pirateshelly:

It’s funny how often when I see people watching black sails for the first time without spoilers their assumption is that from the start of season 3 the plot trajectory is going to be Flint’s ~descent into villainy~. And I understand making that assumption because that’s kind of what you expect from seemingly dark and gritty fiction, but thank god that’s not the kind of story it is. Like, imagine how boring that would have been? 

The start of season 3 is arguably Flint’s lowest point, but then he reemerges from that and grows past it. It’s not a gradual build up to some terrible and unforgivable act of villainy that would solidify his place as the terrifying monster spoken about in treasure island. It’s not actually the origin story of a villain, it’s the origin of a story of a villain; a person who against all odds wants to believe in the possibility of a better world vs. the monster the world says that he is.

I will never be over how, against all expectations and assumptions (and terrible misleading advertising), this show managed to be so human and so subtly but profoundly optimistic. And it exasperates me so much that some people watch through to the end and STILL somehow manage to find the most blandly cynical interpretations of it (Flint was just an egomaniac who needed to be stopped, Silver murdered him and the ending wasn’t real etc.) and act like it’s actually the sort of story that it’s really just deconstructing.