[freeroleplay] Re: Lovecraft (was Project Gutenberg)
- From: Jamie Jensen <yarvin@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: freeroleplay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 00:36:39 -0600
Speaking of Lovecraft, I noticed Wiktionary didn't have an entry for
"squamous". Shame on them.
I created one with the definition from the 1913 Webster's dictionary
(from dict.org).
On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 21:34:03 +0000, Ricardo Gladwell
<president@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Sun, 2005-01-09 at 12:31, Samuel Penn wrote:
> > My question was more of a 'why a specific Lovecraft game instead of
> > a generic Horror game which just happens to be well suited to Lovecraft'.
>
> I've just always felt that Lovecraft, rather than contributing to the
> genre of horror, actually created his own sub-genre of science fiction
> and horror. For example, the rules for CoC can be used to run a generic
> horror game, but I would imagine that they actually are very rarely used
> as such - everyone buys it for the Mythos.
>
> I don't know what it is about Lovecraft - I suppose its the authenticity
> and heartfelt pathos of his works that makes it so much more different
> to regular werewolves and vampires horror.
>
Would it be fair to say that Lovecraft's works were the first works to
be of what is now known as "goth" in the modern, sub-culture-of-punk
sense? It seems to me that his "true gods" were the "gods" of atheism
-- the indifferent, impersonal forces of nature -- and his "false
gods" could be interpreted as symbolic for corrupt rulers, political
and corporate, that have a tendency to come to power.
I haven't actually read much of his works, though I do kind of like
the genre of horror he founded. "Eternal Darkness" is one of my
favorite video games. And the idea of sanity slowly slipping into
schizophrenia as one comes in contact with the Ancients is quite
nifty.
And you gotta love the words he uses. My English teacher said the one
time he tried to use "The Damned Thing" in one of his classes, it had
a word that meant "lightning-pocked ground" that couldn't to be found
in the online version of the Oxford English Dictionary.
Squamous Salutations!
--
J. Jensen
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