Updated März 11, 2005

Every month, Pickman's Ponderings asks a different question for you to think about and answer, each dealing with the world of H.P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos. These questions are ongoing, each inheriting its own page within the NetherReal.

 The Question for today:

Evil Uncountered - Are you a purist? Do you believe that Lovecraft's original concept of "evil" is how the Mythos should remain, no counter to the evil of Cthulhu, just levels of hopelessness that plunges humanity into the black abyss of terror? (Evil is in the eye of the beholder as you'll see below. Even though the grand scheme of Lovecraft's creations did not include evil per se, the protagonists of all his stories were still human. As such, they weighed the effects of the creatures as evil in that what they did would destroy human kind if left unchecked.)

Good versus Evil a Necessity - Do you believe that the Mythos is, indeed, an evil and therefore nature demands a balance, a force of good that keeps things in check?

Here's your chance to let everyone know what you think. Don't be bashful, the more detail you give in your discussion, the more punch you give to your answer. Use the form at the end of this page to submit your thoughts on the subject and then check back later to see your answer.

The vote thus far:

Evil Uncountered
31
Good versus Evil a Necessity
10

Submitted By: Jon Eke
Email: eke@ukonline.co.uk 
I vote for Evil Uncountered because:

There is no hope, not just for the individuals in Lovecraft's stories, but for the entire Earth. It is a truly cosmic horror depicting a Universe that has no interest in the petty hopes and fears of Man. There's no one out there who's going to save you when the old Ones come. That makes for horror at a deep, even spiritual level. Most of the conventions of popular horror (vampires, werewolves, etc) just pale into insignificance by comparison. That's what makes Lovecraft's best work unique; it is genuinely post-modern.

Submitted By: Emmanuel Pailler
Email: epailler@voila.fr 
I vote for Evil Uncountered because:

Actually, the very word "evil" is not relevant. Once more, we perceive the Old Ones (etc.) as "evil" but how do chicken, cows and ants perceive us ? The concepts of good and evil are, naturally, only human : and who cares for mankind in HPL's stories ? The only dichotomy seems to be between the enlightened (such as Randolph Carter, who manages to see Yog's wisdom) and the "rabble" (us !) ,who fail to comprehend that the Good-Evil opposition does not even exist in the cosmos.

Submitted By: Shoggoth
I vote for Evil Uncountered because:

We should not look at the humans in H. P. Lovecraft's stories as being the good in the world. It should be seen more as "no one in the mythos is good." I see Humans in his stories as a neutral, caught in the middle of events which are taking place on higher levels of comprehension, so it becomes not a battle between good and evil, but a fight for survival among the natural laws of the universe.

Submitted By: AEM
I vote for Evil Uncountered because:

We are not only unimportant to the great scheme of things, it is illogical that beings would exist to do Good on an interplanetary scale. Evil is destructive, the Great Old Ones could simply go wherever they please destroying and acting in accordance with their nature. It makes no sense to have counterparts just for the sake of a perceived balance. Why should they care, anyway? There is no reason that can be given aside from claiming that good is needed for balance.

Submitted By: JUJU
I vote for Evil Uncountered because:

Lovecraft's view of evil uncountered is quite predictable. The Holy Scriptures write that no man can acknowledge God (Who in His wisdom has clothed Himself in righteous) without receiving first the Holy Spirit in Jesus. I do not think Mr. Lovecraft believed in Jesus. Therefore his view was set upon the darkness of evil, and man's inability to overcome it. Lovecraft saw only impending doom for man in light of such darkness. This view is the tool which disturbs our souls. Man cannot possibly overcome the evil of our life. Man is limited. We may know the direction we need to go in to do good. Yet we cannot achieve it. In contrast the evil we do not wish to do, we end up doing. This should terrify all of us. In this aspect, H.P. Lovecraft's works are quite effective.

