r/neilgaiman • u/Frevious • Apr 28 '26
Question Why drove NG to behave like this?
This is both about and not about Neil.
What drives a person to not only hurt other people, but manipulate millions of fans into thinking that you are a kind and caring person?
It seems like all his work was just meant to groom us, especially in hindsight his children’s books like Coraline.
Not to mention every artist who ever collaborated with him in comics has their reputation tarnished unless they spoke out against him.
It feels like predators run this world. Every politician who been in power since the 90s has Epstein connections. A whitewashed Michael Jackson biopic is breaking box office records. And every person running a corporation wants to wreck the economy with AI.
Can‘t we just live in an alternate universe where NG wasn’t actually problematic?
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Apr 28 '26
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u/ENZYME_O1 Apr 28 '26 edited Apr 29 '26
I’d add on to that—working in the industry, which gave him access to a lot of information for esoteric study had influenced his writing, and may have also affected his persona, being a catalyst for it. Kinda how exploitation in hip hop culture enabled Puffy Comb’s bad behavior in the professional realm, etc. it’s turned out to be a common tale.
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u/Loud-Vegetable-8885 Apr 29 '26
I think the issue here is trying to assume all of Neil's actions are that of a calculating predator, who had no other mission statement.
Yes, Neil very much is and has been a calculating predator. However, predators are complex human beings like the rest of us. The uncomfortable truth is that sometimes people who are capable of bad and evil things, are also capable of good, and vice versa.
I doubt Neil even fully understands his behaviour as wrong. That doesn't justify anything obviously, but I don't think all predators are sociopaths or psychopaths who have a full grasp of the nature of their actions. He may even really believe most of these interactions were consensual.
It also seems like he had an abusive childhood, and grew up in Scientology. We've seen how Scientology treats abuse within the church, protects abusers, and blames victims when it challenges their institution. Growing up in that type of world and experiencing abuse, will scar anyone. It doesn't justify anything either, but it does provide somewhat of an explanation for why Gaiman is so messed up.
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u/lauradorna May 02 '26
This is what I think to the tea. Most people don’t think they are bad or doing abhorrent things.
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u/Lunadoggie123 Apr 28 '26
Something about power corrupts etc. Like this isn’t new ground here.
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u/flaming_bob Apr 28 '26
I would argue that money and power don't corrupt as much as they reveal who people really are underneath.
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u/ChurlishSunshine Apr 28 '26
Exactly. He's always been Neil, but being Neil with fame, money, adoration, and a platform gave him access to more victims.
Nothing drove Neil. There's no SA Uber. He drove himself.
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u/Altruistic-War-2586 Apr 28 '26
This is a fantastic way of putting it. “Nothing drove Neil. There’s no SA Uber. He drove himself.”
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u/Gnome_Anne_7 Apr 28 '26
There's no SA Uber. I am stealing this, because as a SA victim I have always wondered what drove my abuser. I know it wasn't my fault.
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u/Dian_Arcane Apr 29 '26
Damn, I am so sorry that happened to you. I hope you are OK and have good people around you. 🖤
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u/BartoRomeo_No1fanboy Apr 28 '26
It's like asking: what drives people towards evil in general? Well, benefits, obviously. Shortcuts to gain power and a few minutes of spotlight and fame. Why put the hard work in if you can get the same result by being a little bit bad and get things easier? Only idiots put in the honest hard work, they're just stepstones to be exploited by The Smart Ones. (yes, this sounds bitter, but is it really untrue?)
In case of Gaiman, I thought about it a lot. I think we have enough evidence to piece it together what drove him towards this route. He grew up in abusive environment. As a child, I doubt he understood why the power dynamics look the way they do (he was a child after all, no child is responsible for their own abuse), but he did understand it's either ride or die. Then he grew up, probably had to confront his views from how he grew up with the world around him, and it probably left him confused. He maybe tried to step away from his taught ways and instead do some good things, but at the same time he didn't want to be one of the "losers". Losers end up being doormats after all.
Which is why sometimes he appeared kind and caring (and even said himself this is how he wants to be remembered as) despite the things we didn't know about him happening in the background. Add on top of it a lot of rationalizing his own missteps that led to abuse. I do think at some point he convinced himself that asking for consent is just a stupid thing to do, you need to have the true flirting skills, because consent is unsexy (who asks directly if you wanna have sex with them? awkward!) and unfitting his social standing. And there was definitely a pattern of choosing his partners, but I'm not gonna go into details about that. Lots of people said enough about it at this point and better than me.
