Rats In The Walls
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- čas přidán 23. 09. 2021
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"What a place. I could feel the rats in the walls. Hell, I could SEE the rats in the walls. In fact, some of them had come out of the walls and were sitting at the tables." -- Lewton, Discworld Noir
Hey Sandy. It turns out that the cat was actually renamed at least once. I've read that the story was reprinted in a magazine called Zest in the 1950s and the cat was renamed to "Black Tom".
Can you do the lost city next I really want you to explain the imortal ghost lizards to me
That's one I remember hearing.
Progressive 1950s.
Hurrah!
10:00 "So, you know, yuck." Well said sir.
thanks! I feel that such dismissal is often the correct answer to old time errors. Rather than talking over and over about them and trying to understand them and so forth. The ancient Roman priests of Cybele were humans, and we know how humans are, so these guys must have been bonkers and that's that.
Rats in the Wall, Shadow over Innsmouth, The Colour out of Space. I consider these to be the trinity of the greatest Lovecraft stories.
I cannot say you are wrong, but if we ever meet in person I will try to pitch the greatness of At The Mountains of Madness and The Dunwich Horror to you. I realize Lovecraft himself was underwhelmed by The Dunwich Horror.
@@SandyofCthulhu At The Mountains of Madness is one of my favorites.
I think I am an atypical Lovecraft fan in that I love The Tomb and From Beyond ... but yes I also cannot deny The Colour our of Space and would place it among my top 3 as well.
@@SandyofCthulhu
In terms of short stories, _Pickman's Model_ and _The Unnameable_ also warrant honorable mention.
Late to the party, but I very much enjoyed The Thing On The Doorstep as well. While Colour is probably my favourite [thus far, I am not through them all yet]. Agree with all other pics here as well, formidable taste on display.
Also what I found fascinating (and tragic) about the bloodline theme is that Lovecraft was terrified of going insane himself, as both his parents were committed to - and died in - a mental hospital.
yes that must have impacted him. In teh same way that his fear of cold and seafood did.
He seemed to be afraid of everything.
Dang, I had no idea the story was that deep. I always kinda glossed that part because it didn't know what it meant. Thanks for explaining that.
I admit the ideas here are not original with me. Others have perceived it. Heck, Robert E. Howard noticed.
@@SandyofCthulhu heh heard of the pictish slab discovered at Wester Ross recently? how isnt the world all over it??
Ungl ungl just reminded me of Ungol, Cirith Ungol, Ungoliant. Something about ancient primordial spider demons feels appropriate somehow.
agree 100%
A problem with the long history of cannibalism is that cannibalism results in Kuru, the neurodegenerative disorder. A family that practiced it for that long would most likely have driven themselves to extinction because of it. At least if they ate the brains as well.
Except that ....
1) We have several biochemical mechanisms which provide partial protection from cannibalism-related diseases which has been considered evidence for decades that it was more widespread in prehistoric times
2) We have plenty of evidence of relatively common cannibalism from the Aztec, the Maori, and parts of the Philippines to the Fore, a good half dozen large North American tribes, large parts of Polynesia, societies like the Panther Men in West Africa and more. We do not see evidence of them dying out from prion diseases due to the practice.
3) Archaeological/paleontological evidence of human bones being cooked and split with marks consistent with food preparation
4) Medical cannibalism was common in Europe well into the 19th century
5) For a while it was fashionable to say that cannibalism other than under extreme duress was racist fabrication by European reporters. While there certainly was some of this the case has been shown to be wildly overstated.
I was at a conference on combative traditions of Southeast Asia and Oceania just pre-COVID. It was interesting to see Filipino, Maori, Malay, and Polynesian participants talking very matter-of-factly about how it was part of their traditions and the various social, martial, religious, and even pedagogical uses it was put to. In at least one case it continued to this day. When people are around others who understand the context of a subject they can be remarkably frank about things they would otherwise not talk about so freely.
It's really the brains where this is dangerous, so I presume that in any culture where cannibalism occurs, it's understood to not eat it.
@@0neDoomedSpaceMarine Just like you learn to blanch potato leaves and not eat parts of the puffer fish.
