Mostly Weird Thoughts About Good Omens

The Antichrist Dilemma

In season 1, Aziraphale and Crowley are faced with the choice of whether to kill Adam in order to save the world.

Crowley has to face this very early on -  he could kill the baby in the basket rather than deliver it to the Satanic nuns. Instead, he calls Aziraphale and together they work on a plan that doesn’t involve them having to kill anybody.

The closer they get to Armageddon, the more nervous they are and Crowley suggests to Aziraphale that he could kill the antichrist if it all goes wrong. Crowley believes in his argument that it is “one life, against the universe”, but knows he is too cowardly to go through with it himself. Aziraphale is braver, and Crowley therefore thinks he might do it (and that isn’t, to Crowley, a bad thing) so he attempts to persuade him. 

But Aziraphale doesn’t want to think about having to kill the antichrist and it isn’t until he discovers Adam's location that he has no choice but to confront what saving the world might mean.

And Aziraphale is torn. He already knows what both of his ‘sides’ want: Heaven wants the War, and Crowley wants Aziraphale to kill a child. Aziraphale isn’t ready to accept either of those plans, and instead is hopeful that one of them might suggest something better.

Heaven. 

People often criticise Aziraphale for going to Heaven first, rather than to Crowley. But, to me, this was the smarter move. Heaven is powerful and it is far more likely they could successfully eliminate the antichrist. It also means that Aziraphale wouldn't have to have another conversation with Crowley about which one of them should become a murderer.

Yes, this is passing the buck along but Aziraphale has seen Heaven kill children before. He knows they don’t care, and that they would just justify it as part of the Great Plan (which is not different to Crowley’s “one life against the universe”).

He approaches this conversation shrewdly. He doesn't trust Heaven, so only reveals enough about the antichrist to draw out their intentions. As soon as they confirm they still want the War, he stops trying.

Crowley. 

Aziraphale meets Crowley at the bandstand, and asks what the plan would be if the antichrist is found. You can see from his face that he doesn’t want the answer to “And then what? We eliminate him?” to be yes.

Crowley responds “Someone does. I’m not personally up for killing kids”, with the implication that Aziraphale should be up for it instead. 

Heaven has always wanted Aziraphale to be cold and dispassionately watch on as people die. Crowley's phrasing is a call back to exactly this situation, where he says ‘you can't kill kids’ while they’re standing beside the Ark. I believe that Aziraphale interprets this as Crowley hinting that because Aziraphale is an angel, he must be able to kill kids.

Aziraphale is hurt by this and responds defensively by falling back into old thought patterns (“You’re the demon, I’m the nice one”), which is hurtful to Crowley for exactly the same reason, and the conversation spirals from there.

“Heaven does not have blood on its hands” is similar. Aziraphale was literally just up in Heaven trying to persuade the archangels to do exactly that (his practice speeches all mention eliminating the antichrist). What he means is he doesn’t want the blood to be on his hands. But Crowley doesn’t know that, and so isn't going to hear this as anything other than Aziraphale being “holier than thou”.

I think what Crowley really means to say is “I'm sorry, I'm scared of what Hell will do and I can't kill the antichrist, it has to be you” and Aziraphale means “how could you ask this of me? You know I want to be soft” , but neither of them says that. 

Ultimately though, Aziraphale doesn’t want either of them to kill the antichrist and he calls Crowley back because he wants them to work together. But Crowley then offers up ‘flee’ as the new option, which Aziraphale can’t agree to either.

God

After both Heaven and Crowley have stuck to their original positions (or wants to run away), Aziraphale still doesn’t give up. He wants another way, and so he decides to speak to God. This goes just as badly as the first two.

Now, I've personally never seen this sequence of events as Aziraphale choosing Heaven over Crowley and then coming to his senses later. To me, Aziraphale is exploring what the options are - and then with them all laid out, he picks Crowley.

