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alt title(s): Sandman There are seven beings that are not Gods,
that existed before humanity dreamed of Gods,
that will exist after the last God is dead.
There are seven beings that exist because,
deep in our hearts, we know that they exist.
Sandman is a Comic Book series (later collected in a series of graphic novels) by Neil Gaiman, chronicling the story of Dream of the Endless and his six siblings who act as Anthropomorphic Personifications of base ideas in The DCU. Sandman is also the name of a Golden Age (later, Silver Age) superhero (see below).
It is notable for its epic overarching plot. Over the course of a decade, every tiny detail in the comics must be watched. Minor characters from the first books are big players later on. Foreshadowing from as far back as the second volume first issue comes into play in the last. Morpheus' complicated plan borders on Xanatos Roulette, but the sheer power and meticulous nature of the character make it believable that he could manipulate primal forces to work around him, and have a safety net set up and ready for when it is over, all (perhaps) without being consciously aware of it himself.
The Endless are:
- Destiny: He knows all, and only does what destiny says. A Deus Ex Machina for the series, he intervenes only when his Book of Destiny says he should. Usually, this involves shaking up his family. Of The Endless, he is the eldest, in that he existed since the beginning of time first.
Destiny continues to walk... He is holding a book. Inside the book is the universe.
- Death: The Grim Reaper and a Perky Goth. A generally kind and upbeat woman, though not always - billions of years ago she was rather coldly pragmatic. Everyone meets her twice: at birth she gives the breath of life and everyone, from stars to gods, sees her once more. One of the series' most popular characters - so it seems deliberate that she's not overused.
Death: "It always ends. That's what gives it value."
- Dream: The Lord Shaper (one name of many he's acquired). The personification of dreams and creativity, and his realm helps shape its opposite - reality. He can change his appearance; while he is always male, people may see him differently, usually as member of their own ethnic group, their own race (in the case of Fairies); or their own species, for example with cats.
- Morpheus: The main protagonist of the series - thin and pale-skinned with black hair and black eyes that mirror eternity; gloomy and melodramatic, has great belief in duty and rules. All-powerful ruler in his domain of dreams, less powerful outside. Had love affairs with several women (including a witch, a goddess, and the queen of the realm of Fairie) over the eons, but all except the most brief affairs (i.e. with Bastet, goddess of cats) ended badly. Fathered a son, Orpheus, with the Muse Calliope. Sentenced his lover Nada to an eternity of imprisonment in Hell for hurting his pride, and finally forgave her only after 10,000 years.
Nuala: "You...you want them to punish you, don't you? You want to be punished for Orpheus's death?"
Dream: "..."
- Daniel: The second incarnation of Dream; looks exactly like Morpheus, but clothed all in white, with white hair. While still obsessed with rules and duty, Daniel is a lot less gloomy than his predecessor, and has a weak spot for his mortal parents, who he eventually gave permanent positions in the Dreaming. He is the series' strongest connection to the main DCU, as his parents are Hector and Lyta Hall, formerly Dr. Fate and Fury of the JSA and Infinity Inc. He also had a notable guest role in a JLA story.
Daniel: "Sometimes I suspect that we build our traps ourselves, then we back into them, pretending amazement all the while. Tools, of course, can be the subtlest of traps. One day, I know, I must smash the emerald."
- Destruction: Prefers to think of himself as the personification of change; he abandoned his realm and is now on the run from his family. A Warrior Poet, he likes to try his hand at creating various forms of art, none of which are very good, and things that he's involved with never seem to work out properly. Character design based on BRIAN BLESSED.
Destruction: "The Endless? The Endless are merely patterns. The Endless are ideas. The Endless are wave functions. The Endless are repeating motifs. The Endless are echoes of darkness, and nothing more. We have no right to play with their lives, to order their dreams and their desires. And even our existences are brief and bounded. None of us will last longer than this version of the universe."
Delirium: "Except our sister."
