I Was Wondering Who Would Be The New Michael.

Everyone is for a descriptive approach to language rather than a prescriptive one, until there is the slightest disagreement abot the meaning of queerbaiting. At that point, you'll have the smuggiest people in earth acting like the meaning has been uncontroversially established through decades of academic consensus, and any dissent is tantamount to denying Gravity.

Ducks quack loudly before a rain. 📰 🦆 

Describing Terry Pratchett’s books is difficult. Someone asked me what the book I was reading was about, and I had to tell them it was about banking and the gold standard, but like in a cool way with golems and action. 

 I don’t think they believed me.

oh to be a pup being painted - by William Henry Hamilton Trood (1848-1899). 

I don't post much, I'm mostly here to lurk and I've been avoiding writing anything about The Big Moment in Good Omens season 2, because I need to rotate things in my head for a long time before I talk about them.

But after a few weeks, can I just say. It was so good. It was so fucking good. Like, of course, I'm miserable, chewing glass, scratching at the walls, etc. But it was so good.

The Tragedy of it. It's not a miscommunication, or a "bad-timing-by-a-few-seconds" kind of things. Crowley still declares (as much as he can), still kisses him (my personal interpretation of which being that he's trying to show that this isn't something Aziraphale can pout about until he changes his mind), still waits until the last possible moment.

It's a tragedy in the "classical" sense of the word. It ends in tears not because there was nothing to be done, but because who these characters are at the moment does not let them act in any other way. There are some fatal character flaws. I know it's a hotly debated issue around here at the moment, but in my opinion the fault lies mainly in Aziraphale. I love him, I think he was working on it, but he's still an angel with too much faith in Heaven. An understandable, reliable, hopeful mistake is still a mistake.

And I don't think the overall story is a tragedy. I don't think it will end in heartbreak. I'm going to let these characters live in the back of my brain for however long it takes to get a season 3, and when we do, I'll be right there.

Regarding the minisodes, I don't think the point was to show us that they trust each other implicitly. It's something I've been thinking about, so excuse the long reply.

The flashbacks in season 1, IMO, had 2 purposes:

Showing us how their relationship came to be as it is in present day. How they met, how they started getting along, how the Agreement came to be, fall out and reconciliation that they had over the centuries, etc.

Setting up the Holy Water ( if I remember the book correctly, it only shows up for the scene in Crowley's apartment, he didn't get it from Aziraphale and since the body swap is TV only, it never comes up again)

Your mileage may vary, but I think that this season's minisodes were only partially about their relationship (because everything is at least a bit about their relationship), they were more about Aziraphale. Specifically, Aziraphale's moral struggles.

A companion to Owls (the Job Minisode) shows us Aziraphale lying to the Heavenly Host to protect humans, and being very miserable about it (as a side note, I was screaming "Dude, you lied to GOD in the garden of Eden" during my first viewing, but on careful re-watch, his "I must have put the sword down somewhere" can still fall under the "technically true if extremely misleading" category, which apparently doesn't count for him).

In the Resurrectionists, Aziraphale spents most of his time encountering consequentialism for the first time, and trying to reconcile it with a deontological philosophy. Is defiling tombs a Wrong thing to do, if it leads to Good? I might be thinking to much about it, but it's interesting to see that after some reluctance, Aziraphale has a pretty standard reaction to encountering Consequentialism : it's great! It solves so many problems! And then runs smack down into 2 classic counter-arguments to Consequentialism: 1. you cannot actually know what the consequences to your actions are going to be (i.e., Wee Morag dying). 2. Consequentialism implies that the subject should be impartial as to who benefits and who suffers, as long as the overall Good outweighs the bad. But as Crowley points out, "It's different when you know them, isn't it?"

The moral argument in Nazi Zombie Flesheaters is at the very end. Aziraphale says that Crowley helping him means that he's not as bad as he says. Crowley replies that Heaven sees thing in black and white and sometimes, you have to blur the edges. They toast to shades of grey. Very very light/dark grey. And that's basically the moral position of Aziraphale as we know him in the present day: willing to make some concessions. But it's a compromise, and it's more about Crowley being good than, for instance, Heaven being bad.

The minisodes do other things, of course. A Companion to Owls reminds us of how awful Gabriel was, the Resurrectionists makes a link to the pub and explains why Crowley asks for the Holey Water, the Nazi Zombie Flesheaters shows us the trust (and I'll bet money that we haven't seen the last of these zombies). But I think they do work as foreshadowing for Aziraphale being overjoyed at the idea of being friend with Crowley without the moral complications.

(The discussion in the other reblogs was great, but I wanted to answer some points in this post specifically)

Can someone who actually liked the ending of s2 please explain to me why?

Franchouillarderie might be useful to the American scientists who are planning on fleeing to France ...

If you were to talk about Concorde, would you do it on an episode of Britainology or Well There's Your Problem?

Britainology? Britainology?! Not unless it was a 50-50 shared episode with, like, Franchouillarderie, the French equivalent of Britainology

I was recently reminded of this and it's just as funny now as it was then.

I have very conflicted feelings about Jean Vicquemare but I think this sums it up pretty well