#but. i think maggie will be the virgin mary. or the new new testament’s equivalent

[mars-ipan]

ok. ok. first thing’s first. watch this video. read some of the comments too they have good insight. it is required reading.

also DISCLAIMER: i’m gaining a lot of my symbolism knowledge from websites that pop up in google results. if any cultural symbolism is inaccurate i apologize for not vetting sources closer.

ok we ready?? okay let’s go.

SO. we all know something’s up with maggie right? there’s something off about her, like she knows something or is stronger than she looks.

i’ve seen a few people going around suggesting she’s an angel. miracles seem to affect her less, nina calls her “angel,” etc. i don’t think this is true. neil’s talked about why some miracles don’t affect her and nina as much (essentially, aziraphale gets a little reliant on human suggestibility and maggie and nina are too suspicious of a+c to be as easily swayed)- i also think nina calling her “angel” is just a little parallel for us to enjoy.

i’ve also seen people suggest she may be affiliated with hell somehow. she mirrors crowley in her and nina’s relationship, and she misspells “urgency” as “ugrency” in her note to aziraphale. i don’t think this is true either. the misspelling could be a simple red herring (or, as i like to believe, just the result of being Very Stressed bc shit man i do that too), and i think her parallels to crowley are essentially just in relation to… well, relationships- she loves nina in a situation similar to how crowley loves aziraphale, and that’s all that parallel serves. it’s an important one, but says more about crowley than it does maggie. also she was the one to invite the demons in- crowley heavily implies demons can’t do that, and even if maggie isn’t a demon i doubt she’d be able to either if she were affiliated with hell.

i think. and hear me out here. i think in season 3 maggie is going to play an incredibly important role. as the second virgin mary.

a lot of the symbols on maggie’s clothing are related to divinity and fertility. like, a lot. once again, see the video i linked at the beginning. the designs on her teal cardigan, for example. the swallows- now, a lot of symbolism surrounding swallows suit maggie and her story, like being good-natured, the blossoming of love, and they’re also just a general good omen (ha). however, regarding christianity, swallows represent one very specific thing: resurrection and rebirth, particularly that of jesus christ.

there’s also the flowers, which someone in the comments of the video i linked said resembled cherry blossoms (which i absolutely see). the swallows are also holding cherries, so this feels like a logical identification. cherry blossoms represent a LOT of things (including change, which is in line with the swallows), but the most important thing they resemble (for right now) is rebirth, new chances, and the start of another life. huh. sounds familiar. the video mentions that red berries tend to represent the blood of christ- cherries in particular can represent a LOT of relevant things. in japan, they’re a good omen (ha^2) and symbolize new beginnings. in buddhist lore, they represent femininity and fertility, and there’s apparently a legend that the Buddha’s mother was supported by a holy cherry tree as she gave birth to him. hm. in chinese lore, cherry trees are associated with phoenixes. what are phoenixes symbolic of? oh, only death and rebirth. yaknow. normal stuff

all of that symbolism is in One piece of clothing. ONE. there’s also the all-seeing-eye on her locket- a symbol commonly used to represent god’s omnipotence. also also, maggie wears a lot of blue and gold. this reminds me of early depictions of jesus- while originally he was depicted as the good shepherd wearing humble clothes, when christianity was adopted by the soon-to-be-holy roman empire, art of jesus changed to depict him instead as an emperor of the lord- he wears flowing robes of rich gold, purple, and blue. as the virgin mary became a more important christian symbol as the mother of god, she was depicted in rich clothing as well- from what i remember in art history, she often wore blue and gold. that’s all i’ll talk about in terms of clothes for this post but i’m sure there’s more i could find and dig into.

in season 2, maggie is deeply important to the plot- she influences both aziraphale and crowley, but i think she has an especially strong connection with aziraphale. she’s a tenant of his bookshop, for one, but she also serves as aziraphale’s gabriel cover story and helps him learn about the strange goings-on at the resurrectionist in edinburgh. she also accidentally makes the final 15 extra heart-wrenching by encouraging crowley to be honest about his feelings. whoops!

