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From left to right: Maggie, Nina, Uriel, Saraqueal, Muriel, Aziraphale, Crowley, Beelzebub, Michael, Shax and Gabriel.
Character sheet for Good Omens, the Live-Action Adaptation of the book of the same name. For the tropes applicable to the characters as shown in the source material, see here.

Beware of unmarked spoilers.

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Main Characters

    Aziraphale 

Aziraphale

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Played by: Michael Sheen, Miranda Richardson (briefly)

"I am a great deal holier-than-thou. That's the whole point."

The guardian of the East Gate of the Garden of Eden, and one of Heaven's most successful agents on Earth. Likes books, and small restaurants where they know your name.


  • Actual Pacifist: According to himself, Aziraphale has never actually killed anyone and is highly uncomfortable with the idea of killing the Antichrist. His pacifism and love for the world set him apart from the other angels, who all root for the war to happen.
  • Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Heaven keeps a closer and more menacing eye on him in the show, and consequentially he's much more anxious than his book self.
    • His relationship with Crowley seems to be a lot less stable in the series, causing him a lot more angst.
  • Adaptational Nice Guy: He doesn't have as much of an edge as his book counterpart, and isn't the one to first suggest killing Adam.
  • Affectionate Nickname: Crowley almost always calls him "angel".
  • Aliens Love Human Food: He's an angel who doesn't need to eat, but he loves it anyway.
  • All-Loving Hero: Being an angel, this seems sort of required; but Aziraphale still stands out compared to the other angels, as he truly cares about humanity and living creatures in general. This even extends to demons. Aziraphale promptly offers Crowley - the demon personally responsible for tempting Eve to eat the apple - shelter from the rain, when he is in no way obligated to show him kindness.
  • All of the Other Reindeer: Like Crowley, he doesn't fit in with his "side"; unlike Crowley, Aziraphale lacks the chutzpah to demand a level of respect from his colleagues. All of the other angels either sneer at him, condescend to him, or outright insult him. (Although he is important enough to have been stationed at the Garden of Eden in the first place and, in a deleted scene, received a medal of commendation.)
  • Ambiguously Gay: According to the book, angels don't have gender, sex, or sexuality "unless they really make the effort." Neil Gaiman has confirmed that this is still true of the TV series. That said, the TV series really leans into the Homoerotic Subtext that exists in the book, with God Herself mentioning that Aziraphale has learned to dance (the only angel to do so, no less) at a "discreet gentlemen's club" in the 1880s.note  In fact, both Neil Gaiman and Michael Sheen have affirmed their belief that Aziraphale is in love with Crowley. However, they also believe that the characters' otherworldly identities transcend black and white definitions of gender and sexual/romantic orientation (because they literally aren't men or human), although their relationship undeniably falls under the queer umbrella.
  • Angels in Overcoats: Wears one.
  • Anti-Hero: He's pretty morally gray and is willing to do what it takes for the greater good.
  • Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: He becomes the Supreme Archangel by the end of season 2.
  • Back from the Dead: His body was ressurected by Adam during the climax of season 1.
  • Badass Adorable: He's an innocent angel who is sometimes confused by human concepts, especially early on, but his powers are still incredible.
  • Badass Pacifist: He really doesn't want to hurt anything, demonic, human, or otherwise. That said, he will still put his very existence on the line to do what is right, in opposition to his fellow angels and God herself (or at least the direction that God appears to be going).
  • Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: Whenever Aziraphale runs into a morally conflicting situation, his go-to solution is trying to get Crowley to do it for him because Aziraphale is the nice guy. Pity that Crowley is "personally not up for killing kids". Ultimately subverted at the airbase when faced with Adam and it's Aziraphale who tries to kill him rather than Crowley.
  • Bad Liar: One thing he has in common with Crowley, as his tells are really transparent. Fortunately, his fellow angels are even worse, as they're not accustomed to humanity at all. However, he fools the entire legion of Hell that he was Crowley by mimicking his friend's mannerisms quite accurately.
  • Been There, Shaped History: He was one of the angels that guarded the Garden of the Eden, a Knight of the Table Round, a spy for British Intelligence during WWII and was the reason why Hamlet became a bestseller (although it was Crowley who made it happen).
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: With Crowley.
  • Best Friend: Crowley has been his for however many centuries, much as Aziraphale denies it.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: He's the kindest angel out there, and genuinely cares about humans, ducks, demons, and every living creature in-between. When pushed to it, though, he outright defies Heaven to team up with a demon, dismantles millennia-old beliefs in "the Great Plan" with just a few words, commits acts that no angel has ever attempted, and when pretending to be Crowley, gleefully runs circles around terrified demons.
    • Also, he is just a bit of a bastard. If you look carefully in the French Revolution scene, Aziraphale is the one who miracles the clothing swap between himself and the executioner.
  • Big Eater: Absolutely loves food, and it is his one consistent temptation throughout the ages. He nearly gets himself discorporated a few times because he wanted to get something to eat in areas of rebellion.
    • Eats an entire ox after being introduced to food for the first time.
  • Black-and-White Morality: Downplayed. He sees Heaven as 'the good guys' and Hell as 'the bad guys', but struggles with the idea that Heaven often does things that aren't actually good and feels guilt when he defies them to do the right thing. This mentality causes him to have a falling out with Crowley at the end of season two, as he still doesn't quite understand how Heaven might not actually be all good.
  • Bookworm: He's very fond of books, as he runs his own bookstore and is quite proud of his collection of books of prophecy. Unlike in the original book, where he would do anything short of physical violence to prevent people from actually buying books from his store, in the series he is shown to have customers.
  • Broken Ace: Early in Season 2, Crowley comments that Aziraphale calls him to "report" his good deeds, and Aziraphale admits that he's struggling with no longer reporting to Heaven. His conflicted feelings towards Heaven are a major part of how the Metatron is able to convince him to return.
  • Broken Pedestal: Firmly believes that Heaven will listen to him and stop the war if he tries hard enough to persuade them, until he finally realizes that they want the war and aren't just doing it because they think that it's necessary.
  • Chronic Hero Syndrome: As an angelic being, he cannot resist the opportunity to help people in need, and sometimes going a little overboard with it. He started with Adam and Eve back at the Garden of Eden (gave them his flaming sword which was a gift from God), and then Crowley (offering the demon a wing as shelter against the rain).
  • Collector of the Strange: Bibles with interesting misprints, books of prophecy (preferably signed) and Wilde first editions.
  • Compliment Backfire: Him mentioning or bringing up how Crowley is actually a nice person deep down usually gets Crowley to snap at him that he is not nice because he's a demon.
  • Conflicting Loyalties: Aziraphale is caught between his loyalty towards heaven and his friendship with the demon Crowley.
  • Creature of Habit: Unlike Crowley, who moves with the times, modern Aziraphale likes to maintain a peaceful, old-fashioned sort of life. He keeps the same clothes for decades, and has been running his bookshop for centuries. Interestingly, he did adjust to different time periods in the past; he just appears to have given up on it since the Victorian era.
    • In the DVD commentary, Neil Gaiman mentions approvingly that the costume designer made Aziraphale's French Revolution clothing 30 years out of date on purpose. From that, it can probably be assumed that Aziraphale is always slightly behind the times when it comes to fashion, just not so far that he'd cross undeniably over into 'historical reenactor' territory.
  • Deadpan Snarker: More subtle than Crowley, but he certainly gets some jabs in.
    Crowley: Why did the powers of Hell have to drag me into this anyway?
    Aziraphale: Well, don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure it's because of all those memos you kept sending them, saying how amazingly well you were doing.
  • Demonic Possession: Angelic possession, rather. His spirit surfs to a few people attuned to be mediums, hijacking their bodies for a time.
  • Determinator: Although he has to be persuaded initially, Aziraphale is fiercely committed to preventing Armageddon. After his and Crowley's first Anti-Christ plan falls apart, he appeals to every angel available to do something, and when that fails, he abandons Heaven altogether, possesses a human after losing his physical body, and even tries killing Adam to stop things. By the time Satan turns up, Aziraphale's the one encouraging Crowley to keep going.
    Aziraphale: We can't give up now.
  • Distressed Dude: Not technically a dude, per se, but Crowley has to save him from discorporation at least twice.
    • Implied in series 2 that he plays this up intentionally because he believes rescuing him makes Crowley happy.
  • The Ditherer: Aziraphale vacillates between his loyalty to Heaven, and his affection for both Earth and Crowley. He desperately tries to keep both sides happy for the majority of the series, but ultimately his closeness to humanity and his bond with Crowley wins out— particularly when he realises how misplaced his trust in Heaven was.
  • Eating Optional: He doesn't need to eat, but he does enjoy tasting food and nearly got his head chopped off in France during the Revolution because he just had to get some crepes from France.
  • The Empath: As a being of love himself, Aziraphale detects a strong love for the entire village of Tadfield.
  • Energy Being: He's an angel. His body is only a vessel to house his spirit. Although it would be inconvenient if he lost it.
  • Establishing Character Moment:
    • The first time we see him, he's just given his sword to the disgraced humans, and shelters Crowley from the rain. Both establish Aziraphale's tender-heartedness, and how he'll ultimately act compassionately (and in favour of the underdog) rather than in line with Heaven's wishes... although not without a fair amount of fretting about it.
  • Everyone Can See It: A lot of side characters comment on how he and Crowley act like a couple.
  • The Fettered: Aziraphale has a firm moral compass, a great love for humanity, and a strong aversion to killing and fighting in general. Believing that as the good guys Heaven should do their best to avoid unnecessary wars, he runs into conflict with his side, as the angels have different ideas as to what is good and what is bad.
    • It is also shown earlier, though more subtly; at the occasion of humanity being drowned except for Noah's Ark and at the crucifixion of Christ, he feebly tries to defend God's ineffable plan before the disgusted Crowley, but he is obviously unhappy with his superiors' decisions.
  • Flaming Sword: What he was known for having until he gave it away to Adam and Eve, and it eventually ends up in War's hands.
  • Foil: To the rest of Heaven. Unlike every other angel in Heaven's forces, who are strongly implied to be Punch-Clock Tautological Templars who are more interested in settling their own personal war with the demons instead of preserving the Earth and everyone on it, Aziraphale is a genuinely nice being who has grown to enjoy many of mankind's little pleasures and eccentricities, including the consumption of food and his extensive book collection. This is best illustrated in his clothes: while angels all wear perfectly white- and cream-colored clothes that would not look out of place in an office building, Aziraphale has been wearing a (worn-out) suit that he has kept for over a hundred years out of fondness for it. His clothes have slightly yellowed as a result, reflecting both his lack of ideological purity and his kinder, warmer nature.
    • Also one, obviously, to Crowley. Besides their commonality in rejecting the grand machinations on the world of their appointed roles and in favor of subtler manipulations of humans, Crowley is a demon who is too lazy and noncommittal to be cacklingly evil and has a decent streak, while Aziraphale eschews the holier-than-thou attitude to do smaller, more practical good, and indulges in quite a few sins (gluttony from all the food he loves, greed from all the books he collects but refuses to sell, pride/vanity in the clothes he wears that keep him distinct from the other angels, and lust for, well, Crowley).
  • Friendly Enemy: With Crowley. They're basically enemies in name only.
  • Friend-or-Idol Decision: He's offered Gabriel's position by The Metatron, who adds that Aziraphale can reinstate Crowley as an angel so they can work together. However, Crowley refuses after being fed up with Heaven and Hell's toxicity, forcing the angel to make a choice. Aziraphale sides with Heaven, believing he'll be able to do more good there, but breaking Crowley's heart in the process.
  • Friendship Denial: Several times concerning Crowley— though less because of Heaven and more because Aziraphale's terrified of what Hell will do to Crowley if they're discovered.
  • Friend to All Living Things: Enjoys feeding ducks, brings a dead dove back to life, and sadly muses on "all creatures great and small" being destroyed in Armageddon. In fact, the biggest example is his affection for humans and Crowley, which contrasts with Heaven who view humanity and demons as inferior.
  • Gate Guardian: The Guardian of the Eastern Gate himself.
  • Giftedly Bad: His 'magic act' is embarrassingly inept. And this is an angel who can do literal miracles.
  • Gentleman and a Scholar: Cultivates this image, with his cultured, bookish demeanor and Victorian aesthetic.
  • Go-Karting with Bowser: An angel frequently having meals, getting drunk with, and all around hanging out with a demon.
  • Going Native: Like Crowley, after spending so much time on Earth, he winds up liking it more than the alternative.
  • Good Is Not Soft: Though he is somewhat softened for the series, Aziraphale still swaps his outfit with the executioner's and doesn't have a backward glance as he's taken to the guillotine. Also, while he initially protests the idea, it's ultimately Aziraphale who pulls the trigger on Adam at the airbase.
  • Gosh Darn It to Heck!: Except for one occasion, Aziraphale never swears, and even when he tries to make an effort, he clearly strains when trying to even form a curse word.
    Aziraphale: You — you b— bad angels!
  • Grew a Spine: Goes from parroting what he's been taught in Heaven to straight-up refusing to fight in the war between Heaven and Hell.
  • Hairstyle Inertia: Unlike Crowley, who went through a bunch of period-appropriate Expository Hairstyle Changes throughout the centuries, Aziraphale has kept the same short and curly hairstyle throughout his existence.
  • High Hopes, Zero Talent:
    • He has a particular passion for stage magic, but he is Giftedly Bad at it. When Crowley points out that he could do actual magic instead through his miracles, Aziraphale says that he prefers stage magic because it's more fun to do.
    • Subverted in the case of dancing. While angels generally don't dance and demons suck at it, Aziraphale (with a bit of practice) learned to dance the gavotte pretty well in the 1880s.
  • Have You Seen My God?: He tries to talk to God before realizing they're not interested in stopping the Apocalypse.
  • Holier Than Thou: When faced with a particularly tough ethical decision, he tends to try to get Crowley to do the dirty work to keep his own conscience clear, taking the typical "I'm good because I'm defined that way" route that other angels tend to take.
    Aziraphale: You're the demon. I'm the nice one. I don't have to kill children. If you kill him, then the world gets a reprieve and Heaven does not have blood on its hands.
    Crowley: Oh, no blood on your hands? That's a bit holier-than-thou, isn't it?
    Aziraphale: I am a great deal holier-than-thou. That's the whole point.
  • Holy Halo: In season 2 Aziraphale uses his halo in self-defence to neutralise dozens of demons attacking him. The effect is so strong it is considered an act of war.
  • Hopeless with Tech: He can't use a mobile phone, which makes sense for someone who doesn't even know what's a bicycle.
  • Horrible Judge of Character: He beliees heaven and his fellow angels will help him save Earth.
  • Humanity Is Infectious: Has gone native and acts like a human after spending 6000 years among them.
  • Ignored Expert: Heaven usually ignores his opinions, even though he's the only angel who properly understands humanity. When he reports that Hell has lost the Antichrist, the archangels dismiss it as impossible, even though Aziraphale's been the one monitoring Warlock for years and is actually right that Crowley can't find him.
  • Innocent Bigot: Despite all evidence to the contrary, and despite basically considering him a friend, he's still convinced that Crowley is incapable of feeling love or loyalty, simply because he's a demon. To him, it's not prejudice, it's just a fact. In complete fairness, it's supposed to be, but Crowley's been around humans too long. It becomes more tragic in seasons 2, where he gives off the impression that he could only love Crowley if he was an angel.
  • Innocently Insensitive: Is pretty insensitive to Crowley abbout his status as a demon, which seems to be a pretty sore subject for him. It doesn't seem like he realizes how it affects him.
  • In-Series Nickname: "Angel" by Crowley.
  • Insistent Terminology: Angels aren't occult, they're ethereal.
  • I Resemble That Remark!: Shadwell calls him a southern pansy. Aziraphale later asserts that he is not just a southern pansy, he is The Southern Pansy.
  • I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: He accepts Metatron's deal to make Crowley an angel.
  • Knight in Shining Armor: He played the role of one during the Middle Ages by donning gorgeous silver-and-white plate armor and going on a heroic quest to defeat the dreaded Black Knight... who, of course, turns out to be Crowley doing his thing. They immediately call off their duel when they realize the other's identity, but considering Aziraphale's distaste for violence, it's doubtful that he would've engaged the Black Knight in battle anyway.
  • The Leader: Becomes the Supreme Archangel in season 2.
  • Light Is Good: As befits an angel, he wears bright clothing in contrast to Crowley's, has white wings and almost white hair.
  • Love Makes You Stupid: Aziraphale seems initially skeptical when talking to the Metatron, and even begins to refuse his offer - until the Metatron mentions restoring Crowley's angelic status, allowing the two to finally be together without fear of hostility from either "side". Suddenly, Aziraphale is all in, unquestioningly.
  • My Grandson, Myself: Among humans, Aziraphale hides his immortality by always pretending to be the latest descendant of a whole family of bookshop keepers.
  • New Powers as the Plot Demands: In the season 2 finale, Aziraphale pulls out his halo to use as a sort of bomb against demon assailants, which was never brought up previously. Justified, since the act of using it is considered a declaration of war. Since he was trying to prevent a war, that wasn't an option.
  • Nice Guy: Gives his flaming sword to Adam and Eve when they leave the garden because it would be cold outside, they needed something to fend off predators, and Eve was expecting. He was also called off of duty once because he performed "too many miracles".
  • No Biological Sex: Angels are sexless unless they really want to make an effort. He presents male though.
  • Not So Above It All: When disguised as Crowley, he plays with the holy water meant to execute him, asks for a rubber duck and nonchalantly requests Michael to miracle him a towel.
  • Oblivious to Love: Even when it's blatantly obvious that Crowley genuinely cares for Aziraphale as a result of an emotional connection, not simply the terms of "the arrangement" or as part of some demonic game, Aziraphale either doesn't realise or won't let himself admit that Crowley is being sincere.
  • Obstructive Code of Conduct: Can't not do what he's told, but can be persuaded to "thwart" Crowley by doing something that he's not told to avoid doing.
  • Odd Friendship: With Crowley. Stuffy angel and stylish demon
  • One True Love: He is this for Crowley. He rejects him, but quickly regrets it.
  • Only Friend: Mutually with Crowley, as they're both oddities among their own kind.
  • Opposites Attract: An uptight angel with the stylish demon.
  • Otherworldly and Sexually Ambiguous: Like Crowley, he's a supernatural being with no sex (unless he tries) or defined gender. He's not as fluid in his gender presentation as Crowley and generally prefers to present as male, but he has no qualms about sharing a female body with Madame Tracy. In Rome, Aziraphale cheers with "Salutaria" which is the vocative neuter plural form of the word. So he's referring to himself, and Crowley, as neither male nor female.
  • Outdated Outfit: His coat is centuries old and visibly worn out, but he keeps wearing it because he's fond of it.
  • Playing with Fire: Back when he guarded the Garden of Eden, he had a flaming sword.
  • Precision F-Strike: When he's sent back to heaven by accidentally stepping into his active circle after Shadwell attempts to exorcise him, believing that he was a demon. It's only one of three F-bombs dropped in the whole series, and the only time that Aziraphale himself ever swears.
    Aziraphale: Oh... fuck.
  • Puppy-Dog Eyes: He may grumble about it, but Crowley is very susceptible to Aziraphale's puppy-dog expression. It often gets Aziraphale his own way, whether that means a demonic dry-cleaning service or the success of Hamlet.
  • Quintessential British Gentleman: Despite not actually being British, he fits the type to a tee. Of course, as he's been around since before Britain even existed, it's possible that the archetype came from him in the first place.
  • Really 700 Years Old: Only a tiny bit older than the Earth itself.
  • Samaritan Syndrome: Comes with being an angel. He can't help but help people that he passes.
  • Sarcasm-Blind: He sometimes doesn't realize that Crowley is being sarcastic with him and takes his words as compliments.
  • Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: For all his hemming and hawing about the way that things are done and what he's supposed to be doing, when push comes to shove, Aziraphale will always choose to do the right thing over following the rules. Hell, in his very first scene, he goes behind God's back to give his flaming sword to Adam and Eve, because he was worried that they wouldn't be able to fend for themselves outside the garden.
  • Signature Scent: According to Crowley, Aziraphale has a scent that is distinct from whatever cologne he happens to be wearing.
  • Sharing a Body: For a short time with Madame Tracy since he was discorporated.
  • Sharp-Dressed Man: A very well-dressed man-shaped being.
  • The Sleepless: He doesn't need sleep and doesn't appear to ever do it.
  • Spanner in the Works: No one in Heaven or Hell expected an angel and a demon to befriend each other, let alone throw in their lot with humanity as well. This results in upending "the Great Plan" rather badly.
  • Sue Donym: A. Z. Fell.
  • Tautological Templar: Downplayed compared to other angels, but Aziraphale still struggles with his unconscious assumptions that Heaven and angels are morally superior by definition regardless of their actual actions, even when this conflicts with his personal belief that demon Crowley is a kind person. This backfires in season 2 when Aziraphale assumes that Crowley will jump at the chance to become an angel again. Aziraphale believes that Heaven's flawed bureaucracy is still fixable but that Crowley was right to abandon Hell's flawed bureaucracy because "you're the bad guys"—lumping Crowley into the bad guys by definition because he's a demon.
  • Thou Shalt Not Kill: Aziraphale hasn't killed a soul in over 6,000 years and isn't hot on starting now. He came very close to breaking his rule, but Madam Tracy fortunately prevents it from happening.
    • Verges into Technical Pacifist, as he seems okay with putting other people in a position to be killed if he thinks it's justified—see when he swaps clothes with his ostensible executioner during the French Revolution.
  • To Be Lawful or Good: Ironically enough, what Aziraphale's conflict with Heaven boils down to is that he thinks that angels should always be good by preventing violence and destruction, even if this is against the "Great Plan" that all the other angels are eager to adhere to.
  • Token Good Teammate: With the possible exception of God Herself, Aziraphale is the sole angel in Heaven who actually cares about humanity and wants to protect it, Ineffable Plan or no.
  • Too Dumb to Live: For all his efforts, Aziraphale's understanding of the human mind does have its limits, which leads to him traveling to France for some crêpes... dressed in an aristocrat's outfit, during the French Revolution. He promptly finds himself on death row with a VIP ticket for the guillotine, more annoyed than afraid considering that his body's destruction means very little to a celestial being. Crowley busts him out just in the nick of time, but not without heaping some biting sarcasm on Aziraphale's lapse in judgment first. Then in World War II, while trying to bring down some German spies seeking books of prophecy, he ends up getting double-crossed by his partner.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Crepes.
    Crowley: What the deuce are you doing locked up in the Bastille? I thought you were opening a bookshop.
    Aziraphale: Well, I was. I got peckish.
    Crowley: "Peckish"?
    Aziraphale: Well, if you must know, it was the crepes. You can't get decent ones anywhere but Paris.
  • Tsundere: A mild example, while Crowley won't hesitate to refer to Aziraphale as his friend, the latter will rarely admit to this. This is partly because Aziraphale is more faithful to his team than Crowley is to his, and partly because he's scared that Crowley will get hurt if the two of them are discovered. End result is he'll be sniping at Crowley one moment, and trying to protect him the next.
  • Underestimating Badassery: The other Angels look down on him for caring so much about humans and dismiss him for being "soft". Backfires on them badly when Aziraphale completely turns against Heaven to team up with humanity and a demon, succeeds in stopping the Apocalypse, and manages to con Heaven & Hell alike when he and Crowley swap places. Also worth noting that he was armed with a flaming sword by God herself, which he wields when facing Satan, and was lined up to lead a platoon in the upcoming war.
  • Undying Loyalty: Despite parroting his allegiance to Heaven, by the end he's unquestionably loyal to humanity and rebels against the other Angels to protect earth. The final episode cements that he's also this to Crowley, when they affirm that they're on "their own side" and swap places to save each other from Heaven and Hell.
  • Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Crowley.
  • Wham Line: "I forgive you."
  • White Is Pure: To reflect his status as an angel, he has white hair and white robes in the Garden of Eden to reflect his angelic nature. However, unlike the other angels, he doesn't wear white. This is to reflect his fondness for humanity and how he's assimilated into them.
  • Would Hurt a Child: Zig-zagged. He's extremely conflicted when Crowley suggests killing an eleven-year-old boy to prevent the Apocalypse, but at the air base, it's only Madam Tracy's intervention that prevents him from shooting Adam on the spot.

