Episodes 84-88 - The Shadow Over Innsmouth

[TheMediocreYoungishOne -Tom-]

Very cool ratspiral!

[mcglothlin.13]

To see some pics from the actual locations referenced in the story try this link:



http://www.flickr.com/photos/55086390@N06/sets/



semiosteve

Great pics!  I've seen plenty of pics online of old Providence (I've even taken some myself when I was there).  But you don't see too many pics of other areas that Lovecraft wrote about.  Thanks for sharing semiosteve.

[Bulbatron]

Just listened to the latest episode.  Bravo gentlemen, another superb show!

Couldn't stop laughing at your conversation from the beginning!  Don't know how many I could take out, perhaps we need a poll?  

I agree that it is kind of tragic the way some of the residents of Innsmouth are still trying to ware clothes as if they are human.  What I always wondered is, are Deep Ones simply humans that turned into what they are now, just like the townsfolk of Innsmouth, or are there 'pure' Deep Ones and then the hybrids - being those that used to be human.  If so, I wonder if there is any form of class devision, like the hybrids have to do the jobs like cleaning the toilets while the true Deep Ones just lounge about eating fish?

On a more serious note, the reason I wonder about this is due to the difficulty they seem to have with their movement and general mobility.  Many of them seem to be moving in different ways.  Does the mutation effect different people slightly differently?  I always kind of assumed that in fact, we never actually get to see a 'pure' Deep One.  I think the 'pure' Deep Ones would be just as adept on land as they are in the sea.  I reckon what the narrator saw were the townsfolk of Innsmouth who are still getting used to their new forms, and since they aren't pure Deep Ones, then maybe they'll never have the same grace as them, whether in or out of the water.  I wondered if the figures emerging from the water were more of Innsmouth's older inhabitants returning for this special occasion.

So yes, that's my theory for what it's worth.  We never actually get to see a 'pure' Deep One.

When I first read The Shadow Over Innsmouth, the word that came to mind as I read of the narrator's gradual acceptance of his hideous ancestry and then his desire to join them, having pretty much become one, was, 'monstrous' - in a good way.  It was just so disturbing and scary, the way he was at first repulsed by what he found in Innsmouth, only to later discover that he was a part of it.  I never considered the idea that the ending was, in a way, a happy one, for the narrator at least, but yes, I can understand why that could be seen as the case.  Yet again, I feel I should bring up the Dark Adventure Radio Theatre radio adaptation of this story, as they handle the ending really well.

As I think I said right at the beginning, as seems to have been the case with lots of people, this was really the story that got me interested in H. P. Lovecraft, albeit through the Call of Cthulhu - Dark Corners of the Earth game.  It was great to then read The Shadow Over Innsmouth and realise what a great story it was in its own right.  I definitely agree that this is Lovecraft at his very best, and to have an episode to discuss the story seems quite fitting to me, so I'll be looking forwards to that.

I may have to track down the stories which inspired The Shadow Over Innsmouth.  As I've said before, I'm particularly fond of horror stories that have a nautical theme.

In the meantime, I'll be looking forwards to next week's discussion.

[ratspiral]

If you use tickling as a means of distraction, 5 year olds would be no contest...

[PresidentManningsPeriwig]

Another fantastic series! Chad and Chris are the best!

On a side note, I am tremendously excited to have Robert Price back on next episode!!! I've been consuming his "Bible Geek" show for a couple weeks now (the dude puts out like 3-4 one-hour-plus episodes a WEEK, it's insane) and I love it, but i'm excited to hear him talk some serious Lovecraft again!

[Eric Lofgren]

I love this podcast to death. All the episodes. And there have been some definite stand out episodes. Shadow Over Innsmouth was by far the funniest, while still adding interest to the topic of HP and his stories. Well done guys!

The idea that the ending is a happy one and that the Deep Ones might actually not be a threat to humanity has never occurred to me until now. And when you think of it, the whole story is told from the human perspective. Perhaps the perspective from the Deep Ones might be quite a bit different. Although we do get a taste of that at the end. And really, what's described to the narrator by way of his Grandmother actually does sound like heaven. At least some sort of enlightened state. How can that be bad? Who wouldn't want the opportunity to live forever, fully content in your place in the universe? And as for the village that was destroyed in the South Seas, if I recall correctly, that was implied because no one was found there when Marsh returned. That could simply mean that everyone decided to accept the oaths and take their immortal place in the ocean, couldn't it?