- Desire: The personification of longing and lust. An androgynous shapeshifter, it can be male, female, or both. Greedy, manipulative and held a long-running rivalry with Morpheus that eventually (in a roundabout way) led to Morpheus' death in the war with the three Fates (the Kindly Ones) and Dream's evolution to Daniel. Grandparent of recurring human character Rose Walker.
Rose: "Are you going to hurt me? Kill me? Mess me up?"
Desire: "No more than usually; No; And perhaps a little. But only with Love."
- Despair
- The First Despair: Not much is known about her, except that she was murdered by someone whom she afflicted. Taller than the second Despair, with more color in her skin and red tattoos. Notable for convincing Rao, the Anthropomorphic Personification of the Kryptonian sun, to create life on an unstable planet, even though it would be doomed to destruction. However, it didn't turn out as she'd planned; she intended for there to be a single survivor, "to remember, to mourn, to despair"...except that single survivor grew up to be Superman, who isn't particularly noted for giving in to despair.
Daniel: "The person who was responsible for the death of the first Despair will take the rest of eternity to die. Only then will his pain cease...and he had better cause for what he did than you."
- The Second Despair: Short, fat and ugly, grey skinned, with sullen eyes, goes around naked. Impulsively tears her skin with a hooked ring, the sign of her office. It has been speculated that this incarnation of Despair was the punishment of the person who killed the first one.
Despair: "Today he's sitting in their family room, realizing that his life is over, wondering if he has the courage to physically end it. He doesn't. Isn't it beautiful?"
- Delirium: The youngest of the Endless. Used to be Delight, the personification of joy and happiness, but changed to Delirium long before the onset of the story for reasons unclear (possibly to assert freedom from Destiny). Has differently-colored eyes and hair continually changing in color and style. Can create anything she imagines and warp reality, including a person's memories.
Delirium: "Not knowing everything is all that makes it okay, sometimes."
Beware - Major plot spoilers The issues of the comic book series were collected into:
- Preludes and Nocturnes: A society of mystics plan to capture Death and grant themselves immortality. But mortals are rarely as powerful as they think they are, and only one of the Endless is bound by rules and laws that they can control. Instead of Death, they capture Dream. After seventy years in their cage, Morpheus escapes, and seeks to repair the damage caused by his absence, and battle those who profited by it.
- The Doll's House: In Dream's long absence, some of his creations have entered the Waking world. Fiddler's Green, the kindest and most gentle of dreams, has moved in with a group of young and unconventional people. The Corinthian, Dream's most prized nightmare, has started a cabal of serial killers. And the twin nightmares Brute and Glob have trapped two superheroes in the mind of a young man: the pregnant Hippolyta Hall (The Fury), who for years has been unable to give birth to her son, and the superhero Hector Hall (Silver Scarab), who has been tricked into thinking he is The Sandman, defender of Dreams. Morpheus deals with all these renegade dreams and other things. He tells Hippolyta that her son, who is to be named Daniel, having gestated for so many years within dreams, is his property, part of himself, which he will one day come to claim. We are also introduced to Hob Gadling, a man in a pub in 14th-century England who declares that he shall become immortal, simply by not dying. Death and Dream, who witness this and are amused by his force of will, decide to see how it works out for him. Dream gains an immortal companion.
- Dream Country: A series of stories of those touched by The Endless.
- Season Of Mists: Dream, convinced by his family that condemning a past love to an eternity of torment for turning him down may have been just a little harsh, descends into Hell to ask for Lucifer to release her. The challenge, which seems at first like it will set off a war between Hell and The Dreaming, has a very different outcome. Lucifer quits, no longer willing to play rival to a God who set him up, and hands the key to Hell — the single most valuable property in all creation — to Morpheus. And every being in the universe wants it.
- A Game Of You: Barbie has lived a strange life, since the break up of her marriage in The Doll's House. But nothing this strange, as a creature from her dreams tracks her down and pulls her back into her childhood fantasy. But a dark entity has taken over, and there is a strange realism to this new dream. Introduced the character Thessaly, who was spun off into her own series.
