processinggoodomens2

[processinggoodomens2]

So, I feel like I’m losing my mind. I keep seeing metas about how Aziraphale wants Crowley to return to Heaven and be an angel again because he wants them to be on the same side/be good/change/etc., etc., etc. but I don’t see that at all. I actually see it as the very opposite.

Aziraphale loves Crowley just as he is. But there’s something more. Something huge.

Aziraphale loves Crowley and because he is an angel who is stuck in seeing things as black and white, he constantly praises Crowley for being nice. For being good. For being kind.

Aziraphale has watched Crowley on and off for 6,000 years. He watched him thwart the plans of Heaven and Hell because it was unjust. He spared the lives of innocents. He did small things that made Aziraphale happy just because (like making Hamlet successful and saving valuable books). And because Aziraphale sees things in black and white, he sees all the things Crowley has done as nice, as good, as kind.

Crowley vehemently attests he’s not nice or good or kind.

He’s not exactly wrong nor is he lying when he says this. When Crowley spares goats during a cruel bet over a righteous man and swallowing laudanum to prevent a suicide, when he prevents Armageddon by working with Aziraphale and stopping the Anti-Christ from being the Anti-Christ, he’s not doing the nice/good/kind thing.

He’s doing the right thing.

Crowley chooses to do the right thing without hesitation. He is better than all of Heaven and Hell who have callous and dispassionate view of all existence because he questions, because he makes choices. Crowley sees the world for all its messiness and he sees himself. He sees a place where he fits in. He sees the blurred edges.

And Aziraphale sees that, even if seeing the blurred edges is hard for him.

But here’s the thing that Aziraphale can’t voice.

It’s the reason why he told Crowley about being allowed to return to Heaven and become an angel again. He doesn’t want Crowley to change. He doesn’t think Crowley is flawed. Or not enough.

It’s something that is so monumental that it cannot be put into words. Because to put it into words would be more than blasphemy. It’s down right unthinkable for anyone in Heaven, Hell, or Earth to say what Aziraphale knows deep in his soul.

God was wrong to cast out Crowley.

Aziraphale believes Crowley can/should return to Heaven because he knows that Crowley should never have fallen in the first place. He wants him to be forgiven because when Crowley fell it was unjust. Aziraphale is trying to correct a mistake. He’s trying to do the right thing.

Yes, Crowley would never accept returning to Heaven. And Aziraphale was wrong to even suggest it (although that conversation is another can of worms to unpack).

Aziraphale loves Crowley. He loves him exactly as he is. He doesn’t want him to change. Aziraphale knows that Crowley the best of all of them. He wants to change Heaven because of it. Because God was wrong and Aziraphale knows it.

Aziraphale may have difficulty seeing beyond black and white, but when it comes to Crowley he sees everything crystal clear and in vivid color.

[processinggoodomens2]

Perseverance is the key...

Incorrect Good Omens Quotes Masterpost : here

[processinggoodomens2]

I just put together that Crowley, despite his whining, fully accepts the idea of "our car," which fundamentally transforms the Bentley.

That's why Shax then has to play Hitchhiker instead of just popping in like she had previously - now that it's the Earthly property of an angel as well as a demon, she needs an invite.

[processinggoodomens2]

good omens 2 really ended like that huh...

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not. yet.

I'm screaaaaaming - where are my fanfic authors?!

This is deeply comforting to me. It’s not “wait and see”. It’s “not yet.” It will happen. They will have a happy ending, and live in a little cottage in South Downs together 🫶

#not me freaking out.

[processinggoodomens2]

i have watched the kiss scene and the breakup as a whole more times than i can count and my brain is still trying to process all the things it picked up on.

my newest painful obsession: aziraphale thought crowley came back for him.

they kiss, aziraphale says i forgive you and instead condemns them both, crowley leaves. the lip touching itself is fucking essay worthy because holy SHIT the amount of micro expressions flickering across his face is endless, michael sheen acted his ass off.

i think it's a mixture of surprise, unspoken love, a HEAVY dose of fear, disbelief, and oh my god what did he just do what did i just do. he turns away from the door and we get a very very quick shot of how exactly he is angled.

standing up straight with faked spiteful anger, the same anger he spit at crowley out of fear and insecurity, chin up, clearly waiting for something - or rather someone. we gotta remember that every single time crowley has left aziraphale, he came back. every. single. time. he came back and apologized, that's what they do.

crowley comes back and aziraphale forgives him and they continue bearing their silence.

the bell rings when the door opens again, just like it did when crowley left, and just. look at his face. how quickly he swivels around. the blink and you will miss it spark of hope.

and then the pure devastation when he realizes it's not crowley.

