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sarcasticdolphin · 10 months ago

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On Todesengel

So. The Todesengel. Tod’s minions. Many of the different productions take slightly different approaches to them, so the generalizations I make and the language used for those generalizations are going to be a bit imperfect. This is a regular essay because I don’t have the video editing skills for a video essay.

But let’s begin. What are the Todesengels? I’ve certainly called them many things in my head. Tod’s minions, most of the time. Tod’s backup ~4-6 dancers (though some productions have more and others less). Their presence in the musical is like Tod’s in a way, though Tod appearing (or not appearing) in a scene doesn’t necessarily mean that they will or will not appear. Add to that their relationship with Tod is very much open to interpretation most of the time and that only compounds when you get to fanfiction (yes, this is going to include some fanfic analysis).

But enough with some initial musings. Let’s get onto the productions.

Vienna, 2005. First revival.

The first time we see the Todesengel is with the ensemble in Prolog, interspersed amongst the dead. They each have a single colored wing, some silver, some red, some gold, and are dressed in blue and black suits. For Prolog they are part of the ensemble, but still very much associated with Tod. They remain standing when the dead freeze and fall to the ground, though it is important to note that for this opening they do not match Tod’s attire - Tod is in white while they are in blue and black. The pose is with their single wing wrapped across their chest, almost posing like silent sentinels to the entire story. Ultimately for the prologue, I would argue that the angels are part of the ensemble first and Tod’s servants second. The association is clear - from how they act around him to the fact that their hair does match Tod’s even if their uniforms don’t for this song - but it takes a backseat to their roles as part of the ensemble.

As well as where we do see the Todesengel, it can be equally important to look at their absence - be it that Tod is appearing alone or be it that neither Tod or the angels are present. When Sisi falls, just before Schwarzer Prinz, we see Tod carry her back onto the stage, notably with no angels present. Tod is alone with Sisi for this moment. The lack of angels here seems to be more to make the Tod/Sisi dynamic feel more intimate than anything else. I don’t see any technical reasons for omitting them here - they aren’t needed to run on at the beginning of the next number or similar. One other thing to note here is that this is the first time we see Tod in the black and blue uniform - so even if the angels are not here, we get a further connection between them and Tod through the matching costumes.

The next appearance is an extremely brief one, and one with Tod. During Jedem gibt er das Seine as the mother is being dragged out, we see that she is actually being dragged toward where Tod and his angels are. The glimpse is a very brief one - they are quite far upstage and the moment itself is quick - but it is consequential as the first time we see Tod and the angels together in uniform. With the dim lighting on that part of the stage they look like a matched set - Tod is in the middle, but he doesn’t stand out aside from being in the middle. I would call Tod and the angels more a group here than a lord and his servants. Based on how they are sitting I don’t believe the angels have their wings on here, which does mark the first time that they are seen without the wings, though with the uniforms they are still easy to identify.

Tod and his angels then miss the next two songs, not reappearing until Alle Fragen sind gestellt, where they take a very forward role in the acting of the scene, if not the singing. The scene begins with two angels dropping Sisi and FJ’s white robes from the balcony before three other angels dress them on the ground floor with the robes and Sisi’s tiara before taking their places at the front of the ensemble. Here they are certainly part of the ensemble - the uniform is hidden beneath white robes - but with their hair the reference to Tod is still present. They continue to act as attendants to Sisi and FJ throughout the rest of the song, parachuting Sisi and FJ’s robes and then acting as pages, in a way. This includes Managing the robes when Sisi and FJ kneel to say their vows and kneeling themselves - here they are the only members of the ensemble to do so, though I think it is as much so we can still see Sisi and FJ as anything else. This is one of the very few times that we see the angels mostly without Tod (he does make a brief appearance at the end of the song) and again here I could classify them as part of the ensemble first and associated with Tod second, but the association is impossible to ignore even if is is more subtle and requires having seen the first several songs to understand fully.

