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[armageddidnt]

Me reading every single analysis on how Gaiman The One Who Ruined Good Omens is the exact person responsible for this entire mess

Some excellent posts delivering Important Facts

Gaiman’s ’Good Omens’ finale revels in heartbreak

How we got the end of Good Omens

No one died so Adam could live

The Shuttered Garden: How the Good Omens Finale Betrayed its Humanistic Roots

Terry Pratchett facts

Bonus: This one’s a real mystery *sarcasm*

[colourlifesmile]

~ you're more than enough. you're everything ~

[fuckyeahisawthat]

“i hope you die” boring. basic. is that all you’ve got

“i hope your comfort media falls into the hands of writers who fundamentally misunderstand its core themes” specific. credible. it’s happening to me right now

[thedeepmiracleperfection]

To everyone saying "they don't need to kiss to prove they're in love"

Do you understand the implications, especially in today's political climate, of a show that revolves heavily around a queer/queer-coded couple where the only onscreen kiss between said couple is their breakup? Especially one that explores themes of sin, forbidden love, religion, dogma, and high control groups? One where the character associated with hell is the one forcing the kiss and the character associated with Christian heaven (even if heaven in this case is bad) is the one who is not receptive to that affection? A show where the heaven associated character tells the one who kissed him "I forgive you"? One where the main characters have had to hide their relationship for fear of their lives in a storyline that is heavily analogous to the persecution of queer people? Where even in a scene that showed explicitly they were married, the show still would not deign to display physical intimacy between two men? Y'know, some of the most highly stigmatized kind of affection there is?

If they had never kissed at all, I wouldn't mind. But by kissing in season 2 when they broke up, they showed that they were willing to cross that line. They stopped being ambiguous in that moment. They're whole "we're not humans and don't show love like humans" went out the window when the show decided they would in fact engage in an overtly queer act. But the only time there is unambiguous queer affection is when it's used to separate the characters.

If they had never had a full on sex scene between two hetero characters who had just met in season 1, I wouldn't mind. But the show was more comfortable with displaying physical intimacy between a man and a woman that we never saw after season 1 than they were between the two main characters of the show.

If they hadn't had an ending that literally showed their wedding rings, showing that they clearly can and will display a queer couple and also conform to heteronormative standards by having them married at all, then I wouldn't mind. But they went as far as having the characters who famously had a relationship that was open to interpretation and put them in the husband/romantic partner box, but wouldn't dare go as far as physical intimacy?

I know that many people who are not amanormative or allonormative are frustrated that a relationship that was previously ambiguous/up for interpretation was boxed into a romantic label. But now that they have, it says something that they chose to display queer relationships, and they chose to display physical affection, but not both at the same time. It says something even if they didn't intend to. It's just too awfully convenient that the couples who are always subjected to "well you don't need to be physical to be in love" are the queer couples. In a political climate that promotes homophobia and violence against our community, increasingly sex negative and pro-censorship legislation regarding online spaces, and legislation that aims to categorize participating in anything remotely queer in public as a sex crime, I think anyone who looks at a story of romantic love between two masculine presenting people and says it's not necessary to have overt physical acts of affection has lost the plot.

It's a cop out, plain and simple. And queer fans deserved better.

[princess-spock]

[rainbowhyperfixation]

[image description: graphic which has text with some words emphasized by being in a different color. Text says “CAN YOU IMAGINE A STRAIGHT STORY WHERE THE MOST WE COULD HOPE FOR A REUNION OF LOVERS WOULD BE A KISS...

…AND THEN THEY DIDN'T KISS BECAUSE THEY ALREADY KISSED ONCE?”]

I said on numerous occasions between season 2 and 3 that if they can show two people who met 5 minutes ago have sex and also have a second implied sex scene, they can do the same for the two beings who have known each other for more than 6000 years. I didn’t forget about queerphobia. I just expected that a show that has been progressive in so many ways wouldn’t go backwards. I was wrong, on so many counts. And I’m heartbroken because of all the choices that the writers made

[aduckwithears]

Hope this helps

[joyandotherstories]

You know who would love it if we became a fractured-beyond-repair fandom? If we became a fandom who harasses people?

