Weeping Angel
- For angels in general, see also Angel.
The Weeping Angels are a species of winged humanoids from the early universe, so called because they cover their faces, giving them a weeping appearance, to prevent trapping themselves in stone form for eternity. (DW: Blink)
Biology
The Weeping Angels were winged humanoids who evolved numerous unique survival mechanisms throughout their time, including the ability to move creatures back through time with a touch. This allowed them to consume the potential energy from the time the victims could have had alive had the Angels not transported the victim back in time. (DW: Blink)
The Doctor described them as being "the only psychopaths in the universe to kill you nicely", and apparently it was rare for them not to use this method of murder. The Doctor was caught off guard when the consciousness of a murdered soldier told him that the Angel snapped his neck. (DW: The Time of Angels).
There was no apparent reason as to what time period people were transported, however the Doctor states that each Angel sends it's victims to the same time period. Kathy Nightingale was transported to the 1920s; The Doctor, Martha Jones and Billy Shipton were sent to 1969 (DW: Blink); and there was an account of one Julia Hardwick who was transported to 1887 (WC: A Ghost Story for Christmas). The Angels were able to move people through both space and time, as Kathy (and possibly Julia) were touched in London, but ended up in Hull, while Shipton was touched inside a parking garage, but arrived in 1969 in an outdoor location. (DW: Blink)
The Angels also had a unique and nearly-perfect defence mechanism, quantum-locking, or use of the Quantum Zero effect, which caused them to turn into stone when being observed. Although the Doctor says that they turn to stone whenever a living creature is looking at them, it seems to only be either sentient or creatures that pose a risk that count, as, during their visit to Earth, they frequently moved about in an area that would be populated by a large amount of mini-beasts. In DW:Flesh and Stone it was revealed that they can control this freezing to some extent as they froze themselves in the presence of Amy Pond, although she was not looking at them, and then unfroze when they realised she couldn't see them, showing that the process is instinctive but not uncontrollable, in a manner that is actually quite similar to blinking; it happens automatically but you can stop yourself blinking if you want. When not being observed, they could move incredibly fast to catch their victims. However, this meant that they had to cover their eyes when in their stony form; otherwise if they saw each other they would be trapped forever.
The Weeping Angels also seemed to have some psychic abilities, as demonstrated when one points to a light bulb as it begins to drain it of power. This could mean, though it is left ambiguous, that the Angels are capable of knowing what is occurring around them while they are in their stone form, and are also able to drain electrical energy while frozen.
The Angels also possessed the ability to create projections of themselves through images. Whenever an image of a Weeping Angel was created, that too can become an Angel whenever the viewer takes their eye away from it. They were also able to take the consciousness of someone who had died and speak through it in order to communicate. It is warned that one should never look into an Angel's eyes, as they are the "doors to the soul". This ability allowed the Angels to create illusions of the mind, making it easier for them to capture their disoriented prey. This could be seen when Amy Pond looked into an Angel's eyes and was made to believe her hand had turned to stone. Unlike quantum locking, the Angels can chose whether or not to use this ability, as seen in DW: Blink, where Sally Sparrow and Larry Nightingale looked into the Angels' eyes without being hypnotised. In addition this can create the image of a Weeping Angel in the person's visual centres, which can then escape the person's body (killing them in the process) if they keep their eyes open for a certain length of time.
When Angels became older or grew weaker, they did not appear to age in a biological sense. They appeared to wear away as a normal statue naturally would over many years. This wearing would become so severe that they did not look like their original forms anymore, losing their wings and becoming more like a typical statue of significant age. These older Weeping Angels do not have the same speed as their "healthy" counterparts, but are still just as deadly. They were seen in the Maze Of The Dead and were apparently responsible for killing the temple's constructors.
During the ambush by the dormant Angel army, the Doctor describes the Angels as absorbing the energy from their lights, causing them to flicker and dim. This would suggest the Angels have the ability to absorb at least electrical energy from light sources so as to create a dark environment to move around in unseen.
History
The Weeping Angels evolved near the beginning of the universe, and were (as the Doctor put it) the kindest of killers and psychopaths since their method of killing was to let their victims "live to death". This perhaps make them the loneliest beings in existence as, due to their defence mechanism, they could not even look at each other. In that respect the Doctor appears to pity them.
