#the tempest sandman spoilers

[writing-for-life]

The Truth of Mankind…

…Is Also Dream’s

These quotes are from episode 5 (24/7):

“Garry dreams of proving his father he was wrong about him.”

“Kate dreams of running away where no one will find her.”

[But you do, and we see your star in so many panels of The Wake 🥺]

“Bette dreams of creating something that matters to people.”

You are the magician who became the man, Morpheus. And you are the king who left his kingdom, but not without making sure everyone else would be okay first--perhaps that is a different definition of a graceful ending, but it is graceful nonetheless.

You’re so painfully human, and yet, you are also not 😭

#the sandman #sandman #dream of the endless #morpheus #the sandman netflix #sandman meta #<<< very tiny one #I’ve been Gaiman’d #sandman analysis #sandman character analysis #the sandman comics #sandman spoilers #overture spoilers #the kindly ones spoilers #the wake spoilers #exiles spoilers #the tempest sandman spoilers #and I’m so sorry my brain works this way #and can’t help cross-referencing every word #tell me it ain’t so 😭 #sandman bookclub #queue crew

[onehundredandeleventropicalfish]

getting emotional about the last issue of sandman again (cw for major comic spoilers, discussion of suicidal thoughts)

because like. so we learn pretty early on what dream's deal with shakespeare was, allowing him better access to his creative potential in return for two plays, and we know this because we get midsummer night's dream, which was commissioned by dream for the actual titania as a parting gift before the faeries left earth forever

but we don't learn the second play until right at the end, after dream is dead, after the funeral, after sunday mourning and exiles, both of which make really beautiful endings to the story in their own right

the second play is the tempest. and there's a lot of the play that neil gaiman quotes in this issue, but i'll focus on the specific two that shakespeare reads aloud

the first is our obvious one - prospero's address at his daughter's wedding.

Be cheerful, sir. Our revels now are ended. These our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits and are melted into air, into thin air. And like the baseless fabric of this vision, the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself, ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve, and like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.

it's a beautiful passage, and exactly what to put at the end of this story - prospero is reminding everyone that stories are just stories, they aren't real and can't hurt anyone, but also they are the one thing that lives forever. humans are shaped and formed by our dreams, by our stories, we come from them, and in the end, we return to them.

now, prospero is the character we focus on in this issue. because there's a three-way parallel here between dream and prospero and shakespeare himself.

dream and shakespeare have both lost their sons, were both irreparably changed by that. both regret decisions they've made in their lives, and wish to leave the path they've found for themselves, but don't feel they can - their responsibilities are too great, they have no choice but to be what they were born to be. both wonder what might have happened in a world where things were different, but they know that could never have been

and prospero is the balm to that. prospero has made mistakes in his life, he's in several ways the antagonist of this story, but at the end, he gets to put it all aside. his daughter lives, and is happy. he gives up his magic - the source of his power, but also his suffering - and abandons his role, leaves the island he'd been ruling for decades. and this is his happy ending.

when shakespeare asks dream why this play, why he wanted that ending, instead of some great tragedy or drama, something more fit for a king, dream responds "because i will never leave my island."

and we see throughout the issue that that was personal to shakespeare too, it was a wish fullfilment for both of them.

but then we get to the epilogue, the second quote i'm focusing on. because shakespeare doesn't know how to end the play, until he has that conversation with dream.

this is the tempest's epilogue, in full:

Now my charms are all o'erthrown/And what strength I have’s mine own/Which is most faint. Now, ’tis true/I must be here confined by you/Or sent to Naples. Let me not/Since I have my dukedom got/And pardoned the deceiver, dwell/In this bare island by your spell/But release me from my bands/With the help of your good hands.

Gentle breath of yours my sails/Must fill, or else my project fails/Which was to please. Now I want/Spirits to enforce, art to enchant/And my ending is despair/Unless I be relieved by prayer/Which pierces so that it assaults/Mercy itself and frees all faults.

