Gaiman's "Sandman" series

[Totenkindly]

Well, this might be a great bonus here... I will watch it later. These are two of the four one-shot stories in the book following A Doll's House.

The cat one is truly standalone. Calliope is tangentially important for later events.

Bonus Two-Parter Episode of The Sandman Lands on Netflix

The tale of The Sandman is not over yet...

movieweb.com

- Dream of a Thousand Cats: Very moving, and pretty much the story put on screen just animated. Decent music. One of my favorite stories this season.

- Calliope: Some good moments, lost a bit in translation. Didn't wuss out about the awful thing Madoc did but handled it tastefully off screen (the comic was more explicit). I am progressive, but there were a few lines added here and there that were annoying because they felt like progressive boilerplate and diluted the actual story. I'm a "just tell the story" person rather than adding extra stuff as dog whistles / soapboxing. Interestingly in the book Calliope is blonde. They captured Morpheus here fairly decently but at times seem to fear making him too unlikable. It is important for them to show the rough edges because as the story progresses you can then see him change. I really liked the 2-3 minutes around when Morpheus tells Madoc what is going to happen and Calliope pretty much says it is too late for him.

 

[Lexicon]

I just finished everything but Calliope (that’s tonight).

I thought the adaptation was decent, so far. I tend to give a bit of leeway in judgement for first seasons of most shows, leaving room for them to hopefully catch their stride further along.

The Corinthian was cast so. Fucking. Well.
(Fun Land too, Jesus, hah)

Rose Walker didn’t do much for me. Vanesu Samunyai lacked a degree of depth in her emotional engagement. I feel like she wasn’t emotionally invested, the stakes didn’t feel high enough in her performance, if that makes sense. I don’t know if that was her choice or how she was directed, but there was something missing. I see room for improvement, though. She wasn’t ‘bad,’ she just wasn’t ...enough?


Dream of A Thousand Cats... made my night.

 

[Totenkindly]

I still haven't watched the final two episodes. (I had skipped ahead to e11.) I guess I should bite the bullet and finish.

Saw someone suggest young cyndi Lauper as Delirium. Yeah, that would have worked. I wish I had the build to pull this look off, she's fabulous!

 

[Totenkindly]

Bit the bullet, watched episode 9.

Some of it captures the quality of the comic. Particularly great is the moment when Gilbert recognizes the Corinthian, or when we're taking a peek at some of the convention panels.

But I really am frustrated by Vanesu Samunyai's performance as Rose Walker. It's not about the diversity in the casting at all, because James-Young (Unity) and Everitt (Hector) are all totally fine. Jammal (Hall) is sufficient, though not the best.

But in all her appearances, there's only one moment (when she chews off Morpheus' head this episode) where Samunyai has felt authentic to me; almost all of her other line readings are just... bad or devoid of any naturalness. And when I checked out her other credits, she has none. This is her first real acting role, from what I can tell, and boy does it show. If she'd been casting as a minor background character, okay; but she's essentially the lead character of this particular story arc. Just... what happened here?

(I also have some concerns about Lily Travers as Barbie, who will need to lead the "A Game of You" arc later on, if the show continues that long, based on what I saw of her so far in this series; but at least she's had some prior roles where she might have been decent, it's just that I haven't watched them yet. They really should be taking special care when casting some of these roles that involve being a temporary story lead.)

I'm still pretty happy with the main Endless, Lucienne, The Corinthian, Mathew, Dee, Constantine, and much of the other main leads.

--

As far as the story, it's weird and I just can't place my finger on it. So much of this seems emotionally inert even when I recognize elements of the book that were more or less lifted and even when I understand what the adaptation is doing and why. I can't tell whether it's the writing (which didn't adapt ENOUGH to the medium of TV) or the directing that just didn't bring out emotionally what needed to be brought out.

The high points of the series for me so far have been Episode 6 (which melds the Death and the Hob issues) and then the Episode 11 animated cat story.

