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Please share your take on the final fifteen--- was Aziraphale right or wrong? And the coffee theory maybe?

I don't feel that either of them were objectively right or wrong. They both made a complete mess of what they were attempting to do, because they're bad at communicating with each other. They each responded to the other's effort by doing what they felt they had to do. They hurt each other badly and both twisted the knife a little - but not as much as you might expect given the stakes. Their different exactlys were just too huge there, and they were both distracted rather than mindful going in. It was a lot of things coming to a head that need to be dealt with before they can grow much further as an 'us'.

The coffee theory... I don't think it's anything that simple, or that easily fixed. Aziraphale's backed into a corner the moment he takes that coffee—the moment he engages with Metatron and allows himself to be separated from Crowley for that crucial interview. Manipulation got the job done.

Aziraphale knows he's between a rock and hard place the moment the Metatron mentions Crowley. Is he riding the tiger from then on, hoping for an opportunity to get off safely later, or is he reluctantly but fully committing to the Heaven thing because he's unable to let go of his need to belong on the "right" side and sees an opportunity? A mixture of both? Both plus the hurt feelings? I'm not sure. I think he sees a plausible way forward in that situation (and I think he's probably mistaken but will find some other way to rise to the occasion).

I know we've all seen and discussed The Kiss so many times by now, but it's nearly the one-year anniversary of GO 2 and ever since I saw this slow motion gif and this clip, it's felt like watching it all over again with fresh eyes.

Everything about this is so breathtaking on so many levels. The way Michael's eyebrows raise, the way he seems to almost lift himself into the kiss, like he was physically bringing himself closer to David's/Crowley's lips, and how they very nearly melt into each other even as they're trying not to. You can almost see their hearts leaping close together, as if something powerful is happening as much within them as without.

It reminds me of episode one and the angel-that-would-be-Crowley snapping his fingers and saying "Let there be light." Four little words, one simple gesture, and a whole universe that wasn't there before exploded into being. Sparks flying, in more ways than one...

And I love it. I love that this kiss is so incredible that we are still talking about it one year later, and that it will forever be one of the most gorgeously searing kisses ever committed to film. I love that we have this kiss specifically because it was Michael and David in these roles, and the once-in-a-lifetime chemistry between them.

There are film kisses, and then there are film kisses, and almost nothing I have ever seen on screen comes close to this, or ever will. I am so, so grateful to Michael and David for giving this to us, and to each other...

if you take "I can make a difference" at face value you simply must also consider "you're the bad guys.” like they are both vital aspects of aziraphale's decision. the problem is not just aziraphale's attempt to lead a corrupt system, it is also his continued belief in the superiority of heaven and angels over hell and demons. that's why crowley was so hurt. it's not just a miscommunication, or a disagreement on the practicalities of changing hearts and minds in heaven--it is a fundamental misunderstanding of morality and of crowley as a person. if crowley had asked aziraphale to come to hell to help fix it and protect the earth, he would not have gone. he says so. it’s not just about safety, or reform. it is about being Good.

and all of this happens because aziraphale is not just motivated by fear and love: he is also motivated by shame. he is insecure in his identity as an angel and a Good Guy, and both his alienation from heaven and his relationship with crowley have always aggravated this insecurity. it’s why shax’s mockery hit him so hard, and why he’s so susceptible to manipulation from the metatron. he desperately wants to be taken seriously and treated with respect and to have power and be an uncomplicated Good Guy, and that is just as much of a motivating factor in his decision as his desire to protect humanity and crowley.

and re: “appoint you to be an angel”: I know people want to insist that aziraphale has never wanted to change anything about crowley, but I’m sorry, I just don’t think that’s true. over and over in season 2 aziraphale demonstrates a desire to sand the rough edges off people and things for the sake of the Greater Good, without consideration for the free will or complex emotions of others. obviously this tendency culminates in the ball, where he exerts control over all of the humans to make everything perfect for maggie and nina, and in doing so, infringes on their autonomy and nina’s (crowley’s narrative mirror!) capacity to feel her own anger and sadness. and he has never liked that crowley is a demon. in his mind, the problem has always been that crowley was put in the wrong category, not that the entire system of dividing people and angels into Good and Bad is ridiculous. that’s the exact lesson he needs to learn.

and yes, his intentions are good, absolutely. I don’t think aziraphale ever acts out of malice, and I do think he genuinely wants the best for the people around him, particularly crowley. after all, if crowley is accepted as an angel again, as aziraphale has always secretly considered him to be, their relationship can (in his mind) finally stop being so fraught with danger and conflict. (the other side of that, of course, is that aziraphale can also stop being so ashamed for loving someone who is supposed to be Bad, and everything in his life will make sense again, the way it hasn’t since he met that star maker who got so upset about god’s plan.)

but that’s not who crowley is, and it never has been. even before he fell, crowley’s recklessness and relentless questions made aziraphale uncomfortable. their relationship has never been safe or easy, and in wanting to make it so, aziraphale is demonstrating a desire to change the parts of crowley that led to his fall, whether he intends to or not.

I’m rambling, but the point is: the insistence on reframing this moment as a purely selfless, calculated, self-sacrificing decision by aziraphale to protect crowley and the world ignores the uglier parts of the things he said in order to make their eventual reconciliation less complicated, and it’s really frustrating to me. crowley is in fact right to be upset by what he said, and it’s not just a misunderstanding that can be fixed with aziraphale saying “I was only trying to protect you!” and another kiss. it’s a culmination of all of the double think aziraphale has been doing in order to preserve his vision of heaven as The Source Of Truth And Light And Good since before the beginning of time, and it’s time for him to finally unpack it.

(and because every post on the final fifteen needs a disclaimer: aziraphale is trying his best and has an incredible amount of love in his heart and wants so badly to do good and ALSO the things he says, does, and believes can be incredibly hurtful and destructive. all of these things can be true.)

People describe Aziraphale as a ruthless monster when he gets angry, but he literally starts to get confused in words and becomes clumsy. What's wrong with this fandom

Some time ago I wrote a similar post on Crowley and the predominant fanon. This time I’m going to focus on Aziraphale and explain why I disagree with a, frankly speaking, rather large number of fics describing him in a certain way.

When I wrote about Crowley, I said that the major trend is to soften him and his negative traits, basically turning him into the Aziraphale that we see in the show; in Aziraphale’s case, it’s the other way around. His supposed negative characteristics are exaggerated to an enormous degree, making him suspiciously similar to a character existing under the tag Dark!Crowley. As a result, their roles are simply… reversed and damn me if I know why it’s happening. It’s mostly true for explicit fics but not only. In explicit ones Aziraphale ends up being a deceptively proactive partner (sometimes dominant, depends on the author’s kinks) who, and it’s the most important thing, doesn’t love Crowley. At all. He is interested in sex but that’s where it ends. Sometimes he’s even manipulative — this Aziraphale knows that Crowley isn’t going anywhere and he’s using it. Overall, written with the intention of enunciating his independence, this version of him turns out to be an entitled but nevertheless passive recipient of Crowley’s affections. I won’t focus on high-rating fanfiction here though, since very often an in-character portrayal of anyone is not even remotely its purpose and that’s ok.

Another common trend is focusing on Crowley’s inner world, Crowley’s ruminations and, most crucially, Crowley’s trauma. There’s nothing wrong with focusing on that – he’s the fandom’s beloved character and I can totally see why. But I think sometimes we should snap out of our fascination with Crowley and contemplate Aziraphale’s trauma as well. Because he has all the prerequisites for it. Remember, this is an angel for whom hundreds of years of yearning were “too fast”. He’s used to living in a very particular system of values imposed on him by Heaven. He’s been subject to indoctrination from the very beginning and this doctrine, no matter how awful, created a sense of belonging. He believed the inherent goodness of God till the very end. For him, Heaven=Family. And here we have this angel, Aziraphale-you-go-too-fast-for-me-give-me-another-century-to-process-it, who’s cut off of his abusive family IN A SPAN OF 24 HOURS. That’s what I call too fast. 

And we know that he’s not the type of person to just brush it off and forget. Leaving an abusive environment isn’t simple even when done gradually. The most evident example of this is him asking to speak to whoever is in charge at the airbase. This is said by someone who’s already understood how fruitless talking to authority is (the Almighty will fix it; I’m looking for a higher authority). Yet he sticks to the same tactics the very same day – which is logical knowing his background, as such patterns simply don’t vanish into thin air in a second. So why do we assume that after Armageddon he’s totally stable and doesn’t have his dark moments from time to time? Crowley is traumatised too but he had at least 6000 years to deal with it. Aziraphale didn’t. Personally, I imagine it all to come crashing down on him like a tsunami after the initial euphoria, bringing him, ultimately, to a condition close to the Fall – mentally, at least. He will need support during this period.

There was a post here somewhere comparing Aziraphale after Armageddon to Rapunzel from Tangled – namely, the scene set immediately after she leaves the tower. That’s what I’m talking about when I say that breaking up with Heaven will be tough for Aziraphale.

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y'know what i'd love to see as a cold open in season three? various demons and angels collaborating with each other in secret.

you can't tell me that somehow gabriel & beez and crowley & aziraphale are the only ones who ever thought hey maybe this system fucking sucks, especially because aziraphale is still neck deep in the denial puddle. there is nothing actively preventing them from meeting, they share a fucking elevator they can use without any restrictions. everyone in heaven is left to their own devices and lonely but they are left to their own devices. no one is watching them. no one CARES because within the system the mere thought of collaborating with the enemy is just. not taken seriously.

there are no back channels, gabriel tells michael, but they both know that there ARE back channels and that they're using them, it's exactly the same thing crowley and aziraphale are doing on earth, deny everything upfront but have secrets underneath.

the goals might differ since angels and demons don't really give a fuck about humans, but the organization is the same.

give me michael and ligur trying to undermine their bosses, give me random angels meeting with demons and exchanging information, give me a group of spies trying to come up with functional plans against new policies.

give me operatives on earth refusing to kill one another when they meet because why should they? if the world ends they might as well start another revolution because what is the point in destroying one half of all existing celestial beings?

earth was saved by humans being fundamentally human, now give me the whole of creation being saved by people who are fundamentally people, angel or demon or human. god created everyone in her image, so when it comes down to it, it's the same spark of life burning in each of them.

When Aziraphale Comes Back

Why does everyone assume it's going to be to ask Crowley for help?

It's an ongoing assumption I keep seeing: that Aziraphale will come back to Earth to ask Crowley for help with the Second Coming, and we'll get a big dramatic Moment of will they or won't they? How will Crowley react?

But friends, we already saw that. Aziraphale asked Crowley to come with him in the Final Fifteen, and Crowley said no. And I'm not criticizing Crowley for this, I'm not criticizing either of them, it was just the shit situation they were in, but it's clear to Aziraphale as he's riding in the elevator that he's on his own with this one, and this time for real.

And here's why this bothers me and why I'm bringing it up: people offer this scenario in the context of Crowley punishing Aziraphale for leaving. Will he make Aziraphale beg, will he be cold and cruel to him, and it's not even in the context of bring funny and bitchy, people actually want Aziraphale to be hurt as though he isn't already in the worst pain of his existence.

I think I see where the assumption comes from: the FF feels like a reflection of the Bandstand Scene, and after that scene Aziraphale calls Crowley and Crowley rushes to the bookshop. But Aziraphale didn't call Crowley for help. He called to give him information bc he'd given up on getting anywhere with heaven. Aziraphale had no idea when he called Crowley that he was about to be discorporated and his bookshop set on fire. Crowley ran to him as soon as he was free of Hastur without even trying to call him back first. The calls were made while he was already driving.

So if Aziraphale deliberately seeks out Crowley in season three, I don't think it will be to ask for help. It will be either to give him valuable information or offer his help, possibly both. And Crowley will leap into action without being asked bc that's what Crowley does.

Their reactions to the surprise snake-in-a-box 🙀😸🐍

Little things to love about Good Omens S2 (30/?) - Masterpost

Imagine if Aziraphale stays Archangel post season 3. For some reason in my mind I automatically assumed he would quit being Archangel once things surrounding the second coming got sorted, but what if he stays and commits to it like a casual 9-5 job.

Why did Aziraphale have The Crow Road book that Crowley tossed at Muriel? (Also Jim was reading the first sentence of that book when he reorganized the shelves)

It doesn't seem like a rare book at all, it looked like one you'd find at any regular book store. Does Aziraphale keep books to sell for times of desperation or leisure reads or was it maybe Crowley's book?

The amount of camera time the book got makes it seem like it holds a Clue for season 3, particularly about the main character's experiences/preoccupations with death, alcohol, questions and God.

If there are previous posts on this point me in that direction please :)

This!

This a hundred times!

