Alright here’s my two cents in the is Aziraphale soft or BAMF question: he’s both. He’s fully both and he’s always been both because, in spite of what we get told, there’s a certain kind of BAMFness that comes from softness. They aren’t actually opposites. Softness (compassion, kindness etc) is not weakness. It requires great strength and it generates strength.
There are two kinds of BAMF. There’s the one we usually see: the hot-headed, competitive, let’s take on the world and win, aggressive, ambitious kind of BAMF. That’s all bravado and hot anger. You know, the kind of anger that calls you to destroy, to conquer? And then after you may well regret your actions?
But there’s the other kind too: a protective, ruthlessly determined, aggressive yes, but in a defensive way kind of BAMF. It is a whole different thing. It isn’t a hot anger at all, but a cold one. It never calls you to seek out and destroy but it is the certainty that you must do what you must do to protect what needs protecting. And when it is moved it is absolutely ruthless. Actions taken are not regretted. They are, after all, simply what had to be done. This is the BAMFness that grows out of softness (compassion, kindness) because part of all of that softness is ruthlessly and fiercely protecting what you love, those you are compassionate towards. It is a kind of righteous anger (appropriately enough!) motivated not by ego but by correcting wrongs.
Think of a mama bear. From the cub’s perspective she’s all love and kindness. All softness. If all’s well she’s happy fussing about with her cave, her world, her cubs. She’s not interested in ego-related aggression like expanding her territory. Far better to make peace, to forge the kind of alliances that allow for a peaceful world in which her cubs can grow. But if you step into her cave and threaten her cubs you’ll see a very different side to all of that softness because she will kill you without hesitation. Not because she’s aggressive in a hot-headed way but out of compassion and love for her cubs. You simply must be eliminated and that’s that.
That is the BAMFness of Aziraphale. It isn’t in opposition to his softness. It grows out of it. His is a righteous BAMFness. He will do everything he can to forge the kind of peace his cubs (Crowley, humanity) need. He’s had no ambitions on anyone else’s territory. But if you step into his cave (the world) and threaten his cubs he will do whatever he thinks is needed to eliminate that threat (break his alliance to Heaven, possess a human, kill a child, argue with the highest authority in Heaven).
And that, for me, is a key lesson Aziraphale gives us: softness is not weakness. That is a lie. There is a kind of ruthless and righteous strength that grows out of softest parts of ourselves. Aziraphale is a soft BAMF.
I think in the series, we see Aziraphale trying to reject and deny his BAMF side a bit, just really fall into being the soft cuddly sofa person, “the nice one.” I think he loses sight, at times, of the fact that he can be both, that he is both, that denying one side or the other is denying himself.
Somewhere between “I’m not fighting in any war” and taking care of the soldier, he rediscovers his BAMF side. Not all at once, not at one specific moment, but action after action shows he is pushing away from his soft side because the world (and Crowley) needs the BAMF angel.
But then he goes too far. He forgets his soft side, and now he’s all-in on killing a child. The BAMF side is where he keeps his strength, but the soft is where his compassion is. He tried to put that side of himself away, and it was nearly a disaster.
But.
Then he finds the balance point. BAMF enough to debate theology with the Archangel fucking Gabriel, soft enough to comfort a scared 11-year-old and help him find the courage to save them.
And…that’s who Aziraphale really is. In that moment, he’s found his best self - the self that is as strong as those around him need him to be, and soft enough to know how to wield that strength.
It might take him some time to get comfortable with the way the two halves occupy his self, but the hardest bit - accepting they are both him, knowing he needs to lean on both sides, seeing them as his inner yin and yang not some dichotomy he has to choose between - that has come, and he has survived it.
@theniceandaccurategoodomensblogreply: No, no — I disagree with this. My whole point is they are NOT separate sides. His is the kind of BAMFness that grows out of softness. His willingness to kill Adam—in that absolutely extreme situation in which he honestly believes it is the only way to save the world—is an act of compassion—for the world and everyone in it—it is the fierce and protective side of compassion. Think: mama bear killing to protect her cubs. He isn’t balancing two sides. It is all one thing. But it is a kind of BAMFness that is rarely portrayed or talked about and so we find it hard to recognise.
@aethelflaedladyofmerciareply: Hmm, I think I didn’t articulate very well and now we’re talking past each other. Let me try again.
Agree:
Aziraphale’s strength comes from his protective instincts and compassion
There is a strength in softness
Soft doesn’t equal weak
They aren’t two sides that need to be chosen between
However:
Heaven’s strength is generally very aggressive, as is Hell’s. This is the lens through which characters see and understand “strength”
This includes Aziraphale - he doesn’t know his own strength, he thinks he’s weak BECAUSE he doesn’t show that kind of strength (I’m soft!) - he thinks he has to play by Heaven’s rules, be one or the other.
And as a result, he feels the need to be less compassionate while saving the world - he is still being protective of the world as a whole, but he THINKS his natural compassion and desire to protect those in front of him is a weakness
This leads to him almost shooting Adam, when a more measured assessment of the situation would have made him realize that he should be trying to help the child.
Then, while watching the Them beat the Horsepeople, he realizes his mistake. He recognizes their strength, and his own, and is able to embrace the balanced strength that comes natural to him
(What I’m reminded of is how in martial arts, people think of being calm and being active as two separate states - you’re calm/at rest/patient, or you’re active/emotional/strong. However, practitioners know you get the best strength from that calm state - they aren’t opposites, you use calm to fuel activity. Acknowledging this and finding your strength in the calmness is an important early step.
(The kind of strength Heaven shows is an opposite of compassion; Aziraphale’s flows from compassion. When he accepts his own strength, he rejects Heaven’s and becomes the better version of himself. It feels like balancing two sides when you do it, but it’s not - it’s rejecting the part you don’t need and learning to draw your strength from the right source.)
I hope that makes more sense…this is very hard to put into words!
@angel-and-serpentreply: He’s a level-headed BAMF. He believes in sacrificing one for the sake of many, if that’s what it takes. He wishes it wouldn’t come to actual violence, though. Destroying the Antichrist isn’t a nice job, but somebody has to do it and Crowley is too busy crying over his car, really darling I could use some help here!
Once he sees that Adam isn’t the unholy threat that they both imagined, but a child - a human child, no different than the other humans he’s been charged to protect - his priorities change then and there.
@theniceandaccurategoodomensblogreply: Yes. While he honestly believes—a totally reasonable belief at the time too—that the only way to save the world is to kill Adam, it is a morally reasonable step to take. It isn’t a failure of softness, it is motivated by compassion. If, when faced with the same scenario, he refused to kill Adam he would have had to live with the death of literally every other child on the planet.
The under appreciated softness of boys when they get cared for and held lovingly for the first time in a relationship is both heart-wrenching and beautiful
I have a huge soft spot for bad boys, and t is really not good for me… But I just LOVE their recklessness, softness, easy-going, living in the now - way of life. So many times I’ve been a moment in their time and it’s enough to make me feel so much more alive.
So I think the most complicated variable in our society right now is two factors of how we currently operate in regard to a push back at emerging social norms. The most chaotic variables in society today are becoming violent variables that many of us havent figured out how to address.
The new hatred and skepticism towards kindness, softness and gentleness in our civilization.
and
Men’s resistance to their domestication.
Outlets for criticizing the emerging PC culture like the Alt Right/Alt Lite have become the forefront for displaying a disregard for masculine restraint and an untethered sense of call to arms to violently defend the “Might makes Right” worldview.
Trump, Le Penn, an ever more Corporate America and an outspoken anti gay Russia have contributed globally to the skepticism of altruism and the task of the “Universal Golden Rules” and an embrace of “whats mine is mine” and radical interpretations of unilateral liberty justified by skewed understanding and co opting of regional constitutions.
Notably, the question arose when discussing a particular punk scene where it was asked, “why do they all have to break windows and trash places?”, whilst at extreme music venues.
The observation of how early Metal culture had brandished the male camaraderie ethos and how the boys club of the early Metal scene was held as the “last bastion of free male display”. The pit of the concert at Punk and Metal shows has at least been the only place where young men can freely rip there shirts off, beat their chests, cover themselves in alcohol and scream and bellow their pent up energy as male animals in an ever increasingly male domesticated world where their female counterparts are ever more the subject of unilateral respect, as women in our world demand the compensation and the level playing field to achieve what men have always had the privilege to for centuries of history.
This coupling with the Trump presidency’s allure to the various cost cutting mentalities to every corner of regulation in our society.
The glamour of “rugged individualism ” and the sense of morality that pushes “Social Darwinism” onto our civilization has lead to a basic class war with every segment of society that cant defend itself with money, representation or privilege has contributed to the hatred of kindness in our world.
“Men’s Rights Activists” have spear headed the call for skepticism towards a caring society and pushes for the flags of traditionalism as men and the strong feel threatened by the meek’s emerging representation in society.
Especially the subject of “safe spaces” have been the spotlight for how the “might makes right” philosophy’s battle with the philosophy of caring for the meek and poor and sick.
Just the fact that the tenants of Alt-Right/Lite philosophy calls for a movement to “trigger” people just to hurt them and hopefully make them display their weakness in the face of strength, makes them blatant “violence rights advocates”.
It actually happend that a group of Alt -Right trolls sent a journalist critical of Richard Spencer and the ethno nationalism of the Alt Right, and a sufferer of epilepsy, a strobe light effect gif to trigger an epileptic episode. Literally attempting to send political dissident to the hospital.
Just the fact that someone may have even a medical condition is warrant enough for this new persuasion of “violenteers” to in effect erase weakness from this world.
The world right now is trying to create a chimera where “might makes right” is inseparable from what it means to be a man.
It is understandable that men like all humans are animals and do need accommodations just as women do.
The remedies discussed were to possibly create an environment, literally a place or even just an atmosphere for men to feel like they can beat there chests and rough house as they naturally may need to.
A literal safe space for men.
However, the task isnt to invalidate men from theire masculinty or theire sense of power but help them see theire differences as a bonding element rather than a separating one when met with a feminine society.
The Intent to fix this problem must be one where we find common ground in the sex war. Where it’s not Feminist vs Men’s Rights Advocates but men and women fighting for equalism.
That men can be just as free as women and women just as free as men.
The difficulty is dispelling men of the toxic masculinity that our corporate world pushes on them. Women also suffer from toxic femininity as well and is also pushed by unregulated capitalism and our consumer media. Men and Women should be just as interchangeable as a left and right hand.
The battle of the sexes is one thing to fix while the hatred for the meek continues to plauge the human soul.
Forests and oceans cant defend themselves, animals ultimately cant defend themselves yet we have a culture where people see this weakness as one to exploit as it’s our due as apex predators. Trophy hunting, military funded video games and media, Sports, Hollywood movies, even food chains perpetuate “might makes right” even down to the way your frame the understanding of beef in our food.
The news shows us that our society is willing to beat people literally into submission by using riot police, police militarization, tazers and even kill ethnic minorities with impunity when the meek try to demand fair treatment.
The pariah may not be men but it is certainly the seduction of power and money that clouds the hearts of men.
Men can be good fathers, good sons, good boyfriends and husbands and brothers if they can be saved from the toxicity of whats sold to them.
