Desire

**Desire** is the third youngest of the Endless and the twin of Despair. To the ancient Romans, they were known as **Epithumia**. Desire is the anthropomorphic personification of wanting, craving, lust, and attraction, they blend in effortlessly with whatever environment they find themselves in. They live in the heart of a massive flesh-and-blood statue of themself, known as the Threshold, and their sigil is a heart of cut glass.

## History

At the beginning of time, during a conference where the future of creation was being planned by various entities, Dream introduces his lover, Killala of the Glow, to Desire. He goes on to tell Killala that Desire (who he describes as his favorite sibling) is responsible for their attraction to one another. After a series of events, Killala ended up in the passionate embrace of the anthropomorphic personification of her system's star: Oa. Dream was extremely hurt and told Desire not to meddle in his affairs again. In conversation with Destruction, it became clear that Desire was responsible for the breakup, but Desire at least claimed it was a joke.

After bad blood had been established between Dream and Desire (but while the Endless were still young), Morpheus was held captive within The Dreaming. Two gods fleeing their homeland took him by surprise and he was unable to free himself. After reluctantly reaching out to all six of his other siblings and being denied, he asked Desire for assistance. After they initially balked at the idea, they created Alianora to be Dream's new lover (despite his protestation), and she rescued him in turn.

When Desire sent Alianora to Dream, they said "don't hurt her," but Dream and Alianora still ended up having a painful falling out. This makes it unclear whether Desire meant to help Dream, hurt him, or both by sending her.

Approximately ten thousand years before the events of The Sandman, Desire also created the attraction between Nada and Dream; leading to their doomed romance. This resulted in the destruction of Nada's city and Dream condemning her to Hell. Desire later admitted that "Nada was a mistake".

### 1932

Dream being imprisoned by Roderick Burgess in 1916 resulted in people all over the world being afflicted by a "sleepy sickness." One of those people, Unity Kinkaid, was destined to be a dream vortex. While Unity slept, Desire convinced her body that she had become pregnant (though there wasn't an actual sexual act).

The sleeping sickness would mean that Unity would not be able to realize her destiny as the dream vortex, and that fate would pass to her offspring, Rose. Ultimately, this would result in Dream needing to hunt down a vortex that was technically Desire's blood, meaning he would incur the wrath of the Kindly Ones.

### 1940

On Beatrice Chambers's birthday, Desire yanks her out of the waking world to the unfamiliar Threshold. Beatrice meets Desire for the first time and after seeing the Endless true form, Desire manifests themself into the object of her desire—AKA Dream. Desire then teases Beatrice about said attraction to Desire's brother. Desire then asks how long she hopes to wait for Dream and that it’s a slippery slope to be on. Before Beatrice gets tossed back to the real world, Desire wishes her a Happy Birthday with a sultry laugh.

### Plotting against Dream

Desire reached out to their twin sister Despair to report that Dream had found his way out of his cage and that they had a new plan in the works.

Desire didn't believe that Dream had learned his lesson after 100 years of imprisonment, though Despair argued that their little games would never change Dream. To Desire, this was no game. They sought to put Dream in his place, as he often behaved as if his realm was superior to their own. Whatever their new scheme was, Despair was doubtful it would work, as they hadn't in the past. Desire retorted that Nada was a mistake and that Roderick Burgess was a diversion. Yet things have changed since then, as Desire revealed that there was a Dream Vortex, the first for a long time, a young girl named Rose. While the girl had no idea what she was, she was already doing what vortexes do: bringing in everything and everyone to her, including Morpheus.

Desire was confronted by Dream after he discovered their plan. Unity Kinkaid should have been the vortex for the current era. Desire took advantage of Morpheus' imprisonment and fathered a child with her, knowing that it would become the vortex, and that Dream would be forced to kill her. Should he have spilled family blood, consequences would've ensued. Dream reminded Desire that they were the servants of the living, not their masters. They did not manipulate humanity; if anything, humanity manipulated them. Should Desire ever make another play against Dream again, he threatened to deal with them accordingly. However, Desire didn't appear fearful.

