Deconstructing LovecraftLite

So I'm trying to write a Cosmic Horror Story that deconstructs a lot of Post-Lovecraftian and Lovecraft Lite tropes. Some ideas I have:

• Many of these stories involve government agencies fighting Eldrich Abominations. This agency could have a secret agenda (a little obvious).
• Trying to fight these abominations backfires and causes them to awaken.

What do you guys think? Anything else I could do?

Here's the thing with deconstruction. The intention is to break down the core assumptions of the genre and show how things would turn out in real life.

This is a problem because the Lovecraft mythos is fiction top-to-bottom. Eldritch entities don't exist in real life, so we have no idea how they would actually work. The concept is actually fatally flawed in many ways so they really couldn't exist in real life- but the point is that writing about Cthulhu in a different way to how post-Lovecraft or Lovecraft Lite fiction deals with it wouldn't be a deconstruction, it would just be a different take on the Lovecraftian formula with no possible premise of deconstructive analysis.

Deconstruction is more appropriately applied to genres that center around how people behave, because we understand how Human beings work decently well. That's what lets us take a close look at certain works of fiction and say, "Waitaminute, if these Humans are supposed to be the same as us is every meaningful way, then things should turn out different here..."

yey

I'd say the deconstruction of Lovecraft Lite... is Lovecraft Classic - it already functions on everything going to Hell in the least convenient moment. Other than that, the government agency with a secret agenda is overplayed as it is, and as for messing with things with which man ought not to mess...

Well, here's a thought - what if there are no such things? That is, what if the world really is chock-full of strange squid and weird mutants living in underground caves and lakes, but they're just regular critters minding their own business? Your average household cat is prone to all kinds of creepy mutations, from extra digits to fluffy wings - more than enough to unsettle the superstitious and easily frightened, but not exactly an insanity-inducing abomination.

The cool thing about the mythos is that every writer brings their own interpretation of the entities therein, so a lot of the impressions can be chalked up to bias. Lovecraft's own protagonists are frequently horrified and disgusted by the unfamiliar, mirroring his own views that weren't even fair for their day. Robert Howard, on the other hand, is more than thrilled to explore strange worlds filled with bizarre creatures, fully confident that none of them are a match for a good sword. And I'm currently working on a similar setting seen through the eyes of a scientist, specifically the kind that lights his cigar with a nuclear blast. He's too busy raising his fascinating eyebrow to be scared.

edited 16th Sep '16 3:38:48 AM by indiana404

The core of Lovecraftian horror is cerebral. It is the unsettling, gut-twisting realization that- contrary to everything you may have previously believed- the true nature of the universe is that it is a vast, alien and incomprehensibly hostile place in which you will never belong and against which you have no recourse. Everything you know is wrong in the worst possible way, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it.

This is the one major thing that sets Lovecraftian horror apart from other kinds of horror, is this philosophical element. It's meant to evoke this sort of cloying, diffuse, bottomless dread where your head swims with fundamental questions you can't honestly believe have comforting answers. Like the universe is playing some cruel, elaborate trick on you, and the realization has only just dawned upon your fragile mind.

This makes Lovecraftian horror somewhat hard to maintain nowadays, with our modern world being the way it is. After all, if Nietzsche can say, "God is dead," then surely Cthulhu must be as well, and if "... we have killed him," then must we have also killed Cthulhu? When considering the twentieth century, one has difficulty imagining the existence of a more decisive refutation of this way of thinking than virtually every major political or social event in living historical memory.

Given what we've presently come to know about how the world works, trying to put across that Humanity's wrong about literally everything important takes on some odd implications.