As you from crimes would pardoned be/Let your indulgence set me free.

like most shakespeare epilogues, it's a direct address to the audience, talking about the play. prospero is asking forgiveness from the audience for all he did wrong, but then reminding them that he's only human, don't we all want to be forgiven? and after all, all of this was just a story. he only wanted to create something for you. so applaud the ending, tell him it was worth it, and only with your permission can he finish the story, and finally leave.

and that's the thing, about dream's particular brand of suicidal thoughts. being dream of the endless has been weighing on him for centuries, if not millenia, he longs for an escape, but he knows he can't. when they see it's breaking him his siblings try and convince him to leave, like destruction did, but it's not in him to abandon the dreaming like that.

and that amount of responsibility, of staying alive because you owe it to other people - it's a relief, then, when a battle comes along that's too great for you to face, but there's also a lot of guilt in it. because he gave up. and he knows he did. letting the kindly ones win was the most selfish decision he's ever made

and you might say, well, he's dead, he doesn't have to face it, but that's not wholly true. because all three of the last issues deal with some version of dream after death.

there's the dream of him hob has in sunday mourning, which isn't the true dream, he's dead, except of course it is dream, because he was only ever made of dreams anyway, so does it really matter whether it's real or not?

in exiles the protagonist talks to both morpheus and daniel in the desert, and for dream this was two very different time periods, but to the man crossing the desert, they happened simultaneously, so if time can be warped like that in dreams, who's to say that the ripples of morpheus won't continue long into the future?

and then we have the tempest. dream has appeared after death as a dream, as a mirage, and finally, in perhaps his truest form, as a story.

when dream said he will never leave his island, shakespeare reminds him that all men can change. and this is the fatal flaw of dream - he doesn't see himself as a man, as a person, as anything but the entity which must fulfill his function. he tells shakespeare that men have stories, men change - he does not

and when we end this entire 75 issue run with the epilogue from the tempest, dream is prospero. even after death he's still reckoning with the guilt of making that decision. even now, he won't allow himself that freedom.

and that's the reminder, that all of this was just a story - dream's story. the reader is a character in sandman, all of this was created for us. did he manage to create something beautiful enough, despite the pain? can he be forgiven for the decisions he made along the way? if eventually he gave up, does that make all the time he fought so hard for meaningless?

and he can't be free of the story until we answer that all important question - was it worth it?

to which the answer can only be of course it was.

#you did good kiddo. take your rest. it's okay #interestingly enough the tempest isn't the only play that refers to the afterlife as a dream #hamlet does too (which you know is the piece inspired by shakespeare's dead son) #but that's just me and my shakespeare nerd #i've won literal monetary awards for my writing on shakespeare but here i am rereading sandman and crying #so you all get to cry too #neil gaiman you madman give me your writing talents #the sandman #sandman comic spoilers #dream of the endless #....it feels weird to tag shakespeare in this #wake #mine #meta #suicide tw

[mywingsareonwheels]

So this is really one of the most important reasons for my enormous crush on Roger Allam:-

He’s a big, imposing-looking man with (when he uses it that way) a big, imposing-sounding voice. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen or heard him play a role without bringing an astonishing amount of vulnerability to it, and as many layers as the character will take (including far more than many other even really good actors would find).

He has made me care about Duke Vincentio in Measure for Measure, Prospero in The Tempest, and Falstaff in the Henry IVs, all of whom (despite - arguably - not being actual villains) I usually cordially dislike. And he does so without his acting excusing any of their actions: his Duke still fucks up massively towards Isabella and does some seriously dodgy things; his Prospero is still extremely problematic in his behaviour towards, well, everybody frankly; his Falstaff is still cruel and venal. But my Gods, he shows how much pain they’re each in, how frightened each of them is. His Duke has severe depression and is flailing about much of the time and you get the impression he will do his best after the end to make it up to Isabella, that he gets that he’s messed up; his Prospero is terrified of losing both Miranda and Ariel and is desperately traumatised by all he’s gone through; his Falstaff plays a mighty good game and fools most people but underneath he’s a scared old man who knows his own failings with a horrible precision and whose love for Hal is like putting his heart in the mouth of a lion(’s whelp).

He made me care about Rogozhin in The Idiot so much (again, without in any way detracting from how horrifying the man is) that he was part of what I was crying about when I got to the end of that radio adaptation.

I already cared about Bosola in The Duchess of Malfi (again, despite everything he does - but that’s what Webster asks of us and he writes it beautifully) and then... bloody hell. Absolutely broke my heart.

Do I even need to bring up his Javert? ;-)

And as for when he plays characters who are broken and who don’t do awful things (Valjean in the radio Les Miserables) especially... Holy Fucking Shit.

So no wonder that I have that terrible need to hug both Douglas Richardson and Fred Thursday (and goodness me but when Fred messes up he really messes up, and Douglas is... Douglas). Not to mention Antoine Verlaque, though there I’m mostly just awfully glad he has Marine to hug him. :D

What I always want from actors is, well, those layers. That depth. That compassion. That honesty. That nuance. That thoughtfulness. Sheila Hancock once described Roger as a vulnerable actor and I’m very vindicated by this; he just doesn’t look like a vulnerable actor but then that’s a huge part of what makes those performances so devastating.

