SlickRiptide

A lot of the racist elements of Lovecraft's stories would have been written similarly to what he wrote, even if he had not been a racist. He uses the exotic, mysterious and frightening foreign peoples because their unfamiliarity is what makes them exotic, mysterious and frightening. In this day and age, we have a hard time imagining that we might now know what a Kurd was like or what Deepest Africa is like or what a strange vaguely Oriental (Asian - a lot of asians today would find the word offensive) personage was like or that such a person might not be mysterious and intimidating just for being that.

There's a reason why Fu Manchu and Charlie Chan were pulp villain and hero respectively. I've mentioned this before - If you want to talk blatant, unapologetic racism then Sax Rohmer is your man.

In Lovecraft's day they didn't have television or the internet or even speedy travel. The first radio news broadcast was in 1920 (according to Wikipedia). Worldwide communication was rare not common, and while it became widespread, it was still something of a luxury to the readers of Weird Tales. If you wanted to send a message, you sent a telegram. If you had access to a telephone, it was probably a party line - a community telephone.

The point is that the world was a larger, more mysterious, less well-explored place back then. To Lovecraft's readers, the best, most compact and least expensive way of showing that something exotic and mysterious was going on is to have the people involved be exotic and mysterious people. The yardstick for exotic and mysterious was quite different back then than it is today.

It's easy to say "racist" and dismiss the fact that Lovecraft lived a long time in Red Hook himself and his descriptions of the place are impressions of his everyday experience. It seems to me too easy to dismiss the whole thing as "racist" simply because the plot requires that a lot of questionable characters of indistinct but non-European stock clandestinely move into Red Hook.

This is why I ask "what are the racist elements?" because what I keep hearing is an analysis of HPL and not an analysis of the story other than "Well, they're obvious."

Humor me. I disagree that they're obvious, or at least I disagree that they are gratuitous. These elements that are being labeled racist appear to be serving the ends of the story. THAT is a big reason right there to question whether they are really "racist" or not, or so it seems to me.

I think it's a disservice to the story to (at least give the appearance) of saying "HPL was a non-apologetic racist so that clearly makes this story racist also".

No, you're reading motivations where I haven't presented any such motivations. I'm interested in exactly what I said I was interested in. I don't have any agendas that the questions are trying to serve, most especially agendas about what people "ought" to feel or believe. I'm more interested in what they DO feel and believe, quite honestly.

This is a shortcoming of text forum communications.

I'm reminded of Arthur Conan Doyle and his displeasure that the popularity of Sherlock Holmes was taking time and attention away from his more serious works about fairies and spiritualism.

It was a strange time in a lot of ways.

Hmmm...

I see what you mean and yet, I don't see it as being that overt. My yardstick for overt starts at something more like a Fu Manchu novel. This is primarily a depiction of a slum situation where the degradation (particularly since it's a moral/mystical degradation) is part of the setting. It's not like HPL even picks one race to demonize. He pretty much touches on every non-western-european "race" there is. I did find the reference to the "sturdy Vikings of that section" to be an amusing bit, in contrast to the whole thing.

My overall impression is of a lot of people of mixed and often unrecognizable but low heritage. The "low" coming ultimately from their association with Lilith, in the end. I think that's why I've seldom read these stories as overtly racist, because the antagonists are nearly always considered to be corrupted by the forces that they worship or deal with. However racist HPL was, the stories present the fallen antagonists as just that - fallen and warped, rather than low, ignorant and horrible just based upon being born Asian, African, or Eastern-European. They're basically orcs, figuratively speaking.

Agreed. I tend to take the high road here and give the author the benefit of the doubt unless given a reason otherwise. I've read one or two of HPL's letters as mentioned by Jack and Golden_Girl, and it's possible that the reason I never studied more of them was that I preferred to keep the fictional experience pristine rather than color it with judgement of HPL himself.

Examples? Note that I'm not being combative here. I'm interested in seeing this side of things since I've apparently glossed over it in my mind over the years.

Well, then if we're making racist allusions then they at least need to be accurate ones.

Is Lovecraft openly racist in his stories? Maybe I've just forgotten it. It's been quite a while since I've read him. I'm less concerned with his personal feelings about it because he's long dead and his time is long dead. I don't judge his stories any better or worse for his xenophobia. It was a different age and, as I said, even so-called "enlightened" people of the time would still come off as incredibly condescending and racist towards black people by today's standards.

That's why I prefer Lovecraft's own stories over the expanded Mythos most of the time.

I'd take issue with that statement but it's a personal taste thing and Jack is hardly the only person to feel that way.

Lovecraft was a product of his times, as were Poe, Howard, August Derlith, and a dozen other contemporaries. Moreover, these guys all shared their universes with each other. That's part of what made the Mythos great, but there are just as many people like myself who prefer Lovecraft's own works over the "expansions", both contemporary and more recent.

Actually, for anybody at all, but especially for AuroraGirl, I would HIGHLY recommend the Roger Zelazney story, _A Night In The Lonesome October_. It's the Mythos wrapped around a story that is basically themed around old monster movies and horror novels, with Jack the Ripper as the hero (literally). The interesting thing is that the story is told from the viewpoint of Jack's dog, Snuff, and the animal companions of the other Players of the Game that is the central focus of the plot.

Really, it's wonderful. I read it every Halloween. In relation to this topic, it would act as a sort of tutorial into both the Chtuluoid side of the Mythos and the dreamlands side of things.

Considering that there WAS a moron in back of both crowds egging things on, I'd presume that said morons were agents of the Television rather than mere simpletons.

I demand now that the store sell a Woofers/DireHowl pet pack!

The only thing I'd say about this is that you ARE wearing a journalist hat when you should be taking it off. It's not a coincidence that most of those words you marked in green were words that implied emotion and/or judgement of some sort. You weren't just looking at the density of the writing, you were attempting to turn it into a dispassionate voice such as one would use to write a news article.

The things Lovecraft is writing about and the experience he is attempting to give the reader is the furthest thing there is from "dispassionate". That also is one of the attractions of his writings for those who admire/enjoy them.

Ooo, my e-reader thanks you for that link!

I highly recommend The Shadow Over Innsmouth as a decent starting point, both for the atmosphere and for the insights it will give you into the design of the Coralax and of Salamanca. Paragon University Magical Annex = Miskatonic University, though of course Miskatonic U was an ordinary university, not a place where you learned to be a sorceror, heh.

I see what you're driving at there. Interestingly, I can imagine how one avenue of exploration would be the creation of the "recipes" to simulate that rich differentiated skill tree and then selling the recipes to other players who are more inclined to push-button selections and pre-made archetypes.

"Sheesh, I don't have time for this. I think I'll just buy an Aracanaville fire blast. I hear she puts really good resistance mitigation into her powers."

The idea of a "powers marketplace" really tickles me, somehow. :-)

I'll grant you that it would effectively be a different game and SWG already amply illustrated how radically changing your game to be "better" can backfire on you. All of these thought exercises are pretty much just that. Maybe we'll see some future powersets trying to stretch the boundaries a bit, though.

I think you're glossing over the importance of playstyle. We have so many choices nowadays that the only reason anyone has a level 1 anything is because they like to play that.

Regrdless, if that was really a problem that required solving then the solution is a simple one - do away with levels and let people combine powers to their heart's content. Of course, at that point you're not playing City of Heroes any more, you're playing one of its competitors.

In any case, levels are overrated. The city environment we have would make a lot more sense if all enemies were just enemies and not grey/green/yellow/orange/red/purple. Aaron Thierry wouldn't be stabbing Atlas Park in the back in order to draw some attention to the "all grey to me" problem, heh.