I think for us, what made it compelling, is the cruelty of it. It is so clearly designed to tell a story about Rogers’ capacity for violence and his dominance over them, in what was meant to be a very bloody victory for him. I think what became complicated for us was, not only did it need to do all the things Dan mentioned in being a big noisy death for Teach but it was also important somehow that Teach save Rackham’s life. In a moment where Teach is bound and mostly dead and lacking really any agency, that was hard to do. This idea that just by not dying he saves Rackham’s life felt right. And I think as a Rogers story it was interesting in that Rogers thinks that he’s the star of the show and thinks he’s the one everyone’s going to be talking about tomorrow. And just by not dying, Teach becomes the star of the show and kind of makes him a hero in the moment when he’s supposed to be a prop. You understand why Rogers has to walk away and cut his losses and risk losing the narrative he was trying to tell.
Jonathan E. Steinberg, about that scene
There are some great quotes in this interview, but this is one of two specific ones I want to talk about.
I love this quote. Because it shows that the creators understand the point of having such a gruesome scene. It is there to bring the story forward, which is great, and highlight the cruelty of Rogers in a way which had not yet been made clear to us.
But, as they say, it’s also fundamentally about agency.
Agency is a word we use a lot on tumblr when discussing in fandom. Usually it’s applied to female characters’ narrative and how they’re handled. But here it is also an absolutely perfect word to describe what is going on.
In a scene where Rogers should have all the agency, all the power, Teach takes command of the narrative. Through doing that, he ends up saving Rackham and probably most of the crew.
Rogers was so sure of how this would go, and the longer he drags it out, the more he loses control of it. Teach might be bound and tortured, but by every round of it he survives, he’s taking agency away from Rogers in front of all his men. In the end, Rogers can’t continue without completely losing every ounce of credibility he had. Him shooting Teach is a victory for Teach. Teach was in command the entire time at the end. He forced Rogers to admit defeat by going up and shooting him. He also stopped Rogers, whether knowingly or not but simply by persisting, from doing the same to the rest, and to Rackham specifically, because Rogers would not have been able to withstand another failure like that. Rogers was drained of all his will to show off how in power he was.
It reminded me of that scene in Jesus Christ Superstar (yes, I just made that reference), where Pilate orders the flogging of Jesus, and the longer he goes on the more painful it becomes for himself, in the end it’s even hard for the person flogging. Not to say Blackbeard is Jesus, and Woodes Rogers is far from Pilate, or showing any of the complicated emotions afterwards that he does, but he was very close to making Teach a martyr.
What was supposed to be his big victory turned into something small and insignificant that only made Blackbeard’s legend greater. The gore and horror in that scene worked not for shock but to highlight for us as an audience both to what length Rogers was willing to go out of desperation, and how badly Rogers was losing, because Teach pulled through. What was supposed to be a power demonstration turned into a demonstration of weakness. They highlight to us that this type of violence is not normal, it’s not by the book, and they do this through the horrified looks and silent acting from those standing around. These characters who’ve done terrible things are all standing around and looking in disgust and horror.
That’s how you do a scene like that.
(via mynameisjohnsilver)
Meg's Mumbles 