Neither Tod nor the angels appear in Sie passt nicht, and the next time we see them is during Der letzte Tanz. The use of the angels in Der letzte Tanz is an interesting contrast to how they are used in Prolog - entering with Tod instead of with the ensemble, though once they enter they seem more a part of the ensemble than Tod’s, and remaining still in the background form much of the song until the ensemble begins to sing near the end. They do have their wings again, and while we don’t get an obvious gesture from Tod, who seems very focused on Elisabeth, I think a reasonable interpretation of this scene is that the angels are freezing the wedding guests while Tod is focused on Sisi and maybe FJ. And that the angels are acting more as Tod’s than part of the ensemble here, though this is splitting hairs to some degree.

The angels and Tod then get a longer break, not appearing again until Act I Schatten, though Lucheni does give us a line during Die Ersten Vier Jahre which implies Tod is responsible for her misery, though we don’t see him, and the misery that we do see is Sophie’s doing, not Tod’s.

The angels are in the background for Act I Schatten, only present as escort to little Sophie’s body at the beginning of the song and more part of the set here than active participants. They are gone incredibly quickly, leaving Tod and Sisi alone for the song proper until FJ reappears towards the end.

Die fröhliche Apokalyps, directly following Schatten, gives us the second instance of the angels appearing without Tod, interspersed amongst the coffeehouse patrons. Here they are more of the ensemble than associated with Tod, though they are still in their uniforms even if the wings are absent. So the association remains. It’s also important to note that while there are many little solos during Die fröhliche Apokalyps, the angels don’t sing them - it is just the coffeehouse patrons, and I tend to interpret this scene as Lucheni seeing the Todesengels everywhere, but the coffeehouse patrons don’t. They just see other coffeehouse patrons.

And that’s the last time we see the angels in Act I in this production. Tod reappears for Elisabeth, mach auf mein Engel and Ich will dir nur sagen, but without the angels both times. And I think that makes sense. The angels here seem as a way that Tod interacts with the ensemble, and for those songs Tod is interacting with Elisabeth alone (though FJ is around).

But I digress. Moving on to Act II.

We see the angels very early in Act II, even before Tod. They act as canopy bearers during Éljen, reprising their earlier role from Alle fragen where they act as attendants to Sisi and FJ. This is a relatively brief appearance, and I would call them more part of the ensemble here than Tod’s attendants, though he is present, albeit somewhat hidden in the background in his priest’s robes. This poses an interesting contrast to Alle fragen as well, as while we can see Tod he is somewhat hidden in the same white robes that the angels and the ensemble wore for Alle fragen, whereas the angels are in their uniforms and without their wings. It is a pretty brief appearance - the angels exit with the ensemble, leaving Sisi and Tod alone for Wenn ich tanzen will. And that is actually it for quite a while.

Given what I said earlier you might think that we are due to see the angels again in the next ensemble number or the next time Tod shows up, but you’d be mistaken. They don’t appear in the asylum or Nur kein Genieren. They don’t appear in Mama, wo bist du?. They don’t appear in Maladie or Die rastlosen Jahre. In fact the next time the angels appear is during the reprise of Schatten, halfway through the act. It felt surprising when I went through the songs in a similar way to how it can feel surprising to realize how little Tod is actually on stage (only 35 minutes or so). Because Tod feels omni-present, even in his absence. And one might think that the best way to show Tod in his absence is through the angels. But in the second act they are even more absent than he is. Some of that, I think, is due to the lack of any full ensemble numbers - there are numbers with fairly large ensemble components, but nothing with the full ensemble like Prolog after Éljen.

And even when they do reappear for Schatten, it is in a very subtle role, more there to adjust the set twice than anything else. They leave after the second adjustment, though it is impossible to tell if they then join the chorus of the dead due to the lighting. Interestingly they perfectly match Tod here - uniforms and no wings.

