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pellaaearien · 1 year

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Hey so here’s a really mean Sandman thought I had...

I just finished reading The Kindly Ones for the first time. (Yeah.) And I must say, it was a very interesting experience from the perspective of someone who both watched the show first and has also been hanging around deeply into fandom enough that I’ve absorbed spoilers/meta/whatever else surrounding the end of the comics before reading them to draw my own conclusions.

Now I have. And I think I’ve come to some interesting ones.

First off, naturally, Neil Gaiman has written the ultimate tragedy. Everything comes full circle, every decision made with the best possible intentions has the worst possible outcome, and it was always going to be this way. It’s a masterstroke, and as I read I was less sad than admiring at the completeness of it, the way everything slots into place so neatly.

Ever since I spoiled myself for the ending (which I’m glad I did,) I’ve read quite a bit of Kindly Ones meta. Many words have been spilled around the subject of “if someone had just SEEN what was wrong...” but MANY people did! Fiddler’s Green. Matthew. Nuala. And, of course, Hob, who Dream walks out on - again - because he’s being too perceptive. Again.

I was also reading the book with the foreknowledge that this is all an elaborate suicide plot on the part of Dream. After all, as Death says at the end, “the only reason you got yourself into this mess is because this is where you wanted to be.” And, later, when Dream says he has made all the preparations necessary, “You’ve been making them for ages. You just didn’t let yourself know that was what you were doing.” To which Dream replies, “if you say so.”

So we have lots of people saying lots of things about Dream, but what do Dream’s actions say for themselves? Because I must admit, reading the book knowing how it was going to end threw a lot of those assumptions into a new light.

Let’s go back to the conversation with Death. Dream says: “I did not plan this, my sister. I had imagined that I would be able to keep events here in check. I intended to play a waiting game, in which, ultimately, no harm was done.”

This I believe. One of the things that never sat right with me was Dream sitting back and letting his creations suffer, if his intention all along was to destroy himself. I don’t believe that’s in character for Dream in any incarnation.

What was Dream’s motivation? Dream is tired. He says so himself. He’s been tired for a long time, probably even before his imprisonment and having to basically remake the Dreaming and since then he hasn’t had a moment’s peace, what with Season of Mists and Orpheus and everything else. I think meeting Daniel planted the seed in his mind, that there was an out. As Death says, “...the stuff you do. Where you do it, and you won’t even admit to yourself it’s what you’re doing.”

Meeting Daniel was that moment for Dream. Someone who could take over his responsibilities in the Dreaming. He can’t just walk away, like Destruction and Lucifer. That’s not who he is. I think Dream’s plan was to wait for Daniel to grow up some, and then... something. ??? profit. Maybe he would’ve gone to the Fates himself and taken their punishment for Orpheus. (Because he does, as Nuala astutely points out, want to be punished for Orpheus).

BUT, Daniel gets stolen while he’s still a baby. So Dream sends Matthew and the newly-remade Corinthian after him. Lyta, meanwhile, instigates the Furies, so now they’re on a ticking clock.

(I don’t, personally, think that Dream freed Loki with the intention of setting all this in motion, but that’s up to reader interpretation.)

Dream makes preparations. It certainly seems like he’s making peace with the fact of his death. He visits Nada (a small boy in Hong Kong), does a census of the Dreaming, acknowledges his servants, feeds pigeons, examines his properties in the waking world, and reviews various treaties and agreements to which the Dreaming is subject. He is responsible. He’s getting his affairs in order in case things don’t fall the way he expects them to.

When his Griffin is killed, Dream tells Furies: “I can create another, who would not even know that it had ever died.” Cold, perhaps, but very in keeping with the type of backwards kindness we’ve seen from Dream throughout the series. He also says: “This is my world, ladies. I control it, I am responsible for it. You with neither destroy it nor will you destroy me.”

The last part, as we know, is simply true. The Dreaming can be restored endlessly, and even if the facet known as Morpheus is destroyed, Dream will continue. But it’s the first part that’s significant. I control it, I am responsible for it. That part says to me that he would not allow his creations to suffer. He is responsible for them. And yes, he could restore them with a thought, but why bother? If he’s trying to get himself killed, why doesn’t the story just end here and now? With the Furies and Dream alone in his throne room?

