Weeping Angel

Weeping Angel
Main aliases:	Lonely Assassins Angels Statues
Notable individuals:	Angel Bob
Appearances:	Full list of appearances

The Weeping Angels were a species of winged humanoids from the early universe, so called because they covered their faces, giving them a weeping appearance, to prevent trapping themselves in stone form for eternity. They were known for being murderous psychopaths for killing their victims "nicely" - dropping them into the past before they were born and letting them live to death. However, they did kill when potential energy was of no use to them.

Biology

Appearance

The Weeping Angels resembled stone statues of humanoid women with wings, and appeared to grow fangs and claws when attacking. They appeared to wear some sort of toga. (DW: Blink) When Angels became older or grew weaker, they seemed to wear away as a normal statue naturally would over many years. This wearing could become so severe that they might not look like their original forms anymore, losing their wings and becoming more like a typical statue of significant age. These older Weeping Angels did not have the same speed as their "healthy" counterparts, but were just as deadly, and could regain their appearance if re-energised. (DW: The Time of Angels) Though they have normally been seen to resemble winged human women, it is implied in the 'epilogue' of Blink that they can appear in many statue forms, meaning any statue could be a Weeping Angel. (DW: Blink)

The Angels in Flesh and Stone were shown to be stone when not moving, as well as making grinding stone noises when moving. In Blink, the Angels are silent throughout and there is a suggestion they do not have the same form when unseen.

A deformed and aged Weeping Angel. (DW: The Time of Angels)

Powers and abilities

The Weeping Angels could move their victims back through time with a touch. They would then consume the potential energy from the lives the victims would otherwise have led. They could move people through both space and time; Kathy was touched in London, but ended up in Hull in 1920, while Billy Shipton was touched inside a parking garage, but arrived in 1969 in an outdoor location. (DW: Blink) Besides feeding on this potential energy, they could also feed on other types of energy, such as radiation given off by a Galaxy-class Star Liner or the electrical energy in electronics. This would cause lights to flicker, making it easier to use their quantum-locking. (DW: Blink, The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone) The Angels were very strong, able to break through steel doors and break victims' necks without difficulty (DW: The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone).

The Weeping Angels had a unique and nearly-perfect defence mechanism: quantum-locking, which caused them to turn into stone when being observed. (DW: Blink) It could also be done by instinct, when they believed they were being watched. (DW: Flesh and Stone) When not being observed, they could move incredibly fast, though they appear to slow down the closer they get to their prey. However, quatum-locking meant that they had to cover their eyes when in their stony form; if they saw each other they would be trapped forever. (DW: Blink)

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Amy Pond, infected with the image of a Weeping Angel. (DW:Flesh and Stone)

Anything with the image of the Angel, such as pictures or film, also gained the abilities of an Angel and would eventually become an Angel. (DW: The Time of Angels) When victims looked an Angel in the eyes, the Angel could infect their visual centres, creating an image in their mind. Thus affected, the victim could be mentally influenced by the Angel until it became fully grown, at which point it could escape the person's body (killing them in the process). This ability could only be stopped by shutting down the visual centre. Examples of mental influence include making the victim count down the minutes to his death, and making the victim hallucinate that one of his limbs was petrified. (DW: Flesh and Stone)

The Angels were also able to take the consciousness of someone who had died and speak through it in order to communicate, as they used the Cleric, Bob, who they killed, to talk with the Doctor. (DW: The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone)

History

The Weeping Angels evolved near the beginning of the universe, and were, in the Doctor's words, "the only psychopaths in the universe to kill you nicely," since their usual method of killing was to let their victims "live to death". They also had a defence mechanism of turning into stone when observed by another. This perhaps made them the loneliest beings in existence as, due to this defence mechanism, they could not even look at each other. In that respect the Doctor appeared to pity them. (DW: Blink)

In 1898, (WC: Suddenly in a Graveyard)

At some point in the 21st century, Julia Hardwick found clues that warned her of the Weeping Angels, as well as photos which seemed to depict her in the past. When she began to investigate, she was sent to the past by an Angel, making her the one who sent her the warnings. (WC: A Ghost Story for Christmas)

Angels eternally trapped by the Doctor (DW: Blink)

In 2007, a group of Weeping Angels managed to strand the Tenth Doctor in 1969 and capture his TARDIS with the goal of using the Time Lord technology for its near-unlimited temporal energy, in a process which could turn off Earth's sun. Despite gaining the TARDIS, the Angels could not find a way into the police box-shaped construct; however they later found the TARDIS's key. Unfortunately for the Angels, Sally Sparrow took the key from one of them before they could reach the TARDIS. The Angels stalked Sally in their attempt to gain access to the TARDIS. They managed to corner her in the basement of the Wester Drumlins estate building where the TARDIS was stored by the Angels. She managed to enter it and send it back to the Doctor. When it finished dematerialising the Angels gazed at each other across the empty space where the TARDIS had been, each turned to stone eternally, their menace ended. (DW: Blink)

