The Reason Why Despair Looks So Different in Netflix's The Sandman
If you are an old-school Sandman fan, you have most certainly noticed that Despair looks nothing like her comic book version in the Netflix adaptation. But there is an explanation.
Despair, an Endless twin of Desire, has made a brief but impressive appearance in Netflix 's adaptation of Neil Gaiman 's graphic novel Sandman. However, many fans were surprised to see that the show appeared to have stepped away from Despair's look in the comics and gone for something different and somewhat less intimidating.
In the graphic novel, Despair was described as a short obese woman with messy hair who would never wear any kind of clothing but always keep her hooked ring on. The show, however, pictured her fully clothed in a sweater, bulky pants and crocs.
Neil Gaiman was quick to explain the change. The author addressed Despair's redesign when speaking with one of the fans on Tumblr.
"With Despair, it was less about the nudity and more about the trying to create a character we didn't have to CGI entirely, but who would work on the same level of reality as Desire. Reproducing the Despair in the comics would be possible, but enormously expensive, time-consuming and difficult, and we decided to get a fabulous actor in and use our limited resources on other things," Gaiman explained.
Nudity is used in Sandman as a creative tool that usually aims to illustrate someone's helplessness and imprisonment. However, there was another instance of the show stepping away from the comic canon and ditching nudity. In a special episode of The Sandman, Calliope, the muse who was Morpheus' wife, appears full-clothed even though Gaiman described her as naked in the graphic novel in order to underlined her helplessness and lack of powers when captured. According to the author, the showrunners "weren't sure that it would have come across like that, and wanted to try and create a Calliope with more agency and dignity."
The Sandman is currently streaming on Netflix, with the future of the project still being unknown. Fans demand the network to finally greenlight the second season of the show, but Netflix has remained mum on the issue despite The Sandman spending more than six weeks in the global Top 10 list. As of now, the show is no longer featured on the list.