Honestly, one of the best parts of s4 for me was seeing that character development. You’re right – if s3 Flint had walked onto the Underhill plantation, Underhill and his wife would both have been dead the moment one of them pointed a gun in Flint’s direction. S3 Flint likely would not have made a deal with Eleanor, nor would he have told her the truth about the distance needed to send a shot across the bow of Rogers’ ship, nor would he have made a lot of the decisions s4 Flint made in an attempt to save lives. S4 Flint is much closer to s1 Flint in terms of who he is as a character at that point and actually a bit closer to James McGraw in terms of the decisions he makes if you ask me.
Tag: black sails meta
“flint will always miss silver” no tf he won’t if he and madi are truly of the same mind about the war he’s gonna “”“always”“ want to kick his ass into the next century
Actually I disagree that it’s Madi who is in Treasure Island. The Madi we know from Black Sails will not agree to run a tavern while Silver goes on hijinks. I think this is Max. If we consider that history happens as in the real world and Nassau falls to the Empire again, the loss of Rackham and Bonny and Read, then knowing how Max and Silver conspired for the Urca gold and betrayed Flint – I think, these two incredibly sly characters would have come together to make another bid for the gold.
If this is how it goes down, I think Madi leaves Silver a few years past where the show ends and becomes the full-fledged freedom fighter that was her legacy.
I don’t have anything to corroborate this theory other than the look on her face in that final shot. It was not a look of love or acceptance but one of momentary forgiveness.
Honestly, it didn’t even look like that to me. I’m not saying that because I didn’t like their relationship – I did, actually, for a while there. It was sweet, and I really wish he hadn’t fucked it up. But that look she gives him on the cliff – that was the look of a woman who’s come to a decision she doesn’t like but that she knows needs to be made, and I honestly don’t think that decision was welcoming Silver back into her life as a partner. I just don’t buy it – not from her, of all people. I would almost believe Flint forgiving him more than I would her, simply because Flint has got Issues and very demonstrably is willing to forgive Silver far, far too much whereas Madi doesn’t have that same sense of self-loathing and loneliness that would back up that kind of decision on her part after what he’s done.
Whenever someone says that Flint/Madi/Maroon Queen could not win, I remember this: “Nobody will believe it’s possible until we show them. But when that day comes, you know what they’ll say? They’ll say that it was inevitable.”
I couldn’t agree more. If there’s anything history has shown us, it’s that that fight was not, in fact, unwinnable. I get why certain characters believed it was. I get that they had valid reasons for thinking that, but I disagree with them pretty firmly, not to mention that even if the fight couldn’t be won, it still needed to be fought. There are things worth dying for.
I’ve read a few fics where Thomas is very well behaved at the plantation and sometimes talks to Oglethorpe about books and stuff. And while I’ve enjoyed those fics, I don’t see it that way.
I see Thomas, once he’s been removed from Bedlam and taken to the plantation and had some time to sort of semi-recover (in a place where, while he’s doing backbreaking work every day, he’s not locked in a cell and being tortured frequently in the name of therapy) being really, FURIOUSLY angry.
Thomas not being polite and pacifying, not holding his tongue about the injustice he and his fellow inmates are facing, because what good did that do him before? He TRIED playing politics and changing the world in a way that society deemed acceptable, and his own father locked him up in Bedlam for it.
So Thomas takes every chance he can to make things harder for his captors, to piss them off, make their work harder, complain and rile the other prisoners up with his words like only Thomas can. Because even if he can’t escape this place, even if he thinks he has nothing to escape to, thinks James and Miranda are dead – he’s not going down without a fucking fight.
Thomas Hamilton as angry and bitter and ready to fight as Flint is, but with less outlet for his searing rage.
Thomas Hamilton who, when James is brought in, in chains, after the initial blissful reunion, is as ready as James is, if not more so, to burn that fucking place to the ground.#thomas hamilton#flinthamilton#I love my sunshine son#my feisty sunshine son#honestly Thomas is in no way docile or a pushover#and I understand the idea some people have that Bedlam might have broken him – in spirit and mind#but while Bedlam is obviously gonna be a trauma he carries for the rest of his life#I just see Thomas getting fiercely fucking angry about it more than anything#also he may not have James’s fighting skills but he is RIPPED from working those fields all day#between his words and James’s tactics#I’d say it takes them…a week at most to turn that plantation to ash#good fucking riddance
via @buildarocketboys
idk if the showrunners had any other motive besides a name drop in making this particular historical figure to be Thomas’ jailer, but -for the sheer plot potential- i am trilled by the irony of it.
