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'It's A Cold And It's A Broken Hallelujah' - Queer lens as default: Crowley (and Heaven and hell)
So, originally this meta was tacked onto the back of my Sugar Daddy meta. Because
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
purplefringe went and posted a vid that was like… this meta, in vid form. Please go watch: Apart from the fact that I wrote most of this before she posted her vid, it could be a commentary on it (well, the Crowley parts of it), and I have shamelessly stolen the song lyrics for my headings. This essay delves into the same issues, just with written meta rather than gut-wrenching poetry.
(Re-posted now in its own post because I always meant to pull it out as its own thing. And hey, 6 months!)
Queer lens as default: Crowley (and Heaven and hell)
And THEN Owls posted meta on the historical significance of the Crowley/Aziraphale meetings, which I can also link to:
The (gay) history of the world through Good Omens: Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship seems to progress in almost lock-step parallel to attitudes about homosexuality throughout history.
Above, we have tracked Aziraphale’s development in great detail, his self-acceptance and his choices. But how does that sit within the wider ‘verse? And where does Crowley fit in? We know Crowley fell a long long time ago, and he is, essentially, Aziraphale’s guide, the old hand who’s been through the mill and is battling demons of his own.
But before we get to Crowley we need to set the world in order - how does this ‘verse function and what is trying to do?
Good Omens is a world with angels and demons, Heaven and hell, a literal Garden of Eden, and a God who narrates. But, although it uses a lot of Christian imagery and Biblical events (much like J. K. Rowling’s Dementors draw heavily on Tolkien’s Ring Wraiths), it does not follow Christian theology - it is a fairy tale.
Allow me to explain…
Let’s talk about Ineffable Plans. In Christian Theology the Ineffable Plan is summed up in John 3.16. Jesus was executed because he claimed to be God, and the Resurrection was THE victory. A victory borne out of submission and love, something unexpected and that people still have problems with. And the point of it was to save people. (I could go on, but I’m not going to. Grab John’s gospel for further insights.)
But in Good Omens Jesus’ death comes about (according to our POV characters, which is what matters) because he told people to be kind to each other. Crowley, cynically, remarks “Yeah, that’d do it.”
Ergo we are in a fairy tale, but one using a lot of Christian symbols. Which might be because of ease (the connotations are all built in), but also maybe because it wants to say something about Christianity and/or religion. And we certainly have plenty of fodder in the angels’/Heaven’s behaviour. But the book scene where Aziraphale possesses a TV evangelist did not make it cut to the screen (it was in the original script however), so the point is not to criticise religion generally, or tackling it in the ways we are used to.
(Sidebar: In the book, Heaven and hell are fairly obvious metaphors for the two sides in the Cold War, something that’s fallen by the wayside pretty much completely in the TV show, what with the different world we now live in. Pollution, sadly, is still as relevant as ever, although Pestilence is having somewhat of a comeback with all the anti-vaxxers. *sigh*)
So, what I propose is that this is a queer fairy tale. Fundamentally so. Go read Owls’ historical meta that I linked to above, and remember, this is the show where God is female, and Adam and Eve are black and Neil has stated that everything is meant. Including, presumably, the (queer) dates and times and places that our main characters meet and interact. So, speaking of Ineffable Plans, I propose that within Good Omens, God’s [i.e. the authors’] Ineffable Plan is to give our two little queer love birds a happy ending. And they have to journey through the whole of human history, and they have to deal with all kinds of crap - which I shall be laying out below, in detail - but the whole thing, the apocalypse, the entire gallery of heroes and villains and chattering nuns and witches and witch finders and the four horsemen and all the rest, are there for the sake of our angel and our demon, to throw a light on the absolute incredible mountain of pain and obstacles queer people have [had] to endure just to carve themselves a place in the world. And of course God doesn’t talk to them, she (they) just narrate(s).
Ergo: queer fairy tale, QED. ☺
This feat is an extraordinary thing in and of itself. However, you should also see this short post on why it is so important.
(Please note, other interpretations and lenses are available. We all see different things, and this reading does not cancel out any others.)
Now (almost magically) when we look at it through a queer lens, everything suddenly lines up beautifully.
