Headscratchers / Good Omens (2019)

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If demons are so massively vulnerable to holy water, how is Heaven vs Hell not a curbstomp?

• I mean, how can there be a war if one side is utterly helpless against the other?
  • Because if the ending is any indicator, angels are equally as vulnerable to hellfire: (it being the thing - brought by a demon the same way archangel Michael brought the Holy water for Crowley's execution - set to kill Aziraphael when Heaven sentences him to die). It's not a curbstomb battle if both armies have the nukes.
  • In fact, that might be the REASON for the stalemate. When you're an immortal, you are generally either VERY afraid of death, or looking quite forward to it.

On Heaven and Hell and killing

• If Heaven and Hell thought Crowley and Aziraphale cannot be killed by Holy Water/Hellfire 'cause they've gone native'... why not kill them by conventional means? Stab 'Aziraphale' with a holy sword and launch a jet of Hellfire at 'Crowley'... That'd have done the trick, wouldn't it? It feels weird to see Heaven and Hell be baffled and frightened by it.
  • Based on the precautions they take in handling it, neither Crowley nor Aziraphale believe that the holy water won't affect Crowley - Crowley's reaction to being on 'holy ground' in the flashback suggests that they are right.
    • That's not what the troper is asking. We know it hurts him, and they know it hurts him. Hell, at the moment, thinks it does not, and is asking themselves why.
  • Angels and demons cannot be killed by conventional means, that was the whole point of the exercise. The holy water and hellfire are the only things that can erase them for good. Anything else does nothing but discorporate them, which is an inconvenience, but in no way actually does them any real harm.
    • The point is that the thing that was supposed to kill Crowley beyond any stretch of coming back, ever, did not kill Crowley, and the demons assume it's because Crowley has gone so native that he's no longer a demon at all. So, if he's not a demon, he's not immune to hellfire – why didn't they try it out?
    • As pointed out in the novel, demons (and angels) are inherently not a particular creative bunch. That's what makes humans human, as our creativity allows us to do things so hideous and/or noble that the celestial hosts could never conceive of.
  • Essentially, angels on either side (holy or unholy) are functionally immortal beings. They don't age, they don't require sustenance and they are afforded magical powers. If they would be killed by something in a manner similar to a normal human being, they merely lose their bodies and must wait for a new one to be forged, a process known as discorporation. The only thing that is lethal to angels is their soul weapons. For angels, holy water will destroy the soul of any demon, rendering them to nothing. This makes consecration a great defense tool against demonic influence in a church. Likewise, the fires of Hell can be weaponized by demons to burn angels to oblivion.
  • In addition, the superiors of both sides were worried that there was nothing that could harm them, since they are "immune" to hellfire and holy water. Bear in mind these two divine beings averted the Apocalypse and are immune to the one silver bullet you have to kill them; what might they do to you now there is nothing to stop them?
  • In addition, these being the only known vulnerabilities of angels/demons, thinking up new ways of killing an angel/demon requires imagination, something that demons (and, one can likely safely assume, angels) are explicitely said to lack.
  • An explanation could be in the small details. "Aziraphale" spitting hellfire and "Crowley" throwing holy water might look like they are done in jest, but in the minds of their superiors there is nothing stopping those two from actually using their respective execution methods against their executioners. It's like someone you just shot in the head, not only didn't even flinch but now has the gun pointed at you instead.
  • Additionally, angels and demons are infamous for a lack of creativity and next to no imagination. They saw their initial plan of execution didn't work, panicked, and never had the sense to try anything else.

Why did Crowley think Aziraphale was dead when he knows they discorporate?

• Why did Crowley mourn so much when Aziraphale was discorporated? They both know they don't die so easily. Only by very specific means hellfire and Holy water. So why did Crowley act like he'd never see him again?
  • As noted on the Fridge Horror page: "Aziraphale would be back in Heaven with no body. Among angels who are already mad at him, and at the cusp of "the big battle" so to speak - meaning Crowley would be seeing Aziraphale on the opposite side of the frontline at best and never at all (Heaven locking Aziraphale up till the battle is over and they either win, then kill Aziraphale and Crowley along with the rest of the demons or lose, and the demons kill Crowley and the captive Aziraphale along with the rest of the angels) at worst."
  • Alternately, he has reason to believe that Hell and Hastur in particular know about him and Aziraphale, and "burn down the building" was shown to be Hastur's known MO. Basically, Crowley could have easily concluded that Aziraphale wasn't just discorporated, but actually destroyed by Hastur using Hellfire.

Erasing

• When Adam makes his Satanic parentage un-happen, why does he still have his reality warping power at the end?
  • Because he didn't do that. He sent Satan back down to hell and denounced him, but he didn't really change who and what he is.
  • As far as Adam is concerned, his powers have nothing to do with his father, and since reality right now is based on his perception of things (who his father is, that Aziraphale should have a body of his own, etc.), reality changes so that his powers genuinely don't have anything to do with his father. This way, he doesn't even need Satan for them.
  • It's possible that rather than Adam making the bush wilt, it was Dog. Adam does appear to have rewritten reality so that he is no longer the son of Satan (the "you never were" part of his declaration to Satan), but Dog is still a hellhound.
  • He reboots reality after denouncing Satan so it's safe to say he still has his powers. He's still a supernatural being, he's just removed any association with Satan. Think of it as having Mr Young become his legal guardian and Satan losing his parental rights (while still being the biological father) only on a cosmic scale.
  • Does he? Wasn't that Almighty Herself helping him a little with that bush?
  • Well, his birth mother isn't mentioned, and since the God is female, it isn't out of question he retains the power from the other side.
  • That is at the absolute best an unfounded WMG. The book is much clearer that Adam is doing it. He didn't get rid of his powers. There's nothing in either book or series implying God had any hand in Adam's birth.
  • Remember the scene with the power plant. Adam is entirely capable of removing the "cause" of something while keeping the "effect" - his powers aren't bound by common sense.

WWII Spies

• If the Lady who hired Aziraphale was also a Nazi spy, why bother interrupting the execution on the pretense of rescuing him, only to get straight back to it?
  • Because Nazis are assholes and she thought it would be funny to troll him?
  • To reveal any extra backup he might have brought along without telling her.
  • To get any more information out of him that he had, and to make sure that if he'd distributed it elsewhere, he'd tell them about it first. They are spies, after all, and she'd need to debrief him at the very least before just letting him die.

Crêpes

• How is Paris the only good place to get crêpes? They are originally from Brittany, which was something of a royalist stronghold during the French Revolution, meaning it would have been a much safer place for Aziraphale to go without having to dress down. Additionally, crêpes are originally something of a poor people food, it seems a little hard to imagine that late 18th century Paris would have had any restaurants serving them.
  • Aziraphale is not omniscient, so he might well not know all that. All he may know is that when he was in Paris, he had crepes, and they were really good, so when he wanted more, he went back there. After all, he was absentminded enough to not realize there was a whole revolution going on, or that dressing like a British aristocrat was not the wisest move.
  • Also, a food item originating from one place doesn't make it a "good place" to go and get them; between Crowley and himself, Aziraphale has a particular discerning taste for whatever he's taking the time to consume when he doesn't need to.

Why destroy Earth?

• Seems to me that if Heaven and Hell really wanted their war, they didn't need to do it on Earth. The moon is entirely uninhabited, and I hear Alpha Centauri is great this time of year. I can understand Earth being their first choice (it IS traditional, after all), but after they blew that chance, they could have still gone elsewhere.
  • Both angels and demons reference "The Great Plan" several times regarding the Apocalypse. If The Great Plan says they have to have a war on Earth then they can't have it anywhere else.
  • They spell it out – the "Great Plan" is to have a world lasting 6000 years, then destroy it in the great final battle. Destroying Earth is the point.
    • They NEED humans there... Unfortunately for the humans its because they are the way of keeping scores who got the most souls.
  • Technically, 'winning' is the point (as far as either side is concerned), but part of the Great Plan dictates whoever wins 'gets' Earth. That nobody actually questions what they'll do with it afterward except in Adam's direction is telling.
  • Earth is the battleground because it's where the Antichrist is. Until him, neither side has the tipping point they need – with hellfire vs. holy water, it's become a 6,000 year Cold War. That's like wondering why, if America and Russia had just had somewhere else to fight, they wouldn't have done so: it's mutually assured destruction unless one of them gets the literal apocalypse on their side.

