This day's already got better.

Although the final note on it is still ambiguous between that viewpoint and Adam’s more straightforward ‘Yeah, I don’t care it was written, I am defying the plan, fuck you.”

And then again when Crowley has his big revelation at the end of the book, in that context, the Universe being God’s ‘giant game of Solitaire’ was maybe not an inherently positive thing, but it was not inherently negative either.

God wanted Adam and Eve to eat the Fruit of Knowledge, for Humanity to have their own sense of right and wrong, to have humans disobey Their commands, to have Free Will… but is it all kinda nullified by the fact that it was just God’s plan all along? The whole Chess-vs-Solitaire thing demonstrates that God isn’t really on Heaven’s side, and that seems like a good thing considering Heaven is full of assholes, but is that the same thing as God being on the side of Humanity? The ‘real Ineffable Plan’ Crowley speculates about here is the concept of a Humanist Revolution against Heaven and Hell, but will it actually be an empowering moment for Human agency if it was planned by God all along? If all the heroic actions taken by our cast to try and save the world, Adam defying his destiny and all that, if they were essentially just part of God’s Rube-Goldberg machine to see if They built the world properly enough to save it from destruction, does it make them lesser and not as ‘Free’ on some level?

There’s no real definitive answer for these questions either way. Part of the point is that these are ideas are truly hard to grasp and are actually kinda Ineffable. (The Joke, especially in the original book, is Aziraphale tossing out the word ‘ineffable’ when he just doesn’t to argue with Heaven’s doctrine, then culminating his character arc by turning this around on Heaven at the airfield… and then the final punchline is that Crowley ended up stumbling on a revelation that is legitimately Ineffable). And it’s also paralleled with the Paradox at the end of Newt and Anathema’s storyline. Anathema decides to stop living her life following Agnes’ prophecies… but it’s pretty clear that Agnes predicted that as well, and is happy with it.

Does this weaken the Free Will of Anathema’s decision? Well, that depends how you look at it, but it’s hard to deny that this scene is framed in a very positive way.

All of this plus, just, generally the ending of the Book having all the characters living Happily Ever After, and insinuating that Humanity’s future is going to be defined by Adam’s ordinary mischievous hopefulness ‘for ever’, just sort of incentivizes the readers to see the more optimistic sides of these Ineffable Paradoxes. To believe that even with this Biblically Literalist Universe’s many downsides and self-contradictory Ineffability, there is room for Free Will and there is room for human agency and there is room for hope that Humanity will make things better eventually…

But it’s just when GO3 turns around and goes ‘no, God is an unambiguously sinister figure, She does want the world to end eventually, Her plans do unambiguously negate everyone else’s agency, believing you have Free Will under God’s existence is like believing you can win a rigged game, the world could only be ‘free’ and ‘real’ if it was Godless, and this is so important that it not only requires our two main leads to sacrifice themselves and their relationship after 6000 years of longing and doubts, it also justifies not bringing back the old world and the old supporting cast back, because the ‘Real Free Will’ of the new humanity is so important that the lives of the humans that came before will just pale in comparison apparently…’

Does that leave the concept of free will vague and without a proper definition? It sure does. But it's such a positive and even freeing message.

Most of us agree that God in Season 3 feels different from the one in Season 1. I think that's because this version is an embodiment of how Aziraphale imagines God. After all, it is Aziraphale who summons God using the Book of Life.

To support this argument, note that God accuses Aziraphale of being lazy, gluttonous, and so on. These are things he has always been anxious about. And the mention that he was the first one to lie? That's another indication. God's description of Aziraphale seems to reflect his worst fears about himself. It reinforces the idea that he was a poor angel, or even THE poor angel.

Simultaneously, this God is still the one who made Crowley for him, right? The one who created his soulmate. If so, God must have enjoyed their love story. This adds up to me as well.

[Is God referred to as "her" in the finale? I can't bring myself to look for it. But if that's the case, it would be another indication, since those are the pronouns Aziraphale uses. Not Crowley.]

Now, if this interpretation is correct, help me understand why. Why did we need to witness this version of God? That's the part I don't understand. Honestly, it feels devastating if you think that this is what Aziraphale hears just before he evaporates. Was it meant to reinforce his fear that he is selfish? To push him into rejecting what he wants and follow Crowley without hesitation?

