Have We Appreciated Yet How Inevitable The Breakup Really Was? The Truth Is, Whether The Metatrash Orchestrated

Have we appreciated yet how inevitable the breakup really was? The truth is, whether the metatrash orchestrated it or to what extent he did, Aziraphale going back to Heaven and Crowley refusing to go back to Heaven was the only way that situation could have played out. The minute the metatrash offered Aziraphale the chance to right the wrong of Crowley's Fall, it was over. Offering Aziraphale the supreme archangel gig was just insurance.

Aziraphale was always going to want to redeem Crowley because he doesn't (yet) understand the Fall, what it cost Crowley, what it's actually done for Crowley, and how Crowley was fundamentally changed by it. Aziraphale does not yet know what Crowley knows of Heaven - and Aziraphale can't have known it yet. But he will, and this breakup is how he gets the opportunity to learn what he needs to learn to finally, finally understand what it means for him and Crowley to be on their own side.

And Crowley,who would follow Aziraphale anywhere and do anything for him? He cannot follow him back to Heaven, he cannot pretend to "be an angel" again for Aziraphale, because it is literally impossible. Crowley can't undo the millennia of growth he's undergone, he can't be un-cast out of the fold, he can't be un-unwanted by God and he can't be un-unloved. That's his lived experience of being fallen and nothing could change that for him.

There's no world where Crowley accepts the offer, and there's no world where Aziraphale refuses it. Not with them as they are right now together and separately in their arcs. And maybe that's part of why it's so painful to watch and dissect, because they hurt each other so badly and they don't want to, but it's actually inescapable. They're in a trap that they can't see until it springs. Snap. The elevator closes.