#ineffable game

[alwaysgodownwiththeship]

I've spent some time thinking over why God tolerated Aziraphale lying to her face and all of his later numerous defiances to her will. I think I've finally got it.

Aziraphale and Crowley are God's two favorite Game Pieces.

Crowley is an obstacle and Aziraphale is a wild card.

It all comes down to the fact that the Good Omens Gods is an all-powerful, presumably omniscient entity, playing an ineffable game.

And the thing is, when you're all powerful, presumably omniscient entity, holding all the cards, any game you play will be pretty damn boring.

And that is where Aziraphale and Crowley come in.

You can't just create a universe, run it for a few thousand years, and then stop.

Crowley does a lot of things. But his main role in God's game is to serve as an obstacle, an obstruction to the plans of both Heaven and Hell; her plans. From the beginning of the show, even when he's messing up the basic delivery of Antichrist, he's essentially performing this function. However, Crowley's obstruction is not random, he becomes an obstacle for specific and predictable reasons, as we've seen throughout the show. What's unpredictable is the outcomes that result from his interference in God's plans. He often takes upon himself to defy God.

Age does not wither, nor custom stale his infinite variety.

Translation from the words that inspired Shakespeare: He's unpredictable! (another reason he is forever compelling to Crowley)

Ever since Aziraphale "Prometheus"-ed away his flaming sword to Adam and Eve, God was probably satisfied to label him as a wild card and left him alone to do his thing. Narratively, he's served that function. He's tied and pulled in many directions, to the point where it was uncertain where he would fall in season 1. He lied to both Micheal then Crowley over where Adam was, he possessed a human like a demon, and yet his decision allowed both him and Crowley to be there in Tadfield to influence Adam when the time came. That's not touching on his mad choices/interferences in season 2. He often takes upon himself to correct God depending on how he interprets Heaven's commands.

Together, Aziraphale and Crowley make the game much more entertaining for God. Hell, she might even ship it. I'm positive the God's real game in the Job episode actually revolved around Aziraphale's and Crowley's actions, not her bet with Satan (if that even happened).

(The real question is if God has started a new game or is continuing her old one.

[taclesa]

The kiss is the closest they've been, literally. And yet they've probably never felt so far away from each other 🤧

[archangelween]

God is a liar.

Neither omniscient or omnipotent

People keep claiming that god is both omniscient and omnipotent. She wants you to believe that, she wants all her angels to believe that, but at no point was it ever stated. God lets you assume this.

God is a liar.

Belief in her power is not the same as her having that power. She is a liar, so anything she's said and anything she's led characters to believe is anywhere from flatly wrong to suspect.

A omniscient or omnipotent god does not play games, could not play a game, because they know the outcome already. There is no point to playing them. Yet god does play games. Thus she can't be omniscient. Also can't be omnipotent, for the same reason: games would have no point to someone who can make them turn out as she wants, who can make people dance as she wants, who knows how to set things up perfectly so every domino falls as she wants. Miracles don't work like that, remember? Free will is a real thing. She doesn't know what will happen, she can't make it happen, that's why the game works. That's why it's fun, because it's beyond her, she can't affect it like that.

If her angels knew she was omniscient, she would have no need to ask Aziraphale what he did with the sword. If she was omnipotent, she would have no need to see how her games turn out, because they would turn out exactly how she wants.

None of that is what we see. She doesn't know everything, she can't make people behave.

No plan, just the game

There also isn't a Plan. There sure is something written down and treated like a plan, there's something she called a plan and was given to her angels labeled a Plan, there's punishment handed out for deviating from it and violating it, but again god is a liar. It was not a plan. It was a bunch of bullshit and part of the game. It should be thought of as "the rules", of her game, not The Plan. And like the rules of a game, the angels should change them when you're not having fun--except that's not what she told the angels when she called it A Plan.

