We live in a post-9/11, post-truth, post-institutional trust era. The idea of a pure, uncomplicated good feels naive to many. Entertainment that shows angels as flawed, corrupt, or evil mirrors our disillusionment with authority figures—be they religious, political, or corporate.

Entertainment has decoupled the symbol from the substance. An angel is no longer a religious entity; it is a trope . It sits in the same toolbox as the werewolf or the zombie. And because it is the most potent symbol of "good," it makes the most satisfying villain. The arms race of edgy content is real. We have seen the angel fall. We have seen the angel kill. We have seen the angel weep. What is left?

In the beginning, there was light. Angels were the flawless messengers of God, carved in marble, painted on Sistine Chapel ceilings, and whispered about in Sunday school parables. Evil, meanwhile, was a shadowy footnote—a serpent, a tempter, a necessary antagonist in a morality play.

The watershed moment came with the release of the Doom video game franchise. Suddenly, angels weren't the solution—they were the final boss. In Doom Eternal , the angelic figure of the Khan Maykr is not a savior; she is a bureaucratic, genocidal entity who sustains heaven by harvesting human souls. This is the "hardcore evil" twist: the revelation that heaven’s light is just a different shade of tyranny.