i think one of my favorite things about good omens (the tv show), and aziraphale and crowley’s relationship, is how cheesily slow-burn it is. the two of them have been gradually falling in love with each other over 6 millennia of accidental meetings, wiling/thwarting, and clandestine drinks. they’re classic enemies-to-friends-to-lovers: an angel! and a demon!
but good omens the show also has a field day with aziraphale’s apprehensions about the whole thing. from his side of the relationship, aziraphale is continually in flux over whether he really accepts how important crowley is to him.
aziraphale’s development throughout the show is characterized by his ambivalence.
he’s an angel, a servant of god put on earth to do good. that does not include associating with demons on his checklist of holy deeds. repeatedly, aziraphale reasserts his role as the angel, taking shelter behind the straight and narrow that’s expected of him, whenever he feels that that particular sense of his identity is being threatened by his relationship with crowley.
of course, aziraphale then tends to undermine his own assertions.
funnily enough, it’s not the demon trying to play the long game of tempting an angel to fall. it’s the angel playing the long game of dancing the line—trying to maintain the best of both worlds: his identity as an angel, his loyalty to god and heaven; as well as his friendship with crowley.
and let’s be real. crowley has been well-aware of aziraphale’s uncertainty for a long time.
unlike aziraphale, crowley’s not interested in maintaining a healthy allegiance to hell or lucifer in the way that aziraphale continually turns back to heaven, to gabriel, and to god for approval or solutions. he does the bare minimum to keep himself bodily and metaphysically intact—and perhaps glean some personal satisfaction from a job well-done, even if it’s a somewhat malicious job.
after all, the evil deeds that he favors? well…
take hastur and ligur, dukes of hell and model representatives of what the place idealizes. their deeds on the day they deliver the antichrist are tempting a priest with lust and compelling a politician to accept a bribe. hastur gleefully kills a nun and sets a convent on fire, while ligur thinks favorably upon the idea of ripping a person’s right arm off. they’re up close and personal. direct responsibility over the corruption and destruction of individual souls.
crowley doesn’t favor that style. when he corrupts, he doesn’t shove a train off its tracks with his own hands. he creates a highway that radiates waves of general ill will, or shuts down london’s mobile phone network to make everyone just a little bit more irritable. when he acts upon his duties as a demon, crowley doesn’t do any more than any other normal human might encourage as a by-product of living in the same world. his deeds are the equivalent of someone cutting you off in traffic, or your cell signal cutting out from non-occult forces.
he preserves free will. sure, he made your day a bit worse, but really, the only one making the choice of taking that out on the people around you is you.
and don’t ask crowley to kill anyone. because frankly, judging by his distaste for god’s flood, jesus’s crucifixion, being the one to eliminate the antichrist? he’d really rather not.
he gave the paintball competitors real guns but ensured they wouldn’t kill anyone. he set a bucket of holy water on top of his door to kill whichever demon chose to come after him but didn’t put any in his plant mister.
crowley doesn’t have an ounce of real dedication to hell. he was and has only ever been the fallen angel who sauntered vaguely downwards.
so in this, he’s the antithesis to aziraphale’s vacillation. crowley has no ties holding him back from committing fully to a relationship with aziraphale. time and again, crowley is the one who initiates their interactions, who does him favors first, who saves him from discorporation, for no other benefit except companionship. and this frightens aziraphale.
it takes millennia for aziraphale to let down each barrier. and crowley remains patient. he understands his reluctance to leave the welcome arms of heaven behind. even after their 1862 fight in st. james’s park, crowley reappears out of nowhere nearly 80 years later to save aziraphale and his books and rejects the thanks he tries to give. on the day of the apocalypse, aziraphale yells to him that their friendship is over, and crowley still comes back begging him to run away with him to alpha centauri.
but at the same time… crowley refuses to make it easier for aziraphale.
some of his pushback to aziraphale’s generosity can definitely be attributed to difficulties with self-esteem. he’s still done hell’s work, after all, and coming from a place with demotivational posters that are basically depression on paper won’t do wonders for one’s ability to accept compliments.
but being a demon—being a fallen angel—is still central to who crowley is. while he may not hold any loyalty to hell because of it, he’s also not interested in returning to heaven. why would he be, when they cast him down into a pool of boiling sulphur only for asking questions? when they’re just as comfortable as hell with killing innocents and starting wars?
so when the end is nigh, and aziraphale is trying to imply his own solution to saving the both of them…
aziraphale has just gone begging to heaven to put an end to the apocalypse. and they told him no. the war has to be won.
he still doesn’t have the nerve to openly disobey heaven’s commands. and in his certainty that heaven will indeed win if the apocalypse happens, the only option that will allow aziraphale to remain on heaven’s side while preserving crowley’s life is if crowley returns to the host.
this suggestion, though, is not one crowley is willing to take.
a relationship with aziraphale is something crowley deeply values. but he won’t settle for an aziraphale that hasn’t accepted the full ramifications of what that entails—whether it’s the fact that crowley is a demon, full stop, with all the implications therein; or that to love him is reprehensible to heaven.
aziraphale’s blind loyalty to heaven and his relationship with crowley are incompatible, a fact that he’s spent the last 6 millennia ignoring. crowley has been patient, trying to allow aziraphale to come to terms with it in his own time, but aziraphale couldn’t balance the knife’s edge between them forever. as the apocalypse approaches, so too does the conflict in their relationship come to a head.
crowley demands that he make the choice.
and once again, aziraphale chooses heaven’s will over crowley.
it’s only when aziraphale tries to reason with heaven one last time, talking to the voice of god themself, and has utter failure spelled out to him in the sky, that aziraphale finally accepts that heaven has no interest in the compassion and love that he and crowley value so dearly. the choice between heaven and crowley—was never really such a difficult choice after all.
good omens the show is not only a 600k slow-burn between two mortal enemies, it’s a very human tale in which it’s not the demon that struggles with accepting their desire for love and companionship, but the angel. while good omens the book is as fabulous a piece of source material as a show could wish to have, the show is the story that flips the archetypal denial of one’s love on its head. it’s the being of “evil” that offers the outstretched hand and waits patiently for the being of “good” to take it.
aziraphale and crowley face down against their respective superiors together, against lucifer, against holy water and hell fire.
and a nightingale sings in berkeley square.
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