Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 13, 2021, 03:02:53 PM
That doesn't equate to "they're evil monsters and we must exterminate them." They're clearly intelligent and capable of reasoning in a fashion compatible with human existence. We don't actually have any reliable evidence that they're inherently hostile to humanity, either. They're not like the bugs in Starship Troopers that viciously attack any humans they come into contact with.

The stated goal of the deep ones is to bring about the rise of, in no particular order, Cthulhu, Dagon, and Hydra, any of whom would promptly come snack on humanity.

For the present they would rest; but some day, if they remembered, they would rise again for the tribute Great Cthulhu craved. It would be a city greater than Innsmouth next time.

And we know that this is a species-wide imperative rather than a social thing that can be excused with #notalldeepones, because as he is transformed the narrator goes from working against them to totally being on board for it.  Trying to claim that the deep ones are rational creatures who can be expected to be talked out of destroying humanity is right up there with the people from the Mars Attacks movie.

Quote from: Valatar on June 13, 2021, 05:57:09 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 13, 2021, 03:02:53 PM
That doesn't equate to "they're evil monsters and we must exterminate them." They're clearly intelligent and capable of reasoning in a fashion compatible with human existence. We don't actually have any reliable evidence that they're inherently hostile to humanity, either. They're not like the bugs in Starship Troopers that viciously attack any humans they come into contact with.

The stated goal of the deep ones is to bring about the rise of, in no particular order, Cthulhu, Dagon, and Hydra, any of whom would promptly come snack on humanity.

For the present they would rest; but some day, if they remembered, they would rise again for the tribute Great Cthulhu craved. It would be a city greater than Innsmouth next time.

And we know that this is a species-wide imperative rather than a social thing that can be excused with #notalldeepones, because as he is transformed the narrator goes from working against them to totally being on board for it.  Trying to claim that the deep ones are rational creatures who can be expected to be talked out of destroying humanity is right up there with the people from the Mars Attacks movie.

The real problem with most people (the left might be over-represented here, but it is true of just about all populations) is that they are completely incapable of recognizing their own base assumptions.  They project their own faults on everyone around them.  So RPG-makers and players stress about keeping people from connecting evil races with black people, not because the other players think that way, but because secretly they think that way.  Like when anti-gun people say that other people can't be trusted with guns because those people might be unable to control themselves in a fit of angry, because the anti-gunners secretly know theycan't be trusted with guns.

So when people ignore the hostile and alien nature of lovecraftian creatures, it's usually because they don't want to believe that some other being is incapable of reason and compromise, because they secretly fear that they are incapable of reason and compromise...

Because there's absolutely no parallels between Dagonite apocalypticism and Christian apocalypticism. Gotcha.

I'm not saying the deep ones are right in the head, but 1) I'm sure that a lot of human beings might be all too happy to adopt their beliefs and 2) they're lucid enough that we might not be able to tell the difference between "driven mad by Cthulhu" and "I feel the Lord Jesus in my soul."

http://bactra.org/jesus-cthulhu.html

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 13, 2021, 06:23:44 PM

Quote from: Valatar on June 13, 2021, 05:57:09 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 13, 2021, 03:02:53 PM
That doesn't equate to "they're evil monsters and we must exterminate them." They're clearly intelligent and capable of reasoning in a fashion compatible with human existence. We don't actually have any reliable evidence that they're inherently hostile to humanity, either. They're not like the bugs in Starship Troopers that viciously attack any humans they come into contact with.

The stated goal of the deep ones is to bring about the rise of, in no particular order, Cthulhu, Dagon, and Hydra, any of whom would promptly come snack on humanity.

For the present they would rest; but some day, if they remembered, they would rise again for the tribute Great Cthulhu craved. It would be a city greater than Innsmouth next time.

And we know that this is a species-wide imperative rather than a social thing that can be excused with #notalldeepones, because as he is transformed the narrator goes from working against them to totally being on board for it.  Trying to claim that the deep ones are rational creatures who can be expected to be talked out of destroying humanity is right up there with the people from the Mars Attacks movie.

