According to you why so many people have not believed in Flint’s motives (the speech in the 4×10) but do they believe that Silver was absolutely right that it was just anger to drive him?

Honestly, Anon, I don’t think that Silver has ever understood Flint quite as well as he thought he did. I think that there’s a fundamental layer of misunderstanding between them in that Silver believes he earned Flint’s trust through proving himself every bit as intelligent, as cunning, as ruthless as Flint, and in reality I think he earned his trust by simply telling him the truth for once. I’m talking, of course, of the incident with the shark and the conversation they had there. Silver believed he had gotten to Flint there – made progress by demonstrating his cunning to Flint, and I think that what happened in that boat was something else. I think Flint knew that Silver had done what he did. I think he had been holding him at arm’s length precisely because he knew he was being lied to, and I think that when Silver told him the truth, he proved to Flint that they’d finally stopped bullshitting one another. I can’t speak to what anyone else in the fandom believes about what was driving Flint, but I can say that I think Silver misunderstands Flint’s motives quite often, and not just in Season 4. The fact that Silver doesn’t seem to get how he gained Flint’s trust in the first place tells me that he doesn’t actually get the man’s motives – not really, and it creates the foundations of what happens between them in Season 4. I think Silver, interestingly, actually mistakes his own motives in Season 4 in that he attributes what he’s doing to seeing past the darkness that he and Flint have argued about when in fact I’d argue that that is the moment that it, in Flint’s words, cloaked itself in necessity and Long John Silver bought what it was saying to him hook, line, and sinker. He saw Flint acting out of rage and, once again, failed to look beyond to see what was really happening.

Anyway – tl;dr answer is that I have no idea what’s going through the fandom’s heads but I know that Silver does not understand the man he betrayed or the woman he claims to love nearly as well as he thinks he does and it’s part of why he continually hurts them so very badly.

list of things that someone who loves james would never do:

bean-about-townn:

ilackallhonour:

flintsredhair:

ilackallhonour:

bean-about-townn:

bean-about-townn:

betray him

put him in chains

let him go on thinking the love of his life is dead

tell him it was his fault that everyone he cares about dies

threaten him with his worst nightmare

leave the love of his life in a prison so as leverage to keep james there

#here’s a list of things that someone who loves Silver would never do: #remind him that he is a worthless piece of trash who nobody gives a fuck about outside of nassau #ask him to give up the life of a woman he loves for the greater good #lie to him about supporting his plan to save his girlfriend #manipulate him in all possible ways to make him see their point of view #i mean #if we’re going to be critical #let’s not forget that Flinty is just as fucking bad #and then I can’t really see why you would be angry with the one and not the other (via @ilackallhonour)

hi, i assume since you added these tags that you’re actually interested in my reasons? i also disagree with some of the points you’ve made so i’ll take this chance to explain why.

alright – so ‘remind him that he is a worthless piece of trash who nobody gives a fuck about outside of nassau’ that was back in s2. please remember that at this point, silver was either just about to or already had sold the location of the orca gold to max and jack, betraying not just flint but the whole crew. they were not friends at this point. hence why i didn’t add things like ‘stole the schedule, tried to sell it to jack and vane, succeeded in selling the location to jack and max, etc.’ EDIT: also, i assume you don’t mean to imply that this is equal to silver telling flint that thomas and miranda’s deaths were his fault? bc flint really isn’t wrong when he reminds silver that he wouldn’t matter like he does in nassau anywhere else. but silver is completely wrong in saying that it’s flint’s fault thomas and miranda are dead. one is probably true. the other is a lie. they are not the same.

‘ask him to give up the life of a woman he loves for the greater good’ – it’s more complicated then that and you know it. also, flint wasn’t asking silver to let madi die. his plan was always to rescue madi in addition to keeping the cache. and let’s also not forget that madi wanted to give up her life for the greater good. she wanted to give up silver’s life for the greater good. flint was right when he said that ‘it if costs the war to save her, you’ll have lost her already’

flint tried to save madi without giving up something that meant more than their lives to both of them. silver… didn’t tell flint that thomas was alive, despite knowing the pain it would have spared him, and didn’t rescue thomas himself, despite knowing exactly where he was for ages.

‘lie to him about supporting his plan to save his girlfriend’ – so… like silver lied to them both about supporting their war? like silver lied to flint about supporting his plan?

