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sarucane · 1 year ago

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Ed Teach's Stories

From practically the moment we meet him, Ed's identity is unstable. We know who is he (Blackbeard) from context, from the story told by the the room around him, by Izzy and the flag his crew. But the thing is, Ed doesn't fit the story of the Mad Devil Blackbeard. Two of his first few words are "good" and "love" for crying out loud. He's called "Blackbeard," but his beard is grey.

This instability exists because Ed himself isn't sure what story he's telling--or wants to tell. "I shouldn't be bored, I'm fucking Blackbeard!" All through his early episodes Ed is in increasingly desperate tension with his own identity. He's trying to tell stories within stories, wanting all the stories to be true at the same time, yet aware of the reality that the world is constantly trying to wipe one or another of the stories away. And not really trusting that he can tell the whole story of who he is.

In the first season of OFMD, Stede wears a different outfit every episode. Yet Stede remains the same: despite his internal tensions (almost despite himself) there's a stability to his identity. But all through both seasons of OFMD, Ed putting on a new outfit means he's trying to tell a completely different story about himself.

And underneath this cacophony, there's Ed. And Ed is himself a chorus of stories, a living contradiction. A patricidal murderer who was protecting his mother; a paragon of masculinity who longs for softness and fluidity; a man renowned for violence and madness who has in fact carefully cultivated that reputation and is extremely careful with his violence; a killer who doesn't kill, yet who does kill all the time just at a bit of a remove; a half a dozen names and personas and yet always Ed; unloveable, yet deeply loved.

At the beginning of the show, Ed isn't actually good at telling his own story. He's good at listening to other people's stories, and conforming himself to them often without conscious effort. But when he tries to really tell his own story--asking Stede to run off to China, singing his break-up song song, going to become a fisherman--he fails. We don't understand in the first season why his judgement clouds, why he becomes weak when he tries to tell his story. But in the second season after spending half an episode in Ed's mind, a painful truth is undeniable: Ed, like Stede, doesn't think he's worthy of telling his own story.

So instead of telling his own story, Ed let other people tell his story. In the first season, Ed built off what Izzy told him he had to be. But he couldn't lose himself in Blackbeard, no matter how hard he tried. So in the second season, when Ed couldn't face living with his contradictions anymore, he wrote an ending worthy of Blackbeard.

All this, because Ed thinks he can only be "himself" by telling one, single story about himself. By denying his contradictions, rather than embracing them. Splitting himself in two to tell himself a story, rather than telling the story himself.

What Ed doesn't believe or trust is this: For Ed to really be himself, he has to be impossible. Two contradictory things, at the same time.

The second season of OFMD is about learning to embrace all these contradictions. In each episode of OFMD, character look at the same object or situation (a wanted poster, a unicorn, a velvety suit, a relationship, a past trauma) and they tell two completely different stories about it. Sometimes one of those stories turns out to be wrong, but more often than not both are true, and something else--something beautiful-- is born from the place where those contradictions meet. And the characters, Ed most of all, learn to accept and balance this dissonance.

Thematically speaking, I'd argue that's why the second season of OFMD is more fantastical than the first: fantasies are contradictions, real and not-real at the same time. And isn't that what transformation is, in the end? What you are and what you are not, meeting and becoming "you"?

Transformation isn't all good. At first, Ed's fantastic stories hide his pain or invoke despair

But later, the fantasies make their way into reality. The impossible begins to shape reality--and opens a way for hope.

In the last episode of S2, Ed emerges from the waves as the kraken--but there's 3 musical tracks playing, three themes: the kraken, Ed, and Blackbeard. Then he reads a love letter, and has a deeply romantic moment with his boyfriend. He puts on a new outfit to escape the British, yet his personality doesn't change at all. When Izzy first apologizes to him, Ed says "I'm the one who should be apologizing," but then Izzy changes his entire understanding of their relationship. Becomes the first family figure to offer Ed permission to be himself.

Contradictions galore, and yet Ed is still Ed. Both who he was formed into by other people (his father, Izzy, Pop Pop) and yet who he is.

In the final scenes, Ed begins to finally accept the tensions of his life. He tells Zheng that yes, he wants to kill Richie--but he doesn't go on a revenge quest. And while before his forays into being someone else meant changing his name, his clothes and mannerisms, his whole story, he doesn't act like that at all in the last scene of the ep.

And Ed's been able to do all this, to come this far, because of Stede. Stede, who Ed was drawn to because he was a "fancy man who leads a brigade of imbeciles," yet had won a fight with Izzy. Stede, who looked at Ed at his lowest moment, after Ed had admitted that the entire basis of their friendship had been in bad faith, and said, "I'm your friend." Stede who, even knowing Ed wouldn't want to hear from him, poured his heart into letters about how their bond was unbreakable.

Stede is everything he is, all at the same time. And when Ed was drowning in his own contradictions, (a rope tied around him that he could not undo and yet had put on himself) trapped somewhere "inevitable, yet impossible," Stede appeared as a fantastic, beautiful creature and brought him home.

Stede lets Ed be everything he is, and sees it all as true and worthy of love. Even when Ed fucks up, it's all right.

And sometimes, telling two different stories about something doesn't lead to a fragmented self, doesn't drive people apart.

Sometimes, it means understanding. Means acceptance, safety, connection.

From discordance (contradiction), harmony. A gentleman can be a pirate. A man can be a bird, or a unicorn. Izzy can have been one of the good ones and a fucking nightmare. And Ed can tell all his stories, they can all be true--and he can still be Ed.

#ofmd #our flag means death #ofmd s2 #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd spoilers #ofmd meta #ed teach #stede bonnet #blackbonnet #gentlebeard #okay every single s2 ep has A HEAP OF things where there's one “reality” and multiple stories: Stede's letters; indigo dye...#...zheng the soup lady; a betrayal; wanted posters; a storm; soup in purgatory; life itself; anne and mary to others and themselves;#; pinata and wedding cake; unicorn parts; what happened to buttons; ed's speech; stede's captaining skills; the suit; Izzy's shark #ned lowe's record; ed's treasure and the whole poison/positivity thing; ned's execution; having sex; stede's infamy #that's off the top of my head IT'S EVERYWHERE these writers are unbelievable #long ass post #ofmd season 2 love

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veeagainsttheday · 1 year ago

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Ed, Killing, and the Kraken in Our Flag Means Death S1 and S2

This meta contains a whole heckuva a lot of spoilers for Our Flag Means Death seasons 1 and 2. Thanks to @petrichorca who gave it a read through and left some helpful comments!

When we first get to know Ed in s1e4, the episode concludes with him telling his first mate, Izzy Hands, about his plans to murder Stede Bonnet and steal his identity so Ed can retire from piracy. Ed and Izzy discuss the plan in a casual manner, like this act isn't shocking or deviant from previous conversations and schemes Ed and Izzy have had before. This is consistent with how other characters, especially Black Pete, have described Blackbeard in previous episodes (‘when Blackbeard kills man, woman, or child…’). While Black Pete is (probably) lying, Buttons was with him until the flip.

As the song ‘The Empty Boat’ by Caetano Veloso plays, Izzy tells Ed, 'You've still got it' and Ed says, 'I know,' turning away to face the empty deck. Only the audience witnesses his true facial expression - the Blackbeard mask falling, a kind of dead-eyed exhaustion (echoed by the lyrics of the song) taking its place.

In s1e5, we see Ed threaten violence against the French captain, but he doesn't actually hurt the man himself. We also see him act as if he's about to go kill the French partygoers before Stede steps in and 'handles it'. At this point I think we the audience would, if asked, have said that Ed seems to have a casual attitude towards killing that you would expect from 'the legendary Blackbeard'. He's scary ('next one goes through your fucking eyeball') and almost cartoonishly violent ('skin him. And use the snail fork'). So we the audience maybe make some assumptions about where the show stands on violent killing - not only that Blackbeard is familiar with it, but that it's a commonplace act for him.

Then we come to a pivotal moment. In s1e6, Izzy pushes back on Ed for not killing Stede, there’s the conversation about doggy heaven, and Ed promises Izzy that he’ll be the one to do the killing. We see Ed hyping himself up (‘You’re a killer bro. So kill.’) and then holding his knife while standing next to Stede behind the curtain in the captain’s cabin. They’re interrupted by Lucius cutting off his finger. Ed doesn’t go through with it; the moment passes as Stede exits the curtain to announce the entrance of the Kraken.

At this point, I as an audience member fully believed that Ed couldn’t kill Stede because of his feelings for him. I wasn’t yet sure what those feelings were, but I knew that Ed had a deep affection for Stede, and for a moment I believed that was all that was holding him back. Then, of course, we see Ed have a PTSD/panic attack trigger from the Kraken fuckery that sends him into Stede’s bathtub, hiding underneath Stede’s robe, where he and Stede have what I believe is the most intimate moment of the entire first season (a reading supported by s2e3). Ed tells Stede, ‘The Kraken didn’t kill my dad. I did.’ We are shown the flashbacks to the way Ed’s father abused him and his mother, and the Kraken story he told on deck earlier is shown again with the figure of the beast in the water replaced by himself, as a young teen, on the dock.

