Ranting Vaguely Downwards

This a side blog with some of my more divisive takes or takes I want to think more about.

[fernytickle]

All the people whining that Rupert and Taggie weren't in today's episode much and complaining that Archie and Caitlin are getting more airtime need to just stfu for 5 minutes. The show is not called "the Rupert and Taggie show' and not everything is about them, if you don't know how character development or plot works that I don't know what to say.

[snogfairy]

go fandom: ohgod please don't make them human

go3 writers: oh so.....kill them off and create humans with their faces who don't even have their memories? got it

[politeanarchy]

I suppose I could have accepted a "turned human" ending, if it had been done well and set up better, although I wouldn't have liked it. I could maybe have accepted a "sacrifice themselves for humanity" version, but I would have liked that even less.

The thing about season 3 that I really keep bouncing off of, though, is that it's asking me to take a story, and believe that the only possible conclusion for it is to annihilate and obliterate the part of it that was written by two authors, in favor of something written by only one of those authors. We don't even get to keep the earlier version; it's been officially rendered null and void.

Like, "Hey, you know what this collaborative story needs? To never have happened in the first place! And then I can write my own solo version. It's inevitable!"

It seems gross and selfish, and in the circumstances, highly suspect.

[discoonthegrass]

Honestly I never really liked the idea of Aziraphale and Crowley's first meeting being before the beginning when it was introduced in S2, and the scene in S3 just cemented it.

Like yeah. It's cute. "Look at you, you're gorgeous" is funny. Angel!Crowley being a silly cutie compared to Aziraphale's innocent sweetness is very nice.

But at the same time, I think it's so much more poignant that Aziraphale shielded a complete stranger on the Wall of Eden. He didn't do it because he knew who the angel Crowley was, but because... Aziraphale is fundamentally a good, trusting person. He didn't smite Crowley since he doesn't *want* to smite anyone -- he doesn't actually hate demons even though he should. And Crowley, simultaneously, reassured Aziraphale not because he was remembering the sweet worrier of an angel he met before the Beginning, but because *Crowley* is also a good person.

I like the idea that these two strangers who have no reason to trust each other, who have nothing in common on the face of it, just decide to trust each other anyway, because they can, because they see a kindred goodness and love for humanity in each other right from the start. And I somehow feel like this notion that Aziraphale loved Crowley before he was a demon, or that Crowley knew how notorious Aziraphale was as a hunter during the war, really cheapens that.

[myauntspen]

Two things can be true.

I really hate that our beloved celestials were erased from existence.

[image redacted so I don’t have to see it again]

Also:

These two are absolutely adorable and managed to tug at my heartstrings IMMEDIATELY.

They are played by two of the best actors currently working, so of course.

[mwagneto]

they spent their entire existence being lonely and miserable. they didn't kiss. and then they died.

[abaddonhope]

Another thing... what the Hell kind of story arc is just this downward slope from bad to worse to oblivion? Who does that. And WHY? I don't believe even this could be so badly written, but sometimes it feels like they started with 'we need them to off themselves in the end, how do we get there?' And just fucking. Whumped Crowley down until it happened (which is still ooc to the point of impossibility, you could NOT have beaten that demon into giving up when he had his angel standing right there next to him. Not in any universe.)

[reasonably-tattered]

Good Omens 3 could have been an example of not letting evil men have the last word. instead, we got the lashing-out of a resentful creep who should have been cast into the outer darkness.

[iforgiveyouprime]

If I tried to make a list of everything that went wrong in the final episode, all the OOC moments, plot holes, the themes of the first two seasons and the book that the finale betrayed, and so on, it would end up looking like the document Crowley unrolled in the Job episode.

[politeanarchy]

It's a particularly nasty little trick to set up the plot so that all the bad stuff and inevitable tragedy are the fault of God's capricious whims, and then make God a black woman. On the surface, it looks progressive and cool: We have met God, and she is black! But the underlying message is Look whose fault it is! It's a selfish black woman who's probably Woke. Definitely not any kind of white or male person, so you certainly can't be mad at any of them! Of course tragedy was inevitable, look who's in charge!

Very, very ugly and gross, that.

[ineffable-effability]

you're telling me anthony janthony "if you've got to go, then go with style" crowley just stood there before god herself and chose wHAT?

[mwagneto]

- s3 writers room apparently

[crowleysnotanangel]

You know, I was actually doing okay, hadn’t cried the past couple of days. And then I just saw an edit to Noah Kahan’s Astronaut. The song repeats “I circle you” over and over while Crowley is circling or chasing after Aziraphale. And now I’m sobbing all over again

Because WHAT DO YOU MEAN Crowley spent 6000 years chasing his angel and never catching him?

WHAT DO YOU MEAN he gave up the Bentley and came in the bookshop to dust and sweep (manually, because he’s out of miracles) because it was the last piece of Aziraphale he had left?

AND WHAT DO YOU MEAN he spent the last 3 years more depressed than ever, drinking until he passes out in an alley, only to never again get one single day of happiness?

WHAT DO YOU MEAN???

JFC, I can’t. It’s so unfair it’s sickening.

[lookingatacupoftea]

Neil Gaiman thoroughly inserted himself into GO3. He is both god as author of the book of life and of this story, and Crowley as the "artist" and martyr protagonist.

Beware bleakness under the cut.

The book of life burns so NG can end the story on his terms.

The grand "choice" that Crowley makes -- it's not really a joint decision because GO3 does a thorough job reducing Aziraphale to Crowley's protégé -- enacts NG's abuser's fantasy of escaping accountability by creating a new universe, thereby erasing the harms he caused.

The predeterminism of this new universe asserts that god can never be erased as author of the world and that NG can never be erased as author of this story.

[iforgiveyouprime]

Just a friendly reminder that good omens is... Like... You know...

A FUCKING COMEDY????

AND THAT GOOD OMENS IS LIKE, GOOD OMENS, NOT BAD OMENS???? WTF????

[aduckwithears]

I keep coming back to this:

Even if we say (to keep things simple), that the rest of the show was coherent, that humanity was present, that everything else was wrapped up nicely, and that it was in character for Aziraphale and Crowley to make the choice they did, even if we had all that, then why oh why would characters that just accused God of jerking everyone around then trust that same God to do what they asked???

[twilightofthesandwiches]

… I mean, it is pretty darkly ironic that, like…

I get what they were trying to with this exchange from a Meta perspective. Characters from a world that was Doomed by the Narrative arguing with their own Creator that They can't be the one who decide that the story is over... Eventually creating a a 'real' Universe of endless possibilities that will extends past the will and control of God, and which ends up being the one place that allows the two of them to Un-Doom their Yaoi and finally get their Happy Ending, in a very deliberately 'Fluffy Fanfic AU'-like setting….

I absolutely get what they were going for in terms of the themes and meta but… It's just that it's because of this scene's heavy meta-ness, it's kinda hard to forget that this story did already come to an ending before, and it was an extremely straightforward Happily Ever After for both these characters and the Universe at large.

So a lot (… not all, but a lot…) of the people who should, thematically speaking, be on Crowley and Aziraphale's side in this exchange, the ones for whom the characters of the story have 'come alive' in their heads and were pushing for a happy ending…. Are instead the ones saying '…You know what, maybe this story didn't have to go past the last page of it's book...'