The Annotated Sandman

                Edited by Ralf Hildebrandt and largely written by David Goldfarb

                         Issue 69: "The Kindly Ones" 

                          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.

Page 1 panel 5: 8:9:5.

Page 3 panel 7: Nybbas as found in the online Brewster's The Dictionary of 
Phrase and Fable:

Devil's Cabinet (The). Belphego, the Devil's ambassador in France; Hutgin,
in Italy; Belial, in Turkey; Tharung, in Spain; and Martinet, in Switzerland.
His grand almoner is Dagon; chief of the eunuchs is Succor Benoth; banker is
Asmodeus; theatrical manager is Kobal; master of ceremonies, Verdelet; court
fool is Nybbas. (Victor Hugo: "Toilers of the Sea")

I don't know that Hugo's work, but I guess the original reference could be
much older...

Page 4 panel 8: Lucien is quoting John Webster again: _The White Devil_ Act IV
scene 3.

Page 5 panel 3: Death may possibly be referring to Dream's captivity; more 
likely this is some hitherto-undisclosed incident in Dream's history.

Page 7 panel 1: Note the panel border.  A black border seems to refer to the
raw, root underpinnings of dreams and the Dreaming.

Page 8 panel 2: In Norse myth, Loki's writhings were the cause of earthquakes.
This comes at the same time as the dreamquake.

Pp. 10-11 panel 3: The positions of the hands is reminiscent of those of
God and Adam in Michelangelo's "Creation of Adam".

Page 13 panel 1: As Titania remonstrates with Nuala, note the Puck, who had
also spoken of leaving Faerie, chained at her feet.  Note also that this 
vignette and the ones in the next few pages contain echoes of the event 
immediately past: a man and a woman taking each other's hand; leaving one
place or plane in favor of an uncertain destination; references to death
(including punning use of the word "late").

Page 14 panel 7: If we assume that Delirium went looking for Barnabas only
a day or two after he lost her, this confirms that each issue of "The Kindly
Ones" represents about a day.

Page 15 panel 4: Never ask that question.
        panel 5: This is an image from the fairytale best known today as
"Diamonds and Toads" (or "The Fairy"), from Perrault's classic 17th-century
French collection. The mistreated but virtuous younger sister meets a fairy
by a spring and politely gives her a drink; she is rewarded by having flowers
and treasure fall from her mouth whenever she speaks. The favored but selfish
older sister tries to imitate her, but is rude to the fairy and has snakes
come out of her mouth. Folklorists have recorded many variants of this story,
classified as "The Tale of the Kind and the Unkind Girls," Aarne-Thompson Type
480; the Grimms' collection has a similar version, called "Mother Holle."

Page 16 panel 2: Lucifer echoes Loki's words to Carla in 60:24:2.  Mazikeen's
line: "How *what* comes out?"
       panel 6: "Aye, there's the rub": Lucifer is making a reference to
the famous soliloquy from _Hamlet_, act III scene 1.
	  "...To die, to sleep;
        To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
        For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
        When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
        Must give us pause:"
Mazikeen's lines: "Where are you going this time?" "I will follow you for
ever...I must."

Page 17 panel 5: Some people have speculated that the donor was Rosemary,
the woman shot by Doctor Dee in issue #5.  The timing would seem a bit odd,
though, since that would mean that issues 2-4 took seven months to happen.

Page 18 panel 6: Hal says, "In the midst of death, we are in life" (page 18,
panel 6). I don't know if this was noted and simply not annotated because it
was so obvious, but I figured I'd mention anyway that it's a reversal of a
line that my quotation dictionary lists as coming from "Burial of the Dead"
in _Book of Common Prayer_: "In the midst of life we are in death." 
(found by Sarah Alderdice )

Page 19 panel 1: There has also been speculation that the solicitor (British
dialect for "lawyer") was Rose's love, Jack Holdaway.  Or it could be just
another random death echo.
        panel 2: This echoes Edwin Paine's personal hell from "The Season
of Mists" part 4 (25:8).
        panel 3: Banshees: female ghosts that wail for the dead.  Some sources
have it that those who hear them will die soon, too.  Harpies: monsters from
Greek myth, with bodies like eagles, women's heads, and snakes for hair. 
(Does anyone at this point really need me to define "furies"?)

Page 20 panel 2: The title of Larissa's book parodies a mid-'80s bestseller,
_When Bad Things Happen to Good People_, by Rabbi Harold Kushner.
        panel 5: "Red Zinger" is, if not a real flavor of commercially
available herbal tea, certainly the sort of name that herbal tea gets.
        panel 8: Well, nice of her to give Lyta a head start, at least.

Page 22 panel 4: This panel echoes the one we saw in Destiny's book in 
"Brief Lives" part 7 (47:14:3).  Gaiman has said that it is intentionally
not precisely the same, which leads to the interesting speculation that
the Destiny who survived the reality storm is *not* the same one that we
had seen so many times previously.
        panel 5: There seem to be reversals here: the new Dream has white
hair and clothes intead of black; his jewel is green (the complementary
color to a ruby's red); the least of the dreamstones has taken the role
previously filled by the greatest.

Page 23 panel 1: This panel, beginning the epilogue to "The Kindly Ones"
echoes another from the prologue to it: 57:2:2.
        panel 2: Gaiman seems to be punning on the slang use of "yarn" to 
mean "story".
        panel 3: A double echo.  Clotho's dialogue echoes 6:4:1: "She's
realized the real problem with stories -- if you keep them going long enough,
they always end in death."  The panel itself echoes 57:2:1.  Except that there
the cat was playing with the yarn, not a mouse it had caught and killed.
        panel 4: Echoes 57:1:3.
        panel 5: Echoes 57:3:4. 
        panel 6: The Gracchae were a trio of women in Greek mythology who
had only one eye between them.  (It was detachable and they passed it around.)
The hero Perseus stole their eye and demanded information about the Gorgons
as ransom for its return.  The remark also perhaps echoes 63:20:7: "Are you
a hand? Or an eye? Or a tooth?"

Page 24 panel 6: Echoes 57:1:1.
        panel 7: Interesting to note that the two issues which Hempel inked
are the first and the last.

While we're talking about Sandman here, there was a question at the end
of The Kindly Ones. Neil mentioned it himself, in the Writer's Comments
section he usually includes for the trade p/backs. "Who was Loki & Puck
working for?"

Personally, I think it might have been Dream, himself. At the end of A
Season of Mists, he tells Loki that he owes him a favour. I think Dream
asked Loki to either a) bring Daniel to the Dreaming, or b) do a) and
burn away his immortality as well.

Then, if it's a), Loki decides to chuck Daniel in the fire, to
doublecross Dream. (It's his nature, after all.) So Dream asks the
Corinthian to get Daniel, 'cos Loki isn't going to bring him back.

If it's b), then the Eye Guy is Dream's failsafe plan, in the case Loki
decides not to bring him back.

Not sure where Puck fits into all this. Maybe Dream asked him to fetch
Daniel as well? Or maybe Loki asked him to help, after Dream told him
what to do. Anyway, it fits. What do you think?

Acknowledgements to:
- Timothy Hock Seng Tan <083285@bud.cc.swin.edu.au>
  who knew who Loki & Puck are working for.