Portrayed by Derek Jacobi with marvelous skill,
the metatron is only in Good omens for a handful of minutes in both seasons combined. And yet he has a massive impact on the story. In season 1, it is at least partly his refusal
to hear out Azirapahle, and his insistence on leaving the portal open, that results in
Aziraphale’s discorporation, and the bookshop fire. In season 2 of course, his interference has
an even more direct effect on the story. His offer, and subtle threat, force Aziraphale
to make a choice that is really no choice at all. Season 2 ends with everyone’s heart broken,
including the audience. Considering the lack of a clear singular antagonist
through the majority of Good Omens, and the outcome of season 2, I think it is quite natural
for viewers to place that part on the metatron. So let’s explore his adversarial role, and
try to answer the question, is the metatron the villain? Intro
Before we dive in, let’s get this out of the way. The metatron in Good Omens is not Enoch, and
was never a human. This is confirmed. Alright? Alright. Here we go. For about half of his onscreen time, the metatron
is only a floating head, clearly referencing The Wizard of Oz, a man who abused his power,
and in doing so caused harm, even if he had good intentions. A notable possible parallel right off the
bat. For the other half of the show, the Metatron
appears in human form. Let’s take a look at his human clothes. There is no doubt that there is some color
coding going on in Good Omens, though it is far more nuanced than black equals evil and
white equals good. After all, Hastur wears beige, and he is undeniably
nasty, whereas Crowley wears almost entirely black, and is, at his core, at least a little
bit of a good person When in his human form, The metatron wears
this dark coat, I’d call it charcoal gray, and he also has some very basic dark slacks. No other angels wear anything quite so dark. Most wear beige, though the archangels wear
a light gray, and a few, like Saraqael and sometimes Muriel, wear white. Are these colors alone enough to rouse suspicion? They are quite out of the ordinary for an
angel, but the metatron is no ordinary angel. He is the voice of God. Still, let’s put a pin in this potential
clue, and keep digging. His tie has an interesting pattern. Although it’s difficult to be 100% certain,
it does appear to be a quatrefoil, which is a 4 lobed design common in many cultures,
but prominent in gothic through renaissance architecture and art. In Christianity, it tends to represent the
4 evangelists of the bible, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Specifically, it appears to be a barbed quatrefoil,
which has these stylized thorns. Thorns, perhaps, as in the crown of Christ? A picture may be worth a thousand words, but
we can really best judge a character by their actions. So let's take a look at those, to see if we
can understand his character and motivations better. He first appears in season 1, episode 4, when
Aziraphale prays to “A higher authority”, seeking a response. When the portal glows, he says he needs to
speak to “The almighty”, and the metatron’s floating head appears. The metatron insists that what is said to
him is said to the almighty, although we don’t have any sort of confirmation of that. When Aziraphale says he thinks they can prevent
the war, the metatron informs him that the point is to win the war, not to avoid it. This is almost exactly what Gabriel told Aziraphale
earlier during his jog, which is something else I’d like to put a pin in. In season 2, the first time we see the metatron
is in episode six, after Crowley opens Gabriel’s file, when they get to the part about the
trial. First, note that while all the other angels'
heavenly displays include their head, neck and shoulders, the metatrons remains only
his head. No hint of a body. The metatron says Gabriel will not be cast
into hell, and explains .