There is nothing but her "ineffable" game. Again, god is a liar--the game is completely effable, Crowley saw right through it from the start when he questioned why the apple tree was so accessible if no one was to touch it. What she does is wipe memories of those who catch on, like Death does to Crowley at the end of s1, so that she can keep playing her game with none the wiser. Frankly I would not be surprised if that's where the idea of angels wiping memories came from, to extend the game, and why "questioning" was a damnable offense to begin with. She deliberately made it harder for them to act against her personally, because that makes her game more fun for her. Them failing and her having to restart her game is not a bad thing in her view, that's how games go--sometimes you lose, and your board gets wiped. Aka the apocalypse. She loves humans! Just like people love dolls.

We know she's a horror, she calls herself a trickster. You can't swallow everything she tells you as gospel. That's....literally the point. You're playing her game. You're in her sandbox. You can't trust her. God is not always right, she's always playing a game.

You can tell what's part of her game and who's pieces in it if you just look at what's green. Eden. Adam and Eve after taking the apple. The book. Anathema. Aziraphale's shirt and the back of his waistcoat. Ennon, one of Job's kids. Sitis. Warlock in the baby swap. All of earth. Crowley's plants. You are supposed to figure this out, all while she lies to your face and calls it ineffable, trying to tell you not to bother, it's beyond you. You are also supposed to figure out who's doing her will, her agents. The rebellion in heaven was her game playing out. The lion that would have killed Adam and Eve was fate, thwarted by Aziraphale being played by her game into giving up the sword, an action that she made him think she was upset by.

[miharukano]

You are my sunshine

My only sunshine

You make me happy, when skies are gray

You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you

So please don’t...

Take my sunshine

away

I mean, that was a rollercoaster to draw but it’s finally done. I’m sorry even though I am not. (Look! I finished it @cookieface678)

[taclesa]

When the Bentley burned down, Crowley went back to retrieve the handle.

And I've been thinking about that strange thingie object since then.

We see it before the beginning

and that time just before Crowley stopped time.

I'd like to think of it as a symbol of sorts.

Before the beginning, Crowley used it to open the curtains, creating the stars and the galaxies, basically the entire Universe. It's the moment that started everything, excluding God, laying out the ineffable game on her mind.

Then, in the (almost) ending in Season 1, it was the key to them stopping Armageddon, temporarily.

Would it be the handle that closes the curtain for good (playing on Crowley's license plate - NIAT RUC), or would it keep the stage open forever?

Could it be that the Book of Life isn't a singular object and is made of different parts? And one of those important parts is this strange handle?

[archangelween]

God's been playing her game over and over for eternity trying to get a different result.

Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. It's unfathomable. Ineffable.

God's insane. Literally the architect, the god, of the insanity we live in. More insane than any demon.

She loves best those who emulate her, who come closest to her image.

Demons are insane. They're down in the basement. You know, hell. Those who are insane need to find god. The satire version of that isn't that they're opposites but that they're the same: you need not find god to change yourself, but because you belong together.

They belong in hell where they're closest to the one who loves them best: god. They're the supposed enemies of god. Keep your friends close but your enemies closer, which is an insane thing to do and not how it should work. It's not how it should work, but it is, because everything god does is insane, unbelievable, ineffable.

Demons aren't down with the devil, but wallowing in insane filth with god. That's not Satan down there, it's Jesus, aka another face of god.

If Jesus is in hell, Satan is running heaven. We haven't seen god because god is absent, leaving her minions in her place. The chief minion is Metatron. Satan isn't trying to run heaven the way it should be, the way he would, but according to the wishes of god: he's a minion.

Keep your friends close but your enemies closer: we saw with Job that god and Satan are fucking with everyone else. If you're fucking with people, things are not as they seem, ie, you're being lied to. Because everything is insane. Backward. Front to back.

Front to back because what they're really doing is fucking with each other. We're just collateral damage. You know, dolls in their games.

[spinner-sophie]

What's the point?

Crowley asks the same question at the end of the book and almost answers it.

There's also the voice of God at the beginning of season one when she says she plays an ineffable game of poker in a dark room and smiles constantly without telling you the rules.

In the book, before Adam makes his decision he talks about a rival gang, called the Johnsonites and how the Them wouldn't really feel happy without the other gang to play with.

Isn't it a strong metaphor for Heaven and Hell, who just like these two human gangs are of the same stock and neither can be happy without the other?

So what if, at the end, it's not really Heaven against Hell. It's just mirrors, reflecting the same picture?