Good Omens is a story of so many well placed layers, and no matter how long I've been looking into it, there's always more to discover. I can't believe how carefully everything is written, with no detail feeling unintentional or off -

Even though I might not understand immediately *how* it all plays together, I feel the atmosphere it creates, enchanting my mind with every line.

I did not know how well it resembled emotional trauma, -at least consciously-, but I knew deep down there was something I could relate to, something I missed in so many other stories I read.

And I loved how it was handled.

I don't think I can ever fall out of love with it, there's just too much amazing me every time I read it.

I think one of the reasons Good Omens speaks so intensely to so many people is how it handles abusive relationship dynamics and, of course, the deeply hopeful resolution that is so incredibly rare when this topic is explored.

Good Omens just handles and illustrates the concept of emotional trauma so well. Particularly as it relates to toxic relationships, and childhood emotional and psychological abuse.

A lot of the stories and allegories we get in modern media are about physical abuse. Here though, we see the fallout of controlling relationships. How subtle and deceptive and insidious they are. How, unless you’ve gotten lucky enough to gain some outside perspective, you can’t even see it for what it is.

Good Omens perfectly illustrates two different sides of the victims of abusive family relationships:

Aziraphale is the compliant one. He really tries to see the good in everyone and he’s unintentionally an apologist because, through no fault of his own, he’s been completely brainwashed. Because he’s a good being, his priority isn’t himself, but others. Extending grace to everyone but himself is so intrinsic to who he is that he expects no reciprocity. Even though he can’t shake the feeling that something is off, he’s been taught not to trust himself and therefore continues to brush it off or to simply choose not to think about it. (Aziraphale’s self immersion in the hedonistic comforts of humanity is his chosen form of dissociation) 

Aziraphale is NOT however, completely unrebellious. His priority, though, whether he’s aware of it or not, is self-preservation, as is invariably the outcome in a family situation like this one. He is very good at perceived compliance but ultimately motivated by other things. The first example we see of this is in giving his sword away in the garden. He follows this up with many small, mostly ignored acts of non compliance - his association with Crowley, his love affair with humanity, indulging his hedonistic tendencies etc. - without endangering his position, firmly on the side of the angels. Yet, like anyone who has ever been in this type of family dynamic, he is very motivated by fear. He fears consequences because he knows they will not be merciful. He mentions this quite a few times throughout the story, worried both for himself and for Crowley. 

Crowley is the proverbial black sheep. He questions authority. If something feels wrong, he’s not going to let it go. Crowley has a very strong sense of right and wrong but where it differs from that of Aziraphale’s is that it is intrinsic. It relies on free will, on choice. Something can’t be purely right unless it is free from outside controlling influences. Force is never right, manipulation is never right. Crowley doesn’t believe in artificially imposed “morals” and he cannot reconcile the incongruence of heaven beating everyone over the head with “goodness” and forcing them to comply with it, especially when things like infantcide and crucifiction are involved and everyone is just supposed to be ok with that.

So he questions. He probably did so respectfully. “Respect your elders and betters” is definitely something you are browbeaten with in a dynamic like this. That, however, is a transgression that is not easily forgiven unless you drop it immediately and never bring it up again. Clearly, this is not what happened. And the consequence was being kicked out of heaven and punished. And he never really gets over it. He was betrayed by his family and that’s not something that ever heals right.

He “hung around the wrong people” because, under the circumstances they were the only others around. Crowley gives the distinct impression of a kid that was thrown out of his abusive family and inadvertently ended up in a gang of anarchists because self-preservation is something you learn early in a situation like that.

Heaven is very much an “ends justify the means” crowd. Of course, the “end” in this case isn’t particularly great either and in fact the only goal involved is the elimination of the other side, the perceived “evil” to Heaven’s “good”. Heaven perceives “good” as submission to the rules and they the enforcers of it. Hell perceives “evil” as the opposite of that but really it just boils down to choice.  

Hell’s manifesto then, as it were, is really just “do the opposite of what Heaven wants” (i.e. chaos) But Crowley takes that a step further because he believes in the value of choice. It’s what he’s been pushing Aziraphale towards since they met.

What makes this story so delightful and so satisfying is that Aziraphale ultimately chooses to say no to his family. He chooses, well, to have a choice, and defend others rights to choice. He leaves the abusive dynamic and he chooses Crowley and himself and humanity. He learns boundaries and stops allowing himself to be controlled. And we get such a good representation of how hard that is to do. But we also get to see that he’s not going to have to do it alone. Crowley is never going to leave him on his own, not even when he says he is. And that’s what eventually drives Aziraphale to make the choice; Heaven’s controlling superiority or Crowley’s unrelenting support.  

Crowley’s arc is that he’s caught in the middle. He’s not ruthless enough for Heaven or for Hell and he’s unable to deny his personal convictions enough to convincingly fake it. He didn’t want to fall. He didn’t want to be evil. He just didn’t want to be whatever it is Heaven is. 

So he’s out there, alone, doing his best to survive and blend in until he runs into Aziraphale and finds a kindred spirit. And Crowley can’t help but to be drawn to Aziraphale because he’s different. He’s kind. Because, even though the angel doesn’t know it yet, Aziraphale is like Crowley and they’re destined, someday, to be on their own side.

Angst with a happy ending, indeed.

GOOD OMENS SPOILERS.

So I've been thinking a lot about Muriel. About how they're sweet and naive and sort of dumb, and they're a 37th class angel.

In fact, Muriel’s level of naivety is nearly the same as Jim-level naivety/dumbness. And Jim was supposed to be a 38th class angel, after being demoted from Supreme Archangel and having his memories removed.

And when this was revealed Muriel says 'I didn't know there was a class below me', what if Muriel is just a demoted angel? What if Heaven just keeps demoting any angel who goes against God’s (the Metatron’s) Plan and making a new, lower class for them? Instead of making them fall, they just keep taking memories and demoting angels so that there wont be a perceived ‘institutional problem’. Which there isn’t. Right?

Crowley lives under near-constant critical despair, openly disparaging heaven, finding reasons to be disappointed in God as a coping mechanism for the fact that it was him who disappointed Her first.

And I love that, I really do. As someone who grew up mired in evangelical Christianity and left it behind, I understand how you can miss it, wonder why you weren’t good enough to just do what you were told, why you had to ask all of these QUESTIONS until you suddenly found yourself down this other path far away from the God who grew up with–but at the same time recognize how absolutely abusive that sort of religion is. To ask for unquestioning, blind loyalty in the guise of killing your son, oh, but not really, so it’s okay is not okay. To turn the story of Lot’s wife into a parable about the dangers of doing something so human as looking back is not okay. I mean, we were told that a story where God lets Satan fuck Job’s entire life just to win a bet was about how we should be content not ever knowing why God does things (the ineffable plan, anyone??) A faith that demands unrelenting, unquestioning, absolute obedience is NOT OKAY. 

I love that Crowley’s story, though, is to find someone he can believe in, with Aziraphale, with humanity, so that he doesn’t need God anymore. And Aziraphale isn’t demanding his loyalty through manipulative means–he’s not forcing Crowley to do what he says. That’s most clear in the scene where he has the flaming sword and a more definitive means of threatening someone, but looks down at Crowley and tells him that he’ll never talk to him again instead. (I mean, yeah, you can read that as guilt, but clearly it’s just a plain fact of their situation.) Crowley finally gets a healthier relationship after a 6000-year-long rebound period.

All through the series, God is the target of Crowley’s despair: he prays, he snipes, he picks, he rages. He understands he’s a disappointment, and he wants to believe that he doesn’t care about that, but he obviously, obviously does. That’s just… so relatable it hurts. But at the end, he’s content to hand that all off to Aziraphale and humanity, finds their flaws infinitely more worth Crowley’s devotion than God’s ineffable perfection.

Because losing God doesn’t have to mean losing your faith, and that was a thing I really needed to hear.

Why Crowley Was an Archangel, And Why it Matters: A Fan Theory

Neil Gaiman has said that Season 2 is a bridging season, setting up what is to come in Season 3, which will be based on a story he and Pratchett outlined many years ago. This season is therefore moving characters into place and establishing facts and mechanics of the Good Omens universe that we need as an audience in order to understand what comes next. It moved Aziraphale back to Heaven, and removed Gabriel and Beelzebub. This season has also been heavy on the references to Crowley’s past as an angel.

Season 2 of Good Omens has been practically inviting us to speculate on who Crowley used to be. If we’d just been given that one glimpse of him in the first scene I wouldn’t make so much of it, but we also saw him return to heaven in disguise and reject an offer of being returned to full angelic status. We have to conclude that there’s been so many sustained hints at this because it will be important next season!

Some of this has already been suggested by others, but GO2 has taken over my brain and I need to write this all out. So, let’s have a look at what we already know about Crowley’s angelic past in-universe, and what else we might be able to guess at from that. 

What’s special about Crowley’s powers?

Crowley is the only demon or angel who is shown being able to stop time. When asked about this Pre-S2, Neil Gaiman said the following:

We first see him do this in Paris in 1793, and the second time to speak to Adam to avert the apocalypse at the end of S1. The first time was something he did casually, while the second required a huge burst of power – it needed to hold off Satan, after all - and happened at Aziraphale’s urging.

A: Come up with something or… or I'll never talk to you again.

(GIF from fyeahgoodomens. There’s a collection of gifs of Crowley stopping time through S1 here.)

When we see him stop time this season, in Edinburgh in 1827, it’s also directly at Aziraphale’s request:

This bit is absolutely key to me, as this establishes that stopping time is something Crowley can do that Aziraphale cannot.

This also seems tied to the crank handle of his Bentley. When Crowley has stopped time to hold off Satan, he is gripping the handle in the same way Aziraphale carried his flaming sword, and spins in when he comes to restart time.

C: I'm going to start time. You won't have long to do whatever you're going to do.

By itself, this doesn’t mean anything. Until we see the same handle at the start of Season 2, in the hands of Angel Crowley. He uses this to start up his nebula, as a tool for setting time into motion.

Is this the same handle? It certainly appears this way. Like Aziraphale’s flaming sword, was this a gift from God that he’s managed to hang on to for thousands of years (And it just miraculously happens to fit his Bentley)? It certainly seems that the Bentley crankshaft handle is more than it seems, and that Crowley can use it as a conduit for power – as he needed to when stopping time to hold off the ruler of Hell himself.

The link between this object, a relic from his time in heaven, and his rather unique ability to stop time, suggests that Crowley was once an angel of great power.

What rank did he hold?

We saw Crowley return to Heaven, in disguise, in S2 E6, with events hinting that he was once a very high-ranking angel:

So, we know for a fact he was above the level of Thrones and Dominions. So where does this place him on Heaven’s organisational chart? My analysis here is metatextual – I don’t think looking at external hierarchies of angels is that helpful to understanding the Good Omens universe, so I will only focus on what Neil Gaiman has confirmed when asked, or has been demonstrated within the world of the show itself.

Good Omens has its own Hierarchy of Heaven, but Neil Gaiman has clarified that the Archangels we see are amongst the most senior personnel in Heaven. This runs counter to many hierarchies of angels (which are often contradictory in and of themselves) but is consistent with the depiction in John Milton’s Paradise Lost as well as Jewish tradition, where the highest ranking Archangels are given the title of “princes” of heaven. “Prince of Heaven” is also a term that Metatron applies to Gabriel in S2 E6.

Of the heavenly entities mentioned in the show, we can infer the following angelic hierarchy:

God

Metatron (NG confirms here)

Supreme Archangel (Gabriel, now Aziraphale)

Other Archangels (Michael, Uriel, Sandalphon, in that order – See NG here)

Cherubim (Aziraphale at the Garden of Eden, when he was the Angel of the Eastern Gate –NG Confirms here)

Thrones & Dominions

Principalities(?) (Aziraphale after the Garden of Eden – NG doesn’t state if this is a promotion or demotion, but it feels very demotion-y)

Other lower-ranking angels (As a Principality, Aziraphale was supposed to lead a platoon of angels into battle in S1 – so there must be many levels below him – see NG here)

Scrivners (Muriel and the level Gabriel would have been demoted to. Appears to be the lowest rank in Heaven, suggested by NG here)

There are likely many other levels in-between these that have not yet been mentioned onscreen. Saraqael, for example, seems lower down than an Archangel (addressing Michel and Uriel as “your beatitudes” before approaching them in Episode 1), but above Aziraphale. You’ll notice Seraphim aren’t in this list, because they’ve not been mentioned on screen – but I suspect they do exist in this universe and are a class below Archangels but above Cherubim.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that Crowley was an Archangel, but confirms pretty explicitly that he was once near the top.

So who was he?

Neil Gaiman has stated that his name when he was an angel was not Crowley/Crawley, and the first scene of Season 2 sees a bit of redirection when Aziraphale tries to get angel-Crowley’s name:

This is quite deliberate, and sets up his name as something important to be revealed later. However, I can’t see why his name would matter to the narrative, unless it’s something recognisable from biblical canon – or, that it’s not necessarily his name, but his rank as an angel that was important.