In 2011, Mark Whitaker encountered a Weeping Angel, which sent him back in time to June 1994. In the past, Mark followed instructions from a letter he thought to be written by his future self. In fact, it was psychic paper sent him by a group of six Weeping Angels. The Angels wanted Mark to save his wife, who had died in a car accident in 2003, and create a paradox, so that they could feed. Mark eventually decided against saving his wife, and then returned to the present in the Eleventh Doctor's TARDIS. (NSA: Touched by an Angel)

At some point in the 47th century, hundreds of Weeping Angels came to Alfava Metraxis and wiped out the civilisation of the Aplans. Afterwards, they ran out of food and began to starve, going dormant in the Aplan Mortarium. Another Angel somehow learned of this, and feigned dormancy in the ruins of Razvahan until it was dug up. It passed among private hands and eventually was brought to the Byzantium, at which point it caused the ship to crash onto Alfava Metraxis, planning to use the radiation as fuel. River Song, who had been tracking it, tried to warn the owner, but he didn't care to listen to her forewarnings.

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The Weeping Angel on the television screen. (DW: The Time of Angels) Click to view full animation.

The Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond, along with River and soldiers from the Church, entered the temple to find it. Inside the Maze, numerous worn statues were found and the Doctor deduced that the Angel must have hidden itself among them to avoid being found. The Angel killed three soldiers, using the consciousness of one to communicate with the Doctor. Eventually, the Doctor realised that all the statues were Angels. When surrounded, they were able to escape by destroying a gravity globe, creating an "updraft" and falling onto the Byzantium. The Angels followed them, only for both groups to encounter a crack in one of the ship's walls. The Crack was bleeding pure time energy, something the Angels had predetermined would appear, bearing limitless energy for them to feast on. However, after capturing the Doctor, they were told they could not feast upon pure time energy, which was the fire at the end of the universe. This allowed the Doctor to escape and regroup with his posse. Fearing the Crack, the Angels began fleeing to the other side of the ship, being briefly halted by the clerics' gazes. After only Amy, the Doctor and River remained, the Angels confronted the Doctor, telling him that the only way he could seal the crack was by throwing himself into it. Instead, the Doctor waited for the Byzantium's artificial gravity to shut off (because the Angels were absorbing too much energy from the ship itself), causing the entire Angel army to fall into the Crack, sealing it and removing them from history along with the mental image in Amy's mind. (DW: The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone)

At an unknown time, a definitive piece of literature about the Angels was created.

Other references

• When a museum was made from the Doctor's memories in the Matrix, it contained a Weeping Angel. (IDW: The Forgotten)
• When trying to jog Jackson Lake's memory, the Tenth Doctor reminded him of his adventures with the Weeping Angels by asking him about the "Do not Blink" meme from his experiences with Sally Sparrow. (DW: The Next Doctor)
• Rassilon declared that the two Time Lords who opposed him, who covered their eyes in the same way as the Weeping Angels, would "stand as monuments to their shame, as did the Weeping Angels of old". (DW: The End of Time)
• Gibbis' biggest fear was of Weeping Angels, causing an apparition of them to appear in a computer-generated hotel. (DW: The God Complex)

Behind the scenes

• The Weeping Angels were portrayed by live actors, as revealed in CON: Do You Remember the First Time?
• The Brilliant Book 2011, a book that contains non-narrative based information, has put forward many unknown pieces of Angel history, including;

• The Time Lords knew of the Weeping Angels and viewed them as nightmarish: an old manuscript on the Weeping Angels, written in High Gallifreyan, translated into "It's behind you".
• During the Eygptian era, a Weeping Angel was found at the entrance to a village. During an eclipse, the Angel killed most the village, save for one girl. Tracking the survivor to the tomb of the emperor, the Angel was defeated when the girl rearranged the mirrors, trapping the Angel in stone form.
• In 2009, a boy named Charlie Cause disappeared whilst filming an independent movie entitled Zombie Vixens. The last photos taken of him show that he was attacked by a Weeping Angel in a graveyard.
• In the 33rd century, flocks of angels began swarming human colony worlds and darkening the sunlight to feed; worlds such as New Moscow were asked to take up arms against the angels, causing some to say it would not be possible to oppose such powerful creatures.