CW: Assholes, shitheads, SA, and more than the average number of curse words. I am obfuscating certain words so that the algorithm doesn’t get any fucky ideas about me.
Current Affirmation: I will no longer let myself get gaslit by society, public images, or myself. When my gut says someone is a piece of shit, I will assume first that they are a piece of shit, and then they will have to prove to me that they are not a piece of a shit because, so far, I have not been wrong about this, and that breaks my heart.
I had that niggling feeling over thirty years ago that something wasn’t quite right, that someone who could depict fairly graphic yet casual r@p3 and then justify it in the context of the story was probably capable of committing those acts themselves.
“But, hey, no, it’s just a story, you’re reading too much into it. Art just tells you how things are, but that doesn’t mean that the writer is actually doing those things.”
Okay, sometimes correct – I’d like to think most of the time correct – but I have this weird intuition. Sometimes, I just have a sense of someone; actors, especially, have what I call a “face magnet”, where I just want to punch them reflexively. I will often try to point out that pieces of their art are problematic, and every time, someone says, “You’re overreacting, you’re overthinking this, it’s just art.”
(But it’s not just art, is it, JK? I never liked your colonialist, racist, sexist, pro-incel, transphobic, imperialist wet dream in the first place, but the kids missed that part and loved the rest of the story, so I went along with it. When I was vindicated, I burned my snake house pants, bitch.)
I made myself read the whole article on Vulture, knowing that the women that came out six months ago were just the tip of the iceberg, but there was a huge part of me that really wanted it to be a hoax or a smear attempt given the ongoing nasty divorce between Gaiman and Palmer.
Except, I already knew it wasn’t. If anything, I’m expecting so far worse accusations and suspicions to start coming out of the woodwork.
The Suspicions That Were
I think I read my first Sandman comic in 1990 while arsing around Austin, Texas, with a bunch of nerds. The vibe of that comic was so different from anything I’d read before (mostly X-Men and other superhero stuff) that I was totally hooked. I yearned for a vaster, more mature (without being gross) comic genre because I love it when the author and artist can feed my mental movie in powerful ways. I became engrossed in the story, in the universe, in the world Neil built.
But then the Calliope arc happened. And I wasn’t so cool with that, but…
it’s just art, stop taking it so seriously.
And then there was the arc with Nada where Morpheus condemns her to Hell for refusing his proposal after he fucked up her entire kingdom.
He offered her more than her kingdom, though, she was a fool to deny him… I guess…
But then there’s that story in Smoke and Mirrors with the woman hiring the gigolo. (I’m not going to get into the gory details, but it demonstrated a specific lack of understanding basic anatomy.)
And there are several more, including violence against children, vengeance as cruelty instead of lesson-teaching, symbolic and literal destruction of the good and pure…
And, yeah, I get it, we peer into the face of fictional horror so that we can understand the horror in ourselves, but there’s a… flavor from certain people who write horror, particularly involving r@p3, that indicates a secret or subtle approval of it. The consequences (lack of consequences) for committing those crimes are often reflected in the story that justice is not a real outcome from being convicted of those offenses. The consequences aren’t really commiserate with the crime, as if the person writing it doesn’t really think (personally, secretly) that the offense is all that bad, or they can’t relate to the gravity of the crime.
And that’s the subtle vibe I got.
But, wait, did you read his blog? Did you know he’s on Tumblr? Dude was completely wholesome. He talked about his kids, his writing processes, his family, it was just so normal. He worked with Pterry (Pratchett), who would never tolerate this other behavior. Hell, we got back on Tumblr because he was there, because he was always so gracious to young and aspiring writers, There’s a master class he teaches, and we were ready to commit mail fraud to get into a library that had access to it.
Still, there was that “too good to be true” barb at the back of my head, but I told myself that I was just cynical, that too many other allegedly “good” people had fallen, and I was equating “good people” with “waiting to be found out.”
At the same time, though, how often had I been wrong? Unfortunately, never. Bill Cosby always squigged me out (you just don’t like that he’s funny and black); James Spader (he just has a creepy face); Jared Leto (okay, that’s a softball.); Kevin Spacey (he just plays creepy characters), James Franco, Danny Masterson, Jeffrey Jones, Joss Whedon, Woody Allen… (I’m not going to link all of these allegations, they’re all out there, they’re super-easy to find.)
