UGHADGKJ i know!!! just… how fucking good he was at what he did. almost definitely one of england’s best ranking officers. all that potential to be at the very top of the class, to be england’s most feared weapon, and they discarded him like he was still nothing, a nobody. they took literally everything from him and the people like him. god, no wonder he’s fighting so desperately to destroy the whole empire because a little slap in the face every so often isn’t enough to satisfy that burning anger. it’s so strong that i can feel it resonate within me. i’d watch him watch england burn and i’d laugh with him
The idea that the only meaning that can be gleaned from hearing Silver’s backstory is that the world is “full of unending horrors” completely shifted my idea of why Silver never divulged it in the first place.
I always saw the secret of his story as a tool – as a way to have something over other people. For grifter Silver, for loner Silver that was an asset in manipulation because he could be whatever he wanted to be in any given moment.
But after this interaction, I think it’s possible that he’s ashamed of his backstory, and of his life. His childhood was perhaps a million times worse than anything that we could have ever imagined, and he is ashamed of it.
And so he stands opposed to Flint in this sense, because while Flint acknowledges how his past shaped him, how it motivated him, how it still motivates him, Silver absolutely and resolutely refuses to be defined by his past. He needs it to not have meaning, while Flint needs it to mean everything.
But in a way you could argue that it has already had meaning. The fact that Silver was so determined to be a loner always suggested to me that he’d been hurt by people. But the aspect of shame is a surprise. Because you can tell on some level he wants to give Flint what he wants; he’s not being stubborn or defiant. He’s – in a lot of ways – apologizing. You know all that I can bear to be known, I’m sorry.
So I feel like this gave us a window, even though it’s a backstory that’s not a backstory. But in a way that’s beautiful too – our imaginations are pretty strong. So if you give me a backstory that’s too hard for Silver to even relate to his closest friend, my imagination is going to go to all the horrible recesses of the world.
I also feel like this explains a lot. He started out a loner, a decided loner. But once he’s offered a community – once he finally finds a home – the lengths to which he is willing to go for the sake of that community starts to make so much sense.
Every move he’s ever made starts to make sense; all of season 3, his attempts to gain Flint’s respect, and his attempts to finally have people, a crew, a home. He goes to such extremes to guarantee that he somehow holds onto whatever he’s got now. He holds his world together with both hands.
If his childhood was so horrible, and he was such a decided loner, it’s like he didn’t have the muscle memory to know how to do relationships. Even though he was really good at reading people – that’s something that people who have experienced abuse know how to do very well.
So this could explain why he eventually becomes so tied to people. Why he became so devoted to his crew, why he became so devoted to Flint, and why he becomes so devoted to Madi. Because suddenly he was offered something he’s never had – a whole slew of things he’s never had, and perhaps even things that he never even knew he wanted.
And it’s in this conversation with Flint that we get another beat of whether or not something is enough, mirroring his earlier conversation with Madi.
“Can that be enough, can there still be trust between us?”
The tragedy is that you can see very clearly on Flint’s face that the answer is no. Flint didn’t answer – but the non-answer said enough.
And yet, in this episode, even though you can tell that the answer is no, Flint is so willing to get past that, to take the leap of faith. He still shows absolute trust in and loyalty to Silver, but he cannot be certain. When it comes down to it, he cannot know for sure whether or not Silver will make the right call.
Flint knows how much his backstory, how much his baggage with Thomas and with Miranda influences his actions and keeps him from seeing what is true. But he doesn’t know Silver’s backstory. By not divulging the secrets of his past, Silver leaves room for Flint to guess. And for a man like Flint – one who needs to be in absolute control all the time, who needs to see the inner workings of every single piece on the chess board so he can strategise accordingly – for a man like that to take a leap of faith like this, at a time like this, is as astounding as it is beautiful.
The old Flint would have most likely killed Silver and gotten him out of his way rather than go for such a risky and potentially astronomically costly gamble. And it’s this divergence that reinforces what we see clearly in this whole episode – that Flint does love Silver. It’s that simple. He desperately wants Silver to live and to be a part of this.
