Tag: js critical

ladytp:

flintsredhair:

@ladytp replied to your post

But why does common thinking seem to assume – without any real reason besides blind hope – that Flint and Madi’s war would have succeeded in overthrowing British yoke, abolishing slavery and freeing those millions of future generations from the fate worse than death? Would a crew of pirates and runaway slaves really have defeated the British Empire, the most powerful in the world with unlimited resources at hand?

Because there were other successful rebellions against the British Crown in the same area in the same century. Because the American Revolution succeeded with scarcely more resources than the pirates and slaves could have mustered. The short answer is yes, and the long answer is even if they didn’t succeed, it’s important that someone would have tried, because it would have given others the notion that a rebellion could succeed in the future. The fact that the pirates of Nassau managed to annoy the British into offering the pardons in the first place is, as Flint rightly noted, a sign that England thought there was a possibility they could win, because you don’t pardon people you can successfully put down by other means that will scare other dissenters into backing down.

There would always have been a chance, that is true – but from what I observed from the story, pirates did not seem to have real resources to maintain more than a small colony, if left to their own devices. Even the farmers of Nassau were more or less out of the picture, I believe, and they didn’t have statesmen, lawyers nor politicians (yes, an unfortunate requirement for a sovereign dominion). They might have been able to hold Britain off for a while as some Caribbean revolts did, but I doubt it would have had any such influence to the politics of Great Britain that has been raised in some discussions. American revolution certainly did, but at that stage America was big and vast and populous with almost 3 million people and also an established society, commerce and political system, so that was somewhat different….

I certainly believe the cause was noble – but judging characters motivations afterwards based on what could have been and assuming that the best of all options would have prevailed (a period of struggle and deaths followed by peace and prosperity and freedom) is our prerogative – but not the prerogative of those who had to make their decisions based on how they judged the situation and its risks at the time. 

Agreed – the characters could not, at the time, know how history would pan out, but they damn sure did know what England was about. They knew the suffering brought about by her laws. They knew what it was to be considered less than human, and they knew they weren’t the only ones suffering. They knew that Flint proposed to take the war not just to the Caribbean but to the mainland, which, as you noted, possessed far greater resources with which to wage their war, including men and supplies. It wasn’t a question of holding off Britain – Flint proposed to turn a war made up of a ragtag army of pirates and slaves into a conflict that was far better funded and supplied, and I really, honestly do think he could have done it. I think, with Madi’s help, and the help of her people, they had a chance. How many Jameses and Thomases do you think they would have found in British jails up and down the east coast, if the war had gone that far? How many men who could and would have served as lawyers and statesmen? How many women like Madame Guthrie who might have seen the rebellion as a chance to have their own lives at last instead of kowtowing to their men? And I repeat – even if they didn’t win, the chance to be free of the empire that wanted them all dead or enslaved, or tortured like Thomas, was worth fighting and potentially dying for. They wanted it, they knew the risks, and no one – I mean absolutely no one – had the right to rip that out from under them because they judged it unwinnable, especially not someone who faced none of the systemic, unrelenting oppression based on something they could not change that Madi and Flint had both personally experienced.

zimnina:

thomas: i must admit james has spoken at length about you but has hardly ever said anything about mr.silver. i can see

the way silver looks at u…the look of a man inlove 🙂 why are

u high key ignoring him?

madi: thomas. he ruined our chances to wage a full blown war against the

european colonial forces by going behind my back after knowing he had my full trust and only let james know about you bc john knew that with u in the picture, james would abandon the cause with no hesitations 

thomas: oh honey he did what now???

So now Flint is not a real revolutionary because after getting Thomas back he does not wage another war? What?

I’m fairly certain I just got done reading the post you’re referring to, and….

Ok. If I’m being fair, and I genuinely try to be, the author has some points. James Flint is not perfect. He is selfish as hell in a lot of ways and yeah, he does in fact show again and again that he considers the lives of his crew and the lives of the people in Nassau expendable. He does horrifying things in the name of his war, and to a certain degree, I think Miranda is right about him – he is fighting for the sake of fighting, especially after her death, and it’s not about shame for what he is – it’s about guilt, and about finding some kind of motivation to keep going instead of just dying on the spot. For Flint, that motivation is rage. Let’s be really honest – he’s angry, he’s heartbroken, he’s very much stuck in the mindset of the British officer he was, and he does some things that are frankly indefensible, such as killing Gates, such as destroying Charlestown wholesale, such as shooting women and children in the pursuit of his vengeance. I’m not going to defend him on those counts, because I’m not blind to those facts. Here’s the thing, though –

