#crowley analysis

[brokenhalosclub]

this might be me projecting but i am speaking from experience.

if someone did, hypothetically, steal crowleys car and thats why hes sleeping rough, it probably means he just...doesnt care anymore??

he's lost the love of his life. someone hes loved for 6000 years.

he doesnt know when or if aziraphale is gonna come back. even if he knows deep down that aziraphale left to protect him, in the here and now, crowley is obviously extremely depressed. waiting for someone who he doesnt know is gonna come back for definite.

i mean yeah, it makes sense to me that if someone's stolen his car, he cant be bothered to get it back. he doesnt wanna be in the bookshop because thats where all the memories are. sure, hes a demon, he could literally snap his fingers and miracle it back or mircale himself a flat but? thats effort? effort that he probably doesnt even have.

we all know crowley can be very depressed and angsty. especially when hes alone.

I honestly think he is sleeping rough because he has just...given up. he doesnt care about looking cool. he doesn't care about being put together. he doesnt care about his car, even.

because what the fuck does a car even matter when hes just lost his angel?

even though he is a survivor, and hes shown to be very resilient and powerful, he has lived for thousands of years and been through a hell of a lot of trauma. and survivors get...tired. hes tired

we even saw after the bookshop fire, he was ready to pack it all in. he goes to a pub and gets drunk out of his mind ready to face armageddon and not do anything about it because he thinks aziraphale is dead, so what exactly is the point?

like I said maybe this is me projecting but...thats how i feel. thats what ive wanted to do. ive wanted to give up. nothing matters when you lose someone who you love THAT much. it makes you feel empty. it makes you feel numb. you just dont care anymore. not at first anyway.

i think he does know aziraphale will come back but like I said, in the here and now whilst hes waiting for him...yeah, hes bound to be fucking heartbroken. hes bound to not have any effort to get his car back. hes bound to feel depressed and like nothing is worth it anymore. because thats what it is. its grief. its 6000 years of fucking grief piled on top of him and aziraphale leaving was the final straw.

he will eventually get up because of course he will. thats who he is at heart. he carries on. but i think at the beginning, before aziraphale comes back, after hes left even, crowley is obviously gonna be very, very sad. and it makes sense to me for him to just not care about anything at the moment.

all the evidence about crowleys character shows he is prone to depression. hes only happy when aziraphale is around. look at all the shots of him when hes by himself. hes either drinking, ranting about god and his fall or just sat there looking empty. but when aziraphale is with him, he lights up. he makes jokes. he smiles. hes happy to just exist with him. because he loves him. so fucking much.

but when hes alone, that all goes away. and i get it. and I think just because hes a demon and can do whatever he wants, doesnt mean hes not just tired. ive seen people say "why doesnt he just snap his fingers?"

idk man, probably because he is depressed and traumatised and is tired of surviving things he shouldnt have to? 6000 years of it, I think hes allowed to just...rest for a while. even if it is in a dirty alley.

also this? this face?

thats the face of someone hearing what hes wanted to hear for 6000 fucking years. those are happy tears. he gets back up when aziraphale comes back. hes happy again.

no i dont think his entire character revolves around aziraphale. he is his own person but I think we need to understand his attachment style. because with his attachment style, when you have been around one person for a significant amount of time, talking to them all the time, your brain literally rewires itself to always want that person around. and when they leave its like severing a limb. its like drug withdrawals. and it feels fucking horrendous.

again, speaking from experience so maybe it is projection but I really dont think it is JUST that.

also he has loved aziraphale for 6000 years. of COURSE he is heartbroken and sad. I am heartbroken and sad and I was with my partner for not even 6 months and been in a month long depressive episode. i cannot imagine loving someone for as long as crowley has and then them leaving me. that doesnt even bare thinking about.

I think I understand his character a lot and I understand what hes been through and he shows a lot of the same symptoms that I experience. so I think im allowed to speak about this.

so yeah. just my two cents. dont have to agree. I like angsty pathetic crowley because I get it. and I just think thats why I love him so much.

anyway- rant over hahaha.

[brokenhalosclub]

Do you ever get stressed about go3 and what crowley might do on there? I know you kin him a lot so I would be worried that he will do something that I do not like in the finale :/ How do you think about that? I kin aziraphale and I am sort of nervous about me :/

hi anon, thankyou for the question but I am sorry to say i'm not too sure how to answer it? what do you mean exactly?

i mean. okay so, I like to think i know crowleys character extremely well so I dont think the demon would ever do something I wouldnt like, per se. he's a good person. hes kind, caring, scared, vulnerable underneath all that snark and bravado.

so if youre talking in terms of perhaps he becomes the grand duke of hell and hes a little colder and meaner– well, honestly? i would fuck so hard with that.

