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A different Hell to the one we’ve seen before

A different Hell to the one we’ve seen before

Marimar Rivera Andino
University of Puerto Rico Bayamón
INGL 3011 Honors English I Section KH1
Dr. Pedro Valle Javier
December 11, 2020
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A different Hell to the one we’ve seen before
When you first open the graphic novel “The Sandman: Season of Mist” and begin to read

the first page, you will be welcomed with a quote from Isaac Watts that tells the reader what Hell

is and what happens in there. Watts states that there is a dreadful Hell, where sinners dwell and it

has everlasting pains. Hell, in The Sandman, is depicted, shown, and described in many different

ways. It is very opposed yet similar to what many tales of It are told, but the graphic novel

describes It and Lucifer in a very interesting way. In The Sandman, Hell is desired and

undesired by many beings, it is a place full of pain and satisfaction, and by the end of the

graphic novel it becomes a place with ‘purpose’.

Hell is depicted in the graphic novel as a place that many desire to obtain and others

desire for it to be gone. It is first described as an inferno of pain, flame and ice, a place where

every nightmare comes true. In the graphic novel, its Lord and leader, Lucifer, quits his throne,

closes Hell, and exiles every demon and lost soul from it when he hears that Dream is arriving.

He then tells Dream that he is tired and grants him the keys to Hell telling him that his life was

not going to be easy. When word gets around that Hell was closed, many creatures and beings

start planning and arriving at the Dreaming with desire to obtain Hell. Among them there was

Azazel, a creature of Hell who represented every sinner and demon that was banished, there were

the faeries, who wanted Hell to remain closed for it affected them every seven years in a tithe,

and there were two angels, Remiel and Duma, who were thought to be there just to observe and

inform the Creator the Silver City, but at the end the Creator informs them that they must take

the key and be the new lords of Hell. Dream, who is the owner of the key, has no wish to stay

with it, he has no plans for this land because he already has the Dreaming. Dream can be seen

stressed and aggravated by the ownership of Hell. Even though Hell is supposed to be a place of

everlasting pain and suffering, many wish for it.

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A different Hell to the one we’ve seen before
When Hell was created it was meant to be a place with no pleasure, only suffering and

punishment but as time went by it became a place for creatures to torture themselves and enjoy

it. The creatures that live in Hell called the shots, and on one occasion when Lucifer is closing

the gates he finds one being called Breschau who did not want to leave because he wanted to be

punished. He even informed Lucifer and Dream of how terrible he had been whilst alive as a way

to prove why he had to stay. Lucifer calls these creatures masochist for wanting to suffer and

enjoying the way they spent their afterlife. Other inhabitants of Hell were the demons that

inflicted the pains to each other and to the dammed souls and though they all agreed it could not

get worse, most of them protested when Hell was closed.

Every creature agreed Hell could not get worse, for it already was a place of torment and

terrible suffering but when the Creator informs Dream that Hell needs to exist, because it is the

counterpart of Heaven and without it the Silver City had no purpose, he condemns two angels,

Remiel and Duma, to lead Hell. Whilst both angels went on with their life, Remiel has an idea to

do some ‘good’ in Hell and informs the demons and dammed souls that there will no longer be

mindless torture, purposeless pain and no further suffering inflicted without reason or

explanation. He says that now the violence and suffering will be done as a way to redeem what

they have done before. Remiel justifies the Creators action of sending them to Hell and decides

that it is for them to redeem the souls, but by doing this he is only making Hell worse for its

inhabitants because now they will no longer suffer for their own pleasure, they will suffer and

abuse for their own ‘good’. This new Hell is a cruel one that Remiel believes has ‘purpose’ and

‘good’ but will make Hell a place for punishment with meaning, everything it was not before. All

the satisfaction and pleasure the creatures once got will no longer exist.
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A different Hell to the one we’ve seen before
Reading this graphic novel was a rollercoaster of emotions, and a hard time trying to

understand each character better. Hell is depicted in “The Sandman: Seasons of Mist” as a place

that was full of masochist creatures that enjoyed their pain and suffering but soon it became what

it was once meant to be before, a place where you go to redeem your past errors, to inflict hurt to

learn and do good. It was so contradictory and weird how even a place for suffering and pain

could be desired by so many, and how even the creatures that inhabited it did not desire to leave

it and even got mad at how they were exiled. In the graphic novel, Lucifer has no participation

with the things that go wrong to the human’s contrary to popular beliefs, he is just keeper of Hell

but as a normal human being he is also tired of ruling it and at the ending the reader gets a snip at

how his life is going without having to rule Hell. This graphic novel was interesting and easy to

read and really opened my eyes to how different one can look at things from other’s

perspectives.