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vidavalor · 3 days

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This is why The Book of Life is both the most grave threat in GO... and also complete bullshit

I win at attention-grabbing titles today, I think? 😊I don't think that Is The Book of Life real? is the question. I'm more interested in:

Who *believes* that The Book of Life is real and how does that impact their decisions?

Early in S2, there's the scene between Beez and Crowley in Hell, wherein they tell him that Heaven is threatening anyone involved with helping Gabriel with "Extreme Sanctions," which they define as being written out of a thing called 'The Book of Life'. They say that this doesn't just erase someone from existence-- it makes it so that they never existed at all in the first place.

While 'The Book of Life' (and a thing called 'The Book of The Damned') have a place in religions in our real life and are likely being alluded to a bit here, we know that GO puts its own, wonderfully subversive spin on things. More importantly, the scene between Crowley and Beez where Beez defines The Book of Life for us actually might tell us what the deal is with it already.

Crowley, upon hearing about The Book of Life as a threat, immediately tells Beez that there is actually no such thing. He says that they-- meaning the two of them-- made it up back in the day to tease more innocent angels. Crowley is confident of this fact when he's not always confident about his pre-fall recollections and, as a result, we're inclined to trust his opinion here, right? It's Crowley's doubt in himself that has caused us to start to complicate a thing that might actually be deceptively simple: it's not a thing.

We see the realization that Crowley is likely correct flicker on Beez's face when Crowley tells them that The Book of Life is not real... and then quickly disappear and be replaced by an attempt to gather their pride.

Both Beez and Crowley have faulty memories and many scenes in S2 show Crowley's struggle to recall some people and events from when he was an angel. Even if you think that Crowley plays with knowledge of this with other angels and demons (like with Furfur and/or Saraqael) and purposefully pretends to forget them, he admits to Gabriel near the end of S2 that he knows what Gabriel is going through from personal experience.

What Crowley is sure about, though, is a memory that he has of him and Beez teasing some angels and making up The Book of Life. Lord Beezlebub, though, doesn't have this memory. It's perhaps trauma-blocked for them, the way that many of Crowley's own have been and many still are.

When Crowley tells them that he's sure that The Book of Life is bullshit, we see a flicker of vulnerable horror pass over Beez's face for the briefest of moments before they double down and insist that, no, he has to be wrong, The Book of Life is real.

Why do they do this? Because they know that Crowley is likely correct and they're embarrassed.

Imagine being Beez, running Hell for all those years, and jumping to do whatever Heaven tells them to do to try to maintain order and stay alive, only to find out that the thing Heaven's threatening them with? It not only doesn't even exist but Beez themselves is one of the people who made it up. Heaven took Beez's memories and, with them, some of their sense of self, and then turned around and weaponized those memories against them. They've been frightening Beez half to death and making them do their bidding by threatening them with something they and Crowley once jokingly made up once while being silly and stupid.

That's... pretty dark, no?

Making matters worse? They once ordered Beez to try to kill their old friend, Crowley, and here he is in the present, the only person they can go to for help with finding the person they love before he's harmed even more by these same people who have hurt all of them... and Crowley remembers the friendship they once had more than Beez does. He has a kind of sweet memory of the two of them being friends and he's acting like one in the present by trying to look out for Beez through telling them the truth as much as he knows it. He's being kind to them...

Beez can't stand it. They don't think they deserve it and they feel like such a fool. If they admit the truth-- that they think Crowley's memory is correct and that they were wrong about The Book of Life-- then they're admitting that they were duped by Heaven for longer than anyone can count.

Would Crowley care about this or think lesser of them? No. He would empathize. It's not like he's not in the same boat as Beez, having also been harmed by Heaven and facing difficulties with his memories. He would understand and he'd continue to be kind about it... but Beez has their pride. Beez is embarrassed-- so, they double down. They change the course of the season as a result.

They tell Crowley that The Book of Life is a real thing and emphasize the threat. This causes Crowley to begin to doubt the validity of his own memory. It triggers his lack of trust in himself. He's already vulnerable about his memory but he was sure about this particular memory-- until Beez starts insisting that he's wrong. (To be fair to Beez, they both have such shit memories that it's easy to see how they'd both wind up operating under the assumptions that there's a real threat, even if talking more to one another and trying to figure it out together would have been the healthier way to handle it.)

Crowley thinks, well, Beez has run Hell for ages and surely they'd know more than him if Extreme Sanctions are a thing or not? He presumes that Beez has seen it done before, since they're insisting that it's real. He presumes that he's the one who is incorrect and, as a result, becomes convinced that Aziraphale is now risking his very existence to help Gabriel.

This then becomes Crowley's primary motivation for the whole season.

It's even eclipsed the terror he has over the idea of Aziraphale falling because, at least, if the worst happened and Aziraphale fell, he'd still be there. If Heaven erases Aziraphale from The Book of Life, though, according to Beez, Aziraphale will have never existed at all.

At thinking this a possibility, Crowley races back to the bookshop to help protect Gabriel as a way of trying to help protect Aziraphale. All season long, the threat of Aziraphale being The Book of Life'd looms large for Crowley. He even growls at Gabriel at one point that Aziraphale is risking "his existence" to help him. Gabriel also can't help Crowley determine if Extreme Sanctions are really a thing or not-- even if he likely would have been in a position to know previously-- because Gabriel's brain is experiencing technical difficulties and playing nothing but a Buddy Holly song for all of S2.

Crowley is also hesitant to tell Aziraphale about his fear of The Book of Life threat because he knows that Aziraphale is skating on the edge of a breakdown and that, while Aziraphale is strong overall, he is very, very fragile about the fact that Heaven abandoned him and no one has talked to him over the last four years until Gabriel showed up at the door.

Crowley also knows that Aziraphale is sensitive about the fact that all of what little information they can gather about what's doing in Heaven & Hell is coming from a demon Crowley knows because it highlights that, after all the years he gave Heaven, Aziraphale was left without anything remotely close to a friend up there, while Crowley still at least has a contact in a demon who needs him and his experience. That said demon also has a thing for Crowley adds further complications.

So, in an effort to not worsen things and to try to protect Aziraphale, Crowley doesn't tell him that Beez reached out to him for help because he doesn't want to tell Aziraphale that Beez needed him and that they had what is, for them, a fairly friendly chat. As a result of trying to keep that to himself, Crowley can't mention his terror over The Book of Life to Aziraphale.

This means he's alone with the thoughts of it for the season and his already high anxiety is worsened by the fact that seeing Gabriel's memory loss reminds him of his own frail memory, causing him to doubt himself more, and helping convince him that Beez was correct and they're all in massive trouble. He's not the only one trying to protect someone by not mentioning a threat to their existence, though...

The season goes on and Aziraphale goes to Edinburgh. On the way back, he lets Shax into The Bentley and Shax comments that she is "bemused that Crowley should risk his existence" to help Aziraphale. Aziraphale doesn't immediately question this as related to The Book of Life because he assumes that Shax means that Hell would destroy Crowley if they determined that he was involved-- that it's the same threat to Crowley's existence that has always existed. Still, it amps up his worry for Crowley's safety and when he gets back to London, he doesn't tell Crowley about his having met Shax.

Because Aziraphale doesn't bring this up, there is not an opportunity to for either of them to mention exactly how worried they are that the other might die over all of this. The subject of existence-- and how Crowley is worried that it ties to The Book of Life-- continues to not come up.

Fast forward to The Final Fifteen and now we have Michael in the bookshop living room, yelling that they're going to erase Aziraphale from The Book of Life. This is the first time in the season that Aziraphale has directly been confronted with the concept of Extreme Sanctions.

Michael, for their part, seems to genuinely believe in The Book of Life. We have several scenes earlier in the season showing Michael making a power grab in Gabriel's absence and tussling with Uriel over what little power either of them really do have. It's likely that, even if The Book of Life is a thing that does exist, Michael doesn't actually have the ability to erase anyone from existence. (Not even a fascist regime would be dumb enough to give that power to Michael lol.)

What could be the case, though, is that the angels are also told this is real from being the frightened cherubs back in the day lol and all presume that The Supreme Archangel must have the power to do this because, well, they're The Supreme Archangel. (Even if it's really The Metatron who runs the show.) Michael thinks that if they sound like they have the power, it's as good as actually having the power, and it will result in them being seen as Gabriel's replacement. You know the idea of acting as if you already have the job you want to get the job you want? Michael seems to be doing that in 2.06.

What's true, though, is that there is no evidence that Michael has ever seen a case of Extreme Sanctions in action, either... and there's also zero indication that The Metatron actually told Michael that they were authorized to do such a thing, if it does exist. The opposite, actually, seems to be true...

What we did see is The Metatron order Saraqael and Michael to find Gabriel without specifying how and that Michael then took it upon themselves to enlist Beez for assistance. At no point does using Extreme Sanctions seem to be anything but Michael's idea of a motivational tool to get Beez to help them find Gabriel (as Michael didn't know that Beez was already personally motivated to locate Gabriel... and then help keep him away from the angels).

So, we're saying that Michael doesn't actually know fuck all about fuck all where this topic is concerned and them threatening to use Extreme Sanctions doesn't actually mean that they exist. This is pretty heavily suggested by this scene here...

Whoever the being being played by Derek Jacobi who shows up at the bookshop in the middle of Michael's 2.06 tirade actually is-- Satan, The Metatron, Satan-in-The-Metatron, All of The Them standing on each other's shoulders in a Metatron suit, whoever-- Michael comes to believe that this is The Metatron... and this being whom Michael believes is The Metatron shuts down the idea that Michael could write someone out of The Book of Life hard.

While this can be seen as another type of power play-- shutting down Michael to establish that he's actually the most powerful person in the room and that being a low key threat to all of them, including both Michael and Aziraphale... it doesn't necessarily mean that this being is lying about The Book of Life.

For one thing? Michael, once told that the being in front of them is The Metatron, believes it, so, when whom they think is The Metatron tells them that what they're saying about The Book of Life is "utter balderdash-- I mean, complete piffle", Michael doesn't say anything that suggests confusion over that.

If The Metatron was the one out here authorizing Extreme Sanctions and telling Michael to threaten anyone helping Gabriel with erasure from The Book of Life, Michael would have started to splutter here and said something along the lines of 'but, but, Daaaad, you said I could?!' lol. Instead, they appear to just be embarrassed to have been caught out threatening something they can't actually do. This furthers the suggestion that, not only can Michael not actually do it, they've probably never seen it done-- adding to the suggestion that The Book of Life is not actually a thing.

Complicating matters is that, for their own safety, Beez and Gabriel are gone by this point in the story-- and Gabriel has his memories back. If Gabriel had still been in the bookshop at this point, he could have made it clear that Michael didn't have the power to do that and he might have also been able to tell Crowley and Aziraphale that The Book of Life isn't real, provided he knew the truth about it. One of the reasons to pull Gabriel from the story prior to this, from a writing standpoint, would be to take away a character who could provide Crowley with that knowledge because the point of Crowley having been panicked about it all season is to lead to it affecting how he views the events in this episode and the plan he makes and tries to convey to Aziraphale in the pivotal "no nightingales" scene. You could argue one of the reasons to wait so long for Gabriel to get his memories back in the story is for this purpose-- any sooner and there would have been time to tell Crowley the truth and then you wouldn't have Crowley trying to save Aziraphale from non-existence in 2.06 by suggesting the only thing he can think of that might keep that from happening (which we'll look at in another meta about that scene.)

Because "The Metatron" shuts Michael up about The Book of Life, Aziraphale puts it on simmer in the back of his mind because, as he goes with "The Metatron", he has other, more devilish, concerns on his mind. There is evidence in 2.06 to suggest that, by the time he's come back to the shop after talking with "The Metatron", that he's pretty convinced that there is a strong possbility that this is really Satan and that he could be falling/about to fall.

He tries to convey this to Crowley but Crowley is not only blocked from seeing it because Satan can influence him-- like he did to prompt Crowley into identifying him as The Metatron-- but because Crowley still thinks the bigger threat is The Book of Life. He's still worried that he can't trust his own mind and that Beez was correct. In reality, though, all of the bells and whistles and noise about The Book of Life serves as a distraction from the real threat, which is Aziraphale falling. This influences what plan Crowley comes up with a bit while Aziraphale is with "The Metatron" because his motivation is to keep Aziraphale from being written out of existence.

Now, sure, it's possible that Heaven went and invented The Book of Life and made it a real weapon after it had just originally been a thing Beez and Crowley made up but if you look at what it's supposed to do, it's easy to see how unlikely that actually is. Why?

Because Heaven is a fascist regime run by The Metatron so the goal is always for him to maintain control over his little empire thing here and Extreme Sanctions? It's actually the exact opposite of that. We all know about the butterfly effect-- the idea that a single butterfly flapping its wings in one moment of time, if altered, would cause a ripple effect of other things to be altered that basically changes the course of the known universe, right? If Heaven really were to make it so that even just one of their angels were made to have never existed at all, they've essentially created a parallel universe. While those might likely exist, actively making them is not at all the goal of a character like The Metatron, who has a hard enough time keeping his own regime in line in this present universe.

There's also the question of the fact that this would be erasing one of God's creations in a way that reverses Her decision to have ever created them in the first place and I highly, highly doubt that The Metatron actually has the power to do that, let alone any of the other angels. That feels very "only God could ever do this and She has no desire to" to me.

Beyond that, there's how Crowley phrased it to Beez: "It's just something we used to joke about to frighten the cherubs."

On a show with language this deliberate and that uses the etymological histories of words as part of telling its story, it seems worth pointing out that the origin of the word 'joke' is basically wordplay itself. This would seem like a suggestion to look at the wordplay that sits there in the phrase "Extreme Sanctions" because this very dark-sounding thing can also have a more positive connotation.

While sanctions are a penalty imposed for breaking a rule or an agreement or a law, to sanction something can have one of two extremely different meanings. One is to enforce the penalties we're talking about but the other is the exact opposite of that-- it's to give an official stamp of approval for an action.

Those who are helping keep Gabriel safe from The Metatron in S2 are threatened with "Extreme Sanctions" by Heaven... as in extreme punishment... but they'll likely be met with extreme sanctions by God... as in, God approves of them working together to protect Gabriel and of the actions they'll take as a result of what they learn by doing so.

God's like great job, you guys, extreme sanctions for real, keep it up, now go free the others 👍👍👍make it happen, make it real, kids, let's fucking go... it's not coincidental that I sent you the angel whose name means "messenger" to tell you that I'm giving this whole plot some extreme sanctions here...

You want to erase someone from The Book of Life? Ironically, from what we've seen, besides God, only Crowley himself could probably do that because doing so would alter the makeup of the universe he created and completed with Aziraphale's help.

This is the literal Book of Life: