#I think Aziraphale thought he was making the right choice but was being manipulated

[liaislying]

GO SEASON 2 SPOILERS///

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Consider this:

heaven realized just how powerful azira and Crowley are together (consider how even when making an effort to create the tiniest, least noticeable miracle possible it was still so incredibly strong that it hid Gabriel from the entirety of heaven and hell even under close scrutiny) and decided they would rather have them under their thumb. They did this by offering aziraphale the position of supreme archangel, and assumed that Crowley would follow him due to his devotion. They probably figured by doing this they could have all that power under their control instead of risking azira and Crowley realizing how powerful they were and using it against heaven/hell. Plus, with this much power at their disposal, they could probable guarantee their victory at the next Armageddon. They may have underestimated/failed to understand that despite Crowley being very devoted to aziraphale he would still have boundaries he would refuse to cross (aka becoming an angel again) even for aziraphale.

They chose azira because they knew he was still loyal to heaven and still believes in the divine plan- unlike Gabriel and beelzebub, who may have the same power (if the power of the miracle was so powerful due to a demon and angel combining powers; which may or may not be the case) who couldn’t care less about heaven or any plan.

They chose azira because he was vulnerable, idealistic, and loyal- and unfortunately, azira fell for it.

[bohoteacher]

Navigating Betrayal: Reconciling Admiration with Disillusionment

Like many Neil Gaiman fans this month, I've been shocked and distressed by the news regarding the SA allegations. I won't go over the details, as they're readily available online. I'll start by saying that I believe the accusers, and even the most lenient interpretation of events is still troubling enough to discredit Gaiman. For a long time, I didn't know what to say. I was just shocked and, somewhat naively, felt betrayed. I don't typically idolize actors, authors, or other public figures—I'm here for the characters, they're who I love and believe in. So, how did I end up believing in this man and his rhetoric?

I only had a parasocial relationship with him, which is to say no real relationship at all. But I took his Masterclass on writing, spent hours taking notes, and learned from him. I feel betrayed by someone I saw as a beloved teacher. I know this is insignificant compared to what the women who came forward experienced, but it's a valid feeling, and I needed time to process it. My initial reaction was to throw out and discount everything he’s ever written or done—of course it was.

This isn't just about my love for Good Omens, although how can it not be? I learned so much from this man—about writing, about not being too hard on myself, about the creative process. I read his books to my middle school classes, and we all learned how to be better people from them. Today, I saw and bought Instructions, a children’s book by Neil Gaiman illustrated by Charles Vess, from the used bookstore where I volunteer. It was a used copy, so no royalties will go to him. It’s a beautifully illustrated book where the main character walks through a land that clearly symbolizes life, learning lessons like saying please and "if any creature cries to you that it hurts, if you can, ease its pain." How could someone write this and then do what he did? I asked myself. "What an evil hypocrite," was my first thought. But then I recalled a line from another author, Stephen King. In The Stand, a character is described as "awake at the lectern, but asleep at the switch," meaning they know the right thing to do and can talk about it, but in the moment of choice, they act without integrity.

I don’t know if I’m making sense, but I think it’s too easy to label Gaiman as simply evil, as if he intentionally manipulated us by saying the right things just to make us read or watch his creations. The reality is likely far more complicated. Within this man is the amazing, thought-provoking, life-affirming wisdom that many of us have tried to live by, but also the hard, thoughtless, selfish cruelty that led him to abuse young, vulnerable women. The wisdom does not justify the abuse, and the abuse does not nullify the wisdom.

I think it's too simplistic to say Gaiman is despicable and always has been, hiding it from us all along. This doesn't acknowledge the complexity of human nature—that there is potential for both good and bad within us all. As it’s said, possibly by Terry Pratchett or possibly by Neil Gaiman, “It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.”

Gaiman is a man who has done some fundamentally good things and some fundamentally bad things. I can’t forget either one.

This is just my opinion. I know some people want to cancel him, while others want to exonerate him. You do you. As for me, I will continue to love Aziraphale and Crowley. I will continue to read and create fan-fiction. I will continue to find comfort and wisdom in books that have meant so much to me over the years. But I will also remember that they were created by a very flawed man whom I can no longer trust.

I understand that opinions on this matter vary widely. I know some people might feel that not discarding everything associated with him is wrong, but this is where I stand. I’m not looking to debate this or be told how I should react. I just needed to process my thoughts in writing and move forward in the way that feels right for me.

[fellthemarvelous]

Aziraphale hate makes my brain hurt.

Like let's be really fuckin' for real here.

Neurodivergent fans have repeatedly said that Aziraphale is autistic coded. I agree with them. I have never been diagnosed but I wonder about myself. If only I could get a doctor to take me seriously enough to test me for it, but alas, I'm a 43-year-old woman living in the good ole US of A.

Those with religious trauma have repeatedly said that they identify with him as well. I'm one of those people. I endured 12 years of Catholic schools and just as much time being taught a very black and white view of things that I've had to spend more than 20 goddamn fucking years working to unlearn.

I find that my views as a survivor of religious abuse are often dismissed because people keep wanting to say "Aziraphale doesn't have religious trauma." Yes, thank you, I get that, but unless you've been indoctrinated and brainwashed into a very black and white view of the world, you probably don't understand the kind of feelings Aziraphale's onscreen experiences evoke in so many of us. Heaven might not be real, but the feelings of "God is always watching" still stick with me today even though I no longer believe in God. I have entirely denounced Christianity because of my own personal experience, and I refuse to allow people to try and guilt me or shame me for trauma that I didn't ask for. I wasn't given a choice.

As a child I was told that God was real and always watching everything you do (just like Santa Claus) and can hear everything you say and knows everything you are thinking. Do you know what I learned to do in order to cope with this overwhelming and anxiety-inducing information as a small child? I learned to censor my thoughts. I never spoke up, and I have always felt like I was putting on a show for people because I had to be who I was told to be or I would get into trouble.

Aziraphale said "poverty is a virtue" during The Resurrectionists, and as someone who grew up in the Bible belt and went to private schools, I was taught this very same shit by the Catholic church. He learned in that very same episode that "poverty is a virtue" is actually a tool of oppression to keep the poor poor and the wealthy wealthy. I know we all watched the episode. He went into that episode believing what he said, but by the end of it he knew it was actually utter bullshit. Aziraphale is not ignorant. He's highly intelligent, and he has never been too proud to admit when he has been wrong. He accepts that the information he learned before is not matching up with reality.

And it's so obvious some of you have zero experience with that type of indoctrination because of how very little empathy you show Aziraphale for his "mistake" of "choosing Heaven over Crowley" and "making Crowley sad" so clearly Aziraphale must somehow be "abusive" and "manipulative" and "selfish" and "self-centered" because he didn't choose to run away with Crowley at the end of season two.

First of all.

FIRST OF ALL...

Aziraphale has a mind of his own.

Aziraphale is always going to try and do what is right.

Aziraphale is an angel. He's a being of love. And the reason he's so "bad" at being an angel is because he actually wants to protect humanity. He has always loved humanity. He repeatedly has to contend with what is "right" versus what is "good" and "wrong" versus "evil". Yeah, he has flaws. He's an angel, not a goddamn fucking saint. He has lived on Earth for more than 6,000 years. He has seen everything. He loves doing human things.

He's obsessed with magic. It makes him so happy. He's not very good at it...well not when he's trying to put on a show for Crowley.

He chose to learn French the hard way, so even though he knows every single language in the world, he chooses to be mediocre at French. Something that annoys and amuses Crowley at the same time.

He loves to dance even though angels aren't supposed to dance, and dancing with Crowley was what he wanted the most.

He owns a bookshop and refuses to sell any of his books because they are books he's had for as long as there have been books. He will chase customers away from his collection, and Crowley understands how much they mean to Aziraphale because he refuses to sell any when Aziraphale leaves him in charge.

He and Crowley have been speaking to each other in coded language for more than 6,000 years. They have to be very careful about what they say because Heaven and Hell are always watching.

Heaven has photographs of Crowley and Aziraphale sitting or standing together throughout history. Hell had one photo of Crowley and Aziraphale actually working together and it was Aziraphale's quick thinking and how good he actually is at sleight of hand tricks that managed to get that photo out of Furfur's hands so he wouldn't be able to turn Crowley over to the Dark Council.

Aziraphale saved Crowley from being taken to Hell again. He wasn't able to save Crowley from Hell in Edinburgh, but he sure as heck managed to save Crowley from Hell during WWII. He took Crowley to his bookshop and showed Crowley that he stole the picture from Furfur. He saved Crowley.

You get that, right?

Aziraphale SAVED Crowley.

People always talk about how it's "always Crowley saving Aziraphale" because apparently heroic acts are only heroic when they are grand gestures. The sleight of hand wasn't heroic at all, am I right? It wasn't sparkly and showy. It wasn't interesting enough, therefore not heroic. At least that's all I'm hearing when people start with their "blah Aziraphale deserves to suffer because I have no imagination or ability to understand the media in front of me blah", and all these reasons he deserves to suffer is because Crowley almost got hurt.

Aziraphale did that without flinching and I watch that part closely every single time. He's not scared for himself. He's scared for Crowley, and he managed to hold onto that photograph. He did not fail Crowley. He protected Crowley.

And so here's another thing that we like to point out. The way that Aziraphale, an angel who is effeminate and male presenting, an angel who is soft and full of love, an angel who is kind and forgiving because he has empathy and compassion, is somehow painted as abusive and manipulative. He's not violent, but he could easily fuck up your world. He doesn't use his powers. We have no idea how powerful he is because we only ever see him do small acts. He's used to hiding. It's the only way he has ever been able to protect Crowley.

And I'm not saying that Aziraphale has actually saved Crowley before means that Crowley hasn't also saved Aziraphale. Like, you get that those are not mutually exclusive and their relationship is not transactional, right? They have spent their entire existence protecting each other but never actually getting to be together because Heaven and Hell are always watching.

Yeah, Crowley fell. We all know this. We are aware of this. He was the serpent of Eden. He gave humanity the knowledge of free will.

But what we don't talk about is what Aziraphale gave humanity.

What did he give them?

We all know what it is!

Let's say it together!

He gave Adam and Eve his flaming sword because it was dangerous outside the garden and Eve was pregnant and she was already having a really bad day. He showed them compassion and gave them his extremely powerful angelic weapon so they would stand a chance on the outside of the garden. He gave humanity the gift of compassion. It's just unfortunate that his flaming sword became a weapon of War.

And then what did he do after that?

Ooooh, yeah, that's right.

God asked him about it and he straight up lied to her and pretended he had no idea where he'd managed to misplace it. She didn't say anything after that. He told Crowley the truth though. He told Crowley the truth even though Crowley fell.

Yeah, we know Aziraphale has done some really fucking questionable things. He and Crowley both suck at passing for human in front of observant people like Nina. They're not human. They are still learning, but they managed to experience human history together despite being on opposite sides and their experiences with humanity are what has shaped them into the compassionate and loving duo they are now. One of them is not better from the other.

This, my friends, is what we call meeting in the middle. It's why shades of gray is so important. Aziraphale constantly breaks the rules. Crowley refused to play by Heaven's rules. It's the reason he fell. He doesn't play by Hell's rules either. These two dorks figured out how to cancel each others' miracles out throughout human history in order to have more time learning about humanity and each other because working all day every day sucks when there are so many new things to learn and experience with the people you love.

