So a lot of people have been talking about how GO2-3 feels so very disconnected from GO1 (and on some level, GO2 and GO3 also feel disconnected from each other). And there are a few reasons people have been bringing up in terms of tones and themes and narrative structure and genre shifts, but also just in terms of characters. How no Book Omens characters except Crowley and Aziraphale appear or are even referenced in the latter two seasons (outside of a few oblique references to Adam as just 'the Antichrist' and a brief cameo of him in the 'Real' Universe).
And I do agree it does feel jarring, maybe if the fabled 'original' plans for GO3 have come to fruition and Young Adult Adam was actually relevant to the Plot (and maybe also promoted appearances by other Tadfield characters) it wouldn't have felt quite so disconnected. But… I think it's more than the individual Human characters themselves not appearing, there is a major and jarring shift in the way 'Good Omens' write Human characters between the Book, and thus also GO1, and Good Omens Seasons 2 + 3.
The original Human cast of characters was very Wacky and Quirky and Somewhat Exaggerated, just as much as our primary supernatural characters, Crowley and Aziraphale, were. The Them were pastiches of Kids Adventure Story Tropes, Newton Pulsifer were so bad with technology it was LITERALLY a superpower, Sister Mary Loquacious was a goofy well-meaning Satanist nun, we had an insanely determined Delivery Man just doing his job and trickster-y mad old seer and her activist occultist Professional Descendant and Shadwell, who is basically a living cartoon character.
Meanwhile, the Humans of GO2 and GO3 feel a lot more deliberately "grounded". Less goofy, no real chances of having strange-bordering-on-the-supernatural quirks, more generally "normal", even when they are in difficult situations like abusive relationships or estranged family members. The lack of the quirky narration explaining the characters' lives and personalities also lessens any comedic quirkiness they might have, but even disregarding that change, I think there was a noticeable shift. The most we have now is… what? 'Harry the Fish' being kind of a silly nickname and Brian Cameron playing Monopoly once.
I think this change in how Human Characters are characterized does kinda work in GO2, it works in tandem with the narrative focus being now truly on Crowley and Aziraphale's supernatural romance and Heaven/Hell Drama - there is just less narrative focus on Humans, and the focus that is there is used to contrast them with the supernatural characters' abnormality. And it works with the genre shift, from outright Comedy to Romantic Comedy, which although still being a 'Comedy' by definition, tends towards making it's characters feel more 'grounded' on some level… but it is absolutely one of the factors that make GO2 a fundamentally different work from GO1/Book Omens, which is only exasperated in GO3 as the story veered farther and farther away from being any sort of 'Comedy'.
But it's also… The characterization of the Humans isn't just important from the perspective of Book Omens/GO1 being a Comedy, it's important from the angle of it being a very Humanist Comedy. The characters are somewhat exaggerated and cartoony, but they reflect on the real strangeness and wackiness and messiness and self-contradictory nature of Humanity. They are a living demonstration of the reasons why Crowley and Aziraphale are so fond of us Humans, why we are the only ones with the real power to doom or save the world. Madame Tracy being both an unashamed scam-artist and the kindest person in the story, Sister Mary being both a satanist and a nurse and a bit of a scatterbrain and her transformation into a Serious Businesswoman, R.P. Taylor's failed attempts to adapt to the strange world around him... It's silly, it's goofy, but it's also all so very human.
And much like Crowley's 'modernized sin-spreading' being to blame for most of the world's everyday annoyances was inviting the readers to imagine a little of the magic of the setting in their real-life, this also extended to the quirkiness and magic of the human characters, do you ever feel like you're as bad with computers as Newt? Maybe the Weird Old Coot you know is secretly scamming an Angel and a Demon for a few hundred pounds a month? If the most important part of being a Witch is a practical mind and a kitchen knife, maybe you can be like Anathema as well?
And then, when GO2 suddenly makes all of it's Humans so… normal and saves most of it's quirkiness and Messy Drama to it's supernatural characters, it kinda feels like it's saying "Look, we all know Humans are boooring, let's focus on the Angels and Demons instead!" And… while there were Good Omens fans disappointed by GO2, because of the shift away from the Humanist themes in general or specifically because they loved the Book Omens/GO1 Humans and thus weren't 100% happy to see Good Omens turn entirely into the Crowley and Aziraphale Show. A lot of fans were fine with this shift… Because we were kinda interested more in the Angels and Demons. Like, I'm not going to pretend that I'm not one of those GO fans who always finds reading through the book's mostly AC-less middle third to be kind of a slog.
