5/4

Right. Here we go.

I did a Master's degree in English Literature. The title of my dissertation was Free Will and the Transference of Power, and it was about the tendency in fantasy novels for, at the end of all things, 'magic' in whatever form (actual magic, elves, dragons, gods, Old Ones, etc) to leave the world and for the responsibility of taking care of the world to pass into the hands of humankind. Among a lot of other things I mused on whether this was 'good' or 'bad' or 'necessary'. On the whole I'm very, very, very pro free will and enjoyed writing it all a lot, aside from the stress of "oh shit I have to get this gigantic thing finished or I'll FAIL MY DEGREE AAAAHHH". It's all still stuff I love discussing. (for those who will inevitably ask I used Tolkien, LeGuin, and Susan Cooper as my primary examples of the trope, though I kick myself for not having included Lloyd Alexander and Phillip Pullman and a good many others, but that's a book for another lifetime where I became the academic I really thought I'd become).

When asked about my religious beliefs, the answer is "vaugely Deist," AKA the Clockwork God theory, that some sort of Creator once upon a time set everything in motion and then stepped back to let it run without further interference. I didn't have the terminology for it as a kid but that's been my belief pretty much since I was ten (when I first realized my family was Episcopalean on one side, Jewish on the other, my parents had each abandoned these to become Zen Buddhists {in one case later fervent atheist, the other is now a roshi at her temple}, I went to Presbyterian schools because all the other schools in the area were dreadful, and that while I sort of felt that on the whole there was more likely an overall creative force than not the idea of choosing a particular religious path as True or Fact, just didn't work for me, to say nothing of the idea of an interventionist God, but that is all yet another story albeit one for this lifetime). Given all that, you'd think I'd be okay with the ending of season three. And in some ways I am. Intellectually I am. It was very Terry Pratchett (himself very much an atheist), had a lot of echoes of the end of Small Gods. And given how much of a struggle it was to wrest the story away from [not named] and back into the hands of Terry's estate, that feels appropriate. But.

When you get right down to it...in the end, everyone died. Not just died, but ceased to exist. Everyone. Including the angel and demon I've been so invested in for years, whose happy ending I have wanted so, so, so badly. And not just them but their whole world, the one that's been my sandbox during Huge Life Changes, the pandemic, becoming extremely disabled, having to give up my vocation, a host of other things.

So yeah. Mixed feelings, to say the least.

Do I like that in the end Crowley, constantly true to himself, chose to let humans have the power to choose and do things and live without the constant threat of Someday God Will Just End Everything Arbitrarily looming over them? That feels right, yes. Do I like that Aziraphale in the end left the choice to Crowley? Also yes. Am I happy that essentially all fanfic is now canon? Sure. Was it cute to watch a human au of Crowley and Aziraphale become smitten? Always is, that's why I read so much of it. Is there stuff to work with and think about? Absolutely.