Current Events > Where did the idea that Lovecraft doesn't describe his monsters come from?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I'm convinced anyone who says that has never read Lovecraft.

Based on what Lovecraft himself wrote and not anything by August Derleth or anyone else, I think he just mentions that they came from beyond time and space.
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I think they mean the really big ones, not the Mirelurk-looking motherfuckers.

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He kinda describes Cthulhu >.> Just Saiyan
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Yeah people who say he just says gross and slimy a lot! is a pretty good idiot filter
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I don't know if the genealogies were Lovecraft's idea, but I've read that Yog-Sothoth is Azathoth's son or grandson and Cthulhu's grandfather. Also, Lovecraft does mention that all of creation, including even the other Outer Gods, are figments of the sleeping Azathoth's consciousness. I don't know if anything says where Azathoth itself came from or if it has always existed.
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btw there is a lovecraftian show coming maybe sometime in the next year on HBO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovecraft_Country_(TV_series)

Lovecraft Country follows "Atticus Black as he joins up with his friend Letitia and his Uncle George to embark on a road trip across 1950s Jim Crow America in search of his missing father. This begins a struggle to survive and overcome both the racist terrors of white America and the terrifying monsters that could be ripped from a Lovecraft paperback.

Think Supernatural, if the heroes were black, and set in the 50's, and mixed with HP Lovecraft instead of christian mythology

Zikten posted...

btw there is a lovecraftian show coming maybe sometime in the next year on HBO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovecraft_Country_(TV_series)

Lovecraft Country follows "Atticus Black as he joins up with his friend Letitia and his Uncle George to embark on a road trip across 1950s Jim Crow America in search of his missing father. This begins a struggle to survive and overcome both the racist terrors of white America and the terrifying monsters that could be ripped from a Lovecraft paperback.

Think Supernatural, if the heroes were black, and set in the 50's, and mixed with HP Lovecraft instead of christian mythology

Yup! It's based on a good book, with Jordan Peele at least producing

Zikten posted...

btw there is a lovecraftian show coming maybe sometime in the next year on HBO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovecraft_Country_(TV_series)

Think Supernatural, if the heroes were black, and set in the 50's, and mixed with HP Lovecraft instead of christian mythology

Some thing tells me that lovecraft wouldnt dig it

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Middle hope posted...

Some thing tells me that lovecraft wouldnt dig it

he wouldn't. he hated black people sad to say. his writings are full of subtext about primitive societies being menaces to civilized white culture. he was a massive Anglophile and despite being an american, believed that the most superior culture in the world was white british society

Zikten posted...

Middle hope posted...

Some thing tells me that lovecraft wouldnt dig it

he wouldn't. he hated black people sad to say. his writings are full of subtext about primitive societies being menaces to civilized white culture. he was a massive Anglophile and despite being an american, believed that the most superior culture in the world was white british society

Honestly, I wouldn't even say he hated them. Worse, he thought them primitive, subhuman, and more to be pitied than hated.

OctilIery posted...

Honestly, I wouldn't even say he hated them. Worse, he thought them primitive, subhuman, and more to be pitied than hated.

It depends on what point in his life you examine. Later on in life he did become significantly less racist (but still racist). He abandoned the subhuman train of thought a few years before his death.

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Anyway, the idea that he doesn't describe his monsters probably comes from the one cutout about non-euclidean horrors.

He has a pretty explicit description of Cthulhu. Other characters, like Nyarlathotep are frequent shapeshifters and he's given multiple descriptions of various forms he's taken. A far more common problem is people attribute things to Mythos that were either never published or published in kind of a posthumous notes form such as Azathoth.

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Tyranthraxus posted...

OctilIery posted...

Honestly, I wouldn't even say he hated them. Worse, he thought them primitive, subhuman, and more to be pitied than hated.

It depends on what point in his life you examine. Later on in life he did become significantly less racist (but still racist). He abandoned the subhuman train of thought a few years before his death.

Well that's good at least

gguirao posted...

I don't know if the genealogies were Lovecraft's idea, but I've read that Yog-Sothoth is Azathoth's son or grandson and Cthulhu's grandfather. Also, Lovecraft does mention that all of creation, including even the other Outer Gods, are figments of the sleeping Azathoth's consciousness. I don't know if anything says where Azathoth itself came from or if it has always existed.

None of that is from Lovecraft. Derleth & others following in his footsteps did stuff like that.

garan posted...

None of that is from Lovecraft. Derleth & others following in his footsteps did stuff like that.

This. Azathoth only ever was an unpublished novel that HP Lovecraft gave up writing after 2 pages to make more short stories.

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"The beast was indescribable and I will spend the next three pages describing it in detail"
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I'm pretty sure 99% who have an opinion on Lovecraft, in either direction, haven't read Lovecraft. Hell, not even I have read Lovecraft!
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He described Cthulhu & a few others in great detail.

The other ones are so much more scary its maddening. Theyre almost indescribable, thats how scary they are. Theyre gargantuan, disfigured, have various tentacles & eyeballs, Id describe them more but it would cause you to go mad. OooOoooh scary
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Everyone loves his Cthulhu stuff but no one seems to remember the weird buzzing aliens in the countryside >_>
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iPhone_7 posted...

He described Cthulhu & a few others in great detail.

The other ones are so much more scary its maddening. Theyre almost indescribable, thats how scary they are. Theyre gargantuan, disfigured, have various tentacles & eyeballs, Id describe them more but it would cause you to go mad. OooOoooh scary

He describes the majority in great detail though. We have clear ideas what all his major creatures look like.