Aydra

We need to talk more about the fact that Crowley does stress cleaning… 

And also the fact that he READS. He lied to Aziraphale that he doesn’t…

Evidence provided by @brightwanderer​

This is what I actually think.

Because look at Season 2! something like 80% of that was pure filler. gaiman's wrist starting cramping coming up with filler so he even farmed it out to other writers! (nowadays it would be chatgpt).

There probably was a meandering, ultimately pointless 1941 part 3 featuring Aziraphale shooting some zombies and then being made to do the sadistic I am Wrong dance. There probably was some cowboy nonsense where Aziraphale is stupid and falls off a horse and Crowley sneers at him.

I don't give a shit. It's going to be filler. Because if there was anything in those scripts that wasn't filler, they would have filmed it. There was filler in the finished movie, even.

There is NOTHING that could have been written that explains why it's good to coerce a crying person who wants to live to kill themselves. Shakespeare couldn't have done it.

None of the actually big issues with this season have to do with things being cut. Because the big issues are that the show forgot what genre it was and that it was deliberately written to go against the expectations of the only people who wanted to see it.

But I still don't understand them, and here I want to talk about one of the reasons why I never will.

In the finale, Aziraphale is portrayed as a naive, stupid idiot who simply doesn't understand that "everything has already been decided, you can't change anything! There will always be someone above you pulling the strings, so there's no point even trying. You should have just run away to Alpha Centauri and forgotten about everything. But no, you, you foolish, naive sheep, decided to keep fighting, and look where that got you! You should have listened to Crowley! He told you so! Now do the apology dance, because he was right and you were wrong!"

Practically every character in the film drags Aziraphale through the mud, just as the writers do through the story's narrative. Even though I personally interpret the ending of season two differently, for the sake of this post I'll be looking at it from season three's perspective, that Aziraphale really left because he genuinely wanted to change something (and, for some reason, immediately believed the Metatron without recognizing the threat hidden in his words), while the ending presents his hope and faith as something genuinely stupid.

For two entire seasons, Aziraphale did everything he could to protect Crowley. He loved him sincerely and tenderly, but he understood perfectly well the circumstances they were trapped in. He expressed his love subtly and carefully, afraid of taking one step too far and risking them being discovered and destroyed. Aziraphale always tried to keep their relationship balanced on that thin line where they could care for one another without putting either of them in danger. And Crowley always understood that. He knew the rules of the game, and he willingly accepted them just to stay by the angel's side, to spend time with him, to protect him and help him. He loved Aziraphale just as sincerely, even if his way of expressing that love was more obvious to the audience.

He loved Aziraphale precisely because he loves good food, precisely because he's not entirely immune to hedonism, precisely because he sometimes behaves like just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing, precisely because he can be a little selfish at times, precisely because he isn't perfect. He loved both Aziraphale's strengths and his flaws. He fell in love with Aziraphale's courage, his desire to help others, his kind and pure heart. He values and loves the fact that Aziraphale is willing to stand by his principles until the very end, willing to fight and keep going even when there seems to be no hope left (which is exactly what Aziraphale taught Crowley over the centuries, because deep down, I think Crowley remained an optimist largely thanks to Aziraphale), willing to put himself at risk if it meant protecting even just a handful of innocent people like when he gave the flaming sword to Adam and Eve, or when he saved Job's children while believing that lying to Heaven would send him to Hell.Just remember the way he portrayed Aziraphale at the end of the first season, it reflects how he sees his angel. Brave, courageous, compassionate, full of hope, and never losing his composure even in the face of danger or bastards like the archangels, who treated him terribly.

The ending portrays absolutely everything Crowley loved about Aziraphale as something bad, laughable, and utterly worthless. He was wrong for hoping. He was wrong for refusing, over and over again, to run away with Crowley to Alpha Centauri and leave everyone else to fend for themselves.

(Although I think the foundation of their arguments has always been that they both simply want to be together and left alone, but because of who they are, they pursue that goal differently. Aziraphale might have wanted to run away with Crowley, but he knows that neither of them could ever abandon Earth and the people they've grown attached to. And Aziraphale doesn't want to give up. Crowley, just like Aziraphale, simply wants a peaceful existence away from Heaven and Hell with the angel he loves. But when he panics and believes nothing can be fixed anymore, he's more inclined to give up and focus on saving the most precious thing he has, without really thinking about what comes afterward.)

