all right, so. you can see my book/tv Aziraphale comparison post here. now for the Crowley one.
I want to start this off by saying that, like all good book fans, I have long been a tv-dove-scene-hater, but I really do feel that season two with the Job and Elspeth episodes basically rehabilitated that for me. my problem with the change in the dove scene is that it took out a subtle piece of character information, which is that Crowley cares quite a bit for life and his first instinct is always to preserve it when he can, and season two hits us over the head with a hammer with this. so yes. that's fine.
what they didn't rehabilitate, and what was always a problem in the first season, is the gutting of what I have always felt is the twin core of Crowley's character: first, that beneath it all, he is an optimist, and second, that he loves the Earth.
the second one is actually a little easier to swallow than the first, because the show so dramatically expands what we know about tv!Crowley: that he created far-off star systems and nebulae without knowing that they were only background dressing for a planet he hadn't even heard of, and that this is part of what started him asking questions. that makes his Alpha Centauri plan in season one make a lot more sense. it was never just the Earth to tv!Crowley; he seems to have no issue with the idea that Creation covers all of the universe, and that he could live just as well off in the stars as he could on Earth. you never get that idea with book!Crowley. book!Crowley loves the Earth and he is determined to do everything he can to save it.
a lot of this stays the same in the show at first. we get the conversation Crowley has with Aziraphale where he convinces Aziraphale into the plan to have them both try to influence the Antichrist in the hopes of canceling each other out. and it's actually kind of interesting because I think it's the exact same section of the book where this falls apart as what I talked about in my Aziraphale post. because while Crowley and Aziraphale are out of contact, and Aziraphale hits his limit with self-delusion and Heavenly propaganda, Crowley believes that Aziraphale is dead, and knows for a fact that Hell is coming for him, so he'll soon be dead or worse as well. the bookshop fire scene happens almost exactly the same, and then in the book the next time we see Crowley he's doing 120mph on the way to Tadfield when Hell comes on the radio to tell him he is absolutely fucked:
MORTALS CAN HOPE FOR DEATH, OR FOR REDEMPTION. YOU CAN HOPE FOR NOTHING.
ALL YOU CAN HOPE FOR IS THE MERCY OF HELL.
"Ngk," said Crowley. [...]
Crowley turned off the radio and bit his lower lip. Beneath the ash and soot that flaked his face, he looked very tired, and very pale, and very scared.
And, suddenly, very angry. It was the way they talked to you. As if you were a houseplant who had started shedding leaves on the carpet.
and then he keeps driving towards Tadfield, The Nice & Accurate Prophecies with Aziraphale's notes in hand. and once he hits the flames of the M-25, you get THEE Crowley thesis moment for me:
[Crowley's] conclusions could be summarized as follows:
Armageddon was under way.
There was nothing Crowley could do about this.
It was going to happen in Tadfield. Or to begin there, at any rate. After that it was going to happen everywhere.
Crowley was in Hell's bad books.
Aziraphale was-- as far as could be estimated-- out of the equation.
All was black, gloomy and awful. There was no light at the end of the tunnel-- or if there was, it was an oncoming train.
He might as well just find a nice little restaurant and get completely and utterly pissed out of his mind while he waited for the world to end.
And that was where it all fell apart.
Because, underneath it all, Crowley was an optimist. If there was one rock-hard certainty that had sustained him through the bad times-- he thought briefly of the fourteenth century-- then it was utter surety that he could come out on top; that the universe would look after him.
Okay, so Hell was down on him. So the world was ending. So the Cold War was over and the Great War was starting for real. So the odds against him were higher than a vanload of hippies on a blotterful of Owlsley's Old Original. There was still a chance. [...]
"Heigh ho," said Anthony Crowley, and just drove anyway.
he drives anyway, with no hope that he will ever see Aziraphale again, with no hope that he has a chance to get back to semi-comfortable anonymity with Hell ever again, with only the tiniest shred of hope that he'll be able to do anything at all. he drives anyway!
whereas in the show, his thought process apparently stops at number 7 on the list? like are you fucking kidding me??? heigh-ho Anthony Crowley just does, in fact, go to a restaurant and get completely and utterly pissed out of his mind until ghost Aziraphale shows up?
the next time we see Crowley after the bookshop fire on the show is him enacting number 7. he has the book and Aziraphale's notes, but he isn't doing anything with them until Aziraphale shows up and tells him what to do. and then we get him driving the M-25.
and even before that on the show, Crowley always has one foot out of the door whenever anything goes wrong. when they realize that they've been trying to influence the wrong boy, Crowley asks Aziraphale if he wants to go off together in the first Alpha Centauri fight. I cannot stress enough how much this never even fucking OCCURS to book!Crowley. and tv!Crowley asks this again when they have the second Alpha Centauri fight. and time and again in season three his answer is that he and Aziraphale should go off together. the only time he faces a situation head-on, full steam ahead, even if it's hopeless, on the show, is when Aziraphale tells him to.
meanwhile, in the book, the only time Crowley gives even a fleeting thought to not trying to fight is when Satan himself is on the way. and then it's Aziraphale's turn to lay a hand on his shoulder and say there are people here, we shouldn't let this happen to him. and it takes barely two sentences for Crowley to agree.
I think what I've learned from making these two posts is that there are two places where the show falls apart the most in terms of book characterization: first, in the section of the book where Crowley and Aziraphale are separated, which in all fairness does seem difficult to adapt to television because of how many things are happening simultaneously. and second, just in the general fact that Crowley and Aziraphale in the show are just too dependent on each other to make decisions. they act when one of them pushes the other to. they have realizations when the other does. they don't have the room to do these things on their own.
and like I said in the Aziraphale post, I can see this version of Aziraphale as a version of book!Aziraphale who happens to be on a slower timeline. they still have time to get him to the same place that book!Aziraphale gets to by using season three. I don't really know how you fix what I've laid out about Crowley here. in the show I think Crowley's defining feature is that he's devoted to Aziraphale. Crowley in the book loves Aziraphale, but I would not describe him as "devoted." book!Crowley loves his car, his music, putting his CDs in alphabetical order, his plants, ducks, humans, the Earth. when book!Crowley thinks Aziraphale is dead, he drives into an impassable wall of flame to try to do everything he can for the planet they both love. when tv!Crowley thinks Aziraphale is dead he gets drunk and gives up. book!Crowley's defining feature is right there in the text: underneath it all, he is an optimist. it doesn't matter how much you take from him, up to and including Aziraphale, he's just going to try anyway.
not to say that a demon devoted to an angel can't also be a compelling character. he's just not the guy I legally named myself after is all.