Lovecraft Influences in Games Options

[Renee]

I finally sat down the other day and really read a Lovecraft story, Mammoth Cave, also known as The Beast in the Cave. Was surprised to learn he was only fourteen when he wrote this tale! So I decided to make a thread listing a variety of Lovecraft influences in Bethesda games, and here it is. I'm sure these influences can be found in other games, as well as other media altogether, so feel free to add these as you'd like as well.

It struck me though. The Beast in the Cave features a pale-skinned creature with snow-white hair, which the protagonist kills toward the end of the tale. Before he killed this creature, he could only hear its footfalls (he was in total darkness), and apparently the creature alternated between walking on two feet, and walking on four feet. After killing it, he managed to find the tour guide he'd gotten separated from. He and the guide were then able to return to the creature, and were able to see it with a torch.

At the very end of the tale, the protagonist describes the creature he'd killed as having once been a MAN!!! ... There is an implication that this MAN once lived aboveground, perhaps. Because it's impossible for him to have been born underground.

And to me, this sounds like a reference to the falmer of Skyrim, who also once were an aboveground-living race, called snow elves.

[Renee]

I read The Tomb the other day. Which tells of a lad named Jervas who discovers a half-hidden entrance to a crypt near (or nearby) his family's property. The entrance is locked, and the lad becomes fascinated with what could be inside. Sure, I can relate. He's a child. Imagination takes over. I can remember being a kid, roaming the woods behind our street, hoping to find a wild child; a boy or a girl native American who lived in the woods and had been cast away from society. I would discover this child. Teach him or her English or whatever. We'd come inside "Look mom! Here's my new friend!" Can they stay over for the night?"

Jervas begins visiting the Tomb whenever he can, sitting outside its locked entryway for hours, sometimes until night befalls. Eventually his fascination becomes obsession. He begins going mad, apparently.

Two things stand out. Actually three.

1). I love how the protagonist, Jervas Dudley, jumps right into the story. No backstory, hardly any preamble at all. He's already a mess by the time he's writing his morbid account.

The backstory comes a paragraph & two later. Jervas reveals his family is wealthy. And that he's grown up reading 'ancient and little-known books.' Must be nice.

2). This story also uses actual full names, rather interesting. Nowadays there are all sorts of disclaimers in works of fiction: the people and places mentioned in this story are not to be associated with anyone or anything real, and are the results of the author's pure imagination, or whatever. Wonder if Lovecraft, or the magazine (or whatever publication) The Tomb was published in, would've had to make a similar disclaimer.

3). Lovecraft uses the word "whilst" instead of while. I've been assuming whilst is a British word ever since I first heard Callidus Thorn and ghastley and others who are from the U.K. use whilst in our forums. Never ever have I heard anyone, any of my elder relatives, my grandparents for instance, who were born just after WWI, use the word whilst. But Lovecraft uses whilst instead of while.

So my question is, during his lifetime, would people be saying whilst, which got phased out during the 1920s and later? Or is this word being used because this story is supposed to be set back in the 1800s when whilst was still commonly said?

Anyway, Jervas predictably goes mad after finally breaking into the tomb, and laying within an open casket. The story loses focus, not that it's expected focus should remain; this is a Lovecraft tale after all. But still, it's unclear (to me) what exactly happens next; Jervas suddenly claims he's no longer a youth after this moment, suddenly he's the age of 21.

Henceforward I haunted the tomb each night; seeing, hearing, and doing things I must never reveal.

I love that he keeps some info to himself. He "must never reveal". Dude's gone wack, perhaps he doesn't want others to suffer whatever he's going through. Or maybe he fears being locked in an asylum. Heh. Too late for that, buddy.

And then a second horror took possession of my soul. Burnt alive to ashes, my body dispersed by the four winds, I might never lie in the tomb of the Hydes! Was not my coffin prepared for me? Had I not a right to rest till eternity amongst the descendants of Sir Geoffrey Hyde?

Seems he's been possessed. Living whatever Sir Hyde experienced.

Later Jervas gets rescued apparently by two locals. And then there it is: On the following day I was brought to this room with the barred windows... Good gosh, man!