Of Frankenstein and his Monster

As a youth, I had very definite feelings about Frankenstein, both in book form and in film. These feelings were those of a lonely child who felt a kinship with outcasts, who thought being a weird kid meant she was on the same level as a creature stitched together from cadavers, and whose first published writing (thank you, Teen Ink!) was an essay on the fundamental sadness of the classic monster movie plot. Hell, I even got into college on the strength of a different essay about the relationship between monster movies and Greek Tragedy, and on the exhaustive earful I gave the phone interviewer who asked me the follow-up questions. (After listening to my explanation of the American racial politics that allowed Frankenstein's creature to be portrayed more sympathetically than Fu Manchu, the interviewer's reply was something to the extent of "You must give movies a lot of thought!")

So imagine my surprise when I re-watched the films and reread the book this past year and finally noticed how many children my beloved monster murdered.

Let's back up a little here. For those lacking familiarity with the book and movies, Frankenstein tells the story of a scientist who revives a creature made of dead bodies and brains. The book has him immediately abandon his creature when it jolts to life and he sees how ugly it is, the movies have him pressured by his colleagues to destroy his creation after they realize he mistakenly gave it the damaged brain of a madman. In both cases, the creature escapes and wreaks havoc, especially when the doctor refuses to create a mate for him. In the book, he is a rational and sensitive being, well aware of how cruel his rejection is, taking a very deliberate revenge on a society that has no place for him. The movies have him as an unspeaking (except for a few lines in the second movie) brute whose primal loneliness turns to bestial rage when he finds nobody can look at him without fear. Bride of Frankenstein has the doctor finally cave to him (and a flamboyant fellow mad scientist a little too interested in the mating habits of monsters) and build a wife; this wife takes one look at her husband and screeches, leaving him even more abandoned than before.

How cruel the doctor was, I thought as a girl. How could a man build a child and then not love him? How wicked the townspeople were, rejecting him because of his looks! How heartless the bride was for doing the same! And how tragic was my poor monster, who could have been so much more.

And now a few facts from these same media: in the book, the monster knowingly murders Frankenstein's brother and wife for the crime of being connected to him, and may have framed an innocent woman for the former crime. In the films, he has probably the highest bodycount of all the Universal monsters (or not- I haven't seen all the Wolfman movies, so let's say the jury's still out.) Some are accidents, some are clearly not. And the Bride's first moments of life are to look around and have strange men pushing her to the arms of large, hulking man with desire in his eyes.

I still feel sorry for the creature, who was given no chance. And I still feel that Frankenstein himself was monstrously (haha) irresponsible towards the fate of his creation. But things are no longer quite as black and white as they once were.

Rereading the book, I felt a great deal of pity for the doctor, clearly brilliant but consumed by impulsivity and obsession that tip into madness (if he were real, I might label him as a sufferer of severe bipolar disorder.) What a waste his genius went to! If only someone could have told him he was heading in the wrong direction in his search for immortality and artificial life. "Nanotechnology, dear boy! That's the way to go!" He'd have to invent the Difference Engine first, but what a story that would make...

Furthermore, he had good reason not to build the poor creature a mate. She rejects him in the film, and can I really blame her? What would this creation think, forced to mate with a beast, knowing her own ugliness and inability to join society? What would she do, bound by a bargain she had no part of? Would she really be a loving and faithful companion to her husband's travels, or would she strike out at him as he did at his creator, blaming him for her miserable existence?

The monster is a pitiable figure (and as long as I'm handing out armchair diagnoses, probably suffers from PTSD or Borderline Personality Disorder caused by childhood abandonment.) His troubles make his villainy understandable and relatable, but they don't make it excusable. In a kind society, he would be given counselors and rehabilitation, but perhaps not exoneration. If he's a morally complex character, it's because he plays the aggressor in addition to the victim.

I'm not sure what we can take from all of this. Maybe it's that moral ambiguity is better understood when one is older, or a good book or movie can give you different things each time you come back to it. Or maybe the only lesson is that romantic ladies and gentlemen of all ages like to overthink our monster stories.

Happy Dracula Day! (Or: Vamps in RPGs)

On this day in 1931, Dracula was released in theaters. What better reason needed to talk about vampires in rpgs? In addition to that, Holly's Horrorland is hosting a collection of Valentine's Day vampire posts, and such things are a perfect excuse for me to get off my ass and actually blog.

So let's take a look at some of the ways roleplaying games have handled such a classic monster, starting with probably the most famous example- and let's see what entirely subjective thoughts I have to offer.