But just as soon as they reappear, they are gone again, and don’t return until Mayerling, missing (among others) Hass in particular. Their appearance at Mayerling is a particularly interesting one, as it marks the only full costume change we see from the angels through the entire production - into the green Mayerling dress to match Tod. And this is the song where they match Tod the best. The hair, the dress, the frenetic way they throw the gun around. It feels confusing even watching, trying to see where Tod is until Rudolf is already in his grasp. And that, I think, is on purpose. The angels feel almost like pieces of Tod, each confusing him after the other until he is so lost that he cannot help but to end up in Tod’s arms. But again as quickly as the angels returned, they are gone again, dragging Rudolf’s lifeless body offstage.

The angels do reappear one last time in Am Deck der sinkenden Welt, very much paralleling the roles they took in Prolog or Der letzte Tanz, though there is one major contrast with Der letzte Tanz. There the angels were not present at the beginning, instead entering with Tod, while as in Am Deck der sinkenden Welt the angels are very present as Lucheni introduces each of Elisabeth’s unfortunate relatives in turn, flashing their wings up in a way that I interpret as them dragged the unfortunate relations to their demises. They are present for the rest of the song, intermixed with the dead and all around FJ before taking up positions at the corners of the platforms that come across as them shepherding the Dead, almost. And that is a thread that I think is reflected in earlier songs as well, where the angels seem to stand guard over the dead when they appear.

But all that being said, what role do the angels play in this production? I would argue that they are members of the ensemble first and Tod’s second for how often he appears without them and for how they most often appear with the ensemble, especially when contrasted to other productions. Their relationship with Tod seems to be somewhat fluid, and I’ll discuss that more later.

For now, on to the next production. From now on I’m mostly going to be talking about how productions differ from Vienna 2005 and using it as a reference.

Plzeň.

This is the Czech production, so I will be referring to Tod by his Czech name (Smrt). One important fact that one ought to keep in mind about this production while reading my analysis. Smrt kills with a touch. He can’t get handsy with anyone the way he does with Sisi and Rudolf in most productions.

The first time that we see Smrt’s angels is just after Sisi’s fall - they don’t appear in Prolog - and they very much appear associated with Tod rather than associated with the ensemble. Smrt doesn’t carry Sisi out for Kein Kommen ohne Geh'n, and he rather quickly dismisses the angels before getting into the song proper. It almost seems like someone who wants to be alone with Sisi rather than accompanied by his attendants.

From this initial appearance and the lack of any angels in Prolog one might think that the two productions are very different, but there are also many similarities. The angels appear during Jedem gibt er das Seine associated with the mother, but the mechanism is slightly different than that in the VIenna production. Instead of the woman being dragged toward Tod and the angels the woman is instead dragged offstage and the angels run after her without Smrt. He doesn’t appear except through the angels.

There is another major contrast as we don’t see the angels during Alle fragen - the next time they reappear is during Der letzte Tanz, and we see quite a similar treatment to the 2005 Vienna production - the angels do some manipulation of the frozen wedding guests - dragging them to Smrt - but mostly just interact with the ensemble here while Smrt focuses on Sisi, though they do leave earlier in the song rather than staying with the ensemble to the bitter end, departing once Smrt has started puppeting Sisi.

The angels do once again get a bit of a break before making a very short appearance at the beginning of Act I Schatten and almost immediately departing. In contrast to Vienna, though, we don’t see them in Apokalyps, though they do make one more appearance in act one, standing beside Smrt during Ich will dir nur sagen.

The angels are more present in Act II than they are in the Vienna production, though in different ways. They don’t appear in Éljen, but are with Smrt the entire time during Wenn ich tanzen will, though it should be noted that the staging of WITW in this production is quite different to Vienna’s and that a the Hungarian ensemble is still around and frozen the same way the ensemble is in Der letzte Tanz.

Mama, wo bist du? is the next major difference, with the angels being present during the stage transition and at the beginning of the song, seemingly enticing Rudolf to come to them (though he just hides under a blanket) before Smrt arrives and dismisses them. This dismissal occurs when Smrt starts to sing for the first time and feels like a parallel to the way he dismisses the angels in KKOG.

