this is why I need a million billion pirate Miranda AUs

What she says: I love Miranda Hamilton and thinking about her and her life makes me emotional
What she means: The timing of Miranda’s death is possibly the most tragic part of her story, because its the moment when her character changes more than it has at any other point leading up to it, but her development is interrupted by a bullet to the head. Miranda remains mysterious for quite a while, but even from the first scenes with her we get crucial insight into her and what she wants. When Flint comes home and she says “take off your boots, i’ll boil some water” it’s obvious that she cares about him and that she’s relieved to see him, but she doesn’t truly seem happy. Miranda isn’t happy. And this is continued in the next episode, where we are shown the domesticity that she represents and the familiarity and intimacy between the two, but also Miranda’s profound sadness. When they talk about the Urca and Flint says he has to leave again, Miranda doesn’t seem happy, which he comments on and she replies that she just wanted him to herself a little while longer and I think this scene in retrospect provides such an insight into her character, the difference between them and the ultimate tragic nature of her story, because here we’re shown that Flint still believes in a different Nassau, he believes in his plan, and he’s still fighting for it, while it seems Miranda is a lot less enthusiastic about it. Miranda doesn’t really believe in what James is doing anymore, but she knows how much it means to him and that he can’t see another way forward so she doesn’t say anything, but she writes that letter, because to her they don’t have a life anymore, and thats what she wants, she wants to make a life for herself and James. She wants some sort of life where she’s not alone, shunned by two communities, waiting for him to come home once in a while, occasionally playing music with others, but always alone and burdened by the memories of tragedies she can’t talk about. So she’s not ecstatic about Flint discovering the schedule, and she writes the letter because she doesn’t have hope in his plan (and because she doesn’t want him to go further down that path), but she still has hope in civilisation. And I think arguably Flint hasn’t fully given up on civilisation either, because he goes to Charlestown trying to make a deal, but their stances are still far from the same. Miranda, despite never having truly fit in with civilised society, loved a world where there was company and books and music and joy and she wants that, for both of them. She still believes in that world, in a whole different way than Flint does, and I think she does until that moment when she sees the clock in Peter Ashe’s house and she finds out the truth. She finds out that she’s been betrayed by a friend she trusted and by an entire world, her world. And thats such a fundamental change in how she sees the world, how she sees herself in relation to it, and one that I belive in that moment changes all her desires and motivations. And then she dies. She dies the moment her and James’ stance and world view become so much closer than they’ve possibly ever been. She dies the moment she sheds a fundamental part of who she was. She dies the moment her character would have started down an entire different path, She dies the moment everything turns on its head for her, and so she can’t act on it, can barely react to world shifting beneath her feet, she can just lie on the floor with a bullet in her head and be dead and its so unfair and I’m gonna cry about it.