#Crowley's fall

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

Aziraphale [about Job being talked to by God]: I don't suppose he's getting any answers.

Crowley: No. But just to be able to ask the question.

#good omens #goodomensedit #david tennant #michael sheen #crowley #aziraphale #gos2 #season 2 #GOS2Spoilers #good omens spoilers #ep4 #4i6 #2ep2 #2i2i10 #2ep1 #2i1i1 #crowley asking questions #crowley's fall #crowley and questions #snek needs a hug :(

[dee-morris]

Crackish Theory

but not really but maybe? Let me work through my thoughts and then you help me decide how serious I am.

I had a Shower Thought today about this ask.

"Never quite as good as he likes to maintain." Neil has also said that Crowley is an unreliable narrator when it comes to his Fall, and we know from the show that his story keeps changing. He sauntered vaguely downwards, he did a million light year freestyle, he only asked questions but he also rode into battle during the War. Hm.

My initial thought was that his memory had been fucked with, and he genuinely doesn't know. And this could still be true, probably is true, but I was scrubbing conditioner of of my eyes this afternoon and just started to wonder if Crowley actually did something Bad to get the boot?

I don't think I've ever seen anyone suggest this before, which is INTERESTING. We've collectively agreed that he's just a sad wet cat who would never hurt anyone, but my niblings in Christ, he turned a bunch of paintball guns into real rifles bc he thought it was funny. (I'm convinced that the only reason he made sure nobody died was the Look Aziraphale gave him.) Muh point izzz, what if he committed an act of sabotage in the course of investigating or poking around or building a suggestion box or whatever he did to get answers that pissed off the Metatron?

Or maybe he was a spy. Remember his Bond fixation? Maybe he worked undercover for Lucifer bc he was promised answers that the Almighty wasn't giving up. Once you let go of the idea that he's just a wee soft boi who only asked questions with big sad Puss in Boots eyes, the possibilities are endless.

As are the fic ideas. I think I've got enough material here to keep me entertained until filming starts, at least.

#good omens #ineffable husbands #good omens 2 #crowley #aziracrow #crowley good omens #crowley's fall #war in heaven

[cobragardens]

The 3 Falls of Anthony J Crowley

So far, Crowley has told three different stories to three different audiences about why he Fell, and there's some important information that can be inferred from them. Let's get nerdy.

(Nb. C. 25% of this is from a previous post I made about Crowley's memory problems.)

Here's Crowley's 1st story (gifs courtesy of Fuck Yeah Good Omens), in 1867:

In Book Omens this line is narration about Crowley, and means that Crowley didn't embrace evil and side with Hell so much as he just wasn't into the whole Heaven shindig.

In Show Omens, this phrase becomes a little more fraught, because Crowley says it about himself, and he says it to Aziraphale.

Aziraphale has just disagreed with Crowley's assertion that the two of them have a lot in common. Az thinks Crowley means their origins as angels, and demurs, "I don't know. We may have both started off as angels, but you are fallen."

But what Crowley means, as we find out in pretty much every other scene the two of them share in S1 and S2, is that that he and Aziraphale have a lot in common now, in their current positions. He wants Aziraphale to see him as a friend--and to be his friend--so he elides the difference his Fallenness makes to Aziraphale, all "Ehhh, it wasn't really a fall kind of Fall, it wasn't that bad."

Also, given the conversation they have in the Final Fifteen, I feel like his phrasing is kind of important here, because falling is not voluntary, but sauntering is. In saying this Crowley is claiming that to some degree he chose to reject Heaven.

It's entirely possible that Crowley may have been lying to Aziraphale in 1867--he is, as he says, a demon, and he's lied to him before to make something bad seem less bad--but maybe not. Remember what the Metatron says about Crowley:

And this is another interesting point: The Metatron knew Crowley as an angel. The Metatron. The being who, after shepherding Aziraphale out of the bookshop, turned back and looked at Crowley with hate.

(And tense music playing, in case you weren't sure.)

