Barbie

Let’s see who the new housemates of Rose‘s are in The Sandman. In The Doll’s House, we meet four of them: the first one is Barbie, a friendly girl portrayed by Lily Travers. We see her again as she dreams of an enchanted land, accompanied by a weird bear-like talking animal named Martin Tenbones and dressed like a Disney princess. If the series goes on, this is not the last we see of Barbie, as she’s the protagonist of a following storyline that dwells deep into the enchanted kingdom she visits in her dreams. Let’s see together.

Since she was a child Barbie, family name unknown, had always dreamt of being a princess, but not any princess: all her dreams were set in an enchanted kingdom, called The Land, where she lived with her animal companions, the big and loyal Martin Tenbones, the dodo Luz, the monkey Prinado and the mouse Wilkinson. She lived a number of wonderful adventures there, and as she grew up she kept dreaming of the same place and the same animal friends, to the point that she had an entire fantasy saga in her mind. In the Waking World she was a yuppie girl, happily involved with a like-minded guy, Ken; in the Dreaming, she was the beloved ruler of The Land, until an usurper came, the Cuckoo, who wrestled power from her and seized the throne for herself, taking possession of the fabled Porpentine, a jewel that gave power to whoever wielded it. While in The Land Barbie and he friends struggled to take the Porpentine back, in the real world Barbie and Ken moved together to Cocoa, Florida, where they rented a room in a big house owned by Hal Carter, a nice young man who worked as a transvestite singer in local clubs. Barbie’s life went on as usual for a couple of years: things between her and Ken were doing great, she was friends with all the other weird housemates, and she could balance her fantasy world with the real one without any effort. Then Rose came: she was the latest addition to the collection of outcasts in Hal’s house, but she was also something more, a Dream Vortex, unconsciously capable of bringing together people’s dreams. The first time she did it, Barbie and her animal friends had just retrieved the Porpentine and were deciding where to hide it, when Ken appeared… and he was dreaming things Barbie didn’t even believe were part of him. Things got chaotic soon enough, with all housemates appearing all together in the same dream, then as abruptly as they had started things stopped, and Barbie woke up in her own bed… but nothing would have been the same anymore.

From the moment she woke up from that absurd night, Barbie found herself unable to dream anymore: she slept, but only darkness awaited her on the other side. Even her relationship started to crack: she had peeked inside Ken’s deepest layers of subconscious, and had come to know sides of him she didn’t even suspect were there, making her come to realize they were too different to be together. With all the firm points in her existence failing her, Barbie decided it was time to redefine herself completely: as Hal sold his house in Cocoa, she jumped at the occasion to move to New York City, where she rented an apartment and started a whole new life. Even here she became friends with several unusual characters, and she met the one who would have become her best friend: Wanda, a transgender girl who was the nicest and most loyal person she had ever met. The two got along pretty well, and they were ready to face the world together, sharing whatever was going on in their lives… at least, until their lives still made sense. One day, walking through the streets of Manhattan, Barbie met an old friend, the most unlikely meeting ever: Martin Tenbones, the dog-bear from her dreams, was there in flesh and bones, calling her name. Martin spotted her and made a run for her, clearly terrified by a world he didn’t understand: he was asking his princess’ help as the Cuckoo had established a terrible dictatorship in The Land, and he had managed to reach her through the Porpentine, that he was now giving to her… but the police, mistaking him for a bear, gunned him down, and he died right in front of the benevolent ruler he had crossed dimensions to find. Barbie was clearly quite shocked, but it took little for her mind to rationalize what had happened, and to come back home as if she had really seen just a regular bear that somehow had popped up in the middle of New York… if it wasn’t for the Porpentine, still with her. That very night, thanks to the gem’s power, Barbie dreamt once again, and she found herself in The Land. It was a different Land, though, one in desperate need of its princess to free it from the despotic rule of the Cuckoo.

In real life, Barbie is a kind and open-minded young woman, always ready to lend a hand and in perpetual search of her place in the world; in the Dreaming, however, she’s the princess of The Land, a benevolent and brave ruler who fights for her people and protects them from harm. It’s been quite some time since Princess Barbie last visited her kingdom, and she must now gather all her courage and resourcefulness to free her domain from a cruel usurper… if she can find within herself the childlike faith she had in the reality of it all, of course.