    Crowley 

Crowley

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/crs2.PNG

Played by: David Tennant

"You ask me, he's been up here too long. And he wears sunglasses, even when he dunt need to."
— Hastur

The snake who tempted Eve in Eden, and one of Hell's most successful agents on Earth. Likes sunglasses, leather, and cool music. Anything cool, really.


  • 11th-Hour Superpower: Crowley's ability to freeze time is shown very subtly in Episode 3 (indicated by the guillotine stopping mid-fall), but isn't explicitly utilized until he delays Satan's arrival in Episode 6 to talk to Adam.
  • Achilles' Heel: Like all demons, he could easily be killed with a bit of Holy Water.
  • Adaptational Dye-Job: Crowley's hair is described as "dark" in the book, but it's pretty light ginger (especially in season 1).
  • Adaptational Angst Upgrade: A mild version, but Crowley spends more time bemoaning his demonic state than he does in the book. Played straight in season 2.
  • Affectionate Nickname: As in the book, he occasionally calls Aziraphale "angel." In season 2, he uses this nickname more often, which could be interpreted as Crowley's fondness for his friend increasing since the end of season 1.
  • Age Lift: A mild case, which doesn't apply to his real age. In the book, Crowley is described as a "young man" by several human characters, implying that he looks like he's in his twenties or thirties. In the show, he's played by David Tennant, who's in his late forties (season 1) and early fifties (season 2). He still looks young for his age, but calling him a "young man" becomes unintentionally funny.
  • Always Save The Boy: By the time the Apocalypse gets rolling, Crowley has begged Aziraphale multiple times to abandon Heaven and Hell to their fates and run away with Crowley to another star system. In Season 2, Crowley's protectiveness toward Aziraphale is even more pronounced.
  • All of the Other Reindeer: Like Aziraphale, Crowley doesn't really fit in with his lot, becoming too fond of humanity and lacking the true malice that the other demons possess. He still manages to keep up appearances by Stealing the Credit and is popular enough to be trusted with the delivery and upbringing of the Antichrist, much to his chagrin.
  • Ambiguously Gay: Crowley's entire persona pays homage to flamboyant rock icons like Freddie Mercury, David Bowie, and Ozzy Osbourne (there's even a point where, with his sunglasses and hairstyle, he looks exactly like John Lennon). There's also the conspicuous amounts of Homoerotic Subtext between him and Aziraphale, which is lampshaded heavily in the TV series. Neil Gaiman and David Tennant too have confirmed that Crowley is just as in love with Aziraphale as Aziraphale is with Crowley, but Crowley finds it really annoying that he loves him. Given that they’re both sexless and genderless, it's not entirely accurate to call it a conventional gay relationship (because they aren't men, or humans, strictly speaking), but it's a queer one nonetheless. Season Two removes any doubt that his feelings for Aziraphale are both very complicated and very romantic.
  • Anguished Declaration of Love: Near the end of the second season, when he begs Aziraphale to leave the whole "Heaven and Hell" thing behind and just be with him, followed by a kiss. Unfortunately, Aziraphale refuses to abandon Heaven, shattering both their hearts in the process.
  • Animal Eyes: Unlike Aziraphale, who looks entirely human, Crowley has snake eyes as a holdover of his original form as a demonic serpent. They change appearance based on the time period and Crowley's stress level; the earlier in time it is, the more reptilian his eyes. Meanwhile, a relaxed Crowley chatting in the bookshop has slightly more "human" eyes (whites visible, but with a gold iris and slit pupil), but a panicking Crowley screaming for his best friend has purely snake eyes (with no white at all).
  • Animal Motifs: Like most demons, he's associated with a traditional "evil" animal—in his case, snakes. He was the Serpent of Eden, his original name was Crawley, he has a snake-like tattoo on his cheek, and even in the modern age he has snake's eyes (which he keeps hidden behind his sunglasses) and wears snakeskin-patterned shoes (or they might be his feet).
  • Anti-Hero: Although he is way nicer than his Book counterpart, he is still employed by Satan himself and will scoff at human morality standards.
    Crowley: I am not nice!
  • Bad Liar: When he's put on the spot, he has a difficult time lying, which is pretty ironic for a demon.
  • Because You Were Nice to Me: Aziraphale is the only character to ever treat Crowley with kindness, who in turn considers him his best (and only) friend and saves Aziraphale on a few occasions.
  • Been There, Shaped History:
    • He was the snake that tempted Eve in the Book of Genesis, he was the one who allegedly tempted Jesus with all the kingdoms of man, helped establish an uprising against King Arthur, he made Shakespeare into a household name as a favor to Aziraphale and he's the reason why the M25 is so clogged with traffic.
    • Season 2 reveals he was also the one to kickstart the universe, having had a hand in the design documents and turning the crank that warmed up the "engine."
  • Berserk Button: A mild one, but he does not appreciate being called "nice." On a more serious note, Crowley reacts badly when people display a holier-than-though-attitude around him, as he reacts offended when Aziraphale wants him to kill Adam just so Heaven won't have blood on its hands.
    • Another one becomes anyone hurting or threatening to hurt Aziraphale.
  • Best Friend: He considers Aziraphale to be his best friend, but he doesn't really say it to his face.
  • Beware the Silly Ones: Crowley isn't taken very seriously by his fellow demons, who frown upon his evil deeds, which include taking down mobile networks and building a really annoying motorway; things that his demon compatriots find ridiculous and irrelevant, since it's not what they consider craftsmanship. But not only is it implied that his methods are far more effective than the traditional demonic methods of just corrupting one soul at a time, he's also a Guile Hero and not above using holy water on a fellow demon (something that even Hastur is appalled by), which allows Crowley to take down two far more powerful demons.
  • Big Damn Heroes: For a demon, Crowley comes racing dramatically to the rescue quite a lot. His rescue of Aziraphale in the church during World War II is hampered by his consecrated-ground-induced tap-dancing routine, but the intention and results fall into this trope. Later, storming into Tadfield Airbase in a burning car is a more straightforward example.
  • Brilliant, but Lazy: He has a much broader imagination than his infernal kin and was able to get away with taking the credit for various atrocities across human history like the Spanish Inquisition and the Reign of Terror, but he would much rather go drinking and driving around in his Bentley than bother planning anything so big. Aside from a few pranks and causing mild annoyance on a macro-scale, he has no real passion for true malice, coming up with the "arrangement" with Aziraphale because he knows that neither side really cares about results as long as they look busy.
  • Broken Ace: While he's still perfectly snarky and impeccably dressed in Season 2, he's effectively unemployed due to no longer reporting to Hell, lives in his car after the demon Shax takes over his old job and flat, appears to be depressed based on his early Episode 1 comments wondering about "the point of it all," and seems to have no friends or really anything going on in his life at all outside of Aziraphale.
  • Care-Bear Stare: When filling in Aziraphale's job, which he does sometimes to maintain the status quo.
  • Caring Gardener: Well, for a demon anyway—he clearly cares about his plants, and spends a lot of time taking care of them, in his own way. He's also significantly nicer than any of the other demons in the series.
  • Celebrity Paradox: In season 2, episode 5 Aziraphale promises music shop owner Mr. Arnold a rare Doctor Who Annual. The Doctor may actually be the most famous role of Crowley's actor David Tennant.
  • Companion Cube: Zigzagged, it's shown in the series anything can have a degree of sentience around Crowley, such as his houseplants and his car. The plants are said to be absolutely terrified of Crowley, while Crowley's vintage 1926 Bentley varies between having no sentience and some sentience. Crowley "speaks" to the car frequently and says in Season 2 that he can "feel" it when someone drives the car under the speed limit, puts something in the car, and when Aziraphale changes its colors. That being said, the Bentley seems to have some sentience as it still drives under the speed limit despite Aziraphale using the accelerator, Aziraphale speaks to it as well, and calls the car "it".
  • Composite Character: In Season 2, it's revealed that he played the role of Bildad the Shuhite from the Book of Job.
  • Cool Car: Drives a beautiful vintage 1926 Bentley in dark grey and black that he has owned from new and grown really attached to. Doing anything to it is a sure-fire way to arouse his displeasure.
    • Season 2 reveals that the car appears to have some level of sentience. It seems to like Aziraphale and responds to his every whim, and Crowley at one point notes that it doesn't like him living in it. When Crowley gets into the car devastated after Aziraphale leaves him, it clearly has some awareness of what just happened because it plays "A Nightingale Sang At Berkeley Square".
  • Cool Shades: Crowley rarely moves among humans without hiding his demonic eyes behind a pair of nifty sunglasses, even in historical eras where sunglasses hadn't been invented yet. He also doesn't care whether it's day or night.
  • The Corrupter: The demon responsible for the Original Sin.
  • Cosmic Plaything: Applies to Crowley just as much as it does to Aziraphale.
  • Crazy-Prepared: Humans seem to be unable to see Crowley's snake eyes, yet he keeps an entire stash of spare Cool Shades in his Cool Car in case the ones that he's wearing need to be replaced.
  • Crime of Self-Defense: When he uses the holy water that Aziraphale gave him to kill Ligur.
    Hastur: He hadn't done nothing to you!
    Crowley: Yet.
  • Curiosity Killed the Cast: His curiosity is apparently what got Crowley kicked out of Heaven. In addition to "hanging around the wrong people", he "only ever asked questions", which was enough to make him Fall. Suffice to say, he is none too happy about it.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Whereas the other demons are proud of their part in the rebellion, Crowley is still haunted by his memories of Falling from Heaven.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Despite being a demon and wearing dark clothes and having black wings, he's actually quite nice compared to his other co-workers, which Aziraphale makes constant note of. He even wants to stop Armageddon from happening because he's grown to like Earth and the humans. Crowley repeatedly lampshades this, mentioning at various times that he hung out with the wrong crowd, asked questions because back then that was all it took, and that he didn't "fall" so much as "sauntered vaguely downwards."
  • Deadly Prank: The bucket over the door filled with holy water trick. Subverted when he turns the paintball ammunition into actual bullets, because he also uses his powers to ensure that no one actually dies as a result.
  • Deadpan Snarker: He's very fond of snarking at his counterpart. When it comes down to Heaven and Hell getting more vicious than he's comfortable with, he can get downright venomous.
  • Decomposite Character: Not only was he the snake that tempted Eve into eating the fruit of knowledge (often attributed to Satan by modern theists), but he was also the one who showed Jesus all of the kingdoms of the world (who was explicitly Satan). He wasn't even trying to tempt him to anything, he just wanted to show Jesus what he was missing.
  • Determinator: Crowley is extremely persistent. If he wants something to happen, he will almost invariably make it happen, one way or another.
    • After Aziraphale rebukes Crowley's inquiries to obtain Holy Water for him multiple times, Crowley starts trying to get it by giving himself reasons to be in the vicinity of Churches to try to steal some, despite how, as a demon, standing in Churches is like constantly touching a hot pan, and the water itself might outright kill him. Planning a robbery heist at a Church roughly a century after Crowley initially asked is the last straw for Aziraphale before he gives into getting him the water.
    • While driving through the burning M25, he manages to hold his Bentley together and survive through sheer force of will via imagining that it is not burning and he is fine. He manages to keep the Bentley functional and intact (though it's still on fire) until he reaches the Tadfield airbase 100 miles away.
  • Did Not Get The Guy: He was rejected after confessing his feelings to Aziraphale.
  • Did Not Think This Through: A minor Running Gag is that he'll do things to torment the entire London area... without considering that he lives in London.
  • Drives Like Crazy: Is willing to drive ninety in the city streets, and Aziraphale has to constantly remind him to keep his eyes on the road. On the flip side, either his driving skills, his Cool Car, or both allow him to drive in ways that no human could hope to emulate, so it's debatable if his crazy driving actually endangers anyone.
  • Drowning My Sorrows: When it looks like Aziraphale has been really killed, Crowley reacts by abandoning his plan to leave Earth and getting incredibly drunk in a nearby pub.
  • Eating Optional: He doesn't need to eat, but he does occasionally wine and dine with Aziraphale, and greatly enjoys alcohol.
  • Eccentric Mentor: Is one to both Warlock and (briefly) Adam Young.
  • Energy Beings: Converts to energy to travel through a phone line.
  • Even Evil Can Be Loved: Despite denying it on multiple occasions, it's obvious that Aziraphale cares a great deal about Crowley. Of course it helps that Crowley really isn't all that evil.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Despite being a demon on the side of evil, Crowley shows a stronger resistance to more brutal actions. This ultimately goes to show that despite being a demon, he's not actually 'evil'.
    • While he's fine with certain evil actions and being a pain to humans in regular ways, he draws the line at killing kids. When Aziraphale tells Crowley that God plans on drowning even kids in The Great Flood, Crowley gives a confused and baffled reaction as to why Heaven is agreeing to this, when it seems like something that his people would do. When Crowley and Aziraphale figure out where Adam is, they discuss killing him as a last resort; Aziraphale abstains from being the one to kill him, as it would be against his nature, while Crowley himself is personally not "up for killing kids."
    • After tempting Adam and Eve with the fruit of knowledge, Crowley calls out God for exiling them from paradise. Crowley not only doesn't see anything wrong with knowing good from evil, he himself views the temptation as just a bit of mischief, implying that he'd not have done it if he'd known the harm that it would have caused the mortals.
    • Season 2 more and more shows that Crowley has a problem with harming innocents in his "evil" actions, such as when he was sent to kill Job's animals and children, but couldn't bring himself to do so.
  • Everyone Can See It: A lot of side characters comment on how he and Aziraphale act like a couple.
  • Evil Is Petty: His idea of "evil" usually involves people suffering due to annoying mishaps, like cutting power off to the phone lines and creating traffic on the M25. He delights in the annoyance that it causes for humans and sees it as effective for fostering evil and suffering in the long-term, but his demon compatriots don't find it as amusing.
  • Evil Slinks: Crowley's alternative form is a snake, and he walks in a way that reflects this. It straddles the line between Supermodel Strut and Silly Walk.
  • Expository Hairstyle Change: Unlike Aziraphale, he's gone through a lot of different hairstyles throughout the centuries. He had a Porn Stache in the 1970s.
  • Eyes Are Mental: While otherwise human in appearance, Crowley still sports snakelike eyes, as a holdover from his original form.
  • Eye Colour Change: As an angel, he had normal; human-looking eyes, which evidently became snakelike after he fell.
  • Fallen Angel: He was an angel before, but he asked the wrong questions and hung around the wrong people. For this, he was made a demon, but his morality did not fall as hard as he did, rather it sauntered vaguely downwards.
  • Fiery Redhead: Lives up to this trope, and he's prone to fits of anger.
  • Flaming Devil: As detailed in Ambiguously Gay, Crowley is much more flamboyant in his appearance this time around, with more Homoerotic Subtext added for good measure.
  • Foil: To the rest of Hell. Most demons dress like tattered homeless people with an animal for a hat, have dark eyes, and prefer to ensure absolute corruption and devastation among individuals. Crowley, on the other hand, dresses in finely tailored suits, has snake eyes, and prefers to inflict mild annoyances on a massive scale, ensuring quantity over quality in terms of suffering among humanity. These differences are implied to be because he never possessed the same undying loyalty in Satan and his machinations of universal evil as the rest of the Fallen Angels in his army, as well as having lived among humans for so long. This is best illustrated when Crowley explains how he had hacked into a computer and redesigned the London freeway system to indefinitely churn evil energies, only for Hastur to ask him what a computer is.
  • Funny Flashback Haircut: He has made some questionable hairstyle choices in the flashback minisodes.
  • Go-Karting with Bowser: Hangs out with an angel. A lot. All things aside, he and Aziraphale really are quite good friends.
  • Going Native: After living on Earth for thousands of years, humanity has started to rub off on him.
  • Good Eyes, Evil Eyes: Crowley has conspicuous snake eyes, which is why he normally wears sunglasses. The opening flashback of "The Arrival" reveals that he had normal human-like eyes when he was still an angel.
  • Good Wings, Evil Wings: He has black wings to contrast with Aziraphale's angelic white ones. "The Arrival" confirms that his wings were white before he became a demon.
  • Guile Hero: Crowley is a quick-thinker, coming up with a ploy on the spot to escape from Hastur.