Like indiana404 quite astutely notes, Lovecraft- more than merely being a product of the times- was actually behind the times even back then. For instance, he was an avowed racist- just look up what he named his cat! Accordingly, his idea of horror reflected things like disgust at miscegenation, distrust of the unfamiliar, etc. Now, if you're living in the 1890s, all this is well and good. But, from a modern perspective, these are all things we've more or less consciously chosen to leave behind. That means our values- the very thing Lovecraftian horror seeks to exploit to create it's unique kind of existential dread- will have changed quite drastically, which leaves Classic Lovecraftian horror in somewhat of an awkward position.

Various people have tried to modernize the concept, but none of these attempts come across to me as very convincing. Invoking truly Lovecraftian horror in the modern day would require that an entirely different set of foundational assumptions be put to the torch, and as you'll see, this is not a particularly sensible proposition.

If the core of Lovecraftian horror is the tearing down of values by the reality of a harsh and uncaring universe, a version adapted to suit the modern, enlightened world might look something like this:

1. The promise of the Enlightenment is false. There is no such thing as progress, technology doesn’t actually improve our lives or give us more control over our existence, merely the illusion of it.

2. Humanity is not capable of improving itself or bettering its collective condition whether through conscious action or otherwise. The very concept of society and civilization is inherently and fatally flawed.

3. Racism is true. The endeavor to build a pluralistic, cosmopolitan society where all peoples work to serve the common good and better one-another’s lives is not simply doomed to fail; it was nothing but folly and self-deception to begin with. The categories of people really do have mutually opposed, innate and irreconcilable differences.

You get the gist.

As you can probably tell, this is not horrifying, this is just patently ridiculous. It almost makes you want to laugh. Knowing what we know today, it's impossible to imagine that the existence of any kind of eldritch entity, no matter it's nature, would impinge on these concepts so as to render them the obsolete cherished myths of a bygone age, as Lovecraftian horror sets out to do. I'm having difficulty imagining what kind of a place the world would be like if even ONE of them was true, much less all three.

I suppose you could consider that a deconstruction of Lovecraftian fiction. Turns out, we've been living one all along.

yey

Well, if we take the first two and forget the third element of the list I think the result is basically a cyberpunk dystopia, and I've heard those are very popular.

edited 16th Sep '16 11:19:54 AM by EternaMemoria

"The dried flowers are so beautiful, and it applies to all things living and dead."

Random idea: The mortal beings of the universe live in fear and awe of the Old Gods. Ancient, powerful and incomprehensible, they play out their eternal schemes against each other, casually destroying civilizations along the way, often just by accident. Some might stop by to take an amused look at the weird little insects who try worship them - or grab a quick snack... - but most aren't even aware of us.

Then one day, as they're getting dangerously close to our part of the cosmos, something older and bigger does the metaphysical equivalent of accidentally stepping on a bug, wiping them all out in an instant.

And then it happens a second time, because why not?

Still a great "screw depression" song even after seven years.

That is just taking usual Lovecraftian fare Up To Eleven. Something Lovecraft did himself, if I remember right.

"The dried flowers are so beautiful, and it applies to all things living and dead."

Coincidentally, I was just finishing up a related task I thought impossible, namely the premise for a modern fantasy/sci-fi series - specifically a freeform adventure with infinite potential for serialization, like the Conan stories - that evokes all the stylistic elements of pulp horror fiction, yet with none of the usual necessary weasels - no masquerades, no grand conspiracies, no covered up discoveries, no breeches of established laws of physics, and above all, no arbitrary divisions. No quantifiable limits between normal and paranormal, mundane and magical.

To that effect, the main character isn't special in any particular way. He's a scientist, primarily a bio-chemist, who frequently gets called to investigate unusual occurrences like mutated plants or bizarre animal attacks and sightings in rural areas, or assist in lab-duties for archaeological dig-sites. I'm not going for professional realism, the guy simply has a convincing enough excuse to be anywhere on business. Moreover, he collects and translates ancient myths and alchemical texts as a hobby, making him specifically qualified to recognize and handle the more mystical elements of a particular case. In short, he's the closest thing to a modern day wizard classic without needing any paranormal abilities whatsoever.

