(SPOT.ph) Slow burn. As kids today define it, a slow burn relationship is a trope that sees two leads going down a long and winding road to, you guessed it, a romantic liaison. Think old-school Koreanovelas where the first chaste kiss happens practically mid-season, after you've invested hours watching convoluted story lines to finally see them cement their burning desires. Keep the thoughts PG, folks. Well, what's that got to do with Netflix's massively popular adaptation of the comics by Neil Gaiman, The Sandman? Not everything, to be honest, but there is one rather pivotal storyline that acts a lot like a slow burn. Multiple centuries worth of waiting is involved, actually, and the release has proven incredibly satisfying, whether you're an OG comics fan or are a newbie to Morpheus' realm. Spoilers lie ahead!
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You've probably heard about the bit involving Hob Gadling, a mere mortal turned immortal on a seeming whim by Endless siblings Dream and Death. After having overheard Gadling proclaiming death to be mere "bad habit" of human beings in a pub in the 14th Century, the sibs decide that he will be Dream's little "experiment" to see how long a mortal would enjoy living. Dream and Hob, played by Tom Sturridge and Ferdinand Kingsley respectively, then agree to meet at said pub every hundred years. Cue a relationship that quite literally stands the test of time.
Neil Gaiman on why Hob Gadling and Dream's storyline in The Sandman struck a chord
"That story has always been one of people's favorites," shares Gaiman in a roundtable interview with SPOT.ph. Fact is, even if you don't know the full context of who Dream and Hob Gadling are in The Sandman universe, their tale will resonate. But what is it about the rather simple premise—relative to the rest of The Sandman universe—of two folks meeting every hundred years to talk, that struck a chord with both old and new audiences?
"I think the first thing that we did that was really really important was we didn't screw it up," Gaiman starts off. The author played a much bigger role in this adaptation compared to previous ones of his other works; as both co-creator and executive producer, he was very much involved, thankfully. "I think it would've been easier to screw it up than, you know, than it sounds," he adds.
"The history is, by and large, for the most part [right]. We got the costuming right; we got the place right; we got the feeling that time was moving past a hundred years at a time right." Gadling and Dream meet at least five times over the course of half a millenium—so you can imagine the amount of set changes they had to go through, production-wise. Watching the story unfold in the Netflix adaptation, the flow of time is subtle and yet the feeling that a hundred years has passed is indeed there, perhaps testament to how well it was executed.
Then there is also, of course, casting. Tom Sturridge as Dream has been cemented. The character of our undying though? "I saw a lot of Hob Gadlings," Gaiman explains of the casting process. "A lot of people said the lines and I didn't believe them, and then I saw Ferdie Kingsley and I went 'Oh, not only are you saying the lines but you're doing something that nobody else in the whole of Sandman is doing, in that you are saying the lines exactly like I heard them in my head when I wrote them 35 years ago."
"This is my Hob, here he is," said Gaiman of Kingsley.
Now while the execution could make or break it, the story in itself has to be worthwhile; a foundation you can build on. And Hob and Dream's story is absolutely solid. As Gaiman explains simply, it's special because "You get to watch the slowly growing, very very, awkward friendship," between two very unlikely creatures. After watching them interacting throughout literal centuries, "at the point where Dream acknowledges that it is a friendship, it's overwhelming."
"You watch this thing grow since 1389 and you gradually understand that this isn't a thing that's happening because Dream is curious, and it's not a science experiment, it's actually a friendship," says Gaiman.
Hob and Dream couldn't be anymore different. The first has an undying desire to live; the second, well, it's hard to tell. The first, with all the years he's had, is still incomparably young in the face of his much older friend. Yet with all that, their latest meeting at the pub and Dream's realization of what they really are, acts almost like a salve, a reminder of the good things you can have, if you simply allow it.
Gaiman explains of the work he's done before, of his knack for creating fantastical worlds, that beneath all that lies a simple premise. He has to believe in them. "My secret is I try to believe them myself. I have to be able to believe them in order for anyone else to believe them," he says. And if we're talking about an undying human being and "the stupidest, most self-centered, appallingest excuse for an anthropomorphic personification in this or any other plane" simply wanting a friend, then yes, we can believe it a hundred percent.
Watch a part of their storyline below:
this strange new world.