Submitted By: One who is not to be named
I vote for Evil Uncountered because:

Humans are beings without a purpose. Within our minds (the 10% that most only use), we have created reason, when in fact there is no such thing. We are waste products spewed forth from the writhing coils of chaos, CHAOS in the CENTER of INFINITY. Chain reactions create chain reactions, so on and so forth. There is no such thing as balance, no good, no evil, for everything is one in the same. I am not proud to be a human, having to live in a world filled with walking pestilence- bearing corpses. Yet for now, I am entrapped in this seal of flesh. The ancients are forever slithering in my veins and coiling within my mind, yet this has forever and infinitely been going onward. Humans have always had the need to put labels on things. There is NO god, there is NO Satan, there is only nothingness. Eternal darkness. Close your eyes and you'll see. The wrath is never ending. It forever swims throughout the cosmical waters, beyond time and space, for neither time nor space exists, in dimensions far beyond the reach of the mind. We are but mere microscopic cells. We are NOTHING in comparison with NOTHING. The mythos provides the worthy with the ability to re-awaken the other 90% of our minds.

Submitted By: Chappell
Email: bufoetrana@earthlink.net 
I vote for Evil Uncountered because:

Good and evil are obviously relative terms. My killing and eating a deer is good for me and bad for the deer. We are such improbable and delicate heaps of atoms that there are far more "evil" forces than good ones in the universe. I saw a bumper sticker on a car recently that summed it up nicely:

"Be vigilant! For you are crunchy and good with ketchup!"

Submitted By: Matt Campbell
Email: noyzecore@hotmail.com 
I vote for Evil Uncountered because:

Lovecraft's stories were never meant to show "good vs. evil", rather, they were meant to give a feeling of great alienation. What most people take for granted is that when a human does something that is considered either "good" or "evil", we reach this conclusion because, as fellow humans, our brains think (mostly) along the same lines. Even sociopaths, who are only labeled so because their thinking drifts so far from the norm, can be understood if we take the time.

On the other hand, the creatures in the Mythos are so alien that there is no possible way that humans could understand their thought processes, much in the same way a bacteria does not understand human thinking. It's that fear of the unknown and (presumably) unknowable that gives H.P.L.'s stories their edge. Few writers that I have read have been able to capture that overwhelming sense of alienation and insignificance as well as he.

Submitted By: Mike D
Email: xphile101@bmts.com 
I vote for Evil Uncountered because:

In this Universe it's vast and for the large part Uncaring, thus Evil is a human concept when in Reality it means nothing. Human's also fail to the futility of their existence we create the illusions of good and evil to keep ourselves amused, we believe that we can overcome anything through the use of creative thinking and logic, not the case. In the End we don't even make a ripple on the Ocean of time which will continue to flow Eons after our existence has been purged from the universe

Submitted By: Buster
I vote for Evil Uncountered because:

When there is no Evil, what should the Good oppose ??

Submitted By: Perky
Email: perky@wataki.com 
I vote for Evil Uncountered because:

Good and Evil only exist in the minds of people. They are subjective value judgments, nothing more. Taking this stance, then no, a battle between Ultimate Good and Ultimate Evil isn't just unnecessary, it's impossible. The whole point of the Cthulhu mythos is that there is much more going on that has little to no regard towards our existence. Just because a person accepts the idea of an impersonal, universal Good and Evil, does not make it correct to apply that to stories which make no use of it.

Submitted By: Arthur Boff
Email: AJBoff@yahoo.com 
I vote for Evil Uncountered because:

Good vs. Evil is not as horrific as evil uncountered. Without exception I have found that the Mythos stories which include goody-goody Elder Gods or some other good force are not as frightening as those in which there is nothing but malignancy in the universe. Besides - the Elder Gods and stuff are based on Derleth misquoting Lovecraft - Derleth said that Lovecraft said that all his stories were based on the Old Ones being evil and being punished for using black magic, when what Lovecraft actually said was that his stories were based on "the fundamental premise that common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos-at-large." This quote is strong evidence for evil uncountered - and though later authors encompassed Good vs. Evil elements, all Mythos fiction is necessarily based on Lovecraft, who was himself a proponent of Evil Uncountered. Therefore Evil Uncountered is the "orthodox" view of the mythos, and Good vs Evil is merely a variant of the orthodox Mythos.

The only "good" force in Lovecraft's stories, and in the vast, vast majority of post-Lovecraft Mythos stories, are human beings. Human beings, it has been emphasized time and time again, are mere specks of dust compared to the Old Ones. Therefore, the Good force is infinitesimal - it may as well not exist, and evil is uncountered.

Submitted By: Benjamin Harrison
Email: drzava4532@aol.com 
I vote for Evil Uncountered because:

I submit my opinion under the category "evil uncountered" only because I feel that it is more accurate than the "good vs. evil" category. I believe that Lovecraft's intention was to show our place in the universe, and present us with a view that does not put human knowledge and intelligence at the center of the natural world. The universe, and its inhabitants, are not so much malign entities as they are indifferent ones. One of Lovecraft's main reasons for stating that we are fortunate in our ignorance of the cosmos is that the cosmos is wholly unconcerned with our welfare and achievements as a race. Does that make the Old Ones, the Yithians and Cthulhu itself evil? No; they are entities so entirely incomprehensible to our human intellect that we place them into categories that better suit our need to understand the unknown.

Submitted By: Howard Graves
Email: howardgraves@hotmail.com 
I vote for Evil Uncountered because: 

Why should there be any good forces opposing the evil ones? I don't like it, and I totally disagree with the people that vote for Good vs. Evil A Necessity. The main reason for this being, that a presence of a good force in Lovecraft's work simple dilutes the strong impact and horrifying aspect of the stories themselves. Leave my Lovecraftian universe a dark and hostile place!

Submitted By: Rob Wilde
I vote for Evil Uncountered because:

I've always felt that the term evil existed simply for people to pigeon-hole the darker side of human nature and ignore it as some sort of other. Good is a necessary opposition to this, a term in which people now seek comfort. Good and Evil are human constructs, and inherently judgmental. Lovecraft, as a human, wrote about things that people cannot hope to judge or understand. In dealing with anything larger, the cosmic horrors, there is simply no place for such terms, and Lovecraft stripped them away. The stories are fresher because of this, more honest, and I hazard to say it, but more realistic.

Submitted By: Lucas Peacock
I vote for Evil Uncountered because: 

In Lovecraft's stories, there is no God, no Satan; all are Yog-Sothoth. Yog is not evil, just alien, and so we cannot understand him/her/it. You see, Yog could be God, or Satan manifest (sic), but he has such power, such magnitude, that he becomes alien and frightening. The Christian concept of an Old Testament God is almost as horrifying, he is everything, he sees all and knows all and he will crush you for disobeying, just like Yog in my opinion, so who's to say Yog is just not God with out the intercessor (sic) Christ? You can't tell, because Lovecraft didn't want you to know.

Submitted By: Brent
Email: baron_@yahoo.com 
I vote for Evil Uncountered because:

There is something fundamental to the human psyche that there must be a balance in the universe. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

Lovecraft's work takes this concept and shows it to be as insignificant as is the race that believes in it. Humans cannot fathom the universe and its expanse without them being a party to its continuance.

It is so utterly alien to us as beings to mean nothing in the overall picture of the universe and anything that would disturb our notion of balance would be considered wrong and ultimately evil.

Perhaps there is a universal balance between opposing factions, but to say that any of them are good or evil would be irrelevant. To humans in a Lovecraftian universe, they would all be evil.

Submitted By: Anonymous
I vote for Evil Uncountered because:

Anyone who thinks there is good and evil in H.P. Lovecraft fiction has misunderstood all the stories. It's not about an evil devouring the world and people fighting it. It's about the irrelevancy of human importance in the grand scheme of the cosmos.

Submitted By: Anonymous
I vote for Evil Uncountered because:

Because it's simply real. A real life which exists everyday.

Submitted By: Luchenbach
Email Address: Lsioen@student.kulak.ac.be 
I vote for Evil Uncountered because:

Good and Evil are inventions by man to make society work. The mythos creatures are just different and that makes them scary.

By the way, if you want to know what it is all about, read the book. Especially what Old Castro said in The Call of Cthulhu.