World of Darkness (Vampire: The Masquerade, Vampire: The Requiem, etc.)

In the World of Darkness games, the world around you is one filled with secrets. As Tom Waits once sang, "everything you can think of is true," or nearly everything- the supernatural lurks around every corner and in every shadow, hidden from mortal eyes but visible in the trail of mystery and bloodshed they leave behind. Vampires, werewolves, changelings, mages, ghosts, even mummies and demons in Old World of Darkness- all exist, all are playable, and all are part of the way the world works.

Vampires are one of the main attractions of the World of Darkness games, and it's not hard to see why. They are powerful and immortal, and come with a range of archetypes you can play with. Old World of Darkness especially emphasized this, with separate clans allowing players to take inspiration from any number of classic vampire images and characters, from Renfield (Malkavian,) to Lestat (Toreadore,) to Count Orlock (Nosferatu,) to Dracula himself (Tzmisce.) New World of Darkness simplified things and whittled the clans down from thirteen to five, making the archetypes less restrictive though perhaps less characterful. Which system was better can be argued all day, and I'll leave that to other blogs.

My central problem with World of Darkness games in general can be found in the Vampire games- namely, that politicking can take precedence over all else. This isn't true of all the games (especially not Mortal ones,) and I imagine good Storytellers can and have found ways to use the feuding clans as backdrops for personal stories, rather than making the players simply powerful bureaucrats- or has found a way to make the latter fun. In any case, I tend to go to World of Darkness books for writing inspiration rather than game basis; with the powerful archetypes they draw up (especially their Middle Ages supplement,) many an idea or new twist can come to light.

Dungeons and Dragons

Dungeons and Dragons is pretty broad when it comes to vampires. They can be an enemy species in third edition, a player class in fourth edition, and who knows what fifth edition will bring. But for my money, the best place to find D&D vampires is in Ravenloft.

I've talked about the Ravenloft setting (and board game) before, so I'll just quickly touch on a few things. Dark powers have entrapped the most evil men and women from various worlds in a dark and misty landscape, possible to stumble into but near-impossible to escape from. The innocent live lives of fear, the wicked live lives of mixed power and torment, and those who fight against them have a long and hard road to travel. The most interesting aspect for me about their monsters (including vampires, which they give as an example) is that they go back to an old and little-used bit of folklore for them- while bites and curses can turn you, what's more likely to make you a monster is your own sins.

The little evils that player characters commit add up in Ravenloft. Every time they commit one, they must make a Powers Test, rolling to see if the dark powers have taken notice. The chances are higher for crimes like torture than they are for telling lies, but if you fail the role, you take one step in the direction of the monstrous. Perhaps you gain the ability to see in the dark, but find that direct sunlight causes you pain. It might not seem like much- your teammates might not even notice. But the more Powers Checks you fail, the more changes you go through- your teeth turn to fangs, you can only eat raw and bloody meat, your reflection vanishes from surfaces. Commit enough crimes and fail enough checks, and there will be nothing left of your humanity. You are a fiend from legend, a living nightmare, and a non-player character; only the DM can control you now, and only as a villain. The player will have to roll a new character, but what a bang the last one went out with!

My Life With Master

And now, on to the indies! My Life With Master is a narrativistic game, and cares more about storytelling mechanics than about stats for individual monster species. Nevertheless, the game provides suggestions for vampiric Masters, and with a few tweaks, player characters could also fall into such roles.

As I believe I've mentioned before, the premise of My Life With Master is that the players are minions to an evil tyrant, living in a world that resembles the movie version of Eastern Europe (preferably in a castle.) Your Master has needs and desires, which they rely upon you to provide for them. You have your own desires, though, chief among which is love. Can you find acceptance and common cause with the Master's victims and rise up against him, or will you come to a tragic end appropriate for gothic horror?

The rulebook gives a few examples of vampire Masters, and what their desires and personas might be. Feeder-types would be concerned primarily with the exchange of blood, but this could be either a purely dietary practice (the authors conjure up an image of Bela Lugosi swabbing his victim's necks with alcohol to prevent any nasty germs getting in the way) or it can be a sensual sort of feeding, with the Master playing the role of seducer, interested in draining more than simply blood. Your Master could also be a Breeder (wanting to create vampiric brides and progeny, perhaps even to spread their curse across the world,) and it's not hard to imagine one who's a Collector (adding up thralls and brides as if keeping score of their own power.)