That Fucking Man.

So. Hate the finale, love the finale, be somewhere in the middle about the finale, headcanon the finale away—

But be kind to each other.

And be kind to the cast, crew, and other people who worked under VERY tough circumstances with what they were given. Or at the least, simply avoid interacting with those folks.

(The only one we don’t need to be kind to is That Man)

Please, please, speak kindly and respectfully to, and about, each other. Everyone who’s not harassing someone has some kind of valid point. Everyone feeling strong emotions is valid in those feelings. Avoid content that throws off your equilibrium, but comfort each other whenever you can.

The real Good Omens always were the friends we made along the way. Let’s stay that way. To our world. 🤍🥂🖤

[fakemichaelsheen]

-the bookshop-

aziraphale: are we going to talk about what happened between us? before I left for heaven

crowley, avoiding looking at him: no

aziraphale, disappointed: no. quite right. a shame, though. I would've quite liked to try it again

crowley, scoffs: have you lost your mind? the answer is no, angel

aziraphale, raising his hands: of course, I quite understand *pauses* it is unfortunate we never shared our kiss under the proper circumstances *smiles, wiggling his shoulders* I have a feeling we'd be rather good at it

crowley, steps closer, pointing at him: no, no. you don't get to tempt me. I won't be tempted. I'm a demon, if there's any tempting to be done around here, I'll do it

aziraphale, nods: yes, yes, you're right *pauses; let's out a longing sigh* oh, I just know it would've been terribly romantic

crowley, arms folded, mutters mockingly: terribly

aziraphale, looks around the bookshop: well, everything seems tickety-boo

crowley, waves his hand to dim the lights and ignite candles, striding towards aziraphale: *mutters* fuck it *gently takes aziraphale's face in his hands and kisses him*

aziraphale, holding on for dear life: *kissing back*

crowley, let's go and staggers back: *panting*

aziraphale, thrilled: vavoom, indeed

crowley, rolls his eyes, trying not to smile: shut up

[hasturswig]

And then they move to a beautiful cottage in the South Downs having persuaded Joshua and Adam to overrule God and Satan. More kissing. The End

[tartan-thermos]

Listen, we all laugh at how much mileage Aziraphale is gonna get out of his kinky ‘captive princess’ fantasies once he and Crowley get it together, and we are completely right and correct to do so. But we’ve all been sleeping on the other half of that equation. Because Aziraphale’s the one who’s been setting up these, “Oh no, I am dramatically imperiled (and/or mildly inconvenienced); where oh where is the dashing and devilishly handsome knight who will save me?” scenarios for centuries - but Crowley’s the one who’s been turning up unfailingly, again and again and again.

Because Crowley? Crowley wants to be the hero. Crowley wants to be James Bond. He wants it so badly it hurts, bullet-hole windscreen transfers and all. Crowley’s deep, dark fantasy is that he can be good - but also a little bit bad. The rogue agent, the wild card, the one who doesn’t follow the rules, and doesn’t much truck with listening to his superiors. Crowley’s deep, dark fantasy is one in which he gets it right; in which he does the right thing at the right time, and has the right witty comeback in the right situation, and instead of being punished, he saves the day and wins the heart of the genderless celestial being of his choice. Crowley’s deep, dark fantasy is one in which he is never not in control of his situation; one in which he bounces back easily and stylishly from all manner of fights and challenges and adversity; where he faces nothing he cannot overcome with the right combination of wit, ballsiness, and a little Hollywood luck. Crowley’s deep, dark fantasy, the one he can never, ever admit out loud, is one where the world is simple and uncomplicated in the way nothing in real life is simple and uncomplicated; a world in which the good end happily, the bad unhappily, the baddies are dispatched in PG-13 fashion, and none of it needs to be questioned or second-guessed at all.

Crowley’s deep, dark fantasy is one in which there is nothing so dastardly, nothing so terrible or fearsome, that it cannot be solved by a guy in a flash suit arriving in the nick of time with a fancy car, and a complicated watch, and a pen that can write underwater.

