There's actually a fan version of CoC called Cathulhu where you investigate mysteries as a group of cats but with the same d100 system CoC uses. It was pretty great, though the one time I played it, I was the only one trying to actually solve the mystery, while my companions were busy acting like cats.
Even the nature of his horror often came from a racist place. The thing people tend to take from lovecraft now is the concept of cosmic horror, that the arbitrary nature of the universe is scary enough without evil bad guys and that a villain who doesn't see you as human is scarier than one that wants to see you suffer. A huge portion of his horror comes from a fear of the other though. The basic lovecraft story is that a bunch of scary immigrants with inscrutable cultures are bringing in cosmic horrors who don't actually hate you, but want to bring down everything you care about regardless.
What I find interesting is how well these two concepts, dehumanization as horror and an unavoidable other who seems intent on invading your life in horrifying ways, work together when writing stories from the perspective of the oppressed, which is why I love Lovecraft Country. They managed to capture both the cosmic amd social nature of Lovecraft's horror in a way that was wholly anti-racist. I genuinely feel loke if it had existed in Lovecraft's time, it may have resonated with him enough to change his views.
"There are these other creatures coming to your town, and the way they talk, the way they look, the gods they worship, they're all so different from what you're used to that merely seeing them once is enough to drive you completely mad!"
HP Lovecraft, describing every story he ever wrote but also coincidentally his views on black people moving into white neighborhoods.
The comment that started this chain was "lovecraft upon seeing \_\_\_" It would be impressive if he could see colors outside the visible spectrum, but no he was just afraid of light he couldn't see lol
Bruh idk what you're talking about, I'm pretty sure there's more wasps than people, so actually, humanity is the minority and wasps are the majority. Yellow jackets are the elite among our wasp oppressors, I say we revolt and take down the wasps in the name of freedom.
And a key part is Anglo-Saxon for Lovecraft... dude found out he might be a little Welsh (something nobody in the 20s cared about) and wrote "Shadow Over Innsmouth".
I always found the ending to Shadow Over Innsmouth kind of funny to be honest. Like "Oh no. You have become an immortal demigod that can breath underwater. The horror...oh the horror..." It was like "But they look funny and their mouth is weird" was scary enough in itself to this guy that he framed a fate that honestly kind of owns as the worst thing that could possibly happen.
Exactly. That's "cursed with awesome" of the highest variety.
The thing that makes his horror so compelling at first glance and, at the same time, so cringe on deeper review, is that he was a fragile little bitch and wrote everything assuming everyone else was as weak as he was.
Funnily enough, later in life, close to death, he started writing letters about having different views, and being ashamed of his past racism⌠I havenât read the letters themselves, just an analysis by a psychologist on the internet, but curiously enough it mentioned that a plausible theory is that writing his books may have actually helped put his views in perspective
Thatâs all conjecture of course, but still, interesting that it may actually have happened
That is interesting. I actually wasn't aware that he ever expressed remorse for his more racist statements. I liked his work growing up, though I never found the horror particularly horrory. I preferred stuff like "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath" and just sort of liked his lore in general. Nyarthlotep, the night gaunts, the Yith, I thought it was all really cool stuff. Then I learned more about the guy's life and it caused me to re-assess some of those stories I liked as a kid. Good to know that he actually had some level of self awareness about it because that was never the impression I got previously. It is weird to imagine that someone would dump their anxieties into fiction like that for so long and never question their validity though, so it makes sense.
Mind you, as far as I know he never exactly became⌠well, not-racist, by our standards, but it seems he did change his views a fair amount, particularly regarding what exactly he had a problem with: I distinctly remember that it was mentioned he criticized the Nazis for being too focused on biology⌠while illustrating his point with an example that if a boy from an âAlien Raceâ was raised as an American and *modified so that his original race was not ovvious*, then that boy would grow to be a perfectly respectable American.
I donât remember the specifics of his example, but⌠yeah.
So, you know, not quite a great result, but the fact that he reflected on *some* of his views is encouraging! Thereâs hope for improvement in anyone XD
That is super interesting when I think of his past work. He basically wrote that story in The Shadow Over Innsmouth and came to the opposite conclusion. Dude went full alien specifically because he found out he had alien DNA. I wouldn't expect him to do a full 180, as lovecraft was even racist by the standards of his own time, but that particular shift is notable, given how it is such a departure from his prior pov.
The Shadow over Innsmouth is about HPL discovering that he has distant *Welsh* ancestry. His absolute fear of anything outside the most generic societal norm extended to terror at his own filthy Celtic admixture and created one of the best slow burn horror stories ever out of the ensuing existential crisis. This total neurosis is one if the things he let go of later in life.
Yeah, I didn't realize until I read this story how much the Irish got screwed. The british get to take over the world in funny hats and now the welsh are amphibious immortals. We really got the shit end of the stick there. Seriously though I always thought this was kind of strange as a horror story. I definitely wouldn't be crying about becoming a deathless demigod that can breath underwater. This was actually kind of an issue with a lot of Lovecraft's work as horror. I loved reading his stuff as sci-fi/fantasy but a lot of the "horror" of his stuff was "And then he looked upon the strange geometries and unknowable, shifting forms of the elder god and went mad as his illusions were shattered" and I just always kind of felt like the going mad part was kind of dependent on being particularly attached to one's illusions, like these guys were just kind of arrogant and fragile and seeing something they couldn't comprehend and made them feel small was enough to make their brains crack. This was before I was in any way cognizant of the racism behind what I was reading. It just seemed like "Oh no I'm insignificant" was definitely a revelation that freaks people out, but one that most of us come to terms with without our brains turning to mush.
> modified so that his original race was not ovvious
In the society he lived in, growing up brown would absolutely fuck you up (more than I hear it does today).
Oh, yeah, absolutely, I mean, even looking just *slightly* different was a big deal. Irish and Jewish people where still treated differently after all, I think the example of race he used was Jewish.
But hey, compared to his previous beliefs reflected in his works⌠that *was* a big improvement
I always have problems with how much time and attention this narrative gets, because even though he improved from his absurdly incredibly racist ways ...it was only to a level that was still significantly more racist then the norm still was at the time.
Where else would it be put so much attention on supposed improvement? "Sure Johnson used to routinely defraud and steal tens of thousands of dollars from his friends and family members, but when he grew older he mellowed and only stole thousands from strangers!"
Especially since the implication is that if only he had more time he would have gotten to the right position, even though there is absolutely no proof of that. He could have easily stopped his supposed evolving or just as likely backslid to his earlier beliefs entirely.
Is it really worth bringing up every time? Is falling far short of basic human decency somehow better if you fell short even more before?
I don't know, we seem to put a lot of stock in these end of life moments that I'm not really sure is warranted.
I was reading a thing said he named his cat when he was nine years old. That's very clearly his parents encouraging that position, I've never met a nine year old that hated anything other than naps and vegetables.