I didn’t want to be right about Neil. Yeah, clearly there were a lot of weird flags in his work about kink and non-normative gender and sexuality, like he had a basic grasp and maybe knew some people but wasn’t really directly involved – but tons of writers do that, they kinda have to because fiction is at least partly making things up. But… there’s making things up, and then there’s idealizing (romanticizing, glorifying) the wrong end of a misrepresentation. Or, at least, one hopes it’s a misrepresentation.
And then there are the people who he publicly and loudly befriended, bastions of goodness like Tori and Pterry, so how could he possibly be this thing… except that that’s a classic strategy of sociopaths, to create facades and crafted public images beyond reproach. (Although, Pterry might’ve had an idea about it…)
The Problematic
I do not believe that it is possible to separate the art from the artist.
I believe, as an artist myself, that all art comes from somewhere in the soul, and we tell on ourselves constantly, whether we mean to or not. We transmit our values, our morals, our ethics, and our worldview, even when we’re (allegedly) consciously and deliberately trying to see through a different lens.
Take Robert Heinlein, for instance, with the vast majority of his stories being his own thinly-veiled sex and power fantasies. The same is true for Piers Anthony, except with a lot more sexism and misogyny. Orson Scott Card is a notorious homophobe and racist. You can see all of these things in their actual writing. I’m not going to get into the specifics of individual stories or try to rationalize their work in their “socio-temporal context” because an asshole is an asshole, no matter in what era they’re born, and their prejudices were supported and upheld by the dominant socio-cultural patterns of those eras.
And there is the argument that interpretation and analysis of art speaks more about the interpreter than necessarily about the artist, but that’s limited in its application: I think it’s much easier for me to put my finger on exactly what’s wrong with these stories now that I’ve lived a full lifetime and gained a degree in psychology. I can see these disturbing elements in Neil’s art because I have been the victim of s3xu@l assault, and the victim of misogynistic harassment, and the recipient of bullshit half-but-mostly-non-apologies. I’ve been in shitty relationships that didn’t end well, and I’ve witnessed dangerously enabling behaviors.
The argument must be honored that there are writers who depict r@p3 and SA and violence without having a shred of intention of committing those acts themselves, and there is a specific flavor to that work that discusses those actions as abhorrent. Observe what happens to the perpetrators in those stories: do they get rewarded, do they get punished in like, or do they get randomly tortured? What is the real consequence of their actions, their choices? Observe what happens to the victims: are they traumatized, broken? Are they vengeful? Are they affected at all, or are they cardboard cutouts that “learn their lesson”?
(Note: this is a big part of why I don’t generally read erotica/smut: too many writers make the mistake of getting so focused on impulsiveness and spontaneity that they ignore things like consent and agency.)
Oh, Yeah, And the Plagiarism
There is another accusation lobbed at Neil currently that I had actually heard several years ago, but I hadn’t had the time to investigate until now. The primary allegation is that Morpheus of the Sandman is pretty much lifted wholesale from Tanith Lee’s Tales from the Flat Earth series. I found those books last night and started reading them to see if there was anything to this, and, yeah, it looks like Neil did an “excessive borrow” from Tanith. People who are more familiar with Tanith’s work than I and who knew her back in the day confirm that Tanith knew he was ripping her off, sometimes en toto, and she felt powerless to stop it.
I’m not going to go into the argument of whether or not it was “inspiration”, and whether the omission of “inspiration” was a matter of inherent misogyny or merely shitty stealing, but I can see where multiple aspects of Tanith’s story are directly reflected into Neil’s, with one major variation: Tanith’s supernatural characters are justified in their actions as a basic part of their nature. Their purpose is mischief or lesson-teaching or blessings. Neil’s Endless (and especially Dream) are motivated by… something else. It’s not the purview of their existence that defines their actions (with notable exceptions of Death and Destiny), it’s some kind of cancerous boredom, stimulation-seeking, ennui that has no discernible justification. Moreover, there are no real ethical quandaries for Neil’s characters and there are few, if any, real consequences.
(The argument that Dream is killed as justice for taking the life of a family member is bullshit because even that was “for the right reason” and the end result of deliberate manipulation. Every offense committed by the Endless was “for a good reason”, to them. And remember also that Dream didn’t die, he got to come back through Daniel with a clean slate, all of his “sins” wiped clean but with all the perks and joys of the position without interruption. Uh-huh.)
