#good omens god

[hereticqueen2000]

I have haven’t reposted in awhile but this is just too full of brilliant plot concepts not to ☺️

Hey there :) I love your metas and would like to know why you think they decided to show satan as an actual being, but not god? Or do you think we will see god in the final episode?

Hi there! 💕Thank you & very interesting questions. *rubs hands together* This'll be fun. I know God is big on reminding people to not avoid salads but I also have chocolate cake so we can have a bit of both, yeah? *gets plates*

To answer your questions, I've got to share some ideas about The Voice of God that I've had lately that I think could come about in The Finale. If it winds up anything like this, it might not just change how we see God in the series but also completely upend our understanding of the novel at the same time...

So, throughout Good Omens the tv series so far, we've had what appears to be three beings who are the ones in charge of Heaven and Hell: The Metatron, Satan, and, kind of out here in her own world a bit, God. The Metatron claims to be the spokesperson for God but that is in doubt in a lot of people's minds, my own included. I think he's a fraud who cannot speak to God and whose power is dependent upon the angels believing that he can. I'm pretty sure that The Finale will see the main characters challenge him on this and expose his deception, leading them to be able to overthrow him and create a better system in Heaven.

Satan and The Metatron are dependent upon one another for power so if one of them goes down, they both do. Exposing The Metatron would cause the angels to realize that God didn't judge the demons-- The Metatron did. This would mean that the angels and demons would realize that they're all just angels and that they are on the same side against both The Metatron and Satan. I'm pretty sure that's why those two villains were working together to get rid of Aziraphale and Crowley in The Final 15 and want Gabriel dead-- they don't want the angels and demons to talk to one another long enough to figure it out and start a revolution.

So, let's say that all of that is close to (or is) accurate and we get to a point in The Finale when we find out that Heaven is a sham and The Metatron can't talk to God. This then brings up a big question that the characters in Good Omens aren't really seen asking a lot but that will suddenly be as big to these angels as it is to us humans:

Does God exist?

We might think we already know the answer to this, right? Of course she does! She's the ball of light that sounds like Frances McDormand! She's narrated S1 for us and she's talked to Crowley and Aziraphale and Job! When you ask if I think we'll see God in the finale, this is the being that you're probably asking about, right? The God we listened to who narrated S1 to us was crazy about humanity, yes? You'd think she'd want to participate since, as God, she'd know that would be what living really is. Does she, as you ask, have a body? Is she a living being? We might think she really does exist because we've heard what she sounds like but I think we might not quite yet have the full picture on that, as you'll see...

We can see what they're doing with The Metatron and Satan more clearly right now, I think. These two are two sides of an evil coin. Heaven and Hell are equally terrible. Neither has any sense of individuality, boundaries, or bodily autonomy. They are full of toxic, harmful ideas and are inflicting horrific abuse on the angels and demons. How they are presented to us as beings also reflects those horrors.

The Metatron is the only supernatural character in the story who does not have a full human corporation. He is just a floating head and that is the, well, pardon the pun, but the most meta thing in this story imaginable. He presents himself as above the other angels and nearer to God by virtue of the fact that he just needs a head to get around and doesn't deal with having a human body. His presentation is saying to the other angels that they couldn't ever possibly live up to his standards of holiness because they might all be magical but they have bodies, which are, by definition, unholy. They aren't supposed to feel or need anything that requires a body and what's extra fun for them is that everything does so the angels are made to feel like they cannot win from the get-go.

Fuck it up and wind up in Hell? Now, you are evil and belong to Satan for eternity. Violence, torture and assault from which there is no escape awaits you. I'd argue that while Satan is an actual being, as you put it, because he was an angel before, that we might not have actually seen that true form yet.

In 1.01, he attacks Crowley while being basically vapor and using the voice of Freddie Mercury. (That's definitely the most bizarre-sounding sentence I've written this week lol.) In 1.06, he is coming to claim Adam and Adam is told by Crowley and Aziraphale right before that this is what's about to happen so I think that Satan appeared as Adam would think The Devil would look like. He was eleven at the time, so, a giant, angry, horned, red devil cliche beast that sounded like Benedict Cumberbatch was probably about accurate. Satan has so far appeared not necessarily as himself but as whatever being might be most torturous to the person he's showing up to or whatever being might meet his end goals-- which is how he is appearing as The Metatron With A Body in 2.06. He's coming to tempt Aziraphale to Hell and Aziraphale would only ever think the offer genuine if he thought it was coming from The Metatron so that's who Satan made himself appear to be.

Both Heaven and Hell are, as Crowley puts it in 2.06, toxic.

But when you bring The Voice of God into this, things start to really interesting.

While it's not hard to see both Satan and The Metatron as evil, God is a little more difficult. This is some of the basis of the theory that The Metatron cannot communicate with God. One of the things that makes the theory have weight is that it's very difficult to see this God that is narrating the story to us in S1 as someone who would actually be behind the atrocities that Heaven claims are her will.

I think most of us like The Voice of God. She is very sharp, very dry-witted, and she's curious about people. She clearly loves all her beings. She really doesn't seem like a vengeful God that could be behind drowning people or casting all these demons to Hell or wanting to murder a laundry list of living beings around Job. The God we heard in S1? She wouldn't believe that Job's children belonged to Job in the first place, let alone want to kill any kids, let alone to do so only to win a bet with Satan.

There's a moment in S1 that I think solidifies that The Voice of God isn't a villain and that's when Crowley arrives at Tadfield Manor with baby Adam. God's narration introduces to us the baby swap plot about to go down by telling us (paraphrased) that it's helpful to understand that events in human history do not happen as a result of people being good or bad but just as a result of people being people. When she says this, Crowley is participating in the misunderstandings of the scene, alongside the humans in it, and God is counting him among the people of which she is speaking.

That's basically the moment that it becomes impossible to see The Voice of God as a villain because here she is, seeing Crowley as human. Here she is, narrating his and Aziraphale's story, and we the audience, for much of S1, really want to tell Crowley and Aziraphale that she is, right? If anything, this is the one thing we're angry with her about...

When Crowley is talking to God alone in his flat and not getting any response, we're angry at the God we also like because we know that she loves Crowley but he doesn't feel that and is suffering. We want her to tell him. We want her to be more clear with Aziraphale, too, after just appearing outside Eden. Even still, though, she's likable in her narration and seems separate from The Metatron and Satan.

There is the feeling that, if The Voice of God is God, that she believes that the universe is the dominion of her creations and that she cannot interfere because to do so would be to force them all to follow her will. She doesn't want to rob her creations of their free will. There is no plan from God but for them to all be free. This would make her a just god and go along with her narration so it allows us to be understanding about the fact that she cannot actually talk that much to her creations directly or stop any terrible things from happening-- because it's up to them to do so, not her.

That may all well be true but, as we will see, there might be some evidence that The Voice of God might have a more complicated identity than we might originally have thought.

If the main characters overthrow The Metatron and Satan in The Finale, it's going to be as a result of the characters talking and realizing that none of them-- including Gabriel and the archangels-- have ever spoken to God. As a result, they will all know that they don't know how to reach her.

They've only ever reported to The Metatron. God didn't even turn up for Gabriel's trial-- a big deal in Heaven, since he was The Supreme Archangel. All of this will lead them to the realization that The Metatron is a fraud but these characters are angels. They believe that they were made by the God they haven't ever actually interacted with entirely for the purpose of serving that God.

When they find out that The Metatron cannot contact God, they're all going to be wondering if God exists and it might be here that we'd think that Crowley and Aziraphale might share their experiences of hearing The Voice of God, yes?

Except...

...think about those known experiences for a moment...

The Voice of God has only appeared (key word: appeared) to speak to three characters: Aziraphale, Crowley and Job. In the first scene we see in which she speaks to a character, it's to Aziraphale, when he is alone outside the wall of Eden, right?

In this moment, Aziraphale has just rebelled more than he probably ever has before. He gave Adam and Eve his flaming sword and helped Crowley get out of Eden and now, here he is, standing outside the walls of Eden, having escaped himself and both thrilled and terrified to start a journey of exploring the Earth. He's been having an internal crisis as to whether or not he did the right thing. He knows that he did by his own moral compass but it's all very much against how Heaven works and he's unsure what it is that the God he believes made him and whom he serves actually wants him to do.

This is the exact moment when The Voice of God appears and has a short little chat with him about it-- dryly dubbing him "The Angel of The Eastern Gate" and asking him what he did with the flaming sword. This scene is fun because we all figure that, if this is God, surely she knows what Aziraphale did with the sword, but we get to watch as he lies straight to her ball of light. We think that she approves because nothing ever happens to Aziraphale as a result of this.

However, there's no real proof in this scene that The Voice of God was ever actually talking to Aziraphale. Aziraphale is the only other character in the scene and one could theorize that he has imagined God talking to him more than God actually talking to him.

We tend to never question the fact that, while God doesn't seem to be talking to anyone else in the story in S1, that she does briefly talk to Aziraphale. This makes sense to us because Aziraphale's role in Eden was a big deal in the whole series of events on Earth and we already feel like God feels that Aziraphale and Crowley are important because she's narrating their story. Not only do they appear to have been chosen to be in Eden to help jumpstart human life on Earth but they're important enough in everything for God to be telling us their story as she chats with us. Because they're our main characters we don't see anything off about God seeing them as main characters, too.

We actually use Eden in our minds as some of the foremost proof that God exists in Good Omens. These angels act like she must and Aziraphale's spoken with her so it must be true, yes?

Except... what if it's not?

What if Aziraphale was having a crisis of faith in Eden and basically imagined speaking with God?

What if The Voice of God isn't The Voice of Actual God (if God even exists) but rather The Voice of God in Aziraphale's Head?

We've never seen any proof that any of the angels or eventual demons have ever actually spoken with God, including prior to the creation of Earth. We assume that God is real because they all talk like she is but we've never been shown any concrete proof that they aren't all just believing they work for someone they've never met.

But, wait, you might say, what about Crowley and Job hearing her in the Job minisode, right? Isn't that proof?

Well... that's a bit suspect, too, and I'll show you why. It's largely hinted at in the sound mixing and context of that scene.

Like Aziraphale was outside the wall in Eden, Job was a man of faith in the midst of a massive crisis when we saw him. He and Sitis had been weathering what they believed was the wrath of God. Job's whole world was under siege and his children were in danger and his wife was begging him to go ask God for answers. When Crowley and Aziraphale come up on Job appearing to speak with God, several things are contextually important that suggest that this isn't quite what it appears to be.

Diluting the visuals is that, in this scene, the post-storm, dawn sun is starting to come through the clouds a bit, much in the way it was after the storm clouds of Eden were clearing when God appeared to Aziraphale in Eden. Job was under the light, praying and appearing to be communicating with God. Crowley and Aziraphale stop far back from Job and, when we're near them, we cannot hear God clearly. The key is in the sound mixing in this scene. When we're near Crowley and Aziraphale, God sounds like she's speaking in a wind tunnel ten miles away. We can catch snippets of words on the breeze but there's nothing tangible there. It would have been literally impossible for Crowley and Aziraphale to hear a single, complete sentence of any of this... and, based on what Job tells Sitis afterwards, he doesn't hear it, either. To add to this, Crowley is unreliable where this scene is concerned because, when it happens, he's drunk enough that we're shown him having trouble walking.

These two were drunk on food and wine in the midst of having moral crisis and watched a man pray under stormy, dawning daylight a half-mile away and think that, maybe, he might have been talking to God. That's it.

