Arcana force and Cthulhu mythos

TI thought a lot recently about all the reference to Lovecraft’s work and Cthulhu mythos there is in Arcana force cards recently. And i find some nice things that I haven’t seen developped before so there we go for a huge post about this archetype.

There will actually be two post, one focusing just on the cards supposedly based on specific creatures, the other about the world, the devil, and how i think it’s also a base for season 2 of gx. Also, I’d like to add that i didn’t personally found every single reference myself, it’s a mix of things ive seen talked here and there and my own thoughts.

Tour of doom: Hastur/the king in yellow

Funnily, there’s another ygo card based on Hastur (old entity hastorr). Tour of doom is a spooky guy in a yellowish coat with a skull for a face, which is the usual representation of the king in yellow, a great old one...

Tour of doom is based on the tarot card of Death, hence the scythe, and i feel like it’s also a reminder of hastur being first considered a quite nice god of shepherds. Not to get too much into symbolism but... A tarot card representing change being associated with a once-nice but now evil being might have to do with it’s use in the anime?

Temperance: Bast/Bastet

The egyptian of goddes of cat is an Elder god in the mythos. Temperance doesn’t seem to have the face of a cat, but it has thoses hands with claws, some other cat features and mostly it’s clothes and jewelry look much more like ancient egypt compare to the other Arcana forces.

The interesting thing is that Bast is both a feminine and benign deity which is quite rare in the mythos. And Temperance is also one of the only two feminine arcana force and has an automatic protective effect beside the flip one.

Moon beasts are creature living on the moon, described as toad-like, huge, greyish and with many tentacles. They don’t seem to be able to hear nor see anything, but are incredibly smart. The moon fits the description quite well, with the thing behind feeling like a brain to show the being’s intelligence.

They are also known for their important use of slaves, and the moon’s effect is based on token (which are pretty much like slaves).

Yithian have a cone-like based, and many limbs going around everywhere. But the comparison mostly goes for the effect. The main hobby of Yithian was time travelling, and possessing bodies during different era to explore it. Even those body might be just shells, and they often migrates to new ones. Which is reflected in the chariot’s effect: taking control of a monster after defeating it, of loosing it’s control.

The servitors are greyish thing with a lot of tentacles in their back. They exist to serve and amuse the outer gods, and always have a flute with them. They aren’t technically aggressive, but are dangerous because very hard to hurt. Meanwhile, the fool is based on a tarot card representing the person that amused the kind, always showed with a flute. The fool seem to dance, is grey with lots of tentacles, and have an effect that prevents him from being destroyed.

This one is less sure. But the magician’s outfit gives a kinda arabic vibe, with the pants and the shoes. Abdul Alhazred isn’t a supernatural creature, it’s the one who wrote the Necronomicon, a spell book referring to many horrific beings. He was a magician himself, and the magician’s effect is based on spells. Also, his background kind of feel like the kind of trance/magic dream that brings human to see such mysterious thing.

There are other reference I am even less sure about. Maybe the hanged man being Night Gaunt (faceless bat-like monster that chase their victims at night to make them obey), the emperor and the haunted of dark (an avatar of nyarlatotep appearing with black wing and only red eyes for a face), shub niggarath for the empress (as it’s the other feminine outer god who creates many other monster, and the empress the other feminine card summoning other monsters). But I think these are really me scearching for comparisons, and there isn’t much to tell anyway.

This post being already huge enough, I’ll make another one to talk about the mess that are the world and the devil.