That’s why I’m totally IN for a very, very, very soft, tender, touchstarved Crowley….someone who was only eager to understand, to have answer, like a little child, eyes full of wonder, full of questions, soft deft fingers touching the marvel of Creation and asking WHY WHY WHY…and just for this, being cast out, thrown down, punished forever like the worst of criminals, only for being himself.
And here, here he has an Angel, someone who is just for the same stock as he is, as he used to be, a supposed enemy, and yet so more similar to himself than to any of their supposed angelical siblings, or any of the demonic siblings as well, as far as Crowley is concerned…
Someone who is supposed to loathe him, and condemn him, just for what he is, for what he has done (which is actually nothing bad at all).
And yet he has this Angel, who can’t openly say he loves him (whatever concept of love you want to take into account), and so he just shows it through his actions.
We always talk about Crowley’s acts of service through the millennia.
But let’s put it into another perspective…
What if Aziraphale had plainly and openly grasped the inner goodness of Crowley on that plain, just for the simple question he had probably asked himself too (non openly, not clearly, not to anyone…one can fall for asking those sort of questions….), a question he could only answer by nodding and tightening his lips, just not to make his true thought on the matter escape them….
STILL A DEMON?
MAY YOU BE FORGIVEN!
Aziraphale is not an idiot.
He doesn’t utter those words because he’s dumb.
He hopes, deeply inside his being, that if Crowley will prove his goodness, he could be forgiven. Could be taken back. COULD BE AN ANGEL AGAIN.
YOU WERE AN ANGEL ONCE (you still can be again….)
He just keeps giving Crowley chances over chances to prove he’s good, kind-hearted and nice. In hope someone might be watching, might be seeing.
And might take him back.
I really don’t think Aziraphale could be so oblivious to acknowledge Crowley’s feelings only in 1941. That was maybe the turning point…something Azirapahle HAD NOT planned, and which just showed off Crowley’s inner spark of goodness, even when not provoked. IT WAS THERE ALL THE TIME.
I’m quite sure Azirapahle had loved Crowley from long before, from after the Flood at least, if not just that moment in the Garden, when he chose to shelter an enemy, well, THE ENEMY.
If Crowley had been taken back to the Host, nobody could possibly have banned their love.
Aziraphle was just desperate to show how good, how angel, Crowley could still be. And make him be taken back.
Make him be forgiven.
A very lot of this is, at least, heavily implied.
From the kick, it’s very ovbious that Crowley just… isn’t very demonic. Hastur and Ligur, are both “All hail Satan,” and Crowley? “Hi, guys, isn’t traffic a bitch?” And the we have the “Deeds of the Day.” Tempting a priest, corrupting a politician… and crashing the mobile phone network. (sings One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other, Which One Of These Things Just Doesn’t Belong?)
Then, let’s look at Tadfield Manor. He turns the paintball guns real, yes? But even before Aziraphale (who is a Good Influence on him) says anything, Crowley’s already incorporated the “nobody gets killed” loophole. He claims “It wouldn’t be fun otherwise,” but. you know where murderer’s souls go? Hell. What did Hastur ask in the graveyard? “How does this lead to souls for the master?” Crowley is deliberately denying Hell souls. Granted, they’ll probably all end up there anyway, people being who they are, but.
Next I wanna talk about Rome. In the Script Book, he’s there to tempt Caligula. By this time? Crowley’s seen a LOT of humanity. He’s seen what they’re capable of and he’s seen what GOD is capable of, both by experience (Falling/being expelled) and by witnessing (expulsion of Eden, the drowning of the people/the Ark, the crucifixion at Golgatha) and now he’s seeing that Caligula is worse than anything Crowley himself could think up.
So we see a trend beginning of Crowley drinking himself blind so he doesn’t have to see. doesn’t have to dea with it.
The synbol Odegra on the M25? Who ever went to Hell for a traffic jam?
i’m not saying Crowley hasn’t done bad things, because he has. But the majority of what he’s done? Humans have done for him, and he’s just egging it on. Or he’s been a huge nuisance and called it evil.
And Aziraphale buys it. He encourages these nuisances and overblows them so that Crowley feels he’s doing real Evil Work, because the angel knows a real demon could be doing so much worse.
