#AWCW spec

[thesherrinfordfacility]

what does aziraphale know?

i wanted to have another look through the pre-fall scene because there was something that wasn't feeling Quite Right to me about it, and honestly the below is just a stream of consciousness rather than any coherent theory, analysis or otherwise - so read at your own peril.

so the school of thought for many reasons has been that the Angel Who Crowley Was (AWCW) was a powerful angel, and i don't think that can be argued sufficiently given what we have seen so far from s1 and s2. but after rewatching the pre-fall scene i do wonder if crowley's importance in the Grand Scheme of Things has been overestimated, possibly by noone more than AWCW/crowley himself, and if aziraphale was actually the one with status, however quiet and modest.

when we open with the pre-fall scene, we see crowley alone, and he calls at a passing angel for some help with the map/plan. now this angel seems to rocketing past at the literal speed of light, and i cant help but feel that they were actually intending on going somewhere. and at the below specific angle, that angel looks like they were heading in a downward trajectory.

given that AWCW points up when referencing "Upstairs", we can infer that whilst heaven may not be bound by concepts like upstairs or downstairs, it does seem to have a concept of a higher placement for a higher being (ie god). this is also going on the assumption that in this scene, AWCW and the angel are even in heaven-space (which arguably, they're not), but regardless the angel seems to be heading down, indicating that they've just come down from the Up.

in any case, when aziraphale arrives, has helped AWCW with the cranking, he then says, "was that it?". and the way he says it, his body language, indicates to me that he is being polite, but in a perfunctory way. to me, it almost feels like he has things he needs to get on with - not in any frustrated or impatient manner, but just simply, 'is there anything else you need from me?', because he has things To Do.

(gif quality does not display this lmao but it's the impression i got anyway)

but AWCW puts out there that that was just the starting the ignition, and gleefully says that the next bit is where the true magic happens. which, i think is obvious, is where aziraphale actually reacts in any of the same manner - he begins to really smile, and offers up his name, even going so far as to say hi for the first time in the conversation. and i do think this is because he's just gotten a slam dunk of 'oh shit this angel is cute', but that's almost immaterial.

the part of the dialogue that struck me however is that AWCW says, "ive been waiting for this since... well, always!". it's not particularly revelatory, but to me basically says that AWCW has literally been working on this since he was formed from the firmament, having concept and design meetings with god, but this has been his entire "life"'s work, and he has never known anything else. he could just be being hyperbolic and i could be reading into it, but it would make sense for this starmaker to have only ever been a starmaker.

and heaven is certainly portrayed as being the most desolate place ever conceived, whether its in the dreaded High Rise Penthouse office building or in this vast, empty, dark space (presuming of course that the latter is in fact part of heaven, which it may well not be - and instead be in the space between planes before the universe was actually created)

regardless it gives the distinct impression of being very Lonely. so can we surmise from this that AWCW is not only a starmaker, but The Starmaker? working entirely in a team of one (thinking about the ep6 line of a "team... of the two of us") to create this nebula, possibly even most of the universe? crowley is described as being the only demon with an imagination, and his weapon of choice is literally the same instrument with which he cranked up this nebula... was his imagination in heaven also that revered and that's why he was entrusted with this project? and other similar ones? possibly.

but that spells for loneliness - single genius can be lonely. so it stands to reason that AWCW would be eager to have someone around to get dizzy with him about the wonder that is this new nebula and appreciate him for his creation. but it's not out of it being aziraphale being the one to appreciate it - we can surmise that in the way AWCW brushes him off. is this a case of self-importance? feeling he has status and should be recognised for this achievement? i feel like this is potentially a likely scenario.

in any case, AWCW seems pretty set on creating not only for himself, which he evidently finds fun and self-rewarding - going so far as to preen at the heartfelt but small praise that aziraphale gives him, but because its part of gods plan, and he's doing it for her.

he's even given perhaps one of the most famous lines from the bible, "let there be light". do we even trust that in GO it was god that originally said it - was it in fact AWCW? well either way, he completely believes in her vision, as far as he understands her vision to be.

so imagine how it must have felt then, in this instance, to have this stranger angel tell him that hes fairly certain that god is planning to destroy it in the next few millennia. AWCW, who is entrusted with creating parts if not all of her universe, isn't even clued in on the full facts, but aziraphale seems to be.

aziraphale is even seemingly part of the team (or is the whole team?) that seems to be entrusted with the plan of god's ultimate creation - earth and people built in her own image... but in kind doesn't seem to quite understand the true purpose of the nebula AWCW has built, at least according to him.

do we take this as an indication that god doesn't readily share her plans between angels, or that the nebula doesn't actually have as much importance as AWCW believed it to have? in any case, aziraphale seems to have been entrusted with god's plan, and AWCW - a creator whose creation the plan directly threatens - isn't.

aziraphale then goes on to describe the people they are currently designing; if we went with the notion (ie not sure how true this is in GO!verse) that humanity is god's ultimate creation, aziraphale has been trusted to help with that. i can't imagine just any angel would be, so there must be something in aziraphale that god sees as being fundamental in helping her with building them. from what we know of aziraphale's characteristics even this early on in his arc, he seems to be a kind and selfless person, and these may be the qualities that in building humanity god considers instrumental.

when we further consider that aziraphale then ends up being guardian of the eastern gate, and seems to have gone unpunished in giving away his sword (spelling its own implications for humanity as concerns war, cruelty, and death) and lying to her about it, this really does indicate to me that aziraphale is literally one of - if not the - favourite. given his qualities that it seems the other angels seem to lack (yes, even AWCW to a certain extent), it might just be that aziraphale was god's perfect angel. that would make sense.

the other thing that struck me is that aziraphale warns crowley against questioning god. the fall hasn't happened yet, so what gives aziraphale the foreboding sense of doom if crowley were to directly question her and her motives? "if i was the one running it all, id like it if..." strikes me as being the foreshadowing that it's this exact phraseology that AWCW puts before god and spells for disaster; that crowley intimates that if he were in charge, he would do things better. which is eerie when you again take into consideration the bookend that is aziraphale, "if im in charge, i could make a difference".

i would take the context of this being set pre-fall to indicate that there isn't any concept of actual punishment in heaven just yet (other than what a supervisory angel might order another angel to do, or a general reprimand). so what exactly is aziraphale afraid of? why is he scared for AWCW? doesn't he trust god to be understanding and kind if AWCW were to ask questions? what is it that aziraphale knows that AWCW doesn't?

so this is where i come to wondering if crowley was indeed prince of hell (okay yeah, fuck it, this is now a theory). what if it was actually aziraphale? god's perfect angel, entrusted with creating and guarding her ultimate creation? would it really be implausible that aziraphale went back to god and mused on what AWCW had said to him?

that it would perhaps be beneficial to have further input on how things were being created, especially when all the hard work, the creativity and genius, that was going into making her plans a reality, was just going to be wiped out in a snap? AWCW had 'friends' that fanned the flames of questioning god, doubled down on his resolve, and aziraphale tried to forestall the punishment that would inevitably come for him... but in doing so was punished himself?

but because aziraphale is her Favourite, instead of making him fall, she wiped his memory of it? he evidently remembers crowley as an angel, but beyond that? especially his remark that he's never killed anything (when, even if indirectly, aziraphale actually has? s1 with the french guard and the airfield soldier (perhaps not taking book canon into account here re: soldier) and the demons in s2) - does aziraphale not remember being a soldier? had a hard factory reset and is back to the unblemished, untainted angel he was before?

what if crowley did indeed bargain for aziraphale to be spared? that it was his fault that god was going to make him fall, it was his questions not aziraphale's? i think narratively it could make sense in the way that aziraphale and crowley are put as two halves of the same whole; that crowley did a selfless thing and was damned for it, whereas aziraphale wanted something selfish for crowley but was spared from the consequences. it would also go some way to explaining why crowley always has to protect aziraphale - its literally been his way since the beginning, in recompense for what happened to aziraphale?

i realise that this is completely batshit, but i do like the idea (im a huge fan of a bait and switch), and poetically speaking i think it could work - that instead of crowley being the original fallen angel, it was actually aziraphale? borne out of kindness and fondness for his new friend, the friend that actively seemed to welcome his company and wanted to show him the stars, and wanting to make heaven and the world a better place?✨

#the above almost directly contradicts the lucifer theory but hey look im a wildcard a loose cannon i contain multitudes #good omens #the fall/the great war spec #pre-fall aziraphale spec #AWCW spec

[thesherrinfordfacility]

Angel Crowley kind of reminds me of one of those nepo babies who has never had anything bad happen to them ever in their life. Cannot even concieve of the idea of being punished or reprimanded. And I think that's more of an indication to me that he was high ranking than anything else? In my experience, that kind of naivety and ignorance usually comes from a place of privilege. That and the way he's like,,, thoughtlessly waving over cherubim and ordering around Aziraphale, who is ALREADY well acquainted with how the hierarchy works. It gives off the impression that AWCW has never been told "no" before.

honestly the concept of crowley in any way, shape, or form being a nepo baby is hilarious to me✨

but imo, there are a couple of key points here (and taking a possibly more serious tone than you might possibly have intended but fuck it im the captain of this good ship):

other than possibly the consequence of being rapped on the knuckles by your supervisor, i don't think there's any concept of punishment in heaven at this point, or at least nothing to be legitimately afraid of - god is all-knowing and benevolent, and forgiveness is a virtue anyway (even though presumably sin and forgiveness also do not exist yet as concepts) so in which case why would AWCW conceive of this idea?

