#eldritch ball

[greenthena]

The Eldritch Ball or Aziraphale's Macabre Danse

I'm a huge sucker for dark classical music (I'm using the term "classical" broadly, not referring to the specific period. Music-y folks, please forgive.) As such, Saint-Saëns's "Danse Macabre" is one of my all time favorite pieces. It's spooky. It's intentionally dissonant. It's even got a jump scare! Like, literally, the perfect piece of music.

The story behind "Danse Macabre" goes like this: Each Halloween at midnight, Death enters the graveyard with a fiddle. As he plays, the skeletons rise from the ground and dance through the cemetery, resurrected by Death's power and possessed by his instrument.

In S2 E3, the Bentley plays "Danse Macabre" as Aziraphale drives up to Edinburgh. "What do we do? We play classical music that stays classical music." (And the Bentley listens to him! Because the Bentley is an expression of Crowley's subconscious and wants to please him and make him happy...and I'm sure you can find lots of excellent metas to that end. Or maybe you have another theory about why the Bentley is so pliant toward the angel? I'd love to hear it. But that's not what I'm talking about right now. I'm just getting distracted.)

Why is this song so perfect for a bit of subtle foreshadowing and repeated metaphor? So glad you asked. I have reasons. And evidence. Please, peruse my wares.

In the A Plot of this episode, Aziraphale travels to Scotland to visit a pub called The Resurrectionist. (Ya know, like Death? Like how Death resurrects people in the song? Okay, just wanted to really hit that nail into the coffin.) The pub is, of course, named for a certain Mr. (not Dr., he's a surgeon) Dalrymple, whom Crowley and Aziraphale meet in the accompanying flashback minisode entitled (you'll never guess) "The Resurrectionist." The minisode plot involves Crowley and his the angel encountering young Elspeth, a grave robber who, like Death, releases the bodies of the deceased from their earthly bonds of soil and stone. My interpretation is that Elspeth becomes Death incarnate, first in the process of using her instrument (her shovel) to resurrect the dead, and later when she inadvertently brings about the literal death of her partner, Wee Morag. Rather than allow Wee Morag's body to turn to dust in the ground, Elspeth "resurrects" her, selling her body to Dr. Dalrymple (sorry, Mr. Dalrymple, he's a surgeon, not a doctor), who will use Wee Morag's body for research, which will in turn save the lives of countless others by furthering the field of medicine. A form of resurrection, indeed. There's also the plot thread of Crowley and Aziraphale providing Elspeth with a nest egg to escape the cycle of poverty into which she has been born. This, too, is another form of re-birth. Or, say it with me, resurrection. Alright, you're getting it now.

Okay, now I get to delve into the fun stuff. Let's talk about that cotillion ball, shall we? You know, that danse party where Aziraphale persuades all the shopkeepers on Whickber street to attend a Jane Austen-style ball?

I personally refer to this whole fiasco experience as the Eldritch Ball. On the surface, it seems fairly innocent. The shopkeepers need a little bit of encouragement to attend the Whickber Street monthly meeting, but the angel manages to convince everyone to join with the help of some coercion-via-bribery. When they show up, they're transmuted into Austen-esque characters, from their clothes, to their speech patterns, even to some extent, their perception of reality. This is where it starts to get a little uncomfortable if you peel back the layers. Mrs. Sandwich can't talk about what she does for a living, which is a great comedy bit, but also demonstrates that her speech is being significantly censored and altered by an outside force. With the exception of Mr. Brown (hidden agendas here, Neil? I honestly don't know), all the shopkeepers find themselves in new, slightly-period-appropriate garments. What's really weird, though, is that no one notices the changes. When the dancing begins, to the music of Mr. Anderson's piano and an accompanying string quartet (strings...as in violins...as in fiddles. Remember Death's fiddle?), Nina appears to be the only one who realizes that something is off.

Maggie: This is something new.

Nina: This is something completely bonkers. Are we...? Why is everyone talking like they've escaped from Pride and Prejudice?

Maggie: Just getting into the spirit of things, I suppose.

Nina: The spirit of what things? This is meant to be the shopkeeper association monthly meeting.

Maggie: Hmm. Yes. Now that you put it like that...

Nina: Are we dancing?

Maggie: Yes.

Nina: Did you ever learn the steps to this dance?

Maggie: It's just what we do, isn't it?

Nina: No. No, it isn't. This is something mad. This is their [Crowley & Azirapahle's] fault. They're doing this.

Something is definitely mad. One might even say it's macabre. Aziraphale has become Death the Resurrectionist. He has lured the shopkeepers of Whickber Street through a portal (as Death leads his flock from the world of the dead to the world of the living.) Aziraphale's instrument is his clipboard and pen, held almost as one might hold a fiddle and bow, as he invites the various shopkeepers to the monthly meeting. Once they all arrive, he miraculously gives them new clothes (as Death knits together the bones of the dead), and then proceeds to control their bodies and minds, as though they are merely marionettes. They dance and speak in the way Aziraphale imagines, fulfilling his fantasy of a perfect Jane Austen-style ball (quite literally, the Danse Macabre.)

The shopkeepers have become the dead and Aziraphale controls them until the spell is broken--or rather until the window is broken.

To be honest, I don't think Aziraphale is really aware of how much he is able to transfigure his environment, including the humans who happen to be close by. Or, at least, I don't believe he does any of this with ill intent. He's just a bit blind to anything outside his fixation of wooing Crowley, at the moment. As a result, he creates a situation that is profoundly problematic and unnatural. Just like the dead in the graveyard have no agency when Death plays his fiddle, the Whickber Street shopkeepers are possessed by Aziraphale's intricate romantic fantasy and must dance as long as the music plays.

It is, in fact, only when the music stops, that the shopkeepers begin to realize that something is most certainly weird. The diagetic music (Mr. Anderson & Co.) abruptly cuts off when an approaching demon horde tosses a brick through the bookshop window. Now the spell, or in this case, miracle, begins to break down. While the shopkeepers still appear to be somewhat under the influence of Aziraphale's persuasive aura, a few of them glance down at their clothes in confusion and look around the bookshop, as though waking from a dream. And at this point, after a little finagling, Crowley escorts the humans out of the bookshop and out of Aziraphale's Danse Macabre.

Once the demons attack the bookshop Aziraphale's influence on his surroundings really starts to deteriorate. Throughout the season, he's been able to structure and manipulate reality (sometimes with Crowley's help) to suit his needs: protecting Gabriel, altering the Bentley, organizing the Ball, etc. But once the bookshop, his safe space, has been breached, he loses control of the situation. From this point in the narrative, nothing goes according to Aziraphale's plan. Aziraphale wants to protect Jimbriel, but the former archangel insists on giving himself over to the demons. Crowley leaves and Aziraphale has to defend the bookshop on his own, when he'd expected Crowley to come right back and save him. While defending the bookshop, Aziraphale reaches his "last" resort not once, but twice: first allowing Nina and Maggie to use his books (!!!) as weapons and then blowing up his halo in a last ditch effort to fend off the invaders. This was not on the agenda for today!

Things just continue to go downhill from there, Aziraphale losing all control of the situation. And by the time the Final Fifteen wraps up, the angel has lost his bookshop and possibly his most important relationship. By the end of the season, Aziraphale is no longer Death the Resurrectionist, the manipulator and puppeteer. Now the angel has become the puppet, dancing to Heaven's music.

#good omens #aziraphale #aziracrow #crowley #go metas #good omens meta #danse macabre #camille saint saëns #the bentley #nina and maggie #eldritch ball #elspeth #wee morag #dark music #Youtube

[kristipetersenschoonover]

The Stars Were Right! at NECRONOMICON PROVIDENCE 2022

The Stars Were Right! at NECRONOMICON PROVIDENCE 2022

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#Adam Bolivar #ARS Necronomica art show #Brandon Yakashima #Bryan Thao Worra #Catherine Grant #Christine Lejewski #Colour Out of Deathlehem benefit anthology #Creature from the Black Lagoon #Dinosaur Fossil necklaces #Eldritch Ball #Gevera Bert Piedmont #Graduate Hotel #Grinning Skull Press #Haven Bros Diner #Hibernacula #HP Lovecraft Film Festival & CthuluCon #HWA-RI #Jack Cullen #junior suites at the Graduate Hotel #K.H. Vaughan #Kevin Lewis #Kristina Hals #Lauren Elise Daniels #Lovecraftian Micro Fiction Contest #Narragansett Lovecraft Beers #NecronomiCon Providence 2022 #New England Horror Writers #Nick Gucker #Ogmios #Out of Time: True Paranormal Encounters

[beedreamscape]

To pair my last post, but in happier tones.

Part of me thinks Kiriona was so set up on turning John back to mortal, after any Harrowhark intentions that overrule everything else, not because she has lofty plans of ruling over anyone but because if he isn't immortal anymore, he's not god anymore, and if he's not god nor the emperor, he's free to be just her dad.

I want the griddlehark drama and angst and romance for the next book, but I also want to see Gideon experiencing some, at the very least, normal times with an adult figure that doesn't hate her, that feels responsible for her, that might even love her, in an environment that isn't 'headquarters of an empire at war'.

Which alternatively could also be achieved with Pyrrha once they overcome the larger-than-life wall that is Wake between them, but that'd still be different than the father figure of John who, in his best days, has a personality that matches Gideon's so well and could very well offer the tenderness she's never been shown before, tenderness he's very capable of when he's not drunk in his own revenge plots.

#anyway #has anyone guessed which is my favourite dynamic in the books??? #dynamic which i didn't get to see more than two lines of??? #yes yes #hoping for bubble scenarios of him showing her NZ landscapes and the places he grew up in #showing her his family and his people........... #that'd be so extra tho #so you see i can only picture two outcomes for them #either doom and utter betrayal or some very okay times of bbq and playing ball with her physically incompetent nerd father #goth gf. nerd father. uuhhh... paul. psycho bitch bestfriend. dad's eldritch monster chick. ex-cop stepmom??? #it's complicated #tlt #the locked tomb #atn speculation #alecto the ninth #kiriona gaia #gideon nav #john gaius

[cosbeans]

cult of the joltik behold, the little guy himself:

#submas #ingo #emmet #elesa #nimbasa trio #joltik #pokemon #cosme doobles #YEA HERES THE. YEA #love the idea that elesa is an eldritch god who just carries around emmet and ingo in her purse while she plans to break free #also the outfits from cult of the lamb bang mad balls #so. here we are #NGMSDNGMSDNFM #the games pretty fun btw i can recommend it. but only for pc #switch unfortunately still has a multitude of gamebreaking bugs

[drconstellation]

More Half-and-Half-A-Miracle Thoughts

Part 2: The Dark side of Aziraphale

Updated 10 Nov 2023

Part 1: Miracle Power Ranking is here. Part 3: The Third Archangel is here

There was one that thing that struck me about the miracle working scene: why did Gabriel offer crossed hands to the duo?

Gabriel offers his right, his good, heavenly angel-sided hand to Crowley first, and his left, his sinister-sided demon hand to Aziraphale.

And this is NOT an accident.

Its been observed that Gabriel, in his amnesiac state like this, has reverted back to a more base-state angelic being, one of joy, and love, and curiosity. He's acting on instinct here.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. The demon has more light in him than the angel, and Gabriel and can feel that instinctively. This really shouldn't be a surprise to us, its been in our face all along. Now don't get me wrong - Crowley is still a demon, and Aziraphale is still an angel, I'm not saying that they aren't. Mostly we talk about how Crowley isn't all that much of a demon at heart, just "going along with Hell as far as [he] can," but we don't really talk about much about that other side of Aziraphale other than wishing to see more of his BAMF! side.

You know what - its a side that thanks to all of the rest you ops and meta-ists out that that I've come to both fear and appreciate. And let me tell you, if I found myself in a dark alley on a bad night I would hope to God it was Crowley I bumped into , because I feel he would at least give me the choice to walk out alive. I don't think Aziraphale would, I would be at the mercy of how ever he decided he wanted to manipulate the situation...and I find that rather chilling.

Crowley might be the charred demon with a heart of gold, but Aziraphale is the two-sided bastard of an angel he loves. All bright light casts a shadow. Its easy for us to be blinded by the shining light of goodness and right and the side of God (er, hang on, isn't the GO God an eldritch horror in disguise...?) and not be able to see what is hiding behind it.

We rarely see the back of Aziraphale's waistcoat, because he is rarely seen without an overcoat on, a covering of social propriety. There is the noticeable occasion in S2E1 when Crowley comes back to do the apology dance then they perform the hiding miracle (see screenshot below, and it was still hard to chose a good angle for all it went on for several minutes!) and perhaps in S1 when he spends all night reading Agnes Nutter's book. Both times its only in the privacy of the book shop, under the cover of night. So its easy to miss that the color of the back panel is a most un-angelic color: a dark viridian green. I know I keep banging on about this, but its important, and in more ways than one.

[Edit: Since I first wrote this, I've written a mega-meta on all the colours in GO, and some of the following interpretation has changed a little - but the significance of the green still stands!]

All the angels wear some form of a pale colored neutral palette, ranging from white to beige to taupe (white, off-white shades and shades of brown,) with dove-grey for the known in-show seraphim, Gabriel, Michael, Uriel and Saraqael. Gold and blue are also associated with Heaven. But Aziraphale is the only angel to wear green and shades of blue-green. He's quite unique in that department.

The colors of Hell are completely different. Black, lots of black. And red, different shades of red. The demons are actually quite a colourful lot, but do tend towards the darker shades. Red is a colour of passion, not just a demonic colour, although it can be associated with the demonic sinister left hand side. The main colour of Hell is actually green - the thick green light that you almost of have to swim through in the crowded halls of Hell, and examples like the green stag on Furfur's sash. It represents chaos, in competition to the rigid lawful nature of Heaven.

So while Aziraphale mostly presents a socially acceptable angelic front, its telling only Crowley has properly glimpsed that dark, shady, bit-of-a-bastard unpredictable side to him - and likes it. (More from Cobragardens about it here in 1793 Paris and 1601 at the Globe.) I mean, come on - this is a being that sent a man to his death so he could go on lunch date? A lunch date he practically concocted just so he could see Crowley. wtf? A being of love who was about to shoot the Antichrist to stop Armageddon? A being who quietly and efficiently discouraged the mafia who threatened to set the book shop on fire from ever returning? (See, told you I didn't want to meet him a dark alley...) Plus we saw him mind-control a whole roomful of people for his Jane Austen-themed ball, just to woo his beloved demon, with no thought of the possible collateral damage. I'm sorry, is this the same "guardian angel" we were all glowing over earlier?

The coat lapel as wings theory adds some weight to this hidden dark side of Aziraphale as well. Aziraphale's lapels always point downwards, towards Hell. Particularly when he has been discorporated and returned to Heaven, where frustrated about being told he has to gear up for war, he instead wonders out loud if he can return to Earth to a possess a body, reasoning that if demons can, he must be able to as well. lmoa! You are so not an angel, my dear! Yet...he isn't a demon either. He's almost...a bit of both. Two sides to a coin. A blend of light and dark. Shades of grey...although he doesn't like to admit it.

Image by lomiel

Back to the shadow-like green panel on the back of the waistcoat.

Actually, on second thoughts, I'm going to put that in Part 3.

#good omens #good omens 2 #good omens meta #aziraphale #crowley #gabriel #the colors of Heaven and Hell #lunch date in Paris #the eldritch ball #God is an eldritch horror #coat lapel theory

[ryozeki]

I can't believe both of this is the same person

I should do more Eldritch hakutaku Keine

#touhou #touhou project #keine kamishirasawa #touhou fanart #東方project #keine is a hot fluff ball #yes I'll take that eldritch fluff ball pls

[itsbrucey]

Also I forgot to say this but I was thinking about Scamster as a ship and how it's so much going on at once but it made me realize that like,,,, Jodie was "with" the other dads as a Glenn replacement in the altered timeline/within his memories. He would've seen and experienced everything up to the Trial.

So that means he encountered and killed the Library with them ( all the hand bullshit included). He canonically knows who Dennis is, so therefore knows about Mark Likely. And he would've been with the dads when Scam Likely punked them when Glenn stole the van, when Scam Likely stole the gems + made them play truth or dare, and when Scam Likely DIED AND GOT REBORN AS WELL ACTUALLY.

AND HE STILLED FUCKED THAT ENTITY!!!!!!

Through it all he still looked over at Scam like " would" like GET YOUR HEAD IN THE GAME FOSTER WE'RE LOSING MONEY!!!!!! DAMN!!!!!!!!!

#no but thats perfect. hes so right for that #“ Henry is a monsterfucker” No. Jodie wanted to be balls deep in that trick demon and he probably LIKED THE TORMENT. YOU PERVERT!!!! #scamster #Jodie watching Darryl get his hand sawed off by a eldritch library creature: “ whens my turn” #Guys i think Jodie is more mentally ill than we previously thought #jodie foster dndads #scam likely dndads

[cits-kirby-brainrot]

I love your design of void termina and giving them more of a bird design with their mask. Do you think you do draw them more often?

Void Termina you ask, Void Termina you get.

#kirby series #void termina #cw body horror #my stuff #man I love my Eldritch horror bosses in my game for kids :) #void is very hard to draw when not a ball #answered asks

[alarminglybad]

THAT ROCK WAS INDEED COOL, MORTAL

#galbor #galbor month #babysitter #babysitting #comic #webcomic #alarmingly bad #funny #comics #comic strip #digital comics #drawing #eldritch eye #beach ball #princess beach ball #pretty pretty princess

[korcariiwitch]

Sooooo I was using fantasy name generator, as one does, just to look for inspiration for the name of my warlock's patron since I wasn't feeling any of the canon 5e options for the Great Old One. I went to the mindflayer name one, to see if there was one that sounded just 'eldritch entity' enough in my head.

Tell me why the second option was KEN 😂😂😂

I can't stop laughing, fantasy name generator really said:

Ken, the warlock patron of beach ✨

#d&d #warlocks #the great old one #bg3 oc #j speaks. #also keep misreading the first one as 'slut' #now i'm imagining what a warlock patroned to ken's spells would look like #instead of eldritch blast #it's eldritch beach ball or something #fucking life jacket of madness #POCKET SAND

[constantron]

Lovecraftian universe gets the best Macguffins. Not a clock, not an astrolabe (though I should have looked at more astrolabes as reference probably ) - it’s the Eldritch Plotpoint from @croik ‘s R18 CYOA malevolent fic.

#I really want to draw some things from this fic #it’s so fucking good #I’ve been reading it out loud for my partner and doing all the voices and it’s so much fun #some day I’ll get better at drawing metallic things but this one doesn’t matter because it’s old as balls #eldritch artefact #clock #my art #Croik I have died #malevolent #mbb2023 #id in alt

[greenthena]

It's always Elizabeth Bennet this. Mr. Darcy that. For my money, Crowley and Aziraphale are a couple of Emma Woodhouses.

#good omens #aziracrow #emma woodhouse #jane austen #eldritch ball

[kristipetersenschoonover]

NECRONOMICON PROVIDENCE IS COMING: I’ve got a reading! An art show, panels, parties and a ball!

NECRONOMICON PROVIDENCE IS COMING: I’ve got a reading! An art show, panels, parties and a ball!

Even as I juggle fifty million projects (an anthology, the 10th anniversary of Bad Apple, 34 Orchard, HWA-CT business, a short story deadline and critiques I owe people)…I’m getting ready for NECRONOMICON PROVIDENCE, in Rhode Island August 18—21, 2022! The main website for the event is here: http://necronomicon-providence.com/welcome/ I made my own schedule book so I can choose all the things I…

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#ARS Necronomica art show #AS220 #Catherine Grant #Christine Lejweski #costume balls #Eldritch Ball #H.P. Lovecraft in Providence #Kevin Lewis #Narragansett Beers #NecronomiCon Providence #New England Horror Writers #panels on cosmic horror #The Red Door

[pcharming7]

It bothers me when I see someone online be like “why isn’t X more popular? It’s a crime that it’s not more mainstream!” And X is like, Berserk or something.

Look, Berserk is one of my favorite pieces of media, but y’all need to stop pretending like you don’t know why it doesn’t have as big of an appeal as, say, Dragon Ball.

#berserk #manga #anime #dragon ball #it’s because Goku doesn’t kill multiple children #or experience graphic Eldritch horrors on the daily

[irisbaggins]

The novelisation of the Phantom Menace has made me so incredibly sad, where little Anakin sees an injured Tusken and decides to disobey Watto to sit by the Raider until he wakes up. Anakin has such a deep, loving heart that he was willing to suffer the consequences of disobedience to make sure a Tusken Raider would be safe, a being he was taught all his life were brutal and cruel. And in this chapter, Anakin admits that the only thing that truly scares him, is of losing his mother. That juxtaposition, that note of I will care for this creature to I fear losing my mother, put so much more weight onto AOTC, and of Anakin's rage. He broke, and he lost himself to his rage. When faced with what he did, he rages against the world and his actions, before breaking down into further sobs at the loss of his mother and the actions he made. His worst fear was realised, and he became the monster that everyone claimed the Tuskens to be.

It'll be interesting to read the AOTC novelisation, to see if this scene is ever called back to. I just find it interesting, and further showcases the depths of Anakin's feelings and compassion, as well as the pitfalls that such strong emotions come with. For if you feel compassion and love as deeply as Anakin does, so will you feel the destructive nature of all of your rage. And that, that is Anakin's biggest weakness; he feels too strongly to ever truly control it.

#text_iris #I just love Anakin so much and this novel just makes me scream at how good it is #Anakin Skywalker #Star Wars #The Phantom Menace #Star Wars Meta #Like...I relate to the Feeling Too Strongly 'cos ADHD which has made my rage an overwhelming thing #The amounts of time I've lost myself to my rage are numerous and I understand too well how that can happen #Like. That rage where you just lose all sense of self? Yeah. As a kid I was...a ball of rage #Mellowed out with the years of course but still. It happened. It was real. And Anakin Skywalker as a character made me realise things #Like when I was younger I realised the reason why my rage was like that was due to the fact I felt so strongly #Any emotion I had would just consume me. ANY emotion. And I realised that by looking at Anakin meta #So...yeah. Anyway this novel is killing me with emotions already and I'm only on the seventh chapter #Anyway Anakin never relished his violence against the Tuskens instead he tried to work through what happened #What he did why he did it and HOW because?? He didn't want to he was a Jedi but he also wanted to HURT them for taking his mom #It's COMPLICATED and that's sooo good because it's REALISTIC and PAINFUL #Anakin let his rage consume him! Which is bad! But also human! It's complicated!! He regrets his actions but also not but also he does!! #Aaa so many emotions about this one eldritch lightning rod of a being

[drconstellation]

Gabriel as a Shoulder Angel: S2 Study

Part 2: Ep.3 I Know Where I'm Going and Ep.5 The Ball

So far in this series we've covered S1 and the Job minisode in S2E2, where the classic Supreme Archangel Gabriel stands on the left-hand side of the archangels as their collective shoulder-demon. As he arrived at the bookshop at the beginning of S2 we see that we are getting a parallel to the opening of S1, with Gabriel becoming a mirror and a foil to Crowley.

Episode 3: I Know Where I'm Going

We open with a content and safe ex-archangel clad in archangel tartan (with Aziraphale's teal underneath,) observing the world below as it wakes up.

Once he's dressed and downstairs at work, we get a centralized look at his hands holding a significant book. It's from the movie "A Matter of Life or Death," but you see it in the opening credit under it's US title release "Stairway to Heaven." The best meta I've seen describing the movie is here by @simonezitrone79

Crowley is looking after Jim in the bookshop while Aziraphale has gone to Edinburgh at this point. He stays on the demonic left, and Jim on the angelic right while they have a discussion about gravity, and things staying where you put them - or not. The book and it's movie connection is relevant to this discussion. It alludes to returning an item to its rightful place. But how do you decide where that rightful place should be? Is it natural for angels to go upwards, and demons downwards? Do only flies have the ability to defy the laws of the universe set unchallenged since the beginning of time? They all have wings...

Jim is still a puzzled and doubtful angel as Crowley describes his "Operation Lovebirds" plan. It sounds like there is some demonic mischief afoot!

After the failure of the rainstorm to get Maggie and Nina together, Crowley turns to find Jim sitting in a chair - back on the left.

Crowley's comment about a tempest triggers another possession of Jim, and an ominous prophetic warning of storms to come.

Just as Jim snaps out of this, Crowley must rush outside to confront Shax. He decides he won't play her games, and retreats back inside the bookshop, where Shax can't follow. He suggests she might spot an archangel, and the camera focus slides from Crowley on the left to Jim on his angelic right, suggesting to us they are one and the same.

But once Shax is gone, the real demon emerges to the suggested trouble-making demon, and threatens Jim with something awful if anything happens to Aziraphale.

We don't see Jim during Episode 4, so on to the next one!

Episode 5: The Ball

At Aziraphale's suggestion, Crowley comes to talk to Gabriel, and finds him playing with a lamp light switch upstairs in the bookshop.

Crowley enters the room blocked on the angelic right side at the start of the conversation, while Jim is demonized on the left.

Crowley has often doubted that Gabriel has really lost him memory, and is just pretending to be vague and naive, so confronts him with his crimes against Aziraphale in Crowley's eyes. Jim is on the left-side while this occurs.

But as he watches Jim begin to climb out the window, Crowley becomes the demon again. This is partly due the Temptation that is occurring here - the Second Temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, leading up to his entry into Jerusalem, as Gabriel and Crowley also share the roles of Jesus in the underlying story line of the The Passion that is playing out throughout S2.

Crowley stops him from falling, again, and Jim returns to the angel-side for the moment, while Crowley questions him further.

"Where is your memory, then?" he asks? "Everywhere."

Crowley eventually gives up, but seems to understand somewhat, and offers Jim a hot chocolate. Jim is now back in the center of the camera, in a neutral position.

Its worth speaking a bit more about the hot chocolate at this point, as Jim is the only one who really drinks it during S2. And both Aziraphale and Crowley offering it is significant, especially in light of the coffee shop name. I've talked about it a couple of times, and when I look back on what I've said it is usually tinged with what ever was the topic being discussed at the time. But the guts of what I said remain the same. Crowley is essentially making an apology here to Jim for what he just did, but on another level the hot chocolate represents a choice that the others in S2 don't get.

Most of us get the two options, coffee, or death. But Jim has been given a third option, and he has grabbed it enthusiastically with both hands. Aziraphale has handed it to him in spades, even! That much will take a long time to get through, wouldn't it. It's a big generous gift, that Aziraphale understands well. Gabriel came to Aziraphale because he instinctively knew Aziraphale understood what he needed. Mr 'six-shots-of-espresso' loves his freedom, or liberty, and his life here on Earth. The humans who line up for their dose of Heaven every day do, too. Death is the option-that-is-not-an-option. It's duty [and obligation.] It's the tax we all have to pay for living. So the Metatron turns up and offers Aziraphale a coffee to one who doesn't drink coffee. Essentially the Metatrash offers a choice that isn't a choice. Aziraphale's only choice is to do his duty at this point, or else...well, we aren't shown it, but it seems the 'else' was too terrible to contemplate. (Or, as some people alternatively see it, the Metatron kept pushing until he was offered a carrot he couldn't refuse.) But Jim, he's been given the option that Aziraphale and Crowley really want, but can't quite have at this point. Freedom to love as they want, and openly in front of all Heaven, Hell and Humanity. They understand. They don't judge Jimbriel for this, they actually encourage it - they both make it happen right under [Heaven and Hell's] noses in the end! The irony of it! They give their arch-enemy the gift that they dream of. ...the sweet hot chocolate is Gabriel's special option, facilitated by Aziraphale and Crowley. He doesn't have to drink what the plebs drink, the bitter devotional duty to Heaven [or Hell.]

Not long after, the Eldritch Ball starts, and we see Jim in his Gabriel-blue Liberace suit. In religious iconography Gabriel is associated with the right-hand side of Jesus, and when he's positioned there he wears blue. So it was only appropriate that Aziraphale dress him in that colour (plus it reflects the divine status of Heaven that he knows Gabriel to originate from.) Jim starts on the left-side...

but soon finds himself center-stage again! Oh, dear, what an attention seeker. You're supposed to be in hiding, you silly angel!

Look at the joy on his face! He's all right-hand side angel there.

Then Shax and her Legion of the Damned break up the party. He offers to go outside and give himself up to save everyone. Wow - doesn't he do it in style, taking center stage yet again.

This is actually a deliberate pose, made to reference Jesus as he preaches to the masses, even though it looks like he's saying "here I am, come get me." Arms outstretched, his two lower fingers are also curled in on each side, much like Jesus is often pictured as well.

Hey, Shax, it's me you want! Jim, short for James, but also Gabriel.

Oh, you don't know the mistake you are making, Shax...

So he returns inside, still taking center stage - in between Aziraphale on the demonic left, and Crowley on the angelic right, to report what happened outside.

Gabriel exits, angelic stage right, defeated, while Crowley confronts Shax.

The last we see of Jim in Ep.5 is in the background, over Aziraphale's left shoulder, so he's returned back to being a sinister-sided angel again, in his assistant book seller garb.

But the night isn't finished yet, there is still much more to come!

This meta is part of a series on Gabriel

Gabriel as a Shoulder Angel: S1 Study

S2 Study Part 1: Ep.1 The Arrival and Ep. 2 The Clue

S2 Study Part 3: Ep.6 Every Day

First Order Archangels Part 1: Maybe You'll See An Archangel

First Order Archangels Part 2: Foils of War

#good omens #good omens 2 #good omens meta #gabriel #crowley #aziraphale #shax #shoulder angel #the eldritch ball