The Human Sandman
Crooked Timber wades into comic-book territory and talks about the Neil Gaiman penned Sandman series and why the godlike “Endless” act so human.
“They do things that real people can?t do, but they all seem to share the same motivations as people- pride, jealousy, duty, family ties, anger, love of power, and so on. Despite all the things separating them from humans- immortality, immense power, the obligation to hop around the universe picking up people when they die- the non-humans can be psychologically understood as super-people. They don?t seem noticeably less human than, say, Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, or Humbert Humbert from Lolita.” – Ted Barlow
The Endless
But a commenter points out that their humanity was the point all along.
“However, even the Endless are explained as archetypes that inform all of existence, forming the basis for all of humanity?s motivations – making us reflections of them. If you read the whole of the Sandman run, it?s clear that Gaiman?s biggest achievement was creating this internally consistent scheme that could include all the world?s religions and myths, while telling a story that both commented on and extended them.” – Paul C.
Indeed in the series itself Dream (The Sandman) points out that in a way The Endless are slaves to mortals, and that without mortals there would be no need for The Endless.
Something to think on pertaining to religion as well, we form a symbiotic relationship with deity our belief and worship is like food (the “nurture” to their divine “nature”) we expect a divine we can relate to so we humanize them I dare say that we couldn’t conceive of them in any other way.
One response so far
Cool. (Thanks for posting this!)
Interesting sentiments…made me think of a story written by a friend, back a couple of years ago. It was told from a neophyte ‘god’s’ point of view, in a universe similar to the Endless:
(Excerpt from ‘Patience’, by Segumi)
“That eternal passing instant was the ultimate truth for him. He saw how small they all were, their sole existence to serve an ideal that was as ephemeral and everchanging as mankind itself. They were insignificant. They were nothing. Four nothings standing in a garden of doors, born of the desire of men to escape.
Everything is nothing. It spins and whirls in this great dance of eternity, the creator is created by his creation, the god of common thought, the divine consciousness was not a distant choir. They lived within it. They thrived and died by the whim of men, and despite their immortality, these servants were as fragile as the breath of a baby. All of these places and portals, palaces and people, they were all reflections of this divine will and existed within it.
Their fight was not with the infernal. Their fight was with their creator, a begging crying voice to not be forgotten. The forgetting would ever be their doom…”
Well, I enjoyed that passage, anyways.
I do often personally ponder the relationships between gods and mankind. Archetypes? Reflections? Ideals? Spiritual teddy bears to hold closely in our souls, at night?
In which direction does the relationship really run? And through what dimensions?
Still, faith remains.
*shrugs* *smiles*
Who knows. Maybe faith is, at heart, the most basic act of creation, spawning all existence…and the only reason anything exists, at all.
Just ask Tinkerbell. *jingle jingle*