PLAYING THE OLDEST GAME (SANDMAN COMIC)

What is life without hope?


The original oldest game play.

Voiced by Neil Gaiman &
Joseph Gordon Levitt.



In episode four of the sandman (Netflix series) dream is put in a situation where he must battle Lucifer Morning Star. Originally the Demon (Choronzon) In order to get his helmet back from the demon. The helmet has been traded for a protection necklace and winning a duel was the only way to get it back. It was one of the three items that dream was trying to recover in that season, including his ruby and bag of sand.

In order to get his helmet back he must play a game known as the oldest game. It’s not a physical fight, but a game fought with wit, transformation, and imagination on an astral plane. In the original concept it was shown as a “Rap battle in club hell”.


It starts with one person introducing a concept or the physical embodiment of a being and then the other person must counter it with a concept that can beat it, like a dynamic game of rock scissors, paper but in this game, you get physically affected by what your fellow player beings to the table against you. As each player one ups the other.


The two of you must go back and forth beating each other’s concepts until one person has been outsmarted.

You must play off each other’s mental weakness in order to win, dream starts off on the offensive like Lucifer but then decided to play defensively as the game goes along.


Choosing things like a nurturing world and a universe after Lucifer plays her final move of anti-matter. (Anti life)
And the game seems to be over until dream plays hope and ends up winning the game, outsmarting the devil.


The devil/demon cannot conceive of something greater than hope or something that could defeat it, that was done by playing on the devils/demon’s greatest weakness. The reason that this worked remarked dream when he states that hell has no power if the dammed cannot dream of heaven, the same concept applies to Lucifer in the way of hope. “Hell is for everyone including Lucifer”. Even in hell dreams must exist as dreams are hope.






Audio taken from Amanda Palmers
“Ninja TED: A benefit of the Vancouver Food Bank.