He calls Crowley to tell him where the antichrist is, gets discorporated and events follow on from there. By the end, Aziraphale & Crowley both agree they should kill Adam, and with Crowley's encouragement Aziraphale pulls the trigger. Luckily, Good Omens is (or was) a story about hope winning over fear -  Madame Tracey stops him from doing it, and Adam saves the world.

The Free Will Sacrifice

Season 3 spends no time showing us why Aziraphale and Crowley would sacrifice themselves for free will, we are supposed to accept this as the inevitable and correct conclusion. There are 75 minutes of the Second Coming and arguments about reforming Heaven, 10 minutes of ranting at God/Lucifer about philosophy, and then 2 minutes from Crowley on why death is the answer.

Aziraphale becomes an entirely different character in those 15 minutes. He doesn’t ask God any questions relevant to the current situation, wasting it instead to ask about Crowley, and then agrees blindly with exactly what Crowley wants without exploring any alternatives at all. Season 1 shows us why a character as hopeful as Aziraphale would try to shoot Adam, whereas in Season 3 Aziraphale has lost any autonomy of his own and now only cares what Crowley would do.

It’s like the writers looked at the bandstand scene and instead of seeing it for all of the complexity and emotional depth that it has - they just went ‘well, Crowley was obviously right, and Aziraphale was mean. Aziraphale must have learnt that lesson by now’.

Character motivation aside though - the reason this wasn’t a thematically appropriate ending to Good Omens is that in season 1, Aziraphale and Crowley were wrong. They didn’t need to sacrifice Adam. Why in s3 is there no Madame Tracey equivalent, and no Adam equivalent, for them to learn something from?

But I'm also mad that Anathema got killed after spending her life in hope of stopping the Armageddon that was foretold.

I'm mad that Adam who of his own free will decided to reject his Satan father never reached adulthood.

I'm mad that Pepper never got to fight for feminism and be a mother as she expected.

I'm mad because yes, there should have been another kiss, why does my favourite love story have only one that's painful?

I'm mad that Maggie and Nina and Max and their partner and Mr Brown and his hopeless crush got evaporated for no reason.

I'm mad because Gabriel owed Aziraphale help and proper thanks.

I'm mad because Muriel deserved to learn and not be shown as a brainless puppet who is dim and cheerful but cannot grasp what is really going on.

I'm mad because not one character in my favourite series got a happy ending apart from the main villain who got exactly what they wanted. And some strangers seemed happy too. Which is nice for them I suppose.

I'm mad because Dagon deserved to climb out of Hell and go, you know what, forget Heaven's stupid offices, I'm off to Tau Ceti e to check out the fumes I've heard of.

I'm mad because Aziraphale deserved a hug and thanks for everything he did and how he held off Second Coming.

I'm mad because Crowley deserved to actually be free of the sides he despised for so long.

I'm mad because Agnes Nutter didn't die so the Earth would evaporate 7 years after her book came to a close.

I'm mad because Eric deserved to become the chameleon acting face of generation suspected of being Dorian Gray.

I'm mad because Joshua deserved to confront his mother over a sacrifice that brought so much suffering into the world.

I'm mad because Metatron owed us an explanation.

I'm mad because that final scene was so stupid and painful and the set up looked so good.

I'm mad because they made Michael into a suicidal fundametalist.

I'm mad because GO3 lost all the whimsy and satire.

I have read so many fanfics that are so much better than what we got in the finale, especially the last parts. I’m sad that we’ll not see any of those enacted by David and Michael. We deserved something worthy of us. And we’ll continue to get it from the fandom, like always.