Oh yeah he definitely grew up into a shithead, but I appreciate that he eventually came to see that there were some problems with his behavior, and given this single piece of evidence about his parents it's not hard to imagine that they were a big contributor to the problem.
Apparently his father was a massive racist and I've heard he was the one who named the cat, though I can't really confirm that.
I'm no psychiatrist but after reading about Lovecraft's early life I really suspect his racism definitely had roots in his upbringing and undiagnosed metal illness.
He didn't name it even. His family did it was theirs first. Only thing young little HP was guilty of then was loving that cat a lot according to letters. I get he was racist, but this joke is uninformed and used to harass fans of CoC and cosmic horror in general. Edit: spelling.
I think you missed a point of cosmic horror. Itâs not that they donât see you as human, itâs that these cosmic entities (with few exceptions) are 100% indifferent to humans. There isnât even a measurement for us. Even our relationship to ants or even dust mites are more personal and meaningful than our relationships to the cosmic entities. Thatâs where the fear comes from, pure indifference.
Lovecraft was afraid of everything, but primarily he feared the ocean, a cold indifferent concept that could kill with ease without any hate, need to eat, but it has a near infinite ways of killing you.
Fear comes from the unknown and while hatred can be fueled by the unknown, it doesnât cause it or fear
"Human" being used here as "having worth". To "dehumanize" someone is to deny their essential worth, not to assert that they aren't part of the genus Homo. Yes, I am aware that cosmic horrors aren't human.
Thatâs not the point Iâm getting at. My point wasnât that the cosmic entities werenât human itâs that theyâre completely indifferent to our existence. When they wreak havoc (with the exception of one) itâs never on purpose or with malice, itâs just a consequence of their existence
I agree with the idea that cosmic horror can be used to deal with large social issues.Chill Goblin has a video on a similar concept, without giving Lovecraft a big redemption arc. Just presents how he was, in an admittedly limited scope.
Edit: It was Chill Goblin and a video by That Dang Dad, I had them merged in my head.
He manifests a strong fear of the unknown. So many people in history have had xenophobia rule their lives. The fear of that which can't be understood, and thinking it can never be understood, can devour a soul.
A novel I read once described the fear of the arbitrary nature of the universe, that *you* arenât important in the grand scheme of things, as a fear only a white man could have.
A lot of his stories also involved the protagonist discovering something in their ancestry that wasnât quite human, which appears to coincide with Lovecraftâs own fears about his bloodline not being âpure.â
Technically cosmic horror IS just fear of the other except taken to the extreme. Instead of black people moving in and having impact on the local culture it's the unknowable moving in and having impact on your existance itself.
In a way it's a genre that had to be born from a hateful mind because most normal writers would go the route that ends either with understanding or defeat of the Elder Gods. There's also Stanislaw Lem whose works embodied the ideas of unknowable aliens but it aligned with sadness and loneliness rather than horror - his writings presented worlds where even communication is impossible due to differences between the species.
So yeah, I think there's a very good reason why it took an ultra racist xenophobe to create this genre.
This is a really good point. I had never really thought about it before but now that you are raising the issue, why are the Elder Gods universally dangerous to humanity? So they are so far beyond us that we are like animals by comparison...so? Lots of people believe animals deserve moral consideration. Hell, I've been making cinnamon rolls before and imagined a single yeast cell prophet warning the others that the sugary utopia they had been dumped into was a trap, and that only fire awaited unless they could get to the bottom of the bowl and be flushed down the drain. Of course I don't actually think yeast cells are conscious but part of being conscious is wondering if other beings are conscious. I find it strange thinking about it now that not one of the Elder Gods has some sick empathy for humanity that the others find weird. Every one is contemptuous of these "lesser" beings, as if that is just the natural state of things. There does seem to be this element of "different=bad", where anything alien that we can't control will seek to control us that likely says a lot about the mind that created that world.
I see your point and while I do like the idea of something totally beyond us being sympathetic there's an angle common to cosmic horror that makes it scarier than just any "hostile aliens" story - most of them don't care or even notice us. We are not a monkey or a dog to a human but rather a microbe or an ant to them. Imagine how many "insignificant" lives building a highway impacts and try to imagine yourself as an ant in the middle of it. This is the part that I actually like about the many works in the genre - not malice but indifference. It's why Color out of Space is probably my favorite of Lovecrafts stories - unexplicable shit happens, destroys a family and there's no real actor behind it, just a cruel and indifferent universe.
Even Cthulu doesn't really do his thing to destroy us, he just wakes up from his nap and his mere consciousness destroys a species that wasn't even here when he was going to sleep.
yes, and a psychologist might have something to say with how well-to-do white people were most of the victims. forgot the name, but I know there's one good doc on the man. not a good guy, but interestingly complicated. hope no one thought I was defending him, just the horror. his poor cat...
Shadow Over Innsmouth is a fantastic example of this. Main character finds out he's part fish person and suddenly turns into a fish person, body and soul. The driver of the "horror" is literally a person finding out that they are mixed race, and the fundamental conceit is that, upon discovering this, they *aren't* the same person they were when they woke up this morning. Discovering that they were mixed race fundamentally and permanently changed them for the worse. Dude literally wrote one of his longer stories about what essentially amounts to the terror he would feel upon receiving a set of surprising 23andMe results.
thays a good plot line if you ask me. certainly alluding it to a "race" of humans is silly in modern context, bit back then it really changed your life. I could never understand the original context, bit thinking about the possibility of being a TRUE alien life in the modern day is a crazy concept, and trying to not go crazy would be quite difficult. I love that, basically, not going crazy is winning the game. and sorry, crazy as a general term. madness or insanity in the old sense would be the better term, it's hard to define, but of course no offense to mental illness, I separate game cosmic insanity from correlations to actual personal mental difficulties
I very much disagree. If you find out you are a TRUE alien, then you were still a TRUE alien yesterday. Nothing changes except your knowledge of your heritage. That is only something that could drive you crazy if you think your heritage is so important that a change in it, no matter how extreme, could completely shatter your identity.
yeah.... still as far as the books go a lot of minorities are pointed out to be evil, like I believe in his first book in Cthulu's mythos the main character concludes his dad was murdered because he bumped into a blackman.
Cosmic horror I don't have to deal with in real life, so encountering in a game and fiction is fun and different.
Even as a non-minority I get to deal with racism and it's effects just about every working day and would love to get a break from.
Which is also interesting because a lot of CoC players are super progressive and the game has changed to fit with the times more. One of the first games I saw with pronouns listed in character's profile instead of gender.
it's also important to remember that a lot of his xenophobia might have *actually* been a phobia, as later in life as he got a little help he got marginally better about it.
not excusing such behaviors though, just providing context
Oh yeah, dude was a mess. His phobias included invertebrates, marine life in general, temperatures below freezing, fat people, people of other races, race-mixing, slums, percussion instruments, caves, cellars, old age, great expanses of time, monumental architecture, non-Euclidean geometry, deserts, oceans, rats, dogs, the New England countryside, New York City, fungi and molds, viscous substances, medical experiments, dreams, brittle textures, gelatinous textures, the color gray, plant life of diverse sorts, memory lapses, old books, heredity, mists, gases, whistling, and whispering.
