#The' you're Izzy from s1

[aucoba]

I am so sad people are being such dicks about the finale. Yes the season went freackingly (too) fast. Yes I cried and screamed and have some criticisms about how it was done. Yes I feel a bit underwhelmed after such an amazing first season

BUT

This finale wasn't a "disrespect" to us, we weren't mocked or punished or anything like that! The artists did the best they could with what they got, which was so fucking little! They brought us many fulfilling love stories and I won't care for any half wit sad hearted insults and far fetched interpretations you might cook yourself up, trying to make sense of your feelings you twats.

[thegroundhogdidit]

watching season 1: lmao izzy is gay and homophobic haha

watching season 2: i have severely misjudged the situation

[plantsjustwannahavefun]

Little did I know that seeing and appreciating the deeply homoerotic subtext of the Edizzy toe scene was preparing me for the inevitable OFMD to Hannibal pipeline.

[asneakyfox]

i tend to be pretty cynical whenever actors start talking about how their onscreen chemistry comes from their offscreen relationship and honestly when i hear that sort of thing 90% of the time i assume it is just marketing. and in fact i did assume that was the deal with rhys & taika at first, like, i got into the show and heard people talking about how they've been besties for twenty years and my immediate reflexive assumption was "ok, so they've known each other for a long time but the idea that they're actually especially close is probably bullshit."

i do not think that anymore, because in this one case you can pretty easily look up video of the two of them interacting years before ofmd existed in contexts where they have no particular incentive to be playing up their friendship for the camera and no they are actually just like that.

so it IS interesting how this plays into the show, right? all the talk about whether rhys and taika have sexual chemistry is weird to me not only because i think they do have it but also because frankly sexual chemistry is cheap, you can get that anywhere. i can think of a LOT of tv/movie romances where the actors do a fine job conveying a sense of sexual passion but absolutely comprehensively fail at convincing me that these people actually like each other very much, which for me usually kills any chance i'll actually get very invested in it as a relationship. ed & stede i think we can agree do not have that problem.

i don't believe in love at first sight and honestly i don't even tend to find it a compelling idea in a fictional context. best friends at first sight is a real thing though, it's happened to me, sometimes you meet a new person who is so immediately on your wavelength that you're acting like you've been friends for twenty years when you've actually known each other for two hours. it turns out you can convincingly simulate this by casting actors who've actually been best friends for twenty years and telling them to pretend they just met.

anyway though the thing i wonder about sometimes is how much this is rhys & taika's irl friendship helping bring out something that was already there in the story vs how much it's the scripts being written to bring out something i suspect rhys & taika wouldn't really be able to NOT do if they tried.

david jenkins and the ofmd writers' room do seem to let the actors influence how they write characters a lot - you can see this especially with izzy and jim in s2, after they knew con and vico better than in s1. and writing ed & stede's first meeting as the two of them deciding to swap clothes and do an incomprehensible improv bit that's extremely fun for the two of them but baffles and infuriates everyone else around them when they have known each other less than an hour is a really weird choice even by contrived romcom meet-cute standards. but then you read about rhys & taika during the filming of ofmd s1 deciding to walk around set sipping nonalcoholic whiskey pretending to be drunk in order to freak out everyone else there and you have to consider that maybe it felt natural to write ed & stede that way because that is just what rhys & taika are like

[uselessheretic]

i know it's been said a million times before, but if you're starting to like izzy in season 2 i would HIGHLY recommend rewatching s1 and paying close attention to ed/izzy and their motivations. like try rewatching but keeping in mind the fact that they canonically do love each other. put aside the "izzy's doing this out of toxic masculinity and homophobia" lens and instead take a minute and view it from a "izzy is in deep unrequited love with ed and he doesn't even realize it yet all he knows is that ed is being taken from him be stede focking bonnet" lens.

i would pay special attention to e4! a lot of taika and con's acting is nonverbal watch their faces and look at what is not being said while they talk.

e6 and how little ed communicates to izzy or fang and ivan.

and e10 but this time think of it as a messy divorce

[temporal-discounting]

There's one line in S1 that I think is so important to understanding what Ed's life must have been like before boarding the Revenge and meeting Stede, and it's this one:

Ed is sitting around telling ghost stories with the Revenge crew, and Ivan says "This is the most open and available I've ever seen him."

