Mx Max Zephyrus

Me watching GO1: I have lived to see the day in which a book so adored by the masses(and me) get an adaptation worthy of it!

Me watching GO2(although I did like parts of it) and GO3: ABORT MISSION ABORT MISSION

I recently read the book and found this sparkly little apple of a show dangling in my feed urging me to watch it. And the absolute horror I am met with when I watched GO3 on the same day as GO2. I was baffled by this sheer monstrosity. I'm beyond grateful for all of you who showed up to this platform and expressed your disappointment; finding people who shared my thoughts has been a great help in processing everything that has happened. And I can only hope to understand the feeling of being absolutely betrayed after years and years of waiting and watching something important to you come to this vile culmination. My thoughts go out to you and David Tennant and Micheal Sheen, who went with the script as far as they can.

I keep coming back to glibly describing the Ineffable Husbands’ arcs in the book as something along the lines of“Aziraphale gave up on an Eternal Heaven for interesting books and fine wine, Crowley faced Hell’s Wrath for good food and long naps”. The exact Earthly Delights aren’t important, there’s plenty of intersection anyways, but their relation to their respective sides is.

Book Aziraphale’s arc is about disconnecting himself from Heaven ideologically. He was already somewhat jaded about Heaven and aware that they’re Not So Different from Hell in some areas (“You'll be amazed at the kind of things they can do to you, down there.” ”I imagine they're very similar to the sort of things they can do to one up there.”) and disobeying his side obviously cannot be easy or safe for him - but the thing that's most important to his arc is that he did still keep insisting Heaven is fundamentally Good on some level, that Heaven’s victory in the Final Battle is assured and it’ll bring about a better world.

But for the sake of his individual hedonistic pleasures, he started working against this abstract ideas of a 'better world' and Heaven's ideas of 'goodness'. Because what's the point of an ideal world if it has no sushi restaurants or CDs? Gradually also getting more rebellious and morally disillusioned with his 'Side' and doing more 'unheavenly' and morally-gray things, until he was disparaging Heaven openly through the mouth of a preacher and passive-aggressively challenging the Metatron's authority at the Airfield.

And Crowley... well, the difference here was clear from the Beginning.

Aziraphale's worries about doing 'the wrong thing' seem to be mostly about... how he wants to make the right decisions because the right decisions are good. I'm sure he's got more practical worries about disobeying orders, but the focus is on the internal conflict between Heaven's orders and his personal sense of morality. Crowley however... doesn't want to have done the 'right thing', because it can get him into troubles.

Crowley always knew he’s working for ‘the Bad Guys’. He’s not totally ideologically disconnected from Hell either (‘“But it nearly worked," snapped Crowley, feeling he should stick up for the old firm.’) but he’s fully aware of what it means to be a Demon working for Hell tempting people into Evil deeds so that their Souls can be sent to Eternal Damnation. And he's got layers upon layers of rationalization and justifications for it, and he has found genuine passion and pride in his unique modernized form of sin-spreading that feels more mischievous than outright harmful, but underneath it all, Crowley just knows he's gotta keep pleasing Hell, or else.

His cool, confident, laid-back attitude is not exactly a façade, but it serves for a good counterbalance to what happens whenever he has to interact with his higher-ups (lower-ups?). Where even if he tries to still play it up like he's Cool Guy Crowley and he's totally chill and smug with higher-raking Demons, like Hastur and Ligur, the moment they break away from the area he feels is 'safe' (his MO as a tempter, in which he already proven himself to the Management) and shift to the End of Days, he clamps up and becomes nervous and 'haunted'. The narration, when describing his POV, sometimes tries to underplay it as just annoyance or frustration, the way that it tries to underplay his guilt in meddling in the affairs of Humans before the M25 and Adam plop that guilt right in front of his face, the way it tries to underplay his relationship with Aziraphale as a reluctant Arrangement of convenience despite all evidence to the contrary, but…

But Crowley’s fears about Hell are the most overt, probably because, well, his entire part of the plot is about being forced to accomplish a Very Important Task for his bosses (unlike Aziraphale, who until his ‘summons’ to the Final Battle, was perusing a personal side-quest no one in Heaven gave a shit about), and so they’re pretty much always breathing down his neck.

That’s what this whole ‘a Demon can’t have Free Will’ thing is really about. It’s less about him being Ontologically Evil, and more about, well, the Cold War Spy metaphor, he’s forever stuck in a shitty morally-compromising job, that despite all of the perks that allow him to live his affluent and effortlessly cool life, he could not leave, escape, disobey or fail at without suffering horrible horrible consequences.