He's stupid and naive for believing that anything can actually be changed, that they might still find another way. Of course you should have run away with Crowley, you foolish angel! Can't you see you're breaking Crowley's heart? You selfish bastard! Look how poor and miserable Crowley is!

(I want to make one thing clear here: I love and appreciate both Crowley and Aziraphale. What I hate is that the story went from "they're both right and wrong in their own ways, shades of gray" to suddenly trying to tell us that Crowley was the only one who was right, and that only Crowley suffered, because we were never shown Aziraphale's suffering during all those years he spent in Heaven.)

After everything literally disappeared and the two of them were left alone in the bookshop surrounded by nothingness, Aziraphale performs the damn "I Was Wrong" dance. It's as though the writers are trying to tell us that Crowley was right in his speech about everything being predetermined and nothing ever being changeable, which directly contradicts what the book and season 1 based on it were about.

Everyone hates Aziraphale. From the characters to the narrative itself.

And that leads me to one question...

How can you love this film while also loving Aziraphale?

From my perspective, loving this film and loving Aziraphale are complete opposites that simply cannot coexist in the same sentence. The entire film is saturated with absolute hatred toward this character. It portrays him as a stupid, naive bastard who doesn't care about the person he loves, the one he spent 6,000 years beside.

"If it weren't for Jesus, I wouldn't need you," and "Angels aren't killers" - those two lines tell me loud and clear just how "deep" the creators of this "masterpiece" understand Aziraphale as a character.

That's why I feel that the people who enjoyed this film either don't understand Aziraphale as a character, or they hate him, or they're simply not as emotionally attached to him. As someone who identified with him for five damn years, I want to say that the Aziraphale in this film is a pathetic, disgusting, unbelievably stupid parody of that wonderful, brave, courageous angel who was full of hope, full of pain from having to suppress his feelings, who did everything he could to survive, to stay with Crowley, and to do the right thing. The angel who absolutely melts when Crowley calls him a bastard, because that one line contains all of the demon's love for every one of the angel's flaws, flaws he loves just as much as all of his virtues (though honestly, I think Crowley puts them on exactly the same level as his virtues, lol).

The angel who deserved every word of love this world has to offer, deserved to be accepted for who he is, deserved to be loved, deserved peace and warmth.

The finale certainly did its fair share of mistreating Crowley as well, but that's a topic for another post.

I’ve seen people say Aziraphale was out of character in GO3 and there’s always this army who reply, “How?! He was always like that in the rest of the series!”

And I do not care for it.

I’m gonna get Watsonian here for the sake of argument:

I’m one of the few who has some sympathy for Aziraphale’s actions when he reunites with Crowley in S3. Crowley is not the only injured party, and Crowley also has autonomy. He makes it clear he doesn’t want Aziraphale‘a help just then. I’ve been in a similar situation, and I also chose to go away, until I could understand the situation and figure out what to do. 

I also quite like the rather haughty delivery when Aziraphale says “Do you want an apology from me?” because it makes sense. I personally didn’t want abject apologies or apology dances—I wanted them to understand the other’s motives. Aziraphale did nothing wrong, and Crowley did reject him when he begged. They’re both in the same boat, breakup-wise; one is not more at fault than the other.

People are also inclined to say he only came back to Earth because he needed Crowley’s help—which is textually not true. He came back for the specific reason that he heard that Crowley was not doing well.

Returning to the Doylist perspective (where I’m more comfortable, as I don’t want to get caught up in the quagmire that is the story of GO3)—GO3 is Aziraphale abuse from start to finish, and it was incessantly painful. It was also Crowley abuse, of course, but at least no one was verbally insulting him in the film.

Someone on Bluesky said that they don't understand why people say s3 contradicts Job, because in the end Crowley "saved the universe in a different form, just like Job's children were saved" (paraphrasing here). Well, I wholeheartedly disagree. Here's why:

Let's start with s1. Adam reset the universe and fixed it. It was the SAME as before, just slightly modified. He even kept his powers. But people were the same, and they remembered.

As for Job, Crowley and Aziraphale save the children exactly as they are. They aren't changed or made new, it's only that Heaven sort of (?) believes that. But these are the exact same characters.

