So we all assume Crowley has no chill because we see him just careening from one disaster to the next in between bouts of shouting at plants and gazing at Aziraphale like he wants to swallow him whole.

But you know, the only two scenes in this entire series where he’s not under some kind of threat or deadlines or emotional distress are the very first (be funny if we both got it wrong) and the very last (to the world, though also slightly earlier, tempt you to a spot of lunch).

Apart from that...like...he’s pretty happy at Noah’s ark until he realizes what’s going on; and he’s only sort of light heartedly broody at Hamlet while convincing Aziraphale to do the coin toss. Annnnd yeah that’s it.

So essentially we have no idea what “not afraid he’s about to die” Crowley looks like except for what we can cobble together from these four scenes.

Which is, he smiles, he laughs, he teases Aziraphale in ways that make them both laugh. And that’s all we know. But he really does seem to be having something of a good time

Wonderful point. I must say it annoys me no end when people make gross interpretations of the character without taking into account the situations the character is in.

Someone pointed out that Crowley’s listed in the book’s personae as “an angel” (who didn’t fall, so much as sauntered vaguely downwards…). But there’s another, similar reference to his nature in the song at the end—“There were angels dining at the Ritz.” What I mean to say is that if Heaven’s angels were bad angels, maybe Crowley wasn’t. Maybe he was exactly as good as he was meant to be—a match for Aziraphale, anyway. Crowley asks Aziraphale at the bus stop if everything might have happened as God had ineffably planned it after all. And Aziraphale said he wouldn’t put it past Her. Maybe they were both God’s honest angels in the most ineffable sense, by being honestly themselves.

Also this bit! They’re the same kind of thing. Crowley knows it, when he’s not thinking too hard about it. And Aziraphale knows it:

He expected Crowley to be able to sense love, too, just like he can. That’s his real, instinctive opinion of Crowley. It’s only when he’s theorizing instead of feeling that he says Crowley wouldn’t understand love.

Which means the central conflict of their relationship is summed up beautifully in Crowley’s “You’re an angel—I don’t think you can do the wrong thing” and Aziraphale’s eager acceptance being followed immediately by “it’d be funny if you did the wrong thing and I did the right one,” and Aziraphale’s horror.

Crowley can believe in his angel’s goodness long before he can begin to trust in his own again; but he still knows in his core that his misalignment with Heaven isn’t a moral failure. And Aziraphale wants to be comforted and reassured in his rightness; but he won’t ever be able to believe in his heart that Crowley is wholly wrong.

Yes absolutely, this is exactly the point. I once saw a shitpost that described Crowley’s relationship to angelhood as “right species, wrong political party” and that’s a perfect summary of the situation tbh. Ultimately demons are not all that much different from their Heavenly counterparts.

The difference with Crowley, though, is that he hasn’t embraced bitterness like the other demons we’re introduced to. He’s still hurt, he’s still angry with God and a dedicated up-fucker of shit, but he ultimately refuses to be soured by hatred. The other demons we see hate Heaven, hate humans, hate each other, hate themselves, and are subsumed by that. They are not evil by any inherent nature, but because they’re in pain and making that everyone else’s problem.

Crowley, though, has made a radical choice to love, instead. Love the world, love Aziraphale… still working on loving himself, but he’s getting there.

And I use the word “choice” deliberately, because the whole point of both Aziraphale and Crowley is to prove that however much Heaven and Hell preach to the contrary, angels (fallen or otherwise) absolutely have free will. Heaven and Hell are both terrible. If Hell is loveless out of pain, Heaven is loveless out of fear (and the reason for that can be laid squarely at God’s feet for failing to handle Their rebellious little shit of a firstborn with grace… but the trauma all the angels on both sides are suffering from is a whole meta in and of itself). Point is, neither of the sides have any real, substantive love for anything, but Aziraphale and Crowley choose to love anyway, and choose to act in defense of what they love. It’s not so much that Crowley is closer to being a “good person” or that Aziraphale is closer to being a “bad person” than others of their kind, and more that they’re both closer to being real people.

They are, ultimately, the same kind of being. Despite the propaganda of Heaven and Hell preaching that they’re diametrically opposed and different from each other in every way, it’s clear that neither of them has been able to look at each other and truly believe that in their heart of hearts since almost the beginning. It’s the old “we’re all only human” concept, but in this case the refrain is “we’re all only angels.” Their differences are superficial at best, and deep down, when they’re not thinking too hard about it, both of them recognize that. They look at each other, and when they’re not trying to cling to the lies they’ve been fed about “the opposition,” they instinctively feel it.

“Oh,” their hearts say, “he’s just like me.”

BUT WAIT I’M NOT DONE!!!!

It’s also worth examining that, while Crowley has nothing in common, politically speaking, with Heaven, he is much closer to a human concept of what an angel should be than he is to the modern concept of a demon.

He owes something, certainly, to pre-Reformation and/or non-Christian depictions of demons as scholars and bringers of wisdom, and even perhaps a little something to trickster gods in non-Abrahamic religious traditions. But the more modern concept of a demon as a malignant entity gleefully bent on possession, death, and destruction? We wrestle with Crowley’s role as a demon because that’s not recognizable in him at all (and for that matter, so does Crowley, I think. “I’m just doing my job,” he says, so that he doesn’t have to emotionally deal with what Hell asks him to do).

But when the chips are down, we can recognize in Crowley and Aziraphale a pair of guardian angels for the whole world. Their role in Nopemageddon begins with Crowley’s intercession on behalf of humanity, his pleading with God’s representative on Earth to take action, to do something, anything, to save this beautiful planet that he loves so dearly. And it ends with Aziraphale convincing Crowley to put his own skin on the line, to back those words up with action and defend humanity not just intellectually but physically as well.

And that full-circle balance is worthy of a whole essay in and of itself but the point is that both Crowley and Aziraphale are more like what modern humans expect angels to be than they are like the reality of what the other angels and demons in their universe actually are.

geez your analysis is so worth it (and emotionnal)

I have more thoughts on this than can be articulated in a mere lunch break. I will have to think on this.

i’m never going to claim to be an expert on good omens characterization (came to the fandom slightly late, never read the book), but maybe the most confusing-yet-popular headcanon to me is the idea that crowley would continue to do random acts of evil ~for fun~ after the non-apocalypse.

like. i get that old habits die hard! and he’s a demon! but the evilness associated with his demon status doesn’t seem to be something that comes easily to him. it doesn’t even seem to be something he particularly enjoys! it’s just his shitty day job where he gets by on the bare minimum and takes credit for things humans are already doing. are you gonna keep doing your shitty day job after you won the ultimate lottery and broke free and never have to report to your old boss again???? 

the first time we see him in the show, he’s worried that he might have done the right thing. when he witnesses extreme suffering, he’s disturbed and sympathetic. and then over and over, he leans toward empathy and kindness when he can get away with it. it was his idea to save the world, of course.

so while i understand the appeal of mischievous crowley (and i totally agree that he’d have a flair for poetic justice), my favorite headcanon is that after everything is over, he’s finally free to actively do good things without needing to make excuses for them. maybe not in a drastic way, not at first. he eases into it. eases into helping. making people’s days a tiny bit brighter. and aziraphale notices, but he doesn’t call attention to it now, staying quietly proud. and crowley seems so much happier, so much lighter on his feet, than ever before. eventually, he finally feels safe spreading all the joy boldly and with purpose. 

i’m sure i’m not the only person with this headcanon, but i’m seeing the former pretty often, and i have too much of a sunshine brain to want anything other than the coziest future for the husbands. 

I feel like Crowley has always been a little bit torn between his inner prankster/troll and his desire to be good.

Like, he wants to save the world so he can continue going to concerts and drinking wine and all that. But he’s also really proud of his M25 job, or that whole elaborate thing he did with the phone network. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone, but he’s honestly good at that, even if Hell doesn’t see it.

So I think for a while he would keep doing them, because he has no other way of channeling his really quite clever brain, and also for the lulz (a phrase he either invented or took credit for). But, as I said, he doesn’t want to hurt people, and anyway he doesn’t want Hell to get the benefit of the low-grade evil he creates.

So I think when he finally starts looking for ways to help people, it’s his way of scratching that itch. And he doesn’t do it on an individual level because he always thought that was pointless, what are you going to do, help someone for like three seconds and think that does anything? Also Aziraphale would totally notice.

Instead, he looks at stuff like “how can I make London’s bus system like 17% more efficient?” And he’ll spend months planning it and making tiny changes and sneaking out in his f**k s**t up jacket while Aziraphale wonders what he might be getting up to. And in the end, it works - and a little evil is taken out of the world.

And slowly, over time, he makes people’s lives better by making the city a little bit better bit by bit. But always with the plausible deniability of “I was bored” or “I’m just messing with Hell” so he can explain it away when Aziraphale notices (as he inevitably does).

Until one day he finds he’s planning these sorts of reverse-capers just for the joy of it, and he’s actually taking pleasure from the smiles he sees on the street, knowing these people are a little happier because of him, no denial, just accepting who he is.

But also still occasionally gluing rare coins to the sidewalk and watching from a nearby cafe, because that s**t is hilarious.

There are plenty of ways to do mischievous pranks where the prank is ultimately a force for good. Some big inner city disruption that ends up being a protest for climate change action that makes the news, changing the design of a road–just like the M25 job–but the symbol is now an ancient symbol meaning freedom, ensuring that government documents revealing some internal nastiness are accidentally mass emailed to the media. He isn’t evil. But he is chaotic. He stands for knowledge and freedom and has done since the beginning and that can be good too. So, I guess he finds his way to becoming more clearly chaotic good?

And little mischievous pranks like his favourite gluing coins to the pavement thing aren’t good or evil. They are just funny. He can go right on doing them.

Crowley must have been a huge Marlene Dietrich fan (pt 1/2)

Marlene Dietrich was well known throughout her lifetime for her controversial yet elegant genderfluid styles chosen for herself, as a bisexual icon, her candid beliefs, and her ability to reinvent herself through her multifaceted career.

You can just imagine Crowley in the cinema, legs draped over the seat in front of him, seeing her for the first time, and taking notes.

He probably REALLY loved the way the audience reacted to that infamous same-sex kiss scene in "Morocco" where she wore drag. For its day, this was scandalous, shocking, provocative, and is still incredibly sexy.

Marlene Dietrich also openly despised the Third Reich. She was outspoken about her political views, which made her unwelcome in The Fatherland. She even went so far as to renounce her German citizenship and took up residence in America, performing for the Allied troops. Dietrich, along with a partner, put her own time and resources into a fund to aid Jews and dissidents escape from the war.

Crowley probably made a habit of visiting the pictures when of her films were playing. If people in the audience started talking loudly, he would kick their seat and spoil the endings for them.

She, too, lost her faith in God and renounced the religion she was born into.

Dietrich was also one of the first celebrities to start taking self-portrait photographs using a mirror, and was well-aware of what lighting suited her best (always lit from above).

So yeah, she also played a part in creating "selfie culture".

(Wait for part 2!)