[Music] sometimes whatever it is you're seeking can be right under your nose but you just don't see it as if you're not quite in tune with the universe once revealed this thing a seemingly arbitrary Discovery became an obsession and now I see it everywhere I was looking for writers and art artists I was looking for stories what I found was a dark mythology an enigmatic Legend what I found was the King in [Music] Yellow the story of the publication evolution of the King in Yellow is also the story of how authors artists and even musicians
are influenced and inspired by each each other we can zoom out about 200 years and witness the collision between weird fiction the gothic romantic and science fiction and also the organic maturing of cosmic horror the origin of the fictional character is not in dispute it's the ambiguous nature the relationship between that entity and The Human Condition which is more profound and mysterious a book of short stories collectively called The King in Yellow written by Robert W Chambers was published in 1895 the title refers to the actual character who in the tradition of cosmic horror writing
is left out of the narrative Spotlight this allows The Afflicted humans to be the focus of the story we're left grasping for Clues and information about that guy but more importantly for this book is also the name of a fictional play which if read fully by anyone would reveal the Unspeakable truths of reality and send them utterly mad the first story and in my humble opinion the best the repairer of reputations is a master class in uncanny atmosphere creeping dread and unreliable narration it's extremely rich in themes and future social commentary but the element that
I'm really interested in for this video is the presence of a higher power an ancient Dynasty that will soon restore the Imperial Crown of America the lifeblood of this conspiracy is the connection to the greater Cosmos an even higher power that came from the Stars an alien god if you will of course most of this information is relayed to the reader by someone who has suffered a head injury and read this play that will send you mad while he was recovering so a pinch of salt may be required but it's the play that expands the
Mythos of the yellow King and overflows into the other short stories we even get to read some of it not all of it obviously that would be a bad idea along the shore the cloud waves break the twin Suns sink behind the lake the Shadows lengthen in kosa strange is the night where black stars rise and strange Moons Circle through the skies but Strangers still is lost kosa so Robert Chambers is using this place this other realm kosa nestled within a forbidden play to almost legitimize the ramblings of a Madman it's referred to in several
of the short stories in the King in Yellow and it will eventually become a significantly fleshed out location once more authors get their hands on it more on that in a minute but before we move forward in time we must acknowledge the connective tissue to the Past after all time is a flat circle about 10 years before Chambers wrote the stories in the King in Yellow his tales somehow bound to Lost kosa Ambrose Beers had a story published called an inhabitant of kosa it's a very weird tale about a man from that City who wakes
up in an unfamiliar Wilderness and embarks on a personal and philosophical journey I have read claims that Chambers just borrowed the names kakosa hary and hasta another name for the King in Yellow because that's what he just happened to be reading at the time but I think Beer's influence runs much deeper than mere name copying an inhabitant of kosa does have those Cosmic horror themes it builds a world beyond the scope of human understanding also very similar to The Works that will be inspired by him a lot of be's writing has a feeling of discovering
something much older like he was just another conu to the unfathomable ancient Cosmos another story in the King in Yellow the mask is a direct homage to Edgar Alano's the mask of the Red Death no surprise that his fingerprints are all over anything considered early weird fiction we're not claiming plagiarism here this is standing on the shoulders of giants and forging a path without Edgar alen Poe and writers like Ambrose Beers and Robert Chambers Lovecraft doesn't manifest in the same way and the greatest TV show of the 21st Century doesn't have that wonderful dark Mythos
in early 1927 just after his return to Providence Rhode Island right in the thick of producing his most celebrated work HP Lovecraft read the king in yellow or so the story goes after 1927 the influence of Chambers stories can be seen all over the Lovecraft catalog there is more of a commitment to a wider Cosmic Mythos and the inclusion of the King in Yellow himself kind of however the concept of pure fear being attributed to something utterly incomprehensible to humanity or indeed the idea of a forbidden text or knowledge sending somebody completely mad had been
a Hallmark of Lovecraft from the very beginning this is another branch of my cultural osmosis Theory Lovecraft does point to Edgar Alan Poe Lord dunsen and eventually Chambers as the writers that most influenced him but I think the core idea that would eventually become lovecraftian was lingering way before and held the properties of folklore something that's always been lurking in the background again not an accusation of plagiarism it matters not who created the Mythos especially when it becomes a melting part of artistic expression something that Lovecraft was very fond of the development of the character
