I believe the last 16 minutes are what they are.
That’s it, that's the theory/meta (lol), but I have to get this out of my system so bear with me (prob someone already wrote something like this, but well).
Before that though I just wanna clear something - I don't wanna rain in anybody's parade. This is just ONE possible interpretation, and it isn’t meant to invalidate any other interpretations or theories. It's fun to spend a lot of time thinking about something we love, and I enjoy every single meta and theory that I saw out there (pls make more crazy crackpot theories and analysis, they're amazing), even the ones that annoy me, like the coffee theory.
And let's be real for a moment - most of our theories and predictions will be wrong, if not all (and thank Someone for that, I don’t really wanna know what will for sure happen before watching the thing). We aren’t really aiming to get everything right, right? We are discussing something we love and having fun. Neil Gaiman and all the team that works on Good Omens are amazing, and I know they will surprise us no matter what.
(also, this is a bit long sorry)
So, with that out of the way:
We have to remember who Aziraphale essentially is. He changed over time, but there's one thing that still remains at the core of his being. He is a protector. The guardian of the eastern gate, who yields the flaming sword.
A sword he gives to humanity, so Adam and Eve can protect themselves - because Aziraphale is emphatic, good and loves humanity. And then he lies to God herself, not metatron or other angel, but to Her own light about it.
And he keeps on doing that - the whole Job minisode, the halo blow up, trying to stop the armageddon. He protects the thing he likes, does what he loves and trusts his own judgment (why an angel shouldn't dance? Why shouldn't an angel enjoy human pleasures? Why shouldn't an angel trust and befriend a demon? Aziraphale always does what he wants and thinks it's right in the end).
THIS MAN SHAPED BEING IS SUCH A GUARDIAN THAT HE EVENS PROTECTS GABRIEL, THE ARCHANGEL THAT TRIED TO ELIMINATE HIM IN HELLFIRE BC HE SEES INNOCENCE IN HIM.
But the thing about Aziraphale is that he wants to be tempted to have a reason to do what he wants to do. He doesn't need it to challenge the system and do what he thinks is right or wants, but being tempted is something that he enjoys. It's a game he and Crowley play constantly.
And that's what the Metatron ends up offering (without really knowing; Metatron has his own agenda, the second coming, and he knows that if A&C are together things are gonna be more difficult). Metatron gives the opportunity to Aziraphale to protect Crowley and their existence, which is now even more endangered by the threat of the Book of Life. Aziraphale wants to protect their lives, because he knows they weren't really safe after the armageddon’t. Both of them know they aren’t safe, and we can see it more clearly on Crowley. He is a lot more stressed and on the edge this season (he literally summons a lightning to dissipate his anger), but we can also see that on how Aziraphale keeps trying to escape reality and focusing in other things - how his mind drifts into the book of Job, how he takes the bentley to go scape and investigate the Clue (and we see that fantasy landscape), how he puts up an entire eldritch, mind controlling ball to dance with crowley and confess get nina and maggie together. Their existence post Armaggeddon’t is fragile.
And this is before he even knows about the second coming, something Crowley learned alone in heaven and wasn't able to communicate to Aziraphale yet. And, on top of that, he still believes in the Ineffable Plan - not necessarily in heaven or the system, but that She is good, so heaven must have something good in it still.
But, even with all this on the table, Aziraphale is hesitant in accepting metatrons offer… So, WHEN DID AZIRAPHALE SAID YES TO HEAVEN?
I could now make a big analysis of the last 16 minutes, but I feel that at this point everyone knows those events by heart, so I won’t bore you with that.
(breathes heavily) Okay, so… yes, there seems to be something fishy about the whole thing. Aziraphale expressions are all over the place, and we can't really trust his narrative about what metatron said. Yes, the coffee symbolizes a threat (c'mon, offering a coffee from Give Me Coffee Or Give Me Death, while asking Aziraphale to go back to heaven is easily read as a threat. Aziraphale is intelligent, and has been working in the shadows, and hiding, and talking in codes for 6000 years, he knows when danger presents itself), but that coffee also symbolizes a temptation to Aziraphale - a chance to get what he wants and get to know things. The Coffee is The Apple of this season.