The real problem with most people (the left might be over-represented here, but it is true of just about all populations) is that they are completely incapable of recognizing their own base assumptions.  They project their own faults on everyone around them.  So RPG-makers and players stress about keeping people from connecting evil races with black people, not because the other players think that way, but because secretly they think that way.  Like when anti-gun people say that other people can't be trusted with guns because those people might be unable to control themselves in a fit of angry, because the anti-gunners secretly know theycan't be trusted with guns.

So when people ignore the hostile and alien nature of lovecraftian creatures, it's usually because they don't want to believe that some other being is incapable of reason and compromise, because they secretly fear that they are incapable of reason and compromise...

But obviously you're immune to this and aren't subject to unconscious biases at all. Gotcha.

Jfc. Before you started spouting this self-righteous know-it-all bullshit I was ready to turn in, to concede, to reexamine my assumptions, blah blah blah. But fuck that.

I'm the sort of person who thinks tyranids are cool, even knowing that they eat planets.

With HPL's mermen, I was ready to reexamine the assumptions made about them. I ready to ask "sure, they're scary, but is that really a bad thing? Maybe I want to be part of their world even though it's terrifying, or even because it's terrifying?"

It's close to the same questions asked by transhumanism and posthumanism. To be entirely honest, those kinds of futures are borderline Lovecraftian. Except this time it's humans who are the Lovecraftian monsters.

And here you go masturbating to your fish genocide fantasies and telling me I'm bad, wrong, and stupid for not doing the exact same thing as you. I know that's hyperbole, but fuck it, you pissed me off.

The fish rape and fish genocide fantasies get old after a while. There's only so many times I can listen to this same old shit before I lose interest.

I'm done. You're just as much of a pain in my ass as those fucking stupid SJWs I tried talking to. I'm sorry for putting it like that, but I'm just so fucking angry right now at this fucking horrible cultural wasteland created by the war between the woke and the anti-woke. I can't do any kind of fucking critical analysis without both sides of the political shithole labeling me an istaphobe.

This is why I hate humanity. Every last fucking one. Cthulhu can't wake up fast enough.

It's so cathartic to type that.

LOL, calm down, BCT.

I just can't wait for you to try and reason with some tcho-tchos.

Hint: don't accept any dinner invitations.

Greetings!

*Laughing* So many tears and gnashing teeth over the desires to kill horrifying fish-men that are devoted to monstrous gods in books of fantasy.

Geesus. You know, I have always loved literature. I discovered in a college literature class where I had to read some pretentious liberal-feminist shit book *critically analyzing* the deeper meanings and implications of a book on the impact of women's clothing on women of society, the criminal justice system, and broader cultural impact on the consciousness and development of feminism. Like, 400 pages. Then I had to write a god-awful paper on analyzing the fucking book and swallowing such jello.

My head hurts just thinking about it. Similarly, I think there can be far too much energy and thought poured into "critically analyzing" Lovecraft. Just read the fucking books and take them at face value, and stop trying to see signs of the fucking cosmic pyramid and the deeper implications on our own society through the Lovecraft books. I like it when some genuine scholars have something meaningful to say in regards to a work of literature. However, most people that are deeply double-special super-cereal into "Critically Analyzing" literature are full of shit.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I'm... fairly certain that nobody here said anything about wanting to rape fish.  And also fairly certain that Christian dogma is not hardwired into humanity so deeply that some random non-human creature who became human would suddenly want to sacrifice the world for Jesus.  A human must choose an increasingly-unlikely series of choices to A: Be on board with Jesus, then B: Decide Jesus wants the world to be destroyed to feed his insatiable appetite, whereas the narrator for Shadow over Innsmouth was twisted from actively opposing deep ones to actively supporting them, entirely against his will.

