Neil talking about this season being inspired by Austen just hit me:
Aziraphale is like the Emma for his side of the story. He’s trying to arrange everything just so. He wants people to be happy without pausing to ask what they want. He has this perfect ideal of how everything is going to go and he’s clinging to it. He will arrange for people to fall in love and everything will be fine! Which makes Crowley his Mr. Knightley, fond but critical of Aziraphale’s schemes and entirely smitten on him without giving it voice until it’s too late.
Only he and Crowley are in different books. Crowley is the Lizzie Bennett. He’s the one who won’t do what is expected of him and asks questions and rejects the role he’s meant to be in. He misinterprets Aziraphale’s actions and intentions and in the proposal it’s very much like Darcy’s first awful “I love you against my better judgement” proposal. And likewise, he doesn’t understand that a lot of Aziraphale actions are in the name of protecting him, much like Darcy is trying to shield people from Wickham without ever explaining why.
They are running in different narratives in their own heads because they never talk to each other. They never ask what the other wants or fully understands what the other is thinking. There’s always another side to the story and neither of them is fully aware of it.
I can’t remember if this is right, but I think Neil mentioned Mansfield Park as Aziraphale’s favourite and I feel like this is prescient for the set up for season 3.