Job was in a state of madness and thinks he heard his own Voice of God when asked what happened the next day by Sitis. Crowley and Aziraphale think, from what they can see, that God really is talking to Job-- but they're so far back that they cannot hear basically anything that she's saying. They are both different kinds of intoxicated and likely seeing light and sound from the dwindling storm/emerging daybreak highlighting a man experiencing a kind of religious ecstasy and taking that for possible truth.

We hear her accurately when the camera gets closer to Job... but this all influenced by Aziraphale remembering these events as he reads them in his Bible in the bookshop, so the real is overlapping in this moment with the Biblical account... and it's also clear that Job doesn't remember much of anything he thinks that she said. He returns the next morning and tells Sitis that it was all too wonderful for him to comprehend and something something whales and ostriches. Basically, Job went a bit bonkers and convinced himself that he heard God and she was going on about different animals.

So, look at what we're saying here...

...if Job cannot remember what God said and Crowley and Aziraphale didn't hear it because they heard sounds on the wind and Crowley was drunk and Aziraphale thinks God had spoken to him before but was, that night, only speaking to Job... then from where, in the Good Omens universe, did the Job passage that is supposedly what God said to Job and was recorded in The Bible actually originate?

Who wrote it?

Who is the real Voice of God, when it comes to the Job passage and, likely, in general?

Who wrote the line that prompted Aziraphale to think back on the Job minisode in the first place-- the one that was the only thing which Gabriel could remember at first?

You know why this is all Gabriel can remember and why he looks awfully distraught at the recollection of it? Because Gabriel doubts the existence of God. He's been The Supreme Archangel for thousands of years and she's never spoken to him and The Metatron's a total bastard and God didn't even show up when Gabriel was thrown out of Heaven. What has he been clinging to all these years regarding her existence and his own sense of what the right path to take is? He's been clinging to the bit in The Bible that detailed what it was that God apparently said to Job.

Gabriel not only clings to this as proof of God's existence but he clings to it as proof that he is right to think what he does. Gabriel's own moral compass is at odds with The Metatron and Heaven, just like Crowley and Aziraphale's is. He is The Supreme Archangel of Heaven but he doesn't believe that the demons are all evil and beneath the angels. He actively works to keep angels and demons alike from The Metatron and Satan finding out that they are talking to one another. He wants to believe that God is not a villain and that she approves of this mentality and, as proof that she does, Gabriel clings to the line from Job where God told Job wistfully that she was there "when the morning stars sang together and all the Angels of God shouted for joy." He sees this as God supporting his mindset that the angels and demons are all angels of God and to mistreat the demons is wrong.

But... if The Voice of God is The Voice of God in Aziraphale's Head, then when we hear Frances McDormand, we're hearing Aziraphale.

When it came time to write what it was that God said to Job, though, it was Crowley and/or Aziraphale who actually wrote the passage below, which is why it sounds so much like how they view things:

Job, you've got questions for me? I've got questions *for you.* Do you know how I created the Earth? Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth, Job? Were you there when all the morning stars sang together and all the Angels of God shouted for joy? Do you know the rules of the Heavens? Did you set the constellations in the sky? Can you send lightning bolts and get them to report back to you? Did you give wings to peacocks, Job, or teach the ostrich to run?

What is credited to God here are actually things that Crowley and Aziraphale did, as suggested by the Before the Beginning scene, when we see that Aziraphale was involved in the creation of Earth and Crowley designed the stars. The line to which Gabriel clings is one that God didn't say-- Crowley and/or Aziraphale wrote it, explaining Crowley's hesitation when he says to Aziraphale: "your, ah, boss... said that to Job" in response to Gabriel quoting it, as well as what it is that Aziraphale wants to talk about when he says "Crowley" upon finishing reading the bit of The Bible recounting the Job minisode-- most of which was actually written by he and Crowley.

Ok, so, if The Voice of God is really more like Aziraphale's Voice of God? This explains a few things...

It explains why we haven't heard Frances McDormand's voice speaking to any other beings besides Aziraphale and ones who are otherwise unreliable. The only being who reliably hears her is Aziraphale and that's because she is how he imagines The Voice of God. She is the one that lives is in his head and talks to him.

It also explains why her conversation with Aziraphale in Eden opens the 1.03 Cold Open and why the two instances where she shows up to Aziraphale are both very early on chronologically in Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship. It's showing that Aziraphale's Inner Voice of God is something that is always within him-- because she is him-- but that hearing The Voice of God in his head was something that was probably happening with more frequency in the earlier part of Aziraphale's story-- back when he was more on his own for long stretches of time and before he had Crowley more frequently in his life to talk with about how he felt about things.

Interestingly, the last scene of the Job minisode begins with Aziraphale sitting under the sun/light of God alone, afraid that he's about to fall, echoing some of the scene outside the wall at Eden... but ends with the shot of Crowley sitting with him, after supporting him and their mutual admittance that they're both lonely without the other. The Voice of God can be seen as something of a feature of Aziraphale's loneliness but maybe he has those conversations with her/himself less frequently from the Job minisode on because both his perspective on Heaven/Hell has changed and, just as importantly, he has Crowley to talk to.

After all, remember how we said that she showed up as Aziraphale was having a whole inner crisis in Eden? The same was true in the Job minisode. Not only was Aziraphale having a whole moral dilemma over what to do about Job's kids when he apparently hears The Voice of God speaking to Job but he's just recently seen Crowley again and they are basically on a little date.

Aziraphale, in the hours prior to hearing God in the Job minisode, has just tried food for the first time-- a lot of food lol-- and is flirting his way closer to sex. He's literally taking a romantic walk with his demon love when Frances McDormand cameos so the possibility that, while he's having a very nice night, he's also internally having a bit of an ox ribs and lust guilt delusional freakout seems kind of high.

So, now, think about what else happens if Frances McDormand's Voice of God is Aziraphale's inner Voice of God... Gabriel has some scenes in S2 that could be seen as playing around with this a bit.

The first is Aziraphale bringing up the concept of an author when talking with Gabriel about the book organization project. While there is humor in the fact that Gabriel can't remember what an author is-- how could he when he can't fully remember who he is?--- there's also something else at play here, too.