aziraphale thought crowley was coming back for him. he was WAITING for him to come back. even after all that, he couldn't imagine crowley actually leaving him behind, especially not after that kiss and his entire indirect love confession.

just like crowley thought for a tiny heartbeat that aziraphale was kissing him back, aziraphale hoped, hell, he fucking thought he KNEW crowley would never abandon him. not after "i could always rely on you. you could always rely on me." aziraphale has taken him for granted, of course he thought it was him coming through the door.

but that spark of hope gets stomped out beneath the metatrash's feet and he fully turns around, unable to face him and the reality of it all.

this time, he went too far.

this time, crowley did not want forgiveness.

he was about to say i love you and turned it into i forgive you, still clinging to their old ways, their old rituals, just that they are no longer those beings, no longer in that specific relationship. everything has changed.

they both thought the other would never abandon them. turns out they were both wrong.

[processinggoodomens2]

I think my favourite line in season 2 is crowley's "he's far too pure of heart to be anybody's bit on the side" because any time we get to hear the way crowley talks about aziraphale to other people is a joy, but also it's just so genuine and full of so much love. he's not speaking about aziraphale with any agenda, he's just speaking off the cuff. it's ridiculously sweet. it's also hilarious because it's crowley's immediate reaction to nina suggesting that they're casually sleeping together and crowley's like, um no, we're not, but fyi if we were I would be treating him right!

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Do we think that Crowley knows that Aziraphale has been, at least partly, manipulated into this decision? That's the thing that worries me the most about season 3, the idea that Crowley doesn't know that and won't find out. Like, no, dear demon, your angel did not just leave you like that

I think Crowley actually knows a lot more about how Aziraphale could have been manipulated than he lets on. I personally am all in on Crowley having been an extremely high ranking and important archangel(I think he's the other prince of heaven mentioned by Metatron). So I think he knows exactly what's happened to Aziraphale and what Aziraphale is getting himself into. Crowley kinda says that with, "I think I understand a whole lot better than you do."

I think it's why the kiss is desperate. why he becomes so resigned and says "good luck" and tries to just leave. Crowley reads to me as someone who realizes he's been beat and that he has no moves left on the board. But he can't leave it without making certain Aziraphale understands what he meant by "us".

[processinggoodomens2]

I do think people are forgetting, sometimes willingly, that Aziraphale is JUST as heartbroken over the rejection as Crowley

They did not walk out of there with Crowley destroyed and Aziraphale bummed but getting over it once he was in the elevator. Aziraphale went to Crowley all giddy and excited because he really thought this was finally it, this was finally their chance to be happy, and he sees it as Crowley taking that chance and stomping on it. H wasn’t lying when he said he needed Crowley, he DOES, and now he thinks Crowley chose his hate for heaven over his love for him just as Crowley thinks Aziraphale chose his devotion to god over his devotion to him

It wasn’t as simple as “Aziraphale rejected Crowley” they both think the other rejected them it was essentially the messiest mutual break up you’ve ever seen

They’re both completely heartbroken and do not see the part they played in their own heartbreak. Both thinking THE OTHER caused it. It’s such a mess. It’s SUCH a mess I cannot STAND these two

[processinggoodomens2]

I am simply not interested in taking sides when it comes to aziraphale and crowley's little cosmic divorce. this is a jane austen romance, which means that both of our romantic leads need to grow and change before they can have their happily ever after. the problem isn't that one of them is Right and the other is Wrong, the problem is that they're each prioritizing a different problem and then approaching the problem they've backburnered with a long-standing habit or belief that they need to grow out of before they can succeed.

aziraphale is correct that heaven needs fixing! we can quibble over whether accepting a job as the boss is the right way to do that, but ultimately leaving michael or whoever in charge is going to lead to armageddon 2 armageddon harder. it simply will not work. the problem is that he's fumbling the relationship with crowley because he still needs to get over the idea of there being an inherently good and bad side and he needs to stop thinking that it's crowley being a demon that's keeping them apart. it's his own black and white logic that's doing that.

meanwhile, crowley is correct that he and aziraphale need to Name The Relationship and stop fucking around, and also that heaven and hell are the same institution with different labels and it's insane to think either of them is Good. but his impulse to respond to everything by trying to grab aziraphale and run is not gonna cut it here. "you can't fix an institution from the inside" is a philosophy of dubious value if your alternative is not attempting to fix it at all. if aziraphale is being held back by his cops and robbers mentality, crowley is being held back by cynicism and fear. they both need to let go of their flawed moral philosophies and emotional bad habits if they want to keep the world safe and be together! that's the point of the story splitting them up in the first place!

