The Second Coming (Spoilers up to Angel 4x17 - "Inside Out"
Jonathan Dupont
Just as a reminder:
The Second Coming -- W. B. Yeats
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Turning and turning in the widening gyre
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The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
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Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
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Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
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The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
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The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
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The best lack all convictions, while the worst
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Are full of passionate intensity.
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Surely some revelation is at hand;
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Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
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The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
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When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
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Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
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A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
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A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
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Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
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Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
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The darkness drops again; but now I know
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That twenty centuries of stony sleep
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Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
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And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
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Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
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So, I was looking through this poem today ("Slouching Towards
Bethlehem" as we all know, being the title of and quoted in Angel 4x04)
and, well, I'm beginning to wonder exactly how relevant it is. A few of
these are stretches, but still, to me they seem to have been using the
poem as more than just a random apocalyptic reference, especially in the
second verse.
If I go through it, line by line:-
- Surely some revelation is at hand;
Nothing on its own, although I guess if you're determined to match up it
could be to do with the retcon.
- Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming!
Which makes me more inclined towards the Rogue Power theory. Anyhow...
- Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
Now this is when it seems to mean something. The above is the Sphinx if
you didn't get it, and where else do we see Egyptian powers - Angel
4x09. Surely that's not just a coincidence?
- A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
The sun is pitiless to Angel generally, or there's the whole sun going
out thing.
- Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
This (and the falconer earlier) bring to mind the apocalyptic signs from
"Apocalypse, Nowish"
- The darkness drops again; but now I know
Sun going out.
- That twenty centuries of stony sleep
And who's always been described as stony/rocky whatever?
- Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
Connor, most obviously.
- And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
There is actually a slight problem. It could either be (a) the Beast or
(b) Zoe
- Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
In Lullaby last year Connor's birth was played very much like a
nativity/Bethlehem metaphor, which sure enough was the same place where
the Beast came.
OTOH with the possibility of Zoe, well, y'know. You can use a very
literal interpretation of the line there, with all the latest
happenings.
Am I being silly or is there something here? Because if there is, I'm
beginning to think ME had this planned for longer than I gave them
credit for - at least since the beginning of the season.
Jon,
the has too much time on his hands one