The Garo Mask

Okay. I promise my complaining will eventually come to an end. I really do. It’s just... I have one more thing.

I keep seeing people say things like: "But they reconciled, made the decision together, and their love for each other and humanity led to the Big Bang, so it’s not like the original husbands didn’t get their happy ending!”

Look, I get what you mean. I really do. It’s just not how I see it.

To me, what we got was a forced "I forgive you", a barely-there reconciliation under an apple tree, and two grand gestures. The first grand gesture came from Aziraphale, who neglected his own needs / desires to let Crowley make his decision. The second grand gesture came from Crowley, who forgot about himself and dismissed his feelings to sacrifice himself for humanity. [Both are acts of love, yes.]

I just don’t think this is something anyone should do for the sake of love. Healthy love should not keep expressing itself through self-neglect. It should not require people to dismiss their own needs and feelings. Why was choosing yourself framed as selfish?

Even if it turns out there is no other option than self-sacrifice, I will always read this as tragic, not romantic. . . .

On a more personal note, I was raised in a family where you had to earn love. So I grew up becoming a person of grand gestures, always ready to give everything to the people I love, often not even knowing where my boundaries were. I am still struggling with this.

Do you understand the implications, especially in today's political climate, of a show that revolves heavily around a queer/queer-coded couple where the only onscreen kiss between said couple is their breakup? Especially one that explores themes of sin, forbidden love, religion, dogma, and high control groups? One where the character associated with hell is the one forcing the kiss and the character associated with Christian heaven (even if heaven in this case is bad) is the one who is not receptive to that affection? A show where the heaven associated character tells the one who kissed him "I forgive you"? One where the main characters have had to hide their relationship for fear of their lives in a storyline that is heavily analogous to the persecution of queer people? Where even in a scene that showed explicitly they were married, the show still would not deign to display physical intimacy between two men? Y'know, some of the most highly stigmatized kind of affection there is?

If they had never kissed at all, I wouldn't mind. But by kissing in season 2 when they broke up, they showed that they were willing to cross that line. They stopped being ambiguous in that moment. They're whole "we're not humans and don't show love like humans" went out the window when the show decided they would in fact engage in an overtly queer act. But the only time there is unambiguous queer affection is when it's used to separate the characters.

If they had never had a full on sex scene between two hetero characters who had just met in season 1, I wouldn't mind. But the show was more comfortable with displaying physical intimacy between a man and a woman that we never saw after season 1 than they were between the two main characters of the show.

If they hadn't had an ending that literally showed their wedding rings, showing that they clearly can and will display a queer couple and also conform to heteronormative standards by having them married at all, then I wouldn't mind. But they went as far as having the characters who famously had a relationship that was open to interpretation and put them in the husband/romantic partner box, but wouldn't dare go as far as physical intimacy?

I know that many people who are not amanormative or allonormative are frustrated that a relationship that was previously ambiguous/up for interpretation was boxed into a romantic label. But now that they have, it says something that they chose to display queer relationships, and they chose to display physical affection, but not both at the same time. It says something even if they didn't intend to. It's just too awfully convenient that the couples who are always subjected to "well you don't need to be physical to be in love" are the queer couples. In a political climate that promotes homophobia and violence against our community, increasingly sex negative and pro-censorship legislation regarding online spaces, and legislation that aims to categorize participating in anything remotely queer in public as a sex crime, I think anyone who looks at a story of romantic love between two masculine presenting people and says it's not necessary to have overt physical acts of affection has lost the plot.

…AND THEN THEY DIDN'T KISS BECAUSE THEY ALREADY KISSED ONCE?”]

The whole "our car" bit, which imo was cute in s2, somehow became mean-spirited in s3

Like Crowley is adamant that it's NOT their car, it's HIS car, and Aziraphale just keeps willfully ignoring him

Which is a symptom of a bigger problem, when you take a look at the whole picture. Of Aziraphale not listening to Crowley. Specifically, not listening when he says NO

It's not our car

I don't want to help you

I'm not nice

The angel you knew is not me

I was a terrible angel

There are others. The point is... I hate it. I hate what they did to Aziraphale here. There are flashes of it in the other seasons but the point should be character growth, character arc, Aziraphale realizing he's not listening and doing a better job. Not... Doubling down until the bitter end

I cannot accept that the world was so broken it needed to be eliminated.

