Chapter 5 Progress Update
Time is slipping away from my hands like the sand grains of the golden bed pouring between my open fingers. (aka yes I know it's been another 2 weeks without an update lol)
I'm going to be completely transparent here. I don't think I need to do these anymore? After all, like I said before, my only tasks left are the closing argument comic and the execution and I don't think it's very worth it making a post each week going "yea uh I did like a page or two uh"
As for Rexx, I've helped them finalise the plans for the Monotora files, so things are going fine.
Now, about the inbox. I haven't really been answering the rest of them purely due to the fact that the majority of them are art-based in some way. And, as I'm already so focused on art-based tasks for the chapter, I just can't find much time nor energy to get onto them.
So, again, I apologise if your ask is still sat in the inbox and will take some time to get to. I won't abandon any ask I am able to answer, so please don't worry about it like, never getting answered (as I won't be opening the inbox back up until I can get to the remaining ones).
TLDR: If I have a significant update about the fic, I'll most likely post it here. Otherwise, I don't see the need for these posts anymore. Thanks for understanding ^^
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the analysis on aziraphale that exactly one person asked for✨ and that i churned out at a speed that surprised even me, but i wanted to get it out without having seen s2 on 26th/28th and therefore being influenced in any way with further aziraphale content...
anyway, i said in an ask that i find aziraphale really challenging and emotional to analyse but by god am i going to do my best✨ (im not sure when exactly i gained the emerging reputation for calling out two of my favourite literary characters, but we move-)
aziraphale has a real big issue with faith, misplacing that faith, and turning that faith into idolising certain things. now the obvious one is the blind, naive faith in heaven. there's also arguably, at times, issues with his faith in humanity, in that his faith was placed elsewhere (see above re: heaven). but lastly, he also has an issue with his faith in crowley. ive waxed lyrical on the last one already, but didn't really delve into the effect that this has directly on crowley, so let's touch in this a little now.
similarly to what i feel about crowley, i think that whilst aziraphale has a more natural affinity for kindness and compassion, im not entirely convinced that he is inherently a good person - certainly not in the show, in any case.
he is however certainly more 'good' than the majority of his kin. and not all of that is due to his literal being an angel, because we know first hand that being angelic is not synonymous with good. we know that other angels actively distort the perception of their association with 'good' (michael when talking to ligur, "of course you can trust me... im an angel!") to benefit themselves. ultimately, the literal antithesis of altruism, and so it can't be the case that aziraphale has propensity for good just because he's an angel.
as far as we are aware, he has had the relatively same experiences, on earth particularly, as crowley. the only notable exception to this is the fall, which obviously aziraphale did not go through. crowley comes out of the fall, in my opinion, very much stuck at that point in time, and hasn't truly moved on or grown from it, mentally or emotionally. so all of his experiences through the next 6000 years have been endured whilst he's still in this almost childlike mindset. this mindset might be due to (if we're applying human emotional concepts here) abandonment trauma, and a part of me agrees, but i think its predominantly out of bitterness, resentment, and possibly even arrogance and plain denial.
aziraphale however did not go through the fall, and therefore when we see him skipping through time and into the present day (s1 era), he still holds a stake of faith in heaven and its machinations. however, what sets him apart from the other angels is that he has had experiences that they have not, by virtue of being on earth and experiencing first- and second-hand the repurcussions that heaven's games have on humanity... the community that aziraphale is now essentially exiled to be a part of. part of what aziraphale has learnt, i think (and was pointed out very succinctly by the Longwinded Anon✨ in a previous ask - now officially their name), is literally how to learn from error.
aziraphale's faith in heaven gets torn down when he realises that they are choosing to retcon humanity just to be able to prove to hell that they are superior. this is something that aziraphale ultimately perpetuated in his compliancy and inaction where heaven's overall agenda is concerned, but also in his blind faith that heaven surely wouldn't want the earth destroyed, god's ultimate creation... surely not? well, that proves to be the case, and aziraphale finally twigs that heaven was not a Good Place. it was his error - his blind faith in and subservience to heaven - but he learns from it.
his faith in humanity is still a work in progress for most of s1, in that he has one foot in thinking that they are capable of great things, but also one foot out because he knows that they have capacity to wreak utter horror and terror all by themselves (just as crowley remarks time and time again). however, he has his growth moment where this is concerned, in the form of accepting that humanity is truly a mix of both good and evil, and that without one, humanity cannot truly be defined as the other. he expresses this revelation to adam during the timestop; that adam is human incarnate by being neither good nor evil, but perhaps a mix of both. it feels like an apology, an apology that could be interpreted as one aziraphale is giving to all of humankind. he's apologising for not committing to his faith in them. it was an error - but he learns from it.
but what about crowley? well, as already agonised over, he goes so far in having faith in crowley that, in my opinion, he's built crowley in his mind to be someone else entirely, and yet somehow exactly who crowley is. aziraphale knows that crowley is altogether a bit of a bastard (understatement, frankly), but he trusts that crowley will always know what the right - good - thing to do is. is this misguided, misplaced? yes, i think it is. and i think crowley knows this, at least on some level, and again in his arrogance takes advantage of this.
but what effect does aziraphale's faith have on crowley? well, i don't necessarily think it has a detrimental effect on him, because i think it ultimately benefits crowley - who, again, in his childlike mindset still, has someone who believes in him and will follow him and want to know him. id even say that crowley, faced with the prospect that one wrong move he could end up truly alone, will peversely do some pretty questionable things to keep this. a specific highlight being the tempting aziraphale to kill warlock; if he were truly trusting in aziraphale, i think he'd actually ask and explain why he needs aziraphale to do it instead of him. instead, he tries to tempt him into it and giving him quite underhanded rationalisations as to why it's necessary. this comes to a head at the bandstand when aziraphale flips this on its head, and suggests that given that he's an angel, and crowley is a demon, it should be crowley that does it.
this is where i come to the point where i think aziraphale fails as a friend and possibly is equally damaging to crowley as vice versa; he holds his status as an angel over crowley's head. he remarks pretty consistently throughout that crowley is a demon, and he is an angel; whilst on one level this is just simply an observation, it also feels like he has to clarify the power and status imbalance for a specific reason. im not necessarily clear on what this reason is, but my main thought is that it's out of insecurity with his place in heaven, amongst the angels, on earth... and with crowley.
he seems to constantly need to reassert himself as the better of the two, and at times can be outright patronising ("I am an angel, you are a demon, we are hereditary enemies... get thee behind me, foul fiend!"). now some of this equally is for comedy's sake, and in part for exposition to us as the viewer, but the clear integral theme for me is that he expects crowley to just accept it, and not to challenge it. because of course, how could crowley challenge it? it's true, it's a fact.
but the way i kind of interpret these moment is that aziraphale reiterates it very purposefully whenever crowley begins to toe the line of, 'im a demon but i might possibly want to be better than a demon... not an angel, per se, but just better'. so we can take this as crowley finally wanting to move on from his Fall-mindset, and he needs the support of his friend to do it, but his friend won't let him due to his own insecurity and instability. does he fear that crowley would supplant him? or that crowley would stop needing him? start pulling away from him, when all this time these two lonely individuals have danced around in orbit of each other, locked together in a holding pattern borne out of their respective co-dependent necessity for each other?
aziraphale's ultimately a very lonely individual; crowley was, for whatever reason he fell, ripped away from the kinship and camaraderie that he felt in heaven. but aziraphale wasn't shown this kind of perverse mercy; he has to feel the debilitating agony of knowing that on paper he still belongs, but that instead he's ostracised from heaven because of who he inherently is and has continued to become because of his experiences in earth. it stands to reason therefore that he puts crowley on a pedestal as aziraphale originally saw, and wants to see, him. he selfishly (imo) keeps trying to contain crowley, because if he changed, and then suddenly found he doesn't have any need of aziraphale anymore... well, what purpose would remain for aziraphale, a purpose that he truly cares about, if crowley's dependency were to disappear?
where would that leave aziraphale?
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