#he's reduced to Crowley's dumb sidekick who relies on him for everything

[lillotte17]

Okay, you know what, I need to channel certain anxiety goth demon here for a moment and hype certain angel who happens to be abysmal at human magic tricks and likes collecting old books, because I feel like even the people defending Aziraphale are not giving him nearly enough credit or agency.

You know who actually came up with the idea (on the fly, I might add) that saved Job's children?

The Marvelous Mr. Fell, that's who.

Sure, Crawly/Crowley was always planning to spare them, but Aziraphale is the one who suggests that maybe Bildad the Shuite is an expert on human births. You know. Like the one that happened in the Garden of Eden. *wink wink nudge nudge*

He's the one who sneaks the salamander children into Job's robes.

He's the one who changes them back at the right moment.

He's the one who lies to Gabriel to seal the deal.

Between the two of them, during the bullet catch sequence, Aziraphale is the calm one. He's actually more calm about Crowley pointing a gun at his face than he is when he initially walks onto the stage by himself. And he continues to be calm even when Furfur directly threatens both Crowley and himself. He stays calm, and he switches the picture and saves them both.

Aziraphale read all of Agnes Nutter's 4000 prophecies in less than a day, annotated everything, figured out where Adam was, who he was, where Armeggedon was happening, and even charted things out on maps, entirely on his own.

He also researches the rumors about Everyday showing up on the Jukebox in the Resurrectionist Pub, and figures out that Gabriel was on Earth preforming a miracle in company with someone else. He runs out of time to connect the rest of the dots, but really, his sleuthing skills with newspapers and books are off the charts.

Edit (I forgot one and it's one of my faves): We also see how competent he is when he's getting ready to host the ball. He knows how to get what he wants from people. If he can't win them over by just being nice, he knows exactly what to tempt offer in order to get them to agree. Crowley is just following him around like :O!!! Because watching the bae actually being good at stuff is attractive entertaining!

AND perhaps most tellingly of all, when Crowley plays the part of Aziraphale during the switch, he's so SO brave. He's collected. He's polite. He holds his head up and walks into the fire.

Aziraphale is so smart! He's courageous! He keeps his cool under pressure! That is the way that Crowley sees him, and Crowley is the person who knows him best!!

We don't know why Aziraphale chose to leave with the Metatron, yet. But even if he was completely tricked (which I personally sort of doubt), it definitely wasn't because he's dumb and doesn't know what's going on around him.