Quote from: fonkaygarryI knocked blakkie out of a thread?

It's like a beautiful dream...

Kind of a shame actually.  This is the first productive thread I've seen blakkie post, and the first one that wasn't just baiting on Pundit or "traditional games".

Quote from: SettembriniSorry, I was genuinely interested.
:shrug:

Maybe I´ll get it someday.

Just popping back to let you know: I don't doubt you motives. Today just isn't going to be the day.

Quote from: SettembriniHuh?
Why are you meaningless only because there´s some kind of other, powerful, ununderstandable beings?

The ant is not meaningless because of humans. The ant is meaningless to me, and I´m meaningless to her.

You're young yet. You'll understand when you get older.

Quote from: RPGPunditWell, you're quite right as far as the Greeks are concerned.
However, I was using the term in its context in Religious Studies, which borrows it from Jungian psychology, where the term has been expanded to mean ancient and primitive non-personalized nature-worship in general, and not just cults of the earth.

RPGPundit

Got it. Religious Studies is the Forge of the mythology world.

Frikkin-frakkin jargon monkey flingers....


As for all this R'yleh stuff, I knew a girl from Raliegh once. Lovely young lady, Ba'hai, but I mean that in the best of possible ways.  No tenticles that I saw...

I think the problem here is that it's difficult to grasp just how mind-blasting the nature of the Lovecraftian universe is. Not only is humanity beneath the notice of the cosmic entities that move through the universe, but the very nature of that universe itself isn't remotely what humans think it is. We exist in a fragile little bubble of normalcy that someone can shatter by drawing some scribbles on a barn wall in the middle of nowhere. Peace of mind and total understanding simply are not compatible in the Lovecraftian universe.

QuoteWe exist in a fragile little bubble of normalcy that someone can shatter by drawing some scribbles on a barn wall in the middle of nowhere.

This is just a new form a pretty deterministic options.
Once I know that the scribbling has effects, it´s even reassuring our understandings of cause and effect.

Quote from: blakkieWe don't disagree. Because you went and used the 'S' word.

What I think you're trying to say here is that because I used the word 'scary' I'm completely missing the point.  I don't think that I am

The Cuthulu Mythos is based on two premises, on true and one false:

The first is that life is inherently meaningless and the universe composed of chaos that the human mind cannot comprehend.  This is true
The second is that if human beings genuinely get this they will go nuts.  This is false

Human beings are storytellers and storymakers.  We create stories to give our lives meaning and purpose, to explain why we do the things we do and to create order out of the chaos that surrounds us.  Some of these stories we label "science", some we label "art", some we label "culture" and some we label "religion".

The idea that when the stars are right Great Cuthulu will rise and kill us all is no more and no less horrific than the idea that an astroid could wipe out all intelligent life on this planet.  We deal with the second idea every day without so much as a twitch.  Why would the first idea be any more likely to drive us insane?

I think the problem is that people are confusing what Clute calls affect horror with horror itself.

Affect horror is the type of stuff you get in horror films and scary stories.  It's the stuff that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up or that makes you jump.

Horror is the moment of realisation that you are fucked... trapped... caught... doomed.  It's the moment at which your entire conception of how the world works comes crashing down around you and you see the absolute black hideousness of existence as it truely is.

Horror need not be affecting.

It's like the end of apocalypse now or Heart of Darkness when Kurtz goes "The Horror!  The Horror!" he is seeing reality as it truely is, beyond morals, beyond kindness, beyond human values... just raw and hideous and vast and indifferent.

Lovecraft's genius was in turning traditional ideas about the meaning of life on its head.  He lived in a time that was still heavily christianised and, even today, many argue that life without god is meaningless.  Lovecraft turned that idea on its head by presenting a universe that was FULL of gods, gods that you could reach out and touch and see and be eaten by but these gods simply didn't see you as being of any importance whatsoever.  They existed far outside of human conceptions and values.

The end of every Lovecraft story could well have had the protagonist sitting down and going "the horror! the horror!" because that is what they are experiencing.

Lovecraft writes literary horror, not spook stories.  Complaining that Lovecraft isn't scary misses the point somewhat.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalHorror is the moment of realisation that you are fucked... trapped... caught... doomed.  It's the moment at which your entire conception of how the world works comes crashing down around you and you see the absolute black hideousness of existence as it truely is.

The "long, dark, night of the soul."

