I Hate To Say This, But The Coffee Theory Is Inherently Bad And Completely Undermines The Entire Season

I hate to say this, but the coffee theory is inherently bad and completely undermines the entire season of progression we’ve been seeing with Aziraphale.

The coffee theory completely robs his decision of agency and accountability - it gives him an easy out and thus gives the next season an easy conclusion. And I’m sorry, but Neil just Would Not write that.

He wouldn’t make it so simple and easy and, I know this sounds harsh, POORLY WRITTEN.

Aziraphale has spent thousands of years desperately clinging to the idea that Heaven is inherently good, that serving Heaven as an Angel is inherently good. He’s spent thousands of years being gaslit and undermined and tricking himself into honestly believing that Heaven isn’t broken, it can still be fixed, the system still works if HE just helped it.

That’s all Metatron did. He dug those seeds back up. He put it back in Aziraphale’s head that it’s not Heaven who’s bad, it’s not the system that’s broken, it just needs someone better at the helm! Someone like Aziraphale!

The coffee didn’t brainwash him. The coffee was just a simple act of manipulation from someone who’s been doing the same thing for thousands of years.

‘I know you. I understand you. I’m proud of you. I want you to be the leader of Heaven. Here’s a coffee.’

And Aziraphale went with it. Because it’s all he’s ever known.

If the coffee theory is true, then all of this characterization is GONE. All of the tension and pain in his decision is GONE. Any hope of Aziraphale having a satisfying character arc in season three is GONE. Because if the coffee theory is true, then Aziraphale is Stuck. His character is trapped in a place with no room to grow, to learn, to change.

If the coffee theory is true, then Aziraphale won’t even be able to apologize to Crowley for making the wrong choice.

And that, as a potential culmination of their relationship, is SO fucking sad.

Aziraphale deserves better. Because he’s a complicated, flawed, and deeply traumatized person. And now he needs to make the wrong choice. He needs to make that wrong choice, and hurt the person he loves most, because that is the ONLY way he can grow. It is the ONLY way he can break free of the bonds that Heaven’s broken system have put on him. Like Gabriel did.

Aziraphale needs to have wanted that coffee.

Because without that, then no lessons are learned. No resolution is earned.

And Aziraphale AND Crowley deserve so much better than that.