#55200

[leomacgivena]

雉も鳴かずば鳩ぽっぽ

Xユーザーの大𠮷くんさん

[lordandgodoftheobvious]

The incomplete Lovecraft content warning list.

.H.P. Lovecraft is considered a father of the modern horror genre and his works considered classics. Unfortunately, he was also, just, ridiculously racist, even by the standards of the time. Because I actually like him as an author in spite of hating him as a human being, I decided to make a list of his stories in pretty much random order with the relevant warnings so people who want to experience these classics without being triggered/taken out of the story/annoyed by his shitty attitudes on pretty much every subject can do so. This list will be updated whenever I feel like it and at completely random intervals.

This first batch is drawn from memory; if I miss something or misremember something, please tell me. Or if the links don’t work or link to the wrong thing; I did not check them.

The Lurking Fear

You can’t actually be racist against White people, but Lovecraft fucking found a way. No, but in all seriousness though, his attitudes about the “degeneration” of rural “squatters” dovetails nicely with his other racial “theories”. I suppose the best way to describe it is as the racial equivalent of “sexism hurts men, too.” That he keeps calling them “squatters” is rather interesting, because he doesn’t seem to be implying that these people are invading someone else’s property; rather, I suspect he uses that word because there isn’t a White equivalent of “p*rch m*nkey” in terms of evocative imagery. If you like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Wrong Turn, though, you’ll like this story.

Polaris

Racism against Inuits. Rather insidiously, you don’t even realize that that’s what’s happening until the end. Furthermore, it’s kind of anti-scary, but explaining why takes a bit. See, the narrator dreams of a past life of theirs in which he was part of some antedeluvian arctic civilization (”before the coming of the ice”), at war with invaders from the west called “Inutos”, and then an entity claiming to be the north star puts him to sleep at a critical moment so he can’t warn his side of a development and he wakes up in the modern day. Now theoretically a sentient star meddling in human affairs and picking winners in our wars could be scary, except that it picked possibly the least lethal method of interference it could and given the fact that the narrator literally doesn’t consider the Inutos to be human and is presumably typical of his civilization in that regard, I can easily believe that it’s helping them out of a sense of benevolence towards humanity. The Cthulhu Mythos is literally less scary for having this story in it, because it means that there’s a sentient star that can sense and reach across lightyears of space is watching out for us, and if you know anything about how massive and long-lived stars are this becomes one of the most powerful being in the Mythos.

Dagon

Nothing to warn you about that I can recall.

The Outsider

Ditto, though just for the record, I totally saw the twist coming. Even knowing what was coming, though, it was one of the few Lovecraft stories that truly got to me.

The Hound

Also safe, albeit with protagonists it’s hard to root for.

Pickman’s Model

This one’s actually scary, though less so when you realize Pickman could just be exploiting a harmless ethnic minority to cast as faerie stand-ins for his personal narrative. We (and the narrator) only have his word for what ghouls are like, and even that only by implication. Technically, the fact that the monsters he’s painting are real is a twist, but come on, there’s no way you wouldn’t have seen that coming a mile away.

The Shunned House

Should also be safe.

The Shadow Over Innsmouth

The Deep Ones interbreeding with humans is clearly meant to be an allegory for miscegenation.

The Shadow Out of Time

Treats aboriginal Australians...well, the way adventure fiction has always treated native guides and laborers. Considering this is Lovecraft we’re talking about, they’re getting off easy.

At the Mountains of Madness

Good news! This takes place in Antarctica, so there’s no POC for Lovecraft to badmouth.

...Wait, did I just say “Good news...there’s no POC”? Jesus, that’s the scariest thing on this list. :P

The Colour Out of Space

You know, it’s been such a long time since I read this one that I honestly can’t remember, but at worst it mocks rural Whites some more.

The Dunwich Horror

More of this “degeneration” nonsense. Also, I got the uncomfortable feeling that Wilbur Whatley’s “hideous” features are supposed to look African American. I mean, that could’ve been me reading into it, but I guarentee that now that I’ve said it you won’t be able to see his description as being anything else. (Well, until the end.)

The Doom that Came to Sarnath

Well let me put it this way: if you can stomach a history book’s description of the Roman Empire or the Spanish conquest of Mexico, you can stomach this. The “heroes” are genocidal slavers, but the narrative doesn’t ask you to get too attached to them. At least I wasn’t. Then again, I wasn’t scared by the story, either, so it could be that I was doing it wrong.

It’s entirely possible that “Those bastards had it coming” wasn’t the reaction the author was going for. [/s]

The Mound

by H. P. Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop

Subtler that Lovecraft’s usual racism. An Indian chief talks in broken English, is a font of mystical knowledge, and loans the narrator a unique artifact that’s been a family heirloom for untold generations--you know, the sort of shit that’s still happening today. Possible subtler digs I didn’t get in various one-off mentions. K’nyan itself might be racist, but I think that’s just what Lovecraft imagined liberal society would naturally inevitably evolve into.

The Horror in the Museum

I don't know what race Orabona is supposed to be (it just says that he's "dark"), and it's clear he's supposed to come across as a shady bastard (though in a way a generous soul unfamiliar with Lovecraft's body of racism might be tempted to regard as coincidental), but honestly, by the end of the story he comes across as a badass. Because this is the best story yet and I really do recommend reading it, I'm going to actually have a spoiler warning for once. SPOILER: motherfucker singlehandedly kills a Great Old One, successfully covers up both that and his boss's death, and continues to manage a seemingly-successful business after an ordeal that would put most Lovecraft protagonists in the loony bin. Certainly the mere possibility that this creature might be real caused the protagonist of this tale to require serious psychological help.

The Curse of Yig

by H. P. Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop

A prequel of sorts to The Mound. Ascribes worship of Yig to various Native American tribes. (Don't know how racist that is in and of itself, but figured it was better to mention it just to be safe.) Also, and this is a spoiler, a woman gives birth to monsters, which is just straight up uncomfortable, especially when one is aware of Lovecraft's gynophobia.

The Tomb

Nothing to report.

A Reminiscence of Dr Samuel Johnson

No racism or anything like that, but...I just don't get this one.

EDIT: I’m guessing this is a story fragment.

Beyond the Wall of Sleep

More of this “degeneration” nonsense. Like, a lot more. Fucking hell did the man ever hate rednecks.

That being said, probably an important read as it actually explains how this whole seeing things in dreams thing works, and I’ve got the impression that about a third of his stories involve that mechanic.

Memory

No warnings, but extremely short.

The Transition of Juan Romero

Notable in being the first use of an actual slur I recall on Lovecraft's part ("gr*aser"--wait, is that even supposed to refer to Latinxs?), this story is mainly racist against Mexicans with a bit of a splash-on effect onto Native Americans.

The White Ship

Nothing to report.

The Statement of Randolph Carter

Safe.

The Street

Racist. Very, very, very racist. It seems like it's going to be just a little bit racist at first--implying that Anglo-Saxons are the master race and whatnot, which is "a little bit racist" by Lovecraft standards--but then the "swarthy, sinister men" show up (with their anarchist/communist/whatever conspiracy) and everything goes straight to Hell. I did enjoy the bitter irony of Lovecraft leveling the charges of "fear, ignorance, and hate" at these caricatures, however.

The Terrible Old Man

Safe, and fairly decent if conventional.

The Cats of Ulthar

Safe; in fact, I'll bet this one will be many Tumblrites' favorite Lovecraft story.

The Tree

Safe.

Old Bugs

I am, like, 99% sure it’s safe, but the attitudes towards drunks herein very distinctly echo Lovecraft’s thoughts on “degeneration”, which as I said fit part and parcel in with his racial theories.

That being said, this story is rather boring, not scary, and predictable.

The Beast in the Cave

Not directly racist; the monster is very similar to the monsters in The Lurking Fear and can be assumed to stem from a similar origin. Basically, it won’t mean anything to you unless you’re familiar with Lovecraft’s greater body of work...which, by this point, you probably are.

Apparently, this is one of Lovecraft’s earliest works and...it shows. Also, it’s very short.

Incidentally, I’ve decided to call Lovecraft’s whole mindset “eugenicism”; see, it’s racism but it’s not just racism--it’s racism taken to its logical conclusion. For example, say you were to make the argument that Black people are genetically inferior and cite the economic underperformance of majority-Black areas as your evidence for this; Lovecraft would agree with you and then go on to say that all groups in the country that similarly underperform, such as rural Whites, must be similarly genetically inferior.

Phrasing it like this may in a perverse way make him sound better than the average racist--at least he’s logically consistent--but he’s really not. I’m reminded of those extremist Fire Eaters--a political movement in the Confederacy during that short window of time when the CSA was a thing--who were so gung-ho about slavery that they wanted to enslave poor Whites as well. (And to think, the descendants of those poor Whites want to have statues to these jackasses...but we’re getting way off-topic.)

Nyarlathotep

The mention of "yellow evil faces peering from behind fallen monuments" is almost certainly meant to be racist, but it's vague enough and brief enough that you can pretend it's just another near-human monster.

The Temple

The protagonist's German nationalism and regionalism as well as his ruthless treatment of those of inferior rank (militarily, but likely--and likely more importantly--socially) seem almost a satire of Lovecraft's own attitudes, but given the similar treatment to the Roman soldier in The Very Old Folk I think it far more likely to be simple projection.

Fun fact: turns out Atlantis is real in the Cthulhu Mythos.

And I forgot The Very Old Folk way back when doing the innitial batch, didn't I? Oh, well....

The Very Old Folk

Mentions of Italian blood which result from Lovecraft's projection of his own values onto the protagonist (the Roman Empire was actually very multicultural in nature, of necessity). Also, while this is not racist, the ending is a complete fucking hack job (though I guess that's somewhat mitigated now that I'm aware of the fact that in the Mythos dreams are not just dreams).

The Picture in the House

Herein Lovecraft's eugenicism is more hinted at than seen; an eeevil book out of Darkest Africa(TM) inspires a rural old man (who isn't directly referred to as a degenerate, for once) to almost certainly commit cannibalism.

Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family

Herein Lovecraft's eugenicism is in full force. The story heavily concerns expeditions into Africa, so as you can imagine his treatment of local groups (whom I lay even odds he just made up) is Not Great, but thankfully unfocused on. Posits the existence of an ancient White civilization in the region to explain various ruins, but in a way that can mostly be blamed on the characters' racism if one wants to be generous to the story (we're shown ruins and the characters state that they never could have been made by Black people). The exception being that the "white apes", if you read between the lines, are clearly meant to be the degenerated descendants of this civilization.

The Nameless City

Safe. I certainly hope the protagonist's actions aren't indicative of standard archaeological practices of the time, however.

Celephaïs

Safe.

From Beyond

Safe, and pretty damn good.

The Quest of Iranon

Safe.

Ex Oblivione

Safe.

The Moon-Bog

It's "nice" to know Lovecraft treats Irish servants as poorly as he treats servants of color in his stories.

The Other Gods

Safe.

The Music of Erich Zann

Safe, and recommended.

Hypnos

Safe.

Herbert West–Reanimator

A very vile and ugly-ass description of a "n*gro" (I don't really think I had to censor that, but better safe than sorry), but you can pretend it's the narrator's racism rather than the author's if you wish. The almost comical over-the-topness of the racism in that description honestly makes me wonder if Lovecraft ever actually met a Black person in real life, however.

Azathoth

Safe, but don't get excited; this is a mere novel fragment, and as such doesn't go anywhere or do anything.

What the Moon Brings

Safe.

The Rats in the Walls

The most jarring thing to my mind, mainly because it's what comes up most often, is that the narrator named his cat "N*gger Man". Seriously, any number of scenes that would have been intense are ruined because he mentions his unfortunately named cat and I was snapped out of immersion. The other major racist element is that we're asked to sympathize with an unrepentant slave owner (okay, that may be a little harsh, as he was seven when his family lost their plantation in the Civil War, but he's still unrepentant). There’s also a relatively minor incident where the narrator compares the horrible legends about his distant ancestors to one of his cousins running off to be a voodoo priest.

It’s really a pity, because this is probably his best work yet.

The Unnamable

Safe.

The Festival

Safe.

The Horror at Red Hook

It's hard to say whether this or "The Street" is the most racist Lovecraft work I've read yet.

The Green Meadow

by H. P. Lovecraft and Winifred V. Jackson

Safe.

The Horror at Martin’s Beach

by H. P. Lovecraft and Sonia Greene

Safe.

Under the Pyramids/Imprisoned with the Pharaohs

by H. P. Lovecraft and Harry Houdini

Dubious Egyptology and other low-level offenses; more racist by implication than anything else.

This is the first Lovecraft protagonist we've seen with an actual appreciation for non-European cultures, for which I credit Houdini.

He

So the protagonist goes to NYC and is so distraught to find it full of people of color that he follows a necromancer into a haunted house where he sees a future where it's even more full of POC, a fact that makes him literally cry out in horror. Said cry then summons an eldritch abomination of some description that eats the necromancer. The end. Sorry not sorry for spoiling the entire plot.

