midge

All this finale has done is make the idea of fighting for what you believe in not just a bad one, but a stupid one. Apparently Aziraphale was wrong to try. I cannot stand that. He made a difference. He halted the Second Coming. It was Michael and their free will that destroyed the Universe.

@gifevents: from script to screen day 3 - dialogue

God: "Aziraphale, you were the first angel to lie to me. You were lazy. Gluttonous. Prideful."

Aziraphale: "Quite true. And I was also the second best angel you ever had."

God: "You were what?"

Aziraphale: "The second best angel..."

Satan: "So, who do you think the best angel was?"

Aziraphale: "This one."

Crowley: "I was a terrible angel."

(Yes, you were, Crowley! And that's exactly what made you special. That's what made you good.)

Aziraphale: "No, no, no. You were the best of us. You cared so much about everything. You were an artist. You wanted to understand, to make better art. The rest of us, we were just characters in her book. We didn't ask questions. You were the only one of us who genuinely believed there had to be a, a sensible purpose to it all."

The problem is that, within the world of Good Omens, being a perfect angel has never actually been a positive thing. Throughout the series, Heaven is portrayed as rigid, detached, and often willing to sacrifice humanity in the name of obedience and the greater good. By Heaven's standards, a good angel is someone who follows orders without question, regardless of the consequences for human beings.

Crowley and Aziraphale have always been the exact opposite of that. They repeatedly chose humanity over Heaven and Hell. They questioned authority. They disobeyed. They cared about Earth and about humanity. In the moral framework established by the series, those qualities are what make them admirable. But they are also precisely the qualities that make them bad angels and bad demons according to their respective sides.

In a sense, Good Omens has always suggested that being the best angel would mean being the worst kind of human, while being the worst angel might actually make you the best kind of person. That's why reducing Crowley's value to the fact that he was once the best angel feels so wrong to me.

I think it was a beautiful speech, but they completely missed the point. Crowley wasn't special because he was the best angel. He was the best angel because of who he is. (From a human perspective)

Being an angel is part of Crowley, whether he likes it or not. It's his past, and it was an important part of what shaped him into the person he is today. But Crowley is both a demon and an angel, just as Aziraphale is both an angel and, in some ways, a demon. That's the whole point: there is no absolute black and white, only shades of grey.

None of us is completely good or completely evil. We're simply human, carrying both kindness and cruelty within us. That's the message of Good Omens, and it's the message the ending completely distorted.

What Aziraphale should have said was something like: "And you were the best, above all, because your empathy and your curiosity were what made you fall in the first place. Even as a demon, you never lost that empathy or that sensitivity toward humans. You understood them even then. So it doesn't matter whether you're a demon or an angel. What matters is the person you've become because of everything you've lived through. Without your fall, you probably wouldn't be the same person you are today."

We’re asking, where does the soul live?

For those who think that who we are is shaped by a life time of experiences. That we grow and change with each each heartbreak and trauma. We see the ending as something horrible. We’re witnessing the death of our beloved characters and we are grieving for them.

For those who believe in a soul, who believe that Asa and Anthony are Aziraphale and Crowley because of the something intrinsic that lives inside them, what they’re seeing is a rebirth and a second chance. In that sense the ending is beautiful. They both get exactly what they’ve always wanted. To live as humans without the pressure of heaven and hell. In that sense, the ending is a joyous one.

Sadly these beliefs are deeply held, often the roots begin as far back as our childhoods. No amount of screaming at each other about media analysis is going to change anyone’s mind. Please just accept that there are multiple ways that one can view the ending and that those who are upset are experiencing grief. This is an extremely normal and valid reaction to end of something so meaningful and should be treated with care.

That said, your grief is not an excuse to lash out and those who don’t deserve it.

Hastur: think you're gonna get across that (the road on fire)? There's nowhere to go.

Crowley: let's find out.

Hastut; wh- why are you driving? What- stop this thing.