I thought Kuru was only in New Guinea .Plus the Fore weren't "real" cannibals. They only ate deceased family members. They didn't hunt and kill other people for food.
While Black Tom seems to be the de facto change to the cat’s name, I have a soft spot for the far more clunky Mr. Blackman; partly because of its absurdity, and partly because I’ve only ever encountered it in Wayne June’s excellent narration of the story.
But Blackman is an actual family name despite being "clunky."
As an Irish speaker I remember when I read this story at first I was so shocked to see some of my language in a Lovecraft story, it was so cool! Made me feel like I had some forbidden knowledge 😉
And you DO. Read The Moon Bog for more Irish shenanigans
@@SandyofCthulhu love the moon bog! currently writing a short campaign for Halloween using Call of Cthulhu set in Ireland in the 1980s, there will be plenty of bog bodies, banshees, catholic priests, superstitious locals and ancient passage tombs. Really excited to run it!
Irish here, read it aloud with my girlfriend. Very good story, would recommend. We live quite close to a location in the story. Weird stuff.
I'm convinced Lovecraft was influenced by the arguments about the Irish language holding some special knowledge from the Irish Literary Revival via Lord Dunsany.
Hey, perhaps my favorite and most underrated Lovecraft short story. Neat.
Yes I agree.
if you have rats in the wall ,call the cats of Ulthar
Fun analysis! I must have originally read an altered version of the story- the car was named “blackie” ( a black cat) it wasn’t until many years laters I saw the original name of the cat 🐈⬛
I guess my idea that the cat needs to be renamed has been followed lots of times. I always read original sources so had no idea.
Loved the short after credits snippet!
Of course it's just a silly joke I told my granddaughters. My son who was filming me decided to leave it in as an homage to his nieces.
I acquired a dusty LP of a reading of this and other stories from a library sale back in the late 80s. Between the Robin Hood Swords of Weyland episodes and this story I made a whole campaign of semi-monastic Wererat cults and assassins.
I have two cats, translated names are "Bear" and "Scrappy". Bear likes to steal miniatures from my board games when we play and run away with them while Scrappy will plant herself smack dab in the middle of the table messing up tokens and pieces. They are lovely but it can be somewhat annoying, animals are great!
I was playing a wargame on the floor and my cat needed to chase the dice which also scattered all the counters Argh. The worst my current pet does is leap up to lick my face if I bend over too far (she's a dog).
I literally jumped when Sandy said fuck.
Damn Mormons. All hypocrites! He probably drank too much coffee. =P
@@fleetcenturion That would make him a double hypocrite, because LDS members aren't allowed to drink "hot beverages," which specifically refers to coffee, tea, and soda (anything with caffeine).
But jokes aside, people are allowed to practice their religion how ever they see fit, so long as they don't harm anyone else in the process.
@@alexanderchippel - Um, yeah. That's why I included the coffee joke.
Come on man, spoilers
I do not remember saying the F bomb in my lecture! Guess I'll have to go back and find it.
Please explain all the Lovecraft stories, sometimes they're hard to understand when reading them
I made a start.
@@SandyofCthulhu THANK YOU !!!
I still remember picking up and buying my first Lovecraft collection on impulse back in 2003 (mostly because I'd seen his name come up in movie taglines and wanted to see what the big deal was). While I've since lost the book in question, I distinctly remember that _Rats in the Walls_ was the first story in the collection, and thus the first story of Lovecraft I ever read...
Honestly, the cat's name never bothered me. Granted, at the time, I was completely oblivious to Lovecraft's infamous bigotry (Hell, I didn't even bother reading the introduction). But I could tell from the beginning that the story was written and set in a period when said name would not have been considered taboo. I mean, the protagonist's son was maimed during "The Great War," and said protagonist had survived the American Civil War--coming from the South, no less. If anything, one would _expect_ someone from such a background during that period to use a name like that for a black cat, with or without any real underlying racial animus.
Something that so many people forget is that *the past is a foreign country.* Ideas and social norms change over time, and judging past generations solely through the rubric of modern sensibilities is myopia bordering on hubris.
great to see some rat love, they are amazing pets
You should do a deep dive on the elder thing and there technology and history
I've made a couple passes at them. Maybe not one just focused on them alone.