So if there was a scene in the script which highlighted all the reasons why Crowley loves Aziraphale, were he speaks of him as highly and as sincerely as Aziraphale speaks of Crowley in that Chinese Restaurant Scene and in the Bookshop, then cutting it out to make room for, like, Muriel's death scene or whatever, this is an artistic decision worth criticizing. If there was a scene where Aziraphale was allowed to actually get the last word over Crowley in an argument, actually got him to realize that as much as Aziraphale's solution was imperfect, so was trying to run away to Alpha Centauri, which would both balance out the characters a little and actually build up more to the ending being an actual character resolution for Crowley rather than him flipping his motivation on a dime, and that was cut in favor of the pointless detour to Hell? That is an artistic decision worth criticizing.

It extends to a lot more than the character balance between Crowley and Aziraphale, of course. Why include a line where God even offers the possibility of 'putting everything back the way it was' but cut anything that was (presumably) in the script to really justify why they shouldn't, or why it couldn't be modified? (For the record, I don't think having an In-Universe Justification based on rules the creators made up would've totally fixed the ending either, but the fact that it's Like That in the finished version is just the cherry of incompetence on top). Why spend so much time on pointless subplots setting up the themes of beating rigged games and changing the rules, but not on making the climax FEEL like our two main characters actually successfully beat a rigged game against God?

Like, Crowley and Aziraphale reincarnating into Anthony and Asa is probably the one GO3 interpretation/copium that’s closest to being, like, an actual ‘Happy Ending’ for them in terms of narrative and themes and character.

It’s still pretty sucky! Giving the Ineffable Husbands their “”romantic happy ending”” not by emotionally resolving the issues raised in the Final Fifteen (and beyond, and before), but by basically resetting them into a blank slate that never hurt each other and don’t even seem to have the personal and interpersonal flaws that caused the issues in the first place makes their relationship and love seem a lot weaker, implying they could never actually overcome their issues. And it’s also a very Magical way to solve one of the central emotional conflicts of the show in an ending that’s supposed to be about the joys of mundanity. And it’s kinda counterproductive to the message of appreciating the imperfection of human existence when the limited time we have with Asa and Anthony only allows us to see very superficial flaws about their own lives and they otherwise feel much more inhuman and imperfect compared to the very messy and very human Aziraphale and Crowley. And it hurts the message of appreciating Humanity in general that Asa and Anthony are like the blandest, least compelling, most desaturated versions of Aziraphale and Crowley ever. Like, if these are really the versions of Crowley and Aziraphale that have True Free WillTM, they should’ve gotten even weirder. Oh! And of course it weakens the theme of ‘Free Will’ if they were somehow ‘destined’ to meet and fall in love. And then of course, you can raise the Jim Question, that even if these are Crowley and Aziraphale’s consciousnesses, can they be said to be Crowley and Aziraphale without their memories? And the question of whatever any sort of reincarnation should even exist in a ‘Goddless’ Universe. And that it really removes a lot of their appeal to take away their 6000 years of history and Slow Burn and loving against the odds and replacing it with a very generic Meet Cute. And also of course, some people would always be devastated that Crowley and Aziraphale seemed like they’re going to have an Eternity together and they only ended up with 40-30 years.

BUT EVEN WITH ALL OF THAT SAID (and maybe a few more complaints I forgot), this is STILL the least bad ending possibility of the Finale, both for the characters and the narrative as a whole. Obviously the Worst Option is that Crowley and Aziraphale are just straight-up permadead. But a lot of the other options people have suggested to make that ending ‘happy’ are still, in fact, kinda Worse than Crowley and Aziraphale spending 40-30 amnesiac years together. Like, the concept of Ineffable Husbands as a Reincarnation Romance or a Multiversal Constant only weakens the appeal of the Husbands as a love that triumphed against the odds and the theme of Free WillTM (not to mention that with how little actual reconciliation Crowley and Aziraphale had, how many of these times they ‘found’ each other they were actually happy and functional?). And then there are the ‘Happy Endings’ that take the Husbands away from Earth and Humanity, put them in a Snowglobe or ‘the Garden of Eden’ or outer space or whatever, when the entire original concept around which their storyline in the original book revolved around, the Humanist theme they originally conveyed, is that there’s nothing more wonderful than the experience of living in our world among the Humans, and this is so wonderful and important and fun to them that it’s worth defying both Heaven and Hell to preserve. It’s almost as hard to image a ‘Happy Ending’ for them that separates them from that human world as it is to imagine a ‘Happy Ending’ that keeps them apart from each other. Especially as so many interpretations put them into the exact same stagnant unchanging eternities they were afraid of in the first place. Even if these specific worlds are full of only the things they loved, they also loved the ever-changing nature of the Earthly Experience (Aziraphale goes slow, but not slow enough for Eternity) and they wanted to experience it, and not just watch it from afar. And then there are the Interpretations that hinge on some variation of Crowley and Aziraphale having Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence, becoming the Universe or Stars or Cosmic Consciousness or the embodiment of Love or the Guardians of Humanity or Watching Over Us All (which can also intersect with some of the ‘Garden of Eden’ stuff). Which… also feels counterproductive with Crowley and Aziraphale’s very earthly love of earthly experiences. Again, they loved experiencing the pleasures of this world the way humans do, so much that Aziraphale gave up on an Eternal Heaven and Crowley risked Hell’s Wrath for it. Why should we believe that they’re happy to leave that behind forever for some cosmic experience we can’t even comprehend? Why should this supposedly ‘Humanist’ story about the most Human Angel and Demon end with them having to becoming something even further away from Humanity than ever before? And the whole central joke their characters (and their whole setting) hinged on is the idea divine and cosmic entities being Just Some Guys With a Job. Crowley and Aziraphale’s friendship was built upon them trying to minimize work as much as possible, they spent years trying to retire. Why should I be happy to see them take on another Cosmic Job that’s even more impossible for them to ever leave or separate their identities from or ever stop doing? And that’s not getting to cases where this ‘Happy Ending’ gives them a very God-like role, so it also kneecaps whatever ‘message’ this ending tries to have. Making it even less about dismantling harmful systems, and now the message is that it could all be better by just putting the Right People at the top of the System…

So many options for interpretations! And none of them feel like it would make Crowley and Aziraphale actually happy and make their sacrifice to feel worthwhile! Absolutely amazing!

Imagine looking into his round pookie sunshine face and his bright eyes and being mean to him.

And like, Crowley isn't giving any grace to any angels or demons who could have the same opportunity he has always been fighting so hard to earn. He spent thousands of years carving out a life beyond Heaven and Hell's expectations, yet his decision denies others the chance to do the same.

I always end up circling back to this, but Beelzebub and Gabriel are exactly why this choice doesn't work. Their story proves that angels and demons can change, choose each other, and walk away from the systems they were born into.

And Crowley and Aziraphale aren’t just witnesses to that, they are living proof of it. They are their own example. They know, firsthand, that despite being celestial beings, angels and demons are capable of questioning, changing, and choosing differently.

There's also Muriel, who grows curious and fond of humanity. And if we include those sweet little interactions Muriel seemed to be developing with Eric in the finale, that's yet another example of a demon beginning to form a dynamic outside of Hell's expectations.

A choice like this also deprives Eric of the opportunity to grow beyond the only world he's ever known. Just like Crowley once did, these celestial beings deserve the chance to question the system he was born into, form meaningful relationships, and decide for himself who he wants to be.

So while yes, it was Michael who destroyed the Book of Life, Crowley choice in the end was just as bad. They took away every angel's and every demon's chance to grow beyond the roles they were assigned.

And not just that, but refusing to save the world they loved makes Adam and Jesus role in the story even more futile. Their entire purpose was to prove that the world was worth saving despite its flaws, that humanity, with all its messiness, was worth fighting for.

And what about Maggie and Nina? In Season 2, they quite literally confront Crowley and tell him that his meddling in their lives wasn't appreciated. Their lives and relationships are theirs to figure out, not his. Crowley respects that.

Which is why his choice in GO3 feels so contradictory to me. He chooses a godless and angelless universe without giving anyone else the chance to decide whether that's what they want. Humanity doesn't get a say. The angels don't get a say. The demons don't get a say.

Not even Aziraphale gets a say. Which also bothers me because they are a team. So why does it end up feeling like Crowley’s perspective is the one that defines the outcome? Why is his vision of what the universe should be the one that gets imposed on everyone else, even Aziraphale?