---

Finished Episode 10. There were some things I really liked (like Gilbert's closing -- Stephen Fry is so great), and the resolution of the Vortex is finally back to the story roots; other things I liked less, like additions to Rose being the Vortex (it's not a superpower she can wield against Morpheus to take his place, it's that her presence automatically tears down the walls of dreams without her being able to control it and eventually sucks in all dreaming minds). I feel they kept trying to add more to the story to make it seem more dire, but all it seemed to do was confuse/deaden it.

Similarly, too wordy when Morpheus and Corinthian meet, I'm not sure why they added extra useless stuff or made it seem like The Corinthian actually had a chance here. At least they quoted some of the best sections of the story, including all the collectors being stripped of their dreams of grandiosity... but then it had to go too far and hit it on the nose. A lot of this show feels not nearly as nuanced as the source. Like, Morpheus is talking too much and/or feels like he is explaining so much. I don't feel like the writers have a lot of confidence in the material at times and/or trust the actors. Dream is a very severe personality. When he yields small things, it should seem painful to him... and he's not the greatest communicator even if he has some decent speeches. It's just important because it needs to build to the story's ending.

This season did highlight how Desire is playing around with Dream for whatever reason at least and this is important. When Dream speaks of the time he "failed in his responsibility once and a universe was lost," Desire was also involved.

I'm actually really excited they decided to show Azazel like he is in the comic, I'm not sure if it was cool or cheesy in terms of actual animation. At least they made the attempt?

I'm okay with the Gault replacement/addition, it got a little clumsy but the concept was fine.

 

[Totenkindly]

Season 2 is coming. Not particular enthused. They might be covering both Seasons of Mist and A Game of You this season. (I know A Game of You is, and Seasons of Mist comes before that.) They are both great books, but I was disappointed in The Doll's House stuff so I am not sure how this will go.

At least the image looks like Morpheus.

 

[Totenkindly]

I'm kind of indifferent at this point, but here's some news of upcoming casting.

I think it's hilarious they got Gleeson to play Puck. THat should be... interesting? I have no idea how he will do. Puck is more just a force of chaos in this story, who allies with Loki to some degree.

The Loki cast is more important. I was going to say I have no idea who this guy is as I have not seen him in anything -- and then I realize he was in the most recent episode of House of the Dragon as Alicent's brother Gwayne (and he was really great even in that small role). That could work. Loki is really important in the last third of the full story.

Douglas Booth as Cluracan is a good cast (Nuala and Cluracan her brother are the two major Fae we see in Sandman, aside from Oberon and Titania -- Titania is a significant small role character, as she reappears various times in the series). I first saw him in Jupiter Ascending as the younger brother Titus Abrasax who tries to marry Jupiter Jones; he drips Fae from his pores.

Indya (transwoman) is cast as Wanda (transwoman) from "A Game of You". Wanda has attitude in the book, a lot of attitude. I know Indya is on Pose, a show I have never watched.

Ann Skelly? I don't know her. I hope she nails Nuala. I adore Nuala, which is funny because she is nothing like me, really. She's like the token ISFJ fae in this story who ends up being given in servitude to Morpheus because of shady fae deals, but I think she has a remarkable arc and she might be one of the most grounded secondary characters with her purity and humility of spirit.

Clive Russell (after seeing him as the GoT Blackfish) can do a decent Odin.

Ruairí O’Connor as Orpheus? He looks like Orpheus. I assume he can act.

 

[Totenkindly]

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I'm kind of indifferent at this point, but here's some news of upcoming casting.

View attachment 31003

I think it's hilarious they got Gleeson to play Puck. THat should be... interesting? I have no idea how he will do. Puck is more just a force of chaos in this story, who allies with Loki to some degree.

The Loki cast is more important. I was going to say I have no idea who this guy is as I have not seen him in anything -- and then I realize he was in the most recent episode of House of the Dragon as Alicent's brother Gwayne (and he was really great even in that small role). That could work. Loki is really important in the last third of the full story.

Douglas Booth as Cluracan is a good cast (Nuala and Cluracan her brother are the two major Fae we see in Sandman, aside from Oberon and Titania -- Titania is a significant small role character, as she reappears various times in the series). I first saw him in Jupiter Ascending as the younger brother Titus Abrasax who tries to marry Jupiter Jones; he drips Fae from his pores.

