#The book of life theory

[gomurderboard]

I've may have gotten a clue from the Book of life theory. In the doc there was this whole thing about alcohol and Metatron pushing his beliefes onto everyone. In the ball there's a scene where Mrs Sandwich can't say that she's a brothel owner and she herself doesn't know why.

Very true, though I personally assumed that was Aziraphale's doing because talking about bedroom matters (even professional bedroom matters) wouldn't be proper at an Austen-esque ball.

I'll tag it under the theory for people's consideration, thank you!

[pocchi-poket]

This theory single handedly made sense of everything I found odd and/or didn't like of season 2

It also accidentally came to my house, kicked me in the butt and called me a sh*t writer, but it's probably for the best.

The Magic Trick You Didn’t See: Being An Analysis of Good Omens Season 2

(or: Neil Gaiman, Your Brain is Gorgeous But I Have Cracked Your Sneaky Little Code And Have You Dead To Rights*) (*Maybe)

***

Soooooo I just spent the last 48 hours having a BREATHTAKING GALAXY BRAIN EPIPHANY about Good Omens Season 2 and feverishly writing a fuckin16,000 word essay about the incredible magic trick that @neil-gaiman pulled off. 

Yes, it’s long, but I PROMISE your brains will explode. Do you want to know how magic works? Do you want to know what Metatron’s deal is (I’m like 99% sure of this and it’s EXTREMELY FUCKING GOOD)? Do you want to know about the Mystery of the Vanishing Eccles Cakes and the big fat beautiful clue I found in the opening credits? Do you go through the whole inventory of Chekov’s Firearm & Heavy Artillery Discount Warehouse? 

Here is the essay, go read it: https://docs.google.com/document/d/193IXS11XN46lziHRb6eUpM17yK0BQkRqke1Wh64A_e0/ When ur done u can tell me I’m an insane crackpot, and u know what, i won’t even be offended

In case you don’t know whether you want to bother reading the whole enormous thing on google docs, I’ve put the first couple sections of it under the cut. JUST TRUST ME OKAY, HEAR ME OUT, THIS IS VERY EXTREMELY COOL, NEIL IS GOOD AT HIS JOB–

Continua a leggere

[what-am-i-doing-in-this-fandom]

I'm sweating and crying, but I own someone's life now so that's cool

You guys BETTER be clicking the pictures to see the details better >:(

Part one is HERE!!

[loveaetingkids]

After seeing this post I decided to insert my little blorbos in here:

(Like or reblog if you wanna use)

[padmestrilogy]

the thing about padme’s deleted “mother of the rebellion” rots scenes is this is a once-14yo girl who said “i was not elected to watch my people suffer and die while you discuss this invasion in a committee” now a 27yo woman who grew into one of those helpless senators, spending her final days trying to stop a war via committee before watching her husband cause untold suffering and death. like id lose the will to live too damn

[indigovigilance]

Jimbriel, Satan, the Book of Life, and what it means for Crowley

Acknowledging that what we know so far about the Book of Life from various characters is highly suspect, I'm going to posit to you that Beelzebub is actually the true authority on the Book of Life, and that they bookend Season 2 with very important (and hopefully accurate) information about the Book of Life. With that in mind, let's take Beezlebub's S2E1 description and see how it fits with other canon evidence:

But what does it mean to have never existed in the Good Omens universe? For that, let us look to Satan.

From in-show canon, we know that Adam was able to retroactively change Satan's status as his father to not his father:

Adam altered reality, although Crowley, Aziraphale, the other celestials, and even Adam himself remember those events from a timeline that supposedly has been erased:

But Crowley nonetheless confirms that this is reality now. Satan was never Adam's father.

Additionally, though not technically in-show canon, we know from Notorious NRG that once Satan became Lucifer, this erased Lucifer from existence in the GO universe:

And Crowley's monologue in the bar drives it home; even though Lucifer no longer exists, Crowley still remembers him, and some key events that they were involved in together.

But a more dramatic portrayal of erasure is found in our favorite Good Omens himbo, Jimbo. In the trial of Gabriel, the Metatron makes direct allusion to the fact that Gabriel will no longer be Gabriel after his demotion:

Not "your memory of your time as the supreme archangel will be erased," no, it's:

Your memory of your time as Gabriel will be erased.

Whether he means to or not, Aziraphale reinforces this characterization of memory-loss-as-new-identity:

This can be taken simply as a safety measure, but Jimbo doesn't understand it that way and we see throughout the remainder of the season that Aziraphale is very consistent about calling his unexpected guest "Jim," even correcting Crowley when they're speaking privately and it wouldn't blow his cover to call him Gabriel:

But the final word on memory and identity, especially as they pertain to Jimbriel, again comes from our Lord of the Flies, Beelzebub:

All your you is your memories.