Next, he doesn't meet eldritch abominations per se, but the world does contain a greater than average number of caves, underground lakes, overgrown forest shacks and the like, plenty of them filled with mutagenic or hallucinogenic substances affecting the local wildlife. And while a rampaging mutant coyote isn't all that much of a scientific discovery, certainly nothing as undeniably consequential as extraterrestrial life, it still makes for a full-fledged werewolf story, the kind you see in tabloids and immediately ignore. And because the guy's job is initially stated as fixing a supposedly normal problem - like driving off a regular pack of wolves from a ranch with some chemical repellent - the story gets a sense of completion and short-term consequence when he does the same with the mutant beast. The rest is just build-up with associated legends and mysteries - the same way the "gods" fought by Conan can easily be random mindless antediluvian mutants for all the attitude they display.

All in all, I believe that unlike random fairy tales, a mythos has to relate to reality in some manner - the way ancient legends of sleeping dragons were used to explain earthquakes and volcanoes. What I sought to accomplish was to update the same idea for a modern age, and just maybe, maybe, find a believable way for at least the most visible elements of the mythos to truly exist in real life... so I'm basically doing a reconstruction.

edited 16th Sep '16 11:41:49 AM by indiana404

What you wrote in your opening post, sounds like Lovecraft played straight to me.

edited 16th Sep '16 1:34:40 PM by Nightlikeday

I know the truth—darkness beats light. Visit my DA: I'll share my secrets stories with you.

From what I've seen, the core idea of Lovecraftian fiction is that some things are unnatural, not meant for this world, perhaps even incomprehensible to the human mind (though that's considerably flanderized nowadays). It's all about piercing the thin veil of what we accept as reality, and glimpsing at a world too big to fathom. However, as the stories of Conan and Solomon Kane are supposed to occur in the same world, I thought to myself - what if they contain just about the same creatures, but seen through the eyes of seasoned warriors not easily frightened by the unknown? And consequently, what would a hard-boiled scientist see? There's only so many times the unknown can become known before this distinction alone is not enough to drive suspense, so I did away with it entirely. There are no unnatural beings, merely unusual ones, though that makes them no less fascinating or dangerous when approached carelessly. (I also wanted easy serialization and a stable status quo, so any incontrovertible evidence for alien life was a no-no.)

Another thing that's endemic in modern fantasy is the misanthropic idea that most humans are foolish and ignorant, while science is wrong... usually in order to shill the premise of speshul main characters going on high adventure without checking in with the authorities. Note how this is another arbitrary division, like between muggles and mages. There's also the similar notion that the world is not ready to officially recognize "the paranormal"... and note how it's always a package deal, rather than just separate unrelated legends. I'm not a big fan of that sort of inflation, so the practical solution was to limit the stakes and unusual elements so that their discovery wouldn't cause a scientific revolution anyway. A mutagenic compound might find some industrial uses, but otherwise, it's just applied phlebotinum that won't undoubtedly change our perspective of the world.

edited 16th Sep '16 2:26:05 PM by indiana404

I agree that real life has deconstructed Lovecraft already, and that what it needs is a reconstruction. That isnt impossible- the movie "Event Horizon" was a decent attempt, by taking the idea of a haunted spaceship and playing it straight. Another is Gaiman's "A Tale of Two Cities" (Sandman number 51) in which he evokes the concept of a city that dreams- and what might happen if it awakens. And I think everyone is aware of the "Slender Man" meme.

So it can be done, it's just not very easy. You just have to find a way to inject a sense of otherworldliness in an otherwise ordinary setting. The entire universe isn't a lie, exactly, but there can be another reality that is much more hostile to humanity than the one we are familiar with. Lovecraft meets the Twilight Zone.

