Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Good Omens, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Good and Evil
Human Nature
Destiny vs. Free Will
Humor and Absurdity
Friendship
Summary
Analysis
Sable sits in the back of his limousine. He’s on the phone discussing the launch of MEALS, a diet product that contains no nutritional value. Sable is in the lot of a Burger Lord, where he’s testing Hamburger MEALS. Inside, he orders a burger and shake. The other patrons seem no more disgusted than they’d be at another burger joint. As Sable stands, a deliveryman catches him. Sable signs for the package with his real name, which is six letters long and rhymes with examine. The package contains brass scales, which Sable shoves in his pocket. Back in the limo, Sable asks his driver to get him a ticket to England and to cancel all future appointments.
The package that Sable receives hearkens back to Red receiving the sword in the previous chapter—which adds more credence to the possibility that Red and Sable are two of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Indeed, given that Sable is launching diet products, sometimes kills people (which the novel previously revealed), and has a real name that rhymes with examine, all signs point to him being the Horsman Famine. In the Book of Revelation in the Bible, Famine carries scales that represent the way food might be weighed during a famine. Thus, the scales that Sable receives are an indicator that Armageddon is coming—hence why he needs to get to England, where Armageddon is supposed to start.
Themes
The Them listens with interest as Adam tells them all about what he learned from New Aquarian. He announces that “they” paid Charles Fort to go away, so he sailed away in the Mary Celeste and founded the Bermuda Triangle. When Wensleydale points out that there was no one on the Mary Celeste when they found the ship, Adam scathingly says that the UFOs came and took Fort away. The Them love UFOs, but they’re not as interested in Adam’s New Age UFOs. Pepper says that if she was an alien, she’d shoot people with laser blasters, not tell them about “mystic cosmic harmony.” But Adam insists that the aliens have changed their ways, and now, they’re like galactic police who encourage beings to get along.
In this speech to the Them, Adam touches on a variety of historical events and figures. In the early 20th century, researcher Charles Fort took to studying and writing about paranormal phenomena. The Mary Celeste, on the other hand, was a ship that was found without a crew off the coast of Portugal, while the Bermuda Triangle is a swath of the Atlantic Ocean where a number of ships and aircraft have disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Adam is seemingly putting these unrelated things together to create a narrative that makes sense to him. Regardless of how accurate any of this is, his insistence that aliens are turning into galactic police is important: he seems to want to craft a world where people get along, a mark of his potential for good.
Themes
Brian asks why they’re even called Unidentified Flying Objects, when they’re clearly flying saucers. Adam says that the Government hushes everything up, but he can’t tell the Them why (New Aquarian never gave an explanation). It’s just what governments do—for instance, nuclear power stations blow up all the time, but the Government keeps people from finding out. Wensleydale objects to this; his dad says that nuclear power is safe and means they don’t have to live in a greenhouse.
It’s probably exciting for Adam to encounter the idea that the government covers up all sorts of things, as it gives him free rein to let his imagination run wild. It also gives him an enemy that he may focus on as Armageddon approaches—clearly, the world needs saving from the government. And as the Antichrist, someone with immense potential (whether for good or for evil), Adam might be the person who’s able to do that.
Themes
Adam stops the Them’s bickering by asking severely if they want to hear about the Aquarium Age or not. He says that in America, the Government scolds people all the time for seeing UFOs. Then, there’s Atlantis. The Them debate what they would’ve done had they been on Atlantis when it sank. Wensleydale insists that he would’ve stayed and worn a diver’s helmet. Brian is thrilled that in all that water, he wouldn’t have to bathe. Then, the Them begin to play a game called Charles Fort Discovering Things. Adam is pleased—the cowboys and pirates of his imagination are nothing compared to the Aquarium Age.
Adam begins to revel in knowing more than his friends do, which suggests that he might be more power-hungry than his normal upbringing might suggest. To him, America is a faraway, almost imaginary place where anything can happen. In this way, it’s akin to Atlantis. All of what Adam has learned from the New Aquarian now means that his imagination is opening up—even if his practical understanding is questionable, as evidenced by his mispronunciation (“Aquarium Age” instead of “Aquarian Age”).
Themes
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People have spent centuries trying to make sense of Agnes Nutter’s prophecies. Anathema has, thus far, done the best, but none of those people were angels. Aziraphale is nothing if not intelligent, being an angel with thousands of years of practice. He sits reading Agnes’s book, scribbling symbols that few others would be able to comprehend.
