The Malice of the Finale from Gaiman
Despite the fact that Gaiman didn't write the final script, it was based on 6 finished scripts he wrote, so it feels safe to assume the core ending was his idea. Former fans of his writing said the ending's nihilism felt like something he'd do. Various facts such as director Rachel Talalay saying there was no kiss in the script and she was told she couldn’t add one, Gaiman basically saying post-s2 about the kiss that he wanted a way to give fans what they wanted without giving them what they wanted, and David Tennant telling fans at a convention back in 2024 that the ending might not be what fans wanted, indicate that Gaiman never intended to give Aziraphale and Crowley the happy, romantic ending he chose to set up.
The question is: why would a writer do this? In response to shippers back with the first season in 2019, Gaiman could’ve simply said, “I understand fans feel very passionately about their relationship, but Terry and I didn’t write it that way and I don’t want to rewrite their dynamic without him here.” But he didn’t do that. He played a fool by twisting himself into knots to say he wrote them secretly holding hands and would comment on fan posts “confirming” their headcanons, and then went out of his way to textually change the dynamic with an explicitly romantic kiss at the end of s2, but evidently, had zero intention to make them do it again, perhaps not despite fans wanting it, but due to fans clammoring for it. But let's emphasize this: no one made him do this! He could have capitalized on fan excitement and shipper feels, written two more seasons full of subtext, and never changed the nature of their relationship. The finale’s human marriage is cute, but he must have known it was not what fans wanted with the cottage. The lack of kiss and verbal love confession, along with him killing the audience's version of the characters, feel deliberate. You have to go out of your way to squander the s2 cliffhanger and not make them kiss again, kill the version of the characters everyone loved, and screw with the cottage ending
I saw great tags about this on a post that had reblogs disabled, so I assume the OP doesn't want attention and I won't mention their url here. But they were right: Neil Gaiman simply lied to the fandom. He lied about Good Omens always having been a love story, he lied about bringing Aziraphale and Crowley together romantically being Terry Pratchett's dying wish, and he lied about fans' headcanons being true. Obligatory disclaimer: what he did in real life to women is on a different level and cannot be compared to writing choices, but this lying is not unrelated to his sinister side. He was manipulative and calculated towards his fan base (and the tumblr fan base primarily consisted of women), and knew exactly what he was doing. He got off on fans worshipping him and seeking his validation, but had enough disdain for them to openly say he didn't want to give them what they wanted even though he knew how much it meant to them. Writers aren't obligated to give fans what they want, but again: he went out of his way to pander to fans at the end of s2. You can't do that, hang around fans on tumblr to drink up their praise, and turn around and say "nah, fuck the fans" after that, unless you're actually an asshole who enjoys toying with people. I don't believe he intentionally made the ending bad—I think he's enough of a hack that he thought the retcon would be a good plot twist—but I do think he intentionally fucked with fans when he rewrote the premise of the cottage and didn’t make them kiss. Can’t you picture a real-life abuser wanting to mindfuck a bunch of women, especially when he did literally abuse some fans? Keep in mind this is the same guy who wrote a gomens movie script in the 90s out of spite, too
You know, there are some YouTube video essays talking about other showrunners being shitty towards their fan base, and a lot of those have little actual evidence. This, however, should be a case study in a creator who hung around tumblr way too much to soak in fan worship turning around to spite them. I don’t think people who never saw his weird behavior on tumblr truly get it. I did not know Gaiman was secretly a violent man, of course, but I did see him as a liar who had a big ego and loved attention from fans to a creepy degree way back in 2019; when he made them kiss in 2023, I thought his desire for fan worship outweighed his obvious discomfort with fans reading Aziraphale and Crowley as gay, but it really should not be surprising that he did not intend to give these characters the kind of happy ending the fans wanted, because he never wanted it and he clearly resented fans who said the "representation" in s1 wasn't enough. But like I said: no one forced him to write the characters kissing! This was so deliberate and feels so malicious.
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