Like, okay, there's a level where I'm trying to be like "I have to engage with the baseline of what the story was clearly attempting to convey via it's framing and directorial choices and basic narrative structure. And the story that Good Omens Season 3 is trying to tell is that Crowley and Aziraphale have defeated God by convincing Her to make a Godless Universe. This is them wrestling some sort of agency out of God's rigged game, breaking the Ineffable Plan, and giving all of us free will"...
But also the thing is that it is so so easy, temptingly easy even, to make the argument that they never truly outplayed God, that everything that happened was exactly according to Her plan, that the Ineffable Plan was to get these two to sacrifice their lives to create a Godless Universe, that Crowley and Aziraphale just lost one final time in the Ineffable Poker Game for infinite stakes.
After all, why DID the Metatron think Aziraphale would be a good candidate for replacement Supreme Archangel? (and not any other of the 10 million Angels out there, or, say, one of the 4+ perfectly good actual Archangels hanging around Heaven who haven't repeatedly committed acts of treasons?) We never got any sort of decent explanation for thatâŚ
And how come Hell only bothered to revoke Crowley's access to Miracles just now, after letting him get away with it for years?
Well, a potential explanation would be that God was the one who actually told Metatron to promote Aziraphale and that God pulled the strings to finally suspend Crowley's Miracle Account, to get Crowley to his lowest point, to make him miserable and pessimistic and waste years gambling on rigged games, all to make him give up on Free Will and give up on his lifeâŚ
Meanwhile, Aziraphale goes along with his decision out of Love, the same Love that God has already said is 'Predictable'. So⌠wouldn't They have predicted that Aziraphale would agree to Crowley's 'Heroic Sacrifice' right at that moment?
And how come Crowley and Aziraphale even survived after the entire Book of Life burned? Well, what was the explanation for how Satan survived? It made for a 'Good Story' for God.
So is that why Crowley and Aziraphale survived? Because God wanted Her favorite little ship around for the final round of the Universe? Why, what is the Story She was trying to 'tell' with this ending? Maybe the Story was just⌠GO3?
And why did She even entertain Crowley and Aziraphale's questions and requests? She had no reason too, if She truly wanted to end the Universe once and for all, She could've just done it. She didn't have any obligation to follow Crowley's request for a new universe either? Maybe because this what She planned all along?
When Crowley and Aziraphale made their request, they didn't actually specify they wanted an Earth and Humans in that new Universe, God tossed it in (even though you'd think Predetermining Evolution like that would go against some sort of Free Will..), maybe because that was already in the Plan?
After all, the World was destroyed, exactly as the Great Plan said it wouldâŚ
If they actually restored that old world, you can say the Great Plan has been defied or broken. But is making a new Universe breaking it, or just continuing on the part that no one but God has ever seen?
Like, the thing is that we already introduced the concept of "actually, what if you just THINK what is happening now is going against the Plan but since the Plan is Ineffable and Nothing Can Be Against God's Will, so is just what She Planned All Along!"
Originally, it was presented jovially, with an optimistic, or at least ambivalent tone. Well, if anything you do is part of God's Plan, then you can do whatever you feel like! Maybe God wants Adam to choose his destiny, maybe God doesn't want the Universe to end, maybe God just wants Humans to have Free Will?
But then GO3 decided that, no, God is a straightforward antagonist that wants the world to end, and the existence of Her and Her Ineffability means that there is no Free Will and this world is not "real". It even emphasized the point of how someone might seem like and even think they are rebelling against God but they are actually only following Her will with Satan.
So⌠how the hell do we know that Crowley and Aziraphale aren't following God's will as well? That they aren't doing their jobs as characters in Her story? How do we know that this isn't also part of the greater ineffability?
I think the actual answer is just Bad, Rushed writing. The story put itself in a very difficult position, going up against an Ineffable God whose machinations invalidate the Free Will of the entire universe, and then never really establishing how or why our protagonists apparently have Free Will to defy Her this time. Even though the intent is for it to be the case.
But because the writing is so bad, it can absolutely set the stage for an even bleaker narrative than what was intendedâŚ