I have read so many fanfics that are so much better than what we got in the finale, especially the last parts. I’m sad that we’ll not see any of those enacted by David and Michael. We deserved something worthy of us. And we’ll continue to get it from the fandom, like always.

from a shippy perspective it's a really fun scene. and i know that there's a general impression the fandom seems to have formed around crowley's fall, with some amazing fanart and fanfic portraying it as a dramatic and heartbreaking affair... but one of the things i like so much about the original story is that, in it, crowley genuinely doesn't seem incredibly troubled about his fall. i really think, in the book at least, it was, for him, not much more than 'sauntering vaguely downwards', because while hell is definitely portrayed as a scary force that can and does do bad things to its subjects, joining that 'side' was sort of just something he fell into and has had to stick with ever since, even though he doesn't really believe in hell's mission. the fact that he ended up as part of hell's 'staff' is not something book!crowley frequently troubles himself with or tortures himself over - even if the threats he receives from his bosses every now and again do genuinely frighten him.

a lot of folks hc that crowley jokes about his fall to hide how traumatic it was for him, but i actually don't think it was intended to have been particularly traumatic, or even a dramatic spectacle, in the book. the fact that it was sort of just something that vaguely happened to him is deliberate, in my eyes - it points to the arbitrary nature of the 'sides' he and aziraphale are respectively on. the whole point is that the 'sides' themselves don't actually mean much in the end, so to paint crowley as someone who's tortured about the fact that he fell thousands of years after the fact is really interesting in its own right as a piece of fanon, but also feels to me like it isn't entirely true to one of the things the book was trying to say.

“Did not so much fall as saunter vaguely downward” is an (apparently) objective description in the book, not Crowley minimizing his trauma.

Besides, book-Crowley takes pride in his work as a demon; he isn’t 100% good and lovely and always trying to do good things under the pretense of doing demonic ones.

And, like, the thing about that is that this is kinda what I assumed was going on with Free Will in the original GO Universe up until GO3 happened. That while God was obviously involved in the creation of the world and maybe meddled more during Biblical Times, right now She is kinda absent and in the vast majority of cases leaves Humans to their own Free Will because She might not be truly benevolent, but She finds it Amusing.

God, in the book, is almost entirely absent. They’re not the narrator; there’s no Job scene, none of the characters directly interact with them except Aziraphale in a flashback he wrote in the margins. Is that something that actually happened, or an allegory, or his attempt to come to terms with his own actions?

It’s vaguely implied that some of the characters directly interact with God, but without specific details.

I have always believed that this was about us, how some people strongly believe they know God’s will (because “it is written”) but no actual confirmation has ever come from God themself (as far as we can verify).

God wasn’t an active participant in Good Omens, and should not have been. The whole point, to me, was that we do not and cannot really know what God wants, if they want anything, or even if they exist.

I have head canons about God in GO, sure, but making God interactive and malevolent kind of ruins the whole allegory for me.*

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Aziraphale is the character who drives most of the plot of s3, with Crowley barely doing anything of significance until the final confrontation with God.

This ends up being hugely damaging to Aziraphale’s characterisation, because the writers don’t care why Aziraphale would be taking these actions - only that they happen. Characters need to go from Point A to Point B, and they use Aziraphale to do this.

The Second Coming

Aziraphale knows nothing about the Second Coming when he agrees to take the job of Supreme Archangel, yet organising it has become his primary goal by the start of s3. He isn’t reluctantly planning it - in his first scene he is giving a speech where he is actively attempting to motivate the other angels.

Why is Aziraphale doing this rather than trying to reform Heaven? He does tell Crowley he doesn't want an 'awful, judgy' Second Coming, and had persuaded upstairs it didn't have to be the apocalypse, but that doesn't explain why he would be planning the new version of it. He has heard the archangels say they still want the End Times, and he's not naive enough to think they won't still try to co-opt it.

So why is he continuing to plan the SC rather than covertly sabotaging it? Does he want Joshua to give the inspirational speech he drafted despite all the risks? Or is he removing some element of free will for universal happiness/peace on Earth, and he thinks that's worth doing? Or is he being threatened? This shouldn't be something I need to headcanon.

The real explanation is that it doesn’t matter to the writers why Aziraphale would want this - without the Second Coming there is no Joshua, Joshua needs to exist and so Aziraphale has to plan it. 