In The Vault

Safe, a decent story, and somewhat (darkly) humorous.

Cool Air

A person unfamiliar with Lovecraft's nature would see his descripions of certain characters here as Unfortunate Implications at worst. Luckily, it’s non-integral to the story.

The Call of Cthulhu

Evil cults full of "mongrelized" parishioners, blah blah blah. It's...more than the offhanded racism that's in so much of his work, but far closer to that than the full bore racism of Red Hook or The Street. And the cult of Cthulhu itself is pretty much just what conservatives have always pictured the logical conclusion of liberalism to be, having no conception of any form of morality that’s not based on fear of punishment.

The Strange High House in the Mist

Safe.

The Silver Key

Safe, though I am philosophically offended by Lovecraft's nihilism, which is of the edgy-teen-who-has-just-read-the-cliff-notes-to-Thus-Spoke-Zarathustra variety.

Just once, I'd like to see a fictional protagonist who is confronted with the inevitable ultimate meaninglessness of life, the universe, and everything respond with “...And?

“Oh, I'm sorry--was I supposed to be overwhelmed by the realization of the most obvious fucking thing in the universe? So there's no fucking great deity or cosmic force or whatever out there to tell me what the proper way to wipe my ass is--boo hoo. Well, guess what, jackass--if there's no inherent meaning to anything, there's nothing to say whatever meaning you create for yourself based on logic and reason and choice is invalid. Didn't stop to think about that, didja?”

The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

Slavery happens frequently and is not condemned either by the main character or the narrative; generally as a minor detail of the setting. Said slaves are people of color or animalistic charicatures thereof. A recurring villain is an "evil looking sl*nt-eyed merchant".

The Haunter Of The Dark

Safe.

The Thing On The Doorstep

Casual misogyny. Like, you know that one episode of TOS where Jack the Ripper turns out to have been an alien? Roughly equivalent to that.

The Dreams in the Witch House

Safe.

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward

More of the offhand incidental racism that’s so common in these works.

The Challenge from Beyond

by way too many authors

Safe.

The Alchemist

One casual mention of "degeneration" at the beginning; otherwise safe.

The Crawling Chaos

Safe. Surprisingly, does not involve Nyarlethotep.

The Whisperer in Darkness

Coupla offhand references to "savages" and the like.

The Book

Safe.

The Descendant

Lovecraft's description of a Jewish bookseller could easily be applied to any sort of "mongrel" or "degenerate" in his work, which is interesting--it appears that while Jews unsurprisingly aren't safe from Lovecraft's racism, they elicit no especial consideration, either.

Also, this appears to be another novel fragment.

The Evil Clergyman

Safe.

The History of the Necronomicon

Safe. Also, not so much a story as a series of notes I presume Lovecraft kept around to keep his own mythos straight.

Ibid

(That link is to a text document because I couldn't find an audio version in English.)

Mentions are made of "half-breeds" and "Aryans", but not elaborated upon and don't appear to have much influence on the plot.

Medusa’s Coil

by H. P. Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop

Oi vey. We begin with some good old fashioned Confederate apologia and end with--and mind you that this revelation is framed in the exact same way that (spoiler for Whisperer in Darkness) Wilmarth finding Akeley's either severed or facsimiled hands and face is--the *horrifying* reveal that Marceline is...part Black. There's other stuff, too, but I honestly didn't read most of this one.

The Tree on the Hill

by H. P. Lovecraft and Duane W. Rimel

Safe.

In the Walls of Eryx

by H. P. Lovecraft and Kenneth J. Sterling

Safe. I do find it somewhat obnoxious, in the context of his greater body of work, that Lovecraft has more sympathy for the made-up nonhuman natives of pulp!Venus than he does for POC of Earth.

The Thing in the Moonlight

by J. Chapman Miske

Safe.

You may have noticed a lack of Lovecraft's name in the attribution. See, Miske wrote this, based on a dream Lovecraft had, and while a lot of the prose looks like Lovecraft's, he's not officially credited for it. So is it really a Lovecraft work? ...Eh, it's in the wikibox, that's good enough for me. Besides, I intend to expand into the Cthulhu Mythos as a whole anyway.

Till A’the Seas

by H. P. Lovecraft and R. H. Barlow

Safe enough; one brief mention of "degeneration" that is in no way integral to the plot.

I doubt this one's actually part of the Mythos, as it takes place at the end of a world that had been dominated by humanity for billions of years and there's no mention of sentient cockroaches or spiders anywhere. There is a connection to The Silver Key, however, in that Lovecraft once again turned to the SparkNotes for Thus Spoke Zarathustra for inspiration. (Okay, I’m being mean: this is, if not a particularly deep examination of certain themes of nihilism, at least a fair presentation of them.)

Also, I again failed to find an audio version and substituted a text document in the link.

The Electric Executioner

by H.P. Lovecraft and Adolphe de Castro

Herein we have "gr*asers" (and at this point I can confirm that this was a slur for Mexicans and from context can confirm it was meant as one by the authors), which are somehow distinct from true Mexicans, and "hill peons," who are Indios who still commit ancient Aztec/Chtulhu Mythos rites.

The Trap

by H.P. Lovecraft and Henry S. Whitehead

The protagonist and narrative casually disregards the plight of slaves; given everything I've said up to this point, this is for the best.

The Man of Stone

by H. P. Lovecraft & Hazel Heald

Safe in the sense of being free of racism and misogyny and that sort of thing, but I must warn you that domestic violence features heavily in the plot.

The Sorcery of Aphlar

by Duane W. Rimel & H. P. Lovecraft

Safe in and of itself, but in the context of Lovecraft's eugenicism there are implications in the city's decline one can't help but notice.

The Night Ocean

by H.P. Lovecraft and R.H. Barlow

Safe.

Bothon

by H.P. Lovecraft and  Henry S. Whitehead

Another “enlightened” society in which slavery is common. Further, at least some of the slaves are allegedly quasi-human.

Winged Death

by H.P. Lovecraft and Hazel Heald

The villain protagonist says "n*gger" and performs a mengele-esque expiriment on some native Africans, but on the other hand he is, well, a villain, and never presented as being otherwise.

Further, I do not trust Lovecraft's anthropology. It is not that I doubt that he did his research, indeed I am certain he did, I am just equally certain that he felt he had liscense to alter anything he pleased with free abandon.

(Link is to a text document.)

Two Black Bottles

by H.P. Lovecraft and Wilfred Blanch Talman

Safe.

The Slaying of the Monster

By R. H. Barlow and H. P. Lovecraft

Safe. Also, literally only six paragraphs long. (Link is to text.)

The Secret Cave (or John Lees adventure)

Is it safe? Yes. Is it worth reading? Not really.

I can only imagine that this is a very early rough draft of something Lovecraft wrote when he was ten, that his estate found in his papers after he died, and that, for some unknown reason, they decided to publish.

(Link is to text.)

Poetry and the Gods

by H P Lovecraft & Anna Crofts

Safe. But allow me to complain anyway.

While there's nothing racist per se in the story, in many other ways, this is so him. I mean, there's a distinct running theme in his works that good things are beautiful and bad things are hideous, to the point that many a viewpoint character is literally able to judge a person's moral character within seconds of meeting them, and another theme is that the then-modern world sucks when compared to the past; both these themes come to a head in this story in which the return of the Greek gods, whom if you are unaware are the greatest bunch of sociopaths and narcissists to have ever served as foci for religious thought, is treated as a good thing.

Out of the Aeons

by H P Lovecraft & Hazel Heald

Ascribes worship of various Cthulhu mythos eldritch abominations to POC around the world, natch.

I'm also curious as to how White people from Boston are able to correctly identify Fijians, Samoans, native Hawaiians, and other Polynesian peoples. I guess everyone's an ethnographer in this story....

The Horror in the Burying Ground

by H. P. Lovecraft & Hazel Heald

Safe.

[lordandgodoftheobvious]

Okay, seriously though, who the FUCK thinks “it’s (not) natural” is a good argument for/against anything, ever?

Know what’s natural? Cobra venom. Cyanide. Cancer. Black Lung. Smallpox. The boubonic plague. Tapeworms. Those moths that lay their eggs inside of living caterpillars which their larva then eat their way out of like the monster in the Alien movies. HIV (probably).

Know what’s not natural? Penicillin. Refrigerators. Pacemakers. Eyeglasses. Cars. Planes. Computers. The ISS. Surgery. Pretty much all the food you fucking eat (for a given value of “natural”) (unless you subsist solely on venison).

[grouchydairy]

memes

[lordandgodoftheobvious]

If you’re wondering why I used the “i’m white tag” tag on that last post, it’s because I’m sure that somehow Whiteness is to blame for this bullshit.