Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘The Sandman’ follows the adventures of Dream of the Endless, an immortal being who rules the Dreaming. He has six siblings, each with their own realm and function, which they must carry out to ensure that the world runs as it should. While they are all tied to their roles, not all are happy with the responsibilities they have to perform. This is why, when the family meeting is called at the beginning of the second season, only six of them are present. This seventh member and the search for him eventually lead to some big plot developments in the show. SPOILERS AHEAD.
The Missing Endless Refers to the One Who Left Willingly
The six Endless present in the family meeting are Destiny (who calls the meeting), Death, Dream, Desire, Despair, and Delirium. The seventh, who has not appeared for family meetings for a very long time, is Destruction. The fourth of the Endless, he is also the most popular of the bunch. He is liked by his elder siblings Destiny, Death, and Dream, and loved and looked up to by his younger siblings, Desire, Despair, and particularly, Delirium. As his name suggests, his function is to bring forth Destruction; however, this doesn’t make him a dark, brooding figure, like Dream. If anything, he is one of the more approachable and friendlier of the siblings.
By the time the events of ‘The Sandman’ kick into action, Destruction has already been out of the picture for a while. Unlike Dream, who was captured by Roderick Burgess, Destruction chose to leave his realm and his siblings. He was clear to the other six that he was leaving of his own accord and did not wish to be contacted by any of them. He wanted to live alone and would not be returning to his realm and his duties, most likely ever. The act of leaving his family leads the others to nickname him “the Prodigal,” which might be because they someday hope for him to return as the prodigal son, repenting his departure and accepting that he should never have left in the first place. However, as the comics suggest, this never comes to pass.
Destruction Left for His Own Peace of Mind
While destruction is an important part of creation, being the reason behind it starts to get to Destruction. This distress reaches its peak in the eighteenth century, with the advent of the Age of Reason as humans make all sorts of scientific advancements. In one of the flashbacks, Dream remembers visiting the Earth with Destruction, where the latter talks about how exponentially the humans have stepped forward with respect to science, what road they are eventually destined to walk because of it.
He talks about how humans have now discovered that the core of every matter is an atom, and how there isn’t a day too far in the future when they will find a way to split an atom. He talks about Newton’s theory of the interconvertibility of light and matter, and how this paves the way for something so destructive that it could end civilisations and the world as we know it in just one fell swoop. He is disturbed by all this, but he has also been around long enough to know that this course of events is inevitable. He doesn’t have to be Destiny to know where this road is leading. Destruction knows that he cannot meddle with human affairs and stop them from creating their own devices of mass destruction.
At the same time, he doesn’t have it in him to watch them go through with it and be responsible for their actions. He knows that even if he leaves his post, humans have become self-destructive enough to cause their own chaos and wreck the world. However, he loves them too much to sit and watch everything go down helplessly. If everything was to go towards that end, he did not want it to be his fault or responsibility. When Dream and Delirium find him, he tells them he left not because he hated humans for where they were headed, but because he loved them too much to have a hand in their destruction.
Destruction’s Departure is Pretty Permanent
One would think that an Endless leaving their realm and their responsibilities would lead to things breaking down just as they happened when Dream went missing for several decades. However, this doesn’t seem to be the case with Destruction. Yes, the centuries of his disappearance have caused his realm to show signs of dilapidation, but things are in motion for them to continue working their own way. Moreover, Destruction did not shoulder his responsibility to someone else. He didn’t leave a successor.
In fact, he took away his sword and carries it still because he doesn’t want someone else to take up his mantle and go through the same thing he did, unlike Dream, who finds a successor so that even if he is gone, the Dreaming shall survive. This, and the fact that he has consciously chosen not to meet with his siblings, no matter how much he loves them, shows that his departure did not happen on a whim and is not impermanent. He knew that if he stayed in contact with his siblings, one or all of them might cajole him into coming back home.
Eventually, when Dream and Delirium find him, he has a nice chat with them, but at the same time, he leaves his current abode to find another place to hide so that they can never find him again. This shows that he no interest in coming back, at least not until humanity has run its course, all the events in Destiny’s book have unfolded as they were meant to, and it is time for the universe to be destroyed, so that Death can finally put out the lights and lock the door. Until then, he prefers to spend his days in solitude, creating things, like art and poetry, rather than destroying them.
Read More: Where Was The Sandman Season 1 and 2 Filmed?