Altogether we see that there is significant in-show canon to support a theory that memory is inextricably linked with identity, and that when memory is removed, identity is so drastically changed that the name of the entity must also change... and the person who existed before, with that former name, exists no longer; it is as if they never had.

(But, as we see in the case of Gabriel, they can be restored.)

I told you in the title that this post was about the Book of Life: it is. Everything discussed here about memory and identity must necessarily characterize how the Book of Life operates, at least with respect to erasure. When someone is erased, they don't vanish, but they are so changed it is as if a new person has taken the place of the old, the way Jim took the place of Gabriel, until he got his memories back. But we can surmise that when someone is erased from the Book of Life, their memories aren't conveniently stored in a TARDIS/Ru Paul fly for later recovery. The memories may not be gone, but I'm going to guess that they would be extremely difficult (or impossible) to retrieve.

What this means for Crowley:

I think we need to give this scene a lot more credit for telling us how this universe works. Surface level, it reads as "you don't understand my trauma, and how I've been changed by it." Which is a very valid interpretation. But we can dig deeper and see that, given everything else we know about celestial beings losing their memories, names, and identities, Crowley is alluding to something far more horrific than just the scars left by flaming swords and halo-grenades.

These are the scars of a lobotomy. Something was taken from him, and he is aware of it.

He knows that his memory has been tampered with. Various people (Furfur, Saraqael) tell him that they recognize him, and of things they've done together. He has no recollection of them, but instead of getting agitated, he brushes it off and ignores it. This lack of questions from the guy who questions everything tells us that he already has the answers; not the memories, but the knowledge of why he doesn't have them.

Furthermore, when he's trying to get Jim to remember the something bad and Jim says it hurts, Crowley says:

I know. Do it anyway.

How does Crowley know that it hurts, to try to recall memories that have been taken out of your head?

Because he's been through it.

He has tried to remember, and some memories, like working on the Horsehead Nebula with Saraqael or monkeying around with Furfur, weren't worth the pain. Or perhaps it was pain on top of pain to remember what he had lost.

It is an especial testament to the cruelty of Heaven that he remembers going into battle, but not the bonds he formed with his friends. He remembers a million lightyear freestyle dive into a boiling pool of sulfur, but not the work he did on the Horsehead Nebula, a thing that brought him joy.

And now, the person he loves most in the world, his only refuge from the terror of his empty nightmares, from his malignant and creeping sense of unease that something is missing, has gone back to that place where his identity was so horribly violated that he lost his name.

How will our hero cope?

If you liked this meta, you will almost certainly like my meta on Continuity Errors.

For my thoughts on who Crowley may have been before the fall, go here.

For my thoughts on how this pertains to Metatron, go here.

As I continue to produce metas related to this theory, you'll be able to find them all here.

[s0fter-sin]

one of my favourite aspects of supernatural that you very rarely see in paranormal shows is that sam and dean are already versed in the world they live in. there’s no sudden discovery of ghosts and demons and now they have to learn about them along with the audience; they are born into it and already know all about it. it allows the audience to follow their personal story instead of also trying to figure out this new world and its rules

the first season is full of knowledge we never see them learn; “w*ndigoes are in the minnesota woods or- or northern michigan. i’ve never even heard of one this far west.” […] “great. well then this [his gun] is useless.” (1x02), “you don’t break a curse. you get the hell out of its way.” (1x08), d: “it’s a god. a pagan god, anyway.” […] “the annual cycle of its killings? and the fact that the victims are always a man and a woman. like some kind of fertility right.” […] s: “the last meal. given to sacrificial victims. d: “yeah, i’m thinking a ritual sacrifice to appease some pagan god.” (1x11)

almost every episode in the first season is a monster they’ve faced before that they then explain to the audience in a way that should feel patronising; like it’s the same speech given over and over again but instead, the audience almost feels included in the knowledge. it’s stated with such an innate confidence and comfort in said knowledge that it feels like we already knew it too; “spirits and demons don't have to unlock doors. if they want inside, they just go through the walls.” […] “the claws, the speed that it moves; could be a skinwalker, maybe a black dog.” (1x02), “it's biblical numerology. you know noah's ark, it rained for forty days. the number means death.” (1x04), “no no no, not the reaper, a reaper. there's reaper lore in pretty much every culture on earth, it goes by 100 different names.” […] “you said it yourself that the clock stopped, right? reapers stop time. and you can only see 'em when they're coming at you which is why i could see it and you couldn't.” (1x12)

they already know and, at least in the first season, already have what they need to kill whatever they’re hunting; already know to salt and burn bones for spirits, fire for a w*ndigo, exorcisms for demons, a silver bullet to the heart for shapeshifters. there’s only three times in the entire first season that they run into something new to them; 1x14 when sam gets his first vision that leads him to another psychic, 1x16 when dean calls caleb for help on the sigil he put together and he tells him about daevas, and 1x20 when they find out vampires are real- and they only don’t know that bc john thought they were hunted to extinction and not worth mentioning