It's also not hard to imagine vampiric player characters. Each minion has More Than Human and Less Than Human traits, which the vampire archetype could probably fit into. "Impervious to weapons, except those blessed by a priest" and "must kill and drain humans of blood, unless the blood is given freely" might work, but it's ultimately limited only by the players' creativity. It's not a game to go into if you're out of ideas, but if there was ever a game to play around with classic monsters, this is the one.

Unknown Armies

Remember what I said about World of Darkness games? Well, they are to urban fantasy games what Anne Rice was to vampire novels- not every game has to copy them, but every game has to accept their existence and define themselves next to them. Unknown Armies had to define itself as an urban fantasy/cosmic horror game separate from both World of Darkness and Call of Cthulhu, and one of the first things it did was scrap the concept of supernatural entities outside of humanity itself. Gods come from human imagination, magic comes from human madness, demons are dead humans with only their obsessions left in them, werewolves are attempts at possessing animals gone horribly wrong, and vampires? That's just a blood condition found in a few noble families from Eastern Europe.

But if Unknown Armies doesn't have any traditional vampires, it certainly keeps some of their basic concepts alive in some of its magic. Dipsomancers, magicians powered by drunkenness, can suck souls from unfortunate victims to keep themselves alive (an NPC novelist named Dirk Allen has been doing this to many of his unfortunate fans.) Epideromancers would certainly agree with Renfield that "the blood is the life"; they get power from ritualistic bleeding and self-harm, a hideous primal magic that tests the boundaries of life and death. Various spells exist for sapping the life or luck from a person, and to the mysterious Ordo Corpulentus, the difference between their "communion" and a vampire's would be small indeed.

Furthermore, think about this- vampires are popular right now. Girls like them, boys like complaining about how girls ruined them (a generalization, but that's how UA composite reality works.) Movie studios and booksellers are crazy for them, and subcultures exist that model themselves on them. With all that going on in the world, can the ascension of The Vampire be far off?

Food for thought!

Check out more vampire posts over here, and thanks to Holly's Horrorland for the theme!

What the Hell is a Nerd?

I tried to think of a more poetic title to use for this post, but that one sums it up the best. I first heard the word "nerd" when I was in elementary school, applied by another girl towards me; I wasn't sure what it meant, but knew it was bad. In the years since then, I've heard any number of meanings for it (or its close cousin, "geek") but am still fairly unsure. Moreover, I've found that casual use of the label, even towards oneself, comes with a whole host of baggage and problems.

One of my professors disapproves of using the word when children are nearby- adults may know it's not a bad thing, but children won't, and will fear being called those mean names if they show an interest in their schoolwork. I've heard others argue that nerd should remain an insult; that identity is all they had when they were younger, and it's infuriating when pretty girls or cool boys try to take that identity from them, wearing retro Nintendo t-shirts without knowing what it is to be picked on and excluded.

My initial problem with the word still stands- what the hell does it mean? Does it mean virginal scientists? Married Star Trek fans? Mensa members? Straight-A students? Boys who like Halo? Girls who like Harry Potter? Social rejects? Cute kids with glasses? Do you have to complete a long checklist that includes all of the above and more, or is it just a state of mind?

Labeling shouldn't be important, but all too often it is. Humans like forming tribes, and we like having ways to distinguish ourselves from others (or the other way around.) Expanding a label risks making it meaningless, and limiting it may mean kicking out people who "deserve" it just as much as we do (and is ultimately unenforceable in a court of law.) Given the unique range of characteristics in any given person, labels are generally incomplete to describe them (that Star Trek fan may have been a star football player in high school- does he still count as a nerd?) Labels can be insults applied to people we dislike, or they can be impossible standards we try to measure up to. (Jillian Venters, Headmistress of Gothic Charm School, has written about the folly of defining "how goth you are" by how you measure up to others.)

So what the hell is a nerd? I didn't know in first grade and I don't know now. I still use the word at times, but I've become much less confident about it. And I have learned, at the least, to be mindful of the company in which I say it.

Monster Movies to Check Out

I was going to make a Halloween blog post about the scariest movies I've seen, but all my favorite blogs have already done that. Besides, I haven't seen many classic slasher movies, so I might not be the best person to list scary movies. Instead, here are what I consider personal favorite interpretations of movie monsters. Some are scary, some are funny, some are just plain bizarre- maybe you'll find something among them!

