History ComicBook / TheSandman1989

* ShootTheShaggyDog: Thessaly's quest in ''A Game of You'' She goes to help Barbie and kill the Cuckoo. To do so, Thessaly incurred a high debt to the Furies [[spoiler: that she had to pay by protecting Lyta, ensuring Morpheus's death. Oh, and this causes the hurricane that killed Wanda and countless other people. However, not only was her action completely ineffectual, but she was almost instantly under the Cuckoo's sway, and Barbie had to use her boon to get everyone out]]. Everything would have been much better for everyone involved if she had just stayed home and drunk a cup of tea.

* ContinuityNod: Merv Pumpkinhead first appears in a background cameo in ''Preludes and Nocturnes'', when he's shown driving the bus in the Dreaming that Dream uses to get to the Justice League's old warehouse. Much later in the series, after Merv has been properly introduced as one of Dream's retinue of assistants, he mentions that he briefly "drove a bus" during Dream's absence.

* FateWorseThanDeath:
--> '''Hope''': Did ''you'' do that? Make them[[note]]the people who just killed her father[[/note]] sleep?
-->'''Dream''': Yes.
-->'''Hope''': I don't under''stand''. Why didn't you kill them?
-->'''Dream''': This is worse.
-->'''Hope''': Oh. Good.

* WhoWantsToLiveForever: [[spoiler:Both Orpheus and, ultimately, Morpheus.]] Subverted by Hob Gadling, who is asked once every hundred years whether he still wants to live and always finds plenty of reasons to say yes.

* WhoWantsToLiveForever: [[spoiler:Both Orpheus and, ultimately, Morpheus.]]

* BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu: Destiny, in an opening narration, implies that the only reason Dream was captured at the beginning of the series was that he was weak after fighting something else. Given that Dream is several orders of magnitude more powerful than the {{Physical God}}s we see in the story, our sanity probably wouldn't survive knowing what it was. ''Sandman Overture'' covers that particular story.

* DeathSeeker: Element Girl, Orpheus, [[spoiler:and eventually Dream]].

** Retired superhero [[ComicBook/{{Metamorpho}} Element Girl]] longs for death because her freakish appearance leaves her socially isolated and agoraphobic. However, because her body can automatically transmute itself into most any element, she's effectively immortal, and [[ICannotSelfTerminate unable to commit suicide]] without the intervention of the god who bestowed her powers in the first place.

* InternalizedCategorism: A particularly disturbing case of Normopathy. Rainie (Element Girl) of the metamorphae is a woman who has several superpowers including immortality, invulnerability and shapeshifting. She spends her days locked in her home, feeling sorry for herself for not being normal. As she claims that life is hell, Death tells her that she's actually making her own hell. Of course, in this universe that's all anyone does.

* WhoWantsToLiveForever:
** Element Girl, who wants to kill herself but literally cannot conceive of a method that would work.
** [[spoiler:Both Orpheus and, ultimately, Morpheus.]]

* MuseAbuse: Both literally and figuratively:
** The muse Calliope is kidnapped and sexually abused by two successive human authors for decades.
** In the final issue, Shakespeare discusses the more traditional version of this. Even when he was in love or grieving a loss, part of him was always analysing his own feelings so he could describe them later.

* OhCrap: Richard Madoc when he arrives home and finds a strange man sitting on his couch. The man, who happens to be Dream, also knows that Madoc has Calliope held captive.
--->''"I feel cold."''

* RadishCure: This is Dream's punishment for an author who kept a Muse (who also happened to be his former lover and the mother of his son) captive.
-->You say you need the ideas? Then you shall have them. Ideas in '''abundance'''.

** The sketch notes at the back of ''Dream Country'' specifically state that the rape of Calliope was supposed to be creepy and horrible, which definitely comes across in that story. All things considered, Morpheus and Calliope let the man off extremely easy on this one.

