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This article is about Desire from the comic series. You may be looking for Desire from the Netflix adaptation.


"Where I touch, things want and need and love - drawn to their objects of desire like butterflies to a candle flame."


Desire is the third youngest of the Endless and the twin of Despair. To the ancient Greeks, known as Epithumia, Desire is the anthropomorphic personification of wanting, craving, lust, and attraction, and can blend in effortlessly with whatever environment they find themselves in. Desire lives in the heart of a massive flesh-and-blood statue of themself, known as the Threshold. Desire's sigil is a heart of cut glass.

History

At the beginning of time, during a conference where the future of creation was being planned by various entities, Dream introduces his lover, Killala of the Glow, to Desire. He goes on to tell Killala that Desire, who he describes as his favorite sibling, is responsible for their attraction to one another. After a series of events, Killala ended up in the passionate embrace of the anthropomorphic personification of her system's star: Oa. Dream was extremely hurt, and told Desire not to meddle in his affairs again. In conversation with Destruction, it became clear that Desire was responsible for the breakup, but Desire claimed it was a joke.[1]

After bad blood had been established between Dream and Desire while the Endless were still young, Morpheus was held captive within The Dreaming. Two gods fleeing their homeland took him by surprise, and he was unable to free himself. After reluctantly reaching out to six of his siblings and being denied, he asked Desire for assistance. After they initially balked at the idea, they created Alianora to be Dream's new lover, despite his protestation, and she rescued him in turn.[2]

When Desire sent Alianora to Dream, they said "don't hurt her," but Dream and Alianora ended up having a painful falling out. It is unclear whether Desire meant to help Dream, hurt him, or both, by sending her.

Approximately ten thousand years before the events of The Sandman, Desire also created the attraction between Nada and Dream; leading to their doomed romance.[3] This resulted in the destruction of Nada's city and Dream condemning her to Hell.[4] Desire later admitted that, "Nada was a mistake".[5]

1915-1916

In 1915, after an aspect of Dream died in flame, the orderly transfer of power to a new facet of Dream was interrupted. The interruption was caused by a "wrongness" created in the universe by the mishandling of a past dream vortex; a unique and dangerous entity that can cause the destruction of The Dreaming.[2]

To prevent the wrongness from resulting in the end of creation, Desire used the Saeculum; an object of power, belonging to Time, that allows travel through time, to assist Morpheus in preventing disaster. Desire made two attempts to help him that ended in failure. The third and final time, Desire impersonated an aspect of Dream that resembled a large cat with a flaming tail. This allowed them to infiltrate a meeting of all the aspects of Dream, join Dream in his aspect as Morpheus on his journey, and overcome the hurdle of him only accepting advise from himself.[2]

By deceiving him and working together, they were able to reboot the universe and solve the problem. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the resolution, the events were erased from Destiny's book just before Morpheus was captured by Roderick Burgess. With history rewritten, there is no memory of what happened.[2]

1932

Dream being imprisoned by Roderick Burgess in 1916 resulted in people all over the world being afflicted by a "sleepy sickness."[6] One of those people, Unity Kinkaid, was destined to be a dream vortex. While Unity slept, Desire convinced her body that she had become pregnant, though there wasn't an actual sexual act.[7]

The sleeping sickness would mean that Unity would not be able to realize her destiny as the dream vortex, and that fate would pass to her offspring, Rose. Ultimately, this would result in Dream needing to hunt down a vortex that was technically Desire's blood, meaning he would incur the wrath of the Kindly Ones.

1989

Soon after Dream's escape from imprisonment, Desire saw their plan bear fruit, learning that a dream vortex was forming. Desire shared the news with Despair, excited to see the events unfold.[5] However, Unity was able to reclaim the vortex trait and die in Rose's stead. Moreover, Dream managed to figure out Desire's role in the events. He came to Desire's gallery and demanded that they never meddle in his affairs again, going as far as threatening to forget that they were family.[8]

Appearance

Des

Desire is described as being of medium height, and smelling faintly of summer peaches. They are a strikingly beautiful, androgynous figure of gender-fluidity; they can be male, female, both, or neither as the situation warrants. Desire's smiles are brief and sharp, their skin is "pale as smoke," their hair midnight black, and their eyes are "tawny and sharp as yellow wine." Desire casts two shadows, one black and sharp, the other translucent and wavering.

