Character Analysis
This silver-tongued stranger appears at Tamina's café and basically talks her into submission—and into his sports car. Raphael knows everything about Tamina and her obsession with the past. He tells her exactly what she's been waiting to hear: "Forget your forgetting" (VI.6.7).
He even tells her how to do that.
Tamina follows him to her bizarre and terrifying fate because Raphael somehow has the key to her pain and her desire. He's there to give her what she wants: a life unencumbered by the weight of the past.
If Raphael is an angel, as his name suggests, Tamina would have done well to remember that angels are not really radiant, benign beings with fluffy white wings. As Kundera says, they're really God's henchmen. And you've got to watch out for them.