I do not believe that, when Aziraphale heartbrokenly expressed that all he wanted was Crowley, that Crowley wouldn't suggest they stay in that Garden for as long as they can -- just to give that last gift to his Angel -- before resuming this cruelly unnecessary path with God.

I reject the concept that after 6000 years of studying Aziraphale's every thought and action, S3 Crowley no longer has ANY CLUE as to who his Angel is, what he wants, how hard he's tried, and especially how much he loves and needs some peace with the person who completes him.

I find it ridiculous that, when Crowley said what he wanted, he somehow did NOT see the faint hope in Aziraphale's eyes fade and be replaced with numb despair. That he said, "DID I SAY THE WRONG THING?" with no attempt to convey how much he valued his Angel.

I think it's bizarre and insanely OOC that Aziraphale would say, "Otherwise I wouldn't need to find him, would I? AND I WOULDN'T NEED YOU." Our Angel was torn apart leaving him in the Final 15, and torn apart in losing him to God's rigidly uncaring games.

I will not accept that Crowley was so defined by his traumatic history that he accepted all this, and them disappearing into the ether, without even a delay or a struggle or a massive brainstorming session about all those damned empty pages that become a NEW BOOK OF LIFE.

I refuse to justify this ending with the idea that Crowley's life was so defined by his pain that ending his existance - AS HIMSELF - was some romantically tragic destiny.

*****

I'm trying so hard to be "Nice", and "Accurate", and reasoned, and helpful. But this was some crappy OOC despairing nihilistic Giving-Up, by the former demon whose whole arc in S1 was that he learned to NOT GIVE UP. Where was the fight that comes before the noble sacrifice?

Their story, the part of the story that was ACTUALLY THEM, ended in that diminished bookshop. It was to end as it began -- in a Garden.

Turns out I cannot stop disappointment posting, especially after getting some sleep and really being able to think on all the reasons why the ending fundamentally bothered me so much.

One of the biggest ones is the strange turn in the depiction of the GO god.

Because both sides, under the guise of being forced along by a divine plan, were in fact making all the wrong decisions of their own free will exactly like humans do.

From all the mentions of them in the book, to the actual voice we get to hear in the show, I was SO sure and felt it was so canon that the natural direction the show was leaning towards was the concept that angels and demons did have free will.

The ending of the book and S1 reinforce this especially. Everyone is convinced Armageddon has to happen! They tell Adam over and over again that this is the way things are, its part of the plan, and as supernatural beings, they all have no choice but to follow it.

But Adam doesn't. He says nope that's wrong, and does things his way. Even Aziraphale and Crowley. They act against their orders for years, sneak their way out of their executions, and this seemingly omnipresent god doesn't do a thing themselves in response despite all this supposedly being their will.

Then season 2 rolls around and Gabriel goes missing. THEE supreme archangel. Only for it to turn out in the end that he chose to do his own thing, as did beelzebub. They both turned against their orders and "purposes", and once again, there are no consequences beyond those attempted to be imposed by their immediate peers/coworkers. The almighty couldn't seemed to have cared less.

Even when the "bet" in regards to Job is falsely won. There's no way that god didn't know, and yet victory was still claimed and rewards were given out accordingly. I'll die on the hill that that was more of a test of the angels, and what they'll let happen, than it was of Job himself. And Aziraphale and Crowley are the only reason they passed, because they used their free will to do the right thing.

The series was moving in the perfect direction for the message to be that everyone has free will. That the angels and the Metatron especially were an excellent parallel to humans who do hateful things in the name of religion and claim the moral high ground because they're just following the will of a higher power.

