Listen, I don't want to argue about the finale. I just want to share my love of these ineffable dumb dumbs and the art I made to celebrate them. They were one of the earliest additions to the Wall of Hyperfixations.
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Listen, I don't want to argue about the finale. I just want to share my love of these ineffable dumb dumbs and the art I made to celebrate them. They were one of the earliest additions to the Wall of Hyperfixations.
Something really gross about how Agnes Nutter is literally the only titular character and how all of her efforts and relevancy in the narrative is rendered null and void by this 'sequel' when she was the narrative, her prophecies were the throughline that connected everything.
Agnes Nutter thought the world was worth saving, so I'm with the Witch on this one guys.
It’s definitely suspect to me how Agnes and her memory completely dropped out of the narrative after season 1 and then became utterly irrelevant thanks to season 3’s resolution.
Terry Pratchett has gone on the record saying that Agnes Nutter was solely his creation: “By agreement, I am allowed to say that Agnes Nutter, her life and death, was completely and utterly mine.”
In retrospect, it’s probably not too surprising that Neil Gaiman wanted nothing to do with a kooky old witch beyond what Terry had already written for her.
So much for honouring Sir Terry’s legacy.
YES, AND...
Agnes Nutter is the personification of defiance in the face of an ugly, unnecessary death. "If I'm going out, I'm taking you fuckers with me as karmically as possible."
There's not so much as a hint of defiance of the finale genocide. That's hideous.
My friend Toga @aroaceling made this meme and it is 100% accurate.
if you write fic using AI… I’m sorry that you have such a fucked up relationship with validation. Fan community is for fun. It’s stretching our brains and plsying together and egging each other on. If you are passing off soulless garbage written by the plagiarism machine as your own… you have no place here.
CW/TW: Assisted Suicide/Assisted Death (as was Terry Pratchett’s preferred term)
Read these today and they resonated too deeply not to share.
“Point Me to Heaven When the Final Chapter Comes” by Terry Pratchett
“We have been so successful in the past century at the art of living longer and staying alive that we have forgotten how to die.[…]
Now, however, I live in hope—hope that before the disease in my brain wipes it clean, I can jump before I am pushed and drag my evil Nemesis to its doom, like Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty locked in combat as they go over the waterfall.
In any case, such thinking bestows a wonderful feeling of power; the enemy might win but it won’t triumph.[…]
I hate the term “assisted suicide.”[…]Suicide is fear, shame, despair, and grief. It is madness.
Those brave souls lately seeking death abroad seem to me, on the other hand, to be gifted with a furious sanity. They have seen their future, and they don’t want to be part of it.[…]
I am enjoying my life to the full, and hope to continue for quite some time. But I also intend, before the endgame looms, to die, sitting in a chair in my own garden with a glass of brandy in my hand and Thomas Tallis on the iPod— the latter because Thomas’s music could lift even an atheist a little bit closer to heaven— and perhaps a second brandy if there is time.
Oh, and since this is England, I had better add “If wet, in the library.”
Who could say that is bad? Where is the evil here?[…]
What [those seeking death] are doing, in fact, is buying themselves a feeling of control.[…]
Life is easy and cheap to make. But the things we add to it, such as pride, self-respect, and human dignity, are worthy of preservation too, and these can be lost in a fetish for life at any cost. I believe that if the burden gets too great, those who wish to should be allowed to be shown the door. In my case, in the fullness of time, I hope it will be the one to the garden under an English sky. Or, if wet, the library.”
“The Richard Dimbleby Lecture: Shaking Hands with Death” by Terry Pratchett
“It’s that much heralded thing the quality of life that is important. How you live your life, what you get out of it, what you put into it, and what you leave behind after it. We should aim for a good and rich life well lived, and at the end of it, in the comfort of our own home, in the company of those who love us, have a death worth dying for.”
The original gag Crowley and Aziraphale were based on is that they are just some guys with a job. What if an Angel and a Demon were just some guys with a job? What if the Serpent of Eden and one of the Angels guarding the gates of weren’t symbols of temptation and divine punishment but just some guys with a job? What if the tropes of the hidden Devil in disguise and the mysterious stranger who is actually an Angel inspiring you to good deeds were just some guys with a job?
It just doesn’t make sense to me to end their story by turning them back into unironic mythical or spiritual figures. Into martyrs of Free Will, or the central figures in a Poetic Creation Myth, or some sort of Cosmic Entities watching over us all, or the embodiment of love or whatever.
They are just guys with a job.
And s2 set up Aziraphale specifically in a fairly relatable situation: New Job, First-Time Manager.
There is SO MUCH comedy potential in that! Scheming underlings (Michael and Uriel minimum), terrifying boss utterly determined on a really bad idea, remote unreachable CEO, skeptical peers (Saraqael, Sandalphon), giant new complicated project with huge stakes...
... and our poor angel somehow has to subvert the project (arguably the entire organization?) without getting caught and hung out to dry. Good Omens being Good Omens, ideally he'd do it without even meaning to -- or, let's say, he DOES mean to do it but the way he tries doesn't work, and something completely unexpected does.
Utterly squandered. All that funny. It's like nobody was even trying.
To anyone worried about their emotional investment (and consequent grief/devastation/ongoing coping issues) with fictional material: Please consider sports fans and fannishness before you judge yourself too harshly. It is normal human behavior to have large emotional reactions to things you care about and even more so when it's bigger than your own life (in the way sports and tv shows can be.)
We all know sports fan activities tend to be masculine-coded and therefore socially acceptable while story fan activities are coded feminine/queer and therefore looked down on.
So don't worry about it. It would be nice if we could all meet around the water cooler and chat openly about our feelings without censoring ourselves or fearing judgement from those who don't necessarily understand. But that's why we have cons and tumblr etc.
Take care of yourselves. Be gentle with yourself. Who you are is okay. You don't need to be different. Know that time will pass and you will feel better.
So a lot of people have been talking about how GO2-3 feels so very disconnected from GO1 (and on some level, GO2 and GO3 also feel disconnected from each other). And there are a few reasons people have been bringing up in terms of tones and themes and narrative structure and genre shifts, but also just in terms of characters. How no Book Omens characters except Crowley and Aziraphale appear or are even referenced in the latter two seasons (outside of a few oblique references to Adam as just 'the Antichrist' and a brief cameo of him in the 'Real' Universe).
And I do agree it does feel jarring, maybe if the fabled 'original' plans for GO3 have come to fruition and Young Adult Adam was actually relevant to the Plot (and maybe also promoted appearances by other Tadfield characters) it wouldn't have felt quite so disconnected. But… I think it's more than the individual Human characters themselves not appearing, there is a major and jarring shift in the way 'Good Omens' write Human characters between the Book, and thus also GO1, and Good Omens Seasons 2 + 3.
The original Human cast of characters was very Wacky and Quirky and Somewhat Exaggerated, just as much as our primary supernatural characters, Crowley and Aziraphale, were. The Them were pastiches of Kids Adventure Story Tropes, Newton Pulsifer were so bad with technology it was LITERALLY a superpower, Sister Mary Loquacious was a goofy well-meaning Satanist nun, we had an insanely determined Delivery Man just doing his job and trickster-y mad old seer and her activist occultist Professional Descendant and Shadwell, who is basically a living cartoon character.
Meanwhile, the Humans of GO2 and GO3 feel a lot more deliberately "grounded". Less goofy, no real chances of having strange-bordering-on-the-supernatural quirks, more generally "normal", even when they are in difficult situations like abusive relationships or estranged family members. The lack of the quirky narration explaining the characters' lives and personalities also lessens any comedic quirkiness they might have, but even disregarding that change, I think there was a noticeable shift. The most we have now is… what? 'Harry the Fish' being kind of a silly nickname and Brian Cameron playing Monopoly once.
I think this change in how Human Characters are characterized does kinda work in GO2, it works in tandem with the narrative focus being now truly on Crowley and Aziraphale's supernatural romance and Heaven/Hell Drama - there is just less narrative focus on Humans, and the focus that is there is used to contrast them with the supernatural characters' abnormality. And it works with the genre shift, from outright Comedy to Romantic Comedy, which although still being a 'Comedy' by definition, tends towards making it's characters feel more 'grounded' on some level… but it is absolutely one of the factors that make GO2 a fundamentally different work from GO1/Book Omens, which is only exasperated in GO3 as the story veered farther and farther away from being any sort of 'Comedy'.
But it's also… The characterization of the Humans isn't just important from the perspective of Book Omens/GO1 being a Comedy, it's important from the angle of it being a very Humanist Comedy. The characters are somewhat exaggerated and cartoony, but they reflect on the real strangeness and wackiness and messiness and self-contradictory nature of Humanity. They are a living demonstration of the reasons why Crowley and Aziraphale are so fond of us Humans, why we are the only ones with the real power to doom or save the world. Madame Tracy being both an unashamed scam-artist and the kindest person in the story, Sister Mary being both a satanist and a nurse and a bit of a scatterbrain and her transformation into a Serious Businesswoman, R.P. Taylor's failed attempts to adapt to the strange world around him... It's silly, it's goofy, but it's also all so very human.
And much like Crowley's 'modernized sin-spreading' being to blame for most of the world's everyday annoyances was inviting the readers to imagine a little of the magic of the setting in their real-life, this also extended to the quirkiness and magic of the human characters, do you ever feel like you're as bad with computers as Newt? Maybe the Weird Old Coot you know is secretly scamming an Angel and a Demon for a few hundred pounds a month? If the most important part of being a Witch is a practical mind and a kitchen knife, maybe you can be like Anathema as well?
And then, when GO2 suddenly makes all of it's Humans so… normal and saves most of it's quirkiness and Messy Drama to it's supernatural characters, it kinda feels like it's saying "Look, we all know Humans are boooring, let's focus on the Angels and Demons instead!" And… while there were Good Omens fans disappointed by GO2, because of the shift away from the Humanist themes in general or specifically because they loved the Book Omens/GO1 Humans and thus weren't 100% happy to see Good Omens turn entirely into the Crowley and Aziraphale Show. A lot of fans were fine with this shift… Because we were kinda interested more in the Angels and Demons. Like, I'm not going to pretend that I'm not one of those GO fans who always finds reading through the book's mostly AC-less middle third to be kind of a slog.
I appreciate the point of the Human cast thematically and intellectually, but speaking from a personal perspective, I can't pretend it that emotionally it actually 100% sold me on all of these guys being just as interesting as Crowley and Aziraphale. I think it would be fair to say the actual best Humanist thematically-consistent solution would be to try harder, flash out the Human characters even more, create new Human characters whose unique bizarreness and quirky charm and messy pathos can rival Crowley and Aziraphale's… But GO2's solution of just decentering the Humans while making them more grounded and sensible (including the most important ones being Crowley and Aziraphale's more grounded and sensible counterparts) worked because it was telling us this is just backdrop for the Supernatural Romance stuff, and then supplying us with the Supernatural Romance Stuff in spades.
Where the Problem truly rears it's ugly head is in GO3, which suddenly tries to pull out a big thematic curveball where actually the Supernatural Romance we've been building up for the last two seasons is now suddenly less important than the previously-sidelined theme of Humanity, and our main characters and romantic leads have to sacrifice themselves for the sake of Humanity and the whole thing… tries to end on a big uplifting message of how wonderful it is to be Human in the real world and it's actually so much better than being an Angel or a Demon in a fantasy world.
And this supposedly uplifting message fails for me and for many others for many many many different reasons. But one of those reasons is just that… I don't feel like this story actually believes in the beauty of our mundane non-magical human existence, it can't sell me on a message I just don't feel is sincere coming from it. Humanity has been so diminished in the overall story, the lack of Human characters with Agency in the narrative, the lack of a Human perspective in the climax, the moral gray complexity of Humanity abandoned for pure ‘Heavenly’ selfless sacrifice, the Human influence on our two main leads have been gradually underplayed and diminished and retconned out from…
… to now seemingly insinuating that Crowley’s qualities have all been inherent to him since he bursted fully-formed out of God’s brow, long before the creation of Humanity, while Aziraphale’s character development is portrayed as if it was purely a result of Crowley’s influence and never a natural result of living among Humans for so many years.
But it’s also about how… bland Humanity has become. Outside, again, of the Mob Boss having a mildly-dorky name and playing Monopoly once and otherwise running a totally normal casino, none of our humans can be as vibrant and wacky and weird and surprising as the supernatural characters, as the GO1/Book Omens Humans, as vibrant and wacky and weird and surprising as actual real-life Humanity.
Even Crowley and Aziraphale’s Human counterparts, the versions of them that supposedly have True Free Will, are just portrayed as the blandest, most diluted, least compelling versions of the original Crowley and Aziraphale.
GO1 (and especially Book Omens) writes all of its Human characters with an honest desire to celebrate Humanity, with all of its strangeness and all of its mundanity. Whatever it was always 100% effective for me or not, when it said normal humans are just as interesting and compelling and unique as the Angel and the Demon, I felt like the story believed it.
