The Annotated Sandman Edited and largely written by David Goldfarb Issue 57: "The Kindly Ones: 1" Neil Gaiman, Marc Hempel Disclaimer: Sandman and all related characters are copyrights and trademarks of DC Comics Inc. Sandman and this annotation are intended for mature audiences only. Notice: Commentaries and additional information should go to goldfarb@ocf.berkeley.edu (Internet) or goldfarb@UCBOCF.BITNET. This material is posted by the editor directly to rec.arts.comics, and is licensed to appear on Compu$erve and GEnie. It is also available via anonymous ftp from theory.lcs.mit.edu in pub/wald/sandman. Please contact the editor if you see this material on any other forum. Reproduction in any form without permission of the editor (as agent for the contributors) is forbidden. "The Kindly Ones": Translation of Greek "Eumenides". Terrifying hags who pursue those who slay their own kin; really named "Furies", called "kindly" as a euphemism. As with many Greek myths, exact details vary: Aeschylus had a whole chorus of them; other sources number them at exactly three and name them Tisiphone, Alecto, and Megaera. Gaiman follows this version; we see exactly three Furies in Hades in the "Song of Orpheus" -- unsurprising, given the recurring Triple Goddess character. In "Three Septembers and a January" Desire vows to bring the Kindly Ones down on Dream's head (31:21.5), and it's implied in "The Doll's House" that if Dream had killed his great-niece Rose Walker this would have happened. Now Dream has killed his son Orpheus... Cover: The text on the tape comes from a book called _Theuerdank_, commissioned and perphaps partially written by Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, first published in 1517. It appears also on the cover of #22, "The Season of Mists" chapter 1 -- echoing that cover just as the fortune in the fortune cookie (which the tape also suggests) echoes the oracle from the beginning of that story. The text runs thus: [Dem] Edlen Tewrdanck entweichen sein eysen auf einer misigen platten unnd allein ein zu"nckh der hafftet behielt In bey seinem leben wiewol sich der seer krumet and might be loosely translated thus: The noble Theuerdank, his irons (? climbing tools?) having escaped from him on a terrible smooth slope of rock, retained his life held by a single spike, although it bent greatly. A note on layout: this arc is dedicated to an aspect of the Triple Goddess; the page layouts are almost entirely based on a grid of six or nine panels -- multiples of three. Page 1: Here we see the Triple Goddess, as we have before, in the aspect of the witches from the old "Witching Hour" series, which is also the aspect of the Fates from Greek myth. panel 1: The maiden, Clotho, spins the yarn from which lives are woven. The first panel of each installment of "The Kindly Ones" until the tenth has some sort of thread-like object in it. panel 3: The mother, Lachesis, knits the yarn. Page 3 panel 6: Specifically in 21:2.4. In this, the last long _Sandman_ arc, there are many echoes of the past: old characters return, and things seen before recur. Loose ends are tied up (or snipped off!) as the story draws to a close. panel 7: The crone, Atropos, cuts the thread of life. It's not clear just whose thread this was. Perhaps the thread is a metaphor for the story itself: we, the readers, want it to continue indefinitely, but it has to be ended sometime. Page 4 panel 5: Possibly an echo of the frogs Delirium makes in "Brief Lives" #3 -- 43:10.5. panel 6: According to chronological references given elsewhere, Daniel is almost three years old by now. His general appearance and speech patterns are oddly youthful. Page 5 panel 4: An echo: this man looks very similar to Andros, the priest of Orpheus, from "Brief Lives". He even has red flowers such as sprouted where Orpheus' blood touched the ground. It seems rather unlikely that it is actually him, though. Page 6 panel 4: The Baskin-Robbins chain of ice cream stores advertises "31 Flavors". The store Lyta and Carla visit has 57; this may be an amalgamation with Heinz Co.'s "57 varieties" of tomato products. Note that 57 is a multiple of 3 where 