Gabriel's idea for how to organize the books sounds balmy but it's secretly kind of brilliant-- especially when taken as a metaphor for how to view people. Gabriel can't be bothered with categories, genres, types, labels, or titles. All he's interested in is the first letter of the first sentence on the first page of every book. While we're laughing at this because we know that he's going to end up with most of the books just clumped together under a few sections like the one we see him spending time in-- the "I" section, full of "it's" and "I" beginnings of books-- that's also the point.

We have more in common than meets the eye and Gabriel is insightful enough to bypass the labels we put on others and ourselves and just get to the common origin stories and experiences. Aziraphale asks if his plan is to sort the books alphabetically by author and Gabriel says he is by the first letter of the first sentence-- ironically, Gabriel is sorting by author, really, but he's matching up authors based on what they've written, not by their similar names.

Why this matters is because we now have this scene between Gabriel and Aziraphale where the concept of an author is in play. Gabriel can't remember what the word means but his project is based around what is actually a really deep understanding of one. At the same time, Aziraphale knows what the humans refer to as an author but is struggling to claim authorship of his own life. The word author was also at the core of this struggle for him in S1 when he prayed for help in stopping Armageddon. What was it that Aziraphale said he was looking to reach when he prayed?

"A higher authority."

Aziraphale was looking to reach God or anyone with the power to stop Armageddon and his efforts to find someone else to be that higher authority were unsuccessful and that is because we are all the authors of our own lives.

We are God.

Aziraphale is his own higher authority. He is the author of his own plan-- his own life.

And, if The Voice of God in the series that we hear is really Aziraphale?

Then look at that moment when Gabriel pulled a book off the shelf of the bookshop-- one without a title or an author, though someone has written it-- and it turned out to be one with which we're very familiar:

As Gabriel works on his book organization project, we get this trippy moment when he opens up and reads from the first page of a copy of a book that we all know as Good Omens. There is evidence that this is different from just the "lol Aziraphale is a Doctor Who fan" joke elsewhere in the season. This Clue comes in the shot showing us the book itself from multiple angles in Gabriel's hands-- and the fact that the cover is not the same as our copies of the book. It is a red clothbound hardcover with no dust jacket and no visible title or author printed anywhere on it.

The show has already established that Terry Pratchett and that other guy exist in the Good Omens universe because their solo books are visible at different points in the series. When it establishes that the novel Good Omens exists within the Good Omens universe, though, it does so only by establishing that the text of book we know does. The title of it is not visible and neither are any evidence of its authors in our world, despite their existence in this fictional one.

Moreover, by showing us the first page of what we know to be the Good Omens novel, they're showing us a part of the book that we've already heard before, near its beginning. This bit highlighted on the screen to us-- the opening sentence and first, full paragraph of the novel-- were God's narration over the end of the Eden scene in the first episode. Most of the narration of The Voice of God in S1, as we know, is taken from passages of the Good Omens novel and the show establishes in S2 with this Gabriel scene that the text of Good Omens exists in an unmarked book in Aziraphale's bookshop.

I think it's all saying pretty emphatically that Good Omens, in the Good Omens universe, was written by Aziraphale.

The only way that works then is if the voice we've been hearing both read this book to us and seeming to speak to Aziraphale is of Aziraphale's own creation, which would then mean that Frances McDormand is also, essentially, playing Aziraphale. She is just what God sounds like in Aziraphale's head. She is what Aziraphale imagines God to be. She is, effectively, Aziraphale.

This then suddenly makes everything about God's narration make a lot more sense, right? God's love of humanity and her interest in behavioral science and her cheeky, dry-as-a-bone humor is all very Aziraphale. God's love of Crowley and the way that she approves of him and Aziraphale's relationship and sees them as people like her other beings is what Aziraphale believes would be true of the loving God that he believes in and is fundamentally true of how he views their relationship and Crowley himself. God's ability to speak Crowley and Aziraphale's language and the novel being written in it becomes less that God can do so because she's God and more because she's really just Aziraphale.

The whole novel itself takes on quite a different perspective if you look at it as the book above that Gabriel found when he was organizing the books. The one that, as of S2, it was too dangerous to have labeled at all but that we can theorize was written by Aziraphale and is wrapped up and bound in Crowley's signature color and that color of love-- red.

The book we know as Good Omens is, in the Good Omens universe, a book that Aziraphale wrote for Crowley in which they are two of the characters.

This is, more than anything else we've seen so far, the real book of life.

I think that it's saying that if you were to finish the series and find this to be true, you could then go pick up the novel again and read it as if Aziraphale wrote it, with the narrative passages maybe in his Voice of God Frances McDormand voice but with the knowledge that The Voice of God is really Aziraphale himself.

I love this idea because it means that the tv series that keeps giving us more information that reframes our prior understanding of things might wind up ending with a twist where the nature of The Voice of God in the series is such that it won't even just make rewatching the show a extra fun (although it will) but it'll make it so that you'll be able to go all the way back and read the novel in a different way as well, now with the perspective that Aziraphale is meant to be its author.

This also would be fun because it'd then be viewing the tv series as the canon and the book as what Aziraphale wrote happened and any discrepancies and changes as Aziraphale's writing choices. It means you get to read the passages in the book that are descriptive of Crowley or of he and Aziraphale together from the viewpoint that Aziraphale wrote them, which honestly makes them even funnier.

This would mean that God, as she's been presented to us so far in the series, is an actual being because she's Aziraphale and that we will see her in the finale because she's been a part of our main character all along.

So... there's then just one question left... and it's the same one we had earlier on in the meta:

Does God exist?

If The Voice of God is Aziraphale's inner Voice of God then is the story going to suggest that a real God does exist or is it going to suggest that she doesn't or is that going to be left as an open question?

There are a couple of paths that they could take-- two that I can see and likely some I haven't.