And then when you bring in the incredible vocal abilities (including his ability to sound like he’s talking quietly while filling a large theatre unmiced <3), and the extreme versatility... yeah. No wonder I’m a fanboy. :D

Oh lord, is he going to make me care about Azazel in The Sandman series 2?! I mean if anyone could make me do so... [fear]

#roger allam #shakespeare #william shakespeare #measure for measure #the tempest #henry iv #the idiot #the duchess of malfi #les miserables #cabin pressure #itv endeavour #murder in provence #the sandman netflix #the sandman netflix spoilers #sheila hancock #acting #aaaaaaaaaaaaah

[yary-t]

Me: I'm in the mood to continue reading Sandman

Me: oh another Shakespeare chapter, great

Shakespeare chapter: is titled "The Tempest"

And that's the story of why I'm now watching a proshot of The Tempest

#it's the 2017 RSC version #It's funny because for most Shakespeare plays I went in with some previous knowledge #This one is like. I assume a tempest occurs. #I wish I had the opportunity to see Shakespeare performed live more often #But on the other hand proshots have SUBTITLES #in the RSC theater I only had issues understanding when the actor had their back to me but in the Globe I missed a lot #Also unpopular opinion but I don't think it's “just as good in translation” (tho I will go see the rare production to come to my town) #the sandman #the sandman comic spoilers #the tempest #personal

[thenightling]

Warning: This post contains some Sandman: The Wake spoilers. You know, I am certain they wanted us to ship Morpheus with Hob Gadling in The Sandman Netflix series.   I am certain it's deliberate.  One big clue is the choice of music when Hob shows up for their 1989 meeting.   The first song that plays when Hob shows up is "She drives me Crazy" by Fine Young Cannibals, which is about an unrequited infatuation / lust. When Hob finally realizes Morpheus has not shown up for their usual meeting the song "Shattered Dreams" by Johnny Hates Jazz starts to play.   Not only is this song literally talking about dreams but it's about unfulfilled dreams and a broken heart from a possible breakup. There are many, many, many songs from the 80s that could have been chosen for this scene but these were deliberately chosen.  I am thoroughly convinced they wanted us to ship Morpheus and Hob.

Also Hob does refer to what happened as being "stood up."   Something else to note.  There is a lyric "You said you'd die for me." Based on several in-story clues it is very likely that by The Sandman: The Wake Morpheus is spending his afterlife in Hob's dreams.   Notice that Hob’s Dream in The Wake is set on a shore and Morpheus had compared himself to Prospero from The Tempest once, believing he'd never escape his island.   Prospero gave up his powers and tools in order to be free.    Also Destruction is in the dream.  Hob only knew Destruction as a "Lousy street artist" he met once.  He had no reason to connection Destruction with his friend and Destruction was really visiting The Dreaming at the time.  And to quote Neil Gaiman when asked about Hob's Dream in The Wake. "It's never just a Dream."  The song was chosen for a reason.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kz5scjSQ_WE  

#Dreamling #Morpheus #Hob Gadling #Robert Gadling #Dream of The Endless #The Sandman #Sandman #Neil Gaiman

[reality-perhaps]

You know, Dream goes to these talks with Hob, and he asks Hob if he wants to live. Hob's conviction is STRONG. 'What?! No shit, of course! I got shit to do!' And then at some point, Hob asks Dream a question (well, he tells Dream how he feels) and Dream gets mad.

Ostensibly, Dream gets mad because Hob is a mortal goober and no one can presume tell to Dream anything. But you know, that implies that that Death set this whole thing in motion because she wanted Dream to have a friend and I think that is flawed logic and a bit reductive. It's a nice sentiment, and maybe even an intended consequence! But you know what else I think? (Comic spoilers after cut)

I think Death knew Dream wanted to die all the way back in the 14th Century, and I think Hob acts like a living mirror for Dream. Initially, Dream is certain Hob will be ready to die in a century. He asks Hob if he wants to live at each meeting, and he's a bit tickled and surprised each time when Hob confirms it.

