Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 16:45:24 -0500 
From: Andrew David Weiland <aw1s+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Sandman Thoughts!!!

<U58505@uicvm.uic.edu> writes,

>
>By the same token, are there any atheists out there who read Sandman?
>How do you feel about Gaiman "espousing" the existence of a supreme
>god like being by implication.
>

As an atheist and former Catholic, I have no problems with it.  I do
have problems with the idea that belief creates reality, but after all
this is only a story, where reality IS the artist's creation.

>Now here are some questions I have that hopefully someone can answer:
>1)  Were the Endless created by God directly or came into existence as a
>    side effect of his creations?  I'm under the impression that the
>    Endless weren't created directly but were a side effect of his
>    works.  The first created beings (with sentience) were the angels.
>    As soon as God created the first angel, the side effect of that one
>    act was all the Endless coming into existence.

I think the Endless exist because the universe exists, and something is
needed to personify the abstract forces.  Destiny and Death are pretty
much essential to any kind of universe we'd imagine.  Dream is necessary
as long as there are beings who dream.  Desire, Despair, and Delirium
seem to be particular to the human races, and its possible that there
are races with different Endless.  I'd put Destruction up among the
essentials (though I think Disruption might be a more accurate
description of what he does).  But Gaiman puts Dream with the other two
and posits Destruction as the link between the two group, which I can't
quite figure out.

>2)  Who was the first angel?  I know that Lucifer (originally called
>    Samael) was the greatest and most powerful of the angels, but was
>    he the first?  If he wasn't the first that would mean that Dream is
>    older than Lucifer (by my reasoning of course).  Wow.

If angels dream then Dream would be as old as the oldest angel.  Or you
could argue that Lucifer is older because he was the first being to
dream of what might be instead of following the dictates of God; which
was the true rebellion and which made the Fall inevitable.  So Lucifer
would be the father, and Dream would be his eldest son.  Which puts a
whole new spin on Season of Mists, if you think about it.

>3)  Dream tells Matthew that except for the creator, Lucifer is the most
>    powerful being in the universe.  So does this mean that the triumvirate
>    existed because Lucifer let it happen out of boredom?

Maybe not boredom.  He could put down any rebellion the demons create,
but to do so would require him to crush their very rebellious nature
that was what made them so useful.  The demons saw democracy working in
the real world, and they wanted to use it down below.  Lucifer could
stop the insurrection; hell, he could probably create a whole new legion
of demons if he wanted to.  Maybe he allowed the rebellion because it
was the first new idea the demons had in millenia.
------------------------------------------------
| aw1s@andrew.cmu.edu |	Andy Weiland                            |
| We should not let ourselves be burnt for our opinions; we	 | 
| are not that sure of them.  But perhaps for this: that we	 |
| may have and change our opinions.                                          |
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