(and why does aziraphale seem to?)

i fluctuate between him being high-ranking, and being of middle rank... and the sheer fact that it's quite heavily implied that crowley was once a high-ranking angel makes me think - in fact - he might not have been as important as we or indeed he likes to think.

i too think AWCW was definitely privileged!!! but i think it's privilege that is borne of innocence - all of the angels seem to be sheltered, ignorant to suffering and naive to pain, because to them the worst has not happened.

on one hand, i don't really see AWCW's behaviour as any much different to muriel's when they first arrive on earth, full of wonder and curiosity... but on the other, muriel has themself suffered - loneliness and isolation - which definitely is something that we see in crowley.

i do think that equally, AWCW is a bit of an arse. i don't see it as malicious, but definitely egotistical. for me, it's borne out of genius and being enraptured with his own creation that anything else is just... background. his only concern is bringing his imagination, his design, to life - and the only time he seems to really engage with aziraphale is when aziraphale is complimenting it, or innocently telling him the fate of it.

maybe it is because he's never been told "no" before, or maybe it's because he's never paid attention to when he'd been told "no", or that noone has ever had the cause to tell him "no", or that noone ever considered him worthy of a conversation where "no" would come up, or because "no" is an answer to a question AWCW never thought, or got, to ask.

just my thoughts!!!✨

#good omens #ask #awcw spec #the fall/the great war spec

[thesherrinfordfacility]

Enoch in particular is interesting bc of Saraqael. It's the ONLY text that lists Saraqael as an Archangel. Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel are identified as the Supreme Princes of Heaven, and Saraquel is one of the "seven holy Archangels", which also includes those four. Sandalphon isn't listed, but I DO think a fun little fact there is that he and Metatron are the only angels whose names end in -on, likely a reference to how they're the only angels who originated as humans. I don't think he and Metatron are 'twins' in the literal sense though? Enoch (pre-Noah) and Elijah (post-Noah) weren't contemporaries. They just happen to be the only humans who become angels.

hi!!!✨ god im so sorry ive taken so long to get to this, anon!!! - tbh, im finding saraqael a bit of an enigma, both from the GO narrative perspective and indeed trying to work out who they were in terms of biblical/apocryphal significance... i hope you don't mind, but im gonna talk about saraqael in general in my response; as seems to be the way, i typically get carried away in answering what seems to be a fairly straightforward ask!!!

edit: further speculation on BOL and saraqael's potential role in it

saraqael theory(?)/analysis:

i think are a couple of crucial bits to saraqael in s2, and not just the ones where they recognise crowley etc. i talked a little bit about what i think their rank is in GO, which i don't think is the same rank as the other archangels, but perhaps a lower archangel like sandalphon. in terms of what saraqael actually does... it feels like they are essentially in charge of earth operations, or something to that effect.

muriel is, by all accounts so far, a (very?) low ranking angel. and yet, when muriel finds the matchbox, it's saraqael that accompanies them to the archangels to report it. now, that doesn't necessarily mean anything - muriel could have gone to a supervisor and then it got escalated, but what saraqael says here:

makes me think that, actually, saraqael knows muriel at least to a greater degree than the separation of an archangel (or whatever tier), and a 'lowly' 37th-class scrivener would have. in fact, this is the only scene other than presenting the matchbox, i believe, where we see saraqael and muriel interact? there is some kind of history there, and potentially even a degree of fondness.

now, let's take into consideration the theory that muriel themself may have been higher-ranking, and got Got by the metatron. they originally were going to demote gabriel to 38th Class; was saraqael similarly the one who wiped muriel's memory, as they attempted to wipe gabriel's? what was the purpose of saraqael being at the trial, other than to fulfil that purpose? and they took muriel directly into their chain of command as a means of keeping an eye on them, protecting them?

this kind of supports my thought that saraqael is somewhat an operations manager (but also...not just that at all*), doing essentially the archangel grunt-work, including keeping an eye on unauthorised miracles:

then we take a look at their interaction with crowley; because i do think there's a lot more to unpack in this bit than that they may have worked on a nebula together, and that crowley doesn't remember them.

summarising a couple of observations:

the seemingly innocent but assertive point made that the trial was in fact real, and didn't take a long time to happen start to finish

the fact that saraqael even notices the interaction between crowley and muriel: he's dressed as an angel (and demonstrated as being a 'bee' when michael/uriel don't fully catch it was him), muriel seems - despite the aesthetic of heaven generally - to be tucked away in the equivalent of a cupboard cubicle, and he accessed a file without, presumably, any alarms - the file recognised his former rank/that he 'knew' the password... so what exactly prompts saraqael to come over in the first place?

saraqael looks happy to see crowley, possibly even a little relieved, but once again like they're... fond?

they use his chosen name (specifically not 'crawley'), and use it with ease despite knowing him pre-fall and therefore, theoretically, not having any cause to use 'crowley' up until this moment

saraqael seems disappointed that crowley doesn't remember them.

where am i going with this bit? well, put simply. i think saraqael had some hand in the mechanics of the fall. i think they were meant to wipe the fallens' memories, but jigged about with the settings. perhaps, now, they regret their part in it, and is working to undo it somewhat, from the inside. i think, where they can, they protect those that get fully wiped (ie. muriel, and gabriel had the wipe gone to plan). and i think, maybe just their favourites, they keep an eye on those that actually fell. and i think that they are trying to break out this information without outright saying it ("well, don't let me interrupt you! show him the trial..."), because they know first-hand the consequences. and they know the consequences, because they are literally metatron's operational right-hand* angel:

this would explain why they seem to remember metatron in the bookshop: exposure to him? seems to fully understand how dangerous he is? not only does saraqael look genuinely apprehensive on behalf of michael, but watch their eyeline movement:

(ok but a moment of appreciation for how adorably derek jacobi says 'piffle' i mean💕)

it almost looks like it goes from michael, and then flips to up beyond michael? as they clasp their hands together? and then after the cut, they're actually breathing so heavily, out of... stress? worry? this is such a tiny thing that may well just coincidental actor-choice on liz's part, but it certainly works in the scene context... that saraqael seems quietly and calmly terrified.

another point, back on the subject of saraqael's role in heaven; i feel like the source of both the earth observation files michael gets in s1, and the fact that metatron says he's "looked back over a number of [aziraphale and crowley's] exploits" may have come from saraqael themself. that's a bit tentative, but it would certainly fit that it would come, at least, from their department. say - metatron has been spying on our boys through the sigil in the bookshop (or something to that effect), has gone to saraqael essentially for intel, and then put the offer to aziraphale to return to heaven in order to split them apart, after seeing the extent to which they're entwined with each other.

we haven't seen a direct, lone aziraphale-saraqael interaction, but their line about, "we'll be keeping a very close eye on you, aziraphale.", doesn't actually feel as ominous as i once felt. in fact, it's muriel that saraqael sends down which - let's face it, by all accounts they are not the angel to send down to earth when camouflage is key - feels actually like saraqael was banking on covering up the miracle for aziraphale and crowley, or at least buying them time.

last little bit: the comment on aziraphale's frisbee halo trick makes me think once again of saraqael's potential role as, essentially, head of operations (declaring war is rather messy, they're right), but also brings me back to the point i made here about the halo toss... somehow, i feel like it signifies something a bit more than just a casual hand grenade.

and now for the bible-y bits

well, i mean, there isn't really a lot to go on, lbr. as anon said (hi, anon, if you made it this far✨), they're described as one of the seven archangels in the first book of enoch (20:6), and if ive read correctly, the second book describes that they brought enoch himself to heaven... so maybe the GO narrative will follow this somewhat? if saraqael feels somewhat responsible for metatron being in the position he is, and having done the hypothetical things he's done? and that's why they might be trying to undo it, or undermine it?

i think the first book also describes saraqael (who i believe is synonymous with sariel and suriel, as well as other different but similar angel names in biblical/apocryphal texts) as being essentially the observer of justice and injustice on earth, "who sin in the spirit", which would also track against them having potential control over earth observations, and them potentially guarding over those that have fallen/have been punished by heaven.

i think some islam and talmud texts also indicate that saraqael may be azrael and metatron respectively, but i doubt that is an arc that the GO narrative will follow, nor indeed other bits and pieces from enoch that ive read through... but certainly there's enough that looks like it could have hypothetically inspired the saraqael story that im interpreting at the moment!

and as for metratr-on, and sandalph-on, iirc that is the meaning of the -on suffix, to reflect being born of man...? i looked at this a little while ago and found zephon as another example... parsing out abaddon kinda drove me a bit insane though, so that's where i left it! i agree that i doubt that metatron and sandalphon are twins, but definitely seems to speak to their origins, perhaps!!!✨

#another theory/analysis noone asked for #im so excited for more saraqael #i need them to be aziraphale's friend pls #good omens #ask #the fall/the great war spec #AWCW spec #metatron spec #memory wipe theory #book of life theory #saraqael spec #s2 meta #s3 narrative spec

[thesherrinfordfacility]

i still think it's debatable as to how much crowley remembers of heaven, but personally i think there's a high likelihood that he doesn't fully remember his fall specifically. which, you know, makes sense considering-

#i am unwell #good omens #the fall/the great war spec #AWCW spec #memory wipe theory

[thesherrinfordfacility]

hey guys just a thought-

-as anti-climactic as it might seem, what if this is the kind of 'out' god gave to crowley before he fell?

#i really need to sleep now but this one made me scramble for my phone so quick #good omens #AWCW spec #the fall/the great war spec #s3 narrative spec

[thesherrinfordfacility]

LWA: Just some random stuff on a Sunday morning!

Missing scenes: Furfur's book of angels includes "bishop" as one of Aziraphale's jobs, and as we've already seen all the others on the list, even if only in deleted lines (the music tutor was originally in the Rome scene), I would guess we'd see that one as well. Not necessarily a good fit for 1650, though, although since Gaiman has done things like have the Bastille still standing in 1793, anything's possible.

Assumptions about character progression: I think there's a tendency to assume that Crowley and Aziraphale develop or ought to develop towards something "better" as the series progresses, but that's not quite right. They become more /complicated/, which is a neutral--dare I say grey?--concept. The novel and series both deny that good and evil are steady-state aspects of character: you /aren't/ good or evil (or something in-between), you /do/ good or evil (or something in-between). S1 Crowley, as both Gaiman and Tennant have said, has no real character arc, but one of the reasons I think the fandom needs to pay attention to my favorite bugbear, the child murder manipulation subplot, is that it is also about moral complexity. Flood-era Crowley offers the moral absolute "you can't kill kids." Armageddon-era Crowley runs Aziraphale over with a trolley problem in order to duck the more unpleasant reality that if you're fine with someone killing a kid for you, you're fine with killing kids. (I have to say that the sentimental "Crowley wuvs Warlock" headcanon is one of those instances where supposedly-positive fanon constitutes outright character assassination, right up there with "Aziraphale had an affair with Oscar Wilde" [oh, do /not/ get me started on why that's horrifying].) The series is on the side of Flood-era Crowley and Madame Tracy, not the "developed" Crowley. Meanwhile, Aziraphale learns how to lie, which is a skill that can be put to different moral purposes in different contexts. Sometimes it's unambiguously good, like saving Job's children; sometimes it's ambiguous-to-evil, like concealing the Antichrist's whereabouts from Crowley (revealing this knowledge to Crowley would mean more pressure to murder the child, but his rehearsed speech suggests that he's willing to let Heaven handle it, perhaps, which is not a viable moral alternative).

AWCW and being "impressionable": one of the funniest things about Crowley is that in some respects, he's every bit as conformist as Aziraphale is, and sometimes more so. His unreliable narration about the Fall hints very strongly that, as you say, he just went along with the "cool kids"--which, despite his protestations to the contrary, /is/ a moral failure on the terms set out by the novel and series. Even later, both Crowley and Aziraphale rebel in ways that maintain the fiction of the overarching system (the Arrangement) rather than dismantling it entirely. Crowley also enjoys his job, especially in the novel. Which, to be clear, is also a moral failure: slacking off is, hilariously, the most moral choice he and Aziraphale can make. FWIW, for me, neither the novel nor the series are "burn it all down" narratives, in part because they both advance a theory of humanity that suggests burning it all down just gets you the same thing from a different direction. The most radical political ideas are given to a conspiracy theorist and to children, and the Antichrist concludes by rejecting all of them and hitting a literal reset button. Pratchett may have co-written the book from a place of "anger," but anger can lead to a lot of different political practices. Obviously, YMMV.

