Obviously I never minded it when the ‘Good Omens’ Fandom tried playing around with concepts of, like, Crowley and Aziraphale being Soulmates or being Made for each other or so on. We were just having Fun in our little shared Sandbox. But I really cannot understand why the Actual Writers of the Actual Good Omens Show were like “Hey, do you know what our narrative about Free Will and star-crossed lovers defying their assigned roles to be together needs……. Implications that they’re actually Soulmates bound together by fate!” Like WHAT do they think they were doing here???
Then I thought, ‘Well, this is basically like a Newt and Anathema situation, isn’t it? They’re also a couple from ‘opposite sides’, a Witchfinder and a Witch, who get together but also they are explicitly Predestined thanks to Agnes Nutter’s prophecies….”
Newt and Anathema’s ‘Hereditary Enemies Turned Lovers’ appeal was always pretty minimal. Newt is barely a Witchfinder, Anathema holds no ill will towards him or his ancestor, there is no real friction in their relationship around that part. The predestination part was by far the main focus.
GO1 and especially Book Omens's Newthema does give us a few nods to how Weird it is to know a relationship you are interested in has also been Determined by Unchangeable Fate.
While all the implications of Aziraphale and Crowley’s ‘Soulmates’ status in GO3 is pretty much always played as unironically straightforwardly Romantic. Even after they supposedly break away from God’s control…. “They will always be together in every lifetime and every universe” is supposed to the bittersweet but triumphant message their story ends on.
At least Newt and Anathema get to burn Agnes’ second book and actively choose to try and live together and freely. You could say Crowley and Aziraphale remaking the world and then reincarnating into Human versions who get married is the equivalent of that, but the fact that they have no conscious memory or awareness of their previous lives remove the aspect of Choice.
Also, GO1 and Book Omens are a bit more… ambivalent about the questions of the Predestination Paradoxes and how Free Will factors with Ineffability. “If God planned for everything and the Ineffable Plan cannot be changed, then this means They actually want Humans to disobey the plan and make their own destiny, so this is still part of the Plan” is the piece of Theological Bullshitting that makes up Aziraphale and Crowley’s main contribution to actually saving the world. It is a positive moment in the context of that storyline.
And in general, the tone of the ending of the Book/GO1 when it explores the idea that disobedience and Free Will are actually part of God’s Ineffable Plan is…. Maybe not in a 100% straightforwardly positive, but is definitely kinda sardonically jovial about the concept. Especially when you consider, like, the moment in the book where Agnes Nutter’s ghost chuckles with both foreknowledge and joy seeing her descendant reject her second book.
And the implication that God’s real plan might be to set the stage for a Humanist revolution against Heaven and Hell…
GO3, meanwhile, is of the opinion that this means that there is no REAL Free Will under these circumstances. This is just a hopeless rigged game that will always end with the destruction of the world one way or another, and this such a dire state and Real Free Will is so important that this is worth it for our two beloved Protagonists to kill themselves over it.
So, yeah, it does feel more discordant that the idea of these characters exploring how their Love might have been one of those things that always felt like disobedience and an expression of their own Free Will was also ‘Predictable’ to God and given by Them just…. never even comes up. Because Someone forbids these two actually get to talk about their relationship in any meaningful way in canon, am I right?
And even more discordant that the idea that their relationship is still controlled by some sort of Cosmic Force of Fate is their Happily Ever After???
Also, like, no offense to Newton Pulsifer and Anathema Device as characters, but who the FUCK ever looked at the Ineffable Husbands and went ‘oh, yeah, you know what would make this even better? If it was more like Newthema!’?????