** Gaiman's friend and fellow author Creator/KimNewman appears as himself in "Calliope" (he's the interviewer).

* AllThereInTheManual:
** Matthew's oft-mentioned -- but never shown -- backstory appears in ''Swamp Thing.''
** The guy in charge of the [[SerialKiller Cereal Convention]] spends some time fretting over the fact that the Family Man has not showed. [[ComicBook/{{Hellblazer}} John Constantine killed him.]]
** The biggest dose of this, though, is probably the whole deal with Hector and Hippolyta Hall. Their backstory is tied in with ''ComicBook/InfinityInc'' -- a decent seller in its day, but an obscurity to most modern audiences, and plagued by all manner of confusing {{Retcon}}s after ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'' wiped all of DC's Golden Age heroes from existence.

* ApologeticAttacker: Dream to [[spoiler:Rose Walker as he prepares to kill her and stop the Vortex from emerging.]]

* BerserkButton:
** You call them "the Kindly Ones" (even though they're nothing of the sort) because they ''do not'' like being called "Furies".
** Nathan Diskin's serial killer code name is Fun Land. Do ''not'' shorten it to "Fun".

** Jed Walker through ''A Doll's House''. [[spoiler:He was separated from his mum and sister at a very young age, lost his grandfather to illness and then was stuck with abusive relatives who locked him in the basement and regularly beat him, with Brute and Glob occupying his head and offering comfort only through dreams. Then, when he finally escapes, he encounters the Corinthian, who locks him in a car trunk, saving him for later.]] Thanks to Gilbert and Rose, however, EarnYourHappyEnding finally comes into effect.
** Rose Walker, in the meantime, spends most of ''A Doll's House'' looking for her brother Jed, tracking him down with Gilbert's help. [[spoiler:Then she finds out his relatives abused him after he goes missing, nearly gets raped by one of the convention attendees, and finds her comatose brother thanks to Gilbert]]. After a night of worrying about Jed's health, she then [[spoiler:uses her power as the Vortex unwittingly and nearly kills everyone, including her friends and housemates. To survive, she sacrifices her heart to her grandmother and watches the latter die. For the next several years, struggling with the reality of what she saw and her subsequent loss of feeling, Rose then gets manipulated into losing Lyta's son Daniel, becomes impregnated, and gets her heart back. As she puts it, "I don't believe in magic. I believe in weird shit."]]

* CerebusRetcon: The series ''is'' a part of Franchise/TheDCU, and especially in its first few arcs wasn't shy about [[{{Deconstruction}} deconstructing]] lighthearted Silver Age concepts. Special mention goes to ''The Doll's House'', which twists [[ComicBook/InfinityInc Hector Hall]] (DC's last, more conventionally superhero-y Sandman) into [[spoiler:the DeadAllAlong fantasy of the horrifically-abused Jed Walker (himself a remnant of an even earlier, even more lighthearted Sandman series)]].

* CriminalConvention: In issue #14, a convention of serial killers and mass murders congregate to share stories and conversation. Here, rogue nightmare and serial killer the Corinthian is found attending the convention, having been an inspiration to many of the serial killers attending. The various attendants go by code-names, and the convention is called a "Cereal Convention" so as to not draw attention to themselves. The convention comes to an end when the eponymous Sandman Dream is called there to help one of their would-be victims, and then proceeds to destroy the Corinthian and show the conventioners how petty and meaningless they truly are.

* CruelMercy: Dream escapes Hell in the early issues by telling TheLegionsOfHell that despite evidence to the contrary, dreams do in fact have power in hell: "What terrors would Hell hold if those entombed within could not dream of Heaven?" Whether he means he will take away their dreams of Heaven, or [[HopeSpot GIVE them dreams of Heaven that they have to wake up from in Hell]], is left unclear.

* DamselOutOfDistress: Subverted. Rose tries, but to be fair she's usually out of her weight class. She takes on muggers that try to rob her at knifepoint, only for Gilbert to mount a rescue and introduce himself to her. Later on, Fun Land catches her in an ambush, and the only thing she can do is weakly recite Morpheus's name.

* DeathTakesAHoliday: Subverted and played straight. In the first issue, Dream is captured by mistake by mystics trying to imprison Death. It messes up the Dreaming on Earth, and he points out the terrible consequences had they succeeded in their original plan. In a later tie-in book, ''Death: The High Cost of Living'', Death takes on human form and wanders the earth for a day, a tradition she performs once every century; this tradition is mentioned in the original series and is a more literal vacation.

