Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

Crowley—originally Crawly when he, as the Serpent, offered Eve the forbidden fruit—is a demon sworn to corrupt the souls of humanity. But, like Aziraphale, he has grown accustomed to life on Earth. As a result, he has little interest in bringing about the apocalypse.

Crowley serves as a foil to Aziraphale. Unlike his angelic companion, he enjoys all the sensory pleasures, like good food and movies, and he lives in a posh apartment. He also owns a vintage Bentley, which he drives recklessly through the streets of London. With the character of Crowley, Pratchett and Gaiman imply that, while angels are good and proper, demons have all the fun.

Crowley also falls neatly into the rebel archetype. In the rich tradition of literary and cinematic rebels before him—Holden Caulfield, James Dean, Huck Finn—Crowley flaunts the rules and takes immense pleasure in doing so. He breaks the very first rule in existence when he tempts Eve with the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, though his motivation is logical: “I can’t see what’s so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil, anyway” (3). Crowley does not stop at rebelling against God; he rebels against his own master, Satan, by helping Aziraphale thwart the Divine Plan.

Despite his evil nature, Crowley seems ambivalent about his part in humanity’s destiny, suggesting that human beings need very little provocation from Hell to turn to evil. Also, in keeping with his role as provocateur, Crowley questions everything. So, it makes sense that humanity’s inquisitive nature—the part of its character responsible for knowledge and innovation—owes more to its dark side than to its light.

The descendant of Agnes Nutter, Anathema follows her ancestor’s prophecies to their literal end. While she identifies as an occultist, her powers lie more in her ability to interpret Agnes’s prophecies than any real clairvoyance of her own (though she can see auras). She understands that Nutter applied her 17th-century sensibilities to the vague visions she received rather than claiming to know exactly what they will mean once their time comes.

Anathema represents a connection between occultism and Satanism, though that connection may be more perceived than real. Paganism, Wicca, and the like are generally more concerned with the cycles of nature and rituals that celebrate them than with paying homage to the Lord of Darkness. As such, Anathema is more concerned with herbalism and environmentalism than spells and dark magic.

Anathema’s surname, Device, is apt because her character serves as a literary means to an end. Although she is the rightful heir to the book of prophecies, it lands in Aziraphale’s possession, and he has the keener eye for interpretation. Anathema provides a convenient target for Shadwell’s witchfinder army, which pulls Newton Pulsifer into the plot as prophesized. She and Pulsifer give the narrative a romantic comedy angle of sorts: Newton loses his virginity to her for no other reason than the prophecies foretold it. More importantly, Anathema’s environmental conscience is integral to preventing the apocalypse. When she enlightens Adam Young, the Antichrist, about the destruction humanity has wrought upon the earth, he is swayed toward goodness and, in defiance of his own nature, refuses to bring about the End of Times.

Newton Pulsifer is a socially awkward wannabe techie who can’t seem to make anything work right; as a child, everything he touches malfunctions. When he gets a job as a clerk at United Holdings, PLC, he can’t perform even the most basic technical duties. This shortcoming ultimately becomes an asset. When Newton attempts to fix the Tadfield Air Base computers that Pollution used to arm the world’s nuclear weapons, he instead causes them to malfunction, which stops the countdown.

Newton embodies a particular kind of British archetype: the faceless bureaucrat swimming in a sea of paperwork who longs to break free and be the hero. He believes that he found his cause in Shadwell’s witchfinder army. When circumstances lead him to Anathema Device, it turns out that his cause really was to help save the world. So, unlike many of his literary antecedents, who are broken by these bureaucracies, Pulsifer triumphs.

Adam is, quite literally, the Antichrist; it is prophesized that on his 11th birthday, he will bring about the apocalypse. The agents of Hell mean to place him with Thaddeus J. Dowling, the American Cultural Attaché, so that the child will wreak havoc across the world as his father travels. However, he is mistakenly swapped with the newborn child of Mr. and Mrs. Young of Lower Tadfield, Oxfordshire. Because the switch went unnoticed, leading Heaven and Hell to focus on the wrong child, Adam spends his days engaged in mundane childhood activities. He and his friends—known as The Them—ride their bikes around the village getting into mischief, scuffle with a rival gang, and gather in a nearby quarry to discuss matters of great importance, such as the morality of burning witches or the existence of UFOs.

