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Message: <blockquote data-quote="VelvetViolet" data-source="post: 8359756" data-attributes="member: 6686357">I agree that they’re a racist allegory. I cannot understand the minds of people who claim otherwise. The people in group #2 that I mentioned. They believe that HPL’s fish story cannot have racist themes because the fish people are fictional. When challenged, they’ll point to sources that confirm their confirmation bias. “See? This Israeli critic says that Innsmouth isn’t racist!”The short story “The Doom that Came to Innsmouth” is emblematic of this kind of thinking. It has the same racist themes as TSoI except updated for the post-Civil Rights era. It’s even more disgusting than its inspiration, because at least in TSoI the story was told by unreliable narrators and you can contrive a non-racist interpretation of the events, but TDtCtI has no such ambiguity and the author seems painfully lacking in self-awareness.But I don’t agree (aesthetically speaking) with going in the other direction and writing the fishies as a persecuted minority like “The Litany of Earth” does. Even a charitable analysis of the original Innsmouth story can’t whitewash (pun not intended) that the fish people acted like colonizers and are in telepathic thrall to an alien squid dragon thing that is known for driving humans who overhear its thoughts insane. I recommend Leila Hahn’s analysis, since it is the single most detailed and least biased analysis I could find: <a href="https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/lets-read-everything-howard-phillips-lovecraft-ever-wrote.19724/post-11844622" target="_blank">Let's Read: everything Howard Phillips Lovecraft ever wrote Books</a>There’s also this comparison by a Greyirish: <a href="https://deepcuts.blog/2018/04/21/the-doom-that-came-to-innsmouth-1999-by-brian-mcnaughton-the-litany-of-earth-2014-by-ruthanna-emrys/" target="_blank">“The Doom That Came to Innsmouth” (1999) by Brian McNaughton & “The Litany of Earth” (2014) by Ruthanna Emrys</a> I agree with Greyirish that these stories fail to actually explore the alien natures of the mermen, instead using them purely as either racist allegories or anti-racist allegories. I prefer horror stories over dark fantasy, and I prefer horror that doesn’t rely on racism. So far the only Innsmouth fanfic (because they’re all ultimately fanfics, even if you can legally sell them) that I enjoyed was the adventure game Call of the Sea, as it didn’t rely on racism and didn’t depict the fishies as a persecuted minority either. I suppose my tastes are idiosyncratic, but my taste is my taste.</blockquote>

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