#our side

[missninapea]

😇☁️Are you a GOOD or a BAD omen..?🔥😈

📖☕Which side are you on?🐍🪴

[ineffablerainstorm]

I’m still not over this “former demon” thing. I mean, what does it MEAN. Is demon a job description? Can he choose not to be a demon? What about Aziraphale? He seems to think he’s still an angel, right? Even if he doesn’t work for heaven. And Crowley still calls him angel (also for endearment purposes probably, but still).

Or does Crowley just say it for Shax’s benefit. Not a demon anymore as in holy water can’t hurt me. (“He isn’t one of us anymore”)

Crowley doesn’t want to be a demon right? He never wanted to be. Does he just choose not to be? Like the same way he chose a new name?

He isn’t one of the bad guys. He didn’t want to be before, but he had to pretend at least (“I go along with hell as far as I can”). Now he just is his own thing. Not a demon. Not an angel. Crowley.

[dalliancekay]

"There is no 'our side', Crowley!"

Was Aziraphale happy to have Armageddon coming? No. They tried to influence the Antichrist. But had the wrong boy. Then they tried to think of how to find the real one and in that short time - what? Kill him? Talk to him? They had no idea what the kid is like (WE DID). What powers he has, what worldviews. What personality.

The Great Plan. It is coming to its fulfilment. It is written. The War is about to begin. Heaven and Hell. The big one. They both know this. It's not something they can just stop believing in. They had their Arrangement, their side (sort of), and they managed not to get caught. But now? Now Aziraphale is right here. There is no OUR SIDE, NOT ANYMORE. There might have been a moment in their existence on Earth (about 12 hundred years?) when they could feel like/pretend they are having their own side. That it does not matter whether they are an angel or a demon. But now the full reality of their existence is back. What there is, is Heaven and Hell and they are preparing for War. They have no interest in Earth. Aziraphale and Crowley are tiny pawns in a very big picture. They both belong to their respective sides. They always have. Even when they found ways to work together. (Mostly cos their sides are conceited bunch of idiots, both.)

And so Aziraphale decided for one more desperate attempt to get God to see how the whole thing can be avoided. After all, so did Crowley. He too tried to talk to her. Does Aziraphale think She might understand? We don't know. Does he look full of hope as he walks back to his shop? He doesn't.

He gets broken up with again by Crowley who nonsensically (and yes, romantically, sure) wants to go to another star - to do what? Wait till the end of universe reaches them? (Why is everybody always defending Crowley? And act like he's being reasonable there? And blame Aziraphale for hurting him?) And then Aziraphale gets punched in the stomach. By a fellow angel. And told by Metatron to not be a bloody fool and report for service as the good angel he surely is.

And he gets discorporated. Which looks like it really sucks.

And then he DESERTS the War AND Heaven (that he apparently still has faith in etc etc...) and goes on a limb to find the boy and just see if he can come up with something. Anything. Thinking Crowley is gone. Packed his stuff and left.

Because Aziraphale feels the War and ending of the world is an injustice. Written or not. Great Plan or not. Maybe he didn't think at first he could make any difference but Crowley showed him it's worth considering it. Crowley is always showing Aziraphale that things can be questioned. Whether they can be changed is up in the air, but questioned, sure. It didn't take Aziraphale long at all to reconsider letting things just play out as they were written, and instead fight to the last breath he doesn't need, for Earth instead. The conditioning he needs to fight isn't that Heaven is good and right. The conditioning he needs to fight is that things can't be changed. That it is all written out. That he is a nobody and can't influence anything. Aziraphale's biggest fight and learning curve is in having faith in himself. So. Much like he felt it was unfair to leave the first humans unprotected and how he felt killing Job's kids was cruel, he disobeys and does his own thing again. He learns he can. But all this comes at a cost. To himself (thinking he will Fall for these things) but also to his beloved - and THAT is much harder for him. He would never want to put Crowley in danger. And he does. Every time they meet. The guilt he must feel for this.

Aziraphale lives between two sides. And they are both awful. And he is often misunderstood for just acknowledging this as reality he and everything else exists in.

I think his view of his reality is pretty accurate. There is no our side. They wanted one. But they can't leave their sides. Even after S1 they couldn't. Not really. And they both knew it. They were still afraid, still on edge. And no, he is not in clutches of Heaven or sometimes reverts to their indoctrination or anything like that. He goes along with Heaven as far as he MUST. And SO DOES CROWLEY. Aziraphale's life alongside his demon, however tentative, was always precious to him. But.

Crowley who showed him how to keep questioning things, try to make them better, didn't see it his way and left.

Aziraphale has to do the best he can and just do something. Anything. He can not just do nothing. He can not, not try and run. Or hide. Or wait some more. Crowley showed him that things can be different and Aziraphale had to do everything to try and make it better. And he will. And Crowley will help. He always does.

Is Aziraphale always right? No. Does he make mistakes? Yes. I am never saying Aziraphale is faultless - but I think many things he is blamed for are not right. And I also think Crowley is often seen as can do no wrong. Everything he says is right. 100% correct. The right things to do. He knows more. Understands more. If he disagrees with Aziraphale than it follows that Aziraphale is wrong. That's not true. They are both beautifully rounded, full, flawed characters I love. They complement each other in ways I bet I have not even noticed yet. And they are their own beings too. They don't only exist for one another.

[crowzirawho]

I think it's interesting how aziraphale was technically the first one to acknowledge that him and crowley are on the same side. when aziraphale realized crowley didn't destroy job's goats, he was grinning, crowley straight up denied that they're on the same side, and aziraphale responded sarcastically.

of course, crowley quickly said "temporarily not on different sides" but aziraphale wasn't even having the "temporarily".

[you-know-no-one]

Aziraphale from this:

To this:

[doctor-aceus-art]

Season 2 of these two dorks is on the way so here we are now

[greenthena]

Buck up, Hamlet!

***Trigger warning: Death and taking your own life in the context of Shakespeare***

Aziraphale likes Hamlet. Likes the play so much, that he bats his eyelashes at Crowley until the demon performs a miracle to make the mopey Prince of Denmark more popular. Well, good job, the both of you, because four hundred and some odd years later, you still can't get through repertory auditions without some bugger hoisting a skull and starting that monologue. Not that I don't appreciate Hamlet from a structural and analytical perspective. And the Prince of Denmark is a character most actors would sacrifice several toes to play. But it's dark. It's not a fun one.

So why does Aziraphale like it so much? Why's this fluffy little angel so Hell-bent on one of Shakespeare's tragedies? Join me, friendly Good Omens scholars, and let's suss some shit out.

Crowley adamantly dislikes Shakespeare's tragedies. "This isn't one of Shakespeare's gloomy ones, is it? Arghhhh. No wonder no one is here," he complains, wilting like a floppy noodle. Of course, it doesn't take much for Aziraphale to weasel the demon into miracling more people into the audience. But Crowley makes a point to say that he "still prefer(s) the funny ones" as he's leaving The Globe.

Crowley, I would argue, goes to the theatre to escape his real-life situation. He's a bloody demon who, when he's not stationed on Earth, literally goes to Hell. And it's not a nice place. Crowley's everyday life (particularly when he's not around Aziraphale) revolves around pain and suffering--whether its his or someone else's is insignificant. What matters is that regularly sees and experiences tangible, visceral representations of tragedy in his actual existence. Of course he prefers Shakespeare's funny ones! They're a reminder that the world and the human race that he's accidentally become so attached to is full of more than torment and affliction. Crowley doesn't appreciate Shakespeare's tragedies because they're an extension of his own suffering, with which he's already intimately familiar. For Crowley, attending a Shakespearean tragedy is like picking a scab. You already know you've been injured and fussing with the damned thing only makes it worse.