So maybe that's it. Maybe Crowley just chose to be on his own side.

But in 2019, and addressing God, Crowley's story of his Fall is slightly different:

I think we can take this as Crowley's sincere belief. It's unlikely that he would lie when speaking to God, because that is Aziraphale's job because he doesn't have any reason to do so: God hasn't been listening to Crowley for 6,000 years at this point, and if She were listening, lying would not work. So Crowley probably believes he's telling the truth here with this story: Crowley believes one reason he Fell is that he asked questions.

But is he right?

Another line from the Metatron:

The Metatron seems to speak of Crowley's habit of asking questions as though he finds it obnoxious rather than damning, so maybe the questions weren't the problem. Then again we know that the Metatron is a lying piece of shit and an authoritarian who doesn't want his regime questioned, willing to erase memories and destroy lives to cover up the 'institutional problem' that Heaven doesn't know what the Plan is and is run by a handful of warmongers who want everyone dead or indentured.

Either way, this is the third time in the series someone has talked about the problem of Crowley asking questions, so my guess is his questions were probably a salient feature of his Fall.

Onward!

Before we look at the 3rd story, remember that we have strong evidence now that Crowley has had his memories erased by Heaven.

But we also know Furfur, another demon, still has his memories. Inference: Heaven don't erase the memories of every angel who Falls. This suggests that Heaven erased Crowley's memories because he had knowledge in those memories Heaven didn't want him to have anymore.

This may not be specific knowledge. We know Crowley has a high security clearance in Heaven and therefore must have been a high-ranking angel, and we know he created a nebula with Saraqael, so presumably there was a lot of stuff in his head Heaven wanted stripped out.

But I think there was something specific, and here's why. Firstly, there's no reason to assume that importance in Heaven is a guarantee of importance in Hell. Furfur could have been a high-ranking angel too before ending up an admin in Hell. (Hell does not seem to be any more of a meritocracy than Heaven does.)

Secondly, it's clear that Crowley doesn't know his memories have been erased. If he knew, then when Furfur says "We were in the same Legion? Just before the Fall? Doing dubious battle on the Plains of Heaven? Remember?" he'd say something like "Don't be stupid, of course I don't remember, Heaven erased my memories."

Instead he says,

Now, maybe Crowley is just being a dick here. Certainly we're supposed to take it that way until he goes up to Heaven with Muriel and doesn't remember Saraqael either.

But what if he's being truthful? If Crowley is being honest (and a dick), that would mean the Fash didn't erase all of Crowley's memories of his time in Heaven. We know this because Furfur says he and Crowley fought together "on the Plains of Heaven," and "just before the Fall" [emphasis added].

This suggests that Maybe Heaven didn't erase time from Crowley's memory. Maybe they erased people.

Okay, now here's Crowley's 3rd story about how he Fell:

It's a cute line, but what if it's not just a throwaway joke referencing what people say about kids who go down the wrong path and become criminals?

Crowley mutters this 3rd story to himself, so we can be confident Crowley believes this to be true. But Crowley doesn't know who the wrong people are. He doesn't know whose company got him thrown out of Heaven, because his memories of all those people have been taken from him.

And taken together, these three stories and Crowley's stolen memories suggest a bigger, more disturbing inference: Crowley doesn't know why he Fell. (Or sauntered vaguely downwards.)

Like Crowley, Job was once a favorite of God. But he has fallen out of that favor and been delivered to demons for reasons God refuses to tell him.

We the audience are meant to draw a parallel between Job and Crowley. We know this not just because of the speech Crowley cathartically gives Job's goats, in which everything he says to the goats can be just as easily applied to Job or himself, but from two other indications. Here's one:

Job is wearing Crowley's color.

The other is the minisode title, "A Companion to Owls." This phrase comes from the Book of Job, specifically Job 30:29. Job, lamenting what has happened to him, says,

 I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.

