Lovecraftian!

Viani

So, is there any instance of Eldritch Abominations and Fleshy Tentacley Horrors that doesn't bring Lovecraft to mind?

I hear about lovecraft a lot, a little too much sometimes. Guy wrote nice things. Doesn't mean every horrid monster that resembles the Dunwich Horror and Cthulhu is lovecraft inspired.

Yarrun XIX

Strictly speaking, Lovecraftian refers to 'divinely inspired' horrors, per se. Your shoggoths and your deep ones and your men of Leng (if you're a weirdo) are usually created and shaped by some sort of elder god. Once you get into human-made fleshy tentacley horrors, like Resident Evil's Nemesis or half the enemies in Half-Life, then you're out of Lovecraft's realm and into the domain of science fiction.

But really, Lovecraft's influence lingers whenever the Other is considered to be completely alien and incomprehensible. My favorite way to break from Lovecraft is to make the Other as human as possible. Now that's terrifying.

Sredni Vashtar

Yarrun XIX said:

Strictly speaking, Lovecraftian refers to 'divinely inspired' horrors, per se. Your shoggoths and your deep ones and your men of Leng (if you're a weirdo) are usually created and shaped by some sort of elder god.

Ehhhhhhh.

Lovecraft's deal was more that the universe is way bigger and more fucked up than people can ever fully internalise or understand, and his creations are meant to embody that combination of fear of the unknown and the alien grandeur of the outré and incomprehensible.

If you want a touch of the divine (or demoniac) in the unspeakable, that's Arthur Machen; conversely, Thomas Ligotti takes that sense of the alien and applies it to all life while subtracting that sense of grandeur.

To answer Viani's question, though: Clive Barker.

MetaFour

Homestuck is kind of a funny take on Lovecraft. On the one hand, it has the Horrorterrors, an overt (and tongue-in-cheek) homage to the Mythos. But in spite of the fact that they're giant calamari from space, they aren't that incomprehensible, nor are they the most powerful or dangerous entities in the cosmos.

No, the real horror in Homestuck is the cosmos itself, Paradox Space. When intelligent life arises on various planets, the cosmic videogame Sburb snatches up children on the cusp of adulthood—and then wipes out the rest of their species. The children must then play the game to create a new home for themselves in a new universe, yet the rules of the game are so stacked against them that only a fraction of players ever succeed, or survive. And connections between different universes, different game sessions, may render your Sburb session unwinnable before you even start playing it. But if you wade through all the bullshit and win in spite of the odds, you get a shiny new universe and get to oversee the development of a new civilization. And then in a few millennia, Sburb will abduct children from that planet and kill everyone else, and the cycle will start all over again.

The fundamental nature of reality is an endless series of universes spawning solely to be grist for a convoluted Sims / RPG hybrid. That's cosmic horror.

Yarrun XIX

Sredni Vashtar said:

Yarrun XIX said:

Strictly speaking, Lovecraftian refers to 'divinely inspired' horrors, per se. Your shoggoths and your deep ones and your men of Leng (if you're a weirdo) are usually created and shaped by some sort of elder god.

Ehhhhhhh.

Lovecraft's deal was more that the universe is way bigger and more fucked up than people can ever fully internalise or understand, and his creations are meant to embody that combination of fear of the unknown and the alien grandeur of the outré and incomprehensible.

I did put divine in quotes. 

glennmagusharvey

Viani said:

So, is there any instance of Eldritch Abominations and Fleshy Tentacley Horrors that doesn't bring Lovecraft to mind?

i think that tentacle horrors are sorta just randomly there and if any thing lovecraftianness draws from them

the eldritch abominations thing seems to be lovecraftian, at least the way people use that word "eldritch" these days

though imagery-wise it's basically a humanoid male body with an octopus head and tentacles for mouth

also when the eldritch abominations and fleshy tentacley horrors aren't racist because lovecraft was

Anyway...

Sredni Vashtar said:

Lovecraft's deal was more that the universe is way bigger and more fucked up than people can ever fully internalise or understand, and his creations are meant to embody that combination of fear of the unknown and the alien grandeur of the outré and incomprehensible.

...this is basically the serious answer I've gotten over the years.