AMA Highlights

[Dina]

I think Uriel simply likes humanity, that is why he takes those risks.

[wildone654]

So I have a question. Given the stated power and purpose of angels...  Why aren't they guarding the outer gate?

If the outsiders get in, will the whole world be destroyed except one house with a very nice yard and white picket fence?

[Conspiracy Theorist]

So reality can be repopulated by Maggie and Young Harry.

[spiritofair]

Several someone’s pissed Jim off by posting a huge list of questions.

"Why not just tell them, 'Nope, not gonna bother with you, don't you realize that is impolite?'" and then move on to the next polite person?

[Dina]

So reality can be repopulated by Maggie and Young Harry.

Thomas need to adopt a sister (cousin, whatever) of Mouse, so the two doggies will repopulate too, with the young ones.

But seriously

So I have a question. Given the stated power and purpose of angels...  Why aren't they guarding the outer gate?

If the outsiders get in, will the whole world be destroyed except one house with a very nice yard and white picket fence?

This is a good question but perhaps it is a division of tasks. Angels are taking care of other things.

[vultur]

The angels have enormous power, but very strictly constrained by their purpose. They can't just go take over somebody else's job... like Winter's.

Now, you would think Heaven would want to supplant Winter given that Winterfae prey on mortals... but we don't really know how or why the division of roles among all these cosmic powers was established.

The Starborn cycle is presumably also involved in the defense of Reality, so there could be mortal Free Will issues (which the angels can't interfere with) involved with Heaven taking it over.

Also, there might be a scale factor. Angels are multi-versal, so they're probably spread very thin. And their primary concern is their conflict with the Fallen over mortal souls.

Even if an angel can wave a hand and obliterate whole armies of Outsiders, they might not be able to defend all the Outer Gates of all the parallel universes in Creation without letting the Fallen get away with a lot.

So they let the defenders in each particular universe do that job, while they focus on the Fallen.

(Protecting families of the Knights, IMO, is a subsidiary aspect of their real job, not a totally different job. And a maximum of three families per universe, currently only one in Harry's, probably aren't so much of a burden.)

[Yuillegan]

Basically sort of what Vultur was saying. Angels are multiverse-level entities, and Outsiders are implied to be on the same level, but it appears the Angels are rather busy preserving the functioning of the multiverse AND fighting an endless civil war. However, it seems that Outsiders can't express their full power in most situations (like Angels) for some cosmic reason and therefore are simultaneously weaker and equally as strong as Angels. Perhaps it's a Will thing, or a Chaos vs Order thing, or something else entirely. But it seems Angels are not needed for such small conflicts like the Outer Gates.

Make of that what you will.

I think Uriel simply likes humanity, that is why he takes those risks.

I absolutely agree. Almost as though he thinks it is the most important thing, rather like Harry in that it's his only option. What gets interesting is when you consider what the other Archangels are doing. Did Lucifer also once think that those risks were important but it didn't work out? Do Michael and Raphael also take such risks? If so, where are they? If not, why not? Perhaps the risks are too great...

And I know you didn't mean to imply it, but do you think that Michael and Raphael like humanity less than Uriel (if at all)?

[Dina]

Basically sort of what Vultur was saying. Angels are multiverse-level entities, and Outsiders are implied to be on the same level, but it appears the Angels are rather buys preserving the functioning of the multiverse AND fighting an endless civil war. However, it seems that Outsiders can't express their full power in most situations (like Angels) for some cosmic reason and therefore are simultaneously weaker and equally as strong as Angels. Perhaps it's a Will thing, or a Chaos vs Order thing, or something else entirely. But it seems Angels are not needed for such small conflicts like the Outer Gates.

Make of that what you will.
I absolutely agree. Almost as though he thinks it is the most important thing, rather like Harry in that it's his only option. What gets interesting is when you consider what the other Archangels are doing. Did Lucifer also once think that those risks were important but it didn't work out? Do Michael and Raphael also take such risks? If so, where are they? If not, why not? Perhaps the risks are too great...

And I know you didn't mean to imply it, but do you think that Michael and Raphael like humanity less than Uriel (if at all)?

Literally, I don't know, as I know nothing about them in the DF. But a priori I would say, "yes", because they are simply too far away. For liking humanity you need to know it very well first.

[Yuillegan]

Literally, I don't know, as I know nothing about them in the DF. But a priori I would say, "yes", because they are simply too far away. For liking humanity you need to know it very well first.

Interesting. Not so far away that they don't interfere at all though. Archangel Michael gave Esperacchius to Sanya, and Rafael or one of his lieutenants put warding on the Carpenter safe room. Gabriel hasn't shown up much recently but he sure used to, at least in the Bible.

I'd say they have different ways of showing their appreciation for humanity. Perhaps even have different reasons. I guess we'll see at some point.

But I don't think liking humanity or otherwise is enough to risk whatever Uriel is risking. I suspect things get harder for him sometimes...like during the Cycle perhaps.

[Dina]

No, I don't think that is "interfering" with humanity. I believe that is doing their job. I suspect TWG commissioned them to do those things you mentioned, while Uriel decided to take the risk.

[vultur]

Well, I think Uriel's job kind of is to skirt the lines... at least that's what Mab and Bob seem to imply in SmF, that he's kind of Heaven's head secret agent/operative/etc.

Kind of like what Eb is for the White Council.

He just might be taking that somewhat further. Lending his Grace to Michael was IMO a huge, huge deal... technically allowed by the rules, but really incredibly risky.

[The_Sibelis]

Well, I think Uriel's job kind of is to skirt the lines... at least that's what Mab and Bob seem to imply in SmF, that he's kind of Heaven's head secret agent/operative/etc.

Kind of like what Eb is for the White Council.

He just might be taking that somewhat further. Lending his Grace to Michael was IMO a huge, huge deal... technically allowed by the rules, but really incredibly risky.

yea... Thinking about the balance... I'm not so sure that's not gonna bite him in the ass later, when Lucifer or someone gets to loan out their grace in reply (or if as I suspect, Lucifer is stuck without his grace, he'll get to have access to it)

[Dina]

I don't think so. That would be a huge risk for them. Uriel took it by love, the bad guys won't have that.

[Mira]

Uriel has always interfered with mankind, under orders of course, after all he is the Almighty's wet-works archangel..  I mean if you go and kill off the male first born of all the Egyptians, I don't what else you could call it but interference.

[toodeep]

So how’s this for an analogy – Someone writes the coolest online game ever (GOD).  Assigns system admin to run the game (Angels), but not to stop hackers (outsiders).  Players can go from random players, to heads of guilds, etc. so there are many varying levels of power depending on how seriously they play, and maybe how much the system admin trust them (people up to fey, little g gods, etc), and GOD wants them to like the game so much they are willing to work to protect it from hackers.  One system admin goes rogue (satan) because he disagrees that protecting the game from hackers is a player job and things it would be much better to be a system admin job.  Other admin now spend a lot of their time keeping him locked out, so his main way of messing with the game is encouraging the players to be dicks, occasionally giving out cheat codes, etc. hoping that if they all will do as he says, he’ll effectively run the game anyways.  So system admin might do their job because they love god, love the game, or love the players but they can absolutely only do what they were assigned.  Uriel risks things because he loves the players.  Michael might do his thing because he thinks God is the bomb, while Raphael might do his thing because he just loves the elegant system architecture and thinks the game is the best.