Now you've got me thinking about the Innismouth Kingdom Hall and the door knockers going around handing out leaflets.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 13, 2021, 09:07:11 PM
This is why I hate humanity. Every last fucking one. Cthulhu can't wake up fast enough.

Just because you want us all to die does not mean we should not all try to get along and live together in harmony.

I mean there is no surviving evidence that you want to bring about the end of days.

Quote from: SHARK on June 13, 2021, 10:26:51 PM
...
My head hurts just thinking about it. Similarly, I think there can be far too much energy and thought poured into "critically analyzing" Lovecraft. Just read the fucking books and take them at face value, and stop trying to see signs of the fucking cosmic pyramid and the deeper implications on our own society through the Lovecraft books. I like it when some genuine scholars have something meaningful to say in regards to a work of literature. However, most people that are deeply double-special super-cereal into "Critically Analyzing" literature are full of shit.
...

Conflict theory and it's critical theory offshoots are the gifts that keep on giving.

And it has permeated our culture and been taught in our education system for long enough that a lot of people don't even know that is the indoctrinated lens they are viewing things through.

The only criteria for measuring right or wrong is: have/have-not, and/or: oppressor/oppressed.

If you are perceived to be a have-not and/or oppressed class or person, then whomever is your opposite is the bad guy. Irrespective of real world considerations.

Like my little Drow homage back on page 8 of this thread  - Critical/Conflict theory can make anyone "The real the bad guy" if you can label them as a one of the haves/oppressors.

Objective Morality need not apply.

We see the long term effects of this in the recent Ravenloft as evil gets watered down and lines blurred to the point that Count Strahd is a supplement or two away from being portrayed as a ruler just trying to protect his realm from colonialist adventurers that appear out of the mists trying to kill him and take his stuff for no reason at all...

When your notions of right and wrong are defined as who is being "oppressed", or a "have-not", then you can find yourself getting into bed with some pretty disgusting people all in the name of  "doing the right thing."

A fairly recent example of this being WOTC's hiring of Jessica Price to work on the new Ravenloft.

The only reason any company would hire someone with her track record is if they are no longer able to tell who the bad guys really are anymore...

Quote from: Shasarak on June 14, 2021, 01:02:58 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 13, 2021, 09:07:11 PM
This is why I hate humanity. Every last fucking one. Cthulhu can't wake up fast enough.

Just because you want us all to die does not mean we should not all try to get along and live together in harmony.

I mean there is no surviving evidence that you want to bring about the end of days.

This forum seriously needs one of those "like" buttons for posts...

Quote from: Jaeger on June 14, 2021, 01:24:14 AM
The only criteria for measuring right or wrong is: have/have-not, and/or: oppressor/oppressed.
If you are perceived to be a have-not and/or oppressed class or person, then whomever is your opposite is the bad guy. Irrespective of real world considerations.
Like my little Drow homage back on page 8 of this thread  - Critical/Conflict theory can make anyone "The real the bad guy" if you can label them as a one of the haves/oppressors.
Objective Morality need not apply.
We see the long term effects of this in the recent Ravenloft as evil gets watered down and lines blurred to the point that Count Strahd is a supplement or two away from being portrayed as a ruler just trying to protect his realm from colonialist adventurers that appear out of the mists trying to kill him and take his stuff for no reason at all...
When your notions of right and wrong are defined as who is being "oppressed", or a "have-not", then you can find yourself getting into bed with some pretty disgusting people all in the name of  "doing the right thing."
A fairly recent example of this being WOTC's hiring of Jessica Price to work on the new Ravenloft.
The only reason any company would hire someone with her track record is if they are no longer able to tell who the bad guys really are anymore...

Great assessment. Critical theory is indeed causing Hollywood to turn last generation's villains into heroes and vice versa. Off the top of my head -- the Wicked Witch, Maleficent, Joker, Cruella, Loki, now protagonists.