When Adam turns 11, his true nature as the son of Satan begins to assert itself, and, for a brief time, his mood turns dark. However, when Adam realizes his friends and his immediate world of Lower Tadfield are more important to him than some vague cosmic plan, he takes control of his destiny and defies the authority figures around him—God, Satan, the Four Horsepersons, and the armies of Heaven and Hell. Had Adam spent his youth traveling the world as the son of Thaddeus Dowling, he likely would have never established either those core friendships or the deep connection to a place like Lower Tadfield.

Adam’s friends Pepper, Wensleydale, and Brian, collectively known as The Them, represent a motley collection of archetypal adolescents. Pepper is the skeptical, practical one; Wensleydale is the overanalytical nerd; and Brian is the scattered, slovenly, good-natured one. While each character is distinct, with their own unique voice, they serve a collective purpose: to be both a foil and a sounding board for their de facto leader, Adam. Although Adam usually has the final say in things, it is often preceded by robust debate (usually led by Pepper or Wensleydale).

The most important narrative function of The Them, however, is to be a sort of whispering angel on Adam’s shoulder, pulling him away from the darkness and back toward his own virtuous impulses. Their unyielding devotion to him, despite his brief flirtation with evil, shows him the power of friendship—one of humanity’s most redemptive traits—and is the ultimate catalyst for his rejection of his dark destiny.

The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, as identified in the Book of Revelations, are rebranded here for a contemporary audience. They are a more gender-inclusive quartet that rides motorcycles and causes mayhem in distinctly modern ways. Famine, for example, is responsible for miniscule portion sizes of food with no nutritional value; Pestilence, renamed Pollution, basks by the banks of toxic rivers; and War, known as Scarlett, is first an arms dealer, then a war correspondent. Death, however, is simply Death.

The four fulfill their Biblical role in the narrative, heralding the approaching End, but they also serve as vehicles for the authors’ satirical wit. Famine manifests Pratchett and Gaiman’s commentary about America’s obesity problems. This Horseperson conspires to starve humanity to death with the most highly processed, least nutritious food on the market, which he places strategically in an American fast-food chain restaurant. To shine a light on society’s fetishization of violence, War is described as a sexually alluring, forever 25-year-old woman with auburn hair that “fell to her waist in tresses that men would kill for, and indeed often had” (59). Driving the point home, even the small skirmishes that occur as a result of her presence are given a sexual wink and a nod: “People were always fighting over her, and around her; it was rather sweet, really” (61).

Perhaps because Death is timeless, the authors refrain from giving it a makeover. It remains a shrouded, malevolent presence—though one with a sinister sense of humor. After a delivery man is killed by a speeding truck for the sole purpose of relaying a message, Death tells his lingering spirit, “DON’T THINK OF IT AS DYING […] JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH” (194).

Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell—his first name is never revealed—is a man wearied by his obsessions. His adherence to his duty as a witchfinder becomes his sole identity, to the exclusion of all else. He lives in poverty, relying on the charity of his neighbor, Madame Tracy, for food (despite his moral condemnation of her), and on the generosity of his patrons, Aziraphale and Crowley, for financial support. He is a relic of a bygone era, and through his character the authors allude to another British archetype: the dutiful soldier who sees in himself all the honor and glory of a past empire while refusing to acknowledge that time has moved on. Shadwell is a man left behind by time, but rather than adapt, he clings to his anachronistic identity. He even recruits Newton Pulsifer as his heir apparent, seeking to infuse his army of one with new blood. However, as Shadwell witnesses the near-Apocalypse firsthand, he finally realizes the futility of romanticizing the past. As his focus shifts toward the present, he also realizes the truth about Madame Tracy, who is not a “harlot” or a “Jezebel” but a woman who cares for him and desires companionship as much as he does.

Madame Tracy, Shadwell’s neighbor, is both a psychic and a sex worker who holds seances and services men from her small apartment. Tracy is a gentle soul who watches over Shadwell, devoting more time and care to him than he probably deserves. His constant taunts of “whore” roll off her back with little consequence. She understands Shadwell better than he understands himself, perceiving the lonely, forgotten man beneath his caustic exterior. Reading Madame Tracy through a feminist lens would prove tricky. In one sense, she appears to tolerate all of Shadwell’s moral judgments because she desires a male companion. In another sense, however, she is a shrewd entrepreneur, maintaining a business as a fraudulent psychic because she understands people, their desires, and their needs, and caters to them. She has even saved enough money to buy a cottage in the country for retirement. Finally, when the exorcised spirit of Aziraphale takes residence in Madame Tracy, she becomes the essential source of information that guides Shadwell to Lower Tadfield. It is perhaps Aziraphale’s goodness that ultimately establishes a connection between Tracy and Shadwell that moves beyond Shadwell’s arrogant assumptions.