Lovecraft and Video Games
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Oh god, the racism element. I'd much rather focus on the non-racist issues first as I don't think that allegories of miscegenation resulting in hideous fish-people has remained kosher or as generally accepted like it was in Uncle Howard's day.
Plus, the debate about Lovecraft and his opinions regarding race and ethnicity is an essay-and-a-half on its own.
Plus, the debate about Lovecraft and his opinions regarding race and ethnicity is an essay-and-a-half on its own.
Oh, indeed. Even I don't plan on focusing on it. It's just hard to ignore, is all. From the perspective of a guy who was born in 1983, reading stories in which dark-skinned dock hands are inherently perceived as shifty or even potentially otherwordly and evil is more than a little odd. Here we are in a resolutely post-Martin Luther King world, where the occasional racist idiot gets glared at in most polite circles, and you can still read stories about a guy who hears rats behind his walls and who names his cat ****** Man.Zitterberg said:
The most I plan on doing is mentioning how that could be seen as a sort of manifestation of the fear of alterity - the term referring to the act of having interpersonal relationships to begin with. It's not so much the archetypal Black Man that Lovecraft feared in his earlier days, it's the idea of the Other. That is, what's outside of his established mould of the White, Anglo-Saxon male of decent heritage and good breeding who's either spent his childhood devouring books or has integrated the halls of academia.
I mean, look at "The Dunwich Horror." It's all right there. The rational and learned White professor who defeats a ruddy-faced and borderline-caprine eldritch redneck who basically acts as the polar reversal of Lovecraft's own origins. Wilbur Whateley was born fatherless, was schooled by his mother Lavinia and her own father with books they had in their personal library, and he grew into a precocious young man who's extremely gifted as far as world-destroying apocrypha is concerned, but more than lacks in the social graces.
Considering how Lovecraft almost lost his mind in New York and was lucky to have been married for a short while, it's kinda hard not to draw parallels between Whateley and the author. Not that it's especially relevant or pertinent to my research but, y'know.
The old brain cooking stuff needlessly. Happens all the time.
There is also System Shock 2, with SHODAN and The Many.
I would argue that an AI that didnt go crazy for a malfunction but instead CHOOSE to be evil and megalomaniac to the point that wants that believes itself to be GOD would count, but i guess that we have to stick with the more squishy tentacle hentai creatures.
Here are the clip anyway from SHODAN:
Here is for The Many:
If Godlike AI is really part of the discusion then we have to add the Grandady of evil AI: AM. Allied Master Computer from "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream"
And that is JUST the beggining of the game....oh joy
I would argue that an AI that didnt go crazy for a malfunction but instead CHOOSE to be evil and megalomaniac to the point that wants that believes itself to be GOD would count, but i guess that we have to stick with the more squishy tentacle hentai creatures.
Here are the clip anyway from SHODAN:
If Godlike AI is really part of the discusion then we have to add the Grandady of evil AI: AM. Allied Master Computer from "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream"
And that is JUST the beggining of the game....oh joy
Good luck on your thesis! As a fan of Lovecraft, I'd love to hear how it turns out.
Or if you ever post it online, I'd love to get a link.
Anyway, going back to your question: I think the majority of Lovecraft's influence in video games has been basically "skin deep".
As other posters have pointed out, there's no shortage of creepy, amorphous tentacled things in video games. So I think Lovecraft's vivid imagination has definitely influenced the aesthetic.
But here's where I feel most games miss the boat:
So, with the exception of the Daedra and the Ascended Sleepers in "The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind", there really hasn't been a lot of exploration around that topic.
I will say that I felt a rather Lovecraftian touch while playing "Darksiders II". "The Corruption", the main bad guy definitely had a Yog-Sothoth influence in that it manifested as a puddle of black goo with unclear motivations until later in the game.
And one of the bosses..."The Wailing Host" could have been a dead ringer for Cthulhu's long lost brother.
Or if you ever post it online, I'd love to get a link.
Anyway, going back to your question: I think the majority of Lovecraft's influence in video games has been basically "skin deep".
