You'll have to excuse my lack of brevity in what follows, however these are some very big ideas and deserving of extensive examination beyond what a few short paragraphs can express.
Mossberg Shotty said:
Dark_Reaction said:
TL;DR: That's just, like, your opinion man.
Thats true enough, it's just my opinion and alot of people disagree with me. I'm not saying that I wasn't able to enjoy it at all, but it definitely left something to be desired.
One of the big arguments I've heard are about how Lovecraft's creatures are so beyond our understanding that the sheer sight of them is enough to drive whatever bland protagonist happens to be at the wheel at the time, to complete madness. I find that a bit lazy, and condecsending to be honest.
It's like the authors saying: "You couldn't possibly understand, so I might as well not explain it to you at all." Maybe you should give the reader the benefit of the doubt, Lovecraft? You're not that terribly clever, and I really doubt that if I saw Cthulhu (or read about him?) I would be so shocked that it would strip me of all emotion.Thats not bragging on my part, it's just not the way the human mind works.
Here, I believe you're sort of - for lack of a better phrase - missing the point.
In terms of the-sight-of-elder-horrors-drives-humans-to-madness as condescension/laziness issue, I would propose that you are viewing yourself - and by extension your species - a bit too highly to truly appreciate certain Lovecraftian themes: you are functioning under the assumption that you, as the reader, are somehow separate from the world of the story being recounted, and thus are 'above' your stature as a mere human with regards to being capable of conceiving an entity that - by its very nature within the setting within which it exists - is beyond such conception on behalf of a creature such as yourself. The fact is, with relation to multi-dimensional horrors and sweeping revelations of the sort so often appearing these works, you - as a human reader - truly COULDN'T possibly understand (in fact, Lovecraft himself, as a human author, could not truly understand or express in words, but makes an effort all the same) the horrific majesty of these beings, which are as to we humans as we are unto the miniscule beings we routinely take for granted.
Imagine if ameobas and/or fleas were, unbeknownst to you, truly capable of some form of sentience, but the 'scale' of that sentience/awareness was so far 'beneath' that of your own as to make explanation of you - by comparison, an enormous being of unfathomable motivation, power and appearance - extremely difficult, except for noting of some small details of your appearance/behavior. Such explanation would be, without a doubt, nearly impossible, and exposure to a being of such qualities could easily (again, assuming some form of sentience/awareness) drive such miniscule beings to madness through the realization of both the grandness of scale off the Universe and the related miniscule nature of one's self, just as it could drive a human to madness in attempting to view/understand a being of such effectively-unfathomable physiology, power and motivation as the entities of the Cthulhu mythos.
In the presence of Great Cthulhu, you are but an ameoba, pitifully squelching along in relative ignorance - were you to look upon his form, sprawling and awe/terror-inspiring, twisting space and time in ways that your meager ape-derivative brain cannot even begin to fathom (particularly if you were a reader in the time these tales were written), you would not be rendered shocked or emotionless, you would be overcome by mind-shattering terror (if you did not fall to your knees as your psyche crumbles to nothingness in the face of something so utterly beyond you, your species and everything your ilk have ever known, seen or accomplished)... However, in the aftermath, assuming you were able to hold yourself together long enough to "escape", I assume it would be very difficult for you recount that experience and may well result in your mind forcibly snuffing your emotional response in a desperate bid towards self preservation.
Compared to the vast eons of the Yithians exploration and manipulation, you are but an imbecilic flea stumbling in relative blindness through your short, effectively meaningless, existence. Should you escape an encounter with such entities with even the vaguest of conception of their presence/actions, the revelation of your insignificance - the insignificance of your very species and everything that you know and care about - and of the degree to which you can be/have been manipulated would undoubtedly result in a degree of dread, foreboding and paranoia the likes of which few human minds could maintain for any length of time without severe psychological degradation, eventually leading into madness.
I would argue that, in fact, you are not worthy of receiving the benefit of the doubt, because you are a human being - what is presented is all that the human characters of the story, and thus you as the human reader, are capable of absorbing with any real sense of understanding.
To think that you could possibly understand such beings as a human reader, or that a human writer could put to paper words that would truly do justice to such beings, is hubris/arrogance on your part; and, on the writer's part, it may well be condescending, because you - by comparison to the beings you are attempting to perceive/understand (and which the writer is attempting to present to you) - are worthy of nothing less than utter condescension.
... Now, I wouldn't necessarily put forth that such a being could truly exist, as humans have encountered a vast number of beings/events/revelations that we've managed to conceptualize and overcome; but, in the context of the settings Lovecraft presents, the case is that of such beings being present and of the sort of characteristics I've described above.
And, frankly, I find that to be pretty clever... but, again, that's just my opinion, and you're free to yours as well.
Mossberg Shotty said:
You make some interesting points though, when you talk about how the accounts seem to come from someone you're sitting across a table from. It certainly has a tendency to read that way some of them time, but only if the guy you're sitting across from is a Wikipedia page. People in shock don't mindlessly spout facts and exposition, they're so overcome by emotion and fear that they can barely contain it. If the main character doesn't seem to be afraid (or exhibiting any other emotion) how can that elicit an emotion in you?
In the heat of the moment, immediately following exposure to such a thing, no, individuals in shock do not 'mindlessly spout facts and exposition' - but Lovecrafts protagonists are often not narrating in the heat of the moment, but rather after the fact.
In CoC for example, almost none of the material is being described in the heat of the moment, as it is merely the protagonist narrating his experience in searching out further information about this thing he has only the vaguest of clues about, often merely recounting information that he himself heard/read from another source. In CoC in particular, there is a sense of gradually building dread regarding the events the protagonist is investigating - and with good reason, as not only are the events themselves thoroughly disturbing (that of otherworldly monsters prowling the dark places of this world and beyond), but there is the implication that there is very real non-supernatural danger associated with merely trying to learn more about the events that have transpired (if you recall, it is heavily implied that the man the protagonist recovered the initial materials from was killed in a very shady manner, by an individual who greatly resembles the description of the mad cultists worshiping Cthulhu's idol in the swamp).
If you've ever sat down after the fact and spoken with, or read the account of, someone who has been through an extremely traumatic event, they often do rather matter-of-factually present contextual information that would be important to those listening/reading; and the traumatic nature of the event can often cause their recounting to seem almost mechanical, as they attempt to fight through the remnant memories of the shock/terror/horror they have experienced, particularly if those memories are extremely powerful and threatening to drive them back into a state of shock/terror/horror merely by their remembrance.
At least, that's how I often perceive these works, particularly with regards to stories that present a protagonist attempting to recount exposure to vast and dreadful revelations (such as The Shadow Out of Time) or otherworldly beings 'above and beyond' our still-relatively-primitive 4th-dimensionally-restricted perspective (such as The Call of Cthulhu).
That's just my two cents. Or, more like $2.50.
Lots of people don't dig it though, so don't feel like you're alone in your lack of interest in squiggly tentacled beasts beyond the veil of conception.