One is Agnes Nutter. I know a lot of people have theories that she's actually God. They could suggest or imply that a bit. In some ways, they might already have done so, as others have suggested.

The other path is the one that I think they might take, though, regardless of what they do or don't suggest with Agnes, which is to leave it so that Aziraphale is The Voice of Frances McDormand God and it's an open question as to whether or not an actual God exists.

The reason why I think it's that path that they're going to take is that Good Omens has a lot of themes around recognizing and claiming personal power and living to your own moral code. It's also very much aligning these supernatural beings in its story with the humans in it and it might just be the writer in me but I think it would be a stronger ending to have the angels and demons wondering just as much as the humans if God exists than it would be to definitively give an answer.

They're all going to know that The Ineffable/Great/Divine Plan in the sense that Heaven was saying existed for eons doesn't exist but the angels and demons will be left wondering along with the humans if they have a creator and if that creator made them for any particular reasons... just like how we wonder those things, too.

As much as the story is a religious satire, it's also a romance, and I can't see an ending of this story doing much to say that Crowley is wrong for his romantic notions that he and Aziraphale were made for each other. It's probably going to just leave the existence of God as an open question.

The story is already going to provide the characters with some much-needed peace from the fact that they'll know that what they endured was a judgement of The Metatron and not God. That and the resulting more peaceful system in Heaven will allow Crowley and Aziraphale to go live their life together without as much fear and they will do that. They might be able to put a name and a title on that book and own the authorship of their story. Even if some might label it as fiction, Gabriel, at least, sees it as belonging alongside the other, human-penned books on the I shelf in the bookshop, and he won't be the only one by the end of the story.

Not knowing then if God exists at all will yield just as many questions... but, if they had all the answers, where would be the sense of wonder in that? It will certainly give them some things to talk about for eternity together. 😊

[gahellhimself-blog]

Angst War comic Chapter 2 p.9 to p.11

@goodomensafterdark

The other soldiers : @vavoom-sorted-art @gleafer @daneecastle @lauramoon1987 @kotias and all the people who participated to this adventure!!

God had a plan.. She called him Aziraphale

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And a little soundtrack for this one

[distinguishedvoidkid]

Aziraphale: But I thought you said to keep your enemies close!

God: I did not mean so close that he was inside of you, Aziraphale and I think you know that

[dalliancekay]

Heaven vs Hell

Which is worse? Can horrible be measured?

Should Aziraphale have Fallen to be with Crowley? Is he selfish for not choosing to Fall like Gabriel when Gabriel tried to be with Beez?

Would they have a bigger chance to be together in Hell than being on 'opposite sides' on Earth?

I doubt it. Even if Crowley earned some brownie points and maybe a dukedom for dragging an angel to Hell, how free would they actually be to be together? I bet that kind of behaviour would be frowned upon and deeply disliked by all other demons and we saw that many are happy to climb up however they can. Especially over others. Besides, Crowley never wanted power in Hell and definitely didn't want to spend time there if he didn't have to.

So, was Crowley simply considerate to Aziraphale's attachment to being an angel when he decided not to take him to Hell after Aziraphale lied to Gabriel about Job's kids? Did he not take him Down just cos the angel 'wouldn't like it'?

"No more world. Just endless Heaven or, depending who won, endless Hell. Crowley didn't know which was worse. Well, Hell was worse, of course, by definition."

I feel like when I see people saying Crowley is respecting Aziraphale's desire to be an angel and avoiding/being scared of Falling; which (they assume/insinuate) would make it easier for them to be together, that they don't really respect Aziraphale's decision the same way as Crowley does (if it even is one), but blame Az for being selfish and choosing God and his angel status over his love for Crowley. Blame Aziraphale for being patronising, thinking he's better than Crowley, thinking he's too good to Fall. But also that Crowley shouldn't be in Hell and should be an angel again as his Falling was unfair. I see many takes that this is what Aziraphale thinks, but where do we see that? We only see Crowley musing on his Fall. We don't see Aziraphale, right?

We don't know why Crowley Fell.

We have only his vague words for it. Saying he didn't really mean to. We don't know if anyone Fell ever again after the War. It was very likely a threat used over the angels though. It didn't work for Gabriel. It must have been what he expected would happen. And that Beez would help him out. Other demons too scared of them to say anything. However, he was going to have his memory wiped instead. For basically a treason. Metatron, whether he suspected what was going on or not, outwitted him.

After Eden, Aziraphale MUST have expected punishment for giving away of his weapon. If not outright Falling.

How long did he spend in anxiety over this? Over what will happen to him?

And how long did Aziraphale sit here, wondering what Hell would be like and when it will arrive for him? For lying and deceiving like that.

And ok he's worried about Hell but how BAD is Heaven exactly? Is Aziraphale blind to how bad it is? Is he staying with them because he's loyal? Because he believes they are the light? The truth?

How long has it been since Aziraphale knew Heaven was not Good?

Apparently since before Angel!Crowley knew.

"You'll be amazed at the kind of things they can do to you, down there," he said. "I imagine they're very similar to the sort of things they can do to one up there," said Aziraphale. "Come off it. Your lot get ineffable mercy," said Crowley sourly. "Yes? Did you ever visit Gomorrah?" "Sure," said the demon. "There was this great little tavern where you could get these terrific fermented date-palm cocktails with nutmeg and crushed lemongrass-" "I meant afterwards." "Oh."

Crowley loves his beautiful, soft, good, brave angel.

An angel who lies to his bosses when he thinks he can get away with it, who indulges in 'gross matter' even if it's frowned upon.

Crowley can't do good things openly. And we see him struggle with that.

Why would he want this for his angel who cares about strangers shooting each other in a game, saves babies in pushchairs and doves that accidentally asphyxiated in his sleeve, who waves away months of rent.

Yes, Heaven and Hell might both be awful places.

But that doesn't mean that good and bad things don't exist.