(there’s also technically two half instances if you count one of them knowing something the other doesn’t - sam figuring out the tulpa in 1x17 and dean already knowing about the shtriga in 1x18 - but those still rely on sam and dean having prior knowledge)

even when they’re uncertain about facing something, it’s not bc they don’t know what it is; it’s precisely bc they know what it is and acknowledge that it’ll be a difficult hunt (“i don't know, man. this isn't our normal gig. i mean, demons, they don't want anything, just death and destruction for its own sake. this is big. and i wish dad was here.” 1x04)

so much of the tension in paranormal shows typically comes from the main character(s) not knowing what is happening to them/the people around them and having to find out how to resolve it. supernatural is unique in that it operates more like a police procedural. the tension comes from solving the clues and identifying patterns to figure out who (what) the killer is and intercepting before they can take another victim

it’s such a different tone to go for when compared to other shows that came both before, during, and after its run. it sets sam and dean on even footing with each other since they both have the same knowledge going in, and it puts them in a place of authority usually reserved for an outside character

the shows i compare spn to most is charmed, buffy and teen wolf; every main character in those shows are brought into the paranormal world knowing nothing, putting them on the same level as the audience, and they have their mc interact with others already knowledgeable about that world in order to overcome their problem/monster of the week. the audience organically learns about this new world as the characters learn about it. it’s a sound writing strategy that prevents “as we already know”-style exposition but something that complicates it is if your world building isn’t unique or intriguing enough, this slow introduction can become boring

we’ve seen shows like these before; sitting through the same tropes of characters learning to use their powers, struggling with no longer feeling normal/relating to the regular world around them, and not knowing how much they can trust the people already involved in this new world gets repetitive. all three shows eventually reach the same level of comfort with their new world that spn starts with but if the characters aren’t enough to draw you in, you can end up dropping it before they reach that point (and often, before the overarching plot can really kick in and evolve the show beyond the villain of the week format)

it’s the superhero origin movie in tv format; dragged out and overplayed. dropping the audience into an established world of course comes with its own problems but you also have the benefit of pre-existing established character dynamics that let the audience slot in like they’ve always been there instead of just getting to know all the characters while the characters also get to know each other

sam and dean already knowing about the supernatural lets the audience immediately get to the core of the story; the conflict between sam and dean, the search for their father, and the mystery of what killed their mother

[hanafubukki]

I’ve been thinking and wondering 🤔 if they do increase Lilia’s life span, it’s probably not going to be hundreds of years. It will probably be longer but not as long as that (though I wish it were, because I know he wanted to see Malleus become king, etc)

So then if they do increase it, or maybe the years he has left is less than a hundred years, but as Malleus said; Lilia doesn’t want any one of them wasting their time on him when they could be living their life to the fullest.

In either case, wouldn’t it be heart breaking and yet poetic, for Lilia and Silver to have lived their life and then died at the same time? 🤔

Though if that’s the case, I wouldn’t be able to be as strong as Malleus, because loosing my father and brother at the same time?? That would break me if I was in his shoes 💔😭

You can also imagine the heartbreak Sebek would go through if his aging slowed down too you know? The pain he would feel.

But then, it also makes me wonder 🤔, it could also be half a century or the “remainder” of human years.

Because the whole point of his actions is that Lilia wants his sons to move on, to enjoy life, make bonds, and be happy. See life to the fullest as he has, enjoy life with the same joy his boys has brought him. He wants the same for them 🥹

In the end, it might just be that. Lilia living like a “human” seeing his boys grow and become the fine men they are and being proud of them all the while.

As any parent would.

Because isn’t that a parent’s wish? To see their children grow up, see them come into their own, know they will be fine, and once the time comes, they can happily pass with a smile. ��😭💞

[mmiiuuyu]

"no longer can i mend the worn and torn, blood red strings attached to us . and i'm 𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘺 to let you go, but you cut it first."

[severinaprince]

u kno, I don’t think that people consider enough the possibility (and very high probability) that Snape wasn’t mean to student’s because he wanted to, but more so because he had to. Not saying they he was nice. That man sure as hell wasn’t nice, especially when reading from Harry’s point of view.

But let’s consider for a moment the objective circumstances: Severus Snape was a past Death Eater, who at 21-ish years old changed sides (something only Dumbledore knew to which extent and the reasons), and knew of the possibility of the Dark Lord coming back because Dumbledore told him, and anyone who listened honestly, that he didn’t believe Voldemort to be truly gone.

Now, Severus Snape knows that Harry Potter, this child who is the Dark Lord’s undoing, is alive and is coming to the school, as probably most of his contemporary schoolmate’s kids are also going, have been there a while and will come for various years after. Snape is still bound to Dumbledore by his promise to be a spy, and is bound to Voldemort by brand. And Dumbledore is highly suspicious shit is about to go down (which u kno, he was rights ‘cause even from the first year lil Harry started Going Through It™️).