As other posters have pointed out, there's no shortage of creepy, amorphous tentacled things in video games. So I think Lovecraft's vivid imagination has definitely influenced the aesthetic.
But here's where I feel most games miss the boat:
As I understand it, Lovecraft's core philosophy was that the Universe is a vast and scary place. And if there are divinely powerful beings out there, the best humanity can expect from them is indifference.Zitterberg said:
So, with the exception of the Daedra and the Ascended Sleepers in "The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind", there really hasn't been a lot of exploration around that topic.
I will say that I felt a rather Lovecraftian touch while playing "Darksiders II". "The Corruption", the main bad guy definitely had a Yog-Sothoth influence in that it manifested as a puddle of black goo with unclear motivations until later in the game.
And one of the bosses..."The Wailing Host" could have been a dead ringer for Cthulhu's long lost brother.
I wanna say darksiders 2, chaos is very lovcratian and most of the thing game are more lovecraftian than biblical
Warhammer 40k is steeped with lovecraftian old gods and the like, it's only recently come into video games, but the plot for dawn of war 1, dawn of war 2: rise of chaos, and space marine would be good examples
Warhammer 40k is steeped with lovecraftian old gods and the like, it's only recently come into video games, but the plot for dawn of war 1, dawn of war 2: rise of chaos, and space marine would be good examples
Don't forget "The Horror at Red Hook" which was born from the isolation and alienation he experienced during his stay in New York when he was forced to live alone in a destitute area amongst Irish and African-American members of the community. Of course, Lovecraft believed that a white Anglo-Saxon of his superior breed didn't belong to be among the ranks of such lowly peoples. The hideous debauchery and orgies described in that short story and the utter hatred towards non-WASPS is particularly strong in that story, even stronger than in most of his stories which almost always have some racially/ethnically questionable doctrines or a set of beliefs. Then again, nothing can beat his poem "On the Creation of Niggers." My god, that is the most awful thing I have ever read. It always guarantees paranoid glances over my shoulder to see if someone's reading along combined with nervous laughter and my head shaking in sheer disbelief and disgust.IamLEAM1983 said:
Strangely enough, he was actually an extremely kind and warm person towards his friends and towards the end of his life he became more and more abhorred of the violence towards Jewish inhabitants in Germany during the rise of the NSDAP. Not to forget that his wife, Sonia Greene, was a Ukrainian Jew, whom Lovecraft loved deeply. As a slight digression, remember Sonia's comment about Howard's bedroom skills? How he was described as an "adequately excellent lover"? I can't help but think of this image:
Anyway, I probably don't have to remind you of S. T. Joshi's extensive research and analysis on Lovecraft's personal life and how he adopted a NIMBY attitude towards non-WASP peoples in the later years of his life. All in all, he's always been more of a angsty scared white nerd with an abusive and capricious mother rather than the Grand Wizard of the KKK (I read that line somewhere on the internet and it's utterly brilliant). Also, your knowledge of Lovecraft seems to be extremely rich! I always enjoy talking to people such as yourself. Unfortunately, such occasions are rare as hell, especially in the academic area. In fact, you're the only person I've met so far who is writing an academic thesis about Lovecraft.
First of all, thank you for your words of encouragement. I will be sure to provide you with a PDF file of my thesis paper once it's done (this will be in June, so it's going to take a while). I can't wait to contribute to this rich and creative community and raise further awareness of how deep Lovecraft's influence pervades throughout our contemporary forms of media.Zen Bard said:Good luck on your thesis! As a fan of Lovecraft, I'd love to here how it turns out.
Or if you ever post it online, I'd love to get a link.
Anyway, going back to your question: I think the majority of Lovecraft's influence in video games has been basically "skin deep".
As other posters have pointed out, there's no shortage of creepy, amorphous tentacled things in video games. So I think Lovecraft's vivid imagination has definitely influenced the aesthetic.
But here's where I feel most games miss the boat:
As I understand it, Lovecraft's core philosophy was that the Universe is a vast and scary place. And if there are divinely powerful beings out there, the best humanity can expect from them is indifference.Zitterberg said:
So, with the exception of the Daedra and the Ascended Sleepers in "The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind", there really hasn't been a lot of exploration around that topic.