Quote from: Valatar on June 13, 2021, 10:29:12 PM
I'm... fairly certain that nobody here said anything about wanting to rape fish.  And also fairly certain that Christian dogma is not hardwired into humanity so deeply that some random non-human creature who became human would suddenly want to sacrifice the world for Jesus.  A human must choose an increasingly-unlikely series of choices to A: Be on board with Jesus, then B: Decide Jesus wants the world to be destroyed to feed his insatiable appetite, whereas the narrator for Shadow over Innsmouth was twisted from actively opposing deep ones to actively supporting them, entirely against his will.

Nah, let him rant.  Half the fun is watching him get angry and make stupid statements, usually because the comments hit too close to home.  The rest of us can shrug that kind of thing off, but he goes all nuclear in an instant.  It's hysterical!

Quote from: SHARK on June 13, 2021, 10:26:51 PM
Greetings!

*Laughing* So many tears and gnashing teeth over the desires to kill horrifying fish-men that are devoted to monstrous gods in books of fantasy.

Geesus. You know, I have always loved literature. I discovered in a college literature class where I had to read some pretentious liberal-feminist shit book *critically analyzing* the deeper meanings and implications of a book on the impact of women's clothing on women of society, the criminal justice system, and broader cultural impact on the consciousness and development of feminism. Like, 400 pages. Then I had to write a god-awful paper on analyzing the fucking book and swallowing such jello.

My head hurts just thinking about it. Similarly, I think there can be far too much energy and thought poured into "critically analyzing" Lovecraft. Just read the fucking books and take them at face value, and stop trying to see signs of the fucking cosmic pyramid and the deeper implications on our own society through the Lovecraft books. I like it when some genuine scholars have something meaningful to say in regards to a work of literature. However, most people that are deeply double-special super-cereal into "Critically Analyzing" literature are full of shit.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

you took the words right out of my head. My head spins reading this thread.

Quote from: Shasarak on June 14, 2021, 01:02:58 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 13, 2021, 09:07:11 PM
This is why I hate humanity. Every last fucking one. Cthulhu can't wake up fast enough.

Just because you want us all to die does not mean we should not all try to get along and live together in harmony.

I mean there is no surviving evidence that you want to bring about the end of days.

Because trying to live in harmony has worked out so well for us, hasn't it? War, genocide, religious fanaticism, politics... the list goes on.

A couple of months ago I played the horror game Lust from Beyond. It was inspired by Lovecraft without actually being set in the Cthulhu mythos fanfiction universe. LfB doesn't simply try to scare or terrify you with disturbing imagery. It presents you with some philosophy. One of the questions posed by the game is whether human consciousness is worth preserving or whether we would genuinely happier as wireheads. Given my constant frustrations with humanity, I found the wirehead option genuinely tempting.

When horror makes you wonder whether you even want to be human anymore, then I think it succeeded. Being tempted to discard your humanity should be horrifying, more so than simply knowing that others did.

With the face value interpretation of Innsmouth, that kind of "horror of temptation" is completely absent. The fish frog things are evil, they want our women (and our men, don't forget that part), we should hate them, we should kill them all, we should celebrate their destruction, etc. The horror comes from them being different from us, from the fear of being assimilated and supplanted by an alien gene pool and culture.

There's no horror of temptation. There's no attempt to make the reader wonder "would I want to marry a mermaid? Would I want my descendants to dwell amidst wonder and glory forever?" like the people who traded with the deepies probably did themselves.

Hahn's speculative analysis of the yogspawn has similar implications. https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/lets-read-everything-howard-phillips-lovecraft-ever-wrote.19724/page-44#post-10746665  Her speculation about their lifecycle and civilization raises some of the same horror temptation. Yes, their "gut-brain" existence is horrifying. There's no way to pretend it isn't. But in a way, it's tempting to abandon the frustrations of civilized existence and live in an endless dream as your gut-brain does all the thinking for you.

