### Author:  [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2010, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unanswered-questions-from-sandman/555502/4 "2010-09-29T19:09:42Z")
What was the story behind the killing of the first Despair?
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### Author:  [@The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Peyote_Coyote)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2010, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unanswered-questions-from-sandman/555502/5 "2010-09-29T19:27:44Z")
My unanswered question would be from The Kindly Ones: What caused Rose Walker and Hal to have a serious falling out?
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### Author:  [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2010, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unanswered-questions-from-sandman/555502/6 "2010-09-29T19:28:42Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#):
>
> What was the story behind the killing of the first Despair?
Not explained beyond saying that the remaining Endless had punished the perpetrator even though he had good reason for killing her.
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### Author:  [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2010, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unanswered-questions-from-sandman/555502/7 "2010-09-29T19:42:42Z")
> [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](#):
>
> In the series Lucifer, it is revealed that Mazikeen is one of the Lilim, the half-demon children of Lilith. She does some serious kicking of ass in that series. I highly recommend it.
She is also infuriated when by some well-meaning magic her face is made whole.
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### Author:  [@Satchmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satchmo)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2010, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unanswered-questions-from-sandman/555502/8 "2010-09-29T20:01:06Z")
Thanks for all the great answers. I’d forgotten I wanted to ask about the first Despair, too. Thanks for reminding me, **Tom Tildrum**!
No idea on that answer, myself. I do recall from somewhere the talk about whoever killed Despair suffering for thousands of years.
1. What happened that changed Delight into Delerium?
I got the feeling that Destiny knows. It seemed he might have been ‘responsible’ in some way. He sure shut up fast when she mentioned it. I also wonder has he always been blind? Or did that happen along the way, maybe at the same time Delight was hurt/changed.
2. Who were Loki and Puck working for/manipulated by?
I had thought this was either Dream, as Death browbeats him at the end of the Kindly Ones for arranging his own death surreptitiously, or Desire.
Also, it’s pretty obvious Desire didn’t get along with Dream and arranged (or was manipulated into arranging) for Dream to “spill family blood.” Not sure what Rose and the others in her family had to do with that or if it was unrelated.
3. What did they seek to gain?
Well, Desire could just make them want to do it.
4. Why did Loki kill Carla? (he said he hated being obligated to anyone.)
I had forgotten about Loki switching places with the Japanese envoy in ‘Mists’.
Good catch! “To be killed by a God.”
5. Who was he obligated to? Dream. (Now I know.)
6. How did Marzikeem \ get the way she is and what keeps her alive?
She’s obviously kept alive by her devotion to Lucifer.
🙂
Great stuff! Who’s got some other ideas? Questions? Favorite bits?
Who guessed it was Larissa that broke up with Dream and caused all the rain?
Her two pages were one great part in ‘The Wake.’ (among many)
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### Author:  [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maggie_the_Ocelot)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2010, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unanswered-questions-from-sandman/555502/9 "2010-09-29T20:08:46Z")
Remember, Rose Walker is the granddaughter of Unity (Kincaid?), one of the victims of the sleeping sickness that was caused by Dream’s capture. While Unity was asleep, she was raped by Desire, impregnating her with Rose’s mom.
Rose, her mother, and her brother are all family to the Endless.
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### Author:  [@Satchmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satchmo)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2010, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unanswered-questions-from-sandman/555502/10 "2010-09-29T22:05:30Z")
> [@The\_Peyote\_Coyote](#):
>
> My unanswered question would be from The Kindly Ones: What caused Rose Walker and Hal to have a serious falling out?
I thought that Hal found success by going from being a singer/dancer to being a cranky, insulting bitch in her act. Then over a few years, it stopped being an act. It’s hard to stay close to someone that’s like that all the time.
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### Author:  [@Satchmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satchmo)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2010, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unanswered-questions-from-sandman/555502/11 "2010-09-29T22:11:04Z")
> [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](#):
>
> Remember, Rose Walker is the granddaughter of Unity (Kincaid?), one of the victims of the sleeping sickness that was caused by Dream’s capture. While Unity was asleep, she was raped by Desire, impregnating her with Rose’s mom.
>
> Rose, her mother, and her brother are all family to the Endless.
Yes, wasn’t Rose’s mother a ‘Vortex’, a danger to the Dreaming? I know it’s said that ‘usually’ Dream will only kill to protect his realm. Then Rose became the Vortex, but Morpheus found a way to protect the Dreaming without having to kill her. So Desire was trying to get him to spill ‘family blood’ that far back in the series. Good catch!
Thought of another question. Somewhere I heard that Dream had been somewhere and done something that used much of his strength/energy and it was as he was returning that he was captured instead of Death. Where had he been? What was he doing? Any speculation?
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### Author:  [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2010, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unanswered-questions-from-sandman/555502/12 "2010-09-29T22:15:20Z")
> [@The\_Peyote\_Coyote](#):
>
> My unanswered question would be from The Kindly Ones: What caused Rose Walker and Hal to have a serious falling out?
Rose broke down the walls between their dreams one night, and no-one who was in the house that night remained on good terms with each other, except for the Spider Sisters. I think there’s some truth in **Satchmo** ’s answer as well.
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### Author:  [@The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Peyote_Coyote)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2010, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unanswered-questions-from-sandman/555502/13 "2010-09-29T22:20:56Z")
Satchmo: I think one of the graphic novels said he was returning from an epic fight in another galaxy and was weakened from that fight
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### Author:  [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2010, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unanswered-questions-from-sandman/555502/14 "2010-09-29T22:26:06Z")
Satchmo has it, but just to be clear, Rose and Unity Walker are kin to the Endless, but Morpheus did not harm either of them, despite Desire’s machinations. Rose was born with the dream vortex, but gave it to Unity in the Dreaming as Unity was dying naturally.
