As today Sir Terry came up in the posts, I think it's time for me to finally try to put in words a thing that has been bugging me for a long time.
“There’s no greys, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.’
‘It’s a lot more complicated than that -’
‘No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”
― Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum
This is a conversation between Granny Weatherwax, the Witch and Mightily Oats, a priest of Om.
And I think it tells a lot about the morality of Good Omens as well. They are talking a lot about the blurred edges and shades of grey. We are talking about blurred edges and shades of grey. But that's not true. That doesn't matter.
The matter is, it seems, only Crowley and Aziraphale have the morals of Granny. If what Heaven is doing Good and what Hell is doing is Bad than they stand on their own doing what is RIGHT.
They don't treat people as things. EVEN GOD treat people as things (Flood, hello! Job, hello!) And even if God treat people like that how can we expect Heaven and Hell to act differently? How can someone call one of them Bad and the other Good, when they are both Wrong? Immoral. The whole unearthy lot, from top to bottom, from Satan to God is Sinful.
Can I say even amoral? I don't know beacuse I'm not sure if angels and demons (and God and Satan!) know what are the Morals. Yes, there are rules, laws, Commandments, and Virtue and all that bunch of stuff for humans. Demons do Bad things according to human standards, and as far as I can remember right now, angels don't do anything actually Good according to human standars. Angels, except one, are totally ignorant about what is good and what is bad according to humans. Or simply to humans. They treat people like things, more than Hell does. And yet, they still can consider themselves Good. Hell consider Heaven as Good however I have the weird feeling even Hell has more sense of morals than the Heavenly Office.
Heaven as the place of abosulte Bad, absolute Amorality... what an idea! Fear Heaven more than Hell!
Only Crowley and Aziraphale don't treat people as things. They have empathy. They both felt pity for Adam and Eve. They both saw the unjustisce of how and why they were cast out. They don't want to see people are used as paws in a gigantic divine chess play, because it is not right.
They are on their rightous moral side against everyone else. Becasue they know where real Sin starts. That's it. It is indeed black and white. No grey and no blurred edges. Just the line is not there where you expect it to be. In the end, this is a simple choice. Do you treat people as things or you don't?