A Game of You is the fifth story arc of The Sandman (1989), covering issues 32-37.
Barbie, one of Rose Walker's old housemates, has broken up with Ken and now lives in a shoebox apartment in New York City. Since her interaction with the dream vortex, she has been unable to dream. One of her neighbors, a trans woman named Wanda, takes her shopping, only for Barbie to see Martin Tenbones, a talking dog creature from her old fantastical dreams of the Land, get shot in his attempt to reach her ("Slaughter on Fifth Avenue").
Barbie returns home, examining the porpentine left by Martin Tenbones. Her neighbor Hazel, a lesbian in a relationship with Rose's old acquaintance Foxglove, admits to Barbie that she might be pregnant. Barbie begins to see weird things, including a warning from Nuala that something bad will soon happen. Later that night, Barbie's upstairs neighbor George cuts himself open, revealing four cuckoo birds, which cause disturbing dreams for Barbie and her friends. Thessaly, one of Barbie's other neighbors and secretly an immortal witch, kills the bird that lands near her and begins to investigate. Meanwhile, Barbie has reconnected with her old friends from the Land in her dream ("Lullabies of Broadway)".
Thessaly awakens the other women, showing them that she has captured George and that Barbie has been sleeping, clutching the porpentine. Thessaly calls on the corpse of George for an explanation; he says that he is a servant of the Cuckoo, who wants to destroy the Porpentine and claim the Land. Thessaly proposes using lunar magic to save Barbie, but Wanda will have to stay behind as the Moon's magic does not consider her a real woman ("Bad Moon Rising").
Dream dismisses the trouble in the Land, apparently located in an island within the Dreaming. In the Land, Barbie and her companions Wilkinson, Prinado, and Luz struggle to survive against hostile weather and the evil Tweeners, servants of the Cuckoo. Barbie is betrayed by Luz, who takes her to the Cuckoo. ("Beginning to See the Light").
The Cuckoo is revealed to have taken the form of a young Barbie, who explains that ordinary little girls like Barbie often dream of becoming princesses, and that there's nothing all that noteworthy about them. Disillusioned, Barbie agrees to destroy the porpentine. Hazel, Foxglove, and Thessaly arrive to help her but are enthralled by the Cuckoo. Barbie destroys both the gem and the hierogram on the Island of Thorns, which allows the Cuckoo to escape. This summons Dream, who begins to unmake the Land, explaining that he first made it for a woman named Alianora. In the real world, the lunar magic has resulted in a storm bearing down on New York City, and the roof of Barbie's apartment building crashes down ("Over the Sea to Sky").
Dream gives Barbie one boon, which she uses to return her and her friends safely to New York City. He agrees. The Cuckoo flies away, free to live in the Dreaming and possibly take over new worlds. The women awaken, having miraculously survived the storm — but Wanda has died.
Some time later, Barbie attends Wanda's funeral in Kansas. Wanda's family refuses to recognize her as a woman and buries her under her deadname. Barbie writes Wanda's name on her tombstone in lipstick and sees a vision of her with Death. Barbie resolves to make the most of her new lease in life ("I Woke Up And One of Us Was Crying").
Tropes in this story arc:
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Thessaly appears rather unassuming at first glance, with the other girls discussing how she comes across "as a bimbo, but with brains." She turns out to be a cold, calculating, and vindictive witch willing to do anything against those who have slighted her for any reason.
- Bittersweet Ending: The ending:
- Barbie finds out that she had to return to her dreamworld the Land not to save it from the Cuckoo, but to let the Cuckoo destroy it. When Dream kindly releases her from the Cuckoo's thrall, and reveals that her friends broke the rules in their attempt to rescue her, she's Forced to Watch him turn it into a barren wasteland and summon her former dream friends into the palm of his hand. Only a barren island remains. When Barbie gets a boon from him, and she learns that she can ask Dream anything within his power, she chooses not to ask him to kill the Cuckoo or restore the land, but get her human friends back to Earth, because otherwise they'll be stuck on the barren island forever. Dream smiles and tells her it was the right decision. The Cuckoo is allowed to go, but she's left to fend for herself in the Dreaming, and that path won't be easy.
- Barbie then wakes up in the middle of a hurricane, learning that a homeless woman died protecting her body, and Wanda was killed when their building collapsed. She attends the funeral, admitting that she didn't learn much from her dream, except to try and go out into the real world to make something of what she had to leave behind.
- Bury Your Gays: For all that her portrayal was sympathetic and ahead of its time, Wanda is killed off at the end of A Game of You because she was denied the ability to walk the female-only Moon's Path, making it look like the moon itself was calling her a man. However despite the fact that she's buried under her deadname, she's shown after death as a beautiful woman, getting a happy ending of sorts.