Though Aziraphale has, for the most part, avoided using his special powers as an angel in his life on Earth, desperate times call for desperate measures. Now that Armageddon is imminent, he’s willing to possibly bend the rules to save the world.
Themes
Over lunch, Anathema pores over her maps—Tadfield is brimming with shifting ley-lines. On the radio, a BBC reporter is interviewing a spokesman about an entire missing nuclear reactor—and the odd fact that the plant is still producing power. Anathema notices that the ley lines are forming a spiral, centered loosely on Lower Tadfield. Meanwhile, several thousand miles away, a cruise ship captain tries to come up with the appropriate code to send the ship’s owners. He’s just run aground on Atlantis, and men in diving helmets are mingling with the ship’s passengers.
Ley-lines are alignments that supposedly circle the globe, connecting important monuments and sites. The fact that they’re moving gives the impression that things are starting to change on Earth very quickly: nuclear reactors are disappearing, and Atlantis has suddenly risen. However, the fact that Atlantis’s inhabitants are wearing diving masks hearkens back to Adam’s conversation with the Them, when Wensleydale said that he would have stayed and worn a diving helmet. This connection hints that all of these changes are because of Adam’s interest in the theories in the New Aquarian. As Crowley predicted earlier, Adam is making things happen with his Antichrist powers, even though he’s not aware of it—and because Adam is an imaginative 11-year-old, current events tend toward the fantastical.
Themes
The Them sit in the quarry, arguing about the Hollow Earth Theory. Wensleydale doesn’t buy it, since the holes in the Earth that Adam describes don’t appear in atlases. Adam says the Government won’t let people put it in atlases, and then he brings up the Tibetan tunnels. Some teachers who left Atlantis went to Tibet, and now, they run the world from an underground city—they have people all over the world in tunnels, listening to everything above. Brian wishes that they could learn this interesting stuff in school. The Them decides to play a rousing game of Charles Fort and the Atlantisans versus the Ancient Masters of Tibet.
At this point, all of the things Adam is learning about in New Aquarian simply fuel his active imagination and provide inspiration for the Them’s games. All of this is totally innocent—it seems like Adam has no idea that his fantastical ideas are actually manifesting all over the world. This continues to give the impression that Adam is a kid first and the Antichrist second; he might not be as evil as one would expect.
Themes
Long ago, witch-finders used to be respected. Now, there’s no Witchfinder General—there’s only a Witchfinder Sergeant and a Witchfinder Private named Newton “Newt” Pulsifer. He was drawn to the Witchfinder Army by an ad in the Gazette and decided to call. A Madame Tracy answered and, after some confusion, called Mr. Shadwell to the phone. Shadwell asked how many nipples Newt has (two) and if he has scissors (yes). Satisfied with the answers, he hired Newt.
Every passage about Shadwell and the Witchfinder Army is humorous—but this obscures the fact that the Witchfinder Army was, for a time, a real organization in England and did inspect suspected witches for extra nipples, often violently and publicly. But with centuries of distance—and in the form of Shadwell—this is now something people can laugh about.
Themes
Meanwhile, Aziraphale sits with a stack of notes. He never met Agnes; she was too bright. Usually, Heaven and Hell are able to identify the “prophetic types” and, if those people didn’t come up with their own way of ignoring their thoughts (like St. John with his mushrooms), they send static down on the same mental wavelength. Aziraphale finally gets up and phones his contact. Then, he calls Directory Enquiries and asks for all the Youngs in Tadfield and Lower Tadfield. Aziraphale dials the first number. A middle-aged voice answers with “Tadfield Six double-six.” Aziraphale hangs up, shaking.
Here, the novel reveals that Heaven and Hell took great care to keep people on Earth from figuring out what was going to happen in the future. This is, presumably, a good way to keep people from revolting—it’s impossible to prevent Armageddon if one doesn’t know it’s going to happen. Hearing that the Antichrist presumably lives in a house with the number 666 (again, the number of the beast) tells Aziraphale that he’s figured it out—the Antichrist lives in Tadfield.