Submitted By: TuGunMojo
Email Address: TuGunMojo@cs.com 
I vote for Evil Uncountered because:

The article submitted by Christian sums it up. I couldn't have said it better!

Submitted By: Anonymous
Email Address: Satan@theportal.to
I vote for Evil Uncountered because:

Lovecraft seemed to realize, at least subconsciously as evidenced in his stories, that good and evil are subjective terms. His creations are beyond any notion of good and evil, white versus black. They are for themselves, and not out to "get" humanity and the other animals on this ball of dirt, we just get in the way.

This kind of cosmic horror, where humanity's illusions of importance are shattered, are very effective mechanisms to horrify the mass population who harbor these illusions about themselves.

That is not to say that the "enlightened" ones can't enjoy the stories.....

Submitted By: D-Monic
Email Address: dmonic91@hotmail.com 
URL: http://hometown.aol.com/shuknnjivn/Parkavehistdist.html 
I vote for Evil Uncountered because:

Good is bounded by human perception of the limits of good, i.e., God.

The limits of evil have yet to be tested, and seem to be infinite in the realm of Lovecraft...And to this end I would proclaim that the evil of Lovecraft is infinite and thus uncountered.

Submitted By: Bazza Gosden
Email Address: yarns@globalnet.co.uk 
I vote for Evil Uncountered because:

The mythos is not good vs evil, it goes way beyond the concept of Good or Evil

Submitted By: J.B. Lee
Email Address: StoOdin101@aol.com 
I vote for Evil Uncountered because:

Actually it is not even an evil. It is an uncaring, mechanical universe. just like reality. Many people do good things all their life, but their reward may just as likely be Alzheimer's or getting caught in a tornado as fame and fortune. In Lovecraft's best stories this happens: the Gardners "walked uprightly in the Lord's ways", but that didn't help them when the thing in the meteorite came calling. And it isn't an evil thing, it is a thing based on laws and characteristics that are inevitably destructive to life as we know it. It may not even be intelligent, much less purposely malicious.

Cthulhu probably thought no more of the people that released it than you would of ants. Cthulhu is of some sort of intelligence, but probably so alien that there is no point of contact between us and it. We are just something lower on the food chain...

Submitted By: Dark One
Email Address: darkone@lukio.siilinjarvi.fi
URL: http://www.kolumbus.fi/sakari.paakkonen/ 
I vote for Evil Uncountered because:

There isn't good or evil

Submitted By: James Doughty
Email Address: jdoughty@calltech.com 
I vote for Evil Uncountered because:

Like you said-it's the hopelessness that makes Lovecraft's work so hard hitting. Furthermore, I've always thought of Lovecraft's evil aliens as evil only by human standards, while the aliens themselves may have a different idea (if any!) of what evil is. To them, they're just doing what aliens and monsters do! Therefore, opposition in the name of good should be non-existent, and THAT'S scary.

Submitted By: Anonymous
Email Address: byll99@yahoo.com 
I vote for Evil Uncountered because:

The crux of the horror is that we can perceive no hope. In our own personal battles there are no knights in shinning armor to come save us.

Submitted By: Jack C. Young
I vote for Evil Uncountered because:

Actually, HPL's professed materialism precludes any concept of good vs. evil. Of course the resulting mayhem was evil to the humans who were annihilated by it (whatever it might be) but the universe of all the stories is a mechanistic one. There is no God so how can there be a devil? Rather HPL seems to be delineating a vastly unknowable universe run by certain "laws". If certain ceremonies are practiced at certain times, it the rites are howled in their seasons, certain veils will be lifted or certain entities will break into our secure, self-contained illusion of a universe. HPL's cosmos is a Stephen Hawking universe where the dice are almost rolling themselves--therefore literally anything can happen.

I find this a much more effective method of storytelling because it takes a basic premise: That the entire universe will eventually be known through use of the scientific method and turns it on its head. We do live in a cosmos in which a substantial number of could be destroyed by a relatively tiny piece of matter from space. Or we might do it ourselves. Or maybe there really IS another dimension, or perhaps uncounted numbers of them. Who really knows? The stories are fun to read for those willing to suspend disbelief (for a time at least). That's all I've ever asked a story to be.

