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Admittedly, I am not a lore scholar on Diablo. Like many, I hopped into Diablo III simply because I had the time and money to be trawling around dungeons in search of orange pants so I could shoot crossbows like a beyblade. But there was always one thing about the bleak world that caught my eye.
The Diablo series has always had some of the coolest depictions of angels this side of Evangelion. Rather than lean in to the cosmic horror aspect, Diablo’s angels are the best kind of medieval fantasy- shining gold-clad warriors with wings made of burning light. You meet Tyrael in Diablo II, sure, but it’s not until Diablo III that you see more of these empty-faced entities and they just hook you in.
You especially get this with the Angiris Council- these Archangels are meant to be the good counterparts to the Prime Evils, but as you learn from Tyrael in Diablo III they’ve succumbed to typical anti-mortal rhetoric and don’t really care about what happens in Sanctuary until it literally blows open their front gates.
Part of the reason I want to see more of the Angiris Council is because of the only member they fleshed out in Diablo III- Imperius , Archangel of Valor. Considering he most looks like a classic Angel- complete with halo and the silhouette of typical bird wings, imagine my surprise when you actually meet him: Imperius is a douche.
He’s not just disinterested, he’s an arrogant no-face who spends all his screen time being your character’s biggest hater. The man has opinions about the hierarchy of species, and he says them with his chest like he’s Eric Clapton. Even when Diablo stabs Imperius and leaves him bleeding out on the floor his response to you arriving isn’t to thank you or anything, it’s to call you out for sullying his precious Crystal Arch with non-Angel footprints.
You’d think they’d consider developing the character further when they added Reaper of Souls, the final act for Diablo III that has you squaring off against Malthael, former leader of the Council. Instead the game really does just double down on everything we know about the gold-clad jerk- he spends all his time with you berating your lack of heavenly power, then tells you that even if you stop Malthael, you’re not going to be doing him any favors.
It’s the kind of 100% commitment to the bit that just works so well for this kind of character. There’s no humanization- we don’t ever get a tragic backstory justifying Imperius’ behavior. In fact, we get a whole prequel animation tripling down that somehow, Imperius was just always an angry loser, and the entire Council kind of knows it. ‘You can take your “nuanced character writing” and shove it’, says the angels. Imperius may as well be the Archangel of Hate, and if he had Twitter you’d probably regularly catch him on Scrubquotes talking about how Skill-Based Matchmaking is ruining Call of Duty.
I honestly hope we’d get similar levels of dedication for the rest of the Angiris Council- or more of Imperius’ verbal abuse, that’d be great too all things considered. Considering how Diablo IV focuses on the angel Inarius, I’m sure we’ll get more of Imperius and his economic anxiety on display as he somehow realizes yet another Angel needs to be put down, and he’s somehow been stabbed yet again, and needs to subcon the job out to a lesser species.