- Fables And Reflections: A series of stories of mortals touched by The Endless; most central to the plot are the woeful tale of Orpheus, Morpheus' son, and that of the baby Daniel, the child of Hyppolyta who has the ability to wander in and out of the Dreaming at will.
- Brief Lives: Delirium misses her kindest brother Destruction and enlists Dream to help her find him. But a prodigal Endless is hard to track down, and the only one who could grant such knowledge has a terrible price for Dream to pay.
- Worlds' End: A great wake for giant gods is being held and in the tiny inn at the end of the world the patrons pass their time with stories of how each of them were touched by The Endless.
- The Kindly Ones: Hippolyta Hall believes Dream has stolen her child Daniel, as he promised to do years ago. The death of Orpheus, the help of the scorned Thessaly, and the determination of the heroine formally known as The Fury allows the true Furies, The Kindly Ones, to set their sights on Dream. The most powerful beings outside of the Endless have cut Morpheus's string of fate and descend on the Dreaming to claim what is theirs by ancient law. Morpheus has a choice, really the only choice: Evolve or die. The child Daniel takes his true place in the world.
- The Wake: The Endless mourn and evolve. After finding out about the death of Morpheus, his oldest friend, Hob meets Death again.
The series has been followed by a number of one-off sequels and side stories, also by Gaiman:
- Endless Nights: Seven short stories by Gaiman, one for each of the Endless — Death's trickiest prey, Desire's follower's path, Dream's cruelest love, Despair's never-ending anguish, Delirium's darkest moment, Destruction's wayward path, and Destiny's endless book.
- The Dream Hunters: Set in Japan, the artwork is by Yoshitaka Amano, the lead character designer for many of the Final Fantasy games and illustrator for the Vampire Hunter D novels.
- Gaiman claimed he found this story while doing research for Princess Mononoke, but later admitted he made the whole thing up.
- Death: The High Cost Of Living: Death has a deal with the universe, so that she remains in touch with those whose lives she takes. She gets one day every hundred years, where she takes mortal form: she lives, loves, learns, and dies. This is one of those days.
- Death: The Time Of Your Life: Years after The High Cost Of Living, the young singer Death met in her human form is now a superstar. But the child of the one she loves is put in mortal danger, and Death agrees to strike a deal.
The series has spawned a number of Spin Off series by other writers as notable characters from the books tell their tales. These include:
The Sandman is also the name of a series of superheroes, the most famous of which was Wesley Dodds. Sandman is characterized by his longcoat, fedora hat, gas mask, and use of a giant syringe-like gas gun filled with sleeping gas (hence the name). Sandman was created in 1939, the same year as another Badass Normal character wearing a certain Bat-Themed outfit... The Sandman and Batman had a lot in common: A lack of real superpowers and acting as detectives and using gadgets like grappling guns to fight crime. The Sandman was quite popular in the Golden Age of comic books, lasting well into the Silver Age where he fell into obscurity. Neil Gaiman's Sandman books later brought the character back into the limelight with DC releasing in the 1990s Sandman Mystery Theatre, a series of adventures of the titular hero set in the 1930s. The death of an elderly Wesley Dodds is used as opening of the critically acclaimed comic Kingdom Come.
The Neil Gaiman series provides examples of:
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: This happens a lot.
- Among the Endless, Morpheus changes his appearance the most frequently to fit in with those around him. Desire is supposed to be everyone's idea of a beautiful person, but we rarely see this on panel, while Death and Destruction only seem to change their clothes, and Destiny and Despair never change at all. Delirium's appearance is the most mutable, but she doesn't give a damn if it makes anyone feel comfortable (she shows up to a wedding in ancient Greece wearing the same mesh shirt she does in the 90s).
- All Myths Are True: And they're not shy about showing it, either.
- Aloof Big Brother: Dream himself, particularly to his little sister Delirium. Destiny, the eldest brother, is more taciturn than aloof.