Joshua

The way Aziraphale treats Joshua is perhaps the most egregious example of how Aziraphale is used to drive plot whether it makes sense or not. Joshua needs to leave Heaven, and so Aziraphale can’t be kind to him.

This means Aziraphale has to make several inexplicable mistakes with Joshua:

Their lives have been kind of a Modern Eden, full of basically limitless Earthly Pleasures and free of most of the actual inconveniences of Human existence - most importantly, death. While also being still trapped under the thumb of Divine Authority. Asa and Anthony are what happens when they bite the apple and get cast out of Eden; an actual human life without endless affluence and immortality, but with actual freedom and actual Free Will.

And, like, that might’ve been the intent, and that might’ve been real poignant if it was actually, y’know, well written, but I think there’s also a bunch of counter-arguments you can make against it. Like, just because that idea makes sense thematically, still doesn’t mean it makes sense narratively. And there’s plenty of thematic ways to challenge it as well.... But the specific thematic complaint I keep getting stuck on when it comes to this reading comes down to a pretty simple question. If Asa and Anthony are what happens when Aziraphale and Crowley bite out of the apple, why didn’t they ever get a chance to even just savor the first bite?

Like, y’know, the metaphor of the Forbidden Fruit is generally about authority trying to restrict you from some tempting pleasure, the original book basically ended with a passage about how ‘There never was an apple, in Adam's opinion, that wasn't worth the trouble you got into for eating it’. It’s about the joy of rebelling against authority, that the forbidden pleasures are worth the punishments you might get for your disobedience. But Crowley and Aziraphale get ‘cast down from Eden’ by refusing their pleasures, denying themselves the things they want for the Greater Good, and just kinda going quietly and miserably into that good night.

There’s hardly any sense that they’re really rebelling against God, or that they’re really doing anything She didn’t want them to do. (I mean, sure, the implication in ‘Good Omens’ has always been that God secretly wanted Adam and Eve to bite that apple, but the fact they did so against God’s explicit orders is a vital piece of that narrative! It’s a huge contrast to GO3 God giving Crowley and Aziraphale an open-ended question to suggest anything they want about the world without any implication that there is a ‘wrong’ answer). If they really are supposed to be sticking it to God, why not give them a moment to relish that rebellion? To at least enjoy the fact that She’s not going to be part of that new Universe either? Why is there no joy or pleasure in biting that apple? If they’re going to go, why can’t they at least go with style?

If this was a story where Crowley and Aziraphale chose each other, were both the other’s Forbidden Fruit, and then were turned Human as a 'punishment', or if they chose to remake the world without Heaven and Hell while turning all the Angels and Demons into Humans because it was the only way they could live freely together there would at least be some thread of thematic parallel. Instead the whole metaphor is meddled by Crowley and Aziraphale resolving to deny themselves pleasure, and then also the ‘forbidden fruit’ of being together not seeming so forbidden with God shipping it heartedly. Are Asa and Anthony being together a symbol of them having Free Will and independence from God, or a subtle hint that She’s still pulling strings?

It also all feels very discordant with the fact the ‘apple’ is supposed to be the Fruit of Knowledge. After all, this interpretation would kinda depend on Crowley and Aziraphale being Anthony and Asa on some level, and yet so much of their resolution leaves them in ignorance. Crowley and Aziraphale die totally unaware of the possibility of reincarnation or Cosmic Echos or whatever, Anthony and Asa live totally unaware of their past lives, of the ways they have hurt each other and never truly resolved, of all the things they lost and gained by becoming Human, of the metaphysical realities of this world. If this is life after biting the apple, why is it that Crowley and Aziraphale are much more aware and informed, while Anthony and Asa seem to make a case for blissful ignorance?

(And then also, in all of this thematic mess, there’s the fact that in this through-line supposedly about the value of Free Will and rebelling against God/authority no matter what the consequences might be and how it’s worth sacrificing for freedom… the result of Anthony and Asa living a life in a seemingly supportive and more ‘free’ environment also means that they seem be considerably less Rebellious than the Rock Star Demon and the Angel who lied to God’s face... They're the versions with Real Free Will but it seems to be mostly expressed by how much happier they are being 'Free' from having to make the kind of hard Choices Crowley and Aziraphale had to make...)