Having that background: Severus Snape, Head of Slytherin, and presumed Death Eater (‘cause u kno, spy), who was never known to be openly warm nor kind, who was fiercely bullied and he retaliated when felt necessary, is supposed to seem impartial and nice to all of his students?

Morally, should he had been? Heck yeah. Any decent teacher and adult should.

Realistically, should he had been? Well, if he wanted his cover blown, sure. If he wanted all of the Death Eaters who had children in school questioning the hell out of him, yeah. If he wanted Voldemort suspicious of his alliance and current belief system (which would have been at odds with the Death Eater ideals), uh-huh. But that would have made for a lousy spy at best and disastrous war changing consequences at worst.

And let’s be really honest here: Dumbledore gave him the position as teacher, primarily because he wanted to use Snape as a spy. That was Dumbledore’s priority, not the teaching. Which is a little wild to think coming from a school headmaster, truly.

This theory (which personally extends from theory to canon, because that’s how being a spy works) does not excuse him from how his prejudice blinded him from seeing Harry for Harry and not James (but the case could be made that neither did Sirius, but that’s another topic). That was wild. However, at the same time, he looked out for Harry’s life.

Again, I’m not saying Severus was warm and nice and he certainly acted mean and cruel at moments, particularly with kids from the other three houses. I just think that was part of the tragedy. He had a role to play, he played it perfectly, getting himself branded as a coward and a traitor by the people closest to him. And because of him, they won the war.

[ourg0dsal]

So who the fuck was gonna let a girl know that supposedly at least one the chapters (if not more) in Harrow the Ninth was narrated by Ianthe.

I swear to JOD that with every new piece of information it has me questioning if I actually read the books or if It was some sort of fever dream that I still haven't recovered from.

[worrynoodle]

>🤎Don't send fan theories to Neil Gaiman.🤎<

I wonder if Aziraphale had seen other angels fall before he spoke to angel crowley. Or if he had heard rumors of a plan some higher ups had made for punishing unruly angel's.

Oh my god.

Oh my god.

Extreme sanctions.

Oh my god yall.

Beelzebub: "Extreme sanctions"

Crowley: That isn't actually a thing, that's just something we used to joke about to frighten the cherubs.

Oh my god.

What if Crowley had heard about the punishments, but he thought they were only a joke? What if Aziraphale (cherub or not) heard those 'jokes' and took them seriously. Maybe that's what this face was about:

[cannonball-37]

I just had a theory about the larger shadow that disfigures when Bendy tried to make it into a human shape being related to the lost ones in Bendy and The Ink Machine and now I can’t look at it any other way.

It could even explain why they have emotions when other demon’s shadows don’t because there is definitely some kind of connection with Bendy and the actual ink machine in The Inky Mystery.

On the Bendy wiki it describes the lost ones like this:

‘The Lost Ones have a similar appearance to humans, only deformed, skeletal, and slimy. They are composed completely out of ink, with skin texture similar to black tar’

This could a reference to how the shadow disfigures and is made of shadows in The Ink Mystery. Additionally:

‘Their original personalities remain almost untouched, but they appear to be suffering in a state of despair; most will stand in complete stillness, some either hunched over and crying or, in one case seen in some occasions, banging their head against the wall in a suicidal manner. If provoked, the Lost Ones act as a threat towards anyone they deem dangerous’

This could explain the feeling of dread Bendy felt and the way the shadow acts a few moments later when it tries to attack him and Allison.

However it could also be a reference to the searchers in Bendy and The Ink Machine because of this:

I mean look at them:

There are a few dissimilar things between the two like only having three fingers and the arms being the same length but it’s also show in BATIM that the searchers and the lost ones have a lot of variation in their appearances so that’s not enough to discredit this theory.

If you listen to the sound the searchers make it’s very similar to what is described in the scene

And the way that the shadow attacks is similar to how the searchers attack in BATIM (with their arms).

(Sorry if it’s hard to see it’s was difficult finding videos of them actually attacking.)

Also! This could explain why Baby (the smaller shadow) is so helpful to Bendy because some Lost Ones are friendly (as described by the wiki):

‘there have been a few notable exceptions such as Porter and Heidi who aren't aggressive towards Audrey Drew and actually help her out.’

I came up with theory this like 10 minutes ago and I’m already in love with it

[nijae-roni]

Hear me out guys...

