Pure Imagination

Gabriel was the embodiment of everything wrong with heaven. He didn't care about the earth or the humans on it. He claimed to be the good guy, but he never actually cared about being good. He was cruel to so many people, but especially Aziraphale.

And yet that he found love, and because of that love, he began to care about the world. He became kind. He became caring. He became good.

When Gabriel shows up on Aziraphale's doorstep with no memories, he gives him a second chance because he's so sure that even someone like Gabriel can be saved. And he's right.

Aziraphale wants so badly to believe that heaven is fundamentally good, just deeply flawed and misguided. After all, if the Supreme Archangel Gabriel can change, can learn to be better, then surely the system itself can too.

It will be available for download/streaming on August 25th.

Coming soon on vinyl.

You can preorder here: https://www.silvascreen.com/silcd1739-good-omens-2/

@neil-gaiman

And here is the tracklist 👀

Sometimes you just are trying to live out your day and then your brain thinks:

When is he going to know that he’s been manipulated, too?

And when is he going to know what role he himself played in Aziraphale’s decision?

There are so many things he didn’t tell Aziraphale. To protect him, to spare him, to give him time. Except, of course, all of that also meant that Aziraphale had no time and space to process them.

(And yes, there were things that Crowley could not possibly tell his angel. The cruel disdain of Gabriel’s words at Aziraphale’s execution is burned forever into Crowley’s mind; how could he have taken this dagger to Aziraphale? 

Anyway, shouldn’t the fact of the execution itself be enough for Aziraphale to know?)

But Crowley’s angel is kind, is bright, never expects and is forever surprised by treachery: Rose Montgomery turning out to be a Nazi spy, a countess turning out to not be a countess. Of course Aziraphale’s sheer relief on deciding that he’s been wrong about the Metatron will be a powerful force. He wants to be aligned with something bigger than himself; he wants there to be a point.

For all of S2, Crowley deflects threats from Hell. (Aziraphale, involved? Unlikely, Crowley says with studied nonchalance. And how do you know I didn’t do that miracle?) Out of Aziraphale’s earshot, he threatens and hisses, as he has likely done for millennia. Remember Hell’s book on angels, with everything it says about Aziraphale, with instructions to ‘avvoid’ and report to Crowley? Yeah.

By the end, there are key things that Crowley hasn’t told Aziraphale: his visit to Heaven, Gabriel’s punishment, what it was that Gabriel refused to do. Yes, there were archangels in the room, watching. Yes, Crowley had rather assumed that Aziraphale is as done with Heaven as he is himself. Still, it wasn’t Crowley’s instinct to give Aziraphale all the information. And after Aziraphale’s conversation with the Metatron, Crowley was primed to go ahead with a confession, was interrupted during said confession—so in the aftershock of Aziraphale’s words, he went right back to the path he’d already committed to. Then, of course, it was too late; the pain became too much; neither of them were thinking clearly, neither of them had the time to understand.

Yes, telling Aziraphale of the danger may not have helped. Aziraphale is even better at denial than he is at forgiveness; he might have refused to see what Heaven needs him for, how they intend to keep him in line. (Also, no doubt a worrying thought for Crowley if he was conscious of it: it’s very like Aziraphale to go to Heaven to try and stop the Second Coming no matter the risk to himself.)

But the thing is, the Metatron remembers Crowley. And he must know how rash Crowley is. How impulsive, and how likely to rear up and bite when presented with an offer to be forgiven for an injustice done to him.

So yes, Crowley has been manipulated. Through Aziraphale: through his angel’s indefatigable hope, through his desire to see the best and redeem what had seemed (but surely cannot be!) irredeemable: Heaven itself. Manipulated into storming out, his heart broken, the pain of that kiss still on his lips.

Into, after so many millennia, letting Aziraphale walk straight into danger.

It's a phrase taken from the Book of Job. Here's the quote in full (King James version):

When I looked for good, then evil came unto me: and when I waited for light, there came darkness. My bowels boiled, and rested not: the days of affliction prevented me. I went mourning without the sun: I stood up, and I cried in the congregation. I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls. --(Job 30:29)

Job is describing the depths of his grief, but also, with that last line, his position in the web of providence.

