I forgive you prime

They love humanity precisely because humans have free will, the ability to choose who and what they want to be. Humans had the very thing Aziraphale and Crowley believed they themselves lacked — free will. But they had it all along. Otherwise, Aziraphale would never have lied to God, never given away his sword, never interfered with the divine plan by saving Job’s children, never made the Arrangement with Crowley, never chosen Crowley over and over again, never agreed to stop Armageddon in the end. Crowley would never have asked questions, never helped Aziraphale save Job’s children, never talked Elspeth out of suicide (which, ironically, he himself ended up committing in the finale), never saved his angel time and time again, never kept choosing Aziraphale, never done good deeds when he was explicitly told to do evil instead, never stood side by side with his angel to stop Armageddon. Free will always existed, absolutely. For angels and demons alike.

And free will doesn’t belong only to them. All angels and demons have it — it’s just that, unlike Aziraphale and Crowley, none of them spent enough time on Earth to become more human and fully realize that free will, enough to stand against the system that kept telling them they didn’t have any in the first place.

To me, Good Omens also reflected our own reality — how many people in positions of power use God and the “divine plan” as a shield for their terrible actions. I always saw God in Good Omens as something like a bored but merciful being who genuinely loves Her creations — and that’s exactly why She gave them free will. That was her original plan all along, otherwise, as Crowley himself said at the beginning of season 1, She would’ve put the Tree of Knowledge on the Moon, on a mountaintop, or simply never created it at all if She didn’t want humans to have free will. That is Her Ineffable Plan — to give humanity free will. When Aziraphale says in the finale that they want a universe where there is “nothing ineffable,” he is literally saying “no free will.” It feels like the people behind the finale heard the phrase “Ineffable Plan” but never actually understood what it meant.

And when She made the wager with Satan during the Job story, She already knew Crowley wouldn’t destroy the goats or kill the children. She knew Aziraphale wouldn’t allow it to happen either. She knew he would lie in order to do the right thing. Precisely because he has free will. She is omniscient — She knew everything from the very beginning. She knows what was, what is, and what will be. She is not cruel — the cruel ones are those who speak in Her name. The Great Plan does not belong to Her; only the Ineffable one does. The “Great Plan” was invented by those claiming to speak for Her.

The original theme, free will as part of the ineffable plan, felt lost and replaced with cheap drama. What began as a comedic story with religious motifs that satirized the idea of total self-sacrifice for a “better” world instead of actually trying to fix things, ultimately ended with exactly that kind of sacrifice, along with a strange, inconsistent drama that doesn’t align with established characterizations.

God designed it exactly that way from the very beginning. She knew everything in advance. She knew they would stop Armageddon. That was her Ineffable Plan all along.

But in the finale, we see all of this being forgotten, crossed out, and literally erased.

You know what? For me, watching s3 is like reading only the tags instead of reading the fic.

S3 is just packed full of common fandom topics, (crowley is a mess, aziraphale moans while eating, Muriel and Eric...) or repetitions of former themes warmed over (yellow bentley, eating ice cream, crowley disguised in heaven, card tricks...)

Lots of unconnected, unhinged scenes thrown together, but the plot, the arc, the heart of the story is unfortunately completely missing, nothing is really fleshed out.

While watching s3 (the first and definitely only time) I was constantly wondering where this was leading an when the actual PLOT would finally begin (spoiler: it didn't.).

The Well Paid Author of this masterpiece always stated that he never reads fanfiction well, he better had, it might have improved his writing skills, but he obviously studied the tags quite thoroughly...

But hey, we should'nt judge too harshly, selling a bunch of random ao3 tags as a 90 minute film to Amazon is quite an achievement in itself, isn't it?

Me: "oh yeah, I loved it! Did you see the third?"

Her: deadpan, expressionless stare

Season 2: “Love and free will can exist despite oppressive institutions.”

We need to talk more about the fact that Crowley does stress cleaning… 

And also the fact that he READS. He lied to Aziraphale that he doesn’t…

Evidence provided by @brightwanderer​

He has special interests that he obsesses over and gets very, very excited about (books, food, magic tricks, etc).

He masks CONSTANTLY. He feels the need to put on a more "socially acceptable" facade in front of most people (the other angels especially), to diminish and minimize the quirkier aspects of his personality so that he won't be mocked or looked down on.

But the one person he can truly be HIMSELF with, the one who he feels safe with, is Crowley. Crowley might poke gentle fun at him sometimes, but he never makes him feel unworthy or like he needs to pretend to be someone else.

It's one of my favorite elements of the 1941 flashback in S2. Aziraphale is bubbling over with SO mucn excitement about his magic show. And Crowley COULD mock him, could roll his eyes and tell him to stop embarrassing himself.

But he doesn't. He encourages him, helps him, lets him have his fun. Because I think he absolutely LOVES how silly and quirky and fun his angel can be, when he lets his guard down.

It's much the same concept as Crowley taking off his sunglasses in the bookshop. They can be true to themselves around each other, in ways they can't around anyone else.

One thing I absolutely love is that Aziraphale almost always keeps his hands behind his back when he's talking to the other angels in Heaven. (The main exception is when he's lying to them, then he suddenly starts gesturing far more than usual, almost unnaturally so, even by his own standards.) But around Crowley, he doesn't seem embarrassed by his very expressive hand gestures, his "strange" mannerisms, or any of the other little things that make him who he is.

He knows Crowley accepts him exactly as he is. Even when Crowley grumbles about Aziraphale wanting to perform as a magician at Warlock's birthday party in Season 1, I've always felt that his irritation comes more from how stressed he is about the whole Antichrist situation. He thinks something has gone terribly wrong and that there's a very real chance they're going to lose.

I'm not even sure whether this would count as stimming, but I've always wondered if the way Aziraphale is constantly rubbing his fingers together could be seen as a form of self-regulation.

And, God... poor Aziraphale having to spend three years back in that Hell disguised as Heaven. I would've died from sensory overload alone with how overwhelmingly bright everything is