I Think About This So Much! Aziraphale Isn’t Perfect, But He’s Warm And Earnest And Affectionate

I think about this so much! Aziraphale isn’t perfect, but he’s warm and earnest and affectionate and well-intentioned, and the other angels just aren’t. They’re heartless and calculating, and nothing they do or say indicates a capacity for true compassion or love. Aziraphale thinks he’s kind and loving because he’s an angel, but he’s wrong. He’s like that because he’s him.

And it’s so lonely being someone like Aziraphale in an environment like Heaven. If you go back to the scene in the first episode where he and Crowley are standing on the wall, you can see how starved he is for kindness. Crowley says one nice, comforting thing, something he knows Aziraphale desperately wants to hear (“you’re an angel, I don’t think you can do the wrong thing”) and he lights up and starts babbling. He’s so happy and grateful and excited, and he keeps reacting that same way, reaching for more of that, for the next 6000 years. It’s never quite possible for him to walk away from Crowley, no matter what reservations he might have about their opposite sides, because who else will reassure him that he did the right thing by going against his boss? Who else will openly voice the doubts and worries he’s been keeping bottled up? Who else will come get him from a French prison or save his books from a bomb or make Hamlet a hit? No one on “his side” seems to be capable of anything more than superficial friendliness, but Aziraphale needs genuine affection. Crowley, for all he makes a big deal of acting like a dick, excels at genuine affection.