While watching Netflix‘s The Sandman, I was haunted by one persistently nagging question. Who would I rather bone: Tom Sturridge‘s hot goth emo Sandman or Boyd Holbrook‘s disturbingly sexy villain The Corinthian? Did I want to find myself trapped in a glass cage for a hundred years with a stark naked Dream or would I give up my eyes (and my life) for one night boinking The Corinthian? Who is hotter in The Sandman: The titular Lord of Dreams or the bad eye who always has to wear sunglasses because his eyes are little tiny mouths full of teeth!?!?
Call me crazy, call me horny, or call me lonely. It is what it is. I have spent way more time pondering this part of The Sandman than I have on John Dee’s (David Thewlis) diner takeover. I simply must decide who is hotter: Dream or The Corinthian?
Netflix’s The Sandman is based on Neil Gaiman’s comic book series of the same name. The title refers to Dream, aka Morpheus, who is an immortal being responsible for creating our dreams and nightmares in addition to ruling over The Dreaming, the place we mortals go when we sleep. In 1916, Dream is captured by an occultist attempting to capture his sister Death (Kirby Howell-Baptiste). When Dream finally escapes a century later, he must embark on a journey to track down his three stolen totems of power. However, he’s got another problem. A renegade nightmare called The Corinthian is unleashing chaos on the world, murdering people, and inspiring others to kill.
Within the world of Gaiman’s comics, Dream is drawn like an especially emo version of Robert Smith from The Cure and The Corinthian takes over every panel with his trademark sunglasses and creepy grin. While reading the comic, I didn’t really consider either to be “hot,” per se, but fascinating avatars for larger themes. But when I watched The Sandman on Netflix, however, I was like, “Whoa, Dream and The Corinthian are both very attractive men!”

On the one hand, you have Dream, with his milky white skin and squid ink dark hair. He’s got an otherworldly look that borders on sickly. Meaning, all I want to do is spoon-feed him broth while he recites John Keats in between sighs. However his frail baby form belies Dream’s godlike powers. This is the being responsible for every sex dream you’ve ever had. The hot ones, the weird ones, the ones that made you borderline disturbed. That implies that he has the power to come up with all sorts of sexy situations that you couldn’t have hitherto come up with on your own.
Of course, that begs an important question. Does Dream even have sex? Or is he some sort of asexual god? We learn in The Sandman that he was once in love with a woman named Nada (Deborah Oyelade). So there is a potential for passion! However he also damned her to hell. So maybe it’s not a good idea to lust after the Lord of Dreams. Maybe he is more of a look, don’t touch, heartthrob.
Then you have The Corinthian…

Okay, so I understand that The Corinthian has itty bitty chompers instead of eyes, and that his condition makes him obsessed with killing people for their eyes, and I shouldn’t be sexually attracted to such a character. I get all that. However, Boyd Holbrook throws his whole proverbial pussy into this performance. He tears into his line readings like a starving man at a barbecue. Nothing is left on the bone. And that, my friends, is sexy.
Furthermore, The Sandman makes it clear that The Corinthian enjoys sleeping with his prey. He flirts openly with marks and hooks up with guys within seconds of meeting them. His sexual exuberance suggests that if you hook up with The Corinthian, you’re guaranteed a good time. You might be dead afterwards, but there are worse ways to go. (And in this universe, Kirby Howell-Baptiste is there to ease you on into the afterlife. So that’s nice!)
So both Dream and The Corinthian are hot. I particularly like Dream’s leather look in The Sandman Episode 4, “A Hope in Hell” and the way The Corinthian wears a sharply cut suit. They’re both damn sexy characters. One is sexy because he’s so angry, so tortured, and so potentially violent. The other is sexy because he’s The Corinthian.
At the end of the day, it might not matter which Sandman character is hotter, but that they’re both there to be enjoyed.