‘manipulate him in all possible ways to make him see their point of view’ – ??? how???

another thing to remember:

silver, 4×06: I know what flint is

flint, 4×08: you are the best of us

…yeah, those things are totally the same

‘I can’t really see why you would be angry with the one and not the other’ – because silver let flint think that thomas was dead for longer than he had to. because he then put him in chains and sent him to a plantation to work as a slave. because he left thomas to the same fate. because when flint told him about thomas, his reaction was ‘it’s your fault’. i understand that not everyone agrees with me, but this is how i feel.

Hi, thanks for your reply. I know that Silver’s actions are not pure.

I’m not disagreeing with that. And yes, saying Thomas and Miranda and Gates died because of Flint’s actions is way harsh. But he’s become the way he is because of a traumatic past, same as most of the other characters. Who knows what made him say something so heartless. But it’s easy for me to empathize with him, he’s desperate to stop Flint and Madi because (I believe) he genuinely loves them, and they are the only two people in the entire world who returned his love, perhaps for the first time in his life, and he becomes possessive and selfish and makes bad decisions. I don’t think it’s possible to be completely selfless in any relationship anyway. It’s a delicate balance between people.

And if I think about my own loved ones sacrificing their life for a cause I don’t believe in (because Silver doesn’t believe in the war), I think I would have made similar decisions. Should he be despised for them and the things he said at certain points? Nah, I don’t think so. I think the friendship between Silver and Flint was based on genuine and good things, but ultimately they couldn’t understand each other and lost their balance, but I don’t believe it was just Silver who is to blame for that. Or if there is any blame at all, because they can’t help but to be the way they are. Hey, I get that some things are completely unacceptable and unforgivable to you; I am a soft fool who is quick to let things go 😉

Can I just chime in for a second?

I can see your point. Really, I can. I can see Silver’s motivations, and I can understand why he thinks that he needs to stop Flint and Madi’s war, even if I don’t agree with that choice. But I think we’ve got a false equivalency problem when we start comparing harsh words/manipulative tactics to one person selling another into slavery. That’s the point at which I, and I think most sane people, draw a line, and I’m pretty sure that if you think about “things you would be willing to do to your loved ones to keep them safe,” you’d draw the line there too, or at least I really, sincerely hope that you would because wow. I’m furthermore pretty sure you can see the difference between “lying to keep someone safe” and “lying about something precisely because you’re already planning on literally selling your best friend.” That’s the point at which it crosses over from a manipulation (still pretty unacceptable in my book since it’s taking away choice) to an outright betrayal, and no, I’m not going to be forgiving Silver for it any time soon (or ever), and this doesn’t even get into the difficulties I experience when I start trying to forgive Silver taking the choice away from not only Madi and Flint but Madi’s people, as well. In short – there’s a big difference here between Flint and Silver manipulating each other and Silver actively betraying Flint by selling him and making it so that he becomes to history exactly what he was afraid of – nothing more than a monster.

Of course 🙂 About the selling into slavery… yes, it is a labour camp where James and Thomas are not free, but I don’t think they will be treated cruelly there judging by the things the owner had to say. As far we know they will lead a fairly okay life there. And okay, let me just examine my own feelings here. If I had to choose between subjecting my loved ones (idk, I’m now thinking about my mother or my partner) to more suffering, war and certain death on the one hand, because that is what Silver believes lies in store for them, or a prison where they would be together with someone they care about and where they would live a restricted but safe life… yes, I think I really would choose that second option. Honestly, is that so terrible? Would Flint rather be dead than locked up with Thomas?

About Silver turning Flint into what he was afraid of, wasn’t it Flint himself who turned him into that monster?

He could have chosen to leave with Miranda and live a quiet life in exile. His own actions as a pirate started the story of Captain Flint and that story would not have changed if he’d gotten and won his war.

It’s more tricky when it comes to Madi. I agree with you that things are different when it comes to her situation and I really do feel so very sorry for her. I know I am a privileged person and I have not experienced anything remotely like the oppression Madi and Flint faced, so perhaps it’s easy for me to say I would never sacrifice as much as they would have and that what Silver did was only reasonable. So yeah, perhaps I am insane =P Always a possibility.

