Hercules after killing Megara and kids does twelve grueling labors as atonement on Apollo's order.
Ajax ibn Telamon after ravaging Greek tents kills himself to preserve honor and gives his weapons to his son.
Even the virtually satanic Achilles, after losing Patroclus, polluting Xanthus and dishonoring Hector, eventually listens to Priam.
Agamemnon after killing Iphigenia nearly destroys the Greek army twice over Chryseis and over Briseis. To tell you how serious that is, know that even Diomedes, famous for hurting Ares and Aphrodite without hesitation, didn't dare to double cross Apollo.
As if crossing Apollo wasn't bad enough, Ajax ibn Oleus after raping Cassandra and dooming the Greek army with Athena's wrath boasts he's immune to even Poseidon's storms.
Whatever grief Agamemnon may have felt over Iphigenia still didn't make him anywhere near the self-aware man Greater Ajax was, let alone Hercules. Agamemnon is fundamentally a man closer to Achilles and Lesser Ajax than to Diomedes, Odysseus or Greater Ajax.
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Okay, so while I was going through all the panels for March Mania, I also stumbled over these ones again:
And although Iâve read it all a million times and had all these feelings before, I just need to blurt them out:
Love Is What Changes Him
Itâs such a central message of The Sandman, but I feel it often gets lost in a million other things. And theyâre all important, but so is this one.
Because yes, Dream went with Delirium and found Destruction (and Despair found him btw), and his Destiny was Death. And that whole Desire thing⌠ânuff said. BUT⌠(major spoilers ahead)
Those panels above are basically the turning point in a nutshell. No, well, the turning point is actually the moment he kisses (and then kills) Orpheus, but those panels are the essence:
He set out with Delirium in hopes to find Thessaly (the pendant Nuala wears here used to be hers, and she gave it to her when she left the Dreaming and him. And I canât even begin to tell you how I feel about him letting Nuala keep a gift of his ex, who betrays him later by protecting the woman he hurt, and then making it the item that holds the power with which Nuala can call in her boon. One could spin that very far in all sorts of different directions).
But when he comes back after killing Orpheus, it doesnât really matter anymore. Thessaly was the usual romanticised dream that could never be real. But he finally did find love. For his son. The unconditional kind. The one that doesnât need anything in return because it just is. And he was loved back, if for a brief moment. But it was real, not a dream. And that love stays real (thatâs why it initiates the turn, 3rd act and all that).
Iâm reminded again of the words of Frank McConnell in his intro to The Kindly Ones:
âAnd with [killing Orpheus], Dream has entered time, choice, guilt and regretâhas entered the sphere of the human.â
(Side note at this point: With all of this in mind, read Dream Hunters [again], and look at all THREE main charactersâthat includes the onmyĹji, not just the monk and the fox.)
And it would be so easy to say, âWell, love killed him then, whatâs the fucking point?â Not just the love for his son, but also the love of a maiden who called in her boon (Nuala), the love of a mother for her child (Lyta), the love of a crone for no one but herself (Thessaly).
But we all know that âchange or dieâ was never an âeither orâ, because itâs an âand bothâ. And itâs ultimately love, in all its shapes and forms, four times over, that changed him (while it was also part of the death knell, but thatâs a complicated one. In any case, it also led to change: To be(come) a new, better, kinder Dream).
Yes, call me romantic or hopeless (although I think thatâs the wrong word in this context, because I feel itâs the opposite), I donât care.
Because that story is about catharsis. And that means Dream is a vessel for our feelings. And the feelings wonât be the same if we change any of this, for better, for worse. Because truthfully: That story is about me. And you. And you.
About allowing love, of whatever kind (this is very clearly not just about romantic love), to change us. And that ultimately means letting go (of control). Just like he did.
A boy said he liked my face, personality, amd drawings. I fe3l weird, nkt live weird, just weird. Ghis is weird. It's not like j don't want his affections or hate myself in a passionate sense. I just don't understand. Humans are odd.
She loved him because he had brought her back to life. She had been like a caterpillar in a cocoon, and he had drawn her out and shown her that she was a butterfly.
~ Ken Follett, The Pillars of the Earth
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