Alright, listen up kids, I did not endure 10 years of Catholic school and still end up a gay atheist for you guys to miss the absolute brilliance of this scene.
Do you know what is considered the absolute worst sin? I’m not talking the seven deadly sins or even mortal sin. I’m talking eternal sins, the unforgivable sins.
The absolute worst sin is believing that one’s evil is beyond God’s forgiveness.
Let that sink in for a moment.
It sounds crazy. How could it be worse than murder? Genocide?
Because it is a rejection of God.
The central belief of Christianity is that God IS love. This love is so powerful that it brought everything into existence. It is free and unconditional and infinite. Believing that your evil cannot be forgiven is not believing in what God is.
Now, unforgivable sounds like a contradiction. If God is all giving and this love is free and unconditional, how could any sin not be forgiven? This comes down to the nature of love.
Love must be freely chosen. It cannot be coerced. And so the only thing stopping someone from existing in that love is choosingto be separate from it.
Crowley didn’t fall because of questions or hanging out with the wrong people. God didn’t smite him and send him to the pits of the underworld because Crowley was unsure about the divine plan. He fell because HE believed he was unforgivable.
@mylastvowreply: Following that line of thought (and I very much support the arguments OP makes here aka Crowley didn’t fall because of questions or hanging out with the wrong people… He fell because HE believed he was unforgivable.), is that also the reason why Aziraphale didn’t fall?
I mean Zira did a number of things that were clearly against the rules of heaven. He gave away his flaming sword first chance he gets and he lies about it to every one (including God, excluding Crowley btw). He fraternises with the enemy, going on clandestine meetings with Crowley. And we know heaven knows about these meetings. They have pics and Michael is even asking to look into this matter. He conspires with the demon Crowley to stop Armageddon and so on. Lots of things that could get you cast out of heaven if you ask me. Lots of sins here.
But he never falls. He isn’t cast out of heaven for his sins, for his doubts or his questions. Because Zira firmly believes in God’s love and in forgiveness.
I tend to see Crowley not so much thinking that he is unforgivable as such, but rather, thinking that God won’t forgive him, that she can’t forgive him. That is, it isn’t a self-esteem problem of thinking that he is so evil and awful that even a loving God can’t forgive him. Rather, I think Crowley doubts God’s love itself. It is God who is at fault for not being loving enough. He seems to see God as quite manipulative and uncaring not loving at all. We see his questioning multiple times, and he is always questioning the morally of God’s plan eg “you can’t kill kids” or “you shouldn’t test them to destruction”. It reminds me of the old philosophical argument of the problem of evil. In essence, the argument goes - evil exists in the world- children die etc. therefore it can’t be the case that God exists, is all powerful and is perfectly loving. An all powerful, perfectly loving God wouldn’t let kids die. Except, Crowley already knows for certain that God exists and is all powerful and is literally doing the killing of kids. Therefore - her love must be questioned. So, yeah I absolutely agree that he fell for doubting God’s love. But I think he actually directly questioned her love itself, he didn’t get there via low self-worth. That’s why Aziraphale’s “I forgive you” doesn’t seem to affect Crowley, doesn’t seem to be personally meaningful to him. At least, to me it seems that he’s just frustrated by it, frustrated that Aziraphale doesn’t get it. He isn’t asking for redemption from God or Aziraphale. He’s asking Aziraphale to stop playing by Heaven’s rules and get in the damn car. I hope this makes sense!
@anotherhappydinosaurreply: Yes yes yes! This is what I meant. Not that it was a self worth issue, but that believing that she isn’t completely all-loving was doubting what she is. I just think it’s a fascinating dichotomy because both Aziraphale and Crowley are questioning the plan, both are acting against their superiors’ orders, both have done a lot of things I’d classify as morally gray, but one has full faith in infinite love, indiscriminate love. And to me, Crowley talking to God and asking these questions and saying that he didn’t mean to fall shows that he hasn’t quite given up entirely on the idea of God’s love, that he wants to be convinced that her love is unfailing and unconditional. It’s the whole faith/reason paradox, which is a whole other post.
And you’re totally right that the “I forgive you” itself was a bit of a throwaway moment that didn’t mean much to Crowley, but I see its power in revealing this fundamental difference between Crowley and Aziraphale.
I love this commentary! I wrote this post in a fit of inspiration last night without fully editing it and I think you touched on a lot of things that were there in my head and never made it to the page :P
@letsveganlovecomment: I thought he only thought he was unforgivable AFTER his fall, though.
There’s something about how Crowley throws out that line: what if the Almighty planned it like this all along? that is just so empathetic and caring and selfless… He knows that Aziraphale has had the ground ripped out from under him, he’s lost all faith in Heaven, he’s literally lost Heaven in fact, he will have to discover what exactly being on his own side with Crowley means (Crowley has been on his own side for a very long time now I think, not so much has changed for him). But Crowley sees there’s something that could make it easier. Aziraphale could retain his faith in God herself choosing to believe that it was all God’s plan, including Aziraphale and Crowley forming their own side. I don’t for a moment believe Crowley actually thinks that’s likely (possible perhaps but not likely) or even particularly cares in a sense (he does what he thinks is right, he follows his own compass and doesn’t need to be told it is in the plan to be alright with that). But he gets where Aziraphale is and he just offers this up as a gift, says it casually like it is no big deal and let’s the seed take root. Like he could have tried to get Aziraphale to see it all as he does but he doesn’t, he helps Aziraphale to make his own peace with it all, to figure it out in his own way. Wow, even here he’s the ultimate defender of free will isn’t he?
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@fuckyeahisawthatreply: Oh interesting! I like this interpretation because this has always seemed like…not a very Crowley line to me. (So much so that I had convinced myself it was Aziraphale’s line until I went back and watched the scene again.) But I really like this take on it!