……..it doesn’t matter how they are treated, what matters is that they can’t leave. that they are forced to work for no wages. and just think about thomas for a moment – because not only has silver condemned Flint to this life, but Thomas as well. And Thomas never did anything to deserve that. And the things that the owner had to say quite frankly made me sick –

What’s to be done with the unwanted ones? The men who do not fit, whom civilization must prune from the vine to protect its sense of itself. Every culture since earliest antiquity has survived this way, defining itself by the things it excludes. So long as there is progress, there will always be human debris in its wake, on the outside looking in.

i mean?? what the fuck?? and anyway, it wasn’t a binary choice – imprison flint with thomas, or allow the war to continue. silver clearly believed (as do i, honestly) that flint would give up the war for thomas. so why not just free thomas?

Exactly. That speech was ten thousand kinds of fucking gross, and it all boils down to Madame Guthrie’s cat metaphor and why that too is fucked up as hell. First off – yes, I do believe a society should very much be judged by the people it excludes. If your society is excluding people based on things like skin color, religion, sexual orientation, etc – let me be really clear. That makes your society extremely fucked up, and yes, people should be judging the hell out of that and probably burning that fucker to the ground to build something better. Second – if your solution for how to treat the excluded includes locking them away so that the people who have made their lives miserable for no good reason other than their own greed and xenophobia don’t have to see them, that too is fucked up beyond belief. I cannot possibly be clearer about the difference between Thomas’ and James’ plan to offer pardons to men who had been driven to the edges of society so that they could come back on their own terms versus Oglethorpe’s solution, which is to take men like that and lock them up working for him for a pittance, unable to leave, unable to form meaningful relationships with anyone outside the plantation – unable to live their lives, in short. One of these approaches begins to address the systematic injustice faced by the poor at the time and brings to light the source of the crimes being committed, and the other takes people who have already been ground under England’s boot and forces them to stay there for the rest of their lives. Don’t even get me started on the parallels between this and the modern American prison system – just don’t.

Um… Silver’s tragedy is that he will realize he was wrong and will regret what he did. So the whole “Silver did nothing wrong, Silver was right to do what he did” is actually something Silver himself will not agree with. He will be totally on board with John Silver critisism and be like, “Yes, drag my ass, I was a damn fool”.

2/2 *same anon* Oh shit. I didn’t specify that this wasn’t a jab at you, but a comment on defense squad. That Silver himself would not agree with a defense of his actions. He would actually agree with us criticizing him for what he did. ‘Cause he’s gonna arrive to the same conclusion: he was wrong.

Thank you, Nonny! Yes – that is a point. Given time to think on things, he does in fact come to this same conclusion that he was in fact very wrong, and it’s the only reason that I’m able to keep writing him in TtUA because for him it’s been twenty years and he’s had time to realize what a complete and utter asshole he has been to the people he cared about. He might not be sorry yet at the end of the series, but I guarantee you that by the time of Treasure Island, he is, or he wouldn’t be chasing a dead man’s treasure in some kind of attempt to mean something again, fulfilling Flint’s prophecy after his death.

list of things that someone who loves james would never do:

ilackallhonour:

bean-about-townn:

bean-about-townn:

betray him

put him in chains

let him go on thinking the love of his life is dead

tell him it was his fault that everyone he cares about dies

threaten him with his worst nightmare

leave the love of his life in a prison so as leverage to keep james there

#here’s a list of things that someone who loves Silver would never do: #remind him that he is a worthless piece of trash who nobody gives a fuck about outside of nassau #ask him to give up the life of a woman he loves for the greater good #lie to him about supporting his plan to save his girlfriend #manipulate him in all possible ways to make him see their point of view #i mean #if we’re going to be critical #let’s not forget that Flinty is just as fucking bad #and then I can’t really see why you would be angry with the one and not the other (via @ilackallhonour)

hi, i assume since you added these tags that you’re actually interested in my reasons? i also disagree with some of the points you’ve made so i’ll take this chance to explain why.

alright – so ‘remind him that he is a worthless piece of trash who nobody gives a fuck about outside of nassau’ that was back in s2. please remember that at this point, silver was either just about to or already had sold the location of the orca gold to max and jack, betraying not just flint but the whole crew. they were not friends at this point. hence why i didn’t add things like ‘stole the schedule, tried to sell it to jack and vane, succeeded in selling the location to jack and max, etc.’ EDIT: also, i assume you don’t mean to imply that this is equal to silver telling flint that thomas and miranda’s deaths were his fault? bc flint really isn’t wrong when he reminds silver that he wouldn’t matter like he does in nassau anywhere else. but silver is completely wrong in saying that it’s flint’s fault thomas and miranda are dead. one is probably true. the other is a lie. they are not the same.

