I Find The Contrast Between Book And Show Good Omens Versions Of The Post-bookshop-fire Sequence Of Events

i find the contrast between book and show good omens versions of the post-bookshop-fire sequence of events really interesting.

in the book, after the bookshop fire, the next scene we see is crowley, driving towards tadfield, determined to continue on no matter what. aziraphale might be gone, but he’s still going to do what he can to save the world. it probably won’t help, it’s probably too late, and it might be smarter to run off and hide, but he doesn’t. because he loves earth. because it’s worth saving. and, yes, perhaps it’s also what aziraphale would have wanted, but most of all, it’s what he wants. there’s no drama about aziraphale being dead, he’s just “out of the equation.” because crowley is an optimist, at heart, and if there’s any chance he can fix things, then he’s going to try.

and then you have the show. crowley finds aziraphale’s bookshop on fire, and aziraphale gone, dead. and he’s done. that’s it. fuck earth, fuck heaven and hell especially, fuck everything that took aziraphale from him. might as well go off and get drunk. what else is left? without aziraphale, what is the point of any of it? aziraphale is crowley’s world. or was. and without him, as far as crowley’s concerned, there’s nothing else worth putting effort into saving.

and so both show and book crowleys get into their bentleys and drive away, but book crowley off to tadfield, and show crowley off to get very, very drunk.

and then book crowley is confronted by hell, and he gets angry, which only increases his determination to keep going.

the sunglasses coming back after getting destroyed in the fire also have very different feels to them. in the show, it comes off much more as a masking of vulnerability. he’s too raw, too exposed without his sunglasses. thinking aziraphale is dead has shattered him, and he needs something, anything, to just…protect himself. the world is too much right now, and the sunglasses at least give him some semblance of a shield between him and it.

later, hastur pulls them off again. but at that point, crowley already knows aziraphale is alive. and knowing that, his hope is revitalized, and he’s ready to take on the end of the world, shield no longer necessary.

whereas with book crowley, the sunglasses seem to be a sign of his composure and readiness to face anything.

Then he began to smile. He snapped his fingers. A pair of dark glasses materialized out of his eyes. The ash vanished from his suit and his skin. What the hell. If you had to go, why not go with style? Whistling softly, he drove.

he takes on sunglasses – a very human thing – and makes them his. his refusal to follow along with hell’s dictates, his insistence on now going his own way, made visible.

both show and book crowley might ultimately end up in the same places, but their paths there are very, very different