I don't think the face value "deepies are sea orcs" interpretation is inherently wrong, bad, evil or w/e. I don't find it to my tastes, anymore than I find interest in the "deepies are a persecuted minority" interpretation. I feel both takes are reductive and don't explore the concept as deeply as it could be explored. I think you could do a lot more with the psychological horror elements.

After seeing Cthulhutech take the "deep ones are sea orcs" to its logical extreme by having them run industrial rape camps and shit, seeing the constant flame wars over how to correctly interpret the genre of cosmic horror (I don't think most fans understand it half as well as they think do, myself included), reading article after article demonizing HPL and praising any story that depicts the monsters as persecuted minorities, increasingly reactionary responses that are just more of the same in reverse, etc... I'm deeply disillusioned with all of it.

In this very thread I've seen posters call Cthulhu "evil", say that it wants to snack to humanity, and that the deepies want to make that happen (and are, in fact, able to do so). I felt that all these assumptions are highly questionable. I was under the impression that the point of cosmic horror was that Cthulhu wasn't evil, didn't have any interest in humans, and the cults' attempts to raise it were nothing more than the delusions of sensitives who had the misfortune of intercepting its incomprehensible dreams.

One of the most interesting analogies for the mythos was one in which the universe was compared to a backyard garden, with humans being a colony of small black ants and Cthulhu being a rabbit that wanders around the yard. Cthulhu doesn't deliberately try to knock down anthills, but sometimes it just gets unlucky. There's a bit more to the analogy, but I'd need to find the original.

But if we're not actually on the same page regarding even simple things like that...

I feel like I'm stuck in a frustrating limbo where I can never find a place to belong or where I can have interesting debates about things. Everywhere I go I feel like I have to learn and follow a party line or else be labeled an istaphobe. I can't simply hold an opinion, I have to hold a prescribed opinion or else be demonized. It's terribly exhausting.

OK, this post will be long. It is, possibly, the longest post I ever wrote for a forum. It answers a post by BoxCrayonTales. If you will jump it or got bored half-way... you are right! Be warned that a key example involves a long detour about David Lynch. I felt the need to include it because it is the best practical example I can give about "analysing a creative work" - something I feel being very important here.

No one with a normal mind denies that Lovecraft is racist (or, better yet, Xenophobic): you only have to read his tales. I openly recognised this in the first post of this very thread. BTW, I'm Italian and thus among the targeted groups.

I'm not mindlessly "anti-woke" when debating their ideas. If anything, politically I'm center-left. I'm for sure against "wokeness" as a dangerous religion - the one that admits only "sin" and no redemption, then looking obsessively for "sin" everywhere. As an Italian, I can track Lovecraft's realisation, later in his life, that maybe some of his ideas about race and ethnicity were wrong. When I hit the "woke wall" "NO! You can't say that Lovecraft was a product of his time! You can't say that he was slowly redeeming himself late in his life! (before being killed while still young and productive by a terrible form of cancer) I just refuse it and I genuinely think that it is a very dangerous mindset. "Sin can't have any redemption!" is as inhuman as the Deep Ones.

I can't judge Leila Hahn's efforts because I never followed her. I'll check her works and I genuinely hope that you are right. Meanwhile I can only judge what is presented to me, like this analysis of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", and it is a terrible analysis. For all her efforts, she fails from the start to follow the first rule of textual analysis: "First start with the text, and the text only. Your first pass must be as pure as possible." Hahn, instead, just can't help to start with:

Xenophobia isn't just present in "The Shadow Over Innsmouth." Every sentence drips with it. Every word and syllable is marinated in it. Lovecraft was always a very xenophobic author, of course, but this tale takes it to an incredible extreme even by his own standards. And, like the Red Hook stories (sic), I don't think Lovecraft himself was unconscious or even uncritical of this.

...Which is already her take on the text. As an "analysis" it gets an "F" right there. "Lovecraft was xenophobic!" Sure enough. But one of the very first questions one should consider, "was he xenophobic in this story?" (because one thing doesn't lead to the other) remains a critical point of failure.