[processinggoodomens2]

Today’s Good Omens posting is about *spins wheel*

how Crowley’s self-loathing colors the way he sees Aziraphale’s interactions with him and how we should take that negative bias into account

I’m not even gonna talk about the whole final scene/misunderstanding because we’ve all talked about that one by now. Instead I want to talk about Crowley’s description of the 3 reasons Aziraphale calls him:

(Paraphrasing) “you’re bored; you need to tell someone about something clever you did; something’s wrong”

this is a succinct breakdown and it lowkey paints Aziraphale in a bad light; Aziraphale only calls Crowley when it’s beneficial to him; this is a transactional relationship

but like, I think, to some degree, those 3 reasons are simply the only reasons Crowley can actually imagine Aziraphale being interested in talking to him. The last one is a common song and dance between them, sure, but what about the first 2?

Aziraphale calling out of the blue, rambling about how things have been slow and quiet in the neighborhood of late and wanting to take that time to catch up - Crowley can’t fathom ‘Aziraphale missed my voice and wanted to make sure I was doing okay’ and turns it into ‘Aziraphale is just bored obviously’

Aziraphale calling, absolutely giddy, talking a mile a minute about something clever he’s done can’t possibly be ‘I’m the first person he wants to share his victories with, the person whose opinion matters the most to him now and always’ so instead it’s ‘Aziraphale just needed someone to tell this to before he popped’

(There’s an interesting thing implied here as well, which is that it’s Aziraphale calling Crowley regularly and yet we talk about how Aziraphale isn’t taking initiative in the relationship but I digress)

Point is, I think Crowley knows that Aziraphale likes him, it’s part of what makes everything so heartbreaking - the way he ends up being rejected in spite of that - but just like I think he misunderstands Aziraphale’s heaven proposal because he can’t see that Aziraphale thinks he is better than heaven already, he misunderstands any reason Aziraphale would possibly reach out to him as some level of wanting something rather than… just wanting to talk to him. He doesn’t recognize that he is Enough for Aziraphale, no strings or acts of service attached.

We just need one amazing kiss conversation to set this straight

[processinggoodomens2]

you just know that insanely powerful miracle aziraphale and crowley conjured to hide gabriel scared the absolute shit out of the metatron. if given the time to really think it over, there’s no way crowley wouldn’t have puzzled out that together he and aziraphale managed one of the most wickedly powerful miracles ever— while they were actively trying NOT to conjure a wickedly powerful miracle. can you imagine what they could have done if they’d actually put in some effort?? the metatron was PANICKED. he was in such a fit he elevatored all the way down to earth to break them up PERSONALLY.

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sth i crave for s3 is aziraphale taking a stand against the metatron (who i do believe will be the main antagonist) and tell him to his face,,,,, idk sth along these lines i guess--- something dramatic like "You are not God." and everybody losing their shit and it's as if time has frozen and crowley stares at his angel both terrified (for him) and proud (of him). and he says "You are not God and you do not speak for Her. Do you?" and he is brave and sure and piercing in a way he rarely shows ( he is angry)

"For six thousand years She has not spoken to me. For six thousand years I thought it was because of me. I gave away my sword. I disobeyed Heaven. I-- I love a demon [cue crowley having an inner breakdown, bonus points if he hears this for the first time] and-and I thought I deserved not being spoken to. But she has not spoken to you either, has she. Am I not right? She has not spoken to anybody all this time, and nobody knew. And you-- you not only covered it up, you swept into the void She left as if it was your right. You do not speak for God, and I am not listening anymore. "

and then the power of love saves the fucking day and they ride off into the south down sunset together idgaf idc I LOVE THEM i need sth like that i need (sotfly) badass and assured and enlightened aziraphale pl e a s e

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I wasn’t, um... I wasn’t the original concept designer, but I worked very closely with upstairs on it.

#good omens #crowley

[processinggoodomens2]

On Crowley, memory, and identity.

So full disclosure first, I am not someone who is particularly interested in having Crowley's angel name on screen - personally I rather like the idea of never having an answer to this question - but I also do think it's interesting and fun to speculate and we got quite a few hints at this throughout this season soooo

Obviously part of this is that we meet him. The angel that would become Crowley is the first person on screen this season. We confirm a lot about him here. He confirm that he is powerful enough to start the engine of the universe. We confirm that he can control gravity and time and space and light. We confirm that he is the being that says let there be light before the beginning. We also confirm that he consulted with the concept designer of the universe and that he's very comfortable with the idea of questioning authority. We are also given Aziraphale's anxiety as a contrast to this and as proof that that is not a universal trait for early angels.

