fr tho i understand why crowley wants them to run away together and run from all of it but he just seems to have forgotten that aziraphale does not cower, he doesn't back down, and he. does. not. run.
I have...issues...with the argument that Alex's disgust with Maxwell Lord's interest in season one was an indicator of her queerness.
Mostly because that argument suggests her queerness was the only--or at least the main--reason Alex was disgusted with him, and not because, you know, HE was a wholly off-putting presence even before they had hard proof he was up to something?
Like, asking for his tech help was a good option at the time, but neither Kara NOR Alex believed his sliminess was benign.
She wasn't disgusted because she was gay; she was disgusted because he was disgusting.
Shades of BBC Sherlock - part two: Why Sherlock is blue
Welcome to the second installment of my series on the use of color in the cinematography of BBC Sherlock. The last post I talked about the introduction of John, today I want to talk to you about how Sherlock is associated with the color blue.
In the last installment I promised I would explain how I got to these conclusions. Today I’m explaining the first one. How do I know we’re supposed to associate the color blue with Sherlock?
Let’s make one thing clear. The reason why I started looking into color in the first place was the use of blue in S4.
And the only reason to miss that blue has something to do with Sherlock is if you’re (color)blind.
So I went back to S1 to see if Sherlock has always been associated with blue.
This is the first time we get to see Sherlock and everything iconic about his look. The Belstaff ‘Milford’ Coat, his dark curls and his dark blue scarf. No matter what happens, these three elements of Sherlock remain unchanged throughout all four series of the show.
It’s also noteworthy that blue predominates the shot, because when we go to the next shot we see that the main color in this scene is more of a green. Also, take a close look at the wall behind Sherlock. In comparison to the rest of the shot, it looks blue.
Blue and green are analogous colors that naturally go well together, so it’s not really a surprise to find them in the same scene. In cinematography analogous colors are used to create a picture that is easy on the eyes. It creates a feeling of harmony in a scene.
So Sherlock’s color is blue, and both Scotland Yard and the morgue are green. That’s a nice touch.
Speaking of Scotland Yard. Technically the scene that I just analyzed isn’t the introduction of Sherlock’s character. It’s just the first time we see him on screen. This is a shot of the scene where we’re introduced to Sherlock:
Look at that lovely blue wall behind Lestrade as he receives a text from Sherlock.
This all is still fairly circumstantial evidence that the color blue should be associated with Sherlock. After all, He doesn’t always wear blue, the lighting in the morgue scene is very subtle and blue is a color that is commonly used as a background for presentations.
Luckily there is the scene where Sherlock and John meet for the first time.
Sherlock is consistently shot against a blue lit background in this scene, while John moves in and out of the blue lighting and Mike Stamford isn’t shot with blue lighting at all.
Oh Stamford, don’t look so surprised. You really thought nobody would notice?
Anyway. The room at Sherlock’s side is blue lit, and Stamford’s side has more of a yellow quality to it. Yet, when Sherlock leaves and moves over to the same side of the room as Stamford, the shot we get is still, well, blue.
And then there is the matter of Sherlock’s website: The science of deduction. Guess what color it is. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
That is all I have for you today. I admit it is very basic, but I wanted to be thorough. I will be going into more complicated matters as we go further into the series and hopefully, my findings will help us understand S4 better.
As always, thank you for reading. I also want to thank everybody who reblogged or liked the last post. It’s always nice to know your work is appreciated. I also want to point out that my ask box is open and if you have any questions about the subjects I covered or you have a suggestion for later posts that you’re welcome to submit. Feel free to tag me in your own color meta.
Tags, acknowledgements, recommended reading/watching and links to other installments under the cut.
just putting the thought out there that people may disagree with; aziraphale is not in the same place that he was at the beginning of s1. originally, he held the bookshop near and dear for a number of reasons, but dominant amongst them being possibly because it is his own safe harbour, something that is intrinsically his, a literal sanctuary for him to delight in the other earthly pleasures that he loves.
s2 aziraphale is not in that same place; not because the bookshop means nothing, but because something else - someone else - means more. he doesn't catch crowley's meaning, what the bookshop means both literally and metaphorically to crowley, but he instead thinks that crowley thinks that the bookshop is still the most valuable thing aziraphale has.
but to aziraphale now, compared to when he was faced with the threat of losing it to armageddon, the bookshop was never going to last forever, but they could. they could last forever. if he has crowley, everything else can wither away, it means nothing, because crowley means everything.
okay wait so im having a bit of a crisis over how crowley fell. my man says "i only asked questions" in one breath, and then "i just hung around the wrong people". then about the fall itself, "i just sort of... sauntered... vaguely downwards'", but then "did a million-light-year, freestyle dive in to pool of burning sulphur!"
so which is it, crowley? my buddy my pal? which shitshow actually happened here?