Throughout the Old Testament, owls are a recurring symbol of spiritual devastation. Deuteronomy 4:17 - Isaiah 34:11 - Psalm 102: 3 - Jeremiah 50: 39...just to name a few (there's more). The general shape of the metaphor is this: owls are solitary, night-stalking creatures, that let out either mournful cries or terrible shrieks, that inhabit the desolate places of the world...and (this is important) they are unclean.

They represent a despair that is to be shunned, not pitied, because their condition is self-inflicted. You defied God (so the owl signifies), and your punishment is...separation. From God, from others, from the world itself. To call and call and never, ever receive an answer.

Your punishment is terrible, tormenting loneliness.

(and that exact phrase, "tormenting loneliness," doesn't come from me...I'm pulling it from actual debate/academia on this exact topic. The owls, and what they are an omen for. Oof.)

To call yourself a 'companion to owls,' then, is to count yourself alongside perhaps the most tragic of the damned --not the ones who defy God out of wickedness or ignorance, and in exile take up diabolical ends readily enough...but the ones who know enough to mourn what they have lost.

So, that's how the title relates to Job: directly. Of course, all that is just context. The titular "companion to owls," in this case, isn't Job at all.

Because this story is about Aziraphale.

The thing is that Job never actually defied God at all, but Aziraphale does, and he does so fully believing that he will fall.

He does so fully believing that he's giving in to a temptation.

He's wrong about that, but still...he's realized something terrifying. Which is that doing God's will and doing what's right are sometimes mutually exclusive. Even more terrifying: it turns out that, given the choice between the two...he chooses what's right.

And he's seemingly the only angel who does. He's seemingly the only angel who can even see what's wrong.

Fallen or not, that's the kind of knowledge that...separates you.

(Whoooo-eeeeee, tormenting loneliness!!!)

Aziraphale is the companion.

...I don't think I need to wax poetic about Aziraphale's loneliness and grappling with devotion --I think we all, like, get it, and other people have likely said it better anyway. So, one last thing before I stop rambling:

Check out Crowley's glasses.

(screenshots from @seedsofwinter)

Crowley is the owl.

From the Introduction of the Good Omens Script Book:

---

transcript: The angels, for example. They weren’t in the novel. They were going to be in the next Good Omens book we wrote, only we never wrote it. We knew what they were going to be like. A version of them showed up in a Good Omens film script Terry and I wrote in 1991, although that was mostly interesting, if I remember correctly, for the angels using their haloes as glowing killer discuses in the British Museum. (At the insistence of the film company, who knew that people weren’t interested in used bookshops, Aziraphale worked for the British Museum. Crowley owned a nightclub, although I cannot for the life of me remember why the film people thought this was a wise thing for him to do.) I was delighted to be able to bring the angels in now, the way Terry and I had originally talked about them.

---

Do you think we'll see custom playlist for Gabriel and/or Beelzebub?

Thank you so much if you answer, bye Neil!

I'm a bestselling author on strike as a SAG-AFTRA performer because 13% of working actors are hitting the $26,000 level they need to get healthy insurance.

I'm on strike to help because it means something if I'm on strike, it gets the word out and it matters. I'm on strike because it helps raise everyone else up.

It's not blase. It's frustrating and upsetting as hell to have stuff I made stop being made, for stuff I care about be out there and me unable to help it.

Are there people with serious problems? Absolutely. Does that invalidate other people’s “less serious” problems? Absolutely not.

Heyyyyyy I’d really like to talk more about the ball, who’s with me.

Because for all its glitter, the ball is dark. No, seriously, it’s dark. It’s eerie, it’s disturbing, and the narrative doesn’t shy away from showing us just how much. 

As in a classic fairytale, mortals are being spirited away into another realm to dance through the night. Here, however, we see exactly who is orchestrating the dance, and why.

And we empathize with him, but watching Aziraphale has never been so painful or so unsettling.

Nina arrives distraught and is immediately hit with the realization that she doesn’t feel distraught, even though she knows she should be feeling it. She confronts Aziraphale and he just tells her: oh yes! :) no long faces tonight! And she is disturbed throughout the ball, thinks she is losing her mind, questions and fights the enchantment… but from time to time, the enchantment still takes hold.

And just—

Aziraphale. Aziraphale, you do know that manipulating people is wrong, don’t you? You… do know that? And yes, of course, neither Crowley’s nor Aziraphale’s approach to morality is human. They are eldritch, they are otherworldly. It was Crowley who changed the paintball guns into real guns in S1, though of course, the humans still had choice in using them.

But the ball is still different.

We’ve never seen Aziraphale do anything quite so disturbing before, or go so obviously deep into his own delusion. There are moments during these scenes when even Crowley, permanently frustrated, is very nearly disturbed. (“Angel! What are you doing?” or “Making it rain is one thing, but a BALL?”)

I fully think that by that point in the story, Aziraphale is not all right. He is in an anxiety spiral, denying reality fiercely, obstinately, disastrously, not listening to any of Crowley’s hissed warnings. Yes, yes, he is giddy, he is in love. It’s so very important for him that everything go RIGHT this night, the night he gets to dance with Crowley. Is he even aware of everything he is conjuring up, of the enchantment he has woven? The humans who step through the doors of the bookshop change: their clothing, their mood, their speech patterns… By this point, is Aziraphale doing this consciously at all? Or is reality conforming to his expectations, forcing everyone into a replica of the nineteenth century while Aziraphale himself, distracted and smitten, works himself up to inviting Crowley to dance?

In the first few episodes, as fear and danger grow, as Aziraphale is faced with the danger specifically to Crowley (I don’t see why he would risk his existence for you, Shax tells him in the car), Aziraphale only denies reality all the more fiercely, only holds on to his plans tighter, only puts more force into them and exerts more control (really, rather like the archangels with their Great Plan).

And the ball, beautiful and otherworldly and eerie as it is, is also a dire warning. 

In the morning, it will be Crowley, not Aziraphale, who will get told off for manipulating Nina and Maggie. Aziraphale won’t reflect on this. He won’t be forced to reflect, and Metatron will manipulate him in turn.

There is a plan to follow. The show must go on.

it's the worst captioning i've ever seen on a big show like this. the captions tried to suggest to me that Aziraphale had named the Bently "Lesi" when he was saying "let's see".

so instead of hiring someone to accurately caption their massive show, they seem to have done either something like autogenerated captions/used some kind of ai to make captions that are no good, especially for those who may rely solely on them to understand the thing they want to watch.

Not as captions. Hell no. Imagine a batter not only missing the ball but losing grip of the bat and hurtling it into the groin of their teammate on third. That’s how bad the Lesi captions are at being captions.

But…what’s one of the reasons for the current strikes?

Mmm hmm - it’s the automation of the creative processes to hoard even more money for the least creative link in the industry’s chain. The link that not only is using it because it’s cheaper, but to keep the human elements from asking ‘too much’. To insist that people are replaceable; that we allow ourselves to be replaceable.

The Lesi captions are this concept in action, and…fucking LOL. They’re the dinner plate bran flake from when Kellogg’s hired scab labour. They’re a kid pointing out that the emperor is buck ass naked.

It was incredible, but it was also so fucking realistic. Something you don't see even class A actors do.

The way Crowley had to pause, look up, as if expecting something, someone, to give him the words, the strength because he was losing it with every sentence. The way he looks up because he can't look at Aziraphale otherwise he'll break down. The way he can't catch his breath because his heart is beating so fast and he needs a few seconds to collect himself. The way you can actually feel that lump in your throat whenever you're close to tears, the one that pushes up when your eyes are losing their capacity to hold back tears, when he breaks off and let's out that desperate sound. The way he looks away immediately afterwards. The way he starts fumbling for words when he mentions Bee and Gabriel because panick is taking in and all his concentration is focused on not crying and not being able to form sentences and collect his thoughts. Then lamely ending it with "you and me, what do you say?" Because he can't physically talk anymore even though he has so much more to say, to confess, but he can't.

And then being absolutely wrecked with Aziraphale's "I need you" the moment he sees he's not the only one on the brink of crying, that it's mutual, that they both feel like this.

It was set a long time ago. The first episode and the end of the last episode are written, the rest is plotted. The overall story was figured out with Terry in 1989, the end was decided by Terry and me in 2006.