We know Crowley and Aziraphale both love each other. Neither of them are good at hiding the hearts stars in their eyes.

But here's what's really fucking annoying about the Aziraphale hate.

Aziraphale was already crying when Crowley grabbed him and kissed him. Aziraphale is trying so very hard to do the right thing. He loves Crowley. He does. But he also has a duty to humanity, and he has taken that job very seriously since the creation of Adam and Eve. He sent them out into the world with a flaming sword so they would have a chance at surviving beyond the walls of the garden.

And he knows that Something Terrible is going to happen and he spent all of second season trying to figure out what that Something Terrible was while trying to have some sort of more honest and open relationship with Crowley, but again, they aren't human, they are a demon and an angel approaching life from opposite sides who met in the middle and fell in love with humanity together.

He wants more than anything to tell Crowley how he feels about him, but he wants to do something grand for Crowley because Crowley has always been grand and dramatic and sexy and a little bit scary.

Crowley is impulsive and has a temper and sometimes says the wrong thing but he has always trusted Aziraphale because Aziraphale gave him a chance even after he fell. Aziraphale chose to shelter him instead of smiting him while they stood on top of that wall. He knew he was supposed to kill Crowley, but oops, he gave his sword away to the humans so he didn't really have anything to kill him with and Crowley is the one who created nebulas. The Pillars of Creation is Crowley's work and Aziraphale was there to witness that, but he watched Crowley more than he watched the nebula. He witnessed the pure joy on Crowley's face when he said "let there be light" as a nebula full of colors exploded before their eyes. He was fascinated by Crowley.

But Aziraphale is going back to Heaven even though he has made it perfectly clear he absolutely has no desire to go back to Heaven. He told the Metatron this during their conversation. He spoke these words out loud. They exist.

But then The Metatron said this....

The Metatron. The very same angel who told Aziraphale in season one "to speak to me is to speak to the Almighty." He's the boss. He's the big guy. He's used to existing as a giant head and he had to give himself a body so he wouldn't stand out on Earth. And he knows that Aziraphale and Crowley have been working together since the beginning. He knows they worked together to prevent Armageddon in season one, and now he's made it clear he knows they were working together long before that. And let's face it, Aziraphale really wants to know what this Something Terrible is that Gabriel is running from so he can try to prevent it from happening.

It makes sense that he would want to take Crowley to Heaven with him because he would be able to keep Hell from getting their hands on him again. Aziraphale hates it in Heaven. He doesn't want to go, but Something Terrible is happening and Metatron isn't taking no for an answer, and maybe Heaven won't be so bad if Crowley is there with him. At least they can fix Heaven together.

But Crowley can't go back. We all get that. We don't blame him for saying no. It doesn't change anything.

Something Terrible is about to happen and Aziraphale has to figure out what it is. He wants to change Heaven.

He is fully aware that Heaven sucks. He still has faith in God. His faith isn't in Heaven. He deserted his platoon in season one and threw himself back to Earth so he could figure out how to make sure the war between Heaven and Hell doesn't happen.

But see, here's the thing. Heaven is at the top. Heaven has all the resources. Heaven is responsible for the creation of Hell. Heaven is empty and Hell is overpopulated. Aziraphale knows this. Crowley knows this. It's obvious every time we see either place. Both sides are desperate to go to war and will not hesitate to destroy humanity in the process. This is the opposite of what Crowley and Aziraphale want for humanity. If anyone can change Heaven, it's Aziraphale. He's the only one up there who gives a shit about humanity as far as we know. No one else is going to speak on humanity's behalf.

Some of us are so busy getting mad at Aziraphale for going back to Heaven and giving Crowley a Big Sad. Newsflash: Crowley is not the main character of Good Omens. Aziraphale and Crowley are equals, yet we wanna hold Aziraphale to higher standards because he's an angel, and when he makes mistakes it's proof that he's the bad guy.

Holy mother of all things that trigger my religious trauma, let me tell you. I spent my entire life hating myself every time I made mistakes. I've had to teach myself that just because I mess up sometimes doesn't mean I'm bad. It means I'm human. I still struggle with it. I probably always will. So when you say that Aziraphale deserves to be punished for breaking Crowley's heart, you not only ignore that Aziraphale's heart is also broken, you're saying he deserves to be punished for doing what he thinks is right.

Wanting to change Heaven for the better is not a bad thing.

And some of y'all wanna see him suffer for going back into the lion's den that is Heaven, knowing that he is already an outcast, that they have already tried to kill him once, knowing that he is a deserter, that he has been lying to Heaven about a lot of things, and you still think he's blinded by Heaven? You think he's just so naive and that's the only reason he's going back. He doesn't show his emotions the same way Crowley does so it means he doesn't care as much. He's expected to consider Crowley's feelings over his own when making choices. Like holy shit if all of that hasn't defined my experience as a woman with religious trauma in this fucking society. He's expected to be subservient to Crowley and if he doesn't do what Crowley wants then he's being unreasonable and illogical.

What the actual fuck, y'all.

Like seriously.

I'm sick of this bullshit. I had to step away from this fandom because of how toxic some people in this fandom are. It's not chasing me away, but the fact that I chose to hang out in a a more toxic fandom that is already notorious for being really toxic over a fandom that claims to be more open-minded and welcoming should probably tell you something.

It gave me a lot of perspective, and yeah, I'm still gonna speak up against the bullshit Aziraphale hate.

People are entitled to their opinions, but the Aziraphale hate isn't an opinion. It's just ableist, misogynistic garbage. At this point we all know y'all say these extreme things about Aziraphale because y'all get more joy out of the harm and alienation it is causing others.

Keep being loudly wrong, but if you think I'm not entitled to challenge shitty-ass, harmful, hateful discourse, bite my ass.

I'm not the one who lost the plot in this fandom.

[vidavalor]

Thank you so much for all your wonderful metas - I enjoy them a great deal. I hope I am not going over old ground here, but I have just finished your defence of Aziraphale's choice (which I agree with 100%) and it has prompted me to ask your opinion of the following:

Having witnessed the Metatron impose upon Aziraphale's good will and impeccable manners and endless sense of obligation with a sodding coffee, WHY did Crowley allow the angel to leave with this wily, manipulative being?

Now, admittedly, Crowley did get to his feet and follow them briefly (after being on the receiving end of that terrifyingly pointed glare from the Metatron) but is immediately distracted by Muriel and thoughts of breakfast with Aziraphale.

This is the same demon who is never still. Always wary, always on guard, always patrolling. Yet, after that ridiculous coffee conversation, after Aziraphale looks to him for direction ("Ummm.."), after that glare, he just waves the angel off on his way for a chinwag.

I actually wrote the scene out so that I could "see" it differently, but it did not help me come to any conclusions.

I would LOVE to know what you think.

Sorry. I wittered on a bit there. 😊

Hi @vernajarrett 💕 Thanks for reading & asking! I'm happy to chat about what I think is going on in the moment Crowley acts like a pod person and Derek Jacobi's character gets all that Big Damn Villain Music in the score. I've got the coffee brewing. Oat milk and a dash hefty jigger of almond syrup? 😜

To answer why Crowley is acting so massively weird during the part of 2.06 that you mentioned, we have to start a little before it with the arrival of the last visitor to the bookshop in S2:

a character played by Derek Jacobi:

When the last new character to arrive at the bookshop door in S2 first arrives, we are down to six other characters in the shop. Five of them-- Aziraphale, Muriel, Michael, Uriel and Saraqael-- are angels and the sixth character-- Crowley-- is a demon. Upon the arrival of Derek Jacobi's character, all five of the angels fail to recognize this person. This is a true shock to us because we think we know who this is, right? That's The Metatron.

We know what The Metatron looks like; we've seen his head quite dramatically huge and in our face on several occasions. We feel qualified to say that if Sir Derek Jacobi shows up it must mean that we're looking at The Metatron. What we tend to ignore is... well, everything else that happens here lol... all of which says we are incorrect about this.

First off? All of this is just (entertainingly) weird: The Metatron is a floating head who thinks himself above humanity but he's here now in a body on Whickber Street. He abhors food but he's stopped to get a coffee at the shop and have a chat with Nina. We first spotted him outside by Mrs. Sandwich in line-- is there a more incongruous place you would expect to see The Metatron than that? lol. It makes it very engaging to watch but these are also the first clues to suggest that something really odd is afoot here and when this character goes inside the bookshop, we really get that sense hammered home by the fact that this being we thought we had correctly identified really easily is unrecognizable-- to not one, not two, but five characters on our show, all of whom should instantly know exactly who this person is.

It's at this point that I'll mention that we technically still do not know who plays Satan on Good Omens. The first time he appears, he possesses Crowley by speaking to him using the voice of Freddie Mercury-- so, Satan is being played by a voice actor doing Satan-as-Freddie-Mercury. The second time he appears-- in 1.06-- he there for Adam, who is eleven years old at the time. Satan appears as a gigantic, cartoonish, cliched-red-with-horns-and-hoofs monster, voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch. It is completely at odds with how GO usually does its more horrific and frightening elements. You could argue that Satan appears this way in 1.06 because it's how he would appear to Adam-- to an eleven year old boy. Everyone sees Satan as Adam sees Satan when Satan comes for Adam. A parallel to that would then be the arrival of the character played by Derek Jacobi in 2.06.

Why can't these five angels identify the person who just arrived?

It has to be because they're angels. It's the only thing Aziraphale, Michael, Uriel, Muriel and Saraqael all have in common.

They can't recognize the being at the door because they're angels; meaning: they're not familiars of The Devil.

This is not The Metatron. This is Satan:

You might notice that one of the angels-- Saraqael-- eventually catches on. What they do is another huge clue to who this is. If Saraqael's realization was that this must be The Metatron, they would have spoken up and said that they recognized him, if only to suck up to the boss. But they do not so that is not their realization...

Instead, they don't say a word. They look afraid, look Up, fold their hands together and start to pray. Since this being is obviously one of them and not human-- based on what he said to Michael upon his arrival-- Saraqael has figured out that if they, Michael, Uriel, Muriel and Aziraphale all cannot recognize him, it has to be because this is Satan.

Saraqael doesn't tell anyone else what they've figured out. They just start praying in case it's their number that's up today. The irony of all of this, of course, is that three of these angels who can't recognize the face of evil-- Michael, Uriel and Saraqael-- are honestly pretty garbage people themselves and also that there's not much of a difference in level of evil between The Metatron and Satan. But, technically, Michael, Uriel and Saraqael are angels, just as Muriel and Aziraphale are angels. All it really means in this case, though, is that they've never been thrown to Hell and, because of that fact, they cannot recognize Satan. (It also helps to illustrate how being cast to Hell is political and doesn't really have much to do with whether or not you're a terrible person. It's just who has gotten caught while getting in The Metatron's way.)

Demons can recognize Satan, though. The problem is that they also can be possessed by Satan and influenced into not even knowing he's there... which is what starts happening to Crowley upon the arrival of Satan in the bookshop.

Satan can make Crowley's words sound natural and of Crowley's own volition-- and then make it so that Crowley doesn't even remember saying them. This is why Crowley is acting weird when "The Metatron" is in the same room with him in 2.06.

We've seen something like this a bit when Crowley put Sister Mary in a trance so he and Aziraphale could ask her questions back in S1. Sister Mary really looked like she was in a trance and that's because it wasn't really necessary for either Aziraphale or Crowley to instruct her to act any differently. They were the only other ones around and they weren't manipulating Sister Mary's behavior in an attempt to use her to influence other people-- they were only seeking information from her. How she acted when giving them that information wasn't something they were terribly concerned with because it didn't really matter.

