#Crowley has a stronger moral compass than everyone in Heaven and Hell combined

[ahyesmygoodomenssideblog]

Goats and forgiveness

Season 2 expands on Aziraphale's thing with forgiveness. It starts off with Aziraphale being a very nice landlord:

M: You can't just forgive me eight months' rent! A: Oh, I can. I'm very good at forgiveness. It's one of my favorite things!

Then it gets brought up again in the Job minisode, under very different circumstances. Here, God made a deal with the devil to test Job's faith. Aziraphale goes along with it up until he knows they're permanently killing 3 children. Gabriel tells him: "What we are doing is simply not stopping hell. What they do is up to them." From there, Aziraphale is able to shift the blame off of God and onto Crawly, and we get this exchange:

A: I get to do what God wants. C: Like killing innocent children to win a bet with Satan? A: I… I don't think that is what God wants. And I don't think you want it either. C: What do you know about what I want? A: I know you. C: You do not know me.  A: I know the angel you were. C: The angel you knew is not me. A: Then… Then you tell me that you want to do this. You look me in the eye and tell me. C: I want to. I long to destroy the blameless children of blameless Job, just as I destroyed his blameless goats. A: Then God forgive you.

Aziraphale decides that God doesn't actually want Job's children killed, so he asks God to forgive Crawly for (by all accounts) fulfilling God's will.

This is also the first time (chronologically) that we see Aziraphale reference the angel Crowley used to be. It comes up again in the bandstand fight. Crowley curses God's plan to *checks notes* end the entire world, so Aziraphale says:

A: May you be forgiven. C: Oh I won't be forgiven. Not ever. That's part of a demon's job description. Unforgivable, that's what I am. A: You were an angel once. C: That was a long time ago.

Here, forgiveness is tied directly to Crowley's status as a demon/former angel. The exchange hints at a fundamental difference in their views.

There's a scene that isn't talked about much, but it seems particularly relevant given that s3 is set to be about the Second Coming. Forgiveness does come up in it. When Jesus is getting nailed to the cross, he says:

Father, please, you have to forgive them! They don't know what they are doing!

Jesus' crucifixion is immediately followed by the Rome scene. The Rome scene has a notable distinction in that the title card for it doesn't give a specific year; it's instead defined in relation to the previous scene:

8 years after Jesus died on the cross, Aziraphale greets Crowley like this:

A: Crawly- Crowley? Well, fancy running into you here! Still a demon, then? C: What kind of stupid question is that, "Still a demon"? What else am I going to be, an aardvark?

It's a strange thing to say after knowing Crowley as a demon for ~4000 years, unless Aziraphale believes the Christian tenet that Jesus died to forgive everyone's sins. Crowley doesn't seem to consider this a possibility at all. But if it is true, then all that's preventing everyone from salvation now is simply asking God to forgive them.

Forgiveness is one of Aziraphale's favorite things.

Aziraphale seems to view Crowley as redeemable. He knows on some level that Crowley is a good person who doesn't deserve eternal damnation, but he's unable to reconcile Crowley's fate with his own concept of a kind and loving God. This can really only be resolved if Crowley is either forgiven for his sins or if Crowley is the one who chooses to remain a demon when he could be saved.

Crowley first brings up goats in the Flood scene. They play a bigger role in the Job scene. Crowley brings them up over and over again. The Job episode actually starts off with him talking to the goats directly:

You should know why you're about to die. God has abandoned you. The God who claims to love you, who demands your praise, has given you up to be destroyed.

Fun fact: the term scapegoat originally referred to literal goats. It was standard practice to sacrifice animals to God as atonement for sins. To clarify: slaughtering innocent creatures was a requirement to remain in good standing with God.

(Scapegoats specifically were goats burdened with the sins of the town and then cast off to wander the wilderness alone.)

These harsh methods of atonement became unnecessary under Christianity due to Jesus' crucifixion. Jesus was a scapegoat. He died for our sins and we continue to honor his sacrifice with the symbol of the cross he was executed on.

After Jesus died, forgiveness became easy. God became generally more palatable. Aziraphale loves forgiveness. He's very good at it. He's a kind person.

Thousands of years before Jesus' death, Sitis begged for her children to be spared:

S: But they've done nothing! They're innocent! C: So were the goats.

There are fundamental differences in Aziraphale and Crowley's belief systems. Aziraphale defines right and wrong based on whether an action is in accordance with God's will. Crowley defines right and wrong based on whether an action is right or wrong. He is against innocent people suffering regardless of whether or not it's what God wants. This matters because Crowley and Aziraphale both know firsthand that their God is willing to punish good and innocent people. They were there for the Flood. They were there for Job. They were there for Jesus' crucifixion.

Aziraphale is a bad angel. He has doubts. He tries to protect humans when he can. When push comes to shove, he'll defy God to do it.

But Crowley is a good person. Crowley does good despite being punished for it. He continues to do good despite the risk of further punishment. And when it comes down to it, Crowley was the only person in Heaven and on Earth who would defend even the blameless goats.

Aziraphale forgives Crowley several times in the show, and never for very good reasons. Crowley apologizes to Aziraphale when he wasn't really wrong. Crowley doesn't apologize to God. He never asks God for forgiveness. And by the time they part ways, Crowley rejects Aziraphale's forgiveness, too.