Ultimately, the narrator accepts his fate, while presumably at the same time Innsmouth and Devil's Reef are being destroyed by humans and the inhabitants of Innsmouth are shipped off to interment camps (or worse). Who really are the bad guys here?   

Anyway, awesome food for thought. I can not wait for next week!      

[Bob Lovecraft]

I agree that it is kind of tragic the way some of the residents of Innsmouth are still trying to ware clothes as if they are human.  What I always wondered is, are Deep Ones simply humans that turned into what they are now, just like the townsfolk of Innsmouth, or are there 'pure' Deep Ones and then the hybrids - being those that used to be human.  If so, I wonder if there is any form of class devision, like the hybrids have to do the jobs like cleaning the toilets while the true Deep Ones just lounge about eating fish?

On a more serious note, the reason I wonder about this is due to the difficulty they seem to have with their movement and general mobility.  Many of them seem to be moving in different ways.  Does the mutation effect different people slightly differently?  I always kind of assumed that in fact, we never actually get to see a 'pure' Deep One.  I think the 'pure' Deep Ones would be just as adept on land as they are in the sea.  I reckon what the narrator saw were the townsfolk of Innsmouth who are still getting used to their new forms, and since they aren't pure Deep Ones, then maybe they'll never have the same grace as them, whether in or out of the water.  I wondered if the figures emerging from the water were more of Innsmouth's older inhabitants returning for this special occasion.

You bring up some really good points here, Bulbatron. I think it is important to remember that simply taking the oaths of Dagon and worshiping the Deep Ones, or at least being in cahoots with them, does not grant anyone immortality. You have to be the offspring of a Deep One/Human mating to ever be anything but a cultist. Be that as it may, I've always liked the image of the more developed (degenerated?) hybrids still clinging to human ways and fashions. It made me wonder, and your idea about "pure" Deep Ones gives me even more food for thought, that no matter how advanced your mutation is, you are still a hybrid, and thus still a Deep One. Hell you could move to Utah and you would probably STILL grow gills and the like. But again, I've always thought that everyone develops different features at different rates.

This leads to the idea that you brought up of the horde from the sea being the past citizens of Innsmouth actually coming back for the narrator's initiation or capture. I love that idea! It never occurred to me that those hybrids were anything but generic Deep One hybrid monstrosities. The image of the underside of Devil's Reef being inhabited and developed by former townsfolk who still love their former town is a very poignant one indeed. I have always thought that there are no such things as "pure" Deep Ones, and that the earliest members of the "race" were those humans who venerated Dagon and Hybra and accepted their gifts, thus being "blessed" with transformation and the ability to "go back to the sea." Thus the oldest of the Deep Ones would be the most aquatic, but still have small shreds of humanity, like a general humanoid shape and symmetry. I don't, however, think HPL ever intended there to be a class system of Deep Ones with the hybrids being the lower class. If that were the case, there would be wars and revolts and whatnot, and the Deep Ones seem to be pretty united, at least by the shreds we are given in the story.

Anyway, good episode. And just for the record, I think I could take down a few dozen 5 year-olds. I don't really like children and I have no problem using one to club others concussed heaps.

Bob

[kulain]

I have always really enjoyed the last line of this story, it seems so poignant to me. I think it is really well portrayed in the ending to the "Dagon" movie as well.

I don't think this sentiment of returning to ancestry is new to Lovecraft, as he has used it in the ending of The Outsider. On discovering that he is the "other" the protagonist embraces it fully and hangs out with ghouls. This also happens to Pickmen in the dream story as he becomes a ghoul, and to a degree the guy in rats in the walls when he starts eating white pulpy dudes.

Personally I don't see the deep ones as being particularly malevolent or wanting to destroy humanity, it seems like they just want to be left alone. I wonder how welcome this guy will be when he goes down there, as he is the one who caused all this bad stuff to happen to the deep ones, blowing up devils reef and such. There is a Brian Lumley story which I think expands on this which is decent, I forget the name though :/

[Genus Unknown]

Personally I don't see the deep ones as being particularly malevolent or wanting to destroy humanity, it seems like they just want to be left alone.

Except for the part where they storm in and take over Innsmouth because they weren't getting any human sacrifices.

[kulain]

Personally I don't see the deep ones as being particularly malevolent or wanting to destroy humanity, it seems like they just want to be left alone.

