History Literature / TheShadowOverInnsmouth

* InterspeciesRomance: Marriage and interbreeding, anyway, if not necessarily the ''romance'' part. But you never know.

* AlwaysChaoticEvil: The Deep Ones initially seem this way, and most writers have taken this at face value. The final few pages suggest it may be more a case of BlueAndOrangeMorality: they ''could'' rise up and destroy humanity, if they felt like it, but mostly they seem to think we're not worth the trouble.

%%Zero Context Example* AmbiguouslyEvil: See AlwaysChaoticEvil, above.

* DisappointingHeritageReveal: Near the end of the book, the narrator discovers that [[spoiler:he is a distant descendant of Obed Marsh, and is therefore destined to change into a Deep One himself. Although he becomes increasingly horrified and contemplates suicide, he eventually accepts his fate.]]

* UnreliableNarrator: Zadok Allen zigzags this. The narrator initially dismisses him as a TalkativeLoon, but then learns that at least the gist of Zadok's account [[CassandraTruth is correct]]. However, the ending implies that Zadok didn't have the whole story, since [[spoiler: the Deep Ones that reach out to Olmstead in his dreams don't seem to be quite as bad as Zadok had assumed.]]

%%Zero Contex tExample* HellHotel: The [[PunnyName Gilman]] House.

%%Zero Contex tExample* LordOfTheOcean: Dagon

* NoEscapeButDown: The narrator has to climb out an upper-story window of the Gilman House, land on the roof of the building next door, and then jump down a skylight.

* SpiritualSuccessor: Several Innsmouth/Deep Ones stories by later authors make reference to or were inspired by ''Film/CreatureFromTheBlackLagoon''. "Understudy" by Gary Myers is a great example; also "Cabinet 34, Drawer 6" by Creator/CaitlinKiernan and "The Deep End" by Gregory Luce. There are also some ripples of Innsmouth in Creator/GuillermoDelToro's ''Film/TheShapeOfWater'', though Del Toro takes things in a [[FantasticRomance somewhat radical direction]].

%%Zero Context Example* TownWithADarkSecret: Probably the TropeMaker or [[TropeCodifier Codifier]].

* UnreliableNarrator: Zadok Allen zigzags this. The narrator initially dismisses him as a TalkativeLoon, but then learns that at least the gist of Zadok's account [[CassandraTruth is correct]]. However, the ending implies that Zadok didn't have the whole story, since [[spoiler: the Deep Ones that reach out to Olmstead in his dreams don't seem to be quite as bad as he had made them out to be.]]

* AmbiguousEnding: Has the protagonist genuinely [[spoiler: lost his mind, or does he genuinely believe the Deep Ones [[DarkIsNotEvil aren't so bad after all]] and that [[LivingForeverIsAwesome immortality sounds pretty nice]]? Notably, the writing itself seems a lot more cogent than the stream-of-consciousness style Lovecraft would often adopt when some of his other protagonists truly lost it.]]

-->-- This message approved by the Innsmouth Tourism Board

[[quoteright:310:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/13175692.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:310:''[[Literature/TheBible And it shall come to pass that the]] [[AcquiredErrorAtThePrinter fishes shall stand upon it]].'']]

* Animals Hate Them: Animals hate the Innsmouth folk, and the town is naturally devoid of them. This used to be a real problem for them since they still had to use horses for transportation and the horses couldn't ''stand'' them. This went away when trucks and cars became available.

* AmbiguouslyEvil: See AlwaysChaoticEvil, above.

* [[AnimalsHateHim Animals Hate Them]]: Animals hate the Innsmouth folk, and the town is naturally devoid of them. This used to be a real problem for them since they still had to use horses for transportation and the horses couldn't ''stand'' them. This went away when trucks and cars became available.

* TheFilmOfTheBook / LovecraftOnFilm: ''{{Film/Dagon}}'' and ''{{Film/Cthulhu}}'', though both are pretty loose adaptations.

* HellHotel: The [[PunnyName Gilman]] House.

* IfIWantedYouDead / OrcusOnHisThrone: It's made ''very'' clear that the Deep Ones could easily exterminate all life on the surface of the Earth... if they could be bothered.

* LordOfTheOcean: Dagon

* NoEscapeButDown / {{Roofhopping}}: The narrator has to climb out an upper-story window of the Gilman House, land on the roof of the building next door, and then jump down a skylight.

* TakeOurWordForIt: Typical of Lovecraft, the worst is only hinted at.

* TownWithADarkSecret: Probably the TropeMaker or [[TropeCodifier Codifier]].

* InterspeciesRomance: Marriage and interbreeding, anyway, if not necessarily the ''romance'' part.

* EvilIsNotAToy: Obed Marsh had learned [[spoiler:of the worship of Dagon from Pacific islander natives, (with special interest in the ''practical'' benefits of doing so, namely gold and ample fishing) and had acquired the tools and know-how to call up the Deep Ones for purposes of bargaining, but the islanders never revealed how to hold the Deep Ones at bay before they were wiped out by their neighbors]]. When Innsmouth began showing signs that it was well on its way to becoming a DyingTown, Obed decided to [[spoiler:call up the Deep Ones anyway]], leading to the frightful conditions of Innsmouth and its people in the present day.

** This a running theme in Lovecraft's work. Humanity is considered so beneath notice by most of the universe that they generally are harmed due to the horrors brushing them aside to reach their real goal rather than maliciously targeting them. Most of the horror in the Lovecraft lore comes from realizing humanity's existence is utterly inconsequential in the grand scheme of their universe [[spoiler: which makes the few stories where humanity ''is'' able to fight back and win, such as ''The Dunwich Horror'' so impactful.]]

** This a running theme in Lovecraft's work. Humanity is considered so beneath notice by most of the universe that they generally are harmed due to the horrors brushing them aside to reach their real goal than maliciously targeting them. Most of the horror in the Lovecraft lore comes from realizing humanity's existence is utterly inconsequential in the grand scheme of their universe [[spoiler: which makes the few stories where humanity ''is'' able to fight back and win, such as ''The Dunwich Horror'' so impactful.]]

* AsTheGoodBookSays: Zadok quotes the original "writing on the wall" from the Book of Daniel, "mene, mene, tekel, upharsin" (literally: numbered, numbered, measured, divided) when recounting Obed Marsh's pact with the Deep Ones. He also mentions the GOlden Calf from Exodus and a few "[[MesopotamianMonstrosity Babylonish abominations]]".

*

* Fridge Horror: The narrator spots "some bulky, tarpaulin-covered object" on a rowboat while [[spoiler: escaping from the town, and when the government men went there, they never found Zadok Allen]].

* AndThenJohnWasAZombie: [[spoiler:The protagonist realizes at the end that he shares the ancestry of the monstrous Innsmouth residents, and begins to succumb to it.]]

* CosmicHorrorStory: By association, since it's part of the Franchise/CthulhuMythos. In the story itself, hints of this turn up in the concluding pages, where the true scope of the threat from the Deep Ones and their assorted creatures becomes clearer.

* EldritchAbomination: The Esoteric Order of Dagon worships Cthulhu, and there are references to the shoggoths.

* FishEyes: The Innsmouth natives are characterized by their bulging, lidless eyes.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Zadok tells the narrator that his, the narrator's, eyes [[spoiler:remind him of Obed Marsh's.]]

* HillbillyHorrors: Innsmouth is an isolated small town. The Arkham ticket agent describes its denizens as "white trash." In a spin on this trope, however, it's a fishing town in New England, rather than some mountain community in Appalachia, and its evil is exotic and foreign in origin, rather than rural and domestic.

* HumanSacrifice: Zadok Allen's story does not quite clearly state, but very strongly implies, that the Dagon cult made human sacrifices to the Deep Ones and their gods.

* InterspeciesRomance: Marriage and interbreeding, anyway, if not quite the ''romance'' part.

* LovecraftCountry: By default.
* MarsNeedsWomen: Both genders, actually. In fact, the only pairings we hear about are female Deep Ones and human men.

* {{Unperson}}: After the tribe of islanders that worshipped Dagon was wiped out by their neighbors, the neighbors subsequently refused to admit there had ever been anyone living there in the first place.

* InTheBlood: Deep One blood is hereditary, of course, and, [[spoiler: depending on your interpretation of the ending, may also cause profound psychological changes]].

-->-- The Narrator's thoughts upon touring Innsmouth

* ProperlyParanoid: Replacing the bolt on the main door to his room and fastening all others prevents the main character from being ambushed in the middle of the night.

* MesopotamianMonstrosity: Dagon was the name of a Mesopotamian deity who is sometimes interpreted as being a merperson or otherwise related to fish.[[note]]More recent scholarship prefers a different etymology of the key word that interprets it as "grain" instead of "fish".[[/note]] It's unclear from this story whether the Esoteric Order's patron is intended to be the same being, or if its human adherents just applied an existing name to it.

* GasLeakCoverUp: Among the many reasons that outsiders fear and shun Innsmouth and its people is talk of a plague that swept through the town and killed all its able-bodied and more "respectable" folk. But according to Zadok Allen, [[spoiler:the cause of all this death was an attack by the Deep Ones, wiping out all who were opposed to the dealings of Obed Marsh and his followers. Those left alive were told to blame all the death on a plague and to shun outsiders [[ImpliedDeathThreat "if they knew what was good for 'em"]]]].

* ImpoverishedPatrician: The Marsh family is losing its money.