I think it would be interesting and quite frankly, hot. but if we're talking in terms of, some people in the fandom think he may turn to getting holy water and drinking it or drinking loads of alcohol because hes depressed from aziraphale leaving, i dunno.

I personally think he does trust aziraphale and he loves humanity too much to suddenly dunk out like that and leave them in the wreckage. he's a survivor. he always has been. and I think deep down he knows something isnt right when aziraphale goes up to heaven. I think he will be waiting. and he will understandably be upset, angry, hurt, feel abandoned and he will be, underneath all that, maybe even frightened of getting hurt again when aziraphale comes back to him amd maybe even keep him at arms length for a bit but I dont think he would ever do anything to hurt or harm aziraphale, even if he was the grand duke of hell and he was meaner, like i think he would be just trying to protect himself and his heart at that point if that was to be the case. he would be cold but he would never ever be cruel.

convoluted way of saying, no i am not nervous for go3 in terms of crowley doing something I wouldnt like. I think that they are going to reunite, maybe crowley will be understandably upset at first but they will finally communicate, get together and fight together to stop the 2nd coming and then they will move into the South downs Cottage together. i trust my ineffables 🪽🐍

honestly i think my only fear is that this doesnt happen and the go3 will not live up to the hype I am building up for it in my head hahah

I hope this answered your question okay! thankyou for asking me! this was fun to answer hahah

to the world ✨️

[aziraphaledefensesquad]

Perhaps semi-controversial opinion?

While the popular fanon here is Crowley didn’t realize he and aziraphale were so obvious, I propose:

Crowley has no frigging clue that his desire to hang out with aziraphale, wish to see aziraphale live to his potential, his admiration for aziraphale is a THING classified by humans as LOVE. Im also uncertain he knows aziraphale has been in love with him for eons in return, or if he just assumes it’s part of aziraphale’s unique love for all things. And not particularly pointed his way.

He seems far too blown away. He is still doing addition while aziraphale has been doing multipication. Aziraphale appears to have been gone for him since angel!crowley existed, notice me sempai style, and it just grew stronger. I propose aziraphale figured out there was subconscious reciprocation on crowley’s part in 1941 (from his own holy shit moment). From then on, particularly after s1 ends, he’s light years ahead. He’s already thinking of them as an ‘us’. It seems like he’s attempting to ease Crowley into the idea, to show Crowley it could be better. I bet he’s already bought the cottage property decades ago and it’s just there, waiting.

Crowley is mentally still thinking early S2 that living out of his car and hanging out with aziraphale and sussing out the gossip of hell is this amazing life Gabriel is interrupting. Like this is as good as it gets. His precious peaceful existence. It’s actually pretty meh compared to what aziraphale is angling toward, but it’s not even an option on crowley’s radar.

It seems What he knows is this: he grows content around aziraphale. Lets his guard down. Wants to guide him towards what he thinks is a better life. Is amused by him. Wants to take him places, bring him things, to see him happy and enjoying himself. Being around aziraphale feels good to Crowley. And yet! It is quite possible he has no clue that this is love. (And he loves his car too, but I also don’t think he recognizes it as that)He’s been jaded by life, by some human actions, by heaven, by hell. But things are nice in his car. Things are nice around aziraphale.

Nina basically just fishslapped Crowley with the idea that the Thing he’s been feeling is love. Holy shit? Love? What the heck? How could this be? Anxiety ensues. And clearly it’s throwing him off and is cemented in the final 15 because he already knows shit’s going down, so more anxiety, then to top it off, metatron pops in and stirs up anxiety with an added bonus of dread. No wonder he’s so emotional. He is so frazzled and confused and hurt and also likely stunned he is in love or that he even could love (some heavenly ptsd perhaps) and now the one he loves is making a decision that is just soooo entirely wrong and out of crowley’s realm of protection and possibly doing something either he or other fallen angels have tried in the past and were punished for.

I have so much love for Crowley and how utterly discombobulated he must be with this discovery. Which is why I really do think he didn’t know he loved aziraphale.

[queenofthearchipelago]

I genuinely think that Crowley's apology dance was to apologize for the fact that the last thing he said before he stormed out on Aziraphale was "You're on your own this time."

That's the only thing that Crowley said that was too far. Everything else was perfectly reasonable and true. But he said he'd leave Aziraphale alone when they were supposed to be on their own side. I literally gasped when he said it when I watched the episode for the first time. I knew he'd need to apologize for that, I just didn't know what apologies between them looked like yet.