This one brief line paints a picture of a life of such profound loneliness for Ed back on the Queen Anne's Revenge, in which Ed's interactions with his own crew were extremely limited. It seems that most of these interactions occurred with Izzy as conduit.

Now, of course, Izzy used that position to reinforce that separation between Ed and crew. He used it to project the image of Blackbeard (not Ed; never Ed) that he wanted to project - an insane, unstable, and reclusive genius.

But I also wonder how much of Ed's isolation was self-imposed. The show makes clear very early, that in the world of OFMD, pirates' lives are short and violent. They die in great numbers - and this exchange between Ed and Stede in 1x04 tells us that Ed feels responsible for the pirates who die under his command.

"You're gonna lose all your men. It's all gonna be your fault."

At some point, did he choose to withdraw because losing friends / chums / pals all the time is too damn hard - especially when you are directly responsible for their safety?

I can definitely see a dynamic in which Ed had largely withdrawn from his crew before Izzy entered the picture. But then Izzy's influence over the crew served to reinforce that isolation, such that Ed would have had no real way of connecting with the crew, even if he had wanted to.

This is one of the things I love about OFMD - how so much can be inferred from a handful of small moments.

(If you got this far through my rambling, you might also be interested in a fic I wrote where I really tried to pick some of this stuff apart. It's essentially an Ed character study, but told via a conversation between Ed and Fang as they mourn Ivan together)

[fuckyeahisawthat]

I love how much of OFMD s2 is about do-overs and second chances. Like obviously the message of the whole show is "you're not too old and it's not too late" and "everyone is capable of positive change." But I love how many specific moments the characters get to do over from their missed chances and fuckups in s1.

Stede tells Ed to wait for him in the woods while he goes back to the ship to convince them that Ed can stay another night, and it's so obvious that Ed is scared af that Stede is not coming back, that he'll be left waiting for Stede alone in the dark again. But Stede does come back! And invites Ed to come with him this time. "You wear fine things well" but this time they both know that's an overtly romantic line, they get a do-over of their almost-kiss missed connection and this time they do kiss and they both know how much it means. The lyrics of "This Woman's Work" that they use ("Give me these moments / Give them back to me" and "All the things we should've said that we never said / All the things we should've done that we never did") in the context of the scene get transformed into hoping against hope for another chance, just come back to me and I'll say and do all the things I was afraid of before, please give me another chance to make it right. And they get it.

Even Izzy fucking Hands gets a do-over of his worst moment from s1, acknowledging the harm he caused and getting to touch Ed's face and say "there he is" in the context of telling Ed to go live his authentic life.

And of course Ed and Stede at the end, Stede saying without hesitation that he has no second thoughts, that he's sure this time, and we know it's not about running an inn or any other scheme they might cook up together but about building a life together.

When we talk about OFMD as a kind show or a hopeful show this is the kind of stuff I think about. It's not that no one ever suffers or dies or gets hurt or fucks up; it's that the characters can fuck up massively but they get another chance to keep trying, together, keep swimming toward the light even when things look real dark. I know you've got a little life in you left.

[tizzyizzy]

Seen some talk around the interwebs about how Izzy is a totally different, or his arc happened too fast, whatever. He is my argument to the contrary.

There are three major factors driving the change in Izzy's behavior.

Default Pirate Culture → Gentleman Pirate Culture

Izzy spent his entire pirate career before Stede acting like, well, a pirate. There wasn't room for softness. Being tough was expected. Blackbeard's crew's culture in particular discouraged weakness to such an extent crew were expected to kill their pets before joining.

In S1, Izzy's relationship to the crews and captains was ambiguous. Was he training the Revenge crew to be proper pirates? Was he in charge when the captains weren't on board? Was Ed planning on killing Stede and everyone aboard, or not? So it's unsurprising Izzy held himself away from Stede's crew instead of becoming part of it, and tried without success to make the Revenge crew follow his lead.

In S2, Izzy ends up in Stede's crew, and Izzy isn't in a place emotionally or socially to try to push to change the culture of the ship. He's outnumbered. Izzy has to adapt. At the very least, all of the expectations he has been living up to his entire pirating career are gone.