I will say that I felt a rather Lovecraftian touch while playing "Darksiders II". "The Corruption", the main bad guy definitely had a Yog-Sothoth influence in that it manifested as a puddle of black goo with unclear motivations until later in the game.
And one of the bosses..."The Wailing Host" could have been a dead ringer for Cthulhu's long lost brother.
Secondly, regarding the aesthetic aspect and the lack of video games (or any medium in that matter) effectively executing a credible and powerful Lovecraftian story that adheres to the philosophical content of Cosmicism. In order to do so I will distinguish between "High" Lovecraftian horror and "Lovecraftian Lite," or, rather, "Yog Sothothery" and the "Cthulhu Mythos" (ultimately, the distinction between Lovecraftian horror and Derlethian horror). This will not be the main focus of my thesis paper, but it will be incredibly important in establishing a set of standards understandable to all who read my paper. S. T. Joshi already wrote on this subject in his insightful essay "The Cthulhu Mythos: Lovecraft vs. Derleth" (available in the excellent Dissecting Cthulhu: Essays on the Cthulhu Mythos if anyone's interested).
Throughout my search for "Yog Sothothery" I discovered that the most helpful and rich series to discuss both the rights and wrongs of the video game medium in this area is Mass Effect and the Reapers.
Also, I didn't interpret as well as you did regarding Darksiders II. I saw the entire game from start to finish at my friend's place and I somehow forgot all about the Wailing Host. Anyway, the Corruption is very much treading into the realm of Yog-Sothoth as he upsets the balance of space and time, the dimension between space and time and whatnot.
You're all making me so excited and happy I took this subject - damn you all for making me smile so much!
That's one of the things I find so fascinating about the guy: how he was able to be as much of a perfect gentleman while still carrying so much fear and prejudice. A good chunk of that comes from the fact that this was the zeitgeist of the era (I think World War II's initial stages woke up more than just Lovecraft), and it also comes from his lineage. One of the reasons why he's always focused on buried cities, hidden legacies or concealed family heritage is more than likely based on the fact that his family was formerly more than a little wealthy. The Lovecrafts used to have a small attending staff until about the time Howard's father died, I think. He never really lost that certain high-class snobbery; it's just something that came to be tempered near the tail end of his life, when his natural pessimism was partially lessened in the correspondence he kept with his friends from the Conservative.Zitterberg said:
And yeah, I've been more or less obligated to parse through a few biographical accounts on Lovecraft's life, typically those written by Joshi or Lin Carter, Lovecraft's "official" biographer. Considering how I tend to focus on writing techniques and stylistic choices, though, I tend not to stick to strictly what belongs to the man's own production. So much of the Mythos ends up carrying that principle of the Forbidden (Robert Bloch is pretty good in that regard) and sharing close meta-textual links that it's kinda hard to approach the Mythos and Lovecraft's other material without bringing up Dunsany, Blackwood, Bierce, Bloch et al.
Probably the only source I'd really *like* to quote but can't would be Alan Moore's "Yuggoth Cultures". I'll obviously have to discuss basic Yog-Sothothery in the modern days, however. King did give the occasional nod to Lovecraft, like when you realize that the head vampire in "Salem's Lot" has been hosting black masses based on Ludwig Prinn's "De Vermiis Mysteriis" - which is one of the fictitious books mentioned in the wider Mythos.
There's an interesting theory about it in here as well:Bucht said:
http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/11/06/know-your-lore-tinfoil-hat-edition-the-genesis-of-azeroth/
Also, consider Galactus from Marvel Comics. Giant Alien destroyer of worlds that is seen differently by every race?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/37/Galactuspov.PNG
Didn't the original Alone in the Dark game have Lovecraftian elements in it?
I can also remember hearing about a Lovecraft inspired point and click adventure game from the '90s, but can't remember its name off the top of my head; will repost if I remember.
Edit: Hmm... I think that the game was Dark Seed.
I can also remember hearing about a Lovecraft inspired point and click adventure game from the '90s, but can't remember its name off the top of my head; will repost if I remember.
