Masaryk University
Faculty of Arts
Department of English
and American Studies
English Language and Literature
Bc. et Bc. Tereza Walsbergerová
Not That Kind of Angel A Merger of Archetypes in Recent American Popular Narratives
Master’s Diploma Thesis
Supervisor: Jeffrey Alan Smith, M.A., Ph.D.
2016
I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.
…………………………………………….. Bc. et Bc. Tereza Walsbergerová
2
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Jeffrey A. Smith, M.A., Ph.D. for his helpful suggestions and boundless patience, to Jeffrey A. Vanderziel, B.A. for teaching me about the meaning of myths and introducing me to the trickster archetype, to my friends from the Department of English and American Studies for sending me links to all the angelic depictions that I missed and encouraging me in my darkest hours, to my non- academic friends for pretending to listen when I talked to them about archetypal merging, and finally, to my parents who supported me during my studies and gave me space when I needed to be left alone with my books and laptop.
3 Table of Contents:
1. Introduction…………………………………………………………………….5
2. Theoretical and Cultural Preliminaries
2.1. Angelic Fascination……………………………………………………...7
2.2. American Angels Before the 1990s…………………………………….11
2.3. Angel Stereotypes and Their Origins………………………………...... 15
2.4. The Archetypal Merger……………………………………………..….17
3. Discovering the Merger: Recent Depictions of American Angels
3.1. The Rebellious Messengers………………………………………….....21
3.2. The Disruptive Guardians………………………………………..……..29
3.3. The Fallen Heroes………………………………………………..……..41
3.4. The Cunning Riddlers……………………………………………….….52
3.5. The Human Mirrors…………………………………………....……….63
3.6. The “Other” Angels………………………………………………....….72
4. Conclusion…………………………………………………………….……….84
5. List of Figures……………………………………………………………..…..88
6. Bibliography………………………………………………………..………...103
7. Summary………………………………………………………………....…..108
8. Resumé………………………………………………………………...……..109
4 1. Introduction
Given the emphasis on faith and spirituality connected to the very origins of
America as a nation, it comes as no surprise that American entertainment industries seem to love exploring religious motives and particularly topics related to Christian faith. Filmmakers and TV networks have produced a myriad of narratives featuring the topic of religious faith (e.g. Seventh Heaven), adaptations of individual excerpts from the Bible (e.g. The Prince of Egypt), or isolated depictions of biblical characters (e.g.
The Passion of the Christ).
Additionally, there is one particular group of biblical characters which appears in American narratives so frequently that is is possible to consider it a phenomenon – the angels. From Henry Travers’ Clarence, through John Travolta’s Michael, to Misha
Collins’ Castiel, angels have appeared in American popular narratives – and more specifically on American screens – consistently since the Silent Era. Furthermore, the fact that there are, at the moment, at least four angelic TV series on the American air suggests that the fascination with angels, and particularly with angels as certain character type, has not dwindled by any means.
In general, the biggest number of angelic characters have appeared in American narratives since the 1990s and it can be said that these depictions differ a lot from the earlier ones. While the early narratives portray the angels in a more simplistic and stereotypical manner – fluffy wings, white robes, innocent, inherently good, obedient, and selfless – these new angels are often distracted, selfish, unreliable, vicious, hypersexual, and morally ambiguous.
In other words, it is possible to detect a certain development within the archetype, which has transformed the angels into more complicated and relatable characters. This thesis focuses on this development by analysing the more recent
5 depictions as they appear in common angelic tropes, and identifying the specific features which disrupt the stereotypical understanding of angels as it can be seen in the early portrayals.
Moreover, this thesis argues that the features which have in some way disrupted this stereotype and thus stimulated the development of the angel archetype may have derived from another archetype – namely, the “trickster” – as it shares many common characteristics with the recent depictions of angels. Therefore, this thesis proposes that the current depictions of angels in American popular narratives are in fact “mergers” of two archetypes – the angel and the trickster.
6 2. Theoretical and Cultural Preliminaries
2.1. Angelic Fascination
In The Angels And Us, Mortimer J. Adler muses that “there seems to be no end to the fascination about angels or to the unexpected corners and corridors of art and letters in which we may encounter them” (Adler 16). Indeed, a case could be made that this fascination has been keeping angelic characters “well and alive” in American popular arts, such as film, television, or radio, to this day, especially seeing as there are at at least four series, featuring angelic characters on air at the moment.
Admittedly, it is perhaps not such a surprise, as most things related to
Christianity seem to be thriving in American popular culture. Many American films and
TV series like to focus on questions of faith, even bringing in actual characters from the
Bible – such as Jesus or God, to illustrate their points. In this manner, angels are perhaps the most frequently used biblical characters. Furthermore, it is becoming clear that this angelic fascination which Adler highlights in his book continues prompting
American creators, writers, and producers to keep exploring the potential of angels, which is why new films, TV series, and even radio series, keep appearing every year.
In general, we can talk about several sources of angelic fascination in America.
The most logical source of angelic fascination is, of course, religious faith and spirituality overall. On the whole, the belief in angels can be traced in at least three of the largest world religions – Christianity, Islam, and Judaism – all of which may have had a chance to influence the development of angel mythology and folklore in America.
According to Scott Draper and Joseph O. Baker’s article “Angelic Belief as American
Folk Religion”, angelic belief in America is indeed very common across-the-board:
“The notion that angels exist and are readily available to intervene in the material world is promoted by advocates and adherents from a broad range of religious traditions in the
7 United States, ranging from Catholicism and Protestantism to the ‘New Age’.” (Draper and Baker 624) In addition, as Draper and Baker note that nearly the same percentage of
Americans who believe in God also believe in angels (630), it can be said that the belief in angels is therefore in most cases just a natural part of faith. In other words, the belief that angels are real and are capable of intervening in people’s lives can be considered an automatic extension of most American Christians’ belief in God.
While the connection to religion and faith is clearly the key source of angelic fascination in America, it is not by far the only source, nor is it the most popular one. In fact, there are many cases where Christian faith does not even have to be there in order to generate interest in angels. Adler, for instance, takes a more philosophical approach to the question of angelic fascination. He claims that angels are “the most fascinating of all objects of fantasy and thought, because, unlike all other forms of superhuman intelligence that fall short of the infinite power of the divine intellect, angels–and angels alone–are minds without bodies” (Adler 4). In other words, another source of angelic fascination is the idea that there are creatures whose intelligence is equal to human intelligence yet they do not need a physical body to contain it like humans do.
Therefore, it can be said that angelic fascination may also be connected to human desire for disembodiment and immortality, which is a concept that has fascinated people from the time of Plato to the time of cyborgs. Moreover, Adler mentions that “our fascination with intelligence apart from our own is intensified when minds conjectured or imagined are thought to be superior” (3), which emphasises the importance of the fact that humans are actually supposed to be inferior to angels, which can be both thrilling and frightening to some people.
Furthermore, since the handful of descriptions of angels in the Scriptures are not nearly enough to establish their universal image, and the few that exist predominantly
8 depict the angels as spiritual (or celestial) beings, it is perhaps natural that people have been attempting to connect the image to something that they could understand or at least something they could imagine and depict with the help of arts and literature. In America in particular, many parallels have been drawn between angels and extraterrestrial beings. Adler, for instance, claims that “throughout the series of theological treatises, some attempt [has been] made to relate the hypothesis of superior intelligences inhabiting other parts of the physical universe with the Biblical doctrine of God’s heavenly host of holy angels” (Adler 9). This parallel is, for the most part, based on the concept of the human need for entities that exist in order to fill the gap between themselves and God.
In addition, Adler also points out another parallel between angels and extraterrestrial beings in “the probability of biophysical and biochemical conditions favorable to extraterrestrial life that underlies guesses about the presence of intelligent life elsewhere in the cosmos” (10). In other words, angels, just like aliens, are capable of surviving on other planets of our galaxy, as they are equipped to cross between spheres, such as heaven and earth and life and death. According to Draper and Baker, “a significant and substantive association between these views and angelic beliefs would indicate cross-over appeal of angels beyond formal religion” (632), which, again, highlights the redundancy of the religious influence when it comes to angelic fascination.
In a similar manner, it also possible to talk about a link between the angels and the supernatural world. In such a world, angels would be considered “creatures” rather than “beings”, in many ways similar to vampires or werewolves. As a matter of fact, in
America there is a long tradition of celebrating the supernatural in connection with
American folklore. In her book The Supernatural in Short Fiction of the Americas,
9 Dana Del George connects the American inclination towards supernatural narratives to the desire of America as a newly formed nation for its own mythology: “A short past does not hinder a young nation's connection to a timeless other world. American authors have at their disposal, if not a long historical record, at least a considerable inheritance of intricate supernatural beliefs.” (George 2)
Taking this into consideration and given the strong religious foundations of
America, putting angels into the supernatural category seems logical and fitting. In the
TV series Supernatural (2005–present) for instance, the angels are considered a
“species”, just like humans, demons, or witches are a species, which, again, means they are understood as “creatures” or even “monsters” rather than unfathomable spiritual entities or beings that cannot be perceived or imagined.
Ultimately, it can be said that the most crucial common aspect of the last two sources of angelic fascination is their disconnect from formal religion. The fact that it is possible to take it completely out of the equation then suggests that religious faith does not, therefore, have to be a prerequisite for angelic fascination. On top of this, placing angels into new contexts – no matter whether we see them as aliens from space or supernatural creatures – has guaranteed that the mythology has stayed alive in the
American subconscious and popular culture even today.
10 2.2. American Angels Before the 1990s
As angelic fascination in America is unparalleled in any other country of the world, it is no surprise that angels have been frequently appearing throughout its cultural history. Abraham Lincoln, for instance, used the power of the angelic myth in his first inaugural address delivered on March 4, 1961 in connection with his appeal to people’s sense of morality regarding the Civil War:
The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and
patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad
land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as
surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. (Lincoln 35)
Furthermore, another use of the angelic myth can be found for example in the area of sport in the name and the symbol of popular baseball team “The Los Angeles Angels of
Anaheim” (also known as simply “Angels”) where the A is stylised with a little halo around the top.
While in both of these instances, the angelic myth serves more as a symbol, it is in American popular narratives – film, TV, and the radio – where angels can become actual characters with their own specific appearances and voices. Time-wise, although the biggest influx of angelic characters can be detected in the 1990s and onwards, they have been appearing since as early as the Silent Era, albeit these early examples may seem rather underdeveloped and stereotypical when compared to the more recent depictions.
One of the earliest such instances is the 1923 silent film The Kid. After falling asleep and entering “the dreamland”, the Little Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) finds himself in a strange place where everyone has turned to angels. What is important to note about
11 this particular depiction is that these angels are portrayed in quite a simplistic manner – fluffy wings, long white shirts, wide smiles, no personality – all of which can be considered rather stereotypical.
Gabriel Over the White House (1933) offers an angelic character that does not even get to be really seen in the film. After a newly elected US president Judson
Hammond (Walter Huston) suffers a near-fatal car accident, he falls into a coma and it is implied that he has become “possessed” by an angel. When the president wakes up, he starts tackling one national issue after another, showing no signs of fear or the previously emphasised apathy and passivity. Again, although this angelic depiction seems more elaborate than Charlie Chaplin’s fluffy-winged angels, it is still somewhat simplistic, as the angel in question is merely reduced to some kind of a force and the whole focus is on Judson, the human.
Similarly, in Frank Capra’s Christmas fantasy-drama It’s a Wonderful Life
(1946), the angel Clarence (Henry Travers) is sent to Earth to save George Bailey from committing a suicide by showing him how miserable everyone in his town would be if he was never born. Again, as the plot of the film focuses on George rather than
Clarence, the depiction of the angel is reduced to a simplistic image, emphasises by the fact that he often becomes the centre of multiple funny scenes, such as when Clarence is putting on his lacy night-shirt, claiming that he “passed away in [it]” (1:40:00).
In The Bishop’s Wife (1947) the angel Dudley (Cary Grant) is originally sent to earth to help a human, Henry Brougham, build a cathedral in his town. As time goes by, however, Dudley falls in love with Henry’s wife, which results in several dramatic moments. Again, while it can be said that Dudley is one of the first instances of angels on American screen who are given their own plot, the film still focuses on the humans
12 in the end, pushing the angel aside and reducing it into a simplified character who does not have the right to fall in love or desire things because of what he is.
The animated adaptation of a classic Christmas tale for children The Littlest
Angel (1950) tells the story of a cute little cherub who, from the first moment he enters the heavenly realm, causes trouble everywhere he goes: during the heavenly choir practice he sings out of key, he is always late to the prayers, and he is always dirty. In general, it can be said that this story emphasises the connection between angels and children by portraying the angel itself as a child – naive, innocent, and simple-minded – which again highlights this depiction as rather stereotypical and simplistic.
The 1969 live-action musical version of this story only enforces this image, even though at least in this adaptation the young angel is given a name – Michael. In fact, all of the angels portrayed in this film can be considered the epitomes of stereotypical understanding of angels. They are clad in long white robes, they have fluffy wings, and they are all quite annoyed by the new angel as he seems to be disrupting the piece of heaven, which also suggests that they are rather simplistic in nature.
Correspondingly, in the 1978 film Heaven Can Wait, Los Angeles Rams quarterback Joe Pendleton (Warren Beatty) nearly dies in an accident and his soul is taken out of his body by an enthusiastic angel (Buck Henry) who does not realise that
Joe is not yet entirely dead. Before this mistake can be rectified, Joe’s body has already been cremated and so he is put into the body of a millionaire industrialist instead. While the fact, that angels can make mistakes visibly clashes with the traditional idea of angels as incapable of failure, it can still be said that this depiction of an angel is still rather simplistic and unimportant in comparison with the human characters, as it is Joe
Pendleton who is the main focus of the film, reducing the angel into a mere plot tool.
13 In the 1980s, angels start appearing in American popular narratives in earnest.
Additionally, despite the fact that most of them are still presented as simplified, they also start to become more involved in the plots, which already shows a certain development in the understanding of angels in America. A significant film featuring the first clearly female angel, Date with an Angel (1987), introduces an angel named Angel
(Emmanuelle Béart), who is sent to earth to accompany a man called Jim Sanders to heaven, as he is suffering from a brain tumour. Angel ends up falling in love with Jim, which leads to her defying God’s authority and abusing her angelic powers in order to save his life and stay on earth with him. While appearance-wise Angel is, again, the epitome of the stereotypical understanding of angels – she is beautiful, dressed in white, and has fluffy wings – these actions can also be understood as one of the first instances of a depictions of an angel going directly against God.
Perhaps the best example of the start of development of angelic image in
America is then the TV series Highway to Heaven (1984–1989), which can be considered one of the most popular and most often referenced American angelic narratives even to this day. It tells a story of an angel called Jonathan Smith (Michael
Landon), who gets stuck on earth as a punishment for something he did in heaven. He teams up with a human man called Mark Gordon and together they travel across
America, helping people in need. As Jonathan is one of the first examples of angelic main heroes in America, this already suggests that his character is more developed and thus farther away from the stereotypical image of the angel that can be found in the earlier depictions.
14 2.3. Angel Stereotypes and Their Origins
Based on these examples, it can be said that the earlier depictions of American angels are predominantly portrayed as simplistic and naive, which is only emphasised by the fact that they are almost exclusively used as supporting characters, “side-kicks”, or mere tools whose function is to help the “more important” human heroes with their struggles. Furthermore, since all of the depictions of angels in the Scriptures are rather vague, generalised, and scarce, they cannot be considered the prime source of this conception. Where does this stereotypical understanding of angels come from, then?
In her article “Stereotypes and Real People”, Margaret M. Heaton defines stereotypes as “unrealistic stock characters” (327). They are the simplified images of things or people acquired in childhood that have developed in everybody’s minds through the influence of family, early education, and other social environments. By this formula, the stereotypical image of an angel can be understood as it is, for example, described by Adele Nozedar – “winged, haloed, floaty-gowned, androgynous, beautiful figures that appear somewhere up in the clouds maybe pointing towards earth, perhaps plucking a harp or blowing the trumpet to suggest the glory of God” (Nozedar, ch. 2).
