Trauma and love

[halojedha]

We see Crowley saving Aziraphale in Paris, and again in the church. Crowley also saves Aziraphale from being recalled to Heaven in the cut Regency tailorshop scene, without Aziraphale finding out. Does Aziraphale ever save Crowley? The only time he actually protects Crowley is when he gives him the thermos (eventually), and then right at the end, when they protect each other. 

Until Armageddon, Aziraphale isn't very nice to Crowley. He rejects Crowley's request for holy water and calls their friendship "fraternising", even though the last two times we saw them (Paris and the tailorshop incident) Crowley saved Aziraphale. Then Crowley saves him again, despite having been rejected and talked down to in the "fraternising" conversation.

In the run up to Armageddon, Crowley has to work hard to get Aziraphale on board. Aziraphale is snooty, dismissive and, at the bandstand, downright hurtful. Crowley is all in. Aziraphale's not. 

Aziraphale is being abused by Gabriel, and is too traumatised and frightened to open up to Crowley. He rejects him out of fear. And Crowley keeps coming back.

Out of the two of them, Crowley is the more visibly loving, the more visibly devoted. It's one of the ways that they both subvert their expected roles.

Heaven and Hell are as bad as each other in the show. You don't want to get on the wrong side of either, and both show a contempt for human life. The Flood. Sodom and Gomorrah. Setting fire to the nunnery.

We know Crowley is traumatised by the Fall. Hell are bullies. But we don't see Crowley being controlled and gaslit by his superiors in the way Aziraphale is. Both Crowley and Aziraphale's trauma - the Fall and the abusive workplace - derive from Heaven, not  Hell.

In the Good Omens universe Heaven is the biggest baddy. Hell's not great, but Hell doesn't have pretensions of virtue. Heaven is just as bad as Hell if not worse AND it's manipulative and gaslighting in claiming to be Better.

Heaven claims to be Of Love, but in its violence it's the opposite. Its culture of fear is an obstacle to love and intimacy. Until Aziraphale lets go of his attachment to, and his fear of, Heaven, he's not free to return Crowley's love. 

Is Crowley's trauma and low self-worth since the Fall the reason for his willingness to stay loyal to Aziraphale, despite Aziraphale's rejections and the lack of parity in their relationship? Is the appeal of Aziraphale being "enough of a bastard to be worth knowing" because Crowley finds niceness boring as he claims... Or is it because deep down he doesn't believe he deserves niceness, and is addicted to Aziraphale because Aziraphale isn't actually very nice to him?

Whatever the root cause, the result is that the roles you might expect of angel and demon are reversed. Of the two of them Crowley is the more loving, more generous, more faithful.

 

Comments

[sfred]

It feels a bit like some of the Buffy/Spike dynamic? - the one who thinks they're not worthy gives more than the one who assumes they're Good.

[halojedha]

Yeah! It's a bit disappointing, because I want Aziraphale to be more generous than that. But as well as being kind and loving, he's also kind of a self indulgent prig.

[sfred]

And maybe there's something about having been told all along that you are intrinsically good and don't have to work at it or pay attention to it?

[kaberett]

<3