The Spiteful Mushroom

Hannibal and Will “feed your dogs”, Crowley and Aziraphale “Alpha Centuri”, Stede and Ed “We can just get away”, Eve and Villanelle, etc., etc.

It’s about the possibility of severing from societal demands and heteronormativity to be together. The proposal to take love and acceptance in full force. To marry into belonging.

And that inevitable rejection from their other half… it’s not just about drama.

If Aziraphale had gone to Alpha Centauri with Crowley, he and Crowley would not have been at Tadfield to support Adam and chop logic with Gabriel and Beelzebub. Adam was a great kid with the power of love on his side - but he was still a kid, facing off against some very powerful grownups. He needed some powerful grownups on his side. And if the Earth died - Alpha Centauri would die with it.

Running away doesn't solve your problems or affirm yourself.Your problems hang on forever, until you turn and face them, and then, if you still want to, you'll be free to go to Alpha Centauri or China.

But the trope that the op is talking about cannot be solved by "doing the work." Think Brokeback Mountain. No amount of "work" would have made their love be accepted by society. Running away would have saved them.

I repeatedly see people bewailing these refusals to run away as if running away would have improved things, as if that would have been the right thing to do; and sometimes, yes, walking away is the only thing to do, the only way to look oneself in the face. Maurice had a choice between a new, unprivileged life and new sets of problems and a possibility of happiness with Alec, and staying in a familiar life that had privileges but demanded he be the worst version of himself, alone and unhappy and safe. Leaving his old life, in that case, involved doing the work. It's a shame that Forster stopped where he did instead of showing the work being done; but I'm not sure Forster was able to envision how that ending would have worked IRL, and had to stop at the breathtaking fantasy of the possibility.

Stede did not turn and face himself on purpose. His past kept coming after him until panic and guilt sent him back to it, where he and Mary - who had already done a lot of her own work before he showed up to complicate things again - managed at last to blunder into the necessary self-knowledge and trick the world into setting him free. If the panic and guilt hadn't hit him when it did, he and Ed would have run off to China, leaving the Revenge in Izzy's unforgiving hands and with both the Kraken and Stede's whole interior mess still lurking, waiting to burst out at any excuse. Given who they are, this possibility has Disaster written all over it. The Kraken is very, very bad - but because Stede got himself in order while Ed was having his breakdown, the crew get unmarooned before anyone's eaten and there's every probability of things coming out okay, for whatever constitutes "okay" in this weird pirate world, in the end. (After all, we all know Lucius isn't dead.)

Aziraphale, on the other hand, is consistently breaking his own heart, on purpose, in order to protect the World, which is pretty damn heroic of him and we hate to see it. His and Crowley's personal happiness is not the most important thing at stake in the Good Omens world, and he, at least, never loses sight of that. The audience, alas, loses sight of it constantly. At the bandstand - and during the agonizing Final Fifteen of Season 2 - Aziraphale is making mistakes for sound reasons as best he can given the information he has available to him, with no consideration for his own personal preference. He even offers Crowley alternatives which would allow them to stay together, which Crowley rejects out of hand each time. It's Crowley's idea to kill the Antichrist, and if he'd agreed to be the one to do it, Aziraphale would have told him where to find him, presumably in the expectation that this would give him grounds to shelter him from Hell's retaliation. Since he won't agree, Crowley running off to Alpha Centauri alone to lick his emotional wounds and await the end is acceptable - Aziraphale can go find him afterward. At least he, and the world, will still exist. The moment he realizes that even God is against him in wanting to save Earth, he returns to Crowley and accepts the responsibility of doing the Wrong Thing for the Right Reason. (Thank goodness Mdm. Tracy stops him!) Then during the Final Fifteen they are both offering each other a way to be together - Crowley by walking away from everything (into a doomed world; the stars are set to be shut down when Earth is), Aziraphale by working together in Heaven to make Heaven over into a place that isn't trying to destroy Earth. Crowley rejects Aziraphale's offer first, and then Aziraphale cannot accept his because he recognizes it as a non-solution. What they both need here is better alternatives, and we have yet to see how that pans out.

Three different opportunities to run away together, and in only one of them is running away together the right choice. Yet the fandom always bewails the lost opportunity for Happy Ever After. It gets old.

Which is my point here, I guess? Both things can be true at the same time: the trope playing out where you are necessarily reminded of all the other stories it's been used in. It happens even if you know that this particular story is way more complicated than that, and that the trope doesn't really fit.

So, to me this post was less about any specific scenario and more about the trope in general and the feelings it evokes.

I believe I am more focused on general symbolism whereas you are evaluating the literal. I’m speaking about the structure of the situation across various instances and how it acts as a mirror to many LGBTQ+ people’s internal and external experiences/dialogues.

When the literal viewpoint is factored in, much of what you are observing is apt. The characters have challenges in their specific worlds and within themselves that cannot be sorted by distance. There are certain circumstances (like Brokeback Mountain) where running away would have been beneficial, but, in the stories I have listed, it would have been a premature and unhelpful move. These are well-written tales and those refusals had narrative purpose so that the characters could grow, as you say. The writers intentionally set up the fantasy of a Happily Ever After in order to show us exactly why it is a fantasy.

Takeaways of different kinds can overlap, intersect, and exist simultaneously with equal value. There’s the more abstract message: “the common queer experience of denying love and self to remain in predetermined societal obligations is a tragedy”, and the more literal message: “these two people want to run but need to grow and mature before they are ready for life and each other”.