Desire of the Endless

The last of the Endless shown in the character posters for The Sandman is Desire, portrayed by Mason Alexander Park. The casting of a non-binary actor for the role has caused some stir on the web (what doesn’t?), but it is actually a choice very true to the original material, as Desire is portrayed as male, female, both or neither, and the other Endless refer to their sibling as “it” or “he/she”, with a slight prevalence of the latter (that we will use here as well). Waiting to see what Park will do with the only truly malignant one among the Endless, let’s take a look at the original one.

The son/daughter of Night and Time, Desire was the twin brother/sister of Despair, and the fourth Endless born. The personification of wanting, lust and desire, he/she was shallow and passionate, malicious and possessive, just like the feeling he/she incarnated. Very close to Despair and to Delirium, from the days she was still Delight, Desire was once also Dream‘s favorite sibling, and the two spent a lot of time together… then Desire got tired of it, as he/she started seeing Dream as an arrogant buffoon, an insufferable know-it-all who was as boring as he was rude. Of course, he/she said nothing to his/her brother, and waited for the right moment to break their relationship in style. When, billions of years ago, Dream fell in love with Killala of the Glow, a Maltusian from the planet Oa who had entered the Dreaming while experimenting on a new green energy she had discovered, Desire saw the perfect chance to punish his/her brother for his boorishness. The moment he/she was sure that Dream had given his heart to Killala, Desire oriented the Maltusian’s affection towards Sto-Oa, the sun of Oa, ironically introduced to her by Dream himself as he brought her to a gathering of stars, that hosted the embodiment of various astral bodies. Killala abandoned Dream in favor of Sto-Oa, and eventually disappeared in the sun’s embrace, leaving her former lover heartbroken, mourning… and furious at his sibling, since he perfectly knew who was the one behind the entire ordeal. Dream tried to confront Desire, but he/she laughed it off, happy to have obtained what he/she wanted: to break a relationship he/she didn’t care for anymore. From that moment on, a harsh rivalry was born between Desire and Dream, one that would have reshaped the entire universe.

Of course, apart from his/her families, Desire had also mortals to think about, and he/she always made sure to enjoy his/her job, usually adding a bit of cruelty in satisfying the requests of those foolish enough to seek him/her. Once, in Britannia, before the arrival of the Romans, a girl, Kara, prayed a witch to make her neighbor Danyal fall in love with her, and the witch reported to Desire himself/herself. The Endless appeared to Kara in person, and promised her that her request had been granted: Danyal desperately fell for her, and Kara enjoyed being courted for three whole months before finally agreeing to marry him… only, the boy was killed a couple of days later in battle, and Desire even arranged things so that Kara found herself in the situation of granting hospitality to his killers. Meddling with mortals was fun, especially when Desire acted in concert with Despair, a combination that usually led mortals to Delirium’s realm. Desire observed it all from his/her realm, the Threshold, a gigantic statue of himself/herself built in flesh and blood. He/she believed that the combination of his/her powers and those of his/her twin sister were unbeatable, but then Dream proved them wrong, as he won a bet in the XIX Century, managing to keep Emperor Norton I, a madman who had proclaimed himself Emperor of the United States of America, away from Despair’s and Delirium’s realms all his life, giving him strength from the Dreaming. Offended once again by Dream, Desire decided that it was time for an ultimate vengeance… but there weren’t many choice when the aim was to kill and Endless. The only suitable one was to bring Dream to spill his own family’s blood, an act that would have led the mythological, relentless Furies onto him: the best way to do it was to conceive a child Dream didn’t know was kin, and to lead him to kill it for apparently good reasons. The plan would have taken decades, of course, but what was a century in the life of an Endless?

Desire is the only cruel one among the Endless, fickle, shallow, self-centered and vengeful just as the concept he personifies. Immortal and invulnerable as all Endless, he/she can change shape, something he/she does constantly, can teleport, increase his/her strength, speed or even body mass, manipulate energy, foresee the future to a certain extent and become invisible, but his/her more dreaded power is that of manipulating emotions and pheromones to instill wanting, love and desire in whoever he/she wants to, driving people to one another (or to something else) like moths to the flame. Unpredictable and proudly evil, Desire pays no attention to the consequences of his/her actions, which he/she deems unimportant, and constantly lives in the moment, projecting a thought to the future only when it fulfills his/her main function. Desire moves everything and everyone in the universe, gives motives and motors… and then enjoys to watch the big and small tragedies born from all this wanting, while scheming from more.