...okay time to go on why this makes sense to me. Here's what I can think of while doing the dishes. (not spoiler free!!!) Comparison between Zuko and Manolo

Zuko and Manolo break the toxic cycle of their family (Zuko not being an assh*le and Manolo not killing a bull)

Zuko and Manolo lost their mom and have a strict dad who raised them in an environment they eventually wanted to leave from (Zuko's mom is alive yes but he and everyone else believed she was gone for years)

Their moms helped them shape into the man they are today

Both willing to sacrifice their life for the one/people they care for (Zuko taking the lightning shot and Manolo trapping himself with Chakal with the giant bell) Now for Katara and Maria

Strong sense of justice even at a young age

Raised by a single dad who they had a somewhat strained relationship at the beginning of the story

Would not hesitate to throw a punch (literally and figuratively) when needed

Voice of inspiration (Katara pushing the team to get better and Maria inspiring the townsfolk to fight with her)

Both will not hesitate to do anything to help their people/people in need

And remember Zuko's quote? "You rise with the moon, I rise with the sun"

Well...Maria and Manolo are canonically reincarnations of their past lives, Maya and Zatz (from Maya and the Three, made by the same creator :DD)

Spoilers for Maya and the Three beyond!!!

And coincidentally enough, when Maya and Zatz die, they become the world's sun and moon...possibly the same sun and moon in The Book of Life timeline. Zatz and Katara rise with the moon, Maya and Zuko rise with the sun.

Another similar thing both pairs had is that they were both, in a way, royalty or rather from a very important family.

Zatz, like Zuko, sacrificed himself to help/aid in the battle/fight, leaving both Maya and Katara to finish off the enemy one way or another.

That's all I can think of for the meantime but yeah your honor that's all I got.

[indigovigilance]

Continuity Errors

Crowley can stop time. We’ve noticed buggy things about time. Let’s talk about it.

I’m going to start with an overview of every time he has definitely frozen time in order to establish the mechanics of Crowley’s time-stopping power in the GO universe. Then, I’m going to talk about other events where Crowley may have stopped time, and it wasn’t (directly) shown to the audience.

or read this 3,500 word beast of a meta on Ao3

edit: if you're deciding whether or not to read this, check out the reblog notes!

Opening obligatory "do not put anything about this in Neil Gaiman's askbox"

Crowley freezes time locally, selectively exempting individuals

S1E2

In S1E2, Crowley freezes time at the corporate training ground to interrogate Mary Hodges, formerly Sister Mary Loquacious (played by Nina Sosanya, actor for Nina in S2). It may seem like she’s just hypnotized and time is progressing normally around all of them, but that isn’t the case. Immediately before Crowley hypnotizes Hodges, we can hear gunfire in the background; a few seconds before Hodges is released from the trance, we hear shouting and sirens. But during the time that Hodges is entranced, all we hear is three things: the dialogue, music, and what sounds like the ticking of a kitchen timer. 

We could do a little bit of extrapolation from the fact that the beginnings of gunshots and siren sounds are temporally very close together, especially depending on how we measure time. Crowley turns the paintball guns into deadly weapons at 36:59. Crowley freezes Mary Hodges at 38:47. A ticking sound starts the same moment. We also hear what we will come to recognize as the “pause time” sound, a sort of wobbly sound. The ticking sound seems to stop around… 40:07? Right before the line about lovely little toesy woesies? It’s unclear with the overlapping tracks. At 40:11 Crowley says “let’s go” and we can hear sirens in the background start now. Aziraphale then snaps his fingers and unfreezes Hodges at 40:17.

So during 191 seconds of screentime, 84 seconds of it was spent with time frozen, if I accept the ticking sound to be the indicator. If time was only frozen locally, meaning just the paintball grounds and not the nearest police station and roads leading to it, then emergency services had just over three minutes from the time the first live round was fired to arrival. If time was actually frozen globally except for Crowley, Azirarphale, and Hodges, then emergency services got there in 85 seconds, or less than a minute and a half. Maybe Britain is doing something wildly different than here idk but I think the more likely explanation for the event timing is that Crowley is only freezing time in a local bubble. The shooters stop shooting but the police are still driving towards them while Crowley and Aziraphale are interrogating an entranced Mary Hodges.

The case with Hodges is kind of confusing because the audience is presented with a false dichotomy between “frozen in time” and “hypnotized.” It’s actually both. Crowley has frozen time around the three of them, but Hodges, like Aziraphale, was exempt. It just so happens that she was also entranced at the same time, which explains as well why Aziraphale can release her from the trance, since our best evidence indicates that he can’t control time.

S1E3 & S2E3

In S1E3, Crowley freezes Jean Claude, the executioner at the Bastille. Immediately before, we can hear the guillotine, screaming and jeering outside the cell. As soon as Jean Claude is frozen, however (13:29, complete with wobble sound), there is complete background silence, except for the dialogue between our ineffable aristocrats. When Crowley restarts time, background noise restarts as well. This evidence indicates that Crowley froze time for the surrounding area as well as inside the cell.

In S2E3, Crowley freezes Mr. Dalrymple. We don’t have definitive information about how much of the rest of the world is affected since the scene takes place indoors on a quiet night and there are no external cues of time starting or stopping.

S1E6: Freezing Out Satan

In S1E6, not only are Crowley, Aziraphale, and Adam pulled out of the normal flow of time: it seems that they are also pulled out of normal space. They appear to be in an ethereal desert where we can see their wings, but we don’t actually know where they are. The way we enter, inhabit, and then exit this time-stop is completely different from any of the other three explicit timestop scenes: Crowley must use his whole body to summon the power to cast the miracle, they travel elsewhere, then he must use his crankshaft to exit the time-stop.

I take this to indicate that freezing time when Satan is near takes a lot more power than freezing time around Mary Hodges, Jean Claude, or Mr. Dalrymple. Presumably, the power a being has, the more power it takes to lock them out of a bubble to stopped time.

Time Stop Mechanics

Here are my key takeaways from analyzing these four scenes:

Crowley isn’t so much freezing all of time as pulling himself and Aziraphale (and sometimes Adam) out of the flow of time. The effort this takes is dependent on the entities that they are “pulling away” from. It is easy to pull away from humans, so much so that they don’t have to pull away very far and can occupy the same space in a bubble of paused time. When he is “pulling away” from Satan, however, he must pull away much further, all the way to another plane.

Crowley’s ability is so powerful that he can use it to escape Satan. He could use it to lock out other powerful beings, if he wanted to, but it would take a lot of effort.

Aziraphale, a being with power somewhere on the spectrum between human and Satan, could be frozen by Crowley’s powers. The fact that Aziraphale is still present and active during all of these scenes, unaffected by the time stop is only indicative of Crowley’s choice to exempt him, just as he does with a hypnotized Mary Hodges and Adam.

Crowley has stopped time on Aziraphale

In a previous post I have addressed the possible symbolic meaning behind the Honolulu Roast sign that suddenly appears behind Crowley in the S2E1 coffee shop scene. This addresses the symbolic meaning of Honolulu with respect to Aziraphale, but fails to address the “roast” part, which I have the opportunity to do now. I begin by establishing two premises:

Crowley loves Aziraphale and after 6,000 years knows him very well.

Crowley is a dick.

Crowley sits down at the table across from Aziraphale and asks him what the problem is. At this point, there is no “Honolulu Roast” sign behind him. The camera flips to Aziraphale as he (badly) tries to deny that there is any problem. When the camera flips back to Crowley, a “today’s special: Honolulu Roast” sign has appeared behind him.

What does Crowley do next?

Crowley roasts Aziraphale.

Crowley proceeds to read Aziraphale to filth, rattling off all his tells and putting him in his place for even daring to think that he could mislead Crowley about his internal emotional state.

While we’ve seen a lot more of his soft side this season, we cannot forget that the demon Crowley, at the end of the day, is a prick. He really did pause time just so that he could go get a chalkboard, write a pun on it, and hang it on the wall behind him like a display card for open mic night. He’s still going to help Aziraphale, of course. But he’s going to make fun of him first.

Let me reiterate: Crowley literally paused time, got up from the table, put up this sign, then sat back down in (as close to) exactly the same position (as possible) to fool Aziraphale into not noticing the pause, because this joke is entirely for Crowley’s own amusement. We have some cinematographic evidence of this besides just the sign itself: the lamp behind him has moved slightly, and the camera angle focusing on Crowley has changed. Literally, the left hand side of the frame gets cut off due to the repositioning. From a production perspective, this scene would have been shot all at the same time, so should not have changed angles. That said, they did a by-hand follow-in of Crowley walking in and sitting down, then switched to a dolly, but… I have faith that they could have matched the shot line-up practically pixel for pixel if they wanted to. All to say: changing the camera position before and after, alongside the other conspicuous changes, seems like it was a deliberate framing choice used to indicate that Crowley tried his best to get back into exactly the same position, but was just a little off.

But Crowley’s prank is troubling from a perspective of honesty and agency. Based on the way the dialogue progresses, it seems pretty clear that Aziraphale doesn’t know that he was frozen. Whether or not Crowley could freeze Aziraphale was beside the point until this scene where we learn that Crowley would, even for a really dumb reason like making a joke at Aziraphale’s expense.

Before moving on, I want to note that the sudden appearance of this sign could be characterized as a continuity error, even though it was the result of a deliberate action by an in-world character. Jettison your traditional understanding of “continuity error” as “production made a mistake.” In this universe, we can have continuity errors by virtue that Aziraphale is experiencing time as if it is continuous, not noticing that he functionally blacked out for a few minutes and that things have changed around him. This is not a show-level continuity error. This is an Aziraphale-level continuity error.

Crowley can reverse time

Credit where credit is due: it was this comment on the Ao3 version of my meta, The Erasure of Human!Metatron, that became an earworm that got me thinking specifically about Crowley's abilities:

So thank you, LoveIsLove &lt;3

Let’s go back to the Mary Hodges scene, or actually a few minutes before. Our ineffable idiots get shot by paintballs.

“Look at the state of this coat. I've kept this in tip-top condition for over 180 years now. I'll never get this stain out.”

“You could miracle it away.”

