#tales in the sand

[orionsangel86]

I was once again flicking through the Sandman comics and thinking about the changes made to the show (as I am pretty much always doing) and something that struck me as interesting is why they chose to swap out Tales in the Sand for Men of Good Fortune.

In the comics, The Sound of Her Wings is the last story in Preludes and Nocturns. Dream’s meeting with his sister Death closes out the first of the overarching storylines within the Sandman saga, and it ends with Dream finding some measure of peace after speaking with her, and finding joy in hearing the sound of wings.

This can be interpreted as the first bit of real foreshadowing of Dream’s desire to die. Anyone who has read the Kindly Ones knows how important The Sound Of Her Wings is as it is called back to heavily at the end.

In the comics, the next issue can be seen as a one off, but is included in The Doll’s House book. This issue is Tales in the Sand - the tragic love story of Dream and Nada.

Right after Tales in the Sand, we get to the Doll’s House, which begins the exact same way that episode 6 of The Sandman Netflix show ends - with Desire calling on Despair to begin their scheming over the existance of the vortex.

I found it very interesting how the show swapped out Tales in the Sand for Men of Good Fortune - a story which in the comics comes much later within The Doll’s House storyline.

On the one hand, it makes sense to move Men of Good Fortune outside of the Doll’s House story for pacing reasons. But by putting it where they did they have drastically changed the tone of the story in a few ways.

1. It changes the end of The Sound of Her Wings. Show!Dream doesn’t leave his sister to sit and find peace in the thought of death, instead he does the opposite, he immediately goes and seeks out the one person he knows who is quite literally the antithesis of death - someone who finds joy in living. It still ends the Preludes and Nocturns story with Dream finding some manner of peace and happiness, but not in the sound of wings. Instead, it’s in the reunion with his friend who loves life so much he refuses to die.

2. It takes the place of the only love story we are given for Dream at that point in the comics. The Sandman comics have a tendency to avoid revealling too much information about Dream too soon and up until this point in the comics, all we know about his love life is that he condemned a lover to hell 10,000 years ago, based on a very brief conversation in A Hope In Hell. Tales in the Sand is the expansion of that brief conversation, giving us at least one perspective of how the tragedy played out.

I am really curious about why they decided to leave it out of the show completely. Partly I think its because it isn’t exactly a flattering look at Dream as a character. Probably didn’t seem like good business sense to the people who wanted The Sandman to perform well to basically destroy your main characters likeability half way through the first season (imagine all the Twitter puriteens and anti types who would get on their high horses attacking Sandman fans and Neil Gaiman alike for daring to like a main character who comes across a little bit rapey in this particular story - among other horrific character flaws).

Also, Tales in the Sand generally fits better with the Season of Mists story arc overall, and I think we will get a much kinder and more forgiving version of this story in the show.

So instead of being introduced to the first of Dream’s lovers, we are introduced to Hob Gadling. Make of that what you will.

3. It makes the immediate cut to Desire at the start of The Doll’s House story all the more eyebrow raising. Part of the reason why I think Desire’s scenes follow on from Tales in the Sand is because Desire had a lot to do with Dream’s bad behaviour in that story, and what ultimately happened is partly their fault. It is brought up both in comic and show when Desire tells Despair that “Nada was a mistake” but in the show, this comment remains a mystery, whereas in the comic, it goes some way into explaining the horrific story we have just read.

In the show, instead it makes for absolutely beautiful subtext as they cut to Desire’s realm and the song Desire as Desire says “Attend sweet Sibling” whilst we have just watched Dream reunite with Hob and smile the first real smile he has had all season so far. For a split second on my first watch I legit thought Desire was talking to Dream at that point and encouraging him to hook up with Hob. It was a very confusing few seconds!

At the end of the day, I think the change to the order of these stories was a very good idea, even without the added level of shipping fodder it gives us Dreamling shippers. In changing the end to The Sound of Her Wings in the show, it removes the foreshadowing of Dream’s desire to die, which I’ll be honest, so far I can’t see at all in the show version of the story. Instead, we get a Dream who is happy for the first time after reuniting with his friend - who apparently waited an additional 33 years for him and built/refurbished a pub in that time.

I have a bazzillion more thoughts on the changes from comic to show on the Men of Good Fortune issue in particular, but that’s for another post. I just had to get my thoughts down as the more I read and re-read the comics, the more I feel like the show is considering a different direction, a more hopeful happy direction. But I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

[writing-for-life]

“A really shitty thing to do”—Jill Thompson

[two-hands-toward-the-sun]

I am incredibly interested in how the show is going to adapt “Tales in the Sand” aka Nada’s first story. Given the differences in Dream’s character that we’ve already seen in Season 1, I think we can safely assume the adaptation will be at least somewhat different. And that is SOOOO exciting and intriguing to me because space for an alternate telling is literally built into the framework of the original comic!! It states very explicitly that the version we see in the comic is the version men are told and in turn tell to each other. It says that women pass down a different version of this story, and perhaps it has a different ending.

Maybe we’ll see that rendition in the show???

[tryan-a-bex]

A gorgeous retelling of Nada’s tale, from her perspective!

[khaotunq]

TYPECAST: Khaotung Thanawat edition

[raypakorn]

do you take care of me because of duty and nothing else? you don't feel anything at all, right? || all these times we've been happy together. everything was a lie, right?

requested months ago by @akkpipitphattana

BONUS - because they made their mistakes but their hearts were pure

[sand-scourge]

leatherhead but i drew her again

[toyastales]

"Home is where the sandy toes play and the palm trees sway." - Lady Gaga

[friendpilled-visitmaxer]

[intuitive-revelations]

Hmmm....

Thematically i kind of liked that.

But man that plot was... not good.

[off-brand-adorabbit]

Tress scratched the best itch for me, I’ve been craving a good fairy tale and it was just perfect. I kept slipping so hard into the fairy tale aspects that I kept getting caught by surprise whenever a cosmere thing stopped beating around the bush and revealed itself, actually. While I’m sure that wasn’t fully the intention, it was a really fun way to read some brandermansanderman coming fresh off of sunlit man and how intensely locked in I was with the Connections. Genuinely Tress is such a fun little romp. I love girls who sail in fucked up seas and this is a genre I want more of please thank you.

[orionsangel86]

Something I don't think has been mentioned before about Dream and Nada. So at the end of Season of Mists, Dream offers to Nada to stay in the dreaming. She refuses, but she asks him if he wants to come live with her in the waking world. Of course, Dream being Dream, refuses. So they part ways and all that. The thing is, if Dream had raped her, I really don't think she would have suggested that. She's being given the opportunity to live a life without Dream and she still suggests that maybe he could put his mantle aside and live as a human with her. She did that of her own free will. If the relationship had been entirely unconsentual, I don't think she would have done that. So I'd say there's textual evidence for Dream having been good to Nada at some point, despite how the story in Tales in the Sand may appear.

Another thing about Tales in the Sand is that it's probably worth looking at the purpose of the story in the culture it was told in with regards to men and women having two different interpretations. It's just an assumption that the women's version would depict worse actions on Dream's part, it's an assumption that the comics seem to want you to make, but it's still an assumption. I feel like the version we see seems to be more along the lines of "seeking out a god will end in disaster" more than anything else. It's a story about disaster so of course it focuses on the disaster. We don't know what kind of story the women's version is. Idk, I feel like we just might be wrongly equating the men's version of the story to Dream's perspective and the women's to Nada's. They could just be two versions of the same events teaching different lessons

Idk if anything I've said makes sense, but do you see my train of thought?

I think you have hit the nail on the head with this actually and I agree completely. I totally forgot about that moment in Season of Mists which is annoying because I only listened to it very recently on Audible.

Nada does indeed ask Dream if he would put aside his duty and his role as Dream of the Endless and come live as a human with her. It's actually a pretty significant moment because it at least floats the idea as a potential option that is available to Dream. He absolutely could just put aside his role, pass it on to someone else, and go live whatever life he chooses. Destruction mentions it as an option as well, though he left without passing the role on, and Death also mentions it to him at the very end, to which he states he could not have done it. I actually don't think this is discussed as much as it should be in fandom especially since there are so many fanfics coming out now that explore the idea of a retired human Morpheus living a life on Earth after Daniel assumes the role of Dream of the Endless.

I also agree with your thoughts on Tales in the Sand. The moral of the tale is not to seek the love of a God, for it will bring only death and destruction and pain to all involved. Both versions of the tale should have that same message at the core, because that is the part of the tale we know is fact. But yeah you have a point that the womens tale could be far worse, and paint a worse picture of Dream. But at the end of the day, Nada still loves him, 10,000 years later and even after she yelled at him and slapped him, she still kisses him and asks him to live with her. So whatever else he may have done, he couldn't have abused her.

I kinda really hope that when the show adapts Tales in the Sand, it tells the womens story. I just think it will be really awesome to get that perspective in the show to compare to the mens tale in the comic, and to see how they differ, though as I have said many times already, I am almost 100% certain that the show will attempt to paint Dream in a much more sympathetic light than the comic does.

[writing-for-life]

Tales in the Sand—Did We Find The Women’s Story?

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

People, my head is spinning a bit, and of course we’ll never know 100%, but did we maybe, just maybe (through the biggest collective brainstorming effort and going off on a million tangents as to why Dream overreacted so badly to Nada rejecting him, to the extent it felt OOC considering his reactions to his other failed relationships) find the women’s story in “Tales in the Sand”?

In essence: Can we assume that the last time, Nada didn’t just say no to Dream’s plea to become his queen and give up her mortal life/not move on to the afterlife, as suggested by the tribal elder. She asked Dream to give up being Dream. That’s a comment in passing in Season of Mists we never hear in Tales in the Sand. And of course we know, in hindsight as they reconcile, she asked this, but it is omitted in the original tale.

It’s just one puzzle piece as to why we think he overreacted—there’s much more to this of course, so read and scroll right through to the bottom.

But this one is particularly about the women’s story. What say you?

[silicacid]

santet

[duckies27]

Guess who's biting the bullet and adding Once Upon a Witchlight to my DND podcast list

Which makes 4

[greythroat]

@bignian

Idk if you’re serious but for anyone who wants them: Fight all raids outside of headquarters (some maps are better than others). It’s easier and you don’t have to make any walls. Do the town nodes (you need to find a special structure and kill it) for consistent wood+stone dispatches that don’t cost act. If you get stuck on any story missions use https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1Oimw2-LXle0PpvNlkpFM2C9QbNckIcMIbGX0rIPjWhs/htmlview?pli=1 and look it up on bilibili. Use the -6 cost food on flagbearers. Once you have more resources the high ground platforms and scout towers are useful in missions. Look around maps for secret areas (get there by destroying decoy wall). Do hard stuff like story bosses and killing the olden keystone on a day “2 days from calculation” so you can save scum.

As for operators have Texas and Yato alter. Other good picks include Phantom, April and trapmasters for revealing + Reed alter, Eyjafjalla, and Mizuki for battles + Surtr for everything. Mlynar is probably great in RA but I don’t have him.