hello, i'm new here.

sorry i'm about to rehash an old topic, but i would really like to know your thoughts.

i've just finished reading Sandman. it took me a few weeks and in that time i became attached to many of the characters but especially Morpheus.
when he died at the end of The Kindly Ones i was gutted!
perhaps it's wrong to feel that way.. i know the ending is logical to the series, and Dream of the Endless goes on via the being that was Daniel, but still!
i could hardly bring myself to read the last book...i kept looking for panels featuring that midnight & white entity, and felt inexplicably sad.
i know it's said to be the end of a point of view, an idea and everything, but...i came to *believe* in Morpheus. i really wanted him to be Endless...one who didn't die.
why did he get so tired of everything that he was willing to leave the game (and his oft-quoted responsibilities)? why didn't Death try a bit harder to talk him out of it?...why?
i know a lot of it was what happened with Orpheus. but i wish he'd followed his own advice: "You are alive. So live." dammit.

it says a lot for Neil and his incredible storytelling power, that it came to mean that much to me. i don't usually get so involved.

how did you feel when you got to that bit?

cheers,
m x

[This message has been edited by millian (edited 07-01-2002).]

I think the best explanation - bar none - for Morpheus's eventual demise can be seen in his own words in 'The Tempest', the very last issue of the series.
Shakespeare asks Morpheus something about 'why this play?' - And Morpheus's rather stark response is "For I will never leave my island."

That one panel, to me, is more heart-wrenchingly awful than any other aspect of the affair: he knew. He knew he was going to die, and he knew he would never allow himself to stop the inevitable from happening.

-SLASH-

i know what you mean. i was similarly gut-wrenched when fiddler's green was killed. i love that character and, selfishly, i wished he had more appearences. but of course, being a gaiman devotee, i didn't object to his decision as it was necessary, as i saw it, for the story. hoom.

[This message has been edited by malignantyouth (edited 07-01-2002).]

As quoted in 24 hours, Preludes and Nocturnes: "If you keep a story going long enough it always ends in death" - Neil Gaiman refers to this in Sandman companion as almost giving plot away at beginning.

As for me, the moment I most relate to is when he is so horribly alone in his chamber, at 'the heart of the dreaming' after he's remembered 'so live'
Had Gaiman sign that page in the white space underneath because that's the most human aprt of Morpheus I think...

Yes, was gutted, but knew it too, and accepted, like other suicides in life, that it was his choice...
It also serves as a reminder how our lives are our own, and that no-one else can make that decision for us.

Too prosaic? Apols, but it is 2.45 am !!

i guess it's just that suicide is the hardest death of all to take.
i don't really protest the decision or the story's end (i would never presume to do so) i just...miss the idea of him going on and on, Endless.

you all make good points and your words help. thanks.)

m x

(woops, double post. stupid browser.)

[This message has been edited by millian (edited 07-02-2002).]

Neil definately had a way with the heartstrings while he wrote the Sandman series.. none of the other *new* series seem to have the ability to jerk the tears and choke the sobs out like his tale of Morpheus..

waiting for a tale from Daniel's perspective (or has one been released, and i'm in the dark?)

The Sound of Her Wings, then Morpheus remembering Orpheus ("you're alive, so live, dammit!" - i said that back at him when he died too, millian *gryn*), Death taking Dream and not pushing the subject with him looking so miserable, and the Dreamer seeing Death at the Wake, so pretty and so sad in her red dress.. those images pick out in my memory as the most wrenching..

quote:

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Originally posted by Interit:
("you're alive, so live, dammit!" - i said that back at him when he died too, millian *gryn*)

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quote:

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Death taking Dream and not pushing the subject with him looking so miserable,

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I felt that...considering the enormity of what happened at the end of The Kindly Ones, that their conversation could've been a little longer..a few more panels would've helped there i think.
yep, it's total heartstrings.

quote:

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Originally posted by Interit:
waiting for a tale from Daniel's perspective (or has one been released, and i'm in the dark?)

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You can see a tale with Daniel in JLA #22-23.
Daniel also made a few cameos in the Dreaming and played a role in the end of the series.

While Daniel is Dream, he is still a rookie and is not quite the leader that Morpheus was.

but we do not know how old the last incarnation of dream, morpheus, is.
Also, in ref to death in the red dress, remember recalling somewhere about the imagery used and death in a red dress somwehere - has neil talked about it or was in an anotated thinggummy..?
in regards to the story told at end of kindly ones, there was just enough wihtout being too much or little in my opinion. of course, at the end of someone's life, we all long for more time, to say a full goodbye - cf. Mee tJoe Black, with the sudden taking of 'joe'. (not giving any spoilers for those not sen the movie, but thos ehwo have will understand what i am refeering to)

quote:

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Originally posted by Crescent:
at the end of someone's life, we all long for more time, to say a full goodbye

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very true. despite the hints and buildup, the suddeness shocked me i guess.

m x

ughv

quote from Morpheus:
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Originally posted by Interit:
waiting for a tale from Daniel's perspective (or has one been released, and i'm in the dark?)
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You can see a tale with Daniel in JLA #22-23.
Daniel also made a few cameos in the Dreaming and played a role in the end of the series.

While Daniel is Dream, he is still a rookie and is not quite the leader that Morpheus was.


i guess what i was really getting at was i'm hoping to see a new Dream title emerge from the little world Neil built up, and not merely cameos in books i'd never even think about for more than two seconds, much less buy them...
also, i swear i posted this idea before, with more detail, but i'm afraid i may be getting edited out by some higher power, because it is no longer here..

okay.. apparently other threads went a bit wacky on the night i originally tried to post the above, too.. so i won't take it personally!

[This message has been edited by Interit (edited 07-05-2002).]

Another relevant quote by Dream (to Destiny, in Brief Lives): "Life, brother? A strange way to describe our existence."

...that's all i can add that hasn't been said before.

quote:

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Originally posted by Crescent:
[B]
As for me, the moment I most relate to is when he is so horribly alone in his chamber, at 'the heart of the dreaming' after he's remembered 'so live'

B]

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I read Brief Lives first in the series and that panel made me fall in love with Morpheus.

Also reading The Kindley Ones I cried the entire way through. A month later I forced myself to read The Wake, partly because I knew I'd cry the whole time and partly because I didn't want to say goodbye to Morpheus. But my favorite quote in all of the series has to be Matthew at the wake saying "He was the most important person in the world to me and now he's gone". I still tear up when I read that.

It was tragic. It was necessary. It was beautiful. I'm repeating others, but there you have it. One of the best moments in literature.