Vampires



The fashions may not have aged well, but The Lost Boys is still one of my all-time favorite movies. Love the vampires (nasty and stylish,) love the slayers (tiny and nerdy,) love the music (especially the main theme.) I've seen this movie too many times for it to still scare me, but I did my share of screaming the first time around, and it's fun and witty enough to keep me coming back every time.

Werewolves



This movie isn't for everyone- it's more art house than proper horror, and the feminist fairy tale motif is layered on pretty thick. If that doesn't scare you off, though, track down a copy of this Red Riding Hood update, and enjoy a sensual, surreal nightmare of a movie. It's based on the work of Angela Carter (a writer I love,) and boasts the only werewolf transformation sequence to really send chills down my spine.

The Frankenstein Monster



The original Karloff movies are great, and I even like the Kenneth Branagh version, but Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks made what must be, in spirit, the truest movie to the original novel. The monster is lonely and frightened and desperate for love, and in this generation, he finally gets a Frankenstein who won't abandon him. It plays fair with monster movie tropes, and despite being a parody, it really feels like it could have been part of the Universal Studios Frankenstein series. And lest I forget, it's really, really funny.

Ghosts



Oh man, does this movie do a number on me. Guilliermo del Toro knows how to do beautiful, insidiously creepy ghost stories, terrifying me with nothing more than a child's laugh. The Orphanage also features surprisingly reasonable protagonists for a horror movie (my boyfriend and I cheered when the heroine actually- gasp!- called the police after finding evidence of foul play buried in the house.)

Mummies



When filmmakers try to make "romantic" Dracula adaptations, what they're actually doing is remaking this. An ancient monster rises from the grave to seek his reincarnated love, but in a welcome change of pace, she objects- she has a new life now, and he has no right to take it from her. The movie is sadly lacking in actual mummy action, but the first scene still stands as one of the all-time classic monster movie moments.

Aliens



Are they communists? Are they McCarthyists? Does it matter? Either way, the town of Santa Mira is being invaded by conformist aliens, and the increasingly futile struggle to escape is scary no matter what your political bent. They don't eat you or kidnap you, they just copy you and take away your personality- and sometimes, that's all aliens need to do to be frightening.

Zombies



I'm technically cheating here (the violent, mindless hordes in Pontypool aren't reanimated dead,) but I wanted to be able to plug this movie. I'm not usually a fan of zombie movies in general, but Pontypool takes the concept and twists it into something terrifyingly original. The very words we speak begin to get caught in our throats and drive us mad, and only a tiny Canadian radio station is safe- but for how long?

Bonus: Grab Bag



Silly, bloody and self-aware, this anthology film depicts the monsters faced in a small town on Halloween night. We've got ghosts, werewolves, pseudo-vampires, serial killers, and an adorably creepy child who might just be the spirit of ancient Samhain. If you can't make your mind up which monster you want to see the Halloween, put on this cult comedy-slasher and get 'em all in one package.

Sci-Fi with a Conscience?

What obligations does science fiction have?

This question occurred to me because of The Steampunk Bible. One of the essays contained therein was "Blowing Off Steam" by Catherynne M. Valente, and in it, she argued that a work must accurately portray the horrors of the Victorian era (unsafe factory conditions, terrifying societal change spurred on by technology) in order to be truly steampunk. "If you want Victoria in your coat pocket," she writes, "if you want the world that comes with her, all that possibility, all that terrible, arrogant, gorgeous technology, take it all, make it true, be honest and ruthless with it, or you're just gluing gears to your fingers and telling everyone you're a choo-choo train."

You can agree with her or not, but her objections to much of modern steampunk raise an important question. Steampunk might not exist without steam and children slaving away in dangerous factories, but by the same token, cyberpunk might not exist without futuristic sweatshops where people are paid pennies a day to make bionic implants. Pseudo-medieval fantasy can't exist without peasants and the feudal system. As we've known ever since Fritz Lang filmed Metropolis, Utopian societies generally require someone living in non-Utopian conditions to make them happen.

Is a writer of the fantastic under any obligation to portray this?

I've always disliked the idea that a writer "has" to write with a moral in mind- or that a writer "has" to do anything, for that matter. I don't think it's wrong to read or write escapist fiction, and to not want to be bothered by grim and dirty realities. I've also seen grittiness taken too far; one of my biggest problems with the Warhammer 40k universe is that the evils of all the factions are so exaggerated that it becomes hard for me to care about anyone winning at all. And I think we've all read enough preachy science fiction, or at least seen a bad episode of The Twilight Zone, to know how painful it can be trying to enjoy something that wants to lecture first, entertain second.

