I think there’s a good chance we might get to see who Crowley was as an angel before the fall in S2 of Good Omens. Because of this, I want to register ahead of time my total annoyance with the Raphael theory, for the following reasons:
2) Everyone in Heaven (and Hell) treats Crowley like just any other demon, not a Lost Fallen Prince and former equal to Gabriel and co.
3) I’m convinced this theory only exists to make me feel guilty about not reading Paradise Lost at university despite it being an assigned text.
…All that said, I will reluctantly accept Crowley as former archangel Raphael, bigwig in Heaven, respectable colleague to Gabriel and Michael, on the condition that:
1) His Heaven disguise is what he actually wore back in the day. Even with everyone else in flowing robes and gold leaf, Raph always rocked up to staff meetings in flipflops and a tracksuit with Blesséd on the butt in gold lamé.
2) Every meeting with the other archangels went exactly like the graveyard scene with Hastur and Ligur in S1. Raphael breezing in late with Starbucks. “Hi guys, sorry, you know what the traffic’s like around Neptune, and then I tried to cut down by the asteroid belt but -” “LET US RECOUNT THE DEEDS OF THE DAY,” Gabriel interrupts, glaring.
3) In the last staff meeting in Heaven Raphael ever attended, he was informed that the archangels had got word of a little unrest among some of the other angels, and they were sending him as an emissary to sort it out. Raphael, who’d just bragged, “What can I say guys, She loves me up there,” feels that this kind of thing isn’t really, you know, his scene. Gabriel is very insistent. Raph reluctantly goes to chat to Lucifer and the guys.
Smash cut to all Hell breaking loose, melee combat all around (to say nothing of the holy hand cannons), screaming rebels being pitched down the fire escape left right and centre. Raphael, cowering behind a pillar and wondering how the hell he managed to cause this escalation, sneaks away under the fog of war and takes the lift.
4) His angelic name is scrubbed from all records, and when forced to refer to him, Gabriel feigns amnesia. “The demon, uhh, Crowley? Might be involved.” (That bitch.)