There are numerous pointed references throughout Season 2 to Archangels, in such a way that feels like the show is setting up for this to be revealed in the future. The misdirection about Angel-Crowley’s name may have been because Aziraphale was likely to have recognised the name of an Archangel.

More than this, I personally do think, that before his fall Crowley wasn’t just any old Archangel, but the Supreme Archangel. This is based on the following 7 points (you know God likes sevens):

The very deliberate way the camera pans to Crowley’s impassive face after Gabriel says “I’m the only first-order Archangel in the room or, you know, the universe.”

2. Metatron’s statement, “For one Prince of Heaven to be cast into the outer darkness makes a good story. For it to happen twice, makes it look like there is some kind of institutional problem.”

While it’s quite clear that we’re supposed to associate this line with Lucifer himself (and yes, I know NG confirms that's who this was alluding to!), it’s interesting that ‘Prince of Heaven’ is a title associated with Archangels in Jewish tradition and very specifically with Gabriel on screen in the universe of the series. That Jimbriel also repeats this line to Crowley in the bookshop specifically feels significant...

3. Crowley also recognises Metatron in the bookshop, where no other Archangel does. Metatron deliberately avoids using his name in this scene, calling him ‘demon’. Which is not inaccurate, but may suggest the Metatron remembers Crowley’s angelic name. It may also explain Metatron’s very dark look at Crowley as he exited the shop – the two of them have some history.

4. It’s never stated explicitly that Gabriel hasn’t always been the Supreme Archangel since the beginning, but there’s enough vagueness in the text to guess at this. When Michael and Uriel are discussing what to do in Gabriel’s absence, Michael and Uriel have this exchange:

M:There is, of course, no question of replacing the supreme archangel. I am the Archangel Michael, you are the Archangel Uriel. U: We aren't in charge. Right now, as of this moment, Heaven does not have a supreme archangel. M: There is always a supreme archangel.

“There is always a Supreme Archangel!” not “Gabriel has always been the Supreme Archangel!” According to some traditions, the Supreme Archangel was the first angel ever created, which would support Michael’s statement: There is always, and there always has been, a Supreme Archangel, since the time of creation. It’s possible that someone else held this role pre-Fall, and Gabriel was appointed as successor after the War in Heaven.

5. The way the other Archangels behave around him. There’s a wariness, but also a strange deference. On being discovered by Saraqael in heaven, they don’t immediately throw him out, but let him watch Gabriel’s trial – even ordering Muriel to show him it. Michael and Uriel then follow him back to Earth without much fuss, giving him quite a look, while Crowley seems to be enjoying himself:

(This also feeds into why I think Crowley looked so different during the Job segment. He knew he might encounter a few Archangels he’s not seen for a thousand years or so, and so appears in disguise.) 6. The lightening! I’ve seen someone point out that Crowley’s electric temper tantrum in S2E1 mirrors the lightening used by Gabriel to travel to Earth in S1E6. This could be a coincidence of VFX, or it could be a Clue.

7. That last conversation between Aziraphale and Crowley:

A: I don't think you understand what I'm offering you. C: I understand. I think I understand a whole lot better than you do.

That’s such a weighted statement, and could be interpreted in so many ways. But, viewed in this light, it sounds like a warning from a former angel who used to be very high up in Heaven indeed – and has absolutely no desire to return there.  

Why does any of this matter?

Obviously just theorising here…

The story is setting us up for a reveal here – Crowley’s status as an angel, and who he was before the Fall is clearly going to factor into Season 3 in some way. Why tease us with it so much and so often if it’s not important?

In terms of the narrative, a powerful revelation would be that Crowley used to have Aziraphale’s new job. That it led him to asking questions about the Almighty’s plan and then, ultimately, falling. And that the Supreme Archangel, for one reason for another, eventually turns against Heaven – it happened to Crowley, to Gabriel (after a few thousand years), and then will have to happen to Aziraphale too.

I could be way off here, but at some point the show needs to explain why Crowley is so different from other demons and has powers that no other demon or angel seems to possess. A reveal that he was once very, very senior in the organisation of Heaven, before asking too many questions and being cast out, would serve as a explanation and be a meaningful development to the narrative of Season 3.

I don’t think we’ll necessarily get a name (because we don’t need one) – but I do think we will get a rank or some idea about who he used to be, and that’s what’s going to be significant. TLDR: Supreme Archangel Crowley!?

Awhile ago @ouidamforeman made this post:

This shot through my brain like a chain of firecrackers, so, without derailing the original post, I have some THOUGHTS to add about why this concept is not only hilarious (because it is), but also...

It. It kind of fucks. Severely.

And in a delightfully Pratchett-y way, I'd dare to suggest.

I'll explain:

As inferred above, both Crowley AND Aziraphale have canonical Biblical counterparts. Not by name, no, but by function.

Crowley, of course, is the serpent of Eden.

(note on the serpent of Eden: In Genesis 3:1-15, at least, the serpent is not identified as anything other than a serpent, albeit one that can talk. Later, it will be variously interpreted as a traitorous agent of Hell, as a demon, as a guise of Satan himself, etc. In Good Omens --as a slinky ginger who walks funny)

Lesser known, at least so far as I can tell, is the flaming sword. It, too, appears in Genesis 3, in the very last line:

"So he drove out the man; and placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." --Genesis 3:24, KJV

Thanks to translation ambiguity, there is some debate concerning the nature of the flaming sword --is it a divine weapon given unto one of the Cherubim (if so, why only one)? Or is it an independent entity, which takes the form of a sword (as other angelic beings take the form of wheels and such)? For our purposes, I don't think the distinction matters. The guard at the gate of Eden, whether an angel wielding the sword or an angel who IS the sword, is Aziraphale.

(note on the flaming sword: in some traditions --Eastern Orthodox, for example-- it is held that upon Christ's death and resurrection, the flaming sword gave up it's post and vanished from Eden for good. By these sensibilities, the removal of the sword signifies the redemption and salvation of man.

...Put a pin in that. We're coming back to it.)

So, we have our pair. The Serpent and the Sword, introduced at the beginning and the end (ha) of the very same chapter of Genesis.

But here's the important bit, the bit that's not immediately obvious, the bit that nonetheless encapsulates one of the central themes, if not THE central theme, of Good Omens:

The Sword was never intended to guard Eden while Adam and Eve were still in it.

Do you understand?