I don’t really need to talk about Aziraphale, since his journey is so beautifully laid out by Owls [Big Gay Thot meta]. The important part for this meta, is how Heaven stands in for that particular bigoted aspect of religion - the one where it’s more important to fight ‘evil’ (i.e. anything that doesn’t fit within very carefully curated parameters) than to actually do good and love thy neighbour or, you know, follow any of Jesus’ actual teachings (remember, Jesus hung out with the most appalling people - sinners and tax collectors and dancing girls and poor fishermen, not Respectable People™). Here it is used in the context of homophobia, but the pattern is the same whatever flavour of bigotry you subscribe to - step outside the boundaries, question authority, disobey your orders, and you’re thrown out. It’s a very real power, and one that maims countless lives, forcing people to choose between being true to themselves, or losing their home/family/community. We see Aziraphale struggling with this throughout the whole timespan of Earth’s history, and he has to lose everything before finally realising that actually, he has a different home, and a different family.
Which brings us to Crowley.
Well baby, I've been here before
I've seen this room and I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew ya
So, when I was trying to figure it all out, hell was a bit of a headache. Because hell is genuinely horrible and full of evil things - basically it tracks, theologically, the way the rest of the ‘verse doesn’t. Hastur & Ligur’s ‘Tempation of the Day’ at the beginning could have come straight out of C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters. And yet Crowley… isn’t that. He sauntered vaguely downwards, hung out with the wrong people, but he isn’t evil in that sense. So how did he fit?
Except once I looked through the queer lens (or rather, removed the default hetero-normative one, ugh, it sticks to everything) it all made perfect sense.
Hell is hell. Hell is full of terrible things. But when ‘Heaven’ draws everything in binary, then anything that isn’t perfectly ‘white’ might as well be black. And thus, Crowley ‘fell’ — it’s not that he is ‘evil’ (in the sense of Hastur or Beelzebub), it’s that he wasn’t willing to follow Heaven’s restrictive rules and was thus cast out as ‘other’.
In queer [metaphor] terms though, what does this mean? It means that Crowley is the guy who was ‘outed’ a long, long, long time ago. Before anything was legal, before the very idea that gay people might ever be accepted. Being ‘homosexual’ (or anything apart from straight and cis) was defacto bad, sinful, and meant that you were damned. You were going to hell, no question about it.
Owls’ aside: ‘Crowley waltzed out of that closet in 3 inch Louboutin stilettos.’ (Yes, you can take a moment to just sit with that mental image - I’m definitely dragging the Sugar Daddy into this, cause queer show; it is glorious and defiant and fabulous, darling.)
So Crowley did what many such people did and said ‘Fuck you!’ to his former home and embraced being his own, flamboyant, rebellious, oft-gender-blurring ‘bad’ self. And caused trouble as best he knew.
Sidebar: Crowley is very good at his job. The M25 *is* a stroke of genius, and when you next watch the scene where Aziraphale and he get drunk after he’s delivered the Antichrist, please note how expertly he gets Aziraphale to agree to his proposition of influencing the child. It’s masterful and shows how very very good he is at tempting.
But he also knows the price of standing out (see him cautioning Aziraphale for walking into a revolution with a big target on his chest) and takes Aziraphale under his wing (yes, I know), but at the same time is also unable to stop himself tempting his angel and questioning ‘the party line’ any chance he gets.
Crowley: You’re so clever. How can somebody as clever as you be so stupid?
However, he doesn’t like hell. And ‘never really gave up on/Breakin' out of this two-star town’.
Sidebar: Interesting meta on Crowley and hell here.
He isn’t really meant to be there, it’s just that there were no other options. (And in many places, there still isn’t.)
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya
What all this means is that Crowley is the walking wounded. There is a lot of Tumblr meta about how his plants are his [possibly subconscious] attempt at re-creating a Garden of Eden of his own, and that he treats them the way he himself was treated - harsh and unforgiving, for faults they cannot help. (Tumblr post 1 / Tumblr post 2)
“GROW BETTER!” he yells, because that’s what life has taught him (And, just to break your heart even more). One tiny blemish, one ‘fault’ (that you can’t help) and that’s it, you’re out.
I shall here quote something from the second Tumblr post:
‘imagine how Crowley feels when Aziraphale comes into his flat and looks at his
imagine how that feels, imagine how it feels to have someone take the punching bag you’ve taped your own face to, and instead they hug it, how fucking gobsmacked would you be about that’
So Crowley’s story is about learning to be loved (and here is why, despite everything, he might be terrified of that) and for someone to believe in him.
In the bandstand scene Aziraphale keeps throwing his demon status in his face, and Crowley tries to cut through - he tries so hard - but he keeps getting shot down. Aziraphale still believes that somehow he can talk sense into Heaven, but Crowley knows better; the pointedly pious and still hopeful versus the old and disillusioned - because Crowley knows exactly how likely they are to listen. So he tries a different tack, because what he wants is to keep Aziraphale safe, and knows that nobody else cares about this.
