And Everything In-Between : Tricksterism, Gender Play, and Celestial Authority in Good Omens

Titelangaben

Rudolf, Veronika:
And Everything In-Between : Tricksterism, Gender Play, and Celestial Authority in Good Omens.
In: Cuntz-Leng, Vera (Hrsg.): Heaven, Hell, and Everything In-Between : Critical Perspectives on »Good Omens«. - Marburg : Büchner , 2025 . - S. 26-43 . - (Fantastic TV ; 1 )

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Abstract

This chapter explores the role of trickster figures in Good Omens, focusing on the characters Crowley and Beelzebub as agents of subversion within a Christian cosmological framework. These characters engage in playful acts of rebellion, particularly through the manipulation of gender norms and authority, which aligns them with the archetypal trickster’s ability to destabilize societal and cosmic structures. However, despite their potential to disrupt the established order, their subversive actions are contained within the moral ambiguity of Hell, a space that nullifies their rebellion and maintains the overarching cosmic balance. Good Omens highlights the limitations of tricksterism within controlled boundaries of power, where acts of defiance, though playful and provocative, are absorbed into the broader system they seek to challenge. Concluding that while Good Omens presents a lighthearted exploration of gender fluidity and resistance to authority, it eventually reinforces the binary structures, revealing the constraints on subversive potential within narratives governed by cosmic determinism. By engaging with themes of fluidity and rebellion within a fixed moral and cosmic order, Good Omens offers a critique of both Christian eschatology and the limits of resistance in the face of established systems of power.