Huge thanks to @zenkitty714 who tagged me in their post on the topic and made me realise that I kept this little read hidden in my drafts for over two years now. I’m actively fighting against the growing backlog of posts and notifications, but it seems like the high time to get myself even busier with stocktaking in the basement.
But first, let’s catch up with some 2023 news, as not-so-secretly presented by Mr Brown in the above Good Omens 2 scene:
The newspaper mockup used in scene, via Mickey Ralph, the Lead Graphic Designer for Good Omens.
“Nebraskan woman taught duck to play accordion” by S. King: The challenges of having to stay indoors over the course of this past year have caused a multitude of unique and strange occurances the world over. From social media challenges to the rise in popularity of rare indoor plants, we've come to expect the next big trending topic to arrive in the form of something entirely baffling. Most recently, a Nebraskan woman used her time during the lockdown order in the United States to do the unthinkable. Janelle Keene, twelve-time Beaver County Accordion Association Champion and owner of Bridget, a domesticated duck, decided to take on an impossible challenge. Janelle decided to teach her duck, Bridget, to play. “She took to it like a duck to water.” said Janelle, who claims to have invented an intricate system of pulleys and levers to allow Bridget to press on the keys of the accordion. “She hasn't quite got the hang of reading sheet music yet but she's practicing her scales and it's starting to sound more like music.” Janelle's been uploading footage her teaching journey with Bridget to a video sharing site and the response has been very supportive. One commenter wrote, “I had no idea ducks could be so emotive and create such poetry with their feet. Bridget's cover of 'Don't stop me now' by Queen brought a tear to my eye. Freddy would be proud.” Continued on Page 4.
Wait, is that a diabolically clever Stephen King mention in my divine comedy series? Huh. Anyway, let’s look at the other naming choices: Janelle is a female name derived from the Greek Ioannes and Hebrew Yochanan, meaning ‘God is merciful’. Like Saint John, the youngest and most beloved apostle,
Whose ‘Revelation’ had been the all-time best seller. Aziraphale had found him a nice chap, if a bit too fond of odd mushrooms.
John was also mentioned in the book by name at the beginning of the cut televangelist scene and heavily involved in the TV show at least in its drafting stages, judging by the original designs of Whickber Street from S1 and S2 including a Jon’s Coffee shop across Aziraphale’s bookshop. The one that had eventually morphed into Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death late enough in the S2 production stages to have some concept arts produced with the old name and a slightly different vibe to it.
Jon’s Coffee visible across the street from Aziraphale’s bookshop in S1 of Good Omens.
Brigid was a goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann. She was a daughter of the chief of the gods, The Dagda, and was known as a goddess of healers, poets, smiths, childbirth and inspiration. Her name means ‘exalted one’. Some of the beliefs associated with her were later incorporated into the Christian cult of Saint Brigid, the patron saint of Ireland with a similarly diverse range of patronages and miracles — and an animal companion in form of a goose or swan. One of the patron saints of Europe, Saint Bridget of Sweden, experienced a series of visions of Christ throughout her life and left behind not only records of those miracles, but also prophecies foretelling e.g., the almost exact boundaries of the modern Vatican (delineated by Mussolini in 1921). And then there’s also Bridget Jones, the titular character of Bridget Jones’ Diary (2001), a Richard Curtis film based on Pride and Prejudice that ends with a kiss under a corner bookshop in central London during a snowfall inspired by It’s A Wonderful Life (1946). Good Omens references galore!
A screenshot from the last scene of Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001).
Book readers probably recognize this article as an Easter Egg from the conversation between Anathema and Newton on their way to the Tadfield airbase:
“I’m sure Agnes would have mentioned it if we were going to be shot. She’s very good at that sort of thing.” She began absentmindedly to shuffle the file cards.
“You know,” she said, carefully cutting the cards and riffling the two piles together, “I read somewhere that there’s a sect that believes that computers are the tools of the Devil. They say that Armageddon will come about because of the Antichrist being good with computers. Apparently it’s mentioned somewhere in Revelations. I think I must have read about it in a newspaper recently…”
“Daily Mail. ‘Letter From America.’ Um, August the third,” said Newt. “Just after the story about the woman in Worms, Nebraska, who taught her duck to play the accordion.”
“Letter from America” by The Proclaimers appearing on the jukebox as another Easter Egg in Good Omens 2.
Now, America is a really big continent and the US — a very big country. What are the chances for Nebraska of all states to be accidentally mentioned exactly three times in the Good Omens novel and for Nebraskan car plates to appear as set decorations during Beelzebub and Gabriel’s meeting in the second series of the show?
And then there’s the even more precise location of Worms, Nebraska mentioned in the article itself. Worms is a tiny, unincorporated rural village in Merrick County, Nebraska, United States. The community was named after a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany — an imperial free city and a Roman Catholic bishopric since at least 7th century. Known mostly as the home to the Liebfraumilch wine (highly recommended by yours truly to the readers of legal drinking age for one of those warm May evenings, let’s say, 13th?), as well as a historical event — the famous Diet of Worms.
Fortunately or not, we’re not talking about food now, but a meeting of the Holy Roman emperor Charles V's imperial diet at Worms in 1521, at which Martin Luther was summoned to appear. Luther committed himself there to the cause of Protestant reform, and his teaching was formally condemned in the Edict of Worms, in which Martin Luther was declared a heretic.
Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms, coloured engraving by Emile Delperée (1850-1896).
Before Luther and his 95 theses, there was a Czech theologian called Jan Hus, in older English publications often translated as John Goose. Church reformer and a key figure in Hussitism and Bohemian Reformation, in 1415 Hus was put on . Before he died, he allegedly left a prophecy with his executioners:
“You are going to burn a goose, but in one hundred years you will have a swan which you can neither roast nor boil.”
And who would have guessed? Exactly one hundred years after Hus’s death, in 1515, a certain German professor called Martin Luther was assigned to teach the book of Romans at the new university in Wittenberg, Germany, leading to some personal revelations that grew into a mass moment of challenging the Vatican’s authority and Catholic Church hierarchy, later known as the Protestant Reformation. In fact, the power of this prophecy was so strong at the time that Luther was not only quickly identified as the long-awaited swan by his contemporaries (Luther’s family coat of arms providentially displayed the image of a swan), but also immediately depicted with the white bird by his side as a symbol that survived to this day in Lutheranism.
This is the story of a goose and a swan, but what about the titular ducks? In old bestiaries, ducks are often associated with vigilance due to their natural awareness and alertness, serving as a reminder to remain watchful and guard oneself and others against sin. In Christian art, they often represent gossip. A duck carved into church doors is a sign to enter quietly, so as not to distract the worshippers.
A friendly reminder from S1 of Good Omens: ducks do have ears and Heaven is if not listening, then at least watching, as proved by the existence of its observation system.
Ducks divide their life between water and land, which was sometimes interpreted as a symbol of the dual nature of humanity; the spiritual and the earthly. Their ability to move in different elements was seen as an analogy for the human soul’s ability to navigate between the spiritual and material worlds. I’m sure that they’re choosing their respective sides wisely.
The water, a common symbol of purification and baptism in Christian tradition, could lead to the association with spiritual cleansing and renewal. The frequent swimming and washing of ducks might be seen as a metaphor for the washing away of sins through baptism. In Good Omens, the same symbolism is shared by Aziraphale during the body swap, literally washing away Crowley’s sins during his trial in Hell.
But is Aziraphale just another duck or maybe an ugly duckling — a growing swan, whose black skin is diligently covered by snow-white feathers? A swan who’s going to lead a reformation of his own up in Heaven?
Martin Luther (accompanied by a swan) Nailing the 95 Theses, a loading screen illustration from Europa Universalis V.
Worms, Nebraska technically doesn’t seem like a big enough place to hold a diplomatic meeting of utmost importance. It doesn’t even have its own post office and its only pub (charmingly called The Nightcrawler and neighbouring the local church and its cemetery) closed down some time ago. However, there’s one thriving institution here: Zion Lutheran Church, the religious group responsible for starting this community back in 1874, when its representatives signed the papers for an official Lutheran Church in a sod house and built their first frame church, later turned into a three-row schoolhouse.
