This Man Has On And Off And No Other Settings Factory Got Stuck - Tumblr Posts
Aziraphale is legitimately a fascinating character to me, especially considering how the narrative deals with his fear specifically.
Think about it. Six THOUSAND years. That is an UNFATHOMABLY long time. We cannot even begin to conceive of it as humans. And he has been looking over his shoulder (as has Crowley), because at any moment someone could walk up to him, decide he isn’t good enough, and permanently take him away from his home. This goes as I said for both, because they can’t get new bodies on their own. If they’re taken out, living as they were becomes pretty much impossible, which is horrifying.
But Aziraphale specifically I find really interesting because of his situation. Consider this. You are presented with your creator. The person who designed you down to your very molecules, and they tell you the meaning of life. And they tell you you were created to be good. And you watch as all these people, created same as you, fail, and are taken and burned and warped into monsters and you are told they are evil.
And then you meet one of them. And he is kind, and he helps, even better then Heaven can, sometimes. And that is terrifying, because you are told he is evil. So either they, those that created you and everything you have always been meant to do, are wrong, or you cannot yet see how evil he is. And both terrify you. So you spend years waiting for the trap to spring, and it never does, and that can’t be right because he is no longer supposed to be good, he is fallen, and none of that makes any SENSE.
Throughout Good Omens, we see even how Crowley identifies with the role Hell has assigned him (“I’m not NICE.”) but Aziraphale is in a totally different position. Because Crowley has already fallen, he can avoid Hell. And Hell, like Aziraphale learns Heaven is, is fallible. But unlike Crowley, Aziraphale is still an Angel. Aziraphale can still Fall.
And no matter how fallible Heaven is, God is all knowing. He has to live with the fact that God is watching, all the time, and judging his actions. And if She sees them, and decides he has indulged too much, that his love of a demon is wrong, that he is no longer good, he will Fall. And he has spent thousands of years shaping his identity around the word “Angel”. If he falls, he will no longer get to be nice, and kind, and himself, and he is terrified.
Aziraphale is so black and white about things because he is so terrified of what grey means. Because if grey exists the way he thinks it might, then his whole existence for thousands of years might have been wrong. And that is fascinating to me.