*takes a deep breath* I really, really don’t give a shit what his motivations for waging his war are. I don’t give a damn, because the fight that he was fighting is one that absolutely and without any kind of question needed to be fought. I recognize that his motivations for doing what he does are all very, very personal, and I recognize that he sacrifices a lot of things that aren’t his to sacrifice in the process, and I weep for the people he hurts, but I think the phrase I’m looking for is “you can’t make an omelette without cracking some eggs.” And yes, that sounds flippant, I’m sorry for that, but freedom is not something that is ever, ever won without making some truly horrible sacrifices – ask any revolutionary. Ask anyone who has ever fought a war for their freedom, and they will tell you that it was not clean, and it was not nice, and they will also tell you that they’re not sorry, because they were fighting to save generations of people to come from the horrors that they experienced at the hands of people who didn’t consider the people they were hurting to be human. Flint was fighting against a society that history and the show both tell us over and over again were corrupt, and twisted, and above all else deeply, deeply wrong. He was fighting against a society that would take a man who only ever wanted to help people and torture and kill him. He was fighting to fortify Nassau, so that the people that did that to Thomas couldn’t come there, so that people running from England’s tyranny would have one place they could go to that would not do that to them on the basis of who they were and who they loved. And if Flint was fighting out of personal heartbreak and loss and anger at that loss, then that’s not something that makes his overall goal any less valid. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, oppressed people do not fight because they are being altruistic, they fight because they have experienced oppression and they don’t want that for their children, or for themselves any longer. Their rage does not invalidate their point, or make their oppressors right. 

And as to Flint not choosing to turn around and go back to war after he’d gotten Thomas back – can I point out that, if we’re going with show canon as we seem to be there – he didn’t CHOOSE not to make war after that, he was fucking enslaved. He didn’t choose that for himself, or for Thomas – Silver did that, and in doing so, ensured that millions of people would face the same horror, thereby proving my point about principles requiring the sacrifice of lives that are not yours to sacrifice no matter which way you slice it. Given the choice between Flint’s sacrifice and Silver’s, I know which one I’d choose in terms of sheer numbers of the dead and maimed and broken, especially because one of these things goes on for a few years, while the other one has gone on for centuries, is still happening, and is now rooted so deeply in society that I don’t know that it can ever be stamped out. That doesn’t even get into what the British Empire did in its other colonies, and gee, how many billions might not have died if England had not been permitted to get her claws into places like India? What might have been if the British Empire had been broken then and there, tossed out of the New World, cut off from its cash flow? How large the cost of Silver’s temporary peace? 

tl;dr version: Flint’s motives are selfish as hell, but that doesn’t actually make much difference given his goals, and I will always, always take his side versus Silver’s because the cost of Silver’s peace is what I would firmly call far too fucking high.

Well, since everyone’s in the mood to quote people behind the characters, how about this one from Luke Arnold himself: “Flint is who we want to be, but Silver is who we are.” There was another interview where he talks about eternal question of idealism (Flint) vs. pragmatism (Silver), but I’m too lazy to look it up.

So – I will admit, there is an element of truth in this, in that Flint is definitely who we want to be. He’s brave, selfless in a lot of ways, and he’s willing to do what needs to be done to bring about his vision – Thomas’ vision – of a better world – one that I think is definitely worth fighting for. He’s got his flaws – plenty of them, and some of his actions are pretty well indefensible, but on the whole, he’s a good man fighting for a cause I can believe in . And I know myself well enough to know that I am not even close to as talented or as driven as he is – you notice I’m not currently burning the system to the ground in pursuit of a better one, and I almost wish I had the courage and lack of give-a-fuck to be more like him sometimes. As to the second part of that statement though, I have one thing to say. 

The day that I start to be Silver is the day that I want someone to punch me so hard my ancestors feel it. If you follow me, you know how I feel about him as a person. I’m not going to go on a rant, but… no. I am not Silver. ‘nough said. 

musesandtheirjottings:

captainqueer-oflesbos:

“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. 

What do you think about this? J Steinberg: I think there was an awareness that when watched in a certain way there was so much tragedy already in the ending. Of all the people who were lost and weren’t there anymore, and how close they were to something historically meaningfully that got bargained away, that to then pile that on with even more misery just felt unpleasant

flintsredhair:

I think it sounds like an acknowledgment that in fact, if looked at from literally any other perspective than “no more people died in the last episode, wheee!” the end of the show is a tragedy. Flint and Madi were betrayed by the one closest to them, and all their work was essentially thrown out the window as if it meant nothing when in fact it could have meant everything to generations of people. Flint is enslaved, Madi’s left with her authority undermined among her own people, her lover become foreign to her, standing there telling her that he’s sold her friend.