himself becomes extremely complicated ated and even more mysterious once Lovecraft and his Circle of Friends start to reference the king himself and the Mysterious cult that materialized around him in the Whisperer in darkness we get the first reference to hter not labeled as the King in Yellow but it's the same thing the Forbidden play of the same name from chamber stories gets incorporated into the Necronomicon lovecrafts fictional Book of the Dead itself a collection of stories and spells and laws that it's rumored if you read it can send you mad although Lovecraft claimed that the
idea for the Necronomicon came to him in a dream there is some evidence to show that that dream was the King in Yellow The Offspring swallowed the origin time is a flat circle more references to the yellow King and to carosa a sprinkled around lovecraft's work from the last 10 years of his life but that's very little compared to what happened after his death the cthulu Mythos the cosmic horror shared Universe spearheaded by Lovecraft contemporary August derleth featured dozens of inexplicable deities there are great old ones Elder things extraterrestrial gods that invade our dreams reside
in another dimension or live at the bottom of the sea the King in Yellow is probably one of the great old ones I say probably because even for this Mythos his exact identity and purpose is a little bit foggy he's referred to as hasta Lord of interstellar spaces zakala coth the Unspeakable He Who Shall Not Be named oops sometimes he's described as a simple man wearing a long dark yellow cloak but more often he's an evil tentacled monster there's bat wings and antlers and big sucking things and oh yeah I almost forgot he's also cthulu's
half brother the point is the King in Yellow is now established as a lovecraftian entity but awesomely he gets to retain that sense of mystery and let's not Overlook kosza which has its law expanded within the Mythos a place that refuses to be mapped in geography or meaning the Enigma of the king in yellow and kosa are interchangeable a definitive Cannon just won't stick which means brilliantly that the legend can exist across all those reference points time is a flat circle and so we arrive in the 21st century and oddly enough the time when I'm
first properly aware of the King in Yellow even though we have crossed paths several times over the years I was doing some research into a video about the history of weird fiction and there he was I was looking for similar books to a voyage to Arcturus and there he was again so I read those chambers short stories and I absolutely loved them I dug a bit deeper and I uncovered the Lovecraft connection how the hell did I miss that and then the cosmic algorithm finally caught up and handed me the True Detective yellow King kosa
dark philosop ophy now here's the weird thing I watched True Detective when it first appeared about 10 years ago I think it's one of the best TV shows of the last 20 years I loved it I devoured it I paid attention I assumed that the occult imagery the ritualistic nature of the murders was just that serial killer cinematic aesthetic a bit like in David Fincher's 7 it's it's not just a murder it's a [ __ ] up work of art and as the story expands there's crazy people worshiping a pagan God that I thought was
created just for True Detective The Genius of the show is that it completely holds together if that were the case I bet 99% of the audience has no idea who the king in yellow is or what kosa and the yellow sign means the focus of the show is the characters and the story the most intriguing ties to the King in Yellow are completely overshadowed by the relationship between Marty and rust the pessimistic ramblings and the procedure of actually solving the case but now I know that the yellow King has 130 years of history and baggage
so I watch the show again what I discovered is such a rare thing in storytelling that original TV show that lived inside my head is still perfect it's astonishing but my experience with the King in Yellow and the lovecraftian aspect takes True Detective to a newer much higher level now I see the complex manipulation of the audience that Robert Chambers achieved in the repairer of reputations echoed here I see double meaning in the actions and predicament of the characters in particular rust Cole he gradually slides towards Oblivion as the series progresses mentally and physically Coming
Undone I can see your soul at the edge of your eyes it's corrosive like acid you got a demon little man and I don't like your face this is all accounted for rust was an undercover narcotics detective for far longer than recommended he's an extremely troubled man who has seen too much human Carnage his life is now one big trippy hangover but apply the law of the play The King in Yellow if you read the whole thing you go mad as Russ is exposed to more and more of the case remember he doesn't sleep he
dreams he becomes more erratic more Visions appear on the screen and then there's the bigger a picture of what the yellow King actually wants he has a cult doing his bidding or at least killing in his name kakosa is again presented as an abstract idea it's a place that exists outside of space and time it's a state of mind occupied by the mad or it's the yellow King himself all fun theories and extensions to the cosmic horror universe that was hiding in plain sight in modernday Louisiana let me leave you with this sober in thought
in the universe of True Detective people are aware of kakosa and the yellow King we've already established that this Mythos exists Across Time genre and authors from Ambrose beer to today the detectives never connect the actual collection of short stories the book itself or any of Lovecraft work to the murders because the yellow king is not fictional in the True Detective Universe this means that the slide into madness the yellow signs the corruption of the mind even the swirly tunnel into another dimension is not metaphor or traumatic stress alone True Detective is part of the
King in Yellow story all
