[ SECRET POST #4566 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4566 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 45 secrets from Secret Submission Post #654.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think that's a fair assessment of this show. Mostly because Neil Gaimen made it pretty clear he was not making any big changes that he had not discussed with Terry Pratchet before his death, and that included turning two characters they wrote as lacking sexuality into having an explicit romance with each other (and I'm going to assume you mean kissing, because literally everything else about them was romantic). And while he didn't have them kiss, he invited everyone to have whatever ship/headcanoned they liked and defended shippers to those who tried to go after them.

And while the script doesn't have them kissing or calling each other boyfriends, it also doesn't have them displaying interest in *anyone* that way, because again, angel and a demon. What they do do is stare adoringly at each other, have couples spats, do everything for each other. The actors/directors/editors certainly played it romantic, and I'm fine with how it ended up.

To say they shied away "to maintain the straight viewers" is a massive, massive misreading of the situation. I'm pretty sure if they wanted not to offend the kind of people who *would* be offended at that, they probably wouldn't have delighted in making God a woman (like just having her be "the voice over" instead of explicitly having her speak to Aziraphale as God and having them refer to God as "her") or having Adam and Eve be black.

[(Anonymous)]

+1

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, if the Venn diagram of “people offended by female God, black Adam and Eve, a demon protagonist, both Heaven and Hell being bureaucracies packed with assholes, and a cute, mostly normal boy who loves his dog being the Antichrist” and “people offended by a protagonist angel and demon that are both male-human-shaped being a couple and kissing” isn’t a perfect circle, it’s gotta be close enough to indistinguishable as to make no difference.

Whatever Neil’s reasons for not showing them kissing, “oh no we might offend the straights” doesn’t even get a look-in. And I remember years ago in pre-show fandom, people would ask about Aziraphale and Crowley, get variations on the “angels are sexless unless they really make an effort” bit from the book in answer, and go right back to asking if they banged.

Pratchett seemed more annoyed by it than Gaiman, not in a “how dare you sully our work with gay cooties” kind of way, but more like “we didn’t write them that way, but we’re not stopping you, now please stop trying for a different answer.”

I never actually went to a signing or anything so all my info boils down to third hand gossip, though.

[(Anonymous)]

+6,000

[(Anonymous)]

To say they shied away "to maintain the straight viewers" is a massive, massive misreading of the situation.

EXACTLY. I can agree it's arguably not good LGBTQ representation and I get being disappointed if fans oversold the extent of any representation, but they don't kiss or do anything relationship-wise in the book that they didn't do in the show so there wasn't really anything to shy away from there. The relationship is left open-ended. The show didn't break any promises made by the original text, the authors, the show-runners and actors, or the advertising.

[(Anonymous)]

This is exactly why I'm not fussed about the ambiguity, either: we were never promised anything more than was delivered. If anything, the show makes a stronger case for Aziraphale/Crowley than the book did.