I meant S1, and I was thinking entirely in plot terms, not character ones. Thematically, it's perfect. But, while Adam's it-all-gets-fixed-because-I-say-so resolution is very well grounded, it is still a bit abrupt. And the more you try to think about the very specific details of what he did and the logic of how it worked, the harder it is to think about, and the less coherent sense it makes. Which is fine! It works in all the ways it needs, to, and I think the ways it doesn't work still actuality work, because this isn't a universe that runs strictly on logic, or in ways that humans are capable of understanding fully. And I think the fic feels pretty consistent with that, ultimately. Enough so that in the moment when I felt the impulse to go, "WTF?" and push back against the ways in which it wasn't entirely making sense to me, I was instead easily able to relax and think, "Ah, but it's Good Omens-y, though, it fits" and just happily go with it.
S2 does actually also end in a very sudden "there, now all that plot stuff is instantly cleared up" kind of way, but it turns out, in the end, to have been so much not actually about the plot stuff that it's hard to even care. :) Or at least, it was for me. And I certainly can't think of the very end of S2 as "rushed and WTF-ish," at least not in any kind of negative way, because it's not actually an end, it's a cliffhanger, and those are supposed to rush up on you and leave you going "WTF?!" And, in character terms, it does makes sense to me, too, for all the reasons you list, and then some.
I wonder if S3 will begin with a flashback to Crowley’s fall and it will turn out that what really caused Crowley’s fall wasn’t asking questions but believing that he was the one who could single-handedly fix the broken system, and if he left Aziraphale for Lucifer in the same way that Aziraphale left Crowley for the Metatron?
I don't know how I'd feel about seeing that play out in canon -- part of feels for some reason that it might be better if we never do see the Fall at all -- but I find that a really interesting idea. I always love a good parallel!
(One reason I dislike the idea of Crowley as Raphael is that it’s important to me that Aziraphale and Crowley be equals – equals in power, and also morally equal: they’re equally complicit.)
It's canon from S2 that Crowley was at least fairly high up in the tiers of the hierarchy and it seems likely that he would have outranked Aziraphale at least somewhat then, but that thought doesn't bother me, as it seems entirely irrelevant now. But the impulse to add as much extra-super-specialness as possible to characters who don't remotely need it does bother me, and in a lot of stories where the idea is used, it seems to be specifically because the author wants to introduce some power-imbalance angst, and that's not a thing I want, either.
Plus, it makes absolutely no sense! (And not in an appropriately "ineffable" way, either.) Crowley fell before humans existed. If he was Raphael, there would be no Angel Raphael in human art and mythology and etc. It baffles me why I have never seen anyone else pointing this out.
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S2 does actually also end in a very sudden "there, now all that plot stuff is instantly cleared up" kind of way, but it turns out, in the end, to have been so much not actually about the plot stuff that it's hard to even care. :) Or at least, it was for me. And I certainly can't think of the very end of S2 as "rushed and WTF-ish," at least not in any kind of negative way, because it's not actually an end, it's a cliffhanger, and those are supposed to rush up on you and leave you going "WTF?!" And, in character terms, it does makes sense to me, too, for all the reasons you list, and then some.
I wonder if S3 will begin with a flashback to Crowley’s fall and it will turn out that what really caused Crowley’s fall wasn’t asking questions but believing that he was the one who could single-handedly fix the broken system, and if he left Aziraphale for Lucifer in the same way that Aziraphale left Crowley for the Metatron?
I don't know how I'd feel about seeing that play out in canon -- part of feels for some reason that it might be better if we never do see the Fall at all -- but I find that a really interesting idea. I always love a good parallel!
(One reason I dislike the idea of Crowley as Raphael is that it’s important to me that Aziraphale and Crowley be equals – equals in power, and also morally equal: they’re equally complicit.)
It's canon from S2 that Crowley was at least fairly high up in the tiers of the hierarchy and it seems likely that he would have outranked Aziraphale at least somewhat then, but that thought doesn't bother me, as it seems entirely irrelevant now. But the impulse to add as much extra-super-specialness as possible to characters who don't remotely need it does bother me, and in a lot of stories where the idea is used, it seems to be specifically because the author wants to introduce some power-imbalance angst, and that's not a thing I want, either.
Plus, it makes absolutely no sense! (And not in an appropriately "ineffable" way, either.) Crowley fell before humans existed. If he was Raphael, there would be no Angel Raphael in human art and mythology and etc. It baffles me why I have never seen anyone else pointing this out.