Despair is the twin sister of Desire. She is squat, flabby and pale-skinned, with black hair. She does not wear clothes. On a finger of her left hand she wears a ring with a hook attached to it, with which she habitually carves her flesh. The hook is her sigil in the galleries of the other characters. Her realm is a grey space in which floats a white fog and countless mirrors, which match mirrors in the human world, through which she looks on those who are in despair.
Despair sometimes acts together with Desire when it is plotting against the elder Endless, most notably when Despair takes on a challenge with Morpheus over the life of Joshua Abraham Norton, seemingly at Desire's bidding. She is less distanced from the family than Desire, though, and seems to have some feeling at least for Delirium, and also seems to miss Destruction. She does not say much, and consequently appears brusque, but her speech at Morpheus' wake in The Wake reveals her sympathy and feeling for him.