** Doctor Destiny had his appearance dramatically altered by Mike Dringenberg after Sam Kieth left the series. This is especially noticeable, because it happens ''in the very next issue''.

* DreamsOfFlying: Rose Walker meets Dream while dreaming of the two of them flying. She says she read that dreams about flying are really about sex. Dream then wonders what dreams about sex are really about.

* EroticDream:
** Rose gets one in ''The Kindly Ones'', which Abel [[ThePeepingTom drops in on]] her having sex in a dream to get some cheap entertainment before she catches him.
** This is also discussed by Rose with Dream.
-->'''Rose:''' You know, I read somewhere that if you dream about flying it's really about having sex.\\
'''Dream:''' [[LampshadeHanging Really? Then what does it mean when you dream about having sex?]]

** "Men Of Good Fortune" is a particular case in point: Dream grants immortality to a mortal, Hob Gadling. They agree to meet each other in the same place every one hundred years. The setting and costume changes provide a neat marker of the passage of time.

** Doctor Destiny causes a particularly graphic moment during ''Preludes and Nocturnes''.

* FanDisservice: Naked breasts appear somewhat regularly... but are usually attached to {{Humanoid Abomination}}s. Or, in one particularly unfortunate incident, to a woman with a serious drug issue who's been mainlining Dream's bag of magic sand for months.

* GirlsAreReallyScaredOfHorrorMovies: Averted in "Imperfect Hosts" as one dream that Morpheus enters is that of a Japanese woman who is a fan of Hammer horror films.

* {{Goth}}: Zelda and Chantal, who wear only antique wedding dresses with veils that hide their faces, collect stuffed spiders and skulls, and generally lurk around being as weird as possible.

** Dream threatens to kill Desire if the latter interferes with his affairs again.

** Hob Gadling, who's been immortal ever since Death, in 1389, promised Dream not to take him until Hob was ready, spends the seventeenth century impoverished, sick, and starving.
--->Do you know [...] how hungry a man can get if he doesn't die? But doesn't eat?

* ItWillNeverCatchOn:
** In "Men of Good Fortune", Hob Gadling comments that there'll "never be a real demand" for printing. The same issue also has an elderly 15th-century man complaining that chimneys are a bad idea, and it was much healthier when houses were full of smoke.
** In "The Tempest," Shakespeare and Ben Jonson improvise a rhyme about Guy Fawkes' then-recent attack on Parliament, teaching it to nearby children but assuming it won't last. [[ComicBook/VForVendetta Remember, remember...]]

* KarmaHoudini: Dr. Destiny escapes from Arkham, retrieves a [[ArtifactOfDoom jewel that once belonged to Morpheus]], commits a series of graphic, senseless murders, and then nearly destroys the world. His punishment? Simply being returned to [[CardboardPrison Arkham]]. [[BlueAndOrangeMorality He did Dream a favor, after all, even if he didn't mean to.]] Although, Dream does lock him out of the Dreaming forever, having no desire to let him back in. Also, [[spoiler:Desire, the Cuckoo, Aristaeus, the Kindly Ones (though they're perhaps too cosmic a force to be considered evil), and Lucifer (becoming a KarmaHoudini may even have been a motivation behind his abandonment of Hell)]].

* LongestPregnancyEver: Hippolyta Hall, who was pregnant with Daniel in the Dreaming for at least two years. It's lampshaded when people who know her imply that her husband wasn't the father (as he died before being taken into the Dreaming with the pregnant Lyta).

* MissingChild: Rose's quest to find her kid brother Jed. She lost track of him and their grandfather, his legal guardian, years ago, and tries to find them. [[spoiler:Then, she learns that Jed was abused by their aunt and uncle for the money after their grandfather died, and he disappears after they die thanks to Dream. All Rose can do is wait in a motel per the police's orders and hope that ''someone'' can find her brother. Thankfully, Gilbert manages to rescue Jed from the Corinthian's truck and reunite them]].