He then goes on to explain Gabriels punishment for his disobedience will be erasure of his
memory and demotion. The memory wipe is described as a kindness,
as if demotion is somehow worse than losing all of what makes someone, someone. I think most humans at least understand that
the erasure of a person's memory is the erasure of that person. As cruel and tyrannical as this punishment
is, the other angels are on board, even Saraqael who seems to be in charge of performing the
actual memory wipe, yet is painted as a more sympathetic angel, well, more sympathetic
than Michael and Uriel, anyway. The next time we see the metatron, he is in
his human form, in line outside the coffee shop, and it looks to me like he is sucking
on something. It’s such an odd detail, but it’s clearly
there. Why? Well, I think it’s because it answers an
important question about the metatron, and that is, does the metatron lie? This topic, honesty and dishonesty, truth
and lies, and how they affect the characters and story in Good Omens definitely deserves
its own deep dive, which I do plan to do. But let’s discuss what it means specifically
for the metatron. The metatron uses a host of psychological
techniques to manipulate Aziraphale at the end of season 2. One of them is building trust and relatability. When he hands Aziraphale the coffee and urges
him to drink it, he says. But, has he? Most of the beings in the room don’t recognize
the metatron in his human form when he enters the bookshop. As far as we can tell, none of them has ever
seen him as anything but a big giant floating head. From this interaction, I think we are meant
to infer that this is the metatrons first visit to earth in an earthly body, and therefore,
he’s never had the opportunity to ingest anything before. Shax had just shamed Aziraphale for eating
his big human meals. In season 1, Gabriel had shamed Azirpahle
similarly, calling food “gross matter”. The metatron not only doesn’t shame him,
he relates to the experience. And, it’s not a lie, because just moments
earlier, the metatron had indeed ingested something. A candy, some sort of travel sweet? Something, in any case, that allows him to
state this fact and have it be technically true, while being utterly deceptive at the
same time. Lying is a thing in Good Omens. Shadwell lies. Newt lies. Crowley lies. Aziraphale lies. Michael lies. All for varying reasons. Honesty is in no way a measure of a character's
moral alignment. So why go out of the way to show us that the
metatron does not, technically, lie? I think the point is that in his black and
white thinking, the metatron believes it important to his angelic nature to be technically honest. And the reason this is important for the story,
for Aziraphale, and for us, the audience, is that it shows us that the metatron does
not lie. Not technically speaking. But he does deceive, he does manipulate. He can twist a truth to his own ends, and
we must understand that the characters and the audience have to be very careful what
“truth” we take from his words. I know that this opens this can of worms,
but I’m sticking to the idea that he can exaggerate, but not outright lie. There had to be some almond syrup in the coffee
for him to say there was any almond syrup in the coffee. So, back to this. When the metatron says he has ingested things,
he is telling the truth, but what he wants Aziraphale to hear is that the metatron isn’t
disgusted by this behavior, that he even relates positively to the behavior, and therefore,
to Azirapahle. But none of that is explicitly said, it’s
all subtext, and most likely, none of it is true. It’s manipulative. We’ll add both of these traits to our pinned
list. And speaking of manipulative, let’s quickly
list some of the many ways the metatron manipulates Aziraphale in the final 15. 1. He protects Aziraphale from Michael’s threats
2. He shows displeasure at all the other angels
in the room, speaking to them harshly. He insinuates that Michael, Uriel and Saraqael
might be in trouble, and outright insults Muriel’s intelligence, something I think
Aziraphale values about himself. 3. Once he dismisses the other angels, he approaches
Aziraphale with a smile. 4. The offer of the coffee itself is a big deal,
as it shows implicit approval of Aziraphale’s love of worldly things. It also mimics the behavior of a trusted companion,
Crowley, who offers Azirphale such worldly pleasures often..
5. He uses Briticisms. Like, a lot of them. Something he does not do at all during his
conversation with Nina while purchasing the coffee, or during his conversation with Aziraphale
at the portal in season 1, though Aziraphale manages to slip in quite a few (in a jiffy,
two shakes of a lamb's tale). The metatron crams all of these into his conversation
while softening Aziraphale up to ask him to go outside for a chat. 6. He flatters Aziraphale, first by asking his
opinion on Gabriel’s successor in heaven, and then listing off Azriaphale’s positive
qualities while offering him Gabriel’s old position, and the flattery, while skirting
the truth are not lies. When this all fails, the metatron pulls out
his ace in the hole 7. He offers Aziraphale a supposedly “safe”
way to be with Crowley. 8. Inside that offer is a threat, one Aziraphale
understands as a threat, that the current state of their relationship is not safe The metatron keeps up this cheerful charade
while he sends Aziraphale in to speak to Crowley, afterwards when he’s reassuring Aziraphale
that the bookshop and everything will be well tended in his absence, all the way to the
elevator, when he drops the second coming news bomb. But it is a charade. Derek Jacobi does a fantastic job of conveying