At one of those meetings, Dream meets Will Shakespeare and they strike up this bargain for two plays. The first is a comedy, a gift of sorts for the Fae. He enjoys it, they enjoy it, weirdness abounds. And in some ways, parts of his destruction are initiated this night, what with Puck disappearing only to re-emerge during The Kindly Ones. That second play though... when Will and Dream have a drink in The Dreaming, he asks Will if any of the characters of his plays reflect their writer. Will confirms, he waxes poetic, and he asks why Dream wanted a tragedy. Dream commissioned a tragedy, because the second play was just for him. He says

He explains that he cannot leave his "island" and Will is just baffled! Dream explains that he is the island. He is stuck with himself, and since he is the Prince of Stories, he will never have a story of his own. Except, of course, the one he commissioned here.

This is the last issue of the main story of The Sandman and it really rejects back what Hob means to Dream. A living mirror of humanity, a thing Dream depends on for existence but can't hold or experience authentically. He doesn't get to give up, he feels like he can't heal. He can't cast off magic and live like a human. He's an island that receives visitors, and visitors must eventually leave and vacations end. But he remains the island.

It really explains the root of his conflict with Destruction, too. Is it really about duty, or is it about how Destruction made the choice he couldn't (or wouldn't)? He travels, eats, creates - does people stuff the people way. Destruction is happy. I harken back often to this bit from Brief Lives where Destruction relays a conversation with Death - she insists they all know everything but pretend like they don't for sanity's sake. Death knew long before Dream that he wanted to die, and every choice he makes leads to that decision, but he just represses the hell out of it. It gets harder and harder to believe, as events transpire in the comic, that Dream doesn't know what he's doing. Why does he need to come back for Daniel? So he's just going back to Hell? Why does he let Loki go? If he can't spill family blood, why does he kill Orpheus? Truth be told, though, he knew long before that - just look at the Tempest.

#the sandman #dream of the endless #morpheus #the sandman comics #meta #hob gadling #destruction of the endless #death of the endless #sandman comic spoilers

[warmuse]

(spoiler) word vomit on the Sandman

not gonna tag anything because I don't want to get in trouble and I respect people who disagree with me they may actually hold a better opinion than me

In the last episode of the Sandman, The Tempest, Gaiman effortlessly explains what was the POINT of Sandman's journey, by explaining to us why it is important for us, both mortals and Endless, to let go and accept change, and that Prospero broke his staff and leaving in the Tempest was a gift of a kind from Shakespeare to Morpheus (or, as Will was commissioned to write it, his offering to his benefactor as per his contract), to *indulge* in the fantasy of being able to change without irrevocably changing. But sometimes we do, we DO irrevocably change. (Just not as drastically as anthromorphological representation of concepts, beause we're bound by our mortal bodies) And that we all have rights to indulge on fantasies but the reality is a lot more bittersweet.

I think sincerely wanting Morpheus to just retire and live with whoever he chooese to be as his companion (not targeting people writing fanworks about that) kinda defeats the purpose of the entire narrative journey of The Sandman. If it's some self-indulgent wish that one wants to explore, that's totally fine. Self-indelgent imagination is a Good Thing, but sometimes I see (albeit rarely) takes like "Dream SHOULD have just been able to let things go, I don't understand WHY Dream did *spoiler*, it's a bad narrative choice by Gaiman" then I'm very confused because the journey of Morpheus as a character, while tragic, was pretty well-conceived and lovingly explored with much respect and empathy given by the author to the character.

I just wanted to say how The Tempest is often underlooked but actually one of the MOST important episodes of the Sandman and it INSTANTLY made me sob my heart out for a full minute when I first read it, but it was a good, healing sob, one that made me walk through the dark path of me processing what happened to Morpheus and in the end, accept his fate.

[writing-for-life]

Why The Order Of The Last Three Issues Of The Sandman Matters...

... at least to me (I totally appreciate that people might see it differently. Maybe that’s the whole point, and where we come full circle when we talk about “stories”).

And as always: Send me asks about everything Sandman-related!

Major comic spoilers… I know that the question: “What happens to Morpheus after he dies?” is one of the ones most frequently asked. And I also know that a lot of people want him to walk off into the sunset with Hob (especially the Dreamling shippers, but I’m not going to go into that).

I personally think that the last three issues of The Sandman (#73-75) are in this order for a reason

I find it really hard to take Sunday Mourning/Hob’s dream and say: ”This is it, this is the end, he is a dream entity now and wanders off into the sunset with Hob” (and Destruction, but I’m not even go into that right now because I have too many thoughts on that one, so that might be a diff post altogether).