31 is not. Page 7 panel 5: Note the 99 on the sign, another multiple of 3. panel 6: Foreshadowing -- your key to quality literature. Page 8 panel 1: The title page of each installment of "The Kindly Ones" features a character approaching another's dwelling, frequently after some sort of separation or estrangement. Here Matthew approaches Dream's castle to speak to him. Page 9: This sequence, where Matthew visits each of the characters in the Dreaming in turn, is oddly reminiscent of the story in the "Vertigo Jam". Page 11 pane 3: Note the crescent moon, a female symbol. The women in this story are frequently accompanied by them. Page 12 panel 1: John Webster (1580?-1625?) is best known for the plays "The Duchess of Malfi" and "The White Devil". panel 2: Lucien is quoting T.S. Eliot's poem "Whispers of Immortality". page 13 panel 4: An echo: the Corinthian played a large role in "The Doll's House". In 14:35.4 Dream said he would remake him. Page 17 panel 1: "Lux": Latin for "light"; cf. "Lucifer", "Light-Bearer". panel 3: Alan Moore's short story "A Hypothetical Lizard" begins, "Half her face was porcelain." Of course, in that story it was the right half, not the left. Page 18 panel 1: To my knowledge, we've not seen Eric Needham before. panel 3: Michael Eisner is head of Disney Studios. Michael Ovitz is a high-powered agent and deal-maker, called "The most powerful man in Hollywood" by _Newsweek_ magazine. panel 4: The song is "These Foolish Things", by Jack Strachey and Eric Maschwitz, English lyrics by Harry Link. A notable line not quoted: "Oh, how the ghost of you clings." Page 19 panel 7: Before the changes made to DC Universe continuity by the "Crisis on Infinite Earths", Lyta was a character on Earth-2, the daughter of that Earth's Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor. Currently there exists only one Earth, and only one Wonder Woman. Roy Thomas created a new but similar character for the series "The Young All-Stars": the "Golden Age Fury", who received power from the Furies. Current continuity is as given in the next few panels. panel 8: The Fury did not wear this costume in "The Young All-Stars". The couple that adopted her was the superheroine Miss America and an Admiral Steve Trevor, created by Roy Thomas pretty much in order that Lyta could keep the surname "Trevor". Page 20 panel 1: The group was "Infinity, Inc.", and had its own series. panel 2: Well, hey. Superheroes lead strange lives. Page 21 panel 2: The return of Lucifer, last seen in issue 28 on an Australian beach. The mute waitress is the demon Mazikeen from issue 23, the half-mask hiding the rotted, skinless horror that is the left half of her face. panel 3: The song is actually entitled "Memory". It is based on the poems "Preludes" and "Rhapsody on a Windy Night". Lucifer is clearly a being of highly refined taste. panel 6: The song is called "Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat". It's from the musical "Guys and Dolls"; music and lyrics by Frank Loesser. Two notable lines not quoted: "And the Devil will drag you under/By the sharp lapel on your checkered coat". Page 23 panel 3: It's winter...rain in L.A. is all but unknown at any other season. Release History: Version 1.0 released 8 June 94. Version 2.0 released 1 Nov 95. Version 3.0 released 11 Jan 96. Credits: Greg "elmo" Morrow (morrow@physics.rice.edu) created the Sandman Annotations. He also referenced Michael Ovitz and corrected some information on Lyta Hall. Demery (demery@prl.philips.nl) referenced Hector Hall's favorite song. Katie Schwarz (katie@physics.berkeley.edu) tracked down and translated the script on the cover, noted the oddity of Daniel's development, "57 Flavors", the title-page pattern, and the poems on which "Memory" was based. Sebastian Weinberg (bastian@enterprise.mathematik.uni-essen.de) corrected the cover script translation. Keith Kole, as reported by Joel Finkle (jjfink@skcla.monsanto.com) noticed the first-panel pattern. Michele Tepper (misha@umich.edu) referenced the Eliot poem; so did Steven Zwanger (szwanger@panix.com), Paul O'Brien (prob@festival.ed.ac.uk), and Doug Noble (D.NOBLE@dundee.ac.uk)