Indya (transwoman) is cast as Wanda (transwoman) from "A Game of You". Wanda has attitude in the book, a lot of attitude. I know Indya is on Pose, a show I have never watched.

Ann Skelly? I don't know her. I hope she nails Nuala. I adore Nuala, which is funny because she is nothing like me, really. She's like the token ISFJ fae in this story who ends up being given in servitude to Morpheus because of shady fae deals, but I think she has a remarkable arc and she might be one of the most grounded secondary characters with her purity and humility of spirit.

Clive Russell (after seeing him as the GoT Blackfish) can do a decent Odin.

Ruairí O’Connor as Orpheus? He looks like Orpheus. I assume he can act.

Is this a better thing with Orpheus?

 

[Totenkindly]

Is this a better thing with Orpheus?

The Orpheus subplot is actually important to the overall Morpheus arc, it kind of underpins Morpheus' decisions and leads to the endgame of the overall story.

 

[Totenkindly]

So the first half of Season 2 has dropped.

I'm going to state up front I was really pissed off because I heard today they cut the entire "A Game of You" arc, which was one of my favorite arcs in the series. I suspected something like this because they were ending the series after only two seasons, which means SOMETHING got cut. But I heard they actually had the scripts for three episodes for the arc (and Wanda was cast -- I dunno if they are keeping her elsewhere), then decided since Morpheus wasn't super-involved in the arc, they cut it, to stay focused on Morpheus.

On one hand, I get this, and the thinking isn't wrong.
OTOH, one reason Sandman was good was because of various arcs exploring humanity's intersection with the Endless, not just everything from an Endless' perspective.
I also really suspect it came down to the (1) budget and (2) the horrible story that broke about Gaiman, so they didn't want to return to a third season and deal with Gaiman and all that bad press anymore.

[To give you perspective, the entire series is 75 issues long. Season 1 was only about 18 issues, along with the Cat issue. So maybe 20 issues of material. This should have gone four seasons, but I could have seen three seasons if you just take out all the one-shot stories.]

But it kind of breaks my heart.
I love that arc SO much.

This means Thassaly has essentially been cut too, so again some of the richness of the series is gone. It's a tightrope to talk in terms of what is getting cut vs what material even if not entirely focused on the Endless needs to be seen to help define their nuances.

I wasn't a fan of the First Season overall, I felt that while some of the casting was stellar (Boyd Holbrook as The Corinthian for example), some of it (especially the casting of Rose, the actress was really bad) really ruined some of the series -- and the story changes were kind of not great much of the time. Ultimately, I got barely any of the feels I got from just READING the series.

I decided to give S2E1 a shot, just to see -- and I'm happy to say that overall it is actually capturing the story fairly closely, as well as the feels and the plot points that need to be hit.

The Endless feel fairly close to their book counterparts, so I'm happy with that. Delirium isn't QUITE as spacey as she needs to be, like she should be entirely endearing + entirely nutso. Desire is pretty on mark as an androgynous bitch. Destiny is about par for course -- he won't tell anyone what's in his book, but he's forcing things to happen as they need to. Death is fine. I'm not totally onboard with Despair yet (she smiled a few times, which is not Despair. The whole point is that even when she says, "Isn't it beautiful?" her face should be hollow, empty, agonizing. Because even when Despair should be "pleased," Despair can experience no pleasure. Their entire existence is one black hole of meaninglessness, which is why she is miserable. Joy is still a soulless experience.)

The missing brother of course is Destruction. The story will explain (it should) why he left.
But a big part of this story is change. So far, Destruction and Delight have changed (Delight became Delirium once she could no longer remain innocent -- reality drove her mad).
Other Endless also might not be able to resist change, alas.

Also, Dream mostly is evoking what he needs to but the nuance is still slightly off. I hope it comes across to everyone that he is proud, emo, rigid, and stubborn. The whole bit with Nada is that he's extremely offended by Death kind of taking up Desire's side.... and shocked... but then he realizes she is right. But he's so damnable, because once she convinces him, he then has to go do something ELSE rigid and uncompromising (because he can't live with the idea that he made a mistake -- again, his pride in play!) He's so earnest and sincere, but you just want to smack him up alongside the head at the same time, because he puts a lot of other things at risk just to salvage his own integrity. It's always about him. This is Dream. I hope it is all coming across, because it matters later.