Nozedar suggests that this image may have in part come from centuries of depicting angels this way in art, particularly in the paintings by the early Italian
Renaissance artist, Fra Angelico, who portrayed them exclusively as beautiful people with wings and halos, dressed in beautiful gowns. (See Fig. 1) This stereotypical conception of angels is mirrored in the modern world as well. For instance, most of the images of angels that can be found on websites such as Flickr or Getty Images depict them as children or beautiful women (or even a combination of the two) dressed in white.
15 As Cowley, Denton, and Flores emphasise in their discussion of the use of angelic mythology in Supernatural, the trend in American popular narratives has – especially recently – been to subvert this stereotypical idea. In other words, the contemporary writers have made sure that their angelic characters are three- dimensional, emotionally complicated, and prone to making mistakes. “Those angels are much like Greek and Roman God stories. They’re petty, they’re playful, they serve
God, but they’re not friendly – ‘hey, we’re floating on a cloud, we’re here to help you’.”
(“Lazarus Rising: Angel Mythology.” 34:35)
Correspondingly, Heaton talks about use of stereotypical images in popular narratives, emphasising the fact that such “characterizations and situations [are] unreal and lacking in the qualities which are sought in real literature” (Heaton 327). To put it differently, those who perceive or depict angels in accordance with their stereotypical image are lacking certain significant features or aspects, which are being used in the more recent American popular narratives. This thesis argues that these features in fact disrupt the stereotypical conceptions in order to offer the American audience more complete and sophisticated understanding of angels in general.
16 2.4. The Archetypal Merger
Since stereotypes are nothing but archetypes reduced to cultural cliches, distinguishing the angel as an archetype from its stereotypical form is essential here.
Archetypes are a type of characters whose basic characteristics tend to be reproduced throughout all forms of narrative. Pertaining to this, the angel archetype stripped down to its basic characteristics can be roughly defined as a nonhuman being of heavenly origin which acts as a connection between humans and God.
Additionally, perceiving the angel as an archetype means that it can be analysed in the same way that scholars have analysed other well-known archetypes such as the
“mother”, the “wizard”, or the “evil genius”. Furthermore, since the angel archetype cannot appear in popular narratives as it is without being reduced to a stereotype, merging with another archetype seems to be the only viable strategy for its “survival”.
This thesis proposes that given the need of the angel archetype for the disruption of its stereotypical qualities – such as selflessness, purity, or innocence – the best possible candidate for merging with it is the “trickster” archetype.
In American Indian Trickster Tales, Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz describe the trickster as the kind of character “who provides the real spark in the action” (Erdoes and Ortiz 13), meaning the very nature of this archetype can already be seen as generally disruptive. Moreover, the trickster is “always hungry for another meal swiped from someone else’s kitchen, always ready to lure someone else’s wife into bed, always trying to get something for nothing, shifting shapes (and even sex), getting caught in the act, ever scheming, never remorseful” (13), all of which has the potential to subvert the stereotypical image of the angel.
Additionally, as this thesis will go on to show, the angel and the trickster archetypes also share many similarities with each other, which is another reason why
17 they are highly compatible for merging. For instance Lewis Hyde’s introduction of the trickster archetype already highly correlates with what is generally known about the angelic myth: “The road that trickster travels is a spirit road as well as a road in fact. He is the adept who can move between heaven and earth, and between the living and the dead.” (Hyde 6) This “spirit road” as well as the “move between heaven and earth” can, for instance, be likened to the angels’ ability to fly and move between spheres, which can be depicted as resurrection or, on the contrary, the accompaniment of dead souls to heaven (or the afterlife).
To approach it from the opposite side, famous Czech psychiatrist Vladimír
Vondráček and travel writer František Holub introduce their entry on angels with words that correlate with the trickster archetype: “People needed creatures which would be close to them but more perfect and which would not stand as high as God and were not as threatening, and so they created the assembled conception of angels” (Vondráček and
Holub 101)1. Again, the trickster figure is often depicted as the mediator between Gods and humans: “All tricksters like to hang around the doorway [between heaven and earth, life and death, good and evil...], that being one of the places where deep-change accidents occur . . . It may well be that fate is set in heaven, but it must be played out here on earth, and between heaven and earth there is a gap inhabited by these shifty mediators.” (Hyde 124–125)
Moreover, by calling the angels an “assembled conception”, Vondráček and
Holub are also already drawing attention to the heterogenous nature of the angelic myth as it appears in cultural history, which, again, demonstrates the ability of the angel archetype to merge with other archetypes. The merging of archetypes in this instance means the act of different archetypes combining their features in order to survive their
1 Original Czech text: “Lidé potřebovali bytosti, které by jim byly blízké, ale nebyly tak vysoko jako bůh a nebyly tak hrozné, a tak si vytvořili montážní představu – anděla.”
18 journey through cultural history. To put it differently, by merging together, different archetypes may, in fact, adapt in order to meet the demand of the audience in accordance with contemporary cultural fashions. Additionally, the compatibility of the archetypes can play a significant role in this survival.
In Cultural Selection, Agner Fog offers a possible interpretation of similar phenomena (e.g. an internet meme) by devising a theory of cultural selection.
According to this theory, “certain cultural phenomena are copied and transmitted more than others, and the characteristics of each cultural phenomenon are just as decisive for the outcome of this selection process as are the characteristics of the humans” (Fog 61).
In a way, it can be said that Fog’s theory demonstrates how Darwin’s theory of natural selection may be also applied to culture. Cultural selection may thus be seen as the apparatus that determines which features of a certain archetype stay, which are added or enhanced, and which need to be omitted so that it can develop from its stereotypical form into a more sophisticated one.
More importantly, if a specific culture calls for it, two (or more) archetypes may merge in order to create a new form of archetype with greater chances of survival in specific cultural regions or eras. For instance, the “warrior princess” archetype has lately appeared across the board in popular culture (e.g. Princess Leia from the Star
Wars franchise, Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones, or Snow White from Once
Upon a Time). This phenomenon could be considered a merger of the “princess” and the
“warrior” archetypes in relation to the contemporary feminist and gender equality debate and the increasing demand for strong female characters in popular culture. In a similar manner, today’s form of the angel archetype can be considered the merger of the angel and the trickster archetypes.
19 This thesis will now go on to explore the more recent depictions of angels in
American popular narratives in detail, paying attention to how merging with the trickster archetype may have disrupted the stereotypical understanding of angels as it can be seen in the examples from the era before the 1990s, transforming them into more sophisticated and appealing characters. Concretely, it focuses on six different common angelic tropes – the messengers of God, guardian angels, the issue of angelic ethics, the playfulness of angels, angels as a mirror to humans, and the trope of “otherness” – pinpointing specific subversive features and identifying them with the trickster archetype.
20 3. Discovering the Merger
Recent Depictions of American Angels
3.1. The Rebellious Messengers
In Angels: A History, David Albert Jones points out that “the word angel
(malach) is simply the ordinary Hebrew word for a messenger” (Jones 54), which already suggests the fundamental nature of this trope in the context of the angel archetype. In fact, according to Keck, “prior to the revelation of the Law to Moses, angels constituted one of the most important means of communication from God to His chosen people” (Keck 28). This means that the angels’ position as the “middlemen” between God and humans was seen as vital, as they were the ones who dealt with situations on earth that required God’s assistance.
In general, the messenger trope can be interpreted in three basic ways. First, there is the idea of angels as actual message deliverers. Angels can be sent on specific errands by God – often to deliver some sort of information or to carry out holy missions.
In the Bible, the best known angelic messenger is the Archangel Gabriel who was chosen by God to fly down to earth and give Mary the message about the birth of Jesus
Christ. (Luke 1:30 – 31)
The second way to interpret this trope is by focusing on the dual nature of angels. As has been said, angels are neither on God’s level nor on the level of humans, which means they are somewhere in the middle. Moreover, since according to the Bible,
God created angels before He created the world, it can be said that their first main role was also to witness the creation of men: “. . . who laid the corner stone thereof; When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Job 38:6–7)
21 Furthermore, after God created human beings, angels were due to their position conveniently able to become His “representatives” or “ambassadors” on earth.
Third, delivering messages, being sent on errands, or carrying out holy missions may also be connected to the ability of the angels to cross boundaries as angels are not only capable of travelling between heaven and earth, but also between other spheres, such as good and evil, night and day, the future and the past, and most importantly, between life and death (which may also include hell in some representations). David
Keck, for instance, considers “the presence of angels at the moment of death and in the life of the soul after its separation from the body” the most common angelic motif
(Keck 203). In general, it can be said that accompanying souls to heaven or resurrecting the dead is another frequently referenced use of angels, particularly because it helps maintain balance in the world.
Overall, the messenger trope represents the relationship of angels to God in terms of angels being God’s intermediaries. In accordance with the stereotypical image of angels, this means that they are portrayed as obedient and selfless, without their own goals or motivations, such as it can be seen in Heaven Can Wait. In recent depictions this trope has been subverted by certain features or certain behaviours that may end up pushing the obedient angel further away from God. To put it differently, the more human-like nature of the angels may sometimes overpower their god-like nature, which can lead to rebellion or even abandonment of God and heaven altogether.
For instance, the TV series Touched By an Angel (1994–2003) offers an example of an angel whose motives for doing her job cannot be seen as one hundred percent pure. In the very first episode, the angel Monica (Roma Downey) has just been promoted by God from basic a “search & rescue” angel to an angelic caseworker whose job is supposed to be helping people who are at a crossroads in their lives. Right from
22 the beginning, however, it is clear that Monica is far more interested in her own happiness and professional fulfilment rather than the fate of the people she has been sent to help. “Monica: I just thought casework would be more than babysitting” (“The
Southbound Bus” 02:09) Even though this desire to enjoy herself rather than protect humans soon diminishes as Monica learns what it truly means to be an angel, it can still be said that the essential idea of an angel as an unconditionally selfless messenger of
God has been disrupted.
Furthermore, this sort of arrogant behaviour often appears in connection with the angels’ powers within the angelic messenger trope. For instance, The Prophecy (1995) offers a depiction of an angel abusing his abilities in relation to crossing boundaries.
The angel Gabriel (Christopher Walken) is shown bringing people back to life in order to turn them into his slaves (see Fig. 2). These people are shown to be suffering tremendously, as they are still in the process of decay even though they have been “re- energised” by the angel’s powers. Jerry, one of the resurrected humans, even repeatedly begs Gabriel to let him die. Although it is made clear that Gabriel’s powers are the direct cause of Jerry’s suffering, the angel does not seem to care as he is way more focused on his own goal – the winning of the second civil war in heaven. Again, his arrogant behaviour here suggests he has not only strayed from his original function as the messenger of God, but that he is also abusing his powers for his own merit.
In City of Angels (1998), the angel Seth (Nicolas Cage) literally introduces himself to Maggie as a “messenger of God” (00:37:35). In a way, this establishes him as a devoted angel who cares about the general good and happiness of humans. This, however, changes after he falls in love with Maggie. As fraternising with humans is forbidden by God, Seth struggles to find a way to separate himself from heaven in order to become human and be with his beloved. Consequently, his desire to become
23 independent overweighs his devotion to God to the point where he rebels against his angelic nature and rejects God and heaven altogether.
The angel Castiel (Misha Collins) from Supernatural (2005–present) is originally sent to earth to raise Dean Winchester from hell. When he meets Dean for the first time, Castiel introduces himself as “an angel of the lord” (“Lazarus Rising” 39:45).
In a way, this intentional reference of the Bible emphasises his devotion to God, which is also confirmed in the following dialogue:
Dean: Why’d you [rescue me from hell]?
Castiel: Because God commanded it. Because we have work for you.
(41:25)
In the following episodes of the show, however – soon after meeting Dean and becoming his best friend – Castiel, who was initially only meant to be God’s messenger and the executor of His will, begins rebelling from his original mission and starts questioning his purpose and thinking for himself. In episode 4x7 “It’s the Great
Pumpkin, Sam Winchester”, Castiel even admits that he does not consider himself a blindly obedient servant of God, which further emphasises the estrangement from his initial role of a messenger: “Castiel: I’m not a hammer, as you say. I have questions, I have doubts. I don’t know what is right and what is wrong anymore.” (40:10) This conviction develops further in the following episodes, leading to Castiel completely separating himself from God in order to be able to make his own decisions. (see Fig. 3)
By season 6, Castiel is so far removed from God’s influence and so confident in his powers he decides he is strong enough to raise Dean’s brother Sam from the dead on his own, despite the fact that raising Dean from hell required a whole garrison of angels.
This does not end well, however. Because Castiel is too blinded by his own arrogance, he accidentally only retrieves the Sam’s body, leaving his soul behind:
24 Castiel: And so I knew what I had to do next. Once again, I went to
Harrow Hell, to free Sam from Lucifer's cage. It was nearly impossible,
but I was so full of confidence, of mission. I see now that was arrogance.
Hubris. Because, of course, I hadn't truly raised Sam – not all of him.”
(“The Man Who Would Be King” 00:08:07).
As a direct consequence of losing his soul (i.e. his moral compass), Sam sets off on a murderous rampage and even lets his own brother be turned into a vampire (“Life Free or Twihard”). In short, just like Gabriel in The Prophecy, Castiel is so fuelled by his own ego that he stops caring about what happens with his mission or the humans in his charge as long as he accomplishes his own goals.
Furthermore, the angels’ estrangement from God can also be related to their position as the intermediary between God and humans. For instance, in The Messengers
(2014), unknown extraterrestrial beings are sent down to earth by God in order to prevent the Apocalypse. Notedly, this particular depiction of angelic messengers turns out to be very different from most of the others, as in this case, God chooses a seemingly random group of humans – a radio astronomer, an FBI agent, a troubled high school student, a televangelist, a single mother, a grifter, and a journalist – and transforms them all into angels by gifting each of them with special powers.
As all of these humans were de facto transformed into angels without their consent or even without being told in advance, and since, with the exception of the televangelist, none of them were ever particularly close to God in first place, it is implied that their human nature – meaning their everyday worries, personal lives, spouses, girlfriends and boyfriends – will always influence their mission and therefore pull them further away from God.
25 The televangelist – Joshua Silburn, Jr. (Jon Fletcher) is the only one who fully believes in their mission from the start because of his pre-existing relationship with
God. Additionally, his belief is secured thanks to his special power of receiving visions of the future straight from God: “Joshua: For the great day of his wrath has come. Who shall be able to stand, hear my words, or perish. For I am a messenger of God.”
(“Awakening” 23:00) The other angels do not share his passion, however. Moreover,
Vera’s (Shantel VanSanten) refusal of her mission is further amplified by the fact that she is a scientist, and – as opposed to everyone else in the group – an atheist.
Nevertheless, none of the chosen people is depicted as particularly enthusiastic about their new role, particularly at the beginning of the series:
Peter: I’m so not down with that.
Vera: You need to stop wasting my time. . .
Erin: Even if any of this was remotely legitimate… why us? (“Strange
Magic” 10:02)
Thus, while the depiction of the messenger trope in The Messengers is different from all the others, the motive of doubting God’s mission is still very much there.
Furthermore, along with the influence of humanity, it is the refusal of their mission and their skepticism that ends up pushing them away from God. In general, this motive clearly subverts the idea that God’s angelic servants are always entirely faithful to His orders, which, in turn, emphasises the angels’ desire for independence and autonomy.
According to these examples, it can be said that there are two recurring features in the “messengers of god” trope that clearly subvert the stereotypical understanding of angels: the desire for independence, which is represented by the characters straying from God’s original orders and acting upon their own will, and which is also connected to the act of rebellion and defying authorities, and arrogance – the conviction of the
26 angel that it is smarter and better than everyone else (including God), which is also connected to carelessness, selfishness, and egotism as well as the abuse of angelic powers and abilities. Both of these features can be connected to the trickster archetype.