here’s Thomas, released from betlehem into the hands of someone who holds many of the same ideas about rehabilitation of criminals that he himself espoused,
at the point when he -after experiencing a life on the other side so to speak- had been forced to re-examine his beliefs to say the leasti do think there were book discussions. i don’t think that would indicate Thomas is any less angry, radicalised, disilussioned, or in any form compliant.
he’s just using his best weapons
now this can be taken in several directions, depending on where you’d like to take this plot-wise,
but i think we’re due some extensive fandom meta on the “original” James Olgethorpe’s politics, (and i’d dearly like a stab at London-era Hamilton’s as well, while we’re at it)
See – here’s the thing though. The Oglethorpe in the show isn’t real-life Oglethorpe, and it shows. You’re right – real Oglethorpe seems to have been a good man, much like Thomas in wanting to create real change. Show Oglethorpe is… not. Not at all, because where real Oglethorpe wanted to give people a chance at a new life and reform England’s prisons, show Oglethorpe is basically providing a service for the rich and powerful wherein troublesome people disappear never to be seen again. Show Oglethorpe’s little speech about “human debris” makes my skin crawl because it doesn’t seek to address the problem the way that real Oglethorpe did. Show Oglethorpe is a detestable little man who is doing the opposite of what Thomas wanted in that he’s treating the symptoms of the disease without ever addressing the root cause of it. He’s allowing English society to forget the people it’s hurt and keeping those people locked up. That’s not creating a life for them. That’s not freedom – it’s a cage, albeit a cheaply gilded one. If show Oglethorpe were doing half of what real Oglethorpe did, he and Thomas would still have things to argue over, but it would be less an argument and more a discussion, whereas I think if Thomas and Oglethorpe as he stands in the show were to talk, nothing Thomas had to say would be anything he’d want to hear and vice versa. Real Oglethorpe was the founder of a colony and wholly opposed slavery, whereas show Oglethorpe is a slaver, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. And I get why the show writers maybe thought it was a good idea to have him there, I’m certainly glad they found a way to have Thomas be alive, but I can’t shake the feeling that real James Oglethorpe would be disgusted by this approximation of himself and the perversion of his ideals.
Hell yes re: temper! There’s such an underling sharp edge to Thomas in his scenes, whether he’s passionately talking about
something, or just generally irritated or agitated. He’s only a bit more mellow
when he’s wooing with Bible verses, gazing fondly at Miranda, or looking wistfully at
James. Oh, Thomas!
yeah – look at that face! We get a glimpse of who Thomas is behind the pleasant smile in his office the first time he talks to James about the pirate problem, too. He smiles, but there’s an edge of impatience under there, especially when James questions his request that they ignore the pirate issue and focus on what’s really going on that’s causing it. He really hates fuzzy logic and ill-thought-out arguments and that’s exactly what James’ initial skepticism is to him – towing the party line without ever really considering an alternative. It’s part of why he gets so angry at Alfred – the man doesn’t stop to actually consider a word Thomas says. Thomas has got one hell of a temper and it flares up when someone dismisses him out of hand without hearing him out.
Yeah I’m still talking about this, but-
A huge point to be made is the way the narrative obviously views the Shame Plantation we all hate.
It’s played up as a decent place. It’s played up by the writing as being acceptable and non-violent and “there is a place for society’s rejects to go and society is judged by how it treats those it rejects blah blah blah” the narrative and the writers want you to believe that this is an okay place. It’s played up so many times. Even Max, who wouldn’t be able to live with herself for having killed Silver, sees it as a viable alternative free of guilt.
If the writers could help it, you’re not supposed to see this place as bad. And it WORKED. So many Black Sails fans see that as a satisfying and acceptable ending for Flint. God I went to the Thomas Hamilton wiki the other day and half the comments were “it doesn’t matter where he is because he’s with the love of his life! What a beautiful ending! Black Sails watered my crops and painted my kitchen it’s Perfect!” Like criticize Silver all you want but the real problem here is the narrative. Silver is not going to understand or act on the basis that this is a bad place for Flint to go because the narrative does not believe or want you to believe that this is a bad place to go.