Edit: Hmm... I think that the game was Dark Seed.
Aside from the stupid "revelations" in ME3, pretty much. Giant, unstoppable creatures without context or explanation showing up and ruining everyone's day.hermes200 said:
Silent Hill (1) verges on that a bit from what I've seen, with puzzles that just draw poor Harry deeper into the town, endless numbers of purposeless monsters and random reality shifts. It kind of feels like you're only making ground because the town wants you to.
Penumbra (Black Plague) has a similar unknowable horror, but somehow one that is also vulnerable and nowhere near omnipotent. You manage to evade it for a good portion of the game, but you don't quite succeed. Clarence, in particular, tends to directly mess with your perception and his motivations never seem to quite settle on either murdering you or saving you.
I guess they're not all Lovecraftian, but they're still pretty good horror concepts.
Just saying, I'm pretty sure the Gatherers from Amnesia are just minions, and the real Lovecraftian things are the Shadow whatevers following you, and Alexander himself.Farmer_Casper said:
The Tuurngait from Penumbra isn't particularly Lovecraftian, but it's certainly alien and confusing.
I figure "Lovecraftian" horror in video games is hard to accurately depict. Seeing as everything needs to be modelled, textured and meshed, you can't just expect to mesh, model and texture a depiction of the Unknowable. You have to water it down, the same way Lovecraft constantly feels like he's forcing his protagonists to hit a linguistic wall. "Words fail me", worded in one way or another, is a frequently returning motif in anything Lovecraft or the Conservative clique wrote.
Considering that, any game mechanics and artist's rendition we might conjure as being Lovecraftian automatically *fails* its assumed contract. The Gatherers are knowable. The Tuurngait are knowable, even Alexander of Brennenberg isn't as truly horrific as he could be, because he's presented to the player as being humanoid in appearance.
Nothing is adequately impossible - nothing *could* be adequately impossible in the context of a game. The only Lovecraftian entity I could think of that fits the bill in the loosest sense would be the Shadow, in Amnesia. It isn't seen, it isn't touched, it can't be grasped by anything other than Daniel's hearing and with the occasional appearance of tumorous humours that coat the walls and floors of the castle sporadically.
That's one of the things I talk about in my own thesis. Lovecraft essentially set himself with a writing contract he can't fulfill. He's filled himself with so much fear I can't even begin to imagine how anguished some of his period's scientific discoveries made him feel early in his career, and he's trying to project his fear of virtually almost everything in sight into something tangible.
Of course, he was going to fail. That terror he manages to depict is about a tenth of what you can feel his words are trying to actually portray. His protagonists wouldn't regularly go insane otherwise.
Considering that, any game mechanics and artist's rendition we might conjure as being Lovecraftian automatically *fails* its assumed contract. The Gatherers are knowable. The Tuurngait are knowable, even Alexander of Brennenberg isn't as truly horrific as he could be, because he's presented to the player as being humanoid in appearance.
Nothing is adequately impossible - nothing *could* be adequately impossible in the context of a game. The only Lovecraftian entity I could think of that fits the bill in the loosest sense would be the Shadow, in Amnesia. It isn't seen, it isn't touched, it can't be grasped by anything other than Daniel's hearing and with the occasional appearance of tumorous humours that coat the walls and floors of the castle sporadically.
That's one of the things I talk about in my own thesis. Lovecraft essentially set himself with a writing contract he can't fulfill. He's filled himself with so much fear I can't even begin to imagine how anguished some of his period's scientific discoveries made him feel early in his career, and he's trying to project his fear of virtually almost everything in sight into something tangible.
Of course, he was going to fail. That terror he manages to depict is about a tenth of what you can feel his words are trying to actually portray. His protagonists wouldn't regularly go insane otherwise.
There's also Anchorhead, another text adventure which is very Lovecraftian. The excellent writing could almost be mistaken for Lovecraft himself. It's slightly easier than Lurking Horror so you might want to give it a try.Murrdox said:That reminds me... I never beat this game! I was plugging away at it on Twisty on my phone a couple of months ago and got stuck. Great game!GunsmithKitten said:Hell, there's also this...