In general, the trickster, whatever his task, often strays from his mission in order to maintain his independence as it is impossible for him to silently obey orders. Lewis
Hyde connects this independence to the trickster’s lack of direction: “Having no way, trickster can have many ways. Having no way, he is dependent on others whose manner he exploits, but he is not confined to their manner and therefore in another sense he is more independent.” (Hyde 45) As shown on the examples above, this correlates with the inability of the recent depictions of angels to stay close to God, as they would have to obey His rules, which they do not want to. In American Trickster: Thoughts on the
Shadow Side of a Culture’s Psyche, William J. Jackson considers independence “a quintessential quality of America related to the trickster theme” (Jackson 11), which could be a further explanation of the popularity of this particular feature in America.
Furthermore, the trickster often gets himself into trouble because of his arrogance and egotism. According to Gates, Lewis, and McKay, “trickster’s unbridled egotism runs as high as his wit” (Gates, Lewis, & McKay 180), which is perhaps most visible in stories about the fox or the coyote. For instance, in the original Æsop fable
“The Fox and the Cat”, the fox boasts to the cat about his skills and ability to trick others, but when the dogs come it is the cat who manages to save himself by jumping on the tree while the fox, suddenly unable to defend himself despite his previous boasting, is killed. (Jacobs 92) Again, the trickster obviously cannot help himself but boast and stroke his own ego whenever given the chance. His happiness never lasts long, however. This correlates with the arrogance of angelic messengers, especially in connection with the abuse of their powers – for instance, when Castiel, fueled by his
27 ego, tries to use his powers to do something that is virtually impossible as well as dangerous, he ends up hurting his friend instead of helping them.
Overall, it can be said that the occurrence of independence and arrogance in the
“messengers of god” trope has caused the angels to stray away from their missions and estrange themselves from God. Moreover, the abuse of their powers caused by their arrogant nature and egoistic behaviour has lead to negative outcomes. Hence, the presence of trickster features within the angelic messenger trope subverts the stereotypical understanding of messengers as obedient and selfless servants of God, which, in turn, transforms them into more relatable and sophisticated characters.
28 3.2. The Disruptive Guardians
According to Jones, “by the time of Jesus, Jews had come to believe that every human being was given into the care of his or her own guardian angels” (Jones 75).
Given that the concept of good Christians having their personal angel watching over them has been around since over two thousand-and-sixteen years ago, the fact that it is still frequently emphasised in American popular culture is a testament to its popularity.
Based on Jones and Keck’s findings, the personal nature of the union between angel and its human is what has makes the trope so well-received. Specifically, Keck says that medieval Christians believed that praying to specific guardians “helped nourish the hope of an intimate relationship with an angel” (Keck 38), which corresponds with Jones’s claim that “the idea of guardian angels has an enduring appeal, because it makes particular the more general doctrine of angels and makes more personal the more general doctrine of providence” (Jones 75). Again, all of this enhances the appeal of the idea of prayer and worship as something personal.
In general, it can definitely be said the “guardian angel” trope is one of the most recurring angelic tropes across American narratives. When reduced to a stereotype, the guardian angel is then portrayed a devoted and faithful companion, who does its best to protect its human while fully abiding by the rules of heaven. In other words, it has no personality of its own. As will be shown in this chapter, this has, however, been subverted in the recent depiction of angels by having the angels interfere with their protégé’s lives.
This unauthorised intervention can lead to two possible outcomes: one, the disruption of the relationship between the angel and its protégé, as it is mostly motivated by the angel’s desire to gain something for itself as opposed to protecting its human, and two, it can function as a catalyst for both the character’s arc or even the
29 whole story, depending on the importance of the angel. The latter outcome can then be seen as both negative or positive, depending on the context.
In the first season of Charmed (1998–2006), Leo Wyatt (Brian Krause) reveals that he is a whitelighter, a kind of guardian angel, who has been sent to earth to become the guardian of the Halliwell sisters. “Leo: I was sent here to watch over you and your sisters when you first got your powers to help out wherever I could.” (“Secrets & Guys”
13:48). Although Leo is initially depicted as a character-less and devoted protector with no ulterior motives, this devotion does not last long as he soon falls in love with one of the sisters, Piper.
Despite being aware that whitelighters are prohibited from fraternising with witches, Leo decides to maintain his relationship with Piper regardless, choosing to keep it a secret from his superiors while continuing to lie to the sisters about his true identity. (see Fig. 4) In other words, Leo is prioritising his own needs and desires above the safety of his protégés. This becomes even more obvious when his secret is discovered by Phoebe and Leo becomes frightened. “Leo: You must help me keep my secret or I could get in trouble. Piper and Prue can never know what I really am.”
(15:21) This scene illustrates that since Leo is not only planning on carrying on with the lie for as long as possible, but that he is now also encouraging Phoebe to lie to her own sisters in order to help him too, the disruption of their relationship as well as any problems related to the fight of the evil forces in this episode could be considered Leo’s fault.
In addition, it is also important to mention Leo’s pivotal function in the series as a catalyst. Typically, guardian angels are supposed to be guiding people from afar or merely watching over them. In short, they are not supposed to be playing any important part in their protégés’ lives and decisions. In the recent depictions, however, it seems as
30 if angels have had more chances to actually partake in the stories with their own individual story-arcs, usually serving as transformative tools. Thus, even though Leo has caused several problems with his deceitful behaviour regarding his relationship with
Piper, his feelings have also served as a catalyst for a change of the system. Because of this change, Leo and Piper are even allowed to get married in season three and later on have two children.
Furthermore, in some depictions, the role of a guardian angel becomes so crucial in the context of the main storyline that disrupting it by having the angel lie or deceive its protégés can lead to major disasters. For instance, When Sam Winchester’s soul is injured to the point of being on the brink of death in Supernatural’s season 8 finale, an angel who introduces himself as Ezekiel (Tahmoh Penikett) answers Dean’s prayers for help. However, it is soon revealed to the audience that this angel’s true name is actually
Gadreel and that he is a fugitive from heaven’s prison where he has been locked up for letting the snake enter the Paradise.
Since Gadreel is afraid of being recognised by other angels, he decides to lie to
Dean about his identity and convinces him to let him possess his brother’s body with a promise that he will heal him from the inside. Because Sam does not want to be possessed, however, and angels are not allowed to possess humans without their consent, Gadreel and Dean end up having to trick Sam into saying yes first.
Consequently, for the majority of season 9 Sam’s body serves as a “witness protection programme” for Gadreel without Sam’s consent and knowledge. Most importantly, despite claiming that his priority is to heal Sam’s soul, Gadreel is actually only helping himself. In other words, Gadreel is clearly content with lying and tricking Sam, not caring what might happen to him if something goes wrong with the healing process or if
31 he finds out and becomes angry with his brother, as long as he himself stays safe. (See
Fig. 5)
Similarly to Leo’s story, however, there is another side to this guardian angel’s actions. Even though his initial intentions regarding healing Sam have been just an excuse to be able to live in hiding, Gadreel in the end manages to cure Sam, which can be considered a positive outcome of Gadreel’s unauthorised intervention. In short, this example shows that regardless of the angel’s original intentions, its interference can result in both good and bad outcomes. One way or another, the stereotypical image of the guardian angel as a fully devoted being has been fully subverted here.
Moreover, Gadreel’s action can also be interpreted as transformative in connection with his status of a fugitive. This is especially visible at the end of his story arc, when he decides to ultimately become good and sacrifice his life in order to save the lives of other angels and humans in episode 9x23 “Do You Believe in Miracles”.
“Gadreel: The only thing that matters in the end is the mission – protecting those who would not and cannot protect themselves – the humans. None of us is bigger than that.
And we will not let our fears, our self-absorption prevent us from seeing it through. Not anymore.” (26:00) According to what he is saying here, it can be said that while Gadreel as a character clearly breaks the rules by lying and deceiving his proteges in order to save himself, his interference also serves as a transformative tool which helps him redeem himself before he is, ultimately, killed.
Not all recent depictions of guardian angels have to deal with these kinds of
“heavy issues”, though. The subversion of the stereotype is also visible in more
“lighthearted” examples. In fact, it is the more down-to-earth stories dealing with issues of personal nature such as love or career, in which the subversion can be seen more clearly. For instance, in the comedy TV series Drop Dead Diva (2009–2014), the angel
32 Fred (Ben Feldman) – originally “the gatekeeper” of heaven – is sent to earth as a guardian angel after an accident in which a recently deceased soul – a model named
Deb Dobkins – causes her soul to travel back into a body of an overweight lawyer, Jane
Bingham.
Again, although the first two episodes depict Fred as a caring guardian, things soon start changing after he meets Deb’s best friend Stacy and falls in love with her.
Fred: Who is she and why is she and why does she make me feel the
way I feel?
Deb: Who, Stacy? Oh no. We are not doing this. You are here for me,
Fred, you’re not supposed to be ogling my friends. Are you even allowed
to ogle? Isn’t that against guardian angel rules? (“Do Over” 10:50)
Thus, in a similar fashion to Charmed, while it is made crystal clear that angels are not permitted to fall in love with humans as it may affect their relationships with their protégés, Fred chooses to ignore it in order to accomplish his goal of dating Stacey.
Moreover, as he repeatedly attempts to coerce Deb into helping him get together with
Stacy, he soon becomes a distraction and burden to her. “Fred: I know I’m supposed to be your guardian angel, but I’m new here and you kind of have to be mine a little bit too.” (38:43) Deb, of course, does not like that: “Deb: You’re my guardian angel, you’re supposed to give me advice, not the other way around.” (“Second Chances”
24:45)
Ultimately, Fred’s story arc has an unhappy ending, as once he finally manages to ask Stacy on a date and they share their first kiss, he is sent back to heaven as a punishment.
33 Fred (in a letter): Jane, Turns out I broke like 62 rules when I kissed
Stacey and I’ve been transformed back to the home office. I’d ask you to
tell her it was worth it, but she won’t know what you’re talking about.
When I left all memories of me were erased except yours. Rules are
rules. Take care of yourself, Jane. I’m still looking out for you, just from
higher up. Best, Fred. (“The Magic Bullet” 13:00)
Again, because Fred prioritised his own desire and goals over his actual job of watching over his protégé, and then lied to Stacey about his nature, Deb is left on earth without a guardian angel, which results in her feeling isolated and insecure, as he was one of the two only people who knew her true identity. Therefore, while initially depicted as a transformative tool that has the capability of changing Deb’s life, Fred’s seemingly stereotypical devoted guardian angel nature is subverted by his desire to lie and deceive in order to reach his own goals.
The audience is usually able to identify what the guardian angel’s intentions are basically from the beginning of their story arcs, although it might not be always clear whether these intentions are good. This is certainly not the case of the horror radio series Welcome to Night Vale (2012–present). While everything concerning the angels in this series is quite mysterious and confusing, the “guardian angel” trope can still be fairly easily identified in it. Cecil Palmer, the community radio host who is also the narrator of the series, first mentions the angels in connection with the character of Josie, an old woman who lives near the car lot:
Cecil: Old Woman Josie, out near the Car Lot, says the Angels revealed
themselves to her . . . said they helped her with various household
chores. One of them changed a lightbulb for her – the porch light.
(“Pilot” 01:28)
34 Again, the consistency of their fondness and protective feelings over Josie suggests that they may have in fact been sent to earth in order to protect her. (See Fig. 6) In the episode “Station Management”, for instance, Cecil reports “Creeping Fear” coming to
Night Vale and affecting every citizen except Josie, “presumable because of her angelic protection” (07:45).
However, because of the mysterious aspect of the narrative, the audience clearly has no way of identifying the true intentions of these angels. Thus, it is difficult to tell whether they are in fact helping Josie or taking advantage of her. Therefore, it is at first impossible to determine whether the stereotypical conception of the guardian angels has been truly subverted in this case. Moreover, while Erika – which is what all the angels are called here – are quite clearly heavily involved in Josie’s life, they do not usually interfere when it comes to the bigger things that are happening in Night Vale (and there are many every day), which suggest they do not serve as a catalyst either.
All of this, however, changes in episodes 49 and 50, when Erika to everyone’s surprise decide to fight alongside Night Vale citizens in a revolution against the evil corporation StrexCorp, which has occupied and controlled the town, enslaving its citizens. In these episodes, Erika help destroy StrexCorp with the help of a masked desert army of giants that have entered the town through a series of magical doors:
“Dana: Night Vale, stay safe! Stay home and do not get caught in the dangerous crossfire. The desert army and the angels, they are here to save us.” (“Old Oak Doors
Part B” 15:55) Furthermore, After StrexCorp is overthrown, another surprise follows when it is revealed that Erika purchased all StrexCorp’s former premises:
Cecil: A very wealthy-looking and mostly nude being named Erika, who
introduced themselves as… you know, an angel, or whatever, then wrote
a check to purchase StrexCorp . . . It is not yet known what the angels
35 will do with the vast corporation they now own, and I think – at last – we
are ourselves. We are Night Vale once again. (31:56)
Again, although it is initially difficult to determine what the angels’ motivations were for helping Night Vale in this case, it can still be said that while they were originally introduced as mere guardian angels who did not intervene in any major way, they turned out to have the most pivotal role in the most important storyline of the podcast. Moreover, thanks to the contrast between their original apathy and disinterest and their sudden involvement, it can also be said that Erika became an important catalyst for the story, as they inspired the rest of the citizens to fight against StrexCorp and start a revolution. In short, their joining in on the rebellion against StrexCorp and the following purchase the company transformed the town of Night Vale for the better.
In addition, this transformative influence of Erika then continues after the revolution, though not in such a positive way anymore. In episode 74, “Civic Changes”,
Cecil reveals that as StrexCorp had been the main employer in Night Vale and the neighbouring town of Desert Bluffs, after the angels shut down all of StrexCorp’s operations, so many people lost their jobs that it actually made a difference in the economy:
Cecil: Desert Bluffs has been in a steep year-long recession . . . the town
is facing record unemployment and major setbacks in city programming
after the buyout and subsequent major restructuring last year of the only
employer in town, StrexCorp. (06:38)
In the following episode, Cecil again confirms this by mentioning Erika in connection with this economic crisis:
36 Cecil: The not-at-all-angels closed down almost every Strex office, and
laid off (or, as they put it, “liberated”) all former Strex employees, and at
this point are mostly liquidating Strex resources in order to fund operas
here in Night Vale. (“Through the Narrow Place” 07:39)
Therefore, it can be said that although in the past Erika’s angelic interference has been seen as positive, their laying off of workers of the former StrexCorp corporation also shows their ignorance towards their protégés, which can be, in this case, considered the whole town of Night Vale.
A much clearer example of this kind of shameless angelic interference can be found in the comedy TV series Angel From Hell (2016). In its first episode, the angel
Amy (Jane Lynch) admits to her protégé Allison that although she knows that as her guardian angel, her work is supposed to be mainly consisting of observing and sometimes “nudging people in the right direction”, and that guardian angels are never supposed to directly influence their protégé’s life, she does not want to obey these rules:
Amy: Technically we’re never supposed to intervene in human’s life.
Allison: Is that some kind of an angel rule?
Amy: As a matter of fact, it is! We’re supposed to help from afar. Be
subtle about things, you know, like implants, or inspirational thoughts, or
nudge you towards a conditioner that would give your hair that perfect
bounce . . . but if I see you about to go down a dangerous path, what am I
gonna do? Stick my head up my ass?! (“Pilot” 9:03)
As has been demonstrated here, Amy can be considered another depiction of an angel who is subverting the “guardian angel” trope by disobeying her orders. Quite clearly,
Amy does not agree with any of the rules, as she decides to meet with Allison in person
37 and force her way into her life in order to give her advice. This interference ends up directly influencing on Allison’s life – with sometimes positive and sometimes negative results, both of which additionally have the potential to transform Allison’s life for both better or worse.
Overall, based on these examples, it can be said that the stereotypical understanding of the “guardian angel” trope tends to be most often subverted in two significant ways: One, the relationship between the guardian angel and the human is compromised by the angel acting for its own benefit instead of focusing on its protégé, meaning the angel has an ulterior motive, which he often achieves through deceit, trickery, and lying. Two, the guardian angel’s interference serves as a transformative tool (or a catalyst), which can directly influence the protégé or even the whole story, transforming it for either the better or worse. Both of these features can be identified with the trickster archetype.
First, the trickster’s ability to lie and deceive is in fact one of his core characteristics, as no trickster would be able to “trick” anyone without lying. According to Hyde, the distinction between regular lying and trickster’s way of deceiving someone is crucial, as trickster’s lie is always connected to creativity: “Trickster isn’t a run-of- the-mill liar and thief. When he lies and steals, it isn’t so much to get away with something or get rich as to disturb the established categories of truth and property and, by so doing, open the road to possible new worlds.” (Hyde 13) Hyde also highlights the importance of the connection between lie and creativity by claiming that trickster “is master of the kind of creative deception that, according to a long tradition, is a prerequisite of art.” (17) Correspondingly, the guardian angels’ deceitfulness often has a creative aspect to them. The angel Gadreel in Supernatural, for example, manages to trick Dean into tricking Sam to let him possess his body in order to heal him even
38 though the healing itself is not the angel’s ultimate goal. Similarly, in Drop Dead Diva, the angel Fred uses Jane in order to get together with Stacey, while all the while she thinks that he is taking care of her.
In addition, Jackson talks about the importance of the connection of deceit and the trickster’s transformative nature:
[Trickster] is the bringer of significant transformations, an agent of the
creator in some stories, a necessary catalyst. In others he’s the bringer of
ruin, deceitful and conniving, a turncoat, or devil in disguise. He shifts
shapes, illustrates survival through clever adaptation, sometimes
exhibiting extreme foolishness. He is the cause of chaos where things go
wrong, and also can be the source of benevolence, helping humanity.
(Jackson 9)
To put it in different words, the trickster’s ability to lie and deceive can be crucial to his ability to influence certain situations, people’s opinions, or even create something new that might help humans. Similarly, Hyde mentions the trickster’s ability to create order by creating chaos (or dirt), and vice-versa: “. . . Dirt is always a by-product of creating order. Where there is dirt, there is always a system of some kind, and rules about dirt are meant to preserve it.” (Hyde 176) This is, for instance, visible in the example of
Erika in Welcome to Night Vale as while the angels function as a catalyst for a revolution against an evil corporation, their involvement in this matter ultimately results in loss of jobs and economic crisis of the town. The opposite example can then be found in the case of Supernatural’s angel Gadreel, who tries to deceive the Winchester brothers to help himself, but ultimately ends up saving their lives.
In a nutshell, the fact that the guardian angels depicted in recent American narratives are often portrayed as deceitful and selfish can be seen as a subversion of the
39 stereotypical image of guardian angels as inherently selfless and exclusively devoted to their protégés. Additionally, the trickster’s ability to lie and deceive goes hand in hand with his ability to function as a catalyst, which disrupts the stereotypical notion that guardian angels are banned from directly interfering in their protégé’s business unless they are told to by God. All in all, it can be said that the archetypal merger has managed to transform American guardian angels into more sophisticated and approachable characters.
40 3.3. The Fallen Heroes
Though a lot has been said in regard to the stereotypical conception of inherent goodness and selflessness of angels, the truth is that while this goodness may be considered the backbone of angelic mythology by some, the Scriptures also speak of
“bad” angels. The Book of Enoch, for example, speaks of the angels known as
“Watchers” (Section I, 1:5), who decided to leave heaven and live on earth among humans in order to procreate with their women, which was, of course, forbidden.
The Scriptures also speak of demons, who are supposedly of the same origin as angels. “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment” (2 Peter 2:4) In actuality, the only difference between angels and demons seems to be the fact that demons willingly chose evil over good. Correspondingly, Jones says that “in the Middle
Ages, Christians felt it was very important to be clear that demons have once been good angels and had fallen through their own free will” (Jones 113), “free will” being the key point here.
Simply put, if reduced to a stereotypical image, angels are nearly exclusively portrayed as inherently good. Furthermore, if they are not good, then they are at least morally unambiguous (either good or bad). In other words, if they choose the evil side, then that makes them inherently evil from then on (neither the Watchers nor Lucifer have ever become redeemed in the Scriptures). Given this idea, no angels can therefore exist on the verge of good and evil. In fact, according to Jones, even “Aquinas had rejected the idea of indifferent angels. There are good angels and bad angels, but angels do not sit on the fence.” (Jones 116) In a view of this, not even Lucifer, the chief demon, could be described as “on the fence” as he willingly chose to rebel against God and become evil.
41 In many ways, this unambiguity as seen in the Scriptures has already started becoming blurred in the 18th century. For instance, the inherent goodness of angels has already been challenged in William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790):
“I have always found that Angels have the vanity to speak of themselves as the only wise; this they do with a confident insolence sprouting from systematic reasoning.”
(Blake 21) Additionally, there is the case of the demon Mephistopheles from
Christopher Marlowe’s The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, who is initially depicted as helpful, or even good, as he tries to warn Faustus against making deals with the Devil: “. . . O, Faustus, leave these frivolous demands, / Which strike a terror to my fainting soul!” (Marlowe 58)
Furthermore, while angelic depiction from before the 1990s (e.g. Clarence from
It’s a Wonderful Life, or the angel from The Littlest Angel) can predominantly be seen as perfect examples of inherent goodness, Blake’s and Marlowe’s subverted image of morally unambiguous angels has resurfaced in recent American popular narratives, transforming the angels into more elaborated characters, as it is often hard to determine which “side” they are on.
Initially, it can be said that the rhetorics of The Prophecy certainly identify the
Archangel Gabriel as evil – the main villain of the story. First off, he is directly antagonistic towards the main hero, Thomas, and he is also depicted doing multiple things which may be interpreted as evil or negative and he admits to doing so with pride: “Gabriel: I’m an angel. I kill firstborns on their momma’s watch. I turn cities in 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 is in your existence is never understanding why.”
(1:06:57)
42 At the same time, however, it is also made clear to the audience that Gabriel is only being mean out of frustration towards injustice in heaven. Specifically, the audience may feel empathy towards Gabriel and understanding of his motivations, which pushes him away from the inherently evil side: “Thomas: I know what it’s like to be ignored, pushed aside. I know your anger, Gabriel. I know what it’s like to lose your faith in the Word. I know.” (1:25:29) This estrangement from the inherently evil side does not automatically turn Gabriel into a good angel, though, as he still does bad things in the film. Thus, it can be said that he is morally ambiguous.
In the film Dogma (1999), the angel Metatron (Alan Rickman) first appears to
Bethany Sloane in a form of a burning fire while she is sleeping, prompting her to believe that he is an attacker, which is only emphasised when he transforms her baseball bat into a fish. Consequently, this initially makes him seem as a negative hero to the audience despite the fact that he is supposed to be “the voice of God” and therefore a positive character.
Metatron: Just sit down on the bed and shut up.
Bethany: Get whatever you want, but don’t kill or rape me!
Metatron: Oh give over, will you, I couldn’t rape you if I wanted to.
(15:42)
Furthermore, while he is portrayed as rude and grumpy, it is revealed that he has been sent to earth to actually help Bethany rather than hurt her. All in all, as Metatron’s whole characterisation can be described as ambiguous, especially at the beginning when the audience does not yet know why he has come to visit Bethany.
In a similar manner, Supernatural’s angel Castiel can also be perceived as evil rather than good on several occasions. For instance, even before his first appearance in the episode 4x1 “Lazarus Rising” (before the Winchester brothers even discover that he
43 is an angel), he is actually thought to be a demon or some evil monster. For instance, when the brothers ask a psychic to attempt to contact Castiel in the spirit world, her eyes get burned out of her skull (though she does not die). Similarly, when they encounter a demon in a diner later that day, they discover that demons are also scared of Castiel:
“Dean: You're just as spooked as we are. And you're looking for answers. Well, maybe it was some turbo-charged spirit. Or Godzilla. Or some big bad boss demon . . . They're a lot stronger than you.” (27:10)
Ultimately, it can be said that Castiel is being described as a morally ambiguous angel – on one hand he burns out an innocent woman's eyes out of her skull, which is bad, but on the other hand he raises Dean from the dead and demons are scared of him, which is good. (See Fig. 7) Furthermore, despite the fact that some of the “bad” things
Castiel has done are clarified later on in the episode, the question whether doing them at all was morally right or wrong does not get, in fact, answered:
Dean: Some angel you are. You burned that poor woman’s eyes!
Castiel: I warned her not to spy on my true form. It can be…
overwhelming to humans. (40:30)
In other words, while burning the psychic’s eyes was not Castiel’s fault, his words still does not depict him as a completely positive character. In fact, it makes him seem ignorant and reckless, which only increases the level of ambiguity in connection to this character.
Consequently, In the following episode Dean wonders about Castiel’s morality when he discovers that although he knew that the Winchester brothers were being attacked by a group of undead people (in an event known as “The Rising of the
Witnesses”), he decided not to help:
44 Castiel: Excellent job with the witnesses.
Dean: You were hip to all this?
Castiel: I was made aware.
Dean: Well, thanks a lot for the angelic assistance. You know, I almost
got my heart ripped out of my chest.
Castiel: But you didn’t.
Dean: I thought angels were supposed to be guardians. Fluffy wings,
halos. You know, Michael Landon. Not dicks.
Castiel: Read the Bible. Angels are warriors of God. I'm a soldier.
Dean: Yeah? Then, why didn't you fight?
Castiel: I'm not here to perch on your shoulder. We had larger concerns.
(“Are You There, God? It’s Me, Dean Winchester” 35:46)
Castiel’s answer then only supports the idea that the Supernatural writers were in fact trying to subvert the stereotypical image of angels as always being good and helpful, as he basically tells Dean that he is not there to be his personal helper. Correspondingly, when in episode “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester” Sam learns that Castiel and his friend, the angel Uriel, would rather destroy a whole town than risk a witch directly causing Lucifer’s return on earth, he is shocked: “Sam: No, you can’t do this, you’re angels, I mean aren’t you supposed to – you’re supposed to show mercy.” (18:11)
Although Castiel and Dean become extremely close during the course of the next two seasons, Castiel’s status as a possible villain never quite goes away. In season six, Castiel causes monsters from Purgatory to escape on earth when he abuses his powers in order to become the new God. Prior to this – in episode 6x17 “My Heart Will
Go On”, he decides to erase the sinking of the Titanic from history in order to harvest all of the souls of the people who then would not die. Ultimately, his plan is to use the
45 souls in the heavenly civil war against the evil Archangel Raphael, which is seen as positive, however, his action also disrupts the balance of the universe, which results in many brutal deaths of all the descendants that should not have been born, which is clearly supposed to be perceived as negative.
Similarly, in the currently ongoing season eleven, Castiel allows Lucifer to use his body as a vessel in order to help him escape from hell. However, the audience knows the whole time that he is only doing it because Lucifer is the only one who can defeat the Darkness (the main villain of the season) which also makes him a hero. All in all, in all these examples, the audience is simultaneously told that Castiel is only doing the bad things because he thinks they will lead to something good. This sort of characterisation can be seen as morally ambiguous.
Furthermore, another character in Supernatural who believes she is doing the right thing, while all the while she is actually hurting people, is the angel Naomi
(Amanda Tapping). Again, at the beginning, she seems to be the main villain of the season when she decides to brainwash Castiel into killing Dean Winchester in order to acquire a relique called “the Angel Tablet”, which can be used as a weapon against heaven. Although she is depicted on several occasions hurting Castiel – even drilling into his head in order to alter his behaviour – it is eventually revealed, that she has been trying to save heaven from being invaded by demons the whole time. Again, not even in her case can it be determined whether she was supposed to be good or a bad, which subverts the stereotypical conception of angels as inherently good (or evil) beings.
Correspondingly, the angel Gadreel’s nature also remains ambiguous basically throughout his whole arc as the rhetorics of the show depict him in a positive light in one episode and then in a negative light in others. When it is first revealed that
Gadreel’s name is not Ezekiel and that he is a fugitive from heaven who is using the
46 Winchester brothers to hide from the other angels, the character is quite clearly being depicted as negative or even as a villain. However, in episode 9x9 “Holy Terror”, the audience starts receiving hints suggesting that Gadreel has actually been attempting to redeem himself:
Metatron: Relax, I’m not here to out you. But I am curious, why [did you
choose the name] Ezekiel?
Gadreel: They say he is a good and honourable angel.
Metatron: Everything that they say you are not. I see your point, Gadreel.
Gadreel: The stories about me… they are not true! (13:34)
Again, the suggestion that Gadreel wants to redeem himself and clear his name are obvious here, yet at this point the audience still cannot be sure whether this angel is good or evil. Not even after Gadreel dies by sacrificing his life for Castiel – which could be considered the ultimate act of good – is he established an inherently good angel, meaning he stays ambiguous even after his death and departure from the series.
In Fallen (2006) it is established that there are three main kinds of angels. The
Powers – God’s warrior soldiers who live in heaven, the Fallen – a group of angels who grew tired of heavenly wars and decided to stay on earth and live amongst humans (and breed with them), and the Nephilim – the impure children of angels and humans. In general, none of these groups can be considered inherently good or bad. Although the
Fallen (as their name suggests) have been stripped of their angelic identity and hunted by the Powers for abandoning God, the series does not depict them as inherently bad.
For instance, in “The Beginning” the fallen angel Ezekiel (Tom Skerritt) becomes friends with the main character and helps him discover his powers in order to save his family, which clearly portrays him as a good character, despite the fact that he is supposed to be seen as inherently evil since he is one of the Fallen.
47 Conversely, while the Powers should be considered inherently good, the show puts them against the main hero, which makes the audience question their morality.
Similarly to the angel Naomi in Supernatural, The Powers believe they are serving God, while all the while they are only serving themselves. According to the angel Ezekiel, they seek revelations from God, but he does not speak back. (See Fig. 8)
Correspondingly, in Legion and its sequel Dominion, the two main angels are initially supposed to be each seen on the opposite end of the spectre. The Archangel
Michael (Paul Bettany) is initially supposed to represent the fallen hero, and the angel
Gabriel (Kevin Durand) is supposed to be believed to be acting according to God’s will.
However, at the end of the film it is revealed that all the while, Michael was actually the one who was acting according to God’s will when he is resurrected after Gabriel kills him in a fight. (See Fig. 9) Therefore, their moral roles are suddenly flipped:
Gabriel: Why do you continue to fight me when you know all is lost?
Michael: You gave Him what He asked for. I gave Him what He needed.
(Legion 1:28:56)
Furthermore, another testament to the frequent recurrence of subversion of morally unambiguous angels is the American popularisation of the nephilim – the mythological offspring of angels and human women. For instance, in Charmed, there are Wyatt and Christopher – the sons of Piper the witch and Leo the whitelighter. Even before he is born, Wyatt is prophesied to become the Source of All Evil, which is the ultimate evil of the Charmed universe. Indeed, when he grows up, he ends up using his half-angelic-half-magical powers for evil, while Christopher chooses to use his powers to travel back in time and help his parents destroy the prophecy and break his brother’s curse. Consequently, the difference between the brothers proves that the ambiguity of their mixed nature can result in them joining either the good or the evil side.
