If it’s not too much any bother, could you ramble about Uriel? A year ago (nearly two, actually) I read ABM and it stole my heart, and I got to find some time to reread it again recently. I will finally get to allocate the time to read the next two books come summer, which I’m really excited about. Well, now I’m getting off topic, but Uriel stole my dear heart (twice) and I’d love to know how you built him as an angel, your original plans, if his design every changed, or just anything! Godbless those lovely hands and wonderful mind of yours, you are wonderful and I wish you sweet dreams.
hello hello!!! thank you for reading (and re-reading!) ABM! I hope you enjoy the next books :)
It's been so long since I've talked about why Uriel is like that! I remember going into detail about it back in.... 2022? Which was decades ago... So let me go into detail about it.
So before I wrote ABM, I looked into the 4 archangels (purposefully doing the 4 from Enoch, instead of the 7 that are typical of Catholicism) and Uriel was interesting because he's been basically erased from the canon in most Christian traditions. He's in a good amount of the "non-canon" (using that purposefully broadly) and pretty famously in the Books of Enoch. So, of the "big four", he's the most mysterious, which obviously drew me to him. I liked his motifs of fire and stars, and I liked his association with wisdom.
I noticed that all the archangels had a certain "vibe" in their depictions, too — Michael generally looking serious/sad, Gabriel looking kind, Raphael looking kind. Uriel, though, always looked kind of mean. Not always, but he typically had a negative expression on his face. He didn't seem friendly, and I saw this sentiment in the Christian forums/chats/videos that I stalked. I remember seeing a meditation video to Uriel where a Youtube comment claimed that Uriel appeared to him and scolded him for the state of his life.
But I remember this stained glass of the archangels (at Holy Trinity Church, UK) in particular really spoke to an idea I'd already had about him (that his wisdom was related to grief, and hopelessness, and that it had something to do with stars, with a star):
(On that note, you can see how much this stained glass in particular inspired all my archangels skskjfkd)
And the Kimah stuff ("Kimah" being taken from the Book of Job) partly came to me in a dream, partly it was just a way for me to explain why angels are associated with stars in the Bible.
As for Uriel's design, it actually came from two things. The first was this statue of him ("Monumento a la familia Stirling"), where I realized I liked the idea of him with curls. And then, because the Book of Enoch is most famously associated with Ethiopian Christian (and Jewish!) sects, (and much art of him is from Ethiopian), I based his look off East Africans (well, Horn of Africa):
Uriel's arc to me throughout the series was always pretty clear to me, and I didn't deviate from it too much! He's a veryyyy dear character to me, and I'm happy that he's gotten a good amount of love! the Uri-Kimah chapter has always been one of my favorite little things I've written and, as a character, he's high on my favorite list :')
Thank you so much again for your kind words!!! :)) I hope you have a good evening... thank you!
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