“Hmm… Yes, but… well, I would always know the stain was there. Underneath, I mean.”

Aziraphale finagles himself a favor without ever actually asking for it. Full points, princess. But let’s examine the actual content of the dialogue. This cannot be a complete 100% bluff; Aziraphale is not going to tell a straight lie to Crowley that they both know is false about the respective nature of their powers. It must be the case that there is some truth to this statement. There is a fundamental difference between what Aziraphale can do about the paintball stain and what Crowley is actually going to do about it. Furthermore, what Crowley does is something different than a miracle.

Crowley then blows on the stain, it disappears, and Aziraphale looks quite pleased. Yes, yes, he cajoled Anthony J Acts of Service Crowley into doing his signature move, but also, he’s genuinely thankful that Crowley did something for him that he couldn’t do for himself, because miracles don’t work like that. Notably, Crowley doesn't snap his fingers or make any other gesture that we normally associate with miracles, and we don’t hear the miracle sound, which is further evidence that this is not a miracle, but something different.

If you haven’t already, please read my meta entitled Jimbriel, Satan, the Book of Life, and what it means for Crowley. It explains in depth and with evidentiary support my theory about how erasure works in the Good Omens universe. The Cliff’s notes version is that erasing something, whether it be a name from the Book of Life or a paintball from a coat, is akin to erasing a pencil mark on paper; it’s technically gone but you’ll always know it was there. Underneath.

What Crowley has done, then, is not erasing the paintball stain.

He’s reversed it.

When he blows on the paintball stain, he is reversing time in a microcosm of the universe, truly making it so that the paintball never hit the jacket. In a world full of rubber erasers, Crowley has the only Control-Z. When things are “erased” by the Book of Life, they are changed, but when Crowley reverses something, they never happened (making Beelzebub’s description of the Book of Life actually a more accurate description of Crowley’s power). It is something unique that Crowley can do that Aziraphale can’t, and we haven’t seen any evidence of any other celestial being pausing or reversing time. Please feel free to reblog with links to relevant meta if I’m wrong about that.

In true Neil Gaiman style, Crowley using this power to do something mundane like get rid of paintball paint was an incredibly benign and subtle way to indicate that Crowley has an immense, untapped power that we have not yet seen him use for any major purpose. 

I repeat: we didn’t see him use it. Because usually, like Aziraphale, we the audience are exempt from the time freeze, and we get to watch what happens. But this time, we were frozen out with Aziraphale.

Clock Theory revisited: a reinterpretation of “continuity error”

A summary of clock theory

Neil Gaiman’s ask and answer on clock theory

Neil Gaiman responded to an ask about the clock jumping forward from 9:25 to 9:40 before and after the kiss with a single sentence: “It’s a continuity error, I’m afraid.”

In the usual manner, Neil is not lying, but he is relying on you making an incorrect interpretation of his seemingly straightforward and innocuous but actually ambiguous and incredibly meaningful statement. As I stated with regards to the Honolulu Roast chalkboard sign, do not interpret “continuity error” as “production made a mistake.” Interpret “continuity error” as “Aziraphale believes that his experience of time is in lockstep with the actual flow of time and doesn’t realize that 11 minutes passed while he was frozen.”

Let’s consider the evidence:

Image at timestamp 41:04 “[Hold that thought!]” the clock reads 9:25

Image at 45:04 “If Gabriel and Beelzebub can go off together, then we can” the clock still reads 9:25

Image at 47:56 the clock now reads 9:40. 

Image at 48:14 the clock reads 9:40

There are two four-minute gaps, from the perspective of the viewer, and we have views of the clock face at both ends of each gap.

Gap 1, from 41:04 to 45:04, the clock hands do not move at all, nor do they in any of the intervening shots.

Gap 2, from 45:04 to 47:56 (or 48:14, as you prefer), the clock hands move 15 minutes.

The Occam’s razor, Doylian explanation for why the clock hands don't move from 41:04 to 45:04 is that the clock is a prop. It does not have any timekeeping mechanism, the hands don’t move unless some human being opens up the glass, reaches in there, and manually adjusts it. They weren’t going to interrupt filming this moving scene to move the clock hands minute by minute, so it seems pretty plausible that the fact that it doesn’t move is just an artifact of production limitations.

The Watsonian explanation, which I do not favor, is that Crowley has frozen time for just the two of them. They are in a microcosm all their own. If true, this would have an abundance of implications, such that they are actually free to speak to each other freely, which they don’t. So I feel like with that alone, we can set this aside, but I’m open to being convinced otherwise.

If we accept the “clock is a prop” explanation for Gap 1, it doesn’t really hold for Gap 2 that they moved it a full fifteen minutes. So much care and attention to detail was given for all other parts of this show; I don’t realistically believe that a production staff member moved the hands a random amount. The music carries us from Crowley’s exit to Metatron’s entrance seamlessly, yet more time seems to have passed in-world than on-screen. There are two possible explanations:

There was more material that was supposed to be filmed to account for 15 minutes that got cut

We are supposed to figure out that there’s some “Greek play” style shenaniganery afoot

I will debunk explanation #1 with simply this: David’s contact lenses would sometimes rotate so that the slit pupils were not vertical. This error was fixed by VFX in post.

