I NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS SHOW
sorry, I really do. I love it, I’m in love with it, and I want to try and shine a light on where that love comes from. so, apologies, gonna ramble, block me if u don’t want none of that, it’s cool.
so that up there is the first page of the book. what’s fun is to see what the show did with it.
for 1 thing, the show made it fuckton more queer (and btw if we could start saying that instead of describing the show as ‘gay’ that would be awesome, thx, ace pride, nb pride, etc.).
in the book, we open on aziraphale and crowley mid-conversation. in the show, we see how they met.
and it’s CROWLEY (crawley but the book lets us know that he doesn’t like that name on the second page so i’m sticking with crowley) who makes the first move.
in fact, through the entire opening scene it’s crowley putting in the donkey work to get the conversation going. he’s the one who approaches aziraphale, just slithers right up to his mortal enemy and starts talking like that’s a normal thing to do when, really, aziraphale’s reaction suggests that it isn’t
like. here’s zira’s face before he notices crowley, when he’s still watching adam and eve walk away
*fret fret fret oh dear oh dear*
he’s clearly not sure how to deal with this; his opposite number sidling up all casual-like and providing commentary. should he attack? best not, he just gave away the flaming sword. stiff politeness, then.
(btw in the book, crowley’s a snake for the entirety of this sequence, we won’t meet human-shaped crowley until he picks up the antichrist. which is one of many many small ways in which the tv show works to make the subtextual romance significantly less so. bit difficult to have chemistry with a reptile. not impossible, god loves u monsterfuckers, but difficult)
oh but crowley plays it cool, he doesn’t treat this interaction like it’s in any way weird or unprecedented. ‘that went over like a lead balloon’ he opens with and then repeats it, in a lazy drawl, when zira’s like wtf
it’s crowley who keeps the conversation going, commenting about how kicking adam and eve out of eden seems unduly harsh, and what’s wrong about knowing the difference between good and evil, and why was the tree in the middle of the garden and not on the moon, questions questions questions. he’s so curious and confused and he really wants someone to help him work all this out
hungry for knowledge, just like eve
and aziraphale has no clue what to do with any of this. this isn’t what he signed up for. he tries to stick to the party line, with all its circular logic and platitudes, ‘it’s ineffable’, ‘best not to speculate’, ‘it’s not for us to know’, ‘you’re a demon it’s what you do’
he’s doing his best to be a good soldier.
at this point crowley’s starting to tune him out, he’s bored and a little depressed, he’s had the party line recited at him before
and he just wanted someone to talk to and
crowley notices that the sword’s missing
and he asks what happened to it and at first zira won’t say and then finally zira admits ‘I GAVE IT AWAY!’
it’s the first really honest thing he’s given crowley, that guilty wail
‘…OH. oh. you’re special.’
they both surprise one another; crowley surprises aziraphale when he slithers up and initiates the conversation for no apparent nefarious purpose; aziraphale surprises crowley when he reveals he disobeyed orders just to be kind.
oh, also you know how there’s that parallel between crowley and eve’s yearning for knowledge. there’s another parallel; while they talk, adam’s protecting eve from the lion
a moment later, it starts to rain, and. guess who immediately, without stopping to think about it, protects crowley?
while adam and eve walk off hand in hand in the background, adam holding the flaming sword.
read that opening extract again. having aziraphale shield crowley from the rain instead of himself was a deliberate choice the show made.
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