Yeah, that's why I pity him more than revile him.
Like you said, it's not an excuse,
and mental illness doesn't *make* anyone racist,
but I can see how it exacerbated the problem
and made it harder to ever grow out of it
(especially in a time with even worse attitudes towards mental health).
> especially in a time with even worse attitudes towards mental health
... and minorities. I don't think growing out of deep seated racism would have been particularly easy, even for people of sound mind, in the 1920s/30s.
it's worth noting, even Lovecraft himself was ashamed of his early works and worldview by the end of his life, in a letter to one of his friends he mentioned something along the lines of "I feel like a fool to have waited until 33 to do all my growing up and seeing the world how it really is, rather than the stories and ideas I told myself, and I greatly pity the greater fools who never do any growing up at all" he changed a lot after he started actually interacting with the groups he had demonized for so long and by the end of his life he refused to allow much of his earlier work to be published in short story collections.
I meam, just because he shifted from "they're absolute savages" to "we need to take a more educated approach to racism" doesn't mean much, he just became less racist by standards of the time.
Black Tom isnât a bad name for a cat in and of itself, but given the context for the original name, and why it was changed, yeah, youâd think they could do a touch better
I grew up with a black cat named Blackie. It wasn't racist, it was just my sister being 3 years old and naming a cat.
I don't think Black Tom is a terrible name to change it to in order to avoid racism but keep the name similar.
It is a term so outdated many probably wouldn't even realize it's offensive. I won't mention it here, but it's short only two letters. Not getting on any S-word count bot!
One of my former memory care residents had a (male) black cat named Oprah, because "that's the only good (slur) I know". After she passed, her cat became our unit's pet and was quickly renamed twice. His first new name didn't stick, because one of the residents got everyone started on calling him Miss Kitty.
I think it was said he wanted to, but it became too integrated with it and honestly I get that. It is a funny thing with me. You see me and my mom got ourselves a cat and we thought it's male as it was told to us so we gave the cat a male name. Only for us to realize about a year later the cat was female. How did we not notice? We are not the brightest lot. We thought about changing it, but some things just stick and are not easy to change.
Well... Yeah, probably. If you tell people they aren't allowed to say something, they are gonna want to say it. That's just human nature, and has been proven time and time again.
You also probably have a better understanding of racism and the effect it has had on people's lives. A lot of people have never been directly affected by racism, and thus have a limited understanding of it's significance. To them, it's just a word that you are not allowed to say, and so they want to say it.
Weirdly hostile but okay. No, I don't have any desire to racial slurs. I just know how people work. It's called reverse psychology, and it's actually a well-known phenomenon. It's the reason why education on these matters is important. Telling someone that they aren't allowed to do something, without them fully understanding the reason why they aren't allowed to do the thing, makes them want to do the thing.
Here's the difference. You don't see racial slurs as "forbidden" but rather "distasteful." The reason you don't use racial slurs isn't because someone told you no, it's because you find them genuinely bad.
Meanwhile, a lot of people abstain from saying racial slurs only because they feel that they will "get in trouble" if they say them. They are held in check by a sense of forboding, not from their own opinions of the word. These are the people that make these sort of memes, because they feel that it's giving them some sort of special privilege to do something they aren't normally allowed to do.
This isn't some self projection, it's how people are.
It's more because it just turns into either you make someone look it up. Or for people already in the know, just makes them think of it in there head too. And when the factoid is posted and talked about pretty regularily here. It's kind easy to seeing it as a trolly way of getting the word into the air so to speak
Reminds me of the Louie CK bit about hating it when someone says âthe n wordâ because it makes him think âoh she means ******â and now heâs just said it in his head
Yeah no shit. What's this post have to do with DND? It's just people posting racist shit in a joking but not way to normalize racism.
Nothing to do with DND at all
A lot of people talking about Lovecraft being racist af, not about how he evolve from being a racist to get mad when he know that the jews were being beaten at Germany.
If they think he was super racist just look at his family. Especially his mother, who messed him big time. It's not an excuse for his own behavior, but damn she was messed up.
It's not an excuse, it's the reason. If you had grown up in the exact same circumstances, u would have held the same beliefs as him. People here are doing the same shit as the morons that say "if I was a slave I would have just run away/killed the master/etc". It's such an absurd and narrow minded way of thinking.
I feel like too much of the conversation around Lovecraft is this.
There's a deeper thing going with Lovecraft that can't just be summarised with Racist.
If you read about his early life...or just read his stories between the lines, you'll find that he was a wreck of a human being thanks to terrible upbringing.
And when he got away from this he moved on to eventually become a normal human being.
Lovecraft was afraid, he was afraid of technology, afraid of germs and afraid of things he didn't understand. Sadly he lived a strange sheltered life with bitter old money white family who blamed their problems on everyone else.
The scariest thing to him was the idea that there were things out there beyond understanding. The unknowable.
Also the cat wasn't named by him, his only input with the cat was that he really loved it.
I think it's because people have been looking into new TTRPG's lately and people looking into Call of Cthulhu remembered this.
Ultimately his writings are worth reading despite his rampant racism, and there's nothing wrong with derivative works inspired by Lovecraft (basically all fantasy is at least a little bit, I genuinely can't think of any that came out after him that wasn't).
not on subject exactly, but I do want to (cause I'm old) give a shout out to Vincent Price, who acted in more than a few H.P. Lovecraft adaptations, and how awesome he was about speaking out against racism and was able to separate the good story from the bad morals. https://youtu.be/mrMCqOmsMB4
Can't say this enough, but going from local perception of "holy shit, even us locals think you're a bit too racist" to "oh hey, this guy downgraded to eugenics and saying 'ethinic' kids can be raised to be WASPs" is still pretty bad
Celebrating somebody regretting what they used to think, is maybe a little over the top if what he doesn't regret thinking is still absurdly racist and terrible.
For the inevitable comparison to Nazis. Say a Nazi goes from wanting to purposefully wanting to torture and murder all Untermenschen, to being fine with them being "merely" stripped of all rights, and being kept in permanent prison camps, with most of them dying of disease and exhaustion in the last moments of his life.
Now sure, that Nazi technically might have improved his outlook and become "Less racist", but is it worth mentioning when talking about his general level of racism?
Didn't think you were, but I was just point it out. Also, just saying, xenophobia and racism are different, and him saying they could "assimilate the 'higher alien races'" later in his life (try to guess who he excluded) still was a practice in both, he just pretended to take a more academic approach to both.