The angels do then get a bit of a break, not appearing again until Schatten, but because they did appear in WITW and MWBD it feels much less marked than the break in Vienna. Their role in Schatten is also greatly expanded. I should first note that in this production Rudolf is meant to be high on drugs for Schatten (and we see him with the needle on stage, so this isn’t me reading into anything). The angels appear one by one from the wings, and they do some fairly frenetic dancing as Rudolf and Smrt go on what I want to describe as a carriage ride of sorts (Adri please correct me here if you’ve come up with a better way to put it). Rudolf seems frightened of the angels as they appear from the wings, though for most of the song he focuses on Smrt and his attention only returns to the angels towards the end of the song after Smrt has given him the gun. Rudolf is then surrounded by the angels and he almost uses the gun early, taking it to his temple before pulling it down. The angels and Smrt depart together as soon as he does with a flurry of wing and coat swishes.

We do see the angels and Smrt again before Mayerling as they are present for Hass - Smrt with what looks like a timpano to me in the back while the angels are initially in the back with Smrt and then dance in a large circle around the stage, which makes them much more visible.

After that they do have a bit of a break until Mayerling, which consists of the angels quite literally throwing Rudolf around a bit. In contrast to the Vienna production Rudolf still has the gun (Smrt gave it to him during Schatten) and isn’t chasing the gun, more running away from the angels than anything else. He does end up in Smrt’s arms and uses the gun. The angels aren’t quite as all around him for this as they are at the end of Schatten, but they are still all quite close, arrayed around and behind Smrt and Rudolf.

Instead of then dragging Rudolf offstage, the angels then form his tomb with their wings, draping them in rows. In this form they are on stage for a good chunk of Rudolf, wo bist du?, though once Smrt and Sisi are singing they do leave. They take Rudolf with them, but they aren’t dragging him, just effectively hiding him until he gets offstage.

We next see the angels in Am Deck der sinkenden Welt, playing a very similar role to the one they do in the Vienna production and miming out all the various deaths before some more dancing. This is not the last we see of them, though. Instead of Smrt dropping the file to Lucheni the way Tod does during the Vienna production the angels pass the file hand to hand until the last angel gives it to Lucheni. It actually reminds me of the way the gun is passed hand to hand in the Vienna Mayerling.

A good chunk of the ensemble is on stage for Der Schleier fällt, and the angels are included in that chunk. They perform two actions before the singing gets started, seemingly driving Lucheni to commit the murder and then chasing/stalking him offstage.

All in all, while there are similarities to the Vienna production in some songs, the way that the Czech production uses the angels seems to be on a fundamentally different philosophy - that they serve Smrt first and are part of the ensemble second. They still partially fulfill the role of interacting with the ensemble for Smrt, but he interacts with the ensemble himself and the angels primarily seem to serve him more than anything else. I should make a quick note about uniforms here - Smrt’s angels only have one uniform and it includes their wing. There is no on-off of the wings the way there is in the Vienna production, and no Mayerling dress. Smrt also only has one costume. It is different from the angels, but similar.They look like a matched set, but Smrt is clearly differentiated by the tuft of feathers at his shoulder and by his different coat (without a wing, among other things) in a way that Vienna’s Tod isn’t in the blue and black uniform he sometimes shares with his angels.

Those are the only two productions that I am pretty much going to go through the entire musical for, though anyone else who wants to do a different production is more than welcome to do so. There are a few more notes that I will give:

The Takarazuka production is one of the hardest to make a good comparison because it changes the story itself and what songs certain characters (mostly Tod) appear in while adding or deleting whole songs as well. I do, however, want to touch on a few things regarding how they use the angels.

Tod’s angels in the Zuka productions are a larger group - a dozen or more - and do make an appearance in Nur kein Genieren. It is quite subtle and the easiest way to tell is from the wigs - Tod’s angels wear light purple wings throughout the production, in contrast to Frau Wolf’s other girls, though aside from the wigs it is impossible to tell the angels apart from the normal girls - the costumes are the same, and different from the relatively simple black attire that the angels wear for most of the rest of the production.