Hence ‘We’re on our own side’, but Aziraphale isn’t ready for that yet. And Crowley’s weary resignation when Aziraphale ‘breaks up’ is heartbreaking. This is what happens if you put your faith in others - they let you down.
Aziraphale - very successful at research and piecing together information - tries and fails and blunders around when it comes to attempting to sway Heaven.
Crowley is far more practical once he realises they have been discovered. When his second attempt at talking Aziraphale into running away fails (and this time he’s desperate, because he knows what they do to ‘people like them’, he’s lived it) he defaults to the plans he started making more than a century ago. Using the Holy Water is brutal, ‘But all I've ever learned from love/Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya’. He expects no mercy, so gives none. (Sidebar: Trapping Hastur in the answer machine is yet another stroke of Crowley-genius. I love it.)
And then he goes to find his angel, who has in the meantime had a few harsh truths pointed out so bluntly that he can no longer ignore them (“Don’t think your boyfriend in the dark glasses can get you special treatment in hell” - and of course the Megatron being dully disinterested), and has reached back out to Crowley - and Crowley arrives to the bookshop burning (they’ll both lose their ‘homes’ on Earth to fire) and Aziraphale is gone.
And at this point Crowley just gives up.
Crowley: “There aren’t any right people. There’s just God. Moving in mysterious ways and NOT TALKING TO ANY OF US.”
Because he has lost the one person he cared about, and there’s no point running away all on his own. For him, the Apocalypse has already happened. I think he loves the world - we even see him pleading with God before this, but I think there is also a lot self-identification going on:
Crowley: “I only ever asked questions. That’s all it took to be a demon in the old days. Great Plan? Hey! God! Are you listening? Show me a Great Plan! Okay, I know you’re testing them, you said you were going to test them. But you shouldn’t test them to destruction… Not to the end of the world.”
And the unspoken message that lies below: Not like you did to me.
The world is messy and complicated and asks questions and is a place where Crowley feels at home. And it is full of things that Crowley likes. Like fancy clothes and Bentleys and sunglasses and… Aziraphale.
Aziraphale is an intrinsic part of the world for Crowley. He has loved the world with Aziraphale, from the beginning. It’s been a joint effort. They’ve balanced each other out, understood each other, and now… what is the world without his angel? What is he?
Except of course his angel returns, and Crowley’s whole world almost keels over, before snapping back into focus. Because what Aziraphale says, in not so many words, is ‘We’re on our own side’. And it’s all Crowley has ever wanted or needed.
So he will drive his Bentley to destruction, through fire - his own fire, and I think there is a very nice metaphor in there about having to be purified and going through the pain he has thoughtlessly created for others (because that’s what pain tends to do, we pass it on) - in order to ‘earn’ a place at his angel’s side (can everyone say Ineffable Plan?). And a) we get it specifically pointed out that he has an imagination (to further mark him as different to the other demons) and b) he loses the Bentley, just like Aziraphale has lost the bookshop.
And now we get to where everything overlaps with what’s above. As I said, they have spent centuries working together, often with Aziraphale getting into trouble and Crowley having to rescue him (sometimes genuine danger, sometimes it seems like Aziraphale does it on purpose because he likes to be rescued).
What it does is cast Crowley - the demon, the bad guy, the tempter, the Fallen, as… the hero. The Rescuer. The white knight. The saviour.
And it’s been a game (in any way you care to read it), but now Aziraphale pushes it to breaking point. And believes in Crowley. It’s the end of the world, and he hands it all to Crowley, saying: “Come up with something.”
And then Crowley came up with something
The fate of the world in the hands of a demon.
Crowley has spent his entire life since the Fall being told that he’s evil and untrustworthy, even by Aziraphale, casually, constantly (Crowley: “Would I lie to you?”/Aziraphale: “Of course, you are a demon”), and now his angel puts his entire faith in Crowley’s ability to care and improvise, essentially trusting a demon’s love to save the day.
It’s exquisite. And world changing. Quite literally, for Crowley.
And this is where I thought I might be able to leave off the Buffy parallels, but… the line that reminds me of Crowley more than any other, is Spike’s: “I’m not good, but I’m OK”.
Spike - the demon who defied his nature and decides to fight on the side of good, for the sake of love…
Except Good Omens is a very different show, with very different metaphors and very different stories. Crowley’s journey isn’t about fighting to become ‘a better man’ - it’s about learning that he’s more than just ‘a demon’, that he is worth saving and being cared about just the way he is. That he can have dreams and watch them come true, that he can be in a relationship and be happy as he is. That he can be the protector and carer like he always wanted, that this can be his defining role, that love doesn’t mean rejection, but acceptance. (See alllll the fic about how he hides his eyes and how Aziraphale declares that he loves them.)
That the Hallelujah can be un-broken, and sung with joy. As a duet.
No wonder he goes through fire three times for his angel. And that final time they trust each other with their bodies, in a way no one thought possible:
Aziraphale: “Pity I can’t inhabit [your body]. But angel, demon… We’d probably explode.”
Because as stated above, Aziraphale isn’t thrown out of Heaven. And doesn’t want to run away to Alpha Centauri under cover of darkness. Aziraphale chooses Crowley. He very carefully and deliberately says: ‘You matter to me more than anything else.’ Imagine what that does to someone who has spent their whole life being told they are unworthy [of love, of consideration, of trust].
Owls: ‘Crowley is perfectly comfortable loving himself, but that is survival instinct in response to being universally rejected, to be loved by someone else is a different thing entirely.’ (And Tumblr grasped that instinctively)
To bring it all back to RL, it all reminded me of this story from the Marriage Equality referendum in Ireland:
[Andy Hinds, 64] told BuzzFeed News what life was like for him in Derry in the 1960s.
"At the age of 14 I remember praying to God that I wouldn't be a queer, because I suspected I was. The word gay didn't exist in Derry. I thought what queers did was had quick fumbles up in the darkness of back lanes. I didn't even conceive that gay men could kiss each other."
He continued: "I remember the first time I laid down with a guy, I thought, 'This is extraordinary; I didn't know you could lie down and hold a man,' because I had never seen it or heard about it. I didn't know you could kiss. And then this guy took me out in a car and put the back seats down and got a sleeping bag out and we just laid down and held each other and I thought, 'This is incredible.' A whole new world opened up. I still remember his name: Roy King."
What Aziraphale gives Crowley is something new. The idea that he doesn’t have to be alone. That there is a third option, that they can be on their own side - not in a reflex rejection of the other options, and not by running away, but in creating their own thing. Make a space that wasn’t there before.
Sure they have to overcome the combined forces of Heaven and hell to get there, to break free and claim their freedom and be able to just live.
But that simple thing is worth more than words can say.
So yeah, I’m just going to go away and have a lot of FEELINGS. If you want fic (that will rip your heart out, and put it back together), then:
it's the light (it's the obstacle that casts it
Summary: The Patron Saint of London's LGBT Community is real, and he lives in Soho.
(Set in Soho in the 50s with everything that implies. And casting light on why our heroes might be cautious of touching each other.)
On The Matter Of Touch
Summary: For two ineffable husbands, they don't really touch each other much. Here is a story on why that might be.
(The ending of this damn near killed me - as per the quote above. But then, if something as simple as holding hands in public can get you attacked, how deep must the fear of touch run?)
But the final image I want to leave you with is this gem from Tumblr/Facebook, which is too perfect for words, and somehow sums up everything.
THIS IS THE SHOW
And it is GAY and glorious and dramatic and sweet and funny and heartbreaking - in short, the soft queer fairy tale we need and deserve.
(And then
purplefringe made a Crowley centric vid which references a lot of the things in here and the snake bites its own tail... Ouroboros:Gravity. I am a constant satellite / of your blazing sun)
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S'OK, it all sort of... overwhelmed me. I tacked it onto the Sugar Daddy meta because it was all of a jumble together, but it deserves to stand on its own, I think.
Aziraphale is the one who is front & centre, but when delving down it's Crowley who sustains everything.
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If you haven't read any of her Doctor Who meta you should check it out (especially What the Thunder Said (Meta on the Doctor Falls and the Twelfth Doctor's era).
Be careful, though. She's a powerful temptress. Once she decides to tempt you with something fannish, you're a goner. I know this from long experience... :D
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I'm sure that at some point my LJ name was Queen of Meta, until I just changed it to Mrs Darcy... And thank you for the kink words and the rec. <3
Be careful, though. She's a powerful temptress. Once she decides to tempt you with something fannish, you're a goner. I know this from long experience... :D
(I won you over to Eleven. I'm not just good at tempting, I'm in it for the long haul!)
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You will ALWAYS be Queen of Meta!!!
I won you over to Eleven. I'm not just good at tempting, I'm in it for the long haul!
You certainly are!
(I still can't quite believe how patient you have been with me...)
♥ ♥
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(I still can't quite believe how patient you have been with me...)
Good things come to those who wait. (You are familiar with THE Guiness advert, y/y?)
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I wasn't, but now I am! :)
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