Ranting Vaguely Downwards

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

[depsidase]

[emotional-support-demon-crowley]

So... god's absence from the narrative is literally a plot point right up until the boys summon her to the bookshop.

And the supposed lack of free will is never portrayed as a problem. We aren't actually shown anyone struggling in any way because they're prevented from acting by a force beyond their control. Crowley seems to think they can't make a difference (even though they already did in season 1?), but his epically destructive levels of depression make his conclusions questionable at best here. I'm talking about actual evidence we have witnessed with our eyeballs.

If you had paused the show at the moment Crowley and Aziraphale landed in the bookshop on a first watch and had to brainstorm the problem that they needed to resolve in that moment, I doubt anyone would have seriously presented the existence of god and the lack of free will inherent because of god's existence as a serious suggestion.

I'm just saying 12 episodes and an hour in, we're suddenly told our main characters have decided they need to give up each other and their entire selves so they can... get rid of a presence that hasn't had any active impact on everything we've watched so far? So they can resolve a problem that we didn't even know existed (and I could argue that we have plenty of evidence that proves the exact opposite is true in this world, actually)?

And then we're shown the result of their sacrifice and... it looks exactly like the old earth. So getting rid of god and giving humans free will didn't have any noticeable impact AT ALL, as far as we're shown, on how human history turned out?

I'm just saying, you can't ask me to get on board with my favorite characters doing a self-sacrifice for a problem that contradicts everything that came before it and wasn't actually even discussed until the actual moment when they decide how to resolve it.

That's bad writing! It's quite possibly one of the most egregious examples of telling instead of showing I've ever seen in my life.

[kcbonneville]

Something cruel about “you can have them together, happy, and well in any universe except for the one created and designed for you to enjoy”.

Sounds like the same cruel irony allotted for the rules of the universe they were trying to escape.

And I did not care for it.

[juju-or-anya]

Just a gentle reminder that if you're going to justify other characters' actions by saying Bridgerton is set in the Regency era, but you don't apply the same consideration to criticizing Eloise's feminism—and you criticize her using a 2026 mindset, saying she should shut up and know her place, then you're a hypocrite and have some internalized misogyny.

[depsidase]

[iforgiveyouprime]

S3!Aziraphale: No great plan. Nothing ineffable.

"Nothing ineffable" literally means "no free will" in GO. Because free will is ineffable, and it's what the book and s1 about. "Ineffable" is not just a word ffs. The "ineffable husbands" are ineffable for a reason. Because they choose each other, and they do it BECAUSE OF free will, which is ineffable. They (writers) needed to understand what it actually means. Because, in the end of the day, yes, there's nothing ineffable in new universes, because the "meeting in every universe" trope erases free will as a concept. Great job!

[iforgiveyouprime]

Btw, even s2 doesn't deny the concept of free will and the fact that it exists and that it's real. Even though it's just one dialogue, it's enough to understand that free will EXISTS and s2 says that it's still real in this universe.

So where did this theme come from that free will doesn't really exist, when even the second season says otherwise?

[iforgiveyouprime]

There were only THREE things we didn't want:

- They become human.

- They lose their memories.

- They die.

and they did ALL of it.

And prime calling this a GIFT TO THE FANS?

No, seriously. I wouldn't even bring up fan expectations if they themselves hadn't marketed this as a "gift to the fans."

[5thhorsemnftheapocalypse]

And one more thing .. Aziraphale would not have been a good soldier during the great war. GOS3 had 90 minuites, i cant belive they spent a even a second of it saying that.

[hasturswig]

General Aziraphale as ‘decorated war hero and brilliant strategist’ is not at all consistent with how he is treated by every angel but Muriel in S1&2. It makes no sense whatsoever and is clearly a horrible retcon. I really did not care for it.

[buckmartinez]

As much as I dig the aesthetic of general Aziraphale (sorry I can’t help it, it’s the kilt + the hair), hard agree. And also he said in season one « I’ve never actually killed anything before » so can we please explain how he managed to not kill anyone in all of that and be seen as a brilliant strategist? Yeah that makes zero sense.