In Biblical symbolism, dragon=serpent=snake=demon. And in some Mesopotamian beliefs--one of them Judaism--owls were associated with demons as well:

and

and

So the Job of the Bible is saying in this verse the same thing the Job of Good Omens says: God has forsaken me and delivered me to demons. Or even: God has forsaken me and I am now being treated like demons are treated.

And he's also saying something else. In the Bible, owls symbolize loneliness, desolation, and solitude. They're consistently depicted as living in barren, abandoned, isolated places. Seriously. Go search owl(s) in a Biblical concordance and read all 30 entries: it comes up a lot. If you're a companion to owls, you're alone (except for the owls) in the wilderness. You're forsaken.

WHOMST do we know whose signal color is yellow, who's a brother of demons, and who admits at the end of the episode that being alone and forsaken in the wilderness is lonely?

So. Job, a character whose claim to fame is that God punished him and he didn't know why, is a mirror character to Crowley. This on its own isn't enough to say definitely that Crowley doesn't know why he Fell, but combined with the three different stories he tells about his Fall, I think there's enough textual evidence to conclude that Crowley isn't entirely sure why he fell; he only has educated guesses. Either he knew and the memory was erased, or he was never told at all.

My question about Crowley's Fall is this: Who pushed him?

Was Crowley's Fall an act of God Herself, or was it an act of Heaven? What did the fucking Metatron have to do with it? What was Crowley's crime? When Aziraphale takes charge of Heaven and the Second Coming, will he read Crowley's file?

#good omens #good omens 2 #good omens s2 #good omens meta #crowley #aziraphale #the metatron #good omens analysis #crowley's fall #3 falls of crowley

[ineffable-suffering]

Trauma-Dumping on your plants: The Anthony J. Crowley Chronicles

This has been living in my silly head rent free for so long, I finally decided to slap it on here in hopes of thinking about it a little less (than three times a day. It's been years. I need to get over it.)

Also, I'm absolutely certain I'm not even remotely the first person to realize or post about this, since it's not the hardest of parallels to figure out. Alas, I still shall, because out of mind, out of sight and all that. So:

Let's talk about how Crowley is using his houseplants to work through his own Trauma of the Fall. Or, well, maybe not work through it per se, but more so roleplay it to give it somewhat of an an outlet because he never got over it. Lol.

It's not rocket science to figure it out and God Herself actually gives us a pretty spot-on explanation of it in her own narration.

Crowley's plants are perfect. They're, as God Herself tells us, the most luxurious and beautiful in all of London. He takes great care of them, waters them, mists them. Does any and everything to give them the perfect conditions so they won't have a worry in the world.

And yet, we're immediately shown that despite the seemingly perfect conditions they're living in, Crowley's plants still get *gasps quietly* spots. And we all know how Crowley feels about that:

It seems like such an unnecessary tiny thing to get upset about, right? Like, plants get spots all the time. They're not perfect, they're part of nature and nothing is ever perfect in nature. Crowley would know that by now. Imperfection is the whole point of nature. If everything had stayed exactly the way it always was, nothing would have ever changed or evolved.

Besides, Crowley is a demon. If it were merely about aesthetics to him, he could easily miracle away any spot with a blink of his serpent eyes. But he gets so angry about it, it's almost comical. At first we think it's just to show us, the audience, that, in contrast to Aziraphale, who cares very dearly and lovingly for his books, Crowley is a mean, mean demon who, instead of being outwardly nice to the things he loves (like Aziraphale does), yells at his plants because he's a mean meanie.

But! If you look at the whole scene and what God says, it's pretty obvious what he's actually doing is something else entirely: "What Crowley does is he puts the fear of God in them. Or, the fear of Crowley. The plants are the most luxurious and beautiful in London. Also the most scared."

Folks, this man dude serpent is literally roleplaying the concept of God/Heaven threatening angels with their Fall in order to keep them obedient ... with his houseplants.

Have I mentioned yet that I am absolutely obsessed with him and also desperately wanna get him a therapy voucher?

Because what does he do once he sees a plant disobeying his rules of perfection and acting out? The same thing God did to her questioning, equally disobedient angels (including Crowley): Parade it in front of the very scared rest, making an example of it ...

