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.
Tag: all of this
Hey, hey. I would just like to ask why you’re so upset about silverflint. As a flinthamilton shipper who tolerates other ships. I’m really just curious. Not judging at all. Just…. y’know, why get so upset about a ship? Live and let live? :)
hey so im too tired to get annoyed about this right now, but my friend @complaininginthedark wants to so i’m posting this so he can
Yeah so I’m going to answer this since I’m peeved at things today and have the energy to get involved. I don’t want to, I’d rather just get on and “live and let live” since that’s what I’ve been doing so far. But it’s hard when one ship advocates truth and trust and love and devotion as virtues and another showcases lying, manipulation, forced imprisonment at gunpoint, and systematic oppression being excused.
The narrative of Black Sails is on the side of the oppressed and maltreated. It is on the side of the imprisoned, the pressganged, the absued and enslaved. To ignore that and to ally with the character who ignores the wishes of friends and loved ones in those positions is hard to let go of. When S/lver put a gun to James’ head and said “I don’t care”, when he left Thomas imprisoned on the plantation, when be blatantly disregarded Madi’s efforts to free her people, he became a villain. He became a part of the problem. He may have done it out of love but it was for his own benefit, not the benefit of his loved ones.
THEN there are the fandom sides of things. The disregard of Thomas as a driving force behind Flint’s narrative, ranging from ideas that he would easily let James be with S/lver after that betrayal to Thomas beind dead or nonexistant, is insulting to anyone who has been marginalised for their sexuality. Tagging on fics that barely include Thomas mean someone uncomfortable with S/verflint have to scroll through and miss half the fandom content for one of only 3 lgbt pairings in the show. CANON pairings at that. Tagging and searching on Tumblr are different and both suck but content creators are allowed to say “don’t tag this as such and such” without being harassed for it. Fandom is awful anyway I don’t do much other than write what takes my fancy but respect goes two ways.
In short – It’s not about just getting on with things, it’s about realising the people who don’t like S/verflint have reasons beyond spite or malice.
“But your abuse made you kind”
I was always kind. My abuse tested my kindness and you are testing my patience.
‘no, my abuse made me a spineless jellyfish living in perpetual fear of standing up for myself, but thank you for framing that as a positive thing you like about me’
“I am a good person despite my abuse, not because of it”
Abuse made me hypersensitive to other people’s emotions while neglecting my own boundaries and comfort because I’m afraid of upsetting someone or having them lash out at me.
g – d i fucking love That Argument between miranda and flint because like… the whole “the door is open. i’ve opened it for you.” thing is a recurring theme throughout the series, with characters doing What They Think Is Best for other characters and then being shown just Why That Was Bad. because of course miranda would try to free flint from this fucking hell he’s in! it’s not at all an Objectively bad thing that she did – the problem is that flint has his own reasons for not wanting that, ones she didn’t understand/know about before
and we see that sort of theme with jack and anne too, with anne questioning whether or not jack ‘saving’ her took something away from her because maybe she was supposed to figure her own way out of it. we see it with vane and eleanor and eleanor demanding that he stops telling her “what it is you think i think”. we see it with eleanor and her father too, i think
and that whole thing is why silver ending the war is such a terrible thing. because it destroys everything flint and madi have been building towards, and even though silver thinks he’s doing it for the right reasons and for their own good, it comes back to the entire theme of Actually These Characters Have Ideological Reasons For Not Wanting That, And You’ve Just Betrayed Them. he overrides their agency, which the entire show portrays as a bad thing (not to mention then sending james into slavery, which is a whole other thing).
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Vane was sexually abused as a child.
- He has a brand on his shoulder from Albinus. We meet several of Albinus’s slaves and only one has the brand (At least that we can see), The child. The ONLY child.
- When he has to return to Albinus to get a crew he can’t meet Albinus’s eyes. This is Charles Vane, he’d stare down death itself, but with his former master…
- When Albinus reveals his brand to the others Charles can no longer meet any of their eyes. He looks ashamed. These are Albinus’s slaves as well, why should he be ashamed?
- He’s terrified and trying to hide it every time Albinus speaks to him.
- He says he was “the lowest among” the slaves
- He keeps looking to the boy, horrified that there is another like him. He knew Albinus would still have slaves. He shouldn’t be shocked, but he is
“You think if you refrain from beating them, it’s any better? It isn’t the violence. It isn’t the labor or the hunger or the heat or the chains. You know what those men fear right now? It’s the unknown. Lash that comes from nowhere for reasons never explained. A visit from the taskmaster in the dead of night. But I remember that fear. Right now, I feel it returning.”
In Conclusion Vane was raped repeatedly as a child by Albinus (and mostly likely his taskmaster). He managed to get away and tried to forget it. When he saw the boy with the same brand he realized it wasn’t him. He wasn’t the reason for what had happened. Vane had always blamed himself, but in that moment he realized it was Albinus. He realized Albinus was a sick fuck who raped children for pleasure. That’s why he murdered him.
before black sails i don’t think i truly noticed how rage in media is portrayed, as amoral at best, as invalidating of social stances, as all equal and all equally indicative of a Bad irrational character, rage is for the villains or rage is something someone good succumbs to and then has to repent for, there is no such thing as rightful anger, doesn’t matter what systemic horrors you’ve suffered, if you shout you’ve already lost, if you shout you’re just as bad as your oppressors, and that is horrifying
on rage still: i remember a post that essentially talked about how great it is that flint is allowed gay anger, and i was thinking about how there’s even more to that than being allowed to be angry, he isn’t degraded by it, defined by it, moved into a new box because of it, ideals are not invalidated by it, by which i mean all of this happens but not in the narrative of the show, it happens in the narrative various other characters within the show weave about james flint, around him, and you see them do it, and you see the threads and the craftsmanship in detail, and you see it affect flint himself, but it’s not the show’s, the show is the creation of it and not the narrative itself, the show is as usual the story of the story, the show tells you look, this is happening, this is how it happens, this is how in stories villains are queercoded, this is how in history gay people are invisible or monsters
So I was thinking about the Max/Anne cave scene (i haven’t watched the episode all that recently, I just think about that scene a lot lol) and I think part of what’s so wonderful about it is that it’s one of the very few examples on this show of two people genuinely understanding what trust is… It’s a concept we see so many characters just completely not understand.
It’s them saying, we love each other but we also want fundamentally different things, and that’s okay we can still trust and accept these things about each other without judgement. And they’re able to acknowledge that because they want such different things, maybe it’s for the best that their paths diverge rather than one of them try to twist herself to fit into a life that just does not fit her. Max could have tried to convince Anne to stay and try to fit into the new civilized version of nassau, but she doesn’t, because she knows that would basically be hell for Anne (can you even imagine Anne trying to fit into the Woodes Rogers-ruled Nassau?? What would she even do for a living? She would have no place) and would rather they parted ways than force that on her. In a show where characters constantly mistake trust and partnership for wanting the same thing, it’s just such a rare and beautiful moment. Don’t get me wrong, that scene was heartbreaking and I absolutely didn’t WANT them to split up and I love that they eventually found their way back to each other, but way they chose to put each other as individuals before their relationship as a unit, and the amount of deep and healthy and genuine love that showed, was so beautiful.
Like, compare that to Eleanor at the beginning of season 3, who claims that trust=wanting the same thing. She ends up sacrificing her entire identity and agency in order to be seen by Woodes Rogers as “trustworthy”. Or compare it to Silver and Madi (Silver is also someone who literally describes trust as “wanting the same thing”). I think pretty early on in season 4 Silver becomes very aware that he and Madi want fundamentally different things. The mature thing to do, the thing that Max did, would be to step back and say “i don’t want what you want and you don’t want what I want, so maybe our paths are just going to diverge”. But of course he doesn’t do that, he prioritizes having her in his life over accepting that for Madi the security he wants for himself would be a stifling prison (I mean, imagining Madi as a tavern wife feels about as wrong as trying to imagine Anne existing in any civilized setting), and then tells himself he did The Right Thing. As many parallels as there are between Silver and Max, and even though their plans do end up lining up in the end, I think the final season makes it clear that they are very fundamentally different people (I think sometimes the parallels on this show are as much about pointing out differences as they are about drawing attention to similarities).