## Powers & Abilities

* **Personification of Desire:** As one of the seven Endless, inconceivably powerful beings, Desire is both lord and personification of all desire and hatred. Desire has god-like powers and absolute control over their realm The Threshold. Desire has absolute power over all desire, attraction and want, over the craving of the unattainable, the force of physical appetite or emotional need and over strong envious desire. Desire themselves has been shown to be powerful enough to affect their siblings, with them admitting to have been responsible for starting some of Dream's relationships with his previous lovers by creating their attraction to each other. In contrast they are also lord over satisfaction, extending to the attainment of ones desire.
	+ **Omnipresence:** Desire like the rest of their siblings is everywhere on Earth at any moment, but usually not in a form visible to humans.
	+ **Shapeshifting:** Desire can freely appear in any form they want, with them usually taking the form of a androgynous youth having both masculine and feminine physical characteristics.
	+ **Teleportation:** As one of the Endless, Desire can go and access any location or realm they wish to go to in general, provided that they maintain respect for them and follows proper procedure with the Realm’s masters.
	+ **Resurrection:** During Despair’s challenge to Dream to prevent Norton I from falling under Despair, Delirium and Desire’s realms using his power over Dreams, Desire was stated by Dream to have revived the King of Pain in order to act as their agent to tempt him into giving in to his desires.

## Relationships

### Dream

Desire has an openly hostile relationship with their brother, callously mocking Dream with his own shortcomings. A story in *Endless Nights*, set long before any other *Sandman* story, explains the origins of the Dream's enmity and reveals Desire was once his favorite sibling. After his relationship with Killala has clearly ended, he angrily blamed Desire for the whole affair.

Animosity between Dream and Desire grew through the millennia, eventually culminating in Desire fathering a child with Unity Kinkaid, in an attempt to have Dream destroyed. When Dream discovered this, he openly threatened Desire should Desire interfere in Dream's life again. Whether or not this resulted in a truce, Desire at least made no effort to formulate another plot against Morpheus afterward.

After Dream killed Orpheus, Desire was left conflicted. They described Morpheus as stuffy, stupid, rude, and boorish, but also said they were not satisfied that their plot to make him spill family blood came to fruition in some way. Rather than feeling triumphant or happy, they told Despair the outcome had left them feeling scared. At Morpheus' wake, they remarked that had neither of them known one another, both of their lives would have been enriched and being siblings was unfortunate for both of them.

### Despair

Desire is very fond of their twin, and the two share a relationship that is far closer than any of the other Endless. For a time, it seemed as though Despair shared their vendetta against Morpheus to a degree, and was at least interested in proving him wrong. Eventually, however, Despair lost interest and is not invested in bringing about his destruction. Nevertheless, they still rely on one another for support, and Despair values Desire's opinion heavily.

### Delirium

When Despair challenges Dream to keep Norton I from her realm, she tells him that Desire and Delirium will stand with her. Though they are not as close to Delirium as they are to Despair, Desire appears to care for their younger sibling to some degree and is kind to her. When Delirium has a breakdown in a human club, Desire goes to her, brings her to the Threshold, and attempts to comfort her.

## Behind the Scenes

* In the *Sandman*, Desire is often referred to as "sibling" or "sister-brother" by their sibling. When a pronoun is needed while referring to Desire, the original text refers to them as "it". In a a 2021 tweet, Neil Gaiman stated that he, she, it, he/she, and them have been Desire's pronouns since the beginning. However, in a response to a comment made to his Tumblr in 2017, Gaiman revealed that if he had written the Sandman in modern times, he would have used "they" as their pronoun rather than "it". Their depiction in the 2022 Netflix adaptation reflects this change.
* Desires sigil in the galleries of the other Endless is a heart made of glass.

## References

1. ↑ *Endless Nights Comic*
2. ↑ Gaiman, Neil and Klinger, Leslie S. (2012). *Annotated Sandman Vol. 2: The Sandman #21-39*. New York: DC Comics.
3. ↑ Season 1, Episode 6: The Sound of Her Wings
4. ↑ Season 1, Episode 7: The Doll's House
5. ↑ Season 1, Episode 10: Lost Hearts
6. ↑ Neil Gaiman on Twitter
7. ↑ Neil Gaiman on Tumblr