Crowley: you know the thing I like best about time? Is that every day it takes us further away from 14th century. I really didn't like 14th century. You'd have loved it then. They didn't have any cars back in the 14th century. Lovely, clever human people inventing cars,and motorways, and... Windscreen wipers. You got to hand it to them, haven't you?

Hastur: stop this! It's over! You're doomed! You hear me, Crowley?! You're doomed! Whatever happens, doomed!

Crowley: see? This day's already got better!

[...]

Crowley: you are my car, I've had you from new. You are not going to burn. Don't even think of it!

This scene is so symbolic and revealing. Hastur says, "You're doomed", " There's nowhere to go". He tells Crowley that he won't make it across the road of fire, a symbol of a long, painful, impossible path. He tells him that he's doomed, that he should give up.

But Crowley doesn't give up.

He puts his foot down on the gas pedal and says, "Let's find out."

Even though he's terrified (his snake eyes taking up almost all of his eyes, showing just how stressed and afraid he is), he refuses to surrender. He keeps going. His faith is stronger than the fire, stronger than the burning Bentley, stronger than the risk of discorporation itself.

That faith comes from knowing that Aziraphale is alive and waiting for him. In many ways, Aziraphale is the embodiment of Crowley's faith and hope. And alongside that is Crowley's love for humanity (his speech about how clever humans are, inventing cars, motorways, and windscreen wipers)

That belief and love will always be stronger than the voices telling us we're doomed, that there's no way out, that we should just give up. We have to keep fighting, no matter who tells us that all the bridges have been burned and nothing can be fixed anymore. Even if we don't succeed perfectly, we tried. We didn't surrender. We kept going until the very end.

To me, this scene captures one of the central ideas of Good Omens perfectly: even if you're driving a burning car down a highway consumed by fire with only a few hours left until the end of the world, that doesn't mean you should give up and say, "To hell with it, let everything burn down. Maybe another world would be better anyway." (Yes, Good Omens 3, I'm looking at you.)

Like Aziraphale is a covetous lazy hedonist easily swayed by mortal pleasures into disobedience, he is kinda jaded about Heaven in the book, he is the one willing to deceive a pair of Humans to go assassinate an eleven-year-old for him and the one willing to pull the trigger when it comes down to it… But he’s still also the only Angel who cared more about saving Humanity and the Earth than the beef with Hell, and even in the book he did managed to talk himself into having faith that Heaven will do the right thing and even his first act of disobedience, his lie to God, was because he just cared about humans so much, and he still does, more than any other Angel.

And Crowley is a Demon who has just as much if not more affection and care for Humanity, he often doesn’t have it within himself to actually cause meaningful harm to anyone, as the Serpent of Eden his greatest act of Temptation actually gave birth to human morality… but he’s also very much a slothful hedonist, he Rebellious and self-interested to the point it makes him rebel against Hell itself, and he is still Hell’s most effective tempter and corrupter by far and he did destroy a fellow Demon in cold blood, which was established in the Book as a huge Moral Taboo even for exceptionally cruel and sadistic Demons like Hastur and Ligur.

And then also, their ‘good’ and ‘bad’ actions are full of gray areas. They try to save the world and humanity mostly out of their hedonistic self-interest, both of their most ‘immoral’ actions happened for understandable reasons; Crowley destroys Ligur in what is clearly self-defense and Aziraphale plots out the assassination of a grade-school out of a sincere belief this is the only way to save the world. Moral ambiguity and humanity, that’s what this whole story is about, right?