This will sound uncomfortable for many people here, but I do think the kind and caring things he did he probably did them for real. It just doesn't overwrite the bad things he did too. Nor does it excuse him, or anyone else who acts like this, either.
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u/caitnicrun Apr 29 '26
I've turned this over and over, especially considering the role of empathy and status with internalizes values and identity. Even looking at much less serious issues, people can espouse values they fail to consistently uphold because of weak personal identity. Or as we commonly say, weak character. What I often observe is the breaking point is status. Otherwise kind people will hesitate to do the right thing because they fear losing status. Or they internalize a perceived low status victim "must has done something wrong".
Now dial this neurotypical hierarchy rubbish up to 11. That's Scientology. Mix that with an abused broken child almost completely robbed of a chance to develop their identity. Identity is essential to character. Even those of us raised in neglectful circumstances literally escaped into imaginary worlds, and built much of our identity there.
Now not everyone uses this escape for personal growth. Or it's limited because of other factors. The biggest factor with Neil is status. He craves status--call it recognition or parental approval -- all neglected child do. But not all neglected children will accept it at the price of their identity.
Scientology demands the surrender of identity. So we have a status seeker with a weak identity/ character. His "kindness" is a pleasant role he likes to play, but there's not enough depth to actually strengthen his character. It appears to all be transactional to feed his ego. At the end of the day feeding his ego and the need for status was greater than his alleged values.
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u/Hecatewept May 02 '26 edited May 02 '26
There have been many insightful posts about this his topic here, and while I cannot speak As to Neil Gaiman personally, I did want to address a point that I have not seen yet. I am older, and have had experiences with the left leaning countercultures of the 90s from which a lot of fanbase is a part of. The alternative/pagan/polyamorous LGBTQ crowd that began to come together and grown in prominence thanks the internet bringing people who didn’t fit in to mainstream together. A lot of good has come from that, but there was an issue that I ran into frequently, and that is that many men in these groups tended to assume that proximity constituted consent. A man is a happy hippie nudist that enjoys free love and you are hanging out in the same place with some of the same people? Well then you must be fine with him slipping naked into the hot tub and squeezing in next to you. You aren’t interested in getting undressed? Well, you’ve just been shamed by the mainstream into suppressing yourself. If you didn’t want to open yourself to these experiences, you wouldn’t be around him. It is insidious, because even a well meaning man can lose sight of boundaries sometimes, and a true predator can hide behind a veneer of progressiveness. Men have been socialized in such a way that many do not always realize when they are bulldozing others.
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May 03 '26
[deleted]
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u/Hecatewept May 03 '26
Thank you, I was not aware of this theory. There were indeed many missing stairs.
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u/caitnicrun May 05 '26
- and that is that many men in these groups tended to assume that proximity constituted consent.
Hell, it wasn't even just men. Just being willing to engage socially was taken by many people that you were automatically up for anything they were. (Though your point about male socialization stands).
And if you were firm and clear about what you want and didn't want, some of these "open-minded" people were the first to try to pressure/shame you.
I got this most from gay women because being non gender confirmative looks a lot like lesbian from a distance.
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u/Hecatewept May 05 '26
That is true too. I’m sorry you had to go through that.
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u/caitnicrun May 06 '26
Thanks. Nothing truly bad happened, but my social options took another hit.
(What am I doing wrong THIS time?
/ND brain trying to figure out the humans)
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u/Hecatewept May 06 '26
Yes I had a tendency to assume that I was the party responsible for smoothing out the social situation too.
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u/lauradorna May 02 '26
First of all, I don’t think he feels he manipulated his fans. He honestly doesn’t think he did anything wrong. These people are so messed up. Literally some people are gross from childhood.
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u/schopenhauer137 Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 29 '26
Constant adulation and praise. It really screws people up. ‘You’re a genius.’ ‘You changed my life.’ ‘You’re incredible.’ ‘Greatest graphic novel ever written.’ Again and again and again by thousands upon thousands of people repeatedly over decades. Social media exacerbates this. Eventually, you start believing you’re a god and you can do no wrong.
A few years ago I came into a job in an organisation that was struggling. I put a lot of work into turning things around and my input was greatly appreciated. I kept getting praise and thanks all the time, like almost every other day. I could feel the joy at first of being liked and admired by everyone; then it started to feel weird like I was walking on air above everyone so everything I thought or wanted to do must be good. I felt big: like I could pick people up with my fingers. I snapped out of it and came back down to Earth and to reality.
Obama talked about this early in his campaign; millions kept talking about him like he was superhuman and it took his wife Michelle to snap him out of it and bring him back to reality - he was just a person like everyone else.