@amuseoffyrereply: Here’s a thing, though: Crowley does believe in God and he questions Her so many times. This is such a him thing to say because when we saw him yelling at Her in the privacy of his own home, he said “You’re testing them, I know you said you’d be testing them”.
To me, this line reads as him realising that humanity wasn’t the only thing being tested. God was testing her angels and demons and everything else in between. She planned it all like this, knowing Aziraphale and Crowley, the only morally grey, imaginative, enthusiastically loving creatures of Heaven and Hell, would be there. She let them share the gift of free will that humanity had and watched them run with it knew they wouldn’t let her down :)
@theniceandaccurategoodomensblogreply: I definitely think God is testing the angels and the demons too and that Crowley realises that, yes. I personally, don’t have faith that God’s plan is all for the ultimate good, that she ensured it would all specifically end up as it does (rather than just testing and seeing the results which is quite different I think). I don’t think Crowley has that faith either, but he’s ok with Aziraphale having that faith as it helps him. The whole “believes in” thing doesn’t really apply. Crowley knows God exists. He believes in God like we believe in the ground under our feet. He is incapable of being either an atheist or a theist in any human sense. The only faith relevant is faith in the plan, faith that God doesn’t just exist but is to be trusted, is a force for the good, is actually in control. I don’t read Crowley as having that personally. He doubts her the whole damn time.
@here-for-analysis-and-squeereply: It echoes his doubts in the garden “what if we both did the wrong thing”, and questioning the God’s plan back then, all the way back
The Annies nominated my work on The Test for “Outstanding Achievement, Directing”!
Here’s the animatic clip for a sequence that I’m really proud of from the episode. It was a big collaborative effort by Katie Mitroff,Hilary Florido,Rebecca Sugar and myself! The animatic was put together by our editor Lauren Hecht!
In the episode, the gems put together a hastily made dungeon for Steven to walk though- we imagined that it would function like a buggy video game. To top it all off, the gems didn’t even have time to build an outer skybox. SU is a very design intensive show, with tons of unique props and backgrounds in every episode. The Test on the other hand was deliberately limited in scope- it was very important to us that he’s traversing the same location with the same props and effects. To do more with less.
When putting together Steven’s out-of-bounds moment, I really wanted to make sure that the experience felt disorienting and haunting… In the above animatic, the soundtrack is ripped from Arcane Kids’ Bubsy 3D, which was a crew favorite at the time. In the final episode, our composers Aivi and Surrashu made the moment even better(and there’s a subtle secret hidden inside as well.)
At the end of the clip, Steven overhears a conversation that the gems are having. This is a very rare occurrence in the show and I had a blast writing & boarding it with Rebecca! We thought that Amethyst would be the only one honest enough to say “We’re bad at this” and tried to make it feel like an excruciating truth that nobody else could say- they linger in silence for so long before.
This is hands down one of my favorite episodes. The ending, boarded by Katie, is absolutely heartwarming or devastating depending on how you look at it. I feel really lucky that I got to work with such a talented crew to make it a reality.
This Animorphs novel is a direct sequel to ghostwriter Ellen Geroux’s earlier story #33 The Illusion, in which Tobias gets tortured by the unhinged sub-visser “Taylor.” The same antagonist is back for this tale, quickly recapturing the hawk boy after he makes the local news for leading rescuers to a missing child who’s lost in the woods during a raging storm. It’s an early example of the difficult moral questions looming over this volume: Should our protagonist risk his cover to help save the deaf kid? Can he trust that his abuser is earnest in her request for a partnership against their common foe? Will he participate in a terrorist attack on the Yeerk pool, knowing it would kill thousands of unwilling human hosts and noncombatant enemies along with the strategic target?
That’s the mission that Taylor proposes, even freeing Tobias to bring the offer to his friends. Claiming to now oppose Visser Three, she wants them to morph Taxxons and dig a tunnel connecting a natural gas pipeline to the pool, which she will then carefully incinerate with just enough fuel to wipe out everyone inside the underground cavern without damaging its structure — which her new regime will still require to feed — or anything on the surface.
It’s a tough moment for Tobias, who bluntly informs us that he’s still dealing with PTSD from his last time in her clutches and clearly can’t stop her from getting under his skin once more, but also for Cassie, who bravely stands up against her fellow Animorphs and refuses to take part in an operation requiring so much collateral damage to innocent lives. In a twist of deeply cruel dramatic irony, that positions the pacifist girl to step in and save the rest of the team when Taylor inevitably betrays them and tries to set off a massive explosion instead… which Cassie is only able to prevent by viciously battling a half-dozen human Controllers, something the teens have all sought to avoid whenever possible.
Because Tobias is narrating this adventure, we don’t get to witness that fight firsthand. But we see the brutal aftermath of their unconscious, barely alive bodies along with the effect on Cassie, who’s out of morph sobbing, clutching herself, and unresponsive when he and the others arrive. In the meantime, we’ve also been shown the terrifying all-consuming hunger of the Taxxon morphs, which nearly results in Tobias and Ax both trying to eat their allies and overstaying the morphing limit to be stuck in those forms forever.
In the end Taylor is gone and presumed dead, and the only real victory the heroes have accomplished is escaping without external injury and without having to actually bear the expected amount of death of their conscience. (Spoiler alert: it turns out the entire plot was a ploy Visser Three devised to try and slaughter the Andalite bandits and the faction of Yeerks favoring peaceful coexistence, who had organized to feed at the pool en masse at that time.) I would have preferred more space for Cassie’s perspective given how much she ultimately anchors the narrative along with Tobias, but overall this is another powerhouse production of teenage trauma and the bleakness of war from Geroux and credited series author K. A. Applegate.
[Content warning for ableism, body horror, and gore.]