[legendary-lunatic]

The ending was complete shit- but even if you liked it, here’s the facts:

They had 90 minutes. NINETY. MINUTES.

Wasted 2/3rds of it playing the most obvious whodunnit of all time, watching Jesus meander around uselessly, and bringing in some mafia group. And Aziraphale and Crowley, who should be at the center, hardly get to actually communicate, and pretty much never actually talk about their relationship. It was an agregious waste of time.

If they wanted to pull some meta shit, they should have given us a season to do it well. They had the option of doing a full season and chose not to, and the consequence of that is that you don’t get to write all of the convoluted crap you want. 10 minutes before the end of an hour and a half movie that had essentially zero constructive narrative is not the time to be pulling out world upending, genre changing, fandom rending controversial choices out of your ass.

(Especially when a quick google search could have informed anyone that 98% of the fandom agreed beforehand that getting some Human AU when you signed up for immortal shenanigans SUCKS. And on top of that they actually destroyed the entire universe and the main couple.)

The point being- if you are going to just have 90 minutes then you don’t waste that time and then pull twists out of nowhere so you can pretend to be ‘profound’ when neither the fans nor narrative demanded it up until they wrote some impulsive disaster at the very end.

You don’t start yanking on threads for fun, you wrap up the loose ends to make the fans happy and call it a day. 90 wasted minutes of answering none of the questions anyone had, not communicating, being overall rather out of character, and splitting screen time like they had time to give. You lost the chance to write story warping crap when you exchanged 6 hours for and a half.

All they had to do was sit them down at the ritz for dinner and everyone would’ve walked away fine- especially since they didn’t even bother to answer the questions we had beforehand like why the hell Crowley is so goddamned overpowered and what happened in the fall.

It was just generally poorly written. They set the Metatron up as someone who seemed malicious and then killed him ten seconds in. They started the concept of the second coming and then ditched it halfway through to start tearing chunks out of the universe. We sat and watched Jesus dawdle around the entire time to culminate in handing out pizza, and the mafia come out of nowhere to swallow up the first half and then leave. They had Aziraphale show up and get reprimanded for leaving by Mrs.Sandwhich and Crowley, only for them to pretty much passively avoid talking about anything by demanding forgiveness and then brushing off all the emotional baggage they had up until there was no time left to deal with it. All those talks of ‘Us’ and ‘to the World’ in previous seasons, and there’s essentially Zero closure from the characters who have been slow burning since the dawn of creation.

Say all you want about their long life together being fun, and ‘what ifs’, and ‘they find each other in every lifetime’ and blah blah- but sometimes people deserve to have the script actually address things and say them directly to each other and for the audience. It also sure as hell doesn’t help the transition that they had no clue they were gonna be reincarnated so they didn’t even get to toss out an ‘I’ll find you’ or something to soften the blow- they just DIED with zero resolution and we are expected to hinge our hopes and dreams on two strangers with bad haircuts that the audience has zero attachment to in a completely different universe. They didn’t consider how to even make this an effectively impactful ending, emotionally or logistically.

The first half reads like they were trying to obligatorily continue season 2, but the second half is disjointed and feels aimed at picking a new direction 180, and shutting everything down. HARD.

What I personally think the actual truth is, is that they intentionally wrote a way to end the universe (despite the fact that doing so contradicts pretty much every afore established ethical discussion driven by the series regarding the loss of life, replacing people, humans defying destiny, and free will, and is generally all around pretty out of character ), because they didn’t want to be bothered again. If you leave no open end, and a divisive fanbase, they don’t ask you for more. And that’s what I think this disaster really was: the response for having the audacity to ask for an answer to the cliff hanger they left us on in season 2, when all Amazon wants is to stop associating with Neil Gaimon.

I think it’s a hack job, and it’s a slap in the face to fans.

Most will actively hate it for upending all the world building and forcing them to suddenly grieve characters they’ve followed for decades at the last minute with absolutely Zero tact- but those that do enjoy the ending should be upset that it wasn’t written better. The set up could have been better, they didn’t make a choice to find each other, and They didn’t even do a montage of them finding each other in various lifetimes through history, people are just hinging their hopes and dreams on the song ‘time after time.’ And the reasoning behind the whole thing was beyond contrived.

Also, why does starting a new universe without heaven and hell mean they can’t exist as themselves as the sole immortals or just have their memories up until that point- she’s GOD, she can do whatever the fuck she wants and the story uses that to make a ridiculous contingency instead. They also literally had the ability to rewrite life in their hands and didn’t make any use of it. Why not have God just show up if you aren’t gonna do anything with the books? She’s God, she’s been watching, you didn’t need to manifest her, and I don’t know why you would want to.

So yeah, the ending was crap, objectively, simply because it was handled with all the grace and care of a bull in a china shop.

The fact they blatantly disregarded what the obvious emotional outcome of its massive die hard queer fanbase would be is just the cherry on top. The fans are loud and post constant content, it’s not hard to figure out most people just wanted them to wear silly outfits through time, TALK about their feelings, and play ‘a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square’ the end. There were six dozen ways they could’ve handled Heaven and Hell and leave the two alone on Earth, and they went with ‘let’s not handle it at all, the only way to solve things is extinction.’ Nobody in their right mind would have wanted them to forget a millennia and over six thousand years of love for each other, that was on no one’s bucket list or radar going into this.

I think it’s fucking intentional, and I think they were sneaky enough about it that instead of being collectively pissed they gave us half written slop we are arguing over whether or not the ending is satisfying- and the answer should be “NO!” either way, because there was about 10% consideration put into it from the second they said they were giving us a pathetic 90 minutes instead of a whole season, and then they wasted the majority of that time doing nothing constructive.

It’s just so disrespectful to the fans, who supposedly this was supposed to be for, and the legacy of this series. And it sucks doubly because I know David Tennant and Michael Sheen really put their all into it- and really, I think they deserved better to work with and a resolution to the characters they brought to life. Love everything they did, but I just can’t be happy with the movie at all.

[jess-the-reckless]

Well, at least the people of Whickber Street didn't have to worry about a maniac brainwashing them all so he could play romcom Barbies with them, at least for a bit.

Until they all ceased to exist, that is.

Yay?

The more I think about it the more I realise this thing was fuuuucked from the first scene of S2, when they introduced that Before the Beginning scene of Aziraphale making butter-my-muffin eyes at unnamed angel Crowley. And then all that toot about manufacturing meet cutes with rain and umbrellas, when their original meet cute - the iconic one from the book - was right there.

I'm sorry, but nobody with an iota of skill as a storyteller could have missed that, let alone turned that unnamed angel into the subject of Aziraphale's eternal yearning when Crowley was also right there.

He doesn't even get a name! We have no idea who he was before he fell, besides that he had fun hair and liked making stars. He's not the one Aziraphale spent six thousand years with, but in the end a version of Aziraphale gets a version of him? I mean, the ineptitude of it is just breathtaking.

Clearly shit-for-brains had designs on writing a romcom, but as a romance writer myself I can only sit back and gawk at how hard he fucked this. If you wrote this as a romance ending you'd be tarred and feathered. Your Goodreads reviews would shit the bed as hard as if you'd been caught plagiarising, ChatGPTing, or sockpuppeting mean reviews of other authors work. Your name would be mud, hot dogshit, a byword for wasted time and someone who Just Doesn't Get It.

And you'd deserve it.

[twilightcitysky]

Well.

[knifeforkspooncup]

They could have at least, you know, asked for God and Satan to bugger off and make the Angels and Demons retire. Heaven and Hell have a liquidation sale and close down. Cue montage of Aziraphale and Crowley somewhat begrudgingly trying to teach the angels and demons how to live on earth and not have a side because well, because they did ask for this after all. Everyone comes over to sit in the bookshop once a week AA style to hold a cup of tea and talk about their struggles while Crowley grumbles and Aziraphale's eyes glaze over. This could have been Jehoshua's purpose this time round, to heal the lingering divide between heavenly host and the legions of hell. Eventually Aziraphale and Crowley think, well this guys probably got it handled, and they buy a little cottage with a garden and make bloody well sure not to give their address out to any of their former coworkers.