In 2007, a quartet of Weeping Angels managed to strand the Doctor in 1969 and captured his TARDIS with the goal of using the Time Lord technology for its near-unlimited temporal energy, in a process which is capable of turning off the 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 gained the key from one of the Angels before they could reach the TARDIS. The Angels started stalking 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 was, which turned each other into stone perpetually thereby ending the group's menace.
Because they are turned to stone when observed, any statue in the Universe could be a Weeping Angel, though most likely just the ones that looked like Weeping Angels. (DW: Blink)
During the crash of the space ship Byzantium, Doctor River Song attempted to stop an Angel from taking the people onboard but failed, as the staff on that ship knew that she was a criminal. In doing this, the Angel caused the ship to crash on the planet Alfava Metraxis on top of a temple which contained a Maze Of The Dead inside. The 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 inside and the Doctor deduced that the Angel must have hidden itself among them to avoid being found. The Angel would go on to kill 3 different soldiers, using the consciousness of one to communicate with the Doctor. During the group's foray into the temple, the Doctor described the builders as beings he had known, and went on to relate the complexities the Church had forced upon them over their two headed physiology. Unfortunately, after a short while, the Doctor and River Song realised the problem with the multitude of statues and their knowledge of the original builders; the statues only had one head, where as the builders came from a race with two, meaning that every statue was in fact an extremely old Weeping Angel. They had laid dormant for years and years, aging and dying from not being able to consume potential energy. The Byzantium's energy leaking reactor core woke them and they too began to stalk the Doctor and the others in the hope of consuming their energy to become strong again. The Angels had the group surrounded just as the Doctor carried out his idea in order to escape. By destroying the Gravity globe, the Doctor created an "updraft" that carried his group 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 could not feast upon. Fearing the crack, the Angels fled to the other side of the ship, and told the Doctor that only he could seal the crack by throwing himself into it. Instead, the Doctor turned off the Byzantium's artificial gravity, causing the entire Angel army to fall into the Crack, sealing it and removing them from history.(DW: The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone)
Weaknesses
- Looking at each other (will cause them to freeze into stone for eternity).
- Being starved of energy (will cause them to deform and lose their image, and make them significantly slower).
- They cannot tell when someone is not looking at them, as shown when Amy Pond who was unable to open her eyes, had to walk past them, However, once they realized, they were able to move freely.
Other references
- Rassilon declared that the two Time Lords who opposed him (who covered their eyes in the same way as the Weeping Angels) were 'monuments to their shame, and will stand witness as the Weeping Angels of old'. (DW: The End of Time)
Behind the Scenes
- The Weeping Angels were in fact portrayed by live actors, as revealed in the episode of Doctor Who Confidential corresponding with Blink.
- The Weeping Angels are rumoured to be appearing in Series 4 (The Sarah Jane Adventures) [1]
- Curiously, the Weeping Angels also seem to turn into statues even when no one's looking at them, except the viewer. The viewer obviously cannot count as an in-universe character actually physically looking at the Angels. It has yet to be explained then why the Angels are locked when no one is actually looking at them. This could maybe be the show trying to break the fourth wall, between the viewer and the show: Blink did end with a warning to the viewer that any statue could be an Angel. It is possible that the angels can voluntarily freeze themselves into stone, so that they don't raise suspicion, much like the first Weeping Angel in The Time of Angels. The most likely explanation is that the creators of the show were trying to give a feeling of involvement to the viewers, making the Weeping Angel's presences more threatening and mysterious.
- We see the Weeping Angels move on screen for the first time in DW: Flesh and Stone. Though they moved, they did so in stone form, and made scratching and scraping noises like that of stones rubbing together. in Blink, the angels were heard to flutter to places, as though with flesh and feather wings, not stone ones, and all other angels have never been heard to sound like moving statues before. It can be speculated that as their instincts were what was making the Angels freeze, their realising that Amy could not see them put them into a half-half state of being, and were not actually in their true forms. This is further implied by statements in "Blink" by the Doctor, who says that they turn to stone when seen, implying that they are not stone when unobserved.
- When the Weeping Angels fall into the Crack in Flesh and Stone, the Doctor claims the Weeping Angels were removed from time. Whether he was talking about these specific Angels or the entire spieces remains unknown.
Footnotes
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