Fathoms Deep, 409; on Silver’s backstory and his relationship with Flint (via jamesvflint)
this support group disguised as fandom needs to support us better
I feel like we’re all sitting in a circle passing around a very large box of tissues, a bottle of rum, and a framed photograph of that one time flint laughed
occasionally we shout across the circle to no one in particular, “I’M IN HELL!!!”
“that slave woman” she has a fucking name, you asshole. her name is madi scott. she has a name. madi scott. madi scott. she is so much more than “that slave woman”.
Thomas Hamilton – being taken away by his father’s men, probably knowing that Peter was the one who betrayed him, probably shaken to the core over the prospect of never seeing James and Miranda again – STILL took time to turn to his devastated wife and make her promise that she and James would take care of each other.
Even in his bleakest, lowest moment he still wanted to make sure that the two people he loves most wouldn’t abandon the other and would be the other’s support during this horrific time.
Please give us back this man. He’s too good and pure to die alone and miserable in a hellhole.
Me, an Intellectual: James McGraw Flint is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a morally estranged character. He is a man of grand ambitions, fueled by the trauma of losing his lover to the greatest empire of the western world, and he repeatedly uses violence, dishonesty, and cruelty as a means to achieve his goals. But Black Sails is described as a “novelistic” television program precisely because it forces the audience to engage with the narrative of the monster- akin to the work of great novels, Flint’s story speaks to the experience of being othered by a militant empire that discriminates, exploits, and destroys the marginalized identities within its reach- women, black and African folk, queer and disabled people. Furthermore, the narrative does not flatly condemn Flint for his flaws. Certainly, like Teach, Vane, Eleanor and any other character who upsets the moral system of the Black Sails universe, Flint is a character who is doomed to meet the consequence of his misdeeds. But the narrative still regards him with profound sympathy, almost chiefly because Captain Flint would not exist had the violent systems of homophobia and militarized masculinity that crucified James McGraw existed first- the tragedy of James Flint lies not only in his battles with madness and grief, but in his lost potential as a good man. The titular “battle with the world” of Black Sails speaks to Flint’s own experiences of invalidation within English society and his further rebirth and destruction in the margins of society, i.e. Nassau and the sea.The James McGraw revealed in season two speaks to the life he could have led as a good English citiszen and soldier- honored, financially stable and socially celebrated, but emotionally inauthentic to his true identity as a gay man. True to Eleanor Guthrie’s own battle with patriarchy, Flint tries to assimilate to a culture that hates him for the sake of survival and, when he attempts to do so, this very system destroys him, Miranda, and Thomas Hamilton all the same. In a show that is built on the graves of so many victims to systematic prejudice and violence, Flint is as much a subject of victimhood and tragedy as those whom he has lost despite or, perhaps, precisely because he is no longer a good man. By consequence, there is something innately admirable in Flint’s audacious determination to desecrate the world that destroyed him. His is the power fantasy that any marginalized identity can understand- not feasible, not easily imaginable, but emotionally accessible all the same. Ultimately, the beauty of his role as the central protagonist and a rich, dimensional character (for, certainly, there is a difference between a good person and a great character in any text) is rooted in the duplicity of his identity- will our protagonist end as James McGraw or as Captain Flint? What is gained and, more importantly, what is lost when one is consumed by the other? And, in a show so fixated on the importance of narrative, how will his story be told and remembered by those who survive him? Just as one cannot understand Shelley’s aims in Frankenstein if they do not at some point anguish for Victor’s monster, if one cannot engage with Flint in sympathy, we have automatically forfeited an understanding of the fundamental aims of this show.
I was thinking about this all afternoon; that scene between Max and Grandma Guthrie and the story she tells about the cat and her son and husband. At first it’s posed as a fable and Max is asked which part she plays, but its also a mental puzzle like that one with the fox and goose and corn. Max sees that right away, but what I find interesting, upon reflection, is Max’s answer.
I think it impressed Madam Guthrie, and at first glance it is perfectly unexpected. It’s so quintessentially Max and I also think Madam Guthrie is exactly the type of woman who’d “go out into the woods and drown the damn cat,” which is why she decides to give Max and Rackham a chance, because she sees herself in Max.