When they had all the information they thought she possessed, Aziraphale brought her out of the trance by telling her that she was now awake and had just had a dream of whatever she liked best. As he and Crowley are walking away, we see Sister Mary seem like she just woke up a bit from actual sleep and she looks calm and refreshed-- like she really did just have a dream of whatever she likes best.

In that moment, Sister Mary is unconcerned with the fact that such a thought is completely incongruous with the fact that she is standing, dressed in work clothes, in the hallway of her workplace. She does not remember the two people who were just there asking her questions or what they asked her. She believes she was dreaming because that is what Aziraphale told her to believe had happened.

The point is that while Sister Mary didn't know she had been influenced like this and could not remember what had happened while she was being influenced, the effects of it remained a little afterwards, as she continued to believe what it was she was told while under the influence. Aziraphale's instructions to her were comparatively pretty innocent-- he told her she had a great dream so she continued to believe that to be true. Satan in 2.06, on the other hand, is not telling Crowley that he just had a dream of whatever he likes best.

Satan possesses Crowley from the start of the scene, accounting for Crowley's quiet and stillness in the early moments of it. He not only tells Crowley to identify him as The Metatron to Aziraphale and the other angels but he makes Crowley believe that he is The Metatron for real. He tells him to make it sound natural when he tells the angels who he is so that they will believe it. That's why Crowley doesn't sound like he's in a trance, the way that Sister Mary did in S1.

I want to throw in here something else, too, that's kind of a foreshadowing/paralleling scene to this as well that comes a couple of episodes prior to this one we're talking about and that is... whatever the fuck exactly was happening to Gabriel in the "tempest" scene.

For the record, I do not believe that it was Satan possessing Gabriel in that scene. I actually think it's some witch-related stuff--I swear the voice speaking with him is Anathema-- but I bring it up even though we don't know what this is totally all about yet because it has some paralleling things that we can already see are relevant.

First off? Where Gabriel is when this happens:

He's sitting in Aziraphale's desk chair. I'm not trying to say the chair itself is spooky (though it is as a result of all of this? lol) so much as I'm saying that both Gabriel and Crowley acting weird and taken over while sitting in Aziraphale's desk chair (which is very much symbolizing Aziraphale) is one of the many things reinforcing that Aziraphale is falling because here are these two characters who parallel him the most-- the two, other most important characters in the show, arguably, and the two also living in the bookshop in S2-- and they're both falling victim to darkness while sitting in his chair.

But what I really want to point out here is what happens to Jim after his possession. Watch Gabriel's eyes at the end here:

There are a few seconds more as well in the show when his eyes resettle on Crowley. Gabriel disappears entirely while he's being possessed. He is speaking words that Crowley can hear and that Crowley recognizes as coming from Gabriel's voice... but when Gabriel blinks back into the room and looks at Crowley, he has no idea what just happened.

He doesn't remember what he just said. He isn't aware of the fact that someone was just possessing him. He feels a little disoriented and anxious-- which is also sort of Jim's default state in S2-- but what we and Crowley witnessed him saying? He has no idea about that. Shax shows up outside the bookshop and causes a distraction that keeps us and Crowley and Gabriel from sorting all of this out until S3 but Gabriel's expressions on the other side of his possession indicate that he has no idea where he just was mentally, what he just said or did, or that someone was in his mind. This is another scene emphasizing this aspect of possession on Good Omens-- no matter who is doing the possessing. The exact same effects of possession is what is happening to Crowley in 2.06.

So, Satan uses Crowley to identify him to the others as The Metatron and makes him believe that he is The Metatron to cover up the fact that he's been in his mind. Crowley has no idea that Satan has been in the bookshop. The moment this becomes clear, though, is the first one you mentioned in your ask, which is when Crowley really confirms for us exactly who Derek Jacobi is playing by doing something so wildly out of character that it's almost impossible to justify without considering the idea that he's being possessed:

encouraging Aziraphale to go somewhere alone with who he believes to be The Metatron.

Next time you're watching this scene-- and GO, in general-- look for where the music stops altogether. There are moments in GO when the score just ceases to exist entirely for a period of time so that we can hear the words that are being said without any distractions. I've found that scenes where this is happening are usually pretty pivotal, either from a wordplay perspective or a plot perspective or, often, both. There is basically no music in the whole scene in which "The Metatron" appears to have arrived at the bookshop.

The score disappears upon "The Metatron's" arrival and it only returns with that big bit of organ-y "DUN DUN DUNNN" villain music right at a pivotal point in the scene you're talking about:

The music comes back at exactly the moment that the camera holds on "The Metatron" as he is staring at Crowley. Why here?

They really, really want you to notice this glare that this person played by Derek Jacobi is leveling at Crowley. We already don't trust this character if he is The Metatron and he's been nothing but a dick since he arrived, really-- he used "demon" to refer to Crowley, he called Muriel "dim" (he can rot for that alone), and he was a total prick to Michael and Uriel. As awful as they are, no one should be spoken to like that. No one-- including most of the audience-- sees this as being extra-villain-y because this is just how The Metatron is so it's expected behavior from who we might think this character is.

So, to show us who this really is, they can't just rely on us noticing that he's in a dark coat and tie (why is he in Hell colors?!) or that he brought along a temptation coffee or that he uses language from Mary Poppins ("spit spot") when speaking to the angels. All those are clues, for sure, but the moment the music comes back is when the show is trying to give us the biggest of the clues to who this really is-- when the scene is structured to show us that he is attacking Crowley.

Because this isn't actually The Metatron glaring at Crowley; it is Satan giving Crowley instructions to stay put.

It's why Crowley doesn't follow them afterwards and continues to believe that The Metatron was who was in the bookshop-- even as Aziraphale has figured out who it really is. Look at Aziraphale's response here and you'll see that this is one of the scenes that suggests he is pretty damn sure this is not The Metatron:

Aziraphale's head whips over to "The Metatron" in response to what Crowley said because he knows what the only explanation for that response out of Crowley is. If you are looking at "The Metatron" while Aziraphale is still turning his head, you can see that he's still staring at Crowley because he was instructing him to tell Aziraphale to go and to not come with them. Satan pastes on a fake as fuck smile when Aziraphale looks at him but it's actually too late-- Aziraphale already knows what's going on. He just doesn't want Satan to know he knows.

Aziraphale knows that there's no way in the universe that Crowley-- who was so worried about danger yesterday that he escorted him to, like, Arnold's Music Shop and Mrs. Cheng's restaurant lol-- would ever just chill in the desk chair while Aziraphale went somewhere alone with The Metatron.

Ever.

The Big Damn Villain Music shows up after "The Metatron"'s fake smile to Aziraphale. It is in the exact moment that he looks at Crowley again and finishes the instructions he was giving before Aziraphale turned his head. It's because this is one of the biggest clues to this character's identity-- who can do this to Crowley? Satan.

Based on the scenes that follow, Satan here is telling Crowley something like:

You will not follow us. He will be back soon. Everything is fine. I was never here; I am The Metatron. Aziraphale is not in any danger. Stay where you are.

This scene-- the one highlighted by the music-- where Satan is silently giving Crowley directions is the one most like the time we see Satan possess Crowley in 1.01. It has a similar effect for a moment, which is probably why the music kicks in here as it's the best way to remind the audience of who can do this to Crowley and how.

In that 1.01 moment, there was no one else around and Satan was not possessing Crowley for the purposes of having him speak to influence someone else's behavior. Since he did not need Crowley to speak in the scene, Crowley does not. He is silent and still while Satan speaks in his mind and gives him instructions. We see that Satan can take such full control over Crowley that Crowley is trapped within himself. He can't speak, he can't scream, he can't move-- so, he can't drive the car and his connection to the car is shattered to a point that The Bentley is almost in a head-on collision with a truck. This is our introduction to the level of possession that Satan has over him-- all contrasted with the fact that Crowley is supposed to be on a date with Aziraphale in the sushi restaurant. This is all coming back around in 2.06.

Its return is also foreshadowed by this Shax bit during the bookshop attack... Crowley missing when he's supposed to be safe with Aziraphale and Aziraphale worried that Satan has Crowley because the demons are circling and Shax... who exists to get inside people's heads a bit... as if echoing Aziraphale's thoughts, says:

Shall we send up the sushi?

After all... do we really think that a season that spent all that time on whether or not actual demons (representing a person's inner demons) were going to be able to get into the bookshop (symbolically, Aziraphale, and Crowley & Aziraphale) is going to let those demons into the bookshop and then just... decide Satan is on vacation for the week? Or do we think that it's not coincidental that the offer Aziraphale is presented with also happens to be the one thing in the entire Universe that could ever tempt him to Hell?

Hmm... 😉

Anyway, back for a moment to the scene in 2.06 when Satan influences Crowley into staying behind and telling Aziraphale to go with "The Metatron"... The undersung thing in this scene, imho, is Aziraphale's reaction.

If Aziraphale really believed this to be The Metatron with 100% certainty, he could have responded to what Satan just made Crowley say by pressing this idea of them going for "The Metatron's" proposed stroll. He could have said aloud to Crowley: "why don't you come with us?" or he could have told The Metatron that he didn't want to go for a walk and why didn't they just sit here in the bookshop instead and anything The Metatron wanted to say to him, he could say to him and Crowley together? If Aziraphale really completely believed that this was The Metatron, he could have-- and would have-- tried either of those things or something like them in response to what Satan made Crowley say.

Instead, what does Aziraphale do?

He *immediately* starts for the bookshop door. Why?

Because he knows that Crowley is not speaking of his own free will and that the person he identified as The Metatron is, in all likelihood, actually Satan. Aziraphale immediately starts for the door because Satan will have to follow him out, since he was the one who proposed this stroll. Aziraphale abandons the idea of Crowley coming with them when he sees that Crowley is being harmed. Instead, he goes alone with Satan, immediately luring him out of the shop so as to get him away from Crowley.

He leaves the bookshop with Satan to protect Crowley. It also foreshadows the fact that he's going to fall over a temptation that is related to Crowley's safety.

Look at how Aziraphale looks back to make sure that Satan is following him and quickly... how nervous and shaky he looks. He would be nervous if this were The Metatron, sure, yes, absolutely. In this moment, though, he's just living one of his worst nightmares-- the bookshop that he built that protects Crowley has been overrun and Crowley has been harmed right there in front of him.

This is their house. It's their living room, where Crowley's lounged for thousands of nights. Crowley is in Aziraphale's own desk chair. This is supposed to be the place where they both feel safe but now there is no safe space so Aziraphale is doing the best he can in the moment by just responding intuitively and protectively by saying with his actions: Get away from him. Follow me. You can have me. Leave him alone.

So, they go out, right? What happens next but the other scene you mentioned in your ask: Crowley and Muriel.

Crowley gets up out of the chair basically the second Satan and Aziraphale are no longer in the shop because Satan's hold on him in that moment is gone and he probably unconsciously needs to move, since Satan was literally not letting him get out of the chair. This is where the weird behavior gets even more weird-- Crowley doesn't follow them. He literally watches from within the shop through the window for a second as Aziraphale leads "The Metatron" over to Marguerite's. Why doesn't he go after them? Because Satan told him to stay in the shop. Just like with Sister Mary believing she had been dreaming, what Crowley has been influenced by Satan into doing lingers with him gone, since he was instructed by Satan to stay in the shop until Aziraphale gets back.

