#aziraphales medal
Okay, so this fandom gets a lot of mileage out of Crowley getting comendation for things he isn’t even responsible for, and then the resulting angst when he has to go and check out ‘his’ work— but have we considered whether this ever happened to Aziraphale? After all, we see in the show that Heaven isn’t above the morally dubious, and there’s no reason why Aziraphale’s superiors wouldn’t assume he was the same.
Imagine him getting a commendation every time he’s in the
wrongright area for a martyrdom, or a holy war, or— hell, why not an inquisition? Who’s to say that Heaven and Hell 100% agree on what counts as good or evil all the time?Imagine him standing in a burning town, having just recieved a letter from Gabriel about how happy Heaven is to hear that people have been spreading Her religion to the local populace. “Good work, Aziraphale! Glad to see you’re finally acting like a proper angel and giving up all this namby-pamby peace and love nonsense! Keep it up!”
Imagine him having to witness centuries of blood and burning and bodies and not being able to talk about it to anyone— not even Crowley, because when you’re watching an atrocity and trying to persuade yourself that this is not only tolerable but somehow good, somehow right, the last person you need is the Demon of Constant Uncomfortable Questions.
(And anyway, a voice in his head that sounds a lot like Gabriel snidely reminds him, that’s probably the reason he can’t understand it. A Proper Angel™️ who didn’t waste time putting food and drink into his corporation, or playing around with books, or hanging around with demons— an angel like that would be able to make sense of this.)
Imagine later on, when the human perspective on some of these events changes, and Heaven follows suit. Aziraphale making one too many suggestions during a meeting and getting shut down with “well yeah, we would listen to you Aziraphale, but then remember that time you came up with that whole Crusades thing? That didn’t turn out so well, did it?” Imagine him brushing it off and pushing down the feelings of unfair, unfair, unfair, because Good Angels don’t question that sort of thing. Clearly he’s just made a mistake somewhere.
Imagine him post-apocalypse, finally being able to admit out loud to himself that Heaven wasn’t always right. (Imagine him finally having the courage to tell Crowley about it and getting to listen to several centuries worth of ranting about Heaven with a clear conscience— along with a side rant about “why the fuck didn’t you tell me, angel? I told you about the Inquisition!” “Yes, well… that was rather different, my dear.”)
I’m just saying, we’re really missing a trick here and… damn, now I kind of want to write this.
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@liquidlyriumreply: I’ve always seen Aziraphale as being more or less ignored by head office, except when they need to issue a reprimand. (See: The last time Aziraphale looks to the right in Mesopotamia and never after, which others have also pointed out.)
In that deleted scene where he’s getting ready to open the bookshop he’s given a medal for his 'devotion to Earth and duty’ but it sort of feels like an afterthought when Aziraphale expresses that he doesn’t want to go back to Heaven. As if he can be placated after being ignored for millennia with a pat on the head. (And he’s probably so starved for positive attention from Heaven that’s no doubt why we see him wear it on his vest ever after.) I’ll have to re-read though that scene with this in mind bc it is a very valid take.
After all Crowley does say ‘everyone stretches the truth in memos to head office a bit, you know that!’ And Aziraphale, angel of the Eastern Gate, lying liar who lies, mildly agrees with him without directly implicating himself of doing the same. (’Yes, but you told them..’)
P.S. Bonus -replyfrom@big-edies-sun-hat: I did the thing. I had been wanting to put up a series of ficlets (on no schedule whatsoever) about various awful ideas the two of them had throughout history. Herein, a ficlet in which Aziraphale gets an award for Prohibition.
