AZIRAPHALE’S NARRATION, UNRESOLVED TRAUMA, AND THE NOTION OF CONTROL
Yesterday, I was scrolling on tumblr and I read a few posts that made me think about something. Both posts were related to Aziraphale’s narrator status in season 2 - the fact that he seems to be in another reality than Crowley, trapped into a narration he’s created for himself - the romantic tale of how he made two humans fall in love and how he solved a mysterious case. They both underlined the harmful nature of that behavior. The posts are from @sing-you-fools (here) - note that this post was liked by Neil Gaiman himself (that’s how I got to read it, and it was really good) - and @microclown (here) - I hope its okay to identify you. Since these posts are very interesting, given Neil Gaiman’s attention of one of these posts, and the fact that some other (very good) metas talk about how Aziraphale’s point of view is the center of this season’s narration (if I find them I will link them), I thought, damn, it must say something about him.
The main ideas I take from these posts are that:
- Aziraphale is stuck in his own fantasy / narration, which prevents him from giving attention to Crowley’s attempts to warn him of the danger that awaits them (and prevents Crowley from reaching out at Aziraphale in general - it estranges them);
- The way Aziraphale plans things (in his narrative, that’s how we’re going to call it) worsens their communication issues and makes their relationship become similar to Aziraphale’s relationship with Heaven: toxic, because controlling.
Below the cut, I will start to explore some reflexive tracks around the notion of narration, and see how it seems to be relevant with Aziraphale’s psychology and character arc.