Morpheus grew to feel responsible for things he had done in the past and gave his son, Orpheus, the death he had been craving. That was the act that left him vulnerable to the furies.
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### Author:  [@Satchmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satchmo)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unanswered-questions-from-sandman/555502/15 "2010-09-30T00:34:36Z")
Thanks **The\_Peyote\_Coyote**!
Great summary **Yllaria** , I guess I should re-read the first few books. Brief Lives, The Kindly Ones and The Wake are my favorites, I think.
What about Barnabas the dog? Clearly he was Destruction’s dog, but do you think he was like Mathew? (Used to be human, given a choice when he died, maybe?) Or did Destruction just take a normal dog and make him smarter and able to talk? Or my favorite speculation, did he change an art/literary critic into a talking dog and make him forget he was ever human?
Reminds me, Mathew the Raven was a human character in the Swamp Thing series written by Gaiman, I think. Need to find that that next time I have some money burning a hole in my pocket. 😉
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### Author:  [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unanswered-questions-from-sandman/555502/16 "2010-09-30T17:25:55Z")
The spider women – what was up with them? Why did they live so withdrawn? How old were they? Were they lovers or sisters or possibly both?
Who was the voice in the cavern in the necropolis where the Endless’s cerements were kept?
Who set the rules that even the Endless seem to have to follow? (E.g., shedding of family blood).
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### Author:  [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unanswered-questions-from-sandman/555502/17 "2010-09-30T20:13:04Z")
The spider women were lovers – they’re shown sleeping together when the walls break down in A Doll’s House, and then in The Kindly Ones Zelda is dying of AIDS which she got from Chantal, who has already passed.
I don’t think anybody set up the rules. They’re uncreated outgrowths of the creation; I assume they’re bound by their rules just like molecules are bound by gravity and electromagnetism.
–Cliffy
P.S. Matthew originated as Matt Cable who was a supporting player in Swamp Thing as early as 1972, according to Wikipedia. He was important in Alan Moore’s run which was the precursor to the DC horror titles of which Sandman was the most successful, and he died later, after Rick Veitch had taken over. (Morpheus appears in that issue – Swamp Thing #84 IIRC.)
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### Author:  [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unanswered-questions-from-sandman/555502/18 "2010-09-30T20:14:28Z")
> [@Yllaria](#):
>
> Satchmo has it, but just to be clear, Rose and Unity Walker are kin to the Endless, but Morpheus did not harm either of them, despite Desire’s machinations. Rose was born with the dream vortex, but gave it to Unity in the Dreaming as Unity was dying naturally.
To be clear, Unity isn’t related to the Endless – she’s a normal mortal who Desire raped while she slept, resulting in Rose’s mother.
–Cliffy
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### Author:  [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unanswered-questions-from-sandman/555502/19 "2010-09-30T21:19:43Z")
> [@Satchmo](#):
>
> 1. What happened that changed Delight into Delerium?
I finished the series and the followup books a couple of years ago so my memory might not be 100% but in Sandman: Endless Nights some answers are given. In it there is a chapter that foces on each member of the Family.
It tells how the fued between Desire and Dream started.
My favorite chapter. Our very own sun tells a story to a not quite awkened earth about how he met the Family way back when when he was but a lad. In the chapter you get to see what the original Despair looked like. It does not say what happened to her you just get to see what she looks like. It is hinted that she has a connection to Superman: that she is the reason Krypton exploded to only leave one inhabitant alive because that single living creature would have such great despair at losing their entire planet. Also you get to see what Delight looked like as a child. She and our sun have a short conversation.
There is also a mention of why Delight changed into Delerium. You also get to see what she looked like and she comments, “I was pretty back then.” If I recall correctly and my own interpretation of the conversation:
Delight is based on the innocence of youth. As the universe was young all its inhabitants were ignorant and full of wonder so was Delight. The universe aged and became chaotic and so Delight transformed into Delerium.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who has not read it yet. There really are quite a few gems in it.
> **[The Sandman: Endless Nights](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sandman:_Endless_Nights)**
>
> The Sandman: Endless Nights is a graphic novel written by Neil Gaiman as a follow-up to his Sandman series. The book is divided into seven chapters, each devoted to one of the Endless, a family of siblings who are physical manifestations of the metaphysical concepts Dream, Death, Desire, Destruction, Delirium, Despair and Destiny. It was published by DC Comics in 2003. It won the Bram Stoker Award for Best Illustrated Narrative. It is also the first comic book to ever be on the New York Times B...
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### Author:  [@Satchmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satchmo)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unanswered-questions-from-sandman/555502/20 "2010-09-30T21:52:15Z")
> [@Cliffy](#):
>
> P.S. Matthew originated as Matt Cable who was a supporting player in Swamp Thing as early as 1972, according to Wikipedia. He was important in Alan Moore’s run which was the precursor to the DC horror titles of which Sandman was the most successful, and he died later, after Rick Veitch had taken over. (Morpheus appears in that issue – Swamp Thing #84 IIRC.)
Thanks **Cliffy**!
Good info, I’d be interested in getting that too. All the Endless seem to have pets, though Matthew is definitely more than a pet to Dream. That’s why I wondered when Barnabas came from.
Now I have to reread Endless Nights again. Poor me!
😉
So much I missed the first few times through. Got to look for the original Despair.
What other Horror Titles did DC do about that time. I remember the two house comics (Mysteries and Secrets) as Gaiman must have been fond of, obviously.
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