Talk:The Rats in the Walls
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Mi Go
I remember a line in which Delapore mentions fungus creatures. Is he referencing the Mi Go?
- It's actually "fungous", meaning flabby or grossly fat, referring to the semi-ape things that the de la Poers eat. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.42.209.7 (talk) 22:39, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Cleanup
I added the cleanup tag because the article is too long and unwieldy - I'd suggest removing the characters section. I do like the inspiration section, though (although perhaps it should go below the synopsis section, rather than the other way around?), and the article is, overall, excellent. -Elizabennet | talk 04:41, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
- I don't think it's too long--the article's not rated, but I doubt it would get a rating indicating that it's complete as is.
- There is some useful information in the Character section that I definitely don't think should be cut. I'm fond of the whole section, frankly--I think there's some interest in the idea of Lovecraft characters through the ages.
- As for putting the synopsis first, you're about the third person who's suggested making the synopsis first on one Lovecraft story article or another, so you're probably right. My sense was that we should talk about the story in the real world first, but I guess that's not necessary. It'll need to be changed on just about every Lovecraft story article, though. Nareek 05:32, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
Age of underground village
"maintained an underground city for centuries ". Now come on guys! Iirc, Lovecraft describes that when the party reached the older parts of the caverns, they found the older sceleton types. I have never interpreted this story in any other meaning than that the village is as old as mankind, i.e. possibly a hundred thousend years, and was maintained for this period as a "reference catalog" of our ancestors. This is what to me makes up the real horror of this story. The age of this all. Thyl Engelhardt —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.70.217.172 (talk) 11:05, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
- No, it's Lovecraft's usual fear of human regression, as per Pickman's Model. The "human cattle" are supposed to be regressed people, not protohumans. That's why Lovecraft explicitly says they're "in every case definitely human." It's implied the bones in one of the prehistoric tumuli are pre-human, but there are less developed skeletons at the top of the stairs than at the bottom, so that doesn't pan out very well. Mostly likely it's just that tomb is so old everyone was pre-human at the time. It's not a reference catalog, it's that every generation has been dragging people down here to breed for meat for thousands of years. Which is much worse. Herr Gruber (talk) 11:43, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
De La Poer
Actually, it's not E(dgar) A(llan) POE, it's ED(gar) AL(lan) POE. The first two letters in first and middle names are present, just reversed. I'd edit that into the article, but I'm not sure if I'm explaining it clearly enough even now. 74.243.20.102 (talk) 03:16, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
Magna Mater
What I'm missing in the Inspirations section are some references about the historic Roman Mater Deum Magna Ideae/Kybele/Attis cult. I don't know what was known about it in Lovecraft's time, but the ruins of a Mater Magna and Isis temple recently excavated in Mainz, Germany, revealed some interesting things, including large pits for sacrificial blood, lead plates with courses against other people carved into them and some kind of "vodoo" dolls with nails in them. The German article for that site is here: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heiligtum_der_Isis_und_Mater_Magna_(Mainz)