But what I also love about that cave scene with regard to Max is just her self awareness… it’s something about her that makes me so able to love her and just GET her even when she makes choices I don’t agree with. “The things that made that room possible were horrible things, but inside that room was peace, that is what home is to me”. She’s able be like ‘this is what I want, and i know it’s not a good thing to want, but i just want you to understand why i want it’. She doesn’t twist herself into a knot trying to justify what she wants as The Right Thing just to feel better about it. Even when she says that “drown the damn cat” line in season 4 (a line I find super depressing for a lot of reasons, and it’s not a conclusion I don’t agree with in any way, even though I understand and sympathize with why Max comes to that conclusion), it’s just such a fascinatingly blunt, bitter, non-sugar coated way of putting it, she’s not like “WOOO YEAH, lets drown that cat!!”, she doesn’t try to frame it as something less unsettling than it is or reframe the narrative to make it look better. And just, her openness and honesty in that cave scene, and the acknowledgement of why she wants what she wants, and the understanding that it really isn’t a completely good thing to want, AND the understanding that it’s not a path she should drag Anne down with her, is just so fascinating and complicated and it’s both kind of tragic but incredibly mature.
Emotional abuse works like this: You are screamed at, and then, not knowing any better, you stand up for yourself. You think this is a way of being strong. You think this is a defense tactic.But this only provokes more screaming. Going silent provokes more screaming too, but usually it keeps the threats to the minimum. It keeps it just at screaming and not: a shove down the stairs, or order to pack your stuff and get out.
So you learn how to go silent. How to play dead. How to cry without making a noise. How to swallow noise. How to wipe your cheeks, get out of the car, and go about your day.
You learn.
And when the screaming has stopped, when the two of you are in the car or out to dinner and they’re all smiles, all asking for favors, all questions, you are still hurt and annoyed and want to ask them, how? How can you speak to me like that? How can you pretend you did not say those things? How can you have forgotten?
But you’ve learned. So you listen to, “Can I borrow your key”s and “how was your day”s and you play dead. You swallow the noise. And sometimes it doesn’t matter who is speaking to you, it doesn’t matter if they’re a friend, it doesn’t matter if their criticism is constructive, it doesn’t matter. You’ve learned. Any sort of speaking, any raising of the voice, any insult and you play dead.
Good Girl, Lora Mathis (via cylon)
Just a thought here but uh. We can agree that Flint is a definitively morally grey person fueled by rage and the desire for revenge without saying that he doesn’t genuinely care about ending England’s rule on Nassau or that he never strongly believed in the concept of the pardons before becoming utterly disillusioned by England as a force of potential good. Especially when he expressed that he fanatically wanted to pursue two idealistic, risky plans to carry out such a goal and that he was willing to exchange the treasure to end the war for Nassau. The misinterpretation of the character bothers me, but it genuinely bothers me more the idea that like. Being motivated by anger because of the injustices you have personally faced somehow is an “ impure” motive for revolutionary activity that makes it somehow not as good a cause? Is something that is prevalent with you people. Especially considering that a majority of the fan base is like consisting of non-straight women and some gay/bi men, some of whom are not white or able bodied, I expected you all to better grasp what powers revolutions or any sort of movement for social change and anyway that’s. Troubling.
also. did you all miss the speech he gives where he talks about how he wants to pursue the ability to change who tells the narrative to those who are feared instead of colonial england. 4×10, like. He is absolutely not an altruistic man and he is motivated by his own personal tragedies but that doesn’t necessarily cheapen the goal he is trying to pursue or mean that it is not worthwhile or that it is not something he truly believes in.
So I have to give a drunk lecture for a club I’m in, and I picked Tolkien of course, and I thought you all might want to see my visual aids. (These are just the fun facts, lecture itself will explain important things like what the hell is a silmaril and why do Maedhros and Luthien want it)
Meg's Mumbles 