#i am very sorry this is your first interaction with me probably hsdfdsk um. i would very much enjoy your john silver divorce ep playlist

[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.