Call me Sam

this fantastic Good Omens fix-it comic by @cliopadra has been on my mind a lot. (if you need a little joy, I highly recommend! it's smart, it's funny, respectful of both the audience and the story: you know, everything you might expect from a proper finale!)

the comic's brilliant playfulness makes me a little sad, too, when I reflect on the finale we got--and its depiction of God. note: I am not here as a God apologist and/or criminal defense attorney! however, I think S3's deviations from God's established role and limits within the GO universe are indicative of carelessness (at best) on the part of the writers.

the finale's characterization of God is weird for many reasons, especially since up to this point in canon she's depicted as a distant presence. in S1 and S2, God is given to bouts of silence; dial her extension, and you'll get the Metatron as a sort of glorified secretary. she's not directly active in the goings-on of the universe. it's a rather Deist view of things, and it works because that's how free will works: God's ways are mysterious, hard to articulate, ineffable. even in puzzling them out, we're continually making choices--some frivolous, some momentous, all of them ours.

for some reason, the writers forwent this to reveal God as a cosmic sadist. here, she looks upon creation through a magnifying glass--and wouldn't you know it, we're ants beneath a sunbeam.

here's the thing: I'm not suggesting the writers needed to make God all warm and fuzzy, but a removed sort of benignity could have reinforced that God sets the board, but we move the pieces. picture God not as an interrogator, but an interlocutor at the end of the universe: a daytime TV host mediating for a fractious couple. the point is that God asks the questions. in fact, her voice throughout S1 and S2 happens in the interrogative. she asks Aziraphale where his sword went, without challenging his answer. and remember that divine voiceover during the Job storyline? it's part of a much longer Biblical passage in which God shows up to the hard-done-by Job and says hey buddy! if you know who I am, you should also know that you're asking the wrong questions!

in other words, l'd love to see a magic trick: yes, we're playing three card monte. the Lady's in God's pocket. but what's this, right behind your ear? another card?

It's like the writers got confused between the difference between omniscience and predetermination.

God in s1 and 2 is omniscient. This means She is all-knowing. She knows what choices we will make, She knows how they will alter events, and She knows how to use that information to turn things to Her advantage. But ultimately, humans have free will, and the choices they make are their own. Knowing something will happen is not the same as making it happen.

We see evidence of this in s1 and 2. The story of Job is a great example. She tests him, She takes everything from him and hurts him, just to see what he will do. She makes a bet with Satan because She knows exactly how it will turn out, but She isn't the one making the choice to stay faithful. Job makes that choice himself.

Predetermination is different from Omniscience. It means that all events and outcomes have already been decided.

In s1 Adam has the choice to put the world back together as it was or blow it up and start over, remaking the world to his ideal.

We see God playing three card monte with the babies. She's stacking the deck in Her favour (assuming that She didn't want the world to end right then) by sequestering Adam away from ethereal and occultish interference. She whispers into Agnes's ear so that a book of prophecy can help supporting characters have the opportunity to arrive just when Adam needs them. But ultimately, the decision is Adam's.

The choice is meaningless if it was predetermined.

Even dog shows he has free will. He is a hellhound; his purpose is to support Adam as he rises to power. But when Adam starts to behave a bit too antichristy, he nopes out.

Adam: Give me back my dog!

Pepper: He's his own dog.

All this to say that S3 completely changed the rules of the world to make the ending fit. They depict God as an unhinged person playing with dolls. That She wrote the book and the outcome is predetermined.

One of Crowley's fundamental beliefs is that the universe deserves to exist. That a 6000 year life span is not enough. He believes it strongly enough to rebel against God, to fall, and when the world is threatened again, to act against his own orders and try to stop it.

And yet at the end of s3 we see him step into the Antichrist's shoes. He has the same choice: put the world back as it was, or blow it up and remake it in his own image. He chooses the latter. His reasoning being that humans don't have free will, and yet s1 and 2 both show definitively that they do. It completely reframes everything that comes before. It makes it meaningless.