I wasn't sure if I was going to make a post about this, but this is something I feel like I need to do, especially for those who know and care about me (I know, people care on here? That's crazy.). I'm definitely going to struggle typing this all out, but...here it goes.
_____
So over the past month (and quite possibly earlier), Mom has been dealing some abdominal pain that radiates to her back. The pain would be so bad that it would cause her to throw up at times. She barely ate and slept while this was going on. On January 6th, things finally came to a head and we made the call to take her to the hospital.
When she first came in, she was diagnosed as suffering from pancreatitis (for those who don't know, it's inflammation of the pancreas that, if left untreated, can cause a high amount of pain and nausea to the person. There's two types of pancreatitis: acute, which is very treatable and will go away after a while, and chronic, which will last a lot longer and hurt more). They were able to treat her and she felt better for a while, discharging her after 3 days. When they released her, they wanted her to get a endoscopy test done up at a hospital in Royal Oak. With neither Mom or I having a car, this was difficult for us to do. But we would come to know why soon enough.
Mom came home and for a day or two, she seemed fine. She ate well and was able to sleep soundly, which I thought was the important thing. But the pain and nausea eventually came back with a vengeance We tried every the hospital doctors had told us: heating pads, soft to liquid diet, pain patches. Nothing was working. Her primary care doctor even had her go on some antibiotics and a stronger pain med than she had, but nothing seemed to help matters. We took her back to the hospital this past Saturday, January 20th.
When we initially got there, after they had done a CT scan on Mom, they said that the pancreatitis was gone. But what was left was a mass on her pancreas. Scared and unsure as to what it may be, they admitted her and has been in the hospital since. On Tuesday, they took her to the University of Toledo Medical Center for the endoscopy and see what the mass might be. They did the scope and drew fluid from the mass for testing.
On Wednesday, we get the news that it is cancer. More precisely, metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma. In layman's terms, it's Stage IV pancreatic cancer, not curable.
I could not believe it...
We don't really know how long she may have left, but the rough and harsh estimate is less than 6 months...
Needless to say, I broke down, not in front of Mom or my brothers (who have been with Mom and I throughout this whole thing).
I can't imagine being here on Earth without Mom and I'm somehow going to have to figure out how to...I panicked and wanted to run away...a moment of weakness...
I don't know what will happen between now and the inevitable day, but we all agreed that we're going to try and make the most out of the days she does have left. I know that there will be bad days ahead, and there'll be good days as well.
But it's tough, knowing that the last few years I've been taking care of her (and complaining about her behavior, which is making me feel guilty about, now that this is happening) and it's going to come to an end.
_____
I know this isn't the greatest of things to post on here, but I needed some therapeutic way to get some of the emotions I am feeling right now out and to inform you all of what has been going on. I thank you all for the thoughts and positive vibes before and coming in the future. It's going to be a rough time ahead and I hope you will all bear with me in the meantime.
I love you all.
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Good Omen's problem with having two canons
They're fundamentally different. That's the problem. That's my point.
For quite a while I focused almost exclusively on the new season of Good Omens, but now I am slowly delving into analysis that takes the entire show into account, and I've encountered a little obstacle. Namely, things from S1 can be really tricky to interpret.
Fair warning: this post is going to zig-zag between various points but I want you to trust me and take this scenic route with me. It will take us somewhere eventually, I promise.
The Arrangement
It's one of the core elements in the Good Omens universe and at the same time a perfect example of the issue I want to discuss. So let's have a closer look together.
In the book, the Arrangement is presented to us in two passages:
the first one, where it is first - very briefly - mentioned:
Aziraphale had tried to explain [free will] to him once. The whole point, he'd said - this was somewhere around 1020, when they'd first reached their little Arrangement - the whole point was that when a human was good or bad it was because they wanted to be.
and the second one, where it is properly introduced and explained:
The Arrangement was very simple, so simple in fact, that it didn't really deserve the capital letter, which it had got for simply being in existence for so long. It was the sort of sensible arrangement that many isolated agents, working in awkward conditions a long way from their superiors, reach with their opposite number when they realize they have more in common with their immediate opponents than their remote allies. It meant a tacit non-interference in certain of each other's activities. It made certain that while neither really won, also neither really lost, and both were able to demonstrate to their masters the great strides they were making against a cunning and well-informed adversary.
(...)
And then, of course, it had seemed even natural that they should, as it were, hold the fort for one another whenever common sense dictated. Both were of angel stock, after all. If one was going to Hull for a quick temptation, it made sense to nip across the city and carry out a standard brief moment of divine ecstasy. It'd get done anyway, and being sensible about it gave everyone more free time and cut down on expenses.
