I think I'm getting repetitive with my comments, but, hey...
Wow.
And thank you.
Capes: no, I have no plans for a sequel!
Ann: what can I say!
I wish I had thought my story through as carefully as you have! Certainly, I did think about the differences of agape and phileo, but I hadn't thought about Clark being a great example of someone filled with agape.
The way you put it does, however, make perfect sense to me. I'm in awe.
And I'm so, so happy that you approve of what I did with this!
The last guardian angel before Lois? Um. Actually, I have absolutely no idea. I just liked the sound of the number 1702 for some reason.
As for examples of Guardianships gone awry... I talked to several people on IRC for this one, and they gave me some suggestions. (I asked for examples of unrequited love.) However, none of them quite worked for me, which is why I ended up keeping this very vague in the story.
The best example I could come up with myself was Rebecca in Walter Scott's
Ivanhoe.
I don't know how many people are familiar with the story, but, basically, Ivanhoe comes back from the crusades. He is engaged to the Saxon lady Rowena, and, at the end of the story, he ends up marrying her.
However, along the way, he meets and is helped by the Jewess Rebecca. From what I can remember (and it is a while since I read the book), Rebecca obviously loves Ivanhoe. He possibly / probably has feelings for her, too. However, he ends up with Rowena (presumably following the religious conventions / rules of the day), and Rebecca goes out into the world to do good deeds. The only reason she doesn't end up in a convent is that she's Jewish and, according to the book at least, Jews don't have a direct equivalent.
Quite honestly, I liked Rebecca far more than I liked Rowena, and I wish that there had been some way for the two of them to end up together.
Interesting that several of you don't see what Kilmartin's / the angels' issues with Guardianship are. I think of it this way: imagine you have got to heaven. Isn't that supposed to be the ideal place for you to be? Why would anyone possibly want to give that up? Especially as in an awful lot of cases, Guardianship doesn't actually work. In other words, not only would the Guardian end up somewhere less desirable than heaven, but they will probably have a miserable life to boot.
Of course, it is always possible that Kilmartin and the rest don't know what romantic love feels like. Maybe they were either unlucky in love or just never lucky enough to experience it...
Yvonne:
I'm not a believer in God, but honestly, that doesn't matter a jot.
Did I ever suggest that I am?
To be honest, I suspect that, had I more conventional religious leanings than I do, I would not have been able to write this. And I did / do have concerns about how some people might react to what I've done here.
SNL, Susan, Laura, Maria, Incognito, Karen, Julia, Gerry, SuperRoo, Irene, Tricia and Jose, thank you all too.