Now, we have always had evidence that Crowley is powerful. He's done some things that seem impossibly big. He stops time very casually and seemingly without effort - even at the end of season 1 it doesn't even seem to give us the same strain on him that holding the Bentley together does. This is a thing that we only ever see Crowley do and notably a thing that you would think other beings would mess with to their advantage if it was possible. Which means they either literally can't or that it never occurred to them that they could. Or as is becoming increasingly clear: perhaps it's a bit of both.

But that's not the only implication of power we get in season 1 either. We get Crowley seemingly in tune with the universe in a way many angels and demons aren't. Which, makes some sense if he helped make it. This manifests in all sorts of ways. He's constantly aware of Aziraphale's presence. He can smell when the world state changes like when Adam names Dog. He holds the Bentley together through utter destruction. He notices that there are different books in the bookshop - something I always assumed was meant to convey he was familiar with the shop's contents but after learning he didn't even know Jane Austen was a writer I wonder if it's actually more to do with him being in tune with reality. He also can apparently quite literally feel when there are eyes on them.

We're given even more of all these things this season in some really interesting ways. Crowley literally tests the air to check if a miracle has happened - another thing that we don't see anyone else do despite Heaven literally assigning someone to Aziraphale to check for a specific miracle. This particular beat is also something we are shown twice this season. Both here and in 1941, when Furfur uses the miracle blocker on Aziraphale. Here Crowley tests his miracles and despite getting nothing of the sort when Aziraphale tries a miracle literally the beat before this, we are given both a visual and an auditory effect. It ripples out with a watery sound effect from Crowley's finger. It's like he's prodding at reality.

There's also several instances involving the recognition or lack thereof of angels and demons. Crowley feels that the demon army is arriving before it does. Neither side seems to be able to track Gabriel - one of the most powerful beings in existence - at all once he leaves Heaven. We also see countless angels fail to notice Crowley himself both as Bildad the Shuhite performing literal miracles right in front of them. And this happens again as he prances about Heaven after Muriel. Aziraphale can't tell Shax is a demon despite Crowley recognizing she's manifested behind him nearly as soon as he answers the phone. Aziraphale can't even recognize that he himself is still an angel at the end of the Job story.

He also. Quite literally. Brings someone back from the dead???? Like waves a hand casually on the street and reconstitutes Mr. Brown like he'd never been dead at all. Mr. Brown returns with no memory of what happened to him holding a newspaper that seems to have literal bite chunks coming out of it. It's not framed as a huge miracle or anything strenuous either - just a casual snap.

And that's not even getting into the parallels with Gabriel. First of all. We get the color purple. It's purple when Aziraphale and angel that would become Crowley start the engine of the universe and it's purple when they miracle to hide Gabriel. This color is associated with power and, historically in the language of this show, with Gabriel himself.

But that's not the only symbolism historically tied to Gabriel that's given to this season that has found its way to Crowley this season either. Most flashy of all is the lightning. This is how we see Gabriel arrive on earth at the end of season one and it is something Crowley apparently just Does when he gets too mad to contain himself.

This alone wouldn't catch my attention except. Except the way Crowley reacts to Gabriel's memory problems is... interesting to say the least. He's angry and understandably so. Part of this is him being mad and protective of Aziraphale - he says as much himself to Jim directly. And yet, weirdly, it's the kind of mad that reminded me of something else.

This is the mad he tends to gets at his plants. Do it properly. Think hard. You can do better than that. Grow better. It's the kind of angry that's steeped in projection. It's he kind of angry that is undercut with the occasional weird undercurrent of understanding. And so much of his dialogue with Jim around this is framed like he does actually understand. Jim says it hurts and he says he knows. Jim starts talking about it feeling like being an empty house that still remembers where the furniture is and Crowley immediately latches onto this and understands ah it's looking at where the furniture isn't.

And there's a few other conversations that center around this issue that I find really interesting from a projection perspective. There's the conversation that happens when Crowley goes to have an alcohol fueled chat with Jim. He says "You're Jim now. Got everything just the way you wanted?" This doesn't make a whole lot of sense for him to be addressing Gabriel with. As far as he knows all Gabriel would want was the end of the world.

And then there's the particular way he asks Jim to eliminate himself in this scene. Climb out the window. In other words, have a fall. Something he pretty immediately retracts and clearly feels guilty about no matter how much he hates Gabriel.

And then there's the first conversation he gets to have after learning about Gabriel. Crowley opens this conversation, thinking out loud. He's staring out, not talking to Az yet and the very first thing out of his mouth is, of all things: "He's going to be okay." A weird start for a statement about Gabriel in itself but then Crowley goes and adds what at it's core is his own trauma narrative to the end with, "We can just take him somewhere and leave him there."