GO2 felt like it was saying “Look, we all know Humans will never be as interesting or cool or dramatic as an Angel and Demon falling in love, so let’s just focus on that, okay?” and that was certainly tonally and thematically discordant with the original story, and I have some mixed feelings about that and others have even more negative feelings about it, but it worked as its own standalone thing because it was honest with itself, it was supplying the audience with a generous amount of the thing it did care about and think was cool and compelling.
GO3 is trying to say that actually our mundane ephemeral real-life is actually so much more magical and miraculous than being an immortal with mild reality-warping powers, it’s trying to loop back to a closer perspective to GO1, but it’s still feels it has the same view of Humanity as GO2. It’s putting on a false smile trying to explain to me why it’s so much better to be a Human, a weak, bland, boring Human then to be the supernatural characters it is clearly far more interested and thinks are far cooler. And while I would very much like to believe that living as an ephemeral human is a wondrous, miraculous thing, because I am an ephemeral human and that’s the only option I have.
But it’s hard to believe it, when GO3 just doesn’t seem to.
This is extremely chewy good smart meta and I appreciate it A LOT.
I feel like there's something-something about story-internal character agency here?
Like, the book and s1 actually tread a very careful measure around Quirky as world-altering. There are extremes; Adam is clearly at one extreme, and somebody relentlessly mundane and relentlessly ineffectual like RP Tyler is at the other.
(I'm not going to talk about Shadwell. Book!Shadwell and s1!Shadwell are both ethics misfires and I dislike them deeply as characters -- no shade to McKean, though -- so I ain't going there.)
But there's SO MUCH in between: Newt, Anathema, the Them without Adam (who are toward the mundane end, actually), Agnes, Madame Tracy, the Satanic nuns (who were actively trying to bring about a certain view of eschatology), the Atlanteans, and so on. Quirkiness is one form of agency in GO book/s1-land, but it's NOT the only one, it's NOT destiny, and it's NOT a guarantee.
And it's not one-sided, either. Sure, angels and demons can "mess people about," but Adam can fuck up Heaven and Hell if he wants; he in fact does fuck up Satan. Agnes can see the future in ways that push Anathema and Crowley and Aziraphale toward massively thwarting Heaven, Hell, and arguably Satan and God. Madame Tracy can host a bodiless angel.
I am spoiling my own goddamn WIP here, but fuck it, we ball: in the book (reduced to brief interstitial scenes in s1), the Earth has agency, too, in decidedly Quirky ways. That lovely, lovely tree-taking-out-a-mall scene, for example, and the sushi crying out for vengeance. Am I supposed to believe that the Earth accepted total destruction without the least resistance? 'Cos I don't. That's not how it worked in the book or even in s1.
So another thing that's missing from s2 and s3 is balance. Balance of Quirky -- it doesn't and shouldn't all belong to ethereal and occult entities! -- alongside balance of agency. OP, you showed me that, you're right, and I thank you.
It just always felt very thematically important to me that Crowley and Aziraphale demonstrate the Theme of Humanity being kinder than any Angel and eviler than any Demon by being the most Human Angel and Demon and thus also being simultaneously the best and worst Angel and Demon.
Like Aziraphale is a covetous lazy hedonist easily swayed by mortal pleasures into disobedience, he is kinda jaded about Heaven in the book, he is the one willing to deceive a pair of Humans to go assassinate an eleven-year-old for him and the one willing to pull the trigger when it comes down to it… But he’s still also the only Angel who cared more about saving Humanity and the Earth than the beef with Hell, and even in the book he did managed to talk himself into having faith that Heaven will do the right thing and even his first act of disobedience, his lie to God, was because he just cared about humans so much, and he still does, more than any other Angel.
And Crowley is a Demon who has just as much if not more affection and care for Humanity, he often doesn’t have it within himself to actually cause meaningful harm to anyone, as the Serpent of Eden his greatest act of Temptation actually gave birth to human morality… but he’s also very much a slothful hedonist, he Rebellious and self-interested to the point it makes him rebel against Hell itself, and he is still Hell’s most effective tempter and corrupter by far and he did destroy a fellow Demon in cold blood, which was established in the Book as a huge Moral Taboo even for exceptionally cruel and sadistic Demons like Hastur and Ligur.
And then also, their ‘good’ and ‘bad’ actions are full of gray areas. They try to save the world and humanity mostly out of their hedonistic self-interest, both of their most ‘immoral’ actions happened for understandable reasons; Crowley destroys Ligur in what is clearly self-defense and Aziraphale plots out the assassination of a grade-schooler out of a sincere belief this is the only way to save the world. Moral ambiguity and humanity, that’s what this whole story is about, right?
And since GO1 sticks fairly close to the book, I think this idea is preserved… pretty well there as well. Like, I’d say that actually getting to see Aziraphale interact with other not-Metatron Angels helps drive the point even better. But also… Aziraphale lost his jadedness, while his sweetness, softness and faith in Heaven was emphasized, but so were his hedonism, pridefulness and hypocrisy. So it still evens out, just a lateral move, I think. Having Crowley be the first to explicitly mentions the concept of killing Warlock kinda lessens the importance of Aziraphale resolving to do it all on his own, but it’s done to heighten the drama around the subject, so there’s still plenty of impact when Aziraphale actually pulls the trigger…
And Crowley’s effectiveness in and fondness of Modernized Sin Spreading has been greatly de-emphasized but…. At least the new emphasis is on his laziness and deceit, which would still be ‘Hellish’ qualities, although I think this is still a much… safer variation of hellish qualities than letting him be a shameless little shit. On the other hand, Crowley’s rebelliousness and self-interest is emphasized greatly even compared to Book!Crowley, the whole Alpha Centauri plan showcases that he can narrow down the world to just himself and his Angel when things get dire.
…But even at the time it kinda bugged me how the concept of Crowley crossing some sort of Moral Taboo by destroying a fellow Demon with Holy Water was basically entirely gone. Not only was Hell 100% fine with publicly executing Crowley by Holy Water, they killed that other tiny random Demon basically just for the lols!
But, y’know, the Body Swap Sequence was otherwise so fucking Peak by Basically Every Other Metric (including furthering other important themes with Aziraphale and Crowley’s characters) that I was wiling to forgive it. Now, like, I still love all the Body Swap stuff to bits, but I also worry that it was an… omen of things to come. A Bad Omen, if you will.
