#i worry i am encroaching so let me know if my use of the izcourse tag is that

[who-the-fuck-knows-blog]

the scene where izzy is talking to stede about the knives is such a good display of his character development. not only has he previously shown that he cares about the crew, and feels responsible for their safety; he actively stepped up instead of trying to kill himself again he saved that bullet to prevent ed from killing the whole crew, but he also acknowledges that he hurt ed (despite my disagreement with him that ed’s entire emotional state was caused by stede and izzy—thats a whole other can of worms regarding personal responsibility and mental illness and autonomy). I’m not sure if this is new character development for him, or if this was consistent from the start, and as we know, aspects of the previous season’s image of izzy will be somewhat divorced from how he usually behaves due to his emotional state. I didn’t particularly see him as a character who wouldn’t accept responsibility, but he has lied previously. not that it did him any good.

it seems entirely consistent to me that him lying initially about ed’s death (alongside the crew who initiated that lie) was due to his stated goal of wanting to avoid any more harm to the crew. He, at this point is only barely back from suicidality. I think the crew is holding him together quite a bit, and he wants to protect them as fiercely as he did edward.

i hope that we will get some flashbacks to him and the crew bonding, or his attitude shifting, but imo, the way he’s been shown to try to protect the crew, standing up to blackbeard directly and redirecting the attention to himself, shows he does really care.

I love that he isn’t and has never been a one-note, one-dimensional villain who selfishly only exists for himself and is actually a nuanced character with layers, things he is working on improving. None of them are “good guys”, really. because they’re people and contain multitudes. but the whole point of the story is about personal growth and escaping unhealthy dynamics and relationships and healing and how beneficial community is to all of that. I think the show is doing very well at portraying that and most people will see and understand the points being made.