Specifically, looking at the Calliope story, the r@p1st doesn’t feel a shred of actionable guilt, just a token acknowledgement of being naughty (rationalize, justify), and the consequences/vengeance that is eventually visited upon him does nothing to address his actual crime: it’s just a different form of torture at the request of the victim. That is a major red flag because it means that Neil’s decision to “address the crime” is just a normal beat of the story – not a moral or ethical impulse from him – so the punishment is arbitrary and ultimately does nothing for the victim.
The biggest thievery is that Neil’s Morpheus (Lord of Dreams) has very much the same description as Tanith’s Azhrarn (Lord of Darkness). The extension of all the timeless incarnations of the Flat Earth are Death, Delerium, Delusion… hmmmm, interesting naming convention there. The timelessness beings functioning as aspects of existence, these are not necessarily completely unique, but the format similarity between Tanith and Neil is unmistakable. Just add a little whimsy, a couple of extra mythologies, stir in a heavy subculture hook, and viola. I could go on, but I have to finish reading her bibliography. As far as I’ve gotten, though… I’m getting really mad.
But it’s not the first time (nor, likely, the last) that someone will suggest that Neil has nicked a story.
The Wolves in the Walls
Here’s one more revelation that bothers me a great deal – I can’t say “the most” because it’s obviously not as horrifying as egregiously violating multiple humans – and it’s for maybe completely stupid reasons: Neil’s connection to That One Non-Religion and the lack of evidence of his denouncement of them makes me wonder if all of his success was actually a result of those relationships rather than of his own merit.
See, a huge part of what made Neil’s fan base so fanatic was that he seemed genuinely interested in helping other writers hone their skills and make successful careers. There’s the Master Class I mentioned, and he’s spoken at Clarion and several other writing workshops, but the advice that he generally gives in public is somewhat generic, basic positivity and self-awareness advice – nothing ground-breaking, just admitting that he was in a lucky position at the beginning of his career but that success was possible with hard work and honing one’s skills (and having the right editors, agents, and so forth) was enough to keep some people going, writing, sharing, dreaming.
But, now it seems far more likely to me that luck had nothing to do with his success. Members of TONR in Hollywood have ongoing careers against all odds because they are members of TONR, because of their connections, not because of their talent. And that’s the sad truth for all the media industries anymore: it doesn’t matter how good you are, it just matters who you know. That’s how so many trash books make it to the shelves while gold in the gutters fails to gleam from the grime. He attracted lots of people to his blog and social media and public appearances because he seemed like a genuinely successful writer of some amount of talent that encouraged others to also reach for that success.
Except, now, that was a lie, and he even told us right there in black and white, all writers are liars. He was speaking for himself, of course, whether he realized it or not, because there is no separating the art from the artist.
What does that mean for those of us who found inspiration in his journey? We were sold the idea that he was just Some Guy who was in the right place a the right time. Because luck is what you make by being alert and conscious of opportunities, if we just work on those chops to be the best we can and get ourselves in the right place, then Good Things could happen. If it could happen to just Some Guy, it could happen to anyone,right?
No.
Once again, we are reminded, that’s not how it works. And the truly heartbreaking part is how he sold us on the idea that he was Just Like Us. He’s not the best writer on the planet, but he is a good storyteller – such a good storyteller, in fact, that he had the whole world fooled for decades, thinking that he was just a meek little nerd with a typewriter and not a wolf hiding in the walls, waiting to steal and r@p3 and shred.
Shame on you.
My Closing Thought
Do not buy his work anymore. Do not watch his shows. Do not listen to his podcasts. Don’t even bother pirating them because that’s also a metric that’s monitored by decision-makers.
Make committing these crimes have a real-world consequence. The chances of him actually getting arrested and going to prison are slim to none (I could be wrong, but likely not), but people with so much popularity often believe they can use that social equity to weather the storms until everyone forgets all about it.
And this goes for all the people who we find have committed these crimes and crimes like it. Instead of consuming their media, find other media – the kind that isn’t pre-curated for maximum advert revenue – and buy that.
I wish that Tanith Lee were still alive so that we could reclaim her from obscurity and bolster her estate. The same goes for Pterry (that he was still alive, I know he’s still massively popular). And there are dozens and hundreds and probably thousands of other writers and movie-makers and audiobook readers who could tell even better stories.
We only have so many hours in the day, and so many days in our lives. How we spend that time is precious. Let’s not waste it on shitheel fuckheads who are giving multiple subcultures a bad name by his mere presence.
Shame.
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