"It is sometimes a mistake to climb; it is always a mistake never even to make the attempt. If you do not climb, you will not fall. This is true. But is it that bad to fail, that hard to fall?"
— Morpheus, "Fear of Falling"
Fables and Reflections is the sixth volume of The Sandman (1989). Not an "arc" so much as an anthology of unrelated oneshots, it is a compilation of two themed collections — Distant Mirrors about leaders and the power they wield (originally published as issues 29-31note and 50) and Convergences about people meeting each other (originally published as issues 38-40). The collection also includes the initially standalone release The Sandman Special.
In original publication order, the included stories are:
- "Thermidor" (#29): Lady Johanna Constantine fulfills a favor for Morpheus during The French Revolution.
- "August" (#30): Augustus Caesar disguises himself as a beggar and considers the future of the Roman Empire.
- "Three Septembers and a January" (#31): A fictionalized version of the life of Joshua Abraham Norton, self-proclaimed Emperor of the United States, who finds himself the subject of a bet between two of the Endless.
- "The Hunt" (#38): A young girl's grandfather tells her a story from The Old Country.
- "Soft Places" (#39): Somewhere in the liminal spaces between reality and the Dreaming, Marco Polo encounters a host of figures.
- "The Parliament of Rooks" (#40): Cain, Abel, Eve, and Matthew tell stories while entertaining baby Daniel Hall.
- "Ramadan" (#50): Distraught by the impermanence of his glorious Baghdad, Caliph Harun al-Rashid makes Dream an offer.
- The Sandman Special: The Song of Orpheus: The tragic tale of Orpheus, the son of Morpheus and Calliope.
- "Fear of Falling": A preview comic originally part of a free Vertigo sampler, which is about a theater director anxious about his new play.
Tropes:
- "Arabian Nights" Days: In "Ramadan" Caliph Harun al-Raschid finds his mystical, powerful version of Baghdad so wonderful that he is haunted by the knowledge that it will someday end. He calls on Morpheus to preserve it forever, and he obliges by changing it into a more mundane version of the city, but causing the "Arabian Nights" Days version to live on in stories and dreams.
- …And That Little Girl Was Me: "The Hunt" ends with the In-Universe narrator suggesting to his granddaughter that the story was about how he met her grandmother.
- Asian Speekee Engrish: Invoked when a Chinese friend of Joshua Norton feigns a stereotypical accent around tourists to disguise his wisdom and loyalty to the American Emperor, and to keep junkies from asking him for opium.
- Continuity Nod: In Issue #40 'The Parliament of Rooks', Cain remarks upon himself, Abel and Eve all being together, "Just like the old days. And we've even got an audience. Let's tell stories." All three characters were originally Horror Hosts of their own respective anthology series, before Gaiman incorporated them into the world of Sandman.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Haroun al-Raschid in issue #50, Ramadan, is a wise and capable ruler. He also has a harem filled with enslaved concubines and prepubescent boys, a dungeon where prisoners are tortured as part of the 'king's mercy,' and oubliettes holding captives who have long been forgotten.
- Crazy Sane: Emperor Norton, as depicted in "Three Septembers and a January", is a man overwhelmed by hopelessness, lust, and insanity that only manages to live with himself once he comes to believe he is the Emperor of the United States. From there, he begins to develop a code of honor, a group of loyal friends, and a livable income that supports him until Death takes him to move on.Delirium: His madness... His madness keeps him sane.
Dream: And do you think he is the only one, my sister? - Godhood Seeker: Subverted in "August". One day, while disguised as a beggar and accompanied by a dwarf actor assisting him, Caesar discusses his legacy of making Rome the most powerful empire on Earth, and says his destiny is to become a god after his death. When the dwarf remarks that it's good to be a god, Augustus simply asks him "Is it?" After his death, the dwarf recounts how Augustus forbade expanding Rome further, eventually dooming it, and his ulterior motive for doing it may have been to undo his godhood, although it's also suggested that it's to spite Julius Caesar for having raped him as a young man by destroying his legacy.