Milch is one of the songs that is quite different from all other productions - Tod appears and with Tod come the angels, though they stay mostly in the background while the mob still provides most of the ensemble for the song.

The last difference thing I want to note is that the angels carry off Sophie during Die rastlosen Jahre. Vienna 2005 doesn’t show her death, merely having FJ mention it during the same song, while the Czech production has Smrt follow her offstage after Bellaria.

There are a number of other things that could be mentioned, but I’m going to leave it at that. This essay is getting out of hand as it is.

That being said, this is hardly a full list of all the ways the angels appear. The Korean production makes heavy use of them in WITW, where Sisi fights off Tod and all his angels, and the Hungarian production has the angels throwing Rudolf around during Schatten in a way that seems similar to how the Czech production has him thrown around during Mayerling. But I’m going to restrain myself (and I don’t want to do deep dives on productions that I only have very limited clips for).

So, Tod’s angels appear in so many different ways. Is there a point to all this, Dolphin? You ask.

I’ve always found the different ways Tod’s relationship with his angels is characterized or implied to be very interesting - it is one of the things in the musicals that tends to be quite open to interpretation, while valid points for multiple different perspectives present within the same musical.

The scale that I’m going to use here has Tod as the first among equals on one end while the Todesengels are pieces of Tod is at the other end. Between that I would put Tod and the Todesengel as a family of sorts, Tod as King and the Todesengel as his servants, and Tod as God and the Todesengel as his slaves. That last pair might feel like splitting hairs to an extent but we will come back to it later. I’ve made the distinction for a reason.

All the productions lean in more than one way. The way the angel’s costumes match Tod’s for a portion of the musical in Vienna 2005 could easily be interpreted as Tod being the first among equals, but I don’t think that is the correct interpretation there, and that it would be more proper to be on the opposite extreme with the angels as pieces of Tod. This also seems to be more along the lines of how they interact with the ensemble on behalf of Tod in that production. The Zuka production appears to be a more King/Servant relationship - we do see the angels without Tod and they are distinct and in separate attire, but always serving Tod. I would say a similar thing about the Czech production - the angels are distinct and in a clearly separate costume white clearly seeming to serve Tod - in the Czech production he dismisses them with a hand gesture twice.

The Bruxellons production goes with the angels as a sort of family to Tod take, though I’m going to say much of that production. Those who know more, please feel free to chime in.

But back to King/Servant and God/Slave. The way that I am going to split these hairs is that it boils down to 1) do the angels have free will? And 2) does Tod know his angels’ thoughts? If the answers are no free will and yes he knows his angels’ thoughts then we are in God/Slave territory. These aren’t hairs that can really be split in the musical productions, and the relationship that Tod has with the angels tends to be ambiguous enough that splitting these hairs tends to be the least of our worries - after all, we can’t read Tod’s mind. At least in the musical.

Which brings us to the one venue where we can (sometimes) read Tod’s mind, fanfiction.

First a quick aside - for the avoidance of controversy and because I don’t want to track down a bunch of authors that may or may not still be part of the fandom (and/or willing to talk to me) to get their permission to talk about their fic in a public tumblr post, I’m just going to use my own fic as specific examples though I will allude to other fic as needed without using names. I’m not trying to insult anyone, this is just the easiest way to do it.

That being said, I have no doubt that there are as many interpretations on Tod’s angels as there are Elisabeth fanfics that include them. But sticking to the generalities that I have already spelled out:

Tod as the first among equals. This tends to feature in fics that are generally softer and involve quite a bit of time in the afterlife. Examples would be any of the Smrtolf drabbles I have written (pick your favorite, there are 30+ of them). Some are more explicit in this than others, but they are all set in very similar universes with most being in the same universe. This lends itself to OC angels being fairly major characters and having relationships of their own with canon characters beyond Tod/Smrt. I will say that fics based on the Czech production lend themself very well to this concept in no small part because Smrt and Rudolf can’t touch - and so if cuddles are to happen then Rudolf must be cuddling with non-Smrt individuals. That being said, I don’t think the actual Czech production itself falls into this category. I tend to think it is more King/Servants.