Taking Care of Ed → No More Ed

Izzy said he'd been cleaning up Ed's messes his whole life. Scenes from S1 and S2 suggest that is the case. In S1, Izzy is dealing with Ed making strange choices on his search for meaning, which requires him to manage restless crew members and deal with the risky spots Ed puts them all in. Once Stede arrives on the scene, Ed is contradictory and non-communitive, leaving Izzy to wonder if the plan to kill Stede and the promised captaincy were bullshit (they were).

And because Izzy has no emotional intelligence, he thinks that Stede is seducing Ed into losing everything, and he desperately tries to pry the pair ppart.

I mean, we all know what happened in the early S2 episodes. Emotional, off-the-rails Ed trying to himself and everyone else while Izzy desperately tried to protect Ed and the crew, until he was forced to give up on Ed.

After breaking up with Ed via bullet, though, Ed is officially Not Izzy's Problem. Ed isn't a threat to the crew. Stede is incompetent, but was clever and brave enough to escape Zheng's ship and rescue them. Izzy is free to have a drunken breakdown. After, well, he gets to do whatever he wants.

What does Izzy want? Well, he's finding out.

No Trust → Trust

The major reason pirates put on such a tough facade is to protect themselves. Being tough keeps enemies from messing with you. It keeps your crew too afraid to mutiny. It's easy to recognize that Ed puts on a persona of Blackbeard, but Izzy put on a persona too. A weak link can be targeted and broken.

Just look at the scene where Izzy finally breaks down and is comforted by the crew. Izzy doesn't make the choice to be emotionally vulnerable. He is behaving the same way he always with crew who question his orders. He yells, he curses, he commands. It is only the level of his emotional distress and the crew's acknowledgement of it that make him incapable of hiding his pain.

I think it's safe to say that has been hiding grief, frustration, confusion, sadness, etc. behind the "Get back to work!" facade for years. It only crumbled under extreme pressure.

But when Izzy breaks, and is at his most pathetic and vulnerable, the crew have his back. Under Blackbeard, they comfort him, hide him away, and treat his injuries at the risk of the captain's wrath. Under Stede, when he's at his most pathetic, the crew make him a new leg and accept him into the crew without judgement.

There's almost nothing Izzy could do in front of the crew now that would make him look more weak than he was when he was crawling across the floor drunk and repeating "You're born alone, you die alone" over and over. He hit rock bottom and there was a pillow there to catch him.

So, Izzy is in the "talk it through" culture of Stede's Revenge. He is free from obsessing about Ed as a man and as a captain. He is surrounded by people who saw him at his worst and showed him compassion.

Izzy's worst behaviors in S1 were motivated by fear. Fear of the new, fear Ed was losing it, fear of what would happen if he showed weakness. In a "safe space", where he has nothing to worry about? Of course Izzy calms way down. This is the Izzy that swaggered up to Stede on the island and at Spanish Jackie's in S1. Dry, sarcastic, sassy. Some flair for the dramatic with the swordplay.

It is because Izzy feels so safe that he can put on that makeup and perform. Wee John is doing it, and Wee John wouldn't let him do anything embarrassing. He's clearly got confidence in his ability to sing.

He's still Izzy. He says fuck constantly. He's kind of a dick. He offers good advice. He's a dramatic, whether he's cutting his name into someone's shirt or singing in French from a balcony. He's just an Izzy that can be whatever he wants without fear.

[canonizzyhours]

there are several people who argued during the s1 hiatus that izzy was ed's abuser. (often this came from the same people who correctly called that izzy was being paralleled to ed's dad.) this caused a lot of outrage from the canyon. personally, i thought the people who said that raised some interesting points, but despite that i didn't quite agree with them. there were two big reasons i wasn't quite willing to apply the word "abuse" to the way izzy treated ed in s1:

1. like some earlier posts here (shoutout to canonizzyhours #128, an all time fave of mine) pointed out, the reason it's useful to talk about "abuse" as distinct from "harm" or "violence" or "cruelty" or "threats" is that abuse is a long-term pattern of behavior, one centered on exerting control over the other person. the way izzy talked to ed in the namby-pamby scene was definitely vicious enough and targeted enough to call it verbal/emotional violence (as well as a clear direct threat of physical violence), and it would be fair to call it abusive if it were part of a long-term pattern. but there was no reason to think it was! in s1 it seemed to me like izzy's behavior was all a reaction to the specific events of that season and that izzy had almost certainly never spoken to ed like that before, or tried to control ed's decisions about his own life the way he does in s1.

2 "abuse" just seemed to me like a weird framework to apply to the relationship between an internationally wanted crime boss and his treacherous henchman. a certain amount of manipulation and betrayal and violence is baked into the genre when you're talking about organized crime fiction. the "jilted wife" stuff was obviously an "it's funny that izzy acts like a jilted wife because of how that's his boss not his husband" thing, ed and izzy weren't actually married or in any sort of romantic or sexual relationship. they're co-workers, not family. so their relationship was obviously very unhealthy but it struck me as kind of an exaggeration to frame it like domestic abuse.

then we got s2 and to my surprise two very specific things happened:

1. we were told very directly, very explicitly, in izzy's own words that the namby-pamby scene was not a single anomalous event but the culmination of a long-term pattern in which he had been trying to exert control over the way ed lived his life for years, for izzy's own personal benefit.

2. we are also told explicitly in the same scene that ed viewed izzy on some level as family, and the entire season repeatedly reinforced this by foregrounding ed's daddy issues and framing izzy as a father figure to him. the pop-pop scene in particular made it undeniable that the father figure stuff was specifically about the ways ed was abused by his father and the ways his relationship with izzy was echoing that.

so now i'll still see discourse where some people are outraged about the idea that izzy is ed's abuser and like - i'm sorry i wanted to agree with you! i used to agree with you! and then s2 came out and directly surgically removed every single reason i had for agreeing with that! the only way to argue at this point that the narrative of ofmd does not frame izzy as ed's abuser is to completely ignore all the dialogue in his deathbed scene plus all the pop-pop stuff. it's what it was all leading up to!

#482.

related posts: #128

[areyoudoingthis]

the more I think about it the more I love how they resolved the izzy situation after s1. this season has been all about turning poison into positivity, all about the effect stede has on the world through the people whose lives he touches, through his people positive management style and killing them with kindness.

and it has also been about how ed needed to learn to love himself, needed to overcome the trauma born of the violence he always felt doomed to perform so he could come to see his own value and give himself permission to become whoever Ed wants to be. but we saw last season how hard that was for him, because of the baggage he carried and because at every turn someone was trying to pull him back into performing blackbeard and wearing a mask he never wanted in the first place.

izzy was the embodiment of all that, was more there to reflect ed's struggles and his journey than anything else (he was his dad and he was hornigold and he was all of the angry men in ed's life and the angry words they kept repeating in his mind.)

and how do you set ed free? because the show is the relationship, and is deeply a story about love, it becomes possible through the effects of Stede's love and kindness on the world. stede makes the world softer around him and that softness ends up enveloping ed and giving him space to explore himself, to stop listening to his own fears and self hatred and to what everyone wants from him and take the first step into self love.

what do you do with izzy then? just kill him off? but we all wanted to hear an apology from him, we all wanted ed to hear that he wasn't better off dead and that being soft wasn't something he could never have because he wasn't those kind of people. and for that to happen, for the world to reflect some goodness back to ed instead of violence and hurt, izzy had to go through some changes himself. and so he does, because of Stede's crew.

and it's all so ed can hear "maybe you should listen to it" when he expresses hopefulness about leaving blackbeard behind, so he can hear "you're good now, you're ready. Ed, you're surrounded by family. They love you, Ed. Just be Ed."

this isn't about izzy, this is Ed allowing himself to let go, to embrace ed and retirement and love and warmth. izzy dying was symbolic of the end of an era in his life, and I can't wait to see what the rest of it looks like

[amuseoffyre]

Real Pirates

Got thinking last night about Stede and what was said to him in 2x06 and 2x07.

First off, let's look at the Ned Low stuff.

"You know, if you kill me, you are a real pirate. You're not an amateur anymore. See? That's why he likes you. It's because of your bumbling amateur status. You're like a pet, I think."

There's been a running thread of Stede not being a real pirate all the way from S1 - "I'm not a pirate, I'm an idiot" (1x01), "pirates, my arse" (1x02), "what the fuck is you supposed to be?" (1x03), "you will get to see how real pirates operate in the real world" (1x05), "not one of these store-bought kinds" (1x07), "it only applies to real pirates" (1x09).

Ned has fully pressed down on the big red trauma button that other characters have been hammering all the way through S1, that Stede has been trying to ignore, but here and now, he can't: Stede's biggest fear remains that he was not and never will be enough for Ed.

It's not the first time another pirate has compared Stede to a pet either: Izzy, Fang and Ivan all said the same back in 1x06. Whether Stede has put together the pieces about Doggy Heaven, I don't know, but once again, we're shown that here is someone who definitely doesn't understand what is happening between Stede and Ed.

As much as Stede tried to convince himself "I am adequate" (1x02), the fear is still there that he's never going to be sufficient. "I think your life is better without me" (2x01).

Despite Ned saying that Ed wants to keep him an amateur, he's hurt and he's angry and he's seen his crew and his lover put in harm's way, so Ned is never going to get off that ship alive.

But it's also very telling that the instant Stede kills him, he immediately flashes back to one of his biggest and most recurring childhood traumas: the day his father told him that killing was a man's work and that he would never amount to anything because he was a soft-handed weak-hearted lily-livered little richboy.

We see/hear it or have it alluded to in 1x01, 1x02, 1x04, 1x08, 1x09, 1x10, 2x03, 2x06.

Letting Ned Low live - and have the chance to come back for vengeance - was never a choice, but this is the point where Stede has crossed a line he had never crossed before. "Killing. Having to kill" (1x01) sent him into a panic spiral in episode 1 and I have no doubt that if we get/got S3, once the panic and chaos died down, it would have snuck up on him like all his other traumas.

But let's continue into 2x07, where Stede has had a night with the man he loves, knows he's kept him safe, and isn't thinking about that stuff. Only then people start praising him for it. This is the man who hasn't been praised for anything before. He's wanted approval and acceptance his whole life and finally, now, he's got it. "Bonnet's the fuckin' dude".

It overwhelms him completely, much the same way as the attention from the party-ship people gave Ed the dopamine hits and made him escalate his behaviour. Stede starts acting up, showing off and - most significantly - chooses to spend his time in the company of an older man in a blood-soaked leather apron who won't stop telling him how fantastic he is. Our man isn't just wearing his daddy issues on his sleeve, he's taking them out and buying them a drink while they give him their approval.

Which is why Ed's departure comes as such a shock for him. For the first time in his life, Stede is accepted and appreciated. Ed even encouraged him at first, but then Ed's own traumas surrounding the pirate world reared up their ugly head. "I don't wanna go back to the old days, drinking all the time or cutting a bloke's toe off and feeding it to him for a laugh" (1x09)

And it's not that they're at odds with each other is the thing. They're at odds with themselves. Ed is panic-spiralling because he sees Stede stepping so easily into the world that he has come to hate and wants to leave behind. But for Stede, it's not about being a pirate - it's about the acceptance and appreciation of who he is, because he's never actually had that before.

He's behaving in the ways that are getting him the approval he's never had in his life and moving further and further away from "I don't like drinking til I puke or throwing coconuts at peoples' heads". He's becoming the Calico Jack kind of pirate, getting roaring drunk and throwing things - fatally - at people because "then I said a cool thing and people laughed".

Only because they don't talk to each other in ways that they can each understand, Stede is left with the belief that maybe Ed did like him as an amateur and despite doing "a man's work" he is still not enough. Meanwhile Ed thinks Stede really wants this kind of life, when he knows Ed wants away from it, because he has no idea what Stede is getting from it all.

Our lads are both so tangled up in their own fears and anxieties that they don't stop to wonder why the other is acting the way they are. Stede logically knows Ed doesn't want to be a pirate, but can't see why his own behaviour would be upsetting to Ed. Ed is fully aware of who Stede is as a person, yet the fear of him becoming more like the pirates he grew up around is overwhelming because it's been his whole life for so long.

Their own fears are crashing up against each other, but neither of them ever want to talk it through. Stede hides behind politeness and neutrality instead of saying what he's feeling (although he has made big steps on this front in S2) while Ed is so used to masking his real wants and needs in hypotheticals and metaphors.

S3 was going to see all those things come to light. Ed had already made a start, sitting with himself, but there was still more to come. Stede's issues which had been bottled up and tucked away ("that's the worst thing you can do, Frenchie!" (1x01)) but the pressure was building and it was going to fizz out like an overshaken champagne bottle in the end.

OFMD - Childhood Trauma the TV show. aka how to write the impact of PTSD and cPTSD on people and the way it impacts their behaviour, modes of communication and the decisions they make.

[ohmyglobwhatthefrickamievendoing]

dj saying izzy was like a father figure to ed & then trying to connect that to ed killing his actual father is insane but specially, specially, when you remember that last episode stede & izzy had a pretty obvious moment where they came to an understanding about what it's like to be in love with the same man

that's not the kind of conversation and look you share with your ex's father figure. It's the one you share with your ex's ex while you're both still in love with him

Then the episode before that they kept cutting from stede&ed having sex to izzy singing a love song?

And the episode before that izzy stuttered and hesitantly asked stede what ed's been saying about him??

I know found families can have parental figures whom you may still feel a sexual and/or romantic attraction to, but at no point did either season ever show such a relationship between the two. I guess if you want to reach for it you could say that in early S1 there are times when izzy tries to look out for ed & guide him but even stede (fucking stede) clocks them as 'old married couple nearing the final stages of their divorce'

You could on a technicality apply the 'mentor dies at the end' trope to izzy but that's only if you assume that izzy's somewhat significantly older than ed and so probably looked out for ed at some point when they were working under hornigold together, which again is never shown in their dynamic (the only mention we get of it is through stede but I'm almost certain that most of what stede said was just him buttering up izzy to get him to train stede)

I feel like rather than 'father-figure/mentor dies at the end' it gives more 'even as we try to move on our existences are inseparably linked to each other and you're the last part of my old life that needs to die before I can finally be free to change and we both know that, even as it hurts' Yeah yeah izzy deserved to live a happy life away from blackbeard's influence the same way ed deserves to live a happy life away from izzy's (and I really wish he could have) but they've been unhealthily connected from the beginning (much more obvious in S2 seeing how neither of them could bare to get rid of the other's body) and it makes sense that eventually that's the trope & ending izzy fell into

point being:

david jenkins, sir, i respect your writing and love your show but that was absolutely NOT what was going on there

Izzy wanted to get fucked nasty but Ed's a bottom so it never worked out

[pastryjay]

No, OFMD did not 'promise' the viewers a safe time (only happiness, no angst or death) then 'betray' them with Izzy's death, as i've seen some complaining.

The show is called Our Flag Means Death and there is death and angst from season 1 episode 1. At no point did the showrunners promise us 'this is a show where all characters will remain safe'.

Being a comedy doesn't mean the story will be all joy and light. Comedies using upsetting topics and death is not unusual. It's actually quite common! If done well, comedy can give a contrast to angsty moments making them more heartbreaking.

The writers have a story they wanted to tell and have said since season 1 aired that there is a 3 season plan for the show. It's likely that they planned major plot points for each season (like Izzy's death) before S1 was filmed. They didn't change the plot to kill Izzy because they wanted to make the show darker or to spite fans. You are not owed a perfectly happy story when the writers have set out to tell something different.

If you're a person who can only handle stories where everyone is always happy, that's fine! Stories like that exist! It just makes no sense to watch a show with death in the title then blame the writers for 'betraying' you when death happens.

[carrymelikeimcute]

Lets talk about Izzy and why being in drag is (potentially) huge for his arc.

The verdict on Izzy in S1 seems to be either 1. he's an angry, repressed queer guy with internalised homophobia or 2. he's an angry guy with homophobia. I would like to present to you - secret option number 3. Neither of the above (but a bit of 1).

I think he's an angry queer guy, who's terrified of the danger that lurks outside of appearing constantly masc and strong, and seeing other people apparently not realise or care how vulnerable they are, drives him absolutely spare. It's more complicated than simply internalising homophobia, it's misogyny and self-loathing and a response to being at sea for his entire life and struggling to survive - and we see what just a few months of that does to Lucius.

This is reflected in his talks with Ed in S1 - Ed's whimsy in the face of the approaching Spanish ship might get them all killed. Ed's public breakdown, if it got out, would destroy the reputation that protects Ed, Izzy and their entire crew. Stede is a pet, he's a weakness, and so he needs to be eliminated. That's how Izzy functions - he has like two bits of exposed skin, one outward emotion and he's lived for a long time like that - it works. It's the kind of strength he understands. He's convinced that him reining Ed in is what's keeping them alive.

BUT in S1 he sees that being open, being yourself, isn't a death sentence - and he HATES it. Because if that's true, look how much time he's wasted.

Ed and Stede's very whimsical lighthouse fuckery WORKS. Stede, in his frilly suits with his rec room and his fucking library, skates past death over and over again like he's scotch guarded from consequences. Ed and Stede make moon-eyes at each other and no one uses that against them - until Izzy does, because it's going to happen sometime (he thinks) so it's better it's him, because at least then Ed will survive.

Lucius is just hooking up with Pete in the galley while Wee John is right there - this is something that's an unspoken part of ship life, a shameful thing, and Izzy's the only one it bothers. Lucius uses flirtation to get out of scraping barnacles under armed guard, and uses it again to shut Izzy down. Lucius isn't ashamed of being flirtatious, seductive and femme - and Izzy loses to that tactic. He can't beat it with yelling and anger. It's a sort of strength he doesn't expect or understand - the strength that comes from knowing who you are. Of 'carrying yourself like you're cute' - because if you're confident, it'll work.

But he still has a huge amount of resentment for anyone who is allowed to be themselves - because he can't be. Especially in Ed's case - one of them has to be 'the strong one' and he thinks that's him.

Then, Season 2 happens.

In the space of a few episodes, Izzy learned that sharing your feelings is fucking difficult, painful and takes a lot of courage. He's had no choice but to be weak, spilling out all these ugly emotions and being physically dependant on others and in that weakness he wasn't destroyed - he was rebuilt. A little bit of that guard comes down and it doesn't kill him. So, he takes his shirt off and no one stabs him in the back. He's got a gold unicorn leg and he still absolutely wrecks shit up on a raid. He does something a little arty, opens up a tiny bit to Lucius, and he still doesn't die. It doesn't make things worse, it makes them better.

Enter, the drag episode. Suddenly, we've got Izzy in drag. A masculine style of drag, but still, drag. All that internal change, the shifting meaning of strength and masculinity, is externalised, but he's still himself - his face tattoo is redrawn as part of the makeup because it's still his face, if anything, it's MORE his than ever - AND THEN THE SHIP GETS ATTACKED, his worst nightmare - he's as far from hyper-masc as he can be, and now he's in danger.

BUT

In the teaser, we see Izzy telling people who are, presumably there to torture him and the crew, that it's just going to turn him on. He's using Lucius' technique of disarming people with flirty banter. I can't see S1 Izzy being able to do that.

He gets to dress in drag, be sassy and still win a fight because he's strong as shit and that doesn't go away just because he allows himself to be other things too.

[izzysillyhandsy]

I sometimes wonder if the Izzy hate would have reached those dizzying heights if S1 had ended on episode 9.

Izzy would still have done almost all the bad things: making Ed unhappy, duelling Stede and wanting him gone, the deal with the English, his past with Ed/Blackbeard - except for hurting and threatening Ed after the breakup.

And even though all of this can be seen from different angles, it is possible to interpret it from the most damning perspective - and that should be enough to hate him, right?

But Ed wouldn't have turned into the Kraken, he wouldn't have killed Lucius, marooned half of the crew and cut off Izzy's toe.

And I am almost 100% sure that most of the Izzy hate comes from seeing Ed's drastic change in episode 10. Without it, sure, some people might have found Izzy unsympathetic or just unimportant, or a little shit. But that level of hate?

I guess what I'm saying is that a lot of the Izzy hate comes from "what Izzy made Ed do" and not from "what Izzy did to Ed".

