History Headscratchers / Neverwhere

*** WordOfGay, Gaiman just didn't say ''which'' two characters were gay. Hunter and the Marquis are commonly expected to be the two to whom he referred, based on how the Marquis acts toward Richard and Hunter's anecdotes. Since Richard's straight or bisexual-leaning-strongly-towards-straight, Islington doesn't have a sex, Anaesthaesia has a thing for Richard, Croup and Vandemar would pile on the UnfortunateImplications, and Door's [[TheNotLoveInterest pretty much]] the [[MagicalGirlfriend Designated Love Interest]] (and ''definitely'' is if we believe in [[InVinoVeritas the veritas of vino]]). That just leaves Hunter, the Marquis, Croup or Vandemar, and [[IncompatibleOrientation Richard's]] [[JerkAss ex]], and since Gaiman didn't say anything about whether he meant strictly gay or [[NoBisexuals bi]][[DepravedBisexual sex]][[BiTheWay ual]][[IfItsYouItsOkay ity]] included (personally, I think he's bi if anything), the Marquis has about a 40% chance of being one of the two confirmed gay major characters before factoring in [[AllThereInTheManual side stories]] and [[DirectorsCut Author's Preferred Text]], whether Gaiman considers Richard's ex to be part of the principal cast, and whether or not Croup or Vandemar ever revealed any homophobic tendencies (or homocidal tendencies, but [[PsychoForHire that would be difficult to tell]]). Does ''that'' answer [[RhetoricalQuestionBlunder your question]] about why "two guys just [can't] hang out without the reader deciding they're obviously gay" (despite nobody mentioning Richard's sexual preference on this page or the main page until now, assuming the other of the two guys you are talking about is Richard)?

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* When did Croup and Vandemar approach Hunter to betray Door? They intimidated Varney in order to get him to be Door's bodyguard and killed him when he failed and since then Hunter was at Door's side at all times. It couldnt been before, there is no reason to approach Varney if they already had Hunter.

*** I've started listening to the radio adaption, after reading the book and watching the shop years ago, and a stray thought occurs. Richard saves Door, and gets the Marquis to help her. In the show, Door apologies to Richard, hinting that he's now going to be ignored by London Above. In the radio adaption, both Door and the Marquis tell him to forget them, though in both cases it's implied that Croup and Vandemar are responsible for Richard's predicament. So in between saving Door, and him now ignored by London Above, what favour could Richard reclaim? OK, he's not in a good state of mind after all that happens, but surely Door could be more sympathetic to his situation.

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** Could be that they can only use their abilities when doing something for somebody else, like a variation of the VampireInvitation. They take the role of hired killers because that's the only way they can use their talents and get something out of it, which stops them from simply ravaging everything and taking what they want, or killing their employer while on their contract. This is why Croup gets so angry at Islington - he enjoys killing people but can only do it when other people tell him to (or it could be seen as related to the mission, such as killing Richard to stop word getting out). When he's directly told he can't kill someone it's impossible for him to do so, which pisses him off to no end.

* The way Anesthesia describes how she got to London Bellow sounds a lot like she died of exposure. Could this mean London Bellow is a sort of afterlife and everyone who "lives" there is dead?
** No, because several of the characters were born in the London Below (namely Doors), and Richard gets back and forth through situations that don't involve dying and is not the only person who goes back and forth, not to mention that the London Below has it's own little area that's essentially an afterlife and the small details that people from Below can physically interact with the London Above which we see through the eyes of ordinary people.