In the show, the Arrangement is presented to us in two original scenes in the cold opening of S1E3:
(I am quoting most relevant dialogues only)
537 AD, Wessex:
C: So we're both working very hard in damp places and just canceling each other out?
A: Well, you could put it like that. It is a bit damp.
C: Be easier if we both stayed home. If we just send messages back to our head offices saying we'd done everything they'd asked for, wouldn't it?
A: But that would be lying.
C: Eh, possibly, but the end result would be the same. Cancel each other out.
A: But my dear fellow... well, they'd check. Michael's a bit of a stickler. You don't want to get Gabriel upset with you.
C: Oh, our lot have better things to do than verifying compliance reports from Earth. As long as they get paperwork they seem happy enough. As long as you're being seen doing something every now and again.
A: No! Absolutely not! I am shocked that you would even imply such a thing. We're not having that conversation, not another word!
1601 AD, The Globe Theatre:
A: I have to be in Edinburgh at the end of the week. A couple of blessings to do. A minor miracle to perform.
(...)
C: I'm meant to be heading to Edinburgh too this week. Tempting a clan leader to steal some cattle.
A: Doesn't sound like hard work.
C: That's why I thought we should... Well, bit of a waste of effort, both of us going all the way to Scotland.
A: You cannot actually be suggesting what I infer that you are implying.
C: Which is?
A: That just one of us goes to Edingburgh, does both. The blessing and the tempting.
C: We've done it before. Dozens of times now. The Arrangement-
A: Don't say that!
C: Our respective offices don't actually care how things get done. They just want to know they can cross it off the list.
S2 doesn't actually reference the Arrangement. But it does reuse the dialogue about free will where the 1020 date is dropped. We will get back to it.
The challenge of adapting Good Omens
Good Omens shares a certain characteristic with all of Terry Pratchett's solo books I've read - it couldn't care less about "showing instead of telling". Which I love, just to be clear. A book is a written medium. It's made with words and one of words' major strengths is that you can use them to just tell things point blanc.
Good Omens does it a lot and it's fantastic.
Look at that second passage from the book I quoted earlier.
From just those few sentences we learn a lot about the relationships between:
Heaven and Hell (opponents and competition)
Aziraphale and Crowley (two individuals in the same position and in direct contact with each other)
Aziraphale/Crowley and Heaven/Hell (field agent and a remote HQ that are not in direct contact)
Aziraphale/Crowley and Earth (two individuals and a space they live in)
Heaven/Hell and Earth (a board where the game is played, only winning or losing matters, what actually happens on a board does not)
It's really an extra condensed worldbuilding gem sprinkled with humor, so it's no surprise it's become one of the most iconic passages from the book.
I mean, just browse through some interviews with David and Michael - especially the ones from 2019 - where they explain what Aziraphale and Crowley are about. You'll be hard-pressed to find any where they don't reference that specific paragraph, consciously or otherwise.
But it's only this neat on the pages of the book, where narration like this takes mere seconds to absorb. It's impossible to convey the same information in a visual medium with anywhere near the same efficiency.
The fact that the majority of Good Omens is like this was, in my opinion, a main challenge the adaptation faced. The book is very narration-heavy. It's full of fun facts about characters, side jokes, hilarious comments, etc. Some of that precious material was salvaged by introducing God as a narrator, but there was only so much of it you could squeeze into a TV show. The rest had to either be fit into dialogues or lost in translation from the written medium to the visual one.
Obviously, in the case of the Arrangement, it was the dialogues.
Book canon and show canon
We all know they're not the same. Neil Gaiman also pointed it out several times. But I think our mistake is that we still tend to think about them as complementary.
Look at the Arrangement again. The show canon seems to merely expand on the book canon. Add extra details and fill in the blanks. The Arrangement works the exact same way, except now we also know more about how it started.
If we compile what we know from the book with what we know from the show, we get a more detailed timeline:
Crowley first proposes the Arrangement in 537 (show).
The Arrangement starts in 1020 (book), ie. Aziraphale finally agrees to it (show - deduction); we don't know for sure if it's a "basic version" (not getting in each other's way), or a "full version" (doing each other's jobs) but we can assume it's the former.
In 1601 "full version" of the Arrangement is in place for some time (they've done it dozens of times) but Aziraphale still objects and needs convincing.
But read that description from a book once more.
Does it really fit into the version of events shown in the TV series?
The Arrangement in the book is something that just happened. A natural, and in a way inevitable result of Aziraphale and Crowley's circumstances. We are never told who came up with it first because it doesn't matter. Because it could have been either of them. Because after five millennia on Earth, they were both ready to do it. They were both of the same mind. For all we know it might have been an unspoken agreement all along!
