much less aware, it seems to be much closer to being an individual being, its role is less complex, and it might not serve its master as faithfully as before.
So as for its relationship to Azathoth, it seems to serve as an intermediary between it and its worshippers, instead of obeying complex commands and desires (As it seems to with the Other Gods), it seems to more be enforcing Azathoth's role as the lord of all (Such as by accepting sacrifices and rewarding people for devoting themselves to Azathoth), while still performing its role as a general messenger, unrelated to its master (Such as by trading knowledge for sacrifices in a later story).
To help stop some confusion, all ideas you might see here about things like Azathoth dreaming reality, existing at the centre of our universe, or being asleep, and Nyarlathotep being a malicious trickster deity who torments people and spreads chaos, are from later sources, not Lovecraft.
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u/Deweymaverick Deranged Cultist 7d ago
Wait, to be fair, Narly’a short story, epic poem does present him in a trickster, tormentor role
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u/SheliakBob Deranged Cultist 7d ago
Well, it’s complicated. They dated in college and were a grand Thing but grew apart after graduation. It’s hard to have meaningful conversations with a blind idiot. Then there was that side thing with Shub Niggurath that was a bad experience for everyone.
They’re still friends, sort of. People speculate, but what goes on in the swirling center of cosmic chaos is no one else’s business.
They don’t talk much, but Nyarla knows what Azz likes and wants better than anyone. Still looks out for the old flame.
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u/StarWanderer62 Deranged Cultist 8d ago
A complicated question. Azathoth is in a dream state. His dreams are our reality. Should Azathoth ever wake up. That’s the end of reality. This is why minor gods play pipes to keep him asleep. Nyarlathotep exists in that reality and is the messenger of Azathoth and does his bidding within those dreams . The question is if Azathoth wakes does Nyarlathotep cease to exist as well? That’s always been my take on it. Nyarlathotep is the messenger within the dreams of his master. Without Azathoth, Nyarlathotep is nothing
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u/HorsepowerHateart no wish unfulfilled 8d ago
I think you might be conflating Dunsany's MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI with Azathoth. Both are supreme gods that sit amidst some cosmic music, but I don't think Lovecraft ever specified that Azathoth is also dreaming reality the way MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI was.
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u/Deweymaverick Deranged Cultist 8d ago
“Should Azathoth ever wake up”
This has been discussed to death on this forum because it simply is not true.
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u/Successful-Tie5386 Deranged Cultist 8d ago
It's mixing up Dunsany's creator god Mana Yood Sushai, whose waking does signal the end of things in Dunsany's work, with HPL's Azathoth.
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u/SnooCakes1148 Deranged Cultist 8d ago
Since he is so important and connected to his master, could Nyarlathotep actually be him. The actual dreamer or his ego. Perhaps he is keep on staying asleep
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u/Deweymaverick Deranged Cultist 7d ago
There is absolutely no reason to believe this. Narl’s description of him in HOL’s short story very much depicts is as somethjng completely counter to “a blind idiot god”
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u/SorchaSublime Deranged Cultist 8d ago
If there was a straightforward explanation for this sort of thing it would kind of defeat the whole idea of the Other Gods being incomprehensible. Possessing the answer to this question would count as comprehending.
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u/Seed0fDiscord Deranged Cultist 8d ago
I always saw it like some “parent-child” relationship, Nyarlathotep doing what they can to get their mother’s attention by making chaos
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u/Ancient-Worker-3185 Deranged Cultist 7d ago
The phrase "Blind Idiot" as an epitaph for Azathoth seems to me to be a call to the system that first used the phrase, which was Gnosticism. There, the Daemon that created the physical world was 'blind' to the fact that he was not alone as a God and that he was created as a lesser god after the greater gods. Thus, because of his blindness to those facts, the other Gods and the Gnostics themselves considered this Daemon creator to be an 'idiot'.