Submitted by: nik
Email: burninred5@aol.com 
I vote for Evil Uncountered because:

The powers in these stories are unmatched, they are only evil if you perceive them that way - lives of humans are inconsequential to beings that can sleep for eternity and have the power to crush a persons sanity with mere thought projection. The strong will survive and the weak define those that exercise their power over those that are weak as evil.

Submitted By: Ian Corrigan
Email: tredara@ncweb.com 
I vote fore Good vs. Evil because:

I think that many traditional concepts of Good and Evil can't really apply to the Mythos. However, a more Pagan approach may be illuminating.

The core conflict in the cosmos isn't G-v-E in the Judeo-Christian sense, it's things friendly and safe for mortals vs those that are poisonous and dangerous. The Gods and the Other Gods, in Pagan myth, intermarry, war, feast together, etc, with little distinction of kind between them. But clearly, some of them are the functional enemies of mortals - that makes them 'evil' in the only way that the term makes any sense - dangerous to us and ours.

That's what the Great Old Ones are like. They're the Elder Powers, contained Outside our little cosmos, for the safety of those within. I think that while HPL may have moved away from the idea of the Gods vs the Other Gods, it's clearly present in his early work - most overtly in the Dreamland, but also elsewhere.

HPL showed humans doing their best to counter and contain the Outer forces, even when it cost them their lives and sanity. He wrote of human sorcerers who stand against the powers, and implies that the Tomes *do* contain banishings and containments, though it's often difficult to use them in time.

The Outer powers are attractive and interesting to certain mortals, and the strongest may be able to get some good from them for a while. Buy HPL shows them as poisonous and voracious - bad masters, because they don't actually care a bit for mortal life or well-being, and may actually view us as food.

I think it's the conflict between HPL's protagonists (and readers) intuition of what is natural and clean, right and good, vs the alien wrongness of the Old Ones that provides the horror in many of his tales.

Submitted By: Selva - Devils Advocate
Email: triumverate@mediaone.com 
I vote for Good vs. Evil because:

This "Vote" is as inconsequential as the question. There is, undoubtedly, good and evil in the mythos. This is not because of any universal force of good or evil. (God vs. Satan. Light vs dark.) Indeed, Lovecraft's stories were all the more realistic because of the absence of such a universal force. Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth (Yes, I have no Idea how to spell it) couldn't possibly have cared less as far as we could tell. Perhaps in their own minds, they were the good guys. Perhaps they see themselves as exterminators, or just some normal people out on a picnic, and there are some ants that had to be stepped on.

However. The conflict of good and evil is still there because it is how humanity defines things. Humans will see evil in the destructive creatures of the mythos because they define anything destructive to them as evil. Thus, by this definition, those poor creatures (humans) who are the victims of the mythos creatures, are defined as good. The so called struggle between good and evil is unavoidable because both are the perceptions of humanity, and whether or not any so called "universal force" of good or evil exists, the fact of good and evil will be assigned to the creatures (Humans and Cthuloids alike) regardless. Thus, Good and evil do exist int he Lovecraft and Co. mythos. Humans (Characters in the stories and readers alike) put it there themselves.

Submitted By: Brooke. R. Johnson
Email: z_signal@hotmail.com 
I vote for Good vs. Evil because:

I am not really for the good and righteous elder gods in the terms of saviors of humanity, but I think their inclusion is needed to a point. O.K. at the moment they seem to be in favor of humanity but their view could change at any moment after all are we not merely the buzzing of flies to them, a minor annoyance or itch? And what if they decide to scratch that itch? What of humanity then?

But a balancing force is necessary for is not the universe a place of balance? Positive/negative, dark/light, predator/prey. So even as the zebra fears the lion does not the lion fear the hunter?. But who is to say that these beings really are good or evil, for these are human terms based upon human ideals and perspectives if we impose these up on the mythos are we not guilty of anthropomorphism, that is giving human attributes to the unhuman, and remember these beings in many cases are utterly alien or as far beyond humanity as we are beyond simple protozoa. Does an ant hold theological discussions with its fellows about the evil gardener who wishes to destroy them and their world in opposition to the pious entomologist who wishes to keep them safe and un molested? Probably not, but that is exactly what we are doing now. But here's something to think about. If the Elder gods really are defending humanity from the Great Old Ones, who is to say that it is not for their own dire purposes?