This is great stuff. My first exposure to Lovecraft was through internet message boards in the late 90's and I went to my local bookshop and ordered in the Granada Publishing Omnibus' to read them. It felt like I was doing something forbidden and secret since no one else in my circle of friends seemed to know who Lovecraft was and it was something that wasn't on the shelves. The Rats in the Walls really stuck with me and I had no idea that the languages spoken within were historically accurate.
I'd say it is still forbidden and secret knowledge. Sounds like you followed my own path to madness.
Hehehe
That joke at the end got me
This was my first ever lovecraft story, it’s a perfect window into the mythos
agreed, though not my first HPL tale.
SANDY GOT CHICKEN JOKES NOW!!!....LOVE IT!!!!
Hey Sandy, I created a 40-minute video about the whole story and its jungian interpretation, especially what the architecture getting older means. CG Jung actually had a dream in the same time that is very similar to rats in the wal
Thank you so much for the inspiration for that and also all the fun I had with your multiple game creations. Your the goat!
One of the highlights of my Friday! Thanks!
Excellent video. Thank you, Sandy!
Okay, this story has been on my radar for a while, now it's in my sights. Thanks, Sandy! I got some quality lit ahead of me, this weekend.
I love animals, and I can definitely see the attraction of a pet rat.
...both in the human sense and the feline one XD
I love both cats AND rats.
Thank you Duolingo for a wee understanding of the Gaeilge!
This and the Color (not British, sorry) Out of Space were the first stories of Lovecraft I read. The memory of the herdsman in the grotto still rank with the greatest pieces of horror imagery I've experienced, milage may vary I was quite young.
I grew up on rural farm so I never noticed anything odd about the cat when I first read it, it took me until I was older going to middle school in the city to realize that was even an offensive term, and my dad's friend actually had a cat with the same name. So yeah....
Hey I'm not Commonwealth either but I use the word Colour with reference to the title of this story because it's what Lovecraft named it.
First Lovecraft story I ever read (thanks Best of H. P. LOVECRAFT)! It was particularly effective since I grew up in a Victorian house... with rats in the walls! There was once a small nest and I could hear 'em near the headboard of my bed. Yeah! Try sleeping when you hear something gnawing near your left ear! And OH the nightmares I used to have!!!
Oh yeah. I've lived in a rat-infested house too. I admit that rats as pests are a bane.
Nuclear hand-grenade 😂 that is am excellent summary
You are radioactive no matter how far you lob it
It’s more like a magic spell, like Abracadabra, or Shazam!
Missed the premiere by a paltry few minutes, but this is peak Petersen!
whoa. Thanks sir.
i love this story, thanks a lot for your explanation of it.
Thank you so much for making these videos! As a fan of Lovecraft's stories I really appreciate it
You are my target audience.
This is such an interesting channel! This came up randomly in my feed along with dozens of vids I've already watched or saved to playlists.
Nice. I hope you stay.
Love your videos, loved Rats in the Walls just read it again today
Another excellent video!
Wow, just read this last night. Amazing. Love u Sandy.
I love u too I guess.
Rats in the Walls. I read it as a teenager in a translated anthology, the first thing by Lovecraft I read after The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, also in translation. The translator completely failed to render this atavistic regression. IIRC the first two layers were in generic olde Swedish, and the rest just untranslated. It still fascinated me with the idea of delving into the past as in an archaeological dig and finding the "sins of the fathers" there as time capsules, both what the ancestors had done, and what had been done to them, and know that the inflicting and the suffering were both reflected in oneself. There is just no way out in Lovecraft's universe! Go into the past and find damnation, go into space and find abomination, go into the future and find desolation.
But I found the name Yog-Sothoth, and my buddy in high school was into wargames, and he had a thin "catalogue" from something called a "Chaosium", which had recently released a supplement called Shadows of Yog-Sothoth for a game called Call of Cthulhu by someone or other. And so I became hooked on nerd improv for about ten years. Cheers! :)
Whoa. Just ten years though.