Crowley paces a little circle like a caged tiger, going back further *into* the bookshop-- a totally normal response to his partner going for coffee alone with a murderous psychopath. He mutters to himself:

"They'll be back soon."

WHAT. THE...? How is there anybody who thinks this behavior is normal at this point?

Crowley turns around and Muriel is there. He jumps a bit, having forgotten they were still in the shop. So did the audience, honestly. This may or may not be significant in S3. Muriel being there in the background, blending into the walls during this scene also means that Muriel is now maybe the only character who could actually tell Crowley what happened during the scenes we have been talking about here because he doesn't remember anything involving what he said.

If you were to ask Crowley at any point from the time "The Metatron" and Aziraphale leave the shop on in S2 who identified "The Metatron", he couldn't tell you. If you were to tell him he told Aziraphale to go with "The Metatron", he would not remember doing that. He has as much memory of the words he spoke in the scene with "The Metatron" as Gabriel does of his "there will come a tempest" moment-- which is to say, none.

Crowley knows that Aziraphale has gone with The Metatron and that they will be back soon. He doesn't know how that came to pass and he has been rendered by Satan incapable of leaving the shop or considering the idea that he should follow them.

If the being at the door is Satan and if Aziraphale's fall is where we left the end of 2.06, Aziraphale could lose his memory, at least for a time, which means that the only character who was a reliable witness to Satan influencing Crowley in this scene is Muriel. One purpose of having them in the shop during these moments from a writing standpoint-- as opposed to sending them over to Nina's coffee shop earlier-- might be to set up a character in S3 who can tell Crowley what it was that actually happened here. (Lucky Muriel lol.)

As you pointed out, Crowley starts speaking to Muriel casually, as if nothing is going wrong. He tells Muriel that they should leave the shop, too, and Muriel says:

The Metatron-- really: Satan-- did tell Muriel to wait in the shop but he did so just by pretending to be The Metatron. While there's no possession there with Muriel, Muriel's line to Crowley is also emphasizing what actually just happened to Crowley himself to the audience. "The Metatron" has told them both to wait in the shop-- so, they are waiting in the shop. They're both following directions they've been influenced in different ways to follow. By Muriel saying that they've been told to wait-- even if they were told in a different way than Crowley was-- it suggests that following a directive is also the reason why Crowley himself is still in the shop.

Crowley's response to Muriel, though, makes him sound like he's back to himself-- and, in several ways, he is. He is remaining in the shop because of the influence but he is not currently under an active influence so he can say what it is that he chooses to say. When he's a little sarcastic with Muriel, it sounds like his normal speech because it is. What he doesn't understand is that he's been influenced to do the same thing Muriel has been-- to wait there in the shop-- just against his will, as opposed to Muriel's conscious decision to follow the directive.

Here's where we have to consider Crowley's audience when we talk about what he says next. Crowley likes Muriel; of all the angels not named Aziraphale that he's met, Muriel's definitely top of the list. That said... Muriel is still an angel who is desperate to please The Metatron, as they just proved to him again in this scene by being excited to have been singled out to assist who they believe to be The Metatron. Muriel whole thing is that they're an Inspector Constable; they are literally the (supernatural) police and Crowley wisely doesn't trust the police.

Crowley has no doubt that, after Muriel does leave the shop, that they'd tell The Metatron anything he said. Crowley actually does believe that Aziraphale is in big trouble because he doesn't trust The Metatron-- he's just been rendered incapable of realizing that he's staying in the bookshop because he's been instructed to do so by Satan, who is really the person with Aziraphale in that moment. As a result, Crowley's mind has jumped to a plan for when Aziraphale comes back from coffee with whom Crowley believes is The Metatron.

Crowley has no doubt that Aziraphale will come back because he's been influenced to believe this to be true, which is why he keeps saying "they will be back soon" and "when Aziraphale does come back", instead of being terrified that Aziraphale will not come back at all, which is what he normally would have been if Aziraphale were alone with The Metatron. It is, in this case, going to be true that Aziraphale returns because that is part of Satan's plan and one of the reasons why he influenced Crowley into believing so.

So, anyway, Crowley thinks the big threat is The Metatron potentially erasing Aziraphale into non-existence by deleting him from The Book of Life. This isn't actually a thing, as Crowley told Beez back early on in the season, but Beez, being horrified to realize that they might have been manipulated by something they themselves and Crowley made up ages ago, doubled down out of embarrassment on it being real and led Crowley to believe in its existence as a result. Crowley has spent the season terrified that Aziraphale is going to be made to have never existed. The plan he's cooking up to save Aziraphale from that fate-- which is what he thinks is going on-- is not one he wants to share with the police. It's not one he's going to say aloud in front of Muriel because that might as well be saying it to The Metatron, as far as Crowley is concerned. We won't actually hear Crowley's plan until he delivers it to Aziraphale in coded speech in The Disaster Kiss Scene and by that point, everything is going, um, really, really badly.

(It's the reason why there's no music in that moment so you can literally hear the words echo around the room when Crowley starts in on it and basically shouts the "THIS PLANET" part at Aziraphale but that's straying from the scenes you asked about so *focuses* 😊)

So, Crowley instead says what he'd really, truly, honestly love to be doing for the rest of the morning and he does so in the way that he and Aziraphale do when someone who doesn't speak their language is around and annoying them-- he says it in Ineffable Husbands Speak to amuse himself and, probably, to amuse Aziraphale, whom he plans on telling later. (He'll do this again a few minutes later, when Maggie is ticking him off by saying he and Aziraphale don't talk.)

Crowley says:

Does Crowley want a little Us Time with Aziraphale when he comes back? Does he want to go with him to have an extremely alcoholic breakfast at The Ritz? (Ineffable Husbands Speak for boozy brunch and sex after too long without it?) Yes. Eventually. But he knows there's very dangerous trouble to be dealt with first.

Crowley says that because he wants Muriel to think that he is just preoccupied with thoughts of Aziraphale and breakfast-- because that's what he wants The Metatron to think and he knows Muriel will tell The Metatron what it is that he said.

Crowley wants The Metatron to think he doesn't have a plan.

But, really, when we have known Crowley to not have a plan? 😊

The problem is that it's a plan for the wrong scenario.

It's not The Book of Life that's happening; it's Aziraphale's fall.

It's not The Metatron at the door; it's Satan.

This is almost the entire communication mess of That Disaster Kiss Scene. They're being watched and whatever the fuck happened to Crowley, he can't see that freezing time to speak openly is an option so he and Aziraphale are boxed into trying to each convey what they think is happening and their plans to stop it using their cant vocabulary.

The ironic thing is that while they-- like the audience lol-- have two different ideas of who the being watching them is and what the threat is as a result, they actually both have almost exactly the same plan... with one, key, very romantic difference.

But that's another meta. 😜

In the meantime, I'll just leave you with a reminder of what "The Metatron" said in a moment when Crowley was still in the room:

[actual-changeling]

Hey, about your meta on how Aziraphale emotionally manipulated Crowley in the final 15: You explained how Aziraphale didn't defend his position to Crowley after he said "I think I understand it a lot better than you do" because he knows he's in the wrong.

Sorry if you've already answered this somewhere, but can you elaborate? Theories aside, I've always interpreted Aziraphale in the final 15 as someone who genuinely thinks they're doing the right thing.

If Aziraphale knows he's in the wrong, why would he go to Heaven in the first place? What would his motivation be? And what made you think he's aware?

Thank you!

A good question!

It's a central issue when it comes to Aziraphale because a big struggle of his is that he can belief two technically incompatible things at once.

There is always his initial belief, e.g. heaven is fundamentally good and angels cannot do the wrong thing, but then he is confronted by an experience he cannot ignore that shows him the opposite, e.g. God and heaven being fine with killing Job's children for a bet with Satan.

Now, he could take those two beliefs and realize what Crowley (and most demons) probably realized at some point: heaven lied to them and is not infallible, so when reality proves to be different than what they were taught, they can make up their own mind—there are more options than what they were presented with.

However, doing so would require Aziraphale to do several things.

become self-aware enough to realize that he made wrong choices

accept that he can still make wrong choices and that being an angel gives him no moral superiority

understand that "angel" and "demon" as categories are fundamentally meaning- and useless

move away from seeing heaven as the one true authority and build his own moral compass

find an identity for himself that is completely separate from heaven, angels, and demons

learn how to have healthy relationships without replicating the dynamic he had with heaven

Crowley was forced to learn all of this in quick succession before, during, and after his fall, and he's been in a good place for millennia at this point

Aziraphale, on the other hand, was never actually confronted with a situation that would explicitly force him to change his thoughts and behaviours. He got comfortable on earth, was mostly left alone by heaven, could do what he want, and had Crowley around—who, no matter what he did, always eventually came back to him.

Aziraphale benefited from Crowley's severe abandonment trauma and fears and decided that he does not have to make himself uncomfortable because Crowley will do it for him. All of the points I have listed above would vastly improve his relationship with Crowley and with himself, but they would mean making himself uncomfortable.

It would mean having to work through feelings of shame, self-hatred and guilt, learning how to actually listen to Crowley and treat him like an equal, understanding and accepting that he has hurt not just Crowley but probably also many humans throughout the centuries (e.g. the entire situation with Elspeth and Morag).

In short, it's a never ending journey that will make you feel really bad at times but is ultimately necessary to have healthy relationships and a content life.

Aziraphale KNOWS all of this, otherwise he would be at peace being exactly like the Archangels are. He wouldn't even TRY to convince Crowley that his morals are wrong and his own correct because why try to convince someone of something you are 100% sure of?

We never see any of the other angels and demons having those morality discussions because they are at peace with who and what they are. On top of that, it's not like Aziraphale does not notice when he hurts Crowley or makes him intentionally upset—he does notice, and he does not like it.

BUT, and there is, unfortunately, a 'but', he prioritizes his personal comfort over Crowley's wants, needs, and emotions.

For example, he coerces him into giving him the Bentley and leaves him alone with Gabriel, two things that deeply distress him. When Crowley does not do what he wants, he threatens to withhold his presence/affection and punishes him with rejection, which is him abusing Crowley's trauma for his own comfort. Any moral arguments are not about Aziraphale making a realization, they're him trying to come up with EXCUSES so he can justify continuing to think/do x-thing even though reality is telling him that he's wrong; Edinburgh is a great example for that.

In the final fifteen, we basically see how far Aziraphale is willing to go to protect his own comfort. I made a rough little list of his initial belief, the reality he gets confronted with, and the conclusion he comes to/decides on:

However, Aziraphale has finally reached the one boundary Crowley will never be willing to cross, not for him, not for anyone else. He will not go back to heaven and he sure as fuck has zero desire to be an angel again. Aziraphale could pull out whatever manipulation tactics he wants (and he does) but Crowley will not change his minds and is rightfully upset that Aziraphale is asking that of him.

So where does that leave us?

Belief 1: Returning to heaven and taking that position means he will be in charge and can change heaven so it is 100% good the way it is supposed to be. It's the right thing to do as a Good Angel.

Belief 2/Reality: He knows heaven is cruel. He knows there was a revolution with thousands of angels trying to change heaven and they failed. He knows that demons are not inherently evil and that angels are not inherently good. He knows that Crowley wants to save the world, that he makes choices are are kind, that he saves people, that he cares—and he won't go back to heaven. He knows he does not want to be without Crowley.