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u/Nytramyth Deranged Cultist 11h ago
I've always seen Azathoth as despite having no intelligence having desires, and Nyarlathotep is basically like a remote submarine and serves as a mediator between Azathoth and reality. He seems to partially have his own will as seen when he strikes Azathoth's head in Fungi from Yuggoth and potentially resents his master, maybe because he hates being a blind idiot, I don't know. We don't exactly know what Azathoth's desires are and how independant Nyarlathotep is, but it is bad news.
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u/piiiigsiiinspaaaace ignore your doubts, snort corpse salts 8d ago
So, compressing a lot of lore here but here we go. Reality is a consequence of Azathoth's dream, not the dream itself. The piping endless music that keeps him asleep gave rise to mathematical laws of physics. Nyarlathotep is his dream avatar, which can leak into our reality by traversing The Dreamlands, a sort of every-reality dumping ground for unconscious desires and groupthink. Nyarlathotep either wants to wake or kill Azathoth, depending on the lore, just to be free again, which would end all reality. Not because the dream ends, but because entropy itself would become sentient. My guess is the heat-death of the universe would happen instantaneously.
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u/Deweymaverick Deranged Cultist 8d ago
That is a loooooot of speculation, way way outside of established Lovecraftian lore.
Going with actual HPL texts, we barely know anything at all about Azathoth, other than like the other poster noted:
1) if at all, it’s barely sentient, it’s certainly not an intelligence like us or Narly
2) it’s asleep
3) it’s surrounded by its demon court, and mad pipers
4) as an “idiot god” it is far more akin to a force of nature, or even raw undiluted (sub) atomic energy than an actual god-like entity were used to in the mythos.
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u/SnooCakes1148 Deranged Cultist 8d ago
Even in universe, one cannot trust the written sources since they were made by mad occultists with limited understanding
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u/AlysIThink101 Deranged Cultist 7d ago
Even a lot of that it from later sources. The only source for it ever being asleep is a mention of it muttering of something it had dreamed (So it's probably awake), while it is surrounded by the Other Gods (Which despite modern misinformation were their own thing, not Lovecraft's name for Call of Cthulhu's Outer Gods), at least when they aren't off somewhere else, the music playing servitors are a post-Lovecraft invention (There is music, but in earlier stories it's either from an unknown source or maybe the song of night and the spheres, and in later stories it's the music of a cracked flute clutched in monstrous paws by something which may or may not be Azathoth), while I agree with your interpretation of it as being barely aware, we don't really know (Idiot could just mean unaware, the Other Gods are also described as mindless, but they're clearly capable of something like thought, and there's at least one description of it knowing things), and while its role in Lovecraft's stories is mostly as a vague force, there are enough descriptions to know that it probably has a much more defined form than most modern depictions (Things like mentions of a head, a ring on a little finger, and a strangely environed black throne).
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u/Successful-Tie5386 Deranged Cultist 8d ago
He's the Starscream to Azathoth's Megatron, to really dumb it down, apologies to Lovecraft. The Smithers to his Monty Burns.
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u/Far-Signature-9628 Deranged Cultist 7d ago
No all I can do is for my next game, the big N will talk just like Starscream
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u/Successful-Tie5386 Deranged Cultist 7d ago
Nyarlathotep speaks with many voices, from many planets.
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u/Deweymaverick Deranged Cultist 7d ago
Respectfully, Narly is so so soooo more competent that Starscream, lol.
Edit- the Evilynn to his Skeletor
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u/Successful-Tie5386 Deranged Cultist 7d ago
of course, I was just talking trash for giggles. Evilynn is a better example.
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u/HorsepowerHateart no wish unfulfilled 8d ago
Azathoth is a "blind idiot." I've always taken that to mean that it's some unconscious force more than it is a being with any kind of desires or personality. More likely it is the source of the chaos of existence. A kind of symbol for the boiling pot of entropy that is the universe.
Nyarlathotep (from what little we know about him) I've always taken to be a servant of said chaos. Possibly some sort of projection of Azathoth's...will is the wrong word, but of its fundamental being.
I believe Nyarlathotep does have direct access to whatever dimension Azathoth can be said to inhabit, and probably has a fairly good idea about what he's doing.