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Hob Gadling is a fictional character from the Sandman comic book by Neil Gaiman .
Gadling first appears in issue 13, vol 2, as a soldier of the Hundred Years War, arguing with friends in an inn somewhere inside the modern borders of London. He is arguing that, if he refuses to die, he will have eternal life; dying is merely a habit of mind, something people do because everybody does it. This catches the ear of Dream and Death, passing by for unspecified reasons. Death agrees, at her brother's request, to grant Gadling eternal life, on the grounds that 'it might be amusing'. Her purpose in this is apparently to give Dream a friend, for in the ensuing conversation, Gadling agrees to meet Dream in the same inn once every hundred years.
The remainder of the issue recounts the five meetings of Dream and Gadling. Gadling is knighted, marries several times, enters the slave trade to become rich for the second time, and exits it when Dream shows him the immorality of it. The first and last meetings each have a scene where snippets of conversation around the inn can be seen; though the scenes are in 1389 and 1989 respectively, the conversations are very similar. For example, "No, of course the plague isn't God's punishment" matches "Don't be a pillock, Darren, of course AIDS isn't a punishment from God." This statement of 'the more things change, the more they stay the same' is echoed in the penultimate issue in Daniel's Latin phrase: "Omnia mutantur, nihil interit" (everything changes, yet nothing is truly lost).
Gadling violates a major cliché of fantastical stories: physical immortality almost invariably turns out to be a curse in disguise, with the recipient eventually longing for death. To Gadling, however, it is a blessing - perhaps only Death has the power to bestow immortality without unpleasant strings attached.
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