HPL often makes the religious most susceptible to madness in his stories. They turn into absolute wrecks when confronted with things out of the ordinary. These things are not supernatural in nature and the person’s religious actions to protect them do not work. His creatures are natural but either ancient, alien, or trans-dimensional. So he is basing his monsters/creatures on science (or science fiction) that we don’t understand. The implication is that religious people are weak minded to start with.
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Yet many times he has people who were more rational and non-religious go to religious authority figures for help when strange things start to happen to them or around them. It is like he is saying that it is human nature to turn to religion when confronted by the unknown or the unknowable. Of course, anything suggested by or provided by these religious figures always fails. HPL’s views of religious are well known.
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His stories reflect a concept that those who are religious and depend on religion to start with are weak minded individuals but even those with stronger mental fortitude will turn to religion when faced with the unknown, that it is basic human nature. But since God doesn’t really exist, religion cannot solve the strange problems caused by life forms that science was unable to identify or that came from other places. But people’s reliance on religion makes using religion an easy way to take over a community in order to control people for ulterior goals.
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In fact, as I sit here running stories through my head, I can only think of one that uses a supernatural horror instead of one that could be considered natural if unknown or unearthly. That is Dreams in the Witch House. There may be others that I would find if I sat down and flipped through more stories. That’s just an off the top of my head recall.
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The fact that his horror seldom uses magical causes actually increases the horror. The idea that the world is much bigger and stranger than we can see in our ordinary reality and those things have no care for the structure of the world as we see it and have created it for ourselves is a more terrifying concept than supernatural horrors.
Archive for Supernatural
HP Lovecraft and Religion, a few thoughts as I drove to work.
Posted in Literature, Writing with tags Dreams in the Witch House, Fiction, Horror, HP Lovecraft, Lovecraft, Mdness, Mental, Rational, Religion, Science, Science Fiction, Supernatural on January 22, 2015 by urbannightWhen authors break all the rules and it doesn’t work.
Posted in Books, Entertainment, Writing with tags Dean, Humor, Janet Evanovich, Sam, Show me don't tell me, Supernatural, Wicked Business, Winchesters, Writing Style on November 20, 2012 by urbannightToday’s blog is sitting in the Save Draft folder right now. I finished my book on break and needed a book for lunch. Lucky for me, today is the book sale and there were three paperback, fluffy novels. I picked Janet Evanovich’s Wicked Business. I’ve read maybe one or two of her stand alone books. I’ve never read her long series. I’m really not all that familiar with her work other than that she has been around for a while. After the first two paragraphs, I had to come write up my thoughts already.
Opening paragraph. The character describes herself.
Hi my name is Blankety Blank. My hair is this color. But it comes from a bottle. My eyes are this color, the same as this relative. I’m so tall. My breasts stick out enough and I have a definite waistline. I had a good, if average, childhood. I learned a trade, met someone I didn’t marry, and inherited a house from a relative that died.
Yes, I paraphrased. But that is the EXACT structure of the first paragraph. This would have been so much more interesting if it came out as part of the story. I’m not sure if this is book one or book two. Even if it isn’t the first book, we don’t need an ‘info-you-should-already-know’ section. Just put the needed bits and descriptions woven into the whole.
Paragraph two in a few words. Life was good and I finally felt like an adult.
Paragraph three describes the two men who come into her life.
Guy A is called This. handsome, black hair over his ears, pale skin, dark eyes, and intentions that are darker. Buy B is called That. Big and scruffy, bit of a bum, an attitude, and charming.
Guess what?!?! Dspite the different names and a pet monkey, she just told me that the to male leads in the book are basically Sam and Dean Winchester from Supernatural. Really. Even the second guy’s name started with a D.
Oh, and Paragraph four: they are part of a loosely organized band of humans that are a bit out of the ordinary.
Maybe it is me. Maybe is the fact I’ve watched Five seasons of Supernatural in about as many weeks.
I’m more than a little annoyed about the writing style. I’ve always heard good things about Evanovich and this is a let down. I’m still going to read it. Dang book cost me nearly 10$ and I still have part of lunch during which to read.
You know, I really have to add a bit here. A few pages later, you find out that the two men are cousins. One is a bounty hunter of a type. The other just is. The first is responsible for keeping the second out of too much trouble because he has a tendency to go dark side. And all of the first’s dialogue sounds exactly like things Dean would say. So the whole ‘Supernatural’ knock off vibe is still going strong.
Strange Brew – Carrots?
Posted in Entertainment with tags Accountants, Bathtubs, Carrots, Cubicles, Dreams, Extorsion, Midnight Cleaning Crews, Money, Netflix, Notes, OT, Overtime, Pastors, Robbery, Sick Days, Sleeping in the Bath, Supernatural, Tasks, Work on November 19, 2012 by urbannightDreams are a strange concoction of events, movies, books, and random input in your life being sorted and processed by the subconscious. I do think that dreams can have meaning and messages. But these need to be interpreted in the context of your life, not from some kind of dream dictionary. But sometimes a dream is just a dream. Here was my weird one from last night.
I’m working late at work, to get some more sections done on a project. We can work up to 2 hours over time a week in reality. In my dream, this was not a limit. I get the impression I was making up for some time off I took. (in reality, I’m out of sick days and I took an unpaid sick day last week. I was also supposed to go in and work 2 hours OT Saturday and I was too sick to go.)
