Sacrifice of Angels: Why is it Plural?

[Kate Nichols]

Why Angels in the Plural? Who was the other Angel sacrificed besides Ziyal?

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Lots of Starfleet crewmembers and maybe a few Klingons?

It could also be that Sisko is one angel who is making a sacrifice, giving up his future peace in order to win the battle.

 

[NCC-73515]

Most episode titles shouldn't be overanalyzed XD

 

[Kate Nichols]

Sisko isn't an Angel; he's the Emmissary!

 

[gtop]

I think it means the sacrificing of the whole jem'hadar" fleet in the whormhole by the whormhole angels.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Sisko isn't an Angel; he's the Emmissary!

FFS, no one was on an altar having a knife plunged into their chests. Can we look at the title as a metaphor?

 

[DS9forever]

The Prophets were the angels.

 

[Christopher]

Why Angels in the Plural?

Because the title, like so many Star Trek titles, is a literary quotation. It took me a bit of work to track it down, since most online references to the phrase are to the DS9 episode, but it's a line from the 1727 play Double Falsehood, or, The Distrest Lovers by Lewis Theobald (who claimed it was based on a lost Shakespeare play, based in turn on a section of Don Quixote).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Falsehood

The line is from the following speech by Duke Angelo in the play:

The Voice of Parents is the Voice of Gods:
For to their Children they are Heav’n’s Lieutenants:
Made Fathers, not for common Uses meerly
Of Procreation; (Beasts and Birds would be
As noble then as we are) but to steer
The wanton Freight of Youth thro’ Storms and Dangers,
Which with full Sails they bear upon: and streighten
The moral Line of Life, they bend so often.
For these are We made Fathers; and for These,
May challenge Duty on our Children’s Part.
Obedience is the Sacrifice of Angels,
Whose Form you carry.

https://sites.fas.harvard.edu/~cardenio/doublefalsehood5.html

So it's basically an elaborate way of saying "Obey your parents." The relevance to the episode is clear enough -- it reflects the pressure on Sisko to obey the Prophets (the Voice of Gods) and on Ziyal to obey her father. With a double meaning of "sacrifice" in the sense of what Sisko and Ziyal lose as a result of disobedience.