However, this doesn't mean I entirely disagree with the notion of sci-fi having a conscience. Harshly put as it was, Ms. Valente's point still stands; we can't fully appreciate the glamour of a setting unless we get a little bit of the grit. Any setting, whether historical or imaginary, can have the capacity for both horror and beauty, and the two often go hand in hand.

I don't think fiction has any obligations, but I do think that fiction is better when it is informed by the context in which it takes place. When the author knows what problems their characters will face in their day to day lives, and what problems go unseen by them on a regular basis, that provides for a much richer text. Discworld wouldn't be half as fun if the city of Ankh-Morpork wasn't a filthy mixture of medieval, Victorian, and modern urban blight, and the anachronistic blast that is Samurai Champloo wouldn't be as interesting to watch if one of the protagonists being an illiterate peasant never became an issue.

In short, I don't think you have to zero in on a society's problems in order to write a good story. But if you want to portray a rich and enveloping universe, you need to be aware that they exist.

Steampunk Ramblings

Another confession: I'm the sort of girl who wears bustle skirts and corsets in her everyday life- and judging from the internet, I'm not alone. Whether your interest is in neo-Victorian attire, old-fashioned pulp magazines, or retro-futuristic architecture, looking back to the past has become a popular "nerd" source of inspiration. Think of the Society for Creative Anachronism, and put the stress on the last word; most young nerds/hipsters/goths/whatever you want to call us are often less interested in faithful recreation than in taking bygone aesthetics and incorporating them into modern contexts. Perhaps the most famous form of this is the "steampunk" genre- a style of dress, literature, music and film that imagines a world somewhere between yesteryear and the distant future.

Source

To be less cryptic, "steampunk" is a subset of science fiction that imagines a Victorian era with futuristic technology (or sometimes a futuristic era with Victorian aesthetics and social conventions.) It was an offshoot of cyberpunk, a genre familiar to those who have read Snow Crash or watched The Matrix, but replaced the emphasis on computer power with an emphasis on steam power- a sky full of airships, coal-powered death rays, and brass goggles everywhere. The "punk" part of the name is somewhat misleading; it's a holdover from cyberpunk, rather than an indication that steampunk is about rebellion or grittiness (though it certainly can be.)

There are pitfalls of the genre, just as there are things about it I love. One of the most parodied aspects is a tendency to smother everything in gears, and it's never good when the story (or music, or gaming experience) takes second place to marveling at how cool the setting is. It has cliches and stereotypes, and outfits can be a real hassle to assemble, especially if you're no good at sewing.

Despite these problems, the steampunk genre holds a special place in my heart. I'm more glad than I can say that I live in an era of modern medicine and women's suffrage, but as an admitted romanticist, I can't help being drawn to a world of elegance and adventure, even one that never truly was. Looking to the past during visions of the future is more than understandable- it can be beautiful, creative, and lots of fun.

Interested? Try these...

Comics: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Honestly, I never liked this as much as I wanted to- I just couldn't stand what I felt it did to some of my favorite Victorian characters. But if you're more flexible regarding literature than I am, check out this much-loved spy thriller/dark adventure series, where secret agents from classic novels do battle to protect London from mad scientists, aliens, and more.

Novels: The Difference Engine pretty much started it all off, and The Diamond Age is a fun blurring of the boundaries between steampunk and cyberpunk. You can also go for romance novels with Soulless, and the other books in the Parasol Protectorate series.

Television: You can't talk about steampunk without mentioning Wild Wild West, where gentleman spies keep America safe with clever gadgets and dashing heroics. The campy film version bears almost no resemblance to the original, but is a guilty pleasure of mine.

Films: Disney's Treasure Planet goes the "future world with Victorian fashions" route, in an update of the Robert Louis Stevenson novel. You can also check out Back to the Future Part III- where else will you find a flying, time traveling train that runs on steam power?

Music: Rasputina, one of my favorite bands, uses electric cellos to make nearly unclassifiable rock songs with Victorian overtones. For a list of similar music, check out the Sepiachord website.

Roleplaying Games: If you liked Wild Wild West, give Deadlands a try- the dead are rising and sleeping monsters are awakening in the old west, and you're just a bunch of cowboys and scientists armed with gatling guns powered by the souls of the damned. If you prefer a European flavor to your steam, try Castle Falkenstein or Baron Munchausen; the former casts you as a Burroughs-esq pulp hero, and the latter...well, who the hell knows what the latter will cast you as.

