rin's little asylum

old-ish collab with my friend ! they drew crowley , i drew aziraphale , and we just made a magma for the background and did it together .

And I do agree it does feel jarring, maybe if the fabled 'original' plans for GO3 have come to fruition and Young Adult Adam was actually relevant to the Plot (and maybe also promoted appearances by other Tadfield characters) it wouldn't have felt quite so disconnected. But… I think it's more than the individual Human characters themselves not appearing, there is a major and jarring shift in the way 'Good Omens' write Human characters between the Book, and thus also GO1, and Good Omens Seasons 2 + 3.

The original Human cast of characters was very Wacky and Quirky and Somewhat Exaggerated, just as much as our primary supernatural characters, Crowley and Aziraphale, were. The Them were pastiches of Kids Adventure Story Tropes, Newton Pulsifer were so bad with technology it was LITERALLY a superpower, Sister Mary Loquacious was a goofy well-meaning Satanist nun, we had an insanely determined Delivery Man just doing his job and trickster-y mad old seer and her activist occultist Professional Descendant and Shadwell, who is basically a living cartoon character.

Meanwhile, the Humans of GO2 and GO3 feel a lot more deliberately "grounded". Less goofy, no real chances of having strange-bordering-on-the-supernatural quirks, more generally "normal", even when they are in difficult situations like abusive relationships or estranged family members. The lack of the quirky narration explaining the characters' lives and personalities also lessens any comedic quirkiness they might have, but even disregarding that change, I think there was a noticeable shift. The most we have now is… what? 'Harry the Fish' being kind of a silly nickname and Brian Cameron playing Monopoly once.

I think this change in how Human Characters are characterized does kinda work in GO2, it works in tandem with the narrative focus being now truly on Crowley and Aziraphale's supernatural romance and Heaven/Hell Drama - there is just less narrative focus on Humans, and the focus that is there is used to contrast them with the supernatural characters' abnormality. And it works with the genre shift, from outright Comedy to Romantic Comedy, which although still being a 'Comedy' by definition, tends towards making it's characters feel more 'grounded' on some level… but it is absolutely one of the factors that make GO2 a fundamentally different work from GO1/Book Omens, which is only exasperated in GO3 as the story veered farther and farther away from being any sort of 'Comedy'.

But it's also… The characterization of the Humans isn't just important from the perspective of Book Omens/GO1 being a Comedy, it's important from the angle of it being a very Humanist Comedy. The characters are somewhat exaggerated and cartoony, but they reflect on the real strangeness and wackiness and messiness and self-contradictory nature of Humanity. They are a living demonstration of the reasons why Crowley and Aziraphale are so fond of us Humans, why we are the only ones with the real power to doom or save the world. Madame Tracy being both an unashamed scam-artist and the kindest person in the story, Sister Mary being both a satanist and a nurse and a bit of a scatterbrain and her transformation into a Serious Businesswoman, R.P. Taylor's failed attempts to adapt to the strange world around him... It's silly, it's goofy, but it's also all so very human.

And much like Crowley's 'modernized sin-spreading' being to blame for most of the world's everyday annoyances was inviting the readers to imagine a little of the magic of the setting in their real-life, this also extended to the quirkiness and magic of the human characters, do you ever feel like you're as bad with computers as Newt? Maybe the Weird Old Coot you know is secretly scamming an Angel and a Demon for a few hundred pounds a month? If the most important part of being a Witch is a practical mind and a kitchen knife, maybe you can be like Anathema as well?

And then, when GO2 suddenly makes all of it's Humans so… normal and saves most of it's quirkiness and Messy Drama to it's supernatural characters, it kinda feels like it's saying "Look, we all know Humans are boooring, let's focus on the Angels and Demons instead!" And… while there were Good Omens fans disappointed by GO2, because of the shift away from the Humanist themes in general or specifically because they loved the Book Omens/GO1 Humans and thus weren't 100% happy to see Good Omens turn entirely into the Crowley and Aziraphale Show. A lot of fans were fine with this shift… Because we were kinda interested more in the Angels and Demons. Like, I'm not going to pretend that I'm not one of those GO fans who always finds reading through the book's mostly AC-less middle third to be kind of a slog.