You might assume, when watching Good Omens, that Crowley’s serpent-like eyes are created using contact lenses. Or perhaps you’d presume they’re CGI. Actually, they’re a mix of both.

“The CGI versions were usually because the contact lenses had swiveled in David’s eyes … and we had to fix it,” says Mackinnon.

If they could fix Crowley’s eyes in post, there is absolutely no reason to expect that they couldn’t or wouldn’t have fixed the clock hand positions in post, especially if it was someone’s job to reach in there and change the positions to try to maintain set continuity in the first place. Additionally, there is deliberate use of clocks to symbolize various themes across both seasons. A Doylian error like this is not something that would have been overlooked and survived into publication.

So we are left with explanation #2. Time has passed that we, the viewers, don’t observe. What was happening during that time that we missed? More importantly, who knows that this time has passed? Aziraphale doesn’t seem to, and it’s unclear what the Metatron does or doesn’t know.

Some fans have posited that the Metatron is doing the time manipulations, but canonically, the only entity we have observed manipulate time is Crowley. We assume the Metatron is powerful because the angels are all afraid of him, but we’ve never actually seen him do anything, and so have no primary evidence for this. All over, he’s got some big “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” Wizard of Oz vibes happening; I’m not convinced he could miracle his way out of a wet paper bag, and there’s a chance that in Season 3 we’ll find out that he’s all bluff. Not so with Crowley.

My hypothesis is that Crowley froze Aziraphale and everybody else for a one block radius, including the Metatron, and did something important in the bookshop before it lost its protection. Please see my meta on Sovereignty, Citizenship, and the Bookshop for an evidence-based argument on why the bookshop was the only place in the universe that Crowley could have safely hidden something. Since Aziraphale is no longer the head of an independent embassy, whatever Crowley was keeping safe in there isn’t safe anymore, and needs to be moved. Universe time continued to pass and the clock reflects that, but Aziraphale and the Metatron aren’t aware that they were paused.

Which also gives us a new interpretation for the kiss.

The Kiss, revisited

Crowley didn’t want to send Aziraphale a message.

Crowley needed a plausible cover for the immense effort it was going to take him to freeze time against Aziraphale and the Metatron that he knew was standing outside.

How do I know he knew?

No nightingales.

Juliet. Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:

It was the nightingale, and not the lark,

That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;

Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:

Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

Romeo. It was the lark, the herald of the morn,

No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks

Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:

Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day

Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

I must be gone and live, or stay and die.

No nightingales could be the end of a romance. I argued as much in my inaugural meta just six weeks ago (and what a six weeks it has been, people!) But “no nightingales” could also be a secret signal to two people who have a unique bond through Shakespeare that Crowley has realized he is not safe, and he needs to leave, and he’s trying to tell Aziraphale that without letting their spectator in on the message.

Now he has to stop time to secure whatever item he’d been keeping safe in the bookshop. But keeping Satan at bay required him to lunge upwards, using his whole body to freeze time. He can’t get away with anything like that here in the bookshop, that would give up the ruse.

But what if he lunged at the person everyone knows he’s in love with and violently kisses them on the mouth, his entire body tense with the effort of freezing time in the presence of two ethereal beings? No one would notice the difference, or think anything nefarious of it; a Class A surreptitious time-stop.

One last crackpot theory.

Aziraphale knows what Crowley did. Well, he knows that he froze time, and for the first time realizes that Crowley has locked him out, and that he used the kiss as a cover. The violation of agency, trust, and their romantic bond are all breaking across him in the instant that time restarts, after Crowley has gone away for 11 minutes and returned to almost, but not quite, the same position inside Aziraphale’s arms. It is an intimate act that Aziraphale is fully tuned into, and for the first time, he’s noticing the continuity errors.

His horror-filled expression is one of broken trust. But his bond to Crowley is too strong for even this to break it. He knows that whatever reason Crowley had to pull this trick on him, it must have been a good one. It must have been to protect him.

“I forgive you.”

***

One more completely crackpot theory based on the Gavin Finney interview at The Ineffable Con last weekend.

The camera was supposed to circle them. Finney says that this was to show that they are the center of their universe, and their world is spinning.

Okay, okay. But could it not also have represented the spinning of clock hands? I’m just saying.

Closing obligatory "do not put anything about this in Neil Gaiman's askbox"

Find my entire collection of metas here

[onceuponaneverafter]

no bc i‘m obsessed with how the jacks from caraval who was literally plotting to take the throne and didn’t care about anyone or anything is the same person who spends almost two books in the ouabh trilogy just trying to keep evangeline safe because he loves her

✨character development✨