Because by the time we get to GO3, this through-line is… maybe not exactly entirely gone, but definitely frayed and torn and jumbled. I suppose you can say this whole sequence plays on the whole ‘Aziraphale is simultaneously the Best and Worst Angel’…
But, like, both this scene and the whole Finale in general gives so little attention to Aziraphale’s good qualities, to that kindness and sweetness and courage, to the fact faith and trust and hope don’t have to just be foolish naïveté (And GO3 is not a Subtly Written TV Movie Thingy). And like, it's not just that wanting to enjoy Earthly Pleasures doesn't 'negate wanting to do the right thing, Aziraphale’s ‘sins’ intersect and blend with his ‘virtues’. His Hedonism fuels his genuine kind love of Humanity, his lies to God and Heaven, always to protect innocent Humans, were a demonstration of his conviction and bravery. Only Aziraphale really stands up to his own defense, and quite frankly, it feels mostly to set up the segway to Aziraphale talking up Crowley.
Which honestly just makes the whole situation here worse. Like, first things first, it just demonstrates how much of Crowley's rougher edges have just been... sanded off and retconned out over GO2 and GO3. He is just "The Best Angel" (and by implication, the Worst Demon), no interesting gray-areas nuance there. And in addition to many many other things that are Fucking Terrible about Aziraphale's 'Best Angel' speech (the inability to give Aziraphale a satisfying conclusion to his character arc, invalidating Crowley's own conception of his identity and past, the supposed 'love confession' culmination of the relationship being entirely in PAST TENSE, the massive imbalance in how this narrative treats Crowley vs. Aziraphale...), it also highlights how much we've lost the plot on this Theme of Humanity as it used to relate to the Ineffable Husbands.
In the book it was made very clear that living alongside Humanity has had a big effect on Crowley and Aziraphale, that it shaped them into the Beings we see play things out in the main storyline...
And back in S1 you could... insinuate that this was still the case. Obviously with the bigger focus now being drawn to Aziraphale and Crowley's relationship, you expect there to be a mixture of influences from both each other and Humanity as a whole but... As GO2 and GO3 went along, any sort of influence from being around Humanity got minimized more and more for the both of them. Like, Aziraphale already got so many of his positive traits and character moments attributed to being 'thanks to Crowley' and that absolutely includes his most 'Human' traits. Aziraphale couldn't even figure out how to eat food just from blending in among Humanity, Crowley had to tempt him to that first...
And with Crowley, this whole speech is about how great Crowley WAS, before his Fall, before the Beginning, before HUMANITY. If we see this Stupid Ass Speech as an accurate judgement of Crowley, then he basically burst fully formed out of God's Brow with all of his traits just inherent to his being from the start. Nothing of the things that made him so great were anything he also learned from Humanity or even just subconsciously rubbed-off on him.
Like, y'know, naive ol' me, when GO1 said Crowley was the only Demon to have an 'Imagination' in a piece of dialogue that seemed to deliberately call back to Book!Crowley's inner monologue saying Imagination is one advantage Humans have over Demons, I stupidly assumed that this means Crowley honed his Imagination from being around Humanity! That it was a cool, thematically-poignant moment because despite Crowley's Magical Miracle Power being what is literally keeping the Bentley going, the actual real Superpower behind this iconic badass feat is an inherently HUMAN trait!
...When instead I should've obviously realized that Crowley is just an inherently imaginative uniquely artistic soul who was like this since before the dawn of time and we humans have nothing to do with it, silly me!
It just drives home just how much Humanity has been diminished in this story, that is now trying to conclude itself with a Big Poignant Thing about Humanity. The agency of Humans is all but gone from the narrative that led us to this moment, no representative of Humanity is here to bring in our perspective while those four supernatural beings discuss the fate of the world, and the qualities and influences of Humanity that used to define our two main leads were gradually wiped out to glorify one of them as So Great and Wonderful and the Most Special (and thus also the least interesting version of one of my favorite characters...).
Maybe in a Better version of this scene, Crowley and Aziraphale could've realized that they are actually not that different from Adam Young. That much like him, they are technically 'divine' beings that have lived so long amongst the Humans, shaped by them, have been basically 'adopted' by Humanity, that both of them have much more in common with plain ol' mortal folks then they do with the two other supernatural beings sitting in the bookshop with them, and try to make their arguments from a point of Empathy, from the angle that they do kinda know what it's like to be a Human Person in a world jerked around by the whims of God...
(Something like that would've definitely lead into a 'Turning Human' Ending in much more satisfying and thematically coherent manner. Although I will emphasize that I'm talking about Crowley and Aziraphale turning human AS THEMSELVES, none of this reincarnation mindwipe bullshit that skips over all the emotional catharsis. But also like... maybe not inherently? Adam rewrote reality so that he was always Human and yet he still got to keep his powers, so....)
Instead all of Crowley's observations about Humanity and how much he cares about them is all in the third person, distant, pitying more than it is empathetic.
And Humanity is also diminished in the resolution of our story. Like, both in the sense that, like I said many times before, this whole ‘asking God to kill Themself and create a new universe’ thing is just not… actionable enough, at least not how they played it in the show, to be anything the Human viewers could feel like they could achieve to escape their own problems with systems of oppression, even metaphorically. It might’ve worked if we had more focus on how Crowley and Aziraphale’s Human qualities were the things to defeat God in any meaningful way.
But it’s also about how this conclusion is all about this Big Dramatic Gesture of Purely Selfless Self-Sacrifice for the Abstract Greater Good, which is… obviously there have been cases of Humans acting like this, that’s the whole ‘more grace than Heaven’ thing. But… for the climatic ending, the culmination of a series that supposed to be celebrating Humanity, and moral shades of gray, it is kinda weird for it to end on something so straightforwardly… Heavenly.
Especially when you compare it to the Book/GO1, how Adam’s victory over his Demonic ‘Destiny’ is this very human mixture of wanting things to be better, but also wanting things to be better for your own sake, because you’re the one who’s going to be living in this world…
And love, not just generally for some vague abstract concept of ‘Humanity’, but to the specific people around you that you love, to the places that you love, to the small world you’ve made around you to make sense of the hugeness of the universe…
And, yeah, a bit of selfishness, to avoid the burden of responsibility that comes with being in charge.
And Crowley and Aziraphale, for what little part they actually contributed to saving the world, did so, like I said, out of a mixture of kindness and selfishness. And all of the other Humans who contributed to saving the world did so out of an obvious, yet heroic, desire for self-preservation, and they each had their own quirky self-contradictory mess of virtues and vices…
This all feels very discordant when compared to Noble Suffering Hero Crowley’s Ultimate Selfless Sacrifice as an Ultimate Act of Universal Love to Humanity.
The conclusion to Crowley’s character shouldn’t have been about how he’s the Worst Demon because he’s just too damn selfless and caring, it shouldn’t have been about he was the Best Angel either. It should’ve been about how he’s a fundamentally Human Occult Being (and so is Aziraphale!) And not just in a tacked-on ambiguous maybe-reincarnation Human AU way, in the way the culmination of their story (and them saving the world, if you really must leave these two bozos in charge of saving the world, anyways) should have emphasized the inherent complicated self-contradictory selfless selfishness Humanity that they possess regardless of their literal species.
Good Omens 3: whose ending is it?
Since the finale of Good Omens was released, both fans who liked and didn't like how it ended have been discussing whose idea it was. Some say it is the ending Terry Pratchett had always planned. Others deny that and argue that it was Neil Gaiman alone who decided that it should conclude this way. There has even been some speculation that the new writers, Peter Atkins and Michael Marshall Smith, did a complete rewrite of the six original scripts before cutting them down to a single 90 minute-long episode.
I think the latter can be debunked quite easily. Not only would time and financial constraints not have allowed to write six new scripts, but there are also many evidences that apart from cutting and shortening scenes, changes have been rather minimal. While Peter Atkins and Michael Marshall Smith are credited for the "Teleplay" alongside Neil Gaiman, Neil Gaiman is the only one who gets credited for the "Television story", meaning that the plot of the finale was laid out by him. There are also lines and short scenes in Good Omens 3 that are rather obviously leftovers from plotlines that have been removed, like Michael's comment about the Metatron messing with the Book of Life or Dagon declaring war on heaven seconds before hell gets snapped out of existence. Even the word "pedometer" that Neil Gaiman had teased for the finale was still included in the crossword scene (cf. this post by @crowleysgirl56).
Moreover, the concept art for the final scene was created at the time when Good Omens 3 was still six episodes long and featured a plotline in America (cf. this post). People have pointed out that Crowley and Aziraphale look much more like older versions of themselves in it and have taken this as proof that they were initially meant to keep their identities and memories. But you have to keep in mind that a concept artist does not get to decide on the costumes. The human versions of Crowley and Aziraphale were created with the input of David Tennant and Michael Sheen (cf. this interview). Louis Ralph just put placeholders in his concept art to get an overall impression of what the scene would look like. Similarly, in the concept art for the Resurrectionist minisode, the image of Crowley in his Victorian outfit from season 1 was inserted (cf. this post). And if you've followed some news from behind the scenes, you will probably remember that season 2 was originally supposed to feature a nightmare in which the bookshop was the only place left in the entire universe - foreshadowing for an ending that Neil Gaiman claimed to have come from his "subconscious/unconscious" (cf. this post).
If this still doesn't convince you, Peter Atkins has explicitly stated that the ending itself remained untouched, and that "no big narrative or thematic changes" were made (cf. these screenshots on Reddit). Rachel Talalay has confirmed that, too (cf. this interview). When asked the question "What kind of conversations did you have about where Crowley and Aziraphale should ultimately end up?", she replied: "That was very much worked out by Terry Pratchett. That was an absolute. That was in the six episodes and stayed the same through the shorter version. That wasn’t a debate or dialogue. That was what was decided. That was the reason to make it because that’s the ending Terry wanted."
Which leads us to another interesting point: the involvement of Terry Pratchett. Many people assume that the ending could never be what he wanted for the story, mainly because it contradicts the core messages of the book. The nihilistic take on the state of the world seems to fit Neil Gaiman's style a lot more and was interpreted as an attempt by him to finally make the story his own (cf., for example, this reblog by @acatwithstockings of a post by @obsessivelollipoplalala). Initially, I agreed with this view, but Rachel Talalay has repeatedly emphasized how Rob Wilkins, Terry Pratchett's assistant, who also functioned as the executive producer of Good Omens 3, assured her that it reflects Terry Pratchett's philosophy (cf. both of the interviews cited above).
Marc Burrows, who wrote a biography of Terry Pratchett (but did not ever meet him personally), has voiced doubts about the alternate universe being Terry Pratchett's idea (cf. this post). He also pointed out how Terry Pratchett not being officially credited for the story of the finale is somewhat telling, and Rob Wilkins liked his post (cf. this post). But this fact is contradicted by Rob Wilkins's role as executive producer, and Rachel Talalay's statement. There is no reason for her to blatantly lie about her conversations with Rob Wilkins, so we have to take her word for the ending being, at least officially, the one Terry Pratchett had planned. But this still leaves us with the question what aspects of the ending came from Terry Pratchett.
The destruction of heaven and hell? Absolutely yes. That was a thing that was already heavily hinted at in the book. Adam complains about the influence angels and demons have over humans: "It's hard enough bein' people as it is, without other people coming and messin' you around" (Pratchett/Gaiman, p. 366; cited below). Another instance is the analogy between the Them and their rival gang, the Johnsonites, on the one hand and heaven and hell on the other and Adam musing that the adults of Tadfield (the humans) would probably be glad if both of the gangs just disappeared (cf. Pratchett/Gaiman, p. 320; cited below). He also criticizes the concept of life after death; Crowley's line in the finale in which he asks God why people are punished for behaving like people is actually a quote by Adam from the book: "I don't see what's so triffic about creating people as people and then gettin' upset 'cos they act like people" (Pratchett/Gaiman, p. 367; cited below).
What's important to understand the context of this quote is what follows, though: "Anyway, if you stopped tellin' people it's all sorted out after they're dead, they might try sorting it all out while they're alive. If I was in charge, I'd try makin' people live a lot longer, like ole Methuselah. It'd be a lot more interestin' and they might start thinkin' about the sort of things they're doing to all the enviroment and ecology, because they'll still be around in a hundred years' time" (Pratchett/Gaiman, p. 367; emphasis in the original; cited below). Adam proposes a much longer lifespan for humans as a way for them to experience the direct consequences of their actions rather than getting some rather unrelated reward/punishment in the afterlife. He wants people to have a chance to take full responsibilty for their actions: "If you stop messin' them about they might start thinkin' properly an' they might stop messin' the world around. I'm not sayin' they would, [...] but they might" (Pratchett/Gaiman, p. 368; emphasis in the original; cited below).
A godless universe? I would say also yes. I remember this quote from back when I first read the book, before watching the series: "I mean, maybe you just want to see how it all turns out. Maybe it's all part of a great big ineffable plan. All of it. You, me, him, everything. Some great big test to see if what you've built all works properly, eh?" (Pratchett/Gaiman, p. 392; cited below). It gave me the suspicion that the ultimate goal of God might always have been to end his/her existence once creation has proven that it can take responsibilty for itself. Although I assumed that God would simply back out of the existing universe, not create a new one.
Crowley and Aziraphale sacrificing themselves? Maybe. At the end of the book, they choose not to run away and help the humans fight Satan instead, despite knowing that they do not really have a chance (cf. Pratchett/Gaiman, p. 373; cited below). So I guess a noble sacrifice would fit their characterisation, even though it would give them an unusual importance in a story that had painted them as rather incompetent bystanders so far (cf. this post by @dustbunniess).
Crowley and Aziraphale deciding on the fate of the whole of humanity alone? I highly doubt that. A story that has always been about human agency, about how supernatural beings should not interfere with human lives, about how destroying the world as it is is not a way to make it better ending with an angel and a demon single-handedly choosing the erasure of the entire universe is more than odd. We know that a plotline involving Jesus and Adam was cut from the finale, so maybe they were meant to play a bigger role in Terry Pratchett's vision. The ending as it is, however, as I said above, goes against the core messages of the book, and I will stand by that.
Crowley and Aziraphale becoming human? Possibly. They were always trying to imitate humans, so it would be a fitting conclusion for their character arc. Although I thought that the point was that they are already human at heart. All the things Crowley envies humans for - mainly free will and imagination (cf. Pratchett/Gaiman, p. 47f; cited below) - are qualities he already possesses. It actually reminds me a bit of The Wizard of Oz, in which Dorothy's friends wish for traits they've had all along. The only two things that really distinguish Crowley and Aziraphale from humans are their immortality and their miracles. Take them away from them and all the other angels and demons and they are equal to humans. I don't understand why removing the power imbalance requires them to lose their identity as well, and I'm still not sure whether this was Terry Pratchett's intention.
But even if every aspect of the ending was envisioned by Terry Pratchett, you have to bear in mind that the execution was entirely done by Neil Gaiman. He used the narrative landmarks that were set and built the plot around them. His comment about not really knowing where the idea with nightmare of the bookshop came from further suggests that he was making a lot of things up as he went. And when it comes to the messages of the story, one has to admit that he did not add much that was of value. The scene with God and Satan in the bookshop that was supposed to represent the philosophical core of the finale, for example, did not contain much original dialogue, but relied on recycled lines from the book instead, like Adam's remark about punishing people that I quoted above or Crowley's musings about human nature (cf. Pratchett/Gaiman, p. 47f; cited below).
Neil Gaiman is also the one who made the romance between Crowley and Aziraphale explicit on request of the fans, only to have it end tragically ("There was a point where I started to go: You know, I can give you what you want, but you won't want it" - that were his own words; cf. this video, timestamp 11:56-12:04). If they were always supposed to get annihilated in the end, he should have left it out. Since the story had shifted its focus to Crowley's and Aziraphale's relationship, the only narratively satisfying conclusion would have included a happy ending for them. I'm sure there would have been a way to do that without betraying the core of Terry Pratchett's vision. What we ultimately got was a weird example of 'having your cake and eating it too', as Reddit user WAR_FROM_GOOD_OMENS put it in this thread, of putting a lovestory in but also staying true to the original ideas under circumstances that had changed from the book (see also this post by @i-only-ever-asked-questions).
So, what is the takeaway from this post? Well, the takeaway is that the ending of Good Omens 3 is not the result of a rewrite of Neil Gaiman's scripts, but something that was planned right from the beginning, most likely even back when season 2 was written. And that we will never know for sure how much of it can be attributed to ideas by Terry Pratchett and how much to choices made by Neil Gaiman.
I understand that many people are unhappy with the ending and are looking for someone to 'blame' for it. And that many find the idea comforting that what we saw is not the 'real' ending and that a truer, more hopeful version of it exists somewhere. But in the end, we have to ask ourselves: does it really matter? You are allowed to like or dislike the ending, no matter who wrote it. Actually, I don't think the author of the ending should have an influence on your judgment of it at all. The finale of Good Omens is what it is, it does not become better when Terry Pratchett came up with it or worse when Neil Gaiman, Peter Atkins or Michael Marshall Smith invented it. Just look at what we've got and use your skills in media analysis to decide whether it makes sense for the story, for the characters, and for your own taste and morals. And if it doesn't, you can't change it anyway, but you can create a version for yourself and for other fans that feels more fitting. You don't have to accept an author's word on the story, no matter how famous or how skilled he is.
Keep going, Good Omens fandom!
Work cited:
Pratchett, Terry and Gaiman, Neil: Good Omens. The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. London 2011.
This is wise and fairminded and I largely agree with it.
I do think there's a thing missing, though, and it doesn't strike me as a thing that PTerry would be likely to miss.
Namely, does humanity want Crowley and Aziraphale joining its ranks? The other angels and demons?
I think Humanity Ensues is an ending that each angel and demon character should earn, over and above their own agency in the matter (which is also important). I'd argue that Crowley and Aziraphale have earned their places. Muriel and Eric(s)? Sure. Beez and Gabe? Maybe. Hastur, or the Metatron? Can go fuck themselves, humanity doesn't want them.
And what about God and Satan? (I'm at "fuck 'em both," but that doesn't necessarily signify.)
I can think of several ways to implement this narratively, but I do think that if we're taking free will seriously, it's a narrative issue that needs resolution.
THE FALSE NARRATIVE THE AUDIENCE WERE LED TO BELIEVE ABOUT AZIRAPHALE
I never said this out loud after Season 2 because, at the time, I felt like it was just me taking book canon to the extreme (and also the fact that I agreed about the cuteness of it all) but after GO3, I put everything into perspective and realises I was not being irrational about this. So here goes:
1. The Flashbacks:
Apparently, since Season 2, there has been a tendency from the writers to take away little things that made Aziraphale special and give it to Crowley.
I personally did not like the angel Crowley scene (Before the Beginning). I will always stick to the canon of the book/Season 1. That being Aziraphale never met Crowley as an angel before.
The reason being: It shows Aziraphale treats everyone the same, regardless of affiliation. He firsr met a demon on the wall of Eden. Instead of immediately smiting or chasing him away like other angels would, he talked to Crawly. You could see some concerns in him, but since Crawly hadn't done anything bad, Aziraphale didn't harm him. He has no concrete clue that this demon was trustworthy, but he extended a wing to sheild Crawly from the rain.
