The Sandman: The Kindly Ones

The Kindly Ones belongs with the second collection, The Doll's House, and the seventh, Brief Lives, in that it finishes off a story that mostly originated in these collections; but includes elements of Season of Mists and the story of Orpheus, told mostly in Fables and Reflections. A character from A Game of You, which also has its roots in The Doll's House, also appears. The most structurally ambitious of the collections, The Kindly Ones is a single storyline written as a Greek tragedy, with Morpheus as its doomed hero and an aspect of the triad of witches, the Erinyes, as the Greek chorus. It pulls together various threads left dangling throughout the series, notably the grudges against Morpheus of several characters: Hippolyta Hall; the witches themselves; the Norse god Loki; and the witch Thessaly. The Kindly Ones also continues several other stories, including that of Cluracan of Faerie and his sister Nuala; that of the Corinthian; and that of Rose Walker and her former landlord Hal.

After Daniel is kidnapped by Loki and Robin Goodfellow, his mother Lyta convinces herself that Morpheus has killed him and resolves to destroy Morpheus where she finally persuades the Erinyes to do so. In many places, Lyta is depicted as Medusa, and even encounters Medusa's two sisters, Stheno and Euryale. Unbeknownst to Lyta, Daniel is recovered alive and well by Morpheus's servants, the raven Matthew and a restored Corinthian who does not act like his predecessor. In a misunderstanding of tragic proportions, the Erinyes continually accuse Morpheus of having killed his son where they also kill Mervyn Pumpkinhead, Fiddler's Green, Abel, and the Griffin member of the Gate Keepers. While this is not true in Daniel's case, it is true in the case of Orpheus which weighs on Morpheus greatly. At length, Morpheus yields to the Erinyes and the main story ends with Morpheus and his sister Death on a desolate peak with a flock of pigeons; echoing a sequence from one of the series' early high points, "The Sound of her Wings" (issue #8). Death asks for Morpheus' hand, and he disappears. Immediately upon the death of Morpheus, Daniel becomes a new aspect of Dream, with white clothes and hair, and an emerald suspended on his neck and chest.

Steve Faragher reviewed Sandman: The Kindly Ones for Arcane magazine, rating it a 9 out of 10 overall.^[2] Faragher comments that "This is still one of the greatest tales ever told in a graphic novel and is essential reading for anyone who wants to try and tell believable and yet fantastical episodic stories. Gaiman is a master of his craft."^[2]

• Bender, Hy (1999). The Sandman Companion. New York: Vertigo DC Comics. ISBN 1-56389-644-3.

• The Annotated Sandman