  • Heroic BSoD: After Crowley temporarily loses Aziraphale, he just gives up, drinks himself out of his mind, and starts telling everyone in his chosen bar his story of becoming a demon. A second, less serious one occurs when his Bentley finally succumbs to the flames, to the point where he ignores a soldier pointing a gun at them.
  • Hidden Heart of Gold: He's a demon and gets pretty offended any time someone assumes he's "nice". But he is.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: One of Crowley's petty acts of evil was a subtle albeit convoluted redesign of London's M25 motorway so that it would form a hellish glyph and drive the humans crazy with endless traffic jams. He himself ends up stuck in one of those very traffic jams at the worst possible moment, with Armageddon barely half an hour away.
  • I Am a Monster: He tells Aziraphale he's unforgivable as a demon.
  • I Can't Dance: When Aziraphale invites him to dance, he tries to protest. It is also confirmed that no demon is really good at it.
  • Imagination-Based Superpower: Unique among demons, Crowley has an imagination, which allows him to survive driving his Bentley through the burning M25 by imagining that it's just fine.
  • Improbable Aiming Skills: He manages to pull off the Bullet Catch trick, even though it was his first time shooting a gun.
  • Inane Blabbering: Any time he's emotional (particularly when he's nervous, indignant, or drunk), Crowley starts spluttering, as though he's chewing on the words before he spits them out.
  • Incendiary Exponent: Crowley always Drives Like Crazy in his Bentley, but when he forces it straight through a massive wall of hellfire by deciding that it'll work, he ends up driving a Bentley that's ablaze all over all the way to his destination. Even the normally passive humans take note of that stunt (but are too stunned by the audacity to actually react properly).
  • Ineffectual Loner: He's limited in his ability to do anything to stop the Apocalypse without his only friend cooperating.
  • Inhuman Eye Concealers: Sports yellow snakelike eyes, and takes care to hide them with a very stylish pair of sunglasses— in sharp contrast to other demons, who don't even bother hiding their own "Uh-Oh" Eyes. For added comedy, Crowley can be seen wearing sunglasses as early as Imperial Rome, before the invention of glasses.
  • Insistent Terminology: Crowley did not fall, he sauntered vaguely downwards.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite being a Fallen Angel who can be a bit of a prick sometimes, by the end of the first season, it becomes clear that his heart's in the right place. While Crowley and Aziraphale know perfectly well that he's not that evil, suggesting that he's nice is a great way to get Crowley to rant about being a demon and thus not nice. This might be partly because it would get him in trouble with Hell.
  • Jerkass Façade: He often acts as if he's going to perform evil acts only to reveal he didn't hurt anyone in the end.
  • Jerkass to One: In Season 2, he develops a particularly resentful attitude towards an amnesiac Gabriel because of how smug and deliberate he was in his attempts to destroy Aziraphale.
  • Kangaroo Court: Becomes the victim of one in the Season 1 finale as a result of his previous actions, with Beelzebub acting as the judge, Hastur as the prosecutor, and Dagon as... another prosecutor in case Hastur overlooked something that they could pin on Crowley. With a jury composed of dozens of crazed demons out for Crowley's blood, his fate was sealed long before he even walked into the courtroom. He gets out fine, though.
  • Large Ham: Tennant really lets loose in this show, bringing a hyperactive and aggressive character to life. From yelling at his plants to GROW BETTER, to his drive through the M25, Crowley just oozes ham.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: While he loves and enjoys making humans miserable via inconveniences, sometimes that misery comes back to bite him later. In the first episode, after he shut down all the mobile lines, when he tries to contact Aziraphale, he can't make a call. When he needs to get to the Air Force base, he ends up stuck in traffic on the M25 that he claims to have created. His reaction when he realizes what's happening is plenty hilarious.
  • Late to the Tragedy: Comes back after his argument with Aziraphale only to find the bookshop on fire, causing him to believe that the angel is dead for real and break down while still inside the burning bookshop.
  • Lives in a Van: He spends the second season living in his Bentley after Hell kicks him out of his flat and gives it to Shax. He even has some of his plants stuffed into the back seat.
  • Meaningful Name:
    • His old name - Crawley, comes from the word "crawling" which makes sense since he's a snake.
    • His new name - Crowley was based on Aleister Crowley, who was an English occultist.
  • Meaningful Rename: He renames himself "Crowley" instead of "Crawley", claiming that his previous name sounds too "squirming at your feet-ish".
  • Metaphorgotten: He has a tendency to get sidetracked by his own metaphors, either by struggling to finish them in the first place or by taking them to literally.
    Crowley: I wrote it down. Walls have ears. Well not walls, trees have ears. Ducks have ears. Do ducks have ears? (Crowley inspects a duck) Must have. That's how they hear other ducks.
  • Minion with an F in Evil: Calling him evil would be a stretch. His idea of evil is mild annoyances that will apparently result in more people being damned to Hell than individually tempting people one by one, and aside from that he gets a lot of his evil credit from taking credit for humanity's worst crimes in front of his coworkers in Hell. Once the Apocalypse is soon to come, he convinces Aziraphale to help him stop Armageddon, and when the option of killing the Antichrist is put on the table, he doesn't want to go through with it since he doesn't kill kids.
  • Must Have Caffeine: In "The Arrival", he orders a cup with nothing but six espresso shots in it.
  • My Grandson, Myself: Has pulled this with Shadwell at least. Crowley hired Shadwell for a heist in the '60s and poses as his own son when hiring Shadwell again in the present day.
  • Mysterious Middle Initial: Invoked when he takes to calling himself Anthony J. Crowley. When Aziraphale asks what the "J" stands for, he admits that it's just a "J", really.
  • Named After Somebody Famous: He was named after Aleister Crowley.
  • Nice Guy: Despite his snarky nature, he's actually quite genuine with other people. Many characters even call out he's a nice guy in-universe, although he denies it.
  • Noble Demon: Simply put, Crowley is only evil on paper by virtue of being a demon. He's actually a quite decent fellow once you get to know him, but you won't catch him admitting it. He isn't really big on actually doing evil deeds beyond large scale mild annoyances, and didn't so much buy in to Satan's rebellion so much as, by his own admission, "hung out with the wrong people" and sauntered vaguely downwards. Six millennia of living with humans influences him to the point where he's become fond of humans and doesn't like the idea of them being wiped out in the Apocalypse—in fact, he actively tries to prevent it. There's also his choice of best friend: Aziraphale, an angel who's supposed to be his sworn enemy.
  • Nominal Villain: He's a demon and for thst serves the forces of Hell, insisting to be evil and being offended when he's called a Nice Guy. That aside, over the course of the two seasons he's shown to be very attached to humans, carrying for them even more than Aziraphale does. He even helped humans on occassions, most notable by sparing the lives of Job's goats and children and covering it from the angels. The same episode reveals in a flashback that the reason he joined Hell wasn't because he's evil but because he didn't agree with Heaven, hoping as demon to be more able to do what he thinks is right, being a "villain" by pragmatism.
  • Non-Human Non-Binary: When he's praised as "a good lad," Crowley pointedly responds, "I'm not, actually. Either. But thank you!"
  • The Nose Knows: Although it's downplayed, Crowley appears to have an enhanced sense of smell (which would make sense for a demonic snake). He can "smell" a change in the air when the hellhound is released, and he's memorised Aziraphale's scent, being able to identify it even beneath a new cologne. As with the angels' evil-detecting ability, it's a little unclear whether what he's picking up is a real, physical scent, but he's certainly using his nose.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Aziraphale and Crowley witness the construction of Noah's Ark and Aziraphale tells Crowley that most of humanity is going to be wiped out, it is Crowley who visibly is the more horrified of the two. The same happens during the crucifixion of Christ.
  • Oh, Crap!: Crowley has his fair share of these moments; his biggest one being when he realizes that Satan himself is coming, and he's pissed.
  • Otherworldly and Sexually Ambiguous: Like Aziraphale, he's a sexless, genderless supernatural entity. He's more fluid in his gender-presentation than the angel, presenting as female in 33AD and as Nanny Ashtoreth, and includes a female style of sunglasses and scarf, as well as women's jeans, in his modern-day outfits. In Rome, Aziraphale cheers with "Salutaria," which is the vocative neuter plural form of the word. So he's referring to Crowley, and himself, as neither male nor female. In Season Two, when one of Aziraphale's neighbors calls him a "good lad," Crowley replies that he's not either of those.
  • Pet the Dog: Though it's ultimately to save them, when Job's spoiled children start getting on his nerves, Crowley turns them into geckos partly out of spite. He spares Jemimah for her good behavior, but obliges her when she excitedly requests to be turned into a blue gecko.
  • The Precious, Precious Car: His beloved Bentley. Ninety years of driving and there isn't a scratch on it.
  • Precision F-Strike: Gets one of three in the entire series, after realizing that Beelzebub followed through on their threat to tell the 'Big Guy' downstairs.
    Crowley: This is Satan himself. It isn't about Armageddon. This is personal. We are fucked.
  • Poke the Poodle: His brand of evil consists of mildly annoying people so that they'll take it out on others. Do this often enough and the frustration, anger, and bitterness builds up. Just like Crowley himself, these people saunter vaguely downwards. Played with in that there's some implication that he may actually be doing more to make the world worse than the traditional demons, because his vague ripple-effects of annoyance operate on a larger scale, whereas they waste time corrupting souls one by one.
  • Porn Stache: A flashback shows that he sported one during the '70s, which is fitting since they were in style during that decade.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: While Crowley isn't truly evil and prefers causing mild annoyances on a large scale, his tactics spread more overall evil than the traditional corruption of individual souls.
  • Properly Paranoid: He spends more than a century trying to obtain holy water because he knows that sooner or later the other demons will figure out what he has been up to and will come after him. Sure enough, when the time comes, two Dukes of Hell come after him and the holy water is the surprise weapon that gives him a fighting chance.
  • Rebellious Spirit: Crowley has always been a bit of a maverick, to the the point that it got him into trouble with both heaven and hell at different points in time. He basically came up with the arrangement and repeatedly tells Aziraphale they are on their own side.
  • Red Right Hand: He has golden, slit-pupiled snake eyes behind his ever-present sunglasses, marking his nature as a demon—not an evil one, but a demon nonetheless.
  • Redemption Rejection: In-Universe. When Aziraphale reveals that Metatron offered to promote Aziraphale to the role of Supreme Archangel, with the added bonus of making Crowley into an unfallen angel again, Crowley refuses, having decided that the two of them getting involved with divine politics again wouldn't be worth it after everything they've been through.
  • Satanic Archetype: A lot of Satanic deeds are directly attributed to him.
  • Schizo Tech: Crowley's generally a Man of Wealth and Taste with an affinity for the latest tech on the market, but then he keeps using a hilariously old-fashioned desk phone including a tape-based answering machine in parallel to his modern smartphone, and he loves his 1926 Bentley so much that he's never driven another car since he got it fresh from the factory.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: He plans on running away to Alpha Centauri, but can't convince Aziraphale to come with him.
  • Sharp-Dressed Man: Crowley is always dressed in the very latest fashions, whatever the era. (His black velvet jacket from the Sixties flashbacks is to die for.)
  • Sinister Shades: He always wears shades to cover up his Hellish Pupils when around other humans.
  • Slouch of Villainy: Crowley slouches all the time. Like his odd way of walking, it might be a hint of his serpentine nature.
  • Snakes Are Sexy: Tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden, likes to stay on top of current fashion, and has quite a slinky walk.
  • Snakes Are Sinister: Crowley, a demon, literally has snake eyes. Crowley can change into a serpent, and he was the serpent who tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
  • So Long, Suckers!: Says this word for word to Hastur preceding his improvised escape, complete with a snake-hiss. Cue unmanly screaming from Hastur.
  • Sssssnake Talk: Sssslipssss into thisssss on occasion, because he is a snake (demon).
  • Sucks at Dancing: Unlike angels, demons can and do in fact dance, with Crowley supposedly being the best of them. Having said that... his dancing straddles a fine line somewhere between "has to be seen to be believed" and "best look away right now." When Aziraphale asks him to dance he tries to protest before being pulled to the dance floor.
    Crowley: We don't dance.
  • Sunglasses at Night: He always wears sunglasses in public regardless of whether it's day or night, since they hide his conspicuous snake eyes. Hastur lampshades this by complaining about how he always wears sunglasses even when he doesn't need to. Given that David Tennant was always wearing the snake-eye contacts too, that means he was doing most of that scenery-chewing while unable to see it.
  • Stealing the Credit: He claims to have done certain great things that give him his reputation in Hell, but most of the time it was a human's idea (such as the Spanish Inquisition and the Second World War).
  • Stupid Evil: It's further evidence that Crowley is simply not cut out to be evil: The few times he does something awful, he himself ends up getting fucked by it. Like the time he shuts down all mobile communication in central London, forgetting that he himself lives in London... and very much communicates and relies on that same network. Or when he senselessly convolutes M25's layout in an effort to make traffic jams a living hell on earth for commuters, only to get stuck in that same jam himself at a later, and crucial, date.
  • Talking to Plants: He learned about this in the 1970s and started threatening his plants to make them grow better.
  • To Be Lawful or Good: Played with. Just like Aziraphale had to, Crowley needs to choose between the lawful thing to do (follow Hell's legions to fight Armaggedon) or the good thing to do (try to save humanity), but unlike Aziraphale, he is from an Always Chaotic Evil race, both options then labelled chaotic (disobey Hell's orders) and evil (following Hell's orders), and had chosen good (or chaotic) millennia ago.
  • Token Good Teammate: He'd be annoyed to hear you say it, but he's the lone Jerk with a Heart of Gold in Hell.
  • Took a Level in Badass: When he drove his precious Bentley into the wall of fire to stop the end of the World.
  • That Came Out Wrong: Aziraphale discusses the end of the world with Crowley, asking him if he is sure that the Antichrist is born. Crowley replies that he should know because he delivered him. He promptly corrects himself, saying that he didn't "deliver-deliver" him.
  • Thousand-Yard Stare: Crowley looks positively shell-shocked when he marches out of Aziraphale's burning bookshop.
  • Tranquil Fury: During Aziraphale's trial, he sincerely tells the other angels that he has hopes of meeting them again under better circumstances. However, when Gabriel rudely tells him to "shut [his] stupid mouth and die already!" right before Crowley-as-Aziraphale walks into the hellfire, all of Crowley's friendliness melts away, and he's seen giving the Archangel a particularly icy glare on his best friend's behalf. Season 2 reveals just how angry this made Crowley; he disliked angels on principle, but because Gabriel considered Aziraphale i.e. the one person Crowley truly loves as so disposable and worthless, Crowley absolutely loathes him.
  • Trapped in Villainy: Crowley's not exactly happy about his demonhood and all the negative associations that it entails, ranting several times that he simply hung with a bad crowd that ended up roping him into something that he never wanted. This isn't to say that he doesn't enjoy the powers that he has, but they're no different from Aziraphale's except his lack of inhibitions against using them, and Crowley seems to go to some lengths in order to avoid doing anything actually evil. As far as demons go, he's basically just a superpowered Troll with a decent core.
  • Tsundere: Not to the same levels as Aziraphale, but due to his nature as a demon, Crowley bristles at and rebukes any suggestion that he might actually be a decent person or that he's done anything nice for anyone, even if actions prove so, especially if Aziraphale points it out.
  • Undying Loyalty: To Aziraphale, over anyone else in Heaven, Hell, or Earth.
  • Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Aziraphale.
  • When He Smiles: Due to him and Aziraphale being in such a stressful situation, it's a thing of beauty whenever Crowley lets his guard down and gives a genuine smile. It's usually aimed at Aziraphale, though, so make of that what you will.
  • Would Hurt a Child: Zig-zagged. Unlike in the novel, where it's Aziraphale's idea, here Crowley is the one to suggest that if something were to happen to the Antichrist, Armageddon would be postponed. He later says that he's uncomfortable with the idea of killing a child and isn't "up for it" himself, but his conscience seems to be OK with insisting that Aziraphale should be the one to do it.
  • Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness: His eyes are yellow, and while he's nicer than most demons, he can still be very sneaky.

Heaven

    General Tropes 

In General

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/angels.PNG
  • Allergic to Evil: While their bodies could be destroyed by conventional means, this only mildly inconveniences them. Much like holy water to demons, the only way to destroy an angel is through hellfire.
  • Always Lawful Good: In theory, anyway. Being angels, they are predisposed to being nice and polite, though their definition of "good" comes across more as a case of "we are good, therefore whatever we do is the right thing."
  • Can't Argue with Elves: Being angels makes them "the good guys" and thus they consider themselves superior to just about anyone else who isn't God. They, and Gabriel in particular think they are absolutely right about everything and won't accept doubt in their judgement. Not even from another angel.
  • Dramatically Missing the Point: It's rather apparent that they've veered far from Her intent, viewing Her Ineffable Plan as a fully predetermined series of actions that will lead to Earth's reshaping into the battlefield on which Heaven will finally triumph over Hell, while She explains to the viewer that the individual's choice is completely free and just as important as Her setup.
  • Gold and White Are Divine: Being angels, they typically wear white and some of them have gold markings on their bodies.
  • Knight Templar: They identify as the good side and support virtues in everything that they do, but pretty much all of them (the exception being Aziraphale) are not only unconcerned with the massive collateral damage to mankind and all life on the Earth the Apocalypse will inflict, but they seem to be hoping that it will happen.
  • Lack of Empathy: None of them really care about humans, and have made no effort to learn how they think or how to properly interact with them.
  • Light Is Not Good: They all wear white or cream-colored clothing kept in pristine shape, and some of the angels have adornments of gold somewhere on their person, but they're just as evil and ambitious as the demons. They just tend to be more hypocritical about it.
  • Our Angels Are Different: They usually wear white or cream-colored clothing and are able to sprout white wings, and some of them have gold markings somewhere on their bodies. Also, as a general rule, they don't dance (the only exception is Aziraphale, who learned how to dance the gavotte in the 1880s).
  • Silk Hiding Steel: The angels in general and Michael in particular are this. They are very polite, rarely raise their voice and smile a lot, but there is cold steel underneath.
  • Tautological Templar: The angels run on that logic quite a bit. Since angels are defined as good and virtuous, everything they do is good and just by default. That also happens to include fighting in Armageddon, an event that would destroy life on earth as we know it. Michael perfectly sums their way of thinking up.
    Michael: Of course you can trust me! I'm an angel.
  • White Is Pure: They wear white uniforms and have white decorations in Heaven to reflect their sense of moral purity and how they are unsullied by sin.

    God 

God

Voiced by: Frances McDormand

The Creator, the Almighty, the One Above All, the poker dealer who won't tell you the rules and who smiles all the time. Narrates the series.


  • Big Good: It's hinted that She planned everything from the beginning, setting things into motion so that Adam would go against his destiny and not end the world. It's also hinted that like Crowley and Aziraphale, She likes humanity and not in the condescending manner Gabriel and the other angels do.
  • The Chessmaster: She does not play dice with the universe. What She actually does is act as the dealer an unbelievably complex game of poker with unbelievably high stakes in a dark room where nobody else knows the rules and She always faces the players with a smile. In short, She presents Her creations across Earth, Heaven, Hell and wherever else with a situation that nobody else could fully understand, and lets them act on it as they see most fitting. This is in contrast to Heaven, who assume Her "Great Plan" is entirely predetermined and everybody playing a part will act exactly as She expects them to.
  • Demoted to Extra: For the second season as She no longer provides narration. The only time we hear Her is briefly during the second episode when she speaks to Job.
  • Fangirl: God apparently loves The Sound of Music and it would be one of the things that Heaven keeps around should they win.
  • Gender Flip: God is referred to as He in the original book. Here, God speaks in a feminine voice courtesy of Frances McDormand, but is also referred to as They by Crowley at one point and "Father" by Jesus during his crucifiction.
  • God Is Good: If She did indeed plan on Armageddon being averted, then it appears She does care about humanity, and actually agrees with Aziraphale and Crowley. Or maybe laying things out and seeing what humanity would do in the face of disaster was the whole point — will they embrace their worst qualities and fall into chaos, or will they say Screw Destiny and try and stop it?
  • Have You Seen My God?: A variant, with it being less that She's actually missing and more that She just refuses to properly answer people (aside from placidly smiling at them, of course) so that they can make their own decisions.
  • In Mysterious Ways: By Her own admission, comparing Herself in the intro to a cheating poker dealer, running a game for which nobody else knows the rules in a dark room. The mains eventually conclude the entire plot was Just as Planned.
  • King of All Cosmos: She apparently planted dinosaur fossils to play a joke on paleontologists, and has The Sound of Music on endless repeat in Heaven.
  • Lemony Narrator: Most of Her narration is practically oozing with snark.
    • While narrating the Switched at Birth scene, She compares it to parlor card trick; "Watch closely".
    • She mentions that some books claim witches work naked. She also mentions that these claims are from books written by men.
    • She answers the theological question "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" with a sassy explanation about how angels don't dance at all and fallen angels suck at it, concluding that the answer would be "a straightforward 1" if you could convince Aziraphale to do the gavotte on the head of said pin.
  • Omniscient Morality License: Heaven justifies some of Her more ruthless actions (casting Adam and Eve out of Eden, creating the Great Flood, planning Armageddon, etc.) as being part of Her "Great Plan." Crowley is disgusted by this, especially since he fell simply for asking questions. (Though the bar is implied to have been significantly raised since then.) To Her credit, though, it's implied that most of the horrible things Heaven's done in Her name are less a result of Her specific orders and more what they thought She wanted them to do.
    • That said, season 2 shows Her outright berating Job for daring to question why She had caused so much misfortune upon him, implying that She might not be as blameless as She appeared.
  • Otherworldly and Sexually Ambiguous: She is voiced by a woman, but Crowley uses They when talking about God and in episode 3 Jesus calls Them "Father". Seems like God simply can't be limited to a single gender.
  • Secret Test of Character: It's implied that the entire prospect of Armageddon was this for Humanity, Aziraphale and Crowley on Her end, seeing if, in the face of an apocalypse, they would rather accept defeat and embrace chaos or stand against impossible odds to survive, as opposed to being the final settling match between Heaven and Hell as everybody else assumes.
  • Selective Obliviousness: She'll never give a direct explanation for why She does things and lets the angels sort everything out. That being said, the main characters come to the conclusion that God knows about their friendship and doesn't see any reason to take action about it. In fact, the leads believe she used them both as part of her grand plan to delay the end of the world.
  • The Voice: She serves as the narrator for the miniseries and speaks directly to Aziraphale (and later Job) during a flashback (the only times She directly interacts with any other character onscreen), but She's never actually seen.

    Gabriel 

Gabriel a.k.a. Jim

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jims2.PNG

Played by: Jon Hamm

"Don't talk to me about the greater good, sunshine. I'm the Archangel Fucking Gabriel."

Supreme Archangel of Heaven, and Aziraphale's direct superior in the Heavenly hierarchy.


  • Archangel Gabriel: The one and only. In this series, he's Aziraphale's direct superior and frequently shows up to give him orders from Heaven.
  • Ascended Extra: Gabriel was only briefly mentioned once in the book. In the series, he's a much more prominent character since he typically serves as the line of communication between Aziraphale and the rest of Heaven. And in the second season, he's ascended further to become one of the main characters.
  • Bad Boss: Gabriel zig-zags between this trope and Benevolent Boss. He is usually fairly affable and generous with praise, and it seems he genuinely wants to believe that there is a "perfectly innocent explanation" for Aziraphale hanging around Crowley (as opposed to Michael who is more suspicious about it). That said, he is also overbearing, pompous and completely convinced of his own righteousness. People going against his orders and thus (what he believes to be) God's Ineffable Plan causes him to lose his cool, and he deems it acceptable to execute "traitors" to make an example of them. To put it simply, Gabriel is benevolent as long as everyone obeys his command, but turns merciless if you go against his authority. Aziraphale at one point also mentions that "you don't want to get Gabriel upset with you", implying that he can do a bit more than just sending strongly worded notes.
  • Berserk Button: As the other tropes associated with him indicate, challenging or outright defying his authority angers him to the point where he is willing to execute a fellow angel.
    Gabriel: Shut your stupid mouth and die already!
  • Big Bad Ensemble: Forms one with Beelzebub, with both being the most powerful characters in the respective divine and demonic hierarchies that are dedicated to making sure the apocalypse happens properly. And then in the second series decide against any further apocalypses, and to spend more time together.
  • Buffy Speak: In the second season, he often lapses into this. Part of it is just his lack of memory, but even in the short flashbacks we see of him with Beelzebub, he has similar moments when talking about human things that he's unfamiliar with.
  • Can't Take Criticism: As affable as he appears, Gabriel doesn't tolerate backtalking from someone inferior to him or any implication that he might be wrong about something. It causes him to finally lose his cool and drop the F-bomb (one of only three) in the final episode.
  • The Chains of Commanding: Season 2 reveals he's grown weary of his role of Supreme Archangel, as being the one in charge means he's the one who catches all the flack in Heaven after Armageddon is cancelled, despite it being out of his hands. He starts to long for something new, especially after falling for Beelzebub, and decides to try and ease some of the burden by putting off Armageddon: The Sequel indefinitely. This leads to him being ousted, but by that point, he no longer cares.
  • Composite Character: He takes the role of The Metatron from the book in being God's primary messenger and trying to convince Adam to make Armageddon happen.
  • Control Freak: As he carries out (what he believes to be) God's Ineffable Plan, Gabriel expects every angel to think just like himself and follow his every command. He is not one to take criticism or backtalking and the penalty for it might just be execution via hellfire.
  • Enemy Mine: He and Beelzebub try and work together to convince Adam to restart Armageddon after he refuses to do so.
  • Faux Affably Evil: It soon becomes perfectly clear that he (and, by extension, the vast majority of the other angels) really doesn't care about actually doing positive things in the world and are more concerned with being the "Order" to Hell's "Chaos."
  • Foil: His relationship with Beelzebub rubs against Aziraphale and Crowley's. Where the latter duo have known each other personally since before the Big Bang and have been friends ever since (loath as they may be to admit it for a good few millenia), Gabriel and Beelzebub only came to know each other after the intended end point of Earth some time after Armageddon was called off and slowly begun to warm up to each other over time. While Aziraphale and Crowley engaged in the Arrangement to trick both sides into thinking they were loyal, Gabriel is shown to have used his high rank to just call off any and every suggestion thrown his way that he disproved of, such as a second attempt at Armageddon. It took Aziraphale and Crowley 6,000 years to finally realize their love for each other, but only truly acted on it just as Aziraphale was leaving for Heaven, while Gabriel and Beelzebub hit it off after a few months at most and, after Gabriel got his memories back, immediately left their respective sides to head off for Alpha Centuri.
  • Heel–Face Turn: After the Apocalypse was averted, he had since been meeting with Beelzebub in secret and together they had a complete change of heart on the matter.
  • Holier Than Thou: In spades. He's an angel, therefore everything he does is right and good, while not giving a single thought to all the innocent people who would die in the apocalypse.
  • Klingons Love Shakespeare:
    • While Gabriel finds certain things about humanity perplexing (like food), he admits that he likes their fashion.
    • In Season 2, he develops a particular love for the song "Everyday" by Buddy Holly after Beelzebub points out the lyrics to him, this being the catalyst for his eventual ennui towards the Great Plan and his developing romance with the Archduke of Hell.
  • Know-Nothing Know-It-All: He claims that being present for the very first human birth makes him an expert in the human birthing process. As Aziraphale tries to point out, Eve's birth isn't a typical example and Gabriel is actually completely ignorant of how childbirth happens.
  • The Lancer: He's the highest authority we ever see in Heaven (with the exception of maybe Metatron, who's more like a secretary taking God's calls), him being the one that Aziraphale answers to and acting on Heaven's behalf (Beelzebub acting on Hell's) in trying to convince Adam to restart the apocalypse.
  • Large and in Charge: Physically he is the most imposing of the angels, and the only authority higher than him would be God.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: The second series begins with him showing up at Aziraphale's bookshop with his mind completely erased. He only has the vague sense that something bad is coming. It's eventually revealed that he willingly placed his memories and persona in a "container" fly given to him by Beelzebub to prevent the other angels from forcibly wiping his memory.
  • Light Is Not Good: Despite being an angel who's ostensibly on the side of good, when it comes down to it he's really a Jerkass who considers humanity as inferior and only cares about Heaven winning the war during the apocalypse. He constantly shoots down Aziraphale's attempts to prevent the war and even tries to goad Adam into restarting Armageddon.
  • Mirror Character: To Beelzebub. Short of God and Satan respectively, they are the top authorities in Heaven and Hell. While they both technically represent completely opposite ends of the moral spectrum, both (and Heaven and Hell by extension) are far more alike than they care to admit, as both parties don't really give a darn about humanity and basically want the war in order to see who's best. Both of them end up with the apparently unsavory task of telling their respective forces that the war has been called off.
  • Most Definitely Not a Villain: His 'human' impersonation is completely terrible. He loudly proclaims that he's going to purchase pornography from Aziraphale's bookstore while holding up a book that isn't even porn. He thinks he did a splendid job blending in.
  • My Way or the Highway: As his actor puts it, Gabriel is a team player, as long as he is the captain of that team. Going against him, and by extension (to Gabriel's understanding) the Ineffable Plan, will get you executed real quick.
  • Oh, Crap!: Has a massive one, when Aziraphale apparently survives the execution via hellfire.
  • Pet the Dog: Despite his Control Freak tendencies, he's initially willing to give Aziraphale the benefit of the doubt when he learns he's been "consorting" with his opposite number in Hell. He's also shown to be quick to offer praise for a job well done, and despite telling Aziraphale to shut up and die, Gabriel does show remorse and regret on killing him with hellfire and keeps his two fellow angels back when Aziraphale pukes out fire toward them.
    • Early in Season 1, he makes it clear that he thinks Aziraphale's plan to turn the Antichrist toward the side of Heaven is doomed to fail, but nonetheless praises him for trying and even urges him to keep trying, for the sake of it being an interesting experiment if nothing else.
  • Precision F-Strike: He gets one of three in the whole series when his pleasant veneer slips away completely and it's shown how much of a Jerkass he really is when Aziraphale is about to be destroyed for betraying Heaven.
    Gabriel: Don't talk to me about the greater good, sunshine. I'm the Archangel Fucking Gabriel.
  • Purple Is Powerful: Gabriel has violet-colored eyes, which suit his authoritative presence and role in Heaven.
  • Sharp-Dressed Man: Gabriel disdains most of the human world. But he does love nice suits.
  • Star-Crossed Lovers: He winds up finding himself being a part of one with Beelzebub, the entirety of Season 2 being a gambit so that the two of them could be together.
  • Super-Speed: While out jogging in London on the day Armageddon is set to begin, Gabriel chats with Aziraphale further about the coming war, runs several dozen meters away at a steady pace...then zips back over to Aziraphale in less than a second when the latter's not looking to ask about his "misplaced" flaming sword.
  • Smug Smiler: The Archangel Fucking Gabriel always sports a shit-eating grin, even when there's nothing even remotely funny about the situation.
  • Smug Snake: Gabriel is totally convinced of his moral and intellectual superiority, despite Dramatically Missing the Point of being on the side of good.
  • Tautological Templar: Since he's seen as the top authority in Heaven, he displays this attitude more prominently than anyone else. He is quite obsessed with winning the war, ostensibly for the "greater Good", despite the fact that this would also include the end of all life on earth. According to his actor, the reason why Gabriel doesn't see anything wrong with that is because he views humanity more as the means to an end (namely the Great War), rather than something worth protecting for it's own sake.
  • You Are Worth Hell: He gets fed up with Heaven and the Ineffable Plan, and decides he'd rather be in Hell if it means he can be with Beelzebub, since wherever they are is Heaven enough for him.

    Metatron 

Metatron

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/501325.jpg

Played by: Derek Jacobi

"Does anyone ever ask for death?"

The Voice of God (or at least the guy who takes her calls).


  • Demoted to Extra: In the book, Metatron appears after Adam cancels the apocalypse to try and convince him to start it back up. In the series, that job falls to Gabriel.
    • Ascended Extra: He plays a slightly more prominent role in the second season finale when he visits Earth in human form and asks Aziraphale to take over commanding Heaven now that Gabriel has left.
  • Emissary from the Divine: To speak to Metatron is to speak to God, though Aziraphale compares it to speaking to a presidential spokesperson when you want to speak to the president.
  • Literal-Minded: At Nina's coffee shop, he asks her if anybody actually asks for death.
  • Metatron: The one and only angel himself. Here, he takes the form of a giant glowing floating head, and his job as speaking on behalf of God amusingly translates into acting as a celestial phone operator.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: He plays this role to Aziriphale at the end of season 2, berating the angels who've been giving him trouble, mildly indulging in human pleasures, and offering him the opportunity to run Heaven, but given the dissonance from his previous appearances it comes off as him manipulating Aziriphale.

    Michael 

Michael

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mikeys2.PNG

Played by: Doon Mackichan

One of Gabriel's flunkies, who is willing to use non-traditional means to get things done.


  • Archangel Michael: Although not as badass as usually portrayed, she is still one of Aziraphale's superiors and the one who figures out his relationship with Crowley.
  • Control Freak: Hinted at. Aziraphale notes Michael to be "a bit of a stickler", and she is the one to investigate when she became suspicious of Aziraphale, even going so far as to contact hell for information.
  • Gender Flip: In a sense. Angels and Demons in Good Omens are explicitly said to be sexless and genderless by default unless they decide to present themselves in a particular way, but the traditionally male Michael is played by a woman in the TV series.
  • Hypocrite: Criticizes Aziraphale for consorting with a demon, but has contacts in Hell whom she uses for information.
  • Loophole Abuse: Despite or maybe because of her apparent love for rules and order, she is quite adept in taking advantage of this. She explicitly asks Gabriel if he had any objections of her following up on her suspicions about Aziraphale "using back channels", thereby telling him exactly what she planned to do. Since Gabriel doesn't specifically deny her permission, but simply said that there are no back channels to begin with, Michael hasn't technically broken any rules.
  • Our Angels Are Different: Usually depicted as commanding the entire army of the Heavenly Host, in addition to being the most senior of God's angels. Here, she's essentially a high-level goon out to fulfill Gabriel's agenda. Also the Flaming Sword Michael is often associated with is given to Aziraphale here.
  • Prim and Proper Bun: As befitting her stoic nature, Michael has her hair in a tight up-do.
  • The Starscream: Season 2 reveals her to be this, with how quick she attempts to seize the role of Supreme Archangel after Gabriel's demotion.
  • The Stoic: She's largely unflappable and hardly ever shows emotion most of the time. The only time she's visibly shocked is when Crowley appears to have survived his execution by holy water. And even then, all she utters is a subdued "Oh Lord" before she miracles him a towel.

    Muriel 

Muriel

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/muriels2.PNG

Played by: Quelin Sepulveda

"'Ello, 'Ello, 'Ello! What's all this then?"

A junior angel who gets caught up in the search for Gabriel during the second season.


  • Bad Liar: Their attempts at trying to pass themself off as a human police officer are laughably terrible, with their constantly slipping up and correcting themself in a way that makes it even more obvious they aren't a human.
  • Hugh Mann: They attempt to pose as a police officer to question Aziraphale about Gabriel's whereabouts but are completely terrible at it. Their "uniform" is completely white like their Heaven clothes, and it's obvious they have no idea how actual humans speak and behave. Though this is technically subverted, since Aziraphale and Crowley aren't fooled for a second.
  • Good Is Dumb: Muriel is...well, they're not what one would call the brightest feather in the high heavens. In fact, honestly, they're just dumb as bricks. Even Metatron labels them "dim." Luckily, the trope right below this one is also in full effect. What Muriel lacks in intelligence, they make up for in kindness.
  • Nice Guy: A rare angel who's genuinely nice and friendly.
  • Super Gullible: They believe Aziraphale and Crowley when they say they'll tell them what they discussed in private. Of course they do no such thing.

    Sandalphon 

Sandalphon

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tumblr_2706ba5b216c1b2844b1c703ddaecc8e_c8a5b594_640.png

Played by: Paul Chahidi

One of Gabriel's flunkies, and a rather unpleasant angel.


  • Blood Knight: Aziraphale mentions that he saw him doing a lot of "smiting" in Sodom and Gomorrah, and judging by Sandalphon's smirk at the remark, he got a bit too into it.
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Despite his heavenly status among the other Archangels in season 1, is absent from season 2 without comment, with his role alongside Michael and Uriel being filled by newcomer Saraqael.
  • Jerkass: As opposed to Gabriel, who does a fairly good job at keeping up a friendly façade, Sandalphon is just plainly unpleasant. He also punches Aziraphale in the stomach, without any provocation.
  • Most Definitely Not a Villain: He's even worse at this than his boss, as he suggested the pornography-bit during their visit to the bookshop.
    Sandalphon: We humans are extremely easily embarrassed. We must buy our pornography secretively.
  • Odd Name Out: The only one of the four top angels not typically depicted as part of the usual Archangel lineup in storytelling, replacing the more commonly used Raphael. Made all the more apparent that his name is the only one not ending with an "-el".
  • Oh, Crap!: Has a massive one, when Aziraphale apparently survives the execution via hellfire.
  • Villainous Gold Tooth: Unlike his Faux Affably Evil boss Gabriel, he is just plainly unpleasant. His gold tooth has a tiny cross set into it.

    Saraqael 

Saraquael

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/saras2.PNG

Played by: Liz Carr

A wheelchair-using archangel who formerly worked under Gabriel.


  • Disabled Deity: While not a god, they are still a celestial being who takes the form of a person in a wheelchair.
  • Forgotten Friend, New Foe: Like Furfur, Saraqael worked with Crowley when he was still an angel, which the latter has no memory of, explaining it as him meeting a lot of people.
  • Remember the New Guy?: They're a high-ranking angel, but never made an appearance in the first season.

    Uriel 

Uriel

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/uriels2.PNG

Played by: Gloria Obianyo

One of Gabriel's flunkies, a stoic and intimidating angel.


  • Archangel Uriel: The very one, although, like Michael they are still inferior to Gabriel.
  • Gender Flip: Like Michael, traditionally male, but played by a female actress in the show, and they present as non-binary.
  • Jerkass: While not as creepy as Sandalphon, they act the most threatening, and Aziraphale seems visibly terrified when they corner him. Also very much on board with the apocalypse happening.
  • Oh, Crap!: Has a massive one when Aziraphale apparently survives the execution via hellfire.
  • The Stoic: They are for the most part unflappable, and talks in a calm yet stern voice.

Hell

    General Tropes 

In General

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/demons.PNG
  • Always Chaotic Evil: Being demons, they are pre-disposed to be evil. Because of this, they lack a certain trust in each other and tend to let their own personal gratification and malice get in the way of things. This is demonstrated most often with Hastur, who has the Chattering Order dissolved and burnt to the ground after they outlive their usefulness, feeds one of his demon compatriots to Adam's hellhound and has two of his demons discorporated for petty things.
  • Animal Motifs: All major demonic characters are associated with a specific type of animal, always one traditionally seen as gross, evil, unclean or just unpleasant. In many cases they carry one around on their heads.
  • Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: They appear to work on this mindset. When Ligur tells Hastur he suspects Crowley isn't up to anything good, Hastur takes it that Crowley is doing his job. Ligur has to flip it around to Crowley isn't up to anything bad for Hastur to get the message.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: Demons, being demons, take great pride in being the corrupting force of evil that plagues mankind.
  • Creative Sterility: Much in the same way that angels (with the exception of Aziraphale) don't dance, demons (with the exception of Crowley) lack an imagination, many of them preferring the old "meticulously corrupting individuals" tricks and are much slower on the uptake when it comes to modern human inventions like cars and computers.
  • Dark Is Evil: All demons wear dark clothes, and Hell is interpreted as a poorly lit office basement with occasionally leaking pipes.
  • Evil Is Not Well-Lit: Instead of the typical fire and brimstone, Hell is depicted as a dark, dingy office basement with constantly flickering lights.
  • Evil Makes You Ugly: Most demons are far less attractive than their angelic counterparts. The exception is Crowley, who is the most moral of their number and didn't precisely "fall" in the same way that they did.
  • Fallen Angel: All demons were angels at one point.
  • Holy Burns Evil: While their bodies could be destroyed by conventional means, this only mildly inconveniences them. The only way to truly inflict absolute oblivion onto them is by dousing them in holy water.
  • Homeless Pigeon Person: With the sole exception of Crowley, every demon dresses like a homeless person to contrast with the clean, rich-suited angels, often wearing an animal as a type of hat or companion. Even Beelzebub looks like an Impoverished Patrician.
  • Our Demons Are Different: They typically wear black clothing and can sprout black wings, and they usually have something monstrous about their appearances, like scales or fangs. They're also noted to not be very imaginative at all, with Crowley being the exception.
  • Sizeshifter: Demons are not bound by conventional physics, so they can shrink down to the space in between electrons. When drunk on laudanum, Crowley involuntarily shrinks, then turns himself into a giant trying to go back to normal.
  • Sucks at Dancing: Unlike angels, who don't dance, demons do dance but aren't very good at it. This doesn't stop any of them from doing it anyway.

    Satan 

Satan a.k.a. Lucifer

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/good_omens_tv_show_3.jpg

Played by: Benedict Cumberbatch

The Lord of Darkness who gets ready for Armageddon by sending his son the Antichrist to Earth.
  • Ascended Extra: While Satan does prepare to make an appearance (with an earthquake warning of his arrival) in the book, Adam simply prevents his arrival with a wave of his hand, and thus it's never revealed what Satan actually looks like. Here, Satan actually shows up in person and is able to exchange words with Adam before Adam sends him away.
  • Big Red Devil: How he's portrayed in the final episode, being an enormous red-skinned demon with horns and bat wings.
  • Disappeared Dad: Gave Adam away when he was a baby and expects his son to fulfill his role as the Antichrist. In the finale, Adam rejects this, stating that he considers Arthur Young, the man who actually was there for him, to be his true father. Someone who ignores you for eleven years and only shows up to tell you off doesn't count.
  • The Dreaded: When Armageddon doesn't start, he is called upon to sort this problem out, and throws Crowley into a panic.
    Crowley: He's coming! He's coming, and we are fucked!
  • Evil Counterpart: To God, naturally.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: Given he is the Lord of Darkness, he has a suitably scary voice to hear in darkness.
  • God of Evil: Demons seem to revere him much in the same way that everybody else reveres God, Satan acting as her Hellish counterpart in the conflict.
  • Glorified Sperm Donor: Everyone in Heaven and Hell regards Satan as Adam's true father, and don't give much thought to his adoptive family. Adam thoroughly rejects this when Satan finally shows up, saying that Satan isn't his real dad since he was never around until now and thus has no right to punish him.
  • Hypocrite: Famous for staging a rebellion against his father/mother, he's suddenly against rebellious children when his own son says "Screw Destiny" and rejects him. He even calls Adam his "rebellious son" in a tranquilly furious tone.
  • Large and in Charge: He's the ruler of Hell and is also enormous. He causes an earthquake before he arrives, and he towers over the other characters even though he's only shown from the waist up.
  • Shown Their Work: Crowned with ten horns, fitting the description of two "beasts" in the books of Daniel and Revelation. (Only one head, though. Seven might have strained the animation budget.)
  • The Worf Effect: It truly says something about how powerful Adam is where he basically waves his hand and makes Satan turn to dust when he rises out of the Earth to attack them.
  • You're Not My Father: Adam ultimately rejects him and uses his Reality Warper powers to send Satan away while Arthur arrives at the airbase instead. Only his real father is allowed to tell him off, and he has only ever had one father.