Yes, he (in one way or another) lives on in Hob’s memory/dreams. And also yes, it is the epilogue to The Wake and concludes it, but if what comes after didn't matter, it wouldn't exist. Everything matters when Neil Gaiman writes ;)

He also lives on because time is warped and not linear (#74, “Exiles”). You need to read it to understand it, and I won’t go into too much detail here because it will get too long. Suffice it to say that in Exiles, two things set in very different timelines happen at the same time for a person. So Morpheus can live on like that. Even if he is dead.

But I personally think the most important truth is to be found in The Tempest (#75). In my opinion, it is the last issue for a reason (otherwise, we could have just left on the note of Sunday Mourning). It’s about STORIES, and that stories live on forever. We come from them, and we RETURN to them. And Morpheus, the Prince of Stories himself, is now also a story - something he never wanted to acknowledge, but I'll get to that in a minute.

The Tempest is about the parallels between Morpheus and Prospero. Prospero gets to leave his island. Morpheus says he will never leave his.

From the epilogue to The Tempest (you can also read it on the last two pages of #75):

I think this is the most important bit (bold by me): “Now I want spirits to enforce, art to enchant And my ending is despair, Unless I be relieved by prayer, Which pierces so that it assaults Mercy itself, and frees all faults. As you from crimes would pardoned be Let your indulgence set me free."

Dream IS Prospero here (although he tells Shakespeare he cannot/MAY not recognise himself in stories. The sad thing is that he won’t acknowledge he also has a story because he is so wrapped up in his sense of duty and responsibility). Even after death (I repeat, this is the LAST ISSUE for a reason, and IMHO, we do not need to worry about when this takes place), he feels guilt. Just like Prospero in his epilogue.

In my view (personal as it may be), existing as a dream entity, no matter in whose dream, with his memories intact (because that’s what I read so often when it comes to him having some sort of future in Hob's dream) would be absolute torture for Morpheus. It is largely what led him to give up in the first place. That’s why it leaves me… uncomfortable? Dissatisfied? I can’t quite put it into words, and I also totally get that these feelings are my problem.

I know some people like to see Sunday Mourning as a confirmation that he ultimately does leave his island, and maybe that’s also true in a way. But I personally cannot get over Shakespeare saying “All MEN can change”, and Morpheus replying that he is not a man (as in a mortal human). That men have stories, that men can change, but he cannot. Or even if he has changed ("I was no longer the same" #69), he still has obligations, so it ultimately can never be unless he dies. It is what he staunchly believes in, until the end.

This is how we leave the story in #75 - again, it doesn’t end in #73.

And while all three ways of “living” on (memories/dreams, warped time and story) are true in a way, the ultimate way he lives on is as a story in my view.

He lives on as someone who matters as the protagonist, who makes us feel, who isn’t just the narrator. And that's beautiful - to me even more beautiful than some straightforward, flat happy ending. But I appreciate that mileage might vary, and that people will see things differently, depending on their own experiences. (I first read the comics when they came out in the 80s/90s, and no matter how many times I re-read, I always find something new, I see things differently with the passing of time, and it never loses its grip on me).

We are the ones who forgive him - he will only be free if we do. We see that he has changed, no matter if he believed he did or he didn't. We, the audience (who were even at his wake; we are the last dreamer to wake up), are the ones who decide if it was “worth it”.

That’s how he leaves his island, and That’s why “It is never just a dream” in my opinion…

I think @onehundredandeleventropicalfish also wrote on the topic a while back if I remember it correctly, but I can’t seem to find the post in question right now. I just remember I related a lot.

#sandman meta #sandman spoilers #sandman #morpheus #dream of the endless #the sandman #the wake #exiles #the tempest

[thenightling]

Hob’s Dream

I’ve posted longer versions of this before but here’s the very abridged version.

Here it goes...

Spoilers for The Sandman: The Wake below. 

I think Morpheus is spending his afterlife in Hob’s dream as we see it in The Wake.   Here are the clues.

1.   The Dream is set on the shore.  Remember how Morpheus compared himself to Prospero in The Tempest?  Prospero was a sorcerer who gave up his power and tools to be free of the island he was trapped on.  Morpheus gave up his role of being Dream of The Endless and his tools passed to Daniel.  The dream is set on the shore, indicating he has left his island.

2.   The side of Morpheus’s face that was scarred by The Kindly Ones (a scar Hob would not have known about) is never shown.  This indicates that the scar is actually still there.

3.  Destruction was in the dream and we know Destruction was actually in The Dreaming at that time.  Hob had no reason to know of his friend’s connection to Destruction.  He only knew him as a “lousy street artist.”   Also remember Destruction isn’t just Destruction.  He’s also change and creation.  The moral is “Change or die.”  Suppose Morpheus did both.  