The Sword's function was never to protect them. It doesn't even appear until after they've already fallen. No... it was to usher Adam and Eve from the garden, and then keep them out. It was a threat. It was a punishment.

The flaming sword was given to be used against them.

So. Again. We have our pair. The Serpent and the Sword: the inception and the consequence of original sin, personified. They are the one-two punch that launches mankind from paradise, after Hell lures it to destruction and Heaven condemns it for being destroyed. Which is to say that despite being, supposedly, hereditary enemies on two different sides of a celestial cold war, they are actually unified by one purpose, one pivotal role to play in the Divine Plan: completely fucking humanity over.

That's how it's supposed to go. It is written.

...But, in Good Omens, they're not just the Serpent and the Sword.

They're Crowley and Aziraphale.

(author begins to go insane from emotion under the cut)

In Good Omens, humanity is handed it's salvation (pin!) scarcely half an hour after losing it. Instead of looming over God's empty garden, the sword protects a very sad, very scared and very pregnant girl. And no, not because a blameless martyr suffered and died for the privilege, either.

It was just that she'd had such a bad day. And there were vicious animals out there. And Aziraphale worried she would be cold.

...I need to impress upon you how much this is NOT just a matter of being careless with company property. With this one act of kindness, Aziraphale is undermining the whole entire POINT of the expulsion from Eden. God Herself confronts him about it, and he lies. To God.

And the Serpent--

(Crowley, that is, who wonders what's so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil anyway; who thinks that maybe he did a GOOD thing when he tempted Eve with the apple; who objects that God is over-reacting to a first offense; who knows what it is to fall but not what it is to be comforted after the fact...)

--just goes ahead and falls in love with him about it.

As for Crowley --I barely need to explain him, right? People have been making the 'didn't the serpent actually do us a solid?' argument for centuries. But if I'm going to quote one of them, it may as well be the one Neil Gaiman wrote ficlet about:

"If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization." --Robert G. Ingersoll

The first to ask questions.

Even beyond flattering literary interpretation, we know that Crowley is, so often, discreetly running damage control on the machinations of Heaven and Hell. When he can get away with it. Occasionally, when he can't (1827).

And Aziraphale loves him for it, too. Loves him back.

And so this romance plays out over millennia, where they fall in love with each other but also the world, because of each other and because of the world. But it begins in Eden. Where, instead of acting as the first Earthly example of Divine/Diabolical collusion and callousness--

(other examples --the flood; the bet with Satan; the back channels; the exchange of Holy Water and Hellfire; and on and on...)

--they refuse. Without even necessarily knowing they're doing it, they just refuse. Refuse to trivialize human life, and refuse to hate each other.

To write a story about the Serpent and the Sword falling in love is to write a story about transgression.

Not just in the sense that they are a demon and an angel, and it's ~forbidden. That's part of it, yeah, but the greater part of it is that they are THIS demon and angel, in particular. From The Real Bible's Book of Genesis, in the chapter where man falls.

It's the sort of thing you write and laugh. And then you look at it. And you think. And then you frown, and you sit up a little straighter. And you think.

And then you keep writing.

And what emerges hits you like a goddamn truck.

(...A lot of Pratchett reads that way. I believe Gaiman when he says Pratchett would have been happy with the romance, by the way. I really really do).

It's a story about transgression, about love as transgression. They break the rules by loving each other, by loving creation, and by rejecting the hatred and hypocrisy that would have triangulated them as a unified blow against humanity, before humanity had even really got started. And yeah, hell, it's a queer romance too, just to really drive the point home (oh, that!!! THAT!!!)

...I could spend a long time wildly gesturing at this and never be satisfied. Instead of watching me do that (I'll spare you), please look at this gif:

I love this shot so much.

Look at Eve and Crowley moving, at the same time in the same direction, towards their respective wielders of the flaming sword. Adam reaches out and takes her hand; Aziraphale reaches out and covers him with a wing.

You know what a shot like that establishes? Likeness. Commonality. Kinship.

"Our side" was never just Crowley and Aziraphale. Crowley says as much at the end of season 1 ("--all of us against all of them."). From the beginning, "our side" was Crowley, Aziraphale, and every single human being. Lately that's around 8 billion, but once upon a time it was just two other people. Another couple. The primeval mother and father.

But Adam and Eve die, eventually. Humanity grows without them. It's Crowley and Aziraphale who remain, and who protect it. Who...oversee it's upbringing.

Godfathers. Sort of.

“I don’t think that is what God wants. And I don’t think you want it either.”

This line of Aziraphale’s in the Job minisode keeps sticking out to me. Because this is the heart of the problem, right? This is how Aziraphale can see Crowley so completely and also not at all.

Because yes they suck at open communication and yes it’s because they had to hide their relationship for thousands of years and have so so so much trauma and fear to work through. But ALSO they actually do have a profound difference in how they see the world that keeps coming between them, and it’s not just theoretical but deeply personal to both of them.

Because Aziraphale still wants to believe that God is good. He can’t let go of that because his whole identity is wrapped up in being an angel of the Lord, and if God’s not good then what has he been doing for his entire existence?

And so when bad things are happening he falls back on This cannot be what God wants. The whole of season one, he refuses to believe that God could really want the world to end—even though we now know he knew this was a possibility before the world even started. He keeps going up the chain of command, trying to find someone to intervene. “That’s why I’m going to have a word with the Almighty and then the Almighty will fix it.” As if God doesn’t have all the information or hasn’t been paying attention.

And really, the events of season one reinforce this worldview for him. Because if the Archangel Fucking Gabriel isn’t sure what God wants, then maybe God did want them to stop Armageddon. Maybe it was Aziraphale and Crowley who were doing God’s work after all.

He’s gotten as far as realizing that Heaven’s orders are not the same thing as God’s will, but he still hasn’t detached the concepts of Good and Right from God in his worldview.

Crowley is a good person who does the right thing so he must still be an angel deep down. “I know the angel you were.” The only way Aziraphale can conceptualize Crowley saving Job’s children is, “Come on, you’re a little bit on our [God’s] side.” So Crowley’s fall was a mistake; Crowley belongs in Heaven, where he was so happy before the Fall. Why wouldn’t he want to be an angel again? And yeah maybe Heaven sucks now but God is still good, so there’s hope that the system can be reformed with a change of leadership, and Heaven can be made to actually do good, the way God always intended.