Gwendoline Christie is killing at as Lucifer, at least, in episode 1. Yeah, that's Lucifer and how he responded to hearing what Dream was going to do.

Dream went to visit Daniel. Good. They had made changes to Hippolyta in Season 1, but that scene was pretty close to the book. This scene is important. I was also glad they built up the foreboding by keeping him visit Hobb in his dream -- Dream fears he might not be around to make their next 100-year meeting.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with episode 1.

 

[Totenkindly]

Season 2 Episode 2:

Just for a run-down -- this episode covers 2-3 issues of the comic. The first 15 minutes of the show actually is one of the best issues of the series but so much got trimmed out. Again, I get that they were condensing things, it's just a bummer. They do capture the gist of the comic well, though.

The dinner party and back-room conversations unfolds in general pretty well, it was fun to see the reps of order and chaos appear. Love Shimmering Jenny, yes she has the balloon in the book too.

In the comic, Azazel was one of the three demons fighting for control of Hell (Lucifer was another and mainly considered the Lord of Hell), and he always appears in his black rift form full of teeth. I guess it saved them money to shoot some of his scenes as human. Chorazon is the demon who Morpheus had the duel with in Season 1, who had his helm (at least in the comic). Yes, Azazel makes the same offer in the story.

The Thor here is just as obnoxious as in the comic, in the latter he was about 3x bigger (all bulky muscle, with a pea-brain), and yup pretty much he just drinks all the time or makes crass jokes and picks on Loki. Note there's another storm god here, a Japanese one who is NOT played by Hiroyuki Sanada! Loki is important.

They included Cain & Abel's "magic trick." In case people forgot, the brothers were part of some horror comic series IRL and here the joke is that (in spirit of the bible story), Abel is the perpetual victim and Cain is the dickish brother / murderer who always does nasty things to him resulting in his death but of course Abel comes back each day. Just like in the Bible version, Cain has a mark on his head which protects him from harm -- so this is why he makes a good envoy to send into dangerous circumstances.

I wonder how much space Nuala gets this season. I really like Nuala a lot, and I hope that keep her character true to the book including what happens at the end of this party. Clurachan is just a lovable creep. Note they are here from Oberon & Titania of the Fey. I think the play happens next episode.

I can't tell exactly where the key will go. The angels have appeared, I'm not sure if they are going to play the same role as the book.

 

[Totenkindly]

Okay, I finished e3 and I'm stopping there for awhile -- I'm all Sandman'ed out, and I think that while the first episode boded well, I'm bugged by stuff that was (needlessly?) changed in episodes 2 & 3.

In Sandman (both seasons) in particular, I'm annoyed by some of the attempts to be more "woke" while at the same time trying to empower Morpheus or protect him from accepting culpability for his choices. I'm kind of confused by the writing that is going in two directions at once. I hate even using the term "woke" (and I'm fine with any of the gender/racial cast changes that have occurred, that is NOT an issue), but it's mainly trying to empower some characters needlessly that dampens the narrative. What was the purpose?

I think what really kills me about adaptations is when the original is very powerful but they then just things that weakens it (for non-medium purposes) when they could have just scripted it literally from the page. It was all laid out for them. How hard is this?

One involves the decision of the key:

It's the same results in the book, but essentially it feels like they tried to give agency to Morpheus, who actively makes the decision to give the key to the angels -- but this takes away from the scene's power. Morpheus is stuck mulling over this decision of who owns hell, and eventually heaven speaks through the angels who don't even know what the message is to say that Heaven is reclaiming the key since Hell exists as a dark mirror of Heaven and both Remiel and Duma are now being assigned to rule of Hell. This sends Remiel into a cascade of the stages of grief because he doesn't want to be in charge of Hell and take Lucifer's place, but if he refuses, he can never go back to heaven anyway because then he would have rebelled, which means he ... has... no.... choice. This reflects of Lucifer's earlier comments about how if he hadn't rebelled, another angel would have... but Lucifer basically felt used by God and finally just walked away and refused to do the job anymore. This sets up a lot of interesting resonations from Remiel -- feeling slighted by God -- and Duma, who never speaks but seems to accept his mission with humility through the rest of the story. It also makes you wonder what they are trying to say about God, and maybe setting up God as a counterpoint to Morpheus who is lord of his own domain -- lording it over his creations and demanding they behave certain ways, but Morpheus is changing and learning to see them as individuals and this is hard on him.

