Anthony J. Crowley, Astronomy enthusiast
It makes so much more sense why he’s somewhat obsessed with space when you realise he helped to build it.
Demons have no place in creation. When he says “I helped build that one,” he’s remembering his life Before. It meant so much to him. Being an angel meant so much to him, and he’s still absolutely devastated that he isn’t one anymore. He’s so Loud about it.
He’s the one puts forward the Arrangement that will allow him to perform holy miracles and blessings again.
He’s the one who decorates his apartment so that it looks as little like the crowded, messy, dirty Hell as possible.
He’s the one who recreates his own little Eden within that apartment, where he can play God and relive his trauma over and over again with himself in the position of power, rejecting any and all of his subjects deemed not to be worthy, without mercy. Because that’s how he sees the Almighty.
He’s the one who is so utterly convinced that God is not listening, because why would he believe they would? He’s been wrestling with his Fall and regret for 6 millenia and God has never come to help him.
He’s the one who insists on the idea that Adam can be reshaped through the power of Influence (read nurture over nature) because that means we always have the power to change and evolve, something he needs to believe in desperately. (Something he turns out to be right about btw).
And his obsession with space, this is the big one. The one aspect of Creation we know he had a part in. When he wants to escape it’s the first and only place he thinks of. Not Heaven, with it’s corporate charity, not Hell, where he never belonged. Space. Among the stars. Where he once walked as he does in his apartment surrounded by floating pages, a dull imitation of the real thing. Among the stars he helped create, where he could forget, and pretend he was an angel once more, surrounded by light.
OK since I distressed myself and others with bringing this to light, I suppose I am also obligated to share comments from my friend James, who made me feel better about it:
[image transcription:
I find the fact that Crowley is the one shown to be the one of them who talks to/at God without a mediator in the show fascinating given that the show positions God as a reactive narrator.
Aziraphale tries to get Her on the line, but Crowley just talks. And we know she hears.
Honestly idk how much was deliberate but the framing of the show specifically made me feel very strongly that She has a deep fondness for him, and I had A Feeling about it.]
Crowley knows that She hears them. He knows. He knows in the same way he knows Aziraphale is hiding something and won’t tell him. He knows and he just accepts it. Accepts that he’s not going to know. Not going to be listened to even if he’s heard.
But that all changes in the end. Because Aziraphale talks to him. God hears him. God listens. But God’s way of listening and acting is never so direct. She let’s Crowley be the one to figure it out. Let’s him realise that Aziraphale and him are Her response, Her answer.
I always figure that Crowley wasn’t fallen because he agreed with hell, but because She needed an angel down there who would question and challenge and doubt but also, above all else, love humanity as She intended.
Because that’s what Crowley does. More than Aziraphale. Because Crowley has seen both sides, heaven and hell, and there is earth with its humans and its life and its disorder and potential and he loves it for itself. Not as any Higher Purpose, not as Part Of The Plan but because its there and its different and he feels more at home on earth than in heaven or hell.
It’s fucking fantastic that Crowley is most comfortable in the universe he helped create with his own hands, his own ideas, his own soul. He made the house a home by caring.
And that’s fucking beautiful.
My love :’)
Apart from anything else this is why I’m glad the show came to be. More amazing meta more content just more everything in the fandom.
Remember the Flood scene?
The horror in Crowley’s voice when he understands that Heaven is going to drown also the kids? Angels don’t question God. Neither does Zira, even if his tightened lips and the muttered hmmmmm make me sure he definitely doesn’t agree.
But who is that question, again? Who stands against such a horrific decision?
A DEMON.
Sorry.
A FORMER ANGEL.
