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So. Hi lifelong Bond fan here. Let me tell you why [spoiler] is subtextually Bond’s first real love interest because of this mission alone

analysis and explanation below. spoilers for 007 First Light’s "All The Time In The World" mission

OK let's talk thematics.

Because one of the reasons Good Omens resonated with so many of us is that Crowley and Aziraphale were like us, people who've been traumatized by oppressive systems that forced us into corners and destroyed our sense of self, ability to love, our free will, everything about us.

Good Omens taught us that we can find healing and bravery to overcome that trauma by bonding with other traumatized souls and DEFYING those systems of oppression.

Adam in GO1 wanted to destroy the world to remake it better, but that's not an option for us, is it? We can't eliminate homophobia or transphobia, we can't eliminate the abusers in our lives, we can't eliminate corporations that pollute our environment and we can't eliminate religious institutions or political corruption or fascism or racism and every other awful thing out there.

But we CAN take their power away from controlling us, by banding together and declaring NO. YOU will not define me. That is what Aziraphale and Crowley represent.

As angels and demons, they represent revolting against the systems that birthed them and telling those systems that they REJECT the identity foisted upon them.

That is why Good Omens 3 doesn't make sense thematically. Because it takes this metaphor and says instead that the only solution is to eliminate the entire system and start again. Something that is virtually impossible to do without mass destruction on a global scale (for example, an extinction event that takes us back to before civilization and the patriarchy began). This is exactly what Adam thought:

Adam: “We'll get rid of everything stupid and start all over again.”

But Good Omens 1 tells us that this thinking is wrong. It is wrong to nuke the world to forge a better one, because individual lives matter and we can try to fix it.

Brian: “You're going to burn all this away. Why? Because some adults mucked things up? That's a reason to fix it, not destroy it.”

Good Omens was always optimistic about how, despite the fact that humans can destroy the world, we can also make it better.

Everyone in Good Omens 1 made choices, created their own free will, by defying god. Not eliminating god. Defying god. Adam, by rejecting his birth and parentage. Anathema, by rejecting her inherited role. Crowley and Aziraphale, by choosing to love one another (and what a queer metaphor that is, to choose to love as your form of rebellion 🏳️‍🌈).

This works beautifully as a metaphor because we in the real world can also choose to make our own free will, despite the oppressive systems we live under. Even if it's difficult, even if maybe we need therapy and support to do so, we can choose to reject the abusive systems in our lives and forge our own identities outside of them.

So when Good Omens 3 comes along saying the only solution is to remake the world entirely because apparently there is no hope under ANY oppressive system?? It's basically a pessimistic outlook. It's saying, no matter how much support and love we find, we will never have freedom from those abusive systems. (and maybe that's true on a social level, but on an individual level?)

Saying the only solution is to remake the world entirely removes the power WE have to do something within the broken systems we live under.

I get how Good Omens 3 works (sorta) from an atheistic perspective, and I fully believe it's the ending Terry would have wanted, but it just does not work from a Good Omens (or a realistic) perspective.

About the atheistic POV, just to say briefly: Does removing god actually fix all the problems in the world? Well, Good Omens already told us that humans are the primary drivers of evil. So god wasn't even responsible for that. And plus, it is humans who created god, and what we imagine god wants, and why we fight religious wars.

It's not god's existence that ruins society, it's the idea of god, and that's all humanity's creation.

So, no, eliminating god does not create a perfect world.

But!! Having free will to defy the oppressive systems that will invariably plague humanity is how you find freedom. Not a perfect world but free will, and the ability to act on it, is still how you define Who you are, that is how you defeat everything society wants you to be, how you CHOOSE who YOU want to be.

That is why Good Omens is so inspiring, because it speaks to all of us who feel oppressed and traumatized. It tells us there is hope despite what happened (and is happening) to us.

Crowley and Aziraphale becoming human: I don’t love, but you could argue that that was what he planned, and I would buy it. It does follow some of his themes.

