Insanity of a Shark

Then I thought, ‘Well, this is basically like a Newt and Anathema situation, isn’t it? They’re also a couple from ‘opposite sides’, a Witchfinder and a Witch, who get together but also they are explicitly Predestined thanks to Agnes Nutter’s prophecies….”

But the thing is:

Newt and Anathema’s ‘Hereditary Enemies Turned Lovers’ appeal was always pretty minimal. Newt is barely a Witchfinder, Anathema holds no ill will towards him or his ancestor, there is no real friction in their relationship around that part. The predestination part was by far the main focus.

GO1 and especially Book Omens's Newthema does give us a few nods to how Weird it is to know a relationship you are interested in has also been Determined by Unchangeable Fate.

While all the implications of Aziraphale and Crowley’s ‘Soulmates’ status in GO3 is pretty much always played as unironically straightforwardly Romantic. Even after they supposedly break away from God’s control…. “They will always be together in every lifetime and every universe” is supposed to the bittersweet but triumphant message their story ends on.

At least Newt and Anathema get to burn Agnes’ second book and actively choose to try and live together and freely. You could say Crowley and Aziraphale remaking the world and then reincarnating into Human versions who get married is the equivalent of that, but the fact that they have no conscious memory or awareness of their previous lives remove the aspect of Choice.

Also, GO1 and Book Omens are a bit more… ambivalent about the questions of the Predestination Paradoxes and how Free Will factors with Ineffability. “If God planned for everything and the Ineffable Plan cannot be changed, then this means They actually want Humans to disobey the plan and make their own destiny, so this is still part of the Plan” is the piece of Theological Bullshitting that makes up Aziraphale and Crowley’s main contribution to actually saving the world. It is a positive moment in the context of that storyline.

And in general, the tone of the ending of the Book/GO1 when it explores the idea that disobedience and Free Will are actually part of God’s Ineffable Plan is…. Maybe not in a 100% straightforwardly positive, but is definitely kinda sardonically jovial about the concept. Especially when you consider, like, the moment in the book where Agnes Nutter’s ghost chuckles with both foreknowledge and joy seeing her descendant reject her second book.

And the implication that God’s real plan might be to set the stage for a Humanist revolution against Heaven and Hell…

GO3, meanwhile, is of the opinion that this means that there is no REAL Free Will under these circumstances. This is just a hopeless rigged game that will always end with the destruction of the world one way or another, and this such a dire state and Real Free Will is so important that this is worth it for our two beloved Protagonists to kill themselves over it.

So, yeah, it does feel more discordant that the idea of these characters exploring how their Love might have been one of those things that always felt like disobedience and an expression of their own Free Will was also ‘Predictable’ to God and given by Them just…. never even comes up. Because Someone forbids these two actually get to talk about their relationship in any meaningful way in canon, am I right?

And even more discordant that the idea that their relationship is still controlled by some sort of Cosmic Force of Fate is their Happily Ever After???

And mostly lines which are Crowley's inner monologue thinking about how little influence Heaven and Hell actually have on Humanity and how they already have free will!

And don’t get me started on how much it emphasizes the irony in having these four supernatural beings determine the fate of the universe and humanity with no feedback from Actual Humans and the irony in the story trying to pretend it has always been about humanity instead of underplaying this aspect of the novel in favor of the Ineffable Husbands Melodrama when Crowley starts using lines cut and stolen from Book!Adam.

🤡

i keep saying it.

suicidal pessimist crowley x war criminal aziraphale is not my ship. this isn’t good omens.

and i read the book in the 90s. I’ve been sweeping up in this bar a loooong time.

He means he is a SOFT PERSON. As in, not hardened, not cynical, not violent or cruel. He wants to believe in the power of love and kindness. He doesn't want a fight.

Making him an important general in the Great War was such a confusing narrative choice to me. There is nothing in S1 or S2 to suggest he ever held that kind of role.

Yes, Aziraphale is a bit of a renegade, lying to God about the flaming sword, finding loopholes around every rule, all in the name of HELPING people. He wants peace when everyone else is screaming for war.

The most warrior-like thing we ever see him do prior to S3 is when he blows up his halo to protect Nina and Maggie in the bookshop. But A) he was defending the innocent, which is what Principalities and guardian angels DO, and B) it was both a last resort and a non-lethal solution.

NG really said "I'll give you a kiss, but you won't want it", for season 2, and then he gave us the South Downs ending that no one wanted (though some have accepted or embraced it, happily for them).

In a story where funny twists or loopholes like "actually you're not my father" and "isn't the great plan also the ineffable plan?" saved the day before, there would have been countless different endings that could have stayed true to the ending that Pratchett allegedly wanted, without falling into NG's grim, sadistic, darkness.

A Good Omens oneshot, rated T - 5k words

Crowley had a boat.

It was a small boat, called Bentley, that he used to make the connection between Gilmoore and the mainland, from 7 am to his last departure at 6:30 pm. He took a break from 11 am to 3 pm, when nobody needed to cross anymore. Every five minutes crossing could carry around 15 passengers, mostly regulars from the island, going to work or to school on the mainland. He carried the crossing every day except Sundays, as long as the sea allowed him to.

Read here