fractalgeometry

Book Crowley:

In the book, Crowley terrorizing his houseplants is, like many things, introduced to us as this comedic little jokey-joke kind of thing like “haha the demon doesn’t really understand the human thing, he heard about talking to plants so they’ll grow better and misunderstood it and decided it meant scaring them into cooperation.” Which, obviously, we should know is bullshit from the get-go because if there’s one thing that can be unequivocally said about Crowley, it’s that he gets humans, and loves learning about and understanding human things. But, y’know, Good Omens is an absolute masterclass in the art of unreliable narration, so that’s where we start.

And then when Armageddon gets started and Aziraphale’s been discorporated and Crowley’s just kind of driving around confused and scared and not sure what the heaven he’s supposed to do now, when he gets a call on the radio from Downstairs basically saying “hey what the fuck man you fucked up big time and you’re gonna get tortured The Most once we finally do catch up to you, you piece of shit!” and Crowley finally gets righteously pissed. And his exact train of thought is (paraphrased, because my copy of the book is out in the car and I’m too lazy to go and get it): “It was the way they talked to you. Like you were a houseplant that had started shedding leaves on the carpet.”

Book!Crowley’s relationship with Hell is... fractious, for sure. He, like Aziraphale, pays nominal lip service to his employers despite taking a very clear stance against them by choosing the side of Humanity over Hell. He’ll defend his fellow demons, absolutely, because he recognizes that his fellow scrubs at the bottom of the corporate ladder are just keeping their heads down and doing their jobs, but he has beef with upper management in a pretty serious way that he hasn’t been dealing with up until that exact moment because... well, because he’s scared to. He knows what the higher-ups in Hell are capable of, and the thought of being on the receiving end of it terrifies him. Crowley enjoys being a demon in a theoretical sense, enjoys provoking and challenging humanity and seeing what they’ll do with the obstacles he throws up in their path, but he doesn’t enjoy working for Hell because he’s really not on board with the master plan, and he hasn’t been dealing with that at all.

So if you mostly enjoy your line of work, but you loathe your employer and your direct supervisors are pieces of shit, what are you to do? You can’t retaliate against your bosses directly because that’s the fastest way to get your ass canned (literally, in this case, shoved in a can and left to rot in the Pit for a few thousand years). So you complete the Chain of Screaming by terrorizing your houseplants a little bit.

This, to me, is the crux of Crowley’s journey in the book: his personal code of ethics is in direct conflict with Hell’s agenda, and despite spending the entire novel trying in various ways to completely fuck up Hell’s master plan, he hasn’t really accepted the ramifications of that. In his own way, he’s walking something of a similar line to Aziraphale. He’s more honest with himself than Aziraphale is, and more unwilling to fall in line with something he doesn’t agree with, but he’s still trying to maintain an unstable conflict of interests. 

And this is what resolves itself when he takes Aziraphale’s hand at the airfield and accepts that if he’s really going to commit to defying Hell and being on Humanity’s side, he’s going to have to stand up to Satan himself on their behalf. The cracks were in the foundations a long time ago, but Crowley acknowledging to himself that he’s the houseplant and he hates how Hell treats him is the first real sign that the collapse is imminent.

Show Crowley:

I think we’ve all grasped the fact that show!Crowley is in a... um... different emotional place than book!Crowley. I wouldn’t necessarily say he’s any more traumatized or angry than book!Crowley was, just that he’s in a different point in his journey. Book!Crowley feels to me like he’s made his peace with God, to some extent or another, as much as any demon ever can. Still gonna call out God’s fuckery bc like. demon. Not being on board with God’s bullshit is literally the fundamental tenet of the job. Still, he’s already wrestled with that and figured out where they stand, and has moved on to confronting his issues with Hell. He’s not exactly stable or at peace with himself yet, but he’s laid at least one major issue to rest by the time the story picks up.