A necessary part of your development as a human being.  Usually experienced at one of the transitions between two of the later Stages of Faith in Fowler's model.  Deadful to go through and almost as terrible to watch someone going through it, but perfectly normal.  There's a whole body of art about how go cope with it, starting with St. Thomas Moore and moving through the other medieval mystics to things like the music of Nick Cave today

What? You think you Existentalists invented it?

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalIt's like the end of apocalypse now or Heart of Darkness when Kurtz goes "The Horror!  The Horror!" he is seeing reality as it truely is, beyond morals, beyond kindness, beyond human values... just raw and hideous and vast and indifferent.

Lovecraft's genius was in turning traditional ideas about the meaning of life on its head.  He lived in a time that was still heavily christianised and, even today, many argue that life without god is meaningless.  Lovecraft turned that idea on its head by presenting a universe that was FULL of gods, gods that you could reach out and touch and see and be eaten by but these gods simply didn't see you as being of any importance whatsoever.  They existed far outside of human conceptions and values.

The end of every Lovecraft story could well have had the protagonist sitting down and going "the horror! the horror!" because that is what they are experiencing.

Lovecraft writes literary horror, not spook stories.  Complaining that Lovecraft isn't scary misses the point somewhat.

Spot on, exactly so, I like the whole distinction about affecting too.

Hastur, the medieval guys thought there was an answer, the difference with existentialism is that they realised there isn't.  The stoics and epicureans realised the same thing, but the existentialists are closer to our experience and so speak more directly to us today.

I'm with Set and Hastur. It's 2007, and the meaninglessness of my existence just doesn't freak me out. In fact, I think it's quite refreshing!

Quote from: droogI'm with Set and Hastur. It's 2007, and the meaninglessness of my existence just doesn't freak me out. In fact, I think it's quite refreshing!

Yeah, but you already have 0 san anyway.

Quote from: BalbinusYeah, but you already have 0 san anyway.

That's what drugs are for.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalHorror is the moment of realisation that you are fucked... trapped... caught... doomed.  It's the moment at which your entire conception of how the world works comes crashing down around you and you see the absolute black hideousness of existence as it truely is.

Lovecraft writes literary horror, not spook stories.  Complaining that Lovecraft isn't scary misses the point somewhat.

Yes! I came back because a revelation occured to me last night as I lay dreaming. KrakaJak's words finally sunk in.

Lovecraft is Death of a Salesman with tentacles. Do you find Death of a Salesman scary? If you were a 30+ year employee living hand-to-mouth and staring retirement square in the face you might. To the rest of us it is a tragety.  Willie Loman's last name is actually lifted from a minor character in an old B&W movie. A beat cop in a murder drama. Officer Loman's big scene was in a phonebooth on a Paris street desparately trying to phone in to HQ while the camera (the killer's eyes) close in on him and the last we see of Officer Loman is him turning around and having a look of "oh fuck, I'm fucked" on his face. Some, like Arthur Miller, would call it a look of horror.

Me, I've always found Death of a Salesman so very, very sad. With a mixture of pity and "you dumb fuck, Willie".

Quote from: Hastur T. FannonThe Cuthulu Mythos is based on two premises, on true and one false:

The first is that life is inherently meaningless and the universe composed of chaos that the human mind cannot comprehend. This is true
The second is that if human beings genuinely get this they will go nuts. This is false

You boldly state it is false. Like Setti you refuse to entertain the possibility that it is true. If you refuse to believe in the possibility of the supernatural of course it isn't scary. If you refused to believe that vampires existed or that snake venom could kill you or that a redhot branding iron could burn you you wouldn't have a twinge of fear of those either.

EDIT: You refuse to believe in the power of emotion to overcome you. But at one point you didn't believe it could reach you at all? Perhaps you once again underestimate?

Quote from: BalbinusYeah, but you already have 0 san anyway.

"The minor insanities you experience during initiation prepare you for the greater insanities to come." (paraphrase of Alan Moore, I think it's from "Magic Words")

Quote from: BalbinusHastur, the medieval guys thought there was an answer, the difference with existentialism is that they realised there isn't. The stoics and epicureans realised the same thing, but the existentialists are closer to our experience and so speak more directly to us today.

What the medieval mystics realised - what all mystics realise - is there is a way through what became known as existential horror.  Sure God (and by inference the whole of creation) is utterly alien and incomprehensible, but, you know, embrace the horror.  Sure you'll never be the same again, but it's a functional insanity as opposed to the gibber-gibber, underpants on head and pencils up nose, my old man's a mushroom insanity

Satre was a chicken

Incidentally, have you read "Ecclesiastes"?