- Due to the Dead: When Barbie attends Wanda's funeral, she leaves a comic book (one that Wanda used to describe the experience of gender dysphoria to Barbie) on her grave, and crosses out Wanda's deadname with her favorite "tacky pink" lipstick, writing WANDA over it in big letters instead.
- Expy: There are frequent references to a fictional comic book character called "Weirdzo", a dimwitted, imperfect clone of a superhero named "Hyperman", who lives on a cube-shaped version of Earth and speaks in opposites. This is a blatant reference to Bizarro, Superman's imperfect clone.
- Growing Up Sucks: Barbie is forced to grow up in A Game of You so that the innocent Land of her childhood dreams can end and the Cuckoo can leave. In a nutshell, she only came back to invoke The Bad Guy Wins. What's worse is that this process started in Doll's House and left her in a stagnant state during the events between the books. Dream said it ought to have happened sooner, if not for Rose's interference.
- Karma Houdini: Thessaly is never held accountable for pulling the moon down and causing Hurricane Lisa to hit New York, resulting in the apartment building getting destroyed and Wanda and Maisie getting crushed to death.
- Lack of Empathy: Thessaly, big time. As soon as the Cuckoo targets her, nothing else matters. She makes it clear to Hazel and Foxglove that she's not looking to help Barbie, and repeatedly misgenders Wanda to her face.
- Noble Bigot: Wanda's aunt Dora, the only relative who stayed in contact with her and talks with her, even though she prays for "him" to repent "his" wicked ways and considers "him" a sinner. She's the one who invites Barbie to Wanda's funeral and talks with her about what happened when Barbie woke up after the hurricane. When Barbie is recalling what happened when she first saw Wanda in a body bag, screaming for the paramedics to get her out, Dora doesn't correct her calling Wanda "her" and holds her hand.
- Princess Phase: Barbie's dream adventures as the beloved Princess Barbara in the fantastical Land are a holdover from her childhood. The Cuckoo outright tells her that little girls are inherently drawn to the escapism of princess fantasies.
- Rape as Backstory: Discussed and defied. When Barbie sees the Cuckoo looks exactly like her as a kid, and its fortress is just Barbie's childhood home, she asks if this is the part where she finds out she was sexually abused as a kid and repressed it all these years. The Cuckoo bluntly informs Barbie nothing like that ever happened and she had as dull a childhood as any kid.
- Revenge Before Reason: All Thessaly cares about is destroying the Cuckoo for trying to kill her, regardless of what she has to do to reach the creature and no matter who else might get hurt in the process. Not only does the Cuckoo make her look like an idiot, it gets to fly away unharmed and all Thessaly has to show for her efforts are a hurricane and the deaths of Wanda and Maisie.
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Barbie's dream quest. Everyone in the Land dies, The Bad Guy Wins, and Dream is perfectly willing to let her friends stay on a barren piece of land for eternity, even though they came to save her.
- Shout-Out: Barbie notes a race of creatures carrying a walled room across the Land. They are once referred to as the Room Patrol.
- That Man Is Dead:
- Wanda doesn't appreciate Barbie asking "Alvin? That's your real name?" when she reveals her deadname. Her name is Wanda, and "Alvin" was just the name she was born with.
- Foxglove is revealed to have been the abused girlfriend of Judy from "24 Hours." During her nightmare, she refuses to be addressed by her old name "Donna Cavanaugh."
- What You Are in the Dark: Wanda shows no empathy towards a homeless woman on the subway when she has a panic attack, and then later goes out into a hurricane and rescues that very same homeless woman by herself.
- Whole-Plot Reference: Barbie's dream world initially seems like a vague, wide-reaching reference to The Chronicles of Narnia, with the talking animals, tons of pretentiously-named objects, Purple Prose, and whatnot. A Game of You then becomes a far more direct plot reference to The Last Battle, with Dream filling the role of Aslan (famously straight down to the same imagery), Barbie in the role of Jill, and "The Cuckoo", who is actually a facet of Barbie's psyche, as a combination of Shift the Ape and the White Witch. In
perfect Gaiman tradition, it also shifts the narrative around a bit, in that Cuckoo has a good reason for what she does and ultimately "wins", to some degree, and Barbie survives her ordeal rather than going to Heaven and isn't quite sure what lesson to take from it all. - You Remind Me of X: Wanda helps rescue Maisie from the hurricane, getting her to the apartment complex where Barbie is sleeping. They start to talk about their lives while waiting out the storm, and Wanda reveals she is trans. Maisie instantly becomes motherly, talking about her grandchild who is also trans. She says that she wishes she knew where her grandchild was since they ran away a few years ago, despite their family being completely supportive of them.
