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eightpuppet · 7 months

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There's been some posts around that want Aziraphale to be very badass next season. To show up, lick kick ass and take names in Heaven. There's been reminders about how he's a protector, a guardian and a BAMF, and should really go feral next season.

(Also some posts about how Crowley should do that, but that's not the subjext here. Also some posts about actually licking ass, but also not the subject here.)

And while the action movie and shounen anime fan in me appreciates the visceral satisfaction of that sort of thing, and I don't want anyone to feel guilty about wanting that, another part of me finds the thought incredibly tragic. That the angel who declared himself soft after Gabriel called him a lean mean fighting machine should become one after all. That the angel who threw down his uniform in front of his quartermaster and told him he has no intention of fighting in any war should have to go to war after all.

That's the solution? That the very first being in existence who gave up his sword willingly should pick it up again?

Well. He did already pick it up again one time. In the book to make a hopeless last stand in defense of humans, yes, which is about the only situation where that seems about right, but in the show he took one look at it and decided this could still be solved by talking. Or by threats of not talking, as it were. And it's the show we're talking about here.

And I don't know what the show's solution ultimately will be, but I want it to be, at least in part, because of Aziraphale's softness. His gentleness. The part of him that stops burglaries with baked goods. That deflects aggressive humans at graveyards with politeness, and in the end everyone involved benefits. The part that defiantly remains kind, even if he can be a bit of a bastard.

Or maybe even more than that, I want it to be his humanity. Humanity is infectious. It's a theme of Pratchett. And it's a theme of Good Omens. And it takes so very little. Gabriel and Beelzebub spend only years meeting each other on Earth, and lose their taste for what they live for, what is essentially their only purpose, and find their song (it contains information in a tuneful way, did you know?) Muriel, Heaven's biggest cinnamon roll that they are, couldn't grasp why Aziraphale was so upset about Job's children in the time of Uz, but one look at the world and they're amazed, one book and they're hooked.

Aziraphale knew Adam and Eve only for a few days, and felt so sorry for them after their punishment that he defied God's orders and then lied directly to Her illuminated face about it.

That's what I want to see, I think. The Metatron brought the most human of angels into Heaven by plying him with human drinks like coffee and human desires like love, and I want that to be his undoing. Humanity is infectious, and he's brought that infection to Heaven, and I want it to spread. All of us against them, all of humanity against Heaven (and eventually Hell,) except not quite like Crowley probably thought, because after all these years he still hasn't got the hang of us.

I want people-positive management style. I want the angels to at first be weirded out and maybe mutinous, but then grow to like it. I want them to get to know each other, not as coworkers, not as bees, but as friends. I want them to fall in love while gossiping about the weirdo Supreme Archangel who put up a suggestion box (because that definitely felt like a Foreshadowing, even if only for a joke) and then actually kinda like it, because some of their suggestions were heard and that's actually pretty nice. To be heard. I want them to figure out that they actually like to get some compliments for their work. To figure out that they actually kinda like Aziraphale's leadership style, and maybe resist when he eventually gets replaced for doing something off the wall.

(I may want to watch OFMD's first season again. I admit it.)

I want the angels to do things that spread humanity in them, like the cocoa going down Gabriel's mouth, throat and stomach, doing different things in every place, like Muriel opening a book and finding out it's just like people, and now they love books, and therefore people.

I want them to find their songs.

Maybe the angels also just need some baked goods. (Aziraphale had to miracle in the cherries.)

Maybe Aziraphale accidentally brings the six shot espresso Crowley angrily shoved at him during their latest attempt to talk with him, and someone tries it and likes it, and Aziraphale gives them permission to visit Earth to get more because why not, and it spreads, and the world doesn't end because where would the Heavenly Host get their coffee, and all of Heaven chooses coffee rather than death, because people are so predictable, aren't they, Metatron?

Maybe Muriel brings up a book and someone borrows it and it becomes this whole thing and they have to bring up even more books, and the angels don't want to destroy the Earth because they gotta know the end of some trilogy or another, and who knows, maybe GRRM will finish A Song of Ice and Fire after all, and Aziraphale indirectly saves the world not by being a badass, but by being the world's biggest book nerd, and okay, the bookshop didn't last forever, but it's okay, nothing does.

Maybe when there's a choice to watch something other than the Sound of Music, because the Supreme Archangel brought up some new films in the hopes of being able to watch literally anything else... the angels choose. And keep choosing. Because once you start, you can't stop, even if it starts with something small like "What should we watch today?", because humanity is infectious. Maybe they choose to taste ox, or sushi. Maybe they listen to something not by Liszt or Elgar. Maybe they'll have a look at a cup of tea.

I just don't want it to be Aziraphale's masterplan that goes off without a hitch. Or Crowley's. When have their plans ever solved anything? Their big plan wasn't enough to fool all the archangels that these were Job's new children, they only got away with it because of Aziraphale's status as an angel, and because Gabriel considered him beneath suspicion. Crowley's plan to fool Hell into thinking he only did a good thing because of being high on Laudanum didn't fool Hell, or Aziraphale, or anyone. And their plan to stop the Armageddon? We know all about that. The only successful plan they've ever had was given to them by Agnes Nutter.

Besides, seems like they're gonna be busy with Jesus, anyway.

I dunno. I'm rambling, and Gaiman's a much better writer than I am. But Heaven isn't toxic because angels, or even archangels, are inherently bad. We've seen that. It's more that it's a soulless corporate machine. I've heard the opinion that the book was more the absurdity of the Cold War, and the show is more capitalism is bad, and if so, I feel like the solution should reflect that. Putting Aziraphale in charge cannot solve that problem because they will always find some other schmuck to put in charge, same as they did with Gabriel.

But if the army doesn't show up because it doesn't want to fight? If everyone, not just Gabriel, says nah to the Apocalypse? If they just... don't show up to work?

(Alternatively, I guess they could eat the archangels. Put that gluttony of Aziraphale's to good use.)

#good omens #aziraphale #good omens heaven #good omens 2 #good omens 3 speculation

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