''I’m pretty tired of the angsty self-loathing Crowley portrayals'' omg preach, idk where ppl get that characterization of crowley. I mean, to each their own, you can hc whatever you want and that's fine! It's just that I can't see any self-loathing too-damned-to-be-worthy crowley in the book/show, but that's just me xD
Nah, me neither. It’s probably more obvious if you’ve read the book than if you’ve only seen the show I suppose, but to me it’s obvious that Crowley’s anxiety / trauma / depression (pick your fighter) is caused by surrounding events out of his control rather than by his inner turmoils. Being bound to Hell ( which is actually not that bad for him ), and seeing the humans constantly doing fucked up shit are what make him desperate.It’s tough to have to suppress a huge part of his identity (the kind one), but he isn’t only just kind, and he takes pride and enjoyment in crafting temptations that rely on humans using their free will. He can have the occasional ethical problem, but mostly he is extremely stressed out that he has to be productive enough to Hell’s liking, that he has to hide his relationship with Aziraphale (and in the book that part seems to be rather easy). Crowley enjoys mischief, enjoy tempting humans because in his eyes it isn’t unethical. But he doesn’t have the right to embrace fully when he wants to do good things until his ties are cut with Hell. To me, Crowley is pretty at peace with who he is deep down. His troubles come from the fact that he actually has to hide it. Crowley is multi faceted. Sometimes he does nice things, sometimes he doesn’t. He has his own morality, but acts mostly out of self preservation and his actions doesn’t necessarily align with his moral compass. ( I said “mostly”, not “all the time”, and it’s important that at the end of the story Aziraphale is the one putting him into tracks to act in a last desperate attempt to save the world. Crowley knows it’s the right thing to do. His first reflex was to flee to have a slight chance of survival. But then he came back, ready to fight Satan, tire iron in hand / giving support to the antichrist. )Now with that being said, I do enjoy it on occasion when people explore the dark places Crowley’s mind can wander to and I’ve done so myself as well. But it really isn’t the core of his character ( he is depressed BUT he is an optimist! ) and I feel tired only because it seems to me the angsty stuff is a bit overwhelming in its quantity of fanarts and fanfics compared to … what must be 70% of fun caracteristics in Crowley’s personnality that also deserve to be explored. It’s extraordinarily interesting to have a demon with no real ethical issue with his job who also loves humanity for all its positive aspects, and have those two parts of his psychology not being contradictory. Also Crowley is a big nerd and that should really be the main aspect of his personnality at all times. And that part ain’t angsty at all lol( I’m pretty sure the show is mostly at blame as to why we have so many angsty portrayal, because of the scene where he interrogates God that can indeed lead to a multitude of questionnements and interpretations, and because of the wall slam scene and his reaction to being called “nice”. I like his reaction in the book much better, he’s like “yes, I know I’m nice, but I’m not supposed to, so please don’t say it out loud ?” and sighing.)
Also I forgot about it, but the drunk scene after Aziraphale’s discorporation is also a real shifting element between the portrayal of book and tv Crowley. Now I love this scene, and I’m glad we got it, but it definitely is a defining moment that takes tv Crowley in another direction compared to book Crowley. Book Crowley has more motivations and ties to Earth and humanity in the story than his TV counterpart, who seems mostly defined through his relationship with Aziraphale (and while I’m glad we got so many moments between them, and would really not have wanted for them to be less present in the show, it’s thematically disturbing. Once again, not complaining, just observing.) When Aziraphale gets discorporated in the book, Crowley is upset, but he barely grieves, and goes straight away to trying to save the world. On his own. With only a few hours left. He knows everything is lost, but for the slight chance that might work, he has to try it. Because he’s an optimist and believes he can / has to do it. TV Crowley is not able to do anything but get drunk and wait for the world to end when Aziraphale is gone. And it’s heartwrenching, and an emotionnal rollercoaster for us viewers, but you can see how this is a complete departure from his optimistic personnality ? TV Crowley gives up. This is fertile soil for angst. Now with all that being said, I used to feel weird about how Book Crowley didn’t mourn Aziraphale at all. It felt odd, to me, that this loss wouldn’t affect him. BUt then I saw someone comment something along the lines of “when you’re in a desperate traumatic situation sometimes your response is to shift into action and push the emotions on the side and just having to convince yourself yourself that it’s gonna work out” so I guess this take reconciled me with what was going on in the book. Therefore, it felt to me at first that drunk TV Crowley was kind of fixing the issue I had with the original book scene, but the more I think about it… The more I think that the book scene is more thematically fitting. I’ve said it before and I’ll probably keep saying it, but there’s something very neat and complementary about the book and the tv show. The characters and plot are just slightly different, slightly explored from a different point of view, the themes changed just so that we are offered two medias that can be understood and enjoyed in wildly different ways. The core of the book is more about its themes (which is why there’s a huge part without Crowley and Aziraphale, and though it makes perfect narrative sense I find it rather frustrating), but the TV show focuses way more on the relationship between Crowley and Aziraphale and their character arc, and everything is built around them instead of them being part of the plot as the rest of the characters and events. And I find it neat that we can have one media exploring the themes so thoroughly while another one is more narratively focused on the characters. It makes sense too that the book, with its written narration, can dedicate more time to exploring abstract concepts, while the show, being a visual media, needed to show stuff happening, and following characters around is one of the best ways to do that.
When thinking of the changes between book and TV it cannot be emphasized enough that Good Omens the book was written by two young men with the majority of their triumphs before them, while Good Omens the TV script was written by a grieving survivor expressly as a memorial to his missing best friend.
Gotta remember, too, that book!Crowley didn’t know what had happened to Aziraphale–only that the bookshop had caught fire and the angel was “out of the equation.” It’s not clear how TV!Crowley decided that Aziraphale had been killed, for that matter; he seemed pretty sure of it, so we’re left to make up whatever explanation we like as far as his being unable to sense Aziraphale anymore or whatever. But all he knew in the book was that he couldn’t find him. Being fundamentally an optimist, it may be as simple as his not jumping immediately to the worst possible conclusion, where TV!Crowley is more of a cynic and inclined to assume the worst.
I would suggest also that it isn’t themes vs character but themes vs different themes and characters vs different characters. Also, importantly, decade vs different decade!
The book was written in the 90s, when we were still thinking about the Cold War, and when being an anonymous bod in a corporate machine was a very relevant thing to think about. Crowley and Aziraphale are just rogue agents who’ve gone native, and who want to preserve the status quo against the forces of change. Now, in the 21st Century, the status quo is not comfortable, people are dealing with insidious surveillance culture and a much more controlling work presence. The Cold War and spy games are as old hat as cowboys and Indians. We’re looking at questions like how to be myself when the state may punish me for it.
Terry Pratchett was most interested in Adam and the Them. I always felt there was a tension in the book between the reader (and Gaiman?) who wanted Crowley to be the central character, and the increasing pull towards Adam as central. Pratchett was interested in self-determination and the choice to be a good person, and the rejection of corrupt framework and unwanted destiny in favour of personal ethics and self-governance. To a lesser degree, he was also writing about boys and their role models. The book was an expression of humanism told within a highly religious framework. I see parallels between what he did in GO with what he went on to do with Vimes and Carrot in the Watch books of Discworld.
For Neil Gaiman, Crowley was the main character in the book. That developed into Crowley and Aziraphale. So it isn’t surprising to me that he took the emotional core of the novel and developed it into the heart of the TV series. One of the ways to make the book work was to choose one set of characters to focus on. It could have been the Adam story, but I don’t think we need that in a world full of Youth vs Controlling Adults and Boys To Men stories.
But you couldn’t write Crowley and Aziraphale now as the kind of corporate rogues they were free to be in the early 90s. The structures we are fighting against now are different, and how they interact with us is different. For me, the differences between book and TV Aziraphale and Crowley come from the question, “What happens if the same characters are being treated very differently by their respective agencies?” And the reason for pursuing the relationship then has to change from “He’s not so different from me, despite playing for the opposite team, and it streamlines our lives to do a job here and there for each other” (which is just plain funny and very Pratchettian) to “He’s the only person who shows me kindness, loves what I love, and is anything like me, despite being tied to a family that hates me.” Which is much more Gaiman. He’s taken a Cold War story, updated it for the Big Brother state and thrown in Romeo and Juliet.
And, while the original theme of self-determination and rejection of destiny is still there, but applied to the newly central characters of Aziraphale and Crowley as well as Adam, there is also this emergent theme of the world-changing power of love in a hostile environment.