History ComicBook / TheSandmanUniverse

--> '''Keter:''' I've seen kindergartens full of rape survivors because everyone knows sex with a virgin cures AIDS. I've seen reckless morons deny kids immunizations because they'd sooner believe a rumor than a pandemic. I've seen monks beat babies to death, and people thrown off buildings for loving the wrong people --and all because-- hey: you don't have to feel guilty hurting folks if their faith or sin or skin means they're not really human. I've seen whole demographics ignore the science because, whether we're killing the planet or not, it's all part of God's plan. I've watched an entire fucking species endlessly interpret the same hateful stories to suit the stupid, vain selfish needs of the day.

* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Ivy did nothing wrong, or at least she didn't do anything directly. [[spoiler: It's when she and Dream agree to get matching tattoos do the Asiyaha Tech Group strike, marking him with a tattoo specifically designed to lock him out of The Dreaming.

* LoveMakesYouDumb: [[spoiler:Daniel wouldn't have gotten the magical tattoo that cuts him off from the Dreaming if Ivy didn't ask her too.]]

** Remember the Word Egg in ''ComicBook/TheBooksOfMagic''? The one nearly snuck into Timothy's pocket and ended up in Titania's possession as a boon to be let out of the Realm of Faerie? Well, here Daniel left with it as payment for what she believes to be valuable possessions.

* MadGod: Wan, a {{Magitek}} AI that unwittingly usurped Daniel as Dream-King, acknowledges that he is "insane", and his actions prove that he just might be.

* HistoryRepeats: Like with Morpheus before him, Daniel is captured and cut off from The Dreaming by an occult organization of humans, causing all sorts of metaphysical havoc for The Dreaming and the Waking World. This time however, it's not Dream of the Endless that his human captors want, but sovereignty and control over The Dreaming itself.

* CallBack: One of the nightmares an absent-minded Lucien stuffs back into the Black box is the Cuckoo from the "A Game of You" Arc.

* AccidentalTruth: One of the many ways Rose describes Dream when she sees him is by comparing him to "a kid [she] babysat." The first time she had met him was when he was a normal human child that she babysat in her youth.

* PetTheDog: [[spoiler:When Keter tells Dora that she isn't real, since she is a belief-based entity, it banishes her to The Dreaming with her memories in tatters. There, Morpheus finds her, comforts her and offers her sanctuary in his realm. He even assigns Merv to leave her gifts as a means of recovering.]]

* HangingJudge: Judge Gallows is an antiquated nightmare created when TheWildWest and UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar became mythologized, embodying the fear of one's own neighbor in the face of the hordes and the general guilt and distrust that fuels it. After forcing various dreamers to "[[DrivenToSuicide self-sentence]]", Morpheus had him forced into the Black Chest in the early 20th-century. When Merv lets him out of the Black Chest hoping that he would help bring order to a collapsing Dreaming, he inflicts this brand of frontier justice onto the blanks that have been appearing, corralling the other nightmares as his enforcers.

* SwappedRoles: After they both dive into the abyss the monolith rose from, Cain and Abel's personalities become their antithesis. Abel loses his stutter and becomes the border-guard to The Gates of Horn and Ivory, using his skills to sniff out what secrets should and shouldn't be allowed into The Dreaming, while Cain is left a sobbing mess, [[BreakThemByTalking utter broken by a conversation]] with [[spoiler:the then-unborn Wan]].

* LeaningOnTheForuthWall: Deep into madness and stranded in The Fulcrum, Lucien cries out that he hears a voice in his head implied to be the narrator.

* EldritchLocation: We see a glimpse of Destruction's realm, depicted as a single, ongoing explosion. Destruction's sigil -- his sword -- sits at the center of that explosion, imbedded in the ground.

* SpottingTheThread: In a MomentOfLucidity, Lucien recollects when Destruction abdicated his domain. While Destruction's realm and influence carried on without him just fine, The Dreaming's collapse is a far more dramatic affair, implying that Daniel didn't just quit and something far more dire is at hand. [[spoiler:He also remarks that in the spot where Dream's sigil fell, a white, mirror-like frame is slowly materializing in its place, implying that something is emerging to take Dream's place.]]

* HangingJudge: Judge Gallows is an antiquated nightmare created when TheWildWest and UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar became mythologized, embodying the fear of one's own neighbor in the face of the hordes. When Merv lets him out of the Black Chest hoping that he would help bring order to a collapsing Dreaming, he inflicts this brand of frontier justice onto the blanks that have been appearing, corralling the other nightmares as his enforcers.

* SanitySlippage: The first sign of The Dreaming's slow, but inevitable collapse is when Lucien loses his train of thought mid-monologue, Lucien being a dream who's entire purpose is to have infallible knowledge of his library and its contents. As the story goes on, this forgetfulness escalates and he slowly perishes from illness.

--> ''One stray cat + once mirror shard of The Corinthian - a very special nightmare beast.''

* OnlyTheChosenMayWield: Only those touched by Despair are allowed to claim heraldship of the House of Watchers. When The Corinthian tries claiming it as his own, it shatters and dispurses his essence in the process, causing all sorts of mayhem in the Waking World.

* BabyLanguage: Apparently angels can speak "baby", being able to hold a coherent conversation with the infant Anne.