Then Ed tells Stede, ‘If I’m being honest, I haven’t killed another man since.’ Stede tries to comfort him by reminding him how much he loves a good maim, but Ed is still preoccupied with how the fact that he killed his abusive father as a child means that he’s not a good person, and that this is why he doesn’t have any friends, aka, isn’t loveable. Stede tells him, ‘I’m your friend,’ in essence, To me, you are loveable, and Ed reacts by saying, ‘No,’ and banging his head against the tub.

The next important point happens in s1e8, when Jack invites himself to breakfast and regales Stede (very deliberately, as he’s trying to push Stede and Ed apart) with the tale of Ed setting a ship alight and killing many people. (Also note - the show’s first mention of Hornigold! ‘He treated us like dogs! Worse than dogs!’ and ‘Ground us down into nothing!’) While Jack emphasises the horror and brutality of what Ed did, Ed’s demeanour completely changes - ‘No, Stede doesn’t want to hear about that.’ Jack obviously doesn’t listen to Ed; Stede’s face passes from horrified listening to Jack to squinting at Ed like, ‘Is this - true?’ Ed looks thoroughly guilty as the story continues and Stede asks him, clearly doing his best to preserve Ed’s secret in front of Jack, ‘I thought you’d, uh, given up the killing?’ Ed surges forward in his seat and, not making eye contact with Stede, says, ‘Yeah, well, technically the fire killed those guys. Not me.’ The camera then cuts to Jack looking at Stede with a bit of an incredulous expression as if he’s both gauging Stede’s reaction to the entire thing and thinking, ‘Wow BB’s in deep here if he’s making up some weird story about not being the one who lit that fire.’

I don’t think the show intends for us to believe that Ed was consciously lying to Stede in the bathtub scene in s1e6. Instead, we see the complex way that Ed - who is shown to be both brilliant and possessed of an internal monologue that just cannot shut up - has constructed mental barriers to protect himself from the trauma of killing while still achieving the highest possible status in a very violent profession and existing in a world marred by colonial violence perpetrated specifically against people like him.

S1e9 shows Ed continuing to posture to everyone but Stede as Blackbeard, seasoned killer (for example, telling Chauncey that he barely remembers killing Nigel because he’s ‘a real “life is cheap” kinda guy’). At the Academy and briefly after, in the beginning of s1e10, Ed seems set to have given up killing and violence for real, but Izzy’s threats in the cabin in s1e10 send Ed reeling back to the Kraken persona he assumed when he killed his dad. The season concludes with him pushing Lucius off the ship and Krakening up to sail, rob, and raise hell forever - but the final shot shows Ed crying alone in his cabin, his Kraken makeup streaking down his face. It’s heartbreaking, but it’s one of my favourite scenes from a character perspective. Imagine if the season had ended with Ed fully transformed into the Kraken, rather than clearly miserable and heartbroken under his mask?

Season 2 begins with Ed trying to set a record for most consecutive raids, working his crew to death under brutal and traumatic conditions. His list of crimes on his wanted poster certainly suggests a lot of violence and killing, yet the show is careful to show us Ed himself only seeming to kill one person - firing a gun into a man’s back during a raid - and if you look closely, you’ll see that the man was already dying with a dagger through his body. It feels vital to me that the only direct ‘killing’ action we see Ed taking is shooting a man who we presume he can justify as having been already on his way to death.

In s2e1 and s2e2, Ed can’t kill Izzy, though he does try desperately to get Frenchie to do it for him. He can’t even kill himself, trying to get Izzy to do it instead. When he thinks Izzy has committed suicide with the gun he gave him, he says, ‘I loved you, best I could,’ as if any love Ed could give would by its nature not be good enough.

Ed wakes in s2e3 in the care of his old captain, Hornigold; of course, he’s really in the gravy basket and Hornigold is serving as a Jacob Marley-esque psychopomp. They key to Ed realising that he’s really [Buttons voice] ‘down in the old gravy basket’ is the conversation that concludes his attempts to be Jeff the Innkeeper. Hornigold tells Ed that he’s not good with people - after all, he did strangle his father. Ed reacts first with disbelief then cold fury, saying he never told anyone that; Hornigold reminds him that he told one person and Ed flashes back to telling Stede in the bathtub in s1e6; then Hornigold reminds him that the one person he told left him, and we see Ed crying under his Kraken makeup at the end of s1e10. Later, when Ed (finally, even Calico Jack would have had it sooner) realises that Hornigold represents himself, he says that he’s unloveable. Here’s the crux of it - he believes that he is fundamentally unloveable because he killed his father, because he is the Kraken, the monstrous beast capable of lethal violence. That’s why Stede left, his brain is telling him even as he’s dying.

Then Stede actually proves him wrong by returning, saving him from death, and telling him that he ‘love[s] everything about [him]’ in rapid succession. Whether or not Ed fully accepts this information, we do see him very quickly, yes, melt back into Stede’s arms. Which brings us to s2e6, and Stede’s killing of Ned Low.

Quick digression into killing and Stede: Stede accidentally kills a man in s1e1, is haunted by his ghost in s1e2. He’s so haunted by dead Nigel that he spends a lot of s1e2 asking first Oluwande and Jim for advice on being a ‘mur-der-er’, and then asking Black Pete how his former employer, Blackbeard (!!!) handled killing. (How Pete says, ‘When Blackbeard kills man, woman, or child-’ lives in my head at all times, Matt Maher with the line deliveries of all time.) Finally in s1e2, during his court-mandated therapy with the tribal elder, Stede admits that he doesn’t feel bad about killing Nigel - he was a horrible person even when he was a child! Stede's guilt is coming from somewhere else. We see this again in s1e9, when Stede says it is time for him to face the consequences for what he’s done - it might seem like he means for killing Nigel, since that’s why he’s about to face the firing squad, but we know that Stede’s guilt is about abandoning his family (the people he’s hurt!). Similarly, when Stede kills Ned in s2e6, he seems to get over it very quickly. Ned is clearly a bad guy, and although the act of killing him was traumatic for Stede (much like the act of killing Nigel), Stede presumably reconciles it by knowing that he was protecting Ed and his crew (and avenging Calypso’s birthday). Stede as a character is shown to have a tremendous amount of natural resilience. We later see him immolate a guy and dispatch a number of British soldiers without hesitation. Stede is also one of the two main protagonists of the show, and his attitude towards killing seems to reflect the attitude of the show itself - killing colonisers and torturers to protect your loved ones is ok, actually.

(Side note but I found this idea about how zero tolerance policies actually hurt victims very informative on the topic of why it's ok that Stede killed his childhood bully; I got that link from this very interesting post where several people are in conversation about how Ed is not Izzy's abuser.)

Back to Ed in s2e6. He asks Stede not to kill Ned; when Stede does anyway, Ed is visibly saddened and ignores Izzy telling him to give Stede a moment; instead he goes immediately to check in on Stede in his cabin. He knocks on the door and in that soft voice that he only ever uses with Stede, he starts to say, ‘Hey. You okay? Look, I was a wreck after my first kill as well.’ Then he pauses, before rambling, ‘I mean, well, it was my dad, so there's that,’ which feels like a little moment of self-reflection. Like. Yeah. Ed. Baby. You might be super fucked up about the act of killing because the first guy you killed was your dad, when you were a literal child! Also, Ed has never been to (as far as we know) court-mandated tribal elder therapy, so of course his decision to kill his father fucked Ed up for decades! Also as a very clever friend pointed out, we don’t know anything about what the consequences of that were for Ed - how did his mother react, is that why he ran away to sea, etc.

There's another important thing here that the audience knows, but that Ed has never told Stede (or, we have to assume, anyone) which is that the catalyst for Ed becoming the Kraken to kill his father was abuse. The audience is shown through his panic-attack-induced flashback that Ed's father physically and verbally abused his mother and presumably him too. All Ed has ever said to Stede or anyone about it, as far as we know, was his joke to the crew during scary story hour that his dad was a dick. Stede can probably infer roughly why Ed killed his dad, but he doesn't know the details, and he loves everything about Ed anyway, and now Ed knows that Stede does too.

So Ed and Stede have sex, and as many metas have pointed out (like this one!), it's so meaningful that Ed feels safe enough to give up his Blackbeard/Kraken identity the very next morning. He attempts to get Stede to see that it might be nice to not be pirates anymore due to the high chance of death but Stede manages to completely misread it and laughs it off. (To be fair to Stede, they're both horrible at communicating and Ed is not saying what he wants in any direct manner.) Ed proceeds to have his big beautiful brain start to spiral out of control as Jackie points out how popular Stede is becoming as a pirate; Ed panics, tells Stede he doesn’t even know who he is, and leaves to become a fisherman before he can get left (again!).

As Ed rows away from his failed career as a fisherman in s2e8, his boss Pop-Pop (who he has managed to recreate a fucked up father-son dynamic with that like so many things in his show is played for laughs but has pretty dark undertones) yells after him, 'If you were ever good at anything, go and do that, you bum.' Ed rows back into the port of the Republic of Pirates and sees the destruction Prince Ricky has wrought upon the pirate community. Ed's first thought is, Stede, and then he imagines Stede calling for help before straight up murdering two British soldiers. He remembers Pop-Pop's words and says, 'Have it your way,' before diving into the sea, retrieving his leather, putting it on underwater, and emerging from the waves fully dressed. It's fantastically hot and the exact level of drama I expect from this man. The Kraken musical cue is playing as it happens.