The book also sets up Morpheus as a procrastinator and someone who endlessly mulls over his options so as to always be perfect and never blamable for anyway -- which deepens the ending of his story arc and why he takes the approach he does. You can't give Morpheus this level of agency without weakening him as a character. he is a character that feels stuck with responsibility for the roles he was given, which leads him into a high degree of dissatisfaction over time because he can't bring himself to blatantly change the situation.

Another is about Nuala:

In the book, it's the same basic premise, but far more nuanced. You get the idea she's the overlooked little sister of the flashy Clurachan, often used to be invisible and not appreciated. And here, without being told, she's sent to Dream as a "gift" without any consultation. And while she grows to secretly love Morpheus over time, it's something she hides in her heart and more like a girl with a fan idol she's always adored but never mentions because she's afraid of being discarded... but she grows through the story and ends up making decisions for herself. It's really beautiful. But it starts with her being left with Morpheus against her will (although she is so compliant she doesn't refuse), and then the indignity of being forced to remove her glamour -- all the fey use little magicks to make themselves look beautiful, and without this, Nuala is small and mousy and unappealing, which again plays into her lack of self-confidence. She feels ugly but has no choice nor will argue with Dream.

Here they make her too obviously "in love" with Morpheus ahead of time, then give her agency in abandoning her glamour (where in the story she doesn't even get to say anything, he just explains to her why he doesn't like it and just banishes it before she can even respond). Why? You don't want to do that. It ruins her arc. She needs to start at a place of feeling like no one or nothing and has no agency, and then gains her confidence over time until she can stand without her glamour and own herself regardless of her appearance. It makes it really beautiful as she secretly grows to adore Dream, with all of his rough severe edges; leading to her final request of him, which he can't honor, and all he can give her is what she already has. She reminds me of an ISFJ type similar to Sansa in GoT, where they start as part of the system and a place of ignorance/inexperience, then grow over time to develop a strong backbone and become individuals making their own decisions.

This ties in with shows being afraid to show people as ugly. Despair is NOT nearly as ugly and difficult to look at as she needs to be; and the same goes here, Nuala is too pretty in her natural form. She needs to be even more plain and non-descript.

Another is about Loki:

SHOW DON'T TELL. Uggh. The bargain is the same, but they make it so explicit here that Loki will not be obligated to anyone. They even weirdly have Loki volunteer to "do anything dream asks" but why would he do that if he's not one to be obligated? (so now it's also inconsistent). Maybe just punch the audience in the face harder, why don't you? This is very understated in the book exchange. Dream mulls over the request to help Loki escape and mentions in passing that Loki will be in his debt, and Loki accepts that bargain because he doesn't want to go back to being tortured for thousands of years more. What they did here is like spoiling you a twist of the film in the first few minutes of the story. You want the audience to not think much about Loki until you realize this was a far bigger deal than it seemed originally.

(BTW, irony here -- fucking Dream has Nada tortured in hell for thousands of years for rejecting him for good cause, yet here he helps an unsavory trickster god escape his own torture simply to get a service from him and not make waves. But we're seeing Morpheus starting to do things that either are inconsistent with his past behavior -- is he changing, is he losing touch with himself? -- or is he unconsciously setting up events to fall a certain way?)

They also dropped one of the funniest lines in the series. Loki's enmity with Thor is known to just about every audience member from myth and MCU, and this version of Thor is a total abusive dick bro. Meanwhile, Susano-o-no-Mikoto already was explicit before about him being a Japanese storm god, yet seems like one of the purest people there to request the key and probably inoffensive to anyone. But in the book, Morpheus asks him "Why Susano?" and Loki says as an aside, "Because I don't like storm gods. I don't know why. They just rub me the wrong way" before going on to say, "Why not?" Why wasn't this included? Like, how do they decide what shit to cut?

