I keep seeing people being upset about Aziraphale and Crowley's lives as angel and demon ending, and saying that they have been snapped out of existence, that their 6000 years story never happened and I just...
I feel like that's why the theme of storytelling keeps coming back in the finale, especially near the end. Aziraphale and Crowley were canonically just characters in God's story. Characters never get to choose, the free will in that universe doesn't mean anything, it's an illusion, just like the "find the lady" game, you only win if "the lady" wants you to win.
That's why the choice that God gave them at the end is so incredible. Imagine writing a story with characters that you love but who are ultimately just characters, and your story that you've worked so hard on comes to the ending you had planned for it, as the author. And then those two adorable characters look at you through the page, disappointed and angry on behalf of all the things they love and that are coming to an end, and you are so surprised and fond of them you say "alright. I'll give you the pen for the next few lines. I can continue the story for a while longer if you want me to."
But if you do, if you continue the story, it's still your story, and they are still your characters, and the problems will continue, because that is the story you are telling. And your characters somehow managed to understand that. No matter how long this story goes on, it will never be theirs. And so they decide it's okay for this story to end, as long as there exists, somewhere, a different story where all the things they adore get to exist only for themselves. A story you won't touch.
So you end your story, you write 'the end' and close your book. And you start a new one, exactly the way they asked. Of course, you're still the author, because it cannot come from nothing, but you do your best to give them what they wanted, because you love them, even if they are just your characters. And because you love them so, you put them in this new story. Sure, they cannot exist the way they did in the first story, but it's them because you wrote them to be, and you make sure they have everything they couldn't have before. And once you've done that, you put down your pen, and leave that new story with the open ending it deserves.
That's how I picture God's character in Good Omens, and that's why they're the narrator in season 1, because it's their story, they're a manifestation of the writers if you will. That's also why this first story could never end differently than with the apocalypse and the end of times, because God had planned for all this to happen from the start. Sure, maybe you don't like the ending of that story and you wanted more, and possibly so did God, and that's why they gave Aziraphale and Crowley the gift of a new story where they can be happy. But they couldn't have had it without finishing the first story.
And that does not mean this first story was thrown in the fire like the book of life was. God remembers everything, it's all written down, printed, recorded, filmed, distributed for us to enjoy, and we can enjoy it as many times as we want. It exists and it will keep existing as long as we read and listen and watch, from beginning to end, 6000 years of friendship and love and conflict and pain. But that new story, with our beloved characters living in peace? It gets to exist too.
And I find that to be such a beautiful portrayal of the relationship between writers and their characters. They cannot truly exist without us, but everything they are, everything they do, everything they feel, we get to give it to them, and sometimes we love them so much we will write a different world just so they can get married and watch the stars together in a perfect little cottage.
And ironically, when you start writing a fix-it fic because you're unhappy with the ending, that's you doing exactly the same thing God did, making a new story for your favorite characters.
XD I wrote all of this in one go and it's probably a bit unpolished but hey, when it needs to come out, it has to come out.