    Beelzebub 

Beelzebub

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bees2.PNG

Played by: Anna Maxwell Martin (Season 1) Shelley Conn (Season 2)

Grand Duke of Hell, and Crowley's immediate superior.


  • Animal Motifs: As per Beelzebub's traditional role as the Lord of the Flies, Good Omens's version almost always has a cloud of flies swarming around their head and, when surfacing on Earth after Armageddon is thwarted, wears a fly-shaped hat instead.
  • Ascended Extra: In the book, Beelzebub only appears towards the end of the story along with the Metatron to try and convince Adam to go through with ending the world. In the series, they show up several more times before that point, and they also have a more prominent role as Satan's Dragon-in-Chief.
  • Beelzebub: The Lord of the Flies themselves.
  • Big Bad Ensemble: They form one with Gabriel, with both being the most powerful characters in the respective demonic and divine hierarchies that are dedicated to making sure the apocalypse happens properly. And then in the second series decide against any further apocalypses, and to spend more time together.
  • The Chains of Commanding: By Season 2, they're quite fed up with the stressful and thankless job of helping to run Hell, especially since everyone expects them to push Armageddon ahead, and they're no longer sure it's such a hot idea. They resign at the end of the season and go into hiding with Gabriel.
  • Dragon-in-Chief: While officially Lucifer's second-in-command, they're the one who commands the demons while Lucifer only shows up briefly at the end.
  • Dude, Where's My Respect?: They lament that one downside to working in Hell is that no one ever says "good job" or gives you a pat on the back for all your hard work, which makes it feel that much more pointless.
  • Enemy Mine: Gabriel and them try and work together to convince Adam to restart Armageddon after he refuses to do so.
  • Evil Counterpart: Much in the same way that Gabriel is the highest authority we ever see in Heaven, Beelzebub is The Dragon to Satan. They both even appear at the same time to try and convince Adam to restart the apocalypse.
  • Evil Makes You Ugly: Befitting their title as "Lord of Flies", their face looks like it has suffered various bites from poisonous insects.
  • Foil: Their relationship with Gabriel rubs against Aziraphale and Crowley's. Where the latter duo have known each other personally since before the Big Bang and have been friends ever since (loath as they may be to admit it for a good few millenia), Gabriel and Beelzebub only came to know each other after the intended end point of Earth some time after Armageddon was called off and slowly begun to warm up to each other over time. While Aziraphale and Crowley engaged in the Arrangement to trick both sides into thinking they were loyal, Gabriel is shown to have used his high rank to just call off any and every suggestion thrown his way that he disproved of, such as a second attempt at Armageddon. It took Aziraphale and Crowley 6,000 years to finally realize their love for each other, but only truly acted on it just as Aziraphale was leaving for Heaven, while Gabriel and Beelzebub hit it off after a few months at most and, after Gabriel got his memories back, immediately left their respective sides to head off for Alpha Centuri.
  • Gender Flip: Beelzebub is traditionally male and was male in the book, but is non-binary in the show. On Tumblr, Neil Gaiman joked that Beelzebub's pronouns are probably zzzir (mimicking the flies' buzzing), but throughout their more extensive screentime in season 2 they were consistently referred to using they/them.
  • Mirror Character: To Gabriel. Short of God and Satan respectively, they are the top authorities in Heaven and Hell. While they both technically represent completely opposite ends of the moral spectrum, both (and Heaven and Hell by extension) are far more alike than they care to admit, as both parties don't really give a darn about humanity and basically want the war in order to see who's best. Both of them end up with the apparently unsavory task of telling their respective forces that the war has been called off. They also both show up after Adam's called off Armaggedon to get him to start it up again. This, of course, makes it all the more ironic when it's revealed in Season 2 that they started seeing Gabriel in secret, both of them growing weary with the Great Plan and their roles in the universe, their arcs ending with the two of them leaving together to another corner of the universe.
  • Mythology Gag: While the title isn't mentioned in the series, Beelzebub is traditionally the Lord of the Flies, and is always surrounded by a halo of them when in Hell.
  • Nerdy Nasalness: Anna Maxwell Martin's voice is hilariously nerdy, even though Beelzebub is a powerful demon.
  • The Nth Doctor: Crowley points out at the start of season 2 that their face seems different. Beelzebub snaps at him that they've had this face for ages now. They admit to Gabriel that they were just tired of the same face for 6,000 years and wanted to change it up.
  • Star-Crossed Lovers: They wind up finding themselves a part of one with Gabriel, the entirety of Season 2 being a gambit so that the two of them could be together.
  • Took a Level in Kindness: They show a slightly softer and more personable side to their underlings in the second season, despite being a pure Bad Boss in the first. This turns out to be due to prolonged exposure to someone Beelzebub found they truly related to and cared for: Gabriel.

    Hastur 

Hastur

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hastur2.PNG

Played by: Ned Dennehy

Crowley's direct superior in the Hellish hierarchy.


  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: After he catches on to Crowley's mistake, Hastur confronts him about his recent encounter with Warlock, since the boy doesn't have the hellhound with him, knows nothing of the Great War, is clearly not their master's son, and told Hastur that he smelled of poo.
  • Bad Boss: He kills one minion for telling a joke about the fields of Megido and its avocado fields, a second for mentioning Crowley and selfies, and then laughs at the avocado joke immediately after.
  • Berserk Button: He has two: Crowley, and jokes. The first is probably the reason for the second.
  • Black Eyes of Evil: His irises are as black as his pupils, and his soul.
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Is completely absent from season 2, with no explanation given.
  • The Comically Serious: His strait-laced, serious approach to things is hilarious when paired with Crowley's wisecracking, especially when it comes to modern technology, which Hastur is very ignorant of.
  • Demon Lords And Arch Devils: He is a Duke of Hell.
  • Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: He hates jokes, but laughs his ass off when he burns down the Chattering Order's convent.
  • Evil Smells Bad: According to Warlock, he "smells like poo". Crowley later confirms that Warlock does in fact have a point.
  • Hair-Trigger Temper: As seen when he randomly kills a pair of demons for making a joke and mentioning Crowley, respectively.
  • Head Pet: In Hell, he's usually seen with a frog or toad perched on his head. When asked about this, Gaiman (jokingly) proposed that the frog was the real Hastur and the humanoid body was just his way of getting around.
  • Hypocrite: Hastur is appalled by Crowley going so far as using holy water on a fellow demon, yet he himself dunks an actually innocent demon into a tub full of it because he was at the wrong place the wrong time.
  • Kick the Dog: He seems to enjoy this, such as burning down the Chattering Order's convent, killing subordinates for saying the wrong thing, and randomly eviscerating a cartoon character.
  • Screams Like a Little Girl: Which clashes badly with his otherwise intimidating nature. Holy water is scary!
  • Shout-Out: Shares his name with a character in the Cthulhu Mythos.
  • Villainous Breakdown: Screams at Crowley about how what he is doing is pointless as he drives toward the M25, begging him to stop.
  • The Worm That Walks: He's able to become a swarm of maggots, at one point consuming a roomful of telemarketers by drowning them in a tide of larvae to reconstitute himself.

    Ligur 

Ligur

Played by: Ariyon Bakare

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/500814.jpg
A mid-ranking demon, often butting heads with Crowley.
  • An Arm and a Leg: When Hastur says "Ligur'd give his right arm for a chance like this," Ligur appends that he'd give someone's arm, because he doesn't want to waste his own. Look carefully, and the lizard on his head flexes its' right foreleg when he says that line.
  • Demon Lords and Archdevils: He's a Duke of Hell.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: Ligur has the deepest voice of all the demons.
  • Head Pet: He constantly has a chameleon perched on his head. When asked about this, Gaiman (jokingly) proposed that the chameleon was the real Ligur and the humanoid body was just his way of getting around.
  • Hollywood Chameleons: Averted with the chameleon on his head, which changes color based on Ligur's mood, like the real animal.
  • I'm Melting!: This is what happens when he gets a bucket of holy water dumped on him. You can actually see him melting like wax when the water first hits him.
  • Kaleidoscope Eyes: His eyes change color when the chameleon on his head does.
  • Killed Off for Real: He is destroyed by holy water, which demons cannot come back from.
  • No Body Left Behind: Holy water destroys him so thoroughly, only a steaming pile of clothes is any indication there was someone there.
  • Reptiles Are Abhorrent: He wears a chameleon on his head at all times. Since it melts when he does, it may be a part of his body.
  • Shout-Out: His name is likely derived from the name of the Lloigor from the Cthulhu Mythos.

    Shax 

Shax

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/shaxs2.PNG

Played by: Miranda Richardson

Hell's new representative to Earth.
  • Adaptational Wimp: In lore, Shax is demonic royalty, with thirty legions of demons at his command. This take on Shax seeks to gain clout and can only get a fraction of a legion to aid her.
  • Big Bad Wannabe: She has ambitions of being Demon Royalty, but all her attempts at being menacing or conniving usually fall flat due to a mix of the apathy of her fellow demons, her Sarcasm Blindness, her ineptitude with pretending to be human and general incompetence.
  • Gender Flip: In the Ars Goetia, Shax is a male demon, but is played by an actress here. Justified, since demons aren't bound by gender.
  • Misspelling Out Loud: Apparently spelling isn't any demon's strong point and Shax is no exception.
    Shax: They are toast. T-O-S-T. [beat] E.
  • Mythology Gag: A literal one. Shax being a stork in the Ars Goetia gets a reference via an engraving of two storks on her battle armor.
  • Sarcasm-Blind: She hasn't got the hang of sarcasm yet. Crowley has to point out when he, or someone else, is using it around her.

    Furfur 

Furfur

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tumblr_54e141681a36ec097dd5881f6dbb1b52_d50c4263_540.png

Played by: Reece Shearsmith

A disgruntled demon in charge of processing in damned souls.
  • Adaptational Wimp: In lore, Furfur is a Great Earl of Hell commanding 26 legions of demons. This Furfur is a lowly receptionist who seeks to climb up Hell's ladder.
  • Anti-Magic: He has a special "miracle blocker" license that temporarily negates any miracles.
  • Deal with the Devil: He makes one with the Nazi spies to send them back to the world of the living as zombies to find if Crowley is in leagues with Aziraphale. If they succeed, he will grant them freedom from damnation. He does allow them freedom when they find proof, but he neglected to tell them that they'll be stuck as zombies.
  • Forgotten Friend, New Foe: He was Crowley's comrade during the War in Heaven, and is pretty miffed Crowley doesn't remember him.
  • Mythology Gag: The sash he wears on Earth has a stag on it, which is what his basis in demonology took the form of.
  • Pet the Dog: In the finale, he claims Job was a "lovely fellow" even though he never met him. He also seems to genuinely congratulate Shax for the possibility of becoming Grand Duke of Hell in Beelzebub's absence, even giving her a fist bump.

The Four Horsemen

    General Tropes 
  • Angels, Devils and Squid: While the Angels represent Heaven and the Devils to Hell (obviously), the Horsemen are the Squids. Death proclaims that he is "neither of Hell, nor Heaven" and War, Famine, and Pollution are established as Anthropomorphic Personifications of mankind's fears - compared to "nightmares" in the book and series - and more interested in the suffering and extinction of the human race than the war between Heaven and Hell that follows after.
  • Anthropomorphic Personification: They embody various ills, and Death notes that destroying the other Horsemen only caused their essences to disperse, rather than killing them completely.
  • Badass Biker: Rather than horses, they all have custom motorcycles to better fit in with the modern day.
  • Color-Coded Characters: War is associated with red, Famine with black, and Pollution with white. Death doesn't seem to have a single color; his cloak and biker gear are black but his bike is white and skeletal (though this is likely because he's only referred to as the "pale rider").
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: They're all very nonplussed and confused when Adam makes it clear that he's an Anti Anti Christ and he's not going to help start Armageddon.
  • The Ghost: Pestilence never shows up, and is only mentioned briefly in the narration as having retired thanks to the advent of modern medicine.
  • Glamor Failure: Aside from Death, as the time of Armageddon grows closer, their human disguises slip and they become more monstrous in appearance; War's skin bleeds uncontrollably, Famine becomes disturbingly thin and gains sharp teeth, and Pollution has black oil stains all over their body.
  • Hell-Bent for Leather: As part of their Badass Biker getup, they wear leather. It's useful when riding, and they are indeed "hell bent".
  • Horsemen of the Apocalypse: All four of them have been summoned since the Apocalypse is coming. Like in the book, they ride motorcycles instead of horses to blend in with the modern day.
  • Knight of Cerebus: Downplayed. While there's still some Black Comedy milked from their appearances in the miniseries, the overall tone becomes far more serious whenever they show up and their more terrifying aspects are emphasized.
  • Psychopathic Manchild: With the exception of Death, they all take a sadistic and almost childlike pleasure in spreading suffering and misery wherever they go.
  • Resurrective Immortality: Aside from Death (who has Complete Immortality as a fundamental aspect of reality), they all can have their physical forms destroyed but will inevitably reform as long as some aspect of them remains in the world.
  • Villainous Breakdown: War, Famine, and Pollution all start to panic when Adam and the rest of Them force them to disappear as part of their aversion of Armageddon.
  • Villainous Friendship: They seem to genuinely enjoy one another's company, and respect each other's work. Death is treated with a bit of awe by the other three since he's basically their boss.

    Death 

Death

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/go_death.png

Played by: Jamie Hill (physical actor) and Brian Cox (voice)

I never went away.

The leader of the Horsemen, the one who everyone meets eventually.


  • Ambiguous Situation: He retains his novel counterpart's impressively large black wings, but it's unclear if he's still Azrael, the archangel of death, like in the book.
  • Badass Boast: When he surprises the rest of the Horsemen by showing up seemingly out of nowhere in the diner that they're all meeting at.
    War: When did you get here?
    Death: I NEVER WENT AWAY.
  • Celestial Body: Every star in the cosmos or something else is visible in his wings.
  • Complete Immortality: While his teammates will all eventually reform, Death cannot be destroyed at all without ending the universe. This is because death is part of the natural order, unlike the other three who are personifications of humanity's fears.
  • Consummate Professional: While the other three go about their namesake as people gleefully indulging hobbies, Death is more of a "business before pleasure" sort of entity. For instance, when War suggests charging into the Tadfield airbase and crashing the gate, like a blood knight, Death reminds her they have a job to do and creates a less troublesome entry point.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: As a counterpoint to Famine, both he and Death dress in all black, and to further this, Famine is thin and gangly, while Death's appearance (ironically) looks more muscular. The bikes of the two are also rather different; Famine rides an all-black motorcycle, whereas Death's is a customized skeletal cycle. All that being said, while Famine and the rest of the Horsemen are sadistic Jerkasses, Death is more affable and treats the apocalypse as just another job to do. He doesn't seem to hold malice toward anyone, as he is simply part of existence. Oh, sure, he's totally down with helping start Armageddon and cause the deaths of billions of humans, but when that ends up not happening, he basically shrugs and leaves.
  • Divergent Character Evolution: His book counterpart was a clear Expy of Discworld's Death, but in the show, he's hammier and looks more like a grimy, desiccated corpse than the clean-polished skeleton from the Discworld books, and is missing his Glowing Eyelights of Undeath.
  • Don't Fear the Reaper: He's not as kindly as other personifications of death created by the same authors, but he's not truly malicious or destructive, and only seems to be going through with the apocalypse because he must be there. Once the other three are defeated, he leaves without putting up any fight.
  • The Faceless: The only member of the Horsemen who keeps his helmet on, hiding his face until the climax.
  • Good Wings, Evil Wings: When briefly revealing his true form, he unveils a truly impressive set of thickly feathered black wings that look to have about a twenty-five-foot span from tip to tip, and visible in their darkness are things which could either be all the stars of the universe or "something else".
  • In the Hood: When not wearing his helmet to obscure his (lack of) face, he wears his signature black cloak.
  • The Grim Reaper: He generally appears as your typical skeleton in a dark cloak who carries a scythe, though he also wears biker gear to disguise his true nature.
  • Large Ham: Courtesy of a particularly bombastic performance from Brian Cox.
  • The Leader: He is definitely the head horseman. The other three stand up in his presence and address him as "lord".
  • Psychopomp: Comes with being Death himself.
  • Punch-Clock Villain: Unlike the other Horsemen, who are basically sadistic bullies, Death really doesn't care either way and is just doing his job. Notably, when War, Famine, and Pollution are all cackling over arranging a nuclear war to wipe out mankind, Death is just watching in the background seemingly apathetic to the oncoming end times. In his own words, he's "neither of Hell, nor Heaven".
  • Skull for a Head: Under his helmet, his head is a bare skull.
  • Token Good Teammate: Unlike his teammates, he is an essential part of the universe and doesn't have any ill intent. He even willingly backs off after the others are destroyed, despite acknowledging that the heroes wouldn't be able to defeat him.