Except for the part where they storm in and take over Innsmouth because they weren't getting any human sacrifices.

townspeople shouldn't have renegaded on their deal

[catamount]

Yeah, what ARE they doing with those Shoggoths anyway?

[Bob Lovecraft]

Yea, it is hard for me to accept a point about nonviolence on the part of the Deep Ones when they wiped out half of the town just to prove a point. I definitely think these things need to be wiped out. And besides, the narrator is probably dead anyway. By the end of the story he says that he has acquired the Innsmouth Look, but says nothing about gills. So how is he going to breathe underwater at this point? I've always thought he ended up dead just after breaking his cousin out of the sanitarium. He says he doesn't think he needs to wait for the entire change, but there is a reason Innsmouth is full of half-humans, and that reason is that they can't survive underwater yet.. Personally I love the iea of him getting way too overzealous and killing himself in his mania.

Bob

[Bulbatron]

You bring up some really good points here, Bulbatron. I think it is important to remember that simply taking the oaths of Dagon and worshiping the Deep Ones, or at least being in cahoots with them, does not grant anyone immortality. You have to be the offspring of a Deep One/Human mating to ever be anything but a cultist. Be that as it may, I've always liked the image of the more developed (degenerated?) hybrids still clinging to human ways and fashions. It made me wonder, and your idea about "pure" Deep Ones gives me even more food for thought, that no matter how advanced your mutation is, you are still a hybrid, and thus still a Deep One. Hell you could move to Utah and you would probably STILL grow gills and the like. But again, I've always thought that everyone develops different features at different rates.

This leads to the idea that you brought up of the horde from the sea being the past citizens of Innsmouth actually coming back for the narrator's initiation or capture. I love that idea! It never occurred to me that those hybrids were anything but generic Deep One hybrid monstrosities. The image of the underside of Devil's Reef being inhabited and developed by former townsfolk who still love their former town is a very poignant one indeed. I have always thought that there are no such things as "pure" Deep Ones, and that the earliest members of the "race" were those humans who venerated Dagon and Hybra and accepted their gifts, thus being "blessed" with transformation and the ability to "go back to the sea." Thus the oldest of the Deep Ones would be the most aquatic, but still have small shreds of humanity, like a general humanoid shape and symmetry. I don't, however, think HPL ever intended there to be a class system of Deep Ones with the hybrids being the lower class. If that were the case, there would be wars and revolts and whatnot, and the Deep Ones seem to be pretty united, at least by the shreds we are given in the story.

I'm sure Lovecraft didn't intend half the theories we come up with ever to be considered, but I like to imagine these extra dimensions to the stories.  I bet a lot of us are guilty of that.

I wasn't really serious about the class thing, for as you point out, at least one of the parents' of the hybrids would probably have been a 'pure' Deep One.  Having a human do the dirty with a hybrid would just end up gradually breeding out the Deep One genes - or so I would assume.  So I wouldn't have thought they'd look down on hybrids for that reason, they are at least part Deep One, and again, as you point out, they all seem pretty united.

I still like the idea that we never see a 'pure' Deep One in the story.  We only get to see the hybrids.  This leaves the 'pure' Deep Ones as another unseen menace...

Regarding the Shoggoths, my interpretation is that the Deep Ones are indeed using them as some kind of instrument of war.  Perhaps not yet on a global scale and perhaps their plan was nowhere near fruition at the time of the story.  As Zadok said, it wasn't what they'd already done that scared him, it was what they were going to do...  Did he have some terrible notion of what they might have been planning?

Even if they weren't using the Shoggoths for offensive perposes, after the raid on Innsmouth and the submarine attack, I'd say all bets are off!  If destroying mankind was something they simply couldn't be bothered to do before, who knows what their attitude might be now they've been attacked?  It seems to me that the raid and submarine attack would only really achieve one thing with the Deep Ones, and that's to piss them off!

And as others have speculated, if the narrator did manage to return 'home', would he be greeted with open fins, or perhaps made to do some form of pennance before being accepted?

Right, I'm off to listen to the DART adaptation - again!

[TheMediocreYoungishOne -Tom-]

Maybe the shoggoths are used in the mating process as a sort of shape-shifting adapter to go between the genitals and whatever bits the Deep Ones have.

[hsparks]

Yes, there's actually a website to calculate how many you can take...

http://www.howmanyfiveyearoldscouldyoutakeinafight.com/