Outsiders and Lovecraft

[Rubycon]

Hi,
simple question: Was HP Lovecraft trying to do the same to outsiders as Bram Stroker to Black Court Vampires by writing stories about them...?

[DFJunkie]

Well, there is WoJ that Lovecraft was On To Something, and it got him killed.  Also, that the Gatekeeper is the one who took out Abdul Alhazred, so at least part of the whole Cthulu mythos applies to the Dresdenverse.  I think Harry also mentions the Necronomicon as a book of rituals the WC broadly disseminated in nerf its power, but I can't remember which book (I think it was either BR or DB.)

[Masurao]

Hi,
simple question: Was HP Lovecraft trying to do the same to outsiders as Bram Stroker to Black Court Vampires by writing stories about them...?

Don't mistake Bram Stoker for the instigator, he got that book published and popularized because the White Council wanted it to. I think that Lovecraft was either an unwitting Outsider puppet, spreading knowledge to the populace, or he accidentally stumbled upon said knowledge and thought it might make a good story

[Drulinda]

Don't mistake Bram Stoker for the instigator, he got that book published and popularized because the White Council wanted it to. I think that Lovecraft was either an unwitting Outsider puppet, spreading knowledge to the populace, or he accidentally stumbled upon said knowledge and thought it might make a good story

One of jims last posts confirms it was actually the White Court that had Dracula published, though the poor blampires weren't aware of this until well after the fact.

[TheMouse]

Well, Outsiders as a group don't seem to have a weakness the way that the Black Court does. This makes it really difficult to out them to the world in order to take them down.

Then of course there's the fact that the things in Lovecraft's stories are rarely defeated. A witch here or a wizard there might be killed, but the horrible things from beyond the Earth are rarely even inconvenienced. Most of them barely seem to notice that humans are present at all.

Combine these two facts, and it seems exceedingly unlikely that Lovecraft was trying to out the Outsiders. If he was, he did a genuinely awful job of it. As a method of instruction, his stories were mostly how to die when something terrible decides to kill you. Thanks, Howard. I think I could have managed that myself.

I think that the path of least resistance goes one of 3 ways:

1. He was an author who wrote fiction. If he managed to hit any truths related to the Outsiders, it's more or less happenstance.

2. Either on his own or at the behest of someone else, Mr. Lovecraft was trying to put information out there as part of a plan to help one or more Outsiders enter the world. Whether this was successful or not is up in the air.

3. He was trying to warn people: Mess with this stuff, and it will go very poorly for you.

[Masurao]

One of jims last posts confirms it was actually the White Court that had Dracula published, though the poor blampires weren't aware of this until well after the fact.

Oops, must've mixed one WC up with the other... :0o

[Richard_Chilton]

You didn't.  In the original printing of the book in question it said White Council.  Since it was the same book that Jim accidentally changed the name of a character from book one, I can see him saying "I meant White Court" and meaning it.

Richard

[DFJunkie]

Well, Outsiders as a group don't seem to have a weakness the way that the Black Court does. This makes it really difficult to out them to the world in order to take them down.

Kinda yes, kinda no.  Most of the Mythos stories do end with catastrophe being averted by human action.  His stories could absolutely be a warning not to mess with this Stuff, but also a call to man up and stop other people from messing with Stuff.  Sure, you'll probably lose your sanity and/or be quietly assassinated by a vast and mysterious cult, but it beats the alternative. 

[Masurao]

You didn't.  In the original printing of the book in question it said White Council.  Since it was the same book that Jim accidentally changed the name of a character from book one, I can see him saying "I meant White Court" and meaning it.

Richard

Now I'm just curious: which character? If I've spotted this, then I've forgotten about it altogether

[TheMouse]

Most of the Mythos stories do end with catastrophe being averted by human action. 

I'd say that it mostly only looks that way from a human time scale. You can't objectively say that you averted a catastrophe when the things that intends to carry it out has -- from their perspective -- more or less hit the snooze bar and opted for 9 more minutes of sleep.

The best that you can really fairly say about the stories is that the protagonists sometimes manage to foist off the problem on future generations.

[devonapple]

While the White Council's modus operandi is to widely publish rituals to dilute their effectiveness, in "Backup" we find that

(click to show/hide)

publicizing Outsider-related lore would ironically serve to make it easier for the Outsiders to come back Inside by increasing public awareness and inadvertently feeding them - which the Venators, the secret core of the Venatori Umbrorum, fight, employing Thomas and Lara Raith, among others

, so if HPL *was* On To Something, then

(click to show/hide)

the Venators probably killed him, or perhaps even *employed* him to misinform the public

.

[DFJunkie]

The best that you can really fairly say about the stories is that the protagonists sometimes manage to foist off the problem on future generations.

If you assume the Mythos is true that's the best possible outcome.

[Rubycon]

Hehe... I like that thread!

So, assuming themouse is right and Lovecraft intended to warn others not to mess with outsiders, maybe he did that because at that time, the White Council thought of it as agood idea only to reverse it later...?

[Richard_Chilton]

Now I'm just curious: which character? If I've spotted this, then I've forgotten about it altogether

In book one, Harry leaves before a very angry Red Court Vampire attacks him and she summons one of her assistants / working girls / lovers to her.  That woman is killed and the Red Court Vampire blames Harry for her death - "If you hadn't had made me angry I wouldn't have killed her so it's all your fault".  Which is why in book 3 the vampire sets Harry up - she's being used as a pawn but for her it's personal.

The name of the woman who died? It depends on the book.  Jim got it wrong in book three and his editor didn't catch it.  There are several posts from him pointing out this mistake and that because of that he pays more attention to continuality.

Richard

[devonapple]

I automatically filled in the right name at the time I came across it, IIRC, but I was reading them in rapid succession as I played catch-up: I can see that having been disconcerting back when the books were several years apart.