The Sandman (TV Series)/YMMV

These things about  are subjective - not everyone will agree with all of them.


 * Angst? What Angst?
 * Jed has had a rather shitty life. His abusive father refused to let him go with his mother and sister when Miranda demanded a divorce, using him as a pawn. When his father died, foster care shunted him to a couple that locks him in the basement as punishment for running away, where rats feast on him at night; it's implied that Barnaby beats him for various mishaps. Despite all this, Jed remains a chipper kid, especially when the Corinthian honors his promise that.
 * Rose also hasn't had a fun life. In the comics, her response to her two-book Trauma Conga Line was at first to deny that . Her mother dies, leaving most of her money so Rose can have an apartment, and then her friend Judy is killed hours after making a video-call with Rose about a bad breakup. No one knows what happened in the diner except for Dream and John Dee, and neither wants to volunteer the information. Rose bears most of this stoically, focusing her limited resources on locating her brother Jed. She finds out someone murdered his foster parents just as she got a lead on his location, and the police are no help. A man she finds out later is a serial killer calls her to meet him at a convention to reunite with Jed, where one of the attendees nearly kills her and her brother. Oh, and she finds out she's an Apocalypse Maiden in the Dreaming who endangers all dreamers, a vortex that It's implied that because Rose likes writing,  and she remains an optimistic woman who takes comfort that Jed, Lyta, and Lyta's baby are safe.
 * Cry for the Devil: John Dee isn't as much of a monster as he was in the comics, being a Justice League villain, but he still has a body count and compels the innocent diner residents to kill each other when he forces them to be honest with each other. Dream still pities him, genuinely warning John that the Ruby is affecting his senses because humans are not meant to have such power. His mother Ethel also admits that it's her fault John is this way, shortly before she pulls a Heroic Sacrifice to give him her amulet of protection.
 * Moral Event Horizon:
 * Corinthian crossed this in the pilot by running away to Earth and starting a killing spree of the humans there. Dream lambasted him for the senseless waste of life.
 * Roderick crossed this not by keeping Dream captive, but by the sickening way that he abuses his son Alexander, physically and emotionally. He outright threatens to shoot him when Alex as a teen talks with Dream and shows sympathy for him. It reaches a breaking point where Alex outright says that if his brother Randall were alive, Randall would hate Roderick for the monster he is.
 * While it can be implied that all the serial killers that were at the convention count as this, there are several onscreen highlights:
 * The Good Doctor giggles as she shows how she got Corinthian's attention: by killing their waiter and taking his eyes. Rose sees in the Doctor's dreams that she gets sadistic pleasure out of poisoning patients while they're in the hospital and unable to protect themselves.
 * Fun Land outright confesses to that he is a pedophile that uses a theme park to find his victims. Despite the rule of "We don't shit where we eat" and Corinthian establishing that young Jed is under his protection, Fun Land still goes after Jed when the latter comes to him for help after . Then when the latter merely goes to hug Rose on seeing her, Fun Land tries outright grabbing him, hunting down Rose and Jed in the hotel lobby.
 * While Desire in this version.
 * Rooting for the Empire: The one moment where Corinthian is not a straight-up supervillain is when Jed confides in him that Barnaby has a habit of hunting him down every time Jed runs away, and Barnaby will probably drive after them. Corinthian isn't worried about this detail because he killed Barnaby and Clarice, hiding the bodies from Jed, before telling Jed that he was going to reunite him with Rose. Mind that unlike the comics, Corinthian wasn't planning to kill Jed anyway, figuring it would be in his best interests to reunite Jed with Rose and use her powers to take down Dream. Here, he silently seethes on Jed's behalf, asking if he had to run away for his safety often. Corinthian also relates that he is also running from someone that wants to hurt him. Dream ends up having a good reason because he learns that Corinthian inspired a generation of serial killers, some who have a high body count.