Even if it didn't work, they still could have asked.

[sapierror]

also, I really don't know how to phrase this but to me the finale misses the joke, you know?

it forgets that the christian cosmology was the setting, told through corporate satire, not the villain. even God wasn’t an active tyrant; she was an absent CEO, leaving individual contributors like Aziraphale and Crowley to realize their job descriptions were irrelevant to the company's bottom line anyway, so they coasted by on minimum effort

that corporate satire was what allowed this to be a comedy, a space to tell a beautiful story about choices, humanity, and love. the finale for some reason treats that background seriously, it turns that setting into an omnipotent, dystopian threat, which completely suffocates both the romance and the humor by replacing a petty system you can outwit, outsmart, outmanouver with a bleak, unearned nightmare where "the company controls your every breath, and you can never clock out"

[0ldstoneface]

Rethinking the tags

As a fandom, we're going to have to rethink our tagging system so s3 enjoyers and s3 haters can curate their reading time without being triggered or constantly put down by tags. I even heard some people saying they won't read anything published after the 12th of May, which breaks my heart for all the new writers who are coming to the fandom after the movie!

I personally don't want to think that any of my canons fics ends up with the movie so I'm going to tag them with "so sad s3 was cancelled" (technically we didn't have a full season). Nevertheless, if you people comes up with ideas on how to tag that sentiment in a way that's both funny and not disrespectful to anyone, I would love to hear them! 😁

Let's all make lemonade even if we don't agree on the quality of the lemons!

[sixshotsinatumbllr]

I agree with OP. I think that if we can begin to curate safe spaces for S3 enthusiasts and S3 avoiders, were we can tag and read fics that support and resonate with our own experience of S3, then we are doing some work to heal the divide in the fandom at the moment. We've had an event and a response that has split us, and we need to be respectful that there are needs around this. We were such a beautiful caring fandom and I reckon we can get back there. This is a step.

[aethelflaedladyofmercia]

I’ve also been thinking about this, though I’m not very good at funny tags. I think starting with something neutral is best especially since I know a lot of people are still hurting over S3.

So something like “not season 3 compliant” (is there a stronger word for non-compliant we could use?) is a good tag imo. It also conveys “yeah not touching that” while not suggesting this work is going to be hostile towards people who did like S3.

I also have been thinking of something like “Good Omens Classic” for things based only on S1/the book/Radio Omens, things that don’t incorporate anything thing major from the added continuity. For me, even though I mostly liked S2, nah, I think I’m primarily interested in writing in that world as I saw it back in 2019/2020. (And tbh I feel more able to write silly fluff in that world than in the extended one.)

Honestly I feel that’s important because like… regardless of how I feel about S2 and 3, I still want this to be the fandom of first kisses at the Ritz and Crowley having ladies nights with Anathema and Tracy, and countless retellings of the events of GO only A&C are ducks or refrigerator salesmen or faeries or [insert authors favorite conceit here]. And I don’t think I’m the only one who still wants to create, and read, and play in that version of GO.

Or maybe I’m just nostalgic for the days when we were a lot less divided as a fandom.

[recoord]

Why Good Omens season 1 has already fulfilled Sir Terry Pratchett's wish

Neil Gaiman said he wouldn't make a sequel to Good Omens

Neil Gaiman at SXSW in Austin, Texas in 2019:

[Gaiman also confirmed the series will only be six episodes, with no intention of trying to go for another season if successful. "The lovely thing about Good Omens is it has a beginning, it has a middle, and it has an end," he said to appreciative applause. "Season 1 of Good Omens is Good Omens. It's brilliant. It finishes. You have six episodes and we're done. We won't try to build in all these things to try to let it continue indefinitely."]

