H.P. Lovecraft: Difference between revisions

The dizzying speed of progress of his time was compounded by an expansion of the unknown. Each new development, instead of reducing the number of questions as had been expected by pre-modern philosophers, instead compounded them exponentially. Leibniz had hoped that the entire world could be described by reason, and that this is the best of all possible worlds—a possibility utterly abolished during Lovecraft's writing period. Each new discovery only increased humanity's knowledge of its own ignorance and [[Insignificant Little Blue Planet|insignificance]], encouraging a nihilistic atmosphere, and this is perhaps the central theme of Lovecraft's incisive fiction. For fiction done by others in his literary mythos (and the Lovecraftian setting as a whole) see the [[Cthulhu Mythos]].

 

 

The stories for which he is remembered include:

**** John Carpenter's ''[[The Thing (film)|The Thing]]'' is even closer. Indeed, a genealogical connection is plausible: the film is an adaptation of [[John W. Campbell]]'s short story "[[Who Goes There?]]", published in ''[[Astounding Stories]]'' in 1938. Campbell—who became editor of ''Astounding'' that year—would surely have been reading it in 1936, when it published ''At the Mountains of Madness''.

* ''[[The Call of Cthulhu]]'' -- [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien|Cthulhu]] briefly wakes, and fills the dreams of men with madness. The first and best-known Lovecraftian [[Tabletop Games|Tabletop RPG]] is [[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)|named after it]] and reprints the story in full.

* ''The Case of Charles Dexter Ward''—Long dead [[Necromancer]] {{spoiler|steals the identity of his [[Identical Grandson|identical great-great-great-grandson]]. After his descendent brings him back to life, the necromancer kills him}}. The source of perhaps one of the most solid pieces of advice for anyone messing with sorcery: "[[Evil Is Not a Toy|Do not call up that which you cannot put down.]]"

** Also used in the Roger Corman film, 'The Haunted Palace'.

* ''The Rats in the Walls''—The narrator, a man from New England, buys an old keep in England that belonged to his ancestors (and which was erected at the site of much older Roman and iron-age temples) and discovers a [[I'm a Humanitarian|horrifying]] [[Madwoman in the Attic|family]] [[People Farms|secret]] that drives him insane.

* ''The Whisperer in Darkness''—A science fiction First Contact story with strong [[Grand Theft Me|horror elements]]. A scholar and his pen pal friend discover a colony of sinister fungoid space-faring aliens in the mountainous rural backwaters of New England in 1930.

* His ''Dreamland'' stories, among them "[[The Cats of Ulthar]]", ''The Silver Key'', ''Through the Gates of the Silver Key'' and ''The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath''.

** Kadath, it should be noted, encompassed a number of characters from Lovecraft's other stories, ''Pickman's Model'' in particular.

* ''The Music of Erich Zann''—A student, seeking cheap accommodation, takes a room underneath a strange, mute cellist who plays unnatural music late into the night. He considered this one of his best stories, as he managed to avoid his usual tactic of explaining everything (read: [[Nothing Is Scarier|the tiniest explanation of anything is not even alluded to]]).

** Fans often assume he's trying to appease Azathoth, though, since The Demon Sultan is known to enjoy spooky music.

** Well, aren't they? "''You'' threw the stick, you can get it yourself!"

 

 

Subjective Tropes can be found [[H.P. Lovecraft/YMMV|here]].

* [[Author Avatar]]: Abdul Alhazred, Wilbur Whateley, Edward Derby, and Randolph Carter particularly, although most of his protagonists were somewhat autobiographical.

* [[Author Phobia]]: Much of what Lovecraft wrote was motivated by his own nightmares and personal phobias. Among the ones less likely to evoke similar feelings in readers nowadays were his fears of [[Values Dissonance|non-white Anglo-Saxon people and miscegenation.]] [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|And fish.]]

* [[Badass Bookworm]]: The three professors in ''[[The Dunwich Horror]]''.

* [[Badass Normal]]: A strange non-human example. The [[Starfish Aliens|Elder Things]], despite being ordinary carbon-based lifeforms instead of being made of extradimensional exotic matter like most of the gibbering horrors of the Cthulhuverse, actually managed to win a stand up fight against the big green himself.

* [[For the Evulz]]: Nyarlathotep, one of the few [[Eldritch Abomination]]s who seems to take active interest in humanity, seems to love messing with people just because he can. Although in some stories he is simply the guardian of hidden lore, in ''The Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath,'' he's intentionally cruel. In the prose poem "Nyarlathotep," he tours the country driving people insane with scientific exhibitions. His purpose is never clear. In general, he's so powerful that his cruel actions are analogous to a child burning ants with a magnifying glass.

* [[Fish People]]: The Deep Ones.

* [[Half-Human Hybrid]]: ''[[The Shadow Over Innsmouth]]'', and others.

* [[He Also Did]]: Most of his fans would be surprised to learn Lovecraft tossed off a few light comedic pieces, including parodies of [[Horatio Alger, Jr.|Horatio Alger-type stories]] and heavy-handed anti-drinking screeds.

* [[Troll]]: When he found a student mistaking the abbreviation "ibid." for the name of some famous ancient Roman Lovecraft found this so funny that he went and wrote a whole story about Ibid just to mock the student.

* [[Turned Against Their Masters]]: {{spoiler|The shoggoths in "At the Mountains of Madness", and the reanimated corpses (if the men that created them could be called "masters") in "Herbert West - Reanimator"}}.

* [[Tropes Are Not Bad]]: Lovecraft turns [[Purple Prose]] into an art form.

* [[Uncanny Valley]]: Used extensively [[In-Universe]]. If the antagonists are human, expect the protagonist to described them as "strange".