But this isn’t by any means limited to fic based off the Czech production, and it lends itself well to any fluffer or lighter fics - ones where the afterlife is more akin to heaven than anything else.

Next we have the angels as Tod’s family, with Tod as the father or head of the family. I wouldn’t go as far as to call him the paterfamilias in this category - he doesn’t have absolute power over the angels - but the look to him, as it were. This is another concept that will generally result in fics that are lighter and fluffier than the source material. This isn’t one that I tend to write a lot of, but I’ve certainly read fics along these lines before. “Beneath Your Wings” is towards this idea, but I wouldn’t put it in this category.

Tod as king and his angels as servants is probably the most common interpretation in fic. Most productions lend themselves to it on some level, and it can vary widely depending on how much control Tod has over the angels, how willing they are, and how independent they are, going on the one hand from the angels being almost Tod’s family, just subordinate to him, to the other extreme where Tod is a all but a God and the angels are his slaves. A couple of examples include “Beneath Your Wings,” which is toward the fluffier end of the spectrum. The angels are very willing but clearly subordinate to Tod in a non-familial way. A more even tempered example (though a very ambiguous one) would be what is seen of the angels (well really angel) in Mirrorverse. He's clearly Tod’s subordinate but they have a pretty casual relationship - not something that feels god-adjacent. For something that does tend toward a more god-adjacent outlook it would be along the lines of Ornithology - the angels are very submissive to Tod, with the lower ranked among them not even meeting his eyes.

The boundary to the God/Slave category is somewhat blurry in spite of the hairs that I attempted to split earlier, but there you run into things like “It’s (Not) Mercy” or the Tod of the drabble “Preener.” The angels are distinct from Tod, but he treats them more like objects than anything else. And they don’t object. Even when Rudolf doesn’t like what is happening in “Preener,” he still doesn’t so much as question what Tod has decided to do - he just accepts and endures with the line of thought that it is Tod’s choice so it is the right one. “It’s (Not) Mercy” is a little more vague about it, but the angels again come across more as objects - Lucheni compares them to marble statues.

Which brings me to the final category - angels that are pieces of Tod and not distinct from him at all. I’ve never explicitly written a fic that falls into this category and really spells it out or even strongly implies it. With fics where the angels don’t appear but Tod does, there is some room to interpret this into existence, especially in something like “Nightmare(s)” if you want to read Rudolf’s mistress as an angel (and there is certainly room to do that). But it’s not written in and really Rudolf’s mistress is supposed to be Tod there. No fic is honestly coming mind for something that explicitly does this, but I do feel that given the latitude available for interpretation of the 2005 Vienna production and the fact that some fics also leave a great deal of latitude open for interpretation it does need to be mentioned as an extreme beyond even the God/Slave dynamic.

But there is more to the Todesengel in fic beyond whether or not they show the same sorts of relationships with Tod as the specific production that a fic is based on. No discussion of the Todesengel in fanfic could be complete without a mention of Rudolf as a Todesengel - this is a pretty popular concept in fic, and can itself vary from something very fluffy with Rudolf basically in heaven to something incredibly dark with Rudolf as Tod’s unwilling slave for the rest of eternity and everything in between.

Again, there are as many interpretations on Rudolf as a Todesengels as there are fics where Rudolf becomes a Todesengel, but I will highlight five distinct ways this trope can be used or subverted.

Soft and fluffy. Here Rudolf is basically in heaven with minimal responsibilities. This is the realm of the Smrtolf drabbles where Rudolf is an angel as well as things like “Beneath Your Wings.” A happy ending (for Rudolf at least) or as near as one can get in this fandom.

Next is the exact opposite, something where Tod is horribly abusive to Rudolf, though the specifics can vary. “Preener” would be here again, as would anything where Rudolf didn’t realize exactly what being a Todesengel entails, that he has pledged himself to being Tod’s slave for all eternity. This is quite a wide category and it definitely has a blurry edge with the soft and fluffy category - something can appear soft and fluffy while in reality being horrific.