@@SandyofCthulhu Yes, then I left town with my wife to go to college, and couldn't find anyone to game with until the same year we moved back. Then, small kids etc. I've kept an eye on the hobby and bought the occasional product, but haven't played much since then. It's, it's not like I think it's _fun_ or anything.
One of my favorite horror tales of ALL time.
Didn't Love craft change his sentimentalities regarding race later on in life. I thought I read somewhere that he regretted some of the things he said/wrote earlier in his life. Anyway, thanks for the video. This is one of my favorites, too. 🙂
He was a racist on his death bed, but he had sorta matured in general.
His views on a lot of things changed a bit later in life, and he went from basically a deeply reactionary and anti-democratic conservative in his youth to somewhat of a social democrat in later years and supporter of "the new deal". He admitted that he "used to be a bigot" etc. But the thing is, that he died at the age of 47, and at the time of his death his reevaluating of his political positions was fairly recent.
If HPL would have lived to 60 or 80 he might very well have shiften views completely and distance himself from earlier views, or he might not have, but as things were he never actually did because he died to young.
Thanks for the feedback, guys! 🙂
It's also worth mentioning that he didn't really start to live what passed for independent adult life until his 30s. So his maturity development was on a 10 year lag.
@@ArkhanNightman
Best kind of racist.
Wow! Cool!
Waiting the Rat mini Car to be playable in CoC.
I saw “Stinkard” and “gust” and knew what was up. I didn’t know those words but my spider sense kicked in and I knew the nature of the threat more or less.
Watch The Dambusters. Guess what the pilots named their mascot? Could NOT believe it when I watched the DVD.
I never noted how badass/disturbing the protagonist's discurse is when he lost his mind.
Maybe that's because I'm not from USA, but things like that don't bother me that much - it's just a word after all. In few decades some of our currently used words will became socialy unacceptable. I think we shouldn't change old work of fiction to fit into our current cluture - let it be our window to the past.
Are we so sure that it was rats in the walls and not Zoogs?
I will have to re read this story soon
Also, what's your opinion on the game Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth?
I strongly approve of it because I got a tiny share of the royalties from it.
@@SandyofCthulhu I really liked that game. I was bummed that the studio went defunct before they could carryout their plans of making a trilogy out of it.
I'm lucky because as a non-English speaker I was introduced to the slightly censored versions of Lovecraft's works. But I did enjoy reading the original text of some stories later.
Rats are incredibly annoying pests because they're just little people.
@Zanimations Nagash must have been livid at those little pests pillaging his warpstone.
I love rats. I still miss mine. The only bad thing about them is their short lifespan.
Thanks for explaining the language. I always figured it was reaching further back in time and ending with primitive proto-human beings, but I had no idea what the words meant. I always wondered if the rats represent something psychological, as well. It would be interesting to chat with some Lovecraft experts about this and other stories. 😎
I'm positive that the rats are something psychological since there is such evidence that there are in fact no rats.
@@SandyofCthulhu Believe it or not, I was going to suggest that there were actually no rats. But it has been a while since I read the story, so I didn't want to sound stupid. 😕 Thanks for helping me out in that regard, sir! 🙂
Please please please do an analysis of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward!
I loved the implied Transylvanian backstory that we dedicated an entire chapter of our first game, Gibbous, to expanding on it.
I'd love your take on CDW!
Speaking as a person of non-US descent, even though I do not find the original name offensive, I really like your take on it. Your version fits way better and is easier to both translate and understand by people not familiar with US history or politics.
I've seen a movie that was at least loosely based on this tale, don't remember the name of the movie however.
Isn't the mansion level from eternal darkness based on this
I really think Rats In The Walls may be Lovecraft's best story. While it isn't my favorite, it is very far up there.
I really like it.
Preposterous. Everyone knows "Ook ook" is true primate jargon.
This is a great story, and yeah the cat name is a real ugh. I think my favorite rename of it though had to be "Ninja-man".
Sure modern primates say ook ook, but this would have been Australopithecus or Proconsul.
Hay Dylan here I love your hyperspace alien concept videos. here I three I’d really like to hear your thoughts the concepts of a species evolving sentences with out using technology. intelligence planets and intelligence in viruses and micro organisms
English is not my native language, and I have read rats in the walls in my native language, so the fact that the cat had a racist name eluded me until you mentioned it in one of your other videos. Still my favorite Lovecraft story, and I do share the sentiment that hopefully some day someone will "fix" the name for modern readers.