* MonsterAndTheMaiden: Rose Walker goes traveling to find her long-lost little brother, and is accompanied by Gilbert, a heavyset, eccentric older man who promises to protect her. This trope comes into play when Gilbert is revealed to be [[spoiler:Fiddler's Green, an escaped dream Morpheus has been seeking since the beginning of the story arc.]]

* MurdererPOV:
** This is how we first meet the Corinthian, which is particularly disturbing once you learn a little more about his... anatomy.
** We never see Lyta when she's possessed by the Kindly Ones; all of her panels are drawn from the first-person perspective.

* NiceJobFixingItVillain: Doctor Destiny has Morpheus at his mercy, having corrupted the Ruby Dreamstone and used it to drain his life force. He then crushes it, thinking he's killing Morpheus. Instead, he simply releases all of its stored power and returns it to Morpheus.

* OhCrap:
** Gilbert when he and Rose briefly share an elevator with the Corinthian. He leaves Rose with Morpheus's name to utter in an emergency and goes to rescue [[spoiler:Jed]].
** Philip Gist, [[spoiler:a magazine editor, gets this when the Corinthian and Doctor corner him at the convention. They know he's impersonating the Boogeyman and plan to kill him slowly.]]
** Gilbert also has this when Matthew tells him [[spoiler:Rose is the Vortex, since it means "Dream will have to kill her". He immediately goes to the Dreaming, turns himself in to Morpheus, and tries to bargain for Rose's life.]]
** Richard Madoc when he arrives home and finds a strange man sitting on his couch. The man, who happens to be Dream, also knows that Madoc has Calliope held captive.

* OrphanedPunchline:
** "... looking for rabbits, vicar?"
** "You're Thor? I'm tho thore I can hardly pith!" Metahumor ensues.

* PalsWithJesus: Good old Hob Gadling, a Londonite bandit from the 14th century who maintains his friendship with the King of Dreams for centuries.
* PapaWolf: Gilbert [[spoiler: gives Morpheus's name to Rose when he recognizes the Corinthian, and then runs off to rescue Jed from the latter's care. It's revealed that he saved Jed just barely in time, since the latter was unconscious and dehydrated]].

* PlatonicDeclarationOfLove: When he realizes that [[spoiler:he can't save Rose from dying, Gilbert apologizes to her and says he wasn't that good of a person. Rose hugs him and tells him not to say such a thing. He then says he loves her and that she can stay in his realm after she dies]].

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Morpheus gives a damning one to the first Corinthian:
-->'''Morpheus:''' You disappoint me, Corinthian. You and these humans you inspired and created disappoint me. YOU were my masterpiece, or so I thought. A nightmare created to be the darkness, and the fear of darkness in every human heart. A black mirror made to reflect everything about itself that humanity will not confront. But look at you. Forty years walking the earth, honing yourself, infecting others with your joy of death, and what have you given them? What have you wrought, Corinthian? NOTHING. Just something else for people to be scared of, that's all. You've told them that there are bad people out there. And they've known that all along.

* RoaringRampageOfRomance: Morpheus and Nada make love once. Her home city is reduced to glass shards. It's suggested that had they remained together, the entire world would have been destroyed.

* SamusIsAGirl: In-universe, the Bogeyman [[spoiler:(actually a fan impersonating him)]] goes OhCrap when he learns the serial killer Dog Soup is a woman at the "cereal" convention.

* SerialKiller: A whole ''convention'' full of them, most memorably the Corinthian.

* ShapeShifterShowdown: To get back his mask, Morpheus has to fight Choronzon in a ritualized shapeshifting duel.

** Jed's dreams are done in the style of ''ComicStrip/LittleNemo'', complete with things going crazy at the end and Jed waking up... to his rat-infested basement and abusive foster parents.

** The story in which Hob Gadling is introduced is called "Men of Good Fortune", which is also the name of a song by Music/LouReed from the album ''Music/{{Berlin}}''.

*** Just in case it's not crystal clear that Fiddlers Green is Chesterton, the character is introduced with a line one of Chesterton's famous essays, ''[[http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/On_Lying_In_Bed.html On Lying in Bed]]''. Why else mention a pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling?