When you get right down to it, the list just goes on and on. The Walrus crew is dead, the ship itself is blown up, Silver throws away an entire life he could have lived with people who would have cared about him, loved him even, and all for a scant few years of peace in that area before the British Empire decided it wanted its islands back. All of that – for what? When they could have had so, so much more. Yes, Flint is alive. He’s also being locked away from the world, condemned to be nothing more than a monster in a children’s story, exactly the way he feared, what he stood for forgotten, his reasons disregarded, no progress made, all those people he lost dead for nothing. Vane is dead, and nothing came of his death, not the revolution he wanted to spark, not the abolition of slavery, not even safety for Eleanor if he still wanted that. Eleanor died, and Nassau burned again, and the slaves on those plantations suffered horribly, and for fucking what? For one man to say, this fight isn’t worth fighting, it doesn’t matter to me, I’m ending it. For he and Max and Madame Guthrie to decide to strangle the cat rather than dealing with the root cause of the problem to begin with, as if there were only one solution to the riddle?

#THIS!!!!!!!!!!!#people keep talking about how happy they are that everyone is alive in the finale but???#thats not all that matterS???#i was fucking infuriated at silver#i wanted someone to acknowledge that what he did was fucking unforgiveable#he took madi and flint’s choices and lives away from them#bc he cared more about them being alive than them being happy and fighting for what they believe in#and goddamn i love silver and max i do#but their vision is pessimistic and limited and hopeless#what flint and madi stood for#what they believed in#what they could MAKE other people believe in#it was enough to stand a chance against england#enough to spark a revolution that would change things#they would have been recorded down in history as revolutionaries#as people who illuminated the way forward#they would have changed the course of history in the only way history’s course can be changed#through force#and silver stole that#not only from them#but from the people england oppressed#the people the world saw as less than#he stole that future from everyone who wanted to fight for their freedom and their rights#goddamn that is a tragedy and idc what anyone else says#what silver did was selfish and cowardly#and u can look at it from his perspective and sympathise all u want#but to me it’ll always be too much to forgive silver for what he did#the ending didn’t sit right with me#it exhausted me#bc once again the revolutionaries didnt win

via @cada5h

What do you think about this? J Steinberg: I think there was an awareness that when watched in a certain way there was so much tragedy already in the ending. Of all the people who were lost and weren’t there anymore, and how close they were to something historically meaningfully that got bargained away, that to then pile that on with even more misery just felt unpleasant

I think it sounds like an acknowledgment that in fact, if looked at from literally any other perspective than “no more people died in the last episode, wheee!” the end of the show is a tragedy. Flint and Madi were betrayed by the one closest to them, and all their work was essentially thrown out the window as if it meant nothing when in fact it could have meant everything to generations of people. Flint is enslaved, Madi’s left with her authority undermined among her own people, her lover become foreign to her, standing there telling her that he’s sold her friend.

When you get right down to it, the list just goes on and on. The Walrus crew is dead, the ship itself is blown up, Silver throws away an entire life he could have lived with people who would have cared about him, loved him even, and all for a scant few years of peace in that area before the British Empire decided it wanted its islands back. All of that – for what? When they could have had so, so much more. Yes, Flint is alive. He’s also being locked away from the world, condemned to be nothing more than a monster in a children’s story, exactly the way he feared, what he stood for forgotten, his reasons disregarded, no progress made, all those people he lost dead for nothing. Vane is dead, and nothing came of his death, not the revolution he wanted to spark, not the abolition of slavery, not even safety for Eleanor if he still wanted that. Eleanor died, and Nassau burned again, and the slaves on those plantations suffered horribly, and for fucking what? For one man to say, this fight isn’t worth fighting, it doesn’t matter to me, I’m ending it. For he and Max and Madame Guthrie to decide to strangle the cat rather than dealing with the root cause of the problem to begin with, as if there were only one solution to the riddle?

shortjohnsilver:

flintsredhair:

shortjohnsilver:

flintsredhair:

ohgressfuriosa:

shortjohnsilver:

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 don’t really think you’re understanding and are getting a little too bigger-picture. I’m speaking from a perspective of criticizing the narrative for believing that the plantation is an acceptable place for non-criminals (like Thomas) or people you care about (like Flint if you’re Silver) to end up. That it’s an acceptable place to exist. I’m completely agreeing with you that it’s not, but I disagree that the narrative understand that, or is trying to push what you’re saying it is. I think it’s very clear the narrative thinks it’s an acceptable ending with a prospect of happiness.