48 Similarly, the creators of Fallen may have opted for making the main character
Aaron (Paul Wesley) a nephilim because they wanted to explore the question of his morality. On the day of Aaron’s 18th birthday, he starts experiencing strange changes; he is suddenly able to understand and speak in all of world’s languages, he can understand animals, he becomes exceptionally strong, and he manages to heal his dog who has been run over by a car. On top of that, Aaron also becomes extremely sick. On the same day he meets the fallen angel Zeke, who tells him that all these things are happening to him, because nephilim come off the age at the age of eighteen: “Zeke:
Angel nature and human nature don’t live well together. Nephilim, when they experience both, they go wackadoodle.” (39:37)
Additionally, while he is never directly referred to as a nephilim, the Archangel
Gabriel (Tilda Swinton) in Constantine (2005) is depicted as a hybrid, which could be considered the same sort of case, as just like with the nephilim, this hybridity already alludes to certain diversity of his nature. This diversity (or impurity) can be used against him – “John: You’re the one who should go to hell, half-breed.” (23:33) – and it also manifests in his behaviour. In other words, while he attempts to help John Constantine, he is also depicted as a cruel angel who does not like humans and least of all John himself. Consequently, this angel could be considered ambiguous as the audience never know when he is going to help and when he is going to fight John. (See Fig. 10)
All in all, based on these examples, angelic heroes are scarcely characterised as morally unambiguous in recent American narratives. In fact, they are often purposely portrayed as wholly ambiguous, meaning it is difficult to recognise whether are meant to be perceived as good or bad. Furthermore, the frequent use of the nephilim and hybrid characters emphasises the use of diversity (or mixed nature) in connection with angels, which, again, has the power to influence the character in both positive or
49 negative way. Both ambiguity and diversity are also two of the key characteristics of the trickster archetype.
When it comes to questions of morality, tricksters are also impossible to pin down. As Hyde says, “we constantly distinguish – right and wrong, sacred and profane, clean and dirty, male and female, young and old, living and dead – and in every case trickster will cross the line and confuse the distinction” (Hyde 7). Moreover, Hyde also suggests that there is a need for characters that exist beyond morality as they are important for the balance of the universe (7). This is for instance visible in the cases of
Naomi and Castiel in Supernatural, who do not shy away from appearing as evil or antagonistic in order to save heaven. In a similar manner, Hyde’s general claim that tricksters are “the mythic embodiment of ambiguity and ambivalence, doubleness and duplicity, contradiction, and paradox” (Hyde 6) can also be applied to the above examples.
This image of a morally ambiguous hero is of course not new. Jackson dedicates several pages to the phenomenon of the medieval trickster Robin Hood - the hero who turned against authorities and became an outlaw in order to do good. He also claims that
“. . . Americans have a growing soft spot for (or at least a love-hate relationship with) grifters and violent takers with an attractive veneer of giving-back” (Jackson 100).
Furthermore, it is often emphasised that the trickster is of diverse, mixed, or impure nature. For instance, Hermes is by his nature very similar to the nephilim, as he is considered a demigod – son of Zeus and the Pleiad Maia. The same sort of diversity is then connected to the trickster of the Norse mythology, demigod Loki:
“While treated as a nominal member of the Aesir tribe of gods in the
Eddas and sagas, Loki occupies a highly ambivalent and ultimately
solitary position amongst the gods, giants, and the other classes of
50 invisible beings that populate the traditional spirituality of the Norse and
other Germanic peoples.” (McCoy)
In relation to this, Hyde discusses how this diversity of nature (and specifically, racial ambiguity) can complicate things: “Racial categories are famously difficult to establish for many reasons, not the least of which is that the races can mix. There being no natural boundaries, what is the essence of “white” or “black”?” (Hyde 98) Similarly,
Jackson suggests that ambiguity can “bring out problems or resolutions, depending on which aspects we bring out in our lives” (249). This means that all characters (including angels) who are of a diverse nature always have the freedom to decide whether they want to do something good or bad without feeling any sort of general inclination to the one or the other, which certainly makes for a more exciting and unexpected story.
According to Gates, “from trickster’s perspective, actions are not to be judged in terms of their consequences so much as whether he succeeds in his ventures or not.” (Gates
179)
To sum up, it can be said that the depiction of the angels as morally ambiguous and naturally diverse characters in the recent depictions subverts the stereotypical idea of angels as either inherently good or inherently bad and positions them beyond the comprehension of morality. The diverse nature of angelic hybrids and nephilim then provides the element of surprise, as it is never clear which way they might choose to go, transforming the angels into more complicated characters.
51 3.4. The Cunning Riddlers
The general mysteriousness of angels is in many ways connected to their playfulness. In fact, there are several instances of specific cases in the Bible in which playfulness is emphasised. For example when Moses encounters an angel in a form of a burning bush: “And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.” (Exodus 3:2) While manifesting itself as a bush on fire could already be considered quite extravagant for an angel, the fact that the bush is not actually burning is what allows us to consider this angelic appearance playful.
In other words, while the angel could have simply appeared in a more conventional form – perhaps as a human, it decided to use a trick instead, in order to communicate a “subliminal message” to Moses through the symbolism of the situation
(i.e. the thorny bush may in this case be seen as representation of faith that is being consumed by fire yet not actually burning), which is not only creative, but also clever.
According to Jones, “this playful or ironic or half-hidden way of communicating is not the exception but it is rather characteristic of the stories of angelic utterances. Even if the message is clear, it is often misunderstood, and, as the story unfolds, it seems that the message has to be understood gradually.” (Jones 55) Therefore, it can be said that angelic playfulness as seen in the Bible is there in order to serve God and to help humans.
When reduced to stereotypes, the angels can, in connection with this trope, be often portrayed as silly and simplified rather than witty and inventive, as it is for example in It’s a Wonderful Life. It can be said, however, that there has been a certain development in this trope since the 1990s when the angel has started to become more complicated, disrupting the conception, that playful equals silly.
52 The Archangel Gabriel as depicted in The Prophecy is a prime example of a playful angel with an edge. Some of the most obvious clues in the film that point towards this are for example his wit, snarky behaviour, and riddled language, which he uses to confuse his enemies: “Gabriel: You know how you got that dent on your top lip? Way back before you were born, I told you a secret. Then, I put my finger there and
I said, ‘shh’.” (0:42:24) Additionally, there is also an instance in the film where Gabriel pretends to be dead in order to trick his enemies. When the main character, Thomas, comes closer to see if he is really dead, Gabriel winks at him mischievously to show that he is alive.
Similarly, Dogma’s fallen angel Loki’s (Matt Damon) name already suggests that he is going to be a truly mischievous character. Indeed, in his very first scene, he is shown tricking a nun into questioning her faith and possibly leaving the convent by convincing her that God is not in fact real to both the chagrin and amusement of his friend and fellow angel, Bartleby (Ben Affleck):
Bartleby: Here’s what I don’t get about you. You know for a fact that
there is a god. You’ve been in his presence, he’s spoken to you
personally. Yet I just heard you claim to be an atheist.
Loki: I just like to fuck with the clergy, man. I just love it. I love to keep
those guys on their toes. (05:28)
In fact, both Loki and Bartleby can be considered examples of angelic playfulness and it is not only because of their cheeky and mischievous behaviour but also because of their creative natures. After they have been banished from heaven by
God for insubordination, there is not much they can do on earth in order to go back, until an opportunity arises when a new swanky cardinal called Glick decides that he is going to reform the Catholic Church and starts giving away indulgences to everybody
53 who has sinned in order to start again with clean slate. In other words, they manage to find a loophole that can help them return to Heaven and despite the fact that this ridiculous plan does not succeed at the end – as a simple cardinal cannot overrule the word of God – it can still be considered a proof of their wit and cunning, which, in turn demonstrates how elaborate these characters are compared to for example the angel
Dudley in The Bishop’s Wife, who might be considered playful in a more stereotypical way.
Furthermore, when it comes to the angels in the miniseries Angels in America
(2003), there are several instances in which their playfulness is intentionally enhanced in order to highlight the juxtaposition between their stereotypical appearance and their behaviour. For instance, when the Angel Australia (Emma Thompson) first reveals herself to Prior Walker, she becomes very flustered when she realises that he does not know why she is there, which leads to her awkwardly having to return to heaven for a moment and seek advice about what to do next.
Additionally, as is revealed during the series, the angels are also capable of disguising themselves as various humans in order to trick people into doing what they want. For instance, Emma Thompson plays another two characters in the series – Prior’s hospital nurse and a homeless woman – both of which end up having profound influence on various characters in the series.
Correspondingly, there are several angels in Supernatural whose playfulness is one of their defining features. In fact, it can be said that the ability of all of the
Supernatural angels (as well as demons) to occupy human bodies as vessels regardless of sex or gender is a creative version of shapeshifting or disguise, which can be both connected to playfulness.
54 The Archangel Gabriel (Richard Speight, Jr.) is then probably the most playful angel of all. Firstly, even though Gabriel occupies the same vessel throughout the series, his identity changes frequently, which can be, again, connected to shapeshifting as well as mystification and disguise. His first appearance in episode 2x15 “Tall Tales”, in which Sam and Dean investigate a series of murders and accidents caused by deadly pranks, gives the impression of a random stand-byer who does not initially even seem like he will be important to the plot. (see Fig. 11) Meanwhile, with the help of their uncle Bobby, the Winchester brothers manage to figure out that they are in fact hunting a “trickster”: “Bobby: These things create chaos and mischief easy as breathing . . . It knows you’re onto it and it’s playing you like fiddles.” (27:19) At this point, the identity of Gabriel shifts into being the “trickster” (see Fig. 12) and Dean and Sam believe they had killed him, stabbing him with a stake.
Because they obviously do not know at this point that Gabriel is not a trickster but an angel, when he re-appears in episode 3x11 “Mystery Spot”, the brothers are shocked that he is still alive. This episode is also a testament to Gabriel’s creativity and power, as he manages to catch Sam in an infinite time loop where he is forced to relive the same day over and over while having his brother die every time in a ridiculous way in order to punish the Winchester brothers for crossing his path the previous season. In the end, Sam ends up swearing to him that they will leave him alone if he lifts the curse and resurrects Dean one last time, letting them out of the loop.
When the angels are finally introduced in season four, Gabriel’s identity shifts again – this time to his truthful origin. In episode 5x8 “Changing Channels”, Gabriel decides to trap Sam, Dean, and Castiel in a world of television to teach them a lesson.
When they finally realise where they are, he manifests in front of them and boasts about his creativity:
55 Sam: This is a trick!
Gabriel: Hello? (he points at himself) Trickster! Come on, I heard you
two yahoos were in town. How could I resist?
Dean: Where the hell are we?
Gabriel: Like it? It’s all homemade. My own sets. My own actors. Call
it my little idiot box. (“Changing Channels” 13:03)
It is only at the end of the episode – after Gabriel forces the Winchester brothers to live in a medical drama, play in a herpes commercial, participate in a Japanese game-show, star in a sitcom, and turns Sam into a car – when Dean manages to figure out that
Gabriel is actually an angel and traps him in a circle of holy fire. (See Fig. 13) Gabriel finally admits that he is the Archangel Gabriel and that he has left heaven in order to get away from the angelic war between Lucifer and Michael in heaven.
Dean: How does an Archangel become a trickster?
Gabriel: My own private witness protection. I skipped out of heaven,
had a face transplant, carved out my own little corner of the world. Till
you two screwed it all up. (“Changing Channels” 32:51)
Furthermore, while in “Hammer of the Gods” he briefly assumes his old identity of the trickster (or more specifically in this case – Loki – the Norse version of the trickster archetype), Gabriel remains an angel to Sam and Dean until he is killed by the angel Metatron in season nine.
Given the above examples, it is clear that the archangel has been depicted as extremely playful in Supernatural. At the same time, however, there has always been an intention behind his tricks. In “Tall Tales” all the victims were guilty of something and killing them was Gabriel’s way of restoring balance. “Bobby: Tricksters
56 target the high and the mighty. Knock them down a peg.” (“Tall Tales” 27:59) In “The
Mystery Spot”, Gabriel creates an infinite time loop in order to teach Sam a lesson about how being too attached to his brother puts everybody else in danger. “Gabriel:
Sam, there is a lesson here that I’ve been trying to drill into that freakish Cro-Magnon skull of yours. This obsession with Dean? The way you’re sacrificing yourself for each other? Nothing good comes out of it. Just blood and pain.” (34:21)
Finally, in “Changing Channels”, Gabriel forces Sam and Dean to live in a television world that he has himself created in order to persuade them to “play the role they have been given” and let Michael and Lucifer possess their bodies in order to resolve their fight. Therefore, it can be said that all this playfulness in Gabriel’s character is not just there for the amusement of audience, but that it plays an important role in the whole story. At the same time, it helps understand the character, as it is basically implied that he is using his wit and his ability to trick and shapeshift in order to survive in the world after becoming a refugee from heaven.
Similarly to Gabriel, the angels Zachariah (Kurt Fuller) and Balthazar (Sebastian
Roché) have also used their creative natures for their own benefit. Specifically, in season four, the angel Zachariah – who is Castiel’s superior in heaven – does not shy away from using his powers to attempt to persuade Dean to let the Archangel Michael possess his body in order to fight Lucifer. In episode 4x17 “It’s A Terrible Life”, he creates an entire alternate universe in which Dean and Sam are not related and Dean is an office clerk instead of a hunter, in order to prove to him that it is his destiny to be who he is:
Dean: Oh, so, what? This was all some sort of a lesson? Is that what you're telling me? Wow. Very creative.
Zachariah: You should see my decoupage.
57 Dean: Gross. No thank you. So, what? I'm just hallucinating all this? Is that it? Zachariah: Not at all. Real place, real haunting. I plunked you in the
middle without the benefit of your memories.
Dean: Just to shake things up, hm? So you guys can have fun watching
us run around like ass-clowns in monkey suits?
Zachariah: To prove to you that the path you’re on is truly in your
blood. You're a hunter. Not because your dad made you, not because
God called you back from hell, but because it is what you are. (“It’s a
Terrible Life” 39:30)
When this does not work in his favour, Zachariah uses his powers to send Dean into the future in episode “The End” in order to show him what the world will look like if he does not go with God’s plan, which does not, ultimately work either.
The angel Balthazar also opts for sending Sam and Dean into alternate reality, which ends up breaking the fourth wall of the series. The Winchester brothers are transformed into a reality where Supernatural is a real TV series and where they are
Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles (the actual names of the actors) – the actors who play Sam and Dean. All in all, the many layers and twist and turns of the alternate reality that Balthazar manages to create are a testament to his creativity and inventiveness.
Additionally, the angel Metatron (Curtis Armstrong) could also be considered an example of a playful angel as he is said to be a skillful liar and trickster in the series.
The most obvious example of this behaviour is when Metatron manages to trick Castiel into creating a spell that causes all angels to be locked out of heaven. In episode 9x18
“Meta Fiction”, Metatron is shown behind a desk typing the script of the episode on a
58 typewriter and enjoying himself immensely as he gets to be in charge of everyone’s lives (See Fig. 14):
Metatron: What writer doesn't love a good twist? My job is to set up
interesting characters and see where they lead me. The by-product of
having well-drawn characters is–they may surprise you. But I know
something they don't know: the ending. How I get there doesn't matter as
long as everybody plays their part. (38:58)
In other words, not only is Metatron creating his own world here, but he is also using his angelic powers to treat all of the characters as his puppets.
Ultimately, while Supernatural offers some of the most obvious examples of playful angels, they do also appear elsewhere albeit in subtler forms. In Fallen, for instance, the angel Ezekiel can be perceived as playful because of his use of snarky language. For example, in the first episode, he calls the Powers “Creator’s personal storm troopers” (“Part 1: The Beginning” 00:47:53)
Similarly, the angel Amy (Jane Lynch) from Angel From Hell expresses her playful nature through the use quick wit and mischievous behaviour. In fact, her character is way more comparable to imps or goblins with her genuine love of mischief rather than to the stereotypical image of playful angelic beings:
Amy: I'll bet you're a very sweet person, Dr. Allison.
