Howling:Weeping angels killable when not being looked at?

The Tenth doctor, in Blink, said that Weeping angels are only stone when you look at them. So aren't they just flesh when you blink or turn your head? Can't flesh be shot and killed(Yes, the doctor doesn't use guns, but River does, and she appears in Time of Angels, Flesh and Stone, and The Angels take Manhattan). Also, can't stone by mined? If this is the case, Weeping angels can't exactly live forever, like we're led to believe Afro Circus Afro Circus Afro Polka  Polka Dot Afro!  22:35, December 14, 2013 (UTC)


 * What does stone's mineability have to do with anything? We saw the angels eroded by time but then reform themselves when near a source of energy. And while yes, they're not stone when you're not looking at them, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're flesh, although they would admittedly be likely more vulnerable then, though bullets might do nothing against them anyway (they were used to keep the Angels at bay in the dark once, but I don't know if it was specified whether the bullets would have been lethal or just annoying). And no one said they live forever. There were baby Angels in TATM, which suggests a life cycle. We were just told that the race as a whole has been around almost forever. —BioniclesaurKing4t2 - "Hello, I'm the Doctor. Basically, . . . run." 04:29, December 15, 2013 (UTC)

What about when they are stone though. COuldn't you just take an axe or sledgehammer to them and shatter them beyond reconstituting again?
 * The implication of their quantum locking being a survival instinct is that they are vulnerable when not being looked at. So they can attack when no one's looking, but when someone is — and therefore has the potential to attack them — they turn to stone. -- SOTO ( ☎ / ★ \ ♆ ) 13:13, February 1, 2014 (UTC)


 * Correct. There'd be no evolutionary pressure to favour the quantum locking, if they weren't vulnerable when not stone. However, "vulnerable", in that context, means vulnerable to their enemies at the time when they evolved the trick. We don't know what those enemies were, so we don't know what type of attack it was that the Angels were vulnerable to. --89.241.209.58talk to me 18:11, February 1, 2014 (UTC)


 * Yeah but what needs remembering is that the quantum lock has always been a theoretical defense not a practical one. That theory is that it's a good defense because a statue isn't the sort of thing too many people are going to attack or even perceive as dangerous. In practice however it is the reason they are the lonely assassins, they can't even observe each other and they freeze in all circumstances where they can be observed which is very inconvenient.DCT ☎  16:47, February 3, 2014 (UTC)


 * I've just re-watched Blink (because it's good to watch, not because of this discussion) & picked up on something I must've heard a dozen times or more without latching on. When he's explaining about the quantum lock, the Doctor says of the Angels that, while they're being looked at, "they don't exist". He goes on to talk about the stone &c but, if his statement is intended literally, of course the Angel can't be killed while it's being observed, because it doesn't then exist & only resumes its existence when it's no longer observed. --89.243.193.247talk to me 22:57, February 4, 2014 (UTC)

Yes,but when the Doctor says that he can't be being entirely literal. He just means that when the Angel's a statue, it is a statue; it's not an alien being disguised as a statue. If it literally didn't exist it could never regain it's existence, only existing things can perform actions. Also if it was literally true then the resolution to Flesh And Stone wouldn't work because erasing an army of statues that are sometimes Weep N Creeps isn't the same as erasing an army of Weep N Creeps, you can't erase something that doesn't exist. The statue is somehow contingent with the Angel, whatever effects the one effects the other, The Time Of Angels showed this.DCT ☎  16:45, February 5, 2014 (UTC)