#and he betrays him For flint and madi

[hauntingblue]

I don't know what to say... everyone got a happy ending except the people who actually wanted a real revolution and had a cause for it... but it's not like we had much of their opinions on this I guess... also no final lez sex scene... tragic

[kiss2012]

black sails is so fucking insane for so many reasons i haven't rewatched it in so long but sometimes i will remember something and have to take a minute and just think about it. like today i am thinking about how silver wanted so badly to be loved more than anything he gave up a war (flint's war) (madi's war) for love knowing Full Well that madi wouldnt have thanked him for it and the worst part of that betrayal is that flint and madi loved him so much they couldn't hate him for it.

[ravelqueen]

The reason i love the ending of Black Sails (and why i hate like 80% of the discourse around it incidentally) is that no one is right! No one is wrong! They all make the most logical decisions based on who they are and John most of all.

The way I saw John apologists bending over backwards trying to frame it as an OOC decision because John wouldn't do that he loves Flint! at the same time John haters where feeling vindicated bc see he was a dick who only cares about himself and both sides making me claw at my face because the love was the point.

John would have not betrayed Flint if he didn't love him (and Madi)! Because then he wouldn't have cared if they died. But he does! He does so much in a way that is probably fully new to him and scary and it makes him act impulsively in a way he never did before (because as much as his actions often seem lackadaisical, he's a calculating mofo).

So he loves them.

He also, from the very first moments we meet him, has the biggest survival instinct of anyone. He doesn't care about principle or honour or cause he cares about survival.

He's managed to work for this cause and he's applied himself and i think at the moment of the story the Betrayal happens he's even really on board, but a tiger cannot change his stripes and so John Silver cannot change that his fundamental motivator is survival.

And because he loves Flint he wants him to survive more than he wants the cause to win only there he comes into conflict with the fact that Flint's main motivator is the Cause. He and Madi are creatures of principle of "The Cause Is The Cause Because It Is Worth Dying For".

So the confrontation in the forest is exactly this: Flint following his main motivator of the Cause before anything, because that is what he lives for and John just needing him to live, because you can't care about anything when you're dead.

And so it's tragic and heart wrenching because if John hadn't learned to love so well, so deeply, so earnestly throughout the story he would have let Flint go and continue to fight, but he did and he does so and he couldn't.

[queerofthedagger]

slowly parsing through all my feelings and thoughts about the ending and it's like. silver can accuse flint of waging his war out of rage and because he has nothing to lose, but that doesn't necessarily make it true. in fact it's actually so wild how flint, ultimately, is one of the only characters who keeps hold up such an unflinching, stubborn, white-knuckled hope. that there can be a better world and that it is worth fighting for. it's the one thing, no matter how much silver has become (like) him that he never understood, neither from flint nor from madi, who is one if not the only other character this applies to as well, although it's obviously different for her.

and then just. how flint got it from thomas and miranda, the two people silver keeps comparing himself to while not getting that yes, their loss made flint the way he is, but their love and loving them made him who he is just as much. "I don't think he would want me to." and silver doesn't get it. he loves them both but he entirely fails to understand them. at his core he is still selfish, it just means that now, it manifests in not wanting to lose them - madi especially - to this war, and so he will betray her/them if that means he doesn't have to see her/them dead (it's obviously a bit more complicated with flint, but even if he did kill him, he would probably twist it in his head as a kind of 'saving,' babygirl be delustional enough). he got so much from flint, except for the most important part, the one thing that kept flint afloat for all this time. something something hope is an action, it's bruised knuckles and bared teeth and keeping going despite despite despite. god.

[spidermanifested]

keep thinkifn. re: The Backstory. about silver falling head over heels in love with madi when every single life experience has taught him that he should not fucking make himself vulnerable like that, BECAUSE he sees her and goes what the fuck youre me. probably not consciously but he thinks, Oh wonderful! a relationship where i dont have to bare my soul or explain myself at all to be known. she knows me intrinsically, and i know her intrinsically, because we are the same person. And then it turns out they are in fact different people with different priorities and he screams and cries and blows up. and im seeing the parallels to jack and anne as i type this out and i sincerely feel like im tapping into the scary secret depths of black-sails-as-a-narrative-john-silver-tells-himself, where two people can actually 100% reconcile and care about each other even if they learn theyre not literally psychically linked and one of them feels so betrayed by the other ones actions that they consider leaving them forever. madi call me back, madi call me back, flint call me back,

& i see some people saying its a shame we didnt get very much insight into their relationship compared to some of the other ones in the show, and on a lot of levels i get it, me too. but then also i think that the fact that we dont is probably on purpose. john silver has stripped as much of his past out of this story as he can get his hands on. "whyd you instantly fall for this woman specifically and then powerslam the self destruct button at the idea of losing her" is a question that would give up the game. If Im Right

[hybbat]

I feel like there's something to be examined about Black Sail's men and how comfortable the women are around each of them. The setting is not kind to women implicitely and explicitely, such as the very gendered hatred the pirates direct at Eleanor or the change in taunts Anne gets compared to the rest of the crew.

I think it also speaks to Eleanor's character of how she always needs enemies and struggles that she picks Vane and Rogers as her lovers, the two men in the main cast that all the women in the show are least comfortable around and who are least sympathetic to them. There's probably also something there about her attempts to take up a man's role in their society and her relationship to Max in the first season, paying for Max, betraying her, and being blamed for the violence enacted on her.

Flint gets along with women in a very distant way, he has a very fatherly sorta friendship with Eleanor, and him and Madi are comrades. He is in a relationship with Miranda but even when they're together it's more like friends who share a mutual love for Thomas and his ideals. Either way they're comfortable around him and he's never quite fully enemies with any of them even when on opposing sides. If women like Eleanor feel the need to puff up their chest around him it's only because he has that effect on everyone. But it is interesting that all the men fear him and feel he doesn't truly care about them and the women never quite do.

And then there's Jack "I support women's wrongs" Rackham. One of the girls. A queerness magnet. The fact that he is straight is one of life's greatest enigmas. Feminist icon, really.

[sparrowsfallingfromthesky]

just a fun (🫠) little detail I just latched onto is how this curly design chandelier thing is on a table beside Silver in this scene where he's talking to Max and learns about the Oglethorpe plantation thus planting a seed of an idea of how he might go about saving/betraying Flint (and Madi by extension)

and then there's this similar fixture beside him (but elevated) in this scene where he's talking to Billy and increasingly having doubts

and then there's this (a little less spirally maybe but similar and. pointing at Flint.) when things are really falling apart

and THEN. there's this shirt of Madi's that she wears in the scenes where she has to process what he's done

[reneewalkersknives]

about your tags, i havent watched black sails but im nosy, how does flint end up living?

Hi, that’s a loaded question as whether he DOES actually live is up for debate. Basically a famously unreliable narrator, storyteller and liar, John Silver tells a “nice” story abt how he betrayed him but didn’t kill him and in fact reunited him with his “dead” lover in an English prison/labour camp. Problem with this happy ending is that flint’s character (and a lot of the story as a whole really) is centered around fighting against English rule. Flint is a radical who dedicated his life to harming and overthrowing the empire/ colonial rule, as he was branded a “monster” and betrayed by his father figure (an English navy man) for being gay and in a relationship with his “dead” lover.

He was exiled for that crime which then led to him becoming a pirate to seek revenge which eventually leads to him becoming a radical figure and connecting with other radicals. The last we’re 100% sure we see of flint is Silver betraying him and pointing a gun at him. Silver tells Madi,the woman he loves and another radical leader whom he betrayed that flint got a happy ending at the prison camp and his lover (who has been firmly dead since years before the show even took started) was miraculously alive.

Personally I like to believe that Silver just killed Flint (as fucked up as it sounds, I know) bc I believe flint living out the rest of his life betrayed, trapped under English rule and punishment is a much bigger tragedy than his death would be and I think flint would be happier to be dead than alive in a labour camp. It sounds bad I know but when u watch the show he is very passionate in his hatred for England, his refusal to apologise or be pardoned by them, his determination to overthrow them and get revenge and I don’t think even getting his dead lover back could ever change that. (Probably the Irish in me speaking too lol)

Anyways one of the biggest themes of the show is storytelling, lying and performing to create certain narratives and mythos. In the final episode of show one of the main characters (whom is obsessed w creating his own legacy) states “a story is true, a story is untrue, as time extends it matters less and less. The stories we want to believe, those are the ones that survive” which is basically confirmation that both interpretations of flint’s ending are valid and it allows you to choose your personal favourite:)

Sorry this was so long winded lol I just have a LOT of black sails thoughts

[toseehowthestoryends]

We see a lot of meta about what Silver thought in the ending of Black Sails, but not nearly as much about how James Flint reacted to that betrayal.

The ending is presented to the audience with Silver's narration, but it tells us a lot.

He disbelieved me. He continued to resist. And corralling him took great effort.

Eventually, Silver tells us that Flint's resistance diminished. He doesn't tell us what "corralling him" required (though I think we can imagine it required either shooting him non-fatally or physically subduing him via use of violence), just that he doesn't know why. He also says "Perhaps he'd finally reached the limits of his physical ability to fight," which certainly indicates something must have been done to stop Flint from fighting Silver and his men.

So. So far, we have the man who Flint trusted above all - and who he kept his promise to save Madi to AND THEN shot Dooley to protect - betraying. First, in the forest, Silver reveals that he's betraying Flint (and Madi) to end the war. And secondly, he's had his men subdue him in some way that is implied to include great violence.

And then we have the fact that Silver has known Thomas was at that plantation for...how long? Months, presumably. And he said nothing. Put aside the fact that Silver's actions reunite James with Thomas. That's a separate action that does not erase the betrayal.

We see throughout the series that James Flint does not trust easily. Yet in season 3, he consciously lets his walls down and lets Silver in. Throughout seasons 3/4, they are a team and Flint trusts Silver. And when everything goes to hell and Madi is taken, he promises he will get her back and he does. They take down Woodes Rogers. They win a major battle that frees Nassau.

And then his friend, his ally, his partner, tells him that not only is he betraying the war, but he is also throwing James Flint into prison (no matter how kind, it's a prison), and he has known Thomas Hamilton is alive for months, in prison, and he has not not shared this.

Am I too late to the fandom discourse? Did people dive into this screaming when the show first came out? Because I cannot get over the look of heartbreak on Flint's face during the there be dragons speech because he knows that even if Thomas is alive - and at this point for him that's a big if - he had finally dared trust someone, truly trust someone, and just had that trust savaged in the worst way. Did Silver have decent reasons? In Silver's mind, for sure. But Flint? James McGraw? Even if you discount the ending the war, betraying the cause Flint led, you can't discount Silver knowing about Thomas and saying nothing.

(And I can't discount the war. Maybe my background mirrors Flint's too much; maybe I'm too intimately acquainted with the concept of war and fighting and maybe I've led people for too long and feel that responsibility and would not thank someone who "relieved" me of it without my consent or that of those I lead. But Flint was fighting for freedom for so many. His rage had morphed into something greater, and that cause was no longer about nothing left to lose but everything to gain, and that revolution could have been everything for a part of the world that had nothing.)

[hauntingblue]

Happy memory flashbacks we are so over....

[etoilesombre]

First Lines Meme

Thanks for the tag @beautifulduckweed 💞

Rules: share the first lines of ten of your latest fanfics (or up to if you have less!) & tag 10 people. (Or as many as you're in the mood to.)

agreeing with prev: I'm cheating and add a second sentence (...or even a third) if I don't think it quite captures the vibe. Also not strictly last 10 - grouping together series, making sure to grab the most recent from different fandoms. What are rules if not made are bending, I say, says I. Each fic is linked.

"DC always feels a little strange around Christmas. Most people aren’t from the city proper, so it empties out, leaving little touristy islands in a sea of highly decorated streets, shut-down government buildings, and unoccupied apartments." (as common as it is unkind, The X-Files Mulder/Krycek, counting all of the series like the western front as one thing.)

"Finish it, Mulder. C’mon, finish it, do it. Shoved against a bank of payphones in the Hong Kong airport, with Mulder’s forearm across his throat, Alex can hardly get the words out. He means them, though. He doesn’t think Mulder will pull the trigger, but part of him hopes he will." (neither conscience nor memory, The X-Files, Mulder/Krycek)

"When Krycek heard reports that an American had been captured, he was skeptical." (Whatever You Can Still Betray aka Chechnya AU, The X-Files, Mulder/Krycek)

"The worst thing about losing Madi — not the worst thing about losing her, really, but the worst thing about having to live through the days afterward — is that no matter how extravagantly Silver grieves, he can never match the grief of Captain James fucking Flint." (what rough beast, Black Sails, silverflint)

"Some of the boys on the Cambridge — mostly boys from good families — made sure to be well liked by all of the officers, and tried desperately to gain the notice of the captain. But James McGraw knew he lacked the inborn charm of a gentleman, and he was too busy trying to catch up in his education to have time for petty social maneuvering. Instead, he had become the protégé of a single man: the ship’s first lieutenant, George Hennessey." (As a Boy, Kinkmeme #24, giving myself three sentences because its representing the whole kinkmeme-verse. Black Sails, silverflint.)

"There were few things that would draw Captain Flint ashore to the colonies, once the war had begun." (If it Was You, Black Sails, silverflint)

"Silver suppresses a shudder. By all rights he should be feeling smug about his deception, playacting his way through this encounter, but he cannot shake a sense of unease that borders on dread. 'I think I’ve been clear about the nature of my investment here. The gold was the inducement. Now no gold…'" ([skipping the canon dialogue opening lines] What Lies Beneath, Black Sails, silverflint)

"Silver has all but lost count of the number of times he’s saved Flint today, and he can’t help but feel that a bit of gratitude is in order." (Princes of the New World, Black Sails, silverflint)

"Marcus doesn't think of the other man in the darkened hotel room when he touches himself. It’s not that he believes God will judge him. In the ranks of his sins, this can hardly factor, and he has seen far too much to credit the notion that abiding by God's rules might serve to win back his favor. God is far too vast to have time for such pettiness. But the demons aren't." (The Smoke of Their Torment, The Exorcist [tv], Marcus Keane/Tomas Ortega)

"I thought I knew what hunger was, before I left Weatherly." (announcing your place in the family of things, The Fetch Phillips Archives - Luke Arnold. Fetch Philips/Satyr)

tagging: @gorgiawrite @jaynovz @brawlite @meriwetherwrites @lichfucker @francisthegreat @asterofthevoid

[formshaper]

"Your brow was fraught. Where were you?" Fingers made thin and fragile with age were no less loving as she caressed his mane of black hair, and moved with a careful grace to seat herself. She always seemed to be smiling now; her cheeks lined with many such expressions as with each passing year the gold in her hair had faded to white.

Now, she sat in the quiet of the kitchen, listening to the sleeping household with her longest companion. She looked old enough to be his grandmother-- and some at the Inn had assumed that to be true.

"Not worrying again, I hope?"

Where were you? He’d been asked that question so many times over the years. Flint, Madi. Muldoon, even, fussing over him like a fucking nursemaid when his leg was freshly lost, taking every barbed dismissal with apparent ease. He hadn’t deserved that man. Hadn’t deserved Madi either, nor Horst, nor Lucy. All of them too good for him, too kind.

The only one he’d ever deserved was Flint.

That was where he’d been: on the deck of a ship again, salt in his mouth, wind in his hair. Deluding himself into thinking they were partners, even as his plans to betray those closest to him festered and stretched their limbs in his head. Long John Silver had turned from the sea years ago, but it had never let him go.

He blinked back to himself, to his companion, who had aged decades in what felt like the blink of an eye. She was still so painfully herself, even so. Looking at her still felt like stepping back through time. He could smell the old house. Feel the winter chill of a country he would never step foot in again.

“No, no. I was just daydreaming.”

The lies came easily. They always had. He expected her to see right through it, as she so often had before; she had known him when he was frail and human and still taking shape. She had known him before he was Long and before he was Silver.

In a handful of years she would be dead, and whoever he had been before would go with her. There was no place for that man in the world anymore. Maybe there never had been.

Silver slipped his hand into hers over the table. Studied the lines and wrinkles there, remembering. Remembering.

“Why didn’t he turn you?”

The question came unbidden; his voice had almost lost its English accent, reverting to the one she’d known him with before. It was subtle. But it was there.

“Did he ever ask?”

[why-do-i-like-the-bad-guys]

I just thought of a great parallel between Flint and Rogers. Both keep losing people they love or work with. Like Silver said to Flint how it was almost a pattern.

Flint’s started out with losing Hamilton — Rogers started out losing his brother (Ironically both these men are named Thomas)

- Flint ended up brutally killing the people who caused Thomas’ death as did Rogers to the entire ship that killed his brother, Thomas.

Flint loses Billy — Roger’s loses Captain Hornigold

-both were seen as replaceable

Flint loses Gates — Rogers loses Captain Chamberlain

-Flint lost his crew for a bit because of this and Rogers lost a lot of his soldiers.

Flint loses Miranda — Rogers loses Eleanor

-both of these losses were because of attempts of working with the enemy who were responsible for losing their loved ones in the beginning.

-both of these women also tried to get their men to leave the island behind and start a new life

Flint cuts ties with Billy — Rogers cuts ties with his wife, Sarah Whetstone.

-both of these had a great impact on the rate of their success because each have a following of people behind them.

(Much like Thomas Hamilton, Sarah came from a very influential family. I find it funny how both Flint and Rogers found themselves in a relationship with such people)

These men really mirror each other more than just Rogers being what Flint once was. They are almost an echo of each other, doomed to the same narrative no matter what side they’re on. Flint was famous for what people knew about him and his vicious nature while he hid his true motives and feelings, which ended up later being found out in the end and ultimately became his end. Rogers was famous for everything but his secret vicious side, which ended up being found out in the end and became his end as well.

Back to the main point: whoever gets close to these two men, ends up dead, betraying them, or both.

In the end Eleanor’s betrayal of Rogers with the cache was similar to Silver’s betrayal of Flint. Eleanor was pregnant and wanted this to end so they could start their family, dooming herself, her unborn chikd and Rogers in the process. Silver had Madi and couldn’t stand the thought of losing her so he betrayed Flint, also dooming himself, Flint and Madi in the process.

Both men were repeatedly told in the beginning that these people they let in couldn’t be trusted and that they would always do what was in their best interest in the end. But I think Flint saw a bit of Thomas in Silver and Rogers saw a bit of his brother in Eleanor. (Which is for a whole different post)

[outrageouslymoonpie]

Alright.

I have finally finished black sails. Started it in April (I know), watched one episode randomly in November (got traumatized by Randall's leg) and decided to finally watch it (after seeing a post about love and monsters) a couple of weeks ago.

Safe to say that I've got an unhealthy obsession with pirates and stories about the sea that traces back when I was like four and not so able to draw, because while watching the series i put together a bibliography of medias that is quite long.

Is this related to what I think of the series? Maybe. Maybe it puts in perspective the obsession it rekindled.

Anyway. Black sails.

Beware, there'll be spoilers sprinkled down here.

I went in totally blind, besides Flint's queerness. I'm a simple woman, i love me a historical drama about pirates with a queer protagonist.

Flint's queerness - as I read somewhere here on Tumblr - is something fundamental in his development as a character, but also as a pirate. And with him being the protagonist of the story, I also thinks it drives a lot of the actual narrative of the series. Because of him being queer, of him being in love with another man, he became a pirate. He decided to retrieve that damn treasure.

So it's a series about a queer man, but not about the homophobia he experienced or experience. The show let us imagine, let us wonder why he decided to become a pirate.

But it lets us know that Flint loved a man.

You know, Flint loves a lot. I think he's not able not to. He cares, and hurts, but ultimately he loves a lot. We see it with basically every character he interacts with (besides poor billy, which is actually really funny to me.) He loves Miranda, respects Eleanor and Vane, loves deeply and unhealthily Silver and Madi.

Something I noticed is how much love there is, throughout the whole series. It's not just about the relationships between the characters (which are vital), but also about the kind of life they're living, about the love they have for Nassau. It's the true heart of the story. The characters do things out of love.

Flint manipulates the narrative in order to obtain his gold, yes, but he also does that in order to protect and save and help those who love. England betrayed him, so he became a pirate. Miranda - his tether to the memory of Thomas - got killed because of his love for her, because of her love for him, because of their hope. Silver and Madi, oh god. In the last season that particular relationship become something Shakespearian in its tragedy, in its inherent imbalance. But it's so full of love. In their scheming, in Flint's decision to help silver save Madi, in Madi's pain at the very end of the season, in silver's smile.

(I'll elaborate more in another post, but oh boy those three broke my heart in many many pieces)

And then there's the part of the story where every one of them is a monster of some kind. In the very last episode flint's tells silver how much every one of them is a monster in someone's story and that how they tell children to be scared of the darkness, because in the darkness live the monsters. And that is the second big theme of black sails. Being a monster. Being a pirate is something awful in the eyes of the British empire, but every character in this show is a monster of some kind. Flint, queer and pirate and scheming and wrathful. Silver, manipulator, scheming and later disabled. Vane, an ex slave turned pirate. Eleanor, woman, queer and super smart. I can go on, but I thing you got the gist. (Love is also monstrous)

And the very last thing in this very long ramble: the power of stories. Throughout the show we see characters hinting about being part of a story, part of something big, about having a "reputation to maintain", a "name to live in". It's almost like they know they're fictional. I felt the power of the stories: they can shape everything. Our present, our future, our past. We can do everything with a story. And my favourite thing was Silver. John Silver, the Long John Silver, starts his story with a lie. The character who's most shaped by the damned narrative is the one who refuses till the very last to tell us his story. I don't know him. I have no idea where he came from, but I saw him shape himself in a pirate, a cook, a quartiermaster, a leader and ultimately a legend. He goes around saying lies, manipulating, telling Flint I have no story to tell I think you know everything that's to known about me.

To end this too long of a ramble: black sails changed something fundamental in the way I see pirates and in the way I experience stories and in the way I shape my very own narrative. It also broke my heart, gave me brainworms and added eight books to my tbr. I don't regret nothing, but if you have some fic rec please give it to me. I miss them.

[blacksailspolls]

🏴‍☠️🔱 BLACK SAILS EPISODE BRACKET

ROUND 2

SUMMARY

[LEFT] XV. (2.07) — The pirates prepare to take a vote on whether Flint or Hornigold should become captain, causing Flint's plans to take a halt. Billy secretly meets with Dufresne and declares his plan to gather at least ten men that oppose Flint, to capture him and surrender him to the British, so that they may all receive full pardons for their piracy. Two scouts tasked with watching the Urca gold return to report that the Spanish crew died from a tropical disease, leaving the gold unprotected. John, intercepting them, convinces them to tell Flint that the gold is now gone so that John can organize a secret expedition with Max to gather it without any issues or opposition. As part of the plan for pardons for Flint and Miranda, Eleanor betrays Vane by helping Abigail to escape.

[RIGHT] XXXVI. (4.08) — Jack and Max get ready to depart Philadelphia and return to Nassau. Jack contemplates going through with a costly plan that is the only way he believes Nassau will become economic again. Flint and Silver also return to Nassau to retrieve Madi, but argue about which of their plans is the best. Rogers puts his own plan into action as they come for Madi. Max speaks to Eleanor's grandmother Marion Guthrie about Mrs Guthrie's plan for Nassau.

[naivety]

Hey! You don’t know me, but I’m a Black Sails fan from ~2020-2022 who still checks the tag for fun and I enjoy what you said about Silver and Billy, in addition to what 4x05 foreshadowed about the ending of the war and Silver’s relationships with Flint and Madi… I always called 4x05 the “John Silver Divorce Episode” for that exact reason… I literally have a playlist on Spotify for it. 😂😂

it is genuinely so fundamental to the audience's understanding of silver and yet i forget that episode exists. the duality of black sails. this ask did make me rewatch the episode though and i forgot billy literally tried to kill flint and by extension madi in a shootout preceding all of that, which just makes the gut punch of it all more insane because silver literally did not need to shake cry throw up about betraying billy. when he'd literally just betrayed flint and madi's coalition and by extension silver like one episode ago. but he did! he does! cause that's his buddy! silver and billy were in the flint understander hater trenches together just last season. he's pissed at billy for fucking up an incredibly delicate situation while also putting the two most important people in his life directly in the line of fire at the same time, and yet he knows exactly why billy did it because they used to be on the same page about flint not even that long ago, so he can't even hate billy for it. he can't and he doesn't!

and as he and flint and madi go around trying to clean up his mess, flint betrays madi! in silver's eyes, of course, not madi's as we learn later, but flint does what flint always does which is his own thing with or without the say of the people he's asking to go along with it. though we explicitly know silver, who is building this entire thing with flint and is actually integral to flint's own desire to decide to build it back in 3.06, is right next to him moment of and begs flint not to bargain with the maroons' cache and his own life in one fell swoop, and he, of course, does it anyway. silver doesn't care about this war, he cares about these people, and they care about it, so he does what he must because, well. where else would he wake up in the morning and matter? but flint keeps asking more of silver than he knows how to give! and silver keeps trying to give it anyway!

it's this very thing, in my opinion, that he tearfully reveals to madi has him so scared back in 3.07. not responsibility for flint's crew, but flint himself. the responsibility of protecting the crew and even the world around him from flint in the role billy first fulfilled, or tried to, after gates, as well as the responsibility of being all flint asks him to be, who silver keeps saying he is in answer. he can't help himself and i think he knows this, which is why he and billy's mutual understanding starts to have tiny fractures in the duldrums. his response to billy saying he needs to garner enough of flint's respect to maintain his position as both gates and miranda did is 'both of those people wound up dead', and billy has no response for him because it's true! billy almost wound up dead too, which silver himself was willing to manipulate to maintain his position on the chess board next to flint and his crew at one point back in season 2. the difference between billy and silver in the duldrums is insanely that silver believes in flint, and billy does not. which is the exact opposite of silver's claims back in season 2 as well. billy believes in the utility of flint's mythos, while silver has begun to believe in flint like. a deity. which is beside the point, but i think after charlestown, silver's realized he's reshaping himself to fit more permanently here, quite literally considering his actual physical shape changes as a result. for the crew, not flint, which is something that builds a trust with billy, but as silver reveals in the maroon camp, he has come to care for flint as well. silver has seen both the myth and the man in flint at this point, while billy has only ever caught glimpses of the latter, and the outline of his own morality clashes to harshly with the little he has seen anyway.

silver, on the other hand, has no outline to clash with other than his own survival, which we have seen him fundamentally put on the line for the crew, but silver choosing to listen to billy in the duldrums and secure his position beside flint, even if those who did it before all wound up dead, is silver doing it for flint too! in a way billy never had to, much to his relief, i'm sure, because he can only stomach flint in small doses, as the shootout on the plantation illustrates. flint's utility as the face of their movement often demands a high toll on the people building it for and with him, and billy is similar to silver in that he's always cared more about people, even if he can see the merit in most of the schemes flint proposes, often more than even silver. silver balks at the idea of picking and choosing who to feed in the duldrums while billy doesn't, because he knows where flint is coming from, that it must be done for the bigger picture, but he doesn't berate silver for balking either, because he also knows where he's coming from is genuine care for the people who make up the picture.

(hi this is j from the future and i spent like two hours typing and thinking about this because i am normal about television. you may read sooo much black sails meta blabbering in many circles at your own discretion below the cut <3)

this is why silver likewise balks at flint's plan to gamble the cache for nassau's bigger picture, because in doing so he's not only gambling with is own life as collateral, which is something silver's come to hold dear, but doing it without consulting with madi and her people first, who the cache now belongs to, who have also become dear to him. this is why the first person he goes to after billy is madi. while with billy, silver's ironically kind of become who billy was to him and flint in the duldrums, and he defends flint's decision to a balking billy, he can be vulnerable with madi because of what she promised to be to him; a tether to keep him afloat in all of flint's gravity. silver knows his defense of flint comes from a different place than billy's in the duldrums, which is his attachment to flint the man, not any inherent, bigger picture, because it's a picture silver's never been able to see. he's not an idealist, which is the one thing billy and flint have in common. he sees what's happening in the world around him now, and what he must do to ensure his own survival through it, but slowly he's decided to ensure a crew's survival with his own, and then flint's and then madi's, and her people. not because he can see what they can, but because he can see them. i think he knows this about himself, and it's why madi offering herself as a tether to keep him grounded amidst deciding to follow someone who he can do nothing but blindly believe in impacted him so much. he feels like he's flying blind because he is, but madi offers him support in case he falls.

and he does!!!! in the beginning of 4.05 he is absolutely falling!! flint has done another thing he can only sort of understand, at the cost of things important to him, and he hates it but he's defending it to billy's face, which also feels a little like betrayal even if billy's earned it because silver is absolutely doubting flint's judgement even if he says he isn't and billy knows it, and silver runs straight to madi for that support. to be caught. he explains what flint's done rather gravely, especially compared to how he relayed it to billy. it's an environment safe to admit his doubts to, but it almost appears like he's braced to have to defend flint to her as he did with him anyway. he thinks he's telling her she's been betrayed by someone close to him, who she has expressed nothing but doubt and skepticism about by the way!! until her mutual widower arc alongside flint opened up an understanding between them, she was honestly similar to billy in function; someone silver constantly had to explain and excuse flint's actions to. but he doesn't realize there's been a change until she absorbs the conflict of it all live in front of him, and then she turns to him and says 'i think he made the right decision'.

when i first watched this episode, i was flying blind, and found myself constantly unable to track where silver was going to come at a situation from at any given moment. i did not understand him and did not understand why he was so upset by her reaction to everything. like. isn't she parroting the things silver's just told himself? she's defending flint's judgement, as he just did to billy, as he's done all season long and long before. and yet he is in utter disbelief about it!!! he is watching in real time madi take the blow like it wasn't a breech of trust on flint's part, to make this decision without asking anyone else involved, without asking her, directly ignoring silver's asking him not to as he made the deal anyway. the very same person who he's had to try to convince to trust flint for the last several months of his life. who, i think, he found safety in because of their skepticism and doubt, because his split between disciple-like belief in flint and constant doubt that it might kill him at the same time frightens him. he knows the multitudes of flint, why he's worth believing in just as much as why that belief could kill and has killed people before, and he knows he keeps choosing to believe flint anyway. someone who believed in him and absolutely not flint was a tether to reason, escape from something he felt might be inescapable, and she's barely batted an eye at yet another patented flint betrayal of mutual cooperation in decision-making, in painting this bigger picture, together.

she does not balk! she does not catch him!!!

and then. and then!!!! she asks him to betray billy! she doesn't know it, but she proposes to him the same kind of proposition(s) that flint had that threatened to drown silver in the first place, that she said she'd anchor him from! silver's overplayed his hand, except. and yet he's underplayed it. he's given madi and flint all the reason to think he's on the same page as them, that he cares about this movement just as much as they do, and when flint asked him point blank for elaboration, he denied it. they have no reason to doubt him, so they trust him. to do what he must to keep their revolution alive, to understand why he must, because he's done it before and they think he believes in it, and he keeps selling that he does. madi asks him to betray billy, and silver rebuts with skepticism that what they want out of nassau is impossible without billy's utility to it because all he has is a farce of half-real fear, his inability to see the same picture she and flint do, his doubt, and she asks him to have faith that it's survivable. that it will be hard, but they can survive it. but right now, silver feels like he can't! not if they keep asking him to do these things! flint asking him to betray madi like this, madi asking him to betray billy. he doesn't want to do any of these things! he cares too much about the present (and the past) to sacrifice it in order for the future.

he doesn't want madi to say it's survivable, he wants her to tell him he doesn't have to do it. yes, he can understand why they might need to betray billy for the greater cause, he knows intimately why, actually, because he's aligned himself with the two people who could convince him to do such a thing, but he also knows billy is his friend! just like he knew why flint made this deal in the first place, but he also knew he loved madi, and madi loved him, and trusted him, and to try and put both of those things together is too contradictory. it's fucking hard! flint's entire inner conflict is just how fucking hard it is, and he and madi ask him to do it anyway! the difference between flint and silver is that flint's vision for the future could always guide him to make all these sacrifices worth it, worth something. and the two times we see flint think about giving up, making all those sacrifices mean nothing because they're fucking hard and it's torture to keep making them, it's actually silver who convinces him to keep going. not because he believes it, but because it's what flint needs to believe to survive it, and silver knows him enough to know it. he justifies flint's own actions to him, just as flint had before he ran out of lies to tell, just as madi does to silver in that moment. and he says it, 'you sound just like him'. idealists. words silver knows well, but the difference between them and him is that to him they're just lies you tell yourself to keep going. they're lies he told! and they're asking him to believe it, believe them.

and despite himself... he does! billy parrots sentiments we see silver parrot to flint in the finale, of this cycle of sacrifice for a vision they are never privy to, offers him this tether and silver severs it, another part of himself that holds a kernel of something real, something true, because he doesn't think they want that part of him. he is in tears!! it is absolutely devastating, and he does it anyway. he falls right back into the whirlpool cycle he feared would drown him and thought madi could save him from. she asks him to sink down further into it, and he does, because he's made himself entirely unknowable if he's not known by them, known as this; trustworthy enough to suffer sacrifice as they do. he needs to be that person, so he is. he thought he and madi agreed to be each others' tethers, agreed to trust that instead, but he refused to be truly known at the same time, so it was never going to work. she thinks he's someone he's not, and he refuses to give her an alternative, so what else is she supposed to trust him with other than what he's said she can? she trusts him to sacrifice billy for them, and he does! she knows it hurts him, and she tells him that, that she might not know all of him but she knows him enough to know this is hard for him, but she thinks it's survivable. together, for the future they are trying to build, it's survivable.

but silver can't see that future. his response is to ask her if he would be enough, if he were to ask her to sacrifice what she held dear, if he could ever dare to ask, would it be enough for that future, and she can't answer. and he runs away from the unknown of it. he knows in that moment he could do this until it kills him. he'll do and become whatever he thinks they want him to even if it kills him, because he thinks her picture of the future and him in it requires it, because she couldn't give him an alternative. because he couldn't give her one! something about it resonates not just with silver asking flint if what is known about him can be enough maintain their trust in each other, but with flint asking who silver is, who he was, and silver being unable to answer. madi and flint and silver's futures worth so much sacrifice are diverging. he tries so badly to see her's, flint's, to pretend he can, but then it kills madi, and it's all he has left of her, but then she's alive again, and... it's not worth it. it isn't. he can't keep pretending and flint doesn't know silver well enough to convince him to believe, because silver himself has denied flint of knowing.

thought i was done but i hit play again on my rewatch and billy literally says to silver's face that he'd follow him. that he thinks flint thinks they need him, that it would all fall apart without him, but he believes it could be silver instead. billy offers this tether of skepticism to silver in this moment, this mutual inability to see the future flint and madi are asking them to believe in. and it is complete harmony with silver's conversation with madi we see in the premiere!! in which madi calls back to silver's fear of the fates of those closest to flint and tries to tell him he doesn't need to sew himself to this man to matter, for her to follow him. that she would follow him wherever he lead. she believes in him! she believes in him even though he denies her of knowing him fully because he does not believe in himself. he doesn't know who he is outside of their belief in it, which all started with a lie anyway. my name is john silver, and i happen to be a very good cook- i mean and i have a long fucking memory. he doesn't believe billy when he says this and, try as he might, he never convinces himself to believe madi either, or flint when he says he believes he's the best of them. hands asks him in his moment of wavering why he should follow him if he doesn't know, why should anyone. he is not a real person and he knows it, they know it, all of them know it, but he refuses to be known as anything else to any of them!! flint asks him to betray madi, madi asks him to betray billy, billy asks him to betray flint. they are in a square of trying to convince each other what's lies and what's truth, believe in me, trust me, and only silver knows what his corner contains in a way none of the others or their dynamics with each other can compare to. silver knows all of them, and all of them know each other, but none of them know him, so he's always the one who could make or break them. and he's the only one refusing to bare the whole truth of himself to any of them in the end, so of course he breaks them.