Anyone else having trouble rationalizing CoC sanity loss?

[Hammerhead]

Actually, in most of the Lovecraft stories I read, the characters usually seem more terrified than mad. They often think they're mad, because they see impossible things, but, assuming the narration is reliable, they don't seem in too bad of shape. From my point of view, the only stories (that I've read) in which the protagonist goes mad are The Mountains of Madness, The Shadow over Insmouth (or whatever the one with fish people is called), and the one about the monkey (Arthur Jeryn?). In 2/3 cases, the character goes mad because he's not exactly human, and does deal with it well. In Shadow out of Time (where the guy is "possessed" by the creatures from the far past, and then tries to find evidence of them), the guy seems to actually be driven sane as he recovers his memories - assuming the stuff he found at the end was real and he didn't make it up.

 

[NoOneofConsequence]

As far as rationalizing sanity loss due to tomes...look at it like this. I believe that in Judeo-Christian beliefs that God has a single-word name that, if uttered, would destroy the world. Can you imagine that? A single word, universal destruction.

Tangent: A little too much Hollywood, not enough Christianity. The notion of a name of God which could destroy creation dates from a movie in the eighties, and has no basis in Chirstian belief or mythology.

It's a nit pick, I know, but I'm a stickler.

 

[northrundicandus]

"The Rats in the Walls" Protaganist goes nuts.

"The Picture in the house" Protaganist almost goes nuts.

"The Outsider" Protaganist is undead. Could be nuts though.

"Pickman's Model" Protagaist stays sane.

"In the Vault" Birch goes nuts.

"The Silver Key" No madness. Unless the whole thing is really just a hallucination.

"The Music of Erich Zann" Zann has lost it; The writer seems sane.

Aww jeepers this will take all night ;-(

 

[BronzeDragon]

As far as rationalizing sanity loss (snip)

GREAT post!

That is exactly how every major Lovecraftian analyst or author sees the matter, and it matches my vision of his universe.

 

[Tsyr]

I like the way sanity is delt with in Unknown Armies:

Basicly, you _CAN_ develop an immunity to things that would force a sanity check. The stranger or more horrible it is, the harder it is to do so... some things its almost impossible to save against, for example.

But you have to be careful with that too... being immune to a type of horror can be as bad as being drove insane by it. You... change. Your personality warps and shifts. It's subtler than true insanity, but its insanity none the less. Get too hardened, too "detached", and your essentialy a physcopath... nothing matters to you, really. You could gun down and orphanage, summon a demon to eat the souls of the guards... wouldn't make you snap. But the problem is, you would literaly SEE NOTHING WRONG with what you had done. It just doesn't matter. That's basicly how, in unknown armies, you get immune to certain types of shocks... by detaching yourself from the reality of the thing.

 

[Hammerhead]

"The Rats in the Walls" Protaganist goes nuts.

"The Picture in the house" Protaganist almost goes nuts.

"The Outsider" Protaganist is undead. Could be nuts though.

"Pickman's Model" Protagaist stays sane.

"In the Vault" Birch goes nuts.

"The Silver Key" No madness. Unless the whole thing is really just a hallucination.

"The Music of Erich Zann" Zann has lost it; The writer seems sane.

Aww jeepers this will take all night ;-(

I haven't read all of those. However, I still think enough people stay sane to disprove the theory that CoC characters should inevitably go insane. In many cases, the characters worry about being insane, but that doesn't mean they are.

Also, I thought that some of things that caused Sanity loss, at least in the original CoC, were somewhat stupid. Seeing dead bodies and such caused Sanity loss. Unless the character was a doctor or soldier. So why not be a doctor or soldier, become immune to show forms of san loss - the kind most likely to show up early, before the true Horror is revealed - and have the justification to pick up lots of useful skills?

 

[SurgicalSteel]

agree

I have heard the arguments for it, and it is just not convincing.

Now, I could see some kind of quirk of personality or perspective shift, but the fact that reality isn't what you thought isn't gonna break your mind.

When I learned how relativity worked, I was pretty tripped out, but after a little while I was just like: "OK, now I know how things will work if I approach the speed of light, and how objects which approach those speeds are affected."