Fashion: Gentlemen's Emporium is one of the best places on the web to get frock coats and frilly dresses, should you so choose. Clockwork Couture is a little inconsistent with their stock, but when they have good stuff, it's always beautiful.

Got any more recommendation? Feel I've completely misrepresented the genre? Let me know in the comments!

Looking for Love(craft) in all the Wrong Places

"Lovecraftian" is a common label to slap on horror games, movies, books and comics, and like many labels, it is simultaneously helpful and limiting. H.P. Lovecraft wrote stories about dark alien gods, expressing the terror he felt at the changing world and the intermixing of the foreign and the familiar. He created monsters that were at once aquatic and humanoid, masses of tentacles and mind-boggling angles, things that could drive a man mad to even contemplate. Lovecraftian horror is the fear that we are truly not alone in the universe; rather than inspiring religious devotion, Lovecraft used this feeling to suggest utter human insignificance.

Lovecraftian monsters such as Shoggoths, Deep Ones and even Great C'thlhu himself should be familiar to consumers of fantastical media. Whether in games (Call of C'thulhu, Trail of C'thulhu,) movies (The Dunwich Horror, Dagon) or in any of the many new stories set within the Lovecraft Mythos, new authors have worked to bring Lovecraft's visions to the modern age. Some of these products are quite good, but if I may offer my opinion, gamers and creators who want to truly tap into the Lovecraftian might want to venture off the path established by the man himself.

What do I mean by this? Well, C'thulhu and company were originally meant to be scary because they were strange and unfathomable. When you can buy plush toys of said monsters, that aura of the strange and unfathomable decreases significantly (not that I don't love some of those toys myself.) Lovecraft's stories were also full of rather dated (to put it kindly) anxieties that don't quite work for the modern horror afficianado; immigrants and their descendants have established that we're not going away any time soon, and tentacled monsters have become so commonplace in SF art that, far from boggling the mind, they inspire jokes about Japanese pornography.

There is still some terror and excitement to be had in traditional Lovecraftian fare, but if the above problems are too much for you, you can still enjoy media that take H.P.'s favorite concepts without using his specific creatures or stories. Consider Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In that television show, demons from other dimensions once ruled the earth, and their lines (and blood) mingled with those of humans to create vampires, humanoid abominations intent on reclaiming the Earth for their dark gods. That's almost a dead ringer for the plot of Shadow over Innsmouth, except that extraordinary humans such as Buffy and her friends are capable of fighting and defeating the monsters.

In his book Danse Macabre, Stephen King stated that he considered Alien to be, at heart, a supernatural Lovecraftian film. In this case, humans travel the stars and find the ancient gods rather than the other way around, but the end results are the same. Alien even shares the Freudian sexual terror at the heart of many Lovecraft stories, albiet with phallic and toothy rather than vaginal and squishy monsters. At the end of the first movie, heroine Ripley is in much the same position as the heroic boat captain of Call of C'thulhu- she has used her ship to save herself from the alien, but can there ever be a true victory over such a creature, or is she only delaying the inevitable?

Lovecraftian creatures don't even have to be malevolent to be creepy. The ghoulish humor of the film The Nightmare Before Christmas, the Addams Family television show, and the game Monsters and Other Childish Things relies on the idea of aberrant entities being merely curious about humanity, and driving people mad with what they consider harmless fun or even attempts to help. If that sounds like legends of the Fair Folk, you'd be right; remember that the word "eldritch" originally meant "elvish", and you'll see the routes of Lovecraft's aliens even in fairy tales.

Especially interesting is when you find Lovecraftian elements in stories that aren't meant to be horror-related at all. Oscar Wilde's short story The Birthday of the Infanta shares exactly the same plot twist as Lovecraft's The Outsider, only with a different pre-reveal mood. The Indiana Jones films show godly artifacts that bend and distort reality, best kept away from humanity's use for fear of the damage they could cause. Moreover, one of the quintessential American heroes has a backstory that, with only a few tweaks, could describe Dunwich's Wilbur Whateley.

The child of a dead species from a distant planet, he passes as human but is fundamentally not. His small town knew he was strange, but never guessed what he truly was. This alien boy eventually traveled to the frozen north, where, buried in the ice, he found the legacy of his parentage, and brought it back with him when he came back to the world of humanity. Human scientists can slow him down, but they will never truly be able to destroy him, or even comprehend what he is.

Superman is Earth's champion, for which we are very lucky. Like horror itself, the Lovecraftian can be found almost anywhere, and it only takes a little bit of reframing to bring it out.