Once you approach the problem correctly, you easily find that, no, Lovecraft, wasn't "always a very xenophobic author". There is no xenophobia in many of his poems. There is no xenophobia in classics like "The Music of Erich Zann". And there is no Xenophobia in "The Haunter of the Dark" - a tale where, if anything, is the "cultured New Englander" full of hubris that gets nuked, and it is the community of "poor Italians and their Catholic priest" who was right from the beginning and now has to pick up the pieces.

This is why in her "analysis" of "Innsmouth", Leila Hahn fails from the very first paragraph. This has nothing to with "anti-wokeness" or anything else, only with "Text Comprehension 101".

"The swastika-holding Pacific Islanders slaughtered a local hybrid population, with seemingly even less justification".

Sure, because only the Nazis committed genocide in known human history - that the story was written and published years before Hitler came to power be damned!  "Reductio ad Hitlerum" at his worst. If it is true that Hahn is such a good critic, why she torpedoes herself this way over and over?

And why nowhere in this "in-depth analysis" she considers what an important "NPC" clearly states about Innsmouth?

"But the real thing behind the way folks feel is simply race prejudice - and I don't say I'm blaming those that hold it. I hate those Innsmouth folks myself"

This is part of the text. And you have a recognition by Lovecraft that racism is real right there! And, more specifically, that some racism springs from hate! And she just flies over it instead of, for example, starting a debate about if hate justifies racism (no, IMHO it doesn't, BTW), or if Lovecraft is actually condemning the fact (the main character has a neutral approach about it).

(Ironically, later we discover that the source of all the racism and the hate were the Deep Ones that in 1846, first tried to rape and then killed half of the population after the humans rebelled - then occupying and governing the town; so much for "trying to talk with the - oh!, so nice! fish people" ).

To further clarify this important point in criticism, first approaching the text and the text only, this is the example I always use with my students: we watch together David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive". In the movie we see both the real world and the dreams caused by some events the characters go through. I then ask them to connect the real events with the dreams, and what these connections tell us using only the contents of the movie. David Lynch was amazingly rigorous about this in his movie which is the reason why I use it.

So, the students munch about the movie and then try to cheat by reading (or watching) "interpretations" on the internet. And I always get the guy or the gal who pipes up "The dreams follow Freud's idea of dreams as compensation!" Cool! Congratulations for your Google-fu! Problem is "Nothing in the movie refers to Freud." As an interpretation can be acceptable, but it contaminates the analysis of the sheer contents by bringing in an outside element - Freud.

Sometimes, but it is rare, a student says "She dreams about the two judges in the competition that allowed her to have a shot in Hollywood as queer figures that, by the end, become malevolent, laughing ghosts. This because those judges once symbolised her hopes to become a star in Hollywood only to symbolise, now, how she was "cheated", and how that victory assigned by those judges actually led her to ruin."

Which, wow!, is a totally fine analysis. Agree or disagree with it, but it never strays from the contents of the movie.

I hope that this example is clear enough. Clear enough to show where Leila Hahn and many others fail - no matter how "good" their intent is.

Hahn even fails in her research. She doesn't consider at all the immense number of sources that Lovecraft mentioned when talking about "Innsmouth", and that had nothing to do with xenophobia or other ugly things: from a dream he had, to the fact that both his parents died in a mental hospital (and thus his fear of having inherited a propensity for physical and mental degeneration), to a visit to Newburyport, to Robert W. Chambers' "The Harbor-Master" and Irvin S. Cobb's "Fishhead" (the latter vividly acclaimed in "Supernatural Horror in Literature") to, of all people, H.G. Wells and his short story "In the Abyss" - from where Lovecraft does seem to have taken his description of the "fish people" (that's the same H.G.W. who wrote "The War of the Worlds" as a criticism of British Colonialism, BTW).

Again, nowhere these sources are mentioned in Hahn analysys. Why?

And then Hahn devolves into the straight stunning:

"The message of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" is that we all deserve to die. All of us. Everyone. Every single last human."

