Soft-Gays-Only

Because Crowley? Crowley wants to be the hero. Crowley wants to be James Bond. He wants it so badly it hurts, bullet-hole windscreen transfers and all. Crowley’s deep, dark fantasy is that he can be good - but also a little bit bad. The rogue agent, the wild card, the one who doesn’t follow the rules, and doesn’t much truck with listening to his superiors. Crowley’s deep, dark fantasy is one in which he gets it right; in which he does the right thing at the right time, and has the right witty comeback in the right situation, and instead of being punished, he saves the day and wins the heart of the genderless celestial being of his choice. Crowley’s deep, dark fantasy is one in which he is never not in control of his situation; one in which he bounces back easily and stylishly from all manner of fights and challenges and adversity; where he faces nothing he cannot overcome with the right combination of wit, ballsiness, and a little Hollywood luck. Crowley’s deep, dark fantasy, the one he can never, ever admit out loud, is one where the world is simple and uncomplicated in the way nothing in real life is simple and uncomplicated; a world in which the good end happily, the bad unhappily, the baddies are dispatched in PG-13 fashion, and none of it needs to be questioned or second-guessed at all.

If you want to imagine the future, imagine a boy and his dog and his friends. And a summer that never ends. And if you want to imagine the future, imagine a boot... no, imagine a sneaker, laces trailing, kicking a pebble; imagine a stick, to poke at interesting things, and throw for a dog that may or may not decide to retrieve it; imagine a tuneless whistle, pounding some luckless popular song into insensibility; imagine a figure, half angel, half devil, all human... Slouching hopefully towards Tadfield. ...for ever.

I submit humbly that that ending is not the voice of a writer (the interview in the illustrated tie-in edition specifies that "the kids mostly originated with Terry") who would ultimately be down with annihilation as the Only Solution To The Problems Of The World.

Bonus reminder: I'm betting this passage is Terry's ("vanload of hippies on a blotterful of Owsley's Old Original" has that ring to it). I ask you, does it describe a character who would only a few years later in story time -- after sixty centuries of ups and downs -- (1) wallow indefinitely in a drunken sulk, and then (2) tell God to finish erasing the world, including himself and his best friend, and start over?

Because, underneath it all, Crowley was an optimist. If there was one rock-hard certainty that had sustained him through the bad times -- he thought briefly of the fourteenth century -- then it was utter surety that he would come out on top; that the universe would look after him. Okay, so Hell was down on him. So the world was ending. So the Cold War was over and the Great War was starting for real. So the odds against him were higher than a vanload of hippies on a blotterful of Owsley's Old Original. There was still a chance.

Katara from ATLA

... Meaning, I'm pretty sure Neil Gaiman did it ON PURPOSE, knowing how much it would upset the fans.

Neil knew how badly we wanted Aziraphale and Crowley (OUR version of Aziraphale and Crowley---the specific version of them we met in Season 1) to be together. He knew we wanted to see them resolve their issues and ultimately choose to be with each other in the end.

Instead, Aziraphale and Crowley forgo that emotional journey in favor of unnecessary pain. Neither of them experience real character growth in the finale; they are shown to be the worst and unhappiest versions of themselves, without getting a real shot at redemption. They never fix their communication issues. They don't express their true, authentic feelings for one another (don't @ me with that bullshit hand kiss thing). They never manage to get on the same page emotionally---even when they both agree to commit suicide (which I'm pretty sure was not the "one thing" Aziraphale wanted).

"Why give me Crowley? Why make me complete and then take it away?"

EMOTIONAL WITHHOLDING is a common abuse tactic utilized by men like Neil. They enjoy creating ATTACHMENT in their victims and then "TAKING IT AWAY".

It's easy to see how much Neil enjoyed frustrating his fans in retrospect. He actively taunted us on social media with the catchphrase "WAIT AND SEE" and threatened to make Aziraphale and Crowley kiss---but in a way we "wouldn't like". He loved dangling the implied promise of a happy ending over our heads, which we now know he never planned to deliver on.

