#ineffable plan

They love humanity precisely because humans have free will, the ability to choose who and what they want to be. Humans had the very thing Aziraphale and Crowley believed they themselves lacked — free will. But they had it all along. Otherwise, Aziraphale would never have lied to God, never given away his sword, never interfered with the divine plan by saving Job’s children, never made the Arrangement with Crowley, never chosen Crowley over and over again, never agreed to stop Armageddon in the end. Crowley would never have asked questions, never helped Aziraphale save Job’s children, never talked Elspeth out of suicide (which, ironically, he himself ended up committing in the finale), never saved his angel time and time again, never kept choosing Aziraphale, never done good deeds when he was explicitly told to do evil instead, never stood side by side with his angel to stop Armageddon. Free will always existed, absolutely. For angels and demons alike.

And free will doesn’t belong only to them. All angels and demons have it — it’s just that, unlike Aziraphale and Crowley, none of them spent enough time on Earth to become more human and fully realize that free will, enough to stand against the system that kept telling them they didn’t have any in the first place.

To me, Good Omens also reflected our own reality — how many people in positions of power use God and the “divine plan” as a shield for their terrible actions. I always saw God in Good Omens as something like a bored but merciful being who genuinely loves Her creations — and that’s exactly why She gave them free will. That was her original plan all along, otherwise, as Crowley himself said at the beginning of season 1, She would’ve put the Tree of Knowledge on the Moon, on a mountaintop, or simply never created it at all if She didn’t want humans to have free will. That is Her Ineffable Plan — to give humanity free will. When Aziraphale says in the finale that they want a universe where there is “nothing ineffable,” he is literally saying “no free will.” It feels like the people behind the finale heard the phrase “Ineffable Plan” but never actually understood what it meant.

And when She made the wager with Satan during the Job story, She already knew Crowley wouldn’t destroy the goats or kill the children. She knew Aziraphale wouldn’t allow it to happen either. She knew he would lie in order to do the right thing. Precisely because he has free will. She is omniscient — She knew everything from the very beginning. She knows what was, what is, and what will be. She is not cruel — the cruel ones are those who speak in Her name. The Great Plan does not belong to Her; only the Ineffable one does. The “Great Plan” was invented by those claiming to speak for Her.

The original theme, free will as part of the ineffable plan, felt lost and replaced with cheap drama. What began as a comedic story with religious motifs that satirized the idea of total self-sacrifice for a “better” world instead of actually trying to fix things, ultimately ended with exactly that kind of sacrifice, along with a strange, inconsistent drama that doesn’t align with established characterizations.

The logical flaws aside -- why assume the God we're shown in s3 would keep her bargain? How was humanity any freer to choose than in the 6000 year old Good Omens universe, given that choices still have consequences in our world, whether or not a capricious God imposes them? -- I could go on -- none of this Byronic defiance of/bargaining with God fits the narrative we fell in love with.

One of the conspicuous things about Good Omens, the book, and the screenplay thereof, is the absence of God in the proceedings. Her presence as an omniscient narrator obfuscates this, but God's voice-overs actually stand in for a neutral narrator voice in the book (mostly Terry's, from the tone of those passages). After the Flood, when Aziraphale states the Almighty is a bit "tetchy," God doesn't take any direct action. In fact, it's a critical element of the plot that Aziraphale is certain God will listen to reason if only he can speak to Her, but his attempt to reach Her is blocked by the Metatron; we get no assurance that God is even paying attention at this point. Heaven and Hell, certainly, are gung-ho for their cosmic footie match, winner take all. And Heaven seems to have lost its grip on any concept of what "good" actually stands for. That is one of the things the book was satirizing -- the definition of goodness as blind compliance with received authority, with rigid, arbitrary rules and black/white concepts of virtue. Aziraphale and Crowley, the observers who've been embedded with Humans for centuries, have learned that existence is more complex.

Aziraphale brings that home with his rules-lawyering at the airfield. Yes, the War is the Great Plan, but is it the Ineffable plan? The one that is apparently only known to God? Neither Heaven's nor Hell's representative can answer. The whole operation comes to a screeching halt, Gabriel (or the Metatron) and Beelzebub retreat, Adam stands firm when his father appears to thunder at him. Armageddon aborted, it would seem -- and still God, in the phrase of Porphyria's Lover, has not said a word.

Is God even bothered at this point? Has S/He buggered off somewhere to be Ineffable, leaving everything to representatives who may have drifted further and further off course? Does the Metatron even talk to Her as billed, or has he usurped God's authority, Wormtongue-style? (That would fit with putative manipulations of the Book Of Life.) Is God still set on that six thousand year drop-dead date? Or does She even remember where She put her toys? I think it would be a very Pratchetty thing to find -- perhaps after another Aziraphalean throat-clearing, or perhaps Crowley taking point this time -- that God got distracted, or learned from Her creation, and was receptive to skipping the whole seas turning to blood, last judgment business.

I know the second Crowley will think Aziraphale is in trouble, he'll break into Heaven and get his husband back (and Muriel will help).

Get Principality Aziraphale to fall in love with the Starmaker Crawley Edit: Get the Serpent of Eden A.J. Crowley to fall in love with the Guardian Aziraphale of the Eastern Gate and Make Sure Aziraphale loves him back Edit's Edit: And do it before March 2040 because I have a bet with Satan

So first things first: the obvious.

After 6.000 years together on earth, we have established, with any trace of doubt that Crowley and Aziraphale LOVE EACH OTHER. 

We’ve also learned that Demons have morals (by Crowley refusing to destroy everything Job holds dear). And that Angels can be TEMPTED (by Aziraphale accepting the food and lying not only to the archangels but to the SUPREME archangel, that those were Job’s new kids). 

So, that brings us to the declaration. 

Hiya! :) Crowley realizes that they don't actually know what God's plan is, so they can with Aziraphale bullshit them to go away :D (like... oh you thought that the Great Plan about War is the thing? oh no, actually the Ineffable Plan is and it means something different...), in the book there is:

"Excuse me," said the angel.

The trio looked at him.

"This Great Plan," he said, "this would be the ineffable Plan, would it?"

There was a moment's silence.

"It's the Great Plan," said the Metatron flatly. "You are well aware. There shall be a world lasting six thousand years and it will conclude with—"

"Yes, yes, that's the Great Plan all right," said Aziraphale. He spoke politely and respectfully, but with the air of one who has just asked an unwelcome question at a political meeting and won't go away until he gets an answer. "I was just asking if it's ineffable as well. I just want to be clear on this point."

"It doesn't matter!" snapped the Metatron. "It's the same thing, surely!"

Surely? thought Crowley. They don't actually know. He started to grin like an idiot.

"So you're not one hundred percent clear on this?" said Aziraphale.

"It's not given to us to understand the ineffable Plan," said the Metatron, "but of course the Great Plan—"

"But the Great Plan can only be a tiny part of the overall ineffability," said Crowley. "You can't be certain that what's happening right now isn't exactly right, from an ineffable point of view."

"It izz written!" bellowed Beelzebub.

"But it might be written differently somewhere else," said Crowley.

"Where you can't read it."

"In bigger letters," said Aziraphale.

"Underlined," Crowley added.

"Twice," suggested Aziraphale.

"Perhaps this isn't just a test of the world," said Crowley. "It might be a test of you people, too. Hmm?"

"God does not play games with His loyal servants," said the Metatron, but in a worried tone of voice.

He and Crowley went all the way. It had taken six thousand years, one of the worst fights in history, and two things neither of them understood about the other, plus a great deal of alcohol, but they had made it. And it had been so good. So right . He looked again at Crowley, who in the meantime had not stopped staring at him.

“So we ... we got it ...”

“Done. Yes, we did it and it was magnificent. You were magnificent,” Crowley said with an irresistible smile.

“You too,” Aziraphale said in return with his usual smile. He had never made it a secret that he was head over heels in love with Crowley, the only person he kept denying it to was himself. But his looks could not lie: Aziraphale had worshipped Crowley since the dawn of time.