Themes
Newt sits with a pile of newspapers, thinking that he never would’ve joined the army had he known what it entailed. His job is to cut out newspaper articles that mention either witches or unexplainable phenomena. As Newt cuts another article, he hears a thump on the door. He lets Shadwell in, and Shadwell dumps his massive stack of newspapers. He snarls that his landlord, Mr. Rajit, practices voodoo—to Newt, this is crazy, since voodoo comes from the Caribbean and Rajit and his family are from Bangladesh. When Newt points this out, Shadwell says that once Newt is initiated properly, he’ll learn the secret truth: that the darkest voodoo comes from Bangladesh.
Shadwell is a humorous character because he doesn’t sound all that different from kids like Adam and the Them. He seems to make things up to suit his mood and whatever point he’s trying to prove, just as Adam does with the Them. With this, the novel suggests that this is a normal thing that, to some degree, all people do. It’s possible that some outgrow this tendency as they age—while others, like Shadwell, clearly don’t.
Themes
Shadwell grandly tells Newt how he was recruited to the army: his cellmate was in prison for burning a coven, and he was dying. He passed on the knowledge to Shadwell, just as Shadwell is now passing the knowledge to Newt. The Witchfinder Army (WA) stands between the world and the darkness. When Newt asks about the churches’ role, Shadwell scoffs. The churches, he insists, are as bad as the witches—and they can’t stamp out evil if they want to stay in business.
When Newt asks about the role of the church, Shadwell essentially says that it’s important to have both good and evil in the world if one wants to broadcast themselves as the representative of good. In order to represent good, there needs to be evil to fight against—suggesting the need for balance between the two.
Themes
When Newt first joined the WA, it didn’t take him long to realize that Shadwell is mentally unstable. The WA headquarters is filthy and run-down, but Newt sticks with it out of fascination, pity, and now affection for Shadwell—like most people, Newt likes Shadwell. The Rajits like him, since he seems to hate everyone. The next-door tenant, Madame Tracy, likes when Shadwell shouts that she’s the whore of Babylon, which she sees as free advertising. She always leaves Sunday dinner on his doorstep. Shadwell also hits the walls, which saves Madame Tracy from having to operate the table rapper during her séances.
Here, the novel makes the case that Shadwell is actually a sad and pathetic man—and that’s why he’s both likeable and funny. Again, this makes the case that it’s possible to find humor anywhere, even (and especially) when it comes to figures like Shadwell who could otherwise read as simple caricatures of villains. Instead, Shadwell is an integral part of his community—and his cantankerous nature is part of the appeal.
Themes
Newt pushes a pile of clippings toward Shadwell. They all mention unexplainable phenomena, but since disappearing nuclear reactors and the discovery of Atlantis don’t concern witches, Shadwell isn’t interested. Madame Tracy steps in to tell Shadwell that there’s someone on the phone, and Newt hears Shadwell assure the caller that he’ll put his best squad on the case. When Shadwell returns, cursing about a Southerner, Newt says that there’s a town that, strangely, has been having normal weather—and witches affect the weather. He offers to drive the 40 miles to Tadfield. Shadwell curses; his caller mentioned Tadfield. He tells Newt to stop in before he leaves to get his “armor o’ righteousness.”
Shadwell’s hypocrisy again makes him a humorous character—per his instructions, Newt should care about Atlantis or disappearing nuclear reactors. At this point, Shadwell probably just thinks it’s a suspicious coincidence that his caller and Newt are both asking him about Tadfield. But this indicates that Anathema is correctly interpreting her ley-lines—things are starting to focus in on this small town in rural England, even if nobody understands why.
Themes
Just after Newt leaves, the phone rings again: it’s Crowley, giving Shadwell the same instructions that Aziraphale did. Neither Crowley nor Aziraphale run the Witchfinder Army, but they both think that their side should support such endeavors. Technically, Shadwell doesn’t run the WA—a Witchfinder General Smith does. There are lots of other Witchfinder Smiths on Shadwell’s roster, since he doesn’t have much imagination. Neither Crowley nor Aziraphale have read that far in the paperwork, so they pay Shadwell a combined 60 pounds per year, no questions asked.
In revealing that the Witchfinder Army is actually just two people—and that Aziraphale and Crowley might know this had they read the paperwork—the novel pokes fun at bureaucracy and fine print in general. It questions why no one reads paperwork when there are clearly important things to learn from it—in this case, that the organization one employs is barely an organization at all.
Themes
