Anomalia7

FINALLY FINISHED THIS!! my own interpretation and additions to Sebastian's room in sdv ! Tried to keep anything in the image from the year 2010 or predated. i think theres a few give and takes but i really like the "older brother" early 2000s grunge aesthetic on another level and i thought who better fits it than him. I put a lot of references to stuff i personally like as well ^_^

first, the good:

- Crowley - the angel that fell because he asked questions, that's enamoured with humanity, with what it means to be human, who fights for free will - that his final stand, his true core is exactly that love and passion for humanity and free will: YES, absolutely, well done

- also Crowley (and Aziraphale) being miserable in their break up. But that Crowley, even tho pissed and rejected and sad and angry, is still protecting the bookshop. Because it mattered, to him. And to Aziraphale.

- loved that Aziraphale (and to that extend Michael Sheen) got to go to hell, to be mean, to have fangs and dress up all fancy and dark and that he got to play boss in hell - very fun, delightful, had a great time with that scene (and Muriel looked amazing too, love them and the silly little 'BAD' Tattoo on their cheek)

but - sadly far bigger - my issues with the Finale:

- maybe that's just me, but I was waiting for like... Armageddon to happen. An End Of The World, ultimate chaos, drama - visually impactful scenes of destruction, some of the disasters we saw in the S1 finale, but that... never came?

The destruction of the Book of Life felt very impactless to me because... we barely saw any of the consequences. Just a globe in which some continents where suddenly swallowed up into a black hole. There where (barely) any people, any individuals, no nature or animals or culture or anything genuinely visibly destroyed, it just vanished. And that felt incredibly emotionally removed for me. It was just 'a thing' that happend but the scale of it wasn't made visible - because you never saw any of that. What was lost with that. What it means to lose a whole continent, with its people, its flora and fauna. It was just a little place on a map that suddenly turned black, a page torn out af a (very slim looking) book

- Jesus didn't matter at all? He didn't do a single thing of importance in the grand scheme of things. He was more of a plot device to get things started. Later, Aziraphale and Crowley literally run into him and realise that he does not matter whatsoever

- right now I'm not too pressed about God materialising (we can make 'I met God, She's black' jokes, let's go) but too keep her omnipresent would have been nice?

my bigger issue is that she seemed almost kind of sadistic and very random: very 'we need this for the plot, God is here now and down for whatever Aziraphale and Crowley decide to do, no matter what' which holds very little emotional strength or impact, at least for me

Aziraphale and Crowley didn't have to fight for humanity. Didn't have to convince anyone (but themselfs) that what they are doing - saving and freeing humanity, fighting for free will - is The Right Thing and Worth Fighting/ Dying/ Sacrificing for. God just said 'sure, make whatever decision, I don't care, I just enjoyed your little game all these years so I shall humor you'. And that feels very cheap. S1 ended with an emotional fight, with the characters realising and fighting for and convincing others of their values and that was missing

- Michaels crash out came very sudden and contextless. When Aziraphale and Crowley were trying to calm her down, we get a glimpse into the cause of that.

And that sense of ungratefulness, of loneliness, of not being seen that caused her to crash out could have been really interesting to be explored deeper, would have been really important to see and could have held an important message but that build up was completely missing. (And yes, they had only 90 minutes but there would have been room for that. ESPECIALLY when the entire main plot arches on that)

- and THEY DIDNT HAVE TO UNDO EVERYTHING. God gave them completely free reign on what they decide to do, she literally offered to just bring everything back. They could have dismantled the system of the already existing universe and, you know, fought for it: For the people, the humans, for the individuals that have existed and were existing and their stories... their humanity, and their free will

Other post have put this way better already but so much of the themes of this show are that the individual matters. That's it's about them, the history, the memories, all the small things and just to give all that up in a grand sacrifice that wasn't even necessary?? Why?

- and finally, yes, I'm sorry, I will also be bothered by the lack of an full impact kiss. We got a little kiss on the fingertips, some hand holding and some old queer men meant to resemble them grow old and that's cute but... a) that's not them

and b) the kiss in the S2 finale was So Important, So Impactful, Held So Much Meaning. And to mirror that, to bring that scene back and bring that specific plotline to an deserving end - with, again, a full kiss in full scale that ANSWERSES and CONTINUES the former plotline would have been necessary, in my opinion - just from a cohesive storytelling perspective. Because that scene now just lingers a bit contextless and even more resolutionless and it simply does not deserve that. That scene was Important. And that importance did not pay out as it should have.

In general, the finale had its moments, had some emotions and some funny cute scenes but...

In my opinion, the pacing was weird (a lot of scenes had a cute little joke but just went on for too long considering we need an entire world ending finale in those 90 minutes)

and everything was very, very reduced to like 7 characters. The entire world of Season 3 revolved around and almost exclusively showed these 7 characters and that made it feel very... limited to me. It's wasn't that whole world, all these people you've gotten to know and love over the past years, over all of the in universe time and space, but instead it was like 4 people in heaven, Crowley, Jesus and barely anything more.

I really thought they were going to become the Illustrator and Author.

I really thought that's why all the books in the shop were made blank.

I really thought God wasn't going to actually exist in a true form, and instead be a kind of omnipresent power of creation.

I really thought that they were going to have their forced-proximity-making-up-with-each-other as they were required to work together to write the new Book of Life.

I really thought that they were going to choose *their* humanity and not a new one.

I really thought they would still be themselves at the end.

I really thought the moral of the story was that the humanity they had was worth protecting, and that life itself (whether mortal or otherwise) was beautiful and inherently important.

I really thought this story was about a love that transcends.