well, only one of these remarks was in front of aziraphale. funnily enough, the one about it being a leisurely stroll into hell like he owned the place. the others, the wrong friends, the asking questions and the horrific crash landing into dis or wherever was alone, only to the camera.
has crowley been trying to protect aziraphale from knowing not only was the fall incredibly painful and frightening, but that also protecting aziraphale from the knowledge that even though aziraphale warned him not to, he went and asked questions anyway? that in essence, aziraphale failed to save crowley?
alternatively, are all answers wrong, and crowley is either lying, or doesn't remember why/how he fell? did he even technically fall at all (reawakening theory that crowley fell for a reason -- see reason: god's ineffable plan -- and she wiped his memory of it)? crowley still has wings, and presumably the other demons don't - is this why he does?
edit bc important: "I play an ineffable game of my own devising..." 👀
look i know that this is not a new revelation but i want to draw attention to the fact that at the bandstand - when crowley was screaming literal blasphemy - aziraphale was not looking up. he was not in fear of god, but in fear of whomever could be strolling around the park - taking a jog or tending the gardens - that could overhear.
granted, this was before aziraphale trying to speed-dial god and try to get her to intervene, but a good portion of his fear has always been rooted in what heaven could do. what heaven probably would do.
on the lookout, vigilant and twitchy, and whilst that may be in the interest of aziraphale's own safety at being not only seen in company with a demon conspiring to thwart said Great Plan, but also hearing it without challenge... i imagine it would be a smidge in fear of what heaven would do to that demon in the process. they're nothing to heaven, the lowest of the low and at best a means to an end. if they came to haul away aziraphale, what on god's green earth would they do to crowley without a second thought? actually, no, let's not be silly; heaven wouldn't bother - what would hell do?
he knows what: 1941 proved that. 1827 proved that. and as would be shown to him directly later that day, after the bandstand - the abduction and subsequent bathtub trial in hell proved that too.
so then take aziraphale's behaviour here (and throughout the whole segment):
im not personally of the mind that aziraphale was deliberately hurting/manipulating crowley in order to protect him. at the bandstand? maybe. maybe out of (understandable) self-preservation, but also to protect crowley. but the final fifteen? aziraphale was - to his mind - being given the opportunity to protect crowley from within, in a position where he had the confidence, or at least the optimism, that nothing could happen to him.
he had to go, had to take the chance to change heaven so they, and anyone else, could be truly free. and if he could take crowley with him? out of the reach of hell, and equally so close to him that heaven wouldn't dare? of course he would offer what he did.
in any eventuality, the very likely notion remains, from aziraphale's perspective, that there is a very real threat from heaven. it may not have been overt, it may not have even been vaguely hinted at by the metatron, but aziraphale has never lost sight that heaven is dangerous. and they are lurking in disguise in the bushes, just as they are watching from just outside the door.
so @theeminentlyimpractical and i were yodelling at each other in the DMs last night talking about general time-fuckery stuff in s2 and trying to riddle it all out, and i mentioned that i had noticed something that only now seems obvious from the s1 scriptbook (and im sure that someone pointed it out in 2019 but im wondering how relevant it still is):
everything is running late.
working backwards chronologically in s1, we have when newt arrives at jasmine cottage:
unfortunately the line isn't in the show, but in the interest of pooling all resources, the scriptbook says the following:
NEWT - I swerved to avoid Tibetans in the road. At least, I think I did. I've probably gone mad.
ANATHEMA - If you have, noone's going to notice. You're twenty minutes late.
we then know that crowley was late for arriving to collect the antichrist:
which the scriptbook doesn't elaborate on/give a timeframe, and may be extraneous to the previous and next example, but the antichrist is reportedly part of the Great Plan, so im including it for the moment.
but the kicker is agnes nutter, right?:
a precise and accurate prophetess who doesn't foresee that pulsifer would arrive late to execute her? how?
so when it came down to it, i started to wonder where something might have happened that has shunted the timeline along, between 10-20 minutes... maybe something in eden? but no - laure cracked it:
GOD - Archbishop James Ussher claimed that the Heaven and the Earth were created on Sunday the 21st of October, 4004 BC, at 9:00 a.m. This too was incorrect. By almost a quarter of an hour. It was created at 9:13 in the morning, which was correct.
now. all of the times don't match up completely, but the general sense is that the world may be running a little behind schedule, compared to what it should be - ie. the timeline that agnes predicted, and ussher/his team calculated.
we know that adam reset everything at the end of s1, but:
given that he's not omniscient, would he know that the world is 15 mins behind schedule (and therefore, when s2 starts, are we still running late)? probably not, so does he revert things back but keeps the world on the original clock, so to speak?
alternatively, did he reset the clock, and is the universe that we see in s2 actually on the correct time?