- And I Must Scream: Eternal Waking.
- Anthropomorphic Personification: The Endless
- In Endless Nights we meet the Anthromorphic Personifications of stars. Unbeknownst to the heroine, she falls in love with her own planet's sun. Said heroine is implied to be one of the originators of the Green Lantern Corps.
- The Atoner: Dream, towards the end.
- Beat Still, My Heart
- Big Screwed Up Family: The Endless. Oh lordy.
- Bishoujo: Nearly everyone in and out of universe agrees that Death is the most attractive woman in the series.
- Bittersweet Ending: "The King Of Dreams is dead. Long live the King Of Dreams".
- Black Sheep: Destruction.
- Boarding School Of Horrors
- Boat Lights: Delirium's eyes. In the Song of Orpheus, in Fables & Reflections, Despair is likewise depicted as having one black eye and one diseased looking green eye.
- Byronic Hero: Dream
- Cain And Abel: Dream and Desire; Cain and Abel themselves live in the Dreaming.
- Captain Ersatz: Dream has *many* similarities to Doctor Strange's foe Nightmare (who came first) except Dream is Neutral rather than Evil. Marvel even tried to reinvent Nightmare (in a miniseries) to resemble Dream after the latter became a hit. It didn't work though.
- They are seen walking together in Top Ten.
- Cardboard Prison: Arkham Asylum, in the first Story Arc.
- Character Title
- The Chessmaster: Dream. And how.
- Chekhovs Army: And how!
- Choosing Death: Several people in the series do this, or try to. Dream included.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Delirium, and how. Though she will from time to time start making sense.
- Cluster F Bomb: The language can be fairly salty at times, and is notable for the first F-bomb printed in a Vertigo title.
- Cool Gate / Portal Network / Portal Picture: All three apply throughout the series but in different ways. Each of the Endless has a gallery in his/her/its realm which connects to the other Endless' realms. This is usually through sigils specific to the Endless in question: Destiny - an open book; Death - an ankh; Dream - his helm; Destruction - a sword; Desire - a heart made of cut glass; Despair - her hooked ring; Delirium - a swirl of colors. The Endless contact each other by grasping a sigil, making a formal request to speak, and then waiting for a reply. In Season of Mists, Destiny's gallery is depicted as containing portraits of the other Endless instead of their sigils.
- Destruction's gallery is the only one that shows his sigil; in all the others, the space reserved for him is blank or empty.
- Cool Old Guy: Fiddler's Green.
- Complete Monster: Dr. Destiny, The Corinthian at least before his "reboot".
- Crossover Cosmology: The sheer number of gods and pantheons.
- Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming: The stand-alone issue Three Septembers And A January, where Morpheus gives delusions of grandeur to Emperor Norton I of the United States. Just to prove Despair wrong. Norton also rebukes the manipulation of Desire and Delirium, unwilling to give into temptation or true madness. Based On A True Story. Long Live Emperor Norton!
- Dark Age: This series began on the tail of the Dark Age of comicbooks.
- Deal With The Devil
- Death Takes A Holiday: Subverted and played straight. In the first book Dream is captured by mistake by mystics trying to imprison Death. In a later tie-in book Death takes on human form and wanders the earth for a day, a tradition she performs once every century; this tradition is mentioned in two panels in the original series.
- Depending On The Artist: Lucifer briefly was hit by this, and Doctor Destiny had his appearance dramatically
improved altered by his second penciller. In fact, most recurring characters change wildly depending on the artist, and it can be hard to tell who's who sometimes. The radically different art style of The Kindly Ones comes to mind.
- Desperately Looking For A Purpose In Life: Destruction.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Nada. Oh my god, Nada.
- Dream Within A Dream: The main character being the Lord of Dreams, this comes up a lot.
- Driven To Suicide: Element Girl. She's happy she gets to die, although it's implied that she could have turned her life around if she wanted to. Possibly Morpheus as well.
