Thalaba the Destroyer is a poem created in the early 19^th century by Robert Southey. In the most simplest of summaries and the best way I can describe it, Thalaba is the story about a young boy who is prophesied to destroy the world. A group of wizards/mages make it their mission to find Thalaba and his family to kill him. Thalaba is able to escape, and he makes it his mission to kill this group. He manages to kill the leader of the group once he’s older, and he can acquire a very powerful ring from this leader. This ring is what is said to be extremely powerful and brings everlasting life to the bearer. But since for reasons, and for reasons weirdly told, Thalaba has gone against the wishes of Allah and is cursed to be a monster (or at least from what I’ve come to understand). It is then described throughout the story that Thalaba falls into a deep sleep for many many years, and eventually falls in love with a mortal girl who also falls in love with him. But without spoiling anything, Thalaba does eventually destroy the world, in a very poetic sense. Now there is a very interesting love story to go through in the story of Thalaba, but that’s basic and quite surface level. What I want to look at is the use of the divine, curses, and the Angel of Death, Azrael. In one part of the poem, it is described that Thalaba is met by a large bird with black wings and burning eyes like fire. It delivers a prophecy (or warning) of death, and eventually shows up again (in my opinion) as Azrael. For the uninitiated, Azrael is the Arch Angel of Death in the Quaran, and in some parts of Judaist and Christian beliefs. Not much is known about Azrael in Western cultures, but one can say for sure that Azrael plays an important roll in the story of Thalaba the Destroyer. Azrael appears to take the souls of the dead, mostly the wizards/mages that Thalaba slays, but is never able to touch Thalaba himself. Mostly for the fact that Thalaba has the ring and is unable to die as he bears it, but Thalaba eventually starts to fall under his curse that was bestowed upon him by Azrael. It’s described throughout the story that Thalaba’s appearance starts to worsen, he becomes more ghoulish, gaunt, and even monstrous. Thalaba himself isn’t described as having the traditional powers of a vampire, besides being immortal and having magical abilities, but this is possibly his curse from not only Allah, but from Azrael as well. Even though it was a curse from Allah (or punishment really) for the mages and Thalaba to never find heaven, I think it was also a curse from Azrael for Thalaba to never look immortal, and to become a monstrous figure. If I had to rewrite the story, I would make Azrael work alongside Thalaba, but in a ‘frenemies’ sort of way. That is how I see it in the story of Thalaba as well, but it isn’t quite expressed as such.