In fact, the congregation was doing so well recently that it decided to renew the old mural across the road in celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation as well as the solar eclipse of 2017. Led by the pastor’s daughter Rachel Ziegler, who designed the new mosaic, a group of 52 volunteers contributed over 820 hours between the months of August and October of 2017 to finish the mural.
This is not a Good Omens fan art, even though the clearly religious symbolism might look recognisable to fans of the series. On the mosaic, an angel appears from the Rhine river in the city of Worms, Rhineland-Palatinate, and announces to the world the Luther’s Rose, the widely recognised symbol of Lutheranism with the Five Solas, the doctrinal pillars of the Protestant Reformation: “To the Glory of God Alone, Christ Alone, Scripture Alone, Faith Alone, Grace Alone”. It’s a lovely visual metaphor of the Diet of Worms as the founding event of the Protestant Reformation. From this symbol, an American agrarian community of Worms, Nebraska is born, and with it its landmarks — old and new churches as well as the crops the local farmers are proud of. The twin apple trees can be seen just as that, an agricultural symbol of this land, or a depiction of the two trees of Eden, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life (and the latter is very relevant to Good Omens, as you can find under the linked meta).
Zoom-in on the Worms mosaic mural, originally photographed by the artist Rachel Ziegler.
The Heavenly Reformation(s)
Between the overflowing references to heretics of historical and fantastical nature and their respective trials and tribulations, not only in the form of the above noted examples, but also — and most notably — in the similarities to A Matter of Life and Death (1946), it’s hard not to see a trial and maybe even an execution attempt as a possible outcome of Aziraphale’s new role as a Supreme Archangel and his effort to reform Heaven and Earth.
There’s a good chance that if you’re reading this, you’re already acquainted with some of the Leftist theory and the work of Rosa Luxemburg. One of her publications, the 1899 pamphlet Reform or Revolution, argues with the previously presented opportunistic theory of Eduard Bernstein that capitalism is systematically unsustainable and threatening to collapse — as such, it requires not a reform, but revolution to be successfully transformed into socialism. A lot of this criticism can be applied to the Good Omens’ version of corporate Heaven, leading to the question whether a reformation can be the answer to its in-universe problems or is it doomed from the start? There were some bits and pieces mentioned about the Glorious Revolution/Great War in Heaven already, and with a little luck we will be soon granted an actual glimpse of what went wrong back then, leading to Crowley’s Fall.
A screenshot showcasing the black-and-white, vast space of Heaven from the AMOLAD (1946), which already served as the main inspiration for the Good Omens design of Upstairs.
Even more poignantly than in the previous seasons of Good Omens, there’s a distinct shadow of war and destruction hanging over the Powell and Pressburger film. It begins, in direct opposite to the Before the Beginning flashback, with a nova, as explained by the narrator:
“Hello, there’s a nova. A whole solar system exploded. Someone must’ve been messing about with the uranium atom. No, it’s not our solar system, I’m glad to say.”
In another somewhat interesting opposite, it’s not the celestial meet-cute that is happening in the nebula, but a Heavenly trial itself, the one with a counsel consisting of souls of those who had died in the British wars across centuries and a RAF pilot as the defendant. And considering how Aziraphale even as a Principality had his own platoon from the last war, we can expect some related responsibility (and trauma) related to this level of engagement in the war against the rebellious angels, not to mention his later actions.
We know that apart from being a soldier, Aziraphale is a strategist: he had devised a plan against Hell back in the bookshop, and his last smile in the elevator scene could be seen as indicative of him having came up with an idea how to sabotage Heaven from the inside. This angel will use all of his intrinsic and extrinsic qualities to turn the system upside down — and remember that he had learned how to revolt directly from humans, including the Parisian Revolution and modern Blitz warfare. Per the Good Omens script book:
Aziraphale picks up the sword from the ground, and holds it awkwardly, as if it might go off. He's not threatening Crowley with it, just making his point that he can do dangerous out of character things if he needs to.
Martin Luther is commonly attributed the famous quote, “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree”.
All the way down to Eden, a simple apple had served not only as a symbol of rebellion, but also knowledge and life and hope. Just imagine what a tree full of them could do!