On the other hand, show!Crowley absolutely has not made his peace with God. Show!Crowley is still 100% down to fistfight God at 3AM in a Denny’s parking lot between the dumpster and the beat-up 1999 Chevy Suburban and is also struggling with the complicated feelings about working for Hell that his novel counterpart is working through.

So the reframing of the houseplants not just as an outlet for Crowley’s complicated feelings about Hell, but for Crowley’s complicated feelings about God makes sense for show!Crowley. Crowley stewing in self-loathing over having fucked up the Antichrist switch and then proceeding to launch into a vicious screed against a disobedient philodendron is such a telling thing. This isn’t just venting, this is emotional self-harm. This is Crowley reframing his pain over his Fall and how he still hasn’t resolved this within himself yet, casting himself in the role of God and striking down whoever he pleases for any little transgression whatsoever.

So what am I getting at?

Both versions of Crowley are definitely using their houseplants as a way to deal with issues they’re not ready to confront head-on. The difference in what those issues are is a fascinating microcosm of how book and show characterizations diverge, but ultimately that’s what both Crowleys are doing. Not the worst coping mechanism ever, I guess, but probably not the healthiest one, either.

Bonus:

Show!Crowley tosses the “Fallen” houseplants out to a compost heap somewhere and dumps them there, and if they live or die is up to them, because he is the plants and the plants are him and that’s what was done to him.

I was driving through Vermont with a friend, and we pulled over at a tiny shop offering Maple Items. We were on the state highway, not the interstate, so "pulling over" meant "squeezing my tiny car into a parking bay the size of a broad highway shoulder."

As we got out of the car, an older woman emerged from behind the building where she had been pruning her roses. She introduced herself as Tammy.

Her shop offered the promised variety of Maple, but also a number of small antiques and a plethora of dog figurines, plaques, and clearly-hand-stitched garden flags.

A huge purple ribbon hung on the wall behind the register, along with many pictures of small dogs. This was no county fair ribbon. It was the size of my torso. The material had the soft sheen of actual silk.

As I placed my purchases on the counter, I asked, "Do you... Breed dogs?"

Yes. She does. She has bred Yorkies for the last 40 years. Her mother bred Yorkies before her. The purple ribbon was from her national championship winning Yorkie.

You may be expecting that the infodump was going to be about Yorkies.

It was not.

It was about 40 years of drama in the Yorkie breeding community. Where – you must understand – the judging at shows is often about who you're in with, not about the dogs. This is especially true when Tammy's opponents win anything.

And Tammy's mother! Well. Phyllis has been on the Yorkie scene since Yorkies were invented. Because of this, many women of equally venerable age hold deep grudges against Phyllis. The sort of grudges that result in episodes of Midsommar Murders.

This led to deep injustices against Phyllis on the part of judges and prevented her dogs from winning so often she retired from the scene. Judging is all about who you're friends with, after all.

After 20 years in hiding, Phyllis – the One True Queen of Yorkie Breeding – hatched a plot. She may have been out of the show circuit, but she was still breeding dogs. She entered an absolutely perfect bitch in the national competition, but sent her with a handler rather than go in person.

None of the usurpers knew who this dog belonged to, and in dog-breeding circles this Does Not Happen. This could have resulted in further injustices, but Phyllis was crafty. She knew this tournament was being judged by a man from the UK, who knew naught of the drama in the US Yorkie Empire.

With these advantages – and being the best dog there – Phyllis's bitch won the highest honor at the show.

Incensed by this insult to their ill-gotten supremacy, the other owners descended on the handler after the show, demanding to know for whom he was working.

"Phyllis," said he.

The name of the overthrown queen evoked horror in the usurpers.

"PHYLLIS!? She's still ALIVE!???"

Yes, Phyllis yet lived, and this bitch – the dog, not the woman – went on to mother Tammy's current dogs. One of whom, Lucy-Fur, is the reincarnation of Tammy's sister (also Lucy). This is certain for two reasons.

Firstly, Sister Lucy absolutely went straight to Hell upon her death, and Lucy-Fur the dog is positively as evil as Sister Lucy was.