The problem with the whole "government agency that secretly battles eldritch horrors" is that it implicitly assumes that the eldritch horrors can be battled, or even perceived, by the forces of normality. Lovecraft himself never included that element in his mythos, almost certainly because it undermines the whole otherworldly horror of it. For the genre to work, our social institutions and the general public have to remain clueless- they are entirely taken in by the illusion of stability and normalcy in the world. Only the main characters know the truth, to their personal detriment.

Deconstructing that might be interesting, though I'm not sure how.

Regarding the matter of "society remaining clueless", I think that it might be interesting to examine how a culture might react to and change as a result of being made generally aware of the existence of an eldritch being.

Consider a being much like the Slender Man; specifically, let's say that this being causes anyone who becomes too aware of it to vanish. Let's presume that it has some means of making itself known, such that one can't simply erase all record of it—perhaps this is done simply by appearing at random every so often.

How do people react? How does the scientific community react? (Consider: studying a thing generally involves paying attention to it.) How is knowledge of this thing spread?

I imagine a few things spreading into the broader culture: When they notice something out of the corner of their eye, people no longer look at it—they immediately look away from it, and perhaps immediately make a point of distracting themselves. The being might be mentioned circumspectly (such as referring to it as "He Who We Do Not Name"), and only in brief, scattered bursts: children might first be told to avoid the Tall Man, and told that talking about him is dangerous; they might, later, be told that he takes people who pay him too much attention; and so on. Telling too much at once might call him on, but not telling anything might put people in danger.

How often would abductions be attributed to this being? Might investigators make a point of looking for indications of its hand in a disappearance, and immediately drop the case if such were found?

Governments or non-national organisations might want to disseminate safety information, and scientists might want to study—but how does one do so? Anyone involved is likely to be taken. One solution that might work would be to split up any information (perhaps across a number of pages? ;)), with each person working on only their partitioned chunk of the project. The whole might then be combined, analysed and disseminated via a computer running a specialised program, making use of a it's "Chinese Room" nature: this computer doesn't comprehend, and thus doesn't "pay attention".

The above is a little rough, but it might form a basis from which to start, I think.

My Games & Writing

I was thinking something to the opposite effect - in most modern fantasy there's a profound sense of inconsequentiality and inflation when the weird elements have next to no visible effect on the world. The idea of human ignorance or defenselessness can only be stretched so far - we got flags on the Moon and enough firepower to carve a smiley face on it as well; somehow, I don't think going for terror works all that well anymore.

In a way, it's like how ancient people had plenty of anxieties regarding graveyards and the dead - in order to explain their fears, modern pop-culture is prone to jumping to exaggerated conclusions of either pronounced superstitions or indeed, supernatural influences that may still lurk about... until you remember that those were people who knew of neither microbes nor disinfectants, so they were rightfully afraid of close contact with corpses, while it would be a trivial matter today. Similarly, the Call of Cthulhu RPG advises not even trying to nuke the sod - as he'd just regenerate, only also becoming radioactive - while the original story has him stunned by a boat to the head. Lovecraft simply didn't live to see how unimaginable human power would become within less than a decade.

Consequently, I'd rather focus on creatures and events that would be dangerous on the small scale - as in The Colour out of Space or the Strugatsky brothers' Roadside Picnic - but the existence of which wouldn't be so much hidden from the general public, as merely ignored next to whichever pop diva is getting divorced this month.

Well, sure, but if its possible for humanity to adapt at all, then thats not classic Lovecraft anymore. The whole idea is, all our power and all our knowledge is nothing, just children playing in a minefield. Science is useless when primal chaos personified appears before you. But it rarely appears, and never to more than a handful of people at a time, so...

Im not saying that general awareness of Slenderman is a bad concept- Id read that myself. I can think of another possible response- mass hypnosis, resulting in no one remembering his existence. Until someone else discovers him, releases the proff, and the public has to be innoculated again.

