I'm rewatching Good Omens, and noticed something in the first episode that has left me spiraling into a theory.
It's in the scene when Hastur and Ligur are handing Adam over to Crowley. Hastur asks Crowley to sign something beforehand, and:
I thought it was a scribble the first time I watched it bc I was trying to figure out what was going on. But it's not a scribble.
It's not a 'C' either, for 'Crowley'
It's not a 'A' or 'J' either, for the rest of his name.
It's an 'L'. It gets hard to see as he's finishing it, but it's the letter 'L'
This is how you write a capital 'L' in cursive:
you swoop up and to the right, drop down, swoop left, and finish on the right.
and Crowley does this with his signature:
here's him beginning the letter, swooping up and to the right
And finishes it as he moves back towards the right (and at this point, the complete letter is hard to make out. It's why I thought it was a scribble the first time I watched this episode)
Crowley's signature on the document Hastur makes him sign before delivering the Antichrist to start Armageddon, something that is arguably one of the most important things hell wants to document, is an 'L'.
Why not a 'C', for Crowley, the name he currently goes by? Hastur and Ligur confirm the name itself earlier in the same scene ("What's he calling himself up here these days?"/"Crowley.")
Well, if going by what he claims in a later s1 episode that "Crowley" is his last name (Anthony J. Crowley), it would make sense for one of his initials to be put there.
Except it doesn't, because "Crowley" is not his real name. it's not the name he began with, the one he had as an angel.
So then, what would this name be? What would be a name for an angel, who is now a demon? A demon who was there to tempt eve, as a snake, into eating the forbidden fruit. Someone that brought the stars, and light, to the universe. A name that begins with the letter 'L'.
There's one I can think of that matches, and that name is Lucifer.
"But Squish!" I know some of y'all will comment, "What about that line Crowley said in episode 5? He mentions Lucifer, so it can't be him!"
In episode 5, Crowley says the following: "I never asked to be a demon. I was just minding my own business one day and then...oh, lookie here, it's Lucifer and the guys! Oh, hey, the food hadn't been that good lately. I didn't have anything on for the rest of that afternoon. Next thing, I'm doing a million-light-year dive into a pool of boiling sulphur."
Crowley also says in the second episode: "I didn't mean to fall. I just hung out with the wrong people."
A lot of people believe that it's implied that when Crowley said this, it meant he met Lucifer and hung out with him. But when he says it, it sounds like he's mockingly quoting someone else, talking to him.
The "Lucifer and the guys!" might've been directed to Crowley, using his name. This would match that line from a previous episode, "hung out with the wrong people."
"But Squish!" I know some of y'all will comment after reading that, "What about Satan? Lucifer is Satan, and Crowley isn't Satan!"
And neither is Beelzebub.
Fun fact, by the way: One of the many names for The Devil, Satan himself, is Beelzebub. But Beelzebub is a whole different character. So why can't Lucifer be a whole different character too?
After all, many people still argue to this day that Lucifer and Satan aren't one and the same...
Also, here's something interesting:
Crowley is the only character in the tv series that has mentioned Lucifer, and it was in that line I mentioned earlier. Lucifer is also mentioned once, in the book, but by Shadwell, mishearing Newt's last name as "Lucifer" instead of "Pulsifer".
And Satan? In both the book and the tv show, he is never called another name other than "Satan", usually followed by his fancy and long title. His description in the book's "DRAMATIS PERSONAE" is literally "fallen angel; the adversary". No Lucifer.
Crowley was the one who started the universe, we see that at the beginning of season 2. He was the first one, to our knowledge, to say "let there be light." "Lucifer" means "light-bringer"
Crowley was the snake that tempted eve into eating the apple in the garden of eve. We see this in the beginning of episode one. Many claim Lucifer was the one who did that.
Crowley fell because he asked questions about how the universe should be run, after seeing its creation and being so proud of it. Many claim Lucifer's big sin that sent him falling was his pride stemming from his beauty causing him to revolt; eerily similar to Crowley asking questions after watching the beautiful universe he helped plan be born and growing protective after learning it was going to get shut down so early in its lifetime, isn't it?
Crowley was a powerful angel. This is heavily implied in season 2, with the tiny joint-miracle he and Aziraphale made being as powerful as an archangel's. He has the ability to mask his presence powerful enough to fool Uriel, Michael, and Gabriel (the only other character we've seen have that kind of masking power was the Metatron, who Crowley was also the first to recognize). When going through records with Muriel, they claim only very high-ranking angels have clearance to look through the records of Gabriel, an archangel so powerful he single-handedly had the power to stop "Armageddon 2" from being put into plan; Crowley is able to access them. And Lucifer? Often described as having been a very powerful angel.
Lucifer is such an important name, such an important character, in the theologies surrounding Good Omens. So, where is he? Why has he only been mentioned seriously once, by Crowley?
The answer could be this, simple and short: Because he is Crowley.
I dug up the book. It's been a while since I read it (I honestly don't remember much from the book) and here's what it has to say about Crowley's signature...
I found this post from Neil Gaiman's blog. The wording is confusing me, and I can't tell if this debunks or supports the theory..
What Neil Gaiman says is "That was the angel Lucifer. He doesn't exist any more. Now there's just Satan, the adversary." which might throw this entire thing out of the window, but the thing is: he never said Satan used to be Lucifer. He just said Lucifer doesn't exist anymore, but Satan does.
Furthermore, the person who first asked a question asks more questions, two of them: 1. Is Satan what's left of Lucifer after he fell and stopped existing, and 2. If so, does that mean there was an angel that existed that then fell and turned into crowley?
Neil Gaiman's answer is "As far as Crowley is concerned, the Angel that he was no longer exists. (And his name as an Angel wasn’t Crawley or Crowley.)"
He doesn't confirm or deny anything about Satan in that. All he said was "the Angel that he was no longer exists" and that Crowley's angel name wasn't his demon name.
Huh. Funny. He's saying angel!crowley no longer exists, when he just revealed that Lucifer "doesn't exist any more." Either there's a connection here, or I'm going insane.
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