If the Metatron had given them the time to properly, actually talk about it, I think Aziraphale would have come to the conclusion that Crowley is right about heaven and has been all along—but the Metatron was purposefully hurrying him along and so they didn't.

When Aziraphale panics like he did then, he (like many other people) stick with the belief(s) that feels safest, the one that is instinctual, the one that requires the least amount of thinking. For Aziraphale, that is do as heaven tells you, so that is what he argues for. He gets stuck in that corner and when Crowley rightfully sets boundaries, he panics even more because that hasn't happened before, Crowley always relented in the end.

So he panics more and more and more, says increasingly hurtful things and becomes more manipulative, which in turn makes Crowley more upset, and they spiral until Crowley reaches his breaking points and accepts that he is choosing heaven over him.

Again.

By the time we reach the "you don't understand what I'm offering you", Aziraphale is out of arguments. I mean, what's he going to say? No, you the demon who fell for trying to change heaven don't know better than me, the angel who never faced any punishment from heaven whatsoever?

He pushed his angelic superiority as far as it will go and resorts to what he always resorts to once he is out of arguments.

Rejection. Silent treatment. I will never talk to you again, we're not friends, it's over, you're at liberty to go, if you won't you won't, then there is nothing more to say.

The Metatron has planned the entire encounter very carefully, he intentionally does not give him time to think, urges him to talk to Crowley immediately, enters the bookshop immediately after Crowley leaves, keeps walking when Aziraphale tries to change his mind, enters the lift first with his hand above the button.

Don't allow him to think so he will do as he is told, and it works unsurprisingly well.

I hope that helped clear that up, he is definitely very. convoluted in his decision making at times.

[lickthecowhappy]

The three songs in the Small Back Room represent the three seasons

I want to talk about the three songs that play in The Small Back Room. They seem specific and I have thoughts on them but I would love to read more opinions. At the moment, I have two main theories about the choices and their sequence. There is probably more to it than I see but I’ll focus on just one here. I also think that threes are more important that we realize and the fact that there are three instances of the audience hearing music in the shop is significant. I also think it’s interesting that Aziraphale heard two songs and Crowley one, and which they each heard.

The three songs that we hear in The Small Back Room are:

You Don’t Own Me by Lesley Gore from the album Lesley Gore Sings Of Mixed-Up Hearts (This plays in episode 1 when Aziraphale goes to see Maggie about the “ugrent” matter.)

You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me by Dusty Springfield from the album You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me (This plays when Aziraphale goes into the shop to ask about the song Jim was singing. Maggie is “not crying” about being rejected by Nina.)

Comin’ In On A Wing And A Prayer (published in 1943) (This song is playing when Crowley goes to make sure Maggie is on her way to the Whickber Street traders and shopkeepers monthly meeting.)

For this analysis I will assume they represent the themes of Seasons 1-3, and that they are chronological.

You don't own me I'm not just one of your many toys

You Don’t Own Me represents the abandoning of their sides. It’s a song intended to say “I’ll go along with you as far as I can but don’t try to tie me down.” The lyrics are a declaration that the listener doesn’t hold any ownership over the singer, the singer has full autonomy and won’t accept any attempt to be changed or restrained. This tracks with season 1. It’s heard by Aziraphale very early in s2e1, before Jim even shows up. Aziraphale and Crowley go along with their sides in season 1 but ultimately choose their own autonomy (what’s right) at the risk of destruction.

When I said I needed you You said you would always stay It wasn't me who changed but you and now you've gone away Don't you see that now you've gone And I'm left here on my own That I have to follow you and beg you to come home

You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me represents separation and the absence of commitment. The song details that the singer is in love with the listener who has seemed to change their mind and abandoned them. The singer insists that the listener need not make a verbal declaration of love but just to be accessible. It is heard when Maggie is “not crying” over Nina and their uncomfortable feelings, and while Aziraphale is trying to uncover (unbeknownst to him) another romance. This is consistent with the results of season 2. Aziraphale has seemingly abandoned their side after Crowley’s request to remain close at hand. A romance that has been, up until now, mutually unspoken but mutually felt.

Comin' in on a wing and a prayer Comin' in on a wing and a prayer With our one motor gone We can still carry on Comin' in on a wing and a prayer

Comin’ In On A Wing And A Prayer represents reliance on hope in a desperate situation. This song is the origin of the common idiom meaning exactly that. “Things look bleak, but we have a chance.” Our plane is crippled but we’re all alive, we’ve achieved our goal, and we might yet land safely. It is heard when Crowley reminds Maggie of the meeting, and I think that it is significant that it’s the only one he hears and the only one Aziraphale doesn’t hear. If this song represents season 3, one driving force is out of commission; non-responsive. But there are still other forces at work and the listener should keep faith.

But what if these songs are all present as emotional manipulation?

[phantom-of-the-501st]

Audience Comprehension of Grey Areas within Conflict in Media

I haven't written an analysis piece in a while, and while I don't necessarily have any thoughts on specific episodes, or a singular show atm, there's something that I've been thinking about recently that I feel like talking about.

In recent years, I've seen subsets of fandoms becoming less and less understanding of the idea of a "grey area" when it comes to fiction, believing that every situation has a right and wrong side, and that there is no way for two feuding characters to both be the logical party in a conflict. Semi-recently I've seen this in two fandoms that I participate in: The Bad Batch (Hunter vs Crosshair) and Good Omens (Crowley vs Aziraphale). Now I've gone into detail about both of these before, so I'm going to try and trim those discussions down for this post, but it's a similar problem in both fandoms and I feel like looking into it a bit.

Tags for @saturn-sends-hugs @inkstainedhandswithrings @eriexplosion and @nobody-expects-the-inquisitorius in case anyone feels like pitching in

Hunter vs Crosshair

Now the relationship between Hunter and Crosshair was... complicated to say the least. There were so many factors that influenced their actions and decisions, which put both of them in a position of being right and wrong simultaneously. And yet despite them both being at fault, there was an ongoing war within the fandom about who was supporting the right side; were you Team Hunter or Team Crosshair? According to some, you couldn't be both because there was no way both of them could be right, could there?

Team Hunter always seemed to be the popular option, as he was considered the morally superior of the two. However, that doesn't mean that he was without faults. In fact, he was greatly flawed: so focused on his own belief of what was the right choice that he struggled to consider others ideas, reckless and impulsive, stubborn. He was far from perfect. But let's be real, nobody is. And yet, despite all of his flaws, Hunter was considered by many to be a character who could do no wrong, and therefore was the obvious man to support in this ongoing conflict.

So what about Crosshair? Well he was brash, cold, a downright arsehole at points, and chose to stay on the side of the Empire. Surely he couldn't be considered the one in the right here? Well, it's not that simple and it never was.

It all boils down to that moment when The Batch left Crosshair on Kamino at the beginning of S1. Hunter and The Batch didn't have much choice. Their own brother was shooting at them, their lives were at risk, and had they stayed there, they likely would have died or been captured. They couldn't have taken Cross with them because they could not guarantee their own safety. As much as he was their brother, he was a threat to them. But we also have to consider this from Crosshair's perspective. Yes, he was trying to capture his own squad, but he'd been mentally manipulated and was in no position to make rational decisions. He was under the Empire's control. And yet, despite being in danger himself, and needing the help of his brothers, he was left behind. It was understandable that he lost faith in them. But neither side is entirely at fault here. They made the best decision they could in that situation, and no the decisions weren't perfect, but when are they ever?

Let's look at the other crucial moment that always gets brought up in this conversation: Crosshair being left on the Kamino landing platform at the end of S1. I've seen many coming to Crosshair's defence here, saying that the squad had no right to leave their brother there. But let's be honest, it could've been so much worse had they taken him. Yes, Crosshair spent over 30 rotations on that platform, but The Batch didn't know that was going to happen. And Crosshair was refusing to come with them. Had they forced him along, that would've done more damage than good; Crosshair was vulnerable, scared of losing his autonomy. Having his brothers force him onto a ship against his will was going to make him more argumentative and stressed. The best thing the Batch could've done in that situation was respect their brother's choice, which they did.

Throughout the entire conflict in this show, both Hunter and Crosshair were right and wrong. It was never as simple as one side being the "good" side, and the other not, their actions were both fair and unfair. No-one could make perfect choices because no situation could allow that. And yet, there was this general understanding across a section of the fandom that a person's entire moral compass could be determined by which side of the argument they fell on, and that there was no way to accommodate both sides at the same time.

Crowley vs Aziraphale

Which brings me onto conflict number 2: the Ineffable Husbands. The ending of S2 was heartbreaking to say the least, and while it was surprising in the moment, in retrospect, it was completely inevitable. And while I remember just how depressed we were after that ending, I also remember just how angry the fandom got with Aziraphale. Our poor angel took the brunt of the hate and was considered by many people to have been the one in the wrong. But Zira wasn't the only perpetrator of that mess. Both of them were to blame, and the storm that hit was always going to come in at some point.

The ending argument parallels a spat that the two had at the beginning of the season, when Crowley and Aziraphale were trying to decide what to do about Gabriel. Aziraphale supported the "fix the problem" approach, suggesting that they should help the Archangel, while Crowley went for the "ditch the problem" approach, claiming they should just dump him in Dartmoor. And while they were both trying to achieve the same thing (eliminate the Gabriel issue), they had both A) came up with different plans and B) assumed that the other would have come up with the same idea as them. They thought their "exactlys" were the same, until Crowley points out the flaw: "I feel like your exactly and my exactly are different exactlys".

And this is how we ended up with the ending of GO S2. Aziraphale wanted to fix the system: he recognised the flaws, and as someone who had dedicated his entire existence to being a good ambassador for Heaven, had viewed it as the only logical solution. It's the exact response you'd expect from someone still trapped in a toxic religious group, a belief that the flaws in your faith can be rectified, no matter what. He made the choice you'd expect him to but where he stumbled was in expecting Crowley, who he knew had been through a great deal of trauma as a result of what Heaven did, to make the same choice as him. He knew how hurt Crowley had been, so it wasn't fair to expect that he would make the same choice.

And yet the same could be said for Crowley. Given Crowley's trauma, ditching Heaven is a perfectly reasonable solution for him. He knows how twisted their morals are, and understands that realistically, no matter he does, there will always be someone higher up the chain who would thwart any attempts to fix the institutional issues. It was perfectly demonstrated by Gabriel being punished for trying to prevent Armageddon. However, Crowley never told Aziraphale about how Gabriel was exiled from Heaven, so it's entirely unfair for him to expect Zira to make the same choice, when he purposefully withheld information from him.

Just like at the beginning of Season 2, they had both had the same end goal in mind, but their approaches differed and they assumed that the other would make the same decision as then. That was their downfall. So yes, as an audience member, you can have your own opinions on which choice you think is better, but it isn't simply as black and white as one being right and one being wrong. They can both be at fault.

Why do I think it's like this?

Ultimately, I think audience reactions to conflicts like this boil down to three things: availability of information to the audience, escapism, and our own battle with morality.

As an audience member, we will always have different information to the characters themselves. When it came to Hunter and Crosshair, we knew what was happening to both characters, so we couldn't understand why characters were making certain decisions, but it's important to remember that we have more information, so of course our own choices would be different. We have context. The same with Good Omens. Like I said, we know what happened to Gabriel, as does Crowley, but Aziraphale doesn't. So while we can back up Crowley's decision, we can't necessarily fault Zira when he doesn't know what we do.