Submitted By: Nergal
URL: http://www.netcolony.com/arts/vercengetorx/Index.html 
I vote for Good vs. Evil because:

This is certainly an interesting argument. However, allow me to play the devils advocate here (heh, heh, pun intended). I think we as a race often misunderstand the fact that the balance between "good" and "evil" (probably the two most abstract thoughts/words in existence) is in effect, the balance of nature itself. As we have seen, not even the great old ones are powerful enough to withstand the effects of nature, i.e. R'lyeh taking the deep six and Cthulhu could do nothing about it. One could argue that since Cthulhu and his ilk were unable to circumvent natures wrath, they fall under nature's sway. And in nature, when one force oversteps it's bounds, and usurps the balance, nature creates a counteracting force to restore order. Thus we have the eternal battle of nature, the eternal battle of "good versus evil". Perhaps, in the distant path, "evil" did reign uncountered, and "good" was created as a result of it.

Another thesis: What is the meaning of "evil"? Are Cthulhu and his kin evil? Certainly, we would be like bugs to them. Cattle. If one squashes a bug, or has a big juicy steak for dinner, do we consider that evil? Of course not, since we place our fellow animals below ourselves. As such, if the bug or the cow were capable of thinking, and were aware of what we were doing, would they consider humanity evil? At best, I am inclined to quantify Cthulhu et al. as merely representations of humanity, and through his works, Lovecraft sought to confront the rest of his race with the question inherent in the human being : Are we truly as great as we think we are? Have we become so blind in our hubris that it takes a monstrosity like Cthulhu to realize what we are?

Submitted By: RJ
Email: thecrazymexican@yahoo.com 
I vote for Good vs. Evil because:

The universal constant of everything is 0. The reason being there is an equal amount of something and its counter-part. An equal amount of love, and an equal amount of hate; An equal amount of light and an equal amount of darkness. If this were not so, the world (read as everything that exists) would be not be balanced and this would cause a apocalyptic effect, leading to the end of the world. This is shown in Lovecraft's work, in that whenever a tragedy happens, some thing to counter it comes along as well.

Submitted By: Thd
I vote for Good vs. Evil because:

Both opinions are meaningless within the bounds of mythos, the point being that there is neither good nor evil (except at the human scale), simply that shit happens.

(This vote seems to belong in the Evil Uncountered section, but since it was submitted here, that's where I count it. -Ed)

Submitted by: James
Email: ostar_usa@yahoo.com 
I vote for Good vs. Evil because:

Granted, we don't see a traditional 'Good' God in Lovecraft. We do see plenty of malignant or uncaring beings, dedicated to destruction. Also many that just don't care about humanity, like we don't care about insect pests and killing them. And yet there are good actions and behavior, most of them admittedly futile. But that is due to humanity's weakness, not the weakness of good. If good deeds and behavior exist, there must be a corresponding force to give it existence. Just like the cosmic forces the malignant Mythos beings personify are seen in actions and behaviors.

We don't see it in the Mythos, but then we don't see atoms either.

Submitted By: Chris Telford
Email: chrisbus_telford@hotmail.co.uk 
I vote for Good vs. Evil because:

There should be good, and there always has been good in Lovecraftian stories. In The Thing on the Doorstep, Daniel Upton himself attempts to be the good force in opposition to the evil. The horror relies not on evil without good so much as evil despite good, with evil gaining the upper hand.

Cast Your Vote

Tell us what you're opinion is by using one of the two forms below. 
Don't be modest, let it all hang out and tell us what you really think.

(If you are under 18, DO NOT USE YOUR REAL NAME or enter a URL. It is now against the law in the U.S. for web sites to collect names of children under 18. Even though the NetherReal operates outside the U.S., lets keep it sane.)