Neil Gaiman and the Road to Truth

Michael Sheen and David Tennant as Aziraphale and Crowley in Good Omens 2

This essay contains spoilers.

Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s novel Good Omens specifies that Aziraphale and Crowley, the angelic protagonists, don’t have a sexual relationship. Though Pratchett passed away in 2015, Gaiman maintained this parameter when adapting the novel for the 2019 BBC/Amazon joint production. Though he didn’t deny anybody their personal headcanon, he rejected the idea that Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship was anything but platonic.

Therefore it’s sudden and jarring in the final minutes of Good Omens 2 when (seriously, spoilers) Crowley grabs Aziraphale roughly and kisses him. This becomes the first moment that concretely sexualizes the characters. Throughout the season, Aziraphale and Crowley struggle to create a meet-cute between their neighbors, Nina and Maggie. But they’ve failed miserably because their knowledge of human romance comes entirely from Richard Curtis movies and Jane Austen novels.

Understanding the change requires understanding the context. Though Gaiman and Pratchett share billing on the original novel, Pratchett did most of the actual writing; Gaiman, a novice prose writer, wasn’t equipped to write an entire novel. Pratchett wanted to remain faithful to the Abrahamic mythology their novel satirized, which meant that transcendent beings lacked binary gender. To pinch a Kevin Smith line, angels are as sexless as Ken dolls.

Although Good Omens 2 is co-written by Gaiman and John Finnemore, it’s the first time the setting reflects exclusively Gaiman’s vision. And it bears noting Gaiman’s other recent streaming success: Sandman on Netflix. Not only does Sandman contain a noteworthy number of same-sex couples, Gaiman even gender-swaps John Constantine, a longstanding DC Comics character, to create increased Sapphic tension. Same-sex partnerships mean something to Gaiman.

In Sandman episode 5, Bette, a diner waitress, expresses purblind views about sexual identities. She claims Judy, a regular customer, is too pretty to be a lesbian, and engineers a meet-cute (another theme) with another customer, Mark. But when John Dee, empowered by Dream’s magic ruby, stops everyone lying and sheds their inhibitions, Bette and Judy find themselves entangled in a passionate embrace. That, the story implies, is their truth.

Throughout Sandman, Gaiman uses same-sex relationships as shorthand for characters who follow their own moral code. Johanna Constantine, Bette and Judy, Hal Carter, and Chantal and Zelda are all depicted as characters unbeholden to convention, free of judgement, and wholly alive. This freedom isn’t necessarily “good” in any moral sense, as The Corinthian’s ravenous sexuality is second only to his murderous impulses. But it does mean one is unbound.

Shelley Conn and John Hamm as Beelzebub and Gabriel in Good Omens 2

Good Omens depicts a world deeply bound to binaries. Good and evil, Heaven and Hell. We glimpse both eternal realms: Heaven is orderly, brightly lit, and aseptic, while Hell is noisy and cluttered, and several denizens show signs of gangrene. Both realms also keep demanding transcendent beings, like Aziraphale and Crowley, and their human allies, make binding declarations for one side or another. They demand complete moral absolutes.

Crowley and Aziraphale, however, spend the entire series finding ways to thread the moral needle. Both beings balk, for instance, at the biblical Job’s predicament, with its requirement to kill, and gradually devise a workaround. When they find an urchin robbing graves to escape poverty, Aziraphale learns that humans face degrees of wrong, while Crowley decides that death doesn’t resolve his sympathies. Broken moral bromides litter this story like flies.

Therefore, reaching the series culmination where (again, spoilers) the Metatron offers Aziraphale command of Heaven’s forces, this pushes the limits of Gaiman’s disdain for moral absolutes. By accepting the offer, Aziraphale must accept Heaven’s moral straight jacket, something Crowley can’t do. Crowley would rather continue mapping his own moral landscape, something both powers have done successfully for millennia. But, as Aziraphale notes, they have little to show for it.

Gaiman believes, from the textual evidence, that all absolute morals eventually collapse. But that doesn’t mean seeking one’s own moral resolution makes everything better. Johanna Constantine, John Dee, and now Aziraphale and Crowley have manufactured their own moralities, evidenced by their rejection of sexual identity myths, but they’re also terribly lonely. They occupy society’s margins, with only a few friends. Their stand requires courage and durability that most people lack.

Where Crowley kisses Aziraphale, therefore, it’s arguable whether the action is sexual. Maybe the characters remain, as both authors assert, essentially sexless. But Crowley demands, with his kiss, to know whether joining Heaven’s moral absolutes will, as Aziraphale claims, make a difference. Does morality, without context, mean anything? Neil Gaiman seemingly thinks not. Truth may be a lonely road, Gaiman suggests, but it’s the only one worth walking.