Additionally, as viewers, we seek escapism. The world is a mess and conflicts have so many layers that sometimes a clear answer isn't always easily found. So when we turn to media, we hope for something clearer, something that will tell us exactly what is right and wrong. Things being so morally grey feels to real for us, so we fight to find the good and bad; we want answers so we build up black and white decisions, even if that isn't how things are actually playing out.

Not only this, but I think our own fight for moral superiority influences our consumption of media. We always want to be the "good" person, so we fight to be on the right side. We don't like being wrong and we judge people's morality by whether or not they agree with us because we don't like the idea of siding with a character that isn't entirely good. But life isn't like that. People aren't like that. We're flawed, we make bad decisions, and there is never a perfect answer to the decisions we make. Yes, some choices will always be better than others, but sometimes things are so grey and murky that we can find support and fault in both sides. However, people don't like that. They want to be right, to be good, so they find what they align with most and claim that as the "correct" side, attacking those that disagree because if they don't side with you, then they must be morally inferior. And in all honestly, I think this has just gotten worse over time.

At the end of the day, not everything is black and white, and your understanding of flaws in a character does not mean that you agree with or support them. It can simply be a case of recognition. Things aren't as clear cut as we would like them to be, they are more complicated, and the sooner we understand that, the sooner we can appreciate just how rich some of these stories and characters can be.

[froggyliciouz]

What I think happened in the final fifteen was…

•) the Metatron did convince Aziraphale to go back to heaven because Aziraphale fell into old patterns as well as wanted it to be true that heaven actually sees worth within him

•) what he said to Crowley was the result of him falling back into those old patterns (also him just being a bit of an idiot, a traumatized idiot, but an idiot nonetheless) HOWEVER

•) what Crowley told him (as well as the kiss) ended up changing his mind about wanting to go back to heaven, but his thought process wasn’t finished in the moment the argument between them was still happening

•) the „i forgive you“ was his attempt to remind himself what side „he’s supposed to“ choose, I don‘t think it was a deliberate choice of him to hurt Crowley, I‘m not even sure he realized what he actually said in that moment (or it was too late when he did)

•) when the Metatron came back to collect Aziraphale, he was still in the progress of sorting his change of mind out

•) the struggle you see in this scene isn’t to trick the Metatron but his real struggle of choosing between the believe system ingrained into him and the one he actually adapted himself through the time:

•) he made his choice, but hasn’t figured out how to get out of this situation / how he wants to deal with the situation:

•) he realized he can’t talk himself out of it, therefore comes with the Metatron to the elevator

•) in said elevator Aziraphale figured out a plan, determined to save the world (his world):

I don’t think he lied to Crowley about his reasons to go back, nor do i think that there was some kind of miracle or poison involved to get him to go back in the first place, the manipulation through the Metatron was enough to get him to consider it.

Aziraphale wants to do the good and right thing, so when his blind faith in heaven combines with the Metatron telling him how to do the right thing (becoming archangel), him showing him appreciation in form of a promotion as well as making him (possibly false) promises to get rid of an old misunderstanding aka Crowleys fall, which Aziraphale knows wasn’t the right thing to do, so of course he took the bait.

He repeatedly clings to old beliefs and patterns, hell, he doesn’t even upgrade his wardrobe for hundreds of years. Compared to an ever fluid Crowley he was always solid and never changing, so him actively taking the chance to do something and change something about a system he has finally realized isn’t perfect or toxic even is a big part in his character arc.

And most importantly: it‘s not out of character, because the struggles of change were present. Aziraphale was unsure in his next actions, he hurt people he loves in the process and he will come to realize more and more that there’s even more changes to be made not only in a belief system that only allows black and white thinking but also in his relationship with Crowley that still suffers through said system as well as ongoing miscommunications.

[sirquibble]

Why I disagree with the Good Omens s2 coffee theory

!! Good Omens Season 2 spoilers !! I want to start off by saying that this is no hate to the people that like this theory, this is just my own thoughts :) I want to really break down Aziraphale's conversation with the Metatron in particular. I think there's tons of evidence in this conversation that shows Aziraphale wasn't mind controlled or anything, but just very well manipulated. In this scene, the Metatron speaks in absolutes, saying things like "you're just the angel for the job", which is giving him validation, from someone right at the top of the hierarchy, no less. However, Aziraphale's reply, "I don't want to go back to Heaven", is interesting as he stutters then immediately looks away, then makes a joke about the coffee to ease the uncomfortable tension. But, the Metatron continues to talk and completely ignores what Azi has just said, ''You know, as supreme archangel, you would be able to decide who to work with". Again, he's speaking in absolutes and is only offering him the option of becoming supreme archangel. The Metatron doesn't even give time to the thought that Aziraphale doesn't want this, because by acknowledging that, he'd give Azi time to think about it more, which would lessen his chances of being able to persuade Aziraphale to come back. I think that alone really shows how he's subtly influencing Aziraphale's choice here, not from mind control, but masterful manipulation. The Metatron carries on by saying, "Yeah, I've been looking over a number of your previous exploits, and I see that in quite a few of them you formed a de facto relationship with the demon Crowley." He's giving Aziraphale nowhere to hide by bringing Crowley up, and this is clearly an attempt to make Azi feel guilty and feel like he needs to redeems himself somehow by painting his actions in a subtly negative light. After this, Aziraphale very quickly breaks eye contact after staring at him very intently, possibly out of shame or because he was thinking about Crowley. However, the Metatron immediately gets his attention back, not allowing him any time to think, "Now, if you wanted to work with him again, that... might be considered irregular but it would certainly be within your jurisdiction to restore your friend, Crowley, to full angelic status". He's reminding Azi that what he's doing is 'wrong' to make him feel guilty, but then offering him exactly what he's wanted - Not specifically for Crowley to be an angel again, but for the two of them to be able to be happy together without any kind of shame or judgement. Additionally, he refers to Crowley as Aziraphale's friend, which reinforces that him being restored would make him more than just some demon and attempts to give the impression it would be positive for the both of them. The Metatron is also offering Azi power to have actual control over his relationship with Crowley, which would be another thing that could tempt him into agreeing. Crowley is his biggest weakness and the Metatron used this weakness to manipulate him, knowing full well that Aziraphale wouldn't put himself first. The entire conversation structure was essentially 'you did this how dare you, but you can make it better by doing this'. He was lured into accepting through manipulation, not mind control. In regards to the infamous kiss scene, I do genuinely believe that Aziraphale's reaction wasn't due to mind control - but shock. It was the wrong place and wrong time and it was such a painfully human moment, but that's a whole other topic of discussion. But, yeah! That's just my analysis of that scene, and if I turn out to be wrong, at least I had fun HAHA

[unhealthy-reading-habits]

One of the things that I really like in GO is that good/bad is not indicative of right/wrong.

Warning: Good Omens Season 1 and 2 spoilers ahead, do not read if you don’t want spoilers. I'll be briefly discussing the Resurrectionist mini-episode.

Aziraphale thinks it is because he’s an angel he does good, but it’s shown in GO universe that angels can objectively do evil and wrong actions. Aziraphale disagrees when angels do what he considers evil/bad things because he knows it is not what is right. But Aziraphale has to unlearn that doing a good thing does not mean it is right, and vice versa, doing something that might have bad or what could be considered evil intent or consequences does not mean it is the wrong choice.

The Eden scene is the very clear example of this concept.

Eden - God banishes humans with no means of protection or defence. If Aziraphale had not given away his sword to Adam, what would have happened when they encountered the lion? Adam may still have won the fight, but could have been badly injured or worse, Adam could have perished.

It’s only from Aziraphale’s “bad” action of defying God that he did the right thing of helping to save humans. But in the act of doing something he thought was good (trying to help humans), he introduces violence to humans and to the world. His sword is what War will wield at the end of everything. But it is still the right choice to make, as it gives humans a chance to live. The decision can be viewed simultaneously as good and evil, but the choice is still right.

The discussion between Aziraphale and Crowley on the wall epitomises this further; their actions were simultaneously good and evil, but Aziraphale worries if he did the wrong thing (in terms of a right/wrong dichotomy). Crowley's response is that as an angel he can't do the wrong thing but twists the words again in the continued discussion to joke about if maybe one did the good thing and the other the bad thing.

Both of them are showing they think 'angel = good = right' and 'demon = bad = wrong', but the whole point here is that both Crowley and Aziraphale did the right thing, and their actions can be viewed as good or bad depending on your perspective.

Supporting scenes (I did write a longer analysis for these scenes but I’ve done a summary below as this post was already getting too long)

Flood/Job episodes - Killing all living things in a certain area/punishing a good man who has done nothing wrong is objectively a bad thing but both actions are sanctioned by Heaven and is the will of God (supposedly). With the Flood, it is clear Aziraphale is upset about what is happening but does not intervene, trying to align himself with the “good” side. Deep down he knows it is wrong. But following this event, he has learnt the lesson (at least on some level) so with Job, he now does the bad/evil thing of deceiving the other angels, lying and being part of a manipulation tactic to defy God’s (apparent) plan, but in doing so he is standing by what he personally believes is right.

Armageddon - Killing all living things is again objectively a bad thing but Heaven wants a war, so after some convincing, Aziraphale again descends into doing bad actions (lying, deception, manipulation) in order to achieve the right thing in his own moral compass.

Crowley consistently does the “right” thing by leaving humans generally alone. He takes credit for their worse actions, but mostly to get Hell off his back. In reality, Crowley recognises that humans do not need demonic intervention to commit evil acts. If Crowley was actually trying to be a proper devil/demon, he should be inspiring higher levels of evil. But instead, he doesn’t encourage anything, he just commits to mildly annoying acts (although they end up coming back to bite him, but that is more from poor foresight on his part rather than actual intent in my opinion). This is the right thing in terms of humanity.

Crowley denies that he is doing something nice or good. He is right, it’s not considered a good thing to sit back and do nothing in this context, but it is the right thing for someone that goes along with Hell as far as he can go. It just so happens most of the time, he doesn’t go along with Hell at all. Just because someone is not tied to a Heavenly nature, it doesn’t mean you can’t do the right thing.

The Resurrectionist mini-episode is a massive neon light around this idea. Aziraphale is trying to do the “good” thing of absolving Elspeth of gravedigging by ruining the corpse. But in doing the “good” thing, trying to save her soul, it causes the death of Morag.

Morag would not have been in that graveyard if not for Aziraphale’s actions. Her death is the result of Aziraphale’s desire to do “good”. He might not have intended it to end that way, but if he had not intervened, she would have lived (at least, not been shot in the graveyard), Elspeth wouldn’t have tried to poison herself and it’s only from Crowley’s intervention that a second life isn’t lost that night.

So what would be the right thing in that situation? Crowley vehemently denies he is doing anything nice or good, since he is high on poison, and again it could be partly due to the “not wanting to be seen to be nice”. But I personally think it’s also a play at sometimes doing the right thing means you do someone bad or what could be considered evil.

You give a weapon to someone so they can live, causing violence and death around them to do so.

You sell corpses to a doctor, in order for him to teach people who can one day maybe save a life.

You deceive, manipulate and effectively try to brainwash the anti-Christ to believe and behave in a certain way (be neither good nor evil) in order to save the world.

Doing what is right is not determined by if it is good or evil action/intent.

Crowley doesn’t want to change Heaven, he doesn’t want to be part of fixing the problem as he probably feels it is not his problem for him to fix. He will go out of his way to fix problems Aziraphale get himself into/causes, but he’s not going to do it for a corrupt system that damned him.

Aziraphale is a selfless person, not because he is an angel, but because of who he is as an individual. I think Aziraphale does know Heaven is rotten to its core, but if Aziraphale isn’t going to help to try and make it right, who will?

It might be an evil/bad decision to go back to Heaven, but it is the right thing to keep trying, not just for himself, but for Earth which he cares for. For Crowley, so he can be safe and not threatened by Heaven ever again. For the angels like Muriel who are still in the system.

Summary: The belief that being an angel = being good = being right is incorrect, GO’s story is showing that what is right, what is good and what being an angel means are unrelated

[mirrorleaf]

The Three Stages of Aziraphale’s Acceptance of the Supreme Archangel Role

There are three distinct phases to Aziraphale’s ‘acceptance’ of the Supreme Archangel Job. All have been covered extensively, but I don’t think anyone has put them all together in one post. 

1) His excitement about being able to restore Crowley to his angelic status. Aziraphale is flattered (and a bit bemused) that the Metatron is offering him the Supreme Archangel position, but not particularly keen. However the offer wrt Crowley tips the scales. He is positively giddy. They can make everything better! Crowley will be safe and restored to his rightful place. And note that he is willing to give up everything in order to attain this — their earthly lives, the bookshop. His focus is on happy possibilities. He has not yet accepted, but is clearly more than happy to do so, if he can bring Crowley with him.

2) After Aziraphale has been rejected by Crowley, the Metatron appears and carries on his excellent manipulation, never asking Aziraphale what he’s decided, just taking it as a given. At this point Aziraphale is so blindsided by loss that he barely knows what to do with himself. He clearly dithers, repeatedly looking out the window to where Crowley is (8 times I believe?), clearly conflicted and uncertain, trying to calm his tremors and hide the tears in his eyes. But then he swallows it all down, puts on his biggest, fakest smile, and simply leaves. Why? Is it his 6000+ years of training/trauma + the manipulation kicking in, simply doing as he is supposed to do? Is it his anger and inability to process Crowley’s rejection? Is it his determination to take the opportunity, maybe to prove Crowley wrong? Or to make sure he is keeping Crowley safe? Does he feel he has lost everything already and can’t see the point in staying? Or does he realise that the choice really is ‘Coffee or death’ and that saying ‘No’ isn’t an option… Or a combination of all of these and more? This is the most complex one, because there is no clear cause. We can only see what Aziraphale decides, not why.

3) And THEN the Metatron mentions the 2nd Coming. All of a sudden Aziraphale realises that Crowley was right (see all the links about how they don’t communicate, how he simply never had the necessary information, that Crowley didn’t tell him what he discovered from Gabriel’s trial). But also, in that moment, as it all sinks in, he makes the active choice to become the Supreme Archangel. Not for the sake of Crowley, not because of being manipulated, but because he has to try to save the world. And now he finally has the power to make a difference and he can’t relinquish that.

But he still sends Crowley a look. What exactly is communicated in that look? There are all sorts of possibilities that we won’t see confirmed or disproven until S3. 

Final thought: Aziraphale left the bookshop a confused, manipulated and heartbroken angel, desperately Keeping Up Appearances. But he steps into the lift as The Supreme Archangel, resolved to do whatever he needs to. Is it any wonder that he is trying to find an expression that fits?

[demonanddominion]

Can we talk about Metatron a bit - his part in the end of season 2 has been bothering me and I’m trying to figure out what happened.

So Metatron the Angel most prominently appears in the Hebrew Merkabah Book of Enoch where it’s written that Metatron was first, the human Enoch, who was a pious man who God took into heaven and transformed him into an Angel. There are lots of versions of this depending on the source but this is the simplest version!

Now this is interesting as when Metatron in GO hands Aziraphale the coffee, who then asks if he should drink it, Metatron answers that he too has ingested things before. Primordial Angels would never eat or drink on Earth (unless you’re Aziraphale) but as he has been a human, this explains why he’d have previously eaten and drank.

**Also, when have we ever known Aziraphale drink coffee?!**

Right, back to Metatron.

His job in heaven is the celestial scribe, writing all the choices made in Heaven and Earth in the Book of Life.

Despite how well Aziraphale and Crowley tried to hide whatever they were doing or thinking, this wouldn’t have gotten past Metatron.

In spiritual texts, Metatron is said to have an effect on people that urges them to replace a negative thought with a positive one, encouraging people to be master of their thoughts and not slave to them (makes me think of the saying ‘don’t let your heart rule your head’).

Having spent 6000 years recording the goings on between Aziraphale and Crowley, he would have known all too well what consequences Aziraphale’s unhealthy thoughts had had, especially from Heaven’s perspective.

With this is mind, I don’t think it was the coffee (being spiked that is) that caused Aziraphale to make the decisions he did, but rather it was Aziraphale making the decisions, minus the thoughts of any consequences they would have on Crowley or their life together. To him, the offer to return to heaven as it’s leader, with Crowley back as an Angel, was the positive thought, and nothing to the contrary would change that.

One source claims Metatron helps to "rid yourself of all energies that do not serve your own higher good or the will of the Creator."

(Metatron: Invoking the Angel of God’s Presence)

You can see directly after the kiss and after asked if he needed anything else, there is a brief moment where Aziraphale might say something, but then his face changes and he says “I forgive you” or “Got everything I need”, instead of what we all hoped he would say.

For me, the act of giving Aziraphale a coffee was simply an ice breaker to catch Aziraphale off his guard. Metatron having been a human knows about the offering of drinks to guests or friends, but also that it would lower Aziraphale’s guard and make the manipulation easier.

Metatron knew all along Crowley wouldn’t have gone to Heaven, but he had to offer it in order to convince Aziraphale it was such a perfect idea. Metatron knows the power that Crowley possesses and by having Aziraphale in Heaven, he ultimately has control of Crowley as he knows Crowley will 100% never do anything to hurt Aziraphale.

[thecheshirerat]

mmkay no one’s said this yet and I’m kinda surprised because I thought it was fairly obvious but

We (and when I say “we” i mean the Good Omens series fandom) wouldn’t be here if Aziraphale didn’t feel like he needed to prove himself.

Yeah, he believes that God and Heaven are fixable, yeah, he’s been emotionally manipulated by the Metatron, yeah, he sees the Metatron’s offer as a potential safe future for him and Crowley.

But imo, none of those reasons fully account for his choice. No one’s yet (to my knowledge) mentioned the sheer simple fact that Aziraphale saw, in Metatron’s offer, an opportunity to prove himself, and to a certain extent, prove the world wrong about him.

Think about what people say regarding Aziraphale in this season, both to his face and in discussion. Shax belittles him for being soft. He is called things like “Crowley’s emotional support angel” and “Crowley’s pet.” Condescension has come towards him from his enemies (“don’t tell me YOU did it?” - Seraquael regarding the miracle, from Shax as aforementioned) but also from the people he loves around him, and it’s been that way his whole life.

Crowley’s protective nature is adorable, but his concern isn’t always communicated well. He says, “you really are terrible at magic,” rather than “I was terrified I was going to get you discorporated and I don’t ever want to do that again.” While the bookshop is under siege, Aziraphale steps forward and seems to have an idea, but Crowley dismisses it. He doesn’t give Aziraphale key information because it would upset him, but as a result Aziraphale is unaware the true depth of disgust Gabriel held for him, he doesn’t hear about “extreme sanctions” until it’s too late, Crowley doesn’t explain his absence after the Resurrectionists minisode. This lack of communication is bad for both of them, but I digress. On top of this, Aziraphale relies on Crowley for validation- he needs to tell him his good deeds, and, notably, the entire conversation at the end of the Job Minisode where Crowley gives Aziraphale the option to be “an angel who goes along with heaven as far as he can,” serves as an example of this.

Let’s even zoom in on The Last Scene, for examples of the tiny ways in which Aziraphale struggles to feel as though Crowley truly respects him. “You can’t leave this bookshop.” “I think I understand a whole lot better than you do.” “Listen. Hear that? […] That’s the point. No nightingales.” “You idiot.” Obviously there’s a lot to these lines, but Crowley’s tone is decidedly condescending from Aziraphale’s perspective- he asks questions that have trick answers, he insists he knows best, and being told that he doesn’t know what he’s doing is a real pet peeve of our Angel’s. It’s also key to Crowley’s character. He loves doing this shit, to Aziraphale, to Muriel, all over the place.

With that context, some of Aziraphale’s lines make a lot more sense. “You can be my second in command!” “Oh Crowley, nothing lasts forever.” “I don’t think you understand what I’m offering you.” “I forgive you.” He’s trying to say “two can play the condescending game,” but he doesn’t have the confidence. You can see it in his face when he says, “Well. I suppose there’s nothing more to say.” That face is screaming “there was no need for that tone of voice.” He’s mimicking the condescending tone of the other angels, striving to be right, for once- because he should be right, shouldn’t he? (“I’m a great deal holier than thou, that’s the point!”)

Because Aziraphale hates when Crowley condescends to him! He hates that, time and time again, he’s the one who ends up doing the “i was wrong dance” (why do you think he savors it so much when Crowley does it?), he hates that Crowley’s right all the time. And he knows Crowley is right, at the end of this scene. You can see it in his face when Crowley says “no nightingales,” you can tell he knows what he’s doing isn’t cute. He’s just terribly, terribly frustrated, and he doesn’t have it in him to back out now that he’s gone this far. Maybe if his self-esteem was stronger he could’ve siphoned up some humility.

So yeah. He wants to go to heaven and prove everyone wrong, and be the person that Metatron says he can be- a strong leader, wise, right all along. He knows, by the end of his conversation with Crowley, that it probably won’t be as easy as Metatron says it will be, he realizes Crowley’s suspicions could be true, but he can’t let Crowley win by backing out. Because then what would he be?

Crowley’s pet. Crowley’s emotional support angel. etc etc etc

He needs to do this in order to learn. He needs to do this in order to prove to himself that he can stand on his own. He needs to be the one to swoop in and save Crowley in season 3.

[hermitbubble]

Hi ,yes, I've been thinking about this and I NEED to talk about it even if it may sound a bit dumb in some parts (my brain still isn't working properly ahah) :

I don't think the Metatron did anything to the coffee to manipulate him, which doesn’t mean he DID NOT manipulate him, just not necessarily with magic and miracles.

So i’m pretty sure we all noticed that the discussion between Aziraphale and the Metatron was weird, but I wanted to analyze it as much as I can.

SO... I do think the Metatron manipulated Aziraphale, and he did this by making him think he had a choice in the matter. This happens four times. The first time being,,, with the coffee, like I said I don't think he did something to the coffee (which doesn't mean I completely rule out the possibility) but I do think the coffee is rather some kind of metaphor or just, represent the Metatron manipulations. As far as we know Aziraphale drinks tea and hot cocoa, not coffee, yet the Metatron bring him coffee, something he doesn't want/like, tells him it’s for him, that he should drink it, he doesn’t outright force him, but it’s implied he wants him to do it.

The second time it happens is right after (well technically before AND after), when the Metatron tells Azi they have things to talk about. Aziraphale clearly says he doesn’t have anything to say, yet the Metatron doesn't hear him and right after the little coffee thing takes him to take a little stroll, to talk, he didn’t give Aziraphale the choice to refuse.

