History Fridge / TheSandman1989

** In the same issue that introduces the Connoisseur, there's a RunningGag about the absence of a killer known as "The Family Man". The reason for his absence is never revealed in the story itself, but if you were reading ''[[ComicBook/JohnConstantine Hellblazer]]'' at around the same time, you'd know why he didn't make it. John killed the Family Man to avenge the murder of his father at the Family Man's hands.

* Some people were not as lucky as Unity Kinkaid to come out of The Sleepy Sickness with their lives, however disrupted those lives might have been. Stefan Wasserman, a sixteen-year-old boy freshly discharged from the German army (having lied about his age to enist when he was 14), couldn't take the nightmares anymore and killed himself. One can only imagine that there were many other such cases, especially among those who experienced the horrors of war firsthand.

* Why is Death always [[AllLovingHero so nice to everyone?]] Because she's defined by her function like all the Endless, and death is famously impartial, as all people are equal before it. So she can either be nice to everyone or mean to everyone (and she apparently originally went with the latter before deciding that the former was more fun), but she can like some things better than others only to the same extent that Dream can be practical or Despair can cheer up -- that is to say, it's not ''completely'' impossible, especially in limited amounts, but it's never going to be common or pronounced.

* Lucifer reveals that all the damned souls in Hell are damned because of their guilt. While it hardly overlaps, the series does still take place in the main DC continuity. Thanks to SamaritanSyndrome, all of our favorite superheroes, even ''Superman'', may end up among the tormented one day.

* Why is Death always [[AllLovingHero so nice to everyone?]] Because she's defined by her function like all the Endless, and death is famously impartial, as all people are equal before it. So she can either be nice to everyone or mean to everyone (and she apparently originally went with the former before deciding that being nice was more fun), but she can like some things better than others only to the same extent that Dream can be practical or Despair can cheer up -- that is to say, it's not ''completely'' impossible, especially in limited amounts, but it's never going to be common or pronounced.

* The idea, [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] by both Death and Nuala (and never truly denied by Morpheus himself) that the events of the penultimate arc, ''The Kindly Ones'', had been carefully and subconsciously orchestrated from even before the main timeline of the comics. The various plotlines and adventures become HarsherInHindsight when you realize they may have just been an outside perspective of Morpheus as he planned his suicide.

* In ''The Wake'', there's an odd one-page scene of a woman asking a man for a handkerchief. The man tells her the story of his childhood curtains, then hands her a scrap of the curtain as he asks her if she's crying. The woman says no, she's bleeding; we see dark blood coming from her eyes and streaming down her arms and hands. Then, oddly, the man says, "I'm sorry." These two OneSceneWonders aren't given names, and haven't been identified in any articles or wikis on the series, save for some offhand speculation that they're the dreamers serving the banquet in ''Season of Mists''. Then realization finally hit today: they're John Dee and Judy (Foxglove's former lover) from the Diner of Death in ''Preludes and Nocturnes''. Dee had forced Judy to kill herself by stabbing icepicks through her eyes, and with ''Wake's'' themes of remembrance, forgivness, and going on, Dee is finally apologizing to Judy for his senseless cruelty.

* The Endless refer to Destruction as "The Prodigal" but that only really works as a reference to the parable since the word prodigal refers to [[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prodigal reckless spending on opulence]] (like the son did in the parable), which doesn't describe Destruction at all, especially given his vagabond existance after he left.

