Comments on: Is Lovecraft’s racism central to the horror?

By: M.

M. — Mon, 24 Feb 2014 08:25:47 +0000

(1) Lovecraft is the subject of a couple of books critiquing his politics and principles in a favorable light. He also receives high praise on “white nationalist” forums, blogs, et cetera.

(2) Lovecraft deserves a place in the western canon if not for his style then for his conception of something that resonates with those of us who reject modernity, “equality by default,” and the individualism and nihilism that centralizes men and empties all around him of meaning.

(3) Those of you quick to judge the men because of his views on race might look in the mirror and see if you measure up when it comes to unconscionable views concerning gender or class. The sexualization of increasing younger girls to the misogyny that saturates pop culture is as wretched as if not indeed worse than racism but tell that to the average anti-racist and his integrity vanishes in the blink of the eye.

By: Tim Hall

Tim Hall — Mon, 03 Feb 2014 23:52:00 +0000

I don’t think there are many people who think Lovecraft is a great writer. As you say, his vision of cosmic horror involving malevolent seafood from outer space was groundbreaking and is still powerful, but as a prose stylist he’s absolutely bloody awful.

And I remember your game where one of the player characters was the monster, unknown to the rest of the party. She played it really wall, and not of the rest of us had any inkling of what was going on until right at the end.

By: Kev Dearn

Kev Dearn — Mon, 03 Feb 2014 20:10:58 +0000

Well Call/Realms/Trail of Cthulhu and its many other variants are not for everyone. If your character was reduced to an unplayable wreck after only 30 minutes then you played with a very poor GM.

Complaining about Lovecraft’s racism and sexism is a bit like trying close the stable door not only after the horse has bolted but after it is dead and buried and the stable has been demolished.

I sometimes surprise people when I say I am not a fan of Lovecraft’s writing. The elephant in the room is that while he may have had a vision of cosmic horror that was ground breaking at the time, when it came to the craft of actual writing he was not particularly good.

Lovecraft’s writing aside, the truth of the matter when it comes to Mythos fiction as a whole, 95% of it is crap. This has led me to seek out some of the material that inspired the early tales, which is often much better, though one must remember the time in which they were written, just like Lovecraft’s tales and those of his contemporaries .

Statistically speaking, player characters are at greater risk from the other player characters in my games than they are from the proverbial “tentacled monstrosities”. It is the threat of the horror and the slow decline into insanity that makes a good Cthulhu game.

By: Tim Hall

Tim Hall — Mon, 03 Feb 2014 14:10:14 +0000

You need to sign up for one of Kev Dearn’s CoC games next Stabcon. I haven’t played one where characters die or wibble out early on, but half of them end up with TPKs in the final scene. They’re always great fun.

By: John P.

John P. — Mon, 03 Feb 2014 13:54:17 +0000

That’s the problem I found with CoC. You spent ages on the character generation and then 30 minutes in to the actual playing you’re a wibbling, insane wreck and it’s all over. Might as well have done something more fulfilling, like going to the toilet. Oh well, had to try it out.

By: Tim Hall

Tim Hall — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 14:53:47 +0000

The ideal game of Call of Cthulhu often results in a Total Party Kill where the party take the monster down with them in the final scene. The objective of the game isn’t to gain experience points and go up levels, but simply to beat the monster. Character survival is a bonus, especially if Kev Dearn is GMing. And sometimes (quite often, in fact), the monster wins.

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 14:36:25 +0000

In the Lovecraftian universe you need lots of cardboard cutout characters and the less pleasant they are the better. After all they have very short life expectancies and the less you like them the less it hurts when they die horribly.

I’m not a great fan of the genre myself, but I quite enjoyed John Ringo’s Princess & Queen of Wands, which are set in the same frame of reference.

By: Tim Hall

Tim Hall — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 00:13:41 +0000

There are several anthologies of his stories (He never wrote a full-length novel). My favourite is the novella “The Mountains of Madness”, set in Antarctica.

By: Sam Lewis

Sam Lewis — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 23:52:23 +0000

I need to read some of his stuff tbh. I’ve listened to enough metal songs based on his work!

By: Tim Hall

Tim Hall — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 22:38:48 +0000

It’s true that the early years of the 20th Century were far less enlightened, but Lovecraft was quite racist even by the standards of his time.

Of course, some people never get past his dreadfully-dated prose style. Never use one adjective when you can use three!