the metatrons real feelings, which include disdain for Crolwey and nervousness about
Aziraphale’s choice, running high just under the surface. Even this interaction with Muriel outside
the Coffee Shop shows us a cheerful facade, but the real him underneath is poking through His real personality, which we see in his
other interactions, is condescending and calculating. So we’ve got his personality and behavior
down. We can see what he did to accomplish his goals. But what are his goals? What is his motivation? Clearly he means to break up Crowley and Aziraphale,
perhaps because together they are a threat to heaven's plans, or perhaps he really does
need Aziraphale to help enact the second coming, perhaps both. But I want to look deeper, what is his personal
motivation to do any of that? Do we see any evidence that it is to keep
his current power, or even gain more, as we see with Michael, UIriel, Shax and Furfur? I would say no. Interestingly, nothing about his behavior
speaks to that sort of grasping or selfishness. Is it for some other gain, to exercise his
own personal freedom in some way, as we see with Gabriel, Beelzebub and Crowley? I would also say no. It seems to me that he is acting as he believes
is his job to act. He is fulfilling the function for which he
was created. We don't know to what level, if any at all,
God communicates with him, but the Great Plan still exists, and he’s going to keep following
it unless he’s told otherwise. An awful lot of harm can be (and has been)
committed in the name of good, in the belief of doing good, in the name of the greater
good. And that seems to me to be his motivation. “'Every villain is a hero is a hero in his
own mind”. From what we can infer, the big boss, God,
has left the building. Is out on holiday. She’s taking a really long siesta. Whatever the case, she’s not around right
now. There is no evidence of any foul play regarding
this absence. She’s simply playing an ineffable game of
her own devising, and has left her voice, the metatron, in charge, with nothing but
a millenia old blueprint to follow. We could probably spend an hour discussing
the definitions of good and evil, and even the existence of it. That doesn’t strike me as either particularly
fun, or even particularly helpful in this case. Things which were asserted as good and things
which were asserted as evil have both been shown to be neither of those things, and mostly
exist in some gray area between. Hastu, Ligur, and the Nazis are shown to be
irredeemably bad, but that isn’t the case for most characters or groups of characters. Neither are actions portrayed as black and
white. Intentions and outcomes don’t always match
up. Crowley gave humans knowledge, which was presumed
to be bad, but it led to the ability to tell right from wrong and take action based on
that knowledge. Aziraphale gave them a sword, his intention
being that they might protect themselves, but in practice, of course that leads to violence
and bloodshed. Repeatedly, characters are presented with
difficult moral dilemmas. Lie and thwart the will of god to save some
bratty kids, or be honest, and let 3 innocent children die. Let a young woman top herself, or drink the
poison and save her, knowing you will likely be severely punished for doing so. Crowley and Azirphale have faced some very
difficult choices, where they became aware of the consequences of their actions. The real price paid by others. Many characters in good omens have not faced
such a dilemma, or have not recognized the dilemma when faced with it. Let’s look at some extremely morally questionable
behavior in other characters. Saraqael devoutly prays for heaven’s will
to be done, meaning the destruction of all life on earth. Muriel cheerfully found everything to be in
order when reading the permit concerning God’s bet with Satan that allowed for the killing
of Job’s children. Beelzebub tried to have Crowley destroyed,
repeatedly. Gabriel was truly awful. He was condescending, callous and even cruel,
all in the name of following the great plan. He did try to destroy Aziraphale, and he was
very much an ass about it. He’s fully on board with human death, from
killing Jobs kids to killing all of humanity.. Gabriel, as Jim, finally became aware of a
dilemma he was causing, the danger he posed to Azirapahle, and the cruelty with which
he used to treat others, and he was truly remorseful, and even tried to take responsibility
for those actions. He would have jumped out the window, though
Crowley stopped him, and he did give himself up to the demons. As Jim, he gained something he’d never had
the opportunity to learn as Gabriel. Empathy. The metatron has never faced a moral dilemma
of this nature. He’s never been shown the suffering and
consequence of heaven’s actions on earth. Not in a way he can understand. As far as he’s concerned, his actions align
with God’s will, and therefore he is doing good. However, what we must recognize is that belief
and reality do not always line up. Following any belief dogmatically without
thinking about the consequences of that belief and the actions that stem from it, can lead
to enormous harm. Here is our list, our clues to the metatron. His clothing is distinctly darker than any
other angels, he wants the war to happen so heaven can win it, he is technically truthful
while simultaneously being very manipulative. He is condescending and calculating, while
maintaining dogmatic belief in the great plan. One of the reasons I find this list so interesting
is that many of these qualities also fit other characters. The dogmatism fits pretty much all of the
other Angels and Demons, including those we love like Muriel, excepting only Crowley and
Aziraphale. The same seems to hold true for winning the
