History Recap / TheSandman2022S01E11ADreamOfAThousandCatsCalliope

In a special animated episode, we follow a kitten journeying to pay audience to a Siamese cat's sermon about the feline's true place in the world, and the odyssey this cat took when she fell asleep and had a peculiar dream one night...

* {{Foreshadowing}}: The Three-In-One tell Calliope that Dream has also been imprisoned. Two years later, she sees a newspaper article about people suffering from a sleep disorder waking up, and realizes that means Dream has been freed.

* DefiantCaptive: Prophet and Calliope both disagree with their "owners" that they have any right to violate them the way they do.

* CosmicRetcon: This is what happened to the world ruled by cats: The humans' dreams didn't just change things so that humans now held power over cats. It changed things so that humans had ''always'' held power over cats.
* CreatorCameo: Neil Gaiman voices the Skull Bird that greets The Prophet when she enters the Dreaming. Doubles over to RemakeCameo since he uses the ''exact'' same vaguely more airy voice he uses when playing TheNarrator in the Audible Sandman (and also when Narrating his audio books) than he uses in interviews and presumably real life.

* DeathOfAChild: Or children in this case - The Prophet was spurred into turning against humans after her previous owner found out that she had given birth to a litter. Paul, the owner, was disappointed to find she had birthed half-breed kittens and, finding no use for them, tied the kittens in a bag and drowned them. This was what caused The Prophet to realize humans were the superior species, not cats.

* GreyAndGrayMorality: The Prophet is correct that cats are often mistreated by humans but in the cat world it's not as if they were any kinder to humans. Further complicating this is that the humans in the kitten's household, contrasting the Prophet's former owners that only cared about her for her purebreed status, seem affectionate and caring towards her.

* HulkSpeak: Played with; the cats refer to doors and windows as "wall openings" and "clear openings"

* ParentalAbandonment: Implied with Prophet, who says she can't remember her mother, and vows to do better with her own kittens. That said being as she is a purebreed cat [[HumansAreBastards it's likely she was taken from her mother as a kitten to be sold.]]

* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: Prophet is shocked that her humans would murder her babies, and though the woman expresses some empathy, the man acts callous about it.

Richard Madoc is an author and professor who has one successful novel under his belt, but has struggled to write anything since. He seeks the advice of fellow writer Erasmus Fry, who while researching a book in Greece came across something that would help him write again. Well not something, but some''one''.

* AndIMustScream: Dream punishes Richard for his crimes against Calliope by overwhelming him with inspiration, the ideas for stories coming at him faster than he can get him out, leaving him to write them in paragraphs on the walls in his own blood. After he frees Calliope, the opposite occurs when his head is so empty of ideas, he can't even remember anyone's name.

* BrokenPedestal: Averted; Nora, the medical student fan from the first scene, is the one who Richard sends to free Calliope. She's disturbed by his words, but thinks he's perhaps suffering a psychotic episode. Instead of learning the truth, however, when she goes to his house she finds nothing there, since all Richard had needed to do was say that he freed Calliope, which he did as he rambled. Although she is told to free a captive woman and finds a locked room containing just a book ''about'' a captive woman and thus she does seem to think he's delusional.

* DeathByIrony: Erasmus Fry collected bezoars which are said to have healing properties and in particular are supposed to help those who have been poisoned...he later killed himself via poisoning.

** Richard telling Fry he isn't sure he can go through with enslaving Calliope. This causes her face to subtlety flicker with intrigue, clearly wondering if maybe this new captor will be more open to reason then her previous one. The rest of the episode shows that no, he's just as bad and she'll have to contact Dream if she wants to get out.

* JerkassGods: Zigzagged; when Calliope summons The Three-In-One and begs for their help, they tell her that because she was lawfully bound, they can't interfere. When she protests that there must be ''someone'' who can help her, The Crone mentions The Endless, but snarks that they're "having a difficult time of late", referencing both the Prodigal abandoning his responsibilities and Dream's imprisonment. However, they quickly move into straight-up {{Jerkass}} territory when The Crone recounts the history of Orpheus, reminding Calliope that her son was murdered. On the other hand they do drop some hints that later lead her to being able to call Dream for help.

* SignificantWardrobeShift: Calliope spends most of the episode in a grey silk slip, with her hair hanging freely. After she's freed, she's wearing a ''peplos'' (an Ancient greek gown) and her hair is braided.

* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: Both Eramus Fry and Richard Madoc try to use this is a justification for their horrific treatment of Calliope. It just makes them even more loathsome and unsympathetic, that they don't even recognize Calliope as a person. Highlighted when Richard insists that Calliope was "made" to inspire humanity, completely ignoring her objection that she and her sisters were born like any other being, and the fact that forcefully stealing the inspiration from her renders calling it a "gift" moot. When Richard confronts Calliope after being threatened by Dream, he's floored when she tells him that Dream is her former husband and the father of her son, pathetically saying that he didn't know she had children.

* {{Fingore}}: When Richard gets so many ideas that he has to write to them down, he resorts to cutting his hands and writing on the wall in his own blood.

** Richard has this reaction when he walks into his house and sees Dream sitting in his chair. Particularly when he realizes Dream isn't just a normal intruder.

* TranquilFury: This episode shows, more than any of the rest of the season, why it is ''not'' a good idea to go after someone Dream cares about; he's clearly enraged by what's happened to Calliope, and devises a particularly nasty punishment for Richard because of it.

* YouHaveNoIdeaWhoYoureDealingWith: Invoked by Richard when he finds Morpheus waiting in his house. Averted by Morpheus who knows exactly who and what Richard Madoc is and exactly how to deal with him.

-->'''Dream:''' [[ArmorPiercingResponse ...Because he]] ''[[ArmorPiercingResponse hurt you.]]''

* YouAlreadyChangedThePast: How dream-changing reality works, according to its king. Without really involving time-travel, a thousand or so individuals dreaming the same thing at the same time can change the past so that the dream was always true.

* PragmaticAdaptation: Several scenes that were in other locations in the comic, including the book launch and the interview where Madoc learns about Fry's death, take place in Madoc's house to reduce the number of locations required.

** The character who delivers Madoc the bezoar in the beginning of the story, and helps him when he's gone mad towards the end, is a male doctor in the comic book. Here, it's a female medical student who does those things.

* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: Both Eramus Fry and Richard Madoc try to use this is a justification for their horrific treatment of Calliope. It just makes them even more loathsome and unsympathetic, that they don't even recognize Calliope as a person. Highlighted when Richard insists that Calliope was "made" to inspire humanity, completely ignoring her objection that she and her sisters were born like any other being, and the fact that forcefully stealing the inspiration from her renders calling it a "gift" moot.

* AnimationLeadTime: All those {{Remake Cameo}}es listed below? Probably recorded at the same time as Audible's Sandman Volume 2 was made. Note that Creator/ArthurDarvill, the Star of the Live Action Segment, played William Shakespeare during Volume 1 years earlier so he wasn’t busy like the rest of them.

* KickTheDog: The Prophet's male owner drowned her kittens because they were half-breeds with a random stray cat, which is what makes her want to restore a world where cats are on top.