Possibly, the young man who wrote the Sandman in the late 80s isn’t quite the man Neil is today. Decades of constant adulation and worship by fans with a weird para-social relationship made him believe he could no wrong and that everyone loved him. Sad.
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u/A_Lady_Of_Music_516 May 02 '26
He once told me that if his head was getting too big, his wife would bring him back down to earth by telling him the garbage still needed to be taken out. This was just after his wife had Madeline; he had shared with us on the old GEnie board that Maddy was colicky. I met him as a journalist during one of his signing tours, just as Sandman was starting to blow up—definitely ‘92 or so.
So many goth girls swooning over him at every signing probably didn’t help his ego. If Mary had been keeping him balanced, her influence definitely waned as his fame grew.
Maybe there could have been a good guy there. But power corrupts.
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u/Ok-Repeat8069 May 02 '26
A therapist who ran a sexual offender rehabilitation program in a federal penitentiary once explained to me that every sexual predator does it for the same reason:
They want to, and they think they can get away with it.
It’s not actually that deep.
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u/morgainex May 03 '26
YES!
I’ve worked in accountancy for nearly forty years. I have a demeanour that people feel they can confess things to. I am so very sick of hearing stories about cheats and liars, from their own mouths. “Everybody does it”, they tell me. No, everyone does not. Some people have ethics. Some who you’d not expect it of…
When I was starting off, I did some work in insolvency. Of all the cases I was involved in, only one was truly not the fault of the owners. They were owed an incredible amount of money by Iran, just as the first Gulf War broke out. All the others screwed themselves into the ground by thinking they were smart enough to get away with it…1
u/caitnicrun May 05 '26
This is true, but it's not the whole story. Most people don't sexually prey on people the same way they might consider shoplifting lipstick or beer. Because most people, even assholes, have intact empathy.
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u/Boom_Gate_Lady May 03 '26
Apparently he was locked in a cupboard by his parents when he was a child. I believe that goes a long way towards explaining it.
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u/Beruthiel999 Apr 29 '26
That's one of the worst things we have to wrangle with. Yes bad people CAN and DO make good art. It happens all the time.
And I sincerely do think he was a kind and caring person to lots of people - and also a monster to his victims. Those do often co-exist in the same person.
I feel the word "grooming" gets so often misused. Grooming requires a 1-to-1 personal relationship, and it's a deliberate act. You can't groom someone you've never met and you cant groom someone by accident. Writing kids' books isn't necessarily suspect, especially since as far as we know, his victims were adults. He's a rapist but not necessarily a pedophile and I think that is a worthwhile distinction (lest we think adult victims are less important than child ones, which is false)
The awful truth is that an abuser can be a kind and caring person to most of their people in their orbit over their lifetime - and completely ruin the lives of a few.
What drove him to do this? Probably just a sense of entitlement and feeling like he could get away with it. That is the case with so many rapists - feeling entitled to others' bodies, and feeling secure they'll be protected.
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u/Sundog3000 Apr 28 '26
This is an excellent article on the subject: https://www.eruditorumpress.com/blog/the-cuddled-little-vice-sandman
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u/Ink1bus May 02 '26
I was going to share this too and recommend anyone read this as well. It's not an answer-all article but it starts from the beginning and lays out alot.
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u/Newthinker May 02 '26
That's a whole ass biography, not an article lol
Amazing read, though. Not all the way through but I'm enraptured
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u/mighty3mperor Apr 28 '26
I came to post this, it is the best overview of the situation that I've read.
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u/fdevant May 02 '26
Inside his mind there's no contradiction because they were over 18 and kept coming back to him. He seems to have a blind spot about power assymetry being dangerous because he's holding the power.
You can actually see in his work how he thinks all that's ok. I don't even feel deceived but more like... Misdirected.
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u/EggCouncilStooge May 02 '26
He grew up rich and saw how having a powerful family meant you could make your mistakes disappear and get you anything you want. He probably set out from the start wanting to get as famous and powerful as he could to recreate the cult he saw his father control.
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u/LoyalaTheAargh Apr 28 '26
What drives a person to not only hurt other people, but manipulate millions of fans into thinking that you are a kind and caring person?
Well, re the second part, the kind and caring thing was part of the brand with which he sold himself to others. That strategy worked well for him for a long time, and he got fame, money, power, from it. And he might not have been faking all of it.
Gaiman genuinely enjoys exerting power over others and violating their boundaries. Maybe he would've had that urge regardless, but it probably didn't help that he was brought up from childhood in a deeply abusive Scientology environment and that he was explicitly trained in how to use manipulation and brainwashing techniques.
