"An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia" compares Willett's character to other "valiant counterweight[s]" in Lovecraft such as Thomas Malone in "The Horror at Red Hook" (1925) and Henry Armitage in "The Dunwich Horror"; like Willett, Armitage "defeats the 'villains' by incantations, and he is susceptible to the same flaws—pomposity, arrogance, self-importance—that can be seen in Willett."