Source: Entertainment Weekly (2019)

"It's a buddy road movie through time."

2018 - Neil Gaiman on X- Twitter

Tweet link here

Also Neil Gaiman in 2023:

["It won't be confirmed unless enough people watch Season 2 to make Amazon happy...

...But obviously Season 3 is all planned and plotted and, if I get to make it, will take the story and the people in it we care about to a satisfying end."]

What happened?

Were the profits and ratings high enough to create two more seasons out of thin air? At this point, seasons 2 and 3 seem more like a greedy stretching of a beloved story already told in its entirety in the first season.

Has the first season already fulfilled Sir Terry Pratchett's wish?

As read above, Neil Gaiman himself said: "Season 1 of Good Omens is Good Omens."

Gaiman was very opened about how pleased he was with Season 1 and how he made it having Sir Terry Pratchett's wish in mind.

Interview for The Verge (May 30, 2019)

Link : Neil Gaiman had one rule for the Good Omens adaptation: making Terry Pratchett happy

Interviewer: Do you feel pressure from knowing this has to be the definitive best adaptation it could be?

Gaiman: No. All I wanted to do was to make something Terry would have liked. It wasn’t like, “Make the best thing.”...

...Gaiman: The lovely thing about Good Omens [the miniseries] is that it’s still Good Omens. If you loved the book, this is that thing that you loved. And I will make you fall in love even more with Sergeant Shadwell. I will make you fall even more in love with Newt than you thought you could, I hope. It does demonstrate that I do kind of know what I’m talking about, which is a nice thing to know.

...Gaiman: So with Good Omens, I feel like what I got to do was put the thing I made with Terry on the screen and then buttress it. What I added isn’t completely different from the original. It’s not out of left field.

Neil Gaiman on an interview for The Guardian in 2019.

Link: Neil Gaiman: ‘Good Omens feels more apt now than it did 30 years ago’

There are times, he insists, when “you make something you like so much that you don’t really care what anyone else thinks of it.” There’s a clue to this, perhaps, in the show’s final frame, which reads “For Terry”. “He didn’t believe in heaven or hell or anything like that,” Gaiman says, “so there wasn’t even a hope that there was a ghostly Terry around to watch it. He would have been grumpy if there was. But I made it for him.”

Why was Good Omens season 1 so good and you could really feel Sir Terry Pratchett's contributions?

Gaiman himself has already told us the answer:

...Gaiman: So with Good Omens, I feel like what I got to do was put the thing I made with Terry on the screen and then buttress it. What I added isn’t completely different from the original. It’s not out of left field.

Neil Gaiman for The Verge (2019).

There was original material to work with (Good Omens, published in 1990), on which we certainly know that Sir Terry Pratchett himself actively worked from start to finish.

Is there a proper sequel to Good Omens the book on which to base 2 more seasons of the series?

Neil Gaiman says the following on an interview for GQ in 2019.

Link: Neil Gaiman Says No to Adapting His Own Books—Except This Time

...But with this, it was like: Okay. Terry is gone. He wanted me to do this. He wanted me to do it for him. And that gave me a kind of weird impetus. And it meant that I felt very much at liberty to take every conversation that Terry and I had ever had about Good Omens. Not just the book, as written, but everything beyond it. We planned a sequel, never written, so I got to steal the angels from the sequel. I got to steal from every conversation Terry and I had about how we would do this. It felt very personal, and I guess kind of… holy. If that doesn’t sound too ridiculous. But it was a mission.

Two conclusions can be drawn:

1) Informal conversations about the plot of a sequel do not equate to an officially written sequel.

2) Neil Gaiman has already used many of the ideas he and Terry Pratchett had planned for a never-written sequel to Good Omens and those ideas were largely added to and executed in the TV adaptation of Good Omens (2019).

Why keep stretching those ideas if the co-writer is no longer able to actively contribute and help to create a proper sequel?

If Gaiman were the sole creator of Good Omens we'd have a different conversation, but that's not the case. The first season of Good Omens was already a beautiful homage to Good Omens and Sir Terry Pratchett's work on the book.

