Somniloquy!

Jaybird

Jaybird is Birdmojo on Xbox Live and Jaybirdmojo on Playstation's network. He's been playing consoles since the Atari 2600 and it was Zork that taught him how to touch-type. If you've got a song for Wednesday, a commercial for Saturday, a recommendation for Tuesday, an essay for Monday, or, heck, just a handful a questions, fire off an email to AskJaybird-at-gmail.com

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9 Responses

  1. Glyph says:

    Not much to say, other than I think these issues are beautifully written and drawn. If ever a story had the right to end on the cliche “and then you woke up” it’s this one; that line lands, hard.

    The fact that Remiel doesn’t attend the funeral is interesting.

    Glad Hob turns Death down, though the symmetry of him going out in a broken-down imitation medieval pub, like the one in which he was granted his long life by her brother, would have been striking. The whole issue really works for me, the mix of comedy (Hob getting very, very, VERY drunk and bitching about RenFest) and bleakness (Hob’s memories of transporting/dumping slaves; remembering all the people he’s known that are gone; his speech about death visiting little by little) but ending with hope (and in all likelihood a magnificent hangover).

    Damn but these are good. So glad that Gaiman took the time (and that the publishers didn’t mind him doing so) to draw out all these little grace notes from the finale, after the story’s “hero” is gone.Report

  2. 1) I believe the young child who casts flowers at the boat is the reincarnated form of Nada. (I believe it is his dream Morpheus checks on during a much earlier issue when we see how he spends his week.) IIRC, Nada is reborn as a boy in Hong Kong.

    2) My one major qualm with anything in the entire Sandman run is the way the sleepers are depicted as they wake. Specifically, I strongly object to the way Richard Madoc is portrayed. There is, to my eyes, a sense of forgiveness or release for Nuala et al/ As it says in the recap above, Richard seems happy. And while I grok the whole idea that Morpheus’s demise conferred a kind of release, I have a real problem with Madoc being portrayed as somehow “forgiven.”

    Why? Because his crime wasn’t against Morpheus. Morpheus was the one who exacted punishment, it’s true, but unlike with Alex Burgess he wasn’t the victim. The victim was Calliope, and unless there was some scene we miss where Madoc seeks and is granted forgiveness from her, then I do not believe it is tonally appropriate to equate Morpheus’s death with a moment of redemption for him.Report

    • North in reply to Russell Saunders says:

      Agreed 100% about Madoc.Report

    • Glyph in reply to Russell Saunders says:

      While I totally see the point you are making, I want to head into the weeds for a moment. This may be a bad convo for Mindless Diversions; if it spins out of control I am happy to drop it.

      And before we get into it, the kidnapping and repeated rape of anyone is very, very, very bad (and also, a dumb idea, especially if the victim happens to be the Muse ex-wife of a very powerful immortal being).

      But for Madoc’s punishment, he essentially had his mind sandblasted clean by Morpheus. All those ideas (and – yeesh – the FINGERS – he STILL wears gloves), followed by, presumably, a near catatonia/depressive state. For nearly the series’ entire run. What’s that, five or so years in “real” time to Madoc?

      If we could inject a convicted rapist with a drug that would drive him temporarily, violently, insane, in the process causing him permanent disfiguring injury, followed by 5 years of catatonic institutionalization – wouldn’t that seem like “enough” punishment? Might he not smile upon his release from such a “Clockwork Orange” type rehabilitation, regardless of whether the victim had forgiven him or not?

      Has he “paid” for his crime?

      Like I said, I know that’s the weeds, and what “justice” we find acceptable IRL is decidedly different from what we want from our drama (which is basically eternal damnation. Burn in hell, Madoc!). What if we could have done this to that Castro weirdo in Ohio who had been keeping those girls in his house? Would such a punishment have been overkill; and if so, mightn’t he smile when it ended?Report

      • Glyph in reply to Glyph says:

        Put another way, we’ve seen often in this series that sometimes the good die young and the bad go free (the Cuckoo, Dr. Dee).

        Hell, Hob was at minimum indirectly (and possibly directly) complicit in the murder of dozens or hundreds of slaves. Those slaves didn’t forgive him (Gwen doesn’t count, she wasn’t there, nor does she know that he was); yet we’re happy that he gets to go on with his life; his only punishment was his own guilt and memories.Report

      • Jaybird in reply to Glyph says:

        Yeah, I would say that Madoc’s punishment came at the hands of Morpheus. When Morpheus died, the punishment ended.

        Did he deserve worse? Of course. But who would enact it?

        What is no-longer-Daniel’s relationship to Calliope? We saw that Morpheus tended to only hand out punishments to protect The Dreaming or, in some cases, if he felt things very, very strongly… is that Morpheus’s bag or does it come with the necklace?Report

      • Russell Saunders in reply to Glyph says:

        I am not saying either that I do not understand that the logic within the story dictates that Madoc’s punishment would end with Morpheus’s death or that I would want him consigned to madness and agony for eternity.

        I object to the tone of how his waking is depicted. I object to his seeming not only free, but happy. It reads to me like he has been forgiven. Again, I note that the recap describes him as “happy.” I think that is an editorial misstep. Show him being released, that’s A-OK and in keeping with the story. But happy? In the absence of Calliope herself granting her forgiveness for the crime committed against her person, I object to that.Report

      • Jason Tank in reply to Glyph says:

        Coming after Dream leaving his mark on Lyta, I think the message is that punishment is fine, but vengeance has no end. Erasmus Fry, the guy who originally captured Calliope and promised to free her, died without even punishment. Richard Madoc, who got himself in trouble trying to end his writer’s block by being given a ‘gift’ he shouldn’t have accepted, has less to ‘answer’ for, but suffered vengeance for it. If you go back and look, Calliope herself told Morpheus to release Richard from the torrent of ideas. (It was his unspoken choice to withhold all ideas from him thereafter.) Calliope, for her part, had no desire for vengeance.Report

  3. Mike Schilling says:

    Catherine of Aragon was auburn-haired, blue-eyed, and fair-skinned, unsurprisingly for someone who was largely German on both her father’s and mother’s sides.Report