4.  In The Sandman: The Kindly Ones Hob said how he keeps people alive by remembering them, by dreaming of them.  If Morpheus is now deceased as Dream of The Endless that means he is free of that burden now as a dream entity.

Hob does not plan to die any time soon, this gives Morpheus a place to haunt as a dream entity for a very long time that and other immortal beings will think of, remember, and dream of him. So it makes sense that he’d be re-created as a dream entity.  It’s still him, just now free of being Dream of The Endless.   

5.  It accounts for why Daniel will not use the name Morpheus, not just because that was the previous aspect (Piece) of Dream of The Endless that we knew but because Morpheus is still using that name. In fact it may well be the only name he has left now.

Morpheus as an aspect of Dream of The Endless is dead but as a dream entity he is now free. 

6.   We know Morpheus has a soul, he said he put a piece of it into the dreamstones he created.   And according to Death “Oblivion is not an option.” said in Façade.     

7.  “It’s never just a dream.”

#The Sandman #Sandman #Morpheus #Dream of The Endless #Neil Gaiman

[thenightling]

My review of The Sandman episode 1: Sleep of the Just

       There is a long opening so you have ample time to press control and J and skip past any spoilers. 

     The first time I read The Sandman by Neil Gaiman is probably more recently than you may expect considering how much of a fan of it I have become.  I read Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman for the first time in the early summer of 2017.  And it all started because someone had asked me to portray DC comics canon Lucifer for a role playing game.  What little I knew about the character came from the Lucifer TV show that was (at the time) airing on Fox.  I knew that he made his first appearance in Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman and I knew that he resembled rock icon David Bowie.  I also knew that the main character looked like a “Goth Jareth” and that his sister was Death.        Years ago (in 1999) a friend had recommended The Sandman to me under the descriptors of “He’s like a Goth Jareth” and Death, his sister, is “So cute.” Jareth was the main antagonist of Jim Henson’s The Labyrinth. He was the Goblin King portrayed by David Bowie.  

     I was thirty-five-years-old (In 2017) when I finally read Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman.  I also just so happened to have reached the issue / chapter Dream of a Thousand Cats in The Sandman: Dream Country (Volume 3) on the very same day I adopted two of my cats. Loki and Vlad. That was just a happy coincidence.  I came very close to naming Vlad after Morpheus AKA Dream (the main character of The Sandman) but his little fang over-bite made me decide to call him Vlad after Count Dracula instead.        Having read other works by Neil Gaiman, including Stardust, I was familiar with his style of writing and how it could go from extremely whimsical and child-like to dark and horrific.  When I first started reading The Sandman I expected a typical comic book experience, an easy-to-follow story with some fights and explosions that I usually would skip or skim out of boredom.  I never liked combat scenes.

    It was only when I got to the end of issue 4 (Chapter 4 in the audio version) that I finally realized, this was no normal action-adventure story.   No. There were no explosions, or punching out bad guys.  This was more like a traditional fantasy novel series disguised as a graphic novel. It was surreal and complex with loving homages to classic Horror anthology comics and references to things like The House of Mystery and the House of Secrets (DC’s equivalents to EC’s Tales from the Crypt and Vault of Horror Comics.) And there were heavy references to classics too, like Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest, Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, and John Milton’s Paradise Lost.           It was a strange experience, finding a new obsession at this age.  For many years my obsessions had been a cycler collection of classic Gothic Horror figures like Dracula, Frankenstein (Literary accurate depictions), and Goethe’s Faust.  Reading Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman was like finding a piece of myself I hadn’t known I was missing.  It was like coming home.

   The Sandman tells the story of Morpheus (also known as Dream of The Endless or The Sandman), the lord of Dreams.  When a group of occultists try to capture The Grim Reaper they accidentally summon The Lord of Dreams and decide to keep him prisoner.  

    After a century of captivity, Morpheus escapes and has to restore his crumbling kingdom in the collective unconscious of all sentient life, a dimension known as The Dreaming.  

     Morpheus used to be something of… well, an asshole.  So most of the saga is him setting right the wrongs of his past.  It’s a long redemption story with themes about the importance of change and the value of stories and imagination.  It’s a story about stories.  It’s beautiful and it is surreal.