But that’s not how Crowley sees the world at all. He is operating with an entirely different understanding of reality. Because he figured out a long time ago (at least by the time of the Job job, but probably long before that) that you can’t base your sense of morality on what you think God wants. Not just because you don’t know for sure, but because sometimes God’s plans are fucking awful. God in Good Omens is not kind to Her creations. She doesn’t tolerate questions or doubts or disobedience. She’s capricious, turning on the creatures She made and killing a bunch of them when She’s in a bad mood. She punishes indiscriminately and disproportionately. She wagers human lives like gambling chips. The kids were supposed to be dead no matter who won the bet.

I think it’s interesting that Crowley is the one who introduces the idea in season one of “What if the Almighty planned it like this all along? From the very beginning.” That’s probably a comforting thought to Aziraphale, soothing his anxieties about going against Heaven right when he is feeling acute distress at the idea of no longer having a side. (And, in that particular moment, no longer even having a bookshop.)

But it’s not a comforting thought to Crowley. Have you seen what happens when God has a plan for you? It fucking sucks. Woe betide you if you’re the Barbie God decides to play with today. (At bare minimum, you’re coming back with some burn marks and a weird haircut.)

I’ve brought up the line “There are no right people. There’s just God, moving in mysterious ways and not talking to any of us” before, and I tend to focus on the “there are no right people” part. But also, there’s just God.

Aziraphale tends to draw a distinction between God’s will and Heaven’s orders when it suits him, and collapse that distinction when it doesn’t. Crowley almost never differentiates between God and Heaven. There’s just God, and She’s not going to explain why this is happening or listen to pleas for mercy (although Crowley still tries). You can’t trust Heaven or Hell, and you can’t count on God to show up and make everything all right. Sometimes God is in fact the reason that things are not all right. You’re on your own.

(And. Look. Crowley is right on this one. There are certainly aspects of their relationship where they’re both equally responsible for things being a shitshow, but the text is pretty unambiguous about Crowley, a demon, having the most accurate read on the nature of God in the world of Good Omens out of any of the metaphysical characters.)

Crowley rebuilt his entire sense of self, alone, after the Fall. He created himself anew and developed his own moral compass and sense of identity independent of both Heaven and Hell. “The angel you knew is not me.” When Crowley does the right thing, that’s not his angel-ness shining through; that’s just Crowley.

And from a like, trauma recovery point of view, it’s actually very healthy for him to have the realization that sometimes God’s just kind of a dick. He didn’t do anything to deserve getting kicked out of Heaven. None of them did. Just God messing them about because She didn’t like being questioned, or She wanted to see what would happen, or She needed two sides for Reasons and didn’t much care who was on one or the other, or She’s playing some fucked up little game for Her own amusement. (And if there was some Great Plan that required Crowley to fall…well, that is also fucked up. Because it doesn’t matter if there was a reason. It still hurt.)

And while Crowley in general is extremely patient with Aziraphale and his slow, halting journey away from Heaven…it’s gotta sting, every time Aziraphale doesn’t want to believe that God could be cruel, when Crowley is standing right fucking there. It’s gotta hurt when Aziraphale refuses to see something that Crowley knows to be true through his own lived experience. Because it should be enough. What happened to him should be enough to make someone who loves him walk away from Heaven and never look back. And it isn’t.

But of course Crowley is one hundred percent not going to talk about this, if he is even fully self-aware about having these thoughts, because it’s far too painful and vulnerable. (He talks to plants, goats, God, and no one in a bar at the end of the world, but never to Aziraphale.) And so he says “Tell me you said no” and “I think I understand a lot better than you do” because he can’t say Choose me. Just this once, choose me and he can’t say Believe me.

And Aziraphale is not going to think about all this and work it out for himself, because he has a massive lump of denial centered around exactly this thing, that sometimes God hurts people who didn’t do anything to deserve it. I’m sure he’s thought about the Fall in abstract terms, enough to be afraid of it, but not in terms of this is a thing that happened to a person I love. And he has certainly not allowed himself to draw any conclusions about the nature of God from it, because that is far too scary a prospect.

And so they’re stuck. Until they can figure out how to remove this massive landmine from the center of their relationship, they are going to keep having the same fight over and over again, and they’re going to keep hurting each other without fully understanding why.

My heart 😭

This scene was absolutely beautiful BUT it’s also the crux of the issue. You guys this is where the problems start. Because—because Crowley’s already cast out, he finds COMFORT in the idea that they are lonely together. “As far as he can” becoming “as far as they can” is an END to his complete “otherness” and something to appreciate, to covet, and to find solace in. He’s finally not alone.

But—and this is important.

Aziraphale does NOT feel that. He can’t.

This moment is completely and utterly devastating for Zira. He finds out he’s not damned and sure, he’s relieved. But he’s no longer “an Angel” in the way that he’s learned is right. He’s now unchangeably and forever; less holy—a concept that is dearly important to his identity. “[Going] along with heaven as far as he can” is a FAILING on his part. Not heaven’s(at least to him). There is no solace or comfort—he finds existence like that—just the two of them—achingly LONELY. And that’s just how his perspective demands to be taken. It’s the only perspective he is capable of in that moment AND after it, too.

Take into account Crowley has went from having no one AT ALL to having SOMEONE. And he puts EVERYTHING he has into it. This is not good. It’s unfair to Aziraphale. And it’s unfair to himself. On the opposite side, you have Aziraphale. Who has just went from having the ENTIRE HEAVENLY HOST, to having this SINGLE demon— who, one minute ago, Aziraphale thought would be dragging him off to hell.

And the part that aches is that this perspective hasn’t changed. Aziraphale feels like his existence is lacking because he wants so badly to be GOOD. And good is Holy. Good is heavenly. He’s the problem for having morals that are misaligned.

Spoilers for the last episode:

Aziraphale has just been given the validation that he is not only GOOD but the most HEAVENLY Angel there is, the Supreme Archangel, even. And if heavens morals are now HIS morals, then that’s EVERY PROBLEM SOLVED. With a bow even, because Crowley’s basically on heavens side anyway, he’s GOOD, isn’t he? He’s been good this whole time, so why wouldn’t heaven want him back? Reinstating him as Angel would fix everything. They can be together, and they can be good, and they can be HOLY. All Aziraphale’s conflicting emotions about loving Crowley can be packed away because Crowley will be perfect again—and surely Crowley wants to be perfect—wants to be forgiven.(sorry everyone, that hurt me too, oof) Aziraphale is SHOCKED by Crowley’s refusal. He’s devastated that his version of perfect is treated as something naive and distasteful.