'Aziraphale's Trial'

• Crowley hotfoots it across the church during WWII but neither he nor the demon who brings up the Hellfire has any problem standing in Heaven. Seems like the 'Head office' should be as troublesome for Crowley to walk around as a church on Earth.
  • According to Crowley, the church was specifically 'consecrated ground,' which there wouldn't be any of in Heaven, as angels don't see any point to having it there. As for why there would be no point when, living within the same 'building,' a demon could come up or an angel could go down "at any point," neither side cares for direct subterfuge of the other, just their war.
  • Heaven (at least most of it) wouldn't be holy for the same reason a church's accountant's office wouldn't be holy; it's not a place the angels go to pray or express their faith, it's just where they work. Indeed it's questionable whether the angels even have faith, given as their actions seem more about obedience than actual zeal.
  • Aziraphale explains this when he and Crowley are discussing Free Will. To be truly 'holy' you need to have the opportunity to be evil and consciously choose not to, several times and whenever possible. The Angels don't that, and it's even implied that they're sometimes going against God's plan because they have no idea what it is. Also, Churches generally aren't devoted to Heaven or to Angels, but rather to God, with Heaven and Hell as a side effect. Since Heaven is devoted to the Angels rather than to God, Crowley shouldn't have any issue with it.
  • Alternatively, Heaven is 'consecrated' but either being in Aziraphale's body gives Crowley some resistance to it, he's making a concentrated effort not to show that's he's in pain because that would give away the ruse, or they staged the execution in a 'neutral ground' so that the other demon could bring them the hellfire.
  • Even if it would normally be painful for a demon to visit Heaven, presumably arrangements were made to accommodate the demon who brought the Hellfire, protecting Crowley-as-Aziraphale as a side effect.
  • Alternatively, given that the angels that we see are hardly good, it's possible that Heaven has mostly lost its holiness. A church or holy water on earth still has power because the humans still have some degree of goodness and faith; Heaven, inhabited by angels who do not, no longer has any power to harm Crowley at all.
  • In Season 2, Crowley walks right into Heaven in his own body so it seems that Heaven itself may not be considered holy/sanctified ground.

Oblivious Head Offices

• It really is a miracle that Crowley and Aziraphale's friendship wasn't rumbled much earlier, at least on Heaven's part. Look at Episode 1 — just how incompetent are Heaven and Hell if nobody glanced down/up and realised that their respective field agents were entering the Heaven/Hell front door at exactly the same time? At the very least that should have merited a "cutting it kind of close, weren't you?" reprimand from someone. Gabriel genuinely seems to think that Crowley is oblivious to Aziraphale's existence in Episode 2, yet Heaven has an entire Earth Observation department that Michael could easily get incriminating photos from, but the angels there apparently didn't bother to mention "hey, Aziraphale's going for coffee with that demon again." So how did the dynamic duo get away with it? Heaven and Hell's stilted attitude towards time? Angelic arrogance? God messing with everyone? Or someone in the Earth Observation team having a soft spot for Aziraphale and covering for him?
  • It's mostly because they don't care enough to pay attention. Since they assume the Big Plan's going to play out just so anyway they're happy to let Aziraphale/Crowley get on with their business and take it as read that they're doing their job properly unless given reason to believe otherwise. Hence why Crowley gets a commendation for the Spanish Inquisition despite having nothing to do with it. As for "Earth Observation" Aziraphale and Crowley only started hanging out regularly in the last few decades, mere moments ago from the view of an angel. And Aziraphale meeting with Crowley is not, in and of itself, a smoking gun; he could be threatening him or trying to get information out of him or similar.
  • It makes sense that Crowley and Aziraphale would be in the same place at the same time. They're trying to thwart each other. It's unlikely people check up on them because, as the above Troper said, they don't really care, but in the event that someone says "Hey, why do we see you with this Demon/Angel so often?" They could just claim that they were doing the best they could without breaking out into war before their respective side was ready for it. A stern coffee date to discreetly threaten the other side would be pretty easy to explain, especially since before the Apocalypse they didn't do it too often (Crowley just now paying Aziraphale back on the lunch from the 1700s), and as for things like their dual check-ins, they could say that they heard about something the other was reporting and ran to report it as soon as they could. They're Divine Beings who are technically at war, and the only ones on their whole planet; there's no shortage of excuses for them to run into each other or even seek each other out from time to time.
  • If Gabriel and Beezlebub are sort of working together and Michael has "backchannels", could it be that they assumed there was a similar arrangement between Aziraphale and Crowley?
  • Maybe Heaven uses mass surveillance the way repressive states use it. They don’t actively watch everyone all the time, but when they decide someone is now “suspicious,” they have more than enough passive data collection to dig up any dirt on them.
  • As Crowley himself put it "Our respective headoffices don't actually care how things get done. They just want to know they can cross it of the list". Otherwise they ought to have noticed that some miracles weren't performed by Aziraphale and vice versa. To them it's simply a job, and not one they seem overly fond of at that; meaning, they are perfectly happy having their respective agents carry out the occasional assignment and not be bothered with it otherwise. To them the really important task is working towards the Great War, anything concerning humanity in general comes second at best. On top of that, angels appear to be trusting beings by definition ("Of course you can trust me. I'm an angel!") and are all expected to think the same way; so unless given enough reason to believe otherwise, they wouldn't even dream that one particular angel might be dancing out of line.
  • Season 2 shows that some people in Hell were aware of it, and others tried to use it as an office-politics weapon against Crowley, but it didn't work. The implication is that higher-ups in Hell (lower downs?) don't really care.