This was pretty much my last hope—that Aziraphale could overcome his God, tell her to back off and leave him alone (and it would seem Crowley would need some sort of resolution as well, if he wasn’t apparently already absolved from everything)—this would be a sort of Labyrinth ending: You have no power over me. Then maybe they would realize they made their own Hell, which wasn’t real, and they could find their way back to their original world where the message is that we all have to deal with our own bugbear God, and all Gods’ powers over us are only what we let them have in our own minds. (I might use this if I ever write a fix-it.)

Can this hypothetical personal god actually end the universe, unmake the immortals, and jumpstart a new universe?

I've also been thinking about the difference between s1 and s3 god as a difference in authorial voice. S1 god is Terry Pratchett as author-god of the story, a narrator who is along for the ride with their creations and has enough fondness for them that everyone lives. S3 god is Neil Gaiman as author-god, a cruel god who likes to torment their creations and, by extension, us. (And most importantly, real people in his real life).

And I've been thinking about the Christian martyrdom parallels. Josh is a red herring because they aren't the messiah of this story, Crowley is. He is god's other favorite child who was sent away from heaven (symbolically, I think he's the Lucifer of this story). He had to suffer to be purified and now is ready to accept his fate and give himself for the new universe she intended to create, thereby fulfilling her ineffable plan. Aziraphale is reduced to a disciple whose role is to help Crowley fulfill his destiny.

Okay, okay, I digressed a bit. What I want to say is that I have a feeling that what we saw was just a setup by God, a higher-stakes version of Job. I mean the entire universe, including Heaven and Hell, giving Crowley someone to love. Even the line from Job is referenced just before the annihilation. That is why Satan is summoned to the bookshop, and why Aziraphale needs to step away and play the role of, well, both the children (someone to love that Crowley needs to accept losing without a fight) and Sitis (someone who disagrees openly with God and tempts him to do the same) simultaneously, I guess.

Funny then that Job is one of the most used arguments against the ending, right? That we cannot get “new ones” to replace the “old ones”. I really think someone did not see that coming. Oh, the irony.

The finale does not resolve this effectively, but it does tell us that the Metatron would mess with the Book of Life. In addition, and this is a super minor detail so it's not much to hang my hat on, but god says that Aziraphale's love for Crowley was "predictable" (ugh). This suggests to me that we've been through this before. That not only is the Book a vehicle for messing with reality, but also the old universe has been looping.

Each time through, the old universe gets worse for A&C, moving from S1's field agents who willingly do each other's jobs (wall meet-cute) to S2's characters more hampered by religious/familial trauma (angelic meet-cute) to S3's soldiers on opposite sides of a neverending battle (clan war meet-cute). Can you actually imagine S3 Aziraphale participating in the Arrangement?! Because I cannot.

I believe this timeloop is part of the Job/Jesus-esque "harrowing" of Crowley to get him to the emotional state where he will finally sacrifice himself and Aziraphale (let's be real, by that point he's been so shorn of character and agency and significance that he's just along for the ride) for the new universe she always intended to create. This goes along with the limited free will theme that S1 left open but S3 canonizes, where the ending is foreordained but god is willing to watch them stumble around because it amuses her.

Now, from a writerly/Doylist perspective, it's pretty sloppy to need two reality-altering mechanisms. But it's the only way I can see it working. Because the Metatron might revise their pages to remove an important kiss from 1941 or to change the final fifteen to get things back on track (from the Meta's perspective). But it's surely not worth writing "and then Crowley's glasses changed." But they do change, again, in the finale: he's wearing the old silver-sided frames when he's woken by Brian Cameron. So I posit that there are at least three timeloops and probably a lot more.

And the repeat casting is another hint of timelooping and foreshadows the new universe. I'm no religious scholar, but I have seen some interesting meta that looks at the ending as it relates to Scientology and how the new universe seemingly shows the immortal souls (thetans) of these characters "freed" of many timeloops' worth of accumulated trauma (engrams).

There was unused concept art from S1 showing the ruins of other failed walled Edens in the desert, after all.