If you watch the dam busters movie thatâs set in the UK there is a black dog named the same thing, it might look bad now but at the time this wasnât a thing. It was a word that meant the colour black and so âwhy couldnât you name a cat or dog it?â
Itâs only now that it is seen as racist that choosing to call a pet it is the act of someone especially racist, at the time it was just something you could do
But by extension, he included references to the cat in the Horror at Red Hook, and maintained the same name for the cat, only having it get renamed much later when the story was rewritten, so he may as well have named it that, so while he didnât name the actual cat that, he did perpetuate it by naming fictional cats after it as well.
The Lovecraft haters bang this glockenspiel over and over. They don't care about details or specifics or nuance. Same people who go after cosmic horror fans for liking it at all it's stupid.
I don't condone racism, I like lovecraft stories though
When someone said he was racist I expected subtle themes and a doctored narrative.
But that shit is right out in the open, talking about "blood purity" this and "genetically inferior" that,
That dude lived in the age where blatant unapologetic racism was *expected* of people
Obligatory reminder, people actually should talk openly about their salaries. Discussing your salary with others is how we know if we're being paid fairly. Our bosses try to shame people for talking about it, or threaten to fire them if they do, bit this is illegal. In the United States, it's actually illegal for your boss to forbid you from discussing your salary.
Discussing our pay is a right, and it's one that we should exercise more often. The idea that it's rude is a scam to keep us from finding out when we're getting paid less than what we're worth.
In a very light and partial saving grace, Lovecraft actually did start becoming less racist in his later years. Still far from completely, but enough that he actually might have completely come around if he had lived longer and had the chance to interact with more people.
His whole shtick is fear of the unknown driving people to outrageous and incomprehensible fates. Just imagine the stories he could have written if he lived long enough to realize how his xenophobia was exactly the same and lead him to horrible beliefs. He could have done so much if it werenât for cancer and his fear of doctors, but sadly he ended up stuck as the sad, hateful, terrified man we remember him as today.
Oh God another post about Lovecraft that:
-uses the cat name thing
-has people condemnig him as more racist than his contemporaries (in the 1920s/1930s? A time period with regular lynching?)
-has people attributing all his literary production to his racism (If you read at the Mountain of madness, the call of Cthulhu or Shadows over innsmouth and your impression of them Is that they are about racism either reread them or read a critical analysis by someone competent)
-has people saying that his xenophobia was an actual phobia (we have no proof, but a racist White man in the First half of the 20th century is not a rare sight)
-has people saying that he denounced his views later in Life (he changed them, but he never stopped being racist. I never understood the Need to redeem a man that has been dead for almost a century.)
I bet that if i dig deep enough i'll find people saying that he was denounced by the KKK or that he was scared by air conditioning...
I'm
Overly sarcastic production.
The penguins thing refers to a passage from "at the Mountains of madness" where the protagonista encounter freakishly tall, blind, featherless albino penguins
Grew up in a white trash family with a black cat with a similar name, just missing the man at the end, luckily cut them all out and understand the context nowâŚ. YIKES, this was 15 years ago.
Oh his prejudices absolutely were in his work. In the story Herbert West, Reanimator he is point blank on his belief in the genetic superiority of white people. In other stories he would bash immigrants and women.
Hint: It was a black cat.
I think he was a great DBZ fan and called her Mr. Popo
No, no, he must've been a fan of of D&D novels and called her Drizzt Do'urden
Didnt drizzt even had a black panther?
Haha yes, Guenhwyvar
Well... It looks like h.p. Lovecraft and drizzt both hat a black cat with a name you cant speak out loud
Oh my god đ nicely done.
Hint 2: he was considered very racist even for the time period he which he lived during
Smokey
While he was an incredibly racist man even for the era, Iâm pretty sure the catâs name was lovecraftâs dadâs idea
It did belong to his parents first yeah, he just didnât rename it.
I woulda gone with cathulhu
I'd have gone with Nekonyamicon. But I suspect Lovecraft wasn't a weeb.
There's actually a fan version of CoC called Cathulhu where you investigate mysteries as a group of cats but with the same d100 system CoC uses. It was pretty great, though the one time I played it, I was the only one trying to actually solve the mystery, while my companions were busy acting like cats.
"I'm very committed to my roleplay." *slaps your dice off the table*
I'm glad someone points it out. It's the same joke over and over and he didn't even name it. But yeah, he was super racist.
What was the cats name?
N word man Hard r
It's in his story the rats in the walls
Thanks for specifying hard r, not a soft a like the kids use when they are chillings. Word.
It was a black cat so he named it a racial slur for African Americans
With the word man after the slur
the worst super hero
It's the gamer word.
[nword]-man An unfortunately named stark noir kitty
He did use the name in subsequent writings
Haha it's funny because Lovecraft was incredibly racist even for a particularly racist time.
damn he was, too. luckily his monsters will eat anybody regardless of skin color, so the games actually pretty fun
Even the nature of his horror often came from a racist place. The thing people tend to take from lovecraft now is the concept of cosmic horror, that the arbitrary nature of the universe is scary enough without evil bad guys and that a villain who doesn't see you as human is scarier than one that wants to see you suffer. A huge portion of his horror comes from a fear of the other though. The basic lovecraft story is that a bunch of scary immigrants with inscrutable cultures are bringing in cosmic horrors who don't actually hate you, but want to bring down everything you care about regardless. What I find interesting is how well these two concepts, dehumanization as horror and an unavoidable other who seems intent on invading your life in horrifying ways, work together when writing stories from the perspective of the oppressed, which is why I love Lovecraft Country. They managed to capture both the cosmic amd social nature of Lovecraft's horror in a way that was wholly anti-racist. I genuinely feel loke if it had existed in Lovecraft's time, it may have resonated with him enough to change his views.
"There are these other creatures coming to your town, and the way they talk, the way they look, the gods they worship, they're all so different from what you're used to that merely seeing them once is enough to drive you completely mad!" HP Lovecraft, describing every story he ever wrote but also coincidentally his views on black people moving into white neighborhoods.
Lovecraft upon seeing an Italian man
Lovecraft when realizing one of his ancestors was Welsh.
Yeah, the whole Innsmouth thing was written about his horror over that.
*any minority that isn't a WASP
*any air conditioner or minority that isnât a wasp.
*any air conditioner, magenta , or minority that isnât a WASP.
The comment that started this chain was "lovecraft upon seeing \_\_\_" It would be impressive if he could see colors outside the visible spectrum, but no he was just afraid of light he couldn't see lol
True. I think think Iâll edit my comment to make more sense. Thank you.
Bruh idk what you're talking about, I'm pretty sure there's more wasps than people, so actually, humanity is the minority and wasps are the majority. Yellow jackets are the elite among our wasp oppressors, I say we revolt and take down the wasps in the name of freedom.
Probably Woooosh, but WASP is an acronym meaning White Anglo Saxon Protestant for everyone who isn't aware
Probably a joke, but thank you for the explanation. I knew the W meant white, but I forgot about the rest.
A White-Ass Special Person?
