Sandman bits and pieces
Jun. 10th, 2021 07:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakAll the casting news about a Netflix version of The Sandman sound promising so far. Incidentally, I liked last year's audio version of the first four collections a lot, though they reminded me again that the series starts with far more overt horror than it would have later on, and that "Passengers" and "24 Hours" in particular are among the most disturbing, vicious stories I know. I had never reread them after the initial reading and listening to the audio in 2020 reminded me why. Now, the audio version kept the time frame from the comics - i.e. Morpheus gets out of Wych Cross in the 1980s - whereas I've heard the tv version will move the "present day" time frame to the actual present. This immediately made me wonder about two characters and their storylines in particular, because of the normal human life span, to wit: Unity Kinkaid and Alexander Burgess. The annoucement I linked above does include Unity, and okay, seems she gets even older than in the comics. But there's no Alex Burgess yet, and I was afraid of that.
Alexander Burgess, son of Morpheus' original captor Roderick Burgess, and his lover Paul were among my favourite minor characters of the saga. Alex, who is a child when Dream gets captured but as an adult after his father's death becomes responsible for Dream's continued captivity out of a mixture of fear and some vague hopes for gain is anything but a hero. But keeping Morpheus prisoner instead of releasing him once he can is also the worst thing he does (not that I want to downplay decades of imprisonment, but The Sandman features characters who do far worse things, including our main character). And he pays a terrible price for it. The "eternal awakening" he undergoes is a relentless torture, whereas John Dee, the guy responsible for the cruelty and madness in "Passengers" and "24 Hours", gets off lightly in comparison. (BTW, this isn't meant as a complaint. Their respective punishments say something about Dream at this point.) What started to endear Alex to me was that many a story later, we find out his younger boyfriend, Paul, who in his original appearance could have been just after the money, actually remained around to care for the comatose Alex. What he tells Rose Walker about their relationship sounded both fond and unsentimental at the same time, and very real. And then, in the big climax of the entire Saga, Alex wakes up again, for real this time, miraculously sane, not mad, and reunites with Paul. That The Wake includes the new Dream, Daniel, explicitly forgiving Alex was a moment of grace that brought home how Dream had changed.
Alex Burgess and Unity Kinkaid are about the same age, but Unity's story wraps up in "A Doll's House", the second collection, i.e. relatively early after Dream's escape, whereas Alex only awakes near the end of the entire saga and can't wake up earlier than that if the same point about Morpheus gets made. If Morpheus escapes not in the 1980s, but in the new millennium and our near-present, I figured that Alex Burgess would not make the cut.
On the other hand, the news that a) Johanna Constantine will be played by Jenna Coleman, and b) in addition to Georgian Johanna, there will also be present day Johanna instead of present day John made me cheer. I always wanted more of Johanna - and I did enjoy her origin story as written by Andy Diggle later -, and a look at the A03 archive tells me there are still only five stories featuring her, which I hope and guess will change once the tv version is around. (Though inevitably some of the impending stories will be Doctor Who fusions, what with Clara Oswald having all those canonical alter egos anyway.) . And I'm very intrigued by the slight change revealed by how the casting of Lyta Hall is described. (BTW, Lyta also hardly shows up in what fanfic is at the AO3, and the story written by yours truly over a decade ago still seems to be the only longer one where she plays a prominent role - here, too, I hope for new stories caused by tv.) Lyta is described as a friend of Rose. At a guess, this is in order to connect her storyline more to that of Rose - in the comics, the two run separate except for the fact that Lyta and Hector are in the dreams of Rose's brother Jed - , and to give her more screentime in her initial appearance. Considering the final importance of Lyta in the Sandman story, I can see the point of giving her more than a brief cameo at the start.
Going through old and more recent Sandman fanfiction and dipping in and out of canon also reminded me of what a marvellous example of one of my favourite tropes (if done well) the Endless are - to wit, dysfunctional siblings. Can't wait to see the bickering played out on screen!
Alexander Burgess, son of Morpheus' original captor Roderick Burgess, and his lover Paul were among my favourite minor characters of the saga. Alex, who is a child when Dream gets captured but as an adult after his father's death becomes responsible for Dream's continued captivity out of a mixture of fear and some vague hopes for gain is anything but a hero. But keeping Morpheus prisoner instead of releasing him once he can is also the worst thing he does (not that I want to downplay decades of imprisonment, but The Sandman features characters who do far worse things, including our main character). And he pays a terrible price for it. The "eternal awakening" he undergoes is a relentless torture, whereas John Dee, the guy responsible for the cruelty and madness in "Passengers" and "24 Hours", gets off lightly in comparison. (BTW, this isn't meant as a complaint. Their respective punishments say something about Dream at this point.) What started to endear Alex to me was that many a story later, we find out his younger boyfriend, Paul, who in his original appearance could have been just after the money, actually remained around to care for the comatose Alex. What he tells Rose Walker about their relationship sounded both fond and unsentimental at the same time, and very real. And then, in the big climax of the entire Saga, Alex wakes up again, for real this time, miraculously sane, not mad, and reunites with Paul. That The Wake includes the new Dream, Daniel, explicitly forgiving Alex was a moment of grace that brought home how Dream had changed.
Alex Burgess and Unity Kinkaid are about the same age, but Unity's story wraps up in "A Doll's House", the second collection, i.e. relatively early after Dream's escape, whereas Alex only awakes near the end of the entire saga and can't wake up earlier than that if the same point about Morpheus gets made. If Morpheus escapes not in the 1980s, but in the new millennium and our near-present, I figured that Alex Burgess would not make the cut.
On the other hand, the news that a) Johanna Constantine will be played by Jenna Coleman, and b) in addition to Georgian Johanna, there will also be present day Johanna instead of present day John made me cheer. I always wanted more of Johanna - and I did enjoy her origin story as written by Andy Diggle later -, and a look at the A03 archive tells me there are still only five stories featuring her, which I hope and guess will change once the tv version is around. (Though inevitably some of the impending stories will be Doctor Who fusions, what with Clara Oswald having all those canonical alter egos anyway.) . And I'm very intrigued by the slight change revealed by how the casting of Lyta Hall is described. (BTW, Lyta also hardly shows up in what fanfic is at the AO3, and the story written by yours truly over a decade ago still seems to be the only longer one where she plays a prominent role - here, too, I hope for new stories caused by tv.) Lyta is described as a friend of Rose. At a guess, this is in order to connect her storyline more to that of Rose - in the comics, the two run separate except for the fact that Lyta and Hector are in the dreams of Rose's brother Jed - , and to give her more screentime in her initial appearance. Considering the final importance of Lyta in the Sandman story, I can see the point of giving her more than a brief cameo at the start.
Going through old and more recent Sandman fanfiction and dipping in and out of canon also reminded me of what a marvellous example of one of my favourite tropes (if done well) the Endless are - to wit, dysfunctional siblings. Can't wait to see the bickering played out on screen!