‘ask him to give up the life of a woman he loves for the greater good’ – it’s more complicated then that and you know it. also, flint wasn’t asking silver to let madi die. his plan was always to rescue madi in addition to keeping the cache. and let’s also not forget that madi wanted to give up her life for the greater good. she wanted to give up silver’s life for the greater good. flint was right when he said that ‘it if costs the war to save her, you’ll have lost her already’

flint tried to save madi without giving up something that meant more than their lives to both of them. silver… didn’t tell flint that thomas was alive, despite knowing the pain it would have spared him, and didn’t rescue thomas himself, despite knowing exactly where he was for ages.

‘lie to him about supporting his plan to save his girlfriend’ – so… like silver lied to them both about supporting their war? like silver lied to flint about supporting his plan?

‘manipulate him in all possible ways to make him see their point of view’ – ??? how???

another thing to remember:

silver, 4×06: I know what flint is

flint, 4×08: you are the best of us

…yeah, those things are totally the same

‘I can’t really see why you would be angry with the one and not the other’ – because silver let flint think that thomas was dead for longer than he had to. because he then put him in chains and sent him to a plantation to work as a slave. because he left thomas to the same fate. because when flint told him about thomas, his reaction was ‘it’s your fault’. i understand that not everyone agrees with me, but this is how i feel.

Hi, thanks for your reply. I know that Silver’s actions are not pure.

I’m not disagreeing with that. And yes, saying Thomas and Miranda and Gates died because of Flint’s actions is way harsh. But he’s become the way he is because of a traumatic past, same as most of the other characters. Who knows what made him say something so heartless. But it’s easy for me to empathize with him, he’s desperate to stop Flint and Madi because (I believe) he genuinely loves them, and they are the only two people in the entire world who returned his love, perhaps for the first time in his life, and he becomes possessive and selfish and makes bad decisions. I don’t think it’s possible to be completely selfless in any relationship anyway. It’s a delicate balance between people.

And if I think about my own loved ones sacrificing their life for a cause I don’t believe in (because Silver doesn’t believe in the war), I think I would have made similar decisions. Should he be despised for them and the things he said at certain points? Nah, I don’t think so. I think the friendship between Silver and Flint was based on genuine and good things, but ultimately they couldn’t understand each other and lost their balance, but I don’t believe it was just Silver who is to blame for that. Or if there is any blame at all, because they can’t help but to be the way they are. Hey, I get that some things are completely unacceptable and unforgivable to you; I am a soft fool who is quick to let things go 😉

Can I just chime in for a second?

I can see your point. Really, I can. I can see Silver’s motivations, and I can understand why he thinks that he needs to stop Flint and Madi’s war, even if I don’t agree with that choice. But I think we’ve got a false equivalency problem when we start comparing harsh words/manipulative tactics to one person selling another into slavery. That’s the point at which I, and I think most sane people, draw a line, and I’m pretty sure that if you think about “things you would be willing to do to your loved ones to keep them safe,” you’d draw the line there too, or at least I really, sincerely hope that you would because wow. I’m furthermore pretty sure you can see the difference between “lying to keep someone safe” and “lying about something precisely because you’re already planning on literally selling your best friend.” That’s the point at which it crosses over from a manipulation (still pretty unacceptable in my book since it’s taking away choice) to an outright betrayal, and no, I’m not going to be forgiving Silver for it any time soon (or ever), and this doesn’t even get into the difficulties I experience when I start trying to forgive Silver taking the choice away from not only Madi and Flint but Madi’s people, as well. In short – there’s a big difference here between Flint and Silver manipulating each other and Silver actively betraying Flint by selling him and making it so that he becomes to history exactly what he was afraid of – nothing more than a monster.

bisexualpirateheart:

#blacksailsedit #james flint #thomas hamilton #flinthamilton #john silver #iGif #hm so this quote is so painful #but it fits #silver would have brought up thomas earlier #but really he wanted to know for certain #that james WOULD give up this war #if he had a chance of getting thomas back #he couldn’t give thomas back in case he was wrong #in case after everything #thomas wasn’t enough for flint #so he did this monstrous selfish thing #betrayed his friend in the worst possible way #and while he was right #james would give up the war for thomas #hell maybe even his freedom #he didn’t trust him enough to ask him directly #instead he forced him into this corner #and it’s just so sad #silver didn’t bother to realise #that he and james are on the same line of thought #their loved ones ARE more important than a damn war – @mrmcgraw

Me: I’M FINE

Narrator: she was not fine

list of things that someone who loves james would never do:

bean-about-townn:

betray him

put him in chains

let him go on thinking the love of his life is dead

tell him it was his fault that everyone he cares about dies

threaten him with his worst nightmare

leave the love of his life in a prison so as leverage to keep james there

addendum: insist that James should ever forgive the man that did all of the above, thus reinforcing the idea that he in some way deserved to be treated like that. Can we please, please stop having Saint Thomas the all-forgiving in place of a character that reacts like a real person to someone hurting the man he loves?

Thanks for the reply about the Queen I have no problem with Queen’s choice of ending the war, my problem is that silver eliminating flint and the chachet from the equation did not allow a fair choice. It is a subtle way of making sure the preferred choice,his choice.-_-

You won’t hear any arguments about that here, Anon. You may have noticed that I’m not Silver’s biggest fan – or any kind of fan of his at all, really =P

figmentof:

Flint saves Madi AND keeps the cache AND captures Woodes Rogers. In return he gets: at best an imprisoment with his bf, at worst a bullet. Thanks, Silver. You get to live with your wife in the open, Flint gets to live with his bf in the barracks. Madi gets to serve beer to sad ex-pirates, you get to feel sorry for yourself. But it was totally worth it, right? A life like that is totally better than fighting and dying for what you believe in? So much more dignified? Keep telling yourself that.

I couldn’t agree more, Anon. Seriously, Silver? That’s how you thank the man that’s nearly killed himself on your behalf? Thanks for everything, James – only I don’t think you’ve lost enough, say goodbye to your freedom, hope you like your prison barracks (and oh by the way, Thomas, hope you like them too despite having never done anything to deserve getting locked away from the world, here’s your husband back k thx bye)? That’s how you treat the woman you say you love? Love you honey, hope you like how I treated you and your people both, as if you were naughty children who didn’t have the right to make decisions for yourselves. I adore you, truly, that’s why I took your best friend and essentially sold him. Serve the beer?

No. Fuck him, frankly. I have so many fics that I’m working on to fix this, because dear gods no. I refuse to leave it at James and Thomas being imprisoned together and Madi being forced to the sidelines, living with the man who did this to her and to Flint. Fuck that.

arcadiaego replied to your post “So – I recently saw a post about Silver’s actions in the finale of…”

The removal of choice is definitely the problem with Silver’s actions for me. He waited until the last possible moment to tell Flint about Thomas and he didn’t tell Madi *at all* what was going on. I understand that it was because he was conflicted, not because he was being cruel on purpose or anything, but morally it was a selfish decision. The show definitely leaves the ambiguity there as well. (Incidentally Jack is to blame for doing all this also.)

Yeah – I’m quite as angry about him keeping the news of Thomas’ survival from Flint as long as he did as I am about the rest, tbh, because there shouldn’t have been any conflict. If a friend is hurting and you find a way to fix some of that hurt, you don’t let that friend keep suffering. You fix the problem immediately, and you sure as shit don’t think to yourself – you know how my friend’s husband has been locked away from the world for no particularly good reason for ten years? I think I’ll leave him there and mark that place down as a good place to stow my friend as well, despite that being the literal antithesis of everything the said friend has ever believed in. Oh, and while I’m at it, why don’t I dehumanize my friend’s husband that little bit more by using him as a damned bargaining chip when I tell my friend he can either die or be imprisoned for the rest of his life.

And yes – I’m angry at Jack as well, but less so because Flint was not his friend, they had never been more than tentative allies, and Jack was not the grand maestro that put this scheme together – in fact, Silver had this all ready to go before Jack ever arrived on scene, meaning that Jack’s only real part in it was to suggest a way to deal with Rogers and to agree not to kill Flint for Madame Guthrie. He did go along with it though, and that’s not something I’m happy with him about.