• shalafi@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Lovecraft’s racism is what I call “hilarious racism”, if you’ll pardon the term. I’ve only ever thought that in connection with HP. He was very much a product of his times, as we all are. Eugenics was all the rage, and you can pick that out in his works.

      Lovecraft wasn’t merely racist against non-whites, he was racist against anyone who wasn’t of the “right stock”. He might snob you if you were a white man, living in Rhode Island, of English or German descent, but came from the wrong family tree. LOL, this guy rated humans like dog breeders rate bloodlines. OG Playa Hater’s Ball.

      And speaking of his times, look at when he wrote. We were just discovering how incomprehensibly monstrous the solar system was, how big the Milky Way was, just then understanding that we lived in a galaxy. And we didn’t know there were others. FFS, Pluto wasn’t discovered until 1930.

      Anyway, well worth reading his complete works. Good shit. Grab a copy off me.

      https://drive.google.com/open?id=1KLBK1QQPc5ZuKm6nlveswoWKGBI-Hjeo&usp=drive_fs

      • bort@feddit.de
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        11 months ago

        Anyway, well worth reading his complete works. Good shit. Grab a copy off me.

        There is a torrent for the audiobooks, narrated by Wayne June (the narrator from Darkest Dungeon).

        Wayne Junes reading Lovecraft is a match made in heaven. I strongly recommend giving it a try

        • sheogorath@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          When I got that side quest to internalize the racist shit he’s spouting I lost it. What a game.

          Edit: fuck, you just reminded me of the horribly racist 7’2" Dutch exchange student. The way he goes on to justify his racism is very similar to the guy at Disco Elysium.

          • Shyfer@ttrpg.network
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            11 months ago

            That part was hilarious. It’s so good that you can play as someone who can make all that racist shit make sense in your head lol.

            I’m curious about the 7’2" Dutch exchange student. I must have missed that story.

    • PonyOfWar@pawb.social
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      11 months ago

      Nah, his racism is well documented. Though if we want to talk about the cat in particular, it’s not known if he named it himself, when it went missing he was only 14.

    • VerseAndVermin@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Not that it matters at this point, but I saw somewhere that he had remorse for his racism later in life. Is this true? I have never seen anything to show it but I haven’t saught it out either.

      It’s kinda funny how some of my favorite board games are based upon the setting. I love that they are heavy with diversity. It makes me think of Stephen King’s writing book, he says a story is no longer yours once it’s out there.

      I’m glad Lovecraft made what he did, and that it’s so free tooled today. I think one day the Wizarding World will be the same (I refuse to keep calling the whole thing Harry Potter).

      • TSG_Asmodeus (he, him)@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Not that it matters at this point, but I saw somewhere that he had remorse for his racism later in life. Is this true?

        Keep in mind he died at 46, and at best went from “extremely racist” to “very racist.” His political views change, and I have always had a bit of a chuckle on his original assumptions:

        As a result of the Great Depression, Lovecraft reexamined his political views. Initially, he thought that affluent people would take on the characteristics of his ideal aristocracy and solve America’s problems. When this did not occur, he became a socialist.

    • Kit
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      11 months ago

      Wow I was going to post a spoiler of the cat’s name but nvm