#tales in the sand

[writing-for-life]

Where the Blood Fell, Red Flowers Grew…

Red Flowers as a Symbol for the Loss of Innocence & Guilt in Tales in the Sand & Brief Lives

So we’re (re)reading Tales in the Sand in our community right now, and while the following scene always gives me the ick (and hence I will put it under the cut), I couldn’t help but reflect on that line in the header (because that’s from “Tales in the Sand”, not “Brief Lives”)…

Blood turning into red flowers is a recurring theme, but somehow, I’ve never thought of the implications of adding it here, in “Tales in the Sand”.

The first instinct would obviously be to say:

Red flowers symbolise the loss of innocence.

It’s a bit tricky to call it that in Nada’s case though.

Because despite destroying her hymen herself, that obviously doesn’t take away her “innocence” (I struggle a bit to voice this in a way that doesn’t sound archaic and yesteryear), as in: She doesn’t really stop being a virgin because of it. We can obviously discuss that these were different times, and that’s what she believed etc, but I think that doesn’t matter in this case.

Neither do these panels, in which Morpheus heals her but doesn’t “restore her maidenhead” (not maidenhood!), truly change anything about that. I have many other thoughts about these panels, but they’re maybe for another time.

But if we see “loss of innocence” metaphorically, if we think about feelings of guilt, it still makes sense.

So why the flowers in “Tales in the Sand” and then have them return as a motif in “Brief Lives”?

What Nada felt at this stage was already overwhelming guilt for having fallen in love with Dream (she pursued him first—she felt like she had brought it on. And of course we all know that she isn’t the one to blame here, but he for not being able to accept rejection and honestly being coercive). The loss of her innocence is twofold—real and symbolic.

And red flowers aren’t just about grief in “Brief Lives”. Much in the same way that the blood on Morpheus’ hands was never real either (it disappears and reappears, and I’m saying here and now: he’s the only one who sees it), but always a symbol for feelings of his guilt.

These are just the little things and repeating motifs interwoven into the Sandman that make me go:

[orionsangel86]

I was once again flicking through the Sandman comics and thinking about the changes made to the show (as I am pretty much always doing) and something that struck me as interesting is why they chose to swap out Tales in the Sand for Men of Good Fortune.

In the comics, The Sound of Her Wings is the last story in Preludes and Nocturns. Dream’s meeting with his sister Death closes out the first of the overarching storylines within the Sandman saga, and it ends with Dream finding some measure of peace after speaking with her, and finding joy in hearing the sound of wings.

This can be interpreted as the first bit of real foreshadowing of Dream’s desire to die. Anyone who has read the Kindly Ones knows how important The Sound Of Her Wings is as it is called back to heavily at the end.

In the comics, the next issue can be seen as a one off, but is included in The Doll’s House book. This issue is Tales in the Sand - the tragic love story of Dream and Nada.

Right after Tales in the Sand, we get to the Doll’s House, which begins the exact same way that episode 6 of The Sandman Netflix show ends - with Desire calling on Despair to begin their scheming over the existance of the vortex.

I found it very interesting how the show swapped out Tales in the Sand for Men of Good Fortune - a story which in the comics comes much later within The Doll’s House storyline.

On the one hand, it makes sense to move Men of Good Fortune outside of the Doll’s House story for pacing reasons. But by putting it where they did they have drastically changed the tone of the story in a few ways.

1. It changes the end of The Sound of Her Wings. Show!Dream doesn’t leave his sister to sit and find peace in the thought of death, instead he does the opposite, he immediately goes and seeks out the one person he knows who is quite literally the antithesis of death - someone who finds joy in living. It still ends the Preludes and Nocturns story with Dream finding some manner of peace and happiness, but not in the sound of wings. Instead, it’s in the reunion with his friend who loves life so much he refuses to die.

2. It takes the place of the only love story we are given for Dream at that point in the comics. The Sandman comics have a tendency to avoid revealling too much information about Dream too soon and up until this point in the comics, all we know about his love life is that he condemned a lover to hell 10,000 years ago, based on a very brief conversation in A Hope In Hell. Tales in the Sand is the expansion of that brief conversation, giving us at least one perspective of how the tragedy played out.

I am really curious about why they decided to leave it out of the show completely. Partly I think its because it isn’t exactly a flattering look at Dream as a character. Probably didn’t seem like good business sense to the people who wanted The Sandman to perform well to basically destroy your main characters likeability half way through the first season (imagine all the Twitter puriteens and anti types who would get on their high horses attacking Sandman fans and Neil Gaiman alike for daring to like a main character who comes across a little bit rapey in this particular story - among other horrific character flaws).

Also, Tales in the Sand generally fits better with the Season of Mists story arc overall, and I think we will get a much kinder and more forgiving version of this story in the show.

So instead of being introduced to the first of Dream’s lovers, we are introduced to Hob Gadling. Make of that what you will.

3. It makes the immediate cut to Desire at the start of The Doll’s House story all the more eyebrow raising. Part of the reason why I think Desire’s scenes follow on from Tales in the Sand is because Desire had a lot to do with Dream’s bad behaviour in that story, and what ultimately happened is partly their fault. It is brought up both in comic and show when Desire tells Despair that “Nada was a mistake” but in the show, this comment remains a mystery, whereas in the comic, it goes some way into explaining the horrific story we have just read.

In the show, instead it makes for absolutely beautiful subtext as they cut to Desire’s realm and the song Desire as Desire says “Attend sweet Sibling” whilst we have just watched Dream reunite with Hob and smile the first real smile he has had all season so far. For a split second on my first watch I legit thought Desire was talking to Dream at that point and encouraging him to hook up with Hob. It was a very confusing few seconds!

At the end of the day, I think the change to the order of these stories was a very good idea, even without the added level of shipping fodder it gives us Dreamling shippers. In changing the end to The Sound of Her Wings in the show, it removes the foreshadowing of Dream’s desire to die, which I’ll be honest, so far I can’t see at all in the show version of the story. Instead, we get a Dream who is happy for the first time after reuniting with his friend - who apparently waited an additional 33 years for him and built/refurbished a pub in that time.

I have a bazzillion more thoughts on the changes from comic to show on the Men of Good Fortune issue in particular, but that’s for another post. I just had to get my thoughts down as the more I read and re-read the comics, the more I feel like the show is considering a different direction, a more hopeful happy direction. But I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

[b-plot-butch]

I am incredibly interested in how the show is going to adapt “Tales in the Sand” aka Nada’s first story. Given the differences in Dream’s character that we’ve already seen in Season 1, I think we can safely assume the adaptation will be at least somewhat different. And that is SOOOO exciting and intriguing to me because space for an alternate telling is literally built into the framework of the original comic!! It states very explicitly that the version we see in the comic is the version men are told and in turn tell to each other. It says that women pass down a different version of this story, and perhaps it has a different ending.

Maybe we’ll see that rendition in the show???

[tryan-a-bex]

A gorgeous retelling of Nada’s tale, from her perspective!

[toyastales]

Waves crashing against the sand

[sand-scourge]

two nerds and an australian

[riggerbison]

do you take care of me because of duty and nothing else? you don't feel anything at all, right? || all these times we've been happy together. everything was a lie, right?

requested months ago by @akkpipitphattana

BONUS - because they made their mistakes but their hearts were pure

[writing-for-life]

Sandman Comics Re-Read

Issue 9: Tales in the Sand

Our community reread of “Tales in the Sand” draws to a close today. This was the first issue that we didn’t get to see in the show yet, so lots of speculation, especially about the eponymous “women’s story”.

As usual, I’ll collect my contributions for later reference (summary this week came from @tickldpnk8).

And if you want to see what everyone else was up to, or join us just in time for issue 10 (“The Doll’s House”)—we’re looking forward to having you.

[orionsangel86]

Something I don't think has been mentioned before about Dream and Nada. So at the end of Season of Mists, Dream offers to Nada to stay in the dreaming. She refuses, but she asks him if he wants to come live with her in the waking world. Of course, Dream being Dream, refuses. So they part ways and all that. The thing is, if Dream had raped her, I really don't think she would have suggested that. She's being given the opportunity to live a life without Dream and she still suggests that maybe he could put his mantle aside and live as a human with her. She did that of her own free will. If the relationship had been entirely unconsentual, I don't think she would have done that. So I'd say there's textual evidence for Dream having been good to Nada at some point, despite how the story in Tales in the Sand may appear.

Another thing about Tales in the Sand is that it's probably worth looking at the purpose of the story in the culture it was told in with regards to men and women having two different interpretations. It's just an assumption that the women's version would depict worse actions on Dream's part, it's an assumption that the comics seem to want you to make, but it's still an assumption. I feel like the version we see seems to be more along the lines of "seeking out a god will end in disaster" more than anything else. It's a story about disaster so of course it focuses on the disaster. We don't know what kind of story the women's version is. Idk, I feel like we just might be wrongly equating the men's version of the story to Dream's perspective and the women's to Nada's. They could just be two versions of the same events teaching different lessons

Idk if anything I've said makes sense, but do you see my train of thought?

I think you have hit the nail on the head with this actually and I agree completely. I totally forgot about that moment in Season of Mists which is annoying because I only listened to it very recently on Audible.

Nada does indeed ask Dream if he would put aside his duty and his role as Dream of the Endless and come live as a human with her. It's actually a pretty significant moment because it at least floats the idea as a potential option that is available to Dream. He absolutely could just put aside his role, pass it on to someone else, and go live whatever life he chooses. Destruction mentions it as an option as well, though he left without passing the role on, and Death also mentions it to him at the very end, to which he states he could not have done it. I actually don't think this is discussed as much as it should be in fandom especially since there are so many fanfics coming out now that explore the idea of a retired human Morpheus living a life on Earth after Daniel assumes the role of Dream of the Endless.

I also agree with your thoughts on Tales in the Sand. The moral of the tale is not to seek the love of a God, for it will bring only death and destruction and pain to all involved. Both versions of the tale should have that same message at the core, because that is the part of the tale we know is fact. But yeah you have a point that the womens tale could be far worse, and paint a worse picture of Dream. But at the end of the day, Nada still loves him, 10,000 years later and even after she yelled at him and slapped him, she still kisses him and asks him to live with her. So whatever else he may have done, he couldn't have abused her.

I kinda really hope that when the show adapts Tales in the Sand, it tells the womens story. I just think it will be really awesome to get that perspective in the show to compare to the mens tale in the comic, and to see how they differ, though as I have said many times already, I am almost 100% certain that the show will attempt to paint Dream in a much more sympathetic light than the comic does.

[sisterofthesouth]

literally sucks so bad that rithmere is one of the most vibrant and beautiful and inspired cultures in all of rodda’s worldbuilding but absolutely none of it made it into the canon text of the novels

[writing-for-life]

It’s complicated. A bit of a “and, both”-situation, but conceptually a lot deeper than that.

We’ve discussed it on here in depth, e.g. here:

And you’ll also find lots of stuff if you put “nada sandman” in the search on my blog, or click on her tag. But you’d spoil later story arcs if you read it. Their love story gets explained in “Tales in the Sand”, its (somewhat) conclusion in “Season of Mists”, both of which we will probably see in S2 (or whatever you want to call it).

If you want to know stuff before that is obviously up to you 🙂

I have a question.

So in 1x04, when Dream goes to Hell with Matthew, they pass by Nada who is imprisoned. We see that there's obviously something that happened there. Dream doesn't say very much to Matthew about it, except that she defied him.

I was just briefly glancing at stuff about The Doll's House, and apparently, they were in love but she feared the consequences of loving an immortal and spurned him. Angry, he sends her to Hell.

Is it that she rejected him or she defied him? Because those are two different things. I mean unless Dream's perspective is pretty skewed here, but I'm not sure.

[off-brand-adorabbit]

Tress scratched the best itch for me, I’ve been craving a good fairy tale and it was just perfect. I kept slipping so hard into the fairy tale aspects that I kept getting caught by surprise whenever a cosmere thing stopped beating around the bush and revealed itself, actually. While I’m sure that wasn’t fully the intention, it was a really fun way to read some brandermansanderman coming fresh off of sunlit man and how intensely locked in I was with the Connections. Genuinely Tress is such a fun little romp. I love girls who sail in fucked up seas and this is a genre I want more of please thank you.

[friendpilled-visitmaxer]

[toyastales]

"Home is where the sandy toes play and the palm trees sway." - Lady Gaga

[orionsangel86]

I love this moment in the comic because it reminds us of just how dark Dream can be. It's enough to almost shift him down to the "lawful evil" position in the alignment chart instead of his solid "lawful neutral" position. He is no good and pure heroic character that is for certain.

Normally, when we see Dream punish or act cruelly, its towards people that have done horrific things, and so we view it as justified such as:

Cursing Alex Burgess with Eternal Waking (Eternal Sleeping in the show though I never quite understood the difference since they were both basically forcing him to be stuck in an eternal nightmare)

Forcing Richard Maddoc to be so overloaded with creative ideas he had to carve them into the walls with his fingers until they were nothing but bloody stubs.

