WARNING THIS WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR BOTH STORIES

One thing I never really liked about immortal characters and that's the "nobody wants to live forever" syndrome they seem to suffer from. It's mostly vampires that get this, but it still pops up way too often to stay interesting. In fact it's at the point that immortal characters that don't constantly curse their immortality are more interesting to me at this point. Two such characters come to mind, they're very similar but very different. Dream of the Endless and The One Electronic.

The comparisons

So yeah there's not a lot to compare to these two. Dream is basically a the anthropomorphic personification of him name while TOE is basically just a guy doing his job that happens to be immortal. But still they do have something in common when it comes to immortal characteristics, they both have a purpose and both a very aware of this. Both are very, very into their jobs, focusing almost purely on them. TOE is a little better at not getting sidetracked unless he must while Dream tends to get into flings that do effect his quality of work. But then again Dream's job is less concrete than TOE's, and a bit easier to pull of with what he's given. Not to mention TOE isn't above cursing his immortality, which is something I never really saw from Dream. But still they're both basically defined by their purpose, Dream in a more literal way(he is Dream) obviously.

They also share a similarity when it comes to their downfall. Both are killed by change. Dream, because he can't really accept change and TOE dies for change. So they're opposite similar characters there. Dream's relationship with change is that of conflict, he doesn't really do well with it and it always causes trouble for him, such as when Lucifer gave up Hell. Dream tried his best to keep thing as they were, but it still ended being one of many events that spiraled into his downfall. TOE by contrast, seemed to accept change rather easily, when he found out that the metal men were willing to accept him again he was a bit surprised but that's about it. Unlike Dream, TOE had clearly been through much more change in his life, in fact he changed thrice while on his mission, a key factor in his death. Dream allowed himself to die because he couldn't handle the changing world any longer while TOE sacrificed himself to change a world that he knew was very, very flawed.

Personalty wise it's funny how similar the characters start and yet how different they end up. Dream doesn't change much due to his nature, he's always a brooding quiet powerful force. TOE starts out similar, a mysterious force of unknown, but great, power. Then everything starts to fall apart and TOE you see a bit of the toll that TOE has taken. He's a machine man who started out on a crusade for god, but by the time Rice Boy rolls around he doesn't even think the force he serves is god. And yet he still goes on, determined to finish his mission. Always ready to do his job, just like Dream. By the end of the story though he's a far more optimistic force, ready to bring in a new better world.

So yeah, I'm not sure how right I am in this or even if I should post it but, whatever.