White Anglo Saxon prodistant. I'm guessing you're joking but I'm gonna leave this here for anyone who dosent know
And a key part is Anglo-Saxon for Lovecraft... dude found out he might be a little Welsh (something nobody in the 20s cared about) and wrote "Shadow Over Innsmouth".
I always found the ending to Shadow Over Innsmouth kind of funny to be honest. Like "Oh no. You have become an immortal demigod that can breath underwater. The horror...oh the horror..." It was like "But they look funny and their mouth is weird" was scary enough in itself to this guy that he framed a fate that honestly kind of owns as the worst thing that could possibly happen.
Exactly. That's "cursed with awesome" of the highest variety. The thing that makes his horror so compelling at first glance and, at the same time, so cringe on deeper review, is that he was a fragile little bitch and wrote everything assuming everyone else was as weak as he was.
I kind of like white ass special person better lol. Catholics can be nimby chuds too. Just look at Bill O'Reilly.
>Just look at Bill O'Reilly. I prefer not to
Probably a good call. Jon Stewart looked at that face for 15 years and aged 30.
I think the people making them are itching for an excuse to say the word.
Funnily enough, later in life, close to death, he started writing letters about having different views, and being ashamed of his past racism⌠I havenât read the letters themselves, just an analysis by a psychologist on the internet, but curiously enough it mentioned that a plausible theory is that writing his books may have actually helped put his views in perspective Thatâs all conjecture of course, but still, interesting that it may actually have happened
That is interesting. I actually wasn't aware that he ever expressed remorse for his more racist statements. I liked his work growing up, though I never found the horror particularly horrory. I preferred stuff like "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath" and just sort of liked his lore in general. Nyarthlotep, the night gaunts, the Yith, I thought it was all really cool stuff. Then I learned more about the guy's life and it caused me to re-assess some of those stories I liked as a kid. Good to know that he actually had some level of self awareness about it because that was never the impression I got previously. It is weird to imagine that someone would dump their anxieties into fiction like that for so long and never question their validity though, so it makes sense.
Mind you, as far as I know he never exactly became⌠well, not-racist, by our standards, but it seems he did change his views a fair amount, particularly regarding what exactly he had a problem with: I distinctly remember that it was mentioned he criticized the Nazis for being too focused on biology⌠while illustrating his point with an example that if a boy from an âAlien Raceâ was raised as an American and *modified so that his original race was not ovvious*, then that boy would grow to be a perfectly respectable American. I donât remember the specifics of his example, but⌠yeah. So, you know, not quite a great result, but the fact that he reflected on *some* of his views is encouraging! Thereâs hope for improvement in anyone XD
That is super interesting when I think of his past work. He basically wrote that story in The Shadow Over Innsmouth and came to the opposite conclusion. Dude went full alien specifically because he found out he had alien DNA. I wouldn't expect him to do a full 180, as lovecraft was even racist by the standards of his own time, but that particular shift is notable, given how it is such a departure from his prior pov.
The Shadow over Innsmouth is about HPL discovering that he has distant *Welsh* ancestry. His absolute fear of anything outside the most generic societal norm extended to terror at his own filthy Celtic admixture and created one of the best slow burn horror stories ever out of the ensuing existential crisis. This total neurosis is one if the things he let go of later in life.
Yeah, I didn't realize until I read this story how much the Irish got screwed. The british get to take over the world in funny hats and now the welsh are amphibious immortals. We really got the shit end of the stick there. Seriously though I always thought this was kind of strange as a horror story. I definitely wouldn't be crying about becoming a deathless demigod that can breath underwater. This was actually kind of an issue with a lot of Lovecraft's work as horror. I loved reading his stuff as sci-fi/fantasy but a lot of the "horror" of his stuff was "And then he looked upon the strange geometries and unknowable, shifting forms of the elder god and went mad as his illusions were shattered" and I just always kind of felt like the going mad part was kind of dependent on being particularly attached to one's illusions, like these guys were just kind of arrogant and fragile and seeing something they couldn't comprehend and made them feel small was enough to make their brains crack. This was before I was in any way cognizant of the racism behind what I was reading. It just seemed like "Oh no I'm insignificant" was definitely a revelation that freaks people out, but one that most of us come to terms with without our brains turning to mush.
Agreed! All things considered, itâs still very good to hear that even a man with his views could change, if only a bit!
> modified so that his original race was not ovvious In the society he lived in, growing up brown would absolutely fuck you up (more than I hear it does today).
Oh, yeah, absolutely, I mean, even looking just *slightly* different was a big deal. Irish and Jewish people where still treated differently after all, I think the example of race he used was Jewish. But hey, compared to his previous beliefs reflected in his works⌠that *was* a big improvement
I always have problems with how much time and attention this narrative gets, because even though he improved from his absurdly incredibly racist ways ...it was only to a level that was still significantly more racist then the norm still was at the time. Where else would it be put so much attention on supposed improvement? "Sure Johnson used to routinely defraud and steal tens of thousands of dollars from his friends and family members, but when he grew older he mellowed and only stole thousands from strangers!" Especially since the implication is that if only he had more time he would have gotten to the right position, even though there is absolutely no proof of that. He could have easily stopped his supposed evolving or just as likely backslid to his earlier beliefs entirely. Is it really worth bringing up every time? Is falling far short of basic human decency somehow better if you fell short even more before? I don't know, we seem to put a lot of stock in these end of life moments that I'm not really sure is warranted.
I was reading a thing said he named his cat when he was nine years old. That's very clearly his parents encouraging that position, I've never met a nine year old that hated anything other than naps and vegetables.
He did also use the cat's name in at least one of his books though.
Oh yeah he definitely grew up into a shithead, but I appreciate that he eventually came to see that there were some problems with his behavior, and given this single piece of evidence about his parents it's not hard to imagine that they were a big contributor to the problem.
Apparently his father was a massive racist and I've heard he was the one who named the cat, though I can't really confirm that. I'm no psychiatrist but after reading about Lovecraft's early life I really suspect his racism definitely had roots in his upbringing and undiagnosed metal illness.
He didn't name it even. His family did it was theirs first. Only thing young little HP was guilty of then was loving that cat a lot according to letters. I get he was racist, but this joke is uninformed and used to harass fans of CoC and cosmic horror in general. Edit: spelling.
I think you missed a point of cosmic horror. Itâs not that they donât see you as human, itâs that these cosmic entities (with few exceptions) are 100% indifferent to humans. There isnât even a measurement for us. Even our relationship to ants or even dust mites are more personal and meaningful than our relationships to the cosmic entities. Thatâs where the fear comes from, pure indifference. Lovecraft was afraid of everything, but primarily he feared the ocean, a cold indifferent concept that could kill with ease without any hate, need to eat, but it has a near infinite ways of killing you. Fear comes from the unknown and while hatred can be fueled by the unknown, it doesnât cause it or fear
"Human" being used here as "having worth". To "dehumanize" someone is to deny their essential worth, not to assert that they aren't part of the genus Homo. Yes, I am aware that cosmic horrors aren't human.