- Dying Dream
- Enemy Civil War: The various wars in hell, more apparent in Lucifer.
- Environmental Symbolism: In the realms belonging to the Endless, their environments change with their moods.
- Exiled From Continuity: With the exception of Destiny, who predates the series, the Endless rarely appear in The DCU proper, for several reasons.
- Eye Scream: Most notably the Corinthian, although Doctor Destiny causes a particularly graphic moment during Preludes and Nocturnes and they doesn't avoid showing eyes pecked out of sockets when the ravens feast on the bodies during the the Kindly Ones.
- Fantasy Pantheon: The Endless
- Fate Worse Than Death: Too many cases to count here. In fact, death seems downright pleasurable for those who receive her visit - unless they were going to Hell in the end.
- Final Speech: Fiddler's Green.
- Fisher King: The Endless are their domains, with the exception of the one who quit his job.
- Gods Need Prayer Badly: Bast is getting older and weaker due to so few people believing in her anymore. This seems to be less of a problem for the Norse gods.
- Probably because they get more attention in the modern world.
- Gorgeous Gorgon: Death.
- Gotta Catch Them All: Morpheus' quests to recover his equipment for most of Preludes and Nocturnes.
- Grand Finale: The story reaches its climax in The Kindly Ones, and The Wake provides the aftermath.
- The Grim Reaper: Death, obviously, although she subverts the image by being anything but grim, refusing to carry a scythe, and generally dressing as a Perky Goth. Destiny is actually closer in appearance to the archetype, being grim, almost eyeless, and robed.
- The Hecate Sisters: As they have always been portrayed, variously as the Fates, the goddess Hecate and The Furies (or The Kindly Ones, as they like to be called); they are also an aspect of The Three Faces Of Eve, literally. When they see the embodiment of Eve herself in the Dreaming, they refuse to hurt her, since in a fashion, they are her.
- Heel Face Turn: The Corinthian, in that at least he obeys Dream unflinchingly and does not kill innocent people in The Kindly Ones.
- He Who Must Not Be Seen: God plays a significant role in the ending of Season of Mists, and a few times afterward as well, but he never makes an appearance.
- Historical In Joke: Many.
- I Have Many Names: Naturally, most of the immortal beings pick up multiple names. Dream (at least, as Morpheus) is described in Season of Mists as collecting names the way others collect friends. He is called Lord Shaper (by the fairies), King of Stories, and Oneiros (by Calliope), Kaic'kul (by Nada), among others.
- Though strangely enough he's rarely ever called "Sandman". Probably because that's what children would call him, not adults.
- The "Sandman" name is frequently referenced in the issue where he meets John Constantine, as all the songs on Constantine's radio are about the Sandman before Dream shows up.
- Important Haircut: Sort of. While the symbolism is still there, it's actually Lucifer getting his wings cut off.
- Inn Between The Worlds: Worlds' End.
- It Was His Sled: Lucifer abandons hell.
- Jerk Ass: Dream himself. But he's nowhere near as much of an asshole as Desire.
- Karma Houdini: Dr. Destiny escapes from Arkham and retrieves a jewel that once belonged to Morpheus, which Dr. Destiny had "tuned" so not even its original owner could use it - after killing the woman who took him to where he kept it. His first stop: a diner where he uses it to have all the innocent patrons kill each other after brutal psychological torture, AND later he challenges Morpheus in battle for the artifact. His punishment after being defeated? Simply being returned to Arkham, which is not exactly known for its high security measures. Morpheus is actually thankful to John Dee for breaking his jewel, as it freed the parts of his power that he had invested in its creation to return to him, making him fully in control of dreams again and robbing Dee of his power.
- Also Robin Goodfellow, Desire, the Cuckoo, Aristaeus, the Kindly Ones (though they're perhaps too cosmic of a force to be considered evil), and Lucifer (becoming a Karma Houdini may even have been a motivation behind his abandonment of hell).
- Kudzu Plot
- Legacy Character: There have been several earlier DCU heroes called "The Sandman"; over the course of the series, each is shown to have been inspired in some fashion by Dream.
