How many deities & Gods are there in Netflix’s Dead Boy Detectives? Explained

As an urban fantasy centered around the supernatural, it's no surprise that Netflix's Dead Boy Detectives would have a pantheon of deities showing up over its eight-episode runtime. The show is set in The Sandman Universe, which has an established set of gods and goddesses. Two of these gods and goddesses appear in the new Netflix show.

However, they are not the only ones introduced, as the series has a host of new deities. These figures expand the story's lore and adds depth to the worldbuilding while also letting the story of Charles and Edwin be filled with intrigue and nuance.

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Deities that appear in Dead Boy Detectives

Despair

Despair is one of the two Endless who make an appearance in Dead Boy Detectives.

Like the other Endless, Despair is the personification of a human emotion/ part of life - in this case, despair. Despair appears in episode 7 of the first season and is introduced as the twin sister of Desire. Contrary to her bickering self in the original The Sandman, Despair here is shown to gaze omnisciently through mirrors.

Here too, Despair is shown to be cold and like her name suggests, an entity that thrives on anguish and masochism. Her realm is filled with despair and anguish, manifesting in the form of fog and white light.

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Death

Like Despair, Death is a member of The Endless pantheon and has a more prominent role in the series than the former.

Death's depiction in Dead Boy Detectives is strangely benevolent and contrary to how the idea of death if represented as a cold-hearted grim reaper. She appears once to showcase her compassionate side, when she helps a soldier who is dying.

However, the rest of the series features her overarching presence, which is hardly surprising, as the series revolves around facets of the afterlife where its protagonists are teenage ghosts.

Death's realm is a prominent locale where, even though Death is not explicitly shown, but her presence is felt through the figure of The Night Nurse.

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Thomas

Thomas sounds like a strange name for a deity, but he is one that appears in the season of Dead Boy Detectives for a major part of the story.

He's a supernatural being who can cast spells and teleport in and out of the scene suddenly. As such, his powers and his worship by his subjects (the cats) place him in the realm of deities.

Thomas plays an antagonistic role in the story, and this Cat King and his followers are seen to impede the protagonists. One significant scene is when he curses Edwin.

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Sedna

Another deity of the animals is Sedna, but unlike Thomas, Sedna is revered as a much less antagonistic figure.

She also draws inspiration from a real-world mythical story, that of the creation myth of the Inuit peoples, where she was thrown into the freezing ocean and was transformed into a goddess of the animals.

In other words, Sedna is a goddess of nature and the marine creatures who worship her. Her presence has environmental themes that are subtly hinted at in Dead Boy Detectives, where her love for walruses and contempt for humans is voiced throughout.

Her main action in the show is to turn Tragic Mick into a human being, albeit after warning him of the consequences of his actions.

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Lilith

Lilith in Biblical myth is a demoness and is often portrayed as a seductive force who is the mistress of Adam.

However, rather than portray her entirely in a negative light, Dead Boy Detectives transforms her into a force to reckon with, a goddess of wronged women because she herself was one when cast out of Eden because of her demand for equal rights.

Lilith's role in the story is to answer Crystal's call for help, when the latter asks her to assist the protagonists against Esther. Esther was a person who had killed many little girls, and seeing her subjects wronged, Lilith wreaks vengeance on Esther and removes her eternal youth.