Aziraphale's rank

• Why is Aziraphale taking orders from Gabriel, if Gabriel is an Archangel and Aziraphale is stated to be a Principality? Principalities outrank archangels.
  • "Archangel" has been misused as "high-ranking angel" for a loooong time. At least centuries. The fact that it originally meant, essentially, "private first-class" is now little more than a fun bit of trivia.
  • It may be politic for Aziraphale to play along with Gabriel's orders most of the time, since Gabriel is actually in Heaven, and presumably has God's ear. And once it's time to muster for war, it may be that Gabriel gets special powers, as part of the muster (like any soldier can order around any civilian in a military dictatorship).
    • Neil Gaiman actually answered this question in detail on Tumblr. An archangel and a capital-A Archangel are different things in the Good Omens universe, as indeed they are in many real-world theories of angel hierarchy: "archangel" is a class of angel below principalities, but Archangel with a capital A is also a political "title of office" for the small number of angels who run Heaven. Quite probably the two words sound different in Enochian.

Season 2

A Tiny Half-Miracle

• What went wrong with Crowley and Aziraphale's half-miracle? Why did it set off Heaven's alarm bells and rank the equivalent of 25 resurrections when they were both trying to do as little as possible? I kept thinking it would be revealed that a DIFFERENT miracle took place around the same time, but there was no such reveal.
  • Two possibilities spring to mind: A, the combination of Angel and Demonic actions made it unusual enough to sound the alarms. B, Crowley and Aziraphale just are not that competent at doing things quietly.
  • What went wrong is they used it on Gabriel. Had it been say a human, probably simple and less energy. But using it on Gabriel was never going to be small.
  • In S2E6, Crowley briefly mentions that apparently when they do a miracle together it is particularly effective. Presumably this is either The Power of Love, a Yin-Yang Bomb, or both.

Lack of Remorse

• At the end of the season, it is revealed that Gabriel and Beelzebub were conspiring with opposite number on the other side in order to avert the Apocalypse. In other words, the very crime that they had ordered Aziraphale and Crowley executed for at the end of the previous season. Yet neither of them show any sign of acknowledgement of the inherent hypocrisy, or any remorse for trying to kill two people for something they themselves ended up doing. Why didn't Crowley try to get Gabriel to do the "I Was Wrong" dance?
  • Arguably, neither was fully to blame: as demonstrated by Gabriel's summary trial, going against the will of the other Archangels (who certainly wanted to punish Aziraphale) would not have gone well for him at the time, or saved anybody. And given the parallels, we can infer that the same goes for Beelzebub. But even if Crowley and Aziraphale don't actually forgive them, what are they going to do? Both parties are extremely powerful entities, who seem perfectly happy to bugger off to Alpha Centauri and never get into anyone's hair again. Better to go along with it and hurry them on their way, than to antagonise them and risk more trouble. Self-preservation beats revenge.
  • Gabriel apologized sort of even if his memories were erased. Beelzebub is still a demon. As for the others not trying to bring it up. Well Metatron basically through a wrench. Should there be a season 3. The matter of the Apocalypse 2.0 has not been resolved.

What about Lindsay?

• When the pair make a project of proxy-seducing Nina, they simply do not consider what they may be doing to Lindsay.
  • Indeed they don't. Just part and parcel of the whole plan being very ill-thought-out and thoughlessly invasive.
  • This is what Nina's chat with Crowley is partially about. They duo weren't trying to get them together for believe in romance. It was for their own ends. That Lindsay and Nina's relationship was already on the way to ending was to make it seem less bad. But no, it was a selfish plan. Something we've seen the Angels engage in like with Job.
  • At the time when they committed themselves to the plan of proxy-seducing Nina, they don't seem to have been aware that Lindsay existed. By the time they found out, she and Nina were already breaking up.

