#literally her GOAL was to die. the two options for her future were extremely painful evil death and painful quick death

[hanzajesthanza]

listening to my regis angouleme playlist at 2 am

[im-the-punk-who]

Black Sails as John Silver's SuperVillain Origin Story

Okay so I recently got asked about my views on Silver in a roundabout way so HERE ARE SOME OF THEM. I don’t often post about him because honestly I just really dislike him but he’s an extremely well written character and one of the best ‘villains’ I have ever seen portrayed. The reason Black Sails is such a compelling prequel to Treasure Island is that it does not just say ‘John Silver is a villain because he does bad things.’ Like all the characters in Black Sails he is complex, with deep and thoughtful motivations for the things he does. We see him as a villain because Black Sails sets his goals up in opposition to those of the protagonists we want to succeed - Flint and Madi - but he is not villainous in his own right.

But it is the effects of those motivations on himself that, to me, are the most interesting. 

And just up front because I know this is a touchy subject - especially coming from, well, me, lmao. This is how I read Silver. If you disagree, that’s cool. Like literally everything else in Black Sails(and fiction in general), Silver’s character is mutable based on your views and experiences. Tomato/Tomato.

So! To me, the most important thing about John Silver’s character in Black Sails, is who he is in Treasure Island. Black Sails is a prequel, and Silver is a major character in Treasure Island. We see his actions in the book(albeit through the story of the man who survives him, and, oof, isn’t that a bit of a kicker). We know that in this future Silver is still a lying, manipulative and mysterious person, hard not to like but hard to know.

That consistency is the most important part of Long John Silver’s character to me: he doesn’t really change from the beginning of Black Sails to the end, because he’s not really meant to. 

Silver may not exactly like the person he is but there is no point in trying or wanting to change.  In his view, who he is is just as immutable as the world he exists in. 

And that's the brilliance of Black Sails. 

Silver isn’t the way he is because he is ‘evil,’ or because he wants to intentionally cause harm. He is the way he is because it is the only way he’s worked out to survive. It is “the only state in which he can function.” He does not believe in a cosmic story, in a grand design or justice in the world - and because of that he does not see the point in trying to change something that has kept him alive thus far to appease it.

The entirety of the beach flashbacks is, to me, the summation of both Flint and Silver’s characters but this in particular I feel is important:

-Do you really imagine a few weeks of this is going to make much of a difference? Am I not what I am at this point?

-It's better than nothing.

In the grand scheme, Flint and Silver only know each other for about six months. 

Their relationship - especially to Silver - is a transient one. A handful of weeks. Was it ever enough to expect it to make any bit of difference?

But not so for Flint. He truly believes humans are capable of change, and he believes even the smallest bit of progress is worth the effort. Flint takes the things that happen to him and make them a part of him.

But for Silver,

I've come to peace with the knowledge...that there is no storyteller imposing any coherence, nor sense, nor grace upon those events.

Therefore, there's no duty on my part to search for it.

Silver refuses to acknowledge his own story and so is unable or unwilling to see himself as capable of change throughout it. Or even really the need for change. And that’s not said as a negative - that is who he is. That is who his past - whatever it was - has taught him.

And so he consistently acts solely for his own gain, benefit, and safety. Because if he doesn’t, who else is going to?

And this continues the differences between Flint and Silver. 

While Silver is very wrong that his past is irrelevant, he is correct in that it doesn't matter. It doesn’t matter what his past is, because we can clearly see the effects of it. We don't NEED to know his past to understand his actions.

However, without knowing Flint’s backstory - Thomas, Miranda, England’s betrayal - his actions don't make sense. They are erratic: they seem villainous and vile and like the acts of a tyrant or a madman. Because his actions are tied to his story.

But from the very first moment we see Silver fight the cook over what he presumes is a chance at living, Silver is clearly trying to figure out what is best for him. 

He doesn’t care about Flint’s war, or what the treasure could fund. He doesn’t care about the pardons, and he doesn't care about England. He doesn’t care about piracy. All he cares about at first is the life the treasure could buy him. But when he loses his leg, suddenly the thing he literally spent two seasons fucking everyone over for becomes completely inconsequential, because it no longer benefits him.

It is without relevance.

And through the very last time we see him speaking him to Madi, he is doing the same thing. 

That's not to say he doesn't form friendships or care about people. He is, indeed, a hard man not to like, and I think he also genuinely likes people as well. But that doesn’t mean he changes because of them. The friendships he forms with Flint - with Billy, with Muldoon and Randall and the other crew members - the relationship he forms with Madi. They are all real, but they are also all expendable to ensure his own comfort and survival. 

In the first episode of season 2 we’re told point blank:

It’s likely that if our interests were averse, I’d betray you to save myself.

And of course at this point Silver and Flint are little more than necessary enemies, Silver has no reason to want Flint alive. But the pattern holds throughout the whole show. 

Later in season 2, when Flint is thinking about changing tactics to prioritize the pardons over the gold, Silver has no problem screwing over the entire crew(minus the two men he’s recruited) to meet his own ends. It’s what’s best for him, and Silver operates on this assumption that every person needs to look out for themselves. 

And then again, in the finale of season 2 - he saves the crew because it also means saving himself. When Vincent brings up leaving, Silver says that they would likely be killed if they tried - he’s already considered that option and rejected it because his odds of survival are higher sticking with the crew. 