Silver sending Flint there was meant to be a decent option assuming Flint became more at peace with Thomas. No it’s not true, but the narrative believed it very clearly and very strongly. It’s pushing that wrongly throughout the entirety of season 4, and it pushes it through Silver as well. The Black Sails writers do not want you to believe they enslaved two gay characters in a terrible place at the end of their story. They want you to believe, and probably even believe themselves, that this is a decent place to spend your life. Silver will never have criticize or considered this to be a bad ending because of who he is as a character, but because the narrative wants everyone to think it’s an okay place.
Logically that being a reason to hate Silver is fine. You can hate him for whatever reasons you want and as flawed as it is writing-wise, it is something he did. But it’s so blatantly clear to me that this is a narrative flaw and not a character flaw. Silver only believes this is an acceptable ending because the narrative does because the writers want you to believe it too. Not because he thinks this is acceptable– but because he exists in a narrative that also thinks it’s acceptable. Don’t expect everyone to ignore that.
A counterpoint that is also valid.
Which is why I love this fandom.
I’d like to respectfully disagree.
Honestly, I think the narrative is not flawed. The writing is not bad – in fact, it’s brilliant, but it’s making a point that some people have missed, which is not their fault – it’s easy to do given that as you said, it’s not explicitly pointed out. The point, though, is made way back when Madame Guthrie tells the story about the cat and her son and the husband that won’t stop beating the boy for being kind. The point that she, and Max, and a lot of viewers took out of that, is that some things cannot survive in the world with other things if society is to survive. The point that the narrative is trying to get across, or at least the one that I took away from it, is that society strangles the innocent to preserve the guilty and it will continue until people have the courage to change it. The shame farm is a direct reflection of that disgusting little parable. What is obvious to most of us is that it is not the poor innocent cat that deserves to die there – it is the root cause of the problem, the husband who insists on beating his son for doing what is right. In the same way, what James Flint and Thomas Hamilton deserve is not to be “strangled” by being enslaved on that farm. What should happen is that the society that has brutalized them should be overturned, but what happens is that one man plays the role of Madame Guthrie in this story and strangles the cat instead of going for the root cause, probably because like her he has been conditioned to think that nothing can change. I can’t blame her or Max for thinking as they do – they’ve been shown their whole lives that they are not the ones in control and they view quests to make things change as doomed to failure, just as Silver does, but it doesn’t make any of them right.
*In case you missed it, Madi serves in Richard Guthrie’s role here, and Silver acts to save her, sacrificing her happiness for her life.
I agree with you, actually, and I’m really glad you brought up that cat story in detail because it’s been something I’ve wanted to hear someone mention for a long time, especially in regard to Max’s stance on it. I agree with you that it doesn’t make them right, and overall I lean toward Flint and Madi’s perspective than Silver and Max’s. But I also find both Silver and Max’s stances extremely understandable, and disagreeing with them doesn’t mean hating them, especially Max who had no connection to Flint or Madi and therefore was not betraying them. But Silver because I do believe that he did everything he did out of selfish love and an inability to watch Flint and Madi get themselves killed for nothing, which was the only way he could see it ending. He didn’t believe in it, and in reality, never should have touched it or them. But he fell in love with them.
I do agree that Silver believed in what Max believed. I think seeing Max, and even Julius, was a huge factor in what made him doubt Flint and Madi so much. Two people from the same world as Flint and Madi, who had the opposite standpoint. How hard must it to have been to cede to their ideas because they know better than he, while two people who were in the exact same boat vehemently supported the direction he truly leaned toward? Silver doesn’t give a shit about the world or changing it or who suffers in it if it’s not happening right in front of him. He’s never existed in it. He cares only about Flint and Madi and becomes overwhelmed with the belief that their war is not only pointless, but will be their end.
But I don’t think he believes Flint needs to be killed or even removed the way Max and Guthrie do. I also don’t think he gives a shit about the restoration of Nassau or Jack and Max’s plan. He has three things on his mind.
1. Jack wants to kill Flint for this plan. It’s a plan that will put him in power and seal his name into history. It’s unlikely very much will stop him from destroying Flint for this, and that puts them at war with Jack. Which, isn’t a huge problem in reality, but it’s another enemy on the pile.
2. The destruction of the war. Silver doesn’t believe in this war, you’re right. He agrees with Max. He wants to believe in it, I think he’s always wanted to, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t face that until 410. Until he realizes he doesn’t just not believe in it, he believes it’s going to destroy everything he cares about.