But when faced with the prospect of losing Earth, and all of the experiences that come from living on it, even the most basic ones like a long sleep after a heavy meal, he tries anyway. He knows the consequences, he feels helpless and terrified, but he still risks Hell’s Wrath for food and naps.

...Well, his first plan is one that he convinced himself is relatively ‘safe’. An underhanded, cowardly trick worthy of one of Hell’s best tempters, but also informed by his very Earthly understanding of how the world works. If he performs his job as the Antichrist’s ‘Godfather’ as exemplary as he’s expected to, but places Aziraphale in to ‘thwart’ him then Armageddon could fail without Hell being able to place the blame on him. Probably. Hopefully.

And when it all falls apart and Hell does start coming for him. Well, first of all, it’s important that it’s in the same sequence that introduces us to Crowley’s idea of indoor gardening, which within the context of the book is absolutely him venting what he feels about the way Hell treats him…

And Crowley keeping that thermos of Holy Water in his flat shows that he’s been clearly paranoid of something like that happening for a while now. It’s a fear that’s been growing for longer than just the eleven years of the plot. And now it’s coming true. And Crowley has no choice but to face it. And he succeeds. Like, that’s part of what’s important about...

Crowley was outnumbered against two more powerful Demons. He was scared and he was underpowered and he faced one of his constant nightmare scenarios and he won. He outsmarted these two technically-more-powerful Demons with a little bit of foresight and a goofy pop-culture reference and a clever use of his natural Demonic abilities but mostly his natural (and very Human) cunning and knowledge of then-modern technology and his ability to play it cool even when he is scared and then he WON.

And from here on out, his road to Tadfield, to trying to stop the Apocalypse openly and directly, is basically him doing increasingly brazen and brave things, increasingly facing even more of his fears now that he's already got Hell pissed and after him. First trying to find Aziraphale at the burning Bookshop (clearly not as dangerous to him as it would be to a normal Human, but I won't say there was no risk of Discoporation), and then resigning himself to sacrificing the Bentley, and then crossing through the M25...

Like, the reason why this famous quote is so important...

Is because Crowley's optimism is truly 'underneath it all'. It's absolutely not self-evident. His inner monologue is always full of anxiety and fears and worst-case scenarios leaking through, thinking about how he can do nothing to stop Armageddon, thinking about how screwed he'd be if Hell finds out he fucked up Armageddon, thinking about how screwed up he is now that Hell found out that he fucked up Armageddon. One of the lines proceeding this one is literally "All was black, gloomy and awful. There was no light at the end of the tunnel-or if there was, it was an oncoming train." For the most part he might seem like a total pessimist, but he just... keeps going. He's cynical (that's his job!) and he's terrified and he just keeps going!

It's, y'know, layers. On the surface Crowley is this confident, laid-back and cool Demon that loves excitement and is costing through life not worried about anything, traffic cops chasing him around for speeding is just good fun so he can dunk on them. Below that, he's stressed out and scared, fretting about what will happen to him if he falls out of relative favor in Hell. But below even that, he is an optimist. A confident and utterly cool optimist.

And then he makes it to the Airfield, in the coolest way he possibly could, and... like, there are so many little character moments during the Airfield Climax. His insistence, with 'fatalistic gloom' that Adam stopping Armageddon wouldn't make a difference, but then his glee when he realizes that Aziraphale had found an out and joining him, even though it's clear how afraid he is of Beelzebub and that he is pissed with him... And then Satan comes.

Aziraphale's decision to stay and fight Satan is about his ideological disillusionment arc. Sure, fighting Satan might technically seem Angelic, but he makes it clear that he does it to 'make up' for all the troubles he caused Humanity as a representative of Heaven, explictly putting his 'Job' and Crowley's 'Job' as equally problematic, with no attempt to make himself morally superior. But for Crowley, when Aziraphale asks him to stay and help him fight, Crowley realizes that with all of his greatest fears already realized, all of his worst-case-scenarios having already come true, with nothing more to lose (well, I suppose he's still got Aziraphale to lose, but since the Angel already made up his mind to try and fight the Adversary, it's not like Crowley can do anything to stop that)... He is actually 'free' now.

Crowley realizes that deep down, he can and he wants to do such a brave and selfless thing.

Well, at the end, he doesn’t actually need to, but, like, it’s the thought that counts, right?

How about "it doesn't have to be tragic to be good"

Or "it doesn't have to be bittersweet to be meaningful"

Ok, I have some Thoughts about the depiction of God in season 3 when compared to season 1 and the book, and I need to get it off my chest, so bear with me.