I wasn’t feeling well so I decided to take a bath. Our cubicles were bigger and for some reason, instead of a desk section behind me, I had a bathtub and t.v. I then fell asleep in the bathtub. (this weekend, I kept wanting to take a bath but took showers instead. Sunday, I went to take a bath and decided a nap sounded better. I slept about 5 hours. It was a LONG nap.)
The cubicles have an extra wall section that is hinged and works as a sort of door. I hear the cleaning crew come in so I get up and get dressed. One of the cleaners asks me to call his pastor because they need some money for gas and baby food. I call and leave a message.
It is very late yet there were a lot of people working. There was an entire accounting department (that doesn’t exist) that worked overnight shifts. (I suspect this is from me watching way to many episodes of Supernatural, back to back, on Netflix almost every day.)
I finish my tasks and turn around to find something on the floor inside my door. It’s a mystery note from the mysterious pastor saying these people are not who they say they are and they are trying to extort money from him. He had notified authorities but he was giving me a reward. Pinned to it was 50$. This seemed really strange.
I tuck it in my wallet with the rest of my money (for some reason, all my money is in my wallet and not my bank) and put my wallet in my purse. I’ve had a bad feeling about this from the moment they showed up.
The rest of the cleaning crew is leaving and the man and his wife come up to my cube and she is not Hispanic. (Okay, everywhere I’ve worked in the last 6 years has had Hispanic cleaning crews. I’m not trying to stereotype. This is just an element from my life experience in this city.) She was also not part of the cleaning crew. I’m feeling gratified that there are a lot of accountants around right now so I’m not alone with them.
She demands her money. I don’t have ‘her’ money, but I do have a note the pastor left for them. (Why he snuck in and out I don’t know.) It is just a folded bit of paper and I’m trying to find it in all my receipts and cash and stuff. She keeps trying to peek around me and into my purse. She can’t so she finally tells me to hive her my purse.
“No. I am not giving you my purse. You do not need to look in my purse.” (the only direct line I can remember from the dream. She then gets all huffy and tries to act all official and like she is going to try to put me under citizen’s arrest or something. (I watched The Watch, it was rather boring.) I know she plans to rob me. I just cock my head at her and tell her she isn’t touching me or my purse and that I am going to call the police.
An accountant, hearing the argument, stops and hangs out near us. She doesn’t believe I will call the police. I pick up the phone and dial 911. As I’m doing this, I notice there are several bunches of carrots on the floor. I have no idea why they are there. I’m pondering this as the 911 operator answers the phone and I wake up.
What an awful place to wake up. I want to know what happened next. I’m really confused by the carrots. I really just want to know about those carrots. Who care about what would have happened next. I was ready to thow down with that woman.
31 Days of Halloween – “Re-Cycle”
Posted in Entertainment, Holiday, Movies and Theatre with tags Chinese, Devotion, Goals, Halloween, Haunting, Horror, Movies, Pang Brothers, Re-Cycled, Spirits, Supernatural, Surreal, Writing on October 14, 2010 by urbannightMy goal of doing something Halloween related every day failed miserably. I wanted the decorations out of storage on the first and didn’t get them out until the 12th. Three Tubs and half a box of Halloween décor, not counting the box full at work. I have one tub of Christmas décor. You can see which holiday has my devotion. The tubs have been stacked in the middle of the bedroom for two days now. I will work on that tonight.
Last night I went to a friend’s to watch a Chinese horror film. It received great reviews because it broke from the standard Hong Kong industry formula for Horror. That’s because it wasn’t’ exactly a horror film.
Re-Cycle
A novelist is at a press conference for the release of a film of her first trilogy, a romance in which the main characters die in the end. Therefore there love will be eternal and enduring and never ending. She also says she put some of herself into her female leads.
Her publicist announces the title and theme of her next book. A book she has not started and had not yet thought about. Now she has to start writing a supernatural novel named Recycle.
It doesn’t start well and her former lover has returned after 8 years. He was married when she was with him and he has now divorced. He had asked her to wait for him. She tells him that if she had waited for him she would have wasted 8 years of her life.
In the course writing, strange things start to happen as she starts to see the character she threw away and story elements she tests and discards. Then she finds herself pulled into another dimension, a dump of lost, forgotten, and abandoned things. Only two people really speak to her and they act as guides. One is an old man the other is a little girl.
The child helps her find her way back to the real world but can’t go with her because she will turn into a wandering spirit if she goes into the real world. She makes it back and sees herself at the computer, sending in her final revision. She tells her editor or publicist that she had to alter the main character because she put far to much of herself into the character and she had to change it to distance herself from it.
So does that mean the ‘her’ that made it back was a wandering spirit now? Because she was a story idea that got revised out and abandoned herself? This brings the ending of the movie back to a scary place.
But the center of the movie is less scary and very surreal. You find out that in the conversation with her former lover, she had revealed something painful and that was why they could not start over again and be together. It is probably why she had her lovers in her romance novel die in order to preserve their love. The strange world of abandoned things is a place in which she comes to terms with her own guilt and the choices she felt she had to make in her life. It reminded me of What Dreams May Come. It reminded my friend of Silent Hill, which I wanted to see but have not yet done so.
With the end shifting back into horror and two versions of the main character standing in the room together, it is a little confusing and you don’t know quite what it means. I would have preferred a less confusing end myself. But that is not at all uncommon in Chinese and Japanese horror films. Sometimes you see it in Korean Horror as well.
My friend kept saying it made it seem cyclical, like a cycle that was going to continue to repeat itself. I reminded her that the title was, after all, Re-Cycle. The clue was there the entire time.