- The Legions Of Hell: Lucifer's decision to abdicate isn't entirely popular among them.
- Lighter And Softer: The story that Abel tells Daniel is a child-friendly version of how he and his brother came to live with Morpheus, complete with utterly adorable little chibis of Death, Dream, Cain, and Abel.
- Also, the entire series after the first volume.
- Literary Allusion Title: Many of the issue titles. Also, most of the characters with titles - the Corinthian, the dark mirror of humanity, is likely a reference to the Book of Corinthian's famous pronouncement that "we see through a glass, darkly."
- Living Forever Is Awesome: Hob.
- Loads And Loads Of Characters: Gods, lesser gods, demons, mortals, and everything in between.
- Mama Bear: Lyta Hall
- Meta Guy: Matthew, Eve's raven and Dream's second in command.
- Minor Insult Meltdown: Dream to Delirium.
- Miss Conception: Hazel really should have known better.
- More Teeth Than The Osmond Family: The Corinthian
- Multicolored Hair: Delirium (usually) and Rose Walker for most of The Doll's House.
- Myth Arc
- Names To Run Away From Really Fast: If you're a mortal, anyone whose name starts with a "D". There are plenty of other big names (with original owners) to run away from. Lucifer and Azazel being just two.
- Narrator All Along: The Hunt.
- Needle In A Stack Of Needles: With Orpehus' head during the French Revolution.
- Nightmare Fuel: Lots of it, both literal and figurative.
- Non Indicative First Episode: Preludes And Nocturnes is dubbed the prototype for the series in the introduction, and its Darker And Edgier style is worth mentioning.
- To clarify, the series as a whole is a dark epic fantasy, with occasional horror elements. The first volume however is horrific enough to be a Hellraiser movie.
- Noodle Incident: More like Noodle Backstory in the case of Matthew. He makes constant allusions to the time when he was human, but this time is never depicted in any of the books.
- Matthew (Cable) is an adopted character from Swamp Thing; his backstory can be found there.
- Not Himself: Matthew has this reaction to the new Dream resurrecting the characters the Kindly Ones killed during their rampage. Several other characters have similar reactions to other things Daniel does which Morpheus either never did or would never have done.
- Now I Know What To Name Him Lyta Hall is told by Morpheus that her son is named Daniel.
- Daniel, by the way, means roughly "judgment of God."
- Oh Crap: "I feel cold."
- Offing The Offspring: Dream kills Orpheus.
- Older Than They Think: The series started as an attempt to reinvent the Golden Age superhero, The Sandman, but went in its own merry way. Its popularity led to the original hero having a short revival, though.
- Olympus Mons: In the first issue, Dream is captured by humans.
- One For Sorrow Two For Joy
- Orphaned Punchline: "...looking for rabbits, vicar?"
- Painting The Fourth Wall
- Pale Skinned Brunette: Death, Dream, Desire, and Despair. Endless; Destiny's hair is never seen, Destruction's is red, and Delirium's is multicolored. Lampshaded by Morpheus's sarcastic servant Mervyn, who once refers to his boss as "Tall Pale and Interestin'" behind his back.
- Pals With Jesus: Good old Hob Gadling.
- Perky Goth: Death is arguably an Ur Example.
- Rage Against The Reflection
- Reality Warper: In their homes, all the Endless have this power to a nearly unlimited degree. In the mortal world, they're more limited, but they can still create illusions (warping a mortal's subjective reality), generate Dramatic Wind, and do things related to their jobs (for instance, Dream can make people fall asleep at will). Destruction appears to unconsciously or consciously warp reality into something more destructive, making the search for him far more dangerous than it originally appeared to be.
- Rose Walker's nature as a Dream Vortex makes her a dangerous warper of the Dreaming.
- Delirium might be the most powerful of the Endless in this regard, considering that she is implied to have performed a Ret Con on the universe itself when talking to Mazikeen in The Kindly Ones. She doesn't just change Mazikeen's experiences and memories, but also the actual pages of the comic, and even the reader's memories.