Clearly, he’s waiting for Daniel. He can’t allow himself to be removed without a successor in place. Once the Furies leave, he immediately calls Matthew for an update. Matthew comments on how cold Dream sounds - he’s feeling the pressure.

Fiddler’s Green is killed. Does Dream say “I can create another?” No. He immediately goes in search of Lyta, to hopefully negate the wrath of the Furies. A stopgap, as the Furies would find another avatar in time, but Dream is taking action. He is not passively letting his doom collapse around his ears.

He’s foiled by Thessaly (all my homies hate Thessaly). While they are estranged exes, Thessaly admits that protecting Lyta from Dream was “not entirely” to hurt him: she struck a deal with the Three for a bit more life. Hurting Dream was an added bonus. She knows Dream well enough that he won’t break the rules in order to kill Lyta.

Dream is visibly upset by this. He won’t break the rules, but Thessaly’s actions (and his own, by extension) mean that more destruction will be wrought in the Dreaming. Lucien takes him to task for it:

Lucien asks why he isn’t restoring the things the Furies destroyed, but it makes sense to halt the source of the destruction first, rather than needing to fix things over and over again. Dream is at a loss. His plan was foiled and now he has no way to hold off the Furies. And Daniel is still missing. He could summon his sister right now (as he says, “by his own hand or another’s”) but that would leave the Dreaming in disarray, and he won’t do that.

Now to add Nuala’s summons into the mix. While Death will later point out that yes, Dream could have rejected the summons, I think it’s important to remember that he does actually try, at first:

“I must most earnestly beseech you...” That is begging. That is literal begging from Dream of the Endless, and it doesn’t stop there. “You do me a disservice, Nuala,” Dream says, after Nuala quotes his promise back to him. He tries to get out of it! But Nuala won’t let him, throws his words in his face, and thereby seals his fate. Because Dream of the Endless, if nothing else, keeps his word, follows the rules. As he says later: “If we did otherwise, we would not be ourselves.”

He can’t just leave his realm like Destruction. He can’t ignore the rules and kill Lyta anyway. He can’t go back on his word and reject Nuala’s summons. If he did that, he would no longer be Dream.

So, he sets Daniel up in his new role as best as he can with the time he has left, and then he takes his sister’s hand to prevent any further damage to the Dreaming. Death accuses him of planning the whole thing, and perhaps that’s true. Perhaps he saw where the pieces were laid on the board and manipulated them to his advantage. I certainly don’t deny that ever since Orpheus he had intended to take himself out of the picture, one way or another. But I truly don’t think he meant for it to happen like this. I don’t see him as a cold-hearted chessmaster, forcing himself into a corner until he has no way out, with his creations’ existences hanging in the balance. I think he had a plan, and tried to stick to the plan as best he could, as the true tragedy spun into place around him: it was always going to happen like this.

Are y’all ready for the mean thought?

Because thinking about it this way, if truly all he wanted was a way out, he could have expedited the process at any point. As I hope I have shown here, to the contrary, his behaviour reads to me as someone who held out until the absolute bitter end, until he literally had no other choice. What are we to make of this? On the one hand, we have Death’s accusation about “...the stuff you do. Where you do it, and you won’t even admit to yourself it’s what you’re doing.” Maybe that’s true. Death knows Dream, and knows what she’s talking about.

On the other hand, we have a scene, way back at the beginning, with Hob. (Hob who, incidentally, doesn’t seem all that surprised to see Dream outside the confines of their century meetings, given that he thought their toast during Season of Mists was a dream, but I digress.) (Dream also goes to see Hob the instant there’s any inkling of trouble, again, as he does in Season of Mists, but I digress a second time.) And Hob is, as in 1889, too perceptive by half. As Dream is walking away, Hob says:

“You take care of yourself.”

What if Dream went to Hob, knowing his friend, being perceptive, would guess that something was up?

What if he just wanted to be reminded that someone cared whether or not something happened to him?

He gave Hob a promise that he would take care of himself. And so he did, in the face of overwhelming odds. (Odds that he may or may not have set in motion himself, true, but that just makes it more extraordinary.) Until he couldn’t any more. Until taking care of the Dreaming took precedence over taking care of the aspect, Morpheus.

Because Dream of the Endless always keeps his word.

#the sandman meta #the kindly ones #dreamling

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