I appreciate the point of the Human cast thematically and intellectually, but speaking from a personal perspective, I can't pretend it that emotionally it actually 100% sold me on all of these guys being just as interesting as Crowley and Aziraphale. I think it would be fair to say the actual best Humanist thematically-consistent solution would be to try harder, flash out the Human characters even more, create new Human characters whose unique bizarreness and quirky charm and messy pathos can rival Crowley and Aziraphale's… But GO2's solution of just decentering the Humans while making them more grounded and sensible (including the most important ones being Crowley and Aziraphale's more grounded and sensible counterparts) worked because it was telling us this is just backdrop for the Supernatural Romance stuff, and then supplying us with the Supernatural Romance Stuff in spades.

Where the Problem truly rears it's ugly head is in GO3, which suddenly tries to pull out a big thematic curveball where actually the Supernatural Romance we've been building up for the last two seasons is now suddenly less important than the previously-sidelined theme of Humanity, and our main characters and romantic leads have to sacrifice themselves for the sake of Humanity and the whole thing… tries to end on a big uplifting message of how wonderful it is to be Human in the real world and it's actually so much better than being an Angel or a Demon in a fantasy world.

And this supposedly uplifting message fails for me and for many others for many many many different reasons. But one of those reasons is just that… I don't feel like this story actually believes in the beauty of our mundane non-magical human existence, it can't sell me on a message I just don't feel is sincere coming from it. Humanity has been so diminished in the overall story, the lack of Human characters with Agency in the narrative, the lack of a Human perspective in the climax, the moral gray complexity of Humanity abandoned for pure ‘Heavenly’ selfless sacrifice, the Human influence on our two main leads have been gradually underplayed and diminished and retconned out from…

… to now seemingly insinuating that Crowley’s qualities have all been inherent to him since he bursted fully-formed out of God’s brow, long before the creation of Humanity, while Aziraphale’s character development is portrayed as if it was purely a result of Crowley’s influence and never a natural result of living among Humans for so many years.

But it’s also about how… bland Humanity has become. Outside, again, of the Mob Boss having a mildly-dorky name and playing Monopoly once and otherwise running a totally normal casino, none of our humans can be as vibrant and wacky and weird and surprising as the supernatural characters, as the GO1/Book Omens Humans, as vibrant and wacky and weird and surprising as actual real-life Humanity.

Even Crowley and Aziraphale’s Human counterparts, the versions of them that supposedly have True Free Will, are just portrayed as the blandest, most diluted, least compelling versions of the original Crowley and Aziraphale.

GO1 (and especially Book Omens) writes all of its Human characters with an honest desire to celebrate Humanity, with all of its strangeness and all of its mundanity. Whatever it was always 100% effective for me or not, when it said normal humans are just as interesting and compelling and unique as the Angel and the Demon, I felt like the story believed it.

GO2 felt like it was saying “Look, we all know Humans will never be as interesting or cool or dramatic as an Angel and Demon falling in love, so let’s just focus on that, okay?” and that was certainly tonally and thematically discordant with the original story, and I have some mixed feelings about that and others have even more negative feelings about it, but it worked as its own standalone thing because it was honest with itself, it was supplying the audience with a generous amount of the thing it did care about and think was cool and compelling.

GO3 is trying to say that actually our mundane ephemeral real-life is actually so much more magical and miraculous than being an immortal with mild reality-warping powers, it’s trying to loop back to a closer perspective to GO1, but it’s still feels it has the same view of Humanity as GO2. It’s putting on a false smile trying to explain to me why it’s so much better to be a Human, a weak, bland, boring Human then to be the supernatural characters it is clearly far more interested and thinks are far cooler. And while I would very much like to believe that living as an ephemeral human is a wondrous, miraculous thing, because I am an ephemeral human and that’s the only option I have.