But then there are other times where his cruelty was horrifying in ways that were completely unjustified and genuinely upset me when I first read it. Tales in the Sand is extremely shocking and I think it shows Dream at his darkest. I think the reason that story struck me so much is because I have been in situations where I have rejected men and they have persisted to the point where I have felt very much unsafe. Nada told Dream NO enough times and because of that she was sent to eternal torment for 10,000 years. Just for telling a prideful and cruel man NO.

Then there was his behaviour towards Orpheus, which was cold and cruel in a different way, though both times his cruelty came from places of hurt. The end of The Song Of Orpheus is a gut punch:

"His father never even tried to look back."

Ouch.

His threat to leave Barbie's friends in an empty nothingness at the edge of the Dreaming was shocking because to any normal person, it seems reasonable for someone to forgive tresspassing in acts of desperation in order to save the life of a friend. It might also be the only time his cruelty hasn't either been justified or come from a place of hurt. They didn't really even understand what they were doing, except for Thessaly. It makes the fact that he went on to date and somehow fall in love with Thessaly even weirder. One minute he is condemning her and her companions to an eternity of nothingness for trying to help a friend, and the next he's wooing her for apparently amusing him and appealling to his blatant desire to be dominated by a strong woman.

The thing is, this level of cruelty isn't just a Dream trait, it's an Endless trait from what I can tell.

Desire is described as cruel, and most of their cruelty is towards Dream, however a few other things they have done include:

Basically being responsible for the insatiable lust Dream had for Nada and her pursuit of him before coming to her senses.

Raping Unity in order to make the Vortex a family member so Dream would have to spill family blood (thankfully changed in the Netflix show to become a consensual consummation)

Manipulating a mortal girl to go and act needlessly cruel to a new lover driving them both to despair all because she dared to make a pass at Desire.

Destruction is also arguably cruel for the way he set his traps to prevent anyone finding him. His traps caused countless deaths not only to humans who got in the way, but to people that were his friends and lovers. I always found that pretty shocking when it's revealled what was going on with all the death following Dream and Delirium in Brief Lives. What a way to cover your tracks - basically having anyone who ever knew you killed before they can give any hints as to where you might be.

Delirium can also be quite cruel. The way she cursed the traffic cop with eternal bugs crawling all over him was pretty dramatic when she HAD been driving like a maniac!

All this is to say that the Endless are dangerous, and not to be trifled with. The difference between Dream and his siblings is that he seems to have more rules regarding his punishments. Delirium punishes when people offend her, Destruction out of some internal belief of necessity, and Desire on whims (hence why they are the cruellest). Dream would argue that he was justified in punishing Barbie's friends because they were trespassers, and as trespassers in his realm he is within his right to punish the way he sees fit, even if it seems horrific to us - he punishes the way humans punished each other 200 years ago I suppose. Where the rule of kings is law and simply pissing off a king was a possible death sentance.

Where the show is concerned, I don't know how far they intend to push things when it comes to Dream's darker side. We did get a little bit of warning when he tells Death "I am far more terrible than you", but his rage towards both Alex and Richard was more "mark me down as scared and horny" than "I am horrified at your cruelty!"

Honestly I don't think they are going to push it too far. They changed it so Desire isn't a rapist in the show. I think they'll change Tales in the Sand most definitely. Perhaps they'll tell the Woman's version in the show rather than the Man's? That would be a great way to spin it to a kinder version, one where Nada has a bit more agency and Dream is less of a rapey creep.

As for A Game of You and his treatment of Hazel and Foxglove (and Thessaly though she was NOT innocent), I'm not sure but I reckon show!Dream will be kinder to them as well, as he has been generally all around in the show.

Having said that, show!Dream did get to show off his darker side when he sent Gault to the darkness. I think that may have been in the only point in the show so far where Dream was framed as being in the wrong (other than his little tantrum at being called lonely by his BFF) as even the stuff with Lyta and Hector felt sort of justified since they were causing damage and didn't belong there - though he could have been a bit more tactful with them. It would be nice to see more of Dream's dark side, but perhaps not in an excessively horrific way that makes him lose all likeability.

Writing Dark!Dream & wondering if anyone else remembers that time Dream was 100% about to leave a bunch of people stranded on the edge of an abandoned skerry FOREVER because they went to the Dreaming to save their friend.

It's a tiny moment that absolutely horrified me. The idea of just being trapped forever in a nowhere, unable to escape, and you're just there because you were trying to help and there's nothing you can say or do to argue your case because Lord Morpheus is just absolutely unmovable.

I don't know how much of Dream's personality is going to get polished up for Netflix, but comics Dream is already pretty dark.