#i'm scared to put opinions into fandom spaces now... since nobody can read and everyone is so trigger happy with hate and shit...

[sherlock-is-ace]

I have been thinking a lot about Aziraphale and the whole divorce thing, and every day that passes I get more convinced he did nothing wrong.

So, ok y'all, get ready for the meta post nobody asked for and nobody wants! Under the cut tho cause it's long af kdfjhgdfg

*EDIT: There's an edit in the body of this whole post btw (i marked it in red)

Let me preface this by saying I haven't watched the show in a bit, so idk how correct I'm being, but also... this is my own opinion and interpretation so there isn't really an objective way of seeing it... It's ok if you disagree, we're allowed to have different views, it's a show, it doesn't matter.

Now, the divorce. A painful plot point that left us all hurting, including Aziraphale and Crowley themselves. A clear case of miscommunication and misunderstanding, season 2 was honestly all about that. Crowley's "we're on our own side" argument, full of raw feeling and love was really framed to be like the correct option, but I genuinely don't think Aziraphale's side is the wrong one. There are no wrong sides, just two solutions to the same problem (and in my opinion, a more useful solution).

Throughout season 1, both Heaven and Hell shared a common goal: make Armageddon happen, have a war and win it. Other than the outcome of the war, the goal was the exact same. To be fair, most of season two Heaven and Hell also share a common goal: find Gabriel, and honestly... still fight and win the war. And as it was evident by their continue work towards that goal, they're not going to stop. And that's the problem that presents itself: how to stop the world from ending... again.

Here's where Crowley and Aziraphale have different views.

Crowley would rather leave. In season 1 he offeres to literally leave, abandon Earth and just hang with Aziraphale somewhere far away (sweet and romantic, and honestly a valid solution). In season 2 I'm not fully sure he meant leave leave, maybe fight but on their own together (as I said, I haven't rewatched the show recently, I won't claim I know what he meant). But still, leave their respective sides completely and stand outside them.

Aziraphale would rather fight. In season 1 he was still convinced Heaven's side in the whole Armageddon thing was the correct option. In season 2 I'm not so sure. Aziraphale wants to change Heaven. He has learned from Crowley's suggestion box idea and wants to fight to change Heaven itself. He will stop them from within.

They're both very valid solutions to the same problem. But neither of them can compromise. Crowley would simply not accept going to Heaven and change it from within, and Aziraphale simply cannot accept leaving this whole thing alone and maybe get the whole world exploded in the process. And both their points of view make perfect sense with their characters and their histories. Crowley can't trust Heaven's ability to change cause he tried this before, he suggested a suggestion box and that cost him his entire life, he fell because of it. Of course he can't see the point in Aziraphale's plan. And Aziraphale's connection to Earth and to its humans is deeper than Crowley's, in my opinion. EDIT* He can't sit and do nothing, or not do enough. Not to mention his devotion to Heaven still, be it because of trauma or actual faith, he can't sit quietly while Heaven behaves like that. He can't believe Heaven could behave like that, it shouldn't! Remember his shock in season 1 when he tried to convince Gabriel that there was no need for a war, and found out that the war was the plan. Heaven wanted the war. And now he has the perfect opportunity to put a stop to that, Heaven offered to have him back.

EDIT: actually, no, I don't think Aziraphale's connection to humanity is deeper. I think Aziraphale's personal benefit on Earth amongst humanity is greater than Crowley's.

So the divorce to me is just a simple plain old break up. They couldn't sacrifice their beliefs for each other, and they couldn't find a compromise. Which is valid. Sad, but valid. They also couldn't fully explain themselves and their positions on this. Maybe because there was no time, maybe because they both had already made the decision by the time they had their conversation. That's what makes it the most painful to me, they're both following the same goal: be together. Aziraphale just added an extra step: stop Heaven. Which in my opinion, it's a necessary step.