Neil Gaiman said he wouldn't make a sequel to Good Omens

Neil Gaiman at SXSW in Austin, Texas in 2019:

[Gaiman also confirmed the series will only be six episodes, with no intention of trying to go for another season if successful. "The lovely thing about Good Omens is it has a beginning, it has a middle, and it has an end," he said to appreciative applause. "Season 1 of Good Omens is Good Omens. It's brilliant. It finishes. You have six episodes and we're done. We won't try to build in all these things to try to let it continue indefinitely."]

Source: Entertainment Weekly (2019)

2018 - Neil Gaiman on X- Twitter

Tweet link here

Also Neil Gaiman in 2023:

["It won't be confirmed unless enough people watch Season 2 to make Amazon happy...

...But obviously Season 3 is all planned and plotted and, if I get to make it, will take the story and the people in it we care about to a satisfying end."]

What happened?

Were the profits and ratings high enough to create two more seasons out of thin air? At this point, seasons 2 and 3 seem more like a greedy stretching of a beloved story already told in its entirety in the first season.

Has the first season already fulfilled Sir Terry Pratchett's wish?

As read above, Neil Gaiman himself said: "Season 1 of Good Omens is Good Omens."

Gaiman was very opened about how pleased he was with Season 1 and how he made it having Sir Terry Pratchett's wish in mind.

Interview for The Verge (May 30, 2019)

Link : Neil Gaiman had one rule for the Good Omens adaptation: making Terry Pratchett happy

Interviewer: Do you feel pressure from knowing this has to be the definitive best adaptation it could be?

Gaiman: No. All I wanted to do was to make something Terry would have liked. It wasn’t like, “Make the best thing.”...

...Gaiman: The lovely thing about Good Omens [the miniseries] is that it’s still Good Omens. If you loved the book, this is that thing that you loved. And I will make you fall in love even more with Sergeant Shadwell. I will make you fall even more in love with Newt than you thought you could, I hope. It does demonstrate that I do kind of know what I’m talking about, which is a nice thing to know.

...Gaiman: So with Good Omens, I feel like what I got to do was put the thing I made with Terry on the screen and then buttress it. What I added isn’t completely different from the original. It’s not out of left field.

Neil Gaiman on an interview for The Guardian in 2019.

Link: Neil Gaiman: ‘Good Omens feels more apt now than it did 30 years ago’

There are times, he insists, when “you make something you like so much that you don’t really care what anyone else thinks of it.” There’s a clue to this, perhaps, in the show’s final frame, which reads “For Terry”. “He didn’t believe in heaven or hell or anything like that,” Gaiman says, “so there wasn’t even a hope that there was a ghostly Terry around to watch it. He would have been grumpy if there was. But I made it for him.”

Why was Good Omens season 1 so good and you could really feel Sir Terry Pratchett's contributions?

Gaiman himself has already told us the answer:

...Gaiman: So with Good Omens, I feel like what I got to do was put the thing I made with Terry on the screen and then buttress it. What I added isn’t completely different from the original. It’s not out of left field.

Neil Gaiman for The Verge (2019).

There was original material to work with (Good Omens, published in 1990), on which we certainly know that Sir Terry Pratchett himself actively worked from start to finish.

Is there a proper sequel to Good Omens the book on which to base 2 more seasons of the series?

Neil Gaiman says the following on an interview for GQ in 2019.

Link: Neil Gaiman Says No to Adapting His Own Books—Except This Time

...But with this, it was like: Okay. Terry is gone. He wanted me to do this. He wanted me to do it for him. And that gave me a kind of weird impetus. And it meant that I felt very much at liberty to take every conversation that Terry and I had ever had about Good Omens. Not just the book, as written, but everything beyond it. We planned a sequel, never written, so I got to steal the angels from the sequel. I got to steal from every conversation Terry and I had about how we would do this. It felt very personal, and I guess kind of… holy. If that doesn’t sound too ridiculous. But it was a mission.

Two conclusions can be drawn:

1) Informal conversations about the plot of a sequel do not equate to an officially written sequel.

2) Neil Gaiman has already used many of the ideas he and Terry Pratchett had planned for a never-written sequel to Good Omens and those ideas were largely added to and executed in the TV adaptation of Good Omens (2019).

Why keep stretching those ideas if the co-writer is no longer able to actively contribute and help to create a proper sequel?