I always refer the cat to Nigel.
The fact that the narrator of the story lived in a time where there was no issue naming a cat like that only makes the concept of this horror story much more cohesive, when the protagonist reverts to a more ancient/awful state, part of which occurs by cursing in an increasingly more outdated speech. The protagonist was unaware of his awful nature and heritage. It just makes much more sense keeping the racist name of the cat intact. Instead of changing the name, someone can write a foreword in newer editions addressing the historical context and apologizing all they want for the author's racism. After editing literature, what would be the next logical mistake, editing uncomfortable parts of history? It would only have the inevitable effect of helping racists to perpetuate racism. "Hey, it wasn't so bad back then, look at the records..."
Sure I guess that would work too.
This was my first hpl story...
Awesome breakdown. I would love to see you do this with additional Lovecraft works. Do you use a particular set of reference sources when speaking on Lovecraft or is this all knowledge you've built up over the decades of being a quintessential Lovecraftian resource?
some of both. I do read other people's works on Lovecraft to learn more. And as I've myself been reading him for almost 60 years I guess that makes me an authority in my own right.
well, if you cut down the intro for USA public, this is one of your best videos
Yeah I rattled on for too long about a pretty unimportant topic, but since I was recently "cancelled" on Twitter the wounds are still a little sore.
I highly doubt that he wouldve named something he loved so much a prejorative
My understanding is Howard didn't even name the cat himself.
Wait, wasnt Rats in the walls set in an old house in Paris, which was hard to find bc all the labyrinthine alleyways and then had the hero flee from the house in the end and never finding the way into the house again?
Nope.
You're thinking of _The Music of Erich Zann._
I don’t think the name should be changed. If we become comfortable with changing a word of what has been published for the sake of sparing feelings, when will this alteration of not just literature but also history end?
“This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, soundtracks, cartoons, photographs - to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance.”
George Orwell, 1984
Okay I'm sold.
O and haze for that unknown classic monster series I’m still clinging to I’d like to hear your thoughts on the wolfen the tiffids the tripods from the tripods and the ganus breed from mimic or better yet surprise me with something awesome
I'll see what I can do.
🙏
Alternative loophole. Make the protagonist black then he can say the name (according to society) 😂 Anyway good analysis particularly noting how the gibberish gets older and older. HPL truly was brilliant.
I guess. I was thinking how can he be a Delapore then but of course his MOM could be black, from a mixed race family. Works perfect.
The idea to change something that the author wrote is baffling and ridiculous for me... Anyway, great insight into the story. I read it when I was younger and didn't put so much attention to this.
As a non native English speaker the cats name was really out of context unstranslated, and translated don't have the same impact, so imagine my surprise when I get the meaning and context behind the name, but on other versions they adapted the name to just be "black cat".
I read that tale in Spanish, so the racist reference of the cat name was lost in the translation.
Celebrate the love of cats, just replace Lovecrafts favorite feline with your own. My Favorite Lovecraft tale. It was the one time he actually Lovecrafted himself, it wasn't hundreds or thousands or 10's of thousands of years. He describes MULTIPLE human ancestor species, this cult has been breeding, herding, and slaughtering different humans for millions of years.
Nice love craft was based
It was the 1920s, you can't give him any credit for it.
Is "Night of The Lepus" a parody of "Rats In The Walls?"
What do you think about Geordie Rose's talk of 'summoning the great old ones'? Taking HP Lovecraft's monsters into reality..
Tell us about Sword of the Samurai, its my favourite game of yours
Well really 95% of the design work was Lawrence Schick my old friend. How good a friend? I named one of my children after him.
Doesn't the tale really dig against the Dutch though?
if the word is so bad why do so many still use it with such alarming frequency and as often as a sort of compliment as the insult it originally was...
Don't most of the 'dialects' of New England's backwoods, so beloved by Lovecraft, mostly consist of preserved pockets of the English as spoken in the 16th and 17th centuries?
No, that's a massive oversimplification.