      The character of Morpheus is very much a Gothic aesthete.  He loves long, draping, black clothing, candles, ravens, spooky old houses, Gothic castles, Jack-o-lanterns, Nightmare-monsters, and all things Halloween.  A man after my own tastes!          Fast forward two years to 2019 when The Sandman TV series was announced by Netflix.  Needless to say, I was delighted.   The story had become something precious to me, from the graphic novels, to the novella, Dreamhunters.  Soon there would be a new audiobook adaptation with a full cast of voice actors add background music and sound effects like an old radio play.  This was a stunningly elaborate audio drama and I could only hope the TV show could do the show as much justice.          And much like other obsessions that pulled me through rough times, The Sandman was there when I needed it. Volume 1 of The Audio drama version happened to be released July 15th, 2020, the very night I was in the hospital with a serious bacterial infection.  

     The Sandman holds a special place in my heart and that means my opinion of the new TV adaptation could be the extreme of being overly critical or watching it with rose colored glasses and thinking of it as perfect and flawless.

     I was fortunate enough to have been given a ticket to the virtual advanced screening of the first episode which included a thirty-minute introduction with Neil Gaiman and George R.R. Martin. I admit that through their conversation I grew very impatient and wanted to skip straight to the episode. They talked about both working with Charles Dance and Gwendoline Christie and how good the actors were.            At long last I got to watch the first episode of The Sandman Netflix Series, Sleep of The Just.  From this point on there will be spoilers.  

          SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT ON!

        The first episode of The Sandman Netflix series is fairly faithful to the original issue (Chapter 1 of the audio book / audio drama).   I had thought they might leave the John Hathaway character out of the show adaptation but to my surprise he was there just like at the start of the original story.  Charles Dance is absolutely perfect as the dastardly Roderick Burgess, the leader of the occultists who summon and trap Morpheus.    

         Tom Sturridge (Morpheus) Provides the narration of the episode while his character, in the story, is silent for most of it. There were certain scenes I was worried about before viewing the episode such as having heard that Morpheus’s raven familiar, Jessamy, learns of his captivity and tries to free him.  I had worried about how she might have found out about the capture and if that would change certain plot elements but the show actually handled it very well.  She was with him when he was summoned.  The only reason she wasn’t trapped in the binding circle with him is she was dragged out while tucked into his robes.          I was also worried that they might make Morpheus’s escape too “actiony.” The Sandman is not an action story. There aren’t a lot of fight scenes or explosions.  The escape is very similar to the original depiction. The only difference is when the binding circle is breached (which may have been deliberately by Paul this time) the guard dreams of the beach and of Morpheus and the guard opens fire on him, and wakes to find he is shooting the cage in The Waking World, shattering the glass of Morpheus’s prison.  It’s a much more visceral escape scene than what was originally written but I don’t mind it.

     I felt that Tom Sturridge’s acting was the best thing about the episode. He is extremely emotive in his body language and facial expressions as Morpheus.  You don’t see his character talk until the end of the episode and yet I could always tell what his character was thinking and feeling in every scene even without the often provided voice over narration.  I would even say that Tom Sturridge deserves an Emmy for the first episode of The Sandman.  Too bad the show won’t be eligible until the 2023 Emmy Awards.  

    The acting of the young man who played teenaged Alexander Burgess should not be over-looked either.  He was fantastic and very sympathetic. I very much wish that the show would deviate from the source material so that Morpheus might free Alex from his curse earlier than he does in the original version of the story.  In the original story Morpheus gets his revenge for being held prisoner by  condemning Alexander Burgess (the son of his original captor) to ”Eternal Waking” which was a nightmare that leads into yet another nightmare where he thinks he’s waking up but really he’s just entering yet another nightmare.  In this show the curse is of Eternal Sleep and we do not see what Alex is actually dreaming. I still pity him though.  He was made very sympathetic for the show.  

     Alex came very close to freeing Morpheus. I think he sympathized with him and may have even found Morpheus a little attractive.    

    Alex even offers to free Morpheus if he just promises to not harm him or Paul but Morpheus is too stubborn (and angry over the death of Jessamy) to pay attention to him.  Also Alex had previously said he’d free if not for his father and Morpheus had believed him then and Alex backed down on freeing him after his father’s death. Roderick’s Burgess’s Death is no longer a heart attack, by the way.  Now he dies after a confrontation with Alex where Alex accidentally knocks him against Morpheus’s glass cage and Roderick’s head cracks open.  I wonder how Alex managed to make that look like an accident and managed to also keep the police from entering The Undercroft.  Oh, well.  Money talks. And he was still rich.      