... only to then, well ...

... quite literally chuck it out.

To anyone else, this seems like a completely ridiculous thing to do over a tiny, minuscule spot. There would have been a bunch of other ways to go about fixing that spot.

Figuring out what it was the plant needed that might not have been given to it yet.

Taking care of it in a different, individual way so it would have been able to thrive again.

Listening to the plant and letting it tell you why its spot appeared in the first place.

Telling the plant, that loves and relies on you entirely, you love it too, despite it not being without fault, despite of it not fully living up to your unreachable standards of perfection.

Caring for the plant not because you want it to be perfect, but because you're okay with it being imperfect.

(We're no longer talking about plants here, as you are probably aware.)

Alas, this isn't what Crowley does. Because it wasn't what God did, either. We still know very little about Crowley's actual Fall and the Fall of Lucifer and the rest. But we do know that Crowley was never like or even with them.

All he did was ask some questions. A tiny spot. A seemingly insignificant blemish in the luxurious, beautiful flora of Heaven.

And yet, before he knew it, he did a "million lightyear freestyle dive into a boiling pool of sulfur". Cast out, chucked away, just like his little spotty plant. And for what? Well ...

... to keep the others angels plants check, for the rest of time.

***

(Addendum from the comments: If we go by what the book tells us, Crowley doesn’t actually end up violently throwing out the ‚bad‘ plants. He just finds a different place for them and makes sure they‘re looked after. So much to him being a big, bad, meanie-mean demon.)

#botany over therapy #harvest the garden of your emotional trauma #its ok crowley just take my hand ill take you to a nice doctor #crowley #good omens #good omens season 1 #crowley's fall #he's not even close to ever being over it #which is understandable #ineffable trauma #the plants are a metaphore #my own meta

[weasleywrinkles]

Good Omens season 3 thoughts

No but what if there's an episode in season 3 - preferably early - where we see Crowley sad and self-destructive as fuck in the present time while also watching in detail the events leading to their Fall, the Fall in itself and its aftermath in a minisode?

What if we see Aziraphale reactions, both in present time and back then, in Heaven?

What if we find out Aziraphale tried to protect Crowley during the Fall?

WHAT THEN, I ASK YOU

anybody else seeing what I'm seeing or is it just me?

#good omens #go2 spoilers #aziraphale #crowley #anthony j crowley #aziracrow #david tennant #michael sheen #good omens season 3 predictions #go3 wishes #ineffable husbands #ineffable idiots #ineffable bureaucracy #ineffable partners #ineffable spouses #aziraphale and crowley #Crowley's fall #angel crowley

[eviebane]

The Fall

Next thing, I'm doing a million-light-year freestyle dive into a pool of boiling sulphur

All I ever did was ask questions...

bonus page! I also did an iteration where the water as blue with plant life.

~

These are called vent worms, they're pretty neat~ they can survive in extremely hot temperatures

~

The borders also have enochian "Crowley's Fall"

~

I had a lot of fun with these pages! They took a LONG time but I've definitely learnt a lot <3

TYSM to the Bee Hive for body doubling with me so much for these!

#good omens #crowley #ineffable husbands #good omens fanart #aziracrow #goodomens #gomens #good omens 2 #gomens 2 #eviebane art #eviebane #digital art #procreate #crowley's fall #the fall #angel crowley #good omens art #cw blood #cw bone

[inafever]

We saw brilliance when the world was asleep / There are things that we can have, but can't keep

One More Light - Linkin Park

#I've been thinking about this gifset for ages #i had to make it #linkin park #one more light #how much this line reminds me of them now #it's physically painful #i haven't been this sad about it since 2017 #good omens #good omens 2 #go2 #gos2 #gomens #gomens 2 #ineffable husbands #aziracrow #angel crowley #good omens season two #good omens season 2 #Crowley #Aziraphale #good omens gifs #my gif #good omens edit #crowley's fall

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

a good omens inspired poem

Hello, mascot here. I was thinking about Crowley, and morality, and the story of Crowley's fall. And it made me think about why art is important, not because of the answers it gives us, but because of the questions it dares to ask. So I wrote a poem.

