shavingmysealegs:

Why james and thomas are alive:

– as others have pointed out, a plantation without miranda is not James’s idea of heaven

– the scene at the start reveals that silver did indeed send someone to look for thomas. This scene would’ve been pointless if it wasn’t real. We already know for certain that silver was interested in these plantations, and in what james would give up if thomas was alive, so it makes sense that he would try to find out the truth

– if the first scene was real, i don’t know why the later one wouldn’t be

– even if this scene was just silver’s version of events, I believe he was past lying to madi at this point

– if silver did want to lie to her, he could’ve stuck with the original ‘retirement’ story that he told everyone else

– if he killed James, he could’ve blamed it on anyone else (Hands) to avoid judgement. Not many men were with them at the time, he could’ve easily formulated a story that made his death necessary

– if he was trying to appease madi, he failed when he revealed he had been planning this for a while – why would he reveal even more of his betrayal to her if it wasn’t true?

– jack was meant to kill flint. While he managed to make the alternative sound more appealing to Eleanor’s grandma, it would’ve been easier if he could truthfully say he was dead. Since silver seemed to at least partially understand Jack’s goal (of fixing nassau, and leaving silver out of it) I don’t see why he would’ve lied to him about killing flint

– silver said he would wait for james to understand the situation, so why would he kill him? James definitely would not have attacked him first

I think that’s it. Don’t argue or I’ll cry.