Tropes versus Lovecraft - Part 4: A Pale Blue Dot

I’ve named this fourth trope (Part 1, 2, 3) of lovecraftian iconography „A Pale Blue Dot“, referencing the title of the famous book by Carl Sagan, as it draws heavily on the sense of isolation and fragility evoked by the image of planet Earth seen from space.
The internal mechanism of this trope is actually very similar to „Under the Surface“(UTS) and „Eye of the Beholder“(EOTB) in that scale, knowledge and perception are crucial factors in it. Obviously, when it comes to the scale difference between humans and the otherworldly entities in the images, here they it is pushed more or less to the limit. We don’t actually see any single human beings but of course we don’t need to, since Earth after all encompasses not only one or a group of individuals, but all of them. While we definitely know what situation humanity is in here, it’s not quite clear wether it itself remains ignorant of the threat (as in UTS) or is aware of it (as in EOTB). Even if it is, it will probably not be able to perceive it as clearly as we can in from our outer space vantage point.

To summarize, this trope and the two before it use very much the same elements to convey the basic lovecraftian philosophical worldview: human existence is threatened by outside cosmic forces next to which they are completely insignificant and which they can only perceive or understand to a very limited degree. Conceptually I think the ones where humans/humanity is not about to be eaten or willfully destroyed are more in line with this outlook because that undermines the entities’ indifference towards us.

I'll start off with one of my own drawings. It’s the cover for a HPL themed comic collection I put out for the CthulhuCon Portland in 2015. At the time I thought that it was a fairly original idea. Only afterwards I noticed other older versions of the same motif, and I 'm seeing newer ones popping up on a regular basis ever since.

 

Like with the other tropes, I'm not saying any of these are swipes (although some may very well be), I do however wonder if it shouldn’t be our goal not to replicate the same ideas again and again until they’ve lost all impact.
On the other hand I find it interesting how a quasi-religious iconography has emerged for Lovecraft’s (or Derleth’s if you will) Mythos, with all its spiritual/philosophical underpinnings. But that’s a topic for another day.

Here's another example of how a trope can become so overused that its ironic version is inevitable.

And a few fun bonus ones.

Final bonus! This is the final scene of the first Men In Black movie... seem familiar?

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