The narrative not indisputably side with Flint and Madi, and it presents the plantation as a happy, acceptable ending. It presents Max and Silver’s standpoints as viable, even though they very well may not be. This narrative is not remotely on Flint’s side, and that’s something that bothers me about it. I wish I could say it was.

There are a LOT of messages that the story conveys and shame is only one of them, and frankly I think it pulls away from that message and starts to build into a different one after 205. It starts to face how to deal with the way society reinforces shame, casts people out, and the best way to do it, who is hurt depending on which way you do it. Whether I agree with it or not, and I don’t– truly, I have a lot of agreement in Madi and Flint’s idea of revolution and very few qualms with violent revolution in general (my fandom history also supports this) I have no problem with them flipping the world up-side-down to change it. I honestly do not think Max or Silver have a problem with that as well. I think what they believe is not that it’s wrong, and I think the message of the show is certainly not that it’s wrong or right. I think the message is a question, not an assertion.

The question being: does it work? Is it worth it? Is it going to make a difference? That is what Max challenges Jack with. That while changing the world might be something we’re in dire need of, fighting and death will never be the answer. She doesn’t believe in drowning the cat as a principle, but she does believe there is no other option to save the boy. Murder the father. The police try to imprison you. Murder the poilce, armies try to imprison you. I think Max’s true stance is that you’re not going to be able to take out those armies. It will have all been for nothing, and someone else is still going to drown that cat anyway. It’s a terrible viewpoint to force yourself to have, and a horrible truth to face. And I’m not saying it’s truth– it becomes truth with lack of faith in something better, lack of strength to fight. I don’t agree with it by principle but you also don’t see me off fighting to rip apart our shitty society. I’m living fairly comfortably in this shitty world as we speak, so you can see where disagreeing with something on principle is different than throwing yourself away for it. The question is, is it wrong to have been through hell and just want to spend the rest of your life living? More wrong than it is to sacrifice millions, including those who are just trying to make it, those too weak to fight, too young to understand, to tear down everything? Both sides are making sacrifices, letting innocent people die for what they believe. One is doing it all at once, the other slowly, over time. Both options are full of death and tragedy and horror. That’s what war, slow or fast, is.

Again I can’t stress enough that I really do not agree with Max or Silver and I believe in what Flint and Madi were doing as a principle. But I think Silver’s problem in particular was not that he didn’t believe in the principle, but that he didn’t believe it would work, and would cause him to lose everything he cared for.

I think it becomes very different when you’re living in it. Some people just aren’t strong enough to fight, choose to find a place in it instead, and those are the innocent people who will be destroyed when those that can and will fight choose to rip it all to pieces. One could argue it’s a necessary sacrifice. It’s an extremely complicated debate that spans across pretty much every fandom I’ve ever been in, and exists in most narratives. But rarely do narratives assert a certain side, and I don’t think Black Sails does either. It’s far too complicated a thing to face and assert, especially for people who aren’t living it.

The question is that while society is flawed and destroys people to keep going, is it wrong for those who do not fit to try and find happiness within it, rather than try to rip it to pieces? You say Silver did not understand survival is not happiness, but I think in reality he simply had a different idea of happiness, and what happiness could be. He never had a place in the world, and happiness was not forcing it to accept him, finding a place in it, or rebuilding it. I think he also believed that the world was the way it was because of human nature, not because of the way it was built. That people would always be this way, that even those most wronged by society would still hurt those smaller than them, that people would always end up ripping each other apart and that the only true happiness was to find someone you cared about and exist within the chaos as best you could. It’s a selfish way to live, and Silver is in his own way, and like most of the Black Sails protagonists in their own way, a selfish person. But he’s seen too much and been through too much to stop believing it.

I don’t think he changed his mind, or believed he made the wrong decision. I think it throws him that Madi is so angry and can’t understand, but I don’t think he changes his mind.

See, the problem I have with interpreting the narrative as trying to present people living within a flawed society as a valid choice that can lead to happiness is that the characters that choose to do so or have that choice made for them still end up miserable. Madi has lost the man she loved through his actions. Silver has lost everything important to him by trying to live in the world as it stands. Max is secure for now but we know what happens to Jack and Anne historically. Eleanor tried to live within that flawed society and she died. Miranda, Thomas, and James all tried to live in that society and we know what happened to them. So while I think that the narrative is asking a question, I also think that in some measure it’s answered it already. It’s shown that you can try to live in that kind of society all you like, but it doesn’t make you any safer in the long run. idk – maybe I’m giving them too much credit, but I can’t help but read a pretty resounding condemnation of society as it stands in the form of a show.