On Neil Gaiman and the Sandman, knowing what we know

Most readers of The Sandman—myself included—tended to not dwell on the fact that Morpheus had done terrible things to people, particularly to a woman, Nada, that he condemned to Hell for rejecting him. We thought Morpheus was a bit of a dick, but overall, we still liked him, we hoped and believed in his capability to become better. Because he was our POV character, we empathize with him, and he often brought justice to rather horrible people.

Sandman always showed—and still does—that there was a lot of darkness in Neil Gaiman. This wasn’t something he hid; he said it many times himself. He is as much one character as another—both the “good” ones and the “bad” ones. All of them are him.

We just expected that the darker parts of him weren’t manifested in actions. His “nice guy, respect, do no harm” routine helped us believe in that.

But we always knew there was darkness in him. I do believe there’s some darkness in everybody, of course—it’s just that many (most?) people manage to keep it in check. Clearly, he didn’t. Why? Opportunity, lack of self-control, personal history, trauma? Who knows?

It doesn't make what he did less bad.

And it also doesn’t make his work less fascinating—and it’s not even a question of separating the artist from the art.

I like John Lennon’s music a lot, and knowing who he was and what he thought helps me understand his art—it gives it depth. And yet, he was far from always being nice. He did some rather bad stuff, and you can even argue he was a hypocrite. Was he a bad person? I try not to think in those terms. He did a lot of shitty things, some of which I absolutely detest, but what do I know about what led him there? I’m not a judge, not a cop, not an accuser, and not an executioner.

The same applies to Neil Gaiman. I never truly expected him to be as nice as he portrayed himself to be, to be honest. There were many signs of vanity and arrogance. But mostly, because he was human.

What we know now that he allegedly did—I have no reason to doubt it happened—was despicable. In hindsight, much of what he wrote vibes with it.

And it’s even worse because of the public persona he created.

But many greater artists than him have done bad things. Can we weigh all the good and bad they’ve done on scales and decide if the good outweighs the bad? Is there an amount of bad that cancels all the good? Or vice-versa?

In the past, it was often accepted that great artists could be forgiven for their sins because of what they gave to humanity.

I never bought that line.

But I also never knew what was there to forgive. It wasn’t done to me. I’m not Jesus to absolve anyone, and I have my own imperfections to handle.

If I could have stopped them from doing bad things, I’d certainly feel responsible to do so. If I could help their victims, I’d feel responsible to do that too. If I could help bring them to justice, I would. But what good is obtained by destroying their works? Or by spending time hating them?

If you idolised them, you probably should stop. It is never good to idolise someone anyway. If you want to punish them by not giving them your money, that’s actually a fair way to show your dismay.

But the art itself—the art they created—is often the good, luminous part of them. It’s the stuff that inspires, the stuff that stays, the stuff that actually might help people.

You can reject the sins of someone while still seeing them as a human being. Dehumanising people who do bad things is just a way of pretending they’re nothing like us. However, ultimately, they are as human as we are, and we can relate to them. We can even hope that they better themselves, because we also try to better ourselves.

And we can be moved by their creations, with all their virtues, flaws, darkness, and light.