God has very different roles in season 1 vs the book, and IMO, both of them are good and interesting in different ways. And they are also saying very different things about religion and faith.

In the book, God is completely absent, and that’s a very intentional choice. Even angels like Aziraphale have to guess at what God wants. In that way, even though heaven and hell and God demonstrably exist in this universe, the characters still have the struggles that IRL humans have w/r/t trying to discern God’s will. And, because the book is essentially an atheist satire, the whole point ends up being that it doesn’t really matter what God thinks or intended, it really only matters what individuals choose to do. A good argument can be made that God doesn’t even exist in the Good Omens book, which proves this point even more.

In season 1, there is a very different approach to God. God is the explicit, omniscient narrator, and She is the one who takes us through the entire story. I absolutely love this choice and Frances McDormand’s performance: I think it was an excellent choice to keep some of the brilliant narration of the novel as a voiceover, and it gives us insight into God as a character. In season 1, it is very clear that God, as narrator, is on Crowley and Aziraphale’s side, against Heaven and Hell. She is on Adam’s side. She is on the side of preventing the apocalypse and keeping humanity’s free will. For instance, the card narration during the baby swap scene is so revealing—God is reveling in this goofy-ass scheme, She is having fun at the interruption of Heaven and Hell’s plan to destroy the world. God also appears multiple times in flashes during Adam’s scene where he gives up his Antichrist nature, and it’s implied during that sequence that God Herself is helping to “wipe away” Adam’s darkness, in response to his rejection of the Antichrist. The point of God’s presence and alignment in season 1 is to make a critique of organized religion: it shows that Heaven and Hell are basically just rival sects imposing their own will and ambitions on God, just like human churches and sects do.

All of that being said: the God we get in season 3 is, apparently, completely different from either of these two Gods. She is not the detached, uninterested, potentially nonexistent God of the book, and She is not the invested, omnipresent, benevolent God of season 1. She is, if I may, basically Chuck from SPN. She is totally fine with just resetting the entire universe and destroying Her entire creation. She is not Neutral Good, or True Neutral, She’s Neutral Evil.

This is so much less interesting than either of the other two options, because for one, it’s been done a hundred times before. Yet another “Kill God” storyline, wow, groundbreaking. And for another, it doesn’t really have anything interesting to say about religion. Ok, so God is a piece of shit. What does that say about humanity and our embrace and/or rejection of religion? Absolutely fricken nothing.

Now an angel and a demon dance around the stars...

Ok. So every day I give birth to a new post, being sure that this one is DEFINITELY the last. And here we are. The thing is, I have been exchanging comments with people in the fandom, and they made me realize what I really dislike in the finale. Before that, I could not quite put my finger on it.

I know this will probably be a controversial take. Sorry if it is. As always, feel free to ignore it.

I realized that I hate what was done to humanity in Season 3. The real humanity, with real people behind it, was replaced by the concept of humanity with true free will ("humanity" from now on). Satan, am I clear? It replaces real, messy individuals with a kind of idealized category. This "humanity" is presented as inherently more valuable than everything else. The replacement is even literally there. People are wiped out, and "humanity" is promised in the new universe.

Season 1 celebrated humanity exactly the way I like it. You know, with all its beauty, but also its messiness and flaws, and definitely without making it superior or the only thing that matters.

Season 3 frames "humanity" as inherently more valuable than everything else. As if angels and demons are not even worth considering because they are not human, so they can simply be removed from existence. Someone could argue that angels and demons were abusers, which justifies getting rid of them, but that point did not really land for me, especially with so many likeable characters. Even in the book, demons as a whole are not framed as true abusers. Sure, there are ones like Hastur who are, but there are plenty of human versions of Hastur out there too. It is emphasized that many of the other demons are not actually interested in harming humans. They are just doing their shitty job. And one could try to make them aware that they can refuse to do it (or make me believe that they truly cannot), rather than wiping them out.

Generally, this superiority of "humanity" not only bothers me because it is completely detached from, well, humans. It can be used by very real people to justify animal cruelty, for example. Moreover, minorities and outsiders are often treated as a threat to "humanity", and then harming or excluding them from society suddenly becomes acceptable too.

No one can convince me that the Crowley and Aziraphale we all know— the real ones, not the strangers of the finale— would ever choose our destruction (or their own, for the matter). They would understand on a personal, molecular level how vital it is to keep going and how important it is to be yourself in spite of the oppressive systems that do their damndest to shape us. They wouldn’t give up— not ever.

So fuck this finale, fuck the idea that it’s too late and fuck anyone who says otherwise, frankly.