war, instead of avoiding it, and the truthful bit probably fits all the angels, at least. Certainly we’ve seen other angels and demons
attempt to be manipulative, including but not limited to Shax and Michael. Their skill levels vary pretty wildly, though. The condescension fits Gabriel, Uriel and
Michael, and probably Sandalphon. As a matter of fact, they very much match
Gabriel in season 1. The only thing really unique to the metatron
is the clothes. So yes, I think the clothes matter. They don’t make him evil, but they do make
him unique. The colors are interesting, dark on the outside,
but with a white shirt underneath. On the one hand, kind of ominous. On the other hand, better than any other angel,
he picked an outfit that really does blend right into modern day London. Possibly a sign that he is very good at masking
his true nature? That, although he is technically honest, he
is skilled at obfuscation? What do you make of his clothing? So based on this, can we say he’s the villain
in season 2? In the same way that Gabriel was a villain
in season 1, I would say yes. Through a combination of dogmatic belief and
privileged power, the metatron did some damage, and is aiming to do quite a lot more damage
with the Second Coming. But as we saw when Gabriel left, removing
the powerful person at the head did not remove the villain. There was actual competition to fill that
power vacuum, and both Michael and Uriel would have been at least as bad as Gabriel. The metatron is like the acting CEO of a megacorporation,
if he were swept out of the way, another would only take his place, because the metatron
isn’t the real problem. He’s a symptom
The real pervasive villains of both seasons are the institutions of heaven and hell. It IS an institutional problem. So, will the metatron continue to be the villain
in season 3? That’s the tricky question, isn’t it? A one note, mwhahahaaha Cruella DeVille Disney
type villain is probably not something we’ll see. That doesn’t fit what audiences want in
a villain today, nor does it fit the complex moral themes and structures that both Neil
and Terry like to explore. One of the main story arcs of season 2 was
Gabriel's redemption through his experiences as Jim, which was of course initiated by finding
kinship for the first time in his existence, with Beelzebub. In season 3, The metatron could be similarly
redeemed, or at least come to see the error of his ways, perhaps through the actions of
one of our main characters, if not through a direct peer. It could be very satisfying to see him change
through the humility, kindness and sacrifice of someone we all love. Or, he could serve as a counterpoint to Jimbreal,
stubbornly remaining dogmatic in the face of evidence that contradicts his belief system,
the captain going down with the sinking ship of heaven. But even if he does remain a villain, unable
or unwilling to see the truth and learn the moral lessons needed for personal growth and
change, his story would then serve as a warning. I think that the larger villains, the organizations
of heaven and hell, will need to be confronted somehow for the show to have any meaningful
resolution. They will need to be changed from the inside
or perhaps destroyed entirely. I had this really kooky idea while doing the
research for this video. I know that Neil has said that Crowley miracles
his clothes into existence, which does indicate that maybe material objects can be created
out of nothing, but we really only see Miracles alter objects or move/teleport objects. So, where did the whatever it is the metatron
is sucking on come from? If he just now arrived from the lift and got
in line, there isn’t a place on Whickber street for him to easily find what I think
we can reasonably assume is a hard candy. Well, actually there is something, sitting
right outside the coffee shop, only feet from the metatron, that has some hard candy in
it. And with ALL the implications this comes with,
my mind asked WAS THAT A TRAVEL SWEET? So, what do you think? Will the Metatron remain dogmatically villainous,
unable to see the error of his ways? Or will he find some sort of redemption through
lived experience, as other characters have? Will heaven and hell be fixed, destroyed,
or something else entirely? I am super interested in your opinions on
this, as it is more speculation and analysis than theory, so please do share them in the
comments below. And, what does all of this mean for God, or
really, the absence of God, in season 2, and possibly season 3? And was she really absent? That’s the topic I plan to discuss next
time, so if you find this sort of deep dive into Good Omens interesting, I do hope you
stick around. I’ve also got another news bites social
media update in the works. Some of you may have heard, I had a little
injury last month, and I did take some time off to recover. You see, some ninjas came into my house, and
I had to fight them on the basement stairs. Skilled combatant that I am, even outnumbered,
I drove them off, but not before sustaining a slightly broken ankle. Don’t worry, no actual ninjas were injured
in the invention of that story. And the dresser I was moving is ok, too. If you’d like to meet other like minded
GO’s fans to chat with, and join in fun activities, check out our discord! My patrons are all awesome. We had our first patreon live Q and A, that
was fun! I plan to start doing those monthly, as long
as we have a few people interested in chatting. All of these wonderful folks keep up my spirits
when the ninjas get me down. Once again, we’ve made it to the end. So to you my lovely viewers, who keep showing
up to hear me blather on about this marvelous world, what can I say but, thanks for watching!
