Did you ever notice how in the Bible, whenever God needed to punish someone, or needed a killing, he sent an angel? Did you ever wonder what a creature like that must be like? A whole existence spent praising your God, but always with one wing dipped in blood. Would you ever really want to see an angel? - Thomas Daggett, The Prophecy
Angels have been a part of fiction for as long as humans have been telling stories, though they’ve taken many different forms, been given different kinds of motivations and personalities, even loyalties. Maybe you remember in the 2010s, angels were a popular staple of the paranormal romance genre, with series like Fallen and Angelfall lighting up the bestseller lists.
That was (not coincidentally) around the time the tv show Supernatural was having its high point, featuring angels starting with Castiel in season 4, played by the handsome Mischa Collins.
From cherubs to Guardian Angels to being “Touched by an Angel” to the downright romantic leading man as avenging angel… popular culture has muted what angels actually are in Abrahamic faiths, as well as the purpose they serve in fables and stories.
They were never our friends. Never once. They serve God and we are most beloved of God. But that doesn’t mean the angels love us. As a matter of fact, they might be baffled as to why the Almighty would love such flawed creatures at all.
My very favorite fictional depiction of angelic-human relations shows how complicated that relationship can get.
An Archangel who hates humanity
The Prophecy (1995) makes sure we understand that angels are terrible, in the traditional definition—something capable of inspiring intense fear or solemn reverence, like a “terrible” army or God’s “terrible” name.
The movie begins with a young man, Thomas, about to be ordained as a priest. The ordination is interrupted, however, by a horrible vision of a war in heaven, eyeless angels being skewered on pikes, brother against brother in a fight over man. As you can imagine, that trauma, visited upon him as he was prostrate beneath a crucifix, drove him away from his vocation. Instead, he became a police detective.
But prophets aren’t so easily let out of their obligations, and Thomas is drawn into the angelic war anyway. Meaning he has to go up against no less a foe than the archangel Gabriel, played to menacing perfection by Christopher Walken.
Gabriel: I’m an angel. I kill firstborns while their mamas watch. I turn cities into salt. I even, when I feel like it, rip the souls from little girls, and from now till kingdom come, the only thing you can count on in your existence is never understanding why.
The strangeness of angels, our inability to truly know them, is one thing I like so much about The Prophecy. Even Simon, who is an angel working in defense of man (played by Eric Stoltz) isn’t exactly a comforting, protective presence.
They perch in chairs and on ledges like birds. Perfectly balanced. Inhuman. They know our names, all of them. But they can’t see the future or hear our thoughts. Having come to earth, they’re mortal and can be killed by ripping their hearts out. And they have no eyes, though they create an illusion that they do to blend in.
They can’t really blend in for long, though. They’re just too strange, even the ones who don’t want to genocide us.
Gabriel openly despises humans and wants to return to when “He loved us best,” and can barely conceal his hatred of “the talking monkeys.”
Simon fights for man, but in the way he behaves, it doesn’t seem to be out of love. Not for us, anyway. It’s his love for God and obedience to Him that drives Simon. This is why when Gabriel kills Simon, we’re not exactly sad. We’re worried for the human child he’s been protecting, but Simon is not someone we’ve grown to care about. Because he doesn’t much care about us. He’s just the enemy of our enemy…
The Call of the Nephilym
Thanks to strong home video sales, The Prophecy was blessed with a sequel, The Prophecy II, which continued the existing lore, but added a chosen one/ savior/ magic baby into the mix. I can’t exactly call it paranormal romance, though it does skate right up to the brink.
Prophecy II centers on Valerie (played by Jennifer Beals). Unlike Thomas, our priest turned cop from the first movie, she’s not a prophet. She’s not even particularly religious. She’s just a nice divorced lady who was raised Catholic, works as a nurse, and lives with her grandmother. That is, until a “man” jumps in front of her car. Grief-stricken, she takes him to the hospital, only to find he’s not even injured. Weird. He’s cute though.
Because we’ve seen the first movie, we know Danyeal is an angel. But he’s different than Simon was. He’s odd, but not off-putting. Valerie doesn’t know he’s not human. Not even when they sleep together.
It’s only a few days later when she feels sick and discovers she’s pregnant that she realizes something might be up. You see, she’s very pregnant. In her second trimester. But she’s only been with Danyeel in over two years.
But poor Valerie has bigger problems. Gabriel is back from Hell and he wants to kill her baby. Her Nephilim child will be the one to end the war in Heaven, in favor of man. Gabriel can’t allow that.
And of course Danyeal protects Valerie. And unlike Simon in the first movie, he is indeed motivated by love. Not just for Valerie, but for humans as a whole. Near the end, he admits, “I would rather be one of them.”
The angels of The Prophecy series are far from a monolith. They’re not a collective or hive mind, nor the same personality in different bodies. They’re unique, with their own motivations and ideas. And flaws.
Danyeal was disobedient. He put his own wants above God’s, and died for it.
Gabriel was prideful, just like Lucifer (who ironically he despised and hated being compared to). For his sin, he was turned human at the end of the movie, the worst punishment he could imagine.
“I sang the first hymn when the stars were born. I proclaimed to Mary who was to be born. I’ve turned rivers into blood. Cities into salt. I don’t think I have to explain myself to you,” he said to a human girl. Now, a human himself, one wonders how he’ll manage.
Valerie, as human as they come, survived only because she obeyed God. He allowed her to hear Him, and she obeyed. Something neither of the angels in her company were willing to do.
There is much debate over whether angels have free will, and I think they must. There could be no Lucifer if they didn’t. Do they have souls? Are they creatures of pure soul? I don’t know, and I don’t think anyone does. Or can.
But one thing I do know is that, whatever they are, one thing they are not is like us. And I appreciate it when movies take that into account.
ICYMI
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I watched the first Prophecy not too long ago, coincidentally - Walken delivered a perfect performance that definitely portrayed how angels can indeed be very strange
I found the way those movies handled suicide particularly disturbing.