I saw a tweet that said that Aziraphale's lack of agency in that moment and his tendency to go along with Crowley's "righteous" choice even when he's not fully certain, parallels how Aziraphale used to follow Heaven.

That’s what makes it uncomfortable for me. Because if both Heaven and Crowley end up occupying that same space of “the one who decides,” then the story risks repeating the same dynamic it critiques, just with different names attached.

There is something so somber about Crowley’s “no us.” This phrase lands like a final severing of the possibility they’ve spent millennia building together.

Framed through the idea of “free will,” it becomes even more complicated. A decision meant to preserve autonomy ends up erasing the very people who have been fighting for their own future all along.

For a lot of viewers, that’s what makes the ending so sickening. These are characters we’ve watched consistently choose the each other and the world. So the idea of their entire shared existence being removed in the name of freedom feels deeply contradictory to what the story itself has been building toward.

Season 1 and 2 show us that they’re always thinking about each other, and the fragile world they’ve learned to care about together.

Crowley adores Aziraphale—there’s no question about that. And Aziraphale adores Crowley just as deeply. They’ve spent so long building a shared life, forming memories in a world they both came to love and protect.

And in that sense, both of them are smart enough to understand what’s at risk when the Earth is on the line. They’ve spent too long on it, lived too many moments in it, to treat it as something disposable.

In the end, however, we get a strange choice that arguably parallels the Biblical Flooding: a sweeping, top-down reset in the name of fixing what’s broken.

Instead of allowing the story’s central theme of free will and change to play out through its characters, the resolution feels like an external intervention that wipes the slate clean rather than letting the world continue to evolve.

This ending frames Crowley as a hypocrite, and it reduces Aziraphale from a co-equal participant in their shared story to someone who is simply carried along by the decision rather than choosing alongside him.

And it all just pisses me off because while I can dismiss S3 as a piece of shit written by a piece of shit, part of the legacy it leaves behind is the poisoning of the fandom, now and in the future, against a character I have loved for 30 years.

(I know Crowley was treated very badly by Season 3 too. Please don't @ me to tell me how much worse he had it - that was the intent. They were both done extremely dirty, but you're meant to sympathize with Crowley and to see Aziraphale as cruel.)

Season 3 completely overrides this and says humans never had free will in the first place because of the existence of angels and demons. Which disregards both logic and continuity because of what I just said but then! The universe that God creates as a better world with free will for everyone… is exactly the same as the old one. History, present, all of humanity’s choices… exactly. The. Same.

this leaves only two options of interpretation: either this new universe thing failed (or God tricked Aziraphale and Crowley) and humanity still doesn’t have free will and is following some kind of divine plan… or it turns the argument right back around and proves that the old universe did have free will after all and the whole move of destroying it was a stupid idea in the first place. So either way it’s not a happy ending because crowley and aziraphale killed themselves for nothing.

I will not delve into plot holes analysis, or how the ending made me feel, because: 1. I already did and it was frowned upon and 2. It has been done to hell and back already by everyone else too.

What I do want to address, though, is the idea that all of us as a whole (we are a whole after all, not individuals with their personal stories and real life triggers and gripes and opinions) have a need for a happy ending. Because we were apparently raised on Disney or some other such.

And this is where my petty rant ends and the actual post begins.

Because, this post is not a : I hate S3 therefore I am *moar smurt*. It is actually a comparison between two pieces of media.

Which both, somehow, have the same ending: protagonist sacrifices himself +/- loved one in order to save the world which, at this point is absolutely and irredeemably fucked.

One of them Is The Magnus Archives and the other one is Good Omens Season 3 – obviously.

There will be tons of spoilers for both, so be warned.

Let us begin with TMA.

It is a piece of media that I don’t think I would have listened to, were the circumstances any different (the difference being me not being in the hospital pending an operation for a broken humerus bone). I tend to shy away from audiobooks and podcasts in general. It’s not the medium in itself, it’s just me. I am a very visual person and I can’t focus properly if it’s just audio.

In this case in particular, I can’t even say if it was just me, or the pain meds or the lack of pain meds, but I seemed to glance over many important details. So, I listened to it again, later on. And again. And again.

Is the ending sad as all fucks?

Um. Yes. It very much is.

Will I relisten to that stunning piece of media, knowing that it will hurt me?

Hell yes.