And since GO1 sticks fairly close to the book, I think this idea is preserved… pretty well there as well. Like, I’d say that actually getting to see Aziraphale interact with other not-Metatron Angels helps drive the point even better. But also… Aziraphale lost his jadedness, while his sweetness, softness and faith in Heaven was emphasized, but so were his hedonism, pridefulness and hypocrisy. So it still evens out, just a lateral move, I think. Having Crowley be the first to explicitly mentions the concept of killing Warlock kinda lessens the importance of Aziraphale resolving to do it all on his own, but it’s done to heighten the drama around the subject, so there’s still plenty of impact when Aziraphale actually pulls the trigger…

And Crowley’s effectiveness in and fondness of Modernized Sin Spreading has been greatly de-emphasized but…. At least the new emphasis is on his laziness and deceit, which would still be ‘Hellish’ qualities, although I think this is still a much… safer variation of hellish qualities than letting him be a shameless little shit. On the other hand, Crowley’s rebelliousness and self-interest is emphasized greatly even compared to Book!Crowley, the whole Alpha Centauri plan showcases that he can narrow down the world to just himself and his Angel when things get dire.

…But even at the time it kinda bugged me how the concept of Crowley crossing some sort of Moral Taboo by destroying a fellow Demon with Holy Water was basically entirely gone. Not only was Hell 100% fine with publicly executing Crowley by Holy Water, they killed that other tiny random Demon basically just for the lols!

But, y’know, the Body Swap Sequence was otherwise so fucking Peak by Basically Every Other Metric (including furthering other important themes with Aziraphale and Crowley’s characters) that I was wiling to forgive it. Now, like, I still love all the Body Swap stuff to bits, but I also worry that it was an… omen of things to come. A Bad Omen, if you will.

Because by the time we get to GO3, this through-line is… maybe not exactly entirely gone, but definitely frayed and torn and jumbled. I suppose you can say this whole sequence plays on the whole ‘Aziraphale is simultaneously the Best and Worst Angel’…

But, like, both this scene and the whole Finale in general gives so little attention to Aziraphale’s good qualities, to that kindness and sweetness and courage, to the fact faith and trust and hope don’t have to just be foolish naïveté (And GO3 is not a Subtly Written TV Movie Thingy). And like, it's not just that wanting to enjoy Earthly Pleasures doesn't 'negate wanting to do the right thing, Aziraphale’s ‘sins’ intersect and blend with his ‘virtues’. His Hedonism fuels his genuine kind love of Humanity, his lies to God and Heaven, always to protect innocent Humans, were a demonstration of his conviction and bravery. Only Aziraphale really stands up to his own defense, and quite frankly, it feels mostly to set up the segway to Aziraphale talking up Crowley.

Which honestly just makes the whole situation here worse. Like, first things first, it just demonstrates how much of Crowley's rougher edges have just been... sanded off and retconned out over GO2 and GO3. He is just "The Best Angel" (and by implication, the Worst Demon), no interesting gray-areas nuance there. And in addition to many many other things that are Fucking Terrible about Aziraphale's 'Best Angel' speech (the inability to give Aziraphale a satisfying conclusion to his character arc, invalidating Crowley's own conception of his identity and past, the supposed 'love confession' culmination of the relationship being entirely in PAST TENSE, the massive imbalance in how this narrative treats Crowley vs. Aziraphale...), it also highlights how much we've lost the plot on this Theme of Humanity as it used to relate to the Ineffable Husbands.

In the book it was made very clear that living alongside Humanity has had a big effect on Crowley and Aziraphale, that it shaped them into the Beings we see play things out in the main storyline...

And back in S1 you could... insinuate that this was still the case. Obviously with the bigger focus now being drawn to Aziraphale and Crowley's relationship, you expect there to be a mixture of influences from both each other and Humanity as a whole but... As GO2 and GO3 went along, any sort of influence from being around Humanity got minimized more and more for the both of them. Like, Aziraphale already got so many of his positive traits and character moments attributed to being 'thanks to Crowley' and that absolutely includes his most 'Human' traits. Aziraphale couldn't even figure out how to eat food just from blending in among Humanity, Crowley had to tempt him to that first...

And with Crowley, this whole speech is about how great Crowley WAS, before his Fall, before the Beginning, before HUMANITY. If we see this Stupid Ass Speech as an accurate judgement of Crowley, then he basically burst fully formed out of God's Brow with all of his traits just inherent to his being from the start. Nothing of the things that made him so great were anything he also learned from Humanity or even just subconsciously rubbed-off on him.