Nnnnnnnnnnn...oh? The very quote by Lovecraft she puts above this doesn't say that. The quote essentially says that "knowing the reality of the universe leads to the understanding that human existence is meaningless, to the point that non-existing is the better choice (and thus suicide)." But both here and in his possibly most famous quote "...That we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." he offers a peaceful alternative: ignorance.

Even worse, Hahn fails to place the quote. It is from an political essay that Lovecraft wrote in 1921, ten years before "Innsmouth", and titled "Nietzscheism and Realism". In it, rather stunningly, Lovecraft perceives "...The impracticability of Nietzscheism and the essential instability of even the strongest governments." It is a nihilist essay, about why and how any form of government is destined to collapse (totalitarianism included - so much for those "swastika-holding Pacific Islanders"). Lovecraft thinks that the human condition is one of suffering, hopelessness, lost in the vast abysses of infinite space and time. No form of government (and nothing else, actually) can save humanity from this: the best attempts only delude for a while. From here, better not to live at all.

These are the words of someone either suffering or who has suffered from deep depression or disillusion. 1921 was the year when Lovecraft lost his mother to insanity. But Hahn withdraws this information, takes the sentence without giving context, sends it to "Innsmouth" via extraordinary rendition, and uses it as the lead in to that incredibly misguided final commentary. And people applaud her for her efforts!

I have read S.T. Joshi biography of Lovecraft - all the 1100+ pages of it. True: amazingly enough, he recognises that Lovecraft was a xenophobe - as anyone who read his tales can tell you. It is good to know that Joshi read Lovecraft before writing his biography.

Talking about "Innsmouth", Josh first points out how it was written by Lovecraft in late 1931, during a new spell of disillusionment and lack of faith in his own writing craft. It was a very difficult story for Lovecraft to write, with not less than four versions discarded before the final one. Joshi for sure recognises at once racism as "a" interpretation (not "the"), with, possibly, the involvement of...

"...Such things as Lovecraft's general coolness toward sex, the frequency with which members of his own ancestry married their cousins, perhaps even his possible awareness of the cause of his father's death [madness]."

Notice the careful use of the word "interpretation".

But Joshi, later in his examination, also pushes the racist idea by pointing out how it appears over and over "in text":

"By means of his protagonist, Lovecraft occasionally betrays his own paranoia: during his escape from Innsmouth, Olmstead hears "horrible croaking voices exchanging low cries in what was certainly not English," as if a foreign language were in itself a sign of aberration."

How far we are from Hahn maybe well intended but incredibly amateurish ramblings...

You mention Tolkien. Tolkien?? The guy who, until his last breath, declared how he hated "allegories" and "interpretations", and how "A tale should be read only as the narration of some events, maybe happening somewhere else in a different time, and nothing else." Sorry to break you the news, but if there is someone who "flattens" Lovecraft (and himself) before anyone else, he is Tolkien.

True, both Lovecraft and Tolkien "would write layers of symbolism and references into his stories that only the erudite would understand." But this doesn't mean that they do bring the contents and meanings of these references into their tales. Once again one thing doesn't lead to the other. Tolkien's Ring is Tolkien's Ring, not Siegfried's. The "wise man with a staff" is a recurring image in fables and fantastic art, but Gandalf is Gandalf, not Moses. Gandalf is not even Saruman and for sure he is not Elminster.

Which is, ironically, what each one of us does everyday when preparing a original adventure for their players. As I often mentioned, my 13 years long D&D campaign was based on the Iran-Contra scandal. Was it anti-American? Not at all: it was anti-some "Good" Gods in the Forgotten Realms. The Devils were the Iranians? No, they were Devils born and raised by a stunt by Tyr and company done "for the greater good". Were the elves "a clear proof that the Contra rebels were represented in the campaign"? Not at all: some Good Gods dangle in front of them the opportunity to recapture Myth Drannor and it ended... not well.

