hiddencait:

OK so this could easily just be my brain fixating on Billy (like ya do) but holy crap I realized I have another reason to be mad at Silver’s manipulative bullshit ala Thomas and James.

Granted the timeline is a little wobbly during quite a bit of this season, but based on the convo between Madi and Silver, he KNEW Thomas was at the Savannah estate before the Spanish raid. 

What also happened just before the Spanish raid? His betrayal of Billy: Billy who wanted Flint gone. He’d prefer him dead at his hand, but really he just wanted Flint’s destructive tendencies away from the men. Granted, he was definitely teetering on the edge of his fall after the incident with the slaves, but Billy was still trying to work with Silver and Flint and Madi and the men leading up to that final betrayal.

And Silver still betrayed him, despite knowing that he already had a plan in place for removing Flint from the war and the pirate community completely, and in Silver’s mind, permanently. He could EASILY have convinced Billy of that as well, especially if he spun it as a prison where Flint would be sentenced to hard labor and never heard from again. Billy wanted SO BADLY to believe in him, you know? He might have hated leaving Flint alive, but he could have been convinced.

And instead, Silver still decided to sentence him to death (at first) and then torture and chains at the hands of the slaves. 

Like, this boggles my mind a little when you consider the implications. The only reason Madi, Flint, and Eleanor were so unprotected during what they thought would be the exchange was because Silver was convincing Billy that they needed their best men to kill Flint. Had he chosen instead to convince Billy to go along with Flint’s plan only until they could imprison him, then Madi might not have been rounded up with the other slaves. Hell, then ELEANOR might never have died, and might even have rejoined the pirates’ cause after learning without question that Rogers had betrayed her and brought the Spanish. And Billy, Billy bless him would never have joined Rogers and wouldn’t currently be contemplating life alone on Skeleton Island while going even more batshit crazy. 

I’m just… I’m so much more angry with the manipulative little shit now that I’ve realized this. Shows where my priorities were, I guess! LOL