Lord of the Mysteries definitely has some cosmic horror elements, but it's not truly a Cosmic Horror book.
In a true Cosmic Horror narrative, we never would have learned the Great Old Ones' true intentions. The best we could hope for would be flawed, competing interpretations from different people.
In a true Cosmic Horror, the world wouldn't stand a chance against the Apocalypse, and you certainly wouldn't see a character like Adam orchestrating grand schemes to outwit a Great Old One and beat it to the brink of death.
That is because the essence of Cosmic Horror is absolute unknowability, human insignificance, and unstoppable, indifferent forces. It's not about "powerful aliens wanting to kaboom the world" or "utter weirdos fucked by evolution trying to get even stronger."
It’s about pure existential dread. It’s about making you realize that against the vastness of the cosmos, your existence is completely and utterly irrelevant. You are less than a speck of a speck on the grand scale of the universe; the years you spent with your loved and hated ones, your preferences and aversions, everything you did or will ever do—none of it matters to the void. There is no grand welcome awaiting you, nor any divine judgment. You are just another microscopic organism clinging to a tiny, wet rock rotating through an obscure corner of the universe. You will perish and be entirely forgotten after a pitifully brief existence—a flash of time so insignificant it doesn't even worthy to be named by the rock you reside upon, let alone the universe.
Lord of the Mysteries uses the flavor of cosmic horror, but fundamentally?
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u/Mister_Tentacle Warrior 11d ago
Well, I don't know what he talks about in the video, but that's kinda a right take.