#about Izzy was when he apologized to Ed for calling him a 'shell of a man' while he was 'leaving'

[jellybeanium124]

ok but like something I never see talked about is the fact that izzy does apologize immediately the next morning in 1x04. like the first thing out of his mouth when ed walks over to him is "I said some things I regret last night." he apologized. he doesn't stand by his words and the names he called ed. not only does the way izzy describes ed in 1x04 not hold up to any sort of analysis of canon, izzy does not stand by his own words!!!

now, yes, technically the only things he apologizes for is calling ed "a shell of a man" and a "twat." he doesn't specifically take back anything else (insane, unpleasant, erratic), but like, come on, it's implied. he said he was resigning, and now he is, and he's trying to leave on a good note. I suppose you could argue that this is actually the conversation where izzy is lying in order to stay on good terms with blackbeard, but tbh he seems very genuine in that moment. he really isn't evil. he's an asshole, and the longer the season goes on, the worse his actions get, but this is still early on. I prefer to think he meant it.

could he also be saying it to stay on blackbeard's good side? yes, I do think both motivations are true here. izzy's main motivation in s1 is power, and I think wanting to keep some kind of rapport with blackbeard makes sense. but I also think he means it. he looks at ed with such awe when ed's scheme is revealed. I think we get that reaction shot of him to show how this is not just ed showing the crew how clever he is, he's reminding izzy.

^the face of a man remembering he does still work for the cleverest person on the seven seas.

[izzyeffinhands]

The only Facebook group I feel safe in as an Izzy Hands stan is Our Flag Means Daddy.

Even though I am apart of the two main groups as well, i.e. Our Flag Means Deathposting, Our Flag Means Fans, I do NOT feel SAFE. I see the wildest and hottest fucking takes in these groups and they piss me off. Are you even watching the same show? I’m also sick and tired of people calling Izzy a villain when he clearly is not. Also there are many that don’t recognize he’s gay, even after season 2. If you voice you’re upset and betrayed? You get attacked. I was again last night.

I guess I’m a proud Izzy “apologist”, but it fucking baffles me how fans just give Ed a pass on all the brutal things he did. Oh but the love story—- NO. Recognize you’re an Ed apologist as well. I like both Ed and Izzy, but I recognize the horrifying things Ed did.

The day of the finale, I posted my thoughts on various social media. I got attacked. I got messages even on tumblr from anon cowards who I imagine followed through Twatter. I was called the t slur. That I was stupid, fat, all sorts of things.

It’s because I said I’ll never trust David Jenkins again. Now, do I have my own thoughts as to whether parts of the finale are a dream state/gravy basket that Stede himself is in? Absolutely. But let’s dive into why I was especially hurt.

First off. I am disabled. For those who know me, I’ve also had two leg surgeries and my injury has ruined my life. So seeing Izzy with a false leg, as a disabled character, still being badass? It felt good. It boosted my confidence for me to keep going. I had so much metal in my leg it caused pain that left me bedridden and using a wheelchair and cane. Many a time I wish they’d chopped my leg off.

I see a lot of myself in Izzy. I swear, he has the traits of an Aries with his anger and intense emotions. This man feels deeply for those who cares for, even though at first this seemed to just be Edward. Despite the hardened shell, he’s a romantic at heart. I’m very much the same.

That hardened shell is also a form of masking to me. In my opinion, and in my own headcanon for this roleplaying blog, Israel is neurodivergent and suffered sexual assault on ships when he was young. It’s part of the reason he has bowel issues. He had to force himself to put on that rough motherfucker mask in order to protect himself. I was bullied mercilessly in school. When I started middle school, I decided to align myself with the “bad kids” as a form of protection. Guess what? Part of myself was masking I was a bad ass, part of myself became the badass I was masking to be after years of torture.

Also. I am transmasculine. I’m pre-HRT. But to me, Izzy is very transmasc coded. This was even confirmed by Con himself when a transmasc fan at Supercon brought the conversation up. I’d just like to say again how much I adore him for supporting the trans community, particularly transmascs who often are glanced over.

Then David Jenkins, a straight man, that swore he wouldn’t fall into the kill your gays trope did exactly that. So let’s exclude here the thought that this is possibly a dream state, or even that he might be resurrected by Buttons as a zombie or ghost which I fucking hope not. We’re talking about my initial feelings. Now it felt like they were setting him up to be killed but I said oh no Jenkins wouldn’t do that to us. He promised he wouldn’t.

Guess what?! He fucking did. Not only that, he murdered off the disabled, gay, transmasc coded character after giving him the most beautiful character arc of any character on the show. You can have a gay pirate rom com, you can understand some characters can get hurt, but killing someone as a means to advance plot? Fuck you. Also, the fact that Izzy apologized to his ABUSER?! As if the victim blaming and shaming wasn’t enough for Izzy Hands, which I see plenty of still, that’s fucked up on so many levels.

So to me I watched a version of myself be murdered. It hit me in the hardest way imaginable. I cried for days. I’ve never been so attached to a character in my 38 years of existence. I’m sick and tired of people saying they like his redemption arc. Izzy never needed redemption. He just needed one, single, person to tell him that he was loved and cared about.

So voicing that I felt betrayed and that I no longer trust Jenkins got me nothing but vitriol. Then toward the end of the day, he made a tweet about how there’s no version of the show without Izzy and had the comments turned off. He knows what he did. And then in the FB groups, if you dared say you were upset that day, requoted Jenkins, you’re a horrible person? Right. I didn’t start attacking the writers. I just said I’m betrayed and I can’t trust what I thought was my comfort show. Because of that, I got hate.

As much as I’d like to believe Izzy will return, the interviews David has done post season 2 talking about his character give me little hope. It’s like he just stabbed every fan in the back. Id like to think the rushed finale is really a dream sequence or gravy basket deal. Id like to think that Izzy will come back thanks to Buttons. But now I just don’t trust David Jenkins.

And if you dare voice this opinion anywhere but Our Flag Means Daddy and Twatter, you get attacked. So here goes. Thanks for my TED talk.

[dimplyowl]

This is such an articulate and personal reflection. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences and I’m sorry you ever had to live through them.

And I think what you really nailed down is the duality of Ed and Izzy. What always strikes me is Ed crying over Izzy as he’s dying, the “No” he croaks out as Izzy’s trying to apologize for feeding Ed’s darkness and treating him horribly. Izzy’s abuse and control didn’t start as soon as he became Ed’s first mate.

We don’t know how long they’ve been working together, but we can guess it’s for years, if not decades. There was a time when Izzy must have been valuable to Ed, helpful, took some of the responsibility from Ed’s shoulders. Possibly even was friendly. Because why else would Ed have put up with his shit for so long? If First Mate Hands had called Ed a “shell of a man” or any of his other delightful names on day one, he would have been left out for the sharks.

No, his behavior would have slowly changed over time. Whether it was always his intention to give ed the frog boiling treatment, whether it was conscious or subconscious, or whether he started doing it without meaning to until he started to realize the way it benefitted him to treat Ed that way, it almost doesn’t matter. We see the way he takes vicious pleasure in controlling and having power over his crew, and by the time we meet him, he is absolutely purposefully emotionally abusing Ed. He literally admits to doing it.

But for Ed, his feelings are more complicated. I’m still not sure whether his denial of Izzy’s apology is because he doesn’t actually realize that the way Izzy treated him was abusive or because he doesn’t want Izzy to waste what’s left of his breath on apologies, or maybe a combination. But he clearly has very strong feelings about losing Izzy because obviously there was a time when their relationship was better, and that’s what Ed’s remembering. The complexity of his feelings for Izzy are so well portrayed because he did once love Izzy, because like you said, these things are messy as fuck. He cared about Izzy, Izzy repeatedly hurt and tore him down, he hurt Izzy in return, and now Izzy’s dying. Like how the FUCK is he supposed to sort through all of that.

I think bringing up Izzy’s jealousy is also a really interesting point. I’ve definitely talked before about how part of Izzy’s control and manipulation depends on Ed being isolated from his crew and eventually Stede and his crew. But I’ve always framed it as something more like possession. And sure possession and jealousy are connected obviously. But I think it brings a different perspective to Izzy’s motivations. His hatred of Stede isn’t only because he needs to keep Ed isolated. He hates Stede from the jump because of how interested and curious Ed is about him. And you’re right, that screams of jealousy that Ed’s attention has been drawn to someone who isn’t Izzy.

I don’t think I really have a point with this lol but just some thoughts that came up.

I want to say again, thank you for sharing 💜 I wish blocking and muting weren’t necessary, but when there are people who refuse to listen or acknowledge that maybe their interpretation is wrong and actually hurtful to people in the real world, I think it’s necessary.

Having thoughts after reading @dimplyowl's posts about Izzy and Ed and their behaviors.

I mean, I've had these thoughts a lot already. I attempted to express some of them shortly after season 2 aired when folks on twitter would rail against Ed's violent behavior toward Izzy at the same time they vehemently insisted that Izzy had never done anything bad ever to Ed. I tried to craft thoughtful responses on posts of people I thought might be interested in having a conversation and open to maybe understanding a different way of understanding Izzy's behavior. I did this maybe about three or four times, and every time I was 100% completely ignored. No "thanks for sharing your thoughts," no "cool story, bro," no "get fucked." Crickets. Zip, nada, zilch.

This show is silly and serious, goofy and deep, sweet and heavy. And I like exploring both sides - being able to float in the fun and being able to plumb the depths. And I'm in this fandom to do both of those things in a safe community - which I experience in abundance each day and am so grateful for! - not to be re-traumatized by people who are gleeful and militant apologists for emotional abuse. I became very well acquainted with the block and mute buttons around this time, happy to curate my experience.

I freely admit that this is a bit of a ramble and that it won't be flawless, but it feels good to organize my thoughts.

Content note before you continue reading: Author's experience with physical and emotional abuse as it relates to their thoughts regarding Izzy Hands' character and people's dismissal of the gravity of emotional abuse. Not gratuitous, but take care of yourself, and do not continue reading if that may cause you harm. And yes, I've been to lots of therapy, for which I am very grateful! 💜

I was raised by season 1 Izzy Hands.

Filled with rage, virulently jealous, and expertly manipulative. Someone who expected me to meet their every need by existing in their fantasy world where they were the ultimate martyr, and I was the ungrateful piece of shit they bent over backwards for. Gaslighting and crazy-making were literally a part of my everyday existence.

Less frequently, this person was also physically abusive, and I feared this abuse even on the occasions it didn't occur.

Both fucked me up plenty, and I won't play the "abuse olympics" and say one was worse than the other. (And I would imagine that there isn't such a thing as "only" physical abuse - the two are intimately tied together.) I will say that in my *own* experience, which is individual to myself and probably the proportions of each type of abuse, I have found the emotional abuse to be absolutely insidious in the ways it molded my understanding of self, relationships, love, affection, communication, sex, worth, sense of free will, responsibility, and more. I am still unraveling these things even over a decade after I cut all contact with this person.

The scene where Izzy confronts Ed, who is cleaning up his cabin and wearing the pink robe, is one that really sticks out to me.

A decent number of the Izzy-apologist takes I read talked about how Izzy didn't do anything wrong when he told Ed he'd be better off dead than as a "namby pamby in a silk dressing gown pining for his boyfriend." That he only serves Blackbeard and that Edward "had better watch his fucking step." These people said that Ed could have basically let that go like water off a duck's back and never become the Kraken.

We are responsible for our own actions *and* abusers know exactly how to push your buttons, get under your skin, take you down at your knees, and to grind your face into the gravel when you're already down. They know exactly where to stick the proverbial knife to do the swiftest, most lethal damage with the fewest words. They know how to make you feel like less than nothing - that you have NO inherent worth outside of what you do and how you serve them - so that you will bend to their will.

This scene shatters my heart every single time. I think Con and Taika both get their characters so right in every syllable and micro-expression during this exchange.

And whether Izzy's manipulation is conscious or unconscious doesn't matter. Just as there are reasons, but no *excuse* for the way Ed hurts people (or that Stede or the Badmintons, etc, hurt people), there is no *excuse* for the way Izzy abuses Ed (or anyone else).

I also heard people saying that Izzy's threats were empty and Ed should have known that. No, there isn't one single thing about Izzy's threats that were empty. He brought the fucking British to the Revenge and tried to have Stede - the man Ed loves - executed before Ed's eyes.

"Are you really going to lick the king's boots" wasn't about Izzy wanting Ed to be free. Ed felt free and happy with Stede when he could be someone softer and 3-dimensional. Izzy wanted Ed to be licking *his* boots in his every choice and behavior, even if Ed was captain in name. Izzy never served "his captain" - he only ever served the Blackbeard of his fantasies. A caricature that left Ed feeling utterly hollow and contemplating "packing it all in" (which didn't mean "retirement" when he said those words).

I simply don't have time anymore for people who wish to live in their own fantasy world where Izzy is a wholly-innocent victim being preyed upon by the Big Bad Kraken. The Kraken may have been born the night Ed killed his dad, so that part of Ed pre-existed Izzy, but Izzy did say in his own dying words that he fed the darkness in Ed and needed it for himself.

I know some people have a hard time seeing Izzy as a father-type figure to Ed, as David Jenkins has said before. But I can see it perfectly clearly. He's living his life through Ed, wanting him to perform exactly as ordered, to be a two-dimensional figure that satisfies his own need to feel important and needed.

One thing I haven't seen discussed as much that I absolutely recognize in Izzy from my own experience with my abuser is his incredible jealousy of anyone else that gets Ed's attention. He does not want anyone else to be close to Ed. He wants to be the gatekeeper to Blackbeard and the only one to call him Edward. He literally tries to have Stede killed because of how jealous he is. He does not want anyone else to love Ed, and he doesn't want Ed to love anyone else. He is so deeply insecure that he cannot share him at all.

If Ed has a real relationship (of any kind, not just romantic - he and Stede start out as instant BFFs), then he is not capable of performing Izzy's version of Blackbeard and pouring all of his energies into serving Izzy's (obviously very unhealthy) emotional needs. It's a zero sum game. Izzy has to have all of Ed, or he's "lost" the game.

Izzy needs to be to needed so badly that he creates in his mind a Blackbeard/Ed who cannot function without him, and he will do whatever it takes to shove Ed back into the box he needs him in in order to keep his own identity secure. Because if Ed doesn't have to be Blackbeard, that means he doesn't need Izzy, and who is Izzy without Blackbeard? He doesn't have a stable self and so *uses* Ed to prop himself up to feel like "somebody." He has built his own identity around the fantasy of Blackbeard.

Just because someone isn't losing toes doesn't mean abuse isn't happening. Emotional abuse is real. Additionally, perpetrators of violence have often been victims themselves. (This isn't even touching on the fact that they're all pirates.) Ed can be both. These things are messy as fuck. But I will say that Izzy's abuse clearly pre-dated Ed's Kraken-era violence against Izzy by years, at least, if not decades.

I'm genuinely not sure what the perceived merit or gain is in pretending otherwise. And just as Ed is ultimately responsible for his own actions, so is Izzy.

I appreciated Izzy's redemption arc, and I cried when he died. And I think it's ok that Izzy died. And Izzy was a very skilled emotional abuser in season 1. All of those things can be true at the same time.

I know there are a thousand other ways to come at this topic and examine it. I didn't even touch the question of apologies or redemption or any of that. Nor am I going to. This was primarily a personal examination of season 1 Izzy Hands' abusive behavior.

--

Image from Our Flag Means Death Frames on twitter

[dylanndr]

What value does Izzy provide to Edward that not only elevates him to First Mate status, but makes him difficult to replace? As in, something he does that other people who might vie for that position can't or won't do?

We know Edward doesn't think of Izzy as a friend per se, even though he does turn to Izzy for some types of intimate conversation. I find it highly unlikely they were ever lovers, and they definitely aren't by the time we meet them in S1. Izzy has no people management skills, which isn't great for someone whose job is to manage a crew. Ed delegates the more lethal kinds of stabby jobs to Izzy, and for sure Izzy is a skilled fighter with no apparent qualms about killing. But any number of pirates could take on the job of go-to murder guy (Fang, for one), so that's not what makes Izzy indispensable.

I think the answer lies in the exchange between Izzy and Edward at the end of episode 4. Izzy is in the process of packing up to leave, and apologizes to Ed for having previously called him an insane, unpleasant shell of a man who is merely posing as Blackbeard, and a twat. Ed responds with, "You were right, man. About all of it."

And for what it's worth, Edward probably does feel like he's guilty on all charges: his mental health has not been great (neither has Izzy's, but that's a separate discussion). He's been grumpy (snapping at Izzy for trying to get him to focus on a plan for survival, or for not magically divining what the whole clouds thing was about). And he's been shuffling through his existence as Blackbeard, bored out of his skull and feeling like a ghost.

So perhaps the biggest value Izzy provides is his willingness to tell Edward off. The rest of the world sees Blackbeard's flag and flees or surrenders in terror, whether or not Blackbeard is actually on the boat. Finding someone who will get in his face and call out his bullshit probably IS a difficult, nigh impossible, proposition. Even Fang is scared of direct confrontation with Blackbeard ("the boss is back? oh, shit!").

Izzy isn't gentle about his callouts, but a huge swath of people, especially folks who have been stewing in a violent tox masc culture, don't respond to being called out nicely. You HAVE to yell at them to get them to listen. Edward dismisses Izzy's quieter nagging about coming up with a plan, and only starts to act concerned when Izzy goes full "fuck off."

Once Izzy is off the ship, Lucius is the one who takes up the mantle, berating Edward for being a dick about the treasure hunt in episode 7. Edward initially responds to the callout with a threatening tone, but when Lucius holds the line and continues angrily ranting at him? Edward shuts up and listens, and takes the rant to heart. [Side note: in episode 4, when Blackbeard divulges his brilliant plan to escape the Spanish, while the rest of the crew is praising him unequivocally, it's Izzy and Lucius who tag team to point out he got the date wrong.]

This dynamic also explains why Edward internalizes Izzy's episode 10 tirade so quickly. Even though Izzy is WAY out of line in that case, speaking from bitter jealousy instead of genuine concern, it's a familiar pattern for Edward. His instinct is to take these kinds of confrontations seriously. In this case it wasn't deserved, but he's already feeling abandoned by Stede and is now afraid of losing Izzy as well. Since Lucius was the one who talked him into pursuing Stede in the first place (heartbreak ahoy!), and Izzy tried to stop him (could have avoided heartbreak maybe!), he decides Izzy is going to keep the job of telling him off ... after they have a little discussion about Izzy's tone, of course.

[ferusaurelius]

Just read your meta post about the Tragedy of Israel Hands which is a Brilliant Piece of Gospel, so thank you. You mention that you can't sus the look Ed and Izzy trade in ep4 when they step out into the fog.

I agree that Izzy is floored by Ed's genius, and that even after all these years of knowing him. That's the silent convo behind this look in my view. They just had this interaction where Izzy calls Ed a twat and more importantly, a shell of a man, after having lost some men in assisting Stede's crew which in Izzy's view is nonsensical.

Ed is throwing Izzy this looks saying very clearly "so you think I'm a shell of a man? Would a shell of a man be able to pull THIS off???" He's posing, he's putting on a show he had planned from the get go, and even his first mate who's known him forever and whom he even gave a clue about this fog coming up by pointing out the cloud formations earlier, didn't know it was coming. He even fooled his Izzy Hands. It's an "i told you so. You thought i lost track of shit? Fool you".

Which makes the fact that he's off by a day and that Izzy is the one telling him even more of a blow, because Izzy realizes he has to shatter that illusion of the Genius Blackbeard even though it's the one thing he wants to sustain at all cost. You can hear it in how he says it, "it's September first, boss". He sounds so bummed.

Anyway that's my take. I don't know when you wrote the post and this might have already been brought up, so apologies if I'm doubling up opinions. But once again, thank you. Brilliant read.

OOOOOOOH. You answered it! I LOVE THIS. I love this so much I want to eat it and it feels so true to that scene and expands on it past where my brain was being helpful about things.

No, nobody else has put this scene together for me like this yet. It's beautiful, bless you. ;_;

Me: YOU SOLVE THE IZZY PROBLEM? OH. LOVE. LOVE FOR FOLLOWERMUTUAL. LOVE FOR 1000 YEARS.

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

no sorry i’m still on this point. personally i don't see any evidence anywhere in the show that supports the claim that ed said "i need you here" specifically bc he knew izzy was in love with him. as of right now we don't know if ed knows abt izzy's feelings for him (i'll admit that it would be funny if ed did know, bc izzy doesn't, but that's beside the point). however, i DO see evidence that izzy set up that whole interaction by throwing all his shit really loudly into the boat to try and get ed’s attention because he wanted to apologize to ed and hopefully be allowed to stay.

like, let's look at the events leading up to izzy's apology and ed's "i need you here" line:

the day before, izzy called ed an “insane, unpleasant shell of a man who's merely posing as blackbeard” and then gave ed “my fucking resignation, you absolute twat.”

then, ed reveals the fog plan and izzy’s first thought is “fuck me.” fuck me. not, “what the fuck ed, why didn’t you tell me about that?” izzy's response is that he messed up by not knowing what ed was alluding to with the sausage clouds.

then etc etc buttons points out “hey the fog doesn’t help if we’re in their path” and ed is like “yeah but it’s september 2nd so it’s fine” and izzy’s like “uh wrong date, boss” and then ed is like “guess i’ll die!” and we get one lingering shot of izzy’s very unhappy expression. idk what his face means here but he looks very tired

THEN. lighthouse fuckery. we don’t see izzy participate in that at all so it's hard to say for sure, but personally, i think izzy thinks that ed came up with that plan on his own. even if ed did verbally give stede his due credit within izzy’s earshot, i 100% think izzy would just dismiss that as ed being weirdly fascinated with stede. izzy continually underestimates stede, he doens't realize that stede's just as good at coming up with insane out-of-the-box-plans as ed

long story short tho: the lighthouse fuckery works. izzy lives to see another day. and the last thing he said to ed in private was that when that happened, he was going to retire

but izzy just watched blackbeard, most brilliant sailor he's ever met, come up with two genius plans to save their asses. one of them almost would've worked, one of them did work, and now izzy once again is alive because of ed's insane plans

so when dawn breaks at the end of e4, i think there are two things going through izzy's brain: the first is "ah fuck, i called ed a twat posing as blackbeard last night and then he saved the day. i sure have egg on my face now." the second is "i also told him i was resigning. now i have to fucking resign."

the "i need you here" conversation starts when ed hears izzy preparing a dinghy. and ed hears this because izzy is preparing the dinghy by very loudly throwing things into it. ed is somewhere above him while izzy just goes about loudly chucking stuff into the little boat within ed's earshot.

and it's kind of weird how much stuff he throws into the dinghy, bc presumably ed's ship is nearby, and also presumably the only reason izzy's on the Revenge at all is so they can force the crew to repair the ship and then execute them and steal the ship. idk why izzy would've packed for a long sleepover. but look at all the shit he throws into the dinghy in this episode:

so when izzy is "leaving" in episode 4, he loads the dinghy up with the following: five (5) sacks (two large, one medium, one small), one (1) mysterious brown cylinder, and one (1) barrel. (also he throws some rope in there too)

compare this to when izzy actually leaves in e6:

when izzy actually leaves, all he takes with him is one (1) barrel, one (1) knapsack, one (1) coil of rope, and one (1) ambiguous bolt of white fabric that might be a sail. and this is after izzy's spent a fortnight on the Revenge. i feel like he should have more stuff with him, not less?

so i actually think izzy's only "packing his stuff" in e4 to get ed's attention. i think he's throwing random shit that isn't even his into the boat in hopes that ed will come down to the deck and izzy can apologize. i think izzy was already fully prepared to stay with ed the second ed said he could. he wasn't going to outright seek ed out and say "ed can i take back my resignation and keep being your first mate," but as soon as ed shows up izzy starts of the conversation by immediately apologizing for insulting ed. then he stops preparing the dinghy and waits for ed to continue the conversation. he's in no rush to get out of there. he's waiting to be told to stay. and when ed offers to make him captain if he stays—unrequited love or not, why the fuck would izzy say no?

it's possible none of this matters. maybe the directors just grabbed random props for both of these scenes, and in e4 they wanted izzy to keep throwing shit into the dinghy as he started talking to give the conversation some action, so that's why he takes so much more stuff in e4 than in e6. and maybe izzy is making a perfectly normal amount of noise while he's packing the dinghy. idk. i didn't write the show.

my point is not that this IS what happens. my point is that imo, my interpretation of that conversation is just as plausible (more plausible actually but whatever) as @butchpedia's assertion that ed was intentionally leveraging their relationship and izzy's feelings to get izzy to stay. but i'm not trying to argue that my subjective reading of this scene is proof of izzy's gross manipulation tactics (i got other scenes for that one, lmao). my point is that using this scene as proof that ed leverages his power over izzy is dumb. thank you.

(also. all that aside. even before we get the "i need you here" line and ed's little pat on the shoulder that makes izzy nut his pants (god bless con's acting choices). look at this man's fucking face when ed is like "the crew is gonna need a new captain, someone who really knows the ropes":

that does not look like a man who wants to leave. that does not look like the face of a man who needs a lot of convincing to stick around. ed's little "i need you here" seals the deal for izzy, sure, but i really struggle to see that line as "ed leveraging his relationship with izzy and izzy's clear love for him to get izzy to stay" when ed hardly even needs any more leverage to get izzy to stay??)

Not to keep harping on this but I accidentally saw a post that pissed me off a little bit so I’m gonna talk about it. Originally I was gonna put this at the end of the post but I’ve decided to move it to the top because I know some people are determined to take me out of context so I’ll sacrifice the formatting of this post and some of the impact of this sentence in a vain hope that my point will not be misconstrued. I fully anticipate people skipping over this first paragraph anyway but at least I did my due diligence. You can like Izzy, I like Lestat (AMC IWTV), I like the Joker, It’s fine to have an evil blorbo. It’s the apologia that gets me tho. You’re fake villain fuckers and you can’t admit that your blorbo is fucked up in some deeply uncomfortable ways.

That said on to my angry meta: Either Izzy is homophobic, or he’s an abuser. He could be both, but he can’t be neither otherwise the literal climax of the first season doesn’t make any fucking sense. Like he calls in a swat on Stede and the crew because Stede has, quote, “done something to his boss’s brain” and he wants Stede dead because of it. homosexuality as a corrupting influence is textbook homophobia. He thinks Stede has made Ed soft and he thinks he’s using his limp wristed wiles to do it.

If you don’t want to read it as homophobia (which would be a weird reading because it fails to explain that line and misses the whole message about toxic masculinity, but I’ve heard it’s the reading that some people go with so, let’s look at it) and you think that he’s doing all of this because he’s in love with Ed and he’s jealous, I hate to tell you but that brings us back around to the abuser reading.

Like, the reading that this subset of the fandom seems to want me to believe is Izzy is in tragic gay love with Ed. But that doesn’t make a single damn thing that he did ok. In fact it kind of makes it worse. Like trying to kill the loved ones of your beloved is text book abuser behavior. You’re telling me that Izzy feels so entitled to Ed that he cannot take “Fuck off you’re banished from the ship” For an answer, and he has to kill the guy that he blames for turning Ed against him? And I’m supposed to sympathize with that? Get real. That’s text book abuser behavior. If that’s the reading, then Izzy can’t handle Ed having someone in his life that isn’t Izzy, he can’t handle Ed making decisions that Izzy doesn’t approve of, and he can’t handle Ed breaking off their relationship (which was Izzy’s fault by the way he agreed to duel Stede sorry you can’t handle the consequences honey). Those first two things you have to be able to handle if you want to have friends or even professional relationships, and the third thing is something that you’re allowed to be upset about but that you’re gonna have to move on from. Instead Izzy comes up with a hair brained scheme that risks the crews lives, Calico Jack’s life, and, most importantly, risks Ed’s life in order to… what? Undermine Ed’s own autonomous choice to pursue a relationship with Stede? Get rid of a guy that he thinks is driving him and Ed apart so that Ed will maybe take him back? That’s abuser shit my guy.

If there’s another explanation for Izzy calling the fucking cops I’d love to hear it but as far as I can tell the options are “He hates Stede because Stede is frilly and camp and thinks Stede is making Ed weak” aka Textbook hate crime and “He’s in deeply dysfunctional love and is therefore trying to force Ed to be in a relationship with him despite the fact that Ed has made it clear he doesn’t want that” aka Textbook abuser.

To be clear I wouldn’t have Izzy any other way. The roll he plays in the narrative is important to the story. I don’t like him, per se, but I like stories about overcoming toxic masculinity, and those stories have to have a villain, and I was deeply emotionally ruined by the consequences of his actions, (i.e. the domino effect that caused Stede to abandon Ed on the dock) so I want him around for as long as they decide to keep him around. Just, like, fucking pretending he’s never done anything wrong ever? Come on now.