I agree quite completely, Anon. The author reads the show as a call to action, and I could not possibly agree more strongly with that analysis, or their understanding that in all of this, the enemy is the status quo and the inability to dream of something better. If you follow me, then you know what I think of Silver’s actions in the finale, and I think this is a large part of the reason why I feel as I do, because I’m tired – so very tired – of being told over and over again “the society that has tried to grind you down since the day you were born will always stand, there is nothing you can do, it is impossible to tear it down and start fresh.” Honestly, I think Black Sails has proven formative to me in that very way – I don’t know of any other show that has practically taken me by the shoulders, shaken me, and said, “it doesn’t have to be this way. You don’t have to roll over and allow things to stay this way.” I think we all need to hear that right now, as things in my country get worse in leaps and bounds and I find myself asking “what do I as someone who lives in this hellhole do to make this stop?”
There’s a reason that the good, rousing speeches in Sails are given by people like Madi, and Flint, and Vane. There’s a reason that Flint is the protagonist of the show, and a reason that the at least presumptive heroes of the show are all people who have been marginalized, and betrayed, and treated abominably by people in power – explicitly so. Madi and her mother and father and their people have suffered because the people in power desire that they should. James and Thomas and Miranda suffered because they dared to say the poor and disadvantaged are people and deserving of life and decent treatment, and because of the way they loved. Charles died because he, a former child slave allowed to suffer under England’s laws, would not roll over and be England’s slave again and because he repeatedly called on crowds of people to stop giving power to those who didn’t deserve it. Black Sails is a challenge to the idea that change can’t or shouldn’t happen all at once, and a pretty clear indictment of those who cannot or will not envision something better and do everything in their power to prevent others from seeing it either. I love Max. I love Rackham. I even, at one point, liked Silver, but in the end – they’re wrong, their worldview is wrong, and I could do with infinitely less of the same attitude from real people who, like them, can’t or won’t bring themselves to envision a world that’s better and more just and then either help those of us who want it to change or get out of our damn way.
Meg's Mumbles 