Nobody would call Muriel evil, right? Not even Jim was bad in S2. The nature vs nurture debate has a clear winner in his case. I don't know if Free Will has rubbed off on Az and Crowley or they were always different. Made different perhaps.

Although, without Free Will, how did Lucifer make his decisions against God?

Back to our Husbands.

Crowley hates Hell. He thinks it's an awful place and the demons are terrible. He's afraid of them and avoids them as much as he can.

Aziraphale is extremely uncomfortable in Heaven. He has disagreed with many things they do for literal aeons. Has warned Angel!Crowley immediately when they met and has trusted demon Crawley with his sword story as soon as he met him even thought he lies to literal God about the very same thing shortly after.

Aziraphale lies to the Supreme Archangel and a bunch of others over Job. He's questioned them on those decisions as well. He wonders if God is really asking for what they are saying She's asking. Clearly he didn't have a way to ask Her directly back then.

And he couldn't get through to Her when the world was ending either. And he felt that couldn't be right.

Aziraphale and Crowley are nobodies in their respective jobs.

Worse, they are pitied if not worse, for having jobs stationed on Earth.

Neither angels not demons care for humans, apart from them making up their numbers of acquisitions. But our hereditary enemies are more than that from the moment they meet in Eden. And their bond only grows stronger.

The bond that brings them so much joy and so much anxiety and fear.

They stopped the Armageddon but it didn't give them the freedom they wanted, the one they deserve. They spent more time together, yes.

But. Heaven, who after all came up with the idea of Hell, found a way to separate them.

How much of this was their personal decision and how much enforced, we won't find out until S3.

But Aziraphale didn't want Crowley to become an angel because he doesn't understand or see how bad Heaven is. He wanted him to come because he does.

Yes. Of course. Aziraphale knows this. How could he not. But he also knows the boss of Heaven just told him he must return. Didn't seem like he was gonna take no for an answer. And Aziraphale tried.

Until Metatron brought Crowley into the conversation. Saying he knows about them. Their partnership. The thing Aziraphale feared more than anything else. Someone noticing just how deep their 'partnership' went.

Crowley, I really don't think that would have worked. And I know you know it wouldn't either. Just as much as running to Alpha Centauri wouldn't. You know, and Aziraphale doesn't, that Second Coming is being planned. That this is why Gabriel was fired. And this you can't escape. There's nowhere to go.

Their love is what makes Aziraphale and Crowley powerful. The love that no one, not even Gabriel and Beelzebub can understand. And it is this love that will save them in the end. What has always saved them.

Not Aziraphale's angelhood or Crowley's demon status.

Aziraphale's home is the one he built for himself and Crowley.

It's not really a place though. It's a bookshop for a while, a moment in history, but his home is them, looking into each other's eyes forever.

Because no thing lasts forever. But they might. And they will.

[idliketobeatree]

Crowley was God's most dramatic creation.

She was also feeling particularly bitchy and gay that day, and thus, Aziraphale was made.

[brainwormcity]

It must have hurt Crowley so badly to watch God speak to Job and see him allowed to do the very thing that he Fell for. He typically shows no reverence for Her at all but in this scene you can see and hear some heartbreaking mixture of awe and incredulousness in his voice and expressions. I wonder if he felt envy in that moment or if he was angry. I wonder if he questioned what made Job so much more special than him.

[beebopboom]

Can’t believe God showed us snippets of when Aziraphale and Crowley met as angels back in their s1 ep1 monologue…

Stars exploding s1

Stars exploding s2

Solar system s1

Solar system s2

[darkacademiaarchivist]

concept: good omens but instead of God narrating it, it's Cecil Palmer

[cobragardens]

God Is a Creepy-Ass Meta Mfer:

A Good Omens Essay

This essay features fan theory and speculation. DO NOT TAG NEIL GAIMAN IN ANY POST THAT INCLUDES OR REFERENCES THIS ONE.

The rest of this depends on accepting the premise that God's Plan is not always inscrutable in hindsight, i.e., that parts of that Plan can be discerned or identified as such once they have happened, even if the next moves of the Plan and its ultimate Purpose remain ineffable.

If you are willing to accept that premise, then I suggest we can conclude with reasonable certainty that Thesis Statement 1: Aziraphale's act of giving Adam the First Man the flaming sword is part of God's Plan, and so was Eve and Adam eating the Fruit.

The argument for the latter has been in circulation making even the beardiest of old Christian men scratch their heads for centuries, and in Good Omens, Crowley is the first being ever to make it:

The presence of the Tree in the Garden placed by an omnipotent being with literally infinite orchard space and security technology is a clear indication that God intends humans to interact with the Tree and sets humans up in a divine entrapment operation, giving God the opportunity to curse humanity and evict them from the Garden.

Diversion onto Thesis Statement 2 bc the Essayist Got Distracted: This establishes both the Bible and Good Omens as works of literature in the cosmic horror genre (not that Good Omens doesn't do plenty of its own work in so establishing itself).

In both these stories God is a being beyond humanity's understanding, functionally omniscient and omnipotent, who first creates and then interferes with humanity for unknown reasons and who does not necessarily have humanity's best interests in mind at any point. His/er reasoning and objectives for humanity are opaque, and S/he manipulates circumstances to create excuses to do humanity as a species and sometimes specific humans harm.

If you're not already familiar, go read all the shit God curses humans with when Eve and Adam snack on the Tree's Fruit. It's frighteningly cruel, if not outright psychopathic. So is God's behavior the Book of Job, His demand that Abraham sacrifice Isaac, Mosaic Law, and the sacrifice of His/er Son. Human lives are no more significant to God than the lives of ants are to humans. This whole history of Earth? It may not even be about us. Our entire species' history may just be part of the backdrop to something else, like two angels falling in love and reuniting Heaven and Hell, or like raccoons. It could all be about the raccoons. Who knows! All of this is absolutely 100% pure undiluted cosmic horror.