So:
he has a motive, protect crowley and their life together (and then after the divorce he learns that he also can protect humanity and all the other things he loves again)
He has the opportunity to create a safer environment for them to be together.
He has the opportunity to have Crowley by his side while changing things.
He has the opportunity to try to change things from the inside..
He has the opportunity to get a hold of THE most powerful and important book to ever exist.
With all that, he WANTS to go to heaven, even if that means getting away from earth for a bit. It may be the only way to get the peace that he wants.
He knows it will be dangerous and extremely uncomfortable. He doesn't trust heaven, he knows how bad Gabriel was (he doesn't even say he loves Gabriel, and he acknowledges he was an ass), he knows how cruel heaven can be (he even fought that many times, like in the Job minisode). He wants to have Crowley by his side, and tries to convince him to be by his side and show his reasoning. Even when the demon refuses his proposal, there's still no other choice other than going to heaven, in Aziraphale’s perspective, and that just gets confirmation when he learns about the second coming (to me, that’s when he REALLY decides to go).
And we can’t forget one of the most important things about the ending: the divorce is an amazing and necessary step to move the characters forward.
Stories need conflict. Conflict is essential to make characters evolve and get things happening so you can pass the message that you want and make people feel things.
It makes sense for A&C story and character development, they getting away from each other and try to resolve things on their own for a bit. It makes sense that they have that heartbroken discussion/confession, they need that to get on the same page and be together in the future (and also, think about how satisfying it will be for us, the viewers, to see that happen after all the hurt?? delicious). Conflits, problems, the bad stuff are essential ingredients to make us love a story, even if it doesn't have a happy ending. No one really likes to eat a raw egg, but we need it to bake a cake, and some people may not enjoy bitter tasting food, but some people really like that (trash analogy, I know). In the end, we like stories because we like to feel things (there are other reasons too, but that is the big one I think), and what could make us feel something more intense than separating Crowley and Aziraphale? I feel like in the Good Omens universe, the world could be destroyed but we'd still be happy if they were together in the end. That's how much we love and care for those two.
With all that layed out, this is what I have to say: with this interpretation, there is no secret communication between A&C during all that. There's no stopping time, body swap, almond poison, and etc.
The breakup has to be real, hurtful, and raw.
It has to be true.
If we want them to evolve and to be happy and safe, and for the world in Good Omens to be happy and safe, the hurt is necessary.
I think I'd feel a bit betrayed and mad if that was all an act of them.
I'm not saying that there isn't funny business happening, we know that Crowley has a plan (let me talk about this for a hot second… he knows the outline plan from the second coming. He saw that whole meeting in heaven, but we just saw the ending. Crowley and Muriel know what is the second coming and we don't. there's something there, he for sure has a plan to at least survive this), Aziraphale has a plan and Metatron has an agenda, but that communication hell and heart massacre was REAL.
Let's think for a moment - what if they run off together? Where does the story goes? How would the characters develop? They wouldn't be happy in Alpha Centauri. They aren't like B&G, that never lived on earth, that each other is their own home. No. A&C toast to the world. The world is their home, their lair. They've built it, their own place. Exile is not a good option. It's a desperate option that Crowley only offers when he feels trapped (don't you think he would've tried to go there in the years after Armageddon’t if he thought the two of them would be happy there?). Aziraphale can’t accept that, a life without the joy of the things they love. That would be prison.
And in the same way, Crowley can't go to heaven. Not back to a place that abandoned him, that doesn't accept questions, that saw the universe he helped create as pretty wallpaper. Aziraphale is trying to offer freedom from hell, without realizing how that just hurts. Crowley can't follow Aziraphale’s plan, that would also be exile. That would also be prison.
They have to figure things out on their own this time, and use this space to grow. They know they still can rely on each other (6000 years of partnership isn’t shattered that easily), but for now they need to heal (and save humanity and their home again). They hurt each other very badly over the years, and most of the time without knowing. They had to keep distance to protect each other, and now (during/after figuring out the second coming) they will need to learn to be open and not hide, so they can be together, to be an “Us”.
Aziraphale and Crowley have different perspectives, and they decided to part ways.
No matter what Mr Gaiman is hiding, no matter what the plot and mysteries and clues and details in the season led us to, the breakup and all that hurt is real.
In other words: it is what it is.
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It just will forever baffle me how unfair he has been. He kept constantly blaming me for all that was going wrong in his life, he could get upset to the point of wanting to hurt himself or worse over things as little as me disagreeing with his creative ideas or not wanting to listen to something he wanted to share at the moment, he abandoned his friend he knew for two years because he got interested in me too much to give her enough - and then because he convinced himself she didn't care for him anymore.
And I knew, all along, that I was not right for him. I kept telling him to keep reaching out and seek friends that he'd actually like and actually get along with. I kept insisting that he was doing it to himself by clinging to me where clearly he hated me to the point I could've hurt him by as much as setting up boundaries, having different opinions or having limitations as a human being. I told him that that friend he abandoned still cared for him and he could not just decide FOR her. But over and over, he denied everything and begged me to stay, saying how much he wanted to have future together, how I was like a sister he lost a chance to have, how we were supposed to share life experiences together and how I was the only one that felt "real". I kept sticking around despite the abuse, despite how much he was ruining my mental health and my social life (being abused distances you from even close people), all because I could not stand seeing him so hurt and alone. And the last deceit hurt especially bad, because he made me truly believe him. He said something that made me lose my guard, my focus on the fact that I was just a placeholder in his life until he finds someone fitting.
And just like I kept saying, as soon as he got enough money for good life, his mental health improved upon switching meds or something, he met a new friend and reconnected with that exact one he abandoned earlier - he declared me a dead weight on his life that has only been "killing" him and declared that the almost two years he spent with me were just a bad dream he was happy to finally forget.
I knew all along that the best thing I could do for him was to leave him, but I never did. I should have before he stopped caring for me entirely out of blue, because now he didn't even learn anything. He lost nothing of value in his eyes, just a person that "wasted his time". So what if his current friends """fail""" him again? He'll just seek an outlet in new ones, until they prove "useless" and he'll ditch them too, and so on. Some people just can't appreciate someone's personality, they only value people for what they can give to them. Or.. is it just me? At times I am genuinely annoyed when people tell me I am a valuable person and anyone who can't love and appreciate me is an idiot, because on the contrary, in my life all people that despised me and saw me as a waste of their time the most were all high IQ, very well-read and educated, very sophisticated individuals. Clearly, there is a correlation between being very smart and deeming me as human garbage - in a way jealous haters, hypocritical control freaks and callous ableists I've met online never could.
Honestly, sometimes I should decide for someone else. I always knew he hated me and splitting with me was to the better for him, but I let his tears and clinginess force me to feel bad and go back every time. And to doubt that maybe I was the delusional one and could not be sure of someone else's needs. Honestly, guys - when you are given every single indication that you are hated and only kept around out of their fear of loneliness and low self-esteem... it is all there is. It is not a situation where you should listen to your heart, to hope or to give benefit of the doubt. Being abused is something you can only comprehend with mind and knowledge, there is no bigger story and no intricate matters.
Still, I hate how as painfully stupid and naive for my age as I am, I've been able to understand things way more correctly than a much older, much more mature person with high intellect and tons more of life experience. I was right all along, but I hate being right sometimes. And I hate always being discarded as soon as people's lives improve. I hate always being just a placeholder. Apparently, no one whose life is good would ever want to burden themselves with me.
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