#captain flint was born out of great tragedy

[mr-culper]

Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief. — Anne Carson

Inspired by this post and that podcast.

[charlesvain]

#it happened the same way every important conversation silver and madi have about flint happens: #right after they have sex (via @lichfucker)

Since we know that Madi is aware of Flint’s past, I want to know how she found out. Like, yah it was probably a very meaningful heartfelt conversation blah blah blah, but I think it would be much funnier if immediately after 3.10 Silver burst through her door like “Madi you won’t BELIEVE what extremely personal details Flint just told me in confidence”

[jaynovz]

In discussions about the finale of Black Sails, one of the things I often see is folks hard-focusing on Flint's fate, in an either-or binary fashion, usually presented as "Which do you believe-- that Silver killed him? or sent him to the plantation?"

Now, for posterity's sake, gonna mention a few things-- first off, that's simply not thinking broadly enough. There are farrrr more than two options here and I've come up with my share of the reallyyyyy bad ones for sure. Whatever your mind chooses, none of those are happy endings anyway, there are bittersweet, bad, and worse endings all the way down. (They are paused, they are in a time loop, and also all endings and no endings are happening simultaneously)

But also, the more cogent point is that, it doesn't actually matter what happened *to Flint* The story is... not actually about him at that point. We have transitioned from Flint as protag to Silver as protag, setting up for (the fanfiction that Black Sails has ended up making of, ugh, king shit) Treasure Island.

And so, I just, don't find it to be of particular interest exploring what we think Flint is actually doing or if he's alive for real. What is EXTREMELY interesting to explore though is how Silver's speech at the end to Madi is sort of giving Thomas back to Flint as a pacifier/comfort object, but how... Silver is giving Flint that thing in his own mind as his own type of pacifier/comfort object.

That's the REALLY chewy bit. What actually happens to Flint is not the purpose of that scene for me, of Silver's recounting of events to Madi. It's more about... projection. It's about how Silver is dealing with whatever happened to Flint/whatever he did.

And I just feel like it's missing the point to focus so hard on if Flint is alive or not.

He is the ghost of the story regardless, that's what's important. He's going to haunt the narrative for the rest of everyone's lives. No one has been untouched or unscarred by coming into contact with Captain Flint; he has a forever legacy. I'm not the first to call him this, but he's Schrödinger's Flint and he's staying that way.

But this?

"No. I did not kill Captain Flint. I unmade him. The man you know could never let go of his war. For if he were to exclude it from himself, he would not be able to understand himself. So I had to return him to an earlier state of being. One in which he could function without the war. Without the violence. Without us. Captain Flint was born out of great tragedy. I found a way to reach into the past... and undo it. There is a place near Savannah... where men unjustly imprisoned in England are sent in secret. An internment far more humane, but no less secure. Men who enter these gates never leave them. To the rest of the world, they simply cease to be. He resisted... at first. But then I told him what else I had heard about this place. I was told prominent families amongst London society made use of it. I was told the governor in Carolina made use of it. So I sent a man to find out if they'd used it to hide away one particular prisoner. He returned with news. Thomas Hamilton was there. He disbelieved me. He continued to resist. And corralling him took great effort. But the closer we got to Savannah, his resistance began to diminish. I couldn't say why. I wasn't expecting it. Perhaps he'd finally reached the limits of his physical ability to fight. Or perhaps as the promise of seeing Thomas got closer... he grew more comfortable letting go of this man he created in response to his loss. The man whose mind I had come to know so well... whose mind I'd in some ways incorporated into my own. It was a strange experience to see something from it... so unexpected. I choose to believe it... because it wasn't the man I had come to know at all... but one who existed beforehand... waking from a long... and terrible nightmare. Reorienting to the daylight... and the world as it existed before he first closed his eyes... letting the memory of the nightmare fade away. You may think what you want of me. I will draw comfort in the knowledge that you're alive to think it. But I'm not the villain you fear I am. I'm not him."

This is the speech of a man who is self-soothing, who is spinning himself a tale, who is projecting, who is coping.

and THAT is just, way chewier, innit?

[blerdeblerdeblerr]

I accept all interpretations on the ending, and I personally love living in the ambiguity, but does anyone else think Silver is giving 'Briony at the end of Atonement' vibes?

"I did not kill Captain Flint. I unmade him. The man you know could never let go of his war. For if he were to exclude it from himself, he would not be able to understand himself. So I had to return him to an earlier state of being. One in which he could function without the war. Without the violence. Without us. Captain Flint was born out of great tragedy... I found a way to reach into the past and undo it."

"I couldn't any longer imagine what purpose would be served by it... by honesty. Or reality.

.... So, my sister and Robbie were never able to have the time together they both so longed for and deserved. Which ever since... I've always felt I prevented. But what sense of hope or satisfaction could a reader derive from an ending like that? So in the book, I wanted to give Robbie and Cecilia what they lost out on in life. I'd like to think this isn't weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness. I gave them their happiness."

[maremote]

Black Sails Monologuolympics BR4.2: SILVER MONOLOGUES: SEMIFINALS🥈

1/2: 410 vs 409

Silver, to Madi, in 410: “I did not kill Captain Flint. I unmade him. The man you know could never let go of his war. For if he were to exclude it from himself, he would not be able to understand himself. So I had to return him to an earlier state of being. One in which he could function without the war. Without the violence. Without us. Captain Flint was born out of great tragedy. You know this. I told you this. I found a way to reach into the past… and undo it. There is a place near Savannah… where men unjustly imprisoned in England are sent in secret. An internment far more humane, but no less secure. Men who enter these gates never leave them. To the rest of the world, they simply cease to be. […] He resisted… at first. But then I told him what else I had heard about this place. I was told prominent families amongst London society made use of it. I was told the governor in Carolina made use of it. So I sent a man to find out if they'd used it to hide away one particular prisoner. He returned with news. Thomas Hamilton was there. He disbelieved me. He continued to resist. And corralling him took great effort. But the closer we got to Savannah, his resistance began to diminish. I couldn't say why. I wasn't expecting it. Perhaps he'd finally reached the limits of his physical ability to fight. Or perhaps as the promise of seeing Thomas got closer… he grew more comfortable letting go of this man he created in response to his loss. The man whose mind I had come to know so well… whose mind I'd in some ways incorporated into my own. It was a strange experience to see something from it… so unexpected. I choose to believe it… because it wasn't the man I had come to know at all… but one who existed beforehand… waking from a long… and terrible nightmare. Reorienting to the daylight… and the world as it existed before he first closed his eyes… letting the memory of the nightmare fade away. You may think what you want of me. I will draw comfort in the knowledge that you're alive to think it. But I'm not the villain you fear I am. I'm not him. […] The pirates will be leaving here. The chiefs. But I will stay. And I will wait. A day… a month… a year… forever… in the hopes that you will understand why I did what I did."

VS

Silver, to Flint, in 409: "I have no story to tell. [...] Not unremarkable, just… without relevance. A long time ago, I absolved myself from the obligation of finding any. No need to account for all my life's events in the context of a story that somehow… defines me. Events, some of which, no one could divine any meaning from… other than that the world is a place of unending horrors. I've come to peace with the knowledge… that there is no storyteller imposing any coherence, nor sense, nor grace upon those events. Therefore, there's no duty on my part to search for it. You know of me all I can bear to be known. All that is relevant to be known. That is to say, you know my genuine friendship… and loyalty. Can that be enough and there still be trust between us?”

polls for this bracket tagged #bsm44

[idontwikeit]

Here, they must cease to be... to be able to find peace. //

I did not kill Captain Flint. I unmade him. The man you know could never let go of his war. For if he were to exclude it from himself, he would not be able to understand himself. So I had to return him to an earlier state of being. One in which he could function without the war. Without the violence. Without us. Captain Flint was born out of great tragedy. You know this. I told you this. I found a way to reach into the past... and undo it.

Captain Flint + Peace

[wintersnightsky]

I did not kill Captain Flint. I unmade him. The man you know could never let go of his war. For if he were to exclude it from himself, he would not be able to understand himself. So I had to return him to an earlier state of being. One in which he could function without the war. Without the violence. Captain Flint was born out of great tragedy. I found a way to reach into the past and undo it. […] Thomas Hamilton was there. He disbelieved me. He continued to resist. And corralling him took great effort. But the closer we got to Savannah, his resistance began to diminish. I couldn't say why. I wasn't expecting it. Perhaps he'd finally reached the limits of his physical ability to fight. Or perhaps as the promise of seeing Thomas got closer.. he grew more comfortable letting go of this man he created in response to his loss. The man whose mind I had come to know so well–  whose mind I'd in some ways incorporated into my own. It was a strange experience to see something from it, so unexpected. I choose to believe it because it wasn't the man I had come to know at all, but one who existed beforehand, waking from a long and terrible nightmare. Reorienting to the daylight and the world as it existed before he first closed his eyes, letting the memory of the nightmare fade away.

[brinnanza]

Title: hand in unloveable hand

Fandom: Black Sails

Pairing: Silver/Flint, Silver/Madi

Rating: Mature

Word Count: 9916

Summary:

“I did not kill Captain Flint. I unmade him. Captain Flint was born out of great tragedy. I found a way to reach into the past… and undo it.”

a post canon... au. of sorts. 

cowritten with @jaynovz! please heed the tags; this is lovingly nicknamed “the worst ending au aka the break it fic”

[captain-flint]

I did not kill Captain Flint. I unmade him. The man you know could never let go of his war. For if he were to exclude it from himself, he would not be able to understand himself. So I had to return him to an earlier state of being. One in which he could function without the war. Without the violence. Without us. Captain Flint was born out of great tragedy. I found a way to reach into the past... and undo it. There is a place near Savannah where men unjustly imprisoned in England are sent in secret... Thomas Hamilton was there.

[dimpleskinard]

Captain Flint was born out of great tragedy...

      ... I found a way to reach into the past... and undo it.

[waitingforminjae]

The man you know could never let go of his war. For if he were to exclude it from himself, he would no be able to understand himself. So I had to return him to an earlier state of being. One in which he could function without the war. Without the violence. Without us. Captain Flint was born out of great tragedy. You know this. I told you this.  I found a way to reach into the past and undo it. [...] He disbelieved me. He continued to resist, and corralling him to great effort. But the closer we got to Savannah, his resistance began to diminish. I couldn't say why. I wasn't expecting it. Perhaps he'd finally reached his limits of his physical ability to fight. Or perhaps, as the promise of seeing Thomas got closer, he grew more comfortable letting go of this man he'd created in response to his loss. This man whose mind I had come to know so well, whose mind in someways I'd incorporated into my own. It was a strange experience to see something from it, so unexpected.  I choose to believe it, because it wasn't the man I'd come to know at all. But one who existed beforehand, waking from a long and terrible nightmare. Reorienting to the daylight and the world as it existed before he first closed his eyes, letting the memory of the nightmare fade away.

“I did not kill Captain Flint. I unmade him.”

John Silver, Black Sails(4x10)

[septembriseur]

I started taking notes around the start of the third season of Black Sails, and I have many Profound Observations to offer (in the form of Tumblr posts, the appropriate medium for Profound Observations) on the arguments I see it making about the nature of revolution and civilization. But I think it’s important to establish, first of all, what kind of a story I see Black Sails as being. Despite its beautiful ending, which sees so many of its characters rewarded in a way that I’ve seen described as “Everybody Lives,” I think Black Sails is fundamentally a tragedy. Quite aside from the fact that it’s the story of a revolution deferred, which perhaps qualifies as a tragedy and perhaps as a sort of potential tragedy (the death of a thing that never was), we know how things turn out for many of the characters involved. (Jack is hanged for piracy, Anne is imprisoned; Woodes Rogers becomes governor of Nassau again. Flint, if we believe Silver’s story here and in Treasure Island, eventually dies in Savannah.) Centrally, we know that Flint’s prophecy of Silver’s life is borne out: though Silver and Madi do marry and build a life together, late in life Silver does find himself obsessed by what he left in the ground on Skeleton Island.

But what is it that Silver left in the ground on Skeleton Island? What is buried there, in or alongside that chest? What is it that Jack means when he says that he has chased “Captain Flint’s treasure,” that he’s had Captain Flint’s treasure and “it never ends well?

This question first began to occur to me in 3.09 (”XXVII”), when Jack, explaining why he’s thrown away the key to the treasure chest, says that it’s not the treasure that concerns him:

“Charles Vane’s sacrifice is in that box... Charles Vane’s death is in that box. Along with my good name. Along with her lost love. Along with your late quartermaster’s life. All the awful sacrifices made to assemble that box are now part of its contents, and those things are sacred things that I trust in no man’s hands.”

At that point, a great many more sacrifices are yet to be added to the box. We have here an articulation of the idea that this box has become not only a treasure, but an embodiment of the object of Flint’s war: the repository of the phantasmatic revolutionary future. This future has always been Flint’s aim, and thus the lives that he took in the pursuit of the gold reside there, as do the lives (like Vane’s) explicitly sacrificed for the sake of the revolution and its future. 

In 4.10 (XXXVIII), Flint equates abandoning the box to abandoning the war, given that the fates of the two are so closely tied together. When Silver replies that he doesn’t care, Flint delivers the prophecy I mentioned above: 

“You will. Someday, you will... Casting about in the dark for some proof that you mattered, and finding none, you’ll know that you gave it away. In this moment. On this island. Left it in the ground, along with that chest.”

This suggests an alternative understanding of what happens after the end of Black Sails. Treasure Island is too flimsy a document to really support much of a reading, but one can imagine applying a reading in which what drives Silver to become the villainous figure in that story is not the treasure, but the future that he left buried on that island, interred before it was ever alive— the future for which he and the dead sacrificed so much. In many ways, it’s the future for which he was created, even as it’s the future that he helped to create, given that in Treasure Island he still goes by the name Long John Silver. 

This association of box and future also gives new meaning to Jack’s use of the phrase “Captain Flint’s treasure” for a treasure that, of course, was never really Captain Flint’s at all. The treasure that Flint brings to Nassau is the dream of a new kind of world, the story of a revolutionary future. (I mean that the dream itself is treasure, but what he brings is also the story of treasure, in the same way that he brings the story of the Urca gold.) But that new world and that revolutionary future are also Captain Flint’s treasure in this sense: that they are the things he prized above all others, and that he spent his life searching for. Jack has chased that treasure; he’s joined himself to the cause of fighting for the future. He’s experienced what that future might look like. But he knows what goes into constituting that treasure, because he himself is the one who laid it out to Flint: “all the awful sacrifices.” 

Flint, of course, finds another treasure— again, if you accept Silver’s story in Black Sails and Treasure Island, which I find that I do (although I also think that the ambivalence is centrally important to the show). But in order to attain that treasure, he, like Silver, must leave the nascent future buried in the ground. He cannot both have the present-tense happiness of a life with his lover and the future-tense promise of liberation, any more than Silver can.

I use the term “future-tense” advisedly, because, interestingly, that’s the tense that’s missing from the swordfighting lesson between Flint and Silver in 4.09 (”XXXVII.”) Flint tells Silver that the opponent’s wrist is the past tense, “from which [the attack] cannot separate itself.” The end of the blade is the present tense, “which also cannot be denied.” He then says that Silver is “still watching [his] eyes, which is a good way of getting [him]self killed.” The implication here is perhaps that the eyes are the future tense, the place where the future attack can be read. I would say (as someone who was terrible at high school fencing, so: caveat) that the future tense is in the body. It’s not in the isolated anatomy of the wrist, but unfolding throughout the whole organism that is the unified body, often before a conscious choice has been made. However, unlike the past and present tenses that Flint enumerates, the future tense can be denied. The past and the present are what the fighter must reckon with. (”Who was my opponent yesterday, and who is he today?” Flint says.) 

Flint’s arc in Black Sails is largely one in which he himself learns to take his own lesson. In 2.05 (”XIII”), Miranda drives home to him that he has still not learned to live with the past, but in many ways he never learns to live with the present. It remains too unacceptable for him. Only Thomas makes that reconciliation possible. But I don’t attribute that possibility solely to love; I think it’s also very important that Thomas is the original source of the treasure, the one who first dreamed of the new world, and who presumably is dreaming still. Perhaps Flint’s ability to leave the future buried on Skeleton Island (in the long run, I mean, unlike Silver) is due to the fact that Thomas offers the potential for new and less violent creations.

One can imagine Madi also learning to live with new potential— in many ways she’s a Thomas-like figure. But Silver remains haunted by that phantasmatic future, and must go back to the island, must try to dig it up, to see what of its body, its skeleton, remains intact.

[jaynovz]

Moodboard for The Worst Ending AU aka hand in unlovable hand

Fic Playlist

[image id: a collage of photos and stills from Black Sails. it includes Madi turned away from the viewer in anger, stacks of letters and books, close-ups of Silver and Flint's smiling mouths, a close-up of Flint’s hands, Flint in a white shirt looking out over a foggy vista with his back to the viewer, Silver on Skeleton Island holding his pistol, text from Wuthering Heights that says "Be with me always — take any form — drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!" and an open grave. 

the collage transitions from having more red-toned images at the top and green-toned images at the bottom. /end id]

--

“I did not kill Captain Flint. I unmade him. Captain Flint was born out of great tragedy. I found a way to reach into the past… and undo it.”

[blerdeblerdeblerr]

Eleanor to Max: "I had put so much of myself into this place, in that moment I honestly didn't know where I ended and it began... There may be ways of severing oneself in that way- sacrificing one part to save the other. In that moment, I honestly couldn't find something sharp enough to make the cut."

Silver to Madi: "I did not kill Captain Flint. I unmade him. The man you know could never let go of his war. For if he were to exclude it from himself, he would not be able to understand himself. So I had to return him to an earlier state of being. One in which he could function without the war. Without the violence. Captain Flint was born out of great tragedy. I found a way to reach into the past and undo it."

[maremote]

Black Sails Monologuolympics BR4.1: SILVER'S MONOLOGUES: ROUND 2🥈

1/8: 410 vs 306

Silver, to Madi, in 410: “I did not kill Captain Flint. I unmade him. The man you know could never let go of his war. For if he were to exclude it from himself, he would not be able to understand himself. So I had to return him to an earlier state of being. One in which he could function without the war. Without the violence. Without us. Captain Flint was born out of great tragedy. You know this. I told you this. I found a way to reach into the past… and undo it. There is a place near Savannah… where men unjustly imprisoned in England are sent in secret. An internment far more humane, but no less secure. Men who enter these gates never leave them. To the rest of the world, they simply cease to be. […] He resisted… at first. But then I told him what else I had heard about this place. I was told prominent families amongst London society made use of it. I was told the governor in Carolina made use of it. So I sent a man to find out if they'd used it to hide away one particular prisoner. He returned with news. Thomas Hamilton was there. He disbelieved me. He continued to resist. And corralling him took great effort. But the closer we got to Savannah, his resistance began to diminish. I couldn't say why. I wasn't expecting it. Perhaps he'd finally reached the limits of his physical ability to fight. Or perhaps as the promise of seeing Thomas got closer… he grew more comfortable letting go of this man he created in response to his loss. The man whose mind I had come to know so well… whose mind I'd in some ways incorporated into my own. It was a strange experience to see something from it… so unexpected. I choose to believe it… because it wasn't the man I had come to know at all… but one who existed beforehand… waking from a long… and terrible nightmare. Reorienting to the daylight… and the world as it existed before he first closed his eyes… letting the memory of the nightmare fade away. You may think what you want of me. I will draw comfort in the knowledge that you're alive to think it. But I'm not the villain you fear I am. I'm not him. […] The pirates will be leaving here. The chiefs. But I will stay. And I will wait. A day… a month… a year… forever… in the hopes that you will understand why I did what I did."

Silver, to Madi, in 306: "The burden I wasn't prepared for… it isn't the men. It's him. What he wants, what he needs, what he fears… the depths of it… they are profound and dark. I serve the crew best by tempering him, steering him where he's needed. I've descended into those depths and connected with him so that I might be able to do so. But I am acutely aware that I'm not the first to have been there… to have been a partner to him in this way. And that the ones that have seen those depths before… they never surfaced again.”

polls for this bracket under #bsm42

[robedepourpre]

Black Sails is a tragedy. Literally.

So, my friend and I finished Black Sails this week-end, and boy was it a wild ride. We cried (a lot) and laughed (a bit), and talked far too much about it. She also came up with this idea about Black Sails having some similarities with a tragedy, and since she doesn’t have a tumblr (too time-consuming, she says. Psht), I’m the one sharing her views with you.

If there are comments or questions about it (and about the references she uses), I’ll answer the best I can, and relay them to her. Hey, if there are enough, she might be swayed enough to get her own blog !

*****

One thing I love about Black Sails is how conscious the whole show is of its own links with stories. For an ex-litterary student like me, it’s a delight to puzzle about it.

One interesting way of interpreting the whole story that occurred for me at the last episode is: the whole show is a tragedy about anger.

My argument is linked with my own culture: I know a lot about Greek tragedies and French ones, and not that much about the rest of them. Yet what I know about it makes quite a compelling, if incomplete, point.

 So, I’ll try to make it, with spoilers up to the end of S4 (and therefore, after the cut).

First thing about a tragedy is the weight of destiny. That one is quite obvious: we know that the Pirate Republic, Nassau, won’t stay that way for long. We know that the British will win, because both History and Treasure Island tell us they do. The same can be told for the Maroon insurrection wanted by Madi…

What’s interesting is that the link between BS and History is basically the same that we see in tragedy (and in romantic drama, and in a lot of historical shows): what matters is not the truth, but the myth of it and the way it can be bended to reinvent another story (yup, that’s basically what Rackham says to Mary at the end).

 Then, there’s the notion of hubris, which is quite present in the show. Hubris is an excessive pride that allows the heroes to try and defy the norms of the world (and with it, the gods). That can summarize the hope that Nassau remains free of English rules for Flint and Vane and Eleanor, but also Rodgers’s actions in S4, since he ignores what England wants in order to stay in control of Nassau (most obviously when he goes to Spain-controled Cuba in the middle of the war). Interestingly, hubris has a very similar treatment in BS and in some Greek tragedies (Antigone from Sophocle comes to mind): in both case, their hubris is justified and is based on an earnest desire for justice. But at the same time, that desire is scary and drives them to extremes. We see exactly the same thing with Flint and Rodgers.

In all those situations in BS, what fuels their hubris’s is anger (hence my “tragedy about anger”). Flint’s anger is born in the death of Thomas and Miranda. Rodgers’s anger at seeing the Island resisting him and civilization. Eleanor’s anger at needing a man to succeed. Vane’s anger is more discreet,because that’s not the main point of his story arc and is more said by his wish to stay free of any chains, but he still dies to make others angry and to make Flint’s plan come true, so I tend to count him in.

 Another thing that made me think of tragedies is the way Nassau, and then the maroons, are used. The structure of it is very similar to the Chorus/Coryphaeus relation in greek tragedies. Basically: the chorus and their spokeperson (the Coryphaeus) comment on the actions, and judge them. It’s very very close to Max saying “the streets are afraid/angry”, or to Madi and her mother then Julius telling Flint what the maroons want, and how the revolt he proposes suits, or not, their purpose.

That’s a very interesting fact, because all the moments that I alluded to? They are also the moment when BS hints that it’s a show about politics, or rather: how someone with a vision for Nassau tries to seize power and how their political agenda is received. It’s not the center of the show, but it’s quite crucial in the main events. For example: the reason Eleanor failed is deeply linked with the way she was unable to be seen as something different from a tyrant – same with Rodgers. The same could be said of the maroons: the way Flint aligns or not with what they want (be it hidden in peace or in open revolt with England) is crucial for him, and in some ways, overtakes his own plans: Madi’s resolve for a revolution lasts longer than Flint needs for it.

 My last (and longest) point is about passions.

So tragedies are more about facing your passions than about every characters dying or even a bad end (we have Corneille’s Cinna, a tragedy with a good end, and Racine’s Berenice, a tragedy without death).

Passions are emotions and states of being that, if growing unchecked, will eventually lead the character to their doom. If you prefer: the problem of passions is not their existence, but the moment when they are too much. The whole problem of a play is generally: a passion is born or exists and lead the main characters into making one or several harmful choices. They then face the consequences of that, and in doing so are either consumed by their passion (and are more likely to end up dead) or learn to harness it (and are more likely to end up alive, if someone else’s passion don’t kill them).

The most common passion throughout the show is anger.

For some, anger shapes their arcs:

·    Flint is born out of his anger at Thomas’s death (and becomes James again when Thomas is found alive). His whole arc is about him being finally able to let it go.

·    Miranda has two important moments that link her with anger. The major one, of course, is the manner of her death, when she expresses her anger for the very first time. She is consumed by her anger in this moment, and dies frome it. The second undermines Flint, since it’s the choice of pursuing the Maria Aleyne to kill Alfred Hamilton, which fuels the distrust that leads to the mutiny of Dufresne and the others.

·    Eleanor Guthrie’s main mistakes are all marked with her anger at seeing men trying to controls her life. It’s usually with Vane (unmaking him captain starts the moment she is called a tyrant, and well, I think their last meeting is quite telling in itself), though it also includes her father, Scott, Flint or Max. When her anger and her pride disappear, her storyline is ending – and she’s killed by her husband’s anger.

·    Billy looses slowly his power as a representative of the crew while he is consumed by his anger at Flint, thus becoming Billy Bones

·    Rodgers is to me a possible mirror of Flint in the way anger fuels them: they are the two character that can go from English gentleman to angry brute in a breath, and become even more angry and self-destructive when their lovers die.

·    Madi is also an exemple of a character that is more and more moved by her anger, though hers is directed towards slavery. That’s when she begins to align herself quite clearly with Flint. It’s very visible in her splendid answer to Rodgers when he tries to blackmail her with Silver’s lifein the last couple episodes. Actually, Madi’s anger is never resolved (and that may be my own regret with the end of S4).

·    Teach is a character that only appears in the plot when he is angry. He arrives to gloat over Eleanor’s death (enabling him to reconcile with Vane), goes when his anger is insufficient to make him defend Nassau, returns when Vane’s death angers him… and dies when Rackham persuades him to let go of avenging Vane.

 For others, anger is less important. There are two configurations:

·    Anne and Vane face another problematic passion, which is a love so great they lose their sense of self. However, we know that their anger exists, and that it clouds their judgement (Anne’s in S1, which leads to her and Rackham being excluded from Vane’s crew. As for Vane, Teach’s “that’s the first time Charles Vane stays cool instead of being angry” when Eleanor returns in S3 is a pretty good indication). But, beyond that, as I said, the passion that rules them is more about love to my mind (and the way it gives them a sense of self). Both struggle with their own sense of self, both chose to leave Nassau to find who they are (or, in Vane’s case, revert to a previous state of being by going with Teach) after a betrayal (Ashe’s daughter and Rackham leaving Anne on the shore). I could add that, when they return, their fate is decided by the ones they chose to love (and specifically, by their lucidity, for Max and Rackham - or lack thereof, in Eleanor’s case).

·    Max, Rackham and Silver are able to control that passion. Interestingly they are in some ways the winners of the show, Silver by disbanding Flint’s army, Max and Rackham by convincing Marion Guthrie to back them. Max and Rackham are very good at controlling their anger and making the right choices in spite of it. Max refuses to kill Silver in S4. Rackham, for all that he hates Rodgers, chooses to avenge himself with helping a legal process which is wonderfully vicious and subtle and is not a new action, but accompanying one that is already here.

 I was tempted to say that each season has an arc about a different passion, anger being the fourth (and so, the most important since it ends the story). S1 would be about desire, symbolized by the Urca gold. S2 about individuality (in French tragedies and in the Greek ones I studied, the fact that someone stands against the community is seen as a risk: that’s the problem raised by Antigone), since the key point is about enacting Thomas’s plan and growing closer to England (civilisation). S3 would then be about power with the question of who will rule Nassau.

 And lastly, linked with passion is the question of catharsis. It’s a notion defined by Aristotle and it’s basically the idea that tragedy frees us from our own passions by representing them in a way that’s relatable until it’s scary. Hence, heroes should be charismatic and humane, but also monstrous. And that’s the point of Vane and Flint at the end of S2 (”let’s remind them that the pirates should be scared”), the point of the creation of Long John Silver…That part is most wonderfully used buy the show runners. On the one hand, these decisions are always made under a cynical light. There is always the question of whether or not England is civilized (with Thomas’s fall, with Teach’s death…) compared to the so-called monsters. And on the other hand, Flint, Vane, Teach, Anne or Silver are sometimes monstrous, sometimes overcome by anger or able to reach a lack of empathy that is never depicted in a sympathetic light.