And finally, the bit with Nada:

this is so inexplicable. A lot of the conversation tracks with the book, but they explicitly changed his apology to feel lame.

After Nada rightfully slaps him for doing his standard "Dream" understated shit ("I think perhaps I should apologize. I should tell you that I am sorry.") -- note, from Dream, this is a huge admission of guilt, based on his pride, but it's blatantly insulting regardless -- in the book, after his outrage of getting slapped and Nada saying, "What are you going to do? SEND ME BACK TO HELL??" he says, "I ... I am sorry, Nada. You are right. What I did was foolish and heartless and ... unfair. You hurt my pride, and I hurt you. I was very wrong. [pause] There is nothing else I can say." Dream is showing uncharacteristic self-awareness here. He is also admitting he is flawed and very much in the wrong. He also admits that, no matter how much he apologizes, he can never make up for what he did -- there is nothing else he can do to make things right, the wrongs were already done.

In the show they change this to, "I am sorry. I will live with eternal regret for what I did to you." Like JFC. It's still all about him.

But the point in the book is that Morpheus is changing. What we realize later is that that this terrifies him -- he is feeling and perceiving things he never has, including about himself, and he doesn't know how to cope with that. Why are they undermining his arc?? All they had to do was do the book text verbatim!

Also, the book arc is more endearing and shows that Morpheus has had a change of heart -- Nada isn't just walking out in the world, she's being reincarnated as a human baby. She ends up being a chinese baby boy, and Dream says goodbye to her in that sleeping form and that Nada will always be welcome in his dreaming no matter the body Nada is wearing. He is letting her go including his desires for her, having done the most he could to set things right.

 

[Totenkindly]

‘The Sandman’ Isn’t Good Enough to Excuse Neil Gaiman

What’s it like to watch a story about cosmic self-improvement after its author has been canceled?

www.thedailybeast.com

Interestingly, it does sum up how I feel about the tv series.

Season 2 is about as good as the first, which is to say, visually drab, tonally sleepy (so to speak), and narratively both too fast and too slow, somehow, focusing too much energy on endless monologues and dull conversations and not enough on really developing this world or the characters in it past a certain point.

 

[Vendrah]

‘The Sandman’ Isn’t Good Enough to Excuse Neil Gaiman

What’s it like to watch a story about cosmic self-improvement after its author has been canceled?

www.thedailybeast.com

Interestingly, it does sum up how I feel about the tv series.

I was watching and dropped exactly where you did.
I did started after the "hell boss arch" but then everything felt like I was watching fillers. I read the resume of episodes and TBH, everything from the end of hell boss arch felt like filler with no relevance and that the series started to get a really slow development, and I dislike that. Uusuallly, when the show is too much of a success, they do slow down the series speed so they can release more seasons for money, it seems they are doing the same here!

 

[Totenkindly]

I was watching and dropped exactly where you did.
I did started after the "hell boss arch" but then everything felt like I was watching fillers. I read the resume of episodes and TBH, everything from the end of hell boss arch felt like filler with no relevance and that the series started to get a really slow development, and I dislike that. Uusuallly, when the show is too much of a success, they do slow down the series speed so they can release more seasons for money, it seems they are doing the same here!

Well, it's over now. They cut most of the material like "A Game of You" and a lot of the one-shot stuff, and Season 2 was it. If I wanted a series that would do the books justice, despite some decent casting (especially Boyd Holbook as The Corinthian), this was not it.

I felt like some of it was pretty badly handled. Some episodes (like the Serial Killer Convention) were fairly true to the book, but it was kind of weird that stuff meaningful in the book didn't play well on TV the way they wrote it, at least. It's just weird to me, when you have the roadmap published and yet somehow still garble the show; GoT did fine until it ran out of book. (But I haven't watched the last 9 episodes of S2 yet, I'll watch some more this weekend.)

Apparently they also baited Dead Boy Detectives viewers who were sad that series was canceled after Season 1, then cut their cameo from Season 2. My friend was so pissed she just quit Netflix again.