- "If you don't let me in, I will turn you into a demon half-face waitress night-club lady with a crush on her boss, and I'll make it so you've been that from the beginning of time to now and you'll never ever know if you were anything else and it will itch inside your head worse than little bugses."
- Satan
- Sealed Evil In A Can: Azazel, among many. Morpheus sealed him there. The evil forces sealed in the Dreaming end up breaking out during The Kindly Ones.
- Second Chance: The Corinthian gets a reboot. Dream also, depending on how you view the ending.
- Self Inflicted Hell: All of it, at least in theory.
- Serial Killer: A whole convention, most memorably the Corinthian.
- Shaggy Dog Story: Lyta Hall's quest to get Daniel back. Not a Shoot The Shaggy Dog story, though, in that Daniel *kind of* still lives through the new Dream.
- Shakespeare In Fiction: Dream inspires him, and asks for two plays (A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest) in return.
- Shape Shifter Guilt Trip: Loki tries this on the Corinthian; it doesn't work.
- Shape Shifter Showdown: To get back his mask, Morpheus had to fight Choronzon in a ritualized shapeshifting duel.
- Shout Out: To other DCU, Vertigo, and Gaiman characters;
- From Terry Pratchett, who has collaborated with Gaiman (his Endless are called Sleep (Dream), Sulk (Despair), and Snuff (Death))
- Also from Dave Sim in Cerebus: Swoon (Dream), Snuff (Death), Sulk (Despair), Sleaze (Desire), Kay Sarah Sarah (Destiny)
- One panel in "World's End" shows a character wearing a bloodstained smiley-face pin.
- Perhaps his most famous series of shout outs are to Tori Amos, who referred to him in several songs.
- So You Want To Live Forever: Hob Galding.
- Stay On The Path: Also, "You killed my friend. Stray from your path."
- Sunglasses At Night: The Corinthian. Justified, in that he has tiny mouths with razor-sharp teeth where his eyes should be.
- Tear Jerker: Many. The fate of Dream's griffin, for one.
- Title Drop: There's one for every arc but Preludes & Nocturnes and Fables & Reflections.
- Trickster: Loki and Robin Goodfellow/Puck, among others.
- The Unreveal: It is never explained why Delight turned into Delirium, or how the first Despair was killed.
- Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Subverted; the plans for what would happen if he were captured or killed in Hell are never needed. (Though it's speculated that the plans he would have used if he fell in Hell are the same that came into place during his confrontation with The Kindly Ones.)
- Viewers Are Geniuses: Gaiman, on his sponge-like capacity for folklore, myths, and religions: "As a kid I thought everyone knew Adam had three wives and [I can't remember the rest]..."
- Warrior Poet: Destruction. He's horrible at it, though.
- Well Done Son Guy: Most of Abel's troubles stem from his desire to live happily with his mad brother, Cain.
- Although, considering the rest of their world, one has to wonder which of them is the mad one. Cain is dangerously sane, in some ways.
- What The Hell Hero: Death, among others, calls Dream out on his less-than-noble acts, such as imprisoning Nada for ten thousand years.
- Even Delirium does it - when Dream tells her that cursing a man to feel as if insects are crawling on his skin "forever and ever" is too harsh, Delirium retorts that "you've done lots worse. Lots and lots and lots."
- Where Everybody Knows Your Flame: The bar where Delirium accidentally approaches a Perky Goth who she thinks is Death.
- Who Wants To Live Forever: Element Girl and Orpheus.
- Xanatos Roulette /Thanatos Gambit /Xanatos Funeral: Essentially most of the series, which The Kindly Ones reveals has been a long, drawn out plan by Morpheus to have himself replaced with a new and hopefully better aspect of Dream. The seeds are planted as early as the events of The Doll's House. And even weirder, it is implied that he didn't even realize he was doing it until the very end.
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