LWA✨ woke up today and chose analytical violence, what a legend

1. see, i feel like 1650 could work for aziraphale's bishop occupation, even if only mentioned retrospectively. theoretically, he could well have been a bishop before the abolishment in 1646, and exploring the episcopalian polity vs presbyterianism argument of the time could be really interesting narratively (especially if handled somewhat like the resurrectionist episode)... but detail aside, even if by the time we see him in 1650 it's only mentioned casually that he was a bishop "a few years back", i don't think it would be entirely out of field. we don't necessarily need to have everything played out on screen!

2. okay, a lot to unpack here, but essentially i agree. the issue it seems to me is to posit moral absolutes in the first place; there will almost always be a contextual 'except'/'but' clause that comes along with it that turns it on its head.

it's bad to kill children, except when they are the antichrist and could bring about the apocalypse.

it's bad to lie, except when it would prevent unimaginable cruelty and grief being wrought on those that don't objectively deserve it.

it's bad to manipulate and brainwash a group of people, except when there's no lasting harm done, and you were only trying to demonstrate to someone that you love them.

it's good to try to further human medicine and prevent needless suffering, except when doing so puts the desperate as the first to fall in the figurative battlefield.

it's good to forgive a huge debt when you don't have any necessity of it being paid, except when it's primarily borne out of materialistic selfishness.

neither character does anything so completely reprehensible, or alternatively so inarguably irreproachable, that someone, somewhere, can't or won't argue a justification for their actions. we individually, according to our own moral compasses borne of our experiences, may justify or condemn what they've done in the narrative - objectively, the morality behind their actions as we've seen them so far is never absolute.

eg. for me, crowley's plan on killing the antichrist, a child, in the specific context of GO is not the condemnable action here; its the manipulation of getting aziraphale to do it because he, personally, will not do it himself. i understand why, but the thing that i personally consider to be unambiguously bad is not killing the antichrist itself, but instead the fact that crowley considers that the only solution to the hellhound being named - ignoring the 'running away' that crops up later, for a moment - is to underhandedly manipulate someone he cares about into doing it instead of him. however, others may see it differently.

who is to say what is 'better', anyway? what even is 'better'? is 'better' to do things only when it's for the benefit of other people? is doing 'better' for your own self not also worthy of consideration? is 'better' wholly only when doing something that is kind or generous to others, rather than being kind or generous to yourself?

whilst crowley hits certain moral epiphanal milestones before aziraphale does, neither have the full right of it - aziraphale should not hold morality to being plainly black or white, dictated to by a set of absolutes that are so basic and lacking in complexity that they are by all accounts redundant. and crowley should not dismiss alternative choices or solutions just because they do not fit his perspective or reasoning, nor hold that his understanding of morality is the only viable one or is the only one with any weight or validity. ep6 imo succinctly demonstrated this.

both of them are still so young at the flood. aziraphale holds that whatever has been decreed by the source 'of all that is good' must therefore be good (and choosing to not see beyond it) and crowley acts so incredulous that something he sees as being absolutely bad would ever be entertained (despite, you know, having been cast out of heaven for 'just asking questions'....). both of them by the time of job have had a pretty seismic shift in that respective naivety - aziraphale begins to question what god actually intends, and crowley acts stoutly bitter and unsurprised by the assignment. neither reactions are compatible still, they constantly circle each other, and literally indicate that some level of understanding (of god, of her will, of morality 'in the real world' itself - take your pick) is still lacking.

re: Oscar Wilde and warlock hcs (i couldn't let these stroll by without comment)... god, where to start. re: warlock, i never begrudge any hc where it's borne out of a developed fanon background. that's arguably one of the main benefits of having the fanon side of things: to develop a point/event/gap in the story for yours and others' amusement - that's cool! for this example, any fic that gives more insight into their years in warlock's life, and therefore gives legitimacy to crowley having a fondness for warlock - yep, i like that! that's awesome, i could see it as an unrealised narrative, but that's where it firmly stays, for me - in fanon.

but i do get frustrated when certain narrative points are pointedly ignored in order to establish a character trait that would otherwise not exist. crowley in canon does not - to me - demonstrate any fondness towards warlock. he literally proposes the option of his murder! i don't think him refusing to entertain killing warlock himself indicates any sentimentality towards the kid - thats a bit of a stretch, imo - but instead it reflects on his character being, put reductively, a bit of a knob sometimes.

as for aziraphale and oscar wilde... yeeaaah. i think anyone that holds that hc seriously needs to reevaluate the implications of it, and whether or not beyond professional (?) respect for his work aziraphale would willingly want to associate with him... ultimately, i refer back to my above point about "...anything so completely reprehensible...". and, respectfully, perhaps there needs to be a little more separation between michael sheen's filmography and aziraphale's narrative - whether in hc or canon.

3. right, AWCW time. i agree re: his conformity to the 'cool kid group' being something that is deserving of scrutiny on his own morality, but i feel like this only is viable once that association goes beyond a certain point (and an arguably arbitrary one at that). essentially, i think it's possible to still see AWCW's decision to associate with the group as understandable and empathetic. we know from the narrative that a) AWCW starts hanging out with them at some point, and b) that lucifer et al. are in the end considered bad people. but were they actually bad at the time that AWCW comes across them? if they were, did AWCW himself know? we don't really have enough narrative to reliably confirm this.

but we do know that AWCW fell, and it's therefore rather likely that he continued associating with them past a point where he would have known that they were Bad News Bears. in the beginning, he may have just been glad that these people seemed to listen to him and make him feel valid for having questions - that's understandable. but as time goes on, as lucifer etc. hypothetically get more and more questionable in their actions and beliefs, AWCW presumably choosing to stick with them, possibly even defending them, confers the deserving of negative judgement onto AWCW in turn (presuming there's no element of coercion or blackmail involved, mind you).

i like the point you raise of aziraphale and crowley respectively not conforming to their inherent purposes (being an angel or demon respectively) when it benefits them personally, being an almost accidental 'good thing', especially when the story puts forward that, however you look at it (ie. whether bc they are lazy, or it poses more excuses to see each other - immaterial), the arrangement is entirely self-serving. 10/10 narrative irony. but this is kinda going back to one of our first asks, LWA - it is for me once again the key difference between rebellion, and revolution:

(never been more grateful for making the LWA masterpost, thank you past-me)

so whilst i agree to a certain point that the 'burn it all down' narrative may not be a viable option, or is at the very least a reductive one, i think that the question is what it is replaced with, if at all. adam hit the reset button and put earth back to how it was, because what humanity and earth was - by my interpretation - was just fine as it is. it's not perfect, but not worthy of being destroyed in totality.

so what can we say about heaven? is it a mirror to earth in this respect? i don't think it is. heaven may well have been intended originally as a neutral party with the best of intentions, and then pigeonholed into being the 'good side' following the fall, but it has been allowed to fester and corrupt. maybe we will see more in s3 that there are other angels that feel that heaven as a system is flawed (personally, i think we see this in saraqael's introduction to GO, but that's just my interpretation of the character so far), and maybe those angels will represent the part of heaven that is still redeemable.

so okay, yeah, maybe heaven shouldn't be completely gutted and dismantled, but it is not in the same place as earth is at the time of adam's reset. earth and humanity were arguably the innocent parties in their prospective destruction, whereas heaven has sown their own seeds for it. i don't think the two are entirely comparable. heaven does need a major realignment, and i personally don't think this can happen without some form of systematic reform, without revolution (especially if the wider fandom's evaluation of metatron is true come s3!). it needs reworking with an alternative system that works to be fairer, and removes any binary rhetoric of good vs. evil. don't ask me for the minutae of how this should happen, because i have zero idea (well, very little, anyhow), im not that clever.

but this is what i hope aziraphale will actually be successful in come s3. he can't just - in anger at the injustice of it all - set heaven on fire and walk away from the ashes; it will invite for the original regime to rebuild or something worse to take its place. that being said, it's not just him that needs to do it - to build an alternative to heaven in his own image is equally questionable. again, this is the suggestion that i liked in the armageddon 2.0 meeting in ep6; the idea of democracy in heaven, even if the current board is less than ideal (and the point could poetically hark back to the hypothetical 1650 flashback...?).

#“just random stuff” no you came for the throat LWA own it #i had written like another 4 paragraphs on the anger thing but it got personal really fast so i opted to delete it #youre welcome for being spared from it #once again never sure if ive ever made an Actual Point in my LWA responses but make of it what you will #good omens #ask #the fall/the great war spec #AWCW spec #heaven theory #s3 narrative spec #crowley meta #aziraphale meta

[thesherrinfordfacility]

god i hope you guys are ready for another crackpot theory, but this is now living rent-free in my head and it's time to pay up:

i'm now fairly convinced that crowley - and possibly aziraphale too - doesn't fully remember the fall.

because im rewatching s1 right? and this is what crowley said about adam and eve being exiled from eden because they ate from the tree of knowledge:

im sorry, but it's an 'overreaction'? that god would oust them from the garden - yes, for doing something she told them not to do - but for doing something, as crowley intimates shortly after, can't be that bad? and suggests deserved leniency, or mercy?

of course it's an overreaction! its completely bonkers! as bonkers as 'asking questions', or '[hanging] around the wrong people'! ie. presumably, if we assume crowley was telling the truth about why he fell*, this would have been his first offence. so why does he clarify that it's an overreaction because it was a first offence? and the offence itself (see next gif), as he suggests, wasn't even that big of an issue anyway?

if crowley truly did fall* for either or both of those above reasons, why on earth would he word it as an 'overreaction', and say it as if he's not sure? surely he'd sound way more bitter about it, as he tends to get later on in s1 and s2...?

if anything, to him, after the fall, it would make complete sense that god would react that way, that it was an overreaction. now, he could just be saying this to gauge aziraphale's reaction, true, but a) the body language and tone doesn't feel like he's testing aziraphale, he genuinely looks a bit clueless, and b) the way he goes on afterwards makes me think he doesn't yet remember the whole of his own experience in the fall.

isn't the whole act of falling meant to mean you are on the opposite side? the opposite of heaven - of Good? it literally posits the idea of there being a Good side and an Evil side, full-stop. crowley knows that there is a difference, and aziraphale too; they literally acknowledge this within their respective lines and being, by definition, a demon and an angel respectively.

so, given they've been through the fall, they'd surely understand the reason why knowledge of that difference is bad, right? they'd know why that knowledge is dangerous - it leads to conflict of literal, psychological, and spiritual proportions... so why don't they seem to acknowledge that understanding in this dialogue? why are they spitballing as to why humans knowing the difference is an issue? they'd surely know that it would - and it does, somewhat - spell for disaster.

it's almost like they've just become into being, an Evil Demon and a Good Angel, as if this is literally their very beginning. without much, if any, backstory to give them both context in this conversation. ie. why is aziraphale only guessing that "it must be bad...", when he's gone through the exact thing that makes him know why it's bad? because in his case, it led to the fall? to conflict? or, does he actually remember, but suspects in this scene that crawly doesn't?

now, im going to parse out some evidence, as i see it, in potential support, and countering, this theory.

they definitely seem to remember being angels, that is beyond dispute (allowing for hazy memory on both their and my parts):

crowley remembers building alpha centauri

crowley remembers (somewhat) discussing creating the concept of gravity

crowley remembers going into battle/war

crowley says "the angel i was is not me"

aziraphale remembers chucking his halo in the war

aziraphale says "you were an angel, once" (which is a little shaky but let's go with it) in s1

aziraphale says "i remember the angel you were"

aziraphale says "like the old times"

other things ive forgotten, no doubt, but you get the point - they must remember being angels at the very least, and also remember the war itself.

but, on crowley's part, we know he's a questionable narrator. to my mind (so this is biased as hell), i genuinely think this is part of his character and narrative makeup.

*im also going to plug an old meta from the pre-s2 golden era (and btw - humble brag - was liked by neil so im taking this to mean it's somewhat approved); his given reason for why he fell and how he fell conflict with each other. i originally sat on the side of crowley lying about why/how he fell, but now im more in the camp of him not fully knowing at all, and without god to give him answers, he's just guessed.

so was the judgement, his last judgement, if we go by this... was erased? well, if you go by my theory on the book of life (which obviously i do)... it kinda adds up. the only thing it contradicts is whether crowley fully remembers being an angel at all which has already been discussed by others, i.e. he does not. ill leave that up for debate.

but that crowley might remember his interaction with lucifer and co., and he had a propensity for asking questions, and assumed it was because of that... that he might remember diving into the sulphur pool (im not accepting "sauntered vaguely downwards", bc he said this in front of aziraphale), and crawling out into hell...

but. the bit in between? his actual judgement and sentence? the gavel on the block? god (literally) only knows.

(and aziraphale? his memory? im not entirely sure... but his perspective on the fall has been largely silent; mainly, i imagine, because he literally didn't go through it, and so has not really had occasion to talk about it. that doesn't support that he doesn't remember... but it doesn't negate it either. the only thing i would say is that, going by the BOL theory, he doesn't appear to have fallen... so if he does or doesn't remember, to my mind, is also still largely up for debate).

#good omens #this really is scraping the bottom of the barrel #congrats lads! we've hit theory-rock bottom together!!!🎉 #the fall/the great war spec #pre-fall aziraphale spec #AWCW spec #memory wipe theory #book of life theory

[thesherrinfordfacility]

LWA: Some more idle thoughts about narrative construction and both seasons, prompted by your reflections about AWCW's inability to see consequences and Aziraphale's already-vivid awareness of them.

Crowley's and Aziraphale's pre-Fall selves are already set into their post-Fall approaches to consequences. Aziraphale, given adequate data, is very good at predicting the most plausible consequences of any given action; unfortunately, he's also very good at predicting consequences when he only thinks he has adequate data, which leads to repeated disasters (both the 1862 fight and the end of s2ep6 being the most obvious examples). It's not an accident that he's good at interpreting prophecy. It may also explain the weird Jane Austen misreading, which has nothing to do with how Aziraphale fell in love (past) but everything to do with constructing an iron-clad narrative in which there's a definite, logical romantic outcome (future). AWCW is politically naive, but fallen Crowley /still/ can't predict what ought to be the completely logical consequences of his actions. (Hence perhaps his own misreading of Richard Curtis, which mistakes the climax of a romcom for its inception.) S1ep1 keeps coming back to the fallout of Crowley pitching his stories too well to his demonic audience. He takes down the cell tower and does himself in, turns the M25 into a sigil and both gets trapped on it and temporarily murders an awful lot of people, and...then there's my favorite bugbear. Fans tend to overlook the likely outcome of Aziraphale giving in to Crowley's manipulation and killing the Antichrist, thanks to Madame Tracy stepping in, but beyond the cruelty /this is not something that Aziraphale could have survived/ (figuratively or literally). I was thrown straight out of the S2 episode in which Crowley gives away the entire bodyswap to Gabriel/Jim during his "protective" outburst, because as script-writing goes that there was a decision, but I have to grouchily concede that if Gaiman were to show up and remind me about the child murder business, he would have a point about narrative plausibility.

Crowley genuinely doesn't appear to believe that his relationship with Aziraphale has a developmental narrative. There's no story to be told about it. As I've said here before, his accounts of their relationship do not square either with what's on the screen or with what the actors have said they're playing. For Crowley, they've always been friends, they've always been a couple, they've always had the same kinds of conversations, whereas what's dramatized onscreen is a more heavily-romanticized take on the /book/ narrative, in which they gradually become friends over the course of centuries. There's no sign that /Aziraphale/ believes they've always been friends or a couple, which may be one of the reasons that Crowley's confession doesn't land.* In fact, one of the things that is now starting to bug me is the problem of Aziraphale's relation to Crowley-as-angel, because Aziraphale's problematic assumptions about fallen Crowley's continuity with AWCW (he's not trying to reverse-engineer Crowley, he really believes demon!Crowley effectively still /is/ angel!Crowley, just grumpier) mirror Crowley's refusal to acknowledge that his relationship with Aziraphale has an actual plot.

My take is that Aziraphale could obviously have done a much better job, Crowley-wise, of accepting the Metatron's proposal, but there's nothing to indicate that he could have done anything /else/. It's not just a mirror of Beelzebub's ep1 proposal to Crowley, but a warped mirror, in which the whole point of the "coffee or death" dialogue is that the Metatron is not really offering Aziraphale a choice in the matter.

afternoon LWA, hope you're well!!!✨

i didn't think to look laterally (not to this extent, anyway) at aziraphale and crowley when comparing their pre-fall selves with them later on in the narrative, but that's really fun to consider!!!

i absolutely love this interpretation of aziraphale's inner thought process, because whilst i had never really thought to see aziraphale as having an analytical personality type, he absolutely does; his approach to pretty much anything appears to be very systematic. in fact, im struggling somewhat to think of an instance where im confident that aziraphale reacts completely intuitively... maybe when he squares off against satan (crowley comes up with the time-stop, but where aziraphale chooses to face the devil down feels like he does so without any idea of how it could end)? any other action aziraphale takes, or words he says, feels like they've been very carefully deliberated over before delivery, even if he knows the outcome is going to be... well, shit.

you mention 1862 and ep6 as two examples, but, to me, aziraphale's way of thinking vs crowley's (which i'll come back to) is just encapsulated neatly in the entirety of s1; there are so many examples of where aziraphale consistently reacts to incoming data (when he discovers it or - when he deigns to - when crowley tells him stuff), and acts accordingly, and then immediately cycles back to analysing the result when it doesn't work.

my day-job (GO is practically The Other Job at this point) is largely based around analysis and research, and i regularly use a few thought models (maybe not consciously, but it's second nature at this point) in approach to a problem/question. so looking at the overall context of s1, aziraphale appears to follow a similar process:

scanning (identify the problem: the apocalypse)

analysis (gathering information/data, and identifying mitigating factors or outlying data: e.g. the hellhound conundrum, agnes' prophecy, adam is in tadfield, heaven actively wants the apocalypse)

response (how can the problem/question be addressed, and take into account any extraneous data that may affect the result: e.g. stop the dog, return to tadfield, engage shadwell and the WA, consult a higher authority through the portal, finds a human to 'possess' and get to tadfield)

assessment (the impact of the response, and any splinter effects or conclusions that the response initiated: e.g. realising that they had the wrong boy, identifying the right boy, where the apocalypse would happen, and that he and crowley were alone in stopping it themselves).

the last bit is especially indicative to me of aziraphale being analytical; he hears crowley say that god would not speak to him, but he still tries because it's a viable solution to scrutinise, and when it fails he immediately re-evaluates and then contacts crowley to try out an alternative, and share the information he has, because ultimately crowley ended up - on this count - being correct in his own initial, instinctive assessment.

obviously those phases of problem-solving throughout s1 are non-linear, and instead completely cyclical; aziraphale takes into account different factors and data at individual points in the story, and repeatedly comes up with various options in which to respond to problems as more data materialises - he continuously reassesses. initially, his approach to the problem of armageddon was to Not Act, and allow it to happen, because it was the great plan, and as an angel it was logical to him that whatever god had planned was for the best, was what was always intended, and would only ever be Good because... well, it came from god, right? had he perhaps thought a touch more intuitively, followed his instinct (which is arguably to thwart armageddon, the same conclusion crowley arrived at), he would have probably leapt on the chance to follow crowley's proposal... or possibly even proposed it himself.

but as it stands, he doesn't, and crowley gives him reason after reason to do so. all of this builds as significantly compelling data to aziraphale - to the point that when he's fully analysed (at this point) the potential outcome of Not Acting vs. Acting, he chooses to Act - a conviction that he sticks to. even at the bandstand, he doesnt sway on wanting to stop armageddon, but that the way that crowley proposes they do so not only directly conflicts with aziraphale's moral boundaries (killing a mf child), but also conflicts with aziraphale's sense of logic and reason (running away). and then as a last thought for aziraphale; he goes to instinctively shoot adam when crowley pushes for the last time, and is immediately thwarted by madame tracy - she does it as an emotional, knee-jerk, moral-based, human reaction, "you can't just shoot children!" - but given that that reaction is what aziraphale actually agrees with, it only reinforces that his way of thinking, logically and analytically, is the correct one, just because they happened to arrive at the same conclusion.

but this is where crowley comes in. crowley on the other hand acts very intuitively, instinctively, and i daresay emotionally - his immediate reaction to delivering the antichrist is panic, and to immediately call aziraphale (the narrative at the very least doesn't show any kind of analysis of the issue on crowley's part - would he have arrived at a different response if he had? and plus, as you say, him taking down the phone network was a class A monkey-paw job, well done crowley). but then he goes on to convince aziraphale into stopping armageddon with him (which, admittedly, does work, but only once crowley changes tack, stops invoking the emotional, and instead lays out the logical, does aziraphale agree).

when the issue arises of the hellhound (which, let's reiterate, crowley did not think to tell aziraphale before this point...), and the prospect of their upbringing plan not working because of this, crowley's reflex is to destroy the antichrist completely - but tempt aziraphale into doing it. when aziraphale pushes back on this more resolutely at the bandstand, crowley's immediate instinct is to just run. fair enough, given that crowley ends up being correct that aziraphale's resolution to beseech to heaven will just go ignored, but he similarly doesn't consider that aziraphale needs to test the hypothesis first, engage a more methodical and strategic approach, before resorting to more scorched-earth measures.

but as you say, this definitely harks back to the pre-fall scene. narratively, we still don't have any confirmation on what leads to aziraphale having any concept of punishment, or a sense of consequence; there is no iron-clad context (that I can see anyway!) as to why aziraphale would start to formulate this rationale - that asking questions might lead to a larger, damning (ha) consequence - when we can only surmise up until this point that angels would consider their creator as benevolent and omniscient.

AWCW presumably doesn't mean anything nefarious behind his questions (i think that can be reliably interpreted from his behaviour and delivery), so why would god ever punish him? this is beside the point, however; in any case, crowley tends to rush to a response, to act, without stopping to consider other factors, other data, and the potential consequences. in the pre-fall scene, if he had acknowledged the warning, the 'data', as it were, that aziraphale was giving to him (that something could go wrong if he continue the path he's walking), he might have arrived at the same action but with considerably more caution, and potentially prevented what happened to him (which, in contextual hindsight, is not necessarily a good thing). we don't have the full narrative yet to tell us what exactly happened during AWCW's fall, but it does seem like crowley is a chronic case of "fuck around - find out."

in this respect i personally find it entirely in character - and rather in-keeping with crowley's overall narrative in both s1 and s2 - that crowley reveals the ruse of the bodyswap in s2; he's not thinking about the consequences that it could have, but thinking entirely based on instinct. he's not thinking about whether gabriel/jim might remember the information, whether gabriel (regardless of his presumed reformation of character in ep6) might exploit that information, but entirely acting on the emotional wave that gabriel is posing a direct risk to aziraphale's safety and wellbeing. plus, we don't know how long he was sat in justine's restaurant for; it's entirely possible that he was three sheets to the wind by the point aziraphale happens upon him.

once again! not sure i arrived at a point! but i think in hindsight this is a really interesting way to read the final fifteen; it's fairly obvious that crowley is acting and reacting emotionally during the feral domestic, and aziraphale is - as metatron-aziraphale theories are indicating at the moment - acting and reacting based on a conclusion he's arrived at from data we've potentially only partially seen/data hidden in plain sight. but then we switch to aziraphale saying "i need you!", which is a hitherto uncommon emotional outburst from him, and crowley... saying nothing. is that crowley's way of thinking logically, analytically? because anything he says is not going to change the outcome - aziraphale will ascend, he will not, and they will still be apart?

on the note of their relationship, it's a really interesting dynamic - how crowley and aziraphale both see it from their perspectives. on one hand, you have aziraphale that goes from crush, to acquaintance, to confidant, to friend, to best friend and person he's in love with. crowley's perspective is... well, it is the same, right? so why does he retrospectively suggest that it's something that it, by all accounts, wasn't? look, maybe crowley was in love from the wall, immediately fell for aziraphale when he told him about the sword - but that's not what's actually shown in the narrative, to the audience. so... if he did, did he even realise it? is that why he looks back on their history as being something that, as far as shown to the audience, it isn't?

the s1 flashbacks are all shown from aziraphale's perspective (why am i only realising this now) - mesopotamia, golgotha, rome, arthurian england, 1601, 1793, 1827, and 1941 all show aziraphale first. the scenes are all set up with aziraphale opening them. it's only eden, uz, 1862, and 1967 that show crowley first... and all of them are pivotal moments for crowley's character development, as well as the development of their relationship specifically. that they learn to confide in each other, then they learn to trust in each other, then they learn the extent of what they mean to each other, and then they learn (or acknowledge) the danger of them being together.

so actually - does crowley think that there's no plot to their relationship? or is it that by 2023, he counts on the fact that the plot has already happened? that the biggest problem they confronted in his view - the holy water and the breaking away from heaven and hell - has been resolved (see: it hasn't), and that they've now reached the happily ever after? rather than the fact that we are actually only just getting to the climax of their personal story? which is also likely the stage that aziraphale was at by ep5, and is considering that crowley, by the time of the confession, is still a chapter ahead? "you go too fast for me, crowley."

(christ i don't even want to know the word count of this answer)

and this is similar potentially to how aziraphale sees crowley own angel-to-demon-to-just-crowley development; that he thinks that crowley as a person would want to be an angel again, "just like the old times, only even nicer", because why wouldn't he? he's a good and kind person, why wouldn't he want to be restored to the station and to the place that - in aziraphale's view - inherently embodies that? heaven has been corrupted, and he could make a difference, but heaven was always meant to be the place of good... right?

well, once again, aziraphale is without data - he doesn't, presumably, fully understand why crowley couldn't ever become an angel again, couldn't set foot in heaven again (not in that capacity, at least). so the conclusion he draws absolutely misses the mark; thinks this is the long-awaited happily-ever-after for crowley, when actually crowley is perhaps a chapter or two behind. s2 has shown more that crowley is able to somewhat accept that he is a good person, but he still has a way to go before he fully acknowledges it, and reconciles that with the, we can only guess, full circumstances of his fall.

last point - so glad that someone else spotted the mirror of the beelzebub proposal in ep1 to the metatron proposal in ep6; i think i gasped when i realised the implication of that conversation between beelzebub and crowley!!!✨

#referring to gabriel as jim physically pains me #he will always be goob to me #my sweet prince taken from us too soon #anyway this was another herculean effort of a LWA response by me - if i do say so myself - and im now exhausted #why do they keep coming back i only regurgitate what they said in an even more long winded way what is Their Goal #good omens #ask #s1 meta #s2 meta #aziraphale meta #crowley meta #pre-fall aziraphale spec #awcw spec #feral domestic/final fifteen meta #all the tags - every single one

[thesherrinfordfacility]

(1/5?)

so. the fall. both in general and crowley's specifically. i speculated about this quite a bit when i watched season 1 already and since, by and large, these speculations are still the basis for my thoughts now, that's also how i'll be structuring this. i'm going to go through the opinions/theories i formed based solely on the data available for season 1 first and then address new information from season 2 and how that's affected my conclusions.

a quick preface! i'm working off the assumption that go's god basically doesn't get involved in anything ever and the fall was consequently not her doing. nor do i think the metatron's heard anything more from her than anyone else has nor that he had even back then.

so the most frequent allegories of heaven i see are cult and abusive family and while i don't think that's wrong, my instinctive reaction was and still is dictatorship/surveillance state. heaven is literally the ultimate form of the divine right of kings. the metatron and the archangels cannot be removed from power because they were instated by god and their orders must be followed unfailingly because they are merely carrying out god's will. so angels starting to question god/the plan is threatening. immensely so, because the logical next leap is questioning the authority of the voice of the god and of the archangels. and sure enough that's exactly what happens! there's an uprising which turns into a war and the losing side are permanently exiled and branded as unforgivable traitors, pure evil, and any hint of something that could become dissent is cracked down on harder than ever because the archangels/the metatron can't risk anything like this emerging again. after all god isn't talking to them either and their power is very much not as divinely-ordained and unshakable as they would like.

now if there's one thing that season 2 did that was confirm my impression of heaven the dictatorship. the way gabriel is dealt with is deeply unsettling and looking at how isolated muriel is kept i'd wager there are no risks being taken that any angels could start sharing ideas again. before i thought there was an off-chance that the archangels assumed the fall was god's plan and that's why they did it but now i'm convinced it was purely political. (obviously they'd still think god intended it but i'm certain that was not the motive, that the motive was solely about staying in power. unsure what the metatron's view on god is. thoughts?) what's new from season 2 is the power dynamics at the top of the hierarchy. instead of the metatron and the archangels being a unified force on approximately equal footing, the metatron's more nefarious and more powerful than i assumed and is clearly the sole person at the very top, pulling all the strings and asserting himself as lone unassailable ruler and the archangels are infighting. gabriel's abusing his power michael's trying to usurp him and uriel's barely tolerating either of them. but while that makes for some interesting dynamics to play with i don't see how that changes anything about the fall.

wow 🦭 anon!!! firstly, please accept my humble apologies for the late-late answer to this!!! i got into a hyperfocus with an amv and then needed to make soooo many notes on what you've said so that i had a coherent response!!! 💃<- apology dance✨

anyway!!! by god im so excited to answer this; plot speculation is my favourite kind of analysis!!!

further asks and response under the cut!!!

okay so im basically just going to write up a train of thought without much coherency, incorporating both s1 and s2, so please do pop back if ive ignored something, or am missing something!!!

i completely agree with your assessment of god's involvement in the fall; following job, where i recently parsed out some thoughts on the conflicting interpretations of god's will where job, his family, and their suffering was concerned, im firmly of the opinion that god in GO is omniscient, but strictly amoral. whilst she might pull strings threaded through the universe (e.g. the knocking over of the candle in the bookshop fire is, to me, an example of this), she created and abides by free will. in her angels, in the fallen, and in humanity. I've gone over incarnations of this train of thought in #god is dead theory, if anyone fancies some extra reading.

but essentially, i can kinda see god's involvement in the fall being very similar to that of pontius pilate (depending on which account you read, to be fair) in the crucifixion of jesus, and leaving the fate of the angels that were 'rebelling' up to the 'people' - i'll come back to this. but i feel this could be a very fitting allegory insomuch of jesus being the scapegoat for humanity's sins, and dying for them to be absolved. the reconceptualisation of this in the context of the fallen is chilling, but apt (especially if anyone subscribes to some variant of the scapegoat theory - that being crowley, aziraphale, lucifer, or any combination of them. more in. #omelas/scapegoat theory tag).

bottom line for me on speculating about the fall, for me at the moment, is that god created angels. she created them to have free will, and free thought. this birthed angels starting to speak up about things they think could be different. some just wanted to make the stars live longer, some perhaps thought humanity were given too much importance, or god had too much power, altogether. i don't think god necessarily had an issue with any of this, because this was all according to how she wanted her creations to exist. but if she were to interfere in anything as an omniscient being, it would corrupt that very tenet - would influence free will, and render it obsolete.

so if god were to excuse herself, with very little - if anything - to say, it would stand to reason that her voice, the metatron, would take the metaphorical stage. now, i can see metatron's rationale going in two different directions (so far, and might be both or neither):

machiavellian (or dark triad) approach, in that he covets god's power and voice absolute for himself, to rule over heaven and its angels and wilfully disguise his own wants and desires as the word of god. and rebellious angels would threaten to upend his own authority in this regard

some kind of take on the divine command theory; specifically in ethics that morality is dictated by the command of god... ie. that something is good specifically because god commands it. DCT and voluntarism in general can be considered very flawed, (or so any ethics theory rooting in religion), for obvious reasons, but i could see this being what metatron genuinely believes. the absence of god renders him only with the great plan, and if the fall - because it's borne of free will - goes outside the scope of the plan, what other choice does he have but to eradicate evil from eden?

i find the second the most compelling of the two, but they're not mutually exclusive - metatron can still emulate machiavellian psychology and still think he's genuinely following the command of god, in good (?) conscience, in order to preserve a perfect heaven, without perhaps realising that his own free will could inform him otherwise. it would also, imo, bring back the conflict between the great and ineffable plans nicely - what is laid out by god, and what is entirely unknowable because it's literally dictated by every individual set apart from god?

moving onto heaven specifically... ive collected a lot of thoughts over the last 48h or so. first, mainly, that i agree with you in how to view heaven analogically; maybe it's because my experience in life has been very different to lots of others in the fandom, but my take on heaven is principally that of a police state, and what we're looking at is the institution itself. imo, there's a lot of shared characteristics between heaven and most kind of policing agencies, right down to the things that inherently open them up to corruption and resistance.

i hadn't thought to look at heaven in the view of divine right of kings, but this is very interesting. in at least one sense, yep - could view the metatron as being the defacto heavenly sovereign, and decreeing with power absolute. and given the reference to 1650 in s2 (and im personally hoping this might be a flashback in s3), this could potentially be a very powerful mirror (ie. charles I and cromwell during the english civil wars). for some reason however, this dynamic doesn't ring completely true for me - not quite sure why yet, but i'll probably come back to it.

the manner in which gabriel, and potentially muriel, have been dealt with in heaven is also unsettling. but i think personally for me, regardless of the political structure of heaven, what unnerves me is that it is potentially a facsimile of falling, but not in the way the narrative has so far posed it. hell are short-staffed - irrespective of why, we know this is an issue. but heaven seems to have a consistency in their numbers, inferred by the same problem never being mentioned in relation to angels. and then consider that gabriel at the very least is a powerful archangel; whyever would heaven allow gabriel to fall into hell, and work for them? no, it is safer to wipe his memory, and reduce him to what we can surmise is a very, very low rank of angel occupation/choir. is this the new falling? is this what happened to the fallen? i think there's something there.

now the thing is, thinking more on the fall has made me confront something. as much as their actions as thus shown to the audience so far are deplorable, the archangels are eminently empathetic in the context of the fall, and how they act afterwards. if we look at them considering that, what we consider to be, free will is in fact radical thought, is dangerous, and that acting on that will bring heaven down... well, it's actually somewhat understandable how they regard aziraphale.

let's take gabriel and how he speaks to crowley-as-aziraphale in s1: this is, to gabriel, an angel that has upset the great plan. literally stopped it in its tracks. is, to his mind, working directly against the word and will of god. a radical, gone native, and turned to rebellion. wouldn't gabriel be frightened out of his little head? of course he would! presumably he had to go through the fall too, watch as (we could hypothesise) his brothers (gn) fell to hell, and have to turn against them as traitors and dissidents. so, to watch as aziraphale presumably treads the same path must be terrifying, because of what it could precipitate. beelzebub in s1 even said it at aziraphale-as-crowley's execution, "it'll cause a riot!". and that's in hell - now imagine heaven.

we know that archangels are capable of change. we saw in job them have - if not a camaraderie - a cordial (albeit still quite condescending) relationship with aziraphale. this appears to deteriorate the longer that aziraphale is on earth, and his path diverges away from theirs. but we also see gabriel, fully as gabriel, fall in love with beelzebub. they are capable of it - and capable of free will.

all of this to say that i don't think it's conclusive at this time to implicate the archangels in what, as the hypothesis above indicates, is entirely metatron's doing. bear in mind that despite the recent trial, uriel and michael don't even recognise metatron. this could be memory wipe, or could be that despite how it's physically shown to us metatron in heaven as a floating head and metatron in human form are not recognisable... that being said, a) aziraphale doesn't recognise him either, despite seeing his head in s1, and b) metatron says, "you don't know me?!", which could either be a test, or as genuine incredulity that they don't remember the mf metatron. the whole thing, as LWA has pointed out on a couple of occasions now, reeks of the nuremberg defense ('just following orders'), and whilst it's unjustifiable, it's certainly understandable.

in any case, i think it has the potential to inform very heavily on the current inter-archangel dynamic in heaven - who trusts whom? who next will challenge god? who is hungry for power, and to bring down heaven? when you specifically consider uriel's disdain of michael assuming the post of supreme archangel, it could be jealousy or just out of pettiness, but michael doing so must suggest a degree of instability and concern too. it might not necessarily change anything about the fall retrospectively, but it does inform on how they punish angels, that step out of line, in a post-fall era.

re: the specifics of crowley's fall (and me bearing in mind the length of this answer!), i agree on pretty much every point you raised, each conclusion - ive covered similar thoughts in various tags: #AWCW spec, #the fall/the great war spec, and #scapegoat/omelas theory. one thing on whether AWCW fought in the great war; i agree, i don't think he fought. but i definitely think he was present. being fanciful, i think he might have hid, or someone 👀 attempted to help him hide, and get him out of heaven without bloodshed, or without violence ("sauntered vaguely downwards"). i don't think it succeeded, and i think potentially both were brought as traitors before heaven... and here is where i cycle back to the scapegoat/omelas theory.

and in any case - im not convinced that either of them, or indeed anyone(?) fully remembers the fall. it would make sense, from metatron's perspective, to wipe all seeds of rebellious thought (without accounting for the fact that they're born of free will, which cannot be erased) from all involved parties in heaven with a targeted memory wipe. as for the fallen - i think that's literally part of their having fallen; they can't remember specifics about their time as angels, or at least the specifics of why they fell. this would potentially be explanatory for crowley's tendency as an unreliable narrator as concerns his fall in particular. the one thing i do trust in particular as to his potential part in the fall is AWCW's line: "if i were in charge..." - take into account what ive said above, plus this kind of thinking being a very innocent but parallel to what we can assume lucifer's personal beef was, i think the origins of crowley's fall - and what his questions threatened - is relatively clear.

i know you've brought up other things too, 🦭 anon, but i wonder if this is something we can explore in further depth in another post? i feel this essay is enough to be getting on with for now, and would love to know your thoughts!!! again, really sorry for the delay, but hope this makes up for it!!!✨💕

note to self - topics left to look at! AWCW rank, and gabriel's first order archangel line, and his line as jim re: "all the morning stars..."

update: fuck it 🦭 anon, i was turning these topics over in my brain like a rotisserie chicken for most of the evening, so let's dig in anyway!!!✨

okay look, i'll admit (and as is clearly evident in my old posts), i was an advocate of the crowley is lucifer theory. obviously neil debunked this, no worries, glad to have nipped that in the bud. but i am still fairly convinced that crowley is going to own a lucifer-ish narrative as concerns his fall. if we go by hell hierarchy in GO and correlate this against influential material (scripture, and yes okay Milton), we can be fairly certain that lucifer led on the fall, fell first and became satan, beelzebub was a key part (to warrant being prince of hell), and that crowley got himself caught up with them at some point before falling himself. this is a part of crowley's recount of his fall that i do believe, but i think he massively downplays his part.

i think AWCW comes across a group of angels that do not rebuke him for having questions, and even talk to him about them, encouraging him. i think he feels safe with them, and becomes pals with them, and they end up sweeping him along in more 'dangerous', 'rebellious' thought... and right up until the moment they get caught/lucifer starts speaking out, i don't think AWCW realises the shit he's gotten himself into (or maybe he does, but it's easier to sink down rather than swim up). in any case, he's surely going to be implicated in instigated rebellion among the angels, and be punished accordingly.

now im not entirely sure on the specifics of a potential scapegoat allegory would come in here, but i do think it does (and history will potentially repeat itself in s3, given the promo images). i think perhaps lucifer and the gang start to panic, panic at the concept of falling (regardless of who is dolling out the sentence, god or metatron), and they pin the blame on AWCW. he started asking questions first, he caused all of this. i think that's potentially why metatron has such beef, and specifically refers to crowley "always asking damn-fool questions", plus throws him the Dirty Look - all of this mess, and everyone believes crowley started it, even if he didn't pull the trigger. obviously lucifer and all the fallen get similarly punished, so crowley doesn't carry the full weight of the fall, but that would potentially be a big chunk of his character core that once realised could make a lot of things about him suddenly make sense.

(as an aside, i do perhaps think that aziraphale is also implicated in here somewhere - ive explored it in the #scapegoat theory tag more - but do also equally wonder if crowley is posed as the scapegoat for the fall, and aziraphale will be posed as the scapegoat for the last judgement? interesting mirroring to hypothesise).

in terms of crowley's rank... sigh. i get the narrative and character potential of it, but... i don't think he was a Very Important Angel, however that might look. at the very least, i hope not. i got a few reasons for this, first of them being that i think it could be quite cliché, to the point of being a bit reductive. he is very obviously, in a rather on-the-nose fashion, painted as being an archangel in s2; for this reason alone, i get the feeling that this will in fact not be the case. (and im not an expert on pratchett, far from it, but my understanding is that a lot of his themes work with the concept of being "ordinary" which... this theory would arguably shoot out of the park).

we know that crowley is at least in the throne or dominion choir. the way that muriel says these ranks 'or above' suggests that they are on the same rank, not throne-above-dominion as strict christian angelology suggests. neil and terry turned this structure on its head anyway with the specific archangel structure, but i think it's far that the basic blueprint of GO!angelology follows the same outline. which suggests that crowley can only have been these ranks, or a cherub, seraph, or archangel.

i dont think he was a high archangel on the same plane as michael and uriel, let alone gabriel. i did suggest (in #AWCW spec, i think) that he might have been a lesser archangel like sandalphon or saraqael, and this still rings true for me if you cross-reference heaven hierarchy against hell hierarchy (there's obviously a lot to contradict this copy-and-paste, but im just talking in the vague sense). the other thought i have, is that i don't necessarily think that crowley's power is borne out of having been an archangel; i think it's literally borne out of having an imagination, as was intimated in s1, and i don't necessarily trust his "how did you know i didn't do it?" line to shax; we know that shax is not the sharpest of demons in this respect. as for the miracle he and aziraphale performed - i don't think the reason why it was so powerful has anything to do with either of them, and all to do with jim (#25 lazarii theory).

moving onto "first order archangel", im still not quite sure what to make of it, but... i dont think it was intimating anything beyond reasserting gabriel's rank as the top archangel. the supreme archangel position seems to be just that - a position, a role - but one that elevates already existing power (and i think that's what's indicated by the purple eyes, personally - having, to a degree, some of the power of literal god), and thus raising you to the tier (?) of first order. fundamentally, without the SA position and therefore without the FO rank, i dont think gabriel is actually any different to michael or uriel; they're all archangels, and it's just a question of promotion. in which case, i personally think gabriel was just being sarcastic and childish, and simply reinstating "hey, im the top dog here, im the only one at my level, so what i say goes'. it feels like a very gabriel thing to do and say, imo.

i'll be honest; im coming up empty on the elevator scene, but if we're talking about missing furniture - the scene before is crowley walking out of muriel's 'office' with muriel and saraqael, and then bang we're in the elevator with them all as well as michael and uriel. there's a whole, obviously interesting, conversation missing there, and i dont think that's inconsequential... potentially.