At the same time… its a pretty horrific answer. Because what is seen by both these women as the only viable solution to ending that cycle of suffering is not stopping a man from beating a child, but killing the animal that wants to be fed.
They see men and their violence as natural disasters. The equivalent of a storm, or an earthquake. Something you can’t prevent, but simply have to brace for and work around. I think it falls into the same trap of thinking men are incapable of self control when it comes to sexual assault, or other attacks. That it’s “just their nature,” and “boys will be boys,” etc.
Its said this attitude doesn’t hold men accountable for their actions, and that’s true, but to me it speaks more to the utter weariness of so many women. This sort of inherited despair we have, as a whole, which can lead to defeatist thinking. Like the victim of who’s been hurt so often they can’t imagine anything they do stopping their abuser. They’re in survival mode.
It says a lot about the time Max lives in, but this still holds true today and I think it is the one of the most insidious forms of toxic masculinity. The idea that it is inevitable.
And the more I think about it, the more I think that if Flint or Madi had sat in that chair, they would have proposed drowning Joseph Guthrie instead. Because he is the root of the problem. Not the hungry cat, or the little boy.
Max and Grandma also know that Joseph is the problem but they see him as an unsolvable one, so they do the next best thing. The least evil to achieve the least suffering.
Flint and Madi would argue that nothing is unsolvable.
Like all idealists they’d be considered mad for saying that, but ultimately, they’d be right. Because “drowning the cat” is only going to stop one problem at a time. Meanwhile the root violence that made drowning the cat necessary continues to perpetuate evil in other ways.
I have an uncle, and the last time I saw him, thankfully many years
ago, I kept thinking that if the only way he knew how to make himself
feel powerful was by putting someone else down, then he didn’t know a
thing about power.
Joseph Guthrie, like many characters before him is a symbol of the “civilized” world, and in every era, including our own, men like Joseph have gotten away with horrors because crimes against humanity are not just considered inevitable they’re excused as “sound investments.” Like the Guthrie bookkeeper there are always people who argue that human decency (running businesses without slaves, providing free universal healthcare) are financially “unwise.”
Though in reality, its actually the opposite, and costs much less money.
Flint even says at one point “no-one will believe it’s possible until we show them.” Which beyond talking about the Urca also describes skeptics of a society with fair foundations.
Leaving the “Josephs” untouched and trying to clean up their mess and bandage the wounds they make one at time, is as destined to fail as trying to hold water with a sieve. Madi and Flint know the only way to really stop that cycle of suffering, is to make a world where men like Joseph Guthrie can’t beat their children.
The problem is that Flint is as much a victim of this adherence to violence as the rest of them. He really believes that war and burning it all down is the only way to stop it and when push comes to shove, Flint’s solution is murder.
Whether its because he really thinks its a more expedient or lasting solution, or its just a rash choice at the time, that’s where his mind first goes. I think he still doesn’t see how much of his own hatred and pain and desire for revenge has been tied up in this rhetoric.
I’m not saying revolution isn’t necessary. I stand with Madi a hundred percent. People have the right to fight for their rights and their existence and there are things that can only be stopped by outright revolt, but I think Madi is unique in that she’s a mix of Flint and Max’s ideologies.
Max, although she makes her own mistakes, knows how violence perpetuates violence. There’s an incredible and understated strength to her compassion, and she walks such a fine line with it, refusing to own slaves and perpetuate the evils she’s suffered on others, and not backing down when pressured to do so, or sneered at by “society.” Max adheres to the principle that change takes millions of tiny acts of kindness, incalcuable small victories (and every refusal to perpetuate violent traditions is a victory). Her’s is the slow rising of a tide, rather then one sweeping move.
Flint knows the evil’s of England’s colonialist society, but I don’t think he sees the difference between his war with “civilization,” and England’s wars with Spain, France, etc that he fought as a naval man.
Flint could have been so big in the Navy. I mean seriously big! He would have lead with both strength and softness, would have treated his men right and they would have followed him.
I mean the redcoats in the last episode (4×6) just followed Flint without a word, waited for his commands to follow. And there Flint is a pirate. What power would he have held as a Navy still?
Urg… pirates would have feared James McGraw as the Navy now fears James Flint.
Meg's Mumbles 