 

[Vendrah]

Well, it's over now. They cut most of the material like "A Game of You" and a lot of the one-shot stuff, and Season 2 was it. If I wanted a series that would do the books justice, despite some decent casting (especially Boyd Holbook as The Corinthian), this was not it.

I felt like some of it was pretty badly handled. Some episodes (like the Serial Killer Convention) were fairly true to the book, but it was kind of weird that stuff meaningful in the book didn't play well on TV the way they wrote it, at least. It's just weird to me, when you have the roadmap published and yet somehow still garble the show; GoT did fine until it ran out of book. (But I haven't watched the last 9 episodes of S2 yet, I'll watch some more this weekend.)

Apparently they also baited Dead Boy Detectives viewers who were sad that series was canceled after Season 1, then cut their cameo from Season 2. My friend was so pissed she just quit Netflix again.

Wait, the whole book series is over and series is over too?

 

[Totenkindly]

Watched episode 4 (Brief Lives, which is also the name of the entire Destruction sub arc) and I'm just having trouble getting through this because of the dumbness. It's like some of it is setting up things nicely, then they typically blow it in the execution by just dumb changes. Also, I hate people blindly criticizing stuff for being "woke" but that's how a lot of this show has scanned, with all of its posturing (recasting gender and race blatantly, some of which seems like flags they are just trying to wave) while missing the essence of the show and characters.

So now I'm gonna bitch about Wanda:

Wanda is actually part of "A Game of You" arc which they decided to entirely cut from the show.

But she's trans, so they felt like they'd get criticized for cutting her -- so instead they replaced another character with a trans character called Wanda. This version of Wanda is nothing like the comic book version. She gets about 10-15 minutes of screen time. What little she gets to say, they make a point out of her being trans and she talks about going on hormones as a teen and her relationship with her family.

Then they kill her in an incident, the original character she replaced didn't even die there. Now I suppose they will show her stupid burial scene where her family disrespects her, to try to drive home the trans thing. They essentially reduced her to her death and the oppression of trans people.

WE ARE MORE THAN TRAGEDY. It only works in the book because Wanda's actually major character in the "Game of You" arc and you actually get to know her, and her whole life has been about her making her whole way, and then the final snub at her death, so the protagonist of that arc who has always been weak and pathetic manages to honor her in an act of defiance.

Like, fuck these people. In trying to keep Wanda but just making her about her transness in the most shallow discourses possible and then killing her off, they just made it a lot WORSE. Like -- you cut the arc she was part of, so just don't include her. Or include some other trans character if you want to posture for points. This is just far far worse.

Like, I feel like whoever was in showrunner / in charge of this mess was trying way too hard to be progressive rather than just telling the story properly. Everything is losing its power.

The Belize/Ishtar bit is generally correct in the details, but they didn't have the balls to really go for it. The club doesn't burn down in the book per se -- it basically explodes because:

with all the bad feelings that Dream dredges up, the loss of Destruction and her other loves, how she's become diminished over the years -- Dream meanwhile is entirely clueless of what he has done to her, that's the whole point to his character, he doesn't really have empathy enough to understand people -- Ishtar goes out, warns the club owner that he's never "really seen her dance" and THERE is where she talks about how she used to have so many rich temples dedicated to her, with 50 priestesses in each, etc., you can tell she's finally facing how for centuries her importance and glory days have been over, and then basically she gives a performance that is her "burning out" and taking all of the male viewers in the place with her... and it's pretty graphic, the text describes how all of their synapses explode, they start ejaculating blood instead of semen, they are basically being consumed by lust at the experience of this Goddess of Love/Sex totally revealing herself in all her celestial glory... and that's how she and everyone dies in the place, when the building explodes from her release of power.

Here, they have to make it seem like some kind of empowering - "I might die, I might not, but at least I will die no longer diminishing myself." Jesus, let's just get woke preachy. The book story manages to be "woke" in a substantial way just by making her a real person and giving her agency and regret and shame without preaching about it, you're left with a deep sympathy for her and the understanding is that her heart has been broken so much over the centuries including stuff that Dream did to her that she decides to just go out in a "blaze of glory" as a goddess should, rather than this half-life. But the book shows, doesn't tell.