Right, okay, so back to Thesis 1: In Good Omens, Aziraphale's gift to the first man of the flaming sword is an objective God wants. Here's my chain of reasoning:

The Eating of the Fruit and God's punishment were both objectives of God. See above.

2. Once those objectives had been accomplished, humankind would not have survived outside the Garden of Eden without the sword. They literally would not exist at all.

Adam the First has to kill the lion, either to keep it from killing him and Eve or to keep him and Eve from starving. No flaming sword = no humanity.

3. We know "no humanity" is not God's Plan, because--

--God says her Plan is Armageddon and the Second Coming in 6,000 years. So humanity needs to exist for either of those to occur (or for there to be any reason for adventures about averting them to occur). And God does a whole Crucifixion and Resurrection of His/er Son. So God wants humanity around and is even prepared to welcome them back into His/er grace, providing they meet certain conditions.

4. We know God is not displeased about Aziraphale's gift of the sword to humans because God asks Aziraphale about the sword, and Aziraphale lies and says he's lost it, and God, who is omniscient and therefore knows this to be a lie and knows exactly where the sword is, lets the entire thing pass unremarked. (More on this anon.)

5. It is not a reach too far to suspect this of God. She tells us Herself that she is a trickster and that we can't trust her not to deceive us:

She also tells us

i. The universe is a game she is playing for her own amusement:

🎵cosmic horror alerrrrrrrrrt!🎵🎶

ii. No one, including angels and demons, has been told the real rules of this game:

"FOR EVERYONE ELSE." Not just humans.

That's why Crowley and Aziraphale each have to wonder if they've done the right or the wrong thing: nobody's told them what the rules are. Aziraphale even thinks that Crowley's temptation of Eve is "all part of the Plan," i.e, that Crowley did the right thing by doing the wrong one. They have no way to tell, and it may be both right and wrong at the same time. (Wrestling with impossible moral conundra raised by a brief look into a story happening on a much greater level than your own? You could be suffering from our old pal Thesis 2: Good Omens is cosmic horror!)

So Aziraphale's Promethean gift to humanity was one of God's objectives, just as cursing humans and yeeting them out of the Garden with the knowledge of Good and Evil and maybe a couple apple seeds in hand was His/er objective.

BONUS! Thesis 3: So why does God bring up Aziraphale's misappropriation of the sword at all? To show us, the audience, that Aziraphale lied to Her and that his gifting of the sword to Adam is part of Her Plan.

Remember from her whole deal with the Tree: God likes to set up situations so that She can react to them. Here she lampshades her awareness of what Aziraphale has done, listens to him lie to Her about it, and then very pointedly does nothing in response to that. She wants everyone watching--i.e., Aziraphale and us--to note that she has noticed the transfer of the sword and is not displeased by it and has noticed the lie and is not going to do anything about that either.

Remember as well, God is the one controlling the narrative we see in S1 of Good Omens. She introduces and concludes the story, and she narrates the scenes of the baby-swap. She's in control of which scenes we see and the order in which we see them. Since she is the one who asked Aziraphale the question about the sword, she's also responsible for this scene's existence.

So why do I think this scene is meant for us and not Aziraphale? Two reasons. Firstly, the conversation with God doesn't do Aziraphale any good. He worries about eventually getting in trouble about the sword until 2019, around 6,000 years later.

God is both omniscient and omnipotent, so it's not possible that She failed to communicate to Aziraphale in such a way that would ease his anxiety. Therefore the conversation was not for his benefit. Again, she's omniscient, so it wasn't for Her benefit either. That leaves the only other party to this conversation: us. The audience.

The next obvious question is, Why does God want us to know that Aziraphale's gift of the flaming sword was both of his free will and part of Her Plan?

I don't know. But I think it may become important, and here is where we delve into hypothesis territory: I think Good Omens is going metafictional. I mean this in a Doki Doki Literature Club, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch way: God, the character in Good Omens, is telling us, the audience, a story.

This metafictional aspect has been with us the whole time---more precisely since 01:13 of S1E1, when God switches from third-person to first-person and addresses us the viewers directly:

And there are several more metafictional; notes in S1 and S2 that I've found so far:

Season 1

That giant eyeball up there floating in space with a bunch of arcane shit around it is a reference to the opening credits sequence of The Twilight Zone, a metafictional show in which an omniscient narrator introduces and concludes each story by addressing the audience directly.

S1E1 27:20

Season 2

1. Maggie and Nina are fictional characters, but the characters share their names with actors Maggie Service and Nina Sosanya.

2. The final credits sequence, with the split screen showing Crowley on one side and Aziraphale on the other, references David Tennant and Michael Sheen's previous/simultaneous lockdown tv series project, Staged! which is intensely metafictional and in which Tennant and Sheen play characters based on themselves and with their names.

3. Sloppy plot synopsis or something more sinister?

4. An interviewer points out that Good Omens references Doctor Who as an extant concern in-universe, which obviously stars David Tennant in the past and currently.

If you find more, please drop them in the comments!

We the audience, are meant to understand ourselves and our reality as being indirectly involved in this story. And God wants us to know 1) that Aziraphale lied to Her about giving away the sword, knowing it was futile, and 2) that his gift of the flaming sword was part of Her Plan. The former is a major character note, and probably a foreshadowing one; but I have no guesses about God's purpose in showing us that the gift of the flaming sword was also to Plan except that whatever it is will probably make me dislike Her approach to parenting even more than I already do.

What I do love about this though is that it suggests that Crowley and Aziraphale both did the right thing by doing the wrong one, i.e. achieved a kind of Schroedinger's obedience, which is nice and disturbing and surprise! pretty cosmic horror. More sweetly, though, it suggests that the two foundational gifts to humanity from the divine were motivated by Crowley's low-effort mischief and Aziraphale's kindheartedness, which is lovely to think about.

DO NOT TAG NEIL GAIMAN IN ANY POST THAT INCLUDES OR REFERENCES THIS ESSAY.