And, bonus info, Neil Gaiman has a quote about how he "doesn't know what love means. I think it means 'don't leave me here alone'". And that's what Crowley did. He said it, and for a few hours he did it. And I think for that he was, actually, very sorry.

[queenofthearchipelago]

I'm just now realizing that what Crowley said was, "Look, they asked me back to Hell, I said no."

And Aziraphale heard they asked me back to my old position.

Aziraphale still doesn't know that Beelzebub was gonna cut Crowley a deal to be the person running Hell. That Hell offered Crowley the equivalent of the same deal Aziraphale has right now.

Crowley was trying to say, I could have done what you want to do right now. I could have gone back, tried to make Hell better. But I didn't. Because that's not actually possible and it would have required me to betray you first and I'd literally never.

If we get to season 3, and Crowley does become the leader of Hell, Aziraphale is going to be so shocked and betrayed. Because Crowley didn't explain well enough. He won't understand. He won't understand that it's all for him.

[queenofthearchipelago]

We go back and forth between thinking that either Crowley thought the bookshop fire was hellfire or maybe he didn't. The point is that whether Aziraphale was in heaven or destroyed.. he was never gonna see him again. And now at the end of season 2, I wonder if Crowley thinks he's never gonna see him again. Except whereas the first time, Aziraphale didn't want to go and Crowley showed up in the aftermath to heavily cry. This time, he spent all season trying to keep Aziraphale from being taken from him again. Maybe that's what Crowley meant by Too Late. It doesn't matter what happens next, I'm gonna lose him aren't I? And he watches Aziraphale get on the elevator. And he doesn't cry. He's mourning but he doesn't cry. It was already Too Late yesterday. It was Too Late as soon as Gabriel showed up. Maybe he drives away to grieve. The worst thing that could happen to him is never talking to Aziraphale again. And maybe now he won't.

[queenofthearchipelago]

In season 1, Crowley was so dedicated to thwarting Armageddon WITH Aziraphale that he literally sat back, dedicated himself to the plan, and then when it went wrong, he didn't work on the problem unless Aziraphale was with him

In season 2, he makes up a plan to infiltrate heaven on a whim, without Aziraphale, and it WORKS

Season 3, Crowley doing ANYTHING intentionally without Aziraphale? The earth will shake and the heavens will fall and hell will freeze over. He's the most powerful demon here, Mr. Freezes Time. And he's only calm when he's with Aziraphale and they're both safe.

He's gonna be a force to reckon with.

Good thing the second coming was gonna be a reckoning on it's own anyway

[queenofthearchipelago]

Perhaps the angel should say I'm sorry

I've said before that I don't think Aziraphale has anything to apologize for when he comes back down from Heaven. And I do stand by this, I don't think he should apologize for stepping into the elevator. He did his best and what he thought was right, and I don't think Crowley would want him to apologize for that.

BUT, that doesn't mean he shouldn't apologize AT ALL.

If you take in 6000 years, there's actually kind of a lot that Aziraphale has to apologize for. All the times he initially thought the worst of Crowley just because he was a demon. Lying to Crowley about knowing where the anti-Christ is.

I don't think Crowley wants to hear an actual genuine apology from Aziraphale for any of this. I think Crowley absolutely understands where Aziraphale was coming from. He knows the dilemma that Aziraphale was in and how hard that would be, especially for someone so pure of heart and someone who still loved God and stood by Heaven as far as he could as Aziraphale did.

But while I think that's true, I also think it's true that Aziraphale would find it to be the right thing to do to apologize for that stuff. I'm sorry for all the times I thought the worst of you. I'm sorry for lying to you, for not telling you everything when I trusted you and I had the chance. I'm sorry that I've made mistakes before and yet it wasn't even safe for me to say what you deserved to hear, that I'm sorry, because I would've gotten in trouble if Heaven overheard me sincerely apologize to a demon.

And Crowley deserves to hear this. He deserves to be blatantly told that his opinion matters and that his feelings matter. He deserves to be told that he didn't deserve to be misunderstood or lied to. He deserves acknowledgment for the pain they BOTH went through in not being able to say what they were really thinking and feeling.

It's totally possible for a scene like that to happen in season 3. It would have to be written delicately and with great depth and nuance, but we all know this show is more than capable of delivering that.

Part of them being truly open and honest with each other now includes them being honest about all the times they hurt each other. There needs to be an I'm sorry right alongside the I love you.