We now see Ed murdering British soldiers in the coolest ways possible, demonstrating his skill at fighting in hand to hand combat. One way to read him taking Pop-Pop's advice is that this is what he's good at - killing and violence.

But you know what Ed’s even better at? Protecting the people he loves. His mother, himself, and Stede. Each time Ed becomes the Kraken, he fulfils that. He protects his mother from his father, himself from Izzy after being warned that ‘[Edward] better watch his fucking step’, and Stede from the invading colonisers who want to destroy their freedom. But something has changed the third time he does it - this time, he can tell Stede that he loves him and he doesn't mean it as a tainted thing, but something that he knows Stede will treasure. He's both loveable and capable of loving. He always has been, of course, but now he knows it. The Kraken, the part of him that is capable of killing, was always a defence mechanism for Ed, but the third time he understands it and himself enough to know that it doesn’t make him a monster.

#ofmd s2 #ofmd s2 meta #ofmd meta #edward teach #blackbeard #our flag means death meta #our flag means death

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aletterinthenameofsanity · 1 year ago

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Jim and Pete both know a thing or two about the power of creation. It was something they'd bonded over, in coded language and shared looks and the discovery of binders and razors and dirty jokes and ways to settle into their own skin. Even though their interactions had been gruff, sharp at the edges, they'd sunk into a strange sort of not-quite-friendship, an understanding that sometimes kept Jim going.

Jim isn't Lucius. They're not in love with Pete. They have Olu, and Archie, and Jim and Lucius are both open but their types are wildly different. Lucius once made eyes at Izzy while Jim has kissed Archie.

But there was some part of Jim that tried to cling to that feeling. Not of love, but of understanding. Of a faith in their power to create, not destroy. It's been so hard to remember over their past few months trapped in the hell that has been the Revenge, forced to kill, to watch Lucius waste away, taking what little happiness could be sought in Archie's blood-stained kisses. Jim has not created. Jim has barely survived.

But as Stede Bonnet's dinghy docks against the side of the Revenge, Jim remembers what creation felt like.

Jim is more familiar with holes, with destruction, than creation.

They have wanted to believe that somewhere out there, Olu is alive and searching for the Revenge. That months and months of living in hell were worth it, because the sun would break through at the end.

They have doubted. They have faltered. But they have clung, in a way they never did to the religion of the nuns, to this impossible, necessary faith.

God will be struck down. The sun will arrive.

In a literal sense, it's true. The crew all emerged onto the deck after the storm to find the sun beating down on the deck after days of storms.

But more importantly, Jim's sun has returned. Their Oluwande is back, climbing up the ropes to the deck of the ship along with the rest of the crew, Pete included.

In between the dinghy and the crew, Blackboard groans on the deck.

Alright, then.

So, God lives.

Jesus rises from the dead on the third day. Miraculous. Divine taken human form. The sinners clamber to his side and all that-

Fuck that.

They're sinners, they all know that. Killers and thieves and pirates, down to their bones.

But killing God was no sin. It was no act of pride. It was an act of survival. Now that the sea god has been incapacitated, stripped of his wrath, of his deadly touch, they can all breathe. They can all live.

Jim steps right over the half-dead corpse of the sea god and leaps for Olu. Their teeth bash together, their kiss awkward and harsh and desperate, but Jim's love is here, warming their chest, soft and hot and welcoming against the sharp blade that has become their very existence.

"I didn't think I'd see you again," Jim confesses their sin, their doubt, "I thought you were dead."

But Olu, their sweet Oluwande, doesn't falter, his smile brighter than the sun, the greatest blessing that Jim has had in months, in their whole life, probably. "Glad I could prove you wrong."

"I am never leaving you again, you hear me?" Jim's promise is a vicious, honest one. "They can bash my head in again and I'll crawl after you, killing any and every man I have to get back to you."

Despite the venom in Jim's words, the absolutely raw honesty in their voice, Olu doesn't falter. Doesn't even blink. "And I'll find you, across everything," Olu promises in return, just as honest, just as tender as Jim's blades.

Across from Jim, Lucius is still wobbly. They trimmed his beard last night and let him bathe in the captain's quarters, fed him dried ginseng and crushed clover, mint and horseradish, all in a warm broth with pieces of softened jerky that was supposed to start clearing out his lungs and filling his stomach, but one night of proper care and food does not clear out months' worth of illness and starvation. Lucius is going to need actual medical care on land, just as much as Izzy, to make a full recovery from the drowning and the trunk.

But right now, he is blinking into the sky for the first time in months. The sun's rays on the water are harsh enough to blind him after months kept in the dark, but he drinks them in anyway, seeking that paradise that was denied him, because there , sunlight glinting off of his shined skull, comes Black Pete, who makes the journey straight to Lucius himself.

Blackboard was a vengeful God, a demanding kraken, a figure of myth and monsters.

The man in front of Lucius is a dream, but is no myth. He is blessedly, physically human, fragile and tough and prone to giggling during sex and so hot and so blessedly alive.

Lucius is trembling. He is not recovered enough to run across the deck, no matter how much he might want to. He is nauseous and light-headed and-

And he cannot look away. He cannot bear to break eye contact with the man in front of him, the thought-made-flesh that kept him going for so long trapped beneath the deck.

"Babe!" Black Pete shouts and crashes into Lucius. They slam to the deck together, and Lucius' back is going to ache so badly later but he can't bring himself to care about future pain when past and current pain have become such an integral part of his life and this pain, at least, means Pete is alive, Lucius' own miracle, and for that, Lucius will bear any agony.

"I'm sorry," Lucius says, mouth almost pressed to Pete's. He can smell the dirt and sweat and sea water on Pete, and once would have found that a turn-off, but he's gotten so used to associating it with his crewmates, his saviors, over the past few months that all he can feel is deep, aching relief. "I lost my finger."

"I can whittle you a new one, love," Pete swears, and Lucius kisses him again, pulls him in tight, clutches on with everything he has. He knows the nails on his good hand and his wooden finger are digging into Pete's back, but if he lets go he's going to fall and he can't bear to drown ever again.

Pete doesn't grimace. He doesn't even flinch. He just pulls Lucius in even tighter, as if he, too, cannot bear to let Lucius leave him, can barely believe that he is holding his living lover, and Lucius was a ghost for so long, but he can never feel dead when he is being held so painfully tight.

The clouds parted on the fortieth day. The ship sailed on, at peace-

And then Saint Izzy Hands raises his pistol to Stede Bonnet, crouching over the body of the kraken. Izzy is leaning against Frenchie's side , the crew not having had a chance to whittle him a new leg just yet. He is a mess, sacrifices carved from his physical body, and yet he stands taller than Blackbeard or Stede Bonnet ever could.

"You can bring him back, if you dare," Izzy says, the avenging angel, "But you can't save him."

"I don't need to save him," Stede says, and there's something angelic in that, too, the faith in god even after god has wrong every human he has touched. "I just need to be there for him."

Izzy gestures to the brig with his pistol and spits over the railing into the ocean. "Take him down there. Do whatever you want. Try to bring him back from the dead. Keep him this side of the afterlife. Blackbeard will never be a god again."

"God?" the Swede asks, brow furrowing, and maybe no one who did not live on this ship, this hell on earth, will not understand what happened here, this cult to the kraken that was created, but as long as Olu and Pete don't question it too harshly, things will work out.

Blackbeard is not a god, anymore. If he survives, he is a man. Edward Teach will emerge, or nothing will survive at all, because if Blackbeard tries to return, someone on this crew- whether it be Jim, or Izzy, or Archie, or Frenchie, or Fang, or even Lucius- will make sure that this time around, the death takes.

Now that they have risen out of purgatory, out of the circles of hell, out of the storm, they can begin to recover. They can become people. They can find some way to turn this ship from hell into a home.

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ccacoo · 1 year ago

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Am I the only one who is really feeling "meh" about season 2?

I hope this doesn't come across as ungrateful and by no means do I want to take away from anyone's enjoyment of the show. But with everyone celebrating the hell out of s2 I just feel like I'm going insane and I would love to hear from some other people for whom it didn't really land?

I think overall it just feels messily written to me, like the writers didn't have enough time to really develop a clear vision. I'm going to list some points that really stuck out to me and I'd be interested to hear whether it was like that for anyone else. If you love season 2, simply move on, be happy, this post is for the reluctant haters.

no cohesive story arch: This was done very well in s1. s1 is about Stede and Ed, two very different people who each have what the other lacks and wants, teaching each other how to be that. I'd argue it's also about Ed and Izzy drifting apart and the conflict that arises from that, and the conflict (and humour!) that arises from Stede consistently being at odds with his environment (his prior life, the crew). Season 2 has no clear arch like this. It's all over the place.

squandering characters' potential: Izzy. I know people are going batshit for Izzy singing and exploring his queer side, and I don't *hate* it, but as everything else, it feels too rushed to me to be satisfying. This was the guy who roped Ed back into his Blackbeard persona, who said "I serve Blackbeard, not some nampy-pampy in a silk dressing gown pining for his boyfriend." We are shown nothing in between this and him crying in front of the crew because Ed is just too toxic. For me, this transformation would have needed at least 1 season of buildup and could have been intensely funny, especially if Stede and Izzy had to spent a serious amount of time working together. Contrast is what makes the fun. Who else is there? Buttons! Holy hell! The stories they could have spun from that character, the mystery, the suspense. And then they just turned him into a bird and he flew away??? And then there's Lucius, who's so incredibly pale compared to s1. I thought a PTSD Lucius was an interesting development, but his "recovery" was also way too rushed to feel satisfying. In s1 we had side characters get entire stories of their own, like Jim's whole revenge plot. We met Jim's Nana, we got a developing romance between Jim and Olu, we had Jim and Jackie dance around each other continuously. Give me that with other characters! Give us some background on Lucius' past as a pickpocket. Where did he learn to read and write? Is there someone from his past that he has a bone to pick with? Is there someone he would like to reunite or make amends with? I feel like this should have been his season as a side character, the way s1 was Jim's. Instead, background characters firmly stay in the background. The Swede gets parked (or narratively killed off) at Jackie's. Buttons flies off. Frenchie, Roach, Wee John remain sidelined and stagnant. Jim and Olu are incomprehensible to me. Are they still a couple? Are they not? Who can tell.