[ineffectualdemon]

God: I am all knowing and all powerful. No one can lie to me or question my authority

Aziraphale:

God: of course I didn't mean you! Who's my precious boy!

[thesillydoll]

GOOD OMENS 2, THEORY #5.

Ms. Cheng is God.

No comments.

[nortsauce]

Aziraphale gets trolled by God XD

[kpop-emo-trash]

Victim to the sands of time

[ghosted-draws]

Aziraphale is legitimately a fascinating character to me, especially considering how the narrative deals with his fear specifically.

Think about it. Six THOUSAND years. That is an UNFATHOMABLY long time. We cannot even begin to conceive of it as humans. And he has been looking over his shoulder (as has Crowley), because at any moment someone could walk up to him, decide he isn’t good enough, and permanently take him away from his home. This goes as I said for both, because they can’t get new bodies on their own. If they’re taken out, living as they were becomes pretty much impossible, which is horrifying.

But Aziraphale specifically I find really interesting because of his situation. Consider this. You are presented with your creator. The person who designed you down to your very molecules, and they tell you the meaning of life. And they tell you you were created to be good. And you watch as all these people, created same as you, fail, and are taken and burned and warped into monsters and you are told they are evil.

And then you meet one of them. And he is kind, and he helps, even better then Heaven can, sometimes. And that is terrifying, because you are told he is evil. So either they, those that created you and everything you have always been meant to do, are wrong, or you cannot yet see how evil he is. And both terrify you. So you spend years waiting for the trap to spring, and it never does, and that can’t be right because he is no longer supposed to be good, he is fallen, and none of that makes any SENSE.

Throughout Good Omens, we see even how Crowley identifies with the role Hell has assigned him (“I’m not NICE.”) but Aziraphale is in a totally different position. Because Crowley has already fallen, he can avoid Hell. And Hell, like Aziraphale learns Heaven is, is fallible. But unlike Crowley, Aziraphale is still an Angel. Aziraphale can still Fall.

And no matter how fallible Heaven is, God is all knowing. He has to live with the fact that God is watching, all the time, and judging his actions. And if She sees them, and decides he has indulged too much, that his love of a demon is wrong, that he is no longer good, he will Fall. And he has spent thousands of years shaping his identity around the word “Angel”. If he falls, he will no longer get to be nice, and kind, and himself, and he is terrified.

Aziraphale is so black and white about things because he is so terrified of what grey means. Because if grey exists the way he thinks it might, then his whole existence for thousands of years might have been wrong. And that is fascinating to me.

[ineffablyruined]

Of Poker, Blank Cards, and Smiling Dealers

Let's talk God's Game for a minute.

God is playing complex poker in a dark room with blank cards and a Dealer who keeps smiling. But let's be real. It's God. Is She playing or is She actually the Dealer? I think it's both.

God's true purpose is the Dealer, shuffling the cards, handing out winning and losing hands. That's right up God's alley.

But, She's also playing for humanity because who else could? Humans are Hers, after all.

And this is where it gets interesting. Because, there are other Players. But who are they? My guess:

1. Heaven (Player: The Metatron)

2. Hell (Player: Satan)

3. Humanity (Player: God)

And God is playing AND dealing. And the Dealer has to deal, has to give a playable hand, otherwise there's no game. It doesn't have to be the winning hand, but each player needs cards regardless. But, God created the cards, and She knows every card that is going to be drawn into each Player's hand.

My theory is God's Stacking the Deck in favor of humanity, in favor of her little pet project that She's created to keep Herself entertained.

Now, let's talk the Blank Cards.

The cards themselves are every other being in this Ineffable game. Each angel, demon, and human is a card in Heaven's, Hell's, or Humanity's hand. The Four Horsemen? Hell's. Michael? Probably Heaven's from what we've seen so far. Anathema Device? Humanity, definitely. Saraqael? Muriel? I don't think we've seen, but I've got some ideas.

But, why blank? Well, how else do we account for free will? The cards are blank because that's the fun part of the game. The complex part. Just because you've got the card, doesn't mean you know how it will be played, what choices it will make. What other cards it will come into contact with.

Except, if you created the cards, then maybe you have an edge. A tiny edge over the other players. Just enough to stack the deck in your favor.

And this is where Crowley & Aziraphale come in. They're Her trump cards (if you'll allow me to mix card game metaphors for a minute - it is, after all, complex poker).

She created them. She knows them. She can't control them, but She can make predictions about what they will do. And She knows that they are a group of the two of them, that if She puts them together on that tiny little planet, they will do everything they can to protect it together, because that's how She created them.

So yes, they get to make their own choices. Crowley can help save a gravedigger's life and get taken off the table by Hell for a bit because of it. Aziraphale can choose to go back to Heaven as Supreme Archangel and get removed from the table by Heaven for now

But, when push comes to shove, both of those cards are squarely in Humanity's hand, just as God dealt. They are there together. And once they both come back onto the table, Humanity can't do anything other than come out on top.

And if my hand had those two, I'd be smiling, too.

[idliketobeatree]

What’s the point in creating an infinite universe with trillions of star systems if you’re only gonna let it run for a few thousand years? (...) Look, someone's gotta tell the Boss, this is a really terrible, terrible idea.

I was thinking of the Starmaker ((as you do)), and I realised this really is a defining moment for shaping Crowley's character, even pre-Fall. Probably the first time she has ever experienced such a range of emotions. Dissapointment, sadness, confusion, feeling like her purpose is, ultimately, meaningless, perhaps a smidge of anger. A desire to bargain, like she could somehow persuade God to change Her mind. And at the root of it - loosing her faith, or the belief that God is the source of all goodness, essentialy developing a moral code. I wanted to portray that moment of personal upheaval, what would be a brilliant mind trying to protect what she's worked hard on, but not yet aware of the consequences, because, well, what is the worst that God could do to Her celestial children? She made them Herself.

...on second thought, maybe that should have clued Crowley in.