Spoilers and full S3 rant below!!!
Turns out I cannot stop disappointment posting, especially after getting some sleep and really being able to think on all the reasons why the ending fundamentally bothered me so much.
One of the biggest ones is the strange turn in the depiction of the GO god.
Because both sides, under the guise of being forced along by a divine plan, were in fact making all the wrong decisions of their own free will exactly like humans do.
From all the mentions of them in the book, to the actual voice we get to hear in the show, I was SO sure and felt it was so canon that the natural direction the show was leaning towards was the concept that angels and demons did have free will.
The ending of the book and S1 reinforce this especially. Everyone is convinced Armageddon has to happen! They tell Adam over and over again that this is the way things are, its part of the plan, and as supernatural beings, they all have no choice but to follow it.
But Adam doesn't. He says nope that's wrong, and does things his way. Even Aziraphale and Crowley. They act against their orders for years, sneak their way out of their executions, and this seemingly omnipresent god doesn't do a thing themselves in response despite all this supposedly being their will.
Then season 2 rolls around and Gabriel goes missing. THEE supreme archangel. Only for it to turn out in the end that he chose to do his own thing, as did beelzebub. They both turned against their orders and "purposes", and once again, there are no consequences beyond those attempted to be imposed by their immediate peers/coworkers. The almighty couldn't seemed to have cared less.
Even when the "bet" in regards to Job is falsely won. There's no way that god didn't know, and yet victory was still claimed and rewards were given out accordingly. I'll die on the hill that that was more of a test of the angels, and what they'll let happen, than it was of Job himself. And Aziraphale and Crowley are the only reason they passed, because they used their free will to do the right thing.
The series was moving in the perfect direction for the message to be that everyone has free will. That the angels and the Metatron especially were an excellent parallel to humans who do hateful things in the name of religion and claim the moral high ground because they're just following the will of a higher power.
But instead we got the bookshop scene and the last 30 minutes and a god that's holding the world and our angel and demon at gunpoint, telling them this is the way it has to be, and being very nearly cruel in her comments about Aziraphale's love for Crowley and how this story has to come to an end.
They should have kept her a mostly passive force in the story, it ruins so much of the series charm. The S1 and 2 almighty would never.
Instead, they should have put the responsibility on the angels and demons to fix things. Show them all that they do have the choice to make things better. That they can follow the example of Gabriel and Beelzebub and Aziraphale and Crowley. That there were consequences for the archangels coldness, and demons that can love despite their damnation
Like what was the point of going out of their was in S2 to show us that Aziraphale and Crowley were NOT outliers in their independence???
But nope sorry, just erase it all, yep!
annaxmalina
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