Allison: How did you know my name? And that I'm a doctor. Have we
met?
Amy: It feels like it, doesn't it? It's like we've known each other all our
lives. Like we have a psychic, spiritual connection.
Allison: What is happening here?
59 Amy: Ha-ha! I'm just messing with you. (“Pilot” 01:40)
In general, it can be said that the angelic playfulness has indeed been frequently used in the modern depictions of angels in American narratives. In addition, the stereotypical conception of this trope, which seems to depict the angels as rather silly and dumb, has been subverted by two specific features – trickery, which can be connected to cunning, mischief, shapeshifting, and disguise, and creativity, which is usually used in connection with riddles or world-building through the use of the angelic powers. Furthermore, both of these features can be identified with the trickster archetype.
In an article describing the African American tricksters, William Andrews calls them “masters of disguise and consummate survivors, skillfully outmaneuvering their foes with guile, wit, and charm” (Andrews). By looking at the specific examples presented in this chapter, Andrews might have been as well describing Supernatural’s
Archangel Gabriel or the Archangel Gabriel from The Prophecy. Similarly, Gabriel pretending to be dead in The Prophecy can also be connected to the story of the African
American trickster Anansi, who decided to feign his own death in order to trick his village into bringing his family food out of pity: “‘If we do a trick, we can get some meat. I could play like I was dead and you could go out to the road and sing and weil, say ‘My husband’s dead,’ and so on.’” (Gates 207)
In addition, Hyde says that trickster is “shifty as an octopus, coloring himself to fit his surroundings, putting on a fresh face for each man or woman he meets, charming, disarming, and not to be trusted” (Hyde 53), which also corresponds with the amount of shapeshifting and disguises Gabriel has done in Supernatural.
As for creativity, it can be found scattered all over different trickster myths, usually in connection with inventiveness, riddling, and charm. A fitting example of this
60 is the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, which includes a story of how Hermes invented a lyre.
In the story, Hermes tricks an innocent turtle to come near his dwelling in order to kill her and turn her into a lyre:
“Hello there, you shapely thing, dancing girl, life of the party. Lovely to
see you. How’d a mountain girl with a shiny shell get so playful? Let me
carry you inside! What a blessing! Do me a favor, come on, I’ll respect
you. It’s safer inside, you could get in trouble out there. A living turtle,
that say, keeps troublesome witchcraft away. And yet, if you were to die
you’d sing most beautifully.” (Hyde 318)
Again, Hermes’ cunning lies and riddled language in connection with his charm manage to trick the poor creature into doing what the trickster wants corresponds with the behaviour of the angels from this chapter. Moreover, if angelic powers are also taken into account on top of this sort of cunning, it can be said that the potential to coerce a human into doing what the angels want has grown even stronger.
In relation to how the American public might have a positive reaction to this portrayal of angelic playfulness, it is necessary to consider the connection of jokes and tricks to the importance of the freedom for Americans. Jackson claims that “comic tricksters in American media are the signs of vitality of democracy’s freedom of speech.” (Jackson 76), meaning whatever the outcomes of the trickery, the act itself is always perceived as clever and witty. Moreover, Jackson adds that “the trickster’s wise guy punchlines, seeming so spontaneous, give the impression that he’s already up there ahead of you, hip to what you need to realise, divulging it to clue you in and catch you up” (Jackson 76), which may perhaps contribute to the image of the recent angels as forward-thinking heroes as opposed to blindly obedient servants of God.
61 All in all, it can be said that the emphasis of trickery and creativity in the trope of angelic playfulness demonstrates how this trope has developed from the more stereotypical portrayal of angels as silly or dumb creatures to their portrayal as deadly pranksters. This sort of transformation has then made them seem more sophisticated and complete and therefore more appealing to the American audience.
62 3.5. The Human Mirrors
While it is a known fact that “God created man in his own image” (Genesis
1:27), the creation and the specific nature of angels is more of a mystery. This lack of information, however, provides more space for interpretation of the angel archetype.
Additionally, it may also be suggesting that angels as biblical characters are simply not in possession of a character at all, meaning they have no personal goals or motivations.
Adler says that “since angels are purely spiritual beings, they cannot have any passions or bodily desires” (Adler 137), which means they have been created for single purpose – to serve God – while humans have been created to have their own free will.
Pertaining to this, it is not difficult to understand how the stereotypical image of angels as “pure” and “innocent” may have come around. According to Jones, while most had believed angels to be the spiritually-based opposites of humans for a long time, this perception started to change in Milton’s time: “Milton, who thought that angels did have bodies of a kind, defended the view that angels do eat and drink (and even have sex). This was part of seemingly deliberate attempt to humanize so as to dramatize the life of the angels.” (Jones 52) This “humanisation” of angels may then be seen as an attempt to put human flaws and sins on display, as there is nothing more shocking than a seemingly “pure” and “spiritual” being like an angel giving into human temptations.
Furthermore, there are cases of angels taking on human characteristics in order to become sort of a “mirror” to humans. According to Jones, “angels can provide a mirror to help us appreciate human life. Nevertheless, this mirror functions predominantly by way of contrast.” (Jones 53) In other words, it is the juxtaposition between the stereotypical image of angels as pure and innocent (as it can be seen in
Date with an Angel) of and the flawed and desiring nature of humans. This contrast is
63 then especially enhanced in the depiction of this trope in recent American popular narratives.
The Archangel Michael from the 1996 film Michael is a prime example of what happens to an angel if it is “spoiled” by earthly pleasures. When the audience first meets
Michael, he appears to be only in his underwear, dirty, unshaven, sleepy-eyed, and smoking a cigarette. (See Fig. 15) One of the human main characters, Dorothy, even calls him “a gigolo with wings” (00:24:00) and also notes that she “thought that angels were cleaner” (00:26:38), which only emphasises the already mentioned juxtaposition of the perceived image of angels and their portrayal in recent American narratives.
Michael himself summarises this up by saying that he is “not that kind of angel”, and that he has no connection to “halos” or “inner light” (00:27:07).
Specifically, Michael’s connections with human pleasure is shown mostly though his appetite and his love of sugar. For one, he always smells like cookies, which leads to him always being associated with food. He also says that “no matter what they tell you, you can never have too much sugar” (1:18:20). This is a direct reference to his first scene in the film, in which he is shown having a breakfast which consists of a huge bowl of cornflakes in milk topped with several tablespoons of white sugar, which he eats with gusto, completely distorting the image of angels being purely spiritual creatures who require no nourishment. The same sort of distortion then applies in relation to his smoking habit and his requirement of sleep.
In addition, a connection is also made between Michael and sexual desire (or the desire for love), when all the women in a bar where the main characters stop during their trip are visibly attracted to him and do not want to leave his side. Again, Dorothy, representing the stereotypical views of how angels are supposed to behave, outright rejects this notion, simply saying that “angels don’t have sex” (00:47:25), before
64 refusing to discuss this any further. Again, the occurrence of sexual desire and sexual attraction in connection with Michael can be seen as a disruption of the stereotypical image of innocent angels.
Furthermore, while Michael can be considered the mirror image of humanity in more of a negative sense (especially in relation to his smoking and eating habits), City of Angels offers a more positive version, although the manifestation of the desire is nearly identical. In the film, a man called Nathaniel Messinger (Dennis Franz) admits to
Seth that he is a former angel and that he had decided to become human in order to enjoy “earthly pleasures”.
Nathaniel’s story is obviously supposed to serve as Seth’s inspiration, as he later on decides to also abandon his angelic existence in favour of his own desire. While
Nathaniel’s idea of earthly pleasures is more connected to appetite – “Nathaniel: Guess
I should introduce myself. Nathaniel Messinger – glutton, hedonist, former celestial body, recent addition to the human race.” (00:51:54) – Seth chooses to become human in order to act on his love/sexual desire towards Maggie. (See Fig. 16)
Similarly, Leo the whitelighter basically risks everything in order to be with his beloved woman in Charmed. Furthermore, angels are usually not supposed to fall in love, let alone have sex or children with humans, as that would clash with the image of the angels not being supposed to have any wants or needs, let alone break the rules in order to fulfill their desires.
Correspondingly, in Dogma, Loki and Bartleby also often mention sex and sexual desire, albeit predominantly as a joke, as it is established that they cannot in fact actually have sex as angels: “Loki: Last four days on earth? If I had a dick, I’d go get laid.” (09:35) This demonstrates that the writers must have felt the need to at least
65 emphasise that these angels behave way more like humans than what is the stereotypical conception of angels.
There are several instances of angels being drawn to desire or driven by appetite in Supernatural. In episode 4x10 “Heaven and Hell”, a young woman named Anna
Milton (Julie McNiven) reveals that she is a former angel who had decided to become human in order to enjoy earthly pleasures, not unlike Nathaniel in City of Angels. When
Dean Winchester cannot understand why she would exchange angelic spirituality for human fatality, she attempts to explain it to him:
Dean: Why would you fall? Why would you want to be one of us?
Anna: You don’t mean that.
Dean: I don’t? A bunch of miserable bastards – eating, crapping,
confused, afraid…
Anna: I don’t know, there’s loyalty, forgiveness, love…
Dean: Pain.
Anna: Chocolate cake.
Dean: Guilt.
Anna: Sex
Dean: Yeah, you got me there.
Anna: I mean it. Every emotion, Dean. Even the bad ones. It’s why I
fell. It’s why I’d give anything not to go back. (15:20)
In other words, Anna is clearly expressing her preference of humanity (regardless of whether the experience turns out to be positive or negative) to her former existence as a celestial being, as she feels like being human is better than being an angel.
An example of a negative outcome of an angel being driven by his desire is then the angel Castiel in episode “The End”, which takes place in the future. When Dean first
66 encounters this future (alternate universe) version of Castiel, he is just about to participate in an orgy with several women, which is already shocking, given Castiel’s previous indifference to sex and women. (See Fig. 17) Moreover, he is also shown taking drugs. When Dean tries to have conversation with Castiel, the following dialogue occurs:
Dean: Why don’t you strap on your angel wings and take me back to my
page of the calendar?
Future Castiel: I wish I could just ‘strap on my angel wings’, but I’m
sorry, no dice.
Dean: What are you? Stoned?
Future Castiel: Generally, yeah.
Dean: What happened to you?
Future Castiel: Life. (18:55)
Overall, it can be said that this depiction of Castiel may be perceived as the worst scenario of what might happen to an angel when it gets corrupted with earthly pleasures, such as desire or appetite. As opposed to Anna or Nathaniel, Castiel is basically destroyed by them.
Conversely, in season nine, there is another instance in which Castiel becomes human after all angels are expelled from heaven and he is shown enjoying earthly pleasures in more of a positive way. “Castiel: I am really enjoying this place. Plentiful food. Good water pressure. Things I never even considered before. There really is a lot to being human, isn't there?” (“I’m No Angel” 38:05) The angel Metatron has a similar experience in season 11 after he becomes human himself. In episode 10x18 “Book of the Damned”, Metatron is shown eating Belgian waffles with so much gusto it visibly disgusts Castiel who is sitting opposite him (See Fig. 18), which is a testament how
67 strange it is for an angel to see his former superior angel (and the scribe of God) so obsessed with earthly pleasures: “Metatron: Food. Glorious Food. Mmm. All the countless descriptions in so many books, but those are just words. Oh, the taste, the – the actual taste…. I had no idea.” (11:13)
Furthermore, Supernatural’s Archangel Gabriel and the angel Balthazar are also often connected to earthly pleasures, especially in relation to their playful natures.
When it comes to Gabriel, the audience is reminded of his sexual drive and appetite in most of his scenes. For instance, in “Tall Tales” he is shown devouring a table full of cakes in his apartment (See Fig. 19) and later on eating a whole bar of chocolate during his confrontation with Dean. As for his connection to sexual desire, there are several instances in the series where Gabriel admits to having a big libido. In “Tall Tales” he is shown feeding cake to two female models which he created out of thin air and it is implied that he is about to have sex with them. Similarly, in “Hammer of the Gods”, he is shown having an intimate relationship with the Goddess Kali (See Fig. 20).
Correspondingly, the audience meets the angel Balthazar, who has faked his own death in order to escape heaven, in the middle of his enjoyment of earthly pleasures:
Castiel: What is all this? What are you doing?
Balthazar: Whatever I want. This morning I had a ménage à – what’s
French for twelve? (“The Third Man” 30:05)
Again, both the description of Gabriel and the description of Balthazar show the juxtaposition of the stereotypical idea of angels as innocent and pure beings whose attention is fully given to God and their mission, as they both choose to leave heaven in order to seek pleasure.
68 Additionally, in Drop Dead Diva, the angel Fred spends most of his time on
Earth chasing after Stacey with whom he has fallen in love, all the while struggling with the fact that relationships between angels and humans are forbidden. Conversely, the angel Amy from Angel From Hell does not seem to struggle with her attraction at all as she shamelessly flirts with most of the men that she encounters, including Allison’s brother Brad:
Brad: Why was I flirting with that woman?
Allison: I have no idea. She's some kook from the farmers' market.
Brad: It's like she drew me in. It got very sexual, very quickly.
Allison: Yeah, I know. It was weird. (“Pilot” 04:14)
All in all, given these examples, when it comes to the depiction of angels as the mirrors to humanity, we may identify two main recurring features, which in some way subvert the stereotypical portrayal of angels as pure and innocent. The first one is desire, meaning both sexual desire and love, and the second one is appetite, which is especially portrayed in connection with food and drugs. As will be demonstrated below, these are also two of the several key features of the trickster archetype.
Firstly, tricksters are known for their heightened sex drive. In fact, countless
Native American and Native American stories featuring a trickster character is somehow related to sex – be it in the form of masturbation or intercourse with practically anything and anyone (including the trickster’s own children). This is especially true for the character of Coyote and Iktomi, whose stories are based on sex.
[Iktomi] fancies himself to be a great lover. He can transform himself
into a handsome young man to court a pretty girl, and he sleeps with both
human and animal women. He transgresses the most formidable taboo by
69 making love to his own daughters. He has a love medicine that makes
him irresistible to women. (Erdoes and Ortiz 16)
Again, the parallels between this description and Gabriel from Supernatural and
Michael from Michael are very clear in this instance.
Furthermore, Hyde links sexual desire and appetite to each other, seeing them as a general feeling of lust and hunger which drives the trickster to certain actions as well as “their shamelessness and their great attraction to dirt”. (Hyde 8) Correspondingly,
Gates comments on the trickster’s overall nastiness (which can be, yet again, evenly matched by the depiction of Michael in Michael):
Trickster’s ability to dream up new and even more clever boundary-
breaking schemes is matched by his extraordinarily nasty habits. Thus,
we often see him attacking the most basic distinctions between the clean
and the dirty. He does not hesitate to steal, assault sexually, kill, and eat
other animals. His appetites are immeasurable. (Gates 179)
Moreover, Hyde notes that trickster’s desire may also become his undoing as he blindly follows its passion without thinking: “Hungry, trickster sometimes devises stratagems to catch his meal; hungry, he sometimes loses his wits altogether.” (Hyde
19) Comparatively, the same thing can be seen in the example of Castiel in
Supernatural whose desire for sex and drugs dulls his character to the point where he does not even care anymore whether he will survive or not or what will happen to Dean, who is usually portrayed as a person who is the most important to him.
