The Sandman “Family Blood”

One of the benefits of doing weekly shows, and with watching the show with my girlfriend when she comes over on Saturdays, is that the “hiatus” in the middle of the season doesn’t really mean anything to me since I will be moving on to the next episode without much more than my normal pause of an episode a week.

I could say the same for Wednesday, but that’s a different story.

As it is, the events here are a long time coming.  Like, literally, as Dream finally does his son Orpheus a solid and kills the lad.  Sure, this comes after a few thousand years of Orpheus just sitting in one spot, his only vacation being a brief detour to Reign-of-Terror-era France that requires Morpheus to hire Lady Johnana Constantine, an ancestor of the modern day character with the same name played by the same actress, to do the actual rescuing on his behalf.

Robespierre had it comin’.

But that’s the whole thing:  this series as a whole is about change.  Morpheus, despite being the embodiment of dreams and stories, can’t change on his own.  Destruction is the embodiment of change, so of course he can.  That’s his whole thing, and the realization that humanity can change and destroy without him was incredibly freeing for the guy.  Morpheus, of all people, needs to change and can’t.  Destruction, like Lucifer, walked away from his duties and, like Lucifer, seems much happier for the decision as a result.

I somewhat miss the comic’s version of this story’s finer details, the ones that show Desire and Despair were somewhat behind what happened, that there’s a line about what happens when you go looking for Destruction, namely that you find it, but for someone like Delirium, well, nothing will happen because she won’t even notice if it does.  Since what Delirium needs more than anything else is company, at least she gets Barnabus.

Barnabus, he’s a good dog.

That said, the fact that the story seems to suggest Destiny set his brother on this route, that seems just as important as anything Desire or Despair could have done.

Still, if Dream can’t find a way to change, he may have to die.  With the Kindly Ones aware of what he’s done, even if the spilling of family blood was more than justified, it doesn’t matter.  Rules are rules, and I think it is safe to say that if there’s anyone who follows the rules as-written more than Dream, it’s the Kindly Ones.