Crowley's living situation

• Season 2 reveals that Crowley has been living out of his car since getting "fired" from Hell and the demon Shax moving into his flat - but even in-universe, that occurred several years ago. Why is he still living out of his car?There are actually two parts to this question:
  • a) Why isn't Crowley living with Aziraphale? It seems like he spends a lot of time at the bookshop as it is, they're both comfortable with him being there, Aziraphale even obliquely refers to it as "their place" in the conversation about "their car". Moreover, Aziraphale clearly knows Crowley is living in his car (helping move his plants back and forth), and it's hard to believe he'd never offer up his own place to his friend in need.
  • b) Assuming one or both of them can't/don't want to live together for whatever reason, or that Crowley can't/doesn't want to live in the bookshop - why hasn't Crowley found another place after four years? The whole angels-demons-money thing is never really addressed, but he seems to be able to splash out on boozy meals at the Ritz easily enough, even after getting cut off from Hell. Or he could presumably trick a landlord into giving him a place for free or something. Surely he could somehow get a flat somewhere. So why is he still in his car?
    • Crowley wants to move into the bookshop, but, feeding into the season-wide theme of Crowley and Aziraphale failing to communicate healthily, he Cannot Spit It Out. And Aziraphale wouldn't dare make the first move. So Crowley, for four years now, has been dramatically moaning about how sad he is to have to live in the car, and Aziraphale still hasn't caught on. (There's precedent for this. "I lost my best friend…" "Oh, s-so sorry to hear it.")
    • I'm not entirely sure, but I believe that heavy fraternizing between an angel and devil is what got them in trouble in one of the minisodes.
    • According to Word of God, Crowley kept the fact that he was now homeless a secret from Aziraphale.

Oral agreement

• When Furfur makes a deal with the Nazis, isn't he obliged to keep it by the same kind of contractual oral law that, Crowley seems to have weaponized against Shax in the penultimate episode? It seems like this universe holds people to the words they use.
  • He is. However, he is a Jerkass Genie using Exact Words. "As agreed, irrevocable eternal life on Earth… as zombies."
  • Hell seems to work on the threat of consequences, much as contracts do here on Earth. Crowley explicitly told Aziraphale he was bluffing - he made up a rule and counted on Shax to believe him without checking for herself. The implication was that she could go ahead and break it, but there would literally be Hell to pay after.

The Angels believing Aziraphale

• Why would the inspector angel believe that Nina and Maggie are the kinds of people that are worth performing a miracle over? Wasn't some sort of verbal explanation needed?
  • Angels are Super Gullible thanks to their lack of creative thinking.
  • It doesn't seem like they're capable of imagining another angel lying (and they may not even think it's possible.) Earlier, Aziraphale is able to get past their questions about Job's children this way, even though some of them suspected something was up.
  • The show has established multiple times how Angels and Demons for as powerful they are, they lack imagination. Part of it due to how sheltered they are up stairs. It's what makes the guys on earth so effective.

Coffee Shop Security System

• Why on Earth does an ordinary coffee shop need a security system that locks the place down completely in case of a power failure and can't be overridden with a manual key? Do they have a diamond-studded coffee maker or something like that there?
  • The shop is in central London — it's not uncommon for shops in big cities to have extra security in case robbers assume there must be something valuable there just based on the location. Also, Lindsay seems to be a bit of a paranoid control-freak, and may have insisted that Nina splurge for costly, cumbersome security she didn't really need.
  • I know you were asking rhetorically, but a top-of-the-line commercial espresso machine can easily cost as much as a new car, and there's always a healthy market for parts. (Then again, somebody stealing the machine probably wouldn't have any qualms about breaking those giant windows to get out.)

Erased from the Book of Life

• Why didn't the angels just erase Aziraphale and Crowley from the Book of Life after the failed executions? They were going to use it when Gabriel went missing, so it was clearly within their limited imagination.
  • Michael believed it to be within the Supreme Archangel's authority, and thus started using the threat while she was trying to assert herself as Gabriel's replacement. However, the Metatron makes it clear that it's not actually in her authority. Presumably Gabriel knew that when he was still Supreme Archangel, and didn't suggest it because he knew it wasn't actually in his power.