If Gaiman were the sole creator of Good Omens we'd have a different conversation, but that's not the case. The first season of Good Omens was already a beautiful homage to Good Omens and Sir Terry Pratchett's work on the book.

Did Terry Pratchett write around 75% of Good Omens?

Link for the post here.

Link for the post talking about the video and sharing the video here.

Edit: I wanted to bring this point up to point out Terry Pratchett's important contribution to the making of the book, not to highlight it as an excuse to distance Gaiman from the novel. We will have to accept that he also contributed to the creation of the book.

Sir Terry Pratchett's last wish

2017 - Rob Wilkins on Twitter (X)

Terry Pratchett’s Unpublished Work Crushed by Steamroller

By Sophie Haigney - The New York Times

Terry Pratchett, the well-known British fantasy author, had a wish fulfilled two years after his death: A hard drive containing his unpublished work was destroyed by steamroller.

Mr. Pratchett, a wildly popular fantasy novelist who wrote more than 70 books, including the “Discworld” series, died at 66 in 2015. That year his friend, the writer Neil Gaiman, told The Times of London that Mr. Pratchett had wanted “whatever he was working on at the time of his death to be taken out along with his computers, to be put in the middle of a road and for a steamroller to steamroll over them all.” Mr. Gaiman added at the time that he was glad this hadn’t happened.

Now, though, it has. Mr. Pratchett’s estate manager and close friend, Rob Wilkins, posted a picture of a hard drive and a steamroller on Aug. 25 on an official Twitter account they shared.

Shortly thereafter, Mr. Wilkins wrote that the deed was done.

I have not been able to find the exact reasons why Sir Terry Pratchet wanted his unfinished and unpublished works destroyed, but we can respect his last wish as a way for him to have control over what he felt he was ready to share with the world and what he was not.

Is Good Omens the exception?

With all that has been presented so far, I can only conjecture, but not be sure. I can believe that there was Terry Pratchett's permission and desire to make an adaptation of Good Omens, the original book published in 1990, but to my mind, creating two more seasons of a never-written sequel doesn't fit as part of Terry Pratchett's desire.

He is not among us to actively participate in a sequel and if his last wish was to destroy his unfinished works, I can't believe that he would have wanted to give his approval to something new published under his name and without his supervision.

Sir Terry Pratchett talking about a never-written sequel to Good Omens

“Neil and I thought about a sequel an awful lot initially. We talked about it on tour. And I think it was a big relief to both of us, when one day we looked one another in the eye and said, 'I thought you wanted to do a sequel.'..

Interview for the Magazine Locus. Locusmag archive page

This is me speculating, but I don't think there was real enthusiasm for creating a sequel until Gaiman alone saw profitable potential in the TV adaptation....

Good Omens also belongs to the those who love the story

I think it's okay to still love the story of Good Omens. Personally, I will always be grateful with the story and the characters for giving me confort in troubling times, but I find seasons 2 and 3 as some kind of excuse from Gaiman to keep profiting and benefiting from the story (more now than ever due to the SA allegations*).

Aziraphale and Crowley will always live happily in a lovely cottage as long as we want to. Even before season 2 was announced, many of us had already accepted that. Many artists have imagined lovely endings for our innefable husbands and in my eyes their works won't be any less valuable than whatever Gaiman had planned.

Note:

I don't like talking about Season 3 of GO without mentioning the current SA allegations against Neil Gaiman (Main writer of seasons 2 and 3 and showrunner), so in case you want to know more about the allegations against Neil Gaiman. Here there's a great Round Up link (Podcasts links, transcripts, etc.)

Credits for the Round Up link to Muccamukk. Thanks a lot!

CW and TW: discussions and mentions of Neil Gaiman.

Ok, it’s been a minute since my first post which basically gives a run down on my emotional state, my emotional reaction, and just a lot of deep seated feelings. I did promise I would talk a little bit more about contextual issues and today’s post is going to be devoted to the writing of the finale.