But instead we got the bookshop scene and the last 30 minutes and a god that's holding the world and our angel and demon at gunpoint, telling them this is the way it has to be, and being very nearly cruel in her comments about Aziraphale's love for Crowley and how this story has to come to an end.

They should have kept her a mostly passive force in the story, it ruins so much of the series charm. The S1 and 2 almighty would never.

Instead, they should have put the responsibility on the angels and demons to fix things. Show them all that they do have the choice to make things better. That they can follow the example of Gabriel and Beelzebub and Aziraphale and Crowley. That there were consequences for the archangels coldness, and demons that can love despite their damnation

Like what was the point of going out of their was in S2 to show us that Aziraphale and Crowley were NOT outliers in their independence???

Great big S3 discussion below:

Sorry for the lack of art lately. Found myself emotionally and creatively drained after the finale. But anyway, I still can't stop thinking about The Hands.

Sorry for the lack of art lately. Found myself emotionally and creatively drained after the finale. But anyway, I still can't stop thinking about The Hands.

But you know what? I just saw pictures of angelCrowley and 'Anthony' back to back, and maybe this is me being stupid and in denial, but I’m only realizing now that this 'Anthony' is, in fact, a "reincarnation" or whatever of angelCrowley and NOT demonCrowley, the being we spent the story with, the being he became after millennia of experience on Earth - I mean THE Crowley, our Crowley, Aziraphale’s Crowley, and I just...

It makes me even more furious than I already am. They erased nearly everything that was making this character interesting. After showing us time and again how terrible Heaven was, how free will is important, and why labels shouldn’t matter as long as you stay true to who you are deep down ("just a little bit a good person", "just enough of a bastard", "just an angel/a demon who goes along with Heaven/Hell as far as he can"), they told us that a fallen angel was a bad thing, that it shouldn’t exist after all. They ended with two 'angels' falling for each other.

I wonder, what happened to shades of grey?

I fell in love with those two because they were are far more complex than what it says on the tin. I don’t give a damn about the purest of angels. I care about characters who ask questions, who doubt, who evolve, who fight for what they believe in, who love unconditionally, despite the odds.

And to think about all the other narrative decisions made in that finale...

I’ve mostly not been looking at social media since I watched the finale, but I’ve still seen some back and forth about the “bury your gays” trope. Idk where y’all stand on this but the phrase that came to me earlier was “Schrödinger’s Bury Your Gays”. Hear me out:

Even as angels and demons are queer compared to humans, Aziraphale and Crowley queered what it meant to be an angel and demon. They were the ones who discovered that celestial/occult beings were capable of free will too. And they developed a relationship and an Arrangement that they knew would have them possibly destroyed if their Head Offices found out. So they were kept apart, essentially punished and tortured for who they were, and they were led to believe (by a forced binary choice from god) that the only way to make things better for anyone was to sacrifice themselves. Just as they were finally starting to express what they meant to each other. God is the one who used the word love and her saying she smiled at them while they struggled the entire time… makes me want to throw things at the screen.**

On the other hand, the finale ends with a queer gay couple having a meet cute, a first date, and then a retirement in the South Downs where they hold hands and Anthony says he has everything he ever wanted- the universe out there and Asa right here. It sounds lovely, like the opposite of “bury your gays.”

The problem with this- the thing that makes it Schrödinger’s problem- is that not everyone agrees that Aziraphale/Crowley are Asa/Anthony, as I wrote about here, so for some this is a tragedy where the characters we have followed all along get judged by god herself and then are given a false choice which leads to them choosing annihilation. And others believe that this is a more or less happy ending where human versions of our beloved characters get their happy ending in a South Downs cottage.

It is simultaneously a tragedy and a romcom 🙃 hence Schrödinger’s “Bury your gays”. Not that everyone will see it as both, but that the collective view of it is both. (And that is the fault of the writers!)

**This isn’t even mentioning all of the lgbtqia+ people who were also destroyed when the world was obliterated and not restored.

And yes, there are slight differences/variations because I cannot stop once I start 😅

And some promo David and Michael