When I was reading The Doll's house graphic novel, I noticed that Fiddler's Green was talking about that the only time Morpheus can take a human life is when a Vortex of the Dreaming appears. But then I thought back to Preludes and Nocturnes and I noticed that after the ruby was destroyed and John Dee was at Morpheus's mercy, he asked if Morpheus was going to kill him, And Morph. said, "I could, perhaps I will." So was this just an idea that came along that SM can't kill anyone except a Vortex, or was it just a simple mistake?

First of all, welcome.



Now, on topic.

He can take lives to save the Dreaming. That means he could take Vortex's life and perhaps John Dee's. Why? Because John Dee acted as a Vortex, crushing whole Dream's realm.

But, on a personal level (there is a spoiler that supports my idea, but I won't mention it) he can kill just like anybody else but he wouldn't have the right to do it and perhaps he would have to face the consequences for his deed.

And, while he might not have the ability to do it personally, he still could ask others (like a nightmare or his guards) to do it instead of him.

@)--,--'--,---



Every time I look at Life it seems a natural, organic and ordered system... but at the end I realize it's just a bloody Escher picture.

quote:

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When I was reading The Doll's house graphic novel, I noticed that Fiddler's Green was talking about that the only time Morpheus can take a human life is when a Vortex of the Dreaming appears.

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I thought it was that when the Vortex appeared, Morpheus would have to take a human life, not that it was the only time he could? (Sorry, I don't have any of my graphic novels with me to check)

Mara

quote:

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Originally posted by mara@nvg:
(Sorry, I don't have any of my graphic novels with me to check)

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I am home, will go check

"How? He terminates their physical existence, little bird. To protect the dreaming. It's the only time he is empowered to take human life, you see...
It's on of the rules."

Now I see it.


*VAGUE SPOILER*


The other time he didn't kill a human. Now I see why I was confused.

That still doesn't mean he couldn't make someone died at the hands of one of his servants.

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Every time I look at Life it seems a natural, organic and ordered system... but at the end I realize it's just a bloody Escher picture.

I'ma go ahead and throw out what I think your spoiler is, because I THINK/HOPE that no one reading this hasn't read all the way through Sandman. (and if anyone hasn't, please GOD skip the rest of my post, so I don't kill it for you and feel bad for a long time.)


I believe that you are talking about Morpheus killing his son, Orpheus. However, Orpheus IS human. Or at least mortal. Morpheus says, "You go to her funeral and mourn her passing. It is the mortal way," or something like that. But Morpheus DOES get punished for this, despite his claim to himself that "Orpheus died long ago, when the furies tore him apart, if not before that, etc."(that punishment being something that I would not want to even possibly risk anyone who hasn't gotten to the end of the story reading about.)

Spoiler possible, but i would like to know;
Orpheus was mortal, but surely his actions negated that? isn't that the whole point of Dream having to act because his sister couldn't?
(ignore this question if it's answered in detail in the last two, i can't get them until next week.)

cheers.

mind you, it's been a long time since I read Sandman, but didn't Morpheus break a different rule by killing Orpheus - that you don't kill family?

I think so - again spoiler:

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- that's what left him vunerable to the kindly ones.

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JUST what the world's been waiting for. The charge of the trenchcoat brigade.

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Orpheus was mortal. But he was son of an Endless and a Muse. Hence, he was not human. Mortality is not what makes you (or anyone) a human. Think of Hob Galding.

And yes, Morpheus killed his son thus breaking that Old Rule.

Let me re-quote (thanks GMZoe):

quote:

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Gilbert:
How? He terminates their physical existence, little bird. To protect the dreaming. It's the only time he is empowered to take human life, you see...
It's on of the rules.

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*emphasis mine

So killing Orpheus wouldn't have broken any rule (as far as we know) if he hadn't been his son.