But for the show, the creators had to come up with a good reason for the Arrangement to be discussed out loud. And what could be a more natural situation for someone to describe and explain an idea than trying to sell that idea to someone else?
For that practical reason - among many others, no doubt - the Arrangement is not only explicitly Crowley's idea, but an idea Aziraphale vehemently rejects at first. He needs to be convinced and even when he finally relents he's never entirely comfortable with it. He keeps objecting and it requires Crowley's constant effort for them to keep cooperating in any way.
The fact that Aziraphale is reluctant gives Crowley a perfect reason to keep convincing him ie. talk about the Arrangement. But the fact that he needs to explain and keep convincing Aziraphale means that Aziraphale is no longer a person who understands the same things and feels the same way.
That is a huge change.
Of course, you may say that what I've written about the Arrangement in the book is just my interpretation. It's true that technically there's nothing there that would contradict the events from the show in any way. The thing is, the events in the show aren't very compatible with the overall characterization of the ineffable duo in the book.
Evolution of Aziraphale and Crowley
You might have read that our leading pair was originally conceived as a single character that Neil and Terry eventually decided to split into two separate individuals.
My reaction when I first learned about it was: "Of course they were! That makes so much sense!" Because honestly, as a person who watched the show first and then read the book, I was surprised at how few differences there were between the two in the original text. If you squint your eyes really tight, you can see how book!Aziraphale and book!Crowley are two versions of the same character. They're far more similar than their show versions.
Most importantly, their attitudes toward Heaven and Hell are pretty much identical. Perfectly mirrored in every regard. What Hell is for Crowley, Heaven is for Aziraphale. What Hell is for Aziraphale, Heaven is for Crowley. In. Every. Possible. Way.
Allow me to present some evidence from the book.
Exhibit #1: the end of the scene where Crowley convinces Aziraphale to interfere with Warlock's upbringing
'You're saying the child isn't evil of itself?' he said slowly.
'Potentially evil. Potentially good too, I suppose. Just this huge powerful potentiality, waiting to be shaped,' said Crowley. He shrugged. 'Anyway, why're we talking about this good and evil? They're just names for sides. We know that.'
'I suppose it's got to be worth a try,' said the angel.
Crowley nodded encouragingly.
'Agreed?' said the demon, holding out his hand.
The angel shook it, cautiously.
'It'll certainly be more interesting than saints,' he said.
'And it'll be for the child's own good, in the long run,' said Crowley. (...)
When Crowley first points out that good and evil are just names for sides, and then insists it's something they both know, Aziraphale doesn't react in any way. That's because these aren't things that book!Aziraphale disagrees with. He does indeed know it and doesn't deny it.
Also, please note just how cynical the angel is here with his comment that influencing the Antichrist would be a more interesting project than influencing saints!
Both would be rather OOC for show!Aziraphale.
Exhibit #2: the scene just after Warlock Dowling's birthday party, when it becomes evident he is not the Antichrist
'You said it was him!' moaned Aziraphale (...)
'It was him,' said Crowley. (...)
'Then someone else must be interfering.'
'There isn't anyone else! There's just us, right? Good and Evil. One side or the other.'
He thumped the steering wheel.
'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 you 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.'
Can you imagine this kind of exchange in the TV series? Can you imagine show!Aziraphale being this realistic about Heaven, and show!Crowley so naive about it? There's no way.
Show!Aziraphale genuinely believes that Heaven is good at its core.
Book!Aziraphale knows Heaven isn't any different than Hell and would punish him just as ruthlessly and unfairly as Hell would Crowley.
Show!Crowley understands both Heaven and Hell on a very deep level and is highly aware of their true nature.
Book!Crowley buys a piece of celestial propaganda about ineffable mercy and actually expects Heaven to be forgiving.
Let the magnitude of that difference sink.
Exhibit #3: same scene, a bit further
'So all we've got to do is find it,' said Crowley. 'Go through the hospital records.' The Bentley's engine coughed into life and the car leapt forward, forcing Aziraphale back into the seat.
'And then what?' he said.
'And then we find the child.'
'And then what?' The angel shut his eyes as the car crabbed around the corner.
'Don't know.'
'Good grief.'
'I suppose (...) your people wouldn't consider (...) giving me asylum?'
'I was going to ask you the same thing. (...)'
This is just a cherry on top, really.
Yes, in the book, when things go pear-shaped, both Aziraphale and Crowley consider seeking asylum on the opposite side.
Do you need more proof that book canon and show canon really aren't as compatible as they may seem?
Free will
As promised, let's get back to that dialogue because while it may not be obvious at first glance it really illustrates perfectly the problem arising from balancing between two canons.
