Alright, so – here goes. Y’all wanted this – sorry if it gets long.
I think Vane’s character arc makes complete and utter sense but the writers handled it in a way that makes sense with his character but doesn’t inform the viewers what’s going on in his head. And there’s a lot going on in there – so much, actually, and it informs everything we see him do in the show. Unfortunately, without understanding what’s going on in his head, he looks like he’s all over the place and retconned to hell in later seasons. He’s not, I promise. He’s just not chatty like James.
We know that Vane was a slave. We see that he’s got scars a lot like Anne’s on his back from being beaten, and we get hints that he’s been sexually abused (his conversation about “a visit from the taskmaster in the middle of the night” with Jack), but it didn’t really hit me until later that as a natural consequence of what he went through, Charles Vane has absolutely no clue what to do when he has no orders. That’s what he’s dealing with for the first time in his life in s1 – he has no master. There’s no Albinus to beat him into obedience. There’s no Teach, telling him what to do and making him do it through bargains and debts owed when necessary. There’s no Eleanor, meaning well but also in charge of the island’s trade and very much accustomed to getting her way however she can. He’s got Jack, and Anne, and a crew he presumably built while Teach was still around or shortly thereafter, and he’s terrified.
Just look at the evidence. He all but begs Eleanor to let him back into her life, he’s drinking too much, smoking opium – he’s a damn mess, and I don’t think that it’s all to do with Eleanor. That’s what we as an audience largely got out of it, sure – messy breakup leads to Very Bad Decisions on his part especially (and no I’m not excusing what he did, it was heinous and wrong and I don’t blame anyone for hating him for it. Really, truly, I don’t). What I am saying is that I think there’s some highly toxic shit going on in his head that explains what he does but doesn’t excuse it by any means and that him killing Albinus is him fighting so very hard to stop wanting orders the way he was conditioned to when he was a child. That’s what his character arc is – him realizing that he’s been following someone’s orders all his life and that he needs to find a way to get out of that headspace where he needs someone telling him what to do. That’s what his “I didn’t do it for you” to Eleanor is about – it’s not him telling her he doesn’t care about her, it’s him telling her that he’s not taking orders anymore, that if they’re going to have a relationship, things have got to change.
Note: no matter what I might say next, I am not attempting to shit on Eleanor. I love her too. I feel for her, and my heart breaks for her, because on some level she’s still that terrified, hurting 13-year-old kid she was when the Spanish burned her home and killed her mother and she has good reasons for the things she does. She and Charles just – did. not. understand each other, not at all, and that’s a shame.
To continue on though – I think Charles gets to the end of s2 and finds a cause to fight for that has nothing to do with Eleanor, or with Teach, and that’s where he really starts to change, because he’s realized what being a slave did to him. He’s realized that he can’t continue on that way, and he’s come to the understanding that no one should have to live like that. He goes to Charlestown to get the Spanish war ship not because he necessarily wants it for his crew, but because he needs it to get the gold, or, barring that, he needs to find another way to make the money to fight for Nassau’s freedom. It actually works very well with historical Charles Vane, who was also looking for allies for this very reason and happened to go to Jamaica – another English colony, only one with a sympathetic governor, but I digress. Anyway – the end of s2 rolls around, Vane has an ally he never expected in Flint – and then s3 happens and turns everything Charles thought he knew on its head, because all of a sudden Teach is there, and Flint is gone, and Charles is having to make decisions. He’s having to really think for himself and live with the consequences of his decisions and with the reality of effectively ruling an island and he realizes that he’s frightened. And outnumbered. He says as much to Jack when he talks about feeling the uncertainty and the fear of his time as a slave coming back. He’s scared again, and that leads him to almost make the decision to let Teach be in charge of him again. We see him waffle. We see him start to doubt himself, but then we also have moments like the one with the Spanish soldier, and I didn’t realize this until recently, but that moment is an important clue as to what’s going on in Vane’s head.
The Spanish man he fights says that money makes sheep of us all. He tells Charles that he has a family at home who will starve unless he dies in battle, and we can see Charles’ face. We can see the disgust at what this man’s been made to do. We can see the moment that he thinks – isn’t this worth fighting against? We also can hear his confusion earlier when he tells Teach that everyone in Nassau thought he was mad when he talked like Teach – and I really think that moment’s not about Charles being relieved to have Teach back. That’s not it at all. It’s a moment of “you said this, but no one else thinks that, and why am I still listening to you? Why am I letting you take charge of me again, don’t I have my own thoughts?” The moment that Charles takes those Spanish intelligence papers, we can see that he doesn’t agree with Teach. He’s not done with Nassau, and he’s questioning, and doubting, and more importantly – he’s having to figure out his own answers to the questions he’s asking himself instead of having someone answer them for him the way perhaps Eleanor would have done once. Or Jack. Or whoever he was previously allowing to do the thinking for him, and that’s not happening anymore, and that’s exactly why he goes with James when he turns up looking like hell on Ocracoke.
If you follow the train of thought – Charles has spent three seasons learning to think for himself. He’s been up and down and lashed out at just about everyone when they even remotely attempt to control him (or if he perceives that they’re trying to), and that’s why when James Flint turns up on Ocracoke Island, it’s so very important that he basically tells Charles “you don’t owe me shit. I’m not going to leverage some debt, or call in a favor, or coerce you into this. Decide what YOU want. Decide who you are.” That’s a far damn cry from Teach rolling up to Nassau, apparently intent upon saving Charles from himself, and in the process more or less blackmailing him into coming away. It’s also exactly the only thing that James could have said to Charles that would have convinced him. He doesn’t need to be coerced again. He doesn’t need or want to be manipulated or ordered about. He wants to be his own person, with his own agenda, and that’s the moment that settles him on it. It’s a big deal, and it’s a big part of the reason that his speech about “no measure of comfort worth that price” works, because Charles has worked hard to get to that point. He’s been told over and over again “submit and we’ll give you what you need.” And he’s realized that no matter what’s promised, it’s not worth the loss of autonomy.
And that’s why I think if Charles had been there to see the end of the series, he’d have gone absolutely nuclear. That’s why he had to die for the series to end the way it did – because Charles Vane would never, ever have accepted any treaty. He’d never have been pacified, he’d never have given England or Spain even one ounce of what they wanted, because he worked too damn hard to stop wanting orders, and realize what they did to him. And unfortunately exactly none of this is ever talked about out loud in the series, and we never hear it from Vane himself except in oblique references. I really wish we’d gotten just one conversation maybe between Jack and Anne or Jack and Flint about Charles and what exactly drove him, because I wouldn’t have had to sit down and puzzle this all out myself. On the other hand, I now have feels about my strong, resilient, incredibly stubborn garbage son who went through so much and fought so hard just to be free.
Meg's Mumbles 