Crowley’s devastated too. He’s just lost “their side”. A concept that for 5000+ years has been THE ONLY THING he puts love into besides his car and perhaps his plants(And humanity, but he’ll never admit to that—I’m looking at the “No more dying” scene). Crowley is constantly being devastated by Aziraphale. He’s “too fast”, he’s too evil, he’s too good sometimes. Crowley has always been TOO MUCH. But this is different because for four years, he’s had “them”(on their own side) without the hiding, and without the denial and without Aziraphale constantly putting former jobs between them. PLUS he has a mountain of trauma centered around the concept of “forgiveness”, so that’s not great considering Aziraphale’s last words to him(THAT HE HASNT SAID ALL SEASON EVEN WHEN HE MADE CROWLEY APOLOGIZE IN THE FIRST EPISODE, AHHHHH). He’s losing everything and he’s desperate: Why isn’t he enough, hasn’t he been enough these last 4 years? Hasn’t HE been enough the last 6000?

Aziraphale has always been enough for Crowley. But being enough for Crowley doesn’t fix how Aziraphale has never been enough for himself, not since Job. He looks at this offer as a chance for HIM to be enough, and for Crowley to be FORGIVEN. Crowley looks at it as a betrayal because it’s Aziraphale saying Crowley ISNT enough, and he NEVER has been.

But that’s not what Aziraphale is saying. He’s saying, “Let me fix it for you”. Crowley is hearing, “Let me fix you for it.” Two completely different and completely horrifying concepts.

And then Crowley needs to say HIS piece(oh my gosh, btw, this was heartbreaking).

“Let’s be together on our terms” is basically what I’ve distilled it down to. But Aziraphale hears, “Let’s run away from our problems”

Aziraphale doesn’t want to run away, and Crowley doesn’t want to change who he is.

They both want to be together so badly but they don’t understand why they each want it so differently. And Aziraphale can’t compromise because he’s brainwashed and LOATHES himself. And Crowley can’t compromise because he’s traumatized and LOVES Aziraphale just as he is. Crowley doesn’t want to be good on heavens terms. He can see Heaven for what it is; “toxic”. He hates heaven not only for what the Host did to him, but for HOW THEY TREATED Aziraphale.

They both don’t understand each other because for all the pleading and presenting and monologuing, they never once in that whole conversation, actually talked.

Alright, not to be too predictable, but I wanna talk about space and color as it's used in the intro to season 1 for a minute. And you know, show some gorgeous space shots.

So we open in the dark. There's distant lights and the occasional flare from them moving through space but for the most part we get the angel that would eventually become Crowley alone in enough darkness that he himself isn't even giving off particularly significant amounts of light.

But then, enter Aziraphale. He arrives in a big ball of blue light shining above him that really emphasizes Crowley's red hair. They get tied to the colors we most often see them attached to, especially in promotional materials.

From here the entire scene gets slightly brighter, even once Aziraphale's light dims down. They're both lit up once they're together, even it the middle of literal nothingness.

They start the universe next, using Crowley's hand crank, which gives off a magic that's a combination of their two colors - purple.

A very similar color to this shows up in heaven as a signal flare for their accidentally too powerful half a miracle. It's a color tied to a miracle so big it could've revived someone 25 times and also a miracle that got the engine of the universe running.

And then. Creation starts. Our first image is a very Heavenly aesthetic. It's a blueish light cutting through the clouds much like Az just cut through the dark.

And what explodes from that is the thing that set me down this little rabbit hole in the first place: it's purple scattered through with red and blue lights.

As the initial burst fades, the blue and the red separate, the color fading except for this tiny blue dot and this growing red zone on the right.

The blue then fades, leaving us with an extremely Crowley coded palette here and a very orangeish red. There's shades of gray, a little bit of light, but not nearly as much color. As the sequence moves the darkness grows but does start slowly filling with small points of light.

We then end up with shades of gray both light and dark. There's balance here, even if it's not particularly colorful.

And then all at once a pinkish red bursts forth with these intense clawing tendrils. At the core of it, from the heart of it, is a bright blue ball of light.

It fades into a blue heart surrounded by darkness with whisps of white resembling a certain someone's hair. Or, as some friends pointed out two people embracing.

As the nebula settles a few other colors set in but the primary scheme is still red and blue. An almost violent plume of red emerges on the left side of the image.

And from this moment on most shots of the two of them back them with their respective color schemes.

They chat and Aziraphale gets anxious. He looks for a distraction and is immediately drawn to the space where the colors mix.

And as we fade out the other colors in the picture fade. We get the most balanced blue and red uet. And on the far corners fairly clear dark and light.

So what does this mean? The purple speaks to them being very powerful together. And, the rest is arguably just representative of the plot. We have Aziraphale as a beacon in the dark - a signal flare we know Crowley has throughout history been aware of and drawn to. We have them brightening each other. We have Az's color breaking out of heaven to mix with Crowley's to create something new and wonderful and powerful. Aziraphale's color fades, leaving Crowley alone. We then get a burst of a red closer to Crowley's current hair, with Aziraphale's blue in the core of it that eventually becomes a blue heart surrounded by darkness. That too fades, replaced by the pillars becoming their familiar hand shape and slightly more colors seeping in. As they talk together and move closer together their own colors settle back in and come to balance.

I absolutely cannot stop thinking about the version of Crowley we get to see from before the Fall. He smiles differently, he speaks differently. There's so much oppenness in his expression. He loves what he does! Is genuinly mournful when he learns it will be destroyed.

Compared to the Crowley we see after years of solitude, abuse and treading on eggshells around his bosses. Closed off, furious, suspicious. I do truly believe that after he was called back to Hell in the graveyard that the next time Aziraphale saw him was in 1862, when he asked, in that feeble, broken down voice, for Holy Water. He has spent so much of his existence in survival mode, is desperate to cling to the peace he's found.

Nina describes him as the "hard bitten one" who can't trust anyone ever again, and it sort of gobsmacked me that she could see that!!! that Neil Gaiman would have someone say that!!!!! But, of course, she is in many ways the same.

Whatever happened to Crowley after the Laudanum incident certainly wasn't a one-off. He was certainly punished again and again for deeds seen as too good. Enough so that when he is called kind, when he is called good, when he is thanked, his response is violent panic.

It's easy for us to believe that maybe he's always been like that. But no. Gaiman gave us incontestable proof that there was a time where Crowley smiled freely, where he looked with wide and joyful eyes at the parts of the world he created. The difference from that, to the numb and deeply lonely Crowley that we see with Job, the anxious, repressed and angry Crowley that we see in the present day, is one of the biggest tragedies of all.