this might not mean much, if anything at all (see: it's just all for The Bit), in the grand scheme of things... but im now starting to wonder if it does. because what would have happened if everything had run on time? because maybe it's not so much thinking about individual events, and how they would have played out otherwise if the world had been on the 'correct' timeline all along, but maybe just the sheer possibility that there is an 'alternate reality' in which those 10-20 minutes meant things played out very differently?
ive talked about the chair (x), and ive talked about the sideburns (x), and ive talked about how crowley somehow seems to be existing at a different time to everything else around him (alternatively - whickber street itself is running in a different... reality? timeline?), as well as the random moments where time seems to disappear entirely/the clock swaps its hands around in ep6 (x). about crowley's comment about it being "too late", and how he seems to act slightly odd just before aziraphale tells him about the metatron's offer (x)... but is it all somehow interconnected? and connected to the 13-minute delay?
and if it is... what caused it? what might have delayed god by 13 minutes, or what might have gone wrong to cause the delay, that has then had a hypothetical knock-on effect, whether it be because adam did fix it, or didn't fix it?
so i had the bright idea of rewatching s1 today whilst im working from home, now knowing what i know about s2, and so i can ruminate a little more on s1 with the additional context. ive barely made it past five minutes
im pretty sure ive gotten most of the frames accurate from this bit, and im sure it might just be a bit of demonstrative cinematography (which ya know, *chefs kiss*) but at the same time i love going into full year 9 english teacher mode about this shit, and i think there is something to comment on (which someone already might have done but w/e). in any case, this bit of dialogue is very noticeably layered with shots of crowley and aziraphale, but intercut with the shots of adam facing down the lion:
like, i can't help but feel that there is some symmetry in this and either other people have spotted it and im very behind, OR we havent spotted it and s2 spoilers have helped unlock it✨
so who is meant to be who here? for my money it would be that adam is mirroring aziraphale, and eve is mirroring crowley - in so much that at a really shallow level, aziraphale is a platoon leader, a guardian, fought in the war etc. crowley, regardless of his rank, is a starmaker, and let's face it the boy has the structural integrity of a strand of dried linguine. so we could look at it on that level (ignore the lion for the moment ill sort of explain that if it isn't already obvious)
but also we now know that this scene is not their first meeting, and that aziraphale and crowley do in fact remember each other and know that they have met, and in aziraphale's case is probably the teeniest bit shy bc damn heart eyes as an angel, heart eyes as a demon 🥵 but my point is that this is after the fall. after (as far as crowley tells it) crowley fell for 'just ask[ing] questions", and "just hung around the wrong people".
now i have my thoughts on why crowley fell: tldr because it would require another post - both reasons he gave above are bullshit and obvs conflict with each other, so i think that he doesn't actually know why he fell and has just guessed his transgressions so he can rationalise it, that god actually never had an issue with him asking questions, and instead it was actually god's plan to make him fall so he could represent the 'evil' side of free will on earth, as aziraphale's counterpart, and essentially ensure that humankind stays eternally 'in balance'
ANYWAY so the fact that in the lion sequence, 'crowley' is being shielded by 'aziraphale' against an unknown entity; but does this mirror a flashback, or is it foreshadowing? again, id put my bets on the former visually, but the latter... lyrically? idk the word but regardless take the dialogue:
"What if I did the right thing;
with the whole 'eat the apple business'?
A demon can get into a lot of trouble;
for doing the right thing."
so let's rephrase this:
"Was it the right decision to fall;
was I right to choose this for myself?
to choose the right to choose?
Because i feel like i could live to regret it."
so is crowley in essence already asking if aziraphale is on his side? is he asking if falling was the right thing, the good thing, to do (regardless of whether god gave him any choice in the matter)? But was he given the choice, first true free will? did aziraphale try to protect him during the fall, so crowley could get out in time (but ultimately fail? or at least bought Crowley enough time to find a back staircase and fall gently and peacefully, 'saunter vaguely downwards'?), and then get assigned to earth to be the 'good' side of the coin for humanity?
and is crowley asking if aziraphale will continue to be with him? in whatever romantic, platonic, acquaintance context you want - is he asking aziraphale if aziraphale will fight for him again, for them both? aziraphale made his decision, enacted his free will, in giving the humans a sword, and thus brought the concept of war and horror to earth, even if that was never his intention - so now swordless, and now only condemned to watch humanity as it strides out on its own (or was this the plan all along?👀), is aziraphale willing to do it? does he have the power, the strength, the will? would he stretch his finger over the line to fight on their side?
maybe im asking the wrong kind of questions, but all ill say is that in the above sequence? at the end of the dialogue? adam kills the lion.
i think 'their side' began in the job minisode, yes maybe, but also maybe the idea of it, the understanding of it, was planted here.
