It surprised me when, instead of Crystal dropping in and fracturing Charles and Edwin's thirty years of friendship, they went with Crystal sinking into the fold of Charles and Edwin's friendship and becoming an important and unique addition to the group.
It surprised me when, instead of Gay Boy Pining Over Straight Best Friend, they went with Gay Boy Realises Feelings For Straight Best Friend And Confesses Almost Immediately with a bonus of Straight Boy Accepts Confession With Surprising Grace And Nothing Changes, Not Really.
It surprised me when, instead of making the female characters repetitive and semi-rational and ultimately less powerful, they went with characters who are smart and selfish and kind and cruel and strong and flawed and oh, they happen to be female too.
It surprised me when Charles liking Crystal did not affect one bit of how much he loved Edwin.
It surprised me when Jenny talked about spinsters with cats and Niko did not bat an eye.
It surprised me with Edwin and Niko. It surprised me with, we have forever to figure the rest out. It surprised me with Crystal's kindness, Jenny's empathy, the casual and absolute, the good you do will come back around.
Dead Boy Detectives was surprising. One day, I hope I can sit back and watch another show and none of this has to be surprising anymore.
One thing I love about Crowley --never stated, but consistently shown-- is that he is, at heart, an engineer.
I have a few different things to say about that. Let's unpack them.
As the Unnamed Angel, we see his designs for the Pillars of Creation are millions of pages long, comprised of cramped text, footnotes, diagrams, schematics, etc. It's very...Renaissance polymath, in the way it implies a particular intersection of artist and inventor.
Also: in the naked romanticism with which he views his stars.
We already knew he made stars, but in s2 we learn that he did NOT sculpt each of them by hand. He designed a nebula ("a star factory," he says) that will form several thousand young stars and proto-planets, and all --aside from getting the 'factory' running-- without him lifting a finger. We also learn that these young stars and proto-planets stand in contrast to those made by other angels, which are going to come 'pre-aged.'
...I'm reminded of Hastur and Ligur's approach to temptations. Damning one human soul at a time, devoting singular attention to it over the course of years or decades, and how that stands in contrast to Crowley's reliance on, quote, 'knock-on effects.'
Ligur: It's not exactly...craftsmanship.
Crowley: Head office don't seem to mind. They love me down there.
Hm.
I'm also reminded of the M25.
The M25 may not be as grand as a nebula (sentences you only say in GOmens fandom...), but LIKE his nebula it's an intricate, self-sustaining engine that does Crowley's work for him, many times over. Again.
That's some pretty neat characterization --and so is the indication towards Crowley's disinterest in victimizing anyone tempting individual people. It takes a considerable amount of planning and effort (and creeping about in wellies), but in accordance with his design the M25 generates a constant stream of low-grade evil on a gigantic scale.
Cumulatively gigantic, that is. Individually? Negligible.
But no other demon understands human nature well enough to parse that one million ticked-off motorists are not, in any meaningful way, actually equivalent to one dictator, or one mass-murderer, or even one little influential regressive. That's the trick of it. Crowley gets Hell's approval (which he NEEDS to survive, and to maintain the degree of freedom he's eked out for himself), and at the same time ensures that any actual ~Evil Influence~ is spread nice and thin.
It's some clever machinery. And he knows it, too:
The Unnamed Angel and Crowley are both proud of their ideas.
(musings on professional pride, Leonardo da Vinci, the crank handle, and 'the point to which Crowley loves Aziraphale' under the cut)
In the 1970's Crowley gives a presentation on the M25, projector and all, to a room full of increasingly impatient demons. Maybe the presentation was work-ordered; the 'can I hear a WAHOO?' definitely wasn't.
Before the Beginning, the Unnamed Angel can barely contain his excitement about his nebula. Aziraphale manages a baffled-but-polite, "....That's nice... :)"
11 years ago, Hastur and Ligur want to 'tell the deeds of the day,' and Crowley smiles to himself because (according to the script-book) he knows he has 'the best one.'
(Naturally, his 'deed' has nothing to do with tempting anybody, and everything to do with setting up a human-powered Rube-Goldberg machine of petty annoyance. Oodles of 'Evil' generated; very little harm done.)
Hastur and Ligur don't get it, of course. That's also consistent.
Nobody ever knows what the hell he's talking about.
It didn't make it on-screen, but, in both the novel AND the script-book, Crowley was friends with Leonardo da Vinci. The quintessential Renaissance polymath. That's where he got his drawing of the Mona Lisa --they're getting very drunk together, and Crowley picks up the 'most beautiful' of the preliminary sketches. He wants to buy it. Leonardo agrees almost off-the-cuff, very casual, because they're friends, and because he has bigger fish to fry than haggling over a doodle:
He goes, "Now, explain this helicopter thingie again, will you?" Because he's an engineer, too.
(It is 1519 at the latest, in this scene. Why the FUCK would Crowley know about helicopters, and be able to explain them, comprehensively, to Leonardo da Vinci?
...Well. I choose to believe he got bored one day and worked it out. Look, if you know how to build a nebula, you can probably handle aerodynamics. And anyway, I think it's telling that this is his idea of shooting the shit. 'A drunken mind speaks a sober heart,' and all. He probably babbled about Aziraphale long enough to make poor Leo sick)
Apart from Aziraphale, Leonardo da Vinci is the only person Crowley has any keepsakes or mementos of.
Think about that, though. Aziraphale's bookshop is bursting with letters, paintings, busts, and personalized signatures memorializing all the humans he's known and befriended over 6000 years (indeed: Aziraphale has living human friends up and down Whickber Street. He's part of a community).
Crowley doesn't have any of that. It's just the stone albatross from the Church (for pining), the infamous gay sex statue (for spicy pining), the houseplants (for roleplaying his deepest trauma over and over, as one does), and this one piece of artwork, inscribed, "To my friend Anthony from your friend Leo da V."
To me, at least, that suggests a level of attachment that seems to be rare for Crowley.
...Maybe he liked having someone to talk shop with? Someone who was interested? Someone engaged enough to ask questions when they didn't immediately understand?
...Anyway.
There's also the matter of the crank handle.
This thing:
This is one of the subtler changes from the book. In the book, Crowley knows Satan is coming and, desperate, arms himself with a tire iron. It's the best he can do. He's not Aziraphale; he wasn't made to wield a flaming sword.
The show, IMO, improves on this considerably. Now he, like Aziraphale, gets to face annihilation with what he was made for in his hand. And it's not a weapon, not even an improvised one like the tire iron.
He made stars with it.
[both gifs by @fuckyeahgoodomens]
If you Google 'crank handle,' you'll get variations on this:
Crank handles have been around for centuries. Consisting of a mechanical arm that's connected to a perpendicular rotating shaft, they are designed to convert circular motion into rotary or reciprocating motion.
Which is to say they're one of the 'simple machines,' like a lever or a pulley; the bread and butter of engineering. You'll also get a list of uses for a crank handle, archaic and modern. Among them: cranking up the engine of an old-fashioned car... say, a 1933 Bentley. That's what Crowley has been using his for, lately. But he's had it since he was an angel and he's still, it seems, very capable of it's angelic applications.
Stopping time. For instance.
(This is conjecture on my part, but, I like to imagine that Crowley has the ability to stop time for the same reason I can --and should-- unplug my computer before I perform maintenance on it. Time and Space are a matched set, after all, and in his designs in particular, one feeds into the other.)
I know everyone has already said this, but: I REALLY LIKE that when he needs to channel the heights of his power, he does so not with a weapon but with a tool. Practically with a little handheld metaphor for ingenuity. One from long-lost days when he made beautiful things.
(And he loved it. Still loves it --he incorporated that metaphor into the Bentley, didn't he?)
Let Aziraphale rock up to the apocalypse with a weapon: he has his own compelling thematic reasons to do exactly that. Crowley's story is different, and fighting isn't the only way to express defiance. And if you've been condemned as a demon and assumed to be destructive by your very nature, what better way than this?
He made stars. They didn't manage to take that from him.
Neither Crowley nor Aziraphale are fighters, really --they have no intention of fighting in any war. They'll annoy everyone until there's no war to fight in, for a start. But between the two, if one must be, then that one is Aziraphale. Principality of the Earth, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, Wielder of the Flaming Sword... all that stuff. Even if he'd prefer not to, it's very clear that Aziraphale can rise to the occasion, if he must.
Crowley was never that kind of angel. He wasn't a Principality. He doesn't have a sword.
...And yet.
It's Crowley who protects. He's the one who paces, who stands guard, who circles Aziraphale and glares out at the world, just daring anyone else to come near.
In light of everything else I've said here, I think that's interesting.
Obviously part of it is that Aziraphale enjoys it and, you know, good for him. He's living his best life, no doubt no doubt no doubt. But what about Crowley? What's driving that behavior, really?
Have you heard the phrase, 'loved to the point of invention'? Well, what if 'the point of invention' was where you started? What if where you end up involves glaring out at the world, just daring anyone else to come near? What is that, in relation to the bright-eyed thing you used to be?
What do we name the point to which Crowley loves Aziraphale?
...Thinking about how an excitable angel with three million pages of star design he wants to tell you all about...becomes a guard dog. Is all.
Sometimes I randomly remember that Kaz is the only member of the Crows who only speaks one language and for no apparent reason I find that endlessly amusing.
Like, the comedic potential here? Nina and Inej girl talking but as soon as he walks in the room they switch to Ravkan?? Wylan and Nina chatting in Kerch but then switching to Fjerdan when Matthias walks in and suddenly Kaz has completely lost track of the conversation?? Jesper saying something to Kaz in Zemeni that makes Nina howl with laughter, but neither of them will tell him what it was??? It’s so funny to me.
He would also absolutely start learning another language out of sheer spite if they did this, but I think it would be hilarious if he chose Kaelish and tried to use it with Jesper and Jesper would just be like “… I don’t speak Kaelish. I just know a little bit… I can sing in Kaelish, if you want?” and Kaz is so disappointed by this but he can’t show it so he just starts yelling at Nina in Kaelish instead. She corrects his pronunciation and he nearly murders her.
i really hope that the six of crows spin-off (if it happens) has the scene where jesper thinks that wylan is on the boat that van eck sinks, especially now that they’re already together. i just think that it’d hit SO much harder. like… book! jes gets so upset and angry when that happens and he and wy weren’t even together then, but show! jes… like can you even imagine the reaction he’d have to thinking his bf was just murdered… i need to see this on screen NOW
I think the most important thing to understand when talking about Jesper’s trauma is that he doesn’t ever acknowledge that he has trauma. The reason we see Kaz’s backstory is because it’s always on his mind. The reason we constantly see Inej’s reactions to hearing about the Menagerie is that she’s forced to deal with it. But Jesper? He’d rather pretend like he has no problems. And this explains a lot.
Why is the “Jesper is Grisha” plot line finished so quickly? Because it’s not done. Jesper thinks he’s wrestled with his identity, but when Colm comes in and he has to deal with it all over again? When he sees the way Fjerdans treat Grisha? He’s going to have tor reckon with it all over again. It was hard enough for him to accept the good sorts of being Grisha; will he run away from the negatives?
And why has Jesper’s gambling addiction not been talked about yet despite it being clearly hinted towards? Because he hasn’t talked about it. And with Jesper, he has to be forced to confront his problems before even believing that they exist.
This isn’t a mistake in the part of the show. It’s an intentional exploration of Jesper’s character, and it will be interesting to see how it develops over the spinoff.
I figured out the layout of the SoC spinoff episodes!
so assuming it will only follow the events of the first book and not CK, and every episode is named after one the crows (so there will be 6 episodes in total) here's what it'll probably be like:
!!!MAJOR SPOILER WARNING FOR SIX OF CROWS BOOK!!!
Ep1: Matthias _ They break him out of hellgate at the start of the book and he has to come to terms with treason against his country so it'd make sense
Ep2: Kaz _ Kaz has a lot of moments in this book and I might be wrong but his first planning, dealing with the ambush, saving Inej and killing Oomen in that terrible way might be a good episode for him. Again I'm not sure about any of this and more than exited to hear what you think and what do you think I can change!
Ep3: Nina _ Nina goes under a lot of stress while trying to save Inej on the boat and she probably deserves that episode. The episode could stretch to her entering Fjerda again and also facing those burned grisha on the stakes and also dealing with Matthias throughout this whole time!
Ep4: Inej _ They would arrive at the ice court by this point and she has to take care of Kaz when he passes out, and I think climbing the incinerator takes place in this episode and that one should DEFINITELY be in Inej's episode. Also if dealing with Tante Heleen and wearing her lynx costume again were in this episode too it'd be super
Ep5: Jesper _ I didn't really know where to put Jesper but I think showing his excitement while running to the druskelle roof and also sounding the black protocol and ALSO driving a tank out of the ice court is so him. Also we're probably gonna have some deep conversations with Wylan in this episode cause they need it at that point with all that happened with Wylan hiding his identity and everything
Ep6: Wylan _ I think the last parts of the book are very important for Wylan's character. Changing his face to Kuwei and especially dealing with his father and seeing once and for all that he's worth nothing to van Eck is enough for that part to be about him. Bit unfair to spend his own episode in another's face but idk where else to put him
P.S. Nina using jurda parem and Matthias betraying his commander directly and all their scenes in the treasury is also important but I don't really know if that could be in their episodes. Tell me what you think! Good luck!
Edit: Sorry I forgot Tante Heleen was dead in the show but well. It's a show. They could always just pull her out and be like "ACtUaLLY..."
I think the most important thing to understand when talking about Jesper’s trauma is that he doesn’t ever acknowledge that he has trauma. The reason we see Kaz’s backstory is because it’s always on his mind. The reason we constantly see Inej’s reactions to hearing about the Menagerie is that she’s forced to deal with it. But Jesper? He’d rather pretend like he has no problems. And this explains a lot.
Why is the “Jesper is Grisha” plot line finished so quickly? Because it’s not done. Jesper thinks he’s wrestled with his identity, but when Colm comes in and he has to deal with it all over again? When he sees the way Fjerdans treat Grisha? He’s going to have tor reckon with it all over again. It was hard enough for him to accept the good sorts of being Grisha; will he run away from the negatives?
And why has Jesper’s gambling addiction not been talked about yet despite it being clearly hinted towards? Because he hasn’t talked about it. And with Jesper, he has to be forced to confront his problems before even believing that they exist.
This isn’t a mistake in the part of the show. It’s an intentional exploration of Jesper’s character, and it will be interesting to see how it develops over the spinoff.
Their hand size difference… the fact Wylan is definitely kneeling on their bed to be of similar height (sconce placement)… the way they hold each other…SHDHSHAHSSHSHSHJFJFND
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