The thing about humanity being helpless and science useless and whatnot is that, for one, even stories within the mythos weren't usually that pessimistic - most of the time, the horror comes from the protagonists being completely unprepared for whatever monster they encounter, rather than the monster itself being invincible and all-consuming. Moreover, science and technology have advanced significantly over the last eighty years, so it's a rather vague moving of the goalposts to keep using the same themes without at least somewhat specifying the in-universe nature of the causes. For the most part, the basis of the mythos is ancient aliens (or interdimensional beings, in point of fact) being worshiped as gods.. which is kinda passe nowadays, and not inherently frightening as it once could have been. Finally, in the same vein, the idea of the universe existing in primordial chaos full of uncaring gods may be radical when compared to the cosmology most modern religions, but it's basically the Hellenistic world with somewhat stranger names, right up to having gods that send you nightmares or drive you mad, or beings that would petrify you if you so much as look at them. Nothing new under Helios here.

Essentially, I'm coming from the physical aspects of the universe itself, not the thematic aspects of the stories - too much variation there, including within the same story, when parts of it are written by different authors.

edited 18th Sep '16 11:42:15 PM by indiana404

Hmm... another possible direction in which to go might be this: the creatures are truly eldritch—they make little to no sense under our understanding of physics, and yet there they are—they are very dangerous (whether malevolently so or not), and they are rare, encountered by only few. An encounter with such a being might well be terrifying, panic-inducing—but it doesn't break one's mind. One might run, or fall, but presuming that one survives one regroups, adapts, and is better-prepared when next they meet such a being.

I have in mind a scene in which a character encounters a shoggoth:

"Down the tunnel came a terrible, dark mass, plunging towards me with reckless speed. Its bulk filled the broad curve of the place, sliding along the smooth walls; in a moment's intuition I saw its acidic sides eating their way through stone, chewing out that tunnel in the first place.

And eyes—there were eyes everywhere on the thing, and gibbering mouths making senseless sounds, all forming, twitching briefly, then subsuming into their chaotic parent. My gaze wouldn't rest easily on this ever-moving, disturbing "face"—there was no fixed point to set it on.

I shuddered—but the shudder was quickly washed away as the reality of my situation broke through to me. My gaze shifted from the mesmerising, uncanny sight of the eyes and mouths to the simple black bulk that was bearing down on me. This thing was huge—and it was speeding towards me down a tunnel with no exits but the one behind me. Chill panic ran through my body. I tensed, sucking in a shaking breath. Then I turned and ran, blindly, desperately, as fast as my burning legs could take me.

Behind me I could hear the horrible sucking, hissing sound of it moving over the stone, growing louder every moment. But I didn't dare look back, didn't dare look away from the light of the entrance ahead, didn't dare think about whether it was too close already.

Then I broke out into sunlight. There was a moment in which there was nothing beneath my foot, and then I was tumbling painfully down the broken rocks of the slope below.

I heard a sound behind me like a huge, viscous bubble bursting—surely the thing exiting the cave. Adrenaline poured through my veins. Somehow I managed to get my feet beneath me, and scrambled to one side, just in time to feel a hot, humid, and acrid wind pass me by, see a flutter of black in the corner of my vision.

Long moments passed. I stood, shaking, my breathing gradually slowing. Eventually I made myself look downslope. A run of smooth, acid-eaten stone described a path to the bottom. Another rise of grey stone met the slope at a sharp angle there, and already a previously-unseen tunnel was carved into its face. The creature itself was no longer visible.

Thus ended my first encounter with the builder of the Ancients: a shoggoth. I had been a fool, wandering blindly into a cavern of their making—a mistake that I intended to not make again. If I was to find the city of the Ancients, I would have to proceed with more care."