The point is that ever since the very beginning we knew that this was a horror podcast. Listening to the first episode, someone dies at the end.

And then someone dies each and every episode. And, if they don’t die, they are massively scarred by whatever happens to them to the point of nightly nightmares.

And when the first season ends with Sasha dying… well – that was when everyone listening realised that this was not a pod that pulled its punches.

There is at least one MCD per season.

So when S5 draws to an end and you’re thinking that Jon might die… well. I mean you are hoping he won’t, praying that he won’t, but everyone knows in their heart of hearts that he most definitely will.

So that scene happens – in which John asks Martin to stab him. And while absolutely gut wrenching – sorry for the incongruous pun – it has been something that everyone dreaded, but also expected.

It is a death that had been in the books since S3, if not before.

Did I cry my eyes out? Of course I did. I cried at the Sheep Detectives movie. I am a cry-y person. But then again there’s cries and there’s Cries.

Thing is, Jon, as a character had tried to sacrifice himself for far less stakes than THE WORLD ever since he realised the absolute shit that they are all in. So… S3 out of 5? You knew it was coming.

And, more than that, what he did had actual stakes.

Other than Sasha (RIP, queen) most everybody in the pod sacrificed themselves for the same goal long before Jon did.

Him and Martin could have lived – albeit a shit life – for a long time. But his sacrifice had so much meaning I can’t even rn.

So, after season upon season of seeing that character lose his – not even optimism – cause Jon must have been born with 0 optimism – but his hope that they can at any point prevail – yes, I can understand why he did what he did and further more, asked his boyfriend to do it for him.

My heart bleeds for Martin – for both of them, really – but it needed to get done.

Point of the pod: The Apocalypse already happened. What do?

Genre of show: horror podcast that kills all of its mains since S1.

The end we were promised: maybe they live, but honestly not.

The end we got: sadness.

And now, let’s look at GO S3.

It is stated in the book that Crowley is an optimist.

Not much optimism going around in Hell, yet he still has it.

Crowley in S1: let’s go away together! (subtext: fuck everyone else, it’s just you, Aziraphale that’s important).

Crowley in S2: let’s be a group of the two of us (sub-not even–text: fuck heaven and hell and all humanity, it’s just you, Aziraphale, that’s important).

Point of the show, or at least both seasons 1 and 2: let us avert the Apocalypse. This feels like a happy ending type of deal. (Because Crowley is an optimist at heart)

Genre of show: feel good… um…comedy?

The end we were promised: they retire to the South Downs – as a fucken angel and demon.

The end we got: sadness.

So. My main issue with S3 of GO is not the horrid writing throughout – I mean, I bitch about it, obvs.

It is not even – it has a sad ending.

It is the fact that sad ending came out of left field.

It was not structurally consistent as a series.

It was not in agreement with what we had established the characters to be in the first two seasons.

It was never something that Crowley – same Crowley who would say fuck all and run off to Alpha Centauri -  would do.

It was basically all of us thinking this is a happy go lucky thingy and then getting a syke! at the end there.

Jon’s death was something that did indeed save the universe and the trauma that both characters had to go through for episodes on end makes that ending a complete and utter gem.

The point of this meta was to draw a parallel in between a good sad ending and a shit sad ending.

Whatever happened to make Jon sacrifice himself had started brewing as early as S1. Jonathan Sims – the actual IRL Jon, had that idea in his head from the very beginning and it shows.

S3 just pulled a “gotcha” over our heads and we are supposed to vibe with it.

A couple of people pointed out that Sandman does the same thing – the dying and then being resurrected bit. Which Neil seems to love. Kudos to him for liking that trope. (We will not engage in any discussion about Neil on this here blog. Cause I have a life outside of fandom and this will take forever. Short version: Neil can go suck it – in the not pleasant way – in hell.)

At least they mourned for that guy – guy who I liked as a protagonist but who wasn’t on Crowley or Aziraphale’s level as a Main Character.

So, that it my hot take on season 3.

A meta-fic on the the frustrations of beloved characters committing pointless suicide

https://archiveofourown.org/works/86982406

So as most of you likely know by now I was not a fan of the Good Omens finale in the slightest. When the prompt “salt” came up for a guess the author game in an anti-season 3 server, I saw a fun opportunity to rant about this horrid trope used in two series I love. Then after publishing I became aware of this quote.