Neil was unkind to his audience. He was also unkind to his characters. Aziraphale and Crowley are treated as punching bags throughout the entire series---shown to be "messy" for the sake of entertainment, but not as a real obstacle for either of them to overcome. God herself says she enjoys seeing how much Aziraphale values his relationship with Crowley. And this turns out to be her justification for "taking it away". (Tell me THAT isn't some fucked up shit.) Aziraphale and Crowley experience real emotional pain as the result of her actions---and this is constantly demonstrated by the incredible acting of Michael Sheen and David Tennant.

Neil explicitly sold this as "a love story" when he created the show. Based on the tone of the book, an eventual union between Aziraphale and Crowley would have made the most narrative sense. It would have emphasized the overarching themes of love, agency, and the futility of "choosing sides". But that would have required Neil to possess the same ethos as Terry Pratchett---meaning LOVE AND RESPECT FOR FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS.

We were never going to get a good love story out of Neil. Men like Neil get off on "PUNISHING" people for no apparent reason; he obviously did this with our beloved characters, to disastrous result. Nonetheless, we still manage to ascribe deeper meaning to Aziraphale and Crowley, thanks to the phenomenal acting team and the dedication of this fandom. Aziraphale and Crowley remain the greatest love story of all time, not because of anything Neil actually wrote, but because of everything that was projected onto them by the people who cared. We assigned their relationship a depth "Neil himself" never could have imagined---one that exemplifies our maximalist ideals of love and the decision to choose it again and again, in spite of everything. It is never going to "end" on Neil's preferred terms. In this rare instance, fan interpretation STILL MANAGES TO ECLIPSE THE SOURCE MATERIAL---and that is because LOVE is always a more powerful story than ABUSE.

Absolutely!

The only pushback I would give is that, while I understand and agree that the finger kiss wasn't enough, based on everything they, and we, went through to get to a point of reconciliation, I do think it COULD have been the most romantic gesture ever, in keeping with Aziraphale's Austen-influenced ideals of romance, with just a little tweak (aside from it not essentially being "goodbye forever"). Had we got to see Aziraphale head-on as he pressed his fingers to Crowley's lips, and he had mouthed "I love you" it would have been a moment of brilliance and heart-melting (again, if not paired with mutual destruction).

Yes, I do agree with you---all of those tweaks would have made the scene more emotionally explicit, which is what the story needed, and what those characters deserved.

I really don't love this trend of authors "resurrecting" themselves on social media (shoutout to Roland Barthes---"Death of the Author"). In retrospect, it's kind of creepy how Neil felt the need to insert himself into reader discussion. He could have let us have our own headcanons and admittedly unhinged blog posts (ahem). But no---he was adamant on his own authority. I almost think he was JEALOUS of the amount of depth we were able to assign to Aziraphale and Crowley. It seemed like he wanted to claim those interpretations for himself.

Seriously, though, I wasn't actually coming @ you. Just rambling out loud. 🙂

I agree S2 had elements of trying to capitalize on the fandom headcanons, but honestly, I'm not mad about it. S2 was a lot of fun (until the Final 15), and though it had plot holes, they were fun to imagine scenarios by which they might be resolved in S3.

Ownership meant a physical copy. Now you own nothing and can't find what you want across multiple streaming platforms.

After everything they'd gone through together, all their history, their love spanning 6000 years, they literally vanished into dust.

Their "human versions" are not them. They met each other in their 50s? 60s? and will get like 30 or so years together.

No sticking together for centuries despite being from opposite factions in an eternal conflict, no developing their rivalry, friendship, and eventually love throughout the ages, no having each other's back despite the dangers of doing so, no bickering, no rescuing each other, no "you go too fast for me, Crowley", no 'our' Bentley, no "angel" as a pet name, NO THEM. At all.