Also, it is a way of dealing with the shock/cognitive dissonance of seeing a very beloved character turn "evil" after 9 episodes of being a gentle and misunderstood guy who is a pirate, yes, but who's fundamentally non-violent and good. How can you reconcile this with Ed suddenly killing a beloved (and completely innocent) character? And the extreme violence of the toe-cutting? (And yes, I know Ed burned people alive before, pirate-typical violence etc. But we didn't know these people and we didn't see them in close-up.)

But to blame Izzy for everything and to make him this evil part of Blackbeard - completely separate of "true Ed" of course - lets Ed still be the same gentle soul that loves a fine fabric, fell in love with Stede in the sweetest way and, although traumatized by his childhood, is at his core an innocent person that can be saved by removing the rotten influence of Izzy Hands - without confronting the self-hatred, self-centeredness, mistrust of others and tendency to violence that might be a part of "true Ed" as well.

And of course, if a group of fans started liking Izzy and maybe even defended/found understanding for his actions to a degree - where would that leave Ed? Is it really justifiable to fly into a murderous rage because your heart was broken (by a man you've known for a few weeks), because you're deeply unhappy and you've outgrown your pirate persona?

If Ed wasn't mentally abused by Izzy for decades, if it wasn't Izzy alone that drove Stede away, if Izzy hadn't duelled Stede out of the evilness of his heart, if Ed didn't desperately want to leave but Izzy forced him to stay in their toxic relationship, if it wasn't just Izzy and his hurtful words that drove Ed to become the Kraken...

...then maybe Ed wouldn't be an innocent babygirl anymore, and it would be much more difficult to see Ed/Stede as this perfect, unproblematic and sunshine-y couple.

It seems to me that seeing Izzy as "The Worst" and casting him in the role of the villain behind every bad thing Ed ever did is a quick and painless way to make Ed loveable without actually putting the work in (and the show actually avoided that up unto the death scene - one example is Izzy leaving in S1E4 and Ed manipulating him to stay; there are countless others).

I sometimes have the feeling that the hate for Izzy grows exponentially with more and more of Ed's darker side coming through in the show. And I don't get it - maybe because I am drawn to darker, fucked up characters and relationships. Give Ed his agency back and let him be cruel! Let Ed and Izzy have their mutually destructive, weird but intense dynamic!

Let Ed be a fascinating, loveable character with a (very) dark side - exactly like his partner for decades, Izzy - and you'll actually get a better character, and an additional fascinating relationship - as well as a more interesting story.

[canonizzyhours]

One thing I do find fascinating, is that everyone who watches ofmd for the first time has the opportunity to interpret the show however they see fit. And while everyone is different, and will connect with different characters for different reasons. There are certain aspects that, once you decide to delve deeper, have to be viewed in either good faith or bad.

When I first watched the show, I didn't really have many opinions of it, other than the normal kinda baseline interpretations. Of course I loved it, which is why I'm here now, but I'd not considered any of what was shown, further than the surface level.

I maybe had a unique experience, having been able to power through s1 and s2 without pause. But it got me thinking, could I have had the opportunity to join the canyon, had I been subjected to more of it once I entered the fandom space? After all, if it is merely an interpretation that is supported by the text of the show, then it is valid for me to look at both arguments and decide where I see myself fitting no?

The problem with that is, I simply couldn't make my brain comprehend why anyone would come away from the show seeing Izzy as the "special guy", "the main character", "the most interesting in the show" etc. I would have to have gone so far against the text to make myself believe and feel comfortable with those interpretations, that it wouldn't have felt like my thoughts anymore.

Once I started reading meta, I saw takes from both sides. And it just became very noticeable that some people are just good at arguing, using big words or complicating sentences to make you think like you're reading a good analysis whereas really, they're just media illiterate. And once you realise that, reading meta about the actual show becomes a lot more enjoyable.

I'm not exactly sure where I was going with this, I guess I'm just baffled how some people can come away from watching the show and end up in the canyon despite what they're shown in text, and having plenty of excellent meta analysis at their disposal. I didn't have to search hard for good takes, they were just there. In my opinion, it would be harder to avoid them.

#431.