okay, okay, so we know maggie’s symbolism ties her heavily to divinity and fertility, and we know she’s important in season 2. but still, why would this be particularly plot relevant to season 3? how would this actually happen?

it’s simple.

i’m gonna take you through a little train of thought. all aboard! follow along with me.

we know the next season will be surrounding the second coming- the metatron says so himself. the second coming, is, of course, the second coming of christ, which will inevitably start the rapture.

in the original story of jesus christ, the archangel gabriel is the one to tell mary that she will give birth to jesus christ, the son of god. this is the annunciation. except now, there is no archangel gabriel. he quit. and who took his place? why, it’s none other than our favorite angel, aziraphale. chances are, he’ll be doing the annunciating this time.

now, for plot reasons, i feel like the choice of who will be the next “virgin mary” will be up to aziraphale. seems better for writing to me, because even though i’m speculating like crazy i feel like being the one to make this choice will give us good insight on aziraphale’s character. how this choice falls into his hands could vary, of course- maybe he’s just directly ordered to, maybe he has to deliver a baby to someone in the way crowley did, maybe he kidnaps baby fucking jesus the second from heaven and needs someone to look after them so they can lay low, i dunno. point is, i think aziraphale will be giving the annunciation.

but who would aziraphale choose? well, he’s been on earth a while. we know he’ll be missing crowley dearly and wanting his help with preventing potential apocalypse 2, so he’ll probably limit his scope to the UK, maybe even just london or soho. i think we can agree that diagetically, God probably likes references and callbacks. look at how parallel-ridden the show is and tell me She doesn’t. the original virgin mary was a kindhearted, humble woman. she was in a relationship, but was not wed and under no circumstances would she have been pregnant except in the case of divine intervention. hey, you know who else is a kindhearted, humble woman in a relationship in which she definitely wouldn’t be getting pregnant? maggie is.

there’s also the fact that she’s near the bookshop, meaning muriel would be able to keep an eye on her and jesus jr. heaven would like that. it’d also mean crowley would be nearby, so he could look after oversee both him and baby jesus 2: electric boogaloo at the same time. aziraphale would like that. not to mention, maggie already knows aziraphale’s an angel and wouldn’t tell anyone, which would prevent his identity from being discovered and her sanity from being questioned. plus, the name “maggie” even sounds kind of similar to “mary”- that’d make heaven happy.

now, i don’t think aziraphale will be announcing to maggie that she’s gonna be pregnant- we saw in the job minisode that aziraphale knows a fair bit about human birth, and the last thing he wants to do is put someone through something so intense because God said it’d be fun. plus, i feel that a pregnancy arc would fuck up the pacing of the season and be a bit jarring for the audience (while there are of course exceptions, pregnancy can be a squicky topic for a lot of queer folk bc of cishetero/amatonormativity, and considering neil knows his audience so well, i don’t super see it happening.) also, if the antichrist wasn’t given birth to by a human in gomensverse, i doubt the second coming of christ would be.

so, chances are, aziraphale’s gonna hand a baby over to maggie, say “please look after this kid this is quite literally the reincarnation of God’s child and you’re the only person i can think of who She would find a satisfactory candidate also nina can help you wouldn’t that be nice haha heh um ^^;;;; okaytakecare,” report back to heaven, and then try to work up the courage to talk to crowley again so he can ask for help. which will be deliciously painfully uncomfortable for us to watch.

TL;DR: i think maggie’s the next virgin mary, and aziraphale will most likely be the one to annunciate this to her. this will be what kicks s3’s plot in motion and it is going to be. tense.

ok thank you for coming to my ted talk. if i’m right about this i am going to be insane about it forever 👍

ohhhh god guys i’m gomens theorycrafting