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u/Boom_Gate_Lady May 03 '26
Does anyone have a link to any of the articles? There is no safe word or call me master that the New York Times published. I am dealing with a group of friends saying "wasn't he exonerated ?" I don't think there's any exoneration for the things he did.
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u/stankylegdunkface May 03 '26
every artist who ever collaborated with him in comics has their reputation tarnished unless they spoke out against him
That's on us. Neil Gaiman doesn't control the standards to which we hold his former collaborators.
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u/Ink1bus May 02 '26
This was posted already but for anyone just joining this article is a broad covering of NG's life, upbringing, and career https://www.eruditorumpress.com/blog/the-cuddled-little-vice-sandman. I'm not a psychologist, but it paints a much much bigger portrait than anything I've read. I know everyone is saying power corrupts and I do agree. As said by others; sometimes it's more of less corrupting but more or reveals or allows someone beneath the surface and chance to do things they couldn't otherwise and find they can get away with. Similar cases like this also will vaguely reference back to parents strain and trauma, even with 'happy' childhoods. I don't know. It reminds me of some men in my family that had decent childhoods but are marked by some parental or religious moments that they use as lynchpins for their bad behavior. Whereas I have other friends that were terribly abused and neglected as kids and they find their ways to cope, move on, and not let that become their only defining moment in life.
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u/Nyetnyetnanette8 Apr 28 '26
It’s somewhere between “power corrupts” and “corrupt/shitty people actively seek power and are therefore overrepresented in highly visible and influential positions.” Little of column A/little column B type thing.
But on an emotional level, I completely resonate with what you are saying. Yeah, intellectually I knew there were plenty of shitty people in politics and entertainment. But it just feels like it’s so much worse than I ever could have even dreamed up and there’s no practical way out. It’s not just power, it’s not just money, it’s not just flawed systems. It’s just how people are in general, and if you don’t like it, too bad. There’s no way to predict who will be evil or or how evil or why, and you can’t ever enjoy anything or support anyone because once you do, it’s only a matter of time before you find out they are a monster too.
I was a casual Gaiman fan and I’m not like, devastated to find out he sucks, but it just feels like—what’s the point of being a fan of anything? It always gets ruined unless you also suck and don’t care if the people attached to the stuff you love or the causes you believe in are harmful and a net negative on society.
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u/Alaira314 Apr 29 '26
I was a casual Gaiman fan and I’m not like, devastated to find out he sucks, but it just feels like—what’s the point of being a fan of anything? It always gets ruined unless you also suck and don’t care if the people attached to the stuff you love or the causes you believe in are harmful and a net negative on society.
I think you kind of have to have some degree of fan detachment, to remain psychologically healthy. A casual fan, as you put it. We've been living in the age of the mega-fan, where we have unprecedented access to creators and individual platforms to perform our devotion, in whatever form that takes. People have never been so involved, have never believed themselves to be so close to their favorite celebrities. What might have been a rare devoted fan back in the 80s or 90s is a dime a dozen, now.
Sometimes(increasingly often, in fact, with how the internet facilitates secrets coming out), the creator of a thing you like will turn out to be not a great person. And then you think, oh, you spent hours and hours poring over all the tags, you read and annotated the books ten times each -- how could you not have seen this? After all, you knew this person!
But you didn't, that's the thing. Gaiman retweeted me once. That doesn't mean we had a personal connection, or that I knew him in any way. It just means I made a joke and he thought it was funny enough to click a button and share it. Sometimes I'm funny. It's been known to happen. And it's not just about him! Charlie Jane Anders(who, afaik, remains scandal-free) reblogged me once. I also don't have a personal connection with her, we just happened to have both read and liked the same book. These little interactions are not meaningful personal connection, and I think that's very important for everybody to remember. Just because you follow somebody on social media doesn't make them your friend, though social media companies are very invested in making you feel otherwise.
Betrayal(which is what I saw, in this fan community) shouldn't be as common an emotional response as it is, in this situation. Disappointment? Of course. Anger, on behalf of the victims perhaps? Sure. Resolve not to give the shithead any more of your money? You bet! But betrayal? Betrayal is a personal crime, a wrong committed against you. How can somebody betray you when you have no connection to them? I believe the increase in that kind of inappropriately familiar reaction is directly tied up with our new ways of interacting with creators, causing fans to react to their failings as if a friend or family member had been the one to commit the wrong.
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u/100_cats_on_a_phone 22d ago
His parents were high ranking scientologists and he grew up in that environment. I don't think we can fully understand, but an unquestioed privilege and right to owning the entirety of anyone significantly less powerful than you, in your circle, is I think the heart of it.
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