So, I’ve been obsessed with Pratchett since I was 15. That’s 23 years for those keeping count. I just finished GO3 and these are my initial thoughts:
Crowley and Aziraphale becoming human: I don’t love, but you could argue that that was what he planned, and I would buy it. It does follow some of his themes.
But there is a knife’s edge that Pratchett balanced between fury and compassion. He absolutely loved humanity, but he also hated what humans did to each other out of malice, spite, or even laziness. Good Omens the novel was filled to bursting with that.
The end here lacked all of that somehow. God in S1 is unknowable, but God is S3 is just a capricious bitch who seems to have it out for Crowley specifically and through him Aziraphale. The viewer certainly gets angry at God, but the narrative seems to be that, while cold, she is doing the right thing and giving them their happy ending. And while Crowley expresses compassion for humanity, it falls on such deaf ears that the narrative doesn’t actually support that.
The closing sentiment seems to be that we can make their lives better by just erasing all their trauma and baggage. No. Sam Vimes did not pull himself out of the gutter and bodily hold himself out of it every day to be told that actually amnesia would be best. If you wanted to make them human: make them keep their memories. That would have been fine.
Terry would have Crowley and Aziraphale say “fuck you” to God and protect the earth as it was. The way they protected Job’s children. The way they did at Tadfield Airbase. Here they just throw in the towel and start a new universe. They accept their failure so quickly as to be farcical.
And you will never ever convince me that TERRY PRATCHETT would have allowed the words “a story shouldn’t live past its ending” to be spoken without the speaker being immediately eaten by a banshee.