* SummonBinding: The HermeticMagic circle used to summon Dream also keeps him trapped within it and [[BroughtDownToNormal suppresses his powers]]. This is the limit of the summoners' control, so Dream simply waits until someone gets careless and scuffs the circle.

* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: Before speaking before his fellow serial killers at the convention, there's Nimrod’s mental insistence that he’s a hunter who isn't afraid of anyone and certainly not of women.

* TakeThat: This being a Neil Gaiman series, a jab at Freud is pretty much inevitable. In Volume 2, when Rose and Morpheus are flying together through the Dreaming:
-->'''Rose''': Do you know what Freud said about dreams of flying? It means you're really dreaming about having sex.\\
'''Morpheus''': Indeed? Tell me, then, [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic what does it mean when you dream about having sex?]]

* TooDumbToLive: Alas, if you are going to infiltrate a convention made up of serial killers, it may be best to study up on the serial killer you're impersonating and not ask to meet any of the con organizers in the privacy of your hotel room. [[spoiler:Philip Gist stands out like a sore thumb while impersonating the Bogeyman, and tries plugging his magazine ''Chaste'' to the Doctor. Suspicions raised, the Doctor goes to quietly talk to Nimrod and the Corinthian, who reveals the real Bogeyman died in Louisana. As Philip tries to beg for his life when he's busted, they knock him out, drive him to a remote area, and "take turns" with their collecting]].

* {{Transflormation}}: In the fourth issue, Morpheus muses on how {{Hell}} has changed just before coming upon the wood of suicides (as seen in the ''[[Literature/TheDivineComedy Inferno]]''). He hears one of the trees say he thought taking pills would stop his pain and notes there were once so few suicides that they only took up a grove. Since his last visit, there are so many of them that they make up a forest.

* VengeanceFeelsEmpty: After escaping from imprisonment, avenging himself on his captors, and regaining his kingdom and his tools, Morpheus goes to Washington Square Park and mopes because he does not feel as satisfied as he thought he would. [[GrimReaper His older]] [[PerkyGoth sister]] snaps him out of it.
* VerbalTic: Gilbert's "HOOM!"

* WhatYouAreInTheDark:
** [[spoiler:Gilbert]] has been living a quiet life for years, posing as an eccentric but ultimately CoolOldGuy who is loyal to his friends. Dream would most likely punish him severely for escaping from the Dreaming and selfishly pursuing his life. [[spoiler:Gilbert orders Rose to summon Morpheus in the case of emergency when he recognizes the Corinthian at their motel, runs off to rescue Jed from being trapped inside the Corinthian's car, and turns himself in to his Lord to save Rose's life from Dream]].
** In contrast, the Corinthian fails this. Given he is the personification of all of humanity's darkness brought to life, [[spoiler:he instead inspires a generation of human monsters and serial killers, because he cannot deny his sadistic side. Dream, when confronting the Corinthian, makes no bare bones of his disappointment, even refusing to fight the Corinthian on his terms]].

** Mostly subverted with the other immortal characters, who are either completely fine with it or think it's great. Particularly Hob, who at one point experiences a run of bad luck which leaves him completely destitute, and he learns the agony that starvation holds for a man who cannot starve ''to death''. Nevertheless, when offered a chance to finally die, he rejects it outright.

** Rose is fretting as her little brother lies unconscious in a hospital room, with Gilbert watching over him. The residents of the apartment house gather to cheer her up; Hal makes tea, while Barbie and Ken offer platitudes, and Chantal and Zelda offer to tell her a comforting story.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: [[https://twitter.com/neilhimself/status/1022857851549745153 Karen Berger wouldn't let Neil Gaiman him have John Constantine say "shit", so instead he says "felching heck!", which was apparently acceptable.]]

* EyeScream: As noted above, The Corinthian likes to eat eyes, especially those of young boys. Eventually, he does this to [[spoiler:Loki]]. Doctor Destiny causes a particularly graphic moment during ''Preludes and Nocturnes''. Eyes are pecked out of sockets when the ravens feast on the bodies during ''The Kindly Ones.'' Despair uses her ring to gouge out one of her eyes, apparently a method of relaxation for her. This is after Delirium has spent pages and pages trying to find out the name of the "gunky jelly stuff in people's eyes," for reasons that probably don't even make sense to her.

