The Sandman’s Dream doesn’t show much emotion — that’s what his friends are for
The first time we see the dream lord show much emotion in Netflix’s The Sandman adaptation is for a bird named Jessamy.
[Ed. note: This post contains slight spoilers for the first episode of The Sandman season 1.]
Having already been held captive by humans for many years, he had mostly sat in his bubble prison, brooding and waiting for his release. But when Jessamy shows up he briefly emotes: a flicker of a hopeful smile, then hot, angry tears when she gets shot in front of him.
“The savagery of my captors bespoke a world whose dreams in my absence turned darker still,” Dream’s voice-over tells us. He continues to stare, steely and cold, unresponsive and unwilling to talk at all.
It’s a stance he’ll take throughout much of the series, a cool and sullen goth who walks as lightly as he displays emotions. When his captor’s son takes over Dream’s imprisonment, Dream notes that he could not forgive him for murdering his raven. If you’re new to the series it can be hard to really understand how traumatic the period kicking off The Sandman is for Dream of the Endless — instead, much of his emotion gets translated through those close to him, like Lucienne.
“He’s been captured in such a brutal, inhumane way. And it has altered him,” Vivienne Acheampong, who plays Lucienne, tells Polygon. “There’s a deep bond [between Lucienne and Dream]; they spend the most time with each other forever and ever […] so she really knows the essence of his being. But with what’s happened to him, it’s hardened him.”
That trauma hangs over Dream throughout his adventures, as he works to regain his full power and remind himself why he fulfills his obligations to humans (and the world). Season 1 of The Sandman is really about Dream emotionally
Read more on polygon.com