Thatâs not the point Iâm getting at. My point wasnât that the cosmic entities werenât human itâs that theyâre completely indifferent to our existence. When they wreak havoc (with the exception of one) itâs never on purpose or with malice, itâs just a consequence of their existence
I agree with the idea that cosmic horror can be used to deal with large social issues.Chill Goblin has a video on a similar concept, without giving Lovecraft a big redemption arc. Just presents how he was, in an admittedly limited scope. Edit: It was Chill Goblin and a video by That Dang Dad, I had them merged in my head.
It's a major theme in Delta Green too
He manifests a strong fear of the unknown. So many people in history have had xenophobia rule their lives. The fear of that which can't be understood, and thinking it can never be understood, can devour a soul.
A novel I read once described the fear of the arbitrary nature of the universe, that *you* arenât important in the grand scheme of things, as a fear only a white man could have.
Isn't that in Lovecraft Country? Its been a while bit it feels like I recall this.
Might be. I thought I read it in *The Ballad of Black Tom*.
A lot of his stories also involved the protagonist discovering something in their ancestry that wasnât quite human, which appears to coincide with Lovecraftâs own fears about his bloodline not being âpure.â
Technically cosmic horror IS just fear of the other except taken to the extreme. Instead of black people moving in and having impact on the local culture it's the unknowable moving in and having impact on your existance itself. In a way it's a genre that had to be born from a hateful mind because most normal writers would go the route that ends either with understanding or defeat of the Elder Gods. There's also Stanislaw Lem whose works embodied the ideas of unknowable aliens but it aligned with sadness and loneliness rather than horror - his writings presented worlds where even communication is impossible due to differences between the species. So yeah, I think there's a very good reason why it took an ultra racist xenophobe to create this genre.
This is a really good point. I had never really thought about it before but now that you are raising the issue, why are the Elder Gods universally dangerous to humanity? So they are so far beyond us that we are like animals by comparison...so? Lots of people believe animals deserve moral consideration. Hell, I've been making cinnamon rolls before and imagined a single yeast cell prophet warning the others that the sugary utopia they had been dumped into was a trap, and that only fire awaited unless they could get to the bottom of the bowl and be flushed down the drain. Of course I don't actually think yeast cells are conscious but part of being conscious is wondering if other beings are conscious. I find it strange thinking about it now that not one of the Elder Gods has some sick empathy for humanity that the others find weird. Every one is contemptuous of these "lesser" beings, as if that is just the natural state of things. There does seem to be this element of "different=bad", where anything alien that we can't control will seek to control us that likely says a lot about the mind that created that world.
I see your point and while I do like the idea of something totally beyond us being sympathetic there's an angle common to cosmic horror that makes it scarier than just any "hostile aliens" story - most of them don't care or even notice us. We are not a monkey or a dog to a human but rather a microbe or an ant to them. Imagine how many "insignificant" lives building a highway impacts and try to imagine yourself as an ant in the middle of it. This is the part that I actually like about the many works in the genre - not malice but indifference. It's why Color out of Space is probably my favorite of Lovecrafts stories - unexplicable shit happens, destroys a family and there's no real actor behind it, just a cruel and indifferent universe. Even Cthulu doesn't really do his thing to destroy us, he just wakes up from his nap and his mere consciousness destroys a species that wasn't even here when he was going to sleep.
The Horror at Red Hook stands out to me as especially racist. Lovecraft Country was amazing and I wish it had been picked up for more seasons.
yes, and a psychologist might have something to say with how well-to-do white people were most of the victims. forgot the name, but I know there's one good doc on the man. not a good guy, but interestingly complicated. hope no one thought I was defending him, just the horror. his poor cat...
Shadow Over Innsmouth is a fantastic example of this. Main character finds out he's part fish person and suddenly turns into a fish person, body and soul. The driver of the "horror" is literally a person finding out that they are mixed race, and the fundamental conceit is that, upon discovering this, they *aren't* the same person they were when they woke up this morning. Discovering that they were mixed race fundamentally and permanently changed them for the worse. Dude literally wrote one of his longer stories about what essentially amounts to the terror he would feel upon receiving a set of surprising 23andMe results.
thays a good plot line if you ask me. certainly alluding it to a "race" of humans is silly in modern context, bit back then it really changed your life. I could never understand the original context, bit thinking about the possibility of being a TRUE alien life in the modern day is a crazy concept, and trying to not go crazy would be quite difficult. I love that, basically, not going crazy is winning the game. and sorry, crazy as a general term. madness or insanity in the old sense would be the better term, it's hard to define, but of course no offense to mental illness, I separate game cosmic insanity from correlations to actual personal mental difficulties
I very much disagree. If you find out you are a TRUE alien, then you were still a TRUE alien yesterday. Nothing changes except your knowledge of your heritage. That is only something that could drive you crazy if you think your heritage is so important that a change in it, no matter how extreme, could completely shatter your identity.
well, in context of the times, if you became a different color of human, your life would be drastically changed. still would be in a lot of places
thats very well said
yeah.... still as far as the books go a lot of minorities are pointed out to be evil, like I believe in his first book in Cthulu's mythos the main character concludes his dad was murdered because he bumped into a blackman.
>his monsters will eat anybody regardless of skin color Good! I can forgive cosmic horrors, but I draw the line at racism!
Cosmic horror I don't have to deal with in real life, so encountering in a game and fiction is fun and different. Even as a non-minority I get to deal with racism and it's effects just about every working day and would love to get a break from.
Which is also interesting because a lot of CoC players are super progressive and the game has changed to fit with the times more. One of the first games I saw with pronouns listed in character's profile instead of gender.
it's also important to remember that a lot of his xenophobia might have *actually* been a phobia, as later in life as he got a little help he got marginally better about it. not excusing such behaviors though, just providing context
Oh yeah, dude was a mess. His phobias included invertebrates, marine life in general, temperatures below freezing, fat people, people of other races, race-mixing, slums, percussion instruments, caves, cellars, old age, great expanses of time, monumental architecture, non-Euclidean geometry, deserts, oceans, rats, dogs, the New England countryside, New York City, fungi and molds, viscous substances, medical experiments, dreams, brittle textures, gelatinous textures, the color gray, plant life of diverse sorts, memory lapses, old books, heredity, mists, gases, whistling, and whispering.
Don't forget piping!
Yeah, that's why I pity him more than revile him. Like you said, it's not an excuse, and mental illness doesn't *make* anyone racist, but I can see how it exacerbated the problem and made it harder to ever grow out of it (especially in a time with even worse attitudes towards mental health).
> especially in a time with even worse attitudes towards mental health ... and minorities. I don't think growing out of deep seated racism would have been particularly easy, even for people of sound mind, in the 1920s/30s.