This is not the case for Azirapahle. As an angel, he's not allowed to have any scabs, much less pick at them. Like Crowley, he sees suffering in the world. He knows that humanity is constantly facing difficult odds, and even the most wonderful of human lives eventually ends in death. But unlike Crowley, Aziraphale works within a system in which there is no gray space--and therefore, no room for an angel, an agent of the side of righteousness, to experience doubt in the Ineffable Plan. The Heavenly model is to deal with problems by pretending they don't exist. Heaven has an image to maintain, after all. Like, the sheer amount of repression we see amongst the Heavenly Host is honestly terrifying. I'm thinking about the way in which The Metatron frames the Fall and damnation of a third of the angels. "For one Prince of Heaven to be cast into the outer darkness makes a good story. For it to happen twice, makes it look like there is some kind of institutional problem." It's so cold and removed because to process something so traumatic would not fit the image of Heaven. So it's neatly boxed up and packed away into a soundbite that better fits Heaven's corporate brand.

Aziraphale's suffering is certainly no less than Crowley's. The angel's trauma is repressed. It's cloaked in shining bright hallways of pure angelic light. It's hidden behind false words and tight smiles. It's communicated passive-aggressively by abusers who still have the angel caught in their web of control and manipulation. At least Crowley's trauma is visible. When he fell, the demon took on a new appearance that physically demonstrates his suffering. He has access to feelings of anger and frustration and he's allowed to express these things because he's a demon. He doesn't have to be good.

Since Aziraphale is not permitted to own his emotions and his trauma, he outsources them. He enjoys Shakespeare's tragedies because they give him the opportunity to achieve second-hand catharsis. He may not be able to admit that he's suffering, but he can experience Hamlet's pain vicariously.

***Reminding you of that trigger warning, folks!***

And this is where we get to the question, "To be, or not to be?" This is the moment in S1 E3 when Aziraphale interacts with Richard Burbage, and shouts out, "To be! Not to be! Come on, Hamlet, buck up!" He says this with this coy little smile, obviously trying to get a laugh out of Crowley. But it's indicative of a more serious dilemma that the angel, himself, must parse out. In Shakespeare's play, Hamlet's query is expressed as he wrestles with the choice between life and death. Essentially, it's a contemplation of suicide--a dark part of humanity that Heaven manages by eternally condemning those who would risk it. However there's another way to read this question, not as life and death, but as agency and the lack thereof. We think of "to be" as the choice for life and "not to be" as the option for suicide. But the only way in which Hamlet can express his agency is by taking control of the one thing that truly belongs to him: his own life. So when asking this question of an eternal being, what exactly does it mean, "To be?" What does it mean for Aziraphale to express agency in his immortal existence?

In Western thought, we tend to divide things into binaries: right and wrong, black and white, good and evil...to be or not to be. Back in the Garden if Eden, Crowley first introduced Adam and Eve to the idea that they had a choice. The serpent presented two options, obey or disobey God's authority. Though I think a better way of looking at it would be to say, passively accept your role or have agency in your fate. This is Crowley's method. He never pushes temptations upon you. He just wants to make sure you know all your options.

Like Hamlet, Aziraphale is presented with the choice of, "To be or not to be?" He can sign on the dotted line and follow Heaven's authority or he can be an angel with agency, an angel that goes along with Heaven as far as he can. And though Aziraphale still struggles with how exactly free will pertains to angels, Crowley shows him time and time again that he has options--he can make his own choices. From the very first interaction between the angel and the demon on the wall of Eden, Crowley (ever the optimist) knows there is hope for some meaningful connection with Aziraphale, because the angel makes a choice for himself: he gives away his sword. And from that moment, Crowley realizes that this angel might be just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing.

It's no wonder Aziraphale gets attached to the tragedy of Hamlet. It allows him to observe and process the darker and more difficult emotions that he, as an angel, struggles to manage. And perhaps more importantly, the Prince of Denmark's famous soliloquy mirrors of Crowley's method of temptation, wherein the demon simply reminds him that he has a choice and that, even as an angel, he can find ways to express his agency.