Personality

Desire is easily the most casually cruel of the Endless. They are obsessed with interfering in the affairs of Dream, in particular. How their vendetta against Dream evolved past the initial incident in Endless Nights isn't clear. Regardless, their interactions with others can range from generous to malicious. In Pre-Roman Britain, Desire gave a young woman the attraction she needed to win the attention of the man she loved.[1] In the modern era, they doomed another to a passionate weekend followed by hating the presence of the woman she shared it with.[9]

Destruction describes Desire as untrustworthy, acerbic, dangerous, and cruel, but not always wrong.[10] Their behavior and spontaneity is in line with their function and their nature as a creature of the moment, resulting in their fickle attitude and short memory.[8]

Desire sometimes acts in concert with Despair and Delirium, and is much more distant from Dream, Death, Destiny, and Destruction. Death attributes this to the youngest three Endless playing games that the others don't waste their time with.[11]

Powers & Abilities

  • Personification of Desire: As one of the seven Endless, inconceivably powerful beings, Desire is both lord and personification of all desire and hatred. Desire has god-like powers and absolute control over their realm The Threshold. Desire has absolute power over all desire, attraction and want, over the craving of the unattainable, the force of physical appetite or emotional need and over strong envious desire. Desire themselves has been shown to be powerful enough to affect their siblings, with them admitting to have been responsible for starting some of Dream's relationships with his previous lovers by creating their attraction to each other. In contrast they are also lord over satisfaction, extending to the attainment of ones desire.
    • Omnipresence: Desire like the rest of their siblings is everywhere on Earth at any moment, but usually not in a form visible to humans.
    • Shapeshifting: Desire can freely appear in any form they want, with them usually taking the form of a androgynous youth having both masculine and feminine physical characteristics.
    • Teleportation: As one of the Endless, Desire can go and access any location or realm they wish to go to in general, provided that they maintain respect for them and follows proper procedure with the Realm’s masters.
    • Resurrection: During Despair’s challenge to Dream to prevent Norton I from falling under Despair, Delirium and Desire’s realms using his power over Dreams, Desire was stated by Dream to have revived the King of Pain in order to act as their agent to tempt him into giving in to his desires.

Relationships

Desire1

Desire in Endless Nights, as drawn by Milo Manara

Dream

Desire has an openly hostile relationship with their brother, Morpheus, callously mocking Dream with his own shortcomings. A story in Endless Nights, set long before any other Sandman story, explains the origins of the Dream's enmity and reveals Desire was once his favorite sibling. After his relationship with Killala has clearly ended, he angrily blamed Desire for the whole affair.

Animosity between Dream and Desire grew through the millennia, eventually culminating in Desire fathering a child with Unity Kinkaid, in an attempt to have Dream destroyed. When Dream discovered this at the end of The Doll's House, he openly threatened Desire should Desire interfere in Dream's life again. Desire prudently made no effort to formulate another plot against Morpheus afterward.

After Dream killed Orpheus, Desire was left conflicted. They described Morpheus as stuffy, stupid, rude, and boorish, but also said they were not satisfied that their plot to make him spill family blood came to fruition in some way. Rather than feeling triumphant or happy, they told Despair the outcome had left them feeling scared.[12] At Morpheus' wake, they remarked that had neither of them known one another, both of their lives would have been enriched and being siblings was unfortunate for both of them.[13]

It's unknown what Desire's relationship is like with the newest incarnation of Dream, but they say they made no commitment to treating him differently than his predecessor without seeing what he's like.[13]

Despair

Desire is very fond of Despair, and the two share a relationship that is far closer than any of the other Endless. For a time, it seemed as though Despair shared their vendetta against Morpheus to a degree, and was at least interested in proving him wrong.[11] Eventually, however, Despair lost interest and is not invested in bringing about his destruction.[5] Nevertheless, they still rely on one another for support, and Despair values Desire's opinion heavily.[9]

Delirium

When Despair challenged Dream to keep Norton I from her realm, she tells him that Desire and Delirium will stand with her. Though they are not as close to Delirium as they are to Despair, Desire appears to care for their younger sibling to some degree and is kind to her. When Delirium has a breakdown in a human club, Desire goes to her, brings her to the Threshold, and attempts to comfort her.[9]

Behind the Scenes

  • In the Sandman, Desire is often referred to as "sibling" or "sister-brother" by their sibling. When a pronoun is needed while referring to Desire, the original text refers to Desire as "it". In a a 2021 tweet, Neil Gaiman stated that he, she, it, he/she, and them have been Desire's pronouns since the beginning.[14] However, in a response to a comment made to his Tumblr in 2017, Gaiman revealed that if he had written the Sandman today, he would have used "they" as their pronoun rather than "it".[15] Their depiction in the 2022 Netflix adaptation reflects this change.
  • Desire's appearance is based on the art of Patrick Nagel.
  • Desires sigil in the galleries of the other Endless is a heart made of glass.

References

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