Also, this thread reminded me that I believe that Death refused to take Orpheus' life once (after the Furies attack) leaving him harmless. That would explain why Morpheus did try to save him in Thermidor, because that time his son's life was on risk.

(just personal assumptions; if anyone can prove me wrong --or right-- please, do)

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Every time I look at Life it seems a natural, organic and ordered system... but at the end I realize it's just a bloody Escher picture.

actually, morpheus telling his son to mourn his wife because it's the 'mortal' way doesn't necessarily mean that orpheus is mortal too does it? couldn't he have said that because eurydice was mortal?

i haven't really thought about it but if orpheus was mortal, why didn't his head die all those years? or is it because of what he did down in hades? (i forget the real mythology of it already)

I think the explanation usually used of why Morpheus didn't die was because when he went to Death and asked for her help, part of that help was that Death would not touch him. That was the only way he could survive a trip to the Underworld.

Personally, I don't think that makes much sense, as Death would have done something when she saw Orpheus' condition, and also because it makes much more sense to me that Orpheus be immortal rather than mortal. After all, he is the son of one of the Endless and also a muse, another immortal.

So it might simply be that in order to kill such a being, something deeper than destroying a physical body is needed. Who knows?

~
James

Larger than life is the perfect size

just realized my earlier post was composed purely of questions silly

Spoilers of course. It's impossible to have a coherent conversation about this subject without them.

The little gods in Sandman are also mortal, although they are very unlikely to die of natural causes. There are all sorts of references to the subject. Odin and the norse gods are terrified of Ragnorok. Most of the Babylonian gods are dead, usually from lack of worshippers. There's another reference to the gods passing back into the dreaming after they die before fading away. In fact, the only thing that is guarenteed not to die is Death, because she has to close up shop at the end of the universe.

Of course, there's also evidence in the stories that death is not necessarily the end of existence. There's reincarnations and hell and all sorts of other bits in the series.

So, the question of exact status of Orpheus is a question of how one defines mortality and immortality. I tend to think of immortals as incapable of dying, despite the occasional use of the word for those can only die by massive phsyical trauma (ie. violence). I would argue that the little gods are ultimately mortal because they are vunerable to death in a way that humans are not - a lack of worshippers. Trying to seperate immortals and mortals by the limits in the ways they can die seems like to big of a stretch in the definitions to me.

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Gingerly, I clunked down the tunnel, eager to surprise my prey.

I had wondered because when i was reading fables and reflections, death seemed reluctant to make the deal. And she said she'd agree never to take him, so something else would have been required.

I always thought that not dying was the price Orpheus had to pay for doing what he did -and it's obvious afterwards why the not dying thing can become quite a burden for him.
And Death never took him, coz he'd agreed to pay the price, so the "deal" was fair. (but the deal was with Death, not with other creatures)

And it's all about that, really, deals. I think the Sandman CAN kill anybody just about whenever he likes. But because he doesn't think that being an Endless allows him to do his will, he settled some rule to control himself. One of those was "only kill a mortal when s/he's a vortex".
What he says to John Dee, can mean that either he's thinking he can break his own rule, or most probable, that he'll kill him in an indirect way. For example, what he does to Richard Maddoc, the guy who kidnaps Calliope, could have led him to commit suicide. In that sense, Dream hasn't killed Maddoc directly, but he's killed him indirectly. Or, my guess, he's just pulling it off, see how the other reacts.

The "not killing relatives" thing is a rule of the Kindly Ones, not of the Sandman -because it is hinted at the end that Morpheus could have somehow escaped the Kindly Ones, but he thought he had to play along THEIR rules as well as his own. Another of the Endless could have maybe tried to elude them since they were others' rules, but not Morpheus (for whateveer reasons, that's another debate).

*spoilers*

I've always thought the rule binding Morpheus killing humans wasn't so much specific to the vortex, but just in general any time a human was threatening the dreaming. First off, I don't think that the vortex rule would strictly apply to John Dee in Preludes, but that rule certainly would. I also think the more general rule applies to Morpheus's attempt to kill Lyta Hall in The Kindly Ones.