Also true. I didn't mean to overlook that, I was just speaking to his racism over and above even the norm at the time.
it's worth noting, even Lovecraft himself was ashamed of his early works and worldview by the end of his life, in a letter to one of his friends he mentioned something along the lines of "I feel like a fool to have waited until 33 to do all my growing up and seeing the world how it really is, rather than the stories and ideas I told myself, and I greatly pity the greater fools who never do any growing up at all" he changed a lot after he started actually interacting with the groups he had demonized for so long and by the end of his life he refused to allow much of his earlier work to be published in short story collections.
I meam, just because he shifted from "they're absolute savages" to "we need to take a more educated approach to racism" doesn't mean much, he just became less racist by standards of the time.
The only case of pantophobia Iâm aware of. Man was quite literally afraid of everything. I canât even feel distain towards him, just pity
Everyone brings up Lovecraft's racism. No-one ever talks about his fear of seafood.
But it came from a different placeâ not hateful and angry, but more like mentally ill and terrified of anything outside of his front door.
Folks being in the 1910s being like, "ehhh... let's not sit next to Howard, he can be a bit *much*"
Cathulhu
In his (partial) defense, it was his grandfather's cat.
If I got a cat from my grandfather and that was its name, I would simply rename the cat.
Correct. "Partial" defense.
Also he put the name for a cat in one of his writings.
Which has also since been removed. I believe itâs now called Black Tom or something.
Thats still not great. Better, sure. But not much
Black Tom isnât a bad name for a cat in and of itself, but given the context for the original name, and why it was changed, yeah, youâd think they could do a touch better
Like just "Tom" woulda been fine
I grew up with a black cat named Blackie. It wasn't racist, it was just my sister being 3 years old and naming a cat. I don't think Black Tom is a terrible name to change it to in order to avoid racism but keep the name similar.
That's why a black cat we once took in shortened his name to Sam.
The only potentially offensive cat name I can think of getting shortened to Sam are Robert Evan's cats Saddam Hussein and Saddam Hussein's Best Friend
It is a term so outdated many probably wouldn't even realize it's offensive. I won't mention it here, but it's short only two letters. Not getting on any S-word count bot!
Havenât heard Sambo in years. I think itâs a outdated enough term to be used in the context of answering questions.
Is that the cats name? Been scrolling through the comments for miles to find this shit
Its not that one! Keep looking!
One of my former memory care residents had a (male) black cat named Oprah, because "that's the only good (slur) I know". After she passed, her cat became our unit's pet and was quickly renamed twice. His first new name didn't stick, because one of the residents got everyone started on calling him Miss Kitty.
I think it was said he wanted to, but it became too integrated with it and honestly I get that. It is a funny thing with me. You see me and my mom got ourselves a cat and we thought it's male as it was told to us so we gave the cat a male name. Only for us to realize about a year later the cat was female. How did we not notice? We are not the brightest lot. We thought about changing it, but some things just stick and are not easy to change.
And he decided to use that same name for the character of the cat in The Rats in the Walls
The more I see these posts, the more I think the people making them are just itching for an excuse to say the word.
Well... Yeah, probably. If you tell people they aren't allowed to say something, they are gonna want to say it. That's just human nature, and has been proven time and time again.
I absolutely forbid you from shoving a burning hot fire poker up your ass!
Fuck you, I'll do what I want!
No, fuck youâŚwith a red hot poker
Personally I've never felt a burning need to say racial slurs, so I wouldn't exactly call it a universal trait.
You also probably have a better understanding of racism and the effect it has had on people's lives. A lot of people have never been directly affected by racism, and thus have a limited understanding of it's significance. To them, it's just a word that you are not allowed to say, and so they want to say it.
I think you're just projecting your own weird desires to say racial slurs. That's not a normal thing.
Weirdly hostile but okay. No, I don't have any desire to racial slurs. I just know how people work. It's called reverse psychology, and it's actually a well-known phenomenon. It's the reason why education on these matters is important. Telling someone that they aren't allowed to do something, without them fully understanding the reason why they aren't allowed to do the thing, makes them want to do the thing. Here's the difference. You don't see racial slurs as "forbidden" but rather "distasteful." The reason you don't use racial slurs isn't because someone told you no, it's because you find them genuinely bad. Meanwhile, a lot of people abstain from saying racial slurs only because they feel that they will "get in trouble" if they say them. They are held in check by a sense of forboding, not from their own opinions of the word. These are the people that make these sort of memes, because they feel that it's giving them some sort of special privilege to do something they aren't normally allowed to do. This isn't some self projection, it's how people are.
Huh? OP never said the word, weird take
It's more because it just turns into either you make someone look it up. Or for people already in the know, just makes them think of it in there head too. And when the factoid is posted and talked about pretty regularily here. It's kind easy to seeing it as a trolly way of getting the word into the air so to speak
Reminds me of the Louie CK bit about hating it when someone says âthe n wordâ because it makes him think âoh she means ******â and now heâs just said it in his head
Yeah no shit. What's this post have to do with DND? It's just people posting racist shit in a joking but not way to normalize racism. Nothing to do with DND at all
Wait was his cat's name the n-word? Really?
N-word and then "man" tacked onto the end, but yes. He had a black cat named N-word man, hard r
Lmao wtf
He was very racist. Even for the time
Lovecraft's primary contribution to society was having an idea that expanded to fill minds less narrow than his.
A lot of people talking about Lovecraft being racist af, not about how he evolve from being a racist to get mad when he know that the jews were being beaten at Germany.
If they think he was super racist just look at his family. Especially his mother, who messed him big time. It's not an excuse for his own behavior, but damn she was messed up.
Maybe the real cosmic horrors were the family we made along the way
I feel like this should be a subline on my memoir lol
God dammit Disney was right. The real villain is always familial trauma
It's not an excuse, it's the reason. If you had grown up in the exact same circumstances, u would have held the same beliefs as him. People here are doing the same shit as the morons that say "if I was a slave I would have just run away/killed the master/etc". It's such an absurd and narrow minded way of thinking.
I feel like too much of the conversation around Lovecraft is this. There's a deeper thing going with Lovecraft that can't just be summarised with Racist. If you read about his early life...or just read his stories between the lines, you'll find that he was a wreck of a human being thanks to terrible upbringing. And when he got away from this he moved on to eventually become a normal human being. Lovecraft was afraid, he was afraid of technology, afraid of germs and afraid of things he didn't understand. Sadly he lived a strange sheltered life with bitter old money white family who blamed their problems on everyone else. The scariest thing to him was the idea that there were things out there beyond understanding. The unknowable. Also the cat wasn't named by him, his only input with the cat was that he really loved it.
Couldn't have put it better. I hope this sub doesn't become another cesspool of this uninformed joke over and over.
Too late
Yeah OP is an unoriginal, uninformed douche in my opinion. Just wants to harass CoC players.
I donât know if Iâm right, but I am not going to say what my guess is.
Youre right, but add "man" to the end
Is this the new thing thatâs going to plague this sub?
Literally has nothing to do with RPGs and is just an excuse to talk about racial slurs. So I'd give it 50/50?