    War 

War

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/go_war.png

Played by: Mireille Enos

A war correspondent who always seems to get to war zones before the war actually breaks out.


  • Adaptation Dye-Job: In the book, she's described as a redhead. In the series, she has natural red hair, but in the finale, it turns brown with bright red streaks.
  • Badass Boast: "I am War. You were made to serve me - to live in me and die in me."
  • Blood Knight: Being the personification of war itself, she revels in violence. Her very presence in an African country where a peace treaty is about to be signed causes a Hate Plague that ends with everyone killing each other.
  • Female Misogynist: War degrades Pepper for being a girl, despite herself being a woman, though being the abstract personification of "war" blurs the issue.
    • The fact that War might be simply pressing Pepper's Berserk Button deliberately to get her to succumb to wrath and hatred further blurs the issue.
  • Flaming Sword: Aziraphale's flaming sword came into her possession, and is delivered to her when Armageddon commences. She even gets to do a few tricks with it.
  • Red Is Violent: As the personification of War, she is constantly clad in the color of spilled blood. Even when masquerading as a human, she has notable red hair and red outfits. As Armageddon draws nearer, the blood spreads to splatters on her skin.
  • Slasher Smile: She has a nearly constant ear-to-ear grin, especially when there's violence going on.
  • Would Hurt a Child: Was planning to threaten the Them into line to get Adam to help them with Armageddon, with her clearly about to stab Pepper before the latter wrestles her blade out of her hands and gets threatened with it.

    Famine 

Famine

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/go_famine.png

Played by: Yusuf Gatewood

A businessman known for inventing artificial foods with precisely zero nutritional value.


  • Beard of Evil: Like in the book, he has a neatly-trimmed beard and is clearly malevolent due to being the personification of famine.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive: He runs several restaurants with the intention of tricking people into starving themselves with small portions and artificial nutrient-free food substitutes.
  • Dark Is Evil: Wears all dark clothes, and is clearly evil.
  • Evil Is Deathly Cold: Doesn't directly show this, but he takes great pleasure in describing the nuclear winter that would result as part of his and the other Horsemen's actions.
  • Haute Cuisine Is Weird: He tricks rich people into starving themselves by serving food that is just barely more than nonexistent in his restaurants.
    Waiter: Your main course, madam. Chicken froth on a reduction of broccoli gel with a mushroom foam.
  • Lean and Mean: Famine is tall and slim in build, and decidedly malevolent.
  • More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Upon growing pointy, thin, needle-like teeth, Famine's mouth is crammed with them.
  • Scary Teeth: He grows a set of long, pointed teeth as Armageddon grows closer and his human disguise starts to slip.
  • Sharp-Dressed Man: The most well-kept and dapper out of the Horsemen, at least until his Glamor Failure kicks in.

    Pollution 

Pollution

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/go_pollution.png

Played by: Lourdes Faberes

A slightly off-putting young person who spends most of their time staring at trash.


  • Adaptational Gender Identity: Pollution was male in the original book, but here they're non-binary.
  • Badass Boast: "Arsenic is forever."
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: A human would look at a river fouled by chemicals and choked with litter and think it ugly, but Pollution calls it "damn beautiful" and is admiring it when the International Express Man arrives. Unlike the previous two horsemen, Pollution is not actively engaged in spreading their namesake in their introduction. However, in a deleted scene based on a scene from the book, Pollution is seen releasing millions of gallons of oil into the ocean and causing several people to lose their jobs.
  • Cool Crown: They get a crown from the messenger that turns inky black when they touch it.
  • Icy Blue Eyes: Their eyes are a very pale blue, which is quite unsettling given the rest of their persona.
  • Legacy Character: God's narration mentions that they replaced Pestilence when he retired.
  • Enigmatic Minion: Somewhat, since they're the most enigmatic of the four (with the possible exception of Death) in the series. Whether or not this trope is the intent of either is uncertain.
  • Light Is Not Good: They represent pollution, but dress all in white and have white hair and eerie light eyes.
  • Walking Wasteland: They leave trash and contamination everywhere they walk and corrode and blacken their crown as soon as they touch it.

Earth

Tadfield

    Adam Young 

Adam Young

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/go_adam.png

Played by: Sam Taylor Buck

The Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness. Also the leader of a small gang of ruffians who go around playing silly games.


  • A Boy and His X: An Antichrist and his Dog.
  • Adaptational Jerkass: Just for a little bit — in the books, Adam doesn't get angry at the other Them, or intentionally use his powers on them (it's more that he doesn't realize that wanting translates to making if he's not careful), except for the once, and then he immediately snaps out of it. In the show, he tells them that his "new friends" (the Horsemen of the Apocalypse) are better than them, seems to be at least a little conscious that he's controlling them, and takes away their mouths to make them stop arguing, before he finally comes to his senses.
  • Adaptational Dye-Job: Has dark hair in the series, while the book specifically describes his golden-blond hair,
  • Anti-Anti-Christ: He's the son of Satan and his role is to bring about the end of the world, but due to a mix-up he's been raised to be a fairly normal boy. Though he comes dangerously close to fulfilling his role and giving in to his Antichrist powers, it's only because he'd learned how people were damaging the earth and he'd thought destroying everyone except for the people closest to him would fix it. In the end, he refuses to destroy the world and plays the trope straight.
  • The Antichrist: As stated above, while he ends up good in the long run, for a brief few hours before Armageddon comes he starts slipping into his role as the son of Satan destined to destroy the Earth. In a rare case, however, he's not pure evil trying to destroy humanity because that's his purpose; he's a Well-Intentioned Extremist, motivated to wipe out humanity so that he and his friends can start it all over again without the moral failures of the "old" humanity. Luckily, he realizes his mistake before the critical moment and shifts into a proper Anti-Anti-Christ.
  • Calling the Old Man Out: When Satan, Adam's biological father, shows up in person and demands that Adam fulfills his role as the Antichrist and end the world, Adam refuses. In his words, Satan isn't his real dad since he was never around to raise him (unlike his earthly father Mr. Young), so there's no reason to listen to Satan anyway.
  • Cheerful Child: He's an unusually happy kid with a perfect childhood.
  • Coming of Age Story: The whole series is one for him, in a way. The plot kicks into high gear when he turns eleven, and he goes through many of the classic elements of a coming-of-age story; he acquires a loyal pet, first becomes aware of the world's problems, becomes disillusioned with the adults running things, has his first major conflict with his friends, discovers new aspects of his personality and abilities he never imagined he had, and, above all, rejects the role the adults have picked out for him, instead becoming determined to go down his own path and make his own destiny.
  • Drunk with Power: After reading Anathema's occult magazines and learning more about environmental problems, he becomes disillusioned with the world, which lets him tap into his Antichrist powers and makes him come very close to fulfilling his role and destroying everything so he can remake it. It's only when the other Them tell him they don't want to be his friends anymore that he snaps out of it.
  • Exact Words: At the climax of the film, Adam marshals the full strength of his reality-altering powers and tells Satan "You're not my dad. You never were." And his reality-altering powers make that statement true.
  • Expy: Of Damien Thorn, as Good Omens is partially an Affectionate Parody of that franchise. The son of Satan who gets sent a hellhound on his birthday, and proceeds to be corrupted by his new infernal power. The difference here is that Adam eventually realizes he was pushing his friends away and decides to renounce Armageddon and his father.
  • Happily Adopted: He's happy with the parents who raised him and refuses to destroy the world as his biological father Satan intends.
  • Intergenerational Friendship: He befriends Anathema, who's well into adulthood, and finds all her occult magazines to be extremely cool.
  • Ironic Name: His parents decide to name him Adam, not knowing that he's the Antichrist.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Even if you disregard the Antichrist thing, he's still a bossy, mischievous kid who is convinced he knows best. Despite this, he's got a big heart and deeply cares for his friends. Anathema is stunned when she learns he's the Antichrist for this reason, noting that he's really a sweet kid.
  • Meaningful Name: He shares his name with the first human. As Aziraphale tells him in the finale, he's not purely demonic or angelic, but purely human. This turns out to be the key to averting the Apocalypse.
  • Messianic Archetype: Especially ironic, given he's The Antichrist (or was). When Adam cancels The End of the World as We Know It, Beelzebub tries appealing to his greedier side by citing that if he caused the apocalypse, then he could rule over the world (much in the same way Satan allegedly tempted Jesus - in the series revealed to be Crowley - with "all of the kingdoms of the world"). While Jesus rejected the offer due to his humility and loyalty to God, Adam rejects the offer because he realized in the previous episode that if he did rule over the entire Earth, he would have no idea what he would do with it.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: His realization that his friends are terrified of him and they don't want to spend time with him anymore - even including Dog - makes him realize how he's gone too far and he feels awful, almost immediately making amends with them.
  • Power Floats: When he starts fully giving in to his powers, he floats a few feet above the ground and eventually rises even higher into the sky.
  • Reality Warper: He has the ability to bend reality to his will, creating whatever he desires. He's been manipulating reality for basically his entire life without knowing it, since Newt discovers that the weather in Tadfield has always been perfect for the time of year (long hot summers, crisp autumns, always snowing on Christmas Eve) for the past eleven years. He starts to come into his full power after he reads Anathema's occult magazines, and he gets even more powerful from there.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: When he taps into his powers as the Antichrist, his eyes turn red with black stars as pupils.
  • Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: When he gains his full power, he terrifies his friends.
  • Try to Fit That on a Business Card: The Satanic nuns always refer to him as "The Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness." Many of these titles are more associated with his Dad though.
  • Unwitting Pawn: While he has his own motivations and plans for when he's gone mad with power and intends on bringing Armageddon, he's ultimately playing into Heaven and Hell's plans to use Earth as a battlefield for their final battle.
  • Virtuous Character Copy: He clearly takes inspiration from Damien Thorn, but unlike Damien, who fully embraced his destiny as the Antichrist and committed monstrous acts, Adam's fall to the dark side stems from justified anger about the world and eventually renounces Satan and calls off Armageddon.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: For a bit. The failings of humanity he learned from Anathema, such as pollution and whale hunting, prompt him to use his powers as the Antichrist to destroy the world and start it anew with his friends.

    Anathema Device 

Anathema Device

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/go_anathema.png

Played by: Adria Arjona

Agnes's many times great-granddaughter. According to the prophecies left behind by Agnes, it is up to her to stop Armageddon.


  • Adaptational Attractiveness: Downplayed: In the book, Anathema is described as having facial features that are attractive individually, but don't mesh well, resulting in someone who's not quite pretty. She's played by an actress/model who is more conventionally attractive.
  • Adaptational Nationality: In the book, she was British. While still of British descent in the series (since she's descended from Agnes Nutter, a witch from 17th century England), she's now American, having grown up in California.
  • Adaptational Wealth: Grew up in a mansion in California thanks to her mother following the prophecy about investing in "Master Jobbes' apple no one can eat", only moving into Tadsfield to fulfill the prophecy.
  • Age Lift: A minor example. In the book, she's eight-and-a-half the day Adam is born, making her nineteen when the main action goes down. In the series, she seems to be in her mid-twenties, like her actress, and is a tween in a flashback.
  • Aura Vision: She's able to see people's auras. She's very confused when Adam appears to have no aura at all (actually because it encompasses all of England and she's far too close to the center to see anything), and is downright disturbed when she sees the Horsepeople's auras as black holes that suck in all light around them.
  • Brainy Brunette: Has long dark hair and is quite knowledgeable.
  • Conspiracy Theorist: Though it's not really lingered on, Anathema appears to be one. Not only is she sure that GMOs and nuclear plants are evil, but she's subscribed to a magazine that advocates for many different theories (ranging from aliens really visiting us or Atlantis being real to Tibetans spying on people from tunnels). Adam reads all of her issues and turns into a believer too.
  • Granola Girl: She's very passionate about the environment and protecting the planet, and is prone to ranting about all the ways humans have messed it up.
  • Hot Witch: Downplayed; while she is very pretty (in fact, she's more attractive than how the original book describes her), she tends to wear very modest, old-fashioned clothing. Her actual skill in sorcery is also hampered by Adam's protective field (and as mentioned before, his power being so huge that it literally can't be perceived when standing at its epicenter).
  • Insistent Terminology: When Adam asks if she's a witch, she tells him that she's an occultist. When she introduces herself to Newt, however, she tells him outright that she's a witch.
  • Intergenerational Friendship: Forms one with Adam. She's very shocked to learn that he's the Antichrist since she'd gotten fond of him.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: On the surface, she's pretty brusque and easily irritated due to her being obsessed with fulfilling her ancestor's prophecies so as to avert Armageddon, but she's actually a very kind and considerate person once you get to know her.
  • Race Lift: In the book, she was British. In the series, she's played by Puerto Rican actress Adria Arjona.
  • Seers: Not literally, but her great-grandmother's book contains years of future predictions that she uses to figure out what's going on and what her part to play is.
  • Single Woman Seeks Good Man: She goes for the socially awkward but extremely kind Newt.
  • Smart People Wear Glasses: She wears thick rounded ones while researching her ancestor's prophecies and using witch lore to search for the Anti-Christ.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Even though his powers were growing after getting Dog, Anathema accidentally builds up on the idea to Adam that the Armageddon should happen because humans were ruining the earth.
  • Worf Had the Flu: She gets to Tadfield, correctly interprets Agnes' 17th-century perceptions to what they mean in the 21st century, finds the leylines that are all spiraling towards one point, and even gets it down to the north end of the village. But she can't pinpoint the Antichrist's actual location even when he's sitting in front of her. This is partly because he has a protective field that shields him from occult and/or ethereal perception, and also because his power is so vast that trying to perceive it is like "trying to see England from Trafalgar Square." (Or as the miniseries puts it, "the United States from Times Square.")

    Newton "Newt" Pulsifer 

Newton "Newt" Pulsifer

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/go_newton.png

Played by: Jack Whitehall

A young man who's very interested in computers, but is unable to get any kind of job that involves them since he essentially fries up any computer he touches. When he can't find a job he eventually goes to Shadwell and is recruited as a witch-hunter.


  • Adaptational Angst Upgrade: In the book, he had a steady job before working for Shadwell, but found it to be unbearably soul-sucking and dull, and responded to the job posting for the Witchfinder's Army on a lark. In the series, he can't hold down a job and is absolutely crushed by this fact. This is justified by the Setting Update; a Walking Techbane who wrecks any computer he touches would be inconvenient at times in the 1990s, but in the 2010s, he would be unemployable. Unless he, say, managed to stumble on a tech-free job run by an old coot who probably doesn't even know how to use a computer himself.
  • Cosmic Plaything: Even ignoring his absurd Walking Techbane "powers," he gets into a car crash and generally gets the crap kicked out of him over the course of the miniseries.
  • Nerds Are Virgins: He's very much a nerd, and after finding out the apocalypse is coming he admits to Anathema that he's never even kissed a girl. Luckily for him, he doesn't stay a virgin for much longer.
  • Nice Guy: He's passive and insecure, but an incredibly nice dude.
  • Smart People Wear Glasses: Downplayed. He doesn't seem particularly smart, and even though he really likes computers, he kills any system he touches.
  • This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: His Walking Techbane touch is vital to stopping the apocalypse, as it shuts down the complex computer system the Horsemen were going to use to launch every country's nuclear missiles and end the world.
  • Walking Techbane: Any computer he touches either explodes or knocks out whatever grid it is attached to beyond plausibility. This is a much bigger problem here thanks to the Setting Update; the ubiquity of computers makes it basically impossible for him to hold down a job. His bad luck with computers turns out to come in handy when the Horsemen have hijacked nuclear weapons all over the world, since he's the only one whose attempts to "fix" the computer system they set up will shut it down completely.