It didn't break my mind, or anything even close.
The whole "Things man was not meant to know" seems pretty silly to me.


And horrible things like child molestation don't make me go insane.
They make me want to see that person executed.
They make me angry, not insane.


The idea of reality mocking a pseudo-reality doesn't creep me out, it just seems absurd.
Mockery demonstrates intent, and reality is not "alive", it does not have conciousness.

What if it was alive?
Well, that would be trippy, like Relativity, but then it would just be "Accept it and move on."


The mind functions in such a way to be adaptive.


Well, whats insanity then, right?
Frequently it is an organic disorder, that is, essentially genetically encoded brain damage.
Lets say I get a baseball bat and crack you on the head with it.
I can cause "insanity".

Not exactly terrifying.

And personality disorders are rarely terrifying, they are usually just sad.


I don't know, I mean have read CoC stuff, and it is pretty creepy at times (which is pretty cool), but to me it all boils down to get a gun and blow its head off.
If that doesn't work, then either I need a more effective "gun" (or spell, or whatever),or the whole thing is just stupid.


Some kind of "temporary psyche-shock" would work, I think, in extreme cases, but thats about it.


Everything can be deconstructed to the systems of reality, whatever that reality is.

Which is just not scary.

Cthulhu is just an alternate system of reality.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Tangent: A little too much Hollywood, not enough Christianity. The notion of a name of God which could destroy creation dates from a movie in the eighties, and has no basis in Chirstian belief or mythology.

It's a nit pick, I know, but I'm a stickler.

Sorry; it's out there. It may not be something you agree with, but the occult lore is out there.

 

[Lisa Nadazdy]

I think you're missing the point on Sanity loss. Seening a human corpse isn't what causes the loss, it's the shock of coming across the corpse when you weren't expecting it. It's no shock to a medical examiner to see a dead body when he expects it (like when doing an autopsy), it's when he doesn't expect it that it could cause a San check (like when he finds the corpse draped across his kitchen table). Remember, seeing a corpse doesn't automatically cause a San loss, just a San check. A failed roll results in a loss of 1d3 San, a success causes no San loss. It would take several such losses in a very short periods for someone to go temporarily insane. A GM could rule that after the second corpse or so, the investigator is jittery enough to start expecting dead bodies around every corner, and thereby not incur further San loss.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Re: agree

I have heard the arguments for it, and it is just not convincing.

Now, I could see some kind of quirk of personality or perspective shift, but the fact that reality isn't what you thought isn't gonna break your mind.

When I learned how relativity worked, I was pretty tripped out, but after a little while I was just like: "OK, now I know how things will work if I approach the speed of light, and how objects which approach those speeds are affected."

It didn't break my mind, or anything even close.
The whole "Things man was not meant to know" seems pretty silly to me.


And horrible things like child molestation don't make me go insane.
They make me want to see that person executed.
They make me angry, not insane.


The idea of reality mocking a pseudo-reality doesn't creep me out, it just seems absurd.
Mockery demonstrates intent, and reality is not "alive", it does not have conciousness.

What if it was alive?
Well, that would be trippy, like Relativity, but then it would just be "Accept it and move on."


The mind functions in such a way to be adaptive.


Well, whats insanity then, right?
Frequently it is an organic disorder, that is, essentially genetically encoded brain damage.
Lets say I get a baseball bat and crack you on the head with it.
I can cause "insanity".

Not exactly terrifying.

And personality disorders are rarely terrifying, they are usually just sad.


I don't know, I mean have read CoC stuff, and it is pretty creepy at times (which is pretty cool), but to me it all boils down to get a gun and blow its head off.
If that doesn't work, then either I need a more effective "gun" (or spell, or whatever),or the whole thing is just stupid.


Some kind of "temporary psyche-shock" would work, I think, in extreme cases, but thats about it.


Everything can be deconstructed to the systems of reality, whatever that reality is.

Which is just not scary.

Cthulhu is just an alternate system of reality.

If one doesn't at least grant Lovecraft this one assumption - that there is knowledge which can destroy one's sanity - then the whole thing falls apart. Whether or not you like any given rationalization, that's the way Lovecraft's universe works. This is like criticizng Star Wars because hyerspace travel wouldn't work the way it does in the films.