My Games & Writing

One of the persistent problems I found with writing Lovecraft-inspired stories in a modern setting is the proliferation of recording devices and surveillance systems, as well as those pesky scientists that, if faced with such monstrosities, won't stop until they've dissected and dismantled every available specimen in search for answers. Nowadays a stable masquerade is downright impossible, apart from small-scale cults around separate entities. That's the reason I leaned in favor of mutants - they don't present anything revolutionary for the scientific community to get giddy about, yet they can still function as antediluvian idols, and scary monsters. Moreover, they preserve what Lovecraft felt is the most horrifying aspect of such abominations - that they are related to humans in some manner. Long story short, mutagenic green rocks fall from the sky, the local landscape starts looking like an Agent Orange testing site, while unfortunate critters or people are turned or born as mutated monstrosities to the horror of everyone including themselves. No breaches of established laws of physics need apply.

Of course, for the more fancifully minded, there's always the idea of dimensional rifts through which hapless eldritch animals enter - revered as gods here, mere pussycats in their own realm - yet they slowly dissolve in local conditions and are vulnerable to sunlight, meaning they mostly lurk underground. Even photographic evidence would be dismissed if the being in question disappears into goo by the time the picture is shown to even the most reasonable authority figure. Moreover, the same green rocks may also be hallucinogenic, causing maddening visions of ghosts or even whole new worlds, as in The Challenge From Beyond, or Robert Howard's John Kirowan stories. They present the basis for any number of ghost stories, while leaving no obvious evidence so as to necessitate government cover-ups or require humanity to be a bunch of bumbling buffoons.

I think that there are yet a few places sufficiently remote or unexplored that the eldritch could plausibly be lurking within. A few possibilities might be undiscovered or poorly-explored cave-systems; the depths of the remaining rainforests; within the north-polar ice; beneath the surface of Antarctica; or the deepest parts of the ocean.

As to scientific study, aside from your suggestion of the eldritch vanishing on death, I might suggest that it's extremely alien, and extremely rare, slowing study considerably. The substance of the eldritch might yield some gross measurements—resistance to force, flexibility, mass, etc.—but it might otherwise be so alien that it would take decades of dedicated research to uncover how it works beyond that. (I rather like the idea of it being non-elemental, just a uniform... substance on all levels, down as far as our instruments can reach.) This might be further limited by the simple rarity of the eldritch, as well as the power or abilities of some of its creatures. How do you contain and study a thing that can simply be elsewhere whenever it chooses, or that has properties that vary randomly, for example?

[edit]
That said, the latter paragraph isn't really meant to support the presence of a Masquerade in a given setting (although I suppose that it could be used in such). It's more intended to keep the eldritch at least somewhat unknown, mysterious.

edited 20th Sep '16 7:19:53 AM by ArsThaumaturgis

My Games & Writing

Well, speaking thematically, it is necessary in a story that is intended to be frightening, for the the antagonistic forces to at least appear to be stronger than the ones the protagonist can call upon. If science is depicted as a force for good within the universe of the story, then it has to be helpless before the monsters, right up to the climax when the heros prevail, or it isnt, you know, horrifying. The problem with eldritch horrors is that they have become less believable in the wake of advances in science since the 1920's, and less shocking since the real life horrors of genocide and nuclear weapons, so the challenge for authors who wish to write a story in this genre is to take a more subtle approach.

edited 20th Sep '16 7:56:23 AM by DeMarquis

Depends - a single guy with a bladed weapon is still scary enough to fuel an entire genre, so I'd say it's a matter of placement. The way I go about it, monstrous mutants wander into hapless rural towns, do enough damage for authorities to send an expert, and the story is about tracking the critter and cleaning up the mutagen before more casualties occur. Essentially, it's not so much a whodunit mystery as a wherisit, whatisit and howtodealwithit mystery. Every mutant is unique, even though plenty are designed to evoke classic horror monsters - thing is, whereas you know you can kill a werewolf with a silver bullet, it takes a portable CSI lab to assess and devise whatever potion would deal with the current threat - and that's if the critter is threatening altogether, rather than just accidentally bumping into a barn. A notable trait of Lovecraftian fiction is that not all monsters are harmful, just alien and weird, so I design characters to be disaster relief specialists, not dragonslayers.