* In ''A Doll's House,'' we are introduced to a serial killer called The Connoisseur, whose body count is lower than many of the other killers because he kills only a very specific group of people: pre-operative transsexuals. Much later, in ''A Game of You," Wanda has a conversation with Maisie Hill (the 'I don't like dogs' lady), who tells Wanda about her granddaughter[[note]]Maisie misgenders her as "grandson" in the text, but she's an old lady who seems otherwise supportive[[/note]], a pre-operative transwoman who was murdered. The Connoisseur isn't mentioned by name but it's all too likely that he was responsible.
** In the same issue that introduces The Connoisseur, there's a RunningGag about the absence of a killer known as "The Family Man". The reason for his absence is never revealed in the story itself, but if you were reading ''[[ComicBook/JohnConstantine Hellblazer]]'' at around the same time, you'd know why he didn't make it. John killed The Family Man to avenge the murder of his father at The Family Man's hands.
* In ''A Game of You'', Thessaly apparently drinks soy milk. She's thousands of years old. She was probably born before the people in her part of the world developed the ability to digest lactose as adults.
* The second play that Morpheus requests from Shakespeare? Theatre/TheTempest. The plot? A sorceror, through convoluted schemes and plots, conspires to end his life of isolation and entrapment, in the process destroying his magical gifts and ensuring himself an heir..... Does this sound... familiar? Which means that Morpheus is really playing the long game when it comes to his suicide.
* I always kinda wondered why [[ComicBook/SandmanMysteryTheatre Wesley Dodds]] would fight crime if he's an avatar of [[ComicBook/TheSandman Dream]], since he never seemed to care much about human morality. Then The Corinthian makes a brief cameo in the Phantom Of The Fair arc & it all begins to make sense. The Corinthian tends to turn the people he doesn't simply kill into {{Serial Killer}}s, which is the main sort of crime Wes fights. His true purpose is cleaning up the mess The Corinthian's been making since he escaped.
* I'm a little ashamed for not realizing this sooner, but as John Dee's final fight with [[ComicBook/TheSandman Morpheus]] goes on, he slowly decomposes, eventually revealing an entirely skeletal face. See also his [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fe/Drdestiny.jpg original costume]]
* One of the the running gags in the Brief Lives story arc was Destruction being a terrible artist. Well of course! he's Destruction. One thing he would be bad at is creating.
** This extends beyond his art. Note that just about everything he tries to create is either unappreciated or is terrible, like the meal he cooked that no one eats.
*** Except that according to the below interpretation, he ought to be the spirit of creation, as well. So why is he bad at it? ''Because he is no longer that being.'' Destruction brings change, and if he were fulfilling his role, he probably ''could'' create-but he no longer identifies as Destruction, so he can't do anything associated with that role!

*** Further than this, there is another way to interpret Despair. In Dream's funeral, she notes that she will always grieve for him, and that she will never forget him, even when everybody (as in, all beings) forget him. This points out that a big part of Despair's nature is remembering past pains - a witness in a way. So in a way she ''won'' because Superman ''remembers'' the tragedy and acts as a witness for the destruction of Krypton. Despair may not just be about abandoning hope and purpose, but also about memory and survivor's guilt.
* At first, ''A Doll's House'' seems to rely too much on Attemped RapeAsDrama as a method of putting Rose in danger. The muggers threatening to rape her is one thing, but Funland's attempt to rape her when she's clearly much too old to interest him (and when she could have been attacked by any one of the "collectors" who wasn't a rapist as well as a killer) bordered on GratuitousRape. But of course everyone who sees her wants to have sex with her, consensual or no-- ''she's Desire's granddaughter.''
* Desire's kindness toward Tiffany in ''Brief Lives'' seemed sort of odd to me at first, since it usually comes off as uncaring. What reason would there be for Desire to have any interest in some random stripper? Then I got it; it's because she was a stripper. She makes people want her for a living but they don't get her. As seen in ''Endless Nights'' Desire isn't interested in people getting what they want, because then they won't want it any more. Essentially, Tiffany is an agent of Desire and through her we get to see the kindest it ever is in the series.
* Destiny appeared in comics before the other Endless. [[LampshadeHanging He's the ''first'' of the Endless.]]
* In her very first appearance, Death perfectly described what is wrong with Dream...by telling him about Film/MaryPoppins.

** And keep in mind that Death is something of a ManicPixieDreamGirl, that she often carries an umbrella, and that she spends the rest of that issue taking Dream along with her as she collects souls, which helps him out of his ennui and kickstarts his CharacterDevelopment.
* In ''Calliope'' the eponymous muse inspires both of her masters to write the same sort of terrifying horror stories. Given her [[SexSlave position]], it seems unlikely that she's in the mood to inspire anything else.
* Why is Death always [[AllLovingHero so nice to everyone?]] Because she's defined by her function like all the Endless, and death is famously impartial and all people equal before it. So she can either be nice to everyone or mean to everyone (and she apparently originally went with the former before deciding that being nice was more fun), but she can like some things better than others only to the same extent that Dream can be practical or Despair can cheer up - that is to say, it's not ''completely'' impossible, especially in limited amounts, but it's never going to be common or pronounced.
** It's also implied that this is why she takes on human form once a century, so that she can experience death herself from within. In her chronologically earliest appearances, she's quite cold and abrupt, but by the time of the present, the experience of dying over and over again seems to have made her much kinder and sympathetic to people who will have to die for real--and who, unlike her, don't get to go back to being Endless.