It could actually have been rather interesting and fun if handled properly—kind of a MCU-style Omensverse—but nothing would have been handled properly—and usually it’s better to leave time and multiple-universe conundrums the hell alone, imo.

But the idea of the (same) universe cycling endlessly until Aziraphale and Crowley figure it out and put an end to it could be a good end.

And yet, no matter what was changed, it never succeeded. Somehow, Aziraphale and Crowley always found each other again, despite their circumstances becoming darker and more difficult with every rewrite.

Most of us agree that God in Season 3 feels different from the one in Season 1. I think that's because this version is an embodiment of how Aziraphale imagines God. After all, it is Aziraphale who summons God using the Book of Life.

To support this argument, note that God accuses Aziraphale of being lazy, gluttonous, and so on. These are things he has always been anxious about. And the mention that he was the first one to lie? That's another indication. God's description of Aziraphale seems to reflect his worst fears about himself. It reinforces the idea that he was a poor angel, or even THE poor angel.

Simultaneously, this God is still the one who made Crowley for him, right? The one who created his soulmate. If so, God must have enjoyed their love story. This adds up to me as well.

[Is God referred to as "her" in the finale? I can't bring myself to look for it. But if that's the case, it would be another indication, since those are the pronouns Aziraphale uses. Not Crowley.]

Now, if this interpretation is correct, help me understand why. Why did we need to witness this version of God? That's the part I don't understand. Honestly, it feels devastating if you think that this is what Aziraphale hears just before he evaporates. Was it meant to reinforce his fear that he is selfish? To push him into rejecting what he wants and follow Crowley without hesitation?

This was pretty much my last hope—that Aziraphale could overcome his God, tell her to back off and leave him alone (and it would seem Crowley would need some sort of resolution as well, if he wasn’t apparently already absolved from everything)—this would be a sort of Labyrinth ending: You have no power over me. Then maybe they would realize they made their own Hell, which wasn’t real, and they could find their way back to their original world where the message is that we all have to deal with our own bugbear God, and all Gods’ powers over us are only what we let them have in our own minds. (I might use this if I ever write a fix-it.)

Can this hypothetical personal god actually end the universe, unmake the immortals, and jumpstart a new universe?

I've also been thinking about the difference between s1 and s3 god as a difference in authorial voice. S1 god is Terry Pratchett as author-god of the story, a narrator who is along for the ride with their creations and has enough fondness for them that everyone lives. S3 god is Neil Gaiman as author-god, a cruel god who likes to torment their creations and, by extension, us. (And most importantly, real people in his real life).

And I've been thinking about the Christian martyrdom parallels. Josh is a red herring because they aren't the messiah of this story, Crowley is. He is god's other favorite child who was sent away from heaven (symbolically, I think he's the Lucifer of this story). He had to suffer to be purified and now is ready to accept his fate and give himself for the new universe she intended to create, thereby fulfilling her ineffable plan. Aziraphale is reduced to a disciple whose role is to help Crowley fulfill his destiny.

Okay, okay, I digressed a bit. What I want to say is that I have a feeling that what we saw was just a setup by God, a higher-stakes version of Job. I mean the entire universe, including Heaven and Hell, giving Crowley someone to love. Even the line from Job is referenced just before the annihilation. That is why Satan is summoned to the bookshop, and why Aziraphale needs to step away and play the role of, well, both the children (someone to love that Crowley needs to accept losing without a fight) and Sitis (someone who disagrees openly with God and tempts him to do the same) simultaneously, I guess.

Funny then that Job is one of the most used arguments against the ending, right? That we cannot get “new ones” to replace the “old ones”. I really think someone did not see that coming. Oh, the irony.

The finale does not resolve this effectively, but it does tell us that the Metatron would mess with the Book of Life. In addition, and this is a super minor detail so it's not much to hang my hat on, but god says that Aziraphale's love for Crowley was "predictable" (ugh). This suggests to me that we've been through this before. That not only is the Book a vehicle for messing with reality, but also the old universe has been looping.

