#alianora

Morpheus in “Over the Sea to Skye”/A Game of You | Art by Shawn McManus

Still one of the most beautiful panels in the whole of The Sandman if you ask me. And one of the saddest if you read it in context (we were robbed!):

The helm story from Overture for those who wanted it. Many thousands of years ago (before Nada but after Killala of The Glow) The Dreaming was invaded by some Lovecraftian Old Ones.  Morpheus was captured and chained up in his own dungeon. He scratched his siblings sigils into the wall.  One by one they refused to help (And you wonder why he was reluctant to call for help in the show!)  When he got to Delight he discovered she was "Changing" (turning into Delirium so reluctantly he called to Desire. Desire sent him a lover, Alianora.

  Alianora rescued him from the dungeon and helped him defeat The Old Ones.  She ended up with a scar on her cheek.   Morpheus used the skull of one and the spine of the other to make his helm and he used their horns and tusks (ivory) to make the gates to his castle.   The gates of ivory admitting deceptive dreams, the gates of horn admitting the truthful dreams (whether literally or symbolically).   Over time Morpheus and Alianora drifted apart but she had been there so long she knew she could not return to her home world so Morpheus gave her a dream stone made from a piece of his soul.  (This is a jewel Barbie would call the Porpentine.  It's actually a rose quartz Dreamstone) and he gave her a skerry (an island) in The Dreaming.   The dreamstone enabled Alianora to rule the Island, which became known as "The Land."  Many young women had coming of age adventures in The Land.  This suggests that it was Wonderland, Oz, The Labyrinth, etc. In the events of The Sandman: A Game of You the rose quartz dreamstone is finally destroyed and Morpheus reabsorbs The Land back into himself.  He meets up with Alianora's ghost and he tells her how her Land has been home to many brave young women since she left it centuries ago.       Alianora's story is carved into the gates on the TV show.  

“I see. And what now?” – “Now it ends.”

Dream of the Endless & Alianora in: 

a woman they thought would balance Dream (light to his dark)

a woman who was enamored of the idea of saving a prince and his kingdom, who was able to actually help him take the Dreaming back

a woman who was effectively a princess of stories to partner with the prince of stories

First of all, the fact that this was back in the day when Dream was a young Endless imprisoned by Eldritch entitities

And the fact that literally his only hope of getting out of encaptivity was the person Desire had already introduced as a “lover”.

or the fact that said knight in literally shining armor started their first conversation with asking what Dream would give her in return of rescuing him. And I don’t think that Alianora is a bad person, as much as she just was raised in a matriarchy where it was assumed that if you rescue a pretty prince from his tower, it is kind of his obligation to fall in love with you. Because...this is weirdly transactional exchange, and honestly you can kind of already see that this isn’t going to last.

Because Alianora is following a script of her childhood stories, but once Dreaming has been saved, that script is going to fall apart. When the feisty, pretty prince takes over his function as the king, and they no longer have the adrenaline of battle to fall back on there’s not much left. And when being called “not very bright” by your lover just starts to grate on you, and the reality of no longer being needed as the brave warrior by your lover hits you. Well...

that’s when you just want to get away. And both of them wanted the fairytale to work, but even in the dreaming, it doesn’t work like that. They don’t dislike each other...they just kind of started disliking spending time with each other.