After using a knife I put it to the sink. Only after I have used every single knife and there's nothing to cut with, I wash all of them and start again.
Of Snowglobes & Dual-Realities (Did we get TWO canon endings* to choose from?)
*The "Elsewhere" that could heal a divided fandom
Once again, the Good Omens fandom was given a divisive season ending, this one final. But this time, I think we've been shown an actual canon option out of this chaos, slipped in quietly for us. NOT by the authors in the script. It's in the snow globe and the end credit scenes.
I've been wondering about the final moments of this garden scene. It doesn't actually look very "real life" to me... (Yep. I'm back to analyzing again!)
Asa and Anthony were meant to be in "the real world" -- this actual world. But when the camara pulls back from their stargazing, we see an absurd and crowded display of (symbolic?) objects, including a snowglobe (right foreground). It's not a realistic garden scene. I love what the collection seems to represent, but it looks like a shadow box, or a book nook scene, or a room in a dollhouse, crafted with miniatures.
The objects are a little out of proportion with each other, just enough to look strange. (I brightened both light and color for visibility.) They make Asa and Anthony's matching chairs look unnaturally tiny. The effect is surreal. Why make it surreal, when it was emphasized that THIS is the "real world"? Because someone is telling us - maybe it's NOT.
The snow globe represents an "Elsewhere", originating from the 1988 finale for the television show St. Elsewhere. All 6 seasons turned out to be a child's imagination, looking at a snow globe. (Sir Terry Pratchett used the term as a location in Discworld, but I leave that analysis to the experts!) I've seen speculations about the GO snow globe, some good, some worried, some creating a fix-it alternative ending with Aziraphale and Crowley inside the snow globe bookshop completing their own Book of Life.
But I have another idea... And it was given in the ending itself.
What if the snow globe was placed there to indicate that THIS particular world version -- the oh-so-different SoHo and world erasure, etc., of GO3 -- might actually be the "Elsewhere"? That this entire GO3 World and new universe is in its own snow globe. Meanwhile, the universe we see in the end credits, events and places and realities from S1 & S2, is still out there alive and well and REAL.
Remember, everything erased from the Book of Life is gone forever, as if it NEVER EXISTED AT ALL. So then, why does Gabriel's statue still exist in the Edinburgh churchyard, with crosses as religious symbols when there was never a Crucified Jesus-as-Savior? Plus, that "planet" in the upper right is the S2 credits scene with elevators going up and down from Heaven to Earth! (Hell and it's spiders exist, too, on the 1st "planet"!)
We race through the universe that's beyond Asa & Anthony's garden, with more impossible moments recalling the adventures of our own Aziraphale and Crowley, until finally It ends, as it began, in a Garden.
The Garden of Eden, in fact. The one from a universe that supposedly NEVER EXISTED, yet somehow still exists, with OUR Ineffables dining and toasting To the World!
Two endings. One in Asa & Anthony's garden, one with Our Ineffables at their Ritz table in Eden. Which means we actually have a choose-your-own-ending situation here...
Maybe this was part of the plan, a direct intention of the total storytelling. (Can you hear the doubt in my voice?) Or maybe someone added it there to give us another option. A choice, rather than a conflict. We don't need to be a split fandom, as if we're on opposite sides.
I believe we can heal. We're on the same side...
I think the dual-realities we're being shown can both be valid. If you loved the ending told in the story itself, with Asa and Anthony, please bear with me a moment as I (gently and calmly) explain why I think the second ending also exists.
The GO3 scriptwriting team, NG & company, went for a dark ending of a universe erased, with Crowley and Aziraphale themselves gone. But many experts on Sir Terry insist that it's not the ending he would have written. After all, in the Good Omens novel, Sir Terry made certain that no one stayed dead. The air base soldier, the delivery man, all are shown to return, alive and well. And everyone else (even Warlock and the forgotten 3rd baby, Greasy Johnson) gets some sort of happy ending that gives them more control of their life.
We learned a few things in this post (shared by @depraveddame, with a reblogged essay about Sir Terry's philosophies by @turquoisedata). Sir Terry Pratchett is listed in the GO3 credits as co-creating the original characters, but not for contributing to the GO3 story itself -- even though we were repeatedly told it was his idea. Someone posted that was odd, and Rob Wilkins gave that post a like. (If you check out that post, TW for language and anti-go3)
I think we were given Two Endings. A choice. (I don't credit the screenwriters with this!). I think the fix-it got squeezed in there for us, straight from Good Omens HQ, courtesy of Rob Wilkins and Peter Anderson Studios.
We get to choose our own destiny, without guilt or angst.
The script tells us that the Good Omens Universe was erased, and the world of Asa & Anthony remains. The snow globe and end credits imagery tell us that Our World -- the world of Aziraphale & Crowley, of hope and choice and magic and love-overcoming-trauma and of not-giving-up and of an Ineffable Bond -- still exists.
Maybe you'll think I'm trying too hard to resolve this. Maybe you've already decided. But i hope you'll consider the possibility.
Does the story end with love and happiness for Asa and Anthony? Are the end credits racing through space and time to show us forms of Asa and Anthony reborn throughout the multiverse, always finding each other again and again? Or is it showing us that Crowley and Aziraphale and everything they loved and endured was not dissolved into non-existance, that GO3 was an Elsewhere and that Our Ineffables and their peopled world, Our World, is still there, with its history and miracles and meaning and hope?
Two choices. One fandom. Everyone united in love for Our Ineffables.
To Our World! 🥂✨
*****
I wrote another alternative -- both ideas formed at the same time. This one helps justify the other. It's written in story form instead of my usual analysis format. It's called Crowley's Nightmare, on my AO3 and also here as a Tumblr post.
I would like to register a complaint. This person should not be allowed in heaven. Complaint duly noted and registered. Will it make a difference? Oh no.
Don't worry guys, they're not actually human! They lived and they're immortal, they're just freaks who like to do elaborate human roleplay with each other every few decades. You know, like couples in a hotel bar. Just to spice things up.
"Oh yes, Professor Crowley, I have just the book for you. 🤭"
"Well well well, isn't it just my lucky day, Ang— I mean..... handsome stranger who I've never met. 😘"
The first gif is what we saw in the show. The second gif is Michael and David out of character in between takes (Michael is wearing his orange jacket, which Aziraphale/Asa is not wearing in the show).
Michael and David are holding hands in between takes and I am dying...
I wanted to laugh and I wanted to cry but I kind of didn't have time to do either.
It was all so quick and squeezed that the whole vibe was almost gone. I know the whole team tried really hard and the acting and everything was brilliant, just... It didn't have the "something" that the previous seasons had.
They definitely deserved more. More jokes, more intimacy, more time, more everything.
And regarding the ending - ever since I first saw the BTS photos of the scene in the Edinburgh bookshop I somehow knew that for 90% the only way how to give them a happy ending is to make them humans.
So.
They saved the world. They held hands. A nightingale sang. They got the cottage. They are happy. I am happy too, I guess...
It actually gets better with every watch. But all my points are still valid.
I also know what to say now. I'm not mad about the ending. I'm mad about it being so rushed. They deserved a full time six episodes. Period.
Also during the end captions it seems like each of the flashbacks is a little universe of its own and in each of them they meet and love each other. And I'd stick to that. 🖤🤍
I really thought that Aziraphale and Crowley were going to rewrite the Book of Life.
I really thought they were going to become the Illustrator and Author.
I really thought that's why all the books in the shop were made blank.
I really thought God wasn't going to actually exist in a true form, and instead be a kind of omnipresent power of creation.
I really thought that they were going to have their forced-proximity-making-up-with-each-other as they were required to work together to write the new Book of Life.
I really thought that they were going to choose *their* humanity and not a new one.
I really thought they would still be themselves at the end.
I really thought the moral of the story was that the humanity they had was worth protecting, and that life itself (whether mortal or otherwise) was beautiful and inherently important.
I really thought this story was about a love that transcends.
I understand the path they took. However. I do think it missed the mark on what the show was really trying to say.
I wanted to laugh and I wanted to cry but I kind of didn't have time to do either.
It was all so quick and squeezed that the whole vibe was almost gone. I know the whole team tried really hard and the acting and everything was brilliant, just... It didn't have the "something" that the previous seasons had.
They definitely deserved more. More jokes, more intimacy, more time, more everything.
And regarding the ending - ever since I first saw the BTS photos of the scene in the Edinburgh bookshop I somehow knew that for 90% the only way how to give them a happy ending is to make them humans.
So.
They saved the world. They held hands. A nightingale sang. They got the cottage. They are happy. I am happy too, I guess...
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