Now, put the angel Crowley scene (and the War in Heaven from Go3, and "you were the best angel") into the mix, and what do you get? Oh, so Aziraphale wasn't just being kind to some demon he just met. He had been having a crush on angel Crowley all this time and recognised him in Eden. So... I guess he wasn't being brave and kind, then? Talked to Crawly cause that was his crush? Cool...
Oh, angel Crowley shielded him from space matter? So him shielding Crawly was just returning a favor? Alright...
Oh, Crowley also gave the sword back to Aziraphale in that scene at the Eternal Flame. Guess Crowley did that first too, then.
Do you see the pattern here? Aziraphale's actions turned out to have been done by Crowley already.
2. "You taught me to be brave" (not accurate quote. I don't want to rewatch.)
Aziraphale had always been brave. He gave the flaming sword away. He lied to God. He lied to Gabriel. In the book, Crowley was about to run away but he told Crowley to stay and face Satan because he didn't want to leave the humans in danger.
In Season 2, he helped Gabriel despite Crowley telling him it was dangerous. He bravely performed a deadly magic act. He also defended the bookshop....
Aziraphale never needed Crowley to teach him how to be brave. He was already courageous on his own.
But it was Crowley who showed him that, I guess. Apparently, Anthony Just-run-off-to-Alpha-Centauri-with-me Crowley was the brave one all along.
3. Problem Solving/Intelligence
Aziraphale had never been stupid or passive when it came to dealing with problems.
Season 1: Figured out where the Antichrist was, found a way to return to Earth after discoloration, almost shot a kid to stop Armageddon, the first to suggest the Metatron/Gabriel that the Great Plan wasn't the Ineffable Plan.
Season 2: Figured out Crowley's tricks with the goats, went on a mystery solving mission, tricked demons into the summoning circle...
What did we have in Go3?
After the crossword scene, the rest of the Finale Aziraphale was mostly passively waiting for Crowley to come up with the solution for something. Book of life? Crowley explained it. Michael threw the BoL in the fire? Let Crowley, the miracleless demon, say "take my hand" and transport them to the bookshop. Everything is gone? Let Crowley, the I-don't-read demon, figure out any book can be the BoL.
Oh, and the most important decision in their life? Let Crowley decide because he's the only real boy in the universe. Don't even discuss or argue his decision. Cause Crowley knows best.
Aziraphale became like a yes-man. Just following Crowley's leads instead of them teaming up and helping each other figure out a solution.
4. Pursuing Crowley
I have seen people saying that they love Asa/Anthony because Asa asked Anthony out first because Crowley/Anthony deserved to be pursued for once.
First of all,
I did not read their relationship like this from Season 1 and 2. It was never just Crowley chasing Aziraphale. The angel himself just did his pursuing differently from Crowley.
Crowley's love language in the show was gift giving and being a dashing hero. It was more blatant and easier to see. That's why many people only saw it from his side and thought Aziraphale never chased after Crowley.
Aziraphale's way of showing love was more subtle. He let Crowley into his comfort zone. He allowed Crowley to play his hero acts. He dressed like he wanted Crowley to mess him up in the French Revolution, btw. (The equivalent of a lady dropping her handkerchief). He gave Crowley the holy water at the risk of Crowley doing something stupid with it.
He showed Crowley he trusted him with his life during the magic act. He let Crowley lean onto him in Edinburgh despite how that could look if Upstairs saw it. He was suggesting a further relationship the whole S2 (the ball, "our car", "our bookshop"...)
Aziraphale literally hinted to Crowley that he would choose "Us" in their final moments. But guess what he got in return? He had to bite his tongue, put up a smile, and agreed to Crowley’s decision.
He was willing to frickin' DIE just because Crowley asked him to! No question asked.
The point is: Just because he was being subtle about it didn't mean he never tried to return Crowley's love. The two of them danced together, not just Crowley doing all the courtship ballet.
Second of all,
No shade to Asanthony's cuteness. Why can't it be Aziraphale himself who gets to do that after everything in the old world turned out okay?
Why can't we have Aziraphale initiating a second kiss? Or suggesting moving together into a cottage he bought years ago? That he had been waiting for this moment to tell Crowley?
Why can't Aziraphale have that after 6000 years? Why must the only way for him to be able to do this be his death? Erasing all the 6000 years trauma and himself was the only way??? He can't live with the trauma and still end up being the one to do what Asa did?
5. Aziraphale's EQ:
Another thing I noticed was that many fans and the show itself treated Crowley like a good boy. He did no wrong. He was nice and kind and-
NO!
In the Book, Crowley deliberately tried to harm animals. He loves causing minor miseries. He just cannot handle seeing actual torture. He loves doing his demonic job. He would not be a good angel!
Why did I mention this? Well, apparently, to make Crowley a good boy, the writers subtracted Aziraphale's empathy level to below 0. Suddenly we have:
Aziraphale being oblivious to Joshua's disorientation and sadness when he just got resurrected. Not even an offer of food or drink? Remember how he treated Gabriel/Jim?
Aziraphale not defending Muriel when people called them dim.
Aziraphale not contacting Crowley even once. Sure maybe he couldn't. But the Finale never showed it. So all we have is: Azi really wanted to be an Archangel and stayed up there for 4 years, leaving Crowley in depression. Poor snake. Azi is so cruel.
Aziraphale not staying to help Crowley up in the alley (like what the opening credit showed us. Do you feel scammed yet?)
Aziraphale not explaining himself the whole movie, not even a proper apology. Then demanded forgiveness in the bookshop at the end. Tried to do that stupid dance with a smile???
Speaking of smiling... Aziraphale wasn't crying or feeling distraught by the erasure of the whole universe right in front of him. Remember the angel who cried over a deformed baby in Edinburgh?
Aziraphale insisting Crowley was the best angel over and over again despite knowing Crowley hated Heaven and hated the idea of becoming an angel again.
And the things from Go3 also ruined otherwise cute interaction in S1 and 2.
The "our car" thing now reads like Aziraphale being demanding, controlling over Crowley's things.
Same with Azi making Crowley to the dangerous magic act with him. Ignoring that Crowley didn't want to do it.
The way Crowley had to do an apology dance to him despite not being wrong about the danger of keeping Gabriel now feels kinda like a red flag. But that's Crowley's own decision so this is just honorable mention.
There are probably more that I forgot...