Again because this is going to be yet another critical take, I understand those of you out there who either enjoyed the finale and don’t want to see anything negative or even if you hated it but don’t want to be exposed to any further negativity may not want to read this. So I will put my thoughts under the cut.

Again, I ask that people do not argue or send hurtful or derogatory messages to each other or anyone involved in the cast and crew*

*I’d give a caveat to the writers but in the end, don’t even send them hate messages. They’re not worth your time or effort.

This is a bit of a long one, so buckle in!

as the series show a lot, crowley doesn’t like to be addressed as an angel, we know that since the start. many people have counteracted saying that he doesn’t like being called a demon either, and that’s right.

that’s the whole point.

crowley doesn’t like being called an angel in the same way he doesn’t like being called a demon, because he doesn’t fit in either of these categories.

crowley has been trying since the beginning to tell aziraphale that it doesn’t matter whether you’re an angel or a demon, you’re capable of doing a bad or good thing nonetheless (ex. eden, “a demon doing the right thing and an angel doing a bad one”, and let’s not forget the “angels, demons, what’s the point?”).

crowley isn’t nice because he is still the angel he was, nor is he mean because he is a demon now, he is simply who he is because he’s crowley and he made his own self.

he tried to show to aziraphale that these categories are meaningless in an universe in which God doesn’t even want to speak to Her children, you are who you decide to be, which is exactly why i didn’t like how the finale kept oscillating between black and white shades, demon crowley or angel crowley, without considering the shades of grey it was preaching ever since season 1.

I started watching Good Omens because it's a series that allows you to think and question religion without following the rules of Docma, and without denying its existence either. With its many contradictions and imperfections, but with the idea that everything has a meaning we can't quite grasp, but which is ultimately good. And this ending took that away from me.

It concluded that the rules of religion and the existence of superior beings interfere with free will. That since the system is flawed, it must be destroyed. But wasn't the world worth saving even if it's imperfect? Wasn't the fact that the world is flawed a reason to fix it, not destroy it?

For me, the problem that the series had to solve was the black-and-white mentality. That the world could be better by accepting imperfections and creating a gray area. That the fight between heaven and hell was what made no sense, and that they didn't even know why they were fighting any more.

I would have liked that, in the end, Aziraphale and Crowley gave the angels and demons the possibility to choose. Because it's them who couldn't choose and only did what they were told by god or the Metatron or satan. Humans had always been able to do whatever they wanted. And that way, the black-and-white mentality would end. Some entities would choose to be human, some would want to help humans after death in Purgatory. And Crowley and Aziraphale could stay on Earth, not to influence humans but to give them options. Because sometimes when humans don't know what to do, what we need are options so we can decide better. Not to be told what to do.

And i also wanted for aziracrow to watch over us, to protect us. And they could stay with humanity because the love that they have for each other and the love they have for the earth is one and the same. They learn to love earth because of each other and love each other because of the time that they had on earth. You can't make them choose.

okay, just putting this all together for ease of access, since it's been spread out across several posts now--

The day after it aired I watched the ending like actually 30 times and I became fully 99.999999% certain they switched places. I was initially thinking during the kiss, cuz of how the camera angle changes, but after watching an additional 20 times a few days later, I'm personally leaning much more towards them stopping time in the instance after "no nightingales".

Before the kiss, Aziraphale is saying "nice" things about the Metatron, but his face and voice keep switching to broadcasting distress, and they make it a point to show in ep 1 that Crowley can read him just from tone of voice

As they're pulling away after the kiss, they lock eyes and "Aziraphale's" expression shifts in the teeniest tiniest way, like a confirmation glance, before they shift back (and Michael Sheen is a master, so no chance it's not on purpose)

---(Like really, go back and watch how Aziraphale's expression shifts literally *a second* before "I forgive you" cuz the change is SO minute, but entirely different emotionally.)

Also the way he moves his jaw right after he pulls his hand away from his lips, is a bit from MS's Crowley (you can see it in the very last two seconds of this vid- link)

Aziraphale's hands -stay by his sides- after that, he doesn't clasp them at all, and it's particularly noticeable while he's walking to the elevator with Metatron. The way he walks is very stiff and precise, similar to after the swap in S1.