Did Terry Pratchett write around 75% of Good Omens?

Link for the post here.

Link for the post talking about the video and sharing the video here.

Edit: I wanted to bring this point up to point out Terry Pratchett's important contribution to the making of the book, not to highlight it as an excuse to distance Gaiman from the novel. We will have to accept that he also contributed to the creation of the book.

Sir Terry Pratchett's last wish

2017 - Rob Wilkins on Twitter (X)

Terry Pratchett’s Unpublished Work Crushed by Steamroller

By Sophie Haigney - The New York Times

Terry Pratchett, the well-known British fantasy author, had a wish fulfilled two years after his death: A hard drive containing his unpublished work was destroyed by steamroller.

Mr. Pratchett, a wildly popular fantasy novelist who wrote more than 70 books, including the “Discworld” series, died at 66 in 2015. That year his friend, the writer Neil Gaiman, told The Times of London that Mr. Pratchett had wanted “whatever he was working on at the time of his death to be taken out along with his computers, to be put in the middle of a road and for a steamroller to steamroll over them all.” Mr. Gaiman added at the time that he was glad this hadn’t happened.

Now, though, it has. Mr. Pratchett’s estate manager and close friend, Rob Wilkins, posted a picture of a hard drive and a steamroller on Aug. 25 on an official Twitter account they shared.

Shortly thereafter, Mr. Wilkins wrote that the deed was done.

I have not been able to find the exact reasons why Sir Terry Pratchet wanted his unfinished and unpublished works destroyed, but we can respect his last wish as a way for him to have control over what he felt he was ready to share with the world and what he was not.

Is Good Omens the exception?

With all that has been presented so far, I can only conjecture, but not be sure. I can believe that there was Terry Pratchett's permission and desire to make an adaptation of Good Omens, the original book published in 1990, but to my mind, creating two more seasons of a never-written sequel doesn't fit as part of Terry Pratchett's desire.

He is not among us to actively participate in a sequel and if his last wish was to destroy his unfinished works, I can't believe that he would have wanted to give his approval to something new published under his name and without his supervision.

Sir Terry Pratchett talking about a never-written sequel to Good Omens

“Neil and I thought about a sequel an awful lot initially. We talked about it on tour. And I think it was a big relief to both of us, when one day we looked one another in the eye and said, 'I thought you wanted to do a sequel.'..

Interview for the Magazine Locus. Locusmag archive page

This is me speculating, but I don't think there was real enthusiasm for creating a sequel until Gaiman alone saw profitable potential in the TV adaptation....

Good Omens also belongs to the those who love the story

I think it's okay to still love the story of Good Omens. Personally, I will always be grateful with the story and the characters for giving me confort in troubling times, but I find seasons 2 and 3 as some kind of excuse from Gaiman to keep profiting and benefiting from the story (more now than ever due to the SA allegations*).

Aziraphale and Crowley will always live happily in a lovely cottage as long as we want to. Even before season 2 was announced, many of us had already accepted that. Many artists have imagined lovely endings for our innefable husbands and in my eyes their works won't be any less valuable than whatever Gaiman had planned.

Note:

I don't like talking about Season 3 of GO without mentioning the current SA allegations against Neil Gaiman (Main writer of seasons 2 and 3 and showrunner), so in case you want to know more about the allegations against Neil Gaiman. Here there's a great Round Up link (Podcasts links, transcripts, etc.)

Credits for the Round Up link to Muccamukk. Thanks a lot!

*more thoughts on supporting season 3

[twilightcitysky]

S2 and S3 were made for money, and were greenlit BECAUSE we, the fans, were so enthusiastic about S1. We made it happen when there were no plans to do so otherwise. For them to then turn around and thank us with what we got is the ugliest kind of betrayal, and I attribute the devastating endings of S2 AND S3 to NG's fit of narcissistic rage.

We don't have to accept them into our world.

[adevilputaside4me]

On a meta level, Good Omens S3 was EMOTIONAL ABUSE.

... Meaning, I'm pretty sure Neil Gaiman did it ON PURPOSE, knowing how much it would upset the fans.

Neil knew how badly we wanted Aziraphale and Crowley (OUR version of Aziraphale and Crowley---the specific version of them we met in Season 1) to be together. He knew we wanted to see them resolve their issues and ultimately choose to be with each other in the end.

Instead, Aziraphale and Crowley forgo that emotional journey in favor of unnecessary pain. Neither of them experience real character growth in the finale; they are shown to be the worst and unhappiest versions of themselves, without getting a real shot at redemption. They never fix their communication issues. They don't express their true, authentic feelings for one another (don't @ me with that bullshit hand kiss thing). They never manage to get on the same page emotionally---even when they both agree to commit suicide (which I'm pretty sure was not the "one thing" Aziraphale wanted).

"Why give me Crowley? Why make me complete and then take it away?"

EMOTIONAL WITHHOLDING is a common abuse tactic utilized by men like Neil. They enjoy creating ATTACHMENT in their victims and then "TAKING IT AWAY".

It's easy to see how much Neil enjoyed frustrating his fans in retrospect. He actively taunted us on social media with the catchphrase "WAIT AND SEE" and threatened to make Aziraphale and Crowley kiss---but in a way we "wouldn't like". He loved dangling the implied promise of a happy ending over our heads, which we now know he never planned to deliver on.

Neil was unkind to his audience. He was also unkind to his characters. Aziraphale and Crowley are treated as punching bags throughout the entire series---shown to be "messy" for the sake of entertainment, but not as a real obstacle for either of them to overcome. God herself says she enjoys seeing how much Aziraphale values his relationship with Crowley. And this turns out to be her justification for "taking it away". (Tell me THAT isn't some fucked up shit.) Aziraphale and Crowley experience real emotional pain as the result of her actions---and this is demonstrated by the incredible acting skills of Michael Sheen and David Tennant.

Neil explicitly sold this as "a love story" when he created the show. Based on the tone of the book, an eventual union between Aziraphale and Crowley would have made the most narrative sense. It would have emphasized the overarching themes of love, agency, and the futility of "choosing sides". But that would have required Neil to possess the same ethos as Terry Pratchett---meaning LOVE AND RESPECT FOR FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS.

We were never going to get a good love story out of Neil. Men like Neil get off on "PUNISHING" people for no apparent reason; he obviously did this with our beloved characters, to disastrous result. Nonetheless, we still manage to ascribe deeper meaning to Aziraphale and Crowley, thanks to the phenomenal acting team and the dedication of this fandom. Aziraphale and Crowley remain the greatest love story of all time, not because of anything Neil actually wrote, but because of everything that was projected onto them by the people who cared. We assigned their relationship a depth "Neil himself" never could have imagined---one that exemplifies our maximalist ideals of love and the decision to choose it again and again, in spite of everything. It is never going to "end" on Neil's preferred terms. In this rare instance, fan interpretation STILL MANAGES TO ECLIPSE THE SOURCE MATERIAL---and that is because LOVE is always a more powerful story than ABUSE.

[dustbunniees]

tbh my biggest problem with go3 is that aziraphale and crowley do stuff that affects the plot and actually makes a difference in the story #notmygoodomens. my ineffables do NOT save the world, they are there while the world is saved

you’ve taken the two most useless beings in existence and you made them make a decision. look at them. they’re suicidal now

[asneakyfox]

a lot of bad media analysis on this website involves making up scenes and information that theoretically could be true, in that they do not actually contradict anything that happens in canon, but are never stated or suggested or even hinted at in canon at in anyway, and then deciding those headcanons are not only true but intended by the creators as an important part of how the audience interprets canon without ever asking the question "if this were true, what would be the point of leaving it entirely offscreen? is this a puzzle i was meant to solve? what would be the point of doing it that way?"

[asneakyfox]

the funnier closely related phenomenon is when people complain that it's bad writing that the headcanon was not shown explicitly without asking themselves "maybe the reason the writers did not say this is that they did not want me to think it?"