Writers of SPN, where are you getting your fucking cracked out theology?

Besides the bit where angels can become human and fallen angels aren't actually fallen angels, I want to talk to you about Uriel. Now, I will first turn to the Bastion of All Knowledge, Wikipedia. Writers, meet Wikipedia. This is the piece of technology forbidden students for being unreliable. However, it is often a good jumping off point if you have no idea what you're talking about. According to his Wikipedia page, Uriel is one of the archangels. He is the fourth archangel. In certain magic traditions, he is called upon during the calling of the quarters as the heavenly representative of the south and fire. In Christian apocrypha, he helped to rescue Jesus and his family from King Herod. He is the angel of repentance. He hung out with Abraham and Jacob and was involved with the plagues of Egypt. Possibly most importantly to this episode, Uriel can enter into the Presence of God. Let's ponder that.

Now, if even Wikipedia can tell me this about Uriel, about how he is awesome (in the traditional sense of the word) and powerful and hung out and helped really important Biblical people like Abraham and Jacob and Jesus and he can enter in the Presence of God - why the flying fuck is he doing grunt work for Castiel - who doesn't even have his own Wikipedia page? I have to go to angelfire web pages to get information on Castiel. That's how much no one cares about him except on the show.

If you wanted another grunt angel, you could have made one up wholesale (hi, Alastair, Ruby, and Anna) or gone to one of the angelfire pages and picked one out - I like Qafsiel, angel of the moon. But don't pick up one of the four archangels and make him work for the angel of Thursday - that's just dumb. (I'll take this back if it turns out that Castiel is secretly Jesus and Anna is actually Anna of New Testament fame or girl!Jesus or Mary or something crazy. Then Uriel would totally work for them.)

Now, onto the demons:

Demons are kind of fun. I actually like Ruby this episode for the first time this season. Good acting. I'm bothered that her name is Ruby and is from medieval Europe because that's not really a decent medieval European name. And there are a lot of good ones that are still used today. (If you fear research, I would suggest that people check out Wikipedia's brother-in-arms, behindthename.com. I want to know what her game is. I really really do.

Alastair. I assume that he is supposed to be a demon in the traditional sense of the word - a fallen angel. He wasn't human, isn't human, and is paying the price for disobeyed God and, likely, turning to Lucifer. He exists for the pain and suffering of humanity. He wants Anna to suffer as he suffered for disobeying God. I want to see him more often.

I see what the show was trying to do here (the anvil clued me in). Neither angels nor demons are entirely good or bad. Ruby saves people. The angels want to kill people. Demons make bad choices, but angels don't have choices. I've read these comics, too, and honestly, they didn't need anvils. They also made liberal use of moral ambiguity that I really don't see coming here.

Don't get me wrong. I love the show. It's fun. I just feel that spending about an hour on Wikipedia could make everything flow a little better. Hell, when I wrote my The Sour for the Sweet, a fic with Grigori, and Tested by Fire, a fic with demonic Sam and Dean, I did as much. I suggest they start, at the very least, by putting down the Hellblazer and Lucifer and checking out The Hierarchy of Devils. They also might want to check out The Christian Hierarchy of Angels (hint: Castiel is an Angel, making him the lowest of the low).

(In my head, Alastair is secretly Carreau right now.)
.

Profile

chasingtides: (Default)
chasingtides

Most Popular Tags

Powered by Dreamwidth Studios

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags