promethia_tenk (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
promethia_tenk) wrote2023-08-26 12:54 pm
promethia_tenk) wrote2023-08-26 12:54 pm
I <3 my humanist show
(The Eden Disorder, by Naumaxia on YouTube.)
I love everything about Good Omens, but if I had to choose one thing, one single thing, it would be that Crowley is the Serpent of Eden. The show means nothing without it.
Do you ever think about how Aziraphale is a huge fan of Crowley's work? The collective output of knowledge and creativity of the human race is the direct result of the Fall from Eden.
The bookshop is a sort of post-fall Eden. Of course it's a haven. It also has a world tree in its center, though the summoning circle on the floor up through the cupola:
And all the fruits of knowledge strewn everywhere, abundant. The newly innocent Gabriel, like a reverse Adam, comes instinctively to the bookshop. "Who told you I was naked?" he asks Aziraphale. (cf: God saying "Who told you you were naked?" in Genesis.) He loves the books, but does not understand them. Crowley nearly makes him fall too (out the window) before deciding he can't. The Serpent of Eden, everybody:
But, and here's the crucial bit: the bookshop doesn't exist if Crowley isn't a demon. "If you don't change [the Bentley] back right now, I'm going to start selling people books! In fact, I might even give some away!" he threatens Aziraphale. Crowley lost his demon shell after subverting the apocalypse: both the job itself and the foreboding flat that went with it. What he has left of that identity is the black, low-slung, speeding Bentley and his garden of emotional trauma in the back seat. (Notice how he keeps the plants away from Aziraphale, only taking them into the bookshop when Aziraphale is out. Of course they belong in the bookshop: what's an Eden without the garden? Or its snake.)
A number of people have noted the change in color grading this season, and its primary effect, besides being just generally gorgeous, seems to be to highlight the similarities between Crowley's coloring and that of the bookshop. Most take it as a commentary on Aziraphale's preferences which, of course, it is: here's an excellent meta on the season as nesting fic (!) with an extended analysis of the bookshop coloring. A week or two ago I was watching especially the scenes of Crowley minding the shop while Aziraphale is in Edinburg, appreciating how harmonious he looks there. But if I'm honest with myself, what I was thinking wasn't 'Crowley looks like he belongs in the bookshop.' It was that Crowley is the bookshop:
Or its animating spirit, perhaps?:
Aziraphale may match the antique style of the place, but in shot after shot, he stands out against it (not as harshly as Muriel in her stark white, but it's still a contrast), while Crowley melts into the background like warmed chocolate:
Here's the thing, though: Aziraphale was ready to give up the bookshop. He was ready to give up the bookshop to make Crowley an angel again. That is indeed the trade-off, though he misunderstood cause and effect: the bookshop doesn't exist if Crowley isn't a demon. Aziraphale thought, rather sensibly, that the books are, at the end of the day, just things. And nothing last forever. What he didn't realize is the bookshop is everything.
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