witchec:

biclarkent:

witchec:

I think the thing I love most about the ladies in Black Sails is how they are allowed to feel the full spectrum of emotions and inter-personal relationships. it’s like it was said in this gifset.   

in a lot of TV shows and movies, I feel like the women (part of their mostly two-dimensional writing) are often reduced to romantic love, motherly love, jealousy, benevolence, fetishized sexuality, grief. and because usually stand in relation to and talk to only like 3 characters, tops, those emotions are condensed and often brought to an extreme – which is not how emotions work for most people (personality disorders aside).

in Black Sails, the women (like the men) have different motives, different backgrounds, different experiences, different persons they interact with. and thus, they react differently to different things and experience other characters in different ways. this is such a basic thing to say, almost ridiculously simple, but hear me out:

no relationship or friendship in this show is like the other. this is no “male leads with ladies on the side” kind of show. and I believe that this is also result of the characterizations of the women. they are not being left out of the action; they are part of it, and sometimes, THEY ARE the action (the controversy in Nassau around Eleanor, Anne’s disappearance in S3).

the moments that I am most in love with a female character is when they show a real reaction to something that happens on the show; when they are allowed to feel. the gifset I linked above showcases the moment I started loving Max, and the moment I started loving Eleanor. that g r i e f. that  a n g e r. the  f u r y. I loved it. I still do. 

this post is a mess, and I apologize for that. it was a spontaneous decision to write it, I just had to get this off of my chest. the point is: I love the ladies of Black Sails. Every single one of them. I don’t think I could hate any of them, unless they did something akin to rape/sexual assault, tbh.

all of this is also part of why I never hated Eleanor for having Charles hanged (besides him having it coming anyways); because prior to that decision, she had given me enough reasons to love her, simply by being a fleshed-out character.

the bs ladies are the definition of complex, which is why they get so much hate tbh. tumblr keeps asking for complex female characters but the truth is, they are not really ready for them.

it seems that the idea that these women are able to feel and be more than one thing (like most human beings) is absolutely ludicrous to many people. it does not compute for some reason, so there’s always a need to over-simplify what they feel/do.

of course, we all know that this doesn’t happen with the men, and it’s not like i’m bitter or anything. i am.

for example, people can’t understand that max is manipulative, yes, but that she also cares deeply for other people. that she can do both at the same time. it’s such a simple concept, yet there are still those that claim they don’t understand her or what her angle really is.

it’s so infuriating to me, and it’s what makes me go on so many rants because the complexity of these characters is what makes me love them. it’s so refreshing to see women being granted the same degree of complexity as the men are. to be able to go to the same lengths.

one of the reasons i love eleanor so much is because she’s able to make the same mistakes, be as ruthless and as violent/angry sometimes as the men are. (one of my favourite eleanor/black sails scenes is the one on the cell with vane. how she completely lost it in her grief and anger. her SCREAM. hannah was fantastic in that scene.)

i don’t claim that what eleanor did to vane is right, but it’s understandable, and in a lot of ways, even justified. eleanor does what flint did to charles town, to the hamiltons and to peter ashe. she does what vane did to her father. shes takes her revenge the way they did. more importantly she’s allowed to take said revenge and she’s not condemned for it by the writers (they said it so themselves, some might think what she did was unforgivable but vane killed her dad). but she doesn’t do it lightly either and that’s what makes her great.

idk, i’m digressing. i’m sorry. but you’re 100% correct about this and i only wish the women were treated and accepted the same way the men are.

they are all so interesting:

max is so kind and loving and one of the best people on the show, but she’s also cunning and manipulative and she’s been forced to harden herself. but she’s also done it in a way that allows her goodness to shine. and she’s so, so smart. (max is also a hopeless romantic and it makes me cry. give my child her happy ending for the love of god.)

one of my favourite things about s3 is how they parallel max and eleanor. how they show the similarities between them and their positions, but also their differences. and i think that’s the point the writers were trying to make. 

max realizes during s3 the sacrifices that being on The Chair requires one to make, how hard it is, the toll it takes. it gives her and us a better comprehension of eleanor. but then we see how they handle things differently as well. how, even tho eleanor lost everything, max doesn’t have to. because max’s strengths lie elsewhere. 

eleanor ruled with an iron fist, while everyone hated her. no one dared to defy her. or it didn’t matter much if they did. “power that just is.” max rules by pleasing the people, giving them what they want. both are not ideal to me, both have their risks or work better in different circumstances. but it’s really interesting to see both perspectives from these women.

there are 3 women in positions of power right now. assuming madi will take over as the maroon queen next season, we have madi, max and eleanor. and they all “rule” in different ways. they all have different backgrounds, they’ve come into those positions under different circumstances and they have shaped them and their actions in different ways.

i’ve written so much about eleanor i don’t know what else to say at this point. there’s something i find really funny about the way people perceive her tho. 

a lot of people claim eleanor is incredibly manipulative and i actually don’t think she is at all, particularly compared to most characters on the show. she’s too emotional and temperamental for it imo. i’m not saying she doesn’t use manipulation at times, but i can point out all of these and how half assed they actually are, even if successful, if it makes any sense. she does it, but i think she’s actually really bad at it. (unlike max, who’s a pro at it, and i don’t mean this negatively. it’s just a result of their different backgrounds and life experiences.)

see her manipulation of vane to get abigail out of the fort. how you can see her anguish right after she kisses him and hugs him. we all know that what most likely happened was that they had sex (he was distracted), he feel asleep and she stole the keys. but i don’t think she would have been able to keep up the act for very long. 

eleanor wears her heart on her sleeve, what she feels you can always see on her face. she gets angry, she punches someone, she curses. she gets sad, you can see her legendary puppy dog face a mile away. plus like i said before, eleanor’s way of ruling is different from max’s. eleanor does what she has to in people’s faces. it’s part of the reason they hate her. because they can’t really stop her.

but she’s also oddly reserved about deeper feelings. and that duality and contradiction is fascinating. because she’s very effusive on the immediate, but on lasting feelings, she keeps it more bottled down. her relationship and feelings regarding her father for example. her relationship with max.

i’ve also mentioned before how eleanor and flint are both sides of the same coin, but so is miranda. to me eleanor is the other side to james flint, while miranda is the other side to james mcgraw.

miranda mirrors literally everything james went through. everything (if not worse in a lot of ways). but she followed a different path. i’ve talked about this before as well, miranda didn’t succumb to her anger but she was angry. she pulls flint from the edge as easily as she could have pushed him.

i was talking with someone once, wondering if it was possible for the writers to make flint go off completely the way he did after miranda’s death without actually killing her, and honestly, they could have done it just by having miranda pushing him to do it, instead of holding him back. a miranda that was completely done with england after learning of peter ashe’s betrayal, encouraging flint to fuck shit up would honestly have done the trick and i am so bitter because we could have had it all.

it’s honestly the contradictions within these characters that really get to me. max’s sweetness of character vs her manipulative nature; eleanor’s impulsiveness vs her odd reservation; miranda’s “what does it matter now?” vs “i want to see this whole city burn”; the fact that anne is one of the best fighters and most dangerous people on the show, but also probably one of the most vulnerable.

they are all so amazing, i love them so much and just… listen… TALK TO ME ABOUT THE LADIES OF BLACK SAILS.

I love this so much. I want to print it, frame it, and put it on my postcardwall. Maybe i will