From: jordan@castor (USENET's Chuck)
Subject: Re: Sandman: More Pointless Ramblings
Summary: Oh, well I can see how that would... HUH?!?
Organization: University of Georgia
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 23:46:40 GMT

In article <1992Nov7.075349.25559@blaze.cs.jhu.edu> arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) writes:
[I said Delight -> Delerium after the Fall of Adam & Eve]
>...this idea causes multiple-culture problems.
>Different religions date the Fall back to different times, which means that
>there was a time when Delight was Delight for some cultures and Delirium for
>others.
>Worse yet, these cultures all developed the Fall myth long after the supposed
>date of the Fall.  This would mean that Delight changes to Delirium based on a
>mythology that doesn't exist until sometime in the future...

I don't get this.  Assume that the Fall was an "event" that occured towards
the beginning of mankind.  Dating it is irrelevant.  It represents the time
when mankind became aware of the true difference between good and evil, and
went from experiencing pure, constant Delight into more of a Delirium.
Different cultures have told the story in different ways; it doesn't matter
how each culture tries to set an actual date for when it happened because it
is impossible to do so.  It's easier to put a date on when Destruction left,
because it happened more recently and apparently was due to mankind's
beginning to learn new methods of greater destruction, which started to happen
during recorded history, so putting a date on it is relevant.  Maybe I'm
missing something from your argument...
Somebody else said that the story in Genesis happened long before humans
appeared human, and a panel showed Delight and Destruction together in
human form, so there goes my argument.  Well, I would answer that 1) We
only see aspects of the Endless in any panel, and their appearance is often
anachronistic, and 2) It would've been confusing to see two Neanderthal
versions of Delight and Delerium in the middle of the story. 
	But, I'm not going to get too obsessive about this theory, because
I haven't seen any evidence for it inthe book; it just makes the most sense
to me.

Also, somebody else (sorry I keep losing names here) claimed that the
"human-centric" appearances of the Endless, and all the anachronisms
involved with them, were problems that Gaiman still hasn't addressed.  I
say Pah! to this claim.  Around about issue 8 or so, he gave us a long
description of the Endless, saying how we only ever saw one aspect of the
Endless, since they were really just personifications of concepts.  I took
this to mean that not only do the characters in the story see one aspect
of the Endless, but so do the READERS of the story.  The readers of the book
are 20th century, English-speaking humans (I hope), so that's what we see.
That's why Death dresses the way she does, and Dream wears T-shirts, and
Desire looks like a Nagel painting, and so on...  We've only seen different
aspects of the Endless (Dream only, in fact) when it's been important to
the story presented to us.  So we're only seeing human personifications of
universal concepts, which means 1) The story's not going to be presented in
some Martian language or French (same difference), 2) Time and appearance
are pretty irrelevant when bringing up plot points, and 3) There is NO
third thing.

Chuck


-- 
                  Chuck Jordan | jordan@castor.cs.uga.edu
"I can already feel my butt gettin' sore."
						-- Barton Fink