[a-zira-ziraphale-fell]

[iforgiveyouprime]

S3 essentially says that the s1, the main and best one, based on the original book, has no meaning.

Ask yourself, why s1, just like the book, begins with God saying: “To understand the true nature of what is happening, we need to go back to the beginning. Namely, to the garden. In this case, the Garden of Eden”?

Because in that scene, humans discover free will, and along with it, they hold the flaming sword in their hands for the first time, the same sword that will later be in the hands of War.

Free will. That is the true essence of everything that is happening, at least in the book and s1.

And now Crowley suddenly wants “free will to be the real thing”???

[depraveddame]

Okay but also why does it matter who the best or second best angel is/was anyway, why was this even shoehorned into the finale when it literally doesn’t even apply? The entire point of the first season and book is that Crowley and Aziraphale aren’t great at their jobs and they’re not trying to be. How the hell could Aziraphale be the second “best” angel (and don’t even get me started on the motherfucking absurdity that is the concept of Angel Crowley having been the best angel LOL)? Why did “best angel” start to matter more than “your true self”? Aziraphale is wonderful, but he’s not a great angel at all— just like Crowley wasn’t a great angel. And this is by angelic standards, not what’s actually good and truly right

Best and second best angel my ass. Get that shit away from me. This finale comes across like it was written by heinous emotionally stunted spoiled men trying to convince their mom to love them. Like it did its best to erase everyone’s past and gaslight the viewer into believing the opposite of what the book and s1/some of s2 portrayed. It’s just so unbelievably frustrating that this best angel rhetoric was ever introduced and that it achieves nothing but the sanitation of the both of them and the destruction of the scaffolding of who they’ve always been

I fucking hate it here

[iforgiveyouprime]

One of the main things I loved about Good Omens while waiting for the finale was that, in a way, we'd already known Aziraphale and Crowley's ending ever since Good Omens existed only as a book. Everyone knew what it was, and everyone was looking forward to it: the South Downs, the cottage, an angel and a demon in everlasting love, with endless summer even through the rain, while humanity keeps fighting for this imperfect world. We'd been promised that ending for 30 years, and nobody ever really doubted it.

I'm someone who values predictability and consistency very deeply. Good Omens was that source of stability for me. And I know a lot of people share that feeling. The fact that Aziraphale and Crowley's ending had essentially been known in advance to us was one of the things that made this story so special to me.

And then the finale decided to throw that promise away and give us one of the worst endings imaginable - the worst one actually: our angel and demon die and are replaced by characters we know absolutely nothing about beyond their names and professions. Wrapping that in fragments of the ending we'd all been waiting 30 years for, only to gaslight the audience afterward. And it's apparently considered fucking brilliant storytelling.

[depsidase]

[depsidase]

[iforgiveyouprime]

Lord Slorch was a fucking cringe to me ssory not ssory.

[alikspostscrptm]

David Tennant during a reading through for Good Omens 3

[statisticalcats2]

Got reminded of Penelope's "you have no idea what it's like to be a woman" line and my brain was kind of checked out at the scene first time I watched it but now it's hitting me how rich that line is coming from the character in the show that's consciously and willfully ruined the most amount of women's lives.

I wouldn't be so bitchy about it if season 4 didn't go all in on having her still doing it and acting like she has no choice and it's the womens' fault for being upset with her. Which negated my previous laissez-faire attitude about how she wasn't really made to acknowledge much all the harm she did and her crabs-in-a-bucket mentality and actions with Eloise. I would have let it go if season 4 didn't get so mean-spirited in her and Eloise's storylines. Season 3 literally had her switching to a more empowering column only for season 4 to have her go right back to destroying women and willfully and consciously re-joining and enforcing society's misogyny.

Penelope, you are literally one of the most misogynistic characters in the show, what do the fuck do you mean saying lines like that?