      Over a year ago some fans of “Dark fantasy” got to see a rough cut of the first episode before it was finished.  Someone on Reddit, who had seen the rough cut, complained that Alex and Paul’s homosexual relationship was too blatant and “in your face.”  It was no more blatant than in the original story. You don’t even see them kiss.  I am not sure what that person was talking about. And obviously, if this person couldn’t catch on that Alex and Paul were a couple in the original story, it probably should be more blatant than. It was always obvious to me.      The musical scoring is beautiful and haunting.  If I was to be critical of the music is that it’s deceptively whimsical when Jessamy is trying to free Morpheus.  I almost felt it was wrong for what was about to happen to her but perhaps that was the point.  We were to be thrown off guard into thinking this would be light hearted or easy and it wasn’t.  Speaking of what happens to poor Jessamy, (she gets killed by Alexander Burgess under pressure from his father), I actually saw tears in Morpheus’s eyes with what happened to poor Jessamy.  

     The whole scene is a deviation from the source material. Jessamy doesn’t even appear in The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes (the first volume of The Sandman).  Her first appearance in The Sandman is in the story Thermador (Act 2 of the audio drama and in The Sandman: Fables and Reflections, which is volume 6 of The Sandman). I have mixed feelings about Jessamy being killed this way as she IS a dream entity made from the soul of a deceased human and probably should not (in my opinion) die from a shot gun blast. However it does give Morpheus more reason to seek his revenge on Alex later in the story.        

    The end credits feature art by Dave McKean.  Each episode will feature different art by Dave McKean on the end credits.

    In general, I loved the first episode of The Sandman. It was about as faithful as the Interview with the vampire movie was to the novel.  Now as a fan of the source material I did notice a few changes that I wasn’t too thrilled with but these were minor.  The first is you do not get Morpheus audibly thinking “Soon.” Before the binding circle is breached.  This scene, in its original form, may well be the source of the famous meme.  

     I felt Morpheus’s confrontation with Alexander Burgess felt a bit rushed.  It lacked Morpheus explaining that time moves no differently for his kind than it does for humanity. This line felt important since many people might mistakenly think a century in captivity is nothing to someone like him.  (“Time moves no faster for my kind than it does humanity and imprisoned it crawled at a snail’s pace.”)  I think that line should have been left in there.     Another line that was chopped was when Morpheus refers to the spell that summoned and trapped him as “Petty Hedge magicking.” (Meaning weak and amateur spell casting.)  I felt that would have established his sense of ego quite well and the line is somewhat iconic to those who have read the story.

    I was also a little surprised that when Morpheus finally returned to his own realm (dimension) of The Dreaming, that it is Lucienne, the loyal Librarian (I don’t understand the point of changing the spelling from Lucien) who finds him instead of Gregory The Gargoyle.  This will definitely mean there have to be changes to how the Imperfect Hosts (episode 2) story is done.  I had hoped to see him recover at The House of Mystery, being cared for by Cain and Abel.  Imagine convalescing in the care of the character equivalents of The Crypt Keeper and Vault Keeper from EC comics. I would have liked to have seen that.      The only time we see Roderick Burgess use any real magick is during the summing spell and he seems surprised that it was working.  The implication is that without the Magdalene Grimoire he has no real power, which is disappointing, because he was an actual sorcerer in the source material.  Also they changed his motivation that he now wants to resurrect his older son (the only one he actually loves).  In the original version he just wanted to capture Death for clout and power among the occult community.  I don’t really think the change was necessary.  A power mad magician should have been enough.  But he’s still as much an ass as he was in the original story.            The sets were fantastic, from The Undercroft where Morpheus was held prisoner to the manor house, which to me, felt like it should have been used in a revival of Dark Shadows for Collinwood Manor in Maine. Everything was beautifully atmospheric. The CG was decent.   The villainous escaped nightmare, The Corinthian, is shown earlier than many may have expected but I did not mind that.  He’s a good character to show early. And he also guided Roderick Burgess on how best to contain his prisoner.

     After the end credits there is a teaser for the rest of the season that is very enticing and definitely has content that was not in the original story. I do like that Matthew the Raven (Morpheus’s new familiar) is shown early and even delivers a fantastic and nonchalant “F—k it.  Let’s go to Hell!” like they’ve decided to go to McDonalds for supper.  Patton Oswalt was an excellent choice to voice the character.

      In general, I loved the first episode though.  I would give this show an 8 out of 10 or perhaps an 8.5 out of 10 as a rating.  Honestly, I thought the first episode was fantastic.  I hope the rest of the show is just as good and that other people give it a fair chance.                  

#The Sandman #Sandman #Neil Gaiman