They're radically different from what English from that period sounded like but, as they were isolated from the British Isles, they retained a number of quirks that have since been excised from the majority of modern UK accents besides some parts of the rural south west of England.
There was too much variation in the backgrounds of people emigrating to North American colonies from Europe and Asia (not to discount Africans who were enslaved and exported there) for the accents to remain like they were in England for 500 years.
@@casanovafunkenstein5090 They were cut off in the mountains interbreeding and shunning foreigners for centuries. Subsequent waves of emigration didn't impact them because they were mostly indentured workers (slaves) from the British Isles who finished their period of indenture and were freed with no property, savings or skills in demand - unskilled labour could be bought off the ships cheaper than hiring free labourers. So they were forced to move to the edges of their piece of civilization and eke a life out in the mountains trapping, hunting and trying to grow their own food.
What is the cats name again?
To paraphrase (because I'm not going to say THAT word), "Noogie-Man" (where you replace "Noogie" with a particular racial slur beginning with the same letter... but, please don't)
(small editorial hat-tip to Christopher Priest and his "Quantum and Woody" comic from Acclaim Comics)
@@alankelly1001 😂😂🤣
Could the Scots had married into the DelaPore Norman(?)/Latin Family? I am trying to figure out how a group of Scots are related to the Romanized Celts and later Norman English of this story.
"Gust" and "Degustation" (or 'taste' in French) have similar meanings and sound alike, but the former is of Germanic origin, and the latter is derived from the Latin verb, "degustare" ('to taste'). How's that for a coincidence?
I don't know if it is a coincidence. German tribes took in some Latin words over the centuries but I don't know if this was one of them.
@@Lawofimprobability There's no evidence to that effect, unless you're advocating some sort of unfalsifiable ur-language theory of everything.
My head is spinning! Did Sandy swear in this video?
Yes, but for purely academic purposes.
uh oh
it's weird that people consider this racist... only nowdays people are trigered for everthing. it's a damn fiction tale- a good one at that.how people fail to understand that people living 100 years ago where different from today...
I personally think that changing the name of the cat is the same thing as sweeping history under the rug. Lovecraft was racist. People of his time were racist. These are facts and they shouldn't be forgotten. It doesnt do anyone any good to pretend that he wasn't who he was in that regard. Aside from the fact that people are complex with varying shades of good and evil and we can still appreciate his intellect, creativity, forward thinking and contribution to horror, literature, and culture itself whilst condemning that side of him. We mustn't forget these things because those who forget history are doomed to repeat. Forgetting that people were racist in the past and acting as though it never happened doesnt undo the fact that it happened, and only serves to remove reminders of the way people actually were and the pitfalls that we should do our utmost to avoid in the future.
Changing names in books is a slippery slope. They wanted to change the text of Mark Twain years ago. This is history. Leave it alone. My opinion...
yeah, too dangerous is that trend of changing books, banning books, etc. We are adults, we have to learn from the past, live with our mistakes and be better.
it's sad that people need coddled through old stories because of the name of a pet cat
agreed.
Mind blown. As for editing the work I would only accept it if there was a brief forward explaining that it was edited. I do not condone whitewashing the past.
agreed. But if someone is so infected by modern social ideas that they can't enjoy the story any other way, to me it's important that they be able to read it.
@@SandyofCthulhu And I think a simple preface would make it palatable for modern readers without the slightest MiniTruism. A proper compromise for me. It is a complicated topic to be sure but with a simple solution.
Hopefully in 100 hundred years people will have the same feelings about the racist writing of people like Ibram X. Kendi as they have now for Lovecraft.
Racism should be directed at all racists, not just selected ones.
People should grow a thicker skins, not descecrate books. Otherwise, that was a nuanced take on the name, which is good.
In Lovecraft's stories, cats are good. They oppose chaos and protect people from it. Naming the cat what he named it was definitely not a slur against black people.
I literally cannot think of a worse cat name...
poor Imagination
@@AxDhan Perhaps
They can change the cat's name to the spanish word for black "Negra"...
Heck it's "Negro" in Spanish. Got called racist once for mentioning the Rio Negro in someone's hearing. That sucked.