The humour: This is also what irks me. If contrast makes the fun, why make everything and everyone sort of the same now? Stede is now just as badass as everyone else, Izzy is now just as queer and wholesome as everyone else, everyone is throwing around weird mental health language, Roach's go-to relaxation isn't torture anymore but clay face masks. As a result, stuff just isn't as funny to me anymore.

The tone: Oh, the tone :( I don't get the tone. Instead of the light-hearted and heartfelt silliness of s1 we now have actual torture, sawed off bloody legs, a serial killer like from Hannibal, toxic lesbians who poison and stab each other, ... this is looking like it wants to become a pirate show that is traditionally a culture of abuse and my thought is: why? And also: What if it weren't like that?

No cohesive villain: In s1, the main villain's motive is established with the murder of Nigel Badminton and the tension is kept up throughout the show by having little clips detailing Chauncey's quest of revenge – season 2 fails to do this. There is no main villain, unless you count nose guy. His introduction in ep 1 is messy, rushed and sort of forced in there, opposite to the Badmintons, who are given ample time and are really being horrible to Stede (complete with back story and everything). They are interesting because they personify some of the reasons why Stede was unhappy in his previous life - people bullied him for his softness. This ties in nicely with Stede's arch of learning to stand up for himself, to accept his softness and turn it into his brand of "gentleman pirate". Compare this to the nose guy who is "like Stede" in the way of being upper class. Could be interesting, but this is all we know about him. Stede and him barely interact. Maybe they wanted to set him up as a fan turned hater like Mr. Incredible and Syndrome? In that case I would have needed Stede to really be shitty to nose guy, which he wasn't. Moreover, by the time nose guy pops up again, I'd already forgotten all about him. The tension was simply not developed.

Forgetting to set up plot points properly: Two things. Firstly, how often does it happen that something they want to bring up in the episode only gets introduced in that same episode? When Jim says Olu has been pining for Zheng for weeks I was like: Ok? This is the first time I've heard of this. Secondly, whenever they bring something up, the also resolve it in the very same episode. Guys! Why do you need to introduce this stupid torture pirate as this ridiculous uber villain if you're gonna kill him off in the same episode? If the whole point was just to get Stede famous, why not bring back Calico Jack, someone we all *already* hate, who doesn't need to physically torture anyone in order for us to feel satisfied when he gets his ass kicked?

Mixed messages: Is this a show about how traumatic experiences have consequences? As illustrated by Lucius or the fact that everyone uses mental health language now, and is getting triggered by Blackbeard? But then why does everyone go right back to partying after having been tortured? Why does Stede want to have sex after just having murdered a man? Does almost getting murdered or murdering have consequences or not?

Bonus – What I liked: Ed in the nether realm – this was done well, it was funny, it was heartfelt, it was profound. I felt like I was watching s1. Stede and Ed interactions – when they didn't just callback to scenes we've already seen in s1 (*cough* moonlight *cough*), the dynamic was entertaining, enjoyable and endearing.

Feel free to add stuff, that you thought sucked or that was done well!

I really hope they give the writers more time to write s3! Cause, at least for David, it's clear that he can be brilliant, or s1 wouldn't be as great as it is. But it is. I haven't entirely lost hope yet.

#ofmd #ofmd season 2 #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd season 2 spoilers #ofmd spoilers

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our-flag-means-love · 1 year ago

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alright, so i made this playlist with the target audience of Specifically Me, but if anyone else loves both ofmd and the killers as much as i do, may i present:

Ed x Stede, as told by The Killers

15 songs, 59 minutes in total.

(also on youtube, if you don't use spotify or aren't able to listen in order, which i highly recommend)

i wanted to challenge myself to tell the story of their relationship (throughout s1 + a bit of hopeful speculation) using only songs by the band that's been rotting my brain for the past year, and i think i was able to do it surprisingly cohesively.

a brief explanation and lyric highlight for each choice can be found under the cut.

(all lyrics are taken from genius, in case some don't match what you hear or don't match what spotify says)

1. boy

this could really be read as either a stede childhood song or an ed childhood song. both? both is good.

these streets / weren't meant to house / jet-fueled engine dreams

2. When You Were Young

hoo boy, if there was ever a song about ed having religious trauma.

he doesn't look a thing like jesus / but he talks like a gentleman / like you imagined when you were young

3. I Can't Stay

sorry to go straight from one of their best songs to one of their... not best songs. but yes, stede leaving mary.

in the dark, for a while now / i can't stay, very far / i can't stay much longer / riding my decision home

4. The Man

the man, the myth, the legend, Blackbeard™, with a head made of smoke and all that.

i got skin in the game / i got a household name / i got news for you baby, you're looking at the man

5. Flesh And Bone

except, oops, he's actually a person, too. and his relationship with his near-mythical persona is a complicated one.

what are you afraid of? / and what are you made of? / flesh and bone / and i'm running out of time

6. Tidal Wave

they're falling in love, your honor.

you say this life has given you nothing / you got another thing coming

7. Andy, You're A Star

uh oh, ed's prioritizing love and happiness over his career and his fame! izzy sure isn't happy about that.

in a car with a girl / promise me she's not your world / 'cause andy, you're a star

8. Mr. Brightside

yeah, i'm sorry, i know this song is overplayed, but i had to. here comes calico jack, my beloved dumpster fire, to separate our boys.

jealousy / turning saints into the sea / swimming through sick lullabies / choking on your alibis

9. Neon Tiger

ah, here they come, that good ol' english navy looking for stede.

run neon tiger, there's a price on your head / they'll hunt you down and gut you / i'll never let 'em touch you

10. Leave The Bourbon On The Shelf

ed's time away from stede is pretty dang miserable. and for this song's eerie ending, picture his smile right before he pushes lucius overboard.

before you say goodbye / leave the bourbon on the shelf / and i'll drink it by myself / and i love you endlessly

11. Everything Will Be Alright

stede, my sweet optimistic boy, you have no idea what you're returning to.

and you don't need to compromise / i'm dreaming 'bout those dreamy eyes / i never knew, i never knew / but it's alright

12. The Rising Tide

angry! ed! breakup! song!

before life and the dream collide / 'cause the truth's gonna come and cut me open wide / and you can't escape the rising of the tide

13. Have All The Songs Been Written?

stede's apology.

i just need one more to get through to you / i can't take back what i've done wrong / i just need one more

14. All These Things That I've Done

ed coming to terms with his past, his present, and his future.

these changes ain't changing me / the cold-hearted boy i used to be

15. Bones

they've reunited for good, and now they fuck. (seriously, the following are probably my favorite lines but they don't nearly do justice to how horny this song is.)

there's someone calling / an angel whispers my name / but the message relayed is the same: / "wait 'til tomorow, you'll be fine"

if you've read this far, thank you so much for indulging this intersection of my two biggest brainrots of 2022. for making it to the end, i'll reward you with the opportunity to Behold the kiss again:

#my brain is full of worms who are all riding on a sam's town record as it rotates and i'm making it everyone's problem #ofmd #our flag means death #ofmd playlist #stede bonnet #edward teach #blackbeard #gentlebeard #blackbonnet #ed x stede

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dancing-with-the-madmen · 2 years ago

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I've been puzzling over this one for awhile now, and I think maybe I have something? So there's an important "in-universe character starts narrating" situation missing from the list above - the theatrical aside. It is a type of fourth-wall flirting, I guess, but it's meant to give the audience an insight into a character's thought-process during the progress of the play without it necessarily being known to the rest of the in-universe characters, v. popular in Shakespearian plays. When Izzy does it in ep 07, he's setting up his slap-dash production of Calvin-ball Hamlet. So I started looking for what play Mary might be staging.

"Too Many Husbands" is about a woman whose husband (an emotionally neglectful man with unquenchable wanderlust) goes missing at sea and is declared dead. She remarries, but less than a year later, her presumed-dead husband comes home. Wackiness ensues.

Pretty spot on plot-wise, right? But it's just not right. For one, Vicki (the widow) is kind of low-key into the idea of a throuple - or at least so torn by her affection for both men and enticed by the attention they lavish upon her that she's loathe to actually decide which one she wants to remain married to. For two, there's absolutely no asides, so that's not really what we're looking for. For three, I'd certainly never heard of it before I went looking for a matching play, so it hardly has the cultural cache of Izzy's Hamlet, does it?

In pondering Mary's play, I kept coming back to this image:

Gun's too loud? Fine. Pillow is too tricky? Okay. Skewer it is - but why the ear-hole? Yes, she wanted to do it that night and didn't want him to suffer, but skewer to the ear is no guarantee of the latter. His back is turned - why not stab him in the back and pierce the heart? Why not through the neck and get the artery and the vein at once?

And then I thought - well, there is a very famous ear-hole murder. Hamlet's dad.

So maybe Mary's doing Hamlet too. But, like a Hamlet prequel au entitled "Gertrude Did Nothing Wrong and Hamlet Sr. Had It Coming." Instead of her husband abandoning her to go to war with Norway, he's running off to sea. Her lover isn't the king's brother who's better at diplomacy, he's an emotionally sensitive artist who diplomatically tries to keep drunk Stede from completely ruining Mary's art show. It's not poison in the ear - it's a skewer. It's not killer Claudius - it's killer Gertrude. We even get to end the episode with a fuckery, just like when Izzy did Hamlet.

Thin I know. But fun!

has anyone talked abt the connection btwn izzy narrating the beginning of e6 and mary narrating the beginning of e10 OTHER than just “they’re the ‘spouse’ of one of the love interests”

bc other than that simple similarity there’s not really a lot they have in common?? mary is happy her husband is gone and is living her best life. izzy is getting tired of how long it’s taking his “husband” to move on so they can go back to doing normal pirate things. mary wants her husband to change or leave, izzy wants his “husband” to stay the same and stay with him. like there’s not actually that many parallels between them

but like. WHY do they both open an episode. it’s interesting too bc usually when a character is narrating it turns out they’re writing or dictating something, but there’s no indication that either of them have a personal diary or are speaking to anyone in particular. they’re just summarizing their situation to the audience, flirting with the fourth wall a little bit i guess

i’m pondering this but i’m too tired to actually come up with anything aside from “wonder what that’s about.” maybe it IS just the jilted spouse parallel tho. maybe this is a blue curtains thing idk. sleeby

#in which I make shit up #ngl - would watch a Hamlet Au where Gertrude kills Hamlet Sr. so she can be with the man she loves #And Hamlet Jr is ALL WRONG about how he's supposed to be going about his revenge #ofmd #our flag means death

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ourflagmeansgayrights · 2 years ago

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i don't actually think our reads on ed as a character are that different, though? i mean, in my heart of hearts ed is my poor little meow meow who's never done anything wrong in his life ever, but in a legit discussion i am going to actually analyze his character in full.

and i agree, i think he is (or at the very least was, and has the potential to once again be) a very committed pirate. blackbeard is not a complete fabrication, blackbeard is parts of ed filtered and brought into the spotlight as needed to create a terrifying legend. and blackbeard might have once been a pretty good picture of most of who ed was, but it's been years, and ed's tired, and there are parts of himself he hasn't gotten to be in a while. but even if ed completely lets go of blackbeard by the end of the show (which i doubt will happen), that doesn't make blackbeard any less a piece of who ed is.

and i also agree that "ed" isn't this secret soft side that he's never expressed before. i just think that meeting stede is the first time ed's less-piratey side was so well-received. i think if ed started joking with izzy about opening a bar and grill and other delicacies and delights and and fishing equipment and gift shop out back, izzy would be... confused at best, actively annoyed and thinking that ed's teasing or fucking with him at worst. i don't think izzy would be amused, and he definitely wouldn't "yes-and" with ed for several minutes. i definitely agree that there are a lot of ppl who woobify ed like, for real for real, and act like Silk Robe Ed is the real ed (as if there can even be a real anyone). but we are seeing ed after he's "mellowed a bit." yeah, he says he's tired and doesn't want to go back to the "old days," and i don't doubt that he's telling the truth. but he very much used to be someone who would feed people their toes for a laugh.

i wanna make it clear tho, that while i think where ed draws the line in regards to When Is Someone's Death My Fault is a bit more generous than where you think his limit is, i definitely don't think ed is gratuitously violent!! at all!! i feel like i made it sound like i think ed is a merciless killer. ed's not any more violent than roach, who likes torturing captives (especially british soldiers, which is fair), or wee john, who likes blowing stuff up and setting things on fire, or buttons, who is always way too eager to resort to cannibalism. this show doesn't actually make any like... moral stances abt when (if ever) murder is ok, bc the characters are all pirates and it would start getting very messy and hypocritical very fast. violence happens in this show, it's a basic fact of life for the world the characters live in; what makes violence and murder important or not is how the characters feel about it. for most of the characters, murder is just used for comedy (pete wanted to execute the british soldiers, frenchie suggested chopping off their limbs and turning their backs into tables), but for characters like stede, jim, and ed, there's a bigger narrative surrounding how those character feel about seeing and committing acts of violence.

so ed's level of violence is perfectly in-line with other characters whose relationship to violence is purely used for comedy. the only reason the topic becomes heavier for ed is because of the trauma surrounding his father, which is an important plot point for the show as a whole. and when i think about ed's bathtub confession scene... like, from a storytelling perspective, the way that whole scene is treated just doesn't make narrative sense if other people know??? and i really do think nobody knows, firstly because i think ed's gotten very good at incapacitating people in battle and getting the fuck away when it looks like the blood loss is gonna get to them quicker than he meant it to. probably knows plenty of spots in the torso that gush a lot when you poke em, but take a while to fully drain out. also, i doubt germ theory was well-known in 1717 (altho with this show, who knows), so infection seems super easy to pass off as not his fault. and the second reason i think nobody knows is that this kind of distinction only makes sense in ed's head.

and that's why i think ed looks so uncomfortable in the "technically the fire killed those guys" bit. this isn't the first time he's used this kind of justification, it's not one of only a few moments in his whole career where the line got blurry, but this is the first time he's actually voiced his internal justifications out loud to somebody who actually knows about his feelings about killing. before, whenever ed was faced with that sort of dilemma, i think he would just try to justify it to himself in his head as quickly as possible and then move the hell on and never think about it again. but when he sees stede's reaction, jack's story about burning a ship with the crew trapped inside makes ed's confession seem like a lie. because he did set the ship on fire. he doesn't say that "my men were the one who lit the fire" (and i thought the implication was that this was a memory from the hornigold days, when ed didn't have any men yet), he doesn't tell jack, "i mean, i just had one of hornigold's other men do it," he just blames the fire itself for the other crew's death. and now that he's saying it out loud, he's realizing that it's not as much of a justification as he thought.

for the record tho, i don't think ed had to make these kind of mental excuses every day, probably not every week or even every month. but he must've gotten very good at doing it just often enough that nobody doubts blackbeard to be a merciless killer.

anyway yeah! i still think izzy doesn't like ed in his entirety. he likes the parts of ed that they both used to build blackbeard, but ed's weirdness, his humor, his his softer side, his enjoyment of fancy things? i don't think izzy likes or respects those things abt ed. and i definitely think he wouldn't respect ed as much if he knew that all those times ed asked izzy to kill for him, it wasn't abt trusting izzy to do his dirty work, it was abt being too chickenshit to do it himself

wait hi it's me ourflagmeansgayrights messaging u from the main blog. i liked ur addition when u rb'd my post abt ed saying he doesn't have any friends, but i also saw ur tags and i would LOVE to hear ur tangent abt why the "izzy likes blackbeard not ed" interpretation is contradicted by the text. i've personally have been reading it that way, and most of what i've seen/heard abt ppl talking abt ed and izzy have been reading it that way, but i would rlly like to hear the other argument

Oh yes, @ourflagmeansgayrights . Absolutely. I love presenting arguments. (At length, as you will see 😅)

(Link to the mentioned post for reference)

Ok, so first, most important point - Edward is not a soft marshmallow center person whose true self is silk robes and sweets and singing. My first major meta for this fandom was an analysis of his character, which is pretty long but worth the read since that's where I'm coming from for ALL of this. (Also the skeleton of this whole analysis is in there too.) I'm going to use names the same way I did in that meta, where Edward is the real guy, and "Blackbeard" and "Ed" are both at least partially fake personas he's putting on. Got it? Ok.

Why Izzy Loves Edward (Not Blackbeard)

Obviously, Izzy does spend a lot of time propping up the unapproachable legend of Blackbeard, which is where I assume the idea he's fixated on it comes from. The thing is that this is what Izzy does in public, to other people, and it's kind of his job. Izzy in private is a different story.

---

Broadly, Izzy's approach to the Blackbeard mask is very similar to and informed by Izzy's general approach to violence. Unlike multiple other characters, including Edward, Izzy isn't much of a sadist. He treats violence as a tool he's very skilled with. Uses it with purpose. He isn't invested in keeping Blackbeard around because he thinks he's real. Blackbeard is a tool that, in Izzy's assessment, they very much still need (and one that can be put away when not needed).

"Blackbeard" isn't just a persona of Edward's, he's a fuckery that Edward and Izzy both have invested a lot into maintaining. A way to keep them in power and unquestioned for decades in a profession where slipping up can get you murdered by your own crew. Blackbeard is especially armor for both of them because Izzy and Edward both have personal issues that cripple their ability to lead alone, so they operate as a codependent unit instead. Edward is still an active participant in this unit and the abusive power structure it utilizes when we first meet him, almost certainly because he agrees with Izzy that the traditional "never let them see you weak" style of piracy is valuable.

So you can imagine that his decision to go all in on trading "Blackbeard" for "Ed" a month or so later sends Izzy into a panic (exacerbated by the fact that Edward has not communicated with Izzy for shit in that entire timeframe). That's what's blowing up in 1x10. It has nothing to do with hating Edward himself, because as far as Izzy is concerned Edward is not being the real Edward at the moment, and he's mostly right. In fact, the main reason it can all go so disastrously wrong is because Edward is still himself under "Ed", and fully capable of making his own terrible panic decisions when Izzy reality checks him and accidentally hits the worst possible sore point.

That's Izzy and Blackbeard. A public front of intimidation and awe that keeps anyone from getting close enough to hurt Edward or Izzy. But the benefit Izzy gets from helping keep all this up is that he's is allowed, encouraged, even entitled to go behind the curtain as he pleases.

So he does. And Edward is happy to have him there.

Izzy in public is way more casual with Edward than others are, doing things like being the only one allowed to use his name, but Izzy alone with Edward is on another level. He can't possibly think Blackbeard is real, because there is no way in hell he would interact this comfortably with Blackbeard.

One of their first interactions is Izzy getting an order and immediately whining "Oh Edward, can't I just send the boys???" And Edward teases him about it! He's not remotely mad or treating it like insubordination (probably because there is no question Izzy will get it done). It's a joke between them! Oh lol Izzy's gonna hate this! And while I do think Izzy deliberately doesn't try very hard because he thinks Stede is stupid, I don't think he's consciously plotting to lie to Stede and then Edward or even entirely aware he did so. Stede did shut down that interaction very quickly without getting all the information, and that's kinda on him.

In 1x04 we are seeing them completely out of sync, but also the episode is littered with echoes of intimacy. Edward's little "Izzy, they've got a bird guy" bit and showing him the boat with such enthusiasm are not habits that get ingrained if Izzy has never reacted positively to that kind of sharing in the past, even if he's too distracted by imminent death for fun right then. And Edward goes straight from the boat to a vent about his boredom and frustration.

On Edward's end of the conversation alone the timing is awful, he won't share his plan to assuage Izzy's worries about the imminent death problem to make the timing better, and his wording leaves a lot to be desired, but it's a very human emotional moment and he's not afraid of or concerned at all about sharing it with Izzy. He trusts Izzy. Unfortunately, both of them are kind of disasters at solving emotional problems on a good day, so Izzy is not exactly equipped to respond well and unsurprisingly fails to do so.

Later, Izzy pulls Edward away to talk alone and does his own emotional vent in the resignation scene, which is about the same level of successful communication as the last one - read: basically none - but, again, Izzy isn't afraid of backlash here. He's talking to Edward, not Blackbeard. He's always talking to Edward. Edward is the brilliant sailor he chooses to follow and the person he treats like an equal in personal matters. And Edward is the one he apologizes to at the end of the episode, and stays for when asked.

And I think the real evidence that Izzy is perfectly fine with the parts of Edward that aren't Blackbeard is in 1x06. ("Let me kill for you" conversation my beloved! 💓)

The thing is that Izzy is not an emotionally vulnerable person, and definitely not a talking about your emotional vulnerability kind of person. And to be honest, I don't really think Edward is either, he's just so desperate for something right now that he'll do it anyway. So whether or not they've talked about something is less important then their actions, and holy fuck does this episode imply some actions.

The reveal that Edward doesn't kill with his own hands throws a lot of Izzy's actions leading up to the duel into a new light, because I just don't see how Izzy could not be aware of that fact. He's Edward's right hand. He must have noticed, and Edward likely knows he did. In fact, if Edward makes a habit of telling the kraken story, I wouldn't be surprised if Izzy put "Edward killed his shitty dad" together too. And that knowledge adds a lot of context to what Izzy's doing, even if I can guarantee they've never talked about it.

Of course Izzy is unsurprised that Edward never killed Stede in his sleep and isn't taking a lack of action as a sign the plan is off. Of course he doesn't assume that the conversation is done when Edward agrees to kill Stede in front of Fang and Ivan. So he goes to Edward, alone, and he offers to take care of it. That's huge! If Izzy had objections to the real Edward then this should be a massive sticking point. He should be irritated that Edward is too weak to handle his own problems at best, and more likely actively pushing him to do so, but he's not! The only part of this that Izzy seems concerned with is making sure no one else knows, and that's a matter of common sense considering Edward threatens to kill people for a living.

Izzy doesn't mind at all that Edward can't kill like Blackbeard ought to. He's happy do it for him. Note this is a good time to remember that Izzy is not a sadist or particularly prone to violence as problem solving, meaning the "for you" bit is way more important than the "let me kill" bit. This is another behind the curtain thing, just like using Edward's name or getting teased by him in private, and Izzy loves those things. Like, to the point of jealously guarding them and getting real pissed that when he's being shut out, Stede is getting let in.

This is getting kinda long and I'd like to wrap it up today so I'm going to skip straight to 1x10.

I already touched on the blowup, but let's talk about before the blowup. Edward is a mess. He gets back to the ship, asks Izzy to bring him tea, and the next time we see him he's gone full breakup mode. He's been crying, the room is covered in booze bottles and marmalade jars, and he's in a blanket fort. I doubt there has ever been a moment in his life where he is less Blackbeard than that. And what is Izzy doing (at least before Edward takes his mess public)?

Well, freaking the fuck out, but also trying desperately to cover for him. That's it.

Izzy is the only one who has been seeing Edward. He has brought him tea, and food, and booze and marmalade. If Edward hasn't left that fort - and it sure doesn't look like he has - then I think it is entirely reasonable to assume Izzy crawled in there every day and offered the saddest attempt at emotional support you have ever seen in your life, all the way up until Edward requested Lucius. Pre-blowup there is nothing about Edward's demeanor that implies Izzy has been unpleasant or hostile to his grieving.

Izzy is full on panicking in a nightmare scenario for the whole "don't let them see you weak" mindset - a crew that is way too comfortable asking questions with nothing to distract them - and at the same time he's just supporting Edward as best he can while letting him be sad for a while. His best is pitiful, yeah, but does that sound like a man who can't stand the real Edward?

The tipping point is only when all this goes public. A clear violation of the established rules, a serious potential danger, and Edward casually makes it way worse when he drops the double hit of "Why are we even being pirates?" and stating he wants everyone to call him "Ed".

That's rejection with a blast radius.

That's "I'm unilaterally deciding everything we've built is worthless." That's "Everything you've done to try and maintain us was pointless." That's "Seeing behind the curtain isn't special anymore."

That's "You aren't special anymore, and I don't even care enough to notice I'm telling you this by accident."

"Ed" rejects Izzy, Izzy rejects "Ed", the "Ed" mask slips...

Eventually we end up with The Kraken.

Another major point that people use to say Izzy wants Blackbeard is that Izzy wanted the Kraken. Except he doesn't say that. His "threats" in the cabin confrontation are completely vague. He doesn't tell Edward what he wants from him beyond NOT this unrecognizable "Ed", or even what he would do if his explosion was ignored. It's not fundamentally different from the explosion in 1x04, and that's kinda the problem for Edward because 1x04 almost ended with Izzy leaving for good. Hello, freshly hurting abandonment issues! Ready to drive Edward to some really fucked up decisions?

And as far as Izzy's whole "Blackbeard is himself again" goes... The man is not exactly a good liar, and that is a really obvious lie.

---

So yeah. Izzy is in love with Edward. I feel like the text makes it clear that Izzy values the fact that he gets to know Edward while everyone else is kept at bay by the Blackbeard persona, and Edward doesn't maintain any personal boundaries on his end that imply this intimacy isn't reciprocal.

They are in the middle of a depression spiral and contested divorce right now and not communicating for shit, and I don't think either of them was a talk through their feelings kind of person before, but there is a history of vulnerability and trust there. And not just on a professional level, though their jobs and lives are so intertwined that everything is a little work related.

They are a disaster, honestly, but I do love them so. Mutual toxicity and all. 💓

(Season 2 really needs to make these men talk to each other, though.)

#last line is how izzy would describe it not. how i would describe it lmao #''yeah lmao ur afraid to kill ppl? bc u killed ur dad and left u with lasting emotional trauma?? lmao chickenshit pussy''#txt #meta #mine #rb #edward teach #izzy hands #yknow when ppl talk abt like ''omg im a totally different person with my friends vs with my family vs by myself etc etc''#''which one of those is the REAL me??''#that whole identity crisis thing. like ''nobody knows who i Truly Am Inside''#i think that's bullshit lmao. obviously u act different in different situations but theyre all still YOU #how u act with like ur coworkers is probably not how you'd act alone but that doesn't mean it's Not You #it's the you that you want your coworkers to see. it's you in a professional setting #so yeah i dont actually make that much of a distinction btwn ed vs blackbeard vs the kraken #theyre all different pieces of edward teach. one when he's comfortable. one when he's at work. and one when he's threatened.

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ourflagmeansgayrights · 2 years ago

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hi!!! i made this post on a whim and stuck it in the blackhands tag bc i was kinda hoping people would be open to talk abt it, and now that i've gone to bed and woken up and sat in a car for like 5 hours and read the notes and re-read my original post i can see that my tone probably came off more aggressive than i meant it to?? like, im so desensitized by cursing at this point it just feels like sprinkling a little flavor into my sentences, but the "fucking baffled" part probably came off as really rude, especially in written text vs talking out loud. i am genuinely sorry if this post made you bitter, i really wasn't trying to come at anyone for how they interpret the show, i was just saying that some people's interpretations confuse me. which is fine!!! we don't all have to be on the same wavelength. i didn't mean to upset ppl, but if i did that's on me and i apologize

all that aside tho i made this post bc i love this show and i love talking abt this show and i love discussing this show at length, especially with people whose opinions on this show differ from mine, so i do want to respond to the points u brought up.