Should have I written and published book instead of creating a D&D campaign I'm pretty sure that someone would have pointed at the plot and said "This is a clear denouncing of American politics in the '80s! This guy is anti-American!" And the inspirations would have been there! - except that not even once you would have found a NPC named "North". But you would have found a hidden eighth level of Carceri named Pyranesia - because the visuals were not "inspired" but directly taken from what Piranesi showed us in his "Carceri" art, and thus I made a direct reference to the source.

Lovecraft can be interpreted and "psychoanalysed". Alan Moore does just that in "Providence". As the main character he creates Robert Black, an "American gay Jew" living in 1919, because (Moore's words...)

"I chose some parts of Robert's character specifically because they resonated interestingly with some of Lovecraft's prejudices. I thought this would be a good way to actually make some of Lovecraft's views emotionally explicit by showing them from the point of view of someone who could not help but be hurt by them.

But Moore is too intelligent to stop there. Across the series, it becomes increasingly clear how Blake's experiences are both about his struggle with his repressed homosexuality and his general being in the 1920s, and at the same time show that the Mythos are quite real. Moore is not interested in choosing a single interpretation of Lovecraft's work. To him, Blake's feverish, fearful hallucinations when accidentally poisoned by a gas leak are born by his repressed homosexuality (earlier stimulated by the clear interest shown for him by a certain Detective Tom Malone...) and there was no gas leak and Blake had a scrape with the Mythos (issue #2).

But Moore (who had read "anything Lovecraft" before he started writing "Providence") also said of the man:

"...If you actually look at his attitudes, they are actually precisely those of the white, middle class Anglo-Saxon Protestant heterosexual men of his period. All of his fears were almost exactly the median of social fears at the time. He was frightened of Bolsheviks. He was frightened of foreigners. He was frightened of women. He was frightened of gay people."

What basically Moore says across the series is "Listen, we all know the nature of Lovecraft the man and we can we can find it in his works. But this doesn't imply that these works must be interpreted as misogynist, racist, serial killerist or whatever else. They can stand by themselves, at the same time, as very creative, very inspiring, very horrific works."

Which indirectly answers the absolute cringeworthy statement that the very interviewer makes while introducing his interview with Moore:

"Lovecraft was vocally homophobic and anti-Semitic in his personal life and, to some extent in his writings. In fact, that's one of the things I've seen crop up in conversations about this comic Providence already, in the form of speculation. Some fans have essentially asked why people who create Lovecraft-based stories shy away from addressing these hard truths about Lovecraft's prejudices."

Really? Because, maybe, once again the inspiration is not the content and thus being inspired by Lovecraft doesn't mean to translate the man in your tale or be obliged to address "hard truths" that simply are not there to address once you consider the tale alone? Most importantly (and sadly) you just had an interview with Alan Moore where he addressed this point, and about a creative work where he addressed the same point across twelve issues, and you learned nothing?! What a waste of that time of your life (not ours thankfully).

I know how a young Lovecraft named his cat. I read about it everywhere. What I never found was someone pointing out how cats were the creatures most beloved to Lovecraft. The Lovecraft gave that name to a creature he deeply loved could be the spark for an interesting debate about the complexities of his personality - and not necessarily a debate that ends well for Lovecraft. But, since, I guess, this is a remote possibility, it will never be held. "Pure sin" doesn't admit complexity.

Some final side notes:

Re: "Blade Runner". I mentioned the movie as part of the "fear of the other" examples. This doesn't imply that the other is evil in this case (or in Dick's original novel), but there is no doubt how, in both movies, humans fear replicants who develop emotions, free will and become indistinguishable from human beings.

Re: Leila Hanh. While writing this I put my nose into some other writings by her. I'm reading her analysis of Cthulhu and surrounding - and, up to the point I reached (one third in) she remains faithful to the texts. If she manages to pull through I'll recognise her effort.

Re: Jesus. He multiplied fishes. There is a dark clue in there.