    Pepper 

Pepper a.k.a. Pippin Galadriel Moonchild

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pepper2.PNG

Played by: Amma Ris

"Another delusional victim of the patriarchy..."

One of Adam's friends who is usually eager to go along with her friend's ideas or get into arguments on the things Adam talks about.


    Brian 

Brian

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/brian24.PNG

Played by: Ilan Galkoff

A carefree, happy-go-lucky boy who is another one of Adam's friends.


  • Good Counterpart: To Pollution.
  • I Want My Mommy!: He cries for his parents when Adam goes full Reality Warper.
  • The Generic Guy: In the words of God, every gang needs a Brian. He’s also noted to basically just have the fact he’s always grubby and agrees with everything Adam says as attributes that set him apart from his friends.
  • No Sense of Direction: Implied when the Them head to the Tadfield airbase on their bikes; he takes off in the opposite direction from the other three, only to rejoin them a few seconds later.
  • The Pigpen: He's permanently messy and sloppy. In The Them's introductory scene when they all get ice cream cones, he's offscreen for all of six seconds before most of his ice cream is on his face or shirt.

    Wensleydale 

Jeremy Wensleydale

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wensleydale.PNG

Played by: Alfie Taylor

The third of Adam's friends, a smart and unusually serious young boy. His first name is Jeremy, but you could be forgiven for not knowing that.


  • Good Counterpart: To Famine.
  • Last-Name Basis: Everyone calls him by his surname, except his parents, who call him "Youngster." His friends sometimes shorten it to "Wensley."
  • Smart People Wear Glasses: He's quite bright for his age, and wears a pair of frames. God also states that the only thing standing between Wensleydale and a position in accounting is time.
  • Verbal Tic: Tends to start sentences with, "Actually..."

    Agnes Nutter 

Agnes Nutter

Played by: Josie Lawrence

A witch from the 17th century with power to see the future and writer of a book filled with "nice and accurate" predictions about the future... including Armageddon.


  • The Cassandra: Agnes knew things from future events to health tidbits centuries before they happened. Of course, no one believed her and used it to justified burning her as a witch. This extended to her book of prophecies, none of which were ever bought and were later burned by the publisher. Subverted in the modern day, where her one and only copy is the considered the Holy Grail of prophecies.
  • Face Death with Dignity: When Witchfinder General Pulsifer arrives at her home with a mob of villagers to apprehend her, she is found calmly waiting for them; she mildly chastises them for being "late", and proceeds to stroll along ahead of the mob all the way to the stake as though without a care in the world. Justified as she had been well aware of the exact specifics of her death for some time, and had made all her preparations and set her affairs in order beforehand.
  • Posthumous Character: She's dead long before the plot of the present day is set in motion, due to having lived in the 17th century and having killed herself and her persecutors when they attempted to burn her at the stake.
  • Seers: She was able to see into the future, and her prophecies are the only completely accurate ones to ever exist (though she interpreted what she saw of the future with a 17th century mindset, like referring to Apple Inc. as "an apple no one can eat" or Newt's blue Reliant Robin as "Robin's blue chariot"). Her descendants have made it their life's work to study her predictions, and they prove to be a key factor in figuring out how to avert the apocalypse.
  • Stealth Insult: As she's about to be burned, she says to the Angry Mob "Come closer. Let all of England see the fate of those who meddle in things they don't understand." To see whose fate she was talking about, one need only look at the next entry.
  • Taking You with Me: Loaded her skirts with gunpowder and roofing nails when she was burned at the stake, which killed all of her jealous neighbors and the very witch-hunter that had brought her in.

    Dog 

Dog

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dogg.PNG

Played by: Ollie and Milo

A Hellhound gifted to Adam, and the herald of Armageddon. He was supposed to receive a ferocious name that would dictate his role and powers, but Adam instead names him Dog, turning him into, well...


  • A Dog Named "Dog": Adam decides to just name him "Dog," reasoning that it saves a lot of trouble. Due to his nature as a Hellhound bound to Adam's will and shaped by the name given to it, this transforms him into a more-or-less regular little dog.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Hell's best hellhound turns well... lapdog. Kinder and more puppy like. By Episode 5, he's become so much a dog that he actually runs away from Adam when he's starting to go Drunk with Power, which serves as Adam's Heel Realization.
  • Hellhound: Described as Hell's best hellhound, and initially appears as a ferociously large dog with many teeth. Adam names him Dog, which turns him into a placid, small-to-medium terrier.
  • The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: And partially his name. As a hellhound, it was a true terror, but after being transformed into a small terrier by Adam's will and naming, he's forced to play a more mundane part. The book mentions that he much prefers his new life. In episode 3, God notes that the more he obeys Adam's commands, the more the "hell" part of him dies out, and the more the "dog" part takes over.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: Initially has eyes that sometimes glow a hellish red. Doesn't quite work on the local cat.
  • Scary Teeth: Large, pointy, and misaligned. At least until he becomes a cute dog.
  • Undying Loyalty: He will obey any command Adam gives him, even if he's reluctant to do it, because Adam is his master.

London

    Nina 

Nina

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ninas2_2.PNG

Played by: Nina Sosanya

The owner of Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death, a coffee shop across the street from Aziraphale's bookshop.


  • Borrowed Catchphrase: Nina starts to call Maggie "angel," like Crowley does Aziraphale, even though they are not yet dating.
  • Canon Foreigner: She was created for the series.
  • Former Teen Rebel: Downplayed, but she reminisces fondly about her past (which involved staying out late and partying), even though now she's an age where she's "in bed by ten." In the present, she is far more reserved and mature, and has serious opinions about Christmas lights.
  • On the Rebound: Defied. When she and Lindsay break up, which Nina acknowledges as being for the best, she doesn't get together with Maggie despite knowing Maggie likes her. Nina knows she'll be an absolute mess for a while, and doesn't want to put Maggie in the position of being her rebound. Maggie indicates she'll gladly wait for as long as she needs.
  • She Is Not My Girlfriend: She says Maggie and her aren't dating despite already calling her a loving petname.
  • Shipper on Deck: Despite her cynicism about relationships, she immediately assumes that Crowley and Aziraphale are in a relationship based on their interactions with each other, and gives Crowley the kick in the pants he needs to communicate with Aziraphale.
  • Sour Outside, Sad Inside: She's actually a nice person, but can be snarky and closed-off, due to being in a toxic romantic relationship.

    Maggie 

Maggie

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/maggies2_5.PNG

Played by: Maggie Service

The owner of a record shop next door to the bookshop.


  • Canon Foreigner: Introduced for the purposes of the show.
  • Family Business: Her great-grandparents started the record shop. The family's continued to run it ever since, and have always rented the space from Aziraphale (or, as Maggie believes, "Mr. Fell" and his family).
  • Girl Next Door: She lives next door to both Nina and Aziraphale and she appears to be a good friend to them and a future love interest to one.
  • Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Her hair is blonde and she's a pretty nice and helpful person.
  • I Have Brothers: She doesn't get scared by demons making threatening expressions because she's used to her brothers making scary faces at her.
  • Nice Girl: Maggie is incredibly sweet and friendly.
  • Shrinking Violet: Pines after Nina for months before she gets up the courage to gift her a record (of Nina Simone songs, because "your name is Nina"). She was apparently like this as a teenager as well, having never done anything daring like going to a party or drinking alcohol.
  • Lipstick Lesbian: She's pretty feminine and also very interested in the woman working at the coffee shop.
  • This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: Her first connection to the main plot proper happens because Aziraphale comes to her to ask her to identify an old song Gabriel was singing; with her expertise as a record shop owner, she's able to not only identify the song from just a few lines but immediately provide a clue to where he might have heard it.

    Warlock Dowling 

Warlock Dowling

Played by: Samson Marraccino

A normal teenage boy who is mistakenly believed to be the antichrist for the first 11 years of his life.


  • Expy: The supernatural characters think he fulfills this role to Damien Thorn. The supposed son of Satan who was raised by American ambassadors in the UK? It's a wonder Amazon and Gaiman didn't get sued by Fox. Hell, one of the Satanic nuns suggests the name Damien to Harriet, but she says it's "too alliterative".
  • Changeling Tale: He's the child Adam was supposed to be but through some miscommunication (or divine will) they swapped places. Real Antichrist Adam grew up with ordinary family Mr and Mrs Young instead while the human Warlock was raised as the son of an American ambassador by an angel and a demon.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Warlock is the perfect name for the Antichrist. But he isn't one.
  • Royal Brat: Downplayed. Warlock grew up with a very wealthy family and tends to be rude.
  • Switched at Birth: With Adam.
  • The Unchosen One: He was mistaken for the actual Chosen One.

Others

    Shadwell 

Shadwell

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/go_shadwell.png

Played by: Michael McKean

A self-proclaimed witch-hunter who hires Newt.


  • Adaptational Dumbass: Unlike in the book, where he has no idea what to do because he's genuinely out of his depth when it comes to apocalyptic matters, in the series he's much more of a straightforward idiot.
  • Adaptational Nice Guy: While he's still a grouchy old curmudgeon who calls Madam Tracy names like "Jezebel" and "Whore of Babylon", he isn't as openly bigoted in the series as he was in the book.
  • Belief Makes You Stupid: He views witchfinding (and presumably killing said witches afterward) to be a holy duty, but is laser-focused on witches and only witches. Like in the book, his focus is so narrow that he completely brushes aside Adam being the Antichrist, only agreeing to help when Aziraphale lies and convinces him Adam's a witch.
  • Chekhov's Skill: A flashback reveals that Shadwell first met Crowley when Crowley was organizing a heist for Holy Water; Shadwell was the locksmith. Later, Shadwell picks the lock on Aziraphale's shop.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: His obsessive fixation on witch hunting veers into this, even though he's right about witches existing. A flashback to when he was a young man during the sixties seems to indicate that he was always obsessed with witch hunting and this isn't just something he's developed from senility.
  • The Cloudcuckoolander Was Right: He harangues passersby to join his Witchfinder Army with the stereotypical sandwich board so they can hunt down and kill witches. Not only is he right that witches exist (although the ones we see aren't evil), but demons and far more do too.
  • Dating Catwoman: With Madame Tracy.
  • Everyone Has Standards: He's completely shocked when he realizes the Antichrist that Aziraphale and Crowley want him to kill is a young boy and flatly refuses to kill him despite their urging and them claiming he's a witch.
  • A Father to His Men: Is immediately ready to charge into assumed danger and rescue Newton when he thinks he's being tortured by witches.
  • Foil: As a duo, Shadwell and Madame Tracy are a foil for Aziraphale and Crowley: two people who initially appear very different, but who after a many years working in close proximity realize they're not so different after all.
  • The Fundamentalist: Almost-but-not-quite Played for Laughs.
  • Giver of Lame Names: He's noted to have a very limited imagination, so after he runs out of generic British last names for the other fake members of the Witchfinder Army he names them after inanimate objects like Milkbottle and Cupboard. Aziraphale still somehow falls for it.
  • Grumpy Old Man: He's a grouchy old curmudgeon who regularly insults Madame Tracy despite how nice she is to him. His intense fixation on hunting witches doesn't really endear him to most people, either.
  • Horrible Judge of Character: He is a witch-hunter who constantly insults Tracy (who is arguably one of the nicest characters on the show and has genuine feelings for him) for being promiscuous, he has great trust in Crowley (who's a demon) and first brushes Aziraphale (who is an angel) off as a "southern pansy" before mistaking him for a witch when he sees the Enochian circle he drew to contact God.
  • I Was Quite a Looker: A flashback to the sixties shows that he was actually quite good-looking as a younger man, though still just as obsessed with hunting down witches.
  • Insult of Endearment: Him calling Madame Tracy "Jezebel" or any other insults comes off as this later, especially when he refers to her as "a good woman" when he thinks she's been possessed.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Well, more bronze than gold, but despite him being a grumpy jerk most of the time, he truly means well and seems to sincerely want to make the world a better place.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Has this reaction after coming to the (mistaken) conclusion that he sent Newt to his death. He is immediately consumed with guilt, and sets about trying to get to Tadfield to save him.
  • Noble Bigot: Shadwell has a (mildly) derogatory slur for everyone, belittles foreign cultures and religions, and suspects everyone of being a witch or a warlock, yet everyone is charmed by him and he fearlessly prepares to fight Satan when the Apocalypse comes.
  • Occult Detective: Nominally, although his methods of finding the phenomenatrices... phenomina... those things mostly consist of going through all the morning papers and counting nipples. He's also on payroll of Heaven (or Aziraphale) and Hell (or at least Crowley) both.
  • No Full Name Given: Like in the book, he's only known by his last name and his first name is never revealed.
  • The Remnant: Until he recruits Newt, he's been the last member of the Witchfinder Army for a while. He's made up numerous fake members of the Army so he can justify getting a steady income.
  • Running Gag: Always asks how many nipples someone has to make sure they're not witches.
  • Ship Tease: Has some Belligerent Sexual Tension with Madame Tracy.
  • Wrong Genre Savvy: Jumps to the conclusion that Aziraphale is a demon after seeing him standing in a chalk circle full of Enochian runes and speaking to a giant head with a booming voice. If this were any other series about demons, he'd be correct.
  • Would Not Hurt A Child: Upon realizing that Aziraphale and Crowley have nearly tricked him into killing a child, he's utterly horrified and even tries to help protect Adam from their attack.

    Madame Tracy 

Madame Tracy

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/go_tracy.png

Played by: Miranda Richardson

Shadwell's landlady, who's also a part-time spiritual medium and courtesan.


  • Dating Catwoman: Winds up dating the highest ranked Witchfinder in England (granted, there are only two).
  • The Ditz: She's not terribly bright.
  • Dominatrix: Implied to be one of her jobs.
  • Foil: As a duo, Shadwell and Madame Tracy are a foil for Aziraphale and Crowley: two people who initially appear very different, but who after a many years working in close proximity realize they're not so different after all.
  • Girls Love Stuffed Animals: She has a ton of stuffed animals on her bed. Like in the book, it's probably invoked since she's trying to give a coquettish feel to her room.
  • Hooker with a Heart of Gold: One of the nicest people in the series, and a semi-retired prostitute. She doesn't really mind when Shadwell calls her names like "Whore of Babylon", either.
  • Nice Girl: A very pleasant and friendly Cool Old Lady, who also takes Shadwell's barbs in stride.
  • Not-So-Phony Psychic: Apparently she is a suitable vessel for possession.
  • Phony Psychic: She works as a psychic and performs seances, though she doesn't actually have any powers. When the lights and noises start going crazy during a seance (as a result of Aziraphale) and someone asks if it's the spirit they're looking for, she replies, "No, this is something real!"
  • Sharing a Body: With Aziraphale, while his earthly body is discorporated.
  • Ship Tease: Has some Belligerent Sexual Tension with Shadwell.
  • Trademark Favorite Drink: Frequently offers tea to Shadwell and Newt whenever she sees that they're worried or stressed. It seems to be her answer to any problem.
  • Would Not Hurt A Child: Stops Aziraphale when he's on the brink of shooting Adam.

    Leslie 

Leslie

Played by: Simon Merrells

A delivery man for International Express who delivers packages for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.


  • Ambiguously Human: It is never expressly stated what he is exactly. He is married and God mentions that he used to go on dates with his wife along the river where he finds Pollution, but he seems to be somewhat aware of the eldritch nature of the Horsemen themselves and even goes to Africa and North America to deliver to them. He also only seems mildly put off that he has to kill himself just to tell Death to meet with the other Horsemen.
  • Back from the Dead: After Adam rejects his destiny and turns everything back to normal, he shows up at the bus stop Aziraphale and Crowley are waiting at to pick up the packages he had delivered to the Horsemen.
  • Badass Normal: There's no clear indication anywhere in the novel that he has any supernatural abilities, but as mentioned under Determinator, he fulfils some particularly demanding jobs without flinching.
  • Determinator: Really the only way to describe a guy who will risk life and limb to deliver packages to the Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
  • Happily Married: To his wife, Maud. He cares about her greatly, even though he still goes out to make his deliveries to two of the Horsemen on a Saturday despite her pleading with him to stay. He even writes a note telling her that he loves her right before he kills himself in order to deliver a message to Death.
  • Named by the Adaptation: He's unnamed in the book, but in the series, he's apparently named Leslie (since his wife Maud calls him that). However, the credits only list him as "International Express Man".
  • Stiff Upper Lip: He performs his tasks with stereotypical British stoicism.
  • Unstoppable Mailman: Despite maybe just being a guy that works at a post-office from England, he manages to deliver packages in his delivery truck to America, walks into the middle of a war-torn African country just as the war (would have) ended, and even lets himself get run over by a truck to deliver Death a message.


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