#definitely not saying that everyone who imagined a more violent reunion is straight-up racist about it

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

Hello! I’m relatively new to the fandom so I’m sorry if you’ve talked about this before. Your post on Ed and Stede in 204 actually made me stop to think for a moment. I love what you said and I agree, the way the show handled the resolution of their conflict fits so well with who they are as characters and as a duo, and as a viewer it was great to see. We still had tension, we still had pettiness and hurt feelings, but there was so much progress, communication … in so little time and it didn’t really feel odd or ooc? Especially because we know they are still being hesitant after that episode, still trying to get back to how things were. Their reunion felt so them.

But then it got me thinking about how so many people imagined a much more violent and bloody reunion. It’s in so many fics. Headbutt aside, which imo was just Ed’s only way of communicating after basically being in a heavy coma, the show didn’t do that. That left me wondering where the idea of Ed trying to kill Stede upon seeing him again came from. Ed was mad and hurt, sure, but to the point of doing that to Stede? The Stede he’d always been so gentle with before he even woke up? I know he was full Blackbeard when Stede was away, and that he tried to murder Lucius… but it’s Stede we’re talking about. It’s making me scratch my head a little. Maybe audiences are so used to romantic pairings doing too much, tearing each other apart for the sake of dramatic moments that they can’t envision any other ways reunions could happen? Do you have any ideas or do you know why fans thought that at the time?

Bless the show for not doing that though.

I'll admit I'm with you in wondering why that became so popular, too!

Charitably, I'll usually concede that a lot of it is probably down to two big factors:

The people like angst and a more violent, drawn-out reunion is really juicy for a lot of people to write and read about

The gap between seasons meant that some people kinda forgot that this show is a comedy, and I think as a result it was easy to lose sight of how this romcom probably wouldn't use up their entire second season on having Ed and Stede be at each other's throats

However I'd be lying if I said I don't think some of it wasn't just down to the usual culprit: sometimes people are really racist about Ed and assume that his reaction to any negative stimulus is always stabbing and shooting it. There is an unfortunate trend in some vocal circles of this fandom to sometimes see Ed less as a grown man with feelings and more of a big violent toddler (as @asneakyfox once very aptly put it). There was definitely a trend for a while there of depicting Ed's Kraken era as A Natural Way He Was Always Going To Turn Out instead of as a direct response to his life being threatened for being perceived as soft, so the trend of Ed reacting by trying to kill Stede followed from that.