* TheVillainMustBePunished: In the spin-offs ''ComicBook/TheThessaliad'' and ''ComicBook/ThessalyWitchForHire'', Thessaly takes any threats to her person ''very'' seriously, and as such, doles out harsh punishments to those who threaten. In The first miniseries, four death gods attempt to kill her in the hopes of claiming her soul, and for their troubles, she kills one of them and gives the other three a FateWorseThanDeath. In ''Witch for Hire'', an ancient degenerate sics a powerful, seemingly-unkillable monster on her. After dispatching the monster, she tracks down her would-be enemy and puts a curse on him that causes him to immediately be consumed from the inside out by beetles.

* MissConception: Hazel's a lesbian, yeah, but she really should have known better.[[note]]Having apparently never learned ''anything'' about straight sex, she believes she couldn't be pregnant because she had sex standing up, and that a pregnancy test would involve killing a rabbit[[/note]].

* SamusIsAGirl: In-universe, the Bogeyman [[spoiler:(actually Philip Gist)]] goes OhCrap when he learns the serial killer Dog Soup is a woman at the "cereal" convention.

*** The character "Fiddlers Green" looks like Creator/GKChesterton and even has the same first name "Gilbert"

* SoulsavingCrusader: The angel Remiel takes on a rather NonSequitur version of this trope as his new mission in life, as he wants to reform ''Hell'' and make the torment redeeming. It only makes Hell worse, since now they're torturing you because they ''love'' you, but he doesn't see this. The tormented, incidentally, are astonished that Remiel accomplished this feat.
* SpeechImpediment: In "The Kindly Ones", Rose Walker's former housemate Zelda reveals that she has a stutter hence why she would always have Chantal speak for her.

* StabTheScorpion: The second Corinthian pulls this on Matthew -- whom he had previously sworn to kill -- in ''The Kindly Ones'', throwing a knife that kills a monster that was just about to attack. Dream later tells Matthew that the Corinthian had genuinely intended to kill him, but Daniel exerted his influence to save Matthew's life by bringing the monster to the throne room at just the right moment, so the Corinthian would change his mind in the heat of the moment.

* TooDumbToLive: Alas, if you are going to infiltrate a convention made up of serial killers, it may be best to study up on the serial killer you're impersonating and not ask to meet any of the con organizers in the privacy of your hotel room. [[spoiler:Philip Gist stands out like a sore thumb while impersonating the Bogeyman, and tries plugging his magazine ''Chaste'' to the Doctor. The Doctor goes to quietly talk to Nimrod and the Corinthian, because it turns out he knew the real Bogeyman died in Louisana. As Philip tries to beg for his life when he's busted, they knock him out, drive him to a remote area, and "take turns" with their collecting]].

* {{Transflormation}}: In the fourth issue, Morpheus muses on how {{Hell}} has changed just before coming upon the wood of suicides (as seen in the ''[[Literature/TheDivineComedy Inferno]]''. He hears one of the trees say he thought taking pills would stop his pain and notes there were once so few suicides that they only took up a grove. Since his last visit, there are so many of them that they make up a forest.

** According to Del, Tiffany looks smaller from outside her head. Barbie similarly observes that no matter what people look like on the outside, all of them have enormous, complete worlds inside of them.

* BittersweetEnding: Each arc can be counted as having one: ''The Wake'' ends with this for the overall comic. [[spoiler:"The King of Dreams is dead. Long live the King of Dreams".]] For context, [[spoiler:Dream allows the Kindly Ones to kill him after they use Hippolyta's MamaBear vengeance to breach the Dreaming. It's implied that he either orchestrated his death or foresaw it with killing Orpheus, and is fine with the decision, as it means that Daniel Hall becomes the new Dream. Hippolyta has to go on the run from a bunch of unknown deities and at least one known demi-mortal that want her head for killing Dream; and Daniel, while giving her eternal protection, also silently exiles her from the Dreaming, so they won't reunite for this arc, though he hints that things may change in the future. But Rose is pregnant, and her brother Jed is recovering from the childhood trauma of his foster relatives abusing him.]]

