Elden Ring's Eye of Yelough and Yelough Anix Ruins being associated with frenzied enemies, and the flame of frenzy being yellow, made me thing "Yelough" was just a dad-joke level pun on the King in Yellow
Nah, it’s just an ancient way of saying yellow (real life, I mean), and yellow fire is basically frenzy. It is also not the first time, Jeremiah the Xanthous king (weird guy with pyromancies in DS1 painted world), Xanthous is a way to describe in Greek folks with blonde hair and pale complexion, so basically yellow
The King in Yellow is a pretty bizarre book, and not in the usual cosmic horror/lovecraft way, when I started reading it I really didn't expect romance. Also a video on Signalis would be pretty cool.
Hastur, another name of The King in Yellow, is also the son of Yog-Sothoth, an entity that exists outside of reality and is associated with travel between worlds. The times we face a King in Yellow character are, as far as I remember, always invaders
Notably, in Chambers's book, "The King in Yellow" and "Hastur" are different things; Hastur is suggested to be a star, and is also the name of a falconer, iirc.
Now that the dust has settled, I really wish they had done this in the elden ring DLC. Also, I wish that they had made a frenzied flame area where you can get solo invaded by frenzied flame acolytes as a covenant in this game.
Anime mom hair arc???!?! I love connecting motifs across Fromsoft games, not for making them literally connected games but to explore what themes interest and inspire the creators. Good nod to some old weird fiction that's making a comeback.
I know you mentioned a bit ago about possibly doing a whole lore/theory thing on Signalis, and I thought in my head, because the King in Yellow anthology was referenced a couple times in the game, it might be necessary to explain to some degree or another what it is, what it was, and what it represents at some point to clear the air ahead of time. So I was excited to see you release this little blurb video about it! :D Thanks for this, Quelaag! Your hard work does not go unnoticed.
AHHHH I am literally researching this for my masters degree, I have "the king in yellow" open in another tab! I was also watching a video on the great attractor earlier today and was wondering if there were elden ring connections to the big star clusters! this is literally the most perfectly timed video
The Xanthous Set. Go find it, its in every game. In Sekiro its with the True Monk. It makes Kings go Mad. Its always there doing something. It's influence in the lore is frightening!
Never noticed that From hinted at their Lovecraftian/cosmic horror influence as early as Demon's Souls, long before Bloodborne blew our minds with that genre twist 🤯
The original artwork for the book looks so good. I've actually read this one a few weeks ago, quite an interesting read if you're into weird tales. Also, this is suspiciously connected to a non-Soulsborne game you've played on this channel 👀
I gotta say, as much as I love watching you sit down with a doodle pad and ramble for 2 hours, I really like this shorter edited format! I hope you do more in this style.
The King in Yellow has always been one of my favorite cosmic horror references. I just played through Signalis with my partner, and was surprised to find out how heavily inspired it was by TKiY! Was cool to go back to this video and see Elster pop up, when I didn't get the reference at all my first time watching.
Yup the whole of frenzy flame lore is extremely inspired by King in Yellow, Midra made it exceptionally blatant lol. Not that I mind, that fight was awesome as well as presentation.
There's also a great sub-section of SCP articles inspired by the King in Yellow, only the lost city here is known as Alagadda and instead of the King in Yellow, he is known as the Hanged King. The best IMO is SCP-701, "The Hanged King's Tragedy." Essentially it describes the play that drives people insane.
Wearing yellow I see what you did there ;) literally what caused my interest in Signalis to skyrocket! I had been terrified of that book for years, so for it to show up in the way it did hooked me immediately!
I first learned about The Yellow King book from researching True Detective S1 lore. Reading the book made me realize that I have digested bits and pieces of these aspects in many literary forms. Very interesting subject. Thanks for the quick overview.
Always a soft spot for me regarding the King in Yellow; my introduction to Lovecraft altogether was a Call of Cthulhu one-off a friend ran involving a high society party captivated by the play, and our party transported to Carcosa. I, being the rare actually-ignorant-of-mythos player, assumed Hastur on his throne to be the host of the party being a weirdo magic dick and accosted him jabbing finger into his chest demanding he send us back. A real core memory associated with lovecraftian themes, much more central to it in my mind than even Cthulhu himself or Innsmouth or whatever.
I do love the idea of a character transcending its original story, and even its original author. Like if Patches also appeared in games made by other people.
Crazy this showed up in my recommended tonight, one of those “do they have chips in our brains already?” Moments. I was playing shadow of the erdtree and noticed that one of the “curtains” coming off the scadutree was actually behind a moon, I instantly recalled TKIY when they describe Carcosa, with two towers “behind the moon” and I thought to myself, “yeah, Miyazaki’s probably read that book” and now this vid 😮😊
I'm very fortunate to have played the OG Demon's Souls right after release and the entire Tower of Latria was so memorable for me. The final boss having the mechanic where you could summon an invader to be the boss was amazing. Thanks for this video Q-Fresh I've been a follower of yours since DS1👌
The King in Yellow actually ends up being a rather big part of the first season of True Detective. The way its incorporated into the show is pretty brilliant.
The King in Yellow really does pop up everywhere. The name shows up in Dan Abnetts Warhammer 40k "Inquisitor" novels, following the three Inquisitors, Gregor Eisenhorn, Gideon Ravenor, and Alizebeth Bequin, where it is the name of the antagonist in charge of the organization opposing them throughout the series.
Soooo Midra is one of these representations. I would love a analysis what happens in elden ring comparing to the King in Yellow. I would argue that the king int yellow would be the madness of the frienzied flame, not what we fight directly
"Camilla: You, sir, should unmask. Stranger: Indeed? Cassilda: Indeed, it's time. We all have laid aside disguise but you. Stranger: I wear no mask. Camilla: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda) No mask? No mask!" The King in Yellow, Act 1, Scene 2
Great vid 🤙 In high school, my friends and I called ourselves the Xanthic Crew, always riding around in a yellow car and tagging things with mustard lol Later on, after playing various FromSoft titles and reading about the King in Yellow it all felt just so....fitting Thanks for making this, I'm gonna send it to my old buddies and pretend like we knew just how cool Yellow was when we started doing hoodrat stuff
Currently I am in the middle of "The Path to Carcosa" campaign in my solo play of Arkham Horror LCG. That's so amazing experience! I wonder how it ends.
omg i read The King in Yellow last year while playing Elden Ring (before i played Demon's Souls earlier this year), and didn't connect those dots. this is great
I think one of the weirdest things about this book is how much it inspired Lovecraft but most people don't realize it was written in the 19th century. Some of the more novella length stories in the collection are actually set in the early 20th century a hypothetical future where something actually a lot like world war I occurred only it was presumed that a lot of weird things went on like the war theater broke into America and America had a monarchy for a while. Also the characters in Robert w Chambers King and yellow are much more three-dimensional and fleshed out then your average Eldritch fantasy protagonist who at least in the early days was pretty one-dimensional. Chambers is also reasonably free of the misogyny and racism that plagued so many of the 20th century writers even though he was of an earlier generation. The fact that some of the stories are set in the 1920s I think makes a lot of people not realize the book was written in the 1890s and the concept of the play that The King and yellow within the book was much older than Lovecraft's literary invention of necronomicon by several decades
Gosh, having gotten deep into the lore and world of Fear&Hunger, I wonder if you might dig it. plenty of good lore bits and spooky goodness (pay attention to that trigger warning tho!)
