Crowley Never Kills The Plant

The Book of Life is not secret (at least not after s2 when it was retconned in); it's not particularly well-guarded; it's targeted; the cost associated with using it is low (you might go crazy but not before you have time to do a lot of damage); there's no danger of mutually assured destruction as long as you hang onto it. It's the kind of unlimited power that automatically makes things less interesting.

One thing that was really intriguing at the end of s1 was the suggestion that other angels and demons were kind of afraid of Aziraphale and Crowley because they didn't know what they were anymore. (And I was really hoping for a payoff moment that revealed that, bodyswap ruse aside, they actually had becomes immune to hellfire and holy water because they'd been on Earth so long they really had "gone native" and become a little bit human, in the way that Adam Young was human and also a little bit something else.)

And then when they did the accidental 25 lazari miracle I thought what was being set up was the revelation that angels and demons are super powerful when they're able to team up and do joint miracles together, but no one's ever figured it out before because sides, etc. And that this was going to be used in the story either to protect the entire Earth from the meddling of angels and demons, and/or to somehow break down the division between Heaven and Hell.

If you want to imagine the future, imagine a boy and his dog and his friends. And a summer that never ends. And if you want to imagine the future, imagine a boot... no, imagine a sneaker, laces trailing, kicking a pebble; imagine a stick, to poke at interesting things, and throw for a dog that may or may not decide to retrieve it; imagine a tuneless whistle, pounding some luckless popular song into insensibility; imagine a figure, half angel, half devil, all human... Slouching hopefully towards Tadfield. ...for ever.

I submit humbly that that ending is not the voice of a writer (the interview in the illustrated tie-in edition specifies that "the kids mostly originated with Terry") who would ultimately be down with annihilation as the Only Solution To The Problems Of The World.

Bonus reminder: I'm betting this passage is Terry's ("vanload of hippies on a blotterful of Owsley's Old Original" has that ring to it). I ask you, does it describe a character who would only a few years later in story time -- after sixty centuries of ups and downs -- (1) wallow indefinitely in a drunken sulk, and then (2) tell God to finish erasing the world, including himself and his best friend, and start over?

Because, underneath it all, Crowley was an optimist. If there was one rock-hard certainty that had sustained him through the bad times -- he thought briefly of the fourteenth century -- then it was utter surety that he would come out on top; that the universe would look after him. Okay, so Hell was down on him. So the world was ending. So the Cold War was over and the Great War was starting for real. So the odds against him were higher than a vanload of hippies on a blotterful of Owsley's Old Original. There was still a chance.

I had a bunch of ideas for some deliciously angsty fan edits before the finale was aired, but to be honest they were built on the assumption of a “happily ever after” for our husbands. Given what we got, this was the only one I felt in the right mental place to actually make (for now).

(I'm an unknown artist, please help promote my drawings. Thank you all!)