The entire game was a direct inspiration from Lovecraft.
Also, in the two Darkness Within games: the game is set in "Wellsmoth" and your name is "Howard E. Loreid". In one of them you come across a character which is clearly meant to be Lovecraft himself
Silent Hill definitely has a Lovecraftian thing going for itself, but it would, I think, offer far more potential for a Freudian psychoanalytical reading. Hell, I might just do that (but I already intend to do a combination of Freudian psychoanalytical criticism and Marxist literary theory for another video game series in the possibly near future, but that's a secret for now~).Ninjat_126 said:
I wholly agree that there's a certain impossibility to the whole thing of creating the perfect video game (or any medium for that matter) with Yog-Sothothery. However, I somewhat disagree that Amnesia: The Dark Descent hasn't been that particularly effective with portraying values in line with Cosmicism. The abandoned Gothic castle that the game is set is less Lovecraftian, I admit. In fact, I believe that the coldness and utterly merciless environment of the Penumbra series is closer to that feeling of defencelessness, alienation and hostility found in At the Mountains of Madness.IamLEAM1983 said:
Anecdotally, that novella unintentionally inspired a resurgence of the ancient astronaut genre and is the prime cause behind the creation of such films as The Thing from Another World and John Carpenter's remake, The Thing (also a self-admitted Lovecraft fan). I'm still angry at Ridley Scott for filming the sequel-bait known as Prometheus, now Guillermo del Toro (who would have been perfect for the job) will probably never film it. Hell, he even hired S. T. Joshi to help create a film that would be faithful to Lovecraftian's writing.
But I am digressing.
Minus the more classical horror setting à la Edgar Allan Poe in Amnesia: The Dark Descent, I think it actually accomplishes quite at establishing an effective environment and atmosphere close to Lovecraftian horror. However, I do admit that it might be because I coloured my perception in such a way when I was playing the game that it blinds me to major faults. What I did was use my imagination, and I believe that that was the main goal of the video game. You're not supposed to actually look at the Gatherers. Actually, I didn't even know they were named the Gatherers for a very long while because I wanted them to remain nameless, or, rather, unnameable.
In terms of game mechanics, it is no coincidence that the camera and viewpoint of the player is blurred when looking in the direction of that hideous seemingly amorphous pile of flesh. You're only supposed to have a glimpse of the thing before fleeing in fear, most likely shrieking blasphemous words at the top of your lungs whilst you're doing so (as I know I surely did, and a good few octaves higher, too).
The primary cause of losing the element of incomprehensibility, in my opinion, is the availability of YouTube videos or images on Google perfectly showing a non-blurred vision of the Gatherers. Sure, they still are grotesque and might invoke a shudder or two, but having a clear image of the monster inevitably negates the element of unfathomable horror; the player no longer possesses the freedom to subject their own imagination upon the previously opaque perception of the entity as it is has become contaminated by an objective interpretation.
With "objective" I mean a clear image of the character model. The character model is incapable of shifting its shape or physical appearance or exhibiting such amorphousness as the shoggoth in Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. Thus, the hideous features of the Gatherers are clearly outlined instead of exaggerated by the hasty and nigh-imperceivable glance of a frightened player. All in all, the immersion is lost when you "contaminate" your perceptions.
Furthermore, throughout my wanderings in Brennenburg Castle I deliberately allowed myself to become frightened at every howl or shrieks that could not belong to a human being. My knowledge of Lovecraft's oeuvre fuelled my imagination to such a degree that I literally was too scared to look at the Gatherers (my best friend still shudders at the mortifying "death-cry," as he calls it, that I unleashed when he was enjoying my cowardly and inane chattering and I had a sudden chance encounter with a Gatherer).
