From: mss2@quads.uchicago.edu (Michael S. Schiffer)
Subject: Re: Sandman - A Thought
Reply-To: mss2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 22:41:19 GMT

In article <1992Dec16.172733.6560@uvm.edu> cblaise@moose.uvm.edu.UUCP (Chris Blaise) writes:

>	Or it could simply by the conclusion of the "Dawn Days" where
>the world and it's attitude's/ideas were changing, Destruction split,
>and Delight turned to Delerium.

	Destruction split a few hundred years ago.  Delight turned
into Delirium much longer ago-- it's been established that she was
Delirium at Orpheus' wedding, and it's often been implied that she's
been that way for a long time, as the Endless reckon "long".

>	IMHO, given that we've seen Del transform physically (ie. her hair)
>and she's staying on this "quest", we're gonna either see her turn back
>into Delight or something else.

	Given the theme of this arc, it seems likely that _someone_ is
going to undergo significant change.  It could be Delirium, or
Destruction, or (ultimately) Dream, or more than one, or someone else.
To an extent, it depends on what the effects would be.  If, as has
been suggested, Delight's transformation coincides with the Fall from
innocence (in the same way that Cain and Abel and Eve are all part of
that story, even though they predate humanity), then she's probably not going
to turn back into Delight because the repercussions would be too great
(a disapearence of insanity in the DC universe?  a return to Edenic
bliss?)  But perhaps she'll become something else.

>	Here's a question I have after buying/reading _Preludes and Nocturnes_
>last Friday.  When Dream and Scott Free go to ask J'onz where Dream's ruby
>might be, they (MM and Dream) recognize each other.  Thus I'm led to believe
>that everyone in the universe knows the Endless.

	Its been indicated that the Endless are universal, though
everyone in the universe certainly doesn't know them (for example,
most of the population of Earth is quite ignorant of them).  But they
also seem unduly concerned with Earth, perhaps for the same
unfathomable reasons that every other universal entity in comics is.

  If this is the case,
>why this big hub-hub about Destruction leaving?  Certainly there are planets
>where war and such are still kicking in full force (ie. Apokolypse(sp)).

	Or Earth.  Whatever Destruction's abdication means, it
certainly doesn't mean that destruction or war or anything of the sort
_ceased_-- that's demonstrable.  The real Earth had plenty of war both
before and after Destruction's presumed departure date-- the DC Earth
had most of the same plus the occasional alien invasion.  And, of
course, there's plenty of destruction known elsewhere in the DC universe,
from the tales of the Green Lantern Corps to Adam Strange to the
explosion of Krypton.

>	Or, is this just "one of those things" that Neil didn't really think
>out, and as subsequent issues have alluded to, the Endless and their
>mythos are earth-bound?

	To tell the truth, I think that it's difficult to reconcile
the two aspects of the Endless.  On the one hand, it's easy to say
that while Death is chatting with Rainie she's also collecting the
souls of a planet whose star went nova.  But the fact is that Dream's
known lovers all seem to be linked to Earth, the whole Season of Mists
storyline involved only Earth-based pantheons and human damned souls
in Hell, Dream has a raven familiar (an Earth bird) who always seems
to have been an Earth-human, and he was imprisoned by a Terran
sorceror.  Desire's plans with respect to Dream all seem to be
centered on Earth-- the bet about Norton, the Doll's House storyline,
and whatever Desire has to do with the current storyline.  Destruction
retired to a place on Earth after worrying about Earth's direction of
development.

	Maybe it's just that this is the official Earth Culture
Millennium and after 2000 all the Endless will pursue their various
plots and avocations on Rann or New Genesis or Hykraios.  But if the
Endless are universal, there's no question that they've been spending
a disproportionate amount of time and effort doing Earth-specific
things.

Mike
-- 
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS	"Indeed I tremble for my country
mss2@midway.uchicago.edu	 when I reflect that God is just."
mike.schiffer@um.cc.umich.edu	 -- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on
mschiffer@aal.itd.umich.edu	    Virginia (1784)