You know, something I hate more than bad adaptations is an adaptation that actually had great scripts from the books that could be followed verbatim and didn't need to be changed, but often they will change things to fit someone else's agenda. A lot of the decisions made with this series ended up weakening the story and characters immensely. Like, please just read the books if you care about this world, it picks up in "The Doll's House" arc and then really pushes forward with the actual "Season of Mists" arc from the books.

I don't remember the real reason why Dream agrees to go with Delirium for a bit -- whether there was a bit of cloaked intent. The show did not do with Nada what the book did, and the book Nada is beyond Dream's interest now, he has come to terms with her. It might have been more to see Thessaly, but she was a love interest in "A Game of You" and since they cut the arc, they had nothing else to fall back on. Thessaly was a really interesting character too.

You get the idea from the book (not necessarily the show) that Dream has been buying into his own bullshit for millennia and skirting the line of not getting involved with mortals, which always screws over the mortals. His largest hurt was over Nada, who actually spurned him because her sense of duty and ethics was beyond Dream's desire to influence, but in her wake there's been a lot of "smaller" romances Dream has indulged in over the centuries. Thessaly also eventually spurns him and doesn't take super-long to do it, after getting involved. This all should be contributing to the end of the book and Morpheus' character arc, where existence is becoming less and less satisfying. The longer he goes, the more he finds himself "feeling things consciously" versus just being driven by his inner hidden feelings, and the consciousness of his faults and losses and struggles is wearing him down -- it's like the more he finds his humanity, the harder it becomes for him.

It's why he is so angry with Destruction. When Destruction realized he was unhappy in his role, he abandoned his post and walked away. On some level Dream is envious of this, but he shows it by criticizing his brother's choices because he is so ultra-responsible.

 

[Totenkindly]

Wait, the whole book series is over and series is over too?

Uhhh.... The book series I think ran from 1989-1996 or something. Gaiman did a few postlude/prelude projects over the years to tell more stories about that world. And Vertigo let other authors pick up side character stories. But Morpheus' main timeline story ended in 1996.

The TV show is over now, I think the final episode was released by now. They cut a ton of stuff, especially with the Gaiman mess, and ended the show at the same place as the book story I am assuming.

 

[Vendrah]

Uhhh.... The book series I think ran from 1989-1996 or something. Gaiman did a few postlude/prelude projects over the years to tell more stories about that world. And Vertigo let other authors pick up side character stories. But Morpheus' main timeline story ended in 1996.

The TV show is over now, I think the final episode was released by now. They cut a ton of stuff, especially with the Gaiman mess, and ended the show at the same place as the book story I am assuming.

Ooohhh, sorry if this sound stupid, but does that mean the series is complete and they're not going to release more seasons? Just confirming it, because then it that case, the next time for Netflix I am watching the rest.

I am the nightmare of the streaming services, I sign up for a month or two and then cancel and move to another one. In the moment, I am somewhat busy and have some "projects" as the US people like to say, in terms that I am staying a few months without any service at all. Its the most economic strategy for those who don't like to be loyal to a single company (that kind of loyalship has not to do with morals and ethics in any way) and like to sometimes not watch stream at all.

 

[Totenkindly]

Ooohhh, sorry if this sound stupid, but does that mean the series is complete and they're not going to release more seasons? Just confirming it, because then it that case, the next time for Netflix I am watching the rest.

Yeah, there is no more after Season 2.
I think Netflix also wanted to pull back from Gaiman after that big expose last year. He wasn't much involved in the completion of Season 2 either.

I'll see if I can get through the rest. I guess I still have 7 episodes to go, but it seems far less interesting to me currently than my whole new world of anime lol.

I am the nightmare of the streaming services, I sign up for a month or two and then cancel and move to another one. In the moment, I am somewhat busy and have some "projects" as the US people like to say, in terms that I am staying a few months without any service at all. Its the most economic strategy for those who don't like to be loyal to a single company (that kind of loyalship has not to do with morals and ethics in any way) and like to sometimes not watch stream at all.

That's not a bad way to be. My problem is I have too many services just to have access to anything and then realize I'm not really using 1-2 of them very much so I might as well cut them.