Like, y'know, naive ol' me, when GO1 said Crowley was the only Demon to have an 'Imagination' in a piece of dialogue that seemed to deliberately call back to Book!Crowley's inner monologue saying Imagination is one advantage Humans have over Demons, I stupidly assumed that this means Crowley honed his Imagination from being around Humanity! That it was a cool, thematically-poignant moment because despite Crowley's Magical Miracle Power being what is literally keeping the Bentley going, the actual real Superpower behind this iconic badass feat is an inherently HUMAN trait!

...When instead I should've obviously realized that Crowley is just an inherently imaginative uniquely artistic soul who was like this since before the dawn of time and we humans have nothing to do with it, silly me!

It just drives home just how much Humanity has been diminished in this story, that is now trying to conclude itself with a Big Poignant Thing about Humanity. The agency of Humans is all but gone from the narrative that led us to this moment, no representative of Humanity is here to bring in our perspective while those four supernatural beings discuss the fate of the world, and the qualities and influences of Humanity that used to define our two main leads were gradually wiped out to glorify one of them as So Great and Wonderful and the Most Special (and thus also the least interesting version of one of my favorite characters...).

Maybe in a Better version of this scene, Crowley and Aziraphale could've realized that they are actually not that different from Adam Young. That much like him, they are technically 'divine' beings that have lived so long amongst the Humans, shaped by them, have been basically 'adopted' by Humanity, that both of them have much more in common with plain ol' mortal folks then they do with the two other supernatural beings sitting in the bookshop with them, and try to make their arguments from a point of Empathy, from the angle that they do kinda know what it's like to be a Human Person in a world jerked around by the whims of God...

(Something like that would've definitely lead into a 'Turning Human' Ending in much more satisfying and thematically coherent manner. Although I will emphasize that I'm talking about Crowley and Aziraphale turning human AS THEMSELVES, none of this reincarnation mindwipe bullshit that skips over all the emotional catharsis. But also like... maybe not inherently? Adam rewrote reality so that he was always Human and yet he still got to keep his powers, so....)

Instead all of Crowley's observations about Humanity and how much he cares about them is all in the third person, distant, pitying more than it is empathetic.

And Humanity is also diminished in the resolution of our story. Like, both in the sense that, like I said many times before, this whole ‘asking God to kill Themself and create a new universe’ thing is just not… actionable enough, at least not how they played it in the show, to be anything the Human viewers could feel like they could achieve to escape their own problems with systems of oppression, even metaphorically. It might’ve worked if we had more focus on how Crowley and Aziraphale’s Human qualities were the things to defeat God in any meaningful way.

But it’s also about how this conclusion is all about this Big Dramatic Gesture of Purely Selfless Self-Sacrifice for the Abstract Greater Good, which is… obviously there have been cases of Humans acting like this, that’s the whole ‘more grace than Heaven’ thing. But… for the climatic ending, the culmination of a series that supposed to be celebrating Humanity, and moral shades of gray, it is kinda weird for it to end on something so straightforwardly… Heavenly.

Especially when you compare it to the Book/GO1, how Adam’s victory over his Demonic ‘Destiny’ is this very human mixture of wanting things to be better, but also wanting things to be better for your own sake, because you’re the one who’s going to be living in this world…

And love, not just generally for some vague abstract concept of ‘Humanity’, but to the specific people around you that you love, to the places that you love, to the small world you’ve made around you to make sense of the hugeness of the universe…

And, yeah, a bit of selfishness, to avoid the burden of responsibility that comes with being in charge.

And Crowley and Aziraphale, for what little part they actually contributed to saving the world, did so, like I said, out of a mixture of kindness and selfishness. And all of the other Humans who contributed to saving the world did so out of an obvious, yet heroic, desire for self-preservation, and they each had their own quirky self-contradictory mess of virtues and vices…

This all feels very discordant when compared to Noble Suffering Hero Crowley’s Ultimate Selfless Sacrifice as an Ultimate Act of Universal Love to Humanity.