I don't like nor 'get' GO3 ending. But that I could live with. Michael and David said some people will like it, some not, we will argue. Sure I can see that.
It's the fact that GO3 is cold, terribly out of character, full of plot holes and storylines that make no sense and go nowhere, where Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship is pushed into gutter and is stomped on, I cannot ever accept.
Crowley could've found a way to help Aziraphale. Like he always did. In the book he doesn't even do it for Aziraphale. He thinks everything is screwed and goes to try fix it anyway. You say it would have fallen apart because the system is rigged? Ok fine. But at least they would have tried. We would have watched them give it their all.
But watching Aziraphale fight Heaven on his own while Crowley became an alcoholic because 'nothing can change' was just bleak. (Not to mention all the possible and impossible ways Aziraphale was painted as the one at fault for everything.) Instead of showing us how they tried and failed, they just gave Crowley depression because his universe sucks and he can't get what he wants... Jesus's plotline - completely useless. We could have explored how his sacrifice before has shown that nothing's changed. Made everything worse actually (but it's all kinds of grim that the new universe presumably invented those exact same myths that resulted in that exact same Spanish Inquisition). The free will argument was ridiculous. And if Book of Life completely erases things - stop putting them back on screen again and again. Muriel being laughed at was cruel. And btw Satan was us - being told off. It's just a story I wrote. Deal with it. We came to love Aziraphale and Crowley. The book became more than an allegory about religion. So much more actually.
They felt a part of our world. This world. Beacons for people who are outsiders, who fight systems that oppress us and want to change us. Who want to carve a fragile existence for ourselves among all injustice.
They were fighting for us all behind the scenes. We could pretend to visit Soho or St James's Park and wonder if they've just been through. Fighting for and winning their love. Their freedom. We came to love Aziraphale and Crowley and that's why they should've stayed. Perhaps the end was fitting for a story showing how religion can't make sense in a complicated world - but we already knew that. The message that nothing is black and white was loud and clear.
We didn't need to start from scratch.
What we needed was a story where rigid attitudes change. Freedom and safety are gained. Love is freed. Where people and all beings can grow and learn and heal.