* FatalFlaw: Dream's flaw is his inability to be flexible, and maybe to realize when he is in the wrong. He's honor-bound to follow the rules, but as Death and Delirium have pointed out, there is a difference between following the rules and enforcing them with an ego, and sometimes he will flaunt the boundary if circumstances would bruise his pride. Dream's tragic affair with Nada ended in heartbreak because of his ego clashing with his rigidity; Nada rejected him several times because mortals and divine beings are not supposed to mix for a reason, and her consenting to his advances led to her city being destroyed. There's also how he fails to counsel Orpheus with a bit of comfort after Eurydice dies on their wedding night, instead telling him bluntly that life is a gift and not to squander it. Dream's CharacterDevelopment starts when, after he's imprisoned, he apologizes to Death when his sister calls him out for not sending distress calls and instead waiting to escape for decades on end. The experience motivates him to rescue Calliope from a similar situation, and he strives to make some amends with Orpheus, [[spoiler:at least, as many amends as one can make when your son is an immortal severed head]]. Dream, however, realizes that [[spoiler:the only way to make things right was to remove Orpheus's immortality and let him pass onto the next realm; what that would be is unknown since Death tells Orpheus that if he accepts immortality to enter the Underworld, she will never be able to take him. He puts off doing it until Delirium asks for help in finding their brother Destruction]]. When the deed is done, Dream breaks down. [[spoiler:He believes that the FateWorseThanDeath which he inflicted on Orpheus, along with killing him, means that he is no longer fit to be the king of Dreams. When the Furies come, Dream mainly tries to lure them away so they don't hurt his creations, but succumbs as soon as they corner him]].

* GirlsAreReallyScaredOfHorrorMovies: Averted in "Imperfect Hosts" as one dream that Morpheus enters is that of a Japanese woman who is a fan of hammer horror films.

* MeaningfulName: Daniel was a Biblical character, famous in his time for interpreting dreams. His name also starts with a D, just like all the Endless.

* AntiVillain: Lyta thinks that she's avenging the murder of her husband and son by joining with the Furies, which is not, in itself, a bad thing. The problem is that she's hurting scores of innocent people in the process. Also, the Kindly Ones don't care about her son, they only care about {{revenge}}, and while they're only [[BlueAndOrangeMorality fullfilling their role in the universe]], they go about it in a pitiless and ruthless fashion.

* TheVillainMustBePunished: In the spin-offs ''ComicBook/{{Thessaliad}}'' and ''ComicBook/ThessalyWitchForHire'', Thessaly takes any threats to her person ''very'' seriously, and as such, doles out harsh punishments to those who threaten. In The first miniseries, four death gods attempt to kill her in the hopes of claiming her soul, and for their troubles, she kills one of them and gives the other three a FateWorseThanDeath. In ''Witch for Hire'', an ancient degenerate sics a powerful, seemingly-unkillable monster on her. After dispatching the monster, she tracks down her would-be enemy and puts a curse on him that causes him to immediately be consumed from the inside out by beetles.

* ADateWithRosiePalms: Discussed by one of the serial killers in "The Collectors". It caused something of a stir when Gaiman first wrote it in, with his editor protesting that "characters in Franchise/TheDCUniverse don't masturbate!" Gaiman replied that [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments this explained a lot about the DC Universe]]. This is also mentioned by Tiffany in ''Brief Lives'', when she bemoans how she keeps getting into relationships with scumbags.

** Gods are, however, able to change and diversify their power sources to avoid fading away. The Norse gods, have found other power sources and even have modern followers. [[Myth/JapaneseMythology The Japanese gods are doing great these days]] and are apparently somehow receiving 'prayer' from veneration of Godzilla and Lady Liberty, amongst other icons, in addition to their direct worship. Pharamond, a Babylonian god, was long ago convinced by Morpheus to "diversify" and survive his dwindling worship by putting his talents to work in a more mundane capacity.