Apart from the content written in the Leviathan-sized text I posted, I'd say the game is a mixture of the Poe-esque short story known as "The Outsider" - Lovecraft himself admitted it was basically a piece of masturbatory glorification of his all-time favourite author (I still like it a lot) - and his final novella, The Shadow Out of Time. Alexander Brennenburg's role could be interpreted as a Yithian creature with far more ominous intentions.Farmer_Casper said:
Moreover, the game is particularly effective in how you cannot know or comprehend the motives of both Alexander and the Shadow. All you know is that you disturbed a balance of some sort when you touched the orb, but that's it. Now you're committing unspeakable atrocities under Alexander's watch in order to escape the power of an extra-dimensional and invincible cosmic force of which even the enigmatic Alexander cannot hope to defeat. The descent into madness and Daniel's choice to seek "the warm embrace of merciful oblivion" by drinking the amnesia potion is also rather Lovecraftian. Ignorance is fundamentally more desirable than knowledge in a Lovecraftian tale.
I'll be damned. I just discovered a new approach for my thesis paper to measure the effectiveness of a video game's execution of Yog-Sothothery: the importance of ignorance and knowledge in the Lovecraftian tale. This does not only apply to the fictional characters in the video game, but for the gamer themselves as well.
One thing about Alexander: you never know his true form and that's rather Lovecraftian as well. There is one moment in the Study where you perceive a possible glimpse of 'his' true nature. In the Study there is a portrait of Alexander von Brennenburg, but if your sanity is low enough:
However, the extraction of those magical juices innate in humans when they're under extreme stress is a slight deviation from the typical Lovecraftian tale. This implies that human beings have merit to these strange forces from Beyond rather than enforcing the philosophy of our cosmic insignificance. Then again, Alexander's always been on the level of a renegade Mi-Go character, like the ones from "The Whisperer in Darkness" who are seen experimenting with humans, rather than a Great Old One or an Outer God (though I don't like using those terms because they're Derlethian in origin).
It's interesting that you should bring up the fallible nature of YouTube. Horror Let's Plays tend to fail to actually do their job on multiple levels.Zitterberg said:
First off, you're likely to be dealing with one of the celebrities. Guys like PewDiePie or Tobuscus can't moderate their reactions, seeing as their entire online personas depend on their acting as stupidly as possible. It's hard to allow yourself to share in their fear, seeing as they constantly twist it right around as soon as they express it. Instead of going "What the Hell was that thing?!", PewDie might latch onto one of the many little figurines around Brennenburg (all called Stephano according to him) and brandish them in front of him in a mocked attempt at self-defence. They're basically laughing in the face of would-be cosmic horrors because we came to see a silly little show of silly guys making silly faces in the dark.
Then, assuming you're lucky enough to spot a Let's Play-er who's actually honest about things, his or her constant commentary tends to act as a reminder that you're really just standing over someone else's shoulder. It's entirely vicarious, but the feeling of being *two* in front of whatever's being played instead of being on your lonesome also tends to defeat the purpose of anything that's even slightly Lovecraftian in tone. You're watching someone else play through your own screen, that double degree of separation insulating you from what the game is designed to at least attempt to portray. That being naked terror.
*Then*, there's the dreaded reliance on Monster Closets or jump scares. When that's paired with an effective level design, it works very well. Amnesia did pull this off. It creates an atmosphere, and the jump scares are ideally carefully interspersed moments of higher tension punctuating an experience that's designed to be at least unnerving, on average.
Doom 3? Not so much. Having a firearm more or less removes that essential feeling of helplessness. The critters might be lovingly grotesque and will go "Oooga-booga!" at you with all the gusto they can muster - but you're the guy with the gun. That defeats the purpose entirely.
Outside of that, I tend to consider that YouTube horror is symptomatic of the fact that "Lovecraftian" has become such a pervasive staple that it's more or less stopped to carry any kind of disturbing affects. I think it's pretty telling that artists like Ursula Vernon have entire DeviantART galleries dedicated to little pudgy and cute pastel takes on everyone's favourite winged cephalopod.
Which begs the question: where does the Slender Man fit in all this? What has he inherited from the Mythos, besides the obviously similar structure of several thematically similar content creators adding to the lore? He's clearly visible and overall clearly defined, with his only reality-breaking shenanigans involving severe camera glitches, teleportation and the occasional cases of space compression and induced homicidal insanity.