It all feels like yet another point where any sort of thematic resonance GO3 is trying to go for is seriously hampered by its dedication to make the Sacrifice feel like Maximum Tragedy OMG so sad and beautiful and selfless. Biting the Forbidden Fruit has almost always had that element of Pleasure to it, the last time Good Omens had explicitly talked about ‘biting the apple’ it was about it was worth it despite the consequences. But GO3 also wants Aziracrow to ‘turn human’ while they are at their most miserable and absolutely sure they are selflessly giving their life away.

Its also emblematic of the way the GO3 Ending seem to mush together all of these Biblical parallels without managing to actually cohere them into any sort of meaningful through-line, and in fact, often having them clash against each other. Crowley is the new Eve, leaving his own eternal Garden of Eden in the name of Free Will… but he is also the New Job, so he had to be utterly miserable and lose everything before he gets to that point, so actually neither he nor Aziraphale have been actually living that Modern-Day Eden Lifestyle of endless Earthly Pleasures for quite a while before they were supposedly ‘cast away from it’.

But then also he’s the New Jesus so instead of either being rewarded like Job or being punished but feeling that it was worth it like Eve (or like Adam Young), he has to Sacrifice his life nobly in the name of his universal selfless love for all mankind… But then also because he’s also still the New Job, his life has been so utterly miserable lately that he seemed to be basically suicidal, so is it really sacrificing your life if you don’t want to live anymore?

Instead of reaching out and stopping his exhausted angelic body from collapsing and falling after all the strain of keeping things together, everyone around him just watched his demise.

You learn she got an important job in politics of a fucked up country. She takes it (with a very heavy heart) because helping might change the world. And leaves the home she adores. Her partner refuses to move with her and help (they have the same job qualifications) because it's where he's from originally too and they really are fucked up. He suggests they run instead.

Then you learn that he spent years drinking and gambling and sleeping in an alley (he has plenty money so that's not a problem) after she left. He never checked on her even though the country she went to is extremely dangerous and they threatened her life twice before.

After few years or crazy hard work where everyone is against her, staving off a world ending disaster; she learns that he's not doing great and flies immediately back. He tells her to leave when she finds him, drunk and dirty. She does, she goes to check on her house. One they shared for over 200 years, even if not officially, because it was dangerous.

If you would treat this behaviour as equal, calling them both idiots, both equally flawed, both wrong, both should have tried harder - fine I guess. But I won't.

Yes, I pick sides.

Especially because he never admitted to doing anything wrong. Never even hinted at it. Because he's the one the story paints as victim. He's never mocked or blamed or shamed for anything he did.

And especially especially, because their fandom spent years asking for her to come back begging to be taken back, hoping she fails, suffers, that she's never welcomed back, called a cheater, some even calling for her physical abuse.

That's why I keep pointing out that Aziraphale might not be perfect, but she's not the asshole S3/F15 Crowley was turned into.

EVEN IF Aziraphale was always gonna fail, I will always think she made the right choice to try. And Crowley the wrong one by not trying. And leaving her on her own, despite his promises. She didn't deserve any of the abuse she got for years. Or by proxy the people who love her or identify with her did. Everytime someone posted something about her deserving pain for her decision.

Live reaction of me when I watched GO3 ending ahead of everyone because my dumbass was fucking scared and slipped past the unnecessary parts of the movie:

Me when I couldn't spoil shit for respect but I wanted to warn my moots about that shitshow of an ending:

My frustrated ass working on 3 hours of sleep while grieving GO3:

Me when I saw the "Dusting":

Me when I saw "The Decision"

When god started insulting Aziraphale:

Me during the mafia plotline:

Me when Aziraphale yelled at Sandalphon:

Me seeing FellOny right after: