thinkin bout that ask neil got. “why can’t aziraphale make the paint stain go away?”
“i would know it was there”
on the surface, it doesn’t make sense that it would be any better for crowley to make it go away. aziraphale can’t change the fact that he knows the paint stain was there whether he’s the one who disappears it or not.
you could suggest there’s some magic thing going on. like crowley is ‘better’ at cleaning. there’s no real indication that this is the case; while crowley tends to be tidier by nature, aziraphale acknowledges that he could make it go away, but he would always know it was there.
so the problem is that it was there in the first place.
brian had a really interesting suggestion, which was that maybe aziraphale feels like crowley got them into that situation, so he feels like crowley should be the one to take care of the consequence (the stain). i suspect that aziraphale probably does feel that way - just a little earlier in the episode, he’d been placing the blame for losing the antichrist squarely on crowley, which is why they’re here, in this mess. and although i’m sympathetic to all the things crowley was going through that led him to dump the antichrist with the nuns and leave ASAP, i can also understand why aziraphale would feel like it was no fault of his, because hell didn’t give him the baby, he didn’t even know it was coming, and he had no practical way of finding out they were following the wrong boy.
i know people are internally screaming “no livi, it’s obviously just because aziraphale wants crowley to do nice things for him!” i know you’re screaming that because it’s the same thing i scream internally every time someone tries to find a practical reason for why the stain can’t just be miracled away or why aziraphale can’t just remove his own chains. but look, what i’m saying is exactly the same thing, just with more history and rationalizing behind it. aziraphale cares about his relationship with crowley, and wants to be reassured that crowley still cares about him, too, so it’s more meaningful for crowley to “undo” the situation that he, according to aziraphale, got them into. it’s…it’s like an apology of sorts. and i think crowley knows this, which is why he shoots aziraphale that distinctive affectionately-exasperated look.
i mean, in a real life situation, if your partner spills something of yours by accident - let’s say they tripped and bumped into a table with a glass on it - you probably wouldn’t hold a grudge against them for that. mistakes happen. but you’d probably feel much better if they said “oops, sorry, i’ll help you clean up” than if they said “oops, you take care of it.”
so what “i would know it was there” really means is “i’m hurt that this happened at all.” and by removing it, crowley is essentially saying “i’ll make it as OK as i can.”
I have this headcanon that Crowley is indeed “better” at miracling stains away/repairing damage because he’s a Starmaker, and as such he miracles not just matter/space, but also time, and even when it isn’t primarily a time miracle, like his time stops, mucking around with time along with matter will come naturally to Crowley (because they’re one to him, they’re space-time), so the Crowley in my head repairs things by undoing, rewinding the damage, and thus, in a manner of speaking, the stain wouldn’t have been there. Kinda like, the matter the coat is made of “forgetting” about it?
But, not reblogging to disagree at all, just to add further thought, and another one of those is… Like, it’s about the favour, isn’t it? It’s about Crowley doing a nice thing for Aziraphale, and I think that goes without any further requirements to make it meaningful. It doesn’t even have to be sorta Crowley’s fault the stain got there, or Crowley doesn’t have to be better at miracling away stains, no, I mean… Aziraphale is saying he’d always know the stain was there, that he’ll always keep the bad memory anyway. But with Crowley miracling it away, the memory is no longer a bad one. No, the bad memory gets, like, overwritten with a much better one, one of Crowley doing Aziraphale a favour, entirely for the purpose of making him happy. This is a very nice memory to keep, so even if Aziraphale won’t ever forget about the stain, now it’s a positive memory, and he’ll remember it as long as he keeps the coat (and probably well beyond that). Does that make sense?
My take on it is this: Aziraphale has a pattern of regarding miracles as “cheating.” He doesn’t want to do “real” magic, because it’s more of a challenge to do it the human way. He doesn’t want to miraculously know French, he wants to learn French like a human does. He goes to a barber to keep that same haircut he’s had for millennia instead of miraculously styling it himself. He doesn’t want to make his clothes out of the ether the way Crowley does, he wants to buy them and meticulously care for them by hand, the human way.
But if Crowley does the thing for him, he doesn’t feel like he’s cheated. He doesn’t have to feel guilty about using a frivolous miracle/doing something he isn’t supposed to, either. A more extreme example of this kind of rationalization is when he suggests that Crowley should kill the Antichrist so that Heaven (and more specifically Aziraphale, acting as Heaven’s proxy) isn’t culpable.
At the same time, yes, I think it’s because he loves Crowley and likes the idea of Crowley doing kind things for him. But I think it’s also an example of Aziraphale’s just-a-bit-of-a-bastardness coming out, and an example of how he rationalizes things to himself. Let Crowley do the thing, he’s a demon and he doesn’t have to be held to the same moral standards as an angel!
(NB: I adore Aziraphale and I’m not saying this to bash him at all. My read on him is that he is a good person at heart and desperately wants to do the right thing, but he’s also very complicated, and that’s a big part of why I love him so much.)
Something that’s been very interesting to me, in this new wave of post-miniseries Good Omens fandom, is the apparent fannish consensus that Crowley is, in fact, bad at his job. That he’s actually quite nice. That he’s been skating by hiding his general goodness from hell by taking credit for human evil and doling out a smattering of tiny benign inconveniences that he calls bad.
I get the urge towards that headcanon, and I do think the Crowley in the miniseries comes off as nicer than the one in the book. (I think miniseries Crowley and Aziraphale are both a little nicer, a little more toothless, than the versions of themselves in the book.) But maybe it’s because I was a book fan first, or maybe it’s because I just find him infinitely more interesting this way–I think Crowley, even show!Crowley, has the capacity to be very good at his job of sowing evil. And I think that matters to the story as a whole.
A demon’s job on Earth, and specifically Crowley’s job on Earth, isn’t to make people suffer. It’s to make people sin. And the handful of ‘evil’ things we see Crowley do over the course of the series are effective at that, even if the show itself doesn’t explore them a lot.
Take the cell phone network thing, for instance. This gets a paragraph in the book that’s largely brushed off in the conversation with Hastur and Ligur, and I think it’s really telling:
What could he tell them? That twenty thousand people got bloody furious? That you could hear the arteries clanging shut all across the city? And that then they went back and took it out on their secretaries or traffic wardens or whatever, and they took it out on other people? In all kinds of vindictive little ways which, and here was the good bit, they thought up themselves. For the rest of the day. The pass-along effects were incalculable. Thousands and thousands of souls all got a faint patina of tarnish, and you hardly had to lift a finger.
In essence, without any great expenditure of effort (look, I’d never say Crowley isn’t slothful, but that just makes him efficient), he’s managed to put half of London in a mental and emotional state that Crowley knows will make them more inclined to sin. He’s given twenty thousand or a hundred thousand or half a million people a Bad Day. Which, okay, it’s just a bad day–but bad days are exhausting. Bad days make you snap, make you fail at things, make you feel guiltier and more stressed out in the aftermath when you wake up the next day, makes everything a little worse. Bad days matter.
Maybe it’s because I’m a believer in the ripple effect of small kindnesses, and that means I have to believe in its opposite. Maybe it’s just that I, personally, have had enough days that were bad enough that a downed cell network (or an angry coworker because of a downed cell network) would honestly have mattered. But somebody who deliberately moves through the world doing their best to make everyone’s lives harder, with the aim of encouraging everybody around them to be just a little crueler, just a little angrier, just a little less empathetic–you know what, yes. I do call that successful evil.
It’s subtle, is the thing. That’s why Hastur and Ligur don’t get it, don’t approve of it. Not because Crowley isn’t good at his job, but because we’ve seen from the beginning that Hastur and Ligur are extremely out of touch with humanity and the modern world and just plain aren’t smart enough to get it. It’s a strategy that relies on understanding how humans work, what our buttons are and how to press them. It’s also a strategy that’s remarkably advanced in terms of free will. Hastur and Ligur deliberately tempt and coerce and entrap individuals into sinning, but Crowley never even gets close. We never see him say to a single person, ‘hey, I’ve got an idea for you, why don’t you go do this bad thing?’ He sets up conditions to encourage humans to actually do the bad things they’re already thinking of themselves. He creates a situation and opens it up to the results of free choice. Every single thing a person does after Crowley’s messed with them is their own decision, without any demonic coercion to blame for any of it.
You see it again in the paintball match. “They wanted real guns, I gave them what they wanted.” In this case, Crowley didn’t need to irritate anybody into wanting to do evil–the desire to shoot and hurt and maybe even kill their own coworkers was already present in every combatant on that paintball field. Crowley just so happened to be there at exactly the right time to give them the opportunity to turn that fleeting, kind-of-bad-but-never-acted-upon desire into real, concrete, attempted murder. Sure, nobody died–where would be the fun in a pile of corpses? But now forty-odd people who may never have committed a real act of violence in their entire lives, caught in a moment of weakness with real live weapons in their hands, will get to spend the rest of their lives knowing that given the opportunity and the tiniest smidgen of plausible deniability, they are absolutely the sort of people who could and would kill another human being they see every single day over a string of petty annoyances.
Crowley understands the path between bad thought andevil action. He knows it gets shorter when somebody is upset or irritated, and that it gets shorter when people practice turning one into the other. He understands that sometimes, removing a couple of practical obstacles is the only nudge a person needs–no demonic pressure or circumvention of free will required.
I love this interpretation, because I love the idea that Crowley, who’s been living on Earth for six thousand years, actually gets people in a way no other demon can. I love the idea that Crowley, the very first tempter, who was there when free will was invented, understands how it works and how to use it better than maybe anyone else. And I really love the idea that Crowley our hero, who loves Aziraphale and saves the world, isn’t necessarily a good guy.
There’s a narrative fandom’s been telling that, at its core, is centered around the idea that Crowley is good, and loves and cares and is nice, and always has been. Heaven and its rigid ideas of Right and Wrong is itself the bad thing. Crowley is too good for Heaven, and was punished for it, but under all the angst and pain and feelings of hurt and betrayal, he’s the best of all of them after all.
That’s a compelling story. There’s a reason we keep telling it. The conflict between kindness and Moral Authority, the idea that maybe the people in charge are the ones who’re wrong and the people they’ve rejected are both victim and hero all at once–yeah. There’s a lot there to connect with, and I wouldn’t want to take it away from anyone. But the compelling story I want, for me, is different.
I look at Crowley and I want a story about someone who absolutely has the capacity for cruelty and disseminating evil into the world. Somebody who’s actually really skilled at it, even if all he does is create opportunities, and humans themselves just keep living down to and even surpassing his expectations. Somebody who enjoys it, even. Maybe he was unfairly labeled and tossed out of heaven to begin with, but he’s embraced what he was given. He’s thrived. He is, legitimately, a bad person.
And he tries to save the world anyway.
He loves Aziraphale. He helps save the entire world. Scared and desperate and determined and devoted, he drives through a wall of fire for the sake of something other than himself. He likes humans, their cleverness, their complexities, the talent they have for doing the same sort of evil he does himself, the talent they have for doing the exact opposite. He cares.
It’s not a story about someone who was always secretly good even though they tried to convince the whole world and themself that they weren’t. It’s a story about someone who, despite being legitimately bad in so many ways, still has the capacity to be good anyway. It’s not about redemption, or about what Heaven thinks or judges or wants. It’s about free will. However terrible you are or were or have the ability to be, you can still choose to do a good thing. You can still love. You can still be loved in return.
And I think that matters.
It’s also worth noting that when Crowley gives people means and opportunities to make a bad choice, that doesn’t take away from them the ability to make a good choiceinstead.
If people were only offered one possibility to act, it would make their sin less meaningful, it would make Crowley’s work less meaningful. But for those who actually decide to not go and yell at their secretary because the phone network being down has been rougn on their nerves, it’s also an effort that becomes meaningful in the right way.
So, yeah, I really agree on all of this, especially the part about free will. That’s what is essential in both Crowley and Aziraphale’s characterizations, and it’s at the very core of the story.
You know what? This makes me want to see a story where Aziraphale and Crowley are actually incredibly good at their jobs. They’ve been on Earth all this time and they really are the most effective field agents Heaven and Hell have - never mind if that effectiveness is cancelled out by the arrangement.
When Crowley and Aziraphale go rogue, someone has to fill in for them. After all, there’s still a job to be done, even if no one anticipated having to do it. However, whoever the new agents are - whether they’re a new principality and a new demon of equivalent rank or a small team of Angels and arch-angels against a little squad of imps - have nowhere near the level of “success” that the previous two did. They don’t understand Earth, humans, or free will, and they’re about four thousand years away from being at the same place the Ineffable Husbands were when they made the arrangement.
I want to see Heaven and Hell, who laughed and sneered at their earthly agents, come to realize just how valuable they were. I want the sweet satisfaction of the two sides missing Crowley and Aziraphale as a jealous ex misses you after you’ve long since moved on.
Aha yes, the reaction of Heaven and Hell alone would be priceless !
I agree with the OP 110%. Crowley is notbad at his job, he’s fucking brilliant at it. But he doesn’t do this 1-on-1 crap like in the old days. He’s become a Logistical Nightmare of Efficency in the most nightmarish of hellish sense. He sows discontent and malaise through thousandsof souls at a time, not just a handful who happen to be near by.
If anything, if you really didn’t want to classify Crowley as “evil”, he’s a Trickster God. He’d hang out with Loki and Papa Legba.
He just sets up the pieces and lets Humainty choose how they want them to tumble. He gives you the choice to do right, but is right there to point out how much worse/fun being bad will be. All for the the low, low price of your soul. And yes, maybe he sort of pads his success by picking people already leaning into their darker inclinations (again, see the Paint Ball into Live Ammunition), but it’s also why he always seems so disapointed when they come up with things before he can even suggest them (see the “animals” in the Bastille, see the “stupid Nazi spies” in WWII). An argument could be made he’s disapointed they got there before he could. But it’s cool, because he’ll take the credit anyway.
Heaven and Hell are absolutely going to notice both Crowley and Aziraphale’s absenses, eventually, though maybe in a human generation or two. Not right away, they’re slow to catch up. And that’s what’ll make Our Side victorious.
It makes me a bit nuts when either A or C are considered incompetent. If they actually sucked at their jobs, either one would have been replaced ages ago, because in addition to taking credit for human things, someone is doing the blessings and temptations each side asks for.
But Crowley is that bit better because he takes initiative. He invents ways to get people to sin. And he’s willing to put in hard work if necessary, as when he went out at night to move markers for the M25.
Not only are they very good at their jobs, they’re very good at each other’s job! That’s the whole point of the Arrangement, that both are capable of pulling off blessings and temptations.
You know at some point Crowley was out there giving Aziraphale lessons in How to Tempt Humans, mostly for his own amusement, and probably waaaay before the Arrangement crossed his mind, because he’d never suggest it if he didn’t already believe Aziraphale capable of matching his skills. And Crowley must have done enough good miracles on his own for Aziraphale to be confident he could pretend to be an angel without giving in to his chaotic/trolling tendencies or else he’d never have agreed to it.
woke: the nazis recognized crowley because he was working for british counterintelligence
also woke: crowley didn’t actually know exactly when and where aziraphale’s book deal was going down, he just had a vague idea, so he’d been busting into churches at random for about the past month and a half, hopping around on his burning feet, and each time he did it he Loudly announced his entrance like “here comes anthony j. crowley to save the day!” because he had a whole plan, he was gonna be so suave, but it was never aziraphale, and he ended up interrupting several other clandestine nazi meetings so that word got around in nazi circles of anthony j. crowley, the weird hopping church guy, and then when he finally did happen upon aziraphale’s deal, he was just so incredibly happy to see his angel that he completely forgot his smooth introduction, but the nazis recognized him as the weird hopping church guy so they did it for him.
Also he absolutely thinks “here comes Anthony J Crowley to save the day” is a smooth introduction.
Also Aziraphale would also think it was a smooth introduction so it works.
(and just to be REALLY CLEAR, I love them both. But the differences are fascinating, since it’s the same author adapting his work after almost 30 years. And how often do you get to see *that*?)
Crowley
Okay. So Book!Crowley is healthy.Just, absurdly well-adjusted. This is a man (demon) just happywith who he is and where he is in life. Sure Hell is annoying, but they mostly leave him alone, and he’s supposed to do paperwork, but… doesn’t. (They never check on the other end, it’s fine.) Aziraphale might be a little hung up on Heaven & similar, but he’s coming to his senses. Slowly. It might be another couple thousand years. But Crowley can wait.
But Show!Crowley is *trying* so very hard. To be cool, successful, appreciated. Book!Crowley gets an award for the M25 motorway, Show!Crowley gets blank stares and stupid questions. This is someone who wants recognition, who wants love, and isn’t getting it. He’s erratic and fragile, kind of chip-on-his-shoulder, and part of this is David Tennant himself (who has never *once* played a character I would describe as “emotionally stable.”) But part of it is the way Show!Crowley is written.
I’m thinking of the paintball scene where Aziraphale calls Crowley “nice.” Book!Crowley rolls his eyes and says, “All right, all right.Tell the whole blessed world, why don’t you?” (”Yes, angel, I know, but I’m on the clock right now and my boss is not happy.”) Show!Crowley, well. Memorably slams Aziraphale into a wall with, “SHUT IT. I’m a DEMON. I’m not NICE. I’m never NICE. NICE is a four-letter word.” @everentropy has a very nice meta about Crowley’s issues with the word nice, but no matter how you slice it, this says (loud and clear) that Show!Crowley is notcomfortable with his softer side. Not even a little bit. He is “Cool Demon Crowley” because at least that’s safe.
The terrified houseplant joke also gets a different varnish in the show. In the book, it’s as if Crowley skimmed a magazine, read an article about talking to plants, read anotherarticle about the benefits of screaming into pillows, and then sort of combined them? This comes right after the joke about Crowley’s speakers (which his expensive sound system doesn’t have, because he wasn’t aware it *needed* speakers). This makes “threatening the houseplants” feel more like an “angels and demons trying to understand humanity, but subtly missing the point” sort of joke.
But on the show it’s more sinister. In Crowley’s big moments of pain and anguish, he is surrounded by those plants. With the show-specific “de-motivational” posters lining Hell, I think it’s fair to day that Crowley treats his plants this way because that’s just how he thinks motivationworks.That’s how it works inHell.
Show!Crowley is real danger of saying “Screw it. These jokers (Hell) (Aziraphale) don’t APPRECIATE what I do. What is the point of any of this. I’m OUT.” And then, actually leaving.
Aziraphale
Book!Aziraphale is a little mysterious. We don’t spend *that much* time inside his head, and the time we doget mostly revolves around his books. But we do learn that his taste in books is kind of… subversive. Here’s an angel who likes to collect books of prophecy (accurate and inaccurate) and bibles with printing errors. Aziraphale says he’s loyal to the Great Plan and the Word of God and all that, then turns around and attributes the entire book of Revelations to bad mushrooms. And when he’s drunk, he turns into a clever little rules lawyer. Nope, Book!Aziraphale has absolutely been Doubting Heaven, sneakily, for a long time. And he lays on the angelic Sweetness and Light a little thick for Crowley’s benefit.
Book!Az is tough, and a little ruthless. He’ll do things like glare at customers, and scare mobsters away from his shop. Killing the Antichrist is his plan, not Crowley’s. But Show!Az is just pure sweetness, and pure light. There’s no part of him that isn’tthe sugary lemon meringue frosting you get on the surface. And the show makes it veryclear that that is strength. You don’t have to be tough to be strong.
And that’s the difference. The 1990 novel was about questioning authority, questioning structures, questioning whatever role society hands you. The Antichrist just… refuses to be the Antichrist, and that saves the day. Crowley is our model: neither angel nor demon, critical of both, happy in his own world. Az is the one who needs to finish shaking off his programming. And when I was a teenager, that was exactly what I needed to hear.
But now… Adam says that Satan cannot punish him, because Satan did not love him first. This series is about the terrible risks of loving, and the strength that comes from being honest, being vulnerable (”I’m just a kid” “That’s not a bad thing to be.”) The importance of letting yourself be known.Show!Az and Show!Crowley switch bodies at the end. How much more *known* can you get?
But, it’s hard. It’s so hard for both of them. It’s hard for Crowley to take down all his defenses, and publicly acknowledge that he would rather die than never talk to Aziraphale again. And it’s hard for Aziraphale to stay sweet and pure and emotionally honest, and in love, because it can hurt so much. But they do it. It’s worth it. And that’s the message I needed now, Mr. Gaiman. Thank you.
Okay, but, do you know what we’re not talking about enough? The body swap scene.
So, in my opinion, the mark of a good plot twist is that you shouldn’t see it coming the first time around, but the second time through, you should wonder how you possibly missed it. The body swap scene is that 100%.
David Tennant plays Aziraphale-as-Crowley almost identically to how he plays Crowley. The exceptions are marvelous to watch – seeing the Bentley is my favorite, when Aziraphale-as-Crowley smiles more broadly and easily than Crowley ever lets himself until the end dinner at the Ritz be still my heart.
But in Hell? No discernible difference. The swagger is there. The casual seeming disregard for the danger he’s in. Seriously, the energy of his entrance when he’s brought into the courtroom is identical to his “Hi, guys” in the graveyard at the beginning.
I love this. Because it’s how Aziraphale would play it. Hell doesn’t frighten Aziraphale the way Heaven does. Demons are, in his book, straightforward. He just has to out-intimidate them, and Crowley already does that. So be Crowley, and that’ll do the deed. And he knows Crowley well enough to pull it off without a single hesitation. The only time it felt even slightly not-quite-right (in terms of not questioning that it was Crowley) was the utterly amazing little nose wrinkle. And I’ll forgive Aziraphale that – he knows he’s won; he can gloat a little.
But MICHAEL SHEEN, FRIENDS.
Crowley-as-Aziraphale is a completely different story because Crowley is not as good at the facade as Aziraphale is.
He almost is. When Crowley-as-Aziraphale is getting dragged away by the angels? That reads as Aziraphale 100%. But in the park with Aziraphale-as-Crowley? In the bookshop? And especially in Heaven opposite the angels? That is so obviously Not-Aziraphale that I DO NOT KNOW how I missed it the first time through. And that is a testament to Michael Sheen’s talent.
Aziraphale is a being who shows emotion with his entire self. He is never still, not his hands, not his body, not his face. Everything he is feeling plays out across every inch of him. He is effusive and genuine and has no idea how to push away any emotion even a little bit.
Think of all the other times we see him in Heaven! He’s nervous, he’s anxious, he’s flustered, he’s doing that thing with his voice and his face when confronted with these beings who genuinely terrify him. He can’t hide it.
But Crowley is all too familiar with pushing down emotion. Crowley is guarded, he is caution personified, he reserve and preservation, and with his angel’s life in his hands, on Heaven’s home turf? He can’t shake that.
Crowley-as-Aziraphale is so still. His face, his body language, his posture, it’s all this perfectly calm facade hiding a smoldering fury that Aziraphale might be incapable of achieving. But when Crowley-as-Aziraphale is confronted with the angels and see how they treat his soulmate best friend, he cannot hide that fury. It’s in his eyes, his face, his voice. But Michael Sheen-as-Crowley-as-Aziraphale plays it so well because it comes across as Crowley-as-Aziraphale saying to the angels, You broke him. You pushed him too far and you broke him and this is what it looks like, and you should be terrified.
And it’s all so perfect, and they’re both so talented, and I don’t think we talk about it enough.
And – Aziraphale is good with details, with getting all the little puzzle pieces to fit. Crowley is a big picture demon. He has imagination. He has sharp leaps of insight that leave everyone else behind.
I love how Crowley and Aziraphale are different kinds of intelligent. They’re both super smart and idiotic at the same time, but in different ways and it’s beautiful.
Aziraphale is book smart. He knows obscure facts, history, literature, math. He can do calculations and understand Old English easily. If you give him enough time, he can analyze situations well and come up with an excellent strategy. Remember, he was the one who realized something went wrong with the baby swap, and he wasn’t even there when it happened. He’s also the first to suggest being at Warlock’s birthday party and works out all the details about the Antichrist.
Yet he can’t pick up on sarcasm to save his life, walked right into the trap the Nazis had set for him, and thinks Major Milkbottle is a real person.
Crowley is street smart, or social smart. He can read a room and think on his feet. When Aziraphale is confronted with angels, he turns into a stammering mess, but when Crowley is confronted with demons, he comes up with an escape plan on the spot. He may not know whether ducks have ears or who Agnes Nutter is, but he can tell when someone is lying or doesn’t have good intentions. He knew which kid was the Antichrist despite never having seen any of the Them before, that the war was still on despite the Horsepersons disappearing, that Greta wasn’t who she said she was, and who to bribe for his M25 plan. He can also read and understand Aziraphale better than anyone else. And that’s not even getting into his ability to keep up with and use the latest technology, design, music, and fashion.
They may both be idiots, but they’re also intelligent in ways unique to them, and it makes them perfect for each other.
It is another way they make a brilliant team, actually.
Exactly. It’s even visible in their lying / self-defence styles (which are essentially the same thing in the context of Heaven/Hell). Aziraphale cannot handle any deviation from the “script” and is easily flustered, but he always has a script and just the right wording to go along with it to avoid appearing inconsistent. So, when presented with something unexpected, he especially feels the pressure of not being allowed to get it wrong. Hence all the nervousness. For him, preparation is a “crutch” that he thinks he wouldn’t manage without. Yes, it makes him feel more comfortable, but, as evident from several scenes at the end, he’s also capable of improvising.
Sometimes that improvisation has hilarious consequences, though: for instance, in the “sorry, right number” scene, when he’s so overwhelmed by his sudden discovery that he ends up blurting out the truth instead of coming up with a more conventional (and far less suspicious) way to end a phone call (therefore, you could say that the “phone call” script has failed due to the high anxiety levels :D).
On the contrary, Crowley is naturally comfortable with improvisation. He’s capable of remaining cool and collected. He lies confidently, sometimes even smugly. Unlike Aziraphale, he doesn’t trip himself up by practicing phrases and, therefore, cutting off other potential escape routes. He trusts himself to figure out the right thing as he goes.
And one more ironic thing. Crowley is careful and calculating when needed, but not even once did he thought to question Aziraphale’s odd behavior after their Tadfield outing and doubt his words. Why? Because he’s trusted Aziraphale for thousands of years. Because, intuitively, Aziraphale is not someone to whom words like ‘suspicion’, ‘deception’ can apply. If the roles were reversed, I don’t think Aziraphale would suspect Crowley of something like this either, but remarks like ‘You are a demon. That’s [lying] what you do’ prove that he doesn’t discard this fact (possibility) altogether. Yes, again, intuitively he knows that it’s Crowley and that he would trust Crowley with his life, so this is basically Aziraphale trying to convince himself of things (in this case, suspicions) he doesn’t feel, but it’s still something that goes through his mind (as a cautionary tale, a warning if you like) and enters his speech. What he does here is apply conventional, “safe” scripts to reality and repeat them from time to time to ensure they are not forgotten and/or overlooked. They are also what he bases his defence against Heaven on.
As noted earlier, Crowley is good at developing ideas from scratch. Whereas Aziraphale, it seems, is more likely to operate in the established context. His creative (and ultimately world-saving) interpretations of ineffability (more evident in the book rather than in the series) are a proof of that. In a way, he simply doesn’t have the luxury of discarding anything he’s been taught and coming up with something different. He has to function within the system to survive. And so he does.
I like to think this is why the Arrangement worked so well for them, too. If they traded jobs not at random, but according to their unique skills, they’d get better results than doing everything themselves (aside of the benefits of not doing the things at all that would cancel each other out or only one having to travel). By their different intelligence types and ways of thinking, there will naturally be tasks that are easy for Crowley, but difficult for Aziraphale and vice versa. I imagine Aziraphale will be great at following along with the tasks that come with a more detailed script, while still bending the rules given in the assignment into something more desirable for him. Likewise, Crowley improvises all the time. A vaguely worded assignment will probably stress out Aziraphale, because he doesn’t know what is expected of him, but Crowley will strive on the freedom of interpreting it as suits his ideas. On the other hand, given too much freedom to be creative, Crowley will end up with one of those ridiculous complicated schemes that backfire on him as much as on everyone else. I can’t see that happening to Aziraphale. It’s not just that they balance each other out as friends/partners in a social context; they also really make a great working team.
If they played out their individual strengths right, they don’t only get to avoid some of their work, they also get better results. I don’t think this is something they’ll have been able to do from the start, they’d have to get to know each other’s working style and strengths first, but the Arrangement was on for a full thousand of years. Aziraphale is rather a good analytical thinker. Crowley is creative and puts in lots of effort to get the best credit he can while putting in the least amount of work possible. They’d figure out who does what best eventually.
It’s also something I think would give them an edge in a post-canon confrontation, should it come around. Not only do Heaven and Hell not really know them very well, but both of them also have lots of experience doing each other’s job, bending the rules and thinking outside the box. Heaven and Hell would be facing an angel who has been doing temptations for a millennium. A demon who knows how to do a blessing so well nobody ever caught on. Their (former) superiors don’t really know what they’re up against.
Okay, I’m going to tell you a thing about Good Omens, but first you have to listen to a thing about physics, but I promise it’s relevant.
In brief and (hopefully) simple terms (and I know it’s WAY more complex than this but we only need the gist of it), there’s this theory that Time is actually a dimension. You’ve got the zero, first, second, and third dimensions that ordinary creatures like humans perceive, and then on top of that we have the fourth dimension which affects us.
The thing about these sorts of dimensions is that a third dimension creature (like a human) lives in the third dimension but is capable of perceiving the dimensions below their own in at least semi-concrete ways. Picture it like this: The zero dimension is a dot on a piece of paper. The first dimension is the same dot, but viewed from the side, where 1D creatures could see it is actually a line. The second dimension is the same line, but viewed from the a second side, where a 2D creature could see it is actually a square. The third dimension is the same square, but viewed from a third side, where a 3D creature like a human could see it’s actually a cube.
Now, say that I am a 3D creature looking at the 2D square on the piece of paper. I am capable of perceiving that second dimension. I am also capable of affecting that dimension; for instance, if I fold the piece of paper in the middle of where the line is drawn. The 2nd dimension can be affected by the 3rd dimension, even if it can’t really perceive the 3rd dimension the way it perceives its own and lower dimensions.
Thefourth dimension is reckoned to be Time. Third dimension creatures, like humans, can be affected by time, but we can’t really perceive it the way a 4D creature does. We can’t even really guess how a 4D creature sees the world, because where would you even start? It’s a little bit… ineffable, you might say.
Now, Crowley and Aziraphale, in their true forms, should be at least 4D beings, capable of living in the 4th dimension (time) while being able to experience/perceive the dimensions below their own. Now, I would posit that actually these two exist in more than 4 dimensions, I would say (if we’re following String Theory here) that they could exist in up to 7 dimensions (the 7th being the dimension where one can access multiple dimensions, which explains the existence of heaven/hell), but that’s… complicated.
The point is, the POINT issss…. if they are 4D+ beings, then the third dimension - OUR dimension - is to them what a drawing on a paper is to us. Their corporations are, essentially, a 3D representation of themselves the way we might represent ourselves by drawing pictures on a piece of paper. These projections of themselves would be governed by the rules of the third dimension; including the ability (or maybe necessity) to experience time the way we do while they are here (hence why powerful immortal creatures cannot skip around in time while they have corporations).
Anyway, basically what I’m saying is that god wrote a 3D comic strip and put them in it and is now the frustrated equivalent of a writer whose characters just won’t stop doing things without permission dammit. That or, y’know, she fucked off after creating it and they’ve been writing a slow-burn self-insert fancomic ever since while they wait for her to get back.
This would also explain their ability to a) manipulate time the way Crowley stops it several times (consider the way we can manipulate a 3D object), b) travel between heaven and hell and Earth (even though it appears they must do so with the aid of technology like the portal runes or the globe in heaven), c) not be seen by humans at any given time even though they’re in plain sight to the camera (they may be interacting with extra dimensions somehow so as to not be seen), and d) appear to us to teleport (because we may not be able to see their interactions in a fourth dimension).
Now of course you could explain it as “it’s magic” but at the same time, of course it would seem like magic. A square on a piece of paper looking at a cube might assume the cube is doing magic when in fact the cube is just interacting with the third dimension. For example, perhaps a square would see a cube resting on one side as a square. If you were to roll that cube up onto an edge, it would appear (to the square) to become a line. Were you to lift the cube and set it down somewhere else on the square’s paper, the cube might appear (to the square) to have teleported. It would appear to be magic when in fact none of these things have happened; the cube is merely interacting with a dimension the square cannot perceive, the same way angels and demons may appear to be magic but are, potentially, interacting with additional dimensions we cannot see.
Now, you might say that the way Aziraphale and Crowley act (or the actions they take) don’t make sense if they don’t experience time in a linear fashion but I would argue that those actions do make sense. Just because one can perceive time as a dimension does not mean that they can see all time everywhere. Just because we exist in 3 dimensions does not mean we see all 3D objects at once, or that we can see all angles of every object at once or even that we understand, as individuals, every object we ever see (for example, how many sightings have their been of cryptid creatures? How many phenomena in nature have we seen but been unable to explain for a while?).
Imagine that you are standing at the top of the Eiffel Tower. You can see a LOT of 3D objects from there, for sure. But not all of them. You cannot see the Sears Tower in the US. You can see the Sydney Opera House in Australia. You also cannot see inside of all of those 3D objects. You can’t even see the far side of them. You cannot see the individual atoms that make up those objects without using some kind of technology. You also cannot manipulate the tower as a whole; you can move through it, and climb it, take pictures of it, etc, but you, as an individual, cannot pick it up and move it the way you can pick up a small cube, and in fact it would take a lot of inventing things in order for it to be picked up and moved by 3D beings. Even though you and 3D objects are both parts of the third dimension, there are limitations to how you can perceive and interact with one another.
So I would have to suppose that a being which sees in 4D would have similar (if unknown to me) limitations, the most obvious of which is that they may only see time in the space they are currently in. Perhaps there are things they can see but not really manipulate (like wind- you can move a little bit of air but not change a windstorm, or complete timelines may be like the Eiffel Tower; too big to move or affect as an individual without assistance). Maybe there are things which are hazardous to do (like how we can see magma and COULD touch it but it would damage us). There’s also the idea of optical illusion- our ability to perceive things we see can be manipulated by certain things like arrangements of color or placements of shapes (think of the person who took pictures of a giant penny beside large objects, in order to make them look small; they were not, but our knowledge of what a penny is informs our relative knowledge of the size of the car it is beside). Simply being able to perceive and manipulate some aspect of time doesn’t necessarily mean omnipotence or complete control of it, and their abilities would be further hindered by them moving part or all of the consciousness into a 3D body.
I don’t really have a point, I just wanted to talk about this more because I’m excited.
This is delightfully fun to contemplate. Crowley especially seems to have a few extra-sensory abilities, which are hinted at but not explained: 1) he can pause time, 2) he can sense where other ethereal/occult beings are or where their attention is (for example, finding an imperiled Aziraphale, and the body swap “Is anyone looking?”), and 3) in the book he references a future invention to Leonardo DaVinci. These all suggest an ability to at least interact with 4D+ dimensions. And it’s the last one about seeing far into the future that really makes me wonder.
I also wonder how much his interactions with short-term future time help him plan his demonic deeds. There’s imagination that allows humans to plan and create models for what we think the future will look like. But if you could actually see probable futures, it would be much more clear what actions to take. For example, knowing that only a rodent infestation would allow Crowley unfettered access to the mobile network controls. Or just how far reaching the effects would be of Londoners losing cell reception for 45 min. Unfortunately, he often forgets to check on himself in the future vision, so that leads to getting caught up in his own schemes.
And maybe it’s less an ability to sense where Aziraphale is that allows Crowley to swoop in and save him. Maybe he’s also peeking into time to find out what his angel is likely to be up to.
I need to know what the fifth and sixth dimensions are?!
I can answer that! Maybe not simply!! But I will try! We’re going off of superstring theory in this, if you want to look into it on your own.
So, bear with me. You have the 4 space-time dimensions as follows:
(0D: a dot, pre-space)
1D is a line (space, y-axis)
2D is a square (space, x-axis)
3D is a cube (space, z-axis)
4D is time (time)
So these, together, are the components of reality, the way cardboard is a component of a box, if that makes sense. They’re subject to physics forces (like gravity), but those forces aren’t a material of the reality, if that makes sense.
Dimensions 5-10 deal in alternate reality.
Consider our reality to be the zero dimension of this new set of dimensions. We are, from everything that we can see, the only point that exists. We are a reality dot.
The fifth dimension is a reality “line.” If you were to turn and look at the dot from a new side, you would see that it has one extra dimension- the fifth dimension. A fifth dimension being would theoretically be able to see its own reality and one other version of their own reality; when you look at a line you can see a line OR if you look at it head on, a dot. So, you could look at your reality, but be able to one slightly different version of it as well.
The sixth dimension is a reality “square.” In this dimension, you are now able to view your own reality, and instead of just the next version of your reality, you can see all other realities that start from your initial dot of reality. This is important: you can ONLY see the realities that begin from the same starting condition as you.
Now, a 6D being should, theoretically, be able to move between those realities, allowing for an approximation of “time travel” at will or “dimension travel” where you could visit alternate realities instead of just seeing them. You couldn’t do this on the 5th dimension because there’s no where to go on a line except the one line. You would likely gain free movement when you add the X-axis dimension.
And since you’ll probably wonder about the rest…. it gets weirder and I’m not sure I can explain them well because they start to include the concept of infinity in ways that are slightly beyond me, so take this with a grain of salt and understand it’s WAY more complex than what I’ve said in any part of this post.
My understanding of 7 and 8 is that they deal in more kinds of alternate realities. Seven I think deals in all alternate realities that belong to YOUR reality, regardless of how they begin. Eight I think deals in alternate realities that are not necessarily your own, but are governed by the same rules as yours (the same kind of physical forces etc, like gravity).
My understanding of 9 and 10 is that 9 deals with infinite alternate realities that may or may not have the same rules of physics as your own, and 10 is basically “everything else, anything goes.”
So when I said earlier that Crowley and Aziraphale may be up to 7D beings in their true forms, I meant that you could choose to think that they, in pure angelic (and possibly full demonic) form, could at least view (if not travel to) any reality that is a version of THEIR reality. Which does beg the question; is this particular reality, with Earth, the only version of their reality in which Earth was created, thus making it important for them to preserve it?
I think future sight might be more like when we try to look into the far distance- the further we go the more difficult it is. Like, you can tell it’s a person wearing red from far away, but that’s it. And it might also be that you can see events directly related to you easier as well. Like how in a crowd you could pick out your friend faster than a stranger from a photograph. It could be Crowley didn’t look into the future but it could also be at that point there were too many fates and looking would have been a waste of time for that event, because he wouldn’t have assumed he needed to…
The new-TV-GoodOmens fanon tendency to take Aziraphale’s very-soft presentation as unadorned truth is be/amusing to me.
He was the angel left to guard one of the Gates to Eden and he did in fact have a flaming sword. He is also the one who WOULD have shot Adam, had Madame Tracy not intervened.
He is also the angel who’s response to “wait I need to get back to Earth to stop Armageddon” is to do something that clearly SCARED THE SHIT out of the other angels who watched him do it, with a malicious-glee-glint in his eye, who hopped disembodied down to earth, and then floated around to try to find the right place.
He also, well. Fucked around with Heaven at all. There’s such a thread of comic corporate-absurd involved that it can be easy to miss, but what we’re shown is that the hierarchy of Heaven is just as happy as that of Hell to murder, torture, restrain, make captive and otherwise punish its own in the most horrible ways possible and in fact they’re far more effective at it. They just have a lot of Rules they follow, whereas Hell acts on a whim.
And there’s Aziraphale running around lying to them and pulling the wool over their eyes and so on. Something which, very clearly, none of those other angels are interested in doing.
Fundamentally Aziraphale is a stone cold agent of divine wroth.
He just doesn’t want to be.
He doesn’t like being like that. He doesn’t likesuffering, his own or other people’s. All those times Crowley saves him, it’s important to keep in mind that Aziraphale’s in no more fundamental danger than he is when he loses his corporal form in the bookshop fire: if Crowley hadn’t shown up to save him in the church, for example, all that would have happened is that either a) he would have been discorporated and had to wait in line for a new body (or risk being reassigned) or b) Aziraphale would have had to do something Nasty to the Nazis there in order to save himself that trouble.
He doesn’t like either of those options! Those are both crappy options. But they’re not existential threats.
I’m the nice one he snaps when Crowley’s too busy having his Moment over his Bentley to take care of dealing with the soldier.
Aziraphale doesn’t like having to be cruel, or mean, or scary, or stone cold. He doesn’t enjoy it and given the choice he will in fact choose not to be.
What Crowley saves him from, over and over again, isn’t actually being killed.
Because what interests Crowley in him, and we see that, all the way back, is that very first instance of Aziraphale choosing not to be that person. That first time when what Aziraphale was supposed to be was Stern and Frightening and Judgemental and Harsh and Terrifying … . and instead he chose to court potential punishment (and actual existential threat) to give the people he was supposed to Terrify a way to protect themselves from all the scary things.
Aziraphale doesn’t want to be an instrument of judgement and wrath and what Crowley keeps saving him from is having to be. Crowley condemns the bloodthirsty executioner, so that Aziraphale doesn’t have to; blows up the Nazis so Aziraphale doesn’t have to.
Lets Aziraphale be the nice one, in fact.
Which I think is frankly far more fucking adorable.
But never let it make you think that Aziraphale is the safe one, or the helpless one.
He’s the one who, when faced with the apparent choice between killing a child and the end of the world, chooses to kill the child. Actually chooses to do it - not just plan, not just talk about, not just contemplate, but do it - and is only saved from having done it by sharing the body of someone who won’t let him.
Aziraphale is soft and slightly silly and gentle and non-confrontational and all of those things because that’s what he wants to be. He has fought for a long time to get to be that.
This is important.
Yes, this! That’s it, and it’s written out so well, too.
Good Omens is about choices. That’s a main element, this free will idea. You’re not defined by what you are born to be or told is your role. The guardian angel chooses to give away his sword and to be soft. The demon chooses to cause minor inconveniences rather than death and terror, and then he chooses to stop the end of the world, too. The Antichrist chooses his friends over the horsepeople, his home over ruling the world, the father that was there over the satanic father who was not. The professional descendent who lived her whole life following the words of a five hundred years old witch chooses to burn the next batch of prophecies instead.
Good Omens is about defining one’s own destiny and identity. That’s probably why it clicks with so many queer people, too. You aren’t what others tell you to be. You aren’t what you are expected to be. You are what you are most comfortable being.
Do you ever wonder about how Crowley-as-Aziraphale is convinced that, even gagged and bound, Aziraphale would still be trying to mouth “Crowley run!” and how Aziraphale-as-Crowley firmly believes that Crowley would just chuck his popsicle across the park and go after the angels to save him despite being hopelessly outnumbered because
My headcanon for this scene is that they’re both genuinely panicking, because this wasn’t the plan.
They realized that Hell would probably decide to get rid of Crowley and that they’d need holy water to do it, so Aziraphale offered to take his place. But Heaven? They send memos. At worst a renegade angel might be cast out, but deep down Aziraphale’s always known that’s a possibility, and part of his choosing to stand with Crowley was accepting that.
They’re in the park to be out in the open and get it over with. But it’s Heaven who shows up first to take “Aziraphale.” So the real Aziraphale freaks out because he hadn’t considered this and doesn’t know what they might do to him. Meanwhile, Crowley wasn’t 100% on board with this plan–he knows that Hell can do a whole lot to a demon short of destruction, and there’s no way he’s going to let Aziraphale get tortured in his place. So he’s freaking out because Hell is still coming and now Crowley is powerless to intervene.
Basically, these two acknowledged that Armageddon would have probably happened if they’d been competent, so I don’t see them planning this perfectly. It all works out–better than they expected, even, because now Crowley can secure Aziraphale’s freedom just as the angel offered to do for him.
But for just this one moment, it all looks like it’s gone horribly wrong.
It’s an interesting question whether Heaven does in fact just “send rude notes.” That information comes from Aziraphale. Aziraphale is not only in the habit of being stiff upper lip about things, he’s a person who has invested an extraordinary amount of mental energy into pretending that Heaven is good and not at all psychologically abusive towards him. And you watch the way that Gabriel maneuvers Sandalphon behind Aziraphale in the shop—it’s a power play, making Aziraphale turn his back on a known threat.
Still, I believe that they didn’t expect it to go down that way, because I think Heaven is all about the psychological control, and I think their typical move would be to send Aziraphale a summons, demanding that he walk into whatever they planned for him of his own free will. So the idea that Heaven would just grab “Aziraphale” is shocking to them both.
The wonderful Good Omens posters ❤. The high quality parts of the second to last can be found here and even larger version of the last one here:).
All of these are epic. Does anyone know if you can buy prints somewhere?
Also, I took until just now to notice Crowley’s hair is shapes like horns in the one with Aziraphale’s halo. His hair sticks up in rather gravity defying ways a lot, so I think I didn’t pay enough attention…
One really interesting thing about the church scene is just how Aziraphale reacts when Crowley shows up, especially when compared to the Bastille scene.
I mean, look at his face when he hears Crowley’s voice in France.
He just lights up. Whether you believe he arranged his own arrest with this outcome in mind, or whether you think it was just a lucky coincidence that Crowley happened to be nearby, Aziraphale is clearly thrilled that he’s there.
That is the face of an angel who’s just learned that his immediate future no longer involves his own beheading.
And he doesn’t even hint. We don’t get any of the puppydog eyes he uses to get Crowley to make Hamlet popular or clean the paint off his coat. He’s totally relaxed and at ease during their conversation, he agrees that he’s lucky Crowley was in the area, and then Crowley frees him. He doesn’t have to ask. By this point in their relationship, they’ve clearly reached the stage where the idea that Crowley might not be totally willing to save an angel from discorporation doesn’t even occur to either of them.
And now compare it to Aziraphale’s reaction when Crowley shows up to save him in the Blitz.
It’s basically the same situation. Aziraphale has got himself into a situation where he’s about to be murdered by humans (and for some reason can’t just miracle the problem away) when Crowley shows up to save him.
Except this time, Aziraphale isn’t thrilled. If anything, he sounds rather annoyed. “What are you doing here?” His first assumption is that Crowley must be working with the Nazis, for god’s sake, even though he knows that that isn’t Crowley’s style, and was genuinely shocked a few centuries earlier when he thought that Crowley was admitting to being responsible for the French Revolution. (Crowley is right to be offended.)
But of course, it’s easier for Aziraphale to believe that Crowley is somehow involved with the Nazis, because there has to be some reason why he’s in that church. At this point, Aziraphale honestly finds it easier to believe that Crowley could be working with Nazis than that, after their big argument, Crowley could still be working to protect him.
After all, how familiar do we think Aziraphale is with the concept of forgiveness?
Given the Fall, given the Flood, given humanity’s exile from the Garden.
Given the whole Heaven and Hell set up that he and Crowley’s jobs revolve around, which really depends on the idea that humans cannot repent after death. Aziraphale might be able to redeem some of the humans on Earth, but once they’ve died, if Crowley’s convinced them to commit whatever magical number of sins you have to commit to warrant eternal damnation, then that’s it.
Given the fact that Aziraphale’s own 6,000 years spent living on Earth might well be meant as a punishment for letting the serpent into Eden, because despite its reputation on Earth, Heaven really isn’t as big on the whole ‘love and forgiveness’ thing as everyone seems to think.
Aziraphale lives in a universe where if you mess up, even if you didn’t mean it, even if you regret it right after, then that’s it. So why wouldn’t he apply that to his friendship with Crowley?
Why would it occur to him that you could fall out with somebody and then make up afterwards with no hard feelings? That you could say things, hurtful things, that you didn’t mean— because you were scared and because he wanted holy water and because it was too much and too fast— that you could fall out so badly that you don’t speak to each other for nearly a century and that, after it all, they’d still walk across consecrated ground and bomb a church for you. And even save your books in the aftermath.
And Crowley, it’s worth mentioning, doesn’t even seem to realise this. Crowley is baffled and a little insulted that Aziraphale would even ask why he was there. Obviously he’s keeping his angel out of trouble— isn’t that basically his second job by this point? He’s totally casual about offering Aziraphale a lift home, though I suspect that that might be a conscious decision to deliberately act like everything’s back to normal, so as to signal to Aziraphale that everything is indeed back to normal. Crowley (and we get to see this trait more later on when it comes to the whole Alpha Centauri thing) forgives so easily that he doesn’t even notice he’s doing it.
And that, I think, is why this is such an important moment in their relationship.
It’s not just the rescue of the books that makes Aziraphale realise the true depth of his feelings about Crowley. It’s the fact that, in his own way, Aziraphale considers himself to be just as unforgiveable as Crowley, and Crowley forgave him regardless.
I just realized something from this scene where the angels snatch Crowley-disguised-as-Aziraphale. Crowley keeps bobbing his head and looking off to the side and then trying to nod at Aziraphale-disguised-as-Crowley.
I think that was supposed to indicate that Az!Crowley (I’ll use this to keep track of who I’m talking about) knew that that was Hastur close by and was trying to warn Cr!Aziraphale (and this is the Aziraphale version) about him. It explains why Az!Crowley played Aziraphale in such an animated way during that part. He wasn’t squirming to simply escape. He was trying to prevent what he knew Hastur would probably do next.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work and Hastur whacks Cr!Aziraphale with that crowbar.
One thing I did wonder about there though was who was Cr!Aziraphale talking to when he said that “it’s no problem, it’s tickety-boo.” To himself? To the audience? Both of those seem a bit off given the tone of the scene. And it doesn’t seem like that’s something he’d say to someone like Hastur.
My thought is that he was saying that to Az!Crowley. Yes, it was unlikely that Crowley would have been able to hear by that point unless Crowley would still hear thoughts that are directed at him (which I can totally buy with them),
It makes sense that Cr!Aziraphale would do this given how Crowley normally comes to his aid every time he’s threatened, Cr!Aziraphale might have thought that Az!Crowley would finding it agonizing if he had to watch him suffer and couldn’t do anything about it. Thus, Cr!Aziraphale’s last instinct before he passes out is to try to reassure Az!Crowley that it’s all right and to not worry about him.
The script book adds another wrinkle to this as it included a stage direction that Cr!Aziraphale tried to crawl after the van that was taking Az!Crowley away. Even while in what had to have been an immense amount of pain, Aziraphale still tried his best to save Crowley.
However, all of this also means that, it was one thing for them to come up with this plan, and it was something entirely different for them to actually stick with it. And I don’t think they were really prepared for that. The whole point of switching faces was so they could protect each other from punishments that would be lethal to the other one.
But…that doesn’t work if they don’t let themselves get captured! Their deep seated instinct to protect each other could have easily ruined their clever plan. They were very lucky that it didn’t.
This is one of the reasons why “idiots in love” takes on more than just the light-hearted meanings for me in regards to them.
Select additional comments:
@ambular-dreply: Yes, but it wouldn’t have looked terribly realistic if they’d just calmly watched each other get kidnapped and hauled off without reacting, either, would it? “Oh, would you look at that, Aziraphale/Crowley is being made off with by agents of Heaven/Hell. Have a good time, dear.” That would have seemed downright suspicious. They couldn’t succeed in stopping it if they wanted their plan to work, but being seen trying and failing was perfectly reasonable and even necessary to the ruse.
@codicesandflorareply: Actually that makes sense too. They would both have to seem at least somewhat concerned about each of them being kidnapped or there might be concerns as to why they are so unworried…
Then again…Heaven and Hell seem pretty tone deaf when it comes to personal feelings, don’t they? I honestly wonder if it would occur to either of them that an angel could love a demon beyond the generalized feelings of love they are supposed to have for all things. So while Aziraphale might appear concerned, it would be the same sort of vague concern other angels might have for someone/something less fortunate than them.
And I think Aziraphale’s comments about how Crowley is a demon and thus implying that he’s not capable of love aren’t his own thoughts, but Heaven’s ideas. And Hell probably doesn’t encourage demons to love anything either. So I doubt either side believes that a demon could care about an angel beyond selfish interest.
That all said, I still really like your take because it implies that, despite the rampant obliviousness and prejudice of Heaven and Hell, they are still able to recognize the genuine love and affection Crowley and Aziraphale had for each other. The fact that they would have to show concern over the other one being kidnapped despite the thick, unmovable wall of beliefs Heaven and Hell have about the opposite side says a lot about how powerful the love Crowley and Aziraphale share truly is.
@megspictureaday reply: #ive always thought it was fortunate that crowley (as aziraphale) was taken away first #because if crowley had seen aziraphale get hit over the head with a crowbar #before he was restrained and forced to commit to the disguise #he wouldve gone fuckin ballistic #ALSO #poor aziraphale had heard crowley say my lot dont send rude notes #but then he gets cracked over the skull with a crowbar he mustve been like #oh my god is this what usually happens when crowley gets in trouble……
First off, 1000% yes. I don’t see how Crowley would have stayed committed if he hadn’t already been tied up and gagged.when Hastur did that to Aziraphale. I mean, this is a demon who will not hesitate to let people die just to prevent Aziraphale from being discorporated. Hell, he’ll let a bunch of corporate drones go through near-death experiences just because one of them had the audacity to stain his angel’s favorite jacket.
Granted, the ones who died tended to be awful people anyway and the paintball-to-real-gun prank was just as much about snark toward Aziraphale’s “Moral Argument” ridiculousness.
But both of those things still illustrate that Crowley can be ruthless when he chooses…and that choice often occurs when Aziraphale is involved.
Not to mention that Crowley already didn’t like Hastur anyway. Seeing him assault Aziraphale probably put him into Full Tilt Fire and Brimstone Mode. Which he ends up saving for Gabriel and his cronies, but that is another discussion….
Secondly….touche on going straight for the feels because I actually had not thought of that. I imagine Crowley doesn’t go into detail about what Hell does to people who directly defy orders because he doesn’t want his angel to worry about him (and possibly pull away in an effort to keep Crowley safe).
Although Aziraphale might be stupidly in love, but he’s not a fool. He definitely has an inkling of what could have been meant by “my lot don’t send rude notes”. He also might try to not think about it.
But having Hastur do that to him…and then seeing what goes on in Hell…and then realizing what that had/could have meant for Crowley…I think that would have been more traumatizing than anything.
I’m convinced that this is why he has that quietly horrified look (as Crowley) when that minor demon is destroyed.
That casual cruelty…the fact that anyone can be obliterated at any time for the flimsiest of reasons…that is/was the reality of Crowley’s life and the very real risk he took for choosing to “fraternize” with an angel.
Aziraphale is now seeing all of this for himself, and you can’t convince me that he wouldn’t harbor a sizable amount of guilt over that.
@monkey-on-nitrous-oxide oxidereply: Yes. I think that this is the point where Aziraphale realises how much he’s hurt Crowley every time he’s told him “you’re a demon”. Also, he probably realises that Crowley really wanted that Holy Water to use against other demons, not to destroy himself.
Crowley, as a former angel, knows very well how terrible angels can be. Aziraphale has no idea of how horrible demons are.
I think there are many layers to this scene. What Aziraphale’s words might actually mean:
The speed of the car. While it might seem so at the first glance… nope, it’s not about that.
What Aziraphale probably thinkshe means is about being friendly with the enemy, not only about The Arragement of helping each other out when working to make their Head Offices happy, but now also helping with other personal matters, about spending time with each other, about being more than agents stranded far from home who sometimes share a meal. He is asking Crowley to give him time because he cannot get used to the idea that quickly (well, quickly for an immortal) but he is not discarding it alltogether… (similarly when in the knight’s time he vehemently refused The Arrangement and in the Shakespeare’s era we learned that they helped each other dozens of time). He knows he will fold.
What the scene is actuallyabout is love. And it doesn’t matter how you view their relationship - whether friendly, soulmate, platonic or romantic - they love and care very deeply about each other. Crowley is much better about realizing this (though he would never say that out loud), while Aziraphale is not (consciously). He still has the head mostly full of Heaven’s propaganda, yes, but head only. His heart already knows he loves the demon, but needs time to get the head on board as well.