* In 'Tales in the Sand', the narrator says, about Morpheus's and Nada's lovemaking: "All that night they stayed together, and every living thing that dreamed, dreamed that night of her face, and of her body, and of the warm salt taste of her sweat and her skin." It sounds romantic before you realize just what it means. And you thought naked pictures of yourself on the internet was bad...
* After Lucifer turfs everyone out of hell in ''Season of Mists'', a lot of the dead end up walking around on Earth as, well, zombies, basically. Among the dead shown to return are two babies- one just a few months old at most, the other a severely premature miscarriage. Yep. In this universe, babies too young to understand the concepts of right and wrong, let alone make any moral choices, can get condemned to eternal torture.

** The never-born are stated to be inhabitants of Hell earlier in the book. At one point we even see ground covered in dead babies in Hell's landscape. This is a part of the long-standing Christian belief that unbaptized children can't enter Heaven. Of course just because it's this way doesn't mean that it can't simultaneously be other ways too, ''ComicBook/TheSandman'' [[MindScrew being what it is.]]

** Or, once he belongs to Death, the other Endless (including Delirium) will have no power over him. They seem to have some power in each other's realms, maybe they just don't use it on each other out of politeness. Except Desire, who is a bitch like that.
* There is one in perhaps one of the most harmless of books. In ''Delirium's Party'' every one of the Endless gives a present to Despair, everything is good and dandy until Desire gives her twin a locket that would make her the object of all hearts' longing, all they crave for. Imagine an entire universe craving for hopelessness!
** Thankfully she never wore it.
* In The Doll's House, when Funland attempted to rape Rose (which led to her summoning Dream), Dream only put him to sleep. Then Dream went to the Corinthian's speech and took away the self-heroic fantasies of the "collectors" that were in the room. But since Funland was elsewhere, having just been given a dream about all his "little friends" BY Dream, he missed it. And then can go right back to his "secret, special place" which is implied to be Disneyland (or Disney World), where his kills are covered up for him.

* The idea, [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] by both Death and Nuala (and never truly denied by Morpheus himself) that the events of the penultimate arc, ''The Kindly Ones'' had been carefully and subconsciously orchestrated from even before the main timeline of the comics. The various plotlines and adventures become HarsherInHindsight when you realize they may have just been an outside perspective of Morpheus had been planning his suicide.

* In ''A Doll's House,'' we are introduced to a serial killer called The Connoisseur, whose body count is lower than many of the other killers because he kills only a very specific group of people: pre-operative transsexuals. Much later, in ''A Game of You," Wanda has a conversation with Maisie Hill (the 'I don't like dogs' lady), who tells Wanda about her grandson [[note]]Maisie misgenders her as "grandson" in the text, but she's an old lady who seems otherwise supportive[[/note]], a pre-operative transwoman who was murdered. The Connoisseur isn't mentioned by name but it's all too likely that he was responsible.

* Hob Gadling seems to suffer centuries of prosperity and failure designed deliberately to teach him valuable lessons about the nature of immortality. It seems awfully coincidental until you realize it's entirely possible Morpheus is arranging these streaks of bad and good luck.
** Which might seem weird until you remember that despite his centuries of denialism, he really wants a friend. Friends need to be able to converse as equals. An immortal needs a friend who isn’t just immortal, but also understands it enough to understand Dream’s views.

* I always kinda wondered why [[ComicBook/SandmanMysteryTheatre Wesley Dodds]] would fight crime if he's an avatar of [[ComicBook/TheSandman Dream]], since he never seemed to care much about human morality. Then The Corinthian makes a brief cameo in the Phantom Of The Fair arc & it all begins to make sense. The Corinthian tends to turn the people he doesn't simply kill into {{Serial Killer}}s, which is the main sort of crime Wes fights. His true purpose is cleaning up the mess The Corinthian's been making since he escaped -- Tropers/{{biznizz}}

* In ''Dream of a Thousand Cats'', Dream tells a cat that the universe can be changed when many beings fall asleep and have the same dream. The cat wants vengeance for its kittens that were killed by humans, and attempts to convince others to dream of a world where cats are larger than humans, rule the world, and hunt them for sport. Just more crazy rules of the dream world? No. Why the hell would many people dreaming the same thing make it true? Morpheus can force them to dream whatever he wants, and a world in which cats eat those that serve them couldn't be sustainable. He lied. He gave the cat just like Joshua Norton a goal that wouldn't really be achieved, but their dreams gave them both power, a reason to live, and perhaps joy.
** Jossed by The Sandman Overture as a thousand souls dreaming the same thing at the same time does wind up solving that story's main conflict.