#i am SO fascinated by this fucked up funky white man like izzy is one level but izzy is so fucking brutal about it

[chuplayswithfire]

okay here it is my true toxic ofmd opinion:

i just think calico jack is neat. i don't love him (have you seen him????) but he is narratively just so fucking neat, and also as a character so fucking neat, because every time you look at him after watching episode eight you have to wonder: how much of this is an act? how much of this is calico jack, performer, in much the same way that edward teach is a natural performer?

because in episode eight we see ed performing the role of 'blackie', wild young pirate extraordinaire, and i've talked about his social chameleoning and how ed plays the roles that he needs to play at any given time, this is a man who is almost never being his most genuine self at any one time but the thing is: we meet calico jack when he is *also* performing a role. he is performing the role of calico jack, wild young pirate extraordinaire. he is very explicitly not being his most genuine self, because he is being the version of himself that can most aggravate stede AND most reassure ed that absolutely nothing about him has changed since the last time they saw each other.

so in much the same way that we don't really ever get to meet edward teach, whole person (though we see a very honest version of him for like a minute in episode 10 before everything goes horribly wrong), we never actually meet calico jack being just calico jack.

and this fascinates me, because the man that we see in calico jack is the wildest version of a pirate frat boy, hazing and laughing and all testosterone and rum fueled wild antics, all the while cleverly manipulating his old shipmate/good friend buddy pal person who he would risk his life for but who he absolutely doesn't have an emotional attachment to because those are gross and weak and weird (aka a fucking friend jack) as well as stede and the entire crew, all the for the explicit sake of saving ed's life.

the entire reason calico jack is out there on that ship causing havoc and being a big dick is because izzy hands got in touch with him to say that ed teach is out there in the direct path of the british fucking navy and he's going to go down if calico jack can't lure him away. and calico jack, a famous pirate in his own right, wanted by the british navy in his own right, goes. we don't ever hear that izzy offered up payment, so for all we know calico jack went out in a dinghy to pull ed from the line of danger for nothing more than the reward of his old shipmate not getting killed by the english.

and he calls izzy sentimental. izzy is at least going to get something out of this - izzy is going to get the revenge, and izzy is going to get stede dead. calico jack, as far as we can tell, is getting absolutely nothing out of this aside from ed's safety...

it's just fucking fascinating. he's such a dick. he's such a fucking dick, passive aggressive, callous with people's feelings and safety, manipulative, and literally dying because he's mad about his friend risking his life for some guy he thinks is a hack.

like, i genuinely think there's a chance he'll come back, just because there's so much potential for him to shed light on ed's past (and he has connections to other pirates that they might want to bring in, like anne bonny and mary read) but even if he doesn't, what we see in him shows is a man who's very much like ed - calculating, working the angles, performative, but the heart in him is hidden by the fact that he's a dick to characters we care about, particularly stede and killing karl - and yet, he's being a dick because he wants to make sure they get the hell out of there, him and blackbeard both, before the english come down on stede and his crew like the fist of god.

and its so interesting. it's fascinating. i don't like jack, but i see in him so much potential, and i'm not like. saying i think fandom needs to obsess over yet another white man, but i do think he's so interestingly twisted, in a way that's at once super toxic and yet utterly distinct from the other toxic mess of piracy in this show, whatever is going on with izzy hands.