But there is a knife’s edge that Pratchett balanced between fury and compassion. He absolutely loved humanity, but he also hated what humans did to each other out of malice, spite, or even laziness. Good Omens the novel was filled to bursting with that.

The end here lacked all of that somehow. God in S1 is unknowable, but God is S3 is just a capricious bitch who seems to have it out for Crowley specifically and through him Aziraphale. The viewer certainly gets angry at God, but the narrative seems to be that, while cold, she is doing the right thing and giving them their happy ending. And while Crowley expresses compassion for humanity, it falls on such deaf ears that the narrative doesn’t actually support that.

The closing sentiment seems to be that we can make their lives better by just erasing all their trauma and baggage. No. Sam Vimes did not pull himself out of the gutter and bodily hold himself out of it every day to be told that actually amnesia would be best. If you wanted to make them human: make them keep their memories. That would have been fine.

Terry would have Crowley and Aziraphale say “fuck you” to God and protect the earth as it was. The way they protected Job’s children. The way they did at Tadfield Airbase. Here they just throw in the towel and start a new universe. They accept their failure so quickly as to be farcical.

Do you understand the implications, especially in today's political climate, of a show that revolves heavily around a queer/queer-coded couple where the only onscreen kiss between said couple is their breakup? Especially one that explores themes of sin, forbidden love, religion, dogma, and high control groups? One where the character associated with hell is the one forcing the kiss and the character associated with Christian heaven (even if heaven in this case is bad) is the one who is not receptive to that affection? A show where the heaven associated character tells the one who kissed him "I forgive you"? One where the main characters have had to hide their relationship for fear of their lives in a storyline that is heavily analogous to the persecution of queer people? Where even in a scene that showed explicitly they were married, the show still would not deign to display physical intimacy between two men? Y'know, some of the most highly stigmatized kind of affection there is?

If they had never kissed at all, I wouldn't mind. But by kissing in season 2 when they broke up, they showed that they were willing to cross that line. They stopped being ambiguous in that moment. They're whole "we're not humans and don't show love like humans" went out the window when the show decided they would in fact engage in an overtly queer act. But the only time there is unambiguous queer affection is when it's used to separate the characters.

If they had never had a full on sex scene between two hetero characters who had just met in season 1, I wouldn't mind. But the show was more comfortable with displaying physical intimacy between a man and a woman that we never saw after season 1 than they were between the two main characters of the show.

If they hadn't had an ending that literally showed their wedding rings, showing that they clearly can and will display a queer couple and also conform to heteronormative standards by having them married at all, then I wouldn't mind. But they went as far as having the characters who famously had a relationship that was open to interpretation and put them in the husband/romantic partner box, but wouldn't dare go as far as physical intimacy?

I know that many people who are not amanormative or allonormative are frustrated that a relationship that was previously ambiguous/up for interpretation was boxed into a romantic label. But now that they have, it says something that they chose to display queer relationships, and they chose to display physical affection, but not both at the same time. It says something even if they didn't intend to. It's just too awfully convenient that the couples who are always subjected to "well you don't need to be physical to be in love" are the queer couples. In a political climate that promotes homophobia and violence against our community, increasingly sex negative and pro-censorship legislation regarding online spaces, and legislation that aims to categorize participating in anything remotely queer in public as a sex crime, I think anyone who looks at a story of romantic love between two masculine presenting people and says it's not necessary to have overt physical acts of affection has lost the plot.

Characters must make choices.

Characters should often make bad choices before they make good choices.

Character choices should drive the vast majority of the plot. Characters reacting to having random stuff thrown at them is far less interesting than characters reacting to the stuff they've thrown after it's ricocheted around and comes bouncing back toward them.

If a character refuses to make a choice, there better be consequences for that too, and you better have a damn clear way of showing those consequences to the reader and the character.

Hmmm yes Hancock and Strong doodle