Now the real fun bit: Crowley also has memory issues that are out very prominently on display even as far back as season 1.

He has inconsistent memories of his Fall. The answers he gives us to why he Fell change slightly - even when he's alone with himself. He doesn't seem to understand why exactly he Fell even though he clearly has some vague idea of the pieces in play. I always thought to some degree that this was just a trauma response, but season 2 drew even more attention to this and now that we know that memory alteration is how Heaven handles powerful angels I can't help but to wonder if there's more in play here.

Crowley can't remember Furfur - who he apparently literally fought next to during the war in Heaven. Crowley can't remember building a nebula with Saraqael. Crowley doesn't remember why they decided gravity was a good idea.

But he does remember bits and pieces here and there. He remembers doing some of the starmaking. He remembers how to access clearance locked files. He's missing pieces and also seems to have an understanding that Gabriel's memories ARE in there. Almost like he's done this work on himself before.

This narrative itself is also far more concerned with the angel Crowley was this time around. It teases his rank a few different times. Most notably is him having access the files only available to Dominions and above.

Now angel hierarchy is a bit of a messy area depending on what sources you're using but given Good Omens tendencies in the past we can assume that this leaves us five ranks. Dominion, Throne, Cherub, Seraph, and Archangel.

I might break down why I think Dominion, Throne, and Cherub feel kind of odd to me later if there's interest in that but given the current length of this meta I just want to focus on that last one for now.

Crowley was an Archangel is far from a new theory and I've honestly historically had some fairly mixed feelings about it. But the parallels between Jim and Crowley lend some interesting connective tissue to a lot of those theories. And. There's also some interesting camera work and script writing tied to Crowley and that term outside of the scenes about Gabriel's memories specifically.

Firstly, during Crowley's chat with Beelzebub he says it's a big universe with plenty of places for an archangel to hide. Like Alpha Centauri perhaps?

Then we get Aziraphale and Crowley both presenting Hell and Heaven respectively the idea that it could have been them that did the archangel class miracle. Aziraphale gets scoffed at and yet. Shax is the one who says the miracle was archangel level and Crowley's response is "how do you know I didn't do it?"

Then later as she's prowling about the shop we get this interesting shot of Crowley in the doorframe and Jim in the background. Crowley grins and offers to let Shax look in and see if she can see any archangels in there while he's framed dead center and Jim himself is blurry in the back of the frame.

And most fascinating in my opinion is this shot that happens when Crowley and Muriel are accessing the classified files. Nearly every shot in this sequence is group shots or shots of Gabriel. The camera is focused in the plot and the way the archangels function as a group and on Gabriel himself. But we get one single shot in this entire sequence of Crowley by himself and it is immediately following Gabriel saying "I am the only first order archangel in the room - or, well, the universe."

And then in the end. We get the Metatron who goes out of his way to avoid using Crowley's name. He calls him demon (and insists correctly that Crowley would recognize him even when Michael doesn't) or refers to him as Aziraphale's friend. He only ever uses that name when trying to use him as a bribe for Aziraphale. That combined with the dark look he gives Crowley implies a familiarity that only the Metatron has with him.

So who is he then? There's plenty of old meta out there about why certain archangels fit or don't and I won't reiterate them here. They're interesting and definitely worth poking around at and very fun to read! Personally I'm not as interested in naming the someone he used to be as I am in examining the places that ghost of this angel has started to poke through the narrative so I'll end this here. It's spiralled into something far longer than I ever meant it to be anyway.

#good omens #crowley #crowley falling #crowley as an angel #I love this #crowley's memory

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I'm going to take this as confirmation that they were not in season 2 because all the humans connected to the failed Armageddon were erased from the Book of Life by the Metatron... especially since none of them gets even mentioned.

Hey Neil! I was a little disappointed that so many great characters from season 1 (the Them, Anathema/Newton, Hastur, God [mostly], etc.) were completely MIA in season 2.

I’m curious, was that planned from the start, or did you have trouble with recasting those roles and need to work around them?

It was planned that characters from the big story wouldn't necessarily be in Season 2.

#good omens #good omens 2 #book of life

[processinggoodomens2]

can't stop thinking about aziraphale calling heaven good and demons bad and wanting to restore crowley to his angel status and how there's no way crowley didn't (incorrectly) interpret that as aziraphale saying he wasn't good enough as he was, that aziraphale couldn't love him or want him like that, that there's something wrong with him, that he's bad and unworthy. i feel sick

#good omens #Good omens 2 #aziraphale #aziraphale's perspective on angels and demons