According to Adler, “angels cannot have acquisitive desires, for there is no way in which they can improve or perfect themselves by acquiring external goods” (Adler
138), correspondingly, Jones says that “thinking about angels, who do not have bodies,
70 helps us appreciate how much human life is in fact bound up with the fact that we do have bodies.” (Jones 53). This is where the trickster archetype becomes crucial. In other words, by acquiring these “external goods” (i.e. love, sex, food, or drugs), the angelic character may become more intricate and well-rounded and therefore more exciting to watch. Jackson, for instance, describes how the power of sex and sexuality may have helped female tricksters reach stardom and love of American audience by simply seducing and shocking them:
Mae West, Theda Bara, Jean Harlow, Marilyn Monroe, and Jayne
Mansfield were American sex goddess tricksteresses who specialized in
using all the ancient wily tricks of flirting to accomplish mass media
seduction. They dramatized with glee the naughty powers of the sex
kitten, flaunting a beautiful body, arousing desire, seducing and
dominating the red-blooded American male imagination. (Jackson 66)
Moreover, as these trickster features are all basically derived from what is seen as the worst of humanity, it becomes easier for the audience to identify with them.
In summarisation, it is possible to say that the existence of the trickster features in the “human mirror” angelic trope enhances the juxtaposition between the purity, innocence, and heavenly devotion of the stereotypical portrayal of angels and human nature, which is filled with desire, lust, and selfish intention, and therefore deemed defective or even dirty. Specifically, the existence of love or sexual desire disrupts the stereotype in order to make the angels more approachable to the audience. Similarly, the existence of the trickster’s appetite subverts the stereotypical conception of angels as beings fully devoted to God with no agenda of their own, which also transforms them into more sophisticated and elaborate characters.
71 3.6. The “Other” Angels
Just like there is a general lack of information regarding the creation of angels in the Scriptures, there is a similar shortage of text pertaining to their appearance. While the Bible does offer a few descriptions of them, they are way too varied and there is certainly not enough of them to be sufficient for an assembly of an authentic image of an angel. What all these descriptions and allusions do have in common, however, is the general sense of angelic “otherness”, meaning the emphasis of their abnormality.
The most common description in the Bible is probably the description of angels as spirits of the heavenly realms; in Hebrews 1, the Bible speaks about the angels as
“ministering spirits”. These spirits are usually invisible to the human eye, which is why in order to be useful to God on earth, they have always been in a need of a possession of a human body, or at least something that might resemble one.
According to Adler, “these assumed bodies are taken on by angels as guises only for the sake of engaging in their earthly ministry.” (Adler 12) In other words, it must be stressed that by taking on human appearances, angels do not actually become human.
They are merely imitating them, which can sometime results in “odd” or “abnormal” looks or behaviour. This is, for instance, visible in Daniel’s description of his first encounter with an angel: “His body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in colour to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude.”
(Daniel 10:6),
The stereotypical image of angels as humanoids with wings as it is known today has only started to appear during the Renaissance era, when artists and writers began distinguishing them from humans by adding supplementary physical features to their appearances, such as halos or wings. According to Jones, it was the public’s obsession
72 with the ancient Rome and Greece, and specifically the contemporary images of Nike and Eros, which influenced this new image of angels (Jones 19). At the same time, it can be said the image of an angel as a human figure with wings that allow it to fly has basically secured the angels’ position in the abnormal category.
Additionally, some of the descriptions of angels in the Bible have also served as a support of the more recent argument that angels are in fact connected to the extraterrestrial. “In the 1970s the alien enthusiast Eric Von Däniken (1935–) caused a controversy by claiming that Abraham and Jacob did not meet angels but aliens. . . One of Von Däniken’s favourite example was the vision of Ezekiel of the four living creatures and ‘a wheel within a wheel’ on the rims of which there are ‘many eyes’”.
(Jones 89) According to Jones, the reasons for the popularity of this intersection might be connected to the idea of angels being the dwellers of cosmos rather than heaven and that the recent fascination with aliens might also be a nostalgia for the fascination with angels in the post-Newtonian world (Jones 91).
Overall, while the earlier depictions tend to portray the angels more stereotypically – androgynous, beautiful, with halos and fluffy wings – as it can be seen for example in The Kid or It’s a Wonderful Life, the sense of “otherness” has become more emphasised in the recent American narratives. Furthermore, this “otherness” can manifest either in the behaviour or the appearance of the angels.
The Prophecy offers perhaps the most obvious examples of angels merely pretending to be humans. They are depicted as humanoid creatures that do not have sex or gender, which suggest that these concepts are not important to them. Moreover, their senses are heightened, which often leads to odd behaviour – for example the Archangel
Gabriel is shown sniffing or licking people or things in order to determine who they are and where they have been. It is also said that Gabriel cannot drive, and another example
73 of his paranormality is also the way he seems to resemble a cross between human being and bird when he “perches” on things instead of sitting down in a regular way (See Fig.
21). The Prophecy is also the first instance of a portrayal of an angel in the 1990s
America wearing a long coat to fit in with humans, which has also become a popular trope in connection with angelic appearances.
While it is implied that the angelic bodies in The Prophecy have been fashioned specifically for their time on earth, it is not clear how Michael acquired his physical body in the film Michael. Nevertheless, Michael would be virtually indistinguishable from other humans if it were not for his wings (See Fig. 22), which are white, long, and reach all the way down to his ankles. While the depiction of an angel wings is usually seen as stereotypical, in the more recent narratives it is sometimes brought to such extremes (like it is in this case), that it becomes more of a parody.
The creators of City of Angels have chosen a slightly different approach when it comes to the depiction of their angels. While most of them are also depicted wearing long coats, there are no wings to hide under them like it is in Michael’s case in Michael.
In fact, the angels in this film are usually completely invisible to the humans unless they choose to make themselves visible, which usually happens when the human in question is dying. The angel Cassiel (Andre Braugher) even stresses to Seth that “[angels] were never human” (00:06:10), which suggests that these angels are indeed of spiritual origin rather than physical.
Nevertheless, there are still some instances in the film which may be considered connections between angels and some kind of supernatural creatures or extraterrestrial beings. The best example of this are the multiple overhead camera shots which appear in the film from time to time to emphasise the “otherness” of angels. Specifically, there are shots of the angels standing or sitting on top of skyscrapers or road signs and
74 looking down at the city, or shots of what appears to be hundreds of angels standing on a beach and also looking at the horizon. In fact, based on these examples, the angels from The Prophecy could in this manner be likened to the angels in City of Angels, as they both resemble birds in such instances. (See Fig. 23 and 24)
Similarly, while the angels in Dogma seem to resemble the stereotypical portrayal of angels at first sight, the opposite is the truth as their androgynous looks, asexuality, and fluffy wings are being made fun of in the film, just like it is done in
Michael. For instance, when Metatron first reveals his wings to Bethany and she does not seem to recognise his name from the Scriptures, he becomes extremely disappointed at which point his wings visibly sag in disappointment as if he were a bird. In other words, while his wings can be considered a connection to the stereotypical depictions of angels, the strangeness of them is emphasised to the point where it is possible to talk about an element of “paranormality”.
Additionally, when Bethany becomes afraid that he has come to her room to sexually assault her, he drops his trousers to reveal to her that angels in fact do not have genitals at all, similarly to the angels of The Prophecy, which means that he could not have sex with her even if they both wanted. “Metatron: Angels are ill-equipped. See?
I’m as anatomically impaired as a Ken-doll.” (16:02) All in all, the emphasis of the sex- lessness of angels, while also connected to the angel stereotype, in fact only enhances the feeling of “otherness” in this case, making the characters more interesting and sophisticated.
In Angels in America, the audience does not actually get to see any angels for the first half of the miniseries, and so the only reference to angelic presence is a beam of white light, which Prior Walter sees in a feverish dream, and one single white feather, which falls from the sky. The beam of light, in particular, is then very reminiscent of
75 UFO imagery, which, again, only enhances the feeling of “otherness” in connection with the angel.
When the angel Australia finally manifests in its physical form in front of Prior, she resembles the stereotypical image of an angel entirely – large white wings and a long white robe. However, similarly to Dogma, in this case the authors are merely parodying this stereotypical image by putting it into juxtaposition with the angels’ strange behaviour on earth as well as their ulterior motives. Additionally, their ability to change their skin also suggests that they are also capable of imitating humans.
When Sam and Dean Winchester first meet Castiel in the Supernatural series, he is initially not in human form but in his “true form”. According to the lore of the series, this true form is of an enormous size – “Castiel: My true form is approximately the size of your Chrysler building.” (“Family Matters” 7:21) – and cannot be perceived by regular humans. Therefore, to be able to freely move on earth, they need to find a human vessel, which is a regular human body with human souls inside.
When an angel “possesses” a human, it does not also banish his soul in the process, which means that for the duration of this possession, the two entities are sharing the body. In episode 4x20 “The Rapture”, Jimmy Novak (Castiel’s vessel) describes this experience as “like being chained to a comet”. (4:46) Here it is important to note that this possession (as opposed to demon possession) is entirely consensual – the human has to give permission to the angel to enter. While the angel is occupying the body, all biological processes are stopped – the body does not need to eat or sleep.
Consequently, angels pretending to be humans often behave in awkward or odd manner, which may result in humorous situations.
The angel Castiel is probably the best example of a socially awkward angel in
Supernatural. As it is established that he has basically spent millennia in heaven as a
76 celestial being without a physical form before he was sent to earth to raise Dean out of the dead, his life in the human vessel known as Jimmy Novak is often difficult for him.
This is specifically shown in the awkward way he moves, the stiff posture of his body, and his extremely deep inhuman gravelly voice. Moreover, it is established that he has trouble understanding the concept of shame and sexual attraction as well as identifying sarcasm and pop-cultural references: “Castiel: Sam, Dean, my ‘people skills’ are
‘rusty’. Pardon me, but I have spent the last ‘year’ as a multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent.” (“The Third Man” 18:22)
Again, this unfamiliarity of basic human behaviours and mainstream culture is usually used as a trope in stories about aliens, which in a way emphasises the connection of the Supernatural angels to science-fiction as opposed to the religious lore.
In fact, Dean even references the film ET – The Extra Terrestrial in connection with
Castiel in episode 8x23 “Sacrifice” when it looks like Castiel might return to heaven:
“Dean: So this is it? E.T. goes home.” (23:23) Additionally, the angels’ “true form” is usually depicted as bright white light, “star”, or “comet” surrounded by white light shooting down from the sky, which can also be connected to the stories of arrival of extraterrestrial beings on earth.
Another sign of “otherness” in connection with the Supernatural angels is then their indifference to sex, gender, and sexual orientation. While some angels (such as
Castiel) seem to prefer one sex over the other when it comes to choosing a vessel, others do not distinguish between them, as they have no concept of sex or gender, like the angels in The Prophecy. For instance, the Archangel Raphael (Demore Barnes &
Lanette Ware) and the angel Hannah (Erica Carroll & Lee Majdoub) both changed vessels during the course of their story arcs without seeming to care that their sexes switched from one to another (See Fig. 25 and 26).
77 Moreover, while Supernatural angels are said to have wings, they are not usually visible, although any angel may choose to show a shadow of them to a human if it chooses to do so. On the other hand, if an angel dies on earth, there are visible ash marks in a shape of wings around its corpse in reference to this otherwise invisible part of the body that seems to be existing in another dimension. Additionally, Castiel also wears a coat over his suit, following the tradition from The Prophecy, Michael and City of Angels, despite the fact that he does not need it to cover his wings. In a way, it can be said that this coat might be a symbol of the angels’ human skin while they operate on earth. (See Fig. 27)
The depiction of the Angel of Death (Doug Jones) from Hellboy 2: The Golden
Army (2008) looks strikingly different from the previous examples and is perhaps the closest to the paranormal or rather extraterrestrial kind of otherness. While its general shape could be considered somewhat human – it has a head, core, and four limbs – the form of it looks more alien or supernatural than human and is very much far away from the depiction of angels of the Renaissance era (See Fig. 28). Its arms are thin and long, it has long dangerous-looking nails, its head is shaped like a light-bulb (which is in fact typical of the popular depictions of aliens) and while its wings look like regular angel wings at first sight, they are in fact carrying the angel’s eyes on both sides.
The situation in the film Legion and its serialised sequel Dominion is then very similar to Supernatural. In order to be able to walk the earth, angels must possess a human being. The main difference is that some of these angels choose to possess dead bodies, which virtually means they are creating zombie-like creatures out of people as opposed to regular looking humans who just happen to be carrying angels inside of them. The rest of the angels have visible wings, which they can fold behind their backs.
78 When it comes to imitating humans, therefore, they do not really excel at that (See Fig.
29).
The TV series The Messengers is a different case, although its connection to
“otherness” and specifically paranormality is just as strong, if not stronger as in the previous instances. Additionally, the angels of The Messengers, as they appear in the series, are basically mixtures of human and angelic entities, meaning they are neither fully human nor completely angelic. During their “possession”, they have been struck by a force and they lost consciousness before waking up as partial angels. Again, this trope resembles alien possession rather than angelic stories, which makes it both fresh and scary, which seems to be the winning combination in American popular culture.
Furthermore, several references and allusions to alien life are made later on in the series, usually by characters who identify themselves as atheist. Moreover, the angelic possession is accompanied by a meteor shower, which causes all electronic devices in proximity of this even to stop working, as well as a strong smell of sulfur.
Consequently, one of the characters immediately thinks it is an alien invasion – “Alan:
Please, let it be aliens!” (“Awakening” 18:07) – which his friend Vera (who has just become a new angel only she does not know this yet) paradoxically finds amusing and deluded. In addition, despite the fact that the angels from The Messengers are almost hundred percent human, they do have wings as well. These wings are, however, only visible in mirrors. (See Fig. 30)
Similarly to the Angel of Death in Hellboy, Erika from Welcome to Night Vale are also portrayed in a paranormal, even alien manner. Regardless of the fact that all characters and places are portrayed as “odd” in the series, the angels of Night Vale are perhaps the oddest, both appearance and behaviour-wise.
79 Overall, there are many examples of Night Vale citizens describing the angels to
Cecil on his radio show: In “Pilot” Old Woman Josie describes them as “ten feet tall, radiant, and one of them was black” (“Pilot” 01:30). Correspondingly, in episode 32
“Yellow Helicopters”, Cecil reports that Larry Leroy saw a “dark black line in the sky, coming from the heavens down to near where Old Woman Josie lives, down by the old car lot. He said he thinks it was probably something to do with ‘those weird, tall friends of hers that fly around and make loud trumpet noises and will not stop smiling all the time.’” (11:35) In episode “Renovations” Kevin describes the angels as “impossibly tall people with long heads and wings” (11:00), and later as “man nor woman, tall, long, with great black wings, beating softly through filtered and recirculated 71º air.” (22:20).
Again, all these descriptions clearly allude to the “otherness” of the Night Vale angels and specifically, the paranormal.
On the other hand, despite their unusual appearance, Erika still try very hard to fit in the community and conceal their existence from the citizens of Night Vale. For instance, in “Parade Day”, when mayor Pamela Winchell announces that angels are real, they appear to be very upset and try to silence her:
Cecil: Mayor Winchell turned to the few remaining reporters who still
attend her press conferences and said, “Angels are real! I am staring at
one right now! They are real, ok?” She began to open the door wide to
show the press, but the figure – who was certainly not an angel –
mouthed “Shut up, Pamela!” at Mayor Winchell. The alleged angel
added, “Shh! Geez!” and slammed the door. (“Parade Day” 16:00)
This, along with the fact that Erika lives with Old Woman Josie, enjoys opera, and can talk to humans without big trouble suggests their desire to also imitate humans in Night
Vale.
80 All in all, it can be said that the trope of angelic “otherness” appears quite frequently in recent American narratives and that it has been subverting the stereotypical conception of angels as androgynous beings with fluffy wigs with the help of the feature of imitation, which is connected to instances of the angels (rather unconvincingly) pretending to be human, and which can also be connected to disguise, shapeshifting, and skinwalking, and the feature of paranormality, which is connected to the purposeful portrayal of angels as supernatural creatures or extraterrestrial beings.
Furthermore, both of these features can be connected to the trickster archetype.
Hyde, for instance, connects the trickster’s ability to imitate to his ability to adapt in different environments: “Perhaps having no way also means that a creature can adapt itself to a changing world. Species well situated in a natural habitat are always at risk if that habitat changes.” (Hyde 43) In other words, it can also be said that angels trying to pretend to be human in order to blend in are, in fact, acting as “chameleons” and changing their skin according to specific situations.