He couldn't do so because of the lamb's-blood circle Thessaly had drawn around Lyta, but it's made clear that he would have been able to kill her if not for that, and there's no indication he would be in violation of any other rule. Also, I think it'd be a real stretch to say that Lyta was a vortex in that instance.

As a side note, that scene gives some more particulars about Morpheus acting through other agents when rules bind him against killing. I think a rule binding him applies just as much to his servants (since all inhabitants of the dreaming are in a sense extensions of him). Note he could have easily created a nightmare or something to kill Lyta for him but didn't. Also, he seemed to be bound from indirectly breaking the circle (such as lighting a fire in the apartment). It's unclear though, whether he could act through agents that are not a part of the dreaming (he solicits help from Thessaly in this incident, but it's not specified whether he wants her to merely remove the circle or actually kill Lyta for him).

Another interesting side note, which I think definitely seems in keeping with Morpheus's character... this scene also establishes a disparity between what Morpheus is physically capable of doing, and what he is allowed to do according to various rules. Thessaly makes a comment alluding to Death not taking the rules as seriously as the other Endless do. I think it'd be telling if Dream could theoretically have broken the rules, but psychologically was so bound by rules that he would respect him even though it meant his death. (Also, it lends another point to the argument that he at least in some ways encouraged his demise). One last point along these lines, IMHO any rules are important to Morpheus, regardless of whose rules they are. Therefore, his breaking the rule to kill Orpheus seems to me along the same lines as him breaking the circle to kill Lyta, in which case the latter would have been possible. And that he chose to break a rule in the one case and not the other seems in keeping with his overall personality.

Okay I'm done. Sorry for rambling.

I thought it was implied in the lambs-blood circle scene that Morphe, but didn't, because of his binding to the rules of magic and all., which would be really indicative of Morpheus' tragic flaw, the inability to change, which is ultimately why he decides to effectively kill himself. Lucien spells it out in the wake, or maybe some other character: "There came a point when he realized he must change or die, and there was a limit to how much he could change," or something along those lines. Basically, he is so damn stuck on his rules that he can't adapt them and himself to meet new, different situations, which brings us back to his inability to kill humans. And I wish I could find my copy of the doll's house, to confirm the actual line, because I can't shake the feeling that the quote was "It's one of the few times he's allowed to take life," but I've been wrong before. And I say that Orpheus WAS mortal, and human, not only because of the "it is the mortal way" quote, which does indicate that that is the way that mortals deal with death or else all of the surviving gods and endless would be constantly wracked with pain from all of the millions they've known who have died, but also because Orpheus tries to remove Eurydice from the underworld. If he were some sort of Demigod, he wouldn't need to go to the underworld and bring her back, he would have free reign to go there and visit her whenever he pleased. Death wouldn't be such a big deal to him, because it certainly isn't for any of the Endless; she's their sister! If he were more supernatural than a human in anything beyond his beautiful musical gifts, he would think of Death as his kindly old aunt, rather than as something that had removed his love from him. Jaysis, we're off topic, aren't we?
Anyways, when Morpheus kills his son, he is not only breaking the universal injunction against killing your offspring, he is breaking his own rules against killing humans when the dreaming is not at stake. This is part of why he is so eager to and terrified of having to come to terms with his guilt, which is then personified by the kindly ones, who are in a sense like the endless, as in each of the three ladies' incarnations they represent some area necessary to the human psyche.

Thank you all for your answers and opinions. I notice however say that Morpheus can kill anyone without breaking the rules. When Fiddlers Green said, "He terminates their existence little bird. It is the only time he is empowered to take human life." You see, he said empowered. Which means that if there is no Vortex, he doesn't even have the power to take a humans life. He just can't do it. So I would go with as most likely, that he could kill John Dee because he was acting as a Vortex.