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the-doctor-needs-a-river · 1 year ago

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So, going into this tentatively because there are a lot of strong feelings going around.

People are so traumatised (and validly so) about queer/disabled character deaths from shows with horrible representation and queerbaiting that this has become almost the automatic response to the death of any queer/disabled character. In a lot of situations (cough cough spn etc.) this is absolutely the case.

HOWEVER.

What people are missing is that this doesn't apply to a show in the context where multiple characters are (respectfully) represented as disabled (Lucius, Ed, Jackie, Wee John, Prince Ricky) and nearly every single character is queer. The beauty of the intention here is that a queer/disabled character gets to just be a character. There's no tokenisation there. So when a character like this in this kind of context dies, it's just a character death.

Because of good representation, there is no malice in the death.

Add into this the fact that the death makes perfect narrative sense when viewed through the larger narrative lense of the main point of this season being Ed's emotional arc, it's actually very good story telling (can go deeper into this if requested). That's not saying that it doesn't hurt or that it doesn't feel unfair: that's what good story telling is supposed to do.

I think it's easy to, especially after the first 2 episodes of s2, try and villainise Ed, but I think that's a narrow understanding of what was going on. Yes, Ed was physically abusive to Izzy and the crew, but people overlook the fact that Izzy was emotionally abusive to Ed when he was in an incredibly vulnerable state, which was ultimately the catalyst for the events of S2ep1-2. They both did wrong and both deserved/needed to give apologies; there was no innocent party between them, a fact that Izzy acknowledges multiple times. That's why the parallel to S1ep10 ("there he is") was so beautiful and devastating because it was an understanding of wrongdoing on both parts and an acceptance that they no longer fit together.

Like Izzy said, THEY were Blackbeard, and Blackbeard needed to die for Ed to be able to move on and truly be himself - think the shift from ep 2 to 3 where Ed didn't want to die, he just didn't want to live being Blackbeard but had been convinced there wasn't any alternative. That was the overarching theme of Ed's arc and what Izzy was acknowledging in his final moments.

When you think about it this way, Izzy's death has been foreshadowed as a narrative necessity from the very beginning of the series. With this in mind, the journey that he goes on in the meantime goes above and beyond the acceptance of Ed's vulnerability that we needed to see for them to get to this point; we also see Izzy find his own vulnerability and strength within his found family and identity. THEY DIDN'T NEED TO DO THIS. They gave us this because they also love Izzy and wanted to give his character as much love as possible in the time up until his purpose as a device for Ed's character arc came.

And ultimately, this is what separates Izzy from Ed and Stede - his primary purpose has always been as a character based narrative device to challenge Ed. The fact that so many people love him in his own right is amazing but this has always been his main purpose. Of course he has intervals of brilliant character ingenuity and growth of his own, especially in this new series, but this is exactly what I'm talking about when I say we've been gifted this when we didn't need to be. Does that make the loss sting even more now that we've had it? Of course it does but that's the point. They went so above and beyond with him this series because they saw the potential in his character and Con's fantastic performances, and because they love him as much as we do. But the point still stands that he served the purpose of the character and device that he was always set out to be from the very beginning.

We know from dj that this was all very intentional and, although the analogy used can potentially be questioned, he stuck to his intended trope and executed it with dignity and beautiful parallels.

I guess I'm just saying that it makes me sad to see good writing be misinterpreted, but I completely get where the trauma response is coming from. I would hate to see us get into a situation where we lose this kind of amazing representation because writers are too scared of potential backlash to take the chance of including it when what has been interpreted wasn't narratively intended.

As always, this is written with respect, love and no ill intentions and everyone is entitled to their own thoughts ❤️

#ofmd #ofmd s2 spoilers #izzy hands #please don't come at me #i mean peace #i am a humble meta writer

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