3. The best way to end it. Not for England, not for Nassau, not for Jack or Max’s plan, but for Flint and Madi.
I don’t think the writing overall is bad. But it is flawed. I just think it’s important to consider that Silver really did not need to send Flint away forever. He didn’t need to kill him. He didn’t need to do anything except change his stance and start speaking against it and the pirate King would be gone, as well as well as his most promising connection to the maroons– the one among them the maroons had mostly strongly come to trust.
But Flint would have died fighting him, and everyone else who agreed and followed him away from it. Madi may have very well done the same.
My argument isn’t that Silver would not have sent Flint there. That’s where Thomas was. And it was a place Flint could stay with Thomas and perhaps find peace and lose a need for this war that Silver was destroying, if he was ever going to. If Silver needed to remove Flint, even just temporarily, it was the best place for him to go. Not because it was secure or would keep him away, but because Thomas was there.
My argument is that if the narrative understood that this wasn’t a happy ending for Flint, Silver would have also understood that, and would have had no reason not to remedy the situation once the war has dissipated. But the narrative wants you to believe that plantation is Thomas and Flint’s happily ever after. It doesn’t consider anything else, and therefore Silver is never shown considering anything else.
Even though I believe logically, and based on Silver’s intelligence and care for Flint, he would have.
I get what you’re saying. Really, I do, but I think what I really am trying to say is that yes, Silver’s version of the story is meant to show the plantation as a good place, but what the entire narrative of the show is leading us to is the reality of the situation. It’s asking us to distinguish between what Silver’s story is and what’s truly happened and to be horrified rather than defending his actions as being in any way acceptable and it’s a bar that a lot of people are tripping over, unfortunately. The narrative is about shame, and what society considers unacceptable and whether or not that society is right, and I think the show’s answer is a resounding no. That’s why Woodes Rogers is there as a character. It’s why Alfred Hamilton and Peter Ashe are there – to show us that the society that Silver and Max and Madame Guthrie view as immutable is deeply, horrifyingly WRONG. I get why Silver did what he did. I get why Max and Madame Guthrie are the way they are, and I think what kind of irks me is that their perspective is being accepted as right by so many people when that’s not the message that’s being imparted here.
As to Silver and whether or not his character writing was flawed at the end – again, we’re going to have to agree to disagree, because honestly I see the finale as the culmination of four seasons of John Silver failing to get the point that survival is not happiness. It is not the ultimate good – there are other things that are more important, and what he does at the end of the last episode proves that for all he’s changed, he still hasn’t gotten that. He hasn’t realized that making sure someone is alive is not the extent of what love is supposed to look like and I think he only starts to realize it when Madi won’t forgive him for what he’s done. That’s the first moment that he starts to understand that He Fucked Up and I think it’s going to take him a very long time to truly understand why she is so very angry at him.
i decided to do a bit of research into Padstow and the Cornish language because i was thinking maybe i could write fic about james mcgraw’s childhood (and also i love Cornwall and i love languages and i love black sails)
basically what i found out re the language was that it was very much on the decline by the late 17th/early 18th century (thanks to the quashing of the Prayer Book Rebellion in 1549) and had mostly migrated to the very west, in the Penwith and Kerrier districts (but in these places, particularly in villages such as Mousehole, it was still widely spoken and understood, even by the gentry). However, Padstow is in the North Cornwall district, much further east than these areas, so it’s questionable how much contact young James Mcgraw with the Cornish language – it most certainly wouldn’t be his first language, but I suspect his grandfather would have spoken some, and I’m sure at the very least Cornish expressions abounded in young James’s English.
I also wonder if Cornwall’s view of itself as somewhat separate from the rest of England (and the rebellions that sometimes sprang up) had any effect on James’s view of England and the British Empire. I suspect it wouldn’t have had much of an effect on Young James’s view of the world – The Prayer Book Rebellion was not even in the living memory of James’s grandfather’s grandfather by then, Anglicism was by far and away the most widespread religion, and James became Admiral Henessey’s protege pretty young – but I wonder if he came back to his heritage, when he turned from England, when he decided to wage war against the Empire. 10-11% of Cornwall’s civilian population were killed by the Crown in the quashing of the Prayer Book Rebellion, it was catastrophic for Cornwall both culturally and socially – I can very much imagine James coming back to that, when he’s trying to fight their oppression. Maybe in a kind of defiant ‘I’m Cornish not English’ kind of a way.
Also. Lots of piracy and smuggling and shipwrecking in Cornwall. Especially prevalent during the Elizabethan era, according to Wikipedia, but you can bet that young James heard all the stories (I certainly did and I’ve only been coming on holiday to Cornwall all my life).