Your neck wore the noose

Before the judge made the call

A death warrant signed at your birth

Given a tongue, cursed to use it— 

Who stands in judgement of the judge

Who oversees the All-Seeing

How dare you, they say

How, indeed?

Your skin already bore the bruise

Before you knelt— what is it to choose?

Hold— hold your tongue, cursed soul

Lower— lower your head.

A virtue in one eye, vice in another

You finger the noose

The knot is rough, uncertain

Like you— just like you.

You smile. 

So the doubt is sown in the soil.

The leaves nod, quiver

Clarify nothing

The garden is razed— 

There is still only silence.

But you have done what you swore to.

Because it is the question, the doubt

Not the answer

That will lead to revolt. 

An answer is judgement,

The question is justice. 

And so did the serpent

Slip through the noose.

-Asmi

#good omens mascot #good omens #good omens fandom #weirdly specific but ok #asmi #crowley #aziraphale #lgbtqia #maggots #neil gaiman #good omens poetry #original poem #good omens poem #ineffable fandom #crowley's fall #why art is important #questions #questions not answers #ineffable demon #anthony j crowley #the ineffable plan #garden of eden #art and writing

[imasfnek]

Falling from grace

With Lucifer on judgement day,

I see your face

In the crowd as you say

A quiet, broken "no".

A painful expression,

A grief that's yet to grow.

They stripped me of my passion.

They stripped me of my hope.

They threw me down to Hell

Without any ways to cope.

Just an overwhelming smell

Of my wings being burned

By the sulfur and flames.

We ran with our heads turned,

We all changed our names.

Damned for eternity,

Unlovable and bitter,

This life will not be pretty.

Guess answers didn't fit Her.

This poem is definitely about Crowley's fall and nothing else

#crowley #aziraphale #good omens #ineffable husbands #poetry #good omens season 2 #david tennant #michael sheen #neil gaiman #crowley's fall

[unforgivablengk]

#falling in love #az fell #aziraphale #crowley #crowley x aziraphale #aziraphale x crowley #good omens #good omens season 2 #good omens season 2 spoilers #gomens #i still think they have a plan #fan art #good omens fan art #good omens fanart #fanart #the bentley #crowley's fall #falling from heaven #abandoment issues #crowley has abandonment issues

[actual-changeling]

Black Out Days - Phantogram

had a thought and tried to visualize it

#alex talks good omens #good omens #ineffable husbands #crowley #aziraphale #crowley's fall #good omens season 2 #go2 #aziracrow #crowley x aziraphale #ineffable divorce #idk how well it turned out but anyway

[mx-anthony-janthony-crowley]

you know that thing where you're nearly asleep but you scare yourself awake because you think you're falling? what if uh. what if crowley invented that. you know. after the whole. you know?

#I'M SO SORRY #just know that it hurt me to think about #this happened to me last night and for some reason i just had the most coherent thought of 'crowley invented this" 😭😭 #good omens #crowley #the Fall #crowley's Fall #angel crowley #anthony j crowley

[saspas-library-of-craziness]

Theory: Crowley fell for asking why the universe would end in 6k years

I think if Aziraphale connects the dots between Crowley's reasoning for falling and their conversation, he might completely break.

Imagine it: Aziraphale back in heaven, after he left the bookshop, and thinking about when Crowley was still an angel. Thinking about how he told Crowley the universe was going to end in 6000 years.

Thinking about how that led to Crowley's first and most devastating pain.

Thinking about the 6000 years of begging and pleading for companionship.

And now, all he can see are the unfallen tears in the demon's eyes.

Thinking about how he might've not fucked up, deciding to go to heaven. Lumping Crowley in with the rest of hell.

How do you fix that?

#thoughts are very 🫥 #good omens #aziraphale #crowley #good omens 2 #good omens theories #crowley's fall

[inconveniently-discorporated]

"Why not put it on the top of a tall mountain -- or even the moon?"

Oh Crowley, maybe God was never testing the humans. Maybe God was testing you.

I've developed a headcanon theory that maybe angels never really knew what evil was until the Fall. Perhaps they were never told, never warned, and perhaps many angels didn't mean to fall at all. Maybe if they had known, maybe if they were given the context, they would've made a different choice.

In that way, humans would represent a parallel to the angels. Innocent beings, living in paradise. A demon lurking amongst them (Lucifer in Heaven/Crowley in Eden). The fall from grace, by creatures who never really understood the consequences to begin with.

More specifically, they would mirror Crowley, for whom Lucifer was the serpent. No wonder he finds them so endearing. No wonder he finds it so miserable when they choose to do evil.

Maybe the question wasn't, "Will humans give in and eat the apple?"

Maybe they would never have eaten it if Crowley didn't tempt them. Maybe there was never a doubt they would, if Crowley went through with it.

Maybe the question was to Crowley. Maybe the question was, "Now that you know, will you make the same decision?"

Maybe the question was, "Was it worth it? Will you put them through this as well?"

Maybe every challenge thereafter was asking, "Will you show them the strength to keep carrying on?"

Feels sort of like bringing children into this world. We know there is pain and suffering in life, all species are molded by it by definition of there being species at all. We are who we are because we are who survived. The question is -- is it worth it?

Is the pain and suffering worth the beauty of nature, and all of the stars above us and all of the seas below? Is it worth the spark of a human connection, the joy of art, the thrill of being? Is it worth experiencing the depth of what a brain can do, the fact that we can imagine worlds bigger than our universe inside a circumference of around 20 inches of bone and meat?

Once you know, you can never go back to that paradise of innocence. And of course we all want to protect our children, but here's the thing: evil may likely find you anyway. And if it found the angels in Heaven and if it was so tempting that it pulled half of the entire host, it can find the humans on Earth.

And perhaps there was a question for Aziraphale, too: "Will you protect them? Will you show them what it means to have love, even in their darkest hour, even when we tell you they are not worthy of it?"

She plays an ineffable game of her own devising. Who knows what She was really planning?

(These questions thanks to I Only Ever Asked Questions - about an angel who got caught up in unionizing the host in the name of good intentions. I'm down to wrapping up editing on the final few chapters now, which ends where we begin: in a garden. Posting just about every day because I'm impatient to get it all out there.)

#good omens #good omens meta #Crowley's fall #i only ever asked questions #garden of Eden #humanity #the character of God

[eviebane]

How have I never noticed this before

I never asked to be a demon. I was just minding my own business one day and then... "Oh, looky here, it's Lucifer and the guys." OK, the food hadn't been that good lately. I didn't have anything on for rest of that afternoon. Next thing, I'm doing a million-light-year freestyle dive into a pool of boiling sulphur.

Angels don't eat, it's even frowned upon. It's a pretty good clue that Crowley is not in fact a reliable narrator of his Fall

#good omens #crowley #good omens meta #crowley's fall #pre fall crowley

[gotholdladywithadhd]

Alright I'm going to have a thought (I'm sure I'm not the first and I've probably read a fan fic about it tbh but I can't remember where all my thoughts come from) that explains any possible memory loss of Crowley's (a thing I'm not convinced exists fully yet but setting that aside) and also why the Metatron hates him and said he was always asking damn fool questions, and why Crowley fell when it seems he really shouldn't have (by heavens standards at least, and setting aside he hasn't been a reliable narrator of his own fall as per Neil Gaiman for the moment)

He discovered the Metatron doing some questionable things, and started asking questions about these particular things. And the Metatron was like nope! And wiped his memory and got him kicked out of heaven.

#Damn fool questions #I only ever asked questions #That's all it took to be demon in the old days #crowley #good omens #crowley good omens #good omens 2 #the metatron #good omens analysis #crowley's fall