We don't see the underside of Crowley's jacket collar after the kiss, at any point (it is for sure red at the beginning of the ep, you can see it right before he changes in Heaven)

The Bentley drives away SLOWLY, which is how Aziraphale drives, and we're specifically shown that it only plays other music for Aziraphale

the seats in the Bentley are black as it drives away. They're usually brown, and the only other time they're shown to be black is when Aziraphale drives (@picturesque-about-it broke down the times so you can see-link)

---extra pic for anyone saying it's "cuz Aziraphale is lighter"-- the seats are still brown behind Crowley when he wears white

there's people wearing yellow in -every- part of the scene showing the Bentley both before and while it drives away! (link for pics/credit)

Aziraphale's smile in the elevator looks more like MS's Crowley. It's very similar to the trial during S1, but also (link)

This also explains why they're on opposite sides than they're usually shown while the end credits roll

Extra points--

many good points made by other folks here, about cues and snakes in beehives and swap motifs throughout the season-- link

The clock! Someone mentioned how the scene is so quiet you can hear it ticking, so I watched the ending a further 50 times to double check----I need to preface this by stating, I don't think this is a working clock, mainly cuz the hands aren't 100% where they should be between the minutes and the hours, like -a person- moved them to that time manually

When they're talking, the clock is at approximately 9:25 (?, again the hour hand isn't precisely set), then they walk across the room, and kiss, and immediately after that the clock is set about 15-ish minutes later (link to timestamps)

thanks to these bts shots, we can see that the clock on the opposite side of the room registers the SAME time difference before and after the kiss (link)

the first time Aziraphale looks "towards the window", I'm petty sure he actually looks further back towards the clock, *focuses on it* as Metatron walks up to him, and then spends the ENTIRE REST OF THE EXCHANGE blocking the Metatron's view of the clock

we're shown earlier in the season that Crowley can localize his time-stopping to a certain extent, like when he stopped the doctor and the rest of the room kept going, so it is possible he only stopped everything -outside- of the bookshop

---I KNOW Neil said it's a continuity error, but he also fully said "No" about there being a season 2 just days before they announced it was already written and in production, so. Take him at his word if that's what you wanna do.

---also I DID go back and look it over, and the clock IS consistently specifically set the entire rest of the episode as far as I can see. From the shots when you have a clear view of the clock, the angels and demons enter the shop at around 6, Maggie and Nina leave at around 7, the Metatron comes in at 8-ish, Aziraphale comes back in at that approximately 9:25

(insight from someone who works in production- link)

the music right before the kiss scene is the same leitmotif (Life After Death) used when they originally started formulating the swap in season 1! (link)

the movie Stairway to Heaven (1946) is featured as a poster in both the opening credits and in Maggie's shop (link)

the climax of the film has one of the leads willing to "take the place" of the other in heaven

(they also used a time-stopping mechanic, and the chess book Gabriel tests gravity with also plays a key role in the film)

and one last mention, extra food for thought--- the season's focus on their trusting one another, their history of performing "death (and heaven/hell) defying" feats together, and how they always get the trick right when it truly counts the most

that's what I've got so far!

If I'm right, they're apart now, but are actually more together then ever, and I find that terribly exciting. (And if I'm wrong, that's okay too! I'm just here to have fun.)

I'm not particularly concerned with very specific reasoning (that's for season 3 to tell us!), but I do think this theory is extra fun cuz pretty much any of the others could be the "why" driving it.

OH MY GOSH--

I JUST FOUND OUT ABOUT THE GOOD OMENS FANGAME, NAMED "TRANSIENT"!!! IT IS LITERALLY SO BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!! HOW COME SO LITTLE PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT IT??

ITS AN RPG WITH PUZZLE ELEMENTS!!(excited nerd noises) i suppose there is a possibility for a terribly sad ending, but i wont risk my sanity to play it.. There is a let's play, too!:)

PLEASE SUPPORT THE CREATORS AND CHECK THE GAME OUT FOR YOURSELF:D

Some gameplay pics from the itch.io page:

could we please have some context as to what this concept art was meant to be, because my mind is reeling!!