#and along comes stede and stops the pieces fitting back together the way they did before

[chesacakeripper]

Lots of people taking the view that Izzy is in love with the myth of Blackbeard, the Blackbeard persona and the legend around him rather than the person Ed actually is underneath it all. Which isn't untrue, in any way.

However, you have to take into consideration that THAT Ed, the Ed that became the legend and did the things that fuelled the myth-making, is the Ed that Izzy has known and worked under for decades.

The Ed that looks like Blackbeard, acts like Blackbeard, is ruthless and clever and the most brilliant sailor Izzy's ever met, is the only Ed that Izzy has known. For years.

And yes, he's been slipping. Becoming melancholy and bored of it all. Slowly receding away from the mighty Blackbeard, scourge of the seas, that he's been for so long.

From Izzy's perspective Ed is losing himself entirely. Has been losing himself for a while, but Izzy's been there to bolster him, to keep the ship going, the crew together, the legends real, in the hope that the real Ed, his Ed, will find himself again.

Instead he gets the opposite. Ed breaking away from Blackbeard completely and wanting out of it all, wanting retirement of all things. And meanwhile falling in love with a man that is so in antithesis with who he used to be, who Izzy knows him to have been, that Izzy Hands resolves that working with the British Navy is his best and only option to get his Blackbeard back.