So I’m sure everyone is familiar with the weeping angels by now, and if you’re not…go and watch the doctor who episode “blink” (and the two parter “the crash of byzantium” if you want more detail).
Angels can’t move if they’re being observed by people, this gets more complicated if you include lore added in the crash of the Byzantium, if they think they’re being observed it seems to have the same effect, meaning the effect cannot be entirely biological/physical (and must be at least partially psychological).
so, if they think humans are looking at them, they turn to stone, but what if it was an alien? (it’s generally implied they hunt all over the universe, so presumably it works with at least some aliens) a dog? Logically there is a lower limit on it, as if something like light sensitive bacteria/single cell organisms counted, they’d basically never move, meaning there must be some level of understanding or sentience required before the angels consider you “watching” them. Given the partially psychological nature of the metamorphosis the angels must make some sort of judgement (this could still be largely automatic such as flinching if you think you’re going to be hit with something – but your mind still makes split second judgement calls), which leads to so, so many more questions: Does this vary on an angel by angel basis? what criteria do they use? does this ever change based on their life experiences?
doesn’t this mean you could sneak up on a non stoneform angel? Let’s presume they have a lot of finely tuned senses, great sight, great hearing, they can sense vibration in the air like spiders and electric pulses like a shark? and maybe even more (insert obscure futurama reference about smision here) if you could fool all of these (and let’s face it, the doctor is probably smart enough that he can) then you could “kill” an angel. Although to be honest the whole “you can’t kill stone” thing never really sat well with me, if you reduce them to a fine stone powder would they reform?
I’m intentionally ignoring the angels take Manhattan because fuck that episode and every single thing about it.
This has been published with minimal editing, it’s more of a stream of conciousness thing, but hopefully it could spark some interesting discussion.
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