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Trivia / The King in Yellow

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  • Colbert Bump: The book received a sizable boost in popularity after being referenced in True Detective.
  • Defictionalization: As mentioned on the main page, some people have published their own versions of the eponymous play. So far it seems that none of them has ended the world yet.
  • Reality Subtext: It's probably no coincidence that this book was written and published during the time the decadent movement was active. Robert W Chambers is even considered a decadent writer.
  • Referenced by...:
    • Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover series uses lots of the names from the book — mostly for Darkovan mythical/historical characters, occasionally for places.
    • Green Antarctica. The origins of the Hali civilization are related in a Fictional Document by Ambrose Bierce titled "Tales of the Kings in Yellow". The Hali capital is called Krshsha (rendered by Bierce as Carcosa).
    • Identity V: Hastur/The King in Yellow (The Feaster in the English version) appears as a character.
    • In _iCEY._, the Yellow King is the Greater-Scope Villain who Big Bad Judas worships, is hinted to be connected to FantaBlade's experiments, and is encounterable in one ending.
    • The SCP Foundation has a subtle one in SCP-701, the Hanged King's Tragedy - a play that, in a percentage of attempted productions, deviates over rehearsal into a Brown Note that causes the deaths of all performers and most of the audience on opening night. Word of God confirms The King in Yellow as an inspiration, and the title as an intentional nod to the work- it also loosely suggests that The King In Yellow might be one of the derivatives.
    • Sucker for Love features the King in Yellow as one of the two main love interests. She is called Estir here, orders the player character to perform the play for her as a pledge of loyalty, and has an Earthly disguise named Missy.
    • SIGNALIS has The King In Yellow as a book some of the characters own and have read - it's unclear if this is Chambers' book or the Artifact of Doom itself, but the latter interpretation would fit with some of the Mind Screw in the game. Numerous plot elements and dialogue lines directly reference text from Chamber's stories.

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