Third time is when the Metatron asks Aziraphale for recommendation for an archangel. Aziraphale does give some recommendations but in the end the Metatron doesn't hear it, and just tells him that he should be the one, once again, the choice was already made, he wanted Aziraphale to think he wasn’t being forced into this (i’ll come back to it later)

Fourth time is right at the end of their chat, when Metatron tells him that he doesn’t have to answer immediately and to take all the time he needs to think about this. Right after Aziraphale says “I dont know what to say” the Metatron tells him to go tell his friend the good news, about them becoming angel, even thought a few seconds earlier he had told Aziraphale he didn’t had to agree to it yet and that he could think about it before.

Now I also want to talk about the Metatron and Crowley, I think it’s very clear that the Metatron doesnt like Crowley (just see the look he gave him before leaving the bookshop) and its safe to assume that he knew Crowley wasn’t going to agree to any of this (see the “So predictable” line he says to Nina earlier), so why would he tells Aziraphale to tell Crowley the “good news”. First of all, because if he had just left with Aziraphale, Crowley would have most likely thought that Azi had been kidnapped again (not far from the truth tbh), OR if he had forced Aziraphale to be the supreme archangel Crowley would have known it too, and would have probably tried (and succeeded) to help Aziraphale (we know how much he loves saving him). The Metatron needed them to break up, he needed Crowley to think that everything was over, that Aziraphale had made his choice, and that he DIDNT need saving, AND he can’t have them together, because we saw how strong the miracle they made together was, who know what else they can accomplish together. SO on top of that, the Metatron needs Aziraphale, not bc of his capacity as a leader (which,,, he doesn’t really have honestly), but because he’s easy to manipulate, he still believes in heaven being good and he still believes he can fix it. They saw what happened with Gabriel, who gave up on heaven and armageddon 2.0 because of Beelzebub (which I DID NOT see coming lmao), and they can’t have that happen again

[tenok]

The point (one of them) is that both Aziraphale and Crowley actually think they the smartest one in any given situation. And since I relate to Aziraphale much more today I get fixated on his brand of superiority. He starts his journey with rebellion from pretty tame "I don't get why they makes this desisions and it's look horrible on surface evel but I'm sure that they get best ineterests of everyone involved in their hearts and it's probably me the one that didn't get some oblivious detail" to "oh okay I'm sure it's some kind of misundestanding and we can all talk it out as adults because we there work on same goals" to frustrated "they won't ever listen to me and I will get in trouble for arguing and it will be better for everyone if I will make my desisions in secret and go behind their backs because I just can't let THEM make desisions that will destroy everything". It's not straightforward, I'm 30 and still circulate sometimes between "what if it's me the one that wrong aout everything" and "god HOW people can be THAT stupid", but I remember going throught this stages first as good and obedient kid with really stupid parents making stupid desisions and later with school, govermnet, activist spaces etc.

And the problem is, I was the smartest person in the room enough time to develop issues, and Aziraphale lives like his for 6000 years at least. I can only imagine how many times he thought "if only Starmaker listen to me and didn't Fall", "if only God listened to me and didn't make an Apocalypse happen", "if only Heavens listened to me and didn't did this or that that thing", "if only Crowley listen to me and understand in what kind of danger we can get", "if only that human listened to me and haven't dig the body", etc etc. It's awful, to be the one who always gets to say "I told you so", especially when there's such awful consequenses you can't even feel satisfaction, and you will be the one to clen this mess up (and Aziraphae will clean, or better try to prevent). Now, it's of course leads to issues. BIG issues.

1) It's really hard to stop being plotting and maciavellian and communicate things properly when you expect that person will at best argue with you, at worst punish you and double down on their stupid desisons and you will clean this mess up. It also really hard to stop trying to control everything because you already accepted that everything is your responsibility and everyone else would just make things worse. (as someone that relates to Aziraphale I think he did so much progress there, the levels or trust he shows Crowley are amazing for two beings that probably last time heard of psychotherapy when Freud was alive. but such trust is fragile thing, one misstep and you back on your "it will be better if I do everything alone" bullshit. I'm not saying it's good. I'm also not saying that it's bad. it's just how things work)

2) It makes you overstep other people authonomy, because, again, it would be better for everyone if they did what you think best for them. It works funny wih Aziraphale because yes he's all for free choices for humanity!! NOW GO AND DO SMART CHOICES DAMN YOU!!! WHY YOU DON'T PICK THE THING THAT WOULD BE SMART TO PICK I HATE YOU ALL. That's where me and Aziraphale difer a little because at least I somewhat good at stepping into other people shoes and understand why they do what they do. But angel there is autistic (or bad at this specific thing for other reasons), so I think when people he consider reasonable doesn't agree with him for their own reasons he ge's really baffled, like, there arE correct opinion and it's mine, WHY are you being difficult?? to spite me?? And I'm sure that half of the reason why Aziraphale's so comfortable with Crowley is that he perfectly happy to let him buly or manipulate him into doing things Aziraphale picks as right. Usually Crowley know where pick his battles and how to play long game to make Aziraphale agree for really important stuff he wants from him, but otherwise? Sure he will complain how he hates Hamlet but they will watch Hamlet, and Aziraphale will be very pleased with himself. (and than there goes final fifteen and we back at "but WHY won't ypu agree with thing I pick or us IT'S GOOD AND RESONABLE THING" and we should be happy that consent is something that imporant for our angel ok? he would be angry with Crowley for picking wrong but he won't make him do what he doesn't want. they respect each other like that.)

3) It makes you really really tired and tense. You control everything, unfortunately the longer you do it the more things starts really depedend on you, you can't let go, you don't know anyone that can share this burden with you because first they should prove that they won't blow his up and for this you should share at least something with them, but what is they would blow it up? Better be safe than sorry. And look when it's my problems it's credit cards and doctor appointmens and with Aziraphale we talk about people dying. Crowley dying. Now, as I said, he actually shows Crowley so. much. trust. for someone with such issues. Because Crowley was there for 6000 years, and he proved himself capable enough times. But still there's areas where let go and not worry would be impossible for Aziraphale, Crowley's safety being one of such things (you see, you can risk with your life when you deal with your problems because whatever you will clean shit up if needed, but if someone close to you hurt themself?? it's YOUR problem too but it will be SO MUCH HARDER to clean. I think when Aziraphale points to Crowley that hell would be harder on him than he can expect heavens to punish him, it's partially because he believes it's true and partially because he knows how to minimize harm when heavens angry with him but HOW can he do this for Crowley??). Anyway. Lol. The more I think about it the more I sure that Crowley without Aziraphale would be a miserable angry dick, and Aziraphale wihout Crowley would be dead, because it was the one person that kept him one tiny slip away from total burn out.

So yeah there's a lot of posts about how angry heartbroken etc Crowley will be with Aziraphale (I don't agree but that's for other post), less posts about how sad and heartbroken will be Aziraphale, but I hope to see Azyraphale being angry too (it they will be angry with each other at all). Not only for not picking him or leaving or making everything messy and emotional and wasting their first kiss at their fight etc, but also because Aziraphale was trusting him! Trusting that he get another resonable adult in team with him! Someone who he can trust to make resonable desisions and see his ideas as clever and him as capable and being willing to go to the end of the world with him with mild complaints and than!! When he did trust him to understand!! He was like everyone else!! Unresonable and emotional and angry with him and why he asked him at all he should've do it secretly and alone as always and it would've be as usual and it wouldn't hurt but it was Crowley that taught him to trust and to ask him for help!! Breaking his perfectly fine coping mechanisms!! It's all his faut if you think about it huh?? (but of course he's already forgiven. but also Aziraphale would do what he needs to do alone this time, as one and only capable adult in the world.)

Anyway it's not a meta it's just some late night thoughts. And it's in no way whole analizis there's so much more problems inside this angel. It's just something in particular that resonated with me today. Also it's not in any way critisizm of him, mind you, because a) he does really the smartest person in the room most of the time and b) I LOVE how fucked up in the head he is!!! I think he needs to become even more fucked up actually!!! and Crowley should love him for that and I will cheer for him from sidelines!!!

[aziraphalesrevenge]

End of Good Omens S2

So, I've been seeing a lot of discourse around the final 15 minutes of the last episode, and I'm formulating some thoughts. There's so much going on, but I just wanna take a minute to discuss the characters and who they are, what they're potentially feeling, etc.

Forgive me. This is gonna be a bit of a long one.

Okay, so we all know how this goes. We've seen the scene multiple times. It's been dissected so many times. What I wanna bring attention to is that yes, while their hearts are breaking, there's still so much love there.

First off, I personally believe that Aziraphale isn't being completely truthful. I don't think he's actually excited about going to Heaven nor excited about inviting Crowley to come with and be an angel again. I do think that perhaps he's thinking that it's a way to right a great wrong, and that he loves Crowley for all of who he is, but he has stuff he's gotta work through. He needs to see Heaven and Hell for the completely toxic entities that they are. There's no fixing that. I also think that he was genuine when he said "I need you!" because it's evident that he does, in fact, feel a sense of need towards Crowley's presence and proximity to him. It's the closest that he can feel safe expressing his feelings for Crowley.

Remember that they're probably being watched in this moment too. Which explains Az constantly looking out the window while they're talking, and also his extreme worry when Crowley starts to confess. Because that reads like worry to me. He's scared. He's a very smart angel, indeed. I think he knows the Metatron is manipulating him. I think he knows quite a lot more about this than we all think he does. Perhaps he even interrupted Crowley and feigned excitement on purpose to push him away.

But you can see that even through that hurt that Aziraphale is experiencing (HOLY SHIT THE EXPRESSION ON HIS FACE RIGHT BEFORE THE KISS FLOORS ME EVERY TIME) he's still, in some ways, reaching for Crowley. He knows he doesn't have much choice. Not with the Metatron ushering him to Heaven. But you can see him repeatedly looking out the window where the Bentley is parked and we know Crowley is standing. Perhaps even looking at him. Watching. Waiting. And we know that Crowley was shocked by being interrupted by Az, but he still let him talk first. We know very well where he stands on Heaven and Hell being toxic. But he dealt a fatal blow to Az by saying "no nightingales". And I think it hurt him just as much. This is just more evidence of their poor communication, because Crowley is definitely feeling like he's not good enough as he is and that Az only loves him conditionally (which isn't the case). And, using the human method of conveying his feelings, he desperately and aggressively kissed Az. This was not a loving kiss, and I really wish their first kiss could've been sweet and tender, but it wasn't.

We can see that Az wants this too. They're both taking what they can, while they can. It's clear. But it also pains them both deeply.

AND YET! The REASON I'm making this post: Crowley still waits for Az. We see many times that Crowley will walk away, but this time? This time he stayed. He waited. He watched him leave. And I think this is to communicate that he still loves him. That he misses him already. That he'll be there when he gets back. They'll both have feelings about it and shit to sort out, but, Crowley is still there. He's still waiting. He's still so irrevocably in love with Az, even though this all hurts. He's showing, without a doubt, that he chooses "us" as Az leaves for Heaven.

And the look back? Ugh. That does me in. It's such a bitter and sorrowful parting. Neither of them want this. Neither one of them wants to be separated.

Now, I have my own thoughts about other things going on. And there's always room for other things to have happened that we weren't shown. Like Crowley stopping time for them to chat. Maybe Metabitch is messing with the Book of Life and is editing events as he sees fit. Who knows? But what we do know for sure is our ineffables are irrevocably in love with each other, they're pained by their parting, and Metatron was trying very very hard to separate them.