Here is the full quote from the book:
Aziraphale had tried to explain [free will] to him once. The whole point, he'd said - this was somewhere around 1020, when they'd first reached their little Arrangement - the whole point was that when a human was good or bad it was because they wanted to be. Whereas people like Crowley and, of course, himself, were set in their ways right from the start. People couldn't become truly holy, he said, unless they also had the opportunity to be definitively wicked.
Crowley had thought about it for some time and, around about 1023, had said, Hang on, that only works, right, if you start everyone off equal, OK? You can't start someone off in a muddy shack in the middle of a war zone and expect them to do as well as someone born in a castle.
Ah, Aziraphale had said, that's the good bit. The lower you start, the more opportunities you have.
Crowley had said, That's lunatic.
No, said Aziraphale, it's ineffable.
And here, for comparison, is how it was reused in S2E3:
A: There is a stolen body in that barrel! This is wicked!
C: Oh, I'm down with wicked! Anyway, is it wicked? She needed the money.
A: That is irrelevant. Look, I am good. You, I'm afraid, are evil. But people get a choice. You know, they cannot be truly holy unless they also get the opportunity to be wicked. She is wicked.
C: Yeah, that only works if you start everyone off equal. You can't start someone off like that and expect her to do as well as someone born in a castle.
A: Ah, but no, no. That's the good bit. The lower you start, the more opportunities you have. So Elspeth here has all the opportunities because she's so poor.
C: That's lunacy.
A: No, that's ineffable.
I'll be honest with you - I didn't like that scene in the show. It felt jarring and off. Aziraphale was acting like it was his first day on Earth and it was frustrating to watch.
Then, on one of the rewatches, just as I was rolling my eyes at "that's ineffable", a bulb lit in my brain. That line didn't work there because it wasn't created to be there! In the book and in S1 "it's ineffable" was kind of Aziraphale's catchphrase but in S2 it only appears this once. More importantly, in the book and S1, the fact that the angel would say that was all a build-up to the scene when he threw it in Heaven's face at the Tadfield Airbase. Using that word in S2 was like trying to make a running joke that has already reached its destination run again.
And just like that one line the entire dialogue didn't fit because it wasn't meant to be there. It was created for an entirely different context.
What's the difference?
Firstly, book!husbands' conviction was very shallow and it wasn't uncommon for both of them to spout slogans without meaning them. Therefore, book!Aziraphale's words didn't carry that much weight. The very fact that the conversation took place at the same time they formed the Arrangement tells us something about how serious he was. But show!Aziraphale's relationship with his beliefs is different, so when he says things like that it's a much bigger deal.
Secondly, the book explicitly states that Aziraphale and Crowley only developed free will on Earth, due to extended exposure to mankind. The show never really makes a stand on the matter but based on what we've seen so far I think we can safely assume that angels and demons are capable of making their own choices as much as humans do.
In other words, in its original context, the conversation was just Aziraphale talking about a concept he didn't fully grasp, quoting propaganda he didn't fully subscribe to. He was being ignorant and mildly obnoxious in an endearing way.
But using the same dialogue verbatim in the Resurrectionist carried a completely different meaning. Aziraphale who utters it in the show has no reason to be so ignorant about free will. Aziraphale who utters it in the show genuinely tries to defend Heaven. Most importantly, Aziraphale who utters it in the show, doesn't just idly bicker with his friend about general things but is judging an actual human individual that's right in front of them. That, more than anything else, makes it sound heartless and ignorant.
What is the problem with having two canons, exactly?
It's time to wrap things up.
In the opening paragraphs, I've mentioned that I've noticed the issue while interpreting scenes from S1, and yes, that was the case and I do believe that the existence of two canons is especially problematic for S1. That's because pretty much every scene in S1 is potentially like that dialogue about free will in S2, except subtler and harder to spot.
A grand majority of what we see and hear in S1 comes directly from the book. But while words and actions were kept, in some instances things that gave them their original meaning might no longer be valid in the show universe. Sometimes they easily take new meaning, and we don't even notice. But sometimes there's this dissonance that's not as easy to work around.
S1 deviated from the book and created its own canon. But the difference didn't seem to go very deep and it seemed perfectly reasonable to use some trivia from the book to shed some extra light on the content of the show. I used to do it in my head, even though I was aware of the changes that were made.
But S2 expanded the show canon so far beyond what was in the book that I'm really not sure it makes sense to compile them anymore.
There are a lot of things that were only explicitly stated in the book that I keep clinging to. But perhaps it's time to let go...
Thank you for your patience.
I know all of the above isn't exactly a revolutionary discovery, but I needed to get it off my chest before writing anything else.
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