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wanna-b-poet31 · 4 years

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Aziraphale’s Lies and Crowley’s Truth (A 3-Part Series) Part 3: Liminal Spaces, Happy Faces

A final installment of a series I started!! Will wonders ever cease? >tbh I want to preemptively start this final installment saying that I’ve been staring at the word doc for a solid 3 months trying to will the right words to come to me... let’s hope these are good ones?< #sorrynotsorry for the delay

Honestly, I could do a whole other series about why Crowley is fallen and Aziraphale is not. However, I wanted to refocus this series on my central argument that honesty (or lack thereof) is a strategic tool for establishing their in-between status...their humanity, as it were.

To grossly summarize parts 1 and 2 (but no seriously check them out) Crowley can lie, he’s actually pretty slippery but he chooses to be honest and forthright with Aziraphale on purpose. Meanwhile, Aziraphale wields his lies like his sword, trying to protect the two of them from Heaven’s wrath.

The problem is, when Crowley is so heartbreakingly honest, like genuinely, unapologetically honest, to Aziraphale, he leaves both of them vulnerable. Without the security Heaven claims to provide him, Aziraphale panics, is afraid that revealing his hand -- that he feels for Crowley, wants to go to Alpha Centauri with Crowley -- will put both of them in danger. So, he does what he does best, he lies, cutting both of them. They fall out of sync, they’re set up for failure, they’re not on the same page, and ultimately they’ can’t occupy the same space or same side.

See Aziraphale’s face here? [a gif where Aziraphale is shouting at Crowley that “We’re on opposite sides”] The tone of voice? The desperation in his face? It’s clear that he’s lying, and it’s detrimental.

BUT when Aziraphale (and it has to be Aziraphale) realizes he’s miscalculated his lies, realizes that his position is not protecting Crowley (or the earth), but realizes that he IS, and perhaps has always needed to be, on Crowley’s side, the true nature of Heaven is revealed (to him).

Once they are reunited, their lies are weaponized, their honesty is protective, and they create a new space for themselves and humanity to exist. They don’t fit in Heaven or Hell or even in a garden. In a very real way, they become more human once the realize the impact of their actions and the weight of their choices.

No, I don’t mean I literally think they’re human now, they’re as magical as ever. But by the end of the series, they DO become a new kind of hybrid, occupying the same liminal space between holy and hellish that humans do. And the evolution of their honesty and lies -- their supposed “flaws” -- enable them to form their own side.

It allows them the freedom of choices.

ANGELS OF LIES

I think it’s important to point out that Aziraphale isn’t the only lying angel.

All of them lie. Often.

Examples:

We first see the lies appear when Gabriel praises Aziraphale for trying to “turn” Warlock to the good side. It becomes evident that by the end of the series, the angels never had any intention of stopping the war.

We see Michael lie (by omission) when she shows Gabriel the photos of our ineffable duo. She neglects to mention that she got them from Ligur.

The only true difference is the target of their lies and the fact that they all justify their actions under the flag of dogmatic loyalty and their presumed “goodness”. None of the other angels ever quite question their own actions. They simply “do” in the name of the Lord. Their prophecy of a great war drives each of their actions, and each reads it as an immutable fact.

While the vague nature of the prophecy allows them some wiggle room (like Michael conspiring with Ligur, and Gabriel with Beelzebub) to behave and build an ineffable bureaucracy around it, at the end of the day, none of them act like there is even a choice. They presume their destiny has been solidified.

Looking at Gabriel’s insistence that “Wars are not meant to be avoided, they're meant to be won” demonstrates, at least on some level, he firmly believes that angels are predestined to fight, to win, and to crush demons under his shoes. There is no question in his mind then, no wayward thought asking “should we do this” or “is this right”, he simply is following “orders”. There is the implicit belief then, that “to war or not to war” is not “find the solution with the least harm” but rather a really toxic “win or die” mentality. Any dissent, in this framework, must be squashed.

Any dissent...like Aziraphale.

In the GIF above, when Aziraphale asserts that the angels have a choice, “there doesn’t have to be a war.” Look at the condescending posture and the fake smile. His response “Of course there does, otherwise, how would we win it?” speaks volumes to how he sees the situation. There is no choice for him, not necessarily because he doesn’t see there’s no choice, but because the alternative would be losing, and Angels don’t lose.

There’s a real danger for Aziraphale at this moment, although he has been conditioned not to see it. If he is honest to Gabriel, the way Crowley needs him to be as a partner, for posing the question, for insisting that there is a third option. This moment of honesty after several bald-faced lies makes Aziraphale very vulnerable to retaliation. Retaliation, mind you, that we DO see him endure (a la Sandalphon).

THE DEMON IS IN THE DETAILS

Similarly, the demons show that they believe this is their chance to overcome Heaven. That there is no choice on whether or not they will fight, because the choice has been made for them. They must fight. The only question is if they will win. Like the Angels there is no question if they can fight or not, they simply must, and everyone is vying for a role in the destruction.

Interestingly though, while Ligur and Hastur condescend “what is the world coming to if Demons started trusted Demons”, we also see an honesty streak.

Hastur, in particular, is oddly a beacon of honesty, but particularly gullible. Yeah, he’s malicious (we see him burn down the church, threaten Crowley, and kill another demon) but we don’t really see him lie... do we see him lie? Sure he’s wrong a lot, but he’s not good at lying like Crowley is, nor prone to it like Aziraphale is.

For example, we see him openly and honestly communicate with Ligur while they’re sulking, waiting for Crowley to show up. Sure, he’s wrong about what “Caio” means, but is it a lie? It seems more like his arrogance of Italian, transliterating it to an English word than an actual lie.

The closest lie I can think about is when he’s disguised himself to capture Crowley. He doesn’t even lie when he’s reading out Crowley’s crimes to the audience.

Instead, we actually see that he’s actually surprised by Crowley’s lies. As much as he claims not to trust other Demons, when he’s actively pursuing Crowley and Ligur is killed, for a split second, Hastur looks like he believes Crowley’s lie that “the Dark Council” is testing him.

This seems to put extra emphasis on Crowley’s ability to lie but not be unnecessarily cruel (whereas Hastur is cruel but doesn’t lie). Or that choosing to lie to Hell, for the sake of Aziraphale and himself, is paramount.

Crowley, in contrast to Aziraphale, realizes this “must and at no point tries to be honest with Hell. He’s smooth, he’s suave (at least he tries to be) he tries to get out of it, flatly stating that his own role in it (delivering the anti-christ) is not his scene. Then, he tries to stop the end of the world, he convinces Aziraphale it’s needed, gives him the pretext to make that third option a reality, and actively refuses the dichotomy of their bosses.

It’s not until Aziraphale is fully out of the picture (read: presumed dead) that Crowley gives up, that he succumbs to the idea that it really is hopeless. Which, I will come back to.

HUMANITY’S VIRTUE

Meanwhile, humans don’t take well to black/white dichotomies. They neither are heaven incarnate nor hell incarnate. They simply are human. And that means they have choices.

This manifests a few different ways in the series, but first, let’s look specifically at the dynamic between our “predestined” Anathema and our “what the actual fuck is happening right now” Newt.

Anathema (in the series) is pretty much trained in the ways of reading and interpreting Agnes Nutter’s prophecies. She has trained every moment since she was a child in the ways of occult studies and believes to a fault that she has no choice. The clearest example is how she doesn’t (really) choose to sleep with Newt because she liked him, or knew him, or seemed to care at all about his feeling on the matter, but because it was foretold. There is no real sense of choice.

Now, it seemed to have worked out, with them happily ending, but it’s “happiness” balances upon the fact that with Newt’s support, Anathema CHOOSES to reject the predestined nature of being a descendant. While I’m sure Aziraphale weeps over the loss of more accurate prophesies from Agnes Nutter, her decision to burn the second book is crucial not only to her sense of self but to the core message of what it means to be human. To have choices.

Then, there’s Adam, the adversary... >incredibly long title/name<. His friend’s support allows him to make the choices he wants to make, and be proactive with his powers. Aziraphale says it best when he says he feared Adam would be Hell incarnate but hoped he would be Heaven incarnate, but he’s neither, and that’s a GOOD thing.

“An Ineffable Game of Own Creation”

But why go through all of this in an Honesty series?

Consider, for a moment, this phrase “God does not play games with the Universe”. It’s a phrase that nicely bookends the series, appearing prominently in the first few minutes of episode one, and again after Adam and his friends have bested War, Famine, Pollution, and Death. But, what does its appearance mean, if anything?

Choice.

This (book/tv) series is really predicated upon choice. And, consequently the presumed lack thereof our characters have. Again and again, we are shown that the Angels, the demons, Anathema, and even God herself, repeat the idea that “God is not guessing” or “we make no real choices”.

But Adam, Crowley, and Aziraphale reject this notion and actively create an alternative.

Adam rejects his destiny, he rejects his demonic father and chooses to leave the garden (versus the original Adam and Even who were shunned, cast out, and really isn’t that a traumatizing experience in itself?) because he chooses to be human.

But Adam is Human (at least now) how is this relevant to the ineffable duo? Two unquestionably supernatural entities?

Well, Crowley is as far as I can tell upon my 6,000th review of the series, has the series’ best ability to lie, even though few of his demon counterparts do. We’ll chalk it up to his imagination, but with this great power to deceive, he actively chooses to trust Aziraphale, to be honest, even if he’s hurt in the process.

Aziraphale meanwhile is a shit liar, especially compared to Crowley’s and the other Angel’s abilities. But he is a defensive one. He needs to protect himself, then Crowley, then humanity, but he can’t do that until he chooses to occupy the liminal space between Heaven and Hell.

But they can’t do this alone.

This “third” option that they’re carving out for themselves requires them to be blunt and honest and defensively protective of each other. This is why, when Crowley is in the bar, convinced Aziraphale is dead, he breaks down. Without Aziraphale, this third option is unobtainable because there is no one else who could share the space with him. There would be, nobody to love, as it were.

This is also why (I think) the lies from Metatron breaks Aziraphale. If it’s clear, even for an instant, that no one on his “side” is willing to consider an alternative option, an option that would spare demons, then he wants no part of that option. He flatly refuses to fight in a war that would mean the destruction of Crowley and tells the quartermaster as much in his epic swan dive out of Heaven.

This new space is distinctly not human in the literal sense (neither of them is human), but it’s also not heavenly or hellish. It’s a space for them to leave the garden, to continue to be who they are, fight for what they love and feel safe knowing they are a team (romantic or otherwise).

A third space is really what Crowley and Aziraphale have been working for since day one because no other force will consider that maybe, just maybe, there are alternatives to the good/bad, angel/demon, live/death dichotomies Heaven and Hell create for themselves. It is the place that Aziraphale will lie to protect, and Crowley will honestly confront if it means they are finally going the same speed, together.

TLDR: The way that honesty and lies work in this series allows for Crowley and Aziraphale to “break free” as it were and create a space for themselves to exist.

Thanks for coming to my TedTalk

#good omens #Ineffable Husbands #good omens meta #Aziraphale #crowley #anthony janthony crowley #gomens #gomens meta #in this essay I will #thanks for coming to my tedtalk #good omens honesty #good omens lies #meta #please give me feedback #i take constructive criticism #someone give them a hug

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