Serious question, I've seen some people talking about how the whole Crowley and Aziraphael relationship in Good Omens is just queerbaiting. Do you agree? Idk because while watching the show I didn't feel that way and now having read some comments I can't help but feel that it kind is when you really think about it.
This is a serious question, and a good one, and… a complicated one. And I appreciate that you value my opinion here, but I cannot answer for anyone other than myself. Everything I say here is just how I personally respond to their relationship and the portrayal of it. I, too, have seen discussions about this and understand being frustrated that the relationship isn’t explicitly romantic. In my ideal version of Good Omens, Aziraphale and Crowley would kiss or outright say they love each other and it would be absolutely, concretely, unmistakably romantic. That didn’t happen in the series, and nor, based on the book, did I expect it to. Overall, the series is actually a pretty faithful adaptation of the novel; there’s added material, and a somewhat different take on the characterizations of both Aziraphale and Crowley, but the major beats and the overall tone of their relationship are the same. So if nothing else, I would say that the series is no more guilty than the novel.
And one of the things both the series and the novel feature are some instances of other characters assuming that Az and/or Crowley are gay or a couple. These are the moments that, to me, come closest to queerbaiting. They do feel a bit teasing. They make a delighted part of me say, “See, everyone can see they’re in love!” and another, far more frustrated part say, “Oh, but how I wish the story itself would actually confirm that.”
But although they never kiss or explicitly say they’re in love… Nor does the book or the series ever bother to assure us that they’re not in love. It never “corrects” these other characters by assuring us that Az and Crowley are not attracted to each other / to men, and it never gives them any other love interests. It never suddenly backtracks on their relationship and tries to pretend that they’re not as intimate or important to one another as they were earlier in the story. Their relationship might not be portrayed as explicitly romantic, but I think it is portrayed as deeply, unmistakably intimate and loving, with no confirmation or denial of whether that intimacy is only purely platonic/spiritual or could possibly become romantic.
I don’t want to dismiss the frustrations of anyone who wishes that their relationship were explicitly romantic. I, too, hunger for more outright LGBT rep in media and don’t appreciate being baited. And I should point out that I really didn’t follow the promotion/marketing of the GO series, so I don’t know how their relationship was handled in those extratextual channels. (Which I bring up because, with other shows, I’ve seen marketing/social media be HUGELY guilty of queerbaiting.) It’s a worthwhile discussion to have and I understand why people have strong and differing opinions on it, especially since there are different opinions about how the term is even best defined.
But for me, personally? I don’t think of Aziraphale/Crowley as queerbaiting. I think of it as a very, very, VERY slow burn. I think the series really emphasized how fragmented Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship has been over their 6k years on earth. They haven’t been constant companions; between their times together, there have been years when they were apart. But they always find each other again. They are drawn to one another, from the beginning of the world to the end, and have spent millennia tentatively building up an acquaintanceship, then a truce, then an Arrangement… Even by the beginning of GO, they can barely admit that they’re friends, even though it’s obvious how close they are. And then GO itself features them confronting the idea of losing each other and the world they share. It’s a SLOWWWWW burn. And we do not, in canon, get to see it get all the way to lighting the fire, so to speak. But I think that by the end of GO, their relationship is more loving and intimate than ever, and in my mind, the slow burn continues even after the story of GO itself ends.
Do I still wish we could actually see them profess their love and kiss and etc.? Of course! But even without that, I believe canon shows us that Aziraphale and Crowley are soul mates regardless, in a profoundly meaningful way, and one way or another, I believe that their entire storyline is canonically grounded in love.
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