But it is also possible to subvert the classic tropes in many ways, and one way to subvert the Todesengel Rudolf conventions is to go with (as I call it) ‘fake todesengel Rudolf.’ This consists of when Tod has an angel that looks like Rudolf, but for any one of a number of reasons it is not the real Rudolf. This is something that shows up in “Cold as Death,” where it is very much open to interpretation as to whether the angel is Rudolf as a Todesengel or whether it is an angel that Tod has made in Rudolf’s image to keep as a trophy of sorts after getting the prince to kill himself. Interestingly, the exact opposite of this - a sort of husk that Tod wanted to be a more vivacious angel!Rudolf would also fall into the same category. Technically the shell is an angel, but it isn’t the angel Rudolf that Tod wanted, just a fake. And instead of being a trophy that Tod keeps, it is more a monument to his failure.

Next is Rudolf as Tod’s lieutenant - this is a pretty specific subgenre, and it shows up in fics where the afterlife portion is a relatively significant chunk of the fic - enough to merit the worldbuilding required for Rudolf to be properly described as Tod’s lieutenant. This is where Chimes at Midnight falls, and this is the type of endgame that Ornithology is looking at. In some ways this feels like a way for fate to laugh at Rudolf - he fought so hard against a military upbringing and ended up in a rather military post anyway, even if it is just the title.

And finally we have Rudolf as Tod. This is the farthest extreme I could think of and is exactly what it sounds like. Rudolf becomes Tod properly rather than just a servant or a lieutenant. Chimes at Midnight is arguably going toward this in the long run, though in the timeline the fic covers Rudolf is never anything more than Tod’s lieutenant. That being said, it is very purposeful that Rudolf introduces himself as Tod to the human he is reaping at one point. A more explicit example of this is the last subdrabble of drabble #77, in which both Tod and Rudolf die when they kiss, with Rudolf becoming Tod and Tod dying, leaving his role to Rudolf.

But there is more to the todesengel in fic than how they interact with Rudolf after he is dead and one of them. They can also be used to convey Tod’s influence when he isn’t there, something that honestly I wish we saw more of in the musical, though given it is only a bit over 2 hours and covers ~50 years of history it isn’t that surprising.

They can do this by stalking or simply accompanying characters. Stalking is perhaps a somewhat strong word, as usually it isn’t in a manner than one would classically call stalking. The first manner that I want to highlight is when the Todesengel are acting as either Rudolf or Sisi’s servants. When I write this it is with Rudolf, so I will continue down that vein. Angels acting as Rudolf’s servants can serve a number of purposes, not the least of which is simply exposing Rudolf to their presence, which while not usually as despair-inducing as Tod’s, is still a non-negligible force and can help to ever so slowly push Rudolf over the edge. And it can be another way for Rudolf to end up isolated, with no one to turn to other than Tod. A valet might not be Rudolf’s equal, but it is still some form of human interaction that Tod can take away and replace with interaction with angels. This tends to be the calling card of a more manipulative Tod, albeit one who is exceptionally patient.

To some degree, that is the crux of it. That ultimately the Todesengels are there to be Tod’s and to serve his purpose and the author’s purpose, tools to push Rudolf (or others) in whichever direction Tod has chosen.

In this they can be very useful writing tools, especially in universes where Tod is a more distant figure either by necessity or to preserve his mystique. Which renders the angels quite a nice gift from the showrunners to those of us that write fic - built in servants for Tod, but ones that are ambiguous enough in the source material that there isn’t a ton of ret-conning that has to be done to make them fit any particular fic. I will mince words here and differentiate this from any sort of world building that has to be done - and with characters as ambiguous as the angels are in the source material for any sort of very detailed fic there is a certain amount of worldbuilding that does need to be done to flesh out the angels as a whole and any specific angel OCs that may end up being major or minor characters in a fic.

I would welcome any additional thoughts from others - be they examples from more productions or from fanfic. This isn’t meant to be some be-all and end-all of Todesengel analyses, though the length certainly got a little out of hand.

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