By the way, it is SO fucked-up that, like, through Aziraphale’s entire relationship with Crowley, he was struggling with this precipice between self-indulgence and self-denial. Like, Aziraphale is already a very indulgent person who enjoys a lot of things that a Good Angel is not supposed to care about, and he’s not immune to feeling shame and insecurity about it when Heaven points that out…
But he could still convince himself that eating at London’s best restaurants every day is not only harmless, but actually Important to his job of blending in with and inspiring humanity. But then there was Crowley….
And on some level he always knew that being with Crowley and loving Crowley were the things that made him the happiest, but he also ‘knew’ that this was wrong, bad, evil. Crowley is supposedly his ‘hereditary enemy’ and Ontologically Evil. But as always, Aziraphale can’t keep himself away from temptation and joy, but it’s just that sense of guilt manifests as the self-righteous moralizing and the emotional distance he still put between them.
And then he finally got the reaffirmation that the supposedly ‘selfish’ and ‘unheavenly’ things he wanted, Crowley and also all of the earthly delights of the world and avoiding the War, were actually the real Good Things all along. And now he can live with Crowley in a… not exactly the Happily Ever After they 100% wanted deep down, but definitely the happiest and closest mutual co-existence they ever had.
There was still tensions, Aziraphale’s desire to do good still sometimes clashes with Crowley, the end of the world was coming up again and neither of them had a good idea for stopping it, and while Aziraphale’s indulgent selfishness is not as inherently bad as he always believed it was, it did have a dark side that was making him take Crowley for granted and ‘take’ too much in their relationship. But… it didn’t seem like anything they couldn’t resolve between each other eventually.
… Until the Metatron comes in with the temptation of a lifetime, what if instead of unlearning your shame and your indoctrination and needing to balance the Greater Good with your desire to be with Crowley Happily Ever After, you really could just have it all? What if you could make Crowley the Thing You’re Not Ashamed of Loving and the two of you could fix Heaven and save the world together? Maybe even make the world a Better Place? But by taking that bait, he just hurt Crowley and drove him away from him. But he still chose Heaven, over his actual happiness with Crowley, because he convinced himself that was actually the good, selfless thing to do.
He sacrificed everything that actually made him happy, again.
I think Aziraphale's GO1 Storyline makes for a perfect narrative all on his own. Unlearning guilt and embracing 'selfishness' only to realize your supposed selfish desires are aren't only okay, but are actually way more Good than the thing you were trying to 'selflessly' sacrifice for in the first place, is a very good throughline for this story about satirizing Christianity and embracing moral grayness and Queer Love.
But since GO2 really tried to make a Thing about the idea the amount of self-sacrifice in the relationship was unbalanced... I really wish Aziraphale’s arc could conclude with him being able to lean balance, some actual shades of gray, between the importance and beauty of his ‘selfish’ love for Crowley and also not expecting him to be the one who sacrifices everything in the relationship. Instead, by the time he finally embraces the fact that nothing makes happier than simply being with Crowley and learns to not take him for granted and actually give him something to show his love… apparently the one thing Crowley wanted, the actual ‘Greater Good’, not only requires them to not be together, but for neither of them to even exist.
And Aziraphale ends this arc of his basically at the same place where he started, believing that his happiness with Crowley is antithetical to Doing the Right Thing and that he should sacrifice it all. Only this time there's nothing stopping him from actually going through with this...
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