Each time through, the old universe gets worse for A&C, moving from S1's field agents who willingly do each other's jobs (wall meet-cute) to S2's characters more hampered by religious/familial trauma (angelic meet-cute) to S3's soldiers on opposite sides of a neverending battle (clan war meet-cute). Can you actually imagine S3 Aziraphale participating in the Arrangement?! Because I cannot.

I believe this timeloop is part of the Job/Jesus-esque "harrowing" of Crowley to get him to the emotional state where he will finally sacrifice himself and Aziraphale (let's be real, by that point he's been so shorn of character and agency and significance that he's just along for the ride) for the new universe she always intended to create. This goes along with the limited free will theme that S1 left open but S3 canonizes, where the ending is foreordained but god is willing to watch them stumble around because it amuses her.

Now, from a writerly/Doylist perspective, it's pretty sloppy to need two reality-altering mechanisms. But it's the only way I can see it working. Because the Metatron might revise their pages to remove an important kiss from 1941 or to change the final fifteen to get things back on track (from the Meta's perspective). But it's surely not worth writing "and then Crowley's glasses changed." But they do change, again, in the finale: he's wearing the old silver-sided frames when he's woken by Brian Cameron. So I posit that there are at least three timeloops and probably a lot more.

And the repeat casting is another hint of timelooping and foreshadows the new universe. I'm no religious scholar, but I have seen some interesting meta that looks at the ending as it relates to Scientology and how the new universe seemingly shows the immortal souls (thetans) of these characters "freed" of many timeloops' worth of accumulated trauma (engrams).

There was unused concept art from S1 showing the ruins of other failed walled Edens in the desert, after all.

It could actually have been rather interesting and fun if handled properly—kind of a MCU-style Omensverse—but nothing would have been handled properly—and usually it’s better to leave time and multiple-universe conundrums the hell alone, imo.

But the idea of the (same) universe cycling endlessly until Aziraphale and Crowley figure it out and put an end to it could be a good end.

And yet, no matter what was changed, it never succeeded. Somehow, Aziraphale and Crowley always found each other again, despite their circumstances becoming darker and more difficult with every rewrite.

Most of us agree that God in Season 3 feels different from the one in Season 1. I think that's because this version is an embodiment of how Aziraphale imagines God. After all, it is Aziraphale who summons God using the Book of Life.

To support this argument, note that God accuses Aziraphale of being lazy, gluttonous, and so on. These are things he has always been anxious about. And the mention that he was the first one to lie? That's another indication. God's description of Aziraphale seems to reflect his worst fears about himself. It reinforces the idea that he was a poor angel, or even THE poor angel.

Simultaneously, this God is still the one who made Crowley for him, right? The one who created his soulmate. If so, God must have enjoyed their love story. This adds up to me as well.

[Is God referred to as "her" in the finale? I can't bring myself to look for it. But if that's the case, it would be another indication, since those are the pronouns Aziraphale uses. Not Crowley.]

Now, if this interpretation is correct, help me understand why. Why did we need to witness this version of God? That's the part I don't understand. Honestly, it feels devastating if you think that this is what Aziraphale hears just before he evaporates. Was it meant to reinforce his fear that he is selfish? To push him into rejecting what he wants and follow Crowley without hesitation?

This was pretty much my last hope—that Aziraphale could overcome his God, tell her to back off and leave him alone (and it would seem Crowley would need some sort of resolution as well, if he wasn’t apparently already absolved from everything)—this would be a sort of Labyrinth ending: You have no power over me. Then maybe they would realize they made their own Hell, which wasn’t real, and they could find their way back to their original world where the message is that we all have to deal with our own bugbear God, and all Gods’ powers over us are only what we let them have in our own minds. (I might use this if I ever write a fix-it.)

Can this hypothetical personal god actually end the universe, unmake the immortals, and jumpstart a new universe?

I've also been thinking about the difference between s1 and s3 god as a difference in authorial voice. S1 god is Terry Pratchett as author-god of the story, a narrator who is along for the ride with their creations and has enough fondness for them that everyone lives. S3 god is Neil Gaiman as author-god, a cruel god who likes to torment their creations and, by extension, us. (And most importantly, real people in his real life).

And I've been thinking about the Christian martyrdom parallels. Josh is a red herring because they aren't the messiah of this story, Crowley is. He is god's other favorite child who was sent away from heaven (symbolically, I think he's the Lucifer of this story). He had to suffer to be purified and now is ready to accept his fate and give himself for the new universe she intended to create, thereby fulfilling her ineffable plan. Aziraphale is reduced to a disciple whose role is to help Crowley fulfill his destiny.

Okay, okay, I digressed a bit. What I want to say is that I have a feeling that what we saw was just a setup by God, a higher-stakes version of Job. I mean the entire universe, including Heaven and Hell, giving Crowley someone to love. Even the line from Job is referenced just before the annihilation. That is why Satan is summoned to the bookshop, and why Aziraphale needs to step away and play the role of, well, both the children (someone to love that Crowley needs to accept losing without a fight) and Sitis (someone who disagrees openly with God and tempts him to do the same) simultaneously, I guess.

Funny then that Job is one of the most used arguments against the ending, right? That we cannot get “new ones” to replace the “old ones”. I really think someone did not see that coming. Oh, the irony.

Most of us agree that God in Season 3 feels different from the one in Season 1. I think that's because this version is an embodiment of how Aziraphale imagines God. After all, it is Aziraphale who summons God using the Book of Life.

To support this argument, note that God accuses Aziraphale of being lazy, gluttonous, and so on. These are things he has always been anxious about. And the mention that he was the first one to lie? That's another indication. God's description of Aziraphale seems to reflect his worst fears about himself. It reinforces the idea that he was a poor angel, or even THE poor angel.

Simultaneously, this God is still the one who made Crowley for him, right? The one who created his soulmate. If so, God must have enjoyed their love story. This adds up to me as well.

[Is God referred to as "her" in the finale? I can't bring myself to look for it. But if that's the case, it would be another indication, since those are the pronouns Aziraphale uses. Not Crowley.]

Now, if this interpretation is correct, help me understand why. Why did we need to witness this version of God? That's the part I don't understand. Honestly, it feels devastating if you think that this is what Aziraphale hears just before he evaporates. Was it meant to reinforce his fear that he is selfish? To push him into rejecting what he wants and follow Crowley without hesitation?

This was pretty much my last hope—that Aziraphale could overcome his God, tell her to back off and leave him alone (and it would seem Crowley would need some sort of resolution as well, if he wasn’t apparently already absolved from everything)—this would be a sort of Labyrinth ending: You have no power over me. Then maybe they would realize they made their own Hell, which wasn’t real, and they could find their way back to their original world where the message is that we all have to deal with our own bugbear God, and all Gods’ powers over us are only what we let them have in our own minds. (I might use this if I ever write a fix-it.)

Can this hypothetical personal god actually end the universe, unmake the immortals, and jumpstart a new universe?

I've also been thinking about the difference between s1 and s3 god as a difference in authorial voice. S1 god is Terry Pratchett as author-god of the story, a narrator who is along for the ride with their creations and has enough fondness for them that everyone lives. S3 god is Neil Gaiman as author-god, a cruel god who likes to torment their creations and, by extension, us. (And most importantly, real people in his real life).

And I've been thinking about the Christian martyrdom parallels. Josh is a red herring because they aren't the messiah of this story, Crowley is. He is god's other favorite child who was sent away from heaven (symbolically, I think he's the Lucifer of this story). He had to suffer to be purified and now is ready to accept his fate and give himself for the new universe she intended to create, thereby fulfilling her ineffable plan. Aziraphale is reduced to a disciple whose role is to help Crowley fulfill his destiny.

Okay, okay, I digressed a bit. What I want to say is that I have a feeling that what we saw was just a setup by God, a higher-stakes version of Job. I mean the entire universe, including Heaven and Hell, giving Crowley someone to love. Even the line from Job is referenced just before the annihilation. That is why Satan is summoned to the bookshop, and why Aziraphale needs to step away and play the role of, well, both the children (someone to love that Crowley needs to accept losing without a fight) and Sitis (someone who disagrees openly with God and tempts him to do the same) simultaneously, I guess.

Funny then that Job is one of the most used arguments against the ending, right? That we cannot get “new ones” to replace the “old ones”. I really think someone did not see that coming. Oh, the irony.