(fair warning: this gets long)

re: ur first 3 paragraphs. i spent the morning reading + responding to ppls comments on this so i've already talked abt this a bit, but i agree that yes ed is at an emotional low point and exaggerating abt a lot of things in that scene. he is a killer, even tho he doesn't think of himself that way, and he does have relationships that a lot of ppl would consider friendship. but i think when ed uses the word "friend" he's talking abt something more than a friends-with-benefits drinking buddy or a partner-in-crime to watch his back. the way he only refers to calico jack as his "old mate" but calls stede his friend feels significant to me. what exactly ed means by friend is pretty vague and kind of up to interpretation, but to me, when ed says he doesn't have any friends he's saying that he doesn't have anyone he can express vulnerability and insecurity to.

(i also agree that ed isn't rlly a good person. idk if anyone in this show is a "good person." they are... literally all pirates. but being a "good person" isn't rlly the point of this show, imo)

re: calico jack calling izzy sentimental for giving himself up. u say here that izzy "gave himself up to protect ed." im sorry but i uhhhhh genuinely don't know what ur talking abt lol, all izzy did was arrange for jack to lure them to blind man's cove and for the british to ambush the Revenge, and then for calico jack to get ed out of there before the british showed up. when ed didn't get out of there, he convinced badminton that setting the ambush up was enough "service to the crown" that they would hand ed over to him. most british soldiers probably wouldn't have taken that deal, but we know that badminton was so eager to get revenge for his brother that he was alright with letting the legendary blackbeard go so long as he got to see stede dead. but izzy definitely didn't sign an act of grace or anything. izzy didn't "give himself up"

i mean, this is just my opinion, but i don't think jack calling izzy sentimental is rlly proof that ed and izzy are Actually Close. for starters, jack does give the "what kind of pirate has a friend? we're all just in various stages of fucking each other over" line literally seconds later; he considers izzy "sentimental," but still not a friend. and, imo, the reason jack calls izzy sentimental is bc izzy probably had the opportunity to get a huge reward for turning blackbeard in, and bc jack is a huge asshole douchebag who can't keep a crew from mutinying against him, the idea of a first mate not wanting their captain to be captured by the british is sentimental, even tho that's kinda just. the literal job description of a first mate.

re: izzy putting the bows in ed's beard. ur right, that scene wasn't cut for being ooc. but because it didn't end up in the show, i feel kinda weird using it as evidence for the level of intimacy in ed and izzy's relationship in either direction. like, other than "izzy puts bows in ed's beard," we don't actually know how that scene went down. was izzy calmly following his captain's orders? was izzy blushing and stammering? were the two of them laughing about stupid costumes and disguises they've worn in past fuckeries? or was izzy glaring and seething? did ed have to come up with some lie about robbing the boat to get izzy to agree to help him get dressed? did the scene have the same vibe as when izzy couldn't get ed down from the harness in the beginning episode 6? we don't know! and sadly we probably will never know. it could've been something izzy was happy to do, or it could've been an order from his captain that izzy bitched and moaned abt the whole time. who's to say. all we know is that ed had izzy put bows in his beard. considering that ed's ordered izzy to track down some random rich guy who sucked at being a pirate, i feel like this is far from the weirdest thing ed's had izzy do for him.

re: we don't see ed talking to anyone other than izzy and stede. im kinda glad i couldn't make this reply right away, bc i saw this post a few hrs ago and it talks abt how ed's limited social interaction is somewhat by design on both izzy and ed's part. i personally rlly liked the takes ppl had, but my take is basically: ed probably isolates from other pirates for his own safety, and izzy does his best to keep ed isolated

re: ed excitedly dragging izzy around the revenge. yeah, showing someone the things ur excited abt is friend behavior, but izzy is very much not into it. in his defense, the spanish are closing in and izzy isn't aware that ed has a plan, but it's not like we ever see izzy share ed's joy in anything non-pirate related. from the way izzy's demeanor is mostly just weary frustration in episode 4 (up until the outfit swap, at which point he becomes properly pissed off), it makes me feel like this dynamic is pretty standard for them. in general, the vibe i get is that whenever ed shows interest in something that doesn't fit the image of "the legendary blackbeard, bloodthirsty scourge of the seas," izzy tolerates it at best or tries to shut it down at worst.

re: izzy saying he's been taking care of ed for a long time. i have seen. SO many posts (like, so so so fucking many (fair warning if u choose to check out all those links: lotta those posts get Really Long)) talking abt how izzy's whole rant abt "managing your increasingly erratic moods" and "massaging the crew when when they were worried about your judgement" is a massive load of bs. and personally, i'm inclined to agree?? you say we see izzy taking care of ed over and over again, but i rlly don't know what you're referring to. i can't think of a single time izzy provided emotional support for ed before stede leaves, and as for after stede leaves: yeah, izzy is probably the one who got ed the marmalade, but there is no evidence that he helped him build the blanket fort. we don't rlly see how izzy interacts with ed between the end of e9 and the start of e10, so it's hard to say how effective izzy was at dealing with ed's heartbreak depression, but considering ed didn't try to leave the room until after lucius goes in and gives him a free therapy session and starts actually cheering up when the crew all show him support, the conclusion im inclined to draw is that izzy sucks at "managing ed's increasingly erratic moods." if izzy has rlly spent years taking care of ed's emotions, and if ed and izzy have the kind of close intimate history that some fans seem to think they have, surely izzy would've gotten better at cheering ed up by now. the one caveat i suppose is that it seems unlikely that ed's ever experienced THIS level of heartbreak before stede, so izzy probably wasn't ready to handle it. but again, i can't think of any other time in the show where izzy even tries to successfully "manage" ed's mood.

(also, like. i don't rlly see ed's moods as being particularly erratic?? mayyyyybe he's more prone to mood swings before the show starts, but based off of what we see and know from the show, pretty much all ed's moods are like, pretty notmal and consistent reactions to the situations he's put in; the only person who seems to think ed is "insane" or "erratic" is izzy)

re: izzy grabbing fang's beard. i agree with you that izzy's line there is not so much a betrayal of ed's trust as it is izzy's way of trying to intimidate the crew into submission by banking on the reputation of blackbeard. but i feel like this is a pretty clear example of izzy's approach to "massaging the crew," and i... don't think it's an effective method. like, as far as i can tell, fang and ivan seem totally fine to keep following ed when he's relaxing his blackbeard persona and hanging out with the Revenge crew (ivan says ed's "open and available" in a way that makes it seem like he finds this to be a good thing, and fang was excited by the talent show and seems to be drinking a lot in the background once ed goes Full Kraken). izzy's management style is not as great as he seems to think it is. and because this casts izzy's claim of "massaging the crew" into doubt, it puts that whooole speech into doubt.

re: izzy and ed being casual around each other. i mean, a first mate is gonna spend a lot of time hanging around their captain. on a boat, which is kinda a very isolated and cramped environment. you're gonna get to a certain level of casual griping at each other. i don't really see this as evidence of an emotionally close relationship, just a comfortable one. which, after so many years of working together, of course they have that.

re: ur last paragraph. ok but like. izzy doesn't just say "im not friends with you anymore." izzy quite literally threatens ed's life. he insults ed's masculinity by calling him a namby pamby in a silk gown and tells edward to watch his back. he makes it clear to ed that unless he goes back to his old ways, ed is in danger. and again, by ed's definition of friendship, izzy and him already aren't friends (maybe never were). ed already knew that izzy didn't like when he did things that didn't align with the fearsome image of blackbeard. izzy being mad at him for singing songs and putting on a talent show probably isn't a surprise to him.

and for what it's worth, i don't think ed going full kraken is him being "pushed over the edge" into some kind of emotional breakdown. ed already had the emotional breakdown; he built a whole pillow fort over it! the way ed behaves, donning blackbeard once again and calmly going about putting izzy in his place—there's like, no emotion there. he's not angry. he's not erratic. he's fully in control of himself, and he's making these decisions for a reason.

more importantly tho, i don't think that reason actually comes from that convo with izzy, at least not entirely. i don't think that conversation is enough to "push him over the edge" on its own (he was fine with izzy leaving from the Revenge after the duel with stede, wasn't he? he smiled through izzy's very colorful resignation). ed's just been abandoned by the only person we see him refer to as a friend in the entire show; he's shown stede the squishy vulnerable part of himself that everyone else has rejected, he's thrown away everything to be with stede, and as far as he's aware, stede saw more of ed teach than anyone has in decades and decided he didn't want it. he's been abandoned for being himself. and when he goes back to the crew and sings his song and starts recovering from that heartbreak he's suffered, izzy comes at him and threatens his life. and if what you meant was that this conversation is the final straw for ed, i don't really agree with that either! bc in that scene, right after ed leaves, we hear the crew call out for ed. for eddie. and that is the moment that ed—still heartbroken from stede, freshly reeling from izzy—decides to retreat back into blackbeard.

these posts go into it so, so well, better than i could (and they're a shorter read than all those other posts i linked before). to borrow some quotes:

And we also seem to be agreed that this is sparked because the crew shout "Hey Ed, sing us another song!" and start chanting his name, and this hearkens back to "Play something for us, Jeff." They're a fickle crowd.