Anyway, point is, Aziraphale was villainized by the writers so that Crowley would end up being the only real boy, the only one who cared. Note: what God and Satan said to berate Aziraphale is exactly how the writers and some people in the fandom sees him. I guess Aziraphale never cared for anyone or anything then? What a selfish angel, am I right?
------
And don't get me started on how Crowley and everyone treated him the whole Finale, the way Crowley was completely silent about the indirect love confession in the talk with God, because then we would be here all day.
Wow this has been long. If you made it here, thanks for reading. I needed to get all of this out for my sanity. There was no script so I am sorry if things aren't organized well.
-Vivi-
Here are a series of teeny tiny go3 doodles ☆
@lonicera-caprifolium noticed the inner cover of Anthony's book
I send this capture to Mickey Ralph asking if the photo exists and the photo above was their immediate answer. Professeur Crowley for us
Adding All Mickey Ralph posts about it.
No one can do it alone
A piece of Good Omens show fanon that never fails to irritate me is "Aziraphale and Crowley were useless!" The scope of their supposed uselessness changes -- for some fans it's the whole season, for some fans it's the airbase situation -- but either way, canon doesn't support it.
You can't take any of the humans, Aziraphale, or Crowley out of the airbase situation and end up in a win scenario:
Anathema: gets Newt into the command center
Newt: stops nuclear annihilation
The-Them-minus-Adam: deal with three of the four Horsepersons
Shadwell: arguably the most useless, but still the source of the Thundergun and the reason Madame Tracy is hosting Aziraphale
Madame Tracy: hosts Aziraphale and (crucially) stops him from murdering Adam
Adam: deals with Satan
Aziraphale and Crowley: pep-talk Adam, and stop the angel-demon war that would otherwise decimate Earth
No, there's a point being made here, and not subtly: no one can do it alone, for just about any value of "it."
That's another reason the finale of the finale is a big fat fail. It's vastly unfair, unbalanced, and counter-thematic for Aziraphale and Crowley (especially if you think of them as what TV Tropes calls "The Dividual") to be cornered like rats by God and Satan, without a single ally available.
They need friends (even beyond one another). We all do, pretty much. They need humanity. We all do! And they don't deserve to face the two Big Bads (sorry, everybody who trusted GO!God or wanted Her redeemed; She is as horrible as ever, the one consistent element across the entire show) alone, as much as they've done for humans.
It was a wretched thing to do to them, both Doylistly and Watsonianly.
✨Just one selfish thing✨
Would it have been so hard to give us something like this? Give them this one, small moment to express their love for each other?
Don’t get me wrong, I kind of grew fond of the hand kiss gesture. But in the Bookshop Garden, when they had privacy - probably for the first time ever - I really grieve a heartfelt conversation; about the things they did wrong, about their affection, about their options. About the reasons why they decided to choose humanity over their own happiness *sigh*
So I chose to give them this hug. We all need this. I will continue drawing moments like this ♥️😭
How convenient that they decided not to show how a frightened mother with her child disappears. A group of teenagers. A family of cats. A couple walking in the park. An old lady selling flowers. The main thing is to sprinkle it all with glittery “self-sacrifice for the good of humanity,” while not showing how no one actually asked that same humanity, and how its fate ended up in the hands of two supernatural beings (again). Great.
Just imagine how terrified Adam must have been when he realized that his act of courage and free will had all been for nothing. Imagine how scared he was when his family disappeared. Or think about Warlock, who never got the chance to live a life free from his father’s control. Or Anathema. Or Newt. Or Mr. Shadwell and Madame Tracy. Imagine them all disappearing, and how terrified they must have been in those moments.
Good Omens has always treated every life as equally valuable. There are no lives that matter more or less than others. It has always shown how even the smallest decisions matter, the smallest details, the seemingly insignificant people (like Elspeth and little Morag). It has always shifted the focus away from something vast and abstract onto something small, personal, and yet no less precious or beautiful.
What the hell, Season 3?
This is precisely the reason why I'm flabbergasted by the people who say that this is a very Terry Pratchett ending because it's a very humanist ending. WTF??? Armageddon, or mass murder everyone and everything in the UNIVERSE is very humanist? How the hell killing all of humanity is humanist? (Not to talk about the rest of the living things). Terry Pratchett would not want that, and in fact, didn't do that with the book. He could have ended the book like that and all of it would have had no meaning at all. Everything Adam did was for nothing and humanity finally had no agency over its destiny. Death decided by sobrenatural beings.
I'm so pissed!
Thinking about Book!Aziraphale’s relationship with modernity and technology, because it is more complex and nuanced than just ‘Old-At-Heart Immortal can’t catch up with the times’. The sense I get is that, unlike Book!Crowley, who takes great care to be always as up-to-date as possible with all the latest trends and tech, because that’s ’the kind of human he’s trying to be’ and also generally useful to his ‘modernized sin spreading’ shtick, Aziraphale is just… very selective about what he’s paying attention to. He doesn’t care that much about modern music or slang/other linguistic changes or fashion trends, so they tend to slip by him…
But if it’s something that is Relevant to His Interests, he has no problems adapting to it fairly quickly. Compact Discs were modern technology when Book Omens takes place, and they made it near the top of Crowley’s list of things Aziraphale will miss after Armageddon. Because Aziraphale likes music, so he whole-heartedly adopted this new convenient human tech for storing and owning music.
Book!Aziraphale was ‘the first Angel to own a computer’! It’s clearly not as modern and up-to-date as the one in Crowley’s flat that he upgrades every few months, but still, in 1990/the late 80’s, Aziraphale was still kinda ahead of the curve on the widespread adoption of computers!
Because it helps him do his taxes and manage his “”business””. He probably has no interest in upgrading it or keeping up with evolving computer technology… unless Humans invent some improvement that’s also Relevant to His Interests. And Aziraphale almost definitely actually uses his computer on a regular way more than Crowley, who, at least in 1990, was only buying computers as a status symbol.
(That being said, seeing as Crowley had become addicted to Googling Himself by the 2005 New Year Resolutions, he probably figured out things he likes to do on the computer eventually.)
And at the same time, yeah, he has does have little experience with answering machines…
Probably not technology he would really care about. If anyone calls him while he’s not home or not available , they could just kinda… fuck off, probably. Although I won’t say he’s totally unfamiliar with what they are, pretty quickly after the ‘stop making noises!’ bit he realizes that he should try Crowley’s other number. That’s why I think he just doesn’t have a lot of experience with them and forgot due to the stress he was under at the time.
But all of this makes me wonder… what level of modern technology has Book!Aziraphale adopted by now? By the 2020’s?