I appreciate the point of the Human cast thematically and intellectually, but speaking from a personal perspective, I can't pretend it that emotionally it actually 100% sold me on all of these guys being just as interesting as Crowley and Aziraphale. I think it would be fair to say the actual best Humanist thematically-consistent solution would be to try harder, flash out the Human characters even more, create new Human characters whose unique bizarreness and quirky charm and messy pathos can rival Crowley and Aziraphale's… But GO2's solution of just decentering the Humans while making them more grounded and sensible (including the most important ones being Crowley and Aziraphale's more grounded and sensible counterparts) worked because it was telling us this is just backdrop for the Supernatural Romance stuff, and then supplying us with the Supernatural Romance Stuff in spades.
Where the Problem truly rears it's ugly head is in GO3, which suddenly tries to pull out a big thematic curveball where actually the Supernatural Romance we've been building up for the last two seasons is now suddenly less important than the previously-sidelined theme of Humanity, and our main characters and romantic leads have to sacrifice themselves for the sake of Humanity and the whole thing… tries to end on a big uplifting message of how wonderful it is to be Human in the real world and it's actually so much better than being an Angel or a Demon in a fantasy world.
And this supposedly uplifting message fails for me and for many others for many many many different reasons. But one of those reasons is just that… I don't feel like this story actually believes in the beauty of our mundane non-magical human existence, it can't sell me on a message I just don't feel is sincere coming from it. Humanity has been so diminished in the overall story, the lack of Human characters with Agency in the narrative, the lack of a Human perspective in the climax, the moral gray complexity of Humanity abandoned for pure ‘Heavenly’ selfless sacrifice, the Human influence on our two main leads have been gradually underplayed and diminished and retconned out from…
… to now seemingly insinuating that Crowley’s qualities have all been inherent to him since he bursted fully-formed out of God’s brow, long before the creation of Humanity, while Aziraphale’s character development is portrayed as if it was purely a result of Crowley’s influence and never a natural result of living among Humans for so many years.
But it’s also about how… bland Humanity has become. Outside, again, of the Mob Boss having a mildly-dorky name and playing Monopoly once and otherwise running a totally normal casino, none of our humans can be as vibrant and wacky and weird and surprising as the supernatural characters, as the GO1/Book Omens Humans, as vibrant and wacky and weird and surprising as actual real-life Humanity.
Even Crowley and Aziraphale’s Human counterparts, the versions of them that supposedly have True Free Will, are just portrayed as the blandest, most diluted, least compelling versions of the original Crowley and Aziraphale.
GO1 (and especially Book Omens) writes all of its Human characters with an honest desire to celebrate Humanity, with all of its strangeness and all of its mundanity. Whatever it was always 100% effective for me or not, when it said normal humans are just as interesting and compelling and unique as the Angel and the Demon, I felt like the story believed it.
GO2 felt like it was saying “Look, we all know Humans will never be as interesting or cool or dramatic as an Angel and Demon falling in love, so let’s just focus on that, okay?” and that was certainly tonally and thematically discordant with the original story, and I have some mixed feelings about that and others have even more negative feelings about it, but it worked as its own standalone thing because it was honest with itself, it was supplying the audience with a generous amount of the thing it did care about and think was cool and compelling.
GO3 is trying to say that actually our mundane ephemeral real-life is actually so much more magical and miraculous than being an immortal with mild reality-warping powers, it’s trying to loop back to a closer perspective to GO1, but it’s still feels it has the same view of Humanity as GO2. It’s putting on a false smile trying to explain to me why it’s so much better to be a Human, a weak, bland, boring Human then to be the supernatural characters it is clearly far more interested and thinks are far cooler. And while I would very much like to believe that living as an ephemeral human is a wondrous, miraculous thing, because I am an ephemeral human and that’s the only option I have.
But it’s hard to believe it, when GO3 just doesn’t seem to.
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