#connecting that with what happened at the dinner party #and the social anxiety trauma from that ... There's a connection there, with him not being able to read the situation correctly when he was out of his element and probably now thinking "is this the same?"

And finally, the crew. This crew stuttered in fear when they met him. This crew couldn't stop calling him sir and hung on his every word. They believed in the reputation of Blackbeard, and they feared and respected it. And yet so quickly, when he showed softness, that fear vanished. They rushed to call him by his given name and make demands of him. They saw him vulnerable and they stopped treating him as a captain. Ed can't count on his crew.

(oouohg baby that last quote is from the 2nd post i listed and god it's one of my favorite fucking metas. christ.)

aaaand last but not least!!! re: why would either of them do what they do if they didn’t have a close relationship. (this was in the middle of your post but i saved it for the end bc it felt like a good jumping off point for me to basically elaborate on the stance i made in my original post. bc that one sentence doesn't fully convey my interpretation of these characters)

so for starters. i dont exactly know what specifically u mean by "do what they do," but im gonna guess u mean like, ed telling izzy to stay at the end of episode 4, izzy challenging stede to a duel, izzy going to jackie and the british to try and get ed back, ed immediately asking for izzy to chat when he gets back from the pirate naval academy, and so on. so! Why Are Ed and Izzy Like That:

again, this is just my interpretation, and a lot of the details i could probably be persuaded against, but the reason i would give for Why They're Like That is that once upon a time, ed genuinely had a blast being blackbeard, and he and izzy got along much better. they had each other's backs in raids, probably saved each other's lives more than once, but they also probably didn't know each other very well outside of piracy. as ed got more bored, he would try and express interest in other things, but izzy wasn't bored yet. izzy was ecstatic to be number 2 for the biggest baddest guy around and he didn't want that to end.

that last part i'm pretty much 100% sure abt; when izzy talks abt managing the crew and ed's mood swings, the reason he gives is that he was honored to work for the legendary blackbeard. not that ed was his friend, or that he cared abt ed, or that he and ed had been through it all together, or that he helped build ed's legacy. he's honored to work for blackbeard. this, in my mind, answers the izzy half of Why Do They Do That. i feel like a lot of ppl consider loyalty to a legend to be unrealistic, that izzy must have deeper feelings than just hero worship to do the things he does for ed. but like, the secret service isn't willing to jump in front of a bullet for joe biden, they're willing to jump in front of a bullet for the president of the united states. dedicating your life, risking and giving your life, to an idea that's bigger than the man that stands behind it... that's literally a thing that ppl do irl all the time. blackbeard is izzy's potus, basically, and he doesn't want that legend to die. he would rather kill ed than let that happen. it would be a betrayal of everything izzy has worshiped and worked towards for the past however many years.

as for ed's side of Why Do They Do That: Divorce Era for Pirates Who Never Even Dated. im gonna be real the only things ed's done that i can think of that could arguably imply a deep emotional connection w izzy are 1. try and include izzy in his excitement abt stede's ship, 2. tell izzy to stay after the lighthouse fuckery, and 3. immediately asking izzy to bring him tea when he gets back from the pirate academy. so, here's why i think ed did those things:

including izzy in his excitement abt stede's ship. like you said before, we don't really see ed interact that much with a lot of characters, and there is a level of comfortable casualness between ed and izzy that ed doesn't seem to have with a lot of characters. i've admitted that ed trying to include izzy in his excitement is friend behavior, but i've also said that ed's definition of friendship seems to be more like. intense. or vulnerable, i guess. like i said, i think this is probably not the first time ed has tried to chat with izzy abt things other than Being Pirates, but i don't think they were ever met with much enthusiasm. i think the reason that ed still tries tho is bc izzy is one of the only ppl ed like, regularly talks to. so i feel like even tho ed knows he's not gonna get the response he wants, he's still going to talk to izzy when he's like, giddy with excitement abt this rich guy's weird boat (and ALSO i wanna point out that those scenes seem to be izzy following ed around; i don't think ed was seeking out izzy's company, but while izzy was there nagging him abt the spanish ed was gonna take the opportunity to talk abt how much fun he's having)

telling izzy to stay after the lighthouse fuckery. ok so my interpretation of the whole "murder stede and take his identity" plan seems to differ from most ppl's take on that plot point, which is to say that i actually do think ed planned to kill stede (or have someone else kill stede) and take his identity. i think ed rlly liked stede, but he was still operating in pirate mode, where the only way to get what you want is to take it, and what ed wanted was to retire from piracy and roll around in luxury in the upper class. as for how that progressed to ed signing the act of grace and kissing stede on the beach, that's another post; point is that ed was planning to kill stede, and he did need izzy there for that. if he was gonna hang around this ship and learn to be fancy, he needed his first mate there to have his back.

telling izzy to bring him tea when he returned from the pirate academy. for one thing, we never actually see how ed and izzy interacted while ed was in his depression fort, so it's hard to say how much ed was rlly telling him. his tone when he says "i'll take tea in my room" is pretty quiet, and he does pretty quickly duck out of there without actually meeting anyone's eyes, but like. did ed cry in front of him the way he did with lucius? or did he just order izzy to bring him stuff and brush off any questions izzy had abt what happened while he was gone? did izzy actually ask any questions, or did izzy just start asking ed what the plan was and when they were gonna get moving? did they hang out, or did ed try to get izzy out of there as soon as possible? did izzy try to get out of that room as soon as possible? now that i am typing these questions down i am literally dying to know what actually happened in that room before lucius went in, but i doubt we'll ever get to see that. point is that much like the ribbons in ed's beard scene, we don't rlly know what happened in there, so it's hard to use as evidence either way. (my headcannon, unsurprisingly, is that ed just asked izzy to bring him stuff, brushed off any questions izzy had, and tried to be alone as much as possible. and then he also cried a lot whenever he was alone and only called for izzy (and then lucius) when he wasn't in tears. but that's just headcannon, i'm not gonna try and argue that that's irrefutably what happened)

so yeah. izzy Does All That bc he's obsessed w the idea of blackbeard. ed Does All That bc izzy is the closest thing he has to a friend (but by his own admission he doesn't consider izzy his friend) and has a long history of having ed's back when it comes to pirate shit, even if they aren't emotionally vulnerable the way ed wants (and a quick note abt your line that "'emotionally vulnerable' is Ed’s state of being right now and has for awhile": i... do not agree lmao. ed's been looking for something new, and he's probably tried to reach out and open up to izzy in his own way a few times, but i don't think izzy's been giving ed what he wants. but i don't think ed ever opened up in a way that was truly vulnerable, not until stede, or else he already would've gotten that harsh rejection from izzy that we see in episode 10.)

in conclusion: sorry if i made u mad with my original post. also sorry if i made u mad with this reply!!! it's not my intention to come after ppl who interpret the show differently than i do, all i meant by the original post is that im confused by ppl who interpret the show in that way, not that my interpretation is better or more correct. however i am obsessed with this show and if given the chance i will talk abt why i interpret this show and these characters the way i do. as you can very clearly see, lmao.

anyway literally all of this is just my opinion tho, please do not take me too seriously lmao. im literally just a random bitch obsessed w gay pirates. you and i very clearly disagree abt many things going on w this show, but i don't see that as a bad thing!! if anything, it's kinda cool to me how many ways this show can be read. and like, who knows, maybe season two will give more insight into their relationship and show that there's more between ed and izzy than i currently think, in which case i'll eat my words! as of right now i still don't fully understand the interpretation of them being friends, but at the end of the day that is a me problem.

EDIT: wait also fuck fhjghkdfjhg im gonna answer ur first question even tho u probably meant it rhetorically. yes i've 100% had a moment where my self worth was at rock bottom and i told someone that i ‘didn’t have any friends’ even if there were people that would absolutely consider me a friend. what i would say abt that moment of my life was not that i literally did not have any friends who i could talk to, but that there was nobody in my life (aside from like, my parents) that i felt would make an effort to hang out with me outside of the times when our routines would naturally force us together, like school or clubs or whatever (and also this took place during summer break and i was still to young to drive, so i didn't have school to give me any social interactions and i didn't have a car to get anywhere. this was an incredibly fun period of my life). i feel like this kinda makes my original point stronger, tho? like, i wasn't saying i had no friends, i was saying i didn't have any relationships at the level of intimacy i needed. ed was saying the same exact thing. maybe ed's relationship w izzy could be described as friendship, but it wasn't giving the level of emotional intimacy ed needed. which again, makes me struggle to understand some people's interpretation of ed and izzy's relationship. but again!! that's just me lol

no offense to any fans this applies to but im so fucking baffled by ppl who think ed and izzy have an intimate and emotionally vulnerable history as if ed doesn't literally tell stede he doesn't have any friends

#txt #meta #mine #the izcourse #edward teach #izzy hands #blackhands #og #s1e04 #s1e06 #s1e10 #i have no fucking idea how long it took for me to write all this. but it was a Good Long While #im also exhausted beyond belief rn so im incapable of proofreading this #so if there's like a paragraph that i just. didn't finish. my b

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