Then too there’s the fact that McGraw is an Irish/Scottish name – as is Hennessey. I’d like to think that that’s one of the things that drew Hennessey to mentoring young James – both transplanted Irishmen trying to make their way in a world that was overtly hostile to them. No matter which way you look at it, James McGraw probably grew up hearing people complain about the English, in louder tones before Hennessey took him under his wing and in less audible ones after.
thomas-hamilton replied to your post “bean-about-townn replied to your post “Do you think Flint killed…”
this makes sense, though. Alfred gets embittered because of the loss of his wife.
honestly, I’d always imagined that he possibly married Thomas’ mother against his wishes and resented Thomas for tying him to a woman he didn’t want to be married to. Richard Guthrie implies at one point that Thomas had brothers – I have to wonder if they were all from the same parents or if Thomas was the only legitimate heir, hence Alfred’s frustration but limited tolerance up to the point of canon.
Tbh I think Woodes is very similar to Flint – there is NOTHING they wouldn’t do to protect a loved one and unfortunately it a) leads them down very dark paths or b) they make mistakes and end up paying the price. I don’t doubt Flint loved Thomas and Miranda, I don’t doubt Woodes loved Eleanor. Unfortunately it just wasn’t enough to save them.
I think they’re similar but I also think that there are lines that even Flint hasn’t crossed that Rogers has. Flint kills people, yes. He pillages and burns and does horrible, awful things in vengeance, but he doesn’t torture them. He doesn’t go for scare tactics to prevent violence to his loved ones – he reacts when someone hurts one of them, but it’s quick, it’s clean, and there’s no element of enjoying it. He hates what he does, he hates himself for doing it, even while he can’t think of another way to handle things that will assuage the bit of him that wants to rip and tear and burn the world to cinders. Rogers, on the other hand – I keep thinking of him saying that out of 72 men, only one survived to tell the tale of what had happened and that the torture and killing of the others was stretched out over weeks. There’s something infinitely more horrifying about that – a message there that I don’t think Flint ever bothered trying to send. With Flint it’s, “you’ve deliberately set out to hurt the people I care about and now you will pay.” With Rogers it’s, “my brother is dead (and it could have been anyone on that crew), and now I will make certain that none of your kind ever come near me or my family ever, ever again out of fear.” IDK, on the one hand, Rogers’ approach is probably more productive in the long run but Flint’s is less horrifying and less brutal. I also think Rogers is missing that element of hating himself for what he does – he does it, he knows it’s awful, and his biggest worry is that if it gets out society will shun him, not that he’s corrupted himself forever, whereas Flint worries about that near constantly,
what do we actually know about her mother’s death? the pirates attacked their ship, but when was it? I’m trying to make sense of when Peter became the Governor of the Carolinas and am Confused.
What if the woman traveling with Alfred Hamilton was Ashe’s wife? Traveling aboard the same ship because they were headed the same way? What does the show actually say about Alfred’s death? Does it even mention the poor woman he was with? I mean – if that was the case – holy shit no wonder Ashe hated Flint so much. Wasn’t the Maria Aleyne headed for the Carolinas?
GEEEZ never occured to me
the show says nothing about the mystery woman. she could have been a servant, but she didnt seem that way. she could have been another passenger and killed by flint as a witness, but then why show her at all? so after MUCH headache, I headcanonned it as:
-Thomas’s mother long dead/I dont want this blood on Flint and Miranda’s hands too;
-Alfred remarried bc tired of waiting for Thomas to make a child (remarried either shortly before 1705 or after comitting Thomas); the wife is never shown bc Alfred is a douche and doesn’t take her anywhere relevant with him;
-so that woman was a new wife (which I mentioned in Never a Smooth Sailing, also explaiing why Richard says that Thomas is the eldest son); if Thomas had any brothers close to his edge, I’ll never believe he’d NEVER mention them or take interest in their lives, no matter what they are like;
So, I also thought that Abigail was actually there when her mother died! as in, she witnessed the murder, that’s why she flashes back to the attack. And there was no child in that cargo hold. But I don’t know why the pirates spared Abigail and only killed her mother?
See, I always took that flashback to be her flashing back to when she was taken by Low and his men. They presumably killed her chaperone/governess (no young lady would have been traveling alone, after all, and she didn’t seem any more of a child than she is in the show in that flashback, at least not to me), and that being on the ship triggered it, especially so close to the events happening in the first place.
Meg's Mumbles 