LogFAQs > #961772413

brestugo posted...

Not simply by today's standards, Lovecraft was considered extremely racist for his time. Robert E. Howard (Conan) and others tried to get him to tone it down and tried to help him get published but he wouldn't change. He was basically broke when he died (ill health and mental illness didn't help either).

Shame because when he stuck to 'cosmic horror' - a genre he created - there's some good stuff there.

It's insanely funny to me that Robert E Howard of all people was made uncomfortable by it because the original Conan is some of the most uncomfortable stuff I've ever read with regards to race. Modern Conan media largely abandoned the worst aspects, but in its initial stages Hyborian Age was basically a gigantic race war, everyone's behavior was dictated by their race and there are even allusions to less fair skinned people being the descendants of ancient demons

Lovecraft was on a pathological level with it though. A weird combination of new england backwardness crashing into whatever mental problems he had and creating something awful