Jane Austen, Brandy Smuggler

They began their story as a wide-eyed innocent. Trampled on and forgotten by their superiors, literally at the bottom of the heavenly hierarchy, but SO eager to do the best they could at the role that was assigned to them.

Their innocence sometimes shows as ignorance (not knowing anything about how the human world works, not knowing how to lie or deceive).

But they are so earnest in their intentions that it's hard not to like them. Even Crowley seems fond of them, despite their seeming lack of intelligence.

I wanted to see Muriel come into their own in GO3.

I felt like they were set up for a character arc of discovery--that, assigned to guard Aziraphale's bookshop in his absence, Muriel would have the opportunity to truly connect with humanity on a personal level, learn about the nuances and shades of gray inherent to life on earth. Things that they could never know if, like many angels, they were forever trapped in the sterile white landscape of heaven forever.

But no. Instead the finale made jokes at Muriel's expense, called them stupid and dense, and then killed them without a resolution to their journey.

We don't even get to see them running Aziraphale's bookshop, because apparently Aziraphale immediately recalls them to work with him in heaven??

It's a small detail in a sea of bad writing choices. But it feels indicative to me of a problem that PERVADES GO3: not only does it fail to deliver a satisfying payoff to most or all of the plot threads set up in S2, it actively backtracks on many of them. Writes them out of existence with barely a word.

(The erasure of Nina and Maggie also come to mind here. They made a meaningful impact on Crowley and Aziraphale's lives, however brief their role in it was, so it's extremely odd to have them written out with no explanation from the characters.)

So when I say GO3 feels like bad fanfic, THIS is the kind of shit I'm talking about. It's badly written because the character arcs that S2 set in motion are never followed through...in favor of completely new, unrelated plot threads such as the gangster subplot.

It's not just about whether i liked the ending (for the record, I didn't). The problems with the writing are pervasive through the finale, start to finish. A happy, soft ending could have saved it. It could have made me forgive its other faults. But we didn't get that either.

So let's remember Muriel for a moment. A kind, happy, sweet angel doing their best. They deserved the chance to break free of heaven's influence and discover who they really are, what they really want to be.

God does not play dice with the universe; she plays an ineffable game of her own devising

Aziraphale had tried to explain it to him once. The whole point, he’d said—this was somewhere around 1020, when they’d first reached their little Arrangement—the whole point was that when a human was good or bad it was because they wanted to be. Whereas people like Crowley and, of course, himself, were set in their ways right from the start. People couldn’t become truly holy, he said, unless they also had the opportunity to be definitively wicked.

Crowley had thought about this for some time and, around about 1023, had said, Hang on, that only works, right, if you start everyone off equal, okay? You can’t start someone off in a muddy shack in the middle of a war zone and expect them to do as well as someone born in a castle.

Ah, Aziraphale had said, that’s the good bit. The lower you start, the more opportunities you have.

Crowley had said, That’s lunatic.

No, said Aziraphale, it’s ineffable.

Aziraphale. The Enemy, of course. But an enemy for six thousand years now, which made him a sort of friend.

Crowley reached down and picked up the car phone.

Being a demon, of course, was supposed to mean you had no free will. But you couldn’t hang around humans for very long without learning a thing or two.

In the late 80’s-very early 90’s era that the book takes place in that meant coding him as a Yuppie, thinking about his stock options as soon as Armageddon comes up, his sleek lifeless showroom flat, the dedication to always having the most modern tech (even when he finds it to actually be pretty crappy or otherwise useless to him, it’s necessary for ‘the kind of Human he’s trying to be’)….

In the late 80’s-very early 90’s era that the book takes place in that meant coding him as a Yuppie, thinking about his stock options as soon as Armageddon comes up, his sleek lifeless showroom flat, the dedication to always having the most modern tech (even when he finds it to actually be pretty crappy or otherwise useless to him, it’s necessary for ‘the kind of Human he’s trying to be’)….

Hello!!!! The creators for the 2024 Good Omens Holiday Exchange have been revealed which means I get to post this now!!!

My recipient was @irisbleufic who asked for Aziraphale and Crowley celebrating an anniversary and I thought it would be very funny if they celebrated their Arrangement like it was a wedding anniversary and just used it as an excuse to goof off and be sappy lol. I based the design and layout a little on medieval manuscripts and a lot on early 19th century magazine spreads :)

A little something to contribute to this beautiful fandom :3

“To the world!”

I’m weak, I like it when people hug