- Historical Domain Character: The Distant Mirrors collection examines the mentalities of men of power:
- Maximilien Robespierre and Louis Antoine de Saint-Just are the villains of "Thermidor". Thomas Paine also appears.
- Augustus is the protagonist of "August".
- "Three Septembers and a January" is about the real person Emperor Norton.
- Marco Polo is the viewpoint character of "Soft Places".
- Caliph Harun al-Rashid's vision of Baghdad is the catalyst for "Ramadan".
- Historical Villain Upgrade: "Thermidor" portrays Robespierre and Saint-Just as tyrants-in-the-making. Gaiman lampshaded this in The Sandman Companion.note "I also remember the joy of leafing through my old Encyclopedia Britannica, the eleventh edition, and reading an article on the French Revolution by someone who hated Robespierre; and then reading the biographical entry, which was written by someone who idealized Robespierre. I loved the
cognitive dissonance. After the story was published, one reader sent me his high school thesis pointing out how Robespierre was a great man and so on...I could have written something about how Robespierre was a great man too, but that wasn't the tale that I was telling; I needed a story in which he wasn't." - Historical Fiction: Fables & Reflections includes encounters between the Sandman and "Emperor" Joshua Norton, Robespierre, and Augustus Caesar. The final story, "Ramadan", plays with the contrast between the historical figure Haroun al-Rashid and his better-known Arabian Nights alter ego. Apparently the literature version was real until he sold Morpheus the golden age of Baghdad in "Ramadan".
- It Will Never Catch On: In "August", the Emperor Augustus says "That will not last" about the names of the months July and August, named after himself and Julius Caesar. Considering what happened to other (admittedly later) emperors' attempts to change the names (Nero and Domitian come to mind), this would not have been an unusual sentiment.
- King Incognito: The story "August" is about the Roman emperor Augustus and his confidant, the dwarf Lycius, disguising themselves as beggars and anonymously panhandling in the market square. It's initially assumed to be a case of him eavesdropping on his people to learn the state of the Empire. It turns out that Dream told him to do it because it's a place where "the gods cannot see him think", and it's here where he ultimately decides against Caesar's dream of a Rome that would last for 10,000 years, choosing to instead limit the Empire's expansion so that it would eventually collapse. It's implied he does this as revenge for Caesar sexually abusing him and deciding his fate for him as a young man.
- Love Cannot Overcome: Calliope left Dream because, while they had a happy marriage, she's upset with how he treated their son Orpheus. This is detailed in "The Song of Orpheus": the myth of Orpheus played out, Orphean Rescue and all, which left his son's head intact and immortal. Dream then decided to set his son's head on an island, with human guardians.
- Man of the City: In the story "Ramadan", the Caliph of Iraq is highly proud of Baghdad, the splendid capital city of his empire. He knows that its splendor won't last forever, so he makes a bargain with Dream, sacrificing the material wealth of Baghdad if Dream will ensure that the idealized memory of the city will live on in people's dreams forever.
- Our Werewolves Are Different: According to "The Hunt" you don't become a werewolf, you're born one, and they're apparently a very insular, reclusive race of people who rarely associate or marry outside of their line.
- Shaped Like Itself: In "The Hunt", a character tells a fairy story in which one of the strange objects the hero accumulates is a small bone carved into the shape of a small bone. The character hearing the story lampshades this, to which the teller replies that it was carved into the shape of a different small bone.
- Thin Dimensional Barrier: "Soft places" are spots where reality is weak, leading to easier inter-dimensional travel and time working oddly. There is one in the Desert of Lop in China (a real place).
- Too Happy to Live: Orpheus and Eurydice are besotted with each other...though that she dies very shortly after they are wed is a Foregone Conclusion.
- Unspoken Plan Guarantee: The details of the plan with Orpheus in Thermidor are unspoken, and they are executed perfectly.