okay last bit and then i'll definitely be done!!!✨ "morning stars" - so i obviously can't say all of the above and then based on this be like 'okay yeah there were multiple lucifer-type characters' because, honestly, i think that might be a bit far-fetched. there are a lot of astronomical, mythological, and biblic references to 'morning star', and 'light/dawn-bringer' but none that, at the moment, seem to fit for me. so instead, i return to jim.

as i say in my #25 lazarii theory posts, i think when we look at jim, we're somehow looking at the shell of gabriel, but also a fragment of god. not sure how she got in there, but to me the whole fly/huge miracle/jim makes that ring true for me. so, when referencing the morning stars, i think god (who let's face it, appears to be talking at that point in ep2) is literally talking about the beginning, where on the first day, god created 'day', and specifically 'morning' and 'evening', and in wider context the heavens and the earth (genesis 1:5, KJV) - so morning stars... might just be morning stars?✨

#not proof read - pretend you do not Perceive The Errors #good omens #ask #heaven theory #metatron spec #AWCW spec #pre-fall aziraphale spec #memory wipe theory #s2 meta #s3 narrative spec #scapegoat theory #the fall/the great war spec #god is dead theory #fuck it All The Tags

[thesherrinfordfacility]

Absolute crack notes from the Book of Enoch (Metatron) but the 'Aziraphale was meant to fall' theory and how AWCW might tie into that invokes it for me. With all the discussions about scapegoats and how Aziraphale is responsible for introducing War to humans. Christianity normally holds that the Fall happened long before humans were created, but Enoch presents a different origin for fallen angels and the sins of man: the "fallen angel" Azazel (a name you might recognize from the two goats story in Leviticus) is said to be blamed for all evil in the world, because he teaches mankind how to make weapons and instructs them in the arts of warfare and magic. Man wasn't capable of sinning before Azazel and his cohorts taught them wickedness. As punishment for this, God sends the Archangel Raphael to bind Azazel and imprison him until the Day of Judgement, upon which he'll be cast into a "lake of fire". This definitely means nothing but also it's really funny to me.

on the contrary i think it means a heck of a lot, anon!!!✨ the scapegoat story is literally like a chicken on a spinning rotisserie in my brain 24/7, im so sure that it is going to play some kind of part in explaining aziraphale and crowley's background.

i have read leviticus 16 so many times and still no clearer on azazel, because i think (?) it has been interpreted in so many ways, but the main ones ive gleaned are either:

meaning the literal place where the scapegoat was sent to wander, which is more in-keeping with the original passage from leviticus itself, or

meaning it was for the fallen angel azazel, as seen in book of enoch?

so if we look to the second option in apochrypha, book of daniel makes reference to the watchers as a particular type of angel. enoch goes on to describe that there were good and bad watchers. azazel as a fallen angel taught warfare to the humans, and enoch includes them as one of the 20 bad watcher leaders (along with kokabiel and baraqiel, interestingly), and also according to enoch, as you say, bound azazel and cast him into the desert:

10:4: And again the Lord said to Raphael: 'Bind Azâzêl hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness: and make an opening in the desert, which is in Dûdâêl, and cast him therein.

5: And place upon him rough and jagged rocks, and cover him with darkness, and let him abide there for ever, and cover his face that he may not see light.

6: And on the day of the great judgement he shall be cast into the fire.

7: And heal the earth which the angels have corrupted, and proclaim the healing of the earth, that they may heal the plague, and that all the children of men may not perish through all the secret things that the Watchers have disclosed and have taught their sons.

8: And the whole earth has been corrupted through the works that were taught by Azâzêl: to him ascribe all sin.

and here we cycle back round to the scapegoat again. now, whether or not this literally happens in GO is up for speculation, but i personally think it's unlikely. that being said, i think something similar could happen. let's somewhat hc this:

aziraphale tells AWCW about the plans for the stars, makes crowley start asking questions

aziraphale cautions against it, but AWCW plows on anyway the moron (affectionate) - but symbolically protects aziraphale from repercussions as shown by him shielding him from the shooting stars (thanks again to 🌙anon for this!!!)

AWCW is spurred on by lucifer et al., and is implicated in the more nefarious rhetoric being spouted by satan

aziraphale is similarly brought into this, insomuch that perhaps AWCW refuses to say who started to make him ask questions and thus protects aziraphale OR aziraphale is in fact implicated for his own part but not as harshly - instead, AWCW is punished heavily and can't quite protect aziraphale despite best efforts

(this would also echo two things - the potential "aziraphale was/is/will be raphael" theory, and the verse in enoch 10:4 that he was the one to 'cast AWCW out')

the fall, and potential memory wipe of it?

aziraphale is 'punished' for his own part by being assigned to eden, cast out somewhat from heaven, but not made to suffer the fall (harking back, for me, to aziraphale being the goat that is cast into the wilderness as described in leviticus - not AWCW who was offered up as the goat for god; both goats forming the complete sacrificial offering although only one is killed)

aziraphale inadvertently introduces the concept of war and destruction to humanity in giving away the sword, which crowley seems to applaud/be impressed by

yada yada GO narrative, right up until aziraphale returning to heaven (which then would echo the islamic call that azazel in fact repented, and was returned to heaven - 🌙anon may correct me?)

and when the day of judgement finally happens presumably in s3... aziraphale is given the ultimatum to cast crowley "into fire", in order to rid humanity of all the sin on earth (looking to enoch 10:7-8 here)?

lastly, going back to the whole aziraphale-and-crowley-were-meant-to-be-the-same-person-originally thing... what if they symbolically were in fact just that? both azazel and raphael, and neither of them also, maybe not literally the same angel split in two, but literally mirrors of each other in their narrative?

there are so many loopholes and missing detail in this, i know - and it probably doesn't make a lick of sense, to boot - but this possibility is so exciting for me!!!✨

#god i really will just theorise about anything now wont i #either that or i have a killer brain for coming up with fic prompts #good omens #ask #the fall/the great war spec #pre-fall aziraphale spec #AWCW spec #metatron spec #scapegoat theory #raphael spec

[thesherrinfordfacility]

thoughts on the fall

i had a really awesome debate with someone in the replies of one of my posts (here, with @mayapapaya33✨) and they raised a hugely valid argument on god's own morality as concerns the fall. it was awesome, and i wanted to ruminate on it more, because i think it could potentially really recontextualise how i saw the fall before now. in summary, I think points they raised were essentially the following:

if the reason why Angel Who Crowley Was - AWCW - fell (possible unreliable narration notwithstanding) was minor, does that say more about the person that committed the infraction or more about the rules that deems it to be worth the fall?

was what he did morally wrong? and if so, does this call into the assessment of "corruption of initial intent" vs "the initial intent was flawed from the start"

ie. the argument of god being wrong, and leading on to everything she did and created being flawed as a result, ie. heaven being fundamentally wrong

given the above, is crowley responsible for his fall? was he aware of the consequences, and would this have changed anything? did the demons deserve what they got? why didn't AWCW and the rest get mercy if She truly is omniscient, and potentially knew in some cases that their intention was not malicious?

so my first building block in the following is the definition of omniscient; from Merriam-Webster:

so to be all-knowing, it would be fair to extrapolate this as omniscience meaning you can see and know everything - past, present, and future. which has serious implications for god's culpability in the fallen angels' suffering when they were cast down. she, who presumably loves her creations, condemned them to be torn away from her love and grace, and did so in response to what - if we take crowley's narrative at face value - is a minor infraction (and questionable even at that). that is cruel, and wrong, by any standard of being a cognizant human being with any conceptual understanding of morality.

it would be very easy to see this as god in fact not being omniscient (and whilst iirc god is not explicitly described as such in GO, but we can surmise it by the fact that all of the events of the book appear to be told in her voice - 'all-knowing'), and that she didn't know what would happen and the suffering it would lead to, this plainly has to be false. she had to know what would happen. i'll revisit this later*.

now in terms of whether morality exists in heaven; i do not necessarily think, at the point of s1, we can be reliably sure that it does. Lucifer and the guys are painted by crowley as being Up To Something, but it's not necessarily indicated that they knew at the time that what they were doing was wrong. if it was even arguably wrong to begin with - the full circumstances of Lucifer's part in the GO!fall is not described, nor their inner thoughts on whether they knew it would be Bad.

but we do know from the pre-fall scene in s2 that there is the potential concept of punishment. aziraphale would, presumably, not deter AWCW from questioning god if he felt that god would be welcoming to it, and love him and cherish him all the same for asking questions. i talk about it more here, but aziraphale must - by this account - know something that crowley and by extension the other angels do not. that god would in fact not welcome it, or indeed it would be disrespectful to do so... so here's where i contradict myself: why is this even a thought process in aziraphale's head, if the concept of morality does not exist? if the concept of punishment, "i don't want to see you get into any trouble!", does not exist? this dialogue of aziraphale's shifts the picture entirely.

he may not understand what that punishment would look like, but aziraphale seems to know something. and the thing is - despite the warning being pretty clear, AWCW does not take it for what it is... a suggestion to proceed with caution. so if AWCW then presumably goes ahead and asks questions to god, what does that say about AWCW? naive and innocently minded - yes, potentially. but we don't know what questions he asked and how far he toed the line to the point of crossing it. it may have been benign questions, it might have a suggestion that he could do a better job ("if i was the one running it all..."), and in either case if meant with good intention it is clear to us that morally it did not warrant his fall.

but the fact that he did it anyway, and then proceeds to downplay his error in s1 post-fall is where i think his characterisation as an unreliable narrator begins. he was not wrong to ask the question and to ask the question he did, but he was wrong in asking it despite the clear warning, and to not accept his own actions being reflective of his culpability in his fall. god presumably did not just wake up one day and decide to cull half the angel population; whether she was right or wrong to consider asking questions as an infraction is immaterial - AWCW did it anyway.

*but this is where i come back to the concept of god being omniscient. because the thing is - to my mind, action borne of omniscience is a direct contradiction of free will. free will exists in heaven; there are many narrative/plot indicators that say support this. so imagine this - AWCW comes to god, asking questions and toeing the line in suggesting he could do a better job. he starts to question the purpose of his creations made in her name. he laments that it's for nothing, it'll be destroyed, 'what is the point?', and starts to intimate that he doesn't want to continue his purpose if this is how she's going to treat it.

now god, being omniscient, knows that AWCW is upset, and hurt, and indignant. but she knows it's borne out of love and pride in his work, and the work he is doing for her. but if she were to show him mercy, and forestall his emerging reckoning to break away from her if this is How It's Going To Be, is she contradicting his free will? well yes, arguably she is. if she told him the consequences of him breaking away, a consequence that by all accounts may not have been conceived as a notion until it actually was, would that derail his decision?

well that is arguable, because that's not necessarily contradicting free will; that's giving him a choice. but let's go back to the aziraphale-angel dialogue in s1:

a: "what i think is that there obviously has to be two sides; that's the whole point, so people can make choices, that's what being human means... choices. but, that's for them. our job as angels should be to keep all this working, so they can make choices-"

this is where the true paradox lies, i think. morality is an emerging concept, punishment seems to potentially exist, and free will definitely does. but what about choice? this is where we need s3 narrative to fully explain this; was crowley given a choice to inform on his free will? was it his free will to fall, and would he have done if he was fully aware that there was a choice involved? would he have doubled down, or would he have retracted all his thoughts on questioning god - a fundamental characteristic he embodies?

choice basically is free will, but with the added ingredient of knowing the consequences, the cause and effect, of exercising that free will. but would crowley have chosen any different, betrayed his nature, if he were to choose to stay in heaven knowing the alternative is falling? would that actually hinder his free will? that, i think, is still very much up for debate.

#in this house we get existential on saturday mornings #might add to this over time #good omens #i am built predominantly for shitposting and the occasional philosophical debate on morality #the fall/the great war spec #pre-fall aziraphale spec #AWCW spec

[thesherrinfordfacility]

Something has just occurred to me. Everyone is hung up on Crowley being Raphael (or Lucifer before Neil slaughtered that theory), but what about Beelzebub? We know nothing about Beelzebub, save that they are the demonic equivalent of Gabriel. The highest rank in hell behind Satan himself. How powerful and wily must they be to hang onto that position for millennia? How close to Satan to be trusted enough to not only run Hell and manage the Apocawasn't, but to confidently offer Crowley anything including their own position to help them find Gabriel?

I can't think of a single thing that would preclude them from being the missing Raphael. I also can't think of a single thing that would guarantee that they are, save that it just hit me out of nowhere that they easily could be.

It'd also be rather fun for Gabriel to have fallen in love with his fellow Archangel, but only after they fell and became a demon.

it could fit, definitely!!!✨ to my mind, it could go along the lines of 'rank in heaven' = 'corresponding rank in hell', which tbh isn't necessarily outside of my scope of thought... but then similarly beelzebub could have been a lower angel who was just particularly behind lucifer in their rhetoric against god, and therefore was rewarded with a high position in hell...

but tbh the former fits for me, if you consider:

neil has confirmed the first prince of heaven was lucifer

beelzebub and crowley seem weirdly chummy, having had history scaring cherubs in heaven

crowley seems to be at the lower end of the high ranks in hell (1. equivalent to how i see his rank in heaven, 2. its my thought that crowley technically holds the rank of lord of hell, and seems to have hastur as his handler of sorts, who is a duke).

so based on all that? i think beelzebub and crowley could have been of the same rank - potentially lesser archangels like sandalphon? - and the 'guys' in Lucifer and the Guys could have included beelzebub? and post-fall, beelzebub was elevated to prince of hell?

as for who beelzebub was, as you say - there's nothing to say they were raphael, but equally nothing to say they weren't. i think crowley is more likely to have been raphael given the imagery surrounding the archangel, but tbh i don't think raphael wholly fits either of them 100%... really interesting thought though, i never thought to speculate on who beelzebub was!!!✨

#im still of the mind that we dont learn at all who they were i feel like that could potentially be more powerful tbh #but i do want to know the narrative ie what their individual contributions if any to the fall were #as for crowley specifically i do think he was potentially an archangel but a lesser one along with sandalphon and also maybe saraqael #and beelzebub might have been the same? feels like the Archangel posse would have been quite tight in terms of numbers idk #good omens #ask #the fall/the great war spec #AWCW spec

[thesherrinfordfacility]

okay so... we do agree that the most sense for the first scene of season 3 is to show in some way the fall, right? we saw the before, we saw the after (as in eden), we now need to know why there was this schism in the first place

and so, my question is, since i've just finished rewatching the job episode - what do you think, in gomens' universe, is the point of that schism? why did the fall happen? why was there a Great War? who started the war, was the war just between the different angels? who actually cast the losing side away?

the whole bit with "an angel/demon who goes along with Heaven/Hell as far as he can" really made me think about this all. plus, i personally would find it very satisfying to finally find out at least a little bit of context of why this separation happened in the first place for the moment (i hope) when the whole system is finally broken down and dismantled

hey lovely!!!✨ i do think it will open with some reference to the fall (as you said, imo it makes the most narrative, poetic, and thematic sense!!!), but i also feel like a lot of the show's answers are going to be within the fall, so idk if we'll see all of it in the beginning cold open, or if some will be continued towards the end of the series?

as for the fall questions, wowzers, i'll do my best to answer what i potentially think could factor in here, although they may not answer your qs outright!!!✨ and probably link to some other specs/metas that ive had jumbling around!!!

i think aziraphale knew or suspected something about why it would be risky to question god; maybe not that the fall was already bandied about as a concept, but maybe that there were Things Afoot that made him think that going against her will and plan could be bad news

i think that god is ultimately a very neutral, very amoral party. i don't think she is good or bad, right or wrong, well-meaning or malicious; she just is. i even possibly think that the ineffable plan, if there is even such a thing like she says in s1, is that she has no plan at all. everything is up to everyone else. (don't really have a singular meta on this, but perhaps a bit of this and that)

metatron is the Big Bad. dunno why, necessarily (ie what are his motivations other than Power?), but i think when god goes AWOL somewhere between job (or maybe actually after golgotha?) and present day, he fills the void and acts like he is still the voice of god, that he is still receiving orders. (again, no singular meta on this, and ive kinda got it sprinkled across many posts tbh!!!)

so with those kind of things in mind, here are my possible thoughts (not committing to any singular one) on the fall and the schism you've mentioned.

the fall was not necessarily meant to be what it turned out to be. i think ultimately angels came to god asking questions, or questioning her and her Ineffability, or the plan, whatever.

god wanted all of her creation to have free will. if that free will was to break away from heaven and from her, and act in their own interest, under their own orders, by their own conscience, i don't think she ever had an issue with this. even if - in the presumed case of lucifer - the intention was to break away as a direct challenge to god, to have the same power as god, i similarly don't think she wanted to stop this. that is literally free will. so she does nothing to stop whatever happens when they choose to break away.

metatron however has other ideas; heaven is good, and is correct, and is right. anyone who even questions it, even if out of love and devotion to god, those who just want to understand, were forfeit. god has removed herself from the picture, not even there at the (literal? figurative?) trial, so metatron acts as judge, jury, and executioner. in some cases, i think there were angels who were pushed, not fallen.

we know there was a war, but i think it was out of the angels that remained 'on heaven's side' being told lies about their fellow angels - told that these defectors were actively working against god to jeopardise her creations and her plans. that heaven will fall if they are not cast out. conflict ensues - from their perspective - to protect the sanctity of heaven.

then, possibly, i think a memory wipe kinda thing did happen, but specifically on the events of the fall. i do also wonder if this is where the book of life comes into play, but not overly confident (on any of this, really)

and ultimately i think the whole concept of true free will might have been god's plan - if you can call Nothing a plan - all along? that she completely steps back, and let's heaven and humanity kinda work it out for themselves.

like, this is the kinda stuff that i hope they reveal later on s3; crowley falling with lucifer, and possibly meeting aziraphale again etc. would, imo, be great for the ep1 cold open, but the actual events of the fall i think needs to be the belter that comes out in maybe ep5 or 6. obviously i haven't gone into where i think crowley and aziraphale may slot within all of this, but most things can be found in my masterpost anyway, or indeed happy to summarise for anyone who wants it!!!✨

#this got the cogs whirring #what a lovely delicious ask #good omens #ask #the fall/the great war spec #pre-fall aziraphale spec #AWCW spec #god is dead theory #ineffable plan spec #memory wipe theory #s3 narrative spec #metatron spec

[thesherrinfordfacility]

Ah! The origin of GO's Metatron clears up a lot actually. Greatly appreciated. Yeah he definitely was behind Crowley's Fall from Heaven

hey anon!!!✨ yeaaaaaah it's not looking so hot for enemy no.1 right now... still inconclusive if he was behind the fall, and crowley's fall specifically, but it's looking more and more likely.

(as an aside, it's going to be somewhat interesting how far to take neil's first answer, in terms of the influence (if any) that the general happenings in the book of enoch could have on the GO narrative - especially if we consider that in GO! verse, enoch and metatron both exist but are not the same being/person.

reason i say that: iirc correctly, enoch is the only text that mentions the name 'saraqael' (1 enoch 20:6), but they are an angel understood to have been referenced to by multiple other names also (inc. sariel, suriel, sarakiel etc). so it might be that neil just picked this particular name for the aesthetic, rather than to make any confirmed reference to book of enoch... im sure there's an ask on this floating around his faqs somewhere, i'll link if i find it!✨)

#for example - could be a cool plot point if somehow enoch/metatron were messenger to the fallen angels or st #idk how it would work but the thought is interesting #anyway key point: we have your number metatron #good omens #ask #s2 meta #metatron spec #the fall/the great war spec #s3 narrative spec #AWCW spec

[thesherrinfordfacility]

Now that I think about it, does Aziraphale actually KNOW how Crowley fell. He didn't know his angel name so there was no way to check up on him, and in S1 Crowley just tells him that he "sauntered vaguely downwards"- all of his confessions about asking questions and hanging around the wrong people happen when Crowley is alone. Do you think Aziraphale even realizes that him telling angel Crowley about the end of creation was likely a direct catalyst for Crowley falling.

that's just it nonnie, idk!!!✨

this is bordering into hc/theory territory so please forgive me, but i don't think aziraphale wouldn't have been keeping tabs on him after the pre-fall scene we saw; he's shown as being caring and conscientious even at that early stage, so i think AWCW's (angel who crowley was) comments might have worried aziraphale slightly, and if aziraphale was as close to god as i now suspect he might have been, it would stand to reason that he'd know that AWCW at least fell for the very thing that he warned him against... because aziraphale told him about the death of his creation as you said. it does also make me wonder therefore if aziraphale stood up for crowley immediately before the fall, that it was his fault that AWCW was asking these questions? idk...

but the dialogue so far, as you said, would indicate that aziraphale doesn't know. aziraphale clearly remembers at least parts of the war (he said he hadn't thrown his frisbee halo since the war), he remembers AWCW (job comment and the comment in the bandstand in s1)... so maybe no, he doesn't know why crowley fell? and that's part of the reckoning that's coming for him in s3? that crowley will reveal that him? there's a huge focus on memory in s2 that im still trying to fully parse out - could bits of it concerning aziraphale's part in the fall/war have been wiped? idkkkkk!!!✨

#its all just bloody scrummy soup and i live for these little slurps 🍲🍲🍲 #good omens #ask #the fall/the great war spec #pre-fall aziraphale spec #AWCW spec

[thesherrinfordfacility]

but what about the line in s2 episode 1 where crowley doesn't believe beelzebub when they first bring up the book of life, because (paraphrasing) 'it's something we made up to scare the cherubs.' that really heavily implies that the both of them were at LEAST a rank above cherubs

for that, i'd direct you here!!!✨

#good omens #ask #AWCW spec #angel hierarchy spec