Maybe im wrong, but I think this already was a topic of the month here some time ago? So more like a dead horse necromanced back to life to haunt us.
I think it's because people have been looking into new TTRPG's lately and people looking into Call of Cthulhu remembered this. Ultimately his writings are worth reading despite his rampant racism, and there's nothing wrong with derivative works inspired by Lovecraft (basically all fantasy is at least a little bit, I genuinely can't think of any that came out after him that wasn't).
I say we normalize asking all of these things
The primal fear of the unknown and the outsider are, unfortunately, universal. (Unfortunate for humanity, fortunately for Lovecraft)
Wow, I never heard that joke
He may have been afraid of air conditioning, other cultures, other races, fish, and mathematics, but the cat he just didn't rename.
not on subject exactly, but I do want to (cause I'm old) give a shout out to Vincent Price, who acted in more than a few H.P. Lovecraft adaptations, and how awesome he was about speaking out against racism and was able to separate the good story from the bad morals. https://youtu.be/mrMCqOmsMB4
We donât talk about three things: Lovecraftâs cat Edgar Allen Poeâs orangutang story The phrenology of Tolkienâs orcs
He got less racist over time
Character development
Can't say this enough, but going from local perception of "holy shit, even us locals think you're a bit too racist" to "oh hey, this guy downgraded to eugenics and saying 'ethinic' kids can be raised to be WASPs" is still pretty bad
I dont disagree but like he said in some of his letter he seemed to regret what he used to think. Im not trying to justify his xenophobia
Celebrating somebody regretting what they used to think, is maybe a little over the top if what he doesn't regret thinking is still absurdly racist and terrible. For the inevitable comparison to Nazis. Say a Nazi goes from wanting to purposefully wanting to torture and murder all Untermenschen, to being fine with them being "merely" stripped of all rights, and being kept in permanent prison camps, with most of them dying of disease and exhaustion in the last moments of his life. Now sure, that Nazi technically might have improved his outlook and become "Less racist", but is it worth mentioning when talking about his general level of racism?
Didn't think you were, but I was just point it out. Also, just saying, xenophobia and racism are different, and him saying they could "assimilate the 'higher alien races'" later in his life (try to guess who he excluded) still was a practice in both, he just pretended to take a more academic approach to both.
He didnât name the dang cat! Yes he was racist, yes the name was terrible, but this specific crime he did not commit!
I wish people would stop talking about the cat. Its like the least racist thing about him
If you watch the dam busters movie thatâs set in the UK there is a black dog named the same thing, it might look bad now but at the time this wasnât a thing. It was a word that meant the colour black and so âwhy couldnât you name a cat or dog it?â Itâs only now that it is seen as racist that choosing to call a pet it is the act of someone especially racist, at the time it was just something you could do
But by extension, he included references to the cat in the Horror at Red Hook, and maintained the same name for the cat, only having it get renamed much later when the story was rewritten, so he may as well have named it that, so while he didnât name the actual cat that, he did perpetuate it by naming fictional cats after it as well.
The Lovecraft haters bang this glockenspiel over and over. They don't care about details or specifics or nuance. Same people who go after cosmic horror fans for liking it at all it's stupid.
I don't condone racism, I like lovecraft stories though When someone said he was racist I expected subtle themes and a doctored narrative. But that shit is right out in the open, talking about "blood purity" this and "genetically inferior" that, That dude lived in the age where blatant unapologetic racism was *expected* of people
Obligatory reminder, people actually should talk openly about their salaries. Discussing your salary with others is how we know if we're being paid fairly. Our bosses try to shame people for talking about it, or threaten to fire them if they do, bit this is illegal. In the United States, it's actually illegal for your boss to forbid you from discussing your salary. Discussing our pay is a right, and it's one that we should exercise more often. The idea that it's rude is a scam to keep us from finding out when we're getting paid less than what we're worth.
Feller
Cutethulhu
"Can hand me that oar, N-word Jim?"
Bro got exactly 1 n-word pass and by god he used it.
People always cite the man's cat to point out what a racist he is, and I agree, but have you read some of the man's poetry?! o.O
In a very light and partial saving grace, Lovecraft actually did start becoming less racist in his later years. Still far from completely, but enough that he actually might have completely come around if he had lived longer and had the chance to interact with more people. His whole shtick is fear of the unknown driving people to outrageous and incomprehensible fates. Just imagine the stories he could have written if he lived long enough to realize how his xenophobia was exactly the same and lead him to horrible beliefs. He could have done so much if it werenât for cancer and his fear of doctors, but sadly he ended up stuck as the sad, hateful, terrified man we remember him as today.
If your a Lovecraft fan in generalâŚDO NOT ASK THE NAME OF HIS CAT
Welp. You found the *one joke*. Congratulations. You are the one billionth person to make this joke in the past 24 hours. Good for you.
While we're at it, Gary Gygax what moral alignment that General Custer would have been
Oh God another post about Lovecraft that: -uses the cat name thing -has people condemnig him as more racist than his contemporaries (in the 1920s/1930s? A time period with regular lynching?) -has people attributing all his literary production to his racism (If you read at the Mountain of madness, the call of Cthulhu or Shadows over innsmouth and your impression of them Is that they are about racism either reread them or read a critical analysis by someone competent) -has people saying that his xenophobia was an actual phobia (we have no proof, but a racist White man in the First half of the 20th century is not a rare sight) -has people saying that he denounced his views later in Life (he changed them, but he never stopped being racist. I never understood the Need to redeem a man that has been dead for almost a century.) I bet that if i dig deep enough i'll find people saying that he was denounced by the KKK or that he was scared by air conditioning... I'm
> that he was scared by air conditioning Ah yes, Cool Air. I don't see that one referenced a lot.
There was an influx of people misunderstanding the story after OSP's video on Lovecraft. A more famous misconception would be the penguins
I love OSP but hate that video. Seemed like Red had an axe to grind.
I have no idea what any of that means.
Overly sarcastic production. The penguins thing refers to a passage from "at the Mountains of madness" where the protagonista encounter freakishly tall, blind, featherless albino penguins
Oh yeah, those funny things. Its been a minute since I've read "At the Mountains of Madness". I'm more of a Dunwhich Horror fan tbh
Eeesh.
Iâll still play it, heâs dead whatâs it gonna do
Grew up in a white trash family with a black cat with a similar name, just missing the man at the end, luckily cut them all out and understand the context nowâŚ. YIKES, this was 15 years ago.
Glad you figured it out
Yea Iâm uncertain what the dislikes are about, did they want me to not know the context lol?
For those wondering the cats name was⌠Huh? Sorry, gotta run. I have to go pick up my daughters from soccer practice.
*Breaths in* NI- *This comment has been removed by Reddit*
I donât get it
Cats name was ân-wordâ-man
[ŃдаНонО]
Oh his prejudices absolutely were in his work. In the story Herbert West, Reanimator he is point blank on his belief in the genetic superiority of white people. In other stories he would bash immigrants and women.