This “skin changing” in particular can be likened to the instances where angels decide to use human bodies as vessels in order to be able to walk the earth (e.g. in The
Supernatural or Legion and Dominion). Hyde says that “sometimes tricksters alter the appearance of their skin; sometimes they actually replace one skin with another.” (51), which is used as a way to accomplish their goals or trick their enemies.
Furthermore, when looking for connections between tricksters and paranormality, it is especially necessary to focus on the diverse nature of the trickster.
The trickster can become anything he wants: human, animal, supernatural creature, or even all of them at once.
In the world of [trickster] tales, boundary is broken down between the
village and the bush, and between humans and supernatural creatures.
81 Characters may be animals acting like humans, or humans acting like
animals. . .the contestants draw on the special power coming from the
nonhuman world. (Gates 221)
This “nonhuman world” that Gates is describing may also be likened to the mysterious nature of angels in the above examples, namely Erika from Welcome to Night Vale, whose existence has been denied since episode 1.
Finally, in relation to paranormality it is also important to draw attention to the issue of gender, sex, and sexuality. While many authors opt for depicting angeles as gendered (and predominantly male) beings (e.g. in Drop Dead Diva, the angel Fred is depicted in a very masculine way), the examples from this chapter also show that they sometimes choose to portray them androgynous (Gabriel in Constantine), asexual
(Castiel in Supernatural), or even as hermaphrodites or completely sexless creatures
(The Prophecy) instead in order to increase the sense of otherness and emphasise the paranormal feature. According to Hyde, “it is often said that well-known tricksters are not male but androgynous, or at least of indeterminate sexuality.” (Hyde 335)
Specifically, he mentions Hermes, whom he calls the “classical hermaphrodite”,
Wakdjunkaga, who “disguises himself as a woman, marries the son of a chief and bears three sons”, or Loki, “having eaten the half-cooked heart of a woman”, which helped him become female and “give birth to monsters”. (336) This kind of shifting of sex and gender can be connected to the already mentioned ability of the angels to disguise themselves by imitating humans as well as their use of randomly chosen human bodies as physical vessels.
All in all, when it comes to the allusions to angelic “otherness” in recent
American narratives, it can be said that when compared to the earlier, more stereotypical depictions of angels which depict them predominantly as beautiful
82 androgynous beings with fluffy white wings, it has been enhanced by the use of imitation and paranormality. This has, in turn, transformed the angels into more complicated and visually enticing characters.
83 4. Conclusion
All in all, based on the number of examples of angelic depictions in American popular culture and narratives presented in this thesis, it can be said that the angel archetype can indeed be considered a cultural phenomenon. For the most part, the popularity of this phenomenon can be connected to America’s general attachment to religion and Christianity, although, as has been indicated, the presence of religion is not always a condition as other sources of angelic fascination in America can be found for instance in people’s interest in the supernatural or the extraterrestrial.
American angelic narratives can be divided into two eras – the pre-1990s, which contain depictions offering rather stereotypical image of the myth – fluffy wings, beautiful, selfless, and devoted to God – and the post-1990s, offering more developed version of the archetype, influenced by the archetype merging with the trickster archetype and transforming the characters into more sophisticated and elaborated form.
Angelic depictions in recent American narratives can therefore be considered mergers of two different archetypes – the angel and the trickster. What makes this merger work well within these narratives is then primarily the compatibility of the two archetypes. For instance, both archetypes can be considered examples of dual nature and the ability to move between different spheres, such as heaven and earth, life and death, and good and evil.
In addition, while this compatibility has undoubtedly contributed to the conception of this merger, it is the differences between these two archetypes that have the ability to transform the angel archetype into something more attractive for contemporary American audiences. In other words, specific trickster features used in specific angelic tropes can either completely disrupt or enhance certain elements in the stereotypical image of the archetype in order to increase its expressive power.
84 For instance, the stereotypical conception of “messengers of God” as obedient and selfless beings has been subverted by the features of independence and arrogance.
Specifically, the angel’s desire for autonomy has caused it strayed away from its original mission and therefore lost connection with God. Moreover, the angel’s arrogance can also contribute to this estrangement as it amplifies the angel’s selfish desire to reach its own goals. Additionally, as both of these features subvert the idea of angels as inherently flawless, that they have transformed the angel stereotype into more relatable characters.
When it comes to the “guardian angel” trope, the stereotypical notion describes them as beings who are fully devoted to their protégés and uninterested in any unauthorised interferences. This idea has been disrupted by two trickster features – deceit and transformativeness. Deceit, which is mostly perceived as a negative feature, disrupts the stereotypical idea that a guardian’s first priority is always its protégé, as many of the guardian angels presented are shown lying or deceiving their humans in order to gain something for themselves. Even when these actions do not result in negative outcomes, they can still serve as catalyst tools for the story, which disrupts the stereotypical idea that angels are not supposed to have any influence or directly interfere with their protégés’ lives. Consequently, the presence of these two trickster features has made the characters more unexpected and exciting.
Although the Bible presents both good and evil examples of angels (for instance, the Watcher angels, demons, or Satan himself are considered inherently evil), it is necessary to add that the stereotypical conception of angels describes them as morally unambiguous – meaning they are either good or evil, there is no in-between. This conception has been subverted by two trickster features – ambiguity and diversity of nature. The moral ambiguity feature makes the angelic characters more complicated,
85 which makes them more relatable and intriguing to the audience. The diversity of nature represented by the use of the nephilim and other angelic “hybrids” may then perhaps appeal to the racially or ethnically diverse parts of American audiences.
Furthermore, while the trope of angelic playfulness has been in stereotypical depictions portrayed as rather silly, in recent narratives this element has been enhanced with the help two specific trickster features – trickery and creativity. Similarly to the deceit feature found in the guardian angel trope, the trickery feature often results in negative outcomes as it is usually connected to mischief and the angel’s desire to entertain itself at the expense of others. The creativity feature is then used to showcase the angel’s powers. Overall, these two features subvert the idea of angels as silly in order to make them more sophisticated.
Correspondingly, the angels’ role as mirrors to humanity has also been enhanced in recent popular narratives by the influence of the trickster archetype. Specifically, it was enhanced by two trickster features – desire and appetite. As these two core trickster features represent two of the most fundamental earthly pleasures – sex and food, it has transformed the angel archetype from the stereotypical conception of a being that does not feel desire or hunger into a kind of character that is more similar to humans than angels. This has, in turn, made them more relatable to audiences.
Finally, the trope of “otherness” in connection with angels has also been amplified in recent American popular narratives. Specifically, it is possible to talk about two trickster features which enhance the conception of angels as in some way peculiar – imitation and paranormality. While imitation emphasises the differences between angels and humans and therefore brings attention to the “otherness” of angels, the feature of paranormality demonstrates the similarities between angels and other popular creatures, such as monsters or aliens. All of this this then transforms the stereotypical conception
86 of the archetype into a more peculiar and thus intriguing idea of an angel. Moreover, as the discussion concerning UFOlogy is still very much current in America, it can also be predicted that in the future this trickster feature might have even more influence on the angel archetype. Future depictions of angels may therefore resemble alien creatures in so many ways that it will be possible to talk about a merger of three different archetypes
– the angel, the trickster, and the alien.
In final conclusion, the presence of trickster features in various angel tropes has guaranteed the continuing popularity of the angels in recent American narratives by transforming them into more relatable, exciting, intriguing, complicated, unexpected, and peculiar characters. Henceforward, a boring and always obedient angel can fall in love with a human and rebel against God, devoted guardian angel can prioritise its own needs to the needs of its protégé and and decide to build an opera house in its city, an angelic hero can discover a hidden dark side within itself, a silly angel can become a deadly prankster, angelic pureness and innocence can be spoiled by earthly pleasures, and finally, the general strangeness of angels can become enhanced to the point where they might resemble visitors from space. In summarisation, it can be said that the merger of the angel and the trickster archetype has therefore proven to be more sophisticated and appealing to American audiences.
87 5. List of Figures
Fig 1. Italian renaissance painters depicted angels as beautiful beings in long robes. carlumare. ANGELICO, Fra Annunciation, 1437-46. San Marco Museum, Florence.
Flickr.com. Web. 23 Apr. 2016.
Fig. 2. The Archangel Gabriel (Christopher Walken) brings a dying girl back to life to make her his slave. (The Prophecy 1:13:02)
88
Fig. 3. Supernatural’s Castiel (Misha Collins) confesses to Dean (right) that he has been doubting his mission. (“It’s the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester” 39:16)
Fig. 4. Phoebe (left) finding out about Leo’s (Brian Krause) true identity in Charmed.
(“Secrets & Guys” 10:58)
89
Fig. 5. The angel Gadreel displaying his angelic identity while occupying Sam
Winchester’s (Jared Padalecki) body in Supernatural. (“Devil May Care.” 30:40)
Fig. 6. Erika watching over their protege Old Woman Josie, as imagined by a fanartist
DejaDrew. “Josie, Erika, and Erika”. DejaDrew’s deviantART Gallery. deviantART. 17
Aug 2013. Web. 23 Mar 2016.
90
Fig. 7. Castiel’s (Misha Collins) ambiguous introduction in Supernatural. (“Lazarus
Rising” 38:38)
Fig. 8. The leader of the powers, the angel Verchiel (Lisa Lackey) ready to fight Aaron, the main character of Fallen. (“The Beginning” 69:20)
91
Fig. 9. Freshly resurrected Archangel Michael (Paul Bettany). (Legion 1:28:41)
Fig. 10. The Archangel Gabriel (Tilda Swinton) after John calls him a half-breed.
(Constantine 1:50:22)
92
Fig. 11. Supernatural’s Archangel Gabriel (Richard Speight, Jr. - right) disguised as a janitor. (“Tall Tales” 12:07)
Fig. 12. Supernatural’s Archangel Gabriel after he admits to being the trickster, sneering and enjoying a chocolate bar while having a conversation with Dean. (“Tall
Tales” 34:42)
93
Fig. 13. Supernatural’s Archangel Gabriel clapping his hands in congratulations after
Sam and Dean prove that he is an angel by trapping him in a ring of holy fire.
(“Changing Channels” 32:00)
Fig. 14. Supernatural’s Angel Metatron (Curtis Armstrong) writing the script of the episode (“Meta Fiction” 01:06).
94
Fig. 15. The Archangel Michael’s (John Travolta) first appearance in the film. (Michael
00:20:11)
Fig. 16. The angel Seth (Nicolas Cage) and Maggie sharing physical intimacy. (City of
Angels 1:10:20)
95
Fig. 17. Future version of Castiel (Misha Collins) portrayed as a drug addict and bohemian. (“The End” 17:54)
Fig. 18. The angel Metatron (Curtis Armstrong) enjoying Belgian waffles. (“Book of the Damned” 11:13)
96
Fig. 19. Supernatural’s Archangel Gabriel enjoying a table full of cakes. (“Tall Tales”
28:13)
Fig. 20. The Archangel Gabriel with the goddess Kali sitting on his lap in Supernatural.
(“Hammer of the Gods” 22:10)
97
Fig. 21. The Archangel Gabriel (Christopher Walken) “perching” like an owl. (The
Prophecy 39:21)
Fig. 22. Michael’s (John Travolta) wings. (Michael 00:20:28)
98
Fig. 23. Seth (Nicolas Cage) and Cassiel (Andre Braugher) sitting on top of a highway sign (City of Angels 04:20)
Fig. 24. The angels resembling a colony of penguins. (City of Angels 06:30)
99
Fig. 25. Supernatural’s archangel Raphael in his male (Demore Barnes) and female
(Lanette Ware) vessels.
Fig. 26. Supernatural’s angel Hannah in her female (Erica Carroll) and male (Lee
Majdoub) vessels.
100
Fig. 27. The coat-wearing angel has basically become an angelic trope of its own in recent popular narratives. Pictured (from left to right): the angel Seth – Nicolas Cage
(City of Angels), the archangel Gabriel – Christopher Walken (The Prophecy), the archangel Michael – John Travolta (Michael), the angel Castiel – Misha Collins
(Supernatural)
Fig. 28. The Angel of Death (Doug Jones) is more similar to alien creature than a heavenly being. (Hellboy II: The Golden Army 1:32:00)
101
Fig. 29. The wings of the angels in Legion and Dominion are permanently attached to their bodies, unless they have fallen, then their wings have been removed. (Legion
1:17:46)
Fig. 30. The wings of angels in The Messengers are only visible in mirrors (“The
Awakening” 24:30)
102 6. Bibliography
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104 “Southbounds Bus.” Touched By an Angel. CBS, 21 Sept. 1994. Television.
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107 7. Summary
Based on the number of films and TV series featuring angels that have been emerging in America since the Silent Era, it can be said that America has always been fascinated by angels the most out of all religious archetypes. While religion is certainly the main source of this angelic fascination, it may have also been prompted by the obsession with disembodiment, the supernatural world, or the American interest in the extraterrestrial.
The history of angelic popular narratives can be divided into two eras – the pre-
1990s and the post-1990s. While the former often offers rather stereotypical understanding of angels, the latter form of the archetype seems to have acquired some extra features, such as independence, deceit, ambiguity, mischief, sexual desire, or paranormality, by merging with another archetype – the trickster.
These trickster features have helped transform the angels into more intriguing characters by disrupting the stereotypical understanding of the archetype, which can be best observed in individual angelic tropes. The messengers have been transformed from obedient and selfless angels into rebellious egoists, the guardian angels have broken the rules and stopped caring about their protégés, the issue of angelic ethics has become even more complicated, the playful angels have turned into deadly pranksters, the innocent angels have sinned, and the beautiful fluffy-winged beings have grown extra pairs of eyes.
All in all, by subverting the stereotypical understanding of angels, the archetypal merger has improved the depictions of the angels in American popular narratives in a sense that they are now more complete, intriguing, and sophisticated, which makes them more appealing to American audiences.
108 7. Resumé
S ohledem na vysoký počet amerických snímků a televizních seriálů zobrazujících anděly, které byly vyrobeny od dob němého filmu, se dá říci, že americký divák byl odjakživa těmito biblickými bytostmi fascinován asi nejvíce ze všech náboženských postav. Kromě náboženství potom k této fascinaci přispěla také touha po odtělesnění, zájem o nadpřirozený svět, nebo i americká posedlost mimozemským
životem.
Historie amerických příběhů o andělech se dá rozdělit do dvou období – období před 90. lety a období po 90. letech. Zatímco v prvním období byli andělé z valné většiny zobrazováni jako stereotypy, od konce 80. let se v tomto archetypu začaly objevovat nové rysy, jako například nezávislost, zákeřnost, nejednoznačnost, nezbednost, hlad, či abnormalita, které tam dříve nebyly, a které se tam dostaly splynutím s dalším archetypem – šibalem.
Těmto typickým šibalským vlastnostem se podařilo rozvrátit stereotypní chápání archetypu anděla, což jde nejlépe vidět na příkladech z konkrétních andělských tropů.
Boží poslové se tak z poslušných a obětavých služebníků stávají rebely a egoisty, strážní andělé porušují pravidla a přestávají se zajímat o své chráněnce, problém andělské etiky se stal ještě zapeklitějším, hraví andělé zneužívají svoji kreativitu ve jménu lumpáren, nevinní a čistí najednou hřeší tělem i duší, a ony dříve tak krásné bílé bytosti s křídly se začínají podobat spíše stvůrám z Vetřelce.
Dá se tedy říct, že splynutím s archetypem anděla dokázal archetyp šibala rozvrácením stereotypního chápání andělů přeměnit jejich zobrazování v americké populární kultuře v mnohem rozmanitější, zajímavější, a sofistikovanější postavy, čímž je udělal přitažlivějšími pro amerického diváka.
109