Which brings us to my second point. Some people have compared Aziraphale and Crowley's relationship to Gabriel and Beelzebub, but I don't think they are even remotely comparable, other than beign a demon-angel couple.

Some people argue that Aziraphale and Crowley could have gone off into the sunset together because neither Heaven or Hell really did much to the other traitors. (Shax threatened to send demons after Beelzebub but Hell is understaffed and she got bribed with being the next Duke of Hell). But I don't think Aziraphale and Crowley would be met with the same kindness.

Up until the point Gabriel said "nah" to Armageddon: The Sequel, he was still very much the same in Heaven, he was still the Archangel Gabriel. And up until the very end, when they ride off into the sunset, Beelzebub was very much The Duke of Hell. They kept following their duty. They were not a threat in the slightest. And even after Gabriel escaped and became Jim, and even after he found Beelzebub and chose them openly, he wasn't a threat. He doesn't care if Armageddon happens or not, he only wanted to stop it so he would be cast down to Hell and reunite with his love. That was his plan (it failed cause Heaven chose to demote him and wipe his mind but he didn't know that would happen).

Now, Aziraphale and Crowley on the other hand, are very much a threat to both Heaven and Hell. They don't want to just chill together, they want to stop Armageddon from happening because they love Earth. They have done it before. And it wasn't just a simple "stumbled through it all and kinda stopped Satan at the end". They planned it and fought Armageddon for years! (granted, they got the wrong child, so they didn't do much, but my point still stands lol). I don't think Heaven or Hell really care they want to be together, their problem is what they do when they're together... Not only are they incredibly powerful (namely when they perform miracles together), but they want to use their power, to thwart their plans, like they did before. Not only that, Aziraphle had done miracles for Hell, and Crowley has done miracles for Heaven. They're not just traitors because they're friends with the enemy, they're traitors because they keep doing the opposite of what they should (according to their respective head offices of course).

So I very much doubt they would have been left alone to do whatever they wanted. That's why I think Aziraphale's "let's go to Heaven and change it from within" is a more useful plan. It would assure that they could be together free of threat, free of persecution. They could stay together in the planet they love so much, and Earth would be safe as well.

That said, there are words that were said in that divorce that I'm not a fan of. So I'm not saying everything was perfect and they shouldn't have gotten upset. That's a ridiculous thing to say. I do know that Aziraphale's state of mind is still very "Heaven = Good Hell = Bad". Specially compared to Crowley's lived history, experiencing Heaven's wrath and even seeing what they were gonna do to Gabriel, Aziraphale doesn't know that, he didn't see it, he has more kind memories of Heaven than Crowley does. In fact, Crowley doesn't have any memories of Heaven at all I don't think. He supposedly knows Saraquel and Furfur when he was still an angel, but both times it was shown that Crowley doesn't remember them (he remembers his password tho, that's weird lol). So perhaps, Aziraphale has more memories of Crowley as an angel which made sense in his offer to go back to Heaven with him.

I'm very excited for season 3. I'm very excited to see if Aziraphale's plans work out or not. I'm very excited for Aziraphale to gain full awareness to what Heaven is now, to understand Crowley's point of view. And I'm very excited to see if Crowley's memories are as important a plot point as I think they're gonna be, and perhaps he gets a glimpse into Aziraphale's side of the story as well, and sees Heaven's potential (if it even has any). These are only speculations of course, because I don't know how season 3 is gonna go, and I don't know if changing Heaven for the better was actually Aziraphale's plan. He could just kill God and take over Heaven and destroy Earth for all I know lol But this is my interpretation, and how I see his intentions. It's easy to get caught in the love confession, and in David Tennant's incredible performance of it, voice crack and all. But I do think Aziraphale is onto something, and I know his choices have hurt him as much as Crowley. And I know Crowley's choices have also hurt both of them. Why can't they find a compromise, why do they have such fundamentally different ideas? It's painful, it truly is!

🙏🏻please ignore all gramar and orthography errors🙏🏻