And then of course, in season three, in the maroon cages - you can bet that the fact that flint’s psyche basically controlled whether they all - including him - lived or died was a major driving force behind his dedication to getting Flint to come up with a plan better than Billy’s in which - again - they all likely end up dead. 

His relationships with Madi and Flint in particular are deep, and so it is the worst thought possible when he realizes that they are starting to agree with each other, but not with him. When Madi agrees with Flint over trading the cache for the fort, I read this as the true end of Silver’s support of the war because the war now threatens his personal ‘safety.’

Because at that moment, the thing most important to him is keeping Madi - who he not only has come to care for but who supports him. And she makes him know she supports him. And the prospect of losing that is what ultimately I think drives him to planning to send Flint away, rather than bring Thomas there or some other plan. 

And again it isn’t maliciousness - not outright. He is doing what he thinks he needs to to survive, because he cannot have enough faith in either Flint or Madi to think they won’t drop him the moment he stops being invaluable. And in the end, that lack of faith is what spells the end for any chance he has at having them in his life.

When he thinks Madi might die if they continue, he doesn’t care if she hates him. He doesn’t care if Flint hates him. He doesn’t care if the relationship is destroyed if he gets what he wants out of it. Madi’s survival. The end of the war. An end to Flint and Madi’s relationship so that he can ‘protect’ her from death and choose how he ‘loses’ her. It is always less painful to be the one doing the leaving.

Based on his world view - that you must protect what is in your own interests and the only person you can count on is yourself - that is the right thing to do.

Over and over we see that Silver is mostly interested in other people through the guise of his interest in keeping himself alive. And I also think that because of that, he views himself as expendable to other people as well. 

When Muldoon insists that the crew would take care of him if he needed that, it’s clear that Silver doesn’t believe him. He still believes himself to be expendable unless he is useful. He is constantly managing his image, managing how people see him, managing the things he allows others to see and what dangers or threats they pose to him, because he believes these are the things that keep him safe. Not his friendships, but what he brings to them.

Part of what’s so heartbreaking about Silver’s arc in season 4 is how terrifyingly close he comes to believing himself worthy. He wants the war because the two people who mean the most to him, who he sees as vital to his own survival - Flint and Madi - are both committed to it. And he’s committed to them. But I also think that just for a second, he starts to see their vision. 

When things are going well, when he can’t see the body count, he comes so close. But then of course, when everything falls apart and he is forced to confront once again the horrors of the world, he retreats.

That line he has:

And as long as (I have his true friendship) he is going to have mine.

I see that get thrown around a lot as a declaration of love, of deep feelings - and it is, to an extent. But it is also a sign of the deep mistrust that Silver harbors even when he is not looking to.

Even in this moment when he has Madi, when it must seem like they are nigh unstoppable and Silver himself is poised at the head of this great thing - when he and Flint are closest and when, I assume, Flint couldn’t fathom betraying him. Silver is still thinking in the eventuality that it will happen.

I have his true friendship, and as long as that is true, he is going to have mine. 

Silver’s love is always conditional. And that doesn’t make it any less ‘real’. It doesn’t make it any less important. But it does make it easier to take back. And that’s important for him!! It’s important for Silver’s own safety that he never rely on someone so much that he cannot cut them loose if they pose a ‘danger’ to him.

And to me, that’s the most important thing to realize about Silver. He is a ‘villain’ - and again I use the term loosely because he is ONLY a ‘villain’ because our protagonist’s stories are set in opposition to his - because he will always put himself above the grander goal. 

We see this in Black Sails, and we see this in Treasure Island. John Silver betrays Jim even though he feels conflicted about it. It isn’t until the very end, until Silver sees once again the same opportunity flash before his eyes where someone he loves is in danger and he cannot live with their death, that the treasure itself becomes unimportant again. Black Sails does an incredible job of giving us an antagonist whose defining trait is that he cannot see himself being meaningful in any way that matters. 

Silver ends up destroying just about every relationship he has because of this inability. Time and again when he is faced with an opportunity for growth that comes with hard decisions, he chooses to destroy himself. Because it is easy. 

It is easy to destroy the thing you do not care about, it is easy to destroy yourself if you don't value yourself. To call it winning because at least you are still alive and the things you’ve had to sacrifice are merely unimportant - inconsequential. But thinking like that hurts not only ourselves, but others too. 

And it is not that Silver puts himself first, plenty of other characters do that as well - Miranda, Jack, Max. It is the fact that Silver must deny himself in the process that makes him the villain not just in Black Sails, but in his own story. And THAT is the origins of his supervillain story. That he is, in fact, his own. 

[iggytheperson]

“The development of Eva and Fate post-negima/pre-uq holder feels almost as though someone just told Ken to switch their personalities around” - an analysis, product of my growing irritation with this bullshit.

So let’s see. On the right we have Eva, an ancient evil demon queen who’s killed thousands if not millions of people, attempted to murder our original ten y/o protagonist, made him work to the point of near death and then berated him for not being able to do better, threw a 15 year old girl into a blizzard buck-naked and forced her to live there for two weeks straight, told another 15 year old that experiencing happiness instead of working herself to the bone every waking moment would cause her loved ones to die, and was generally just kind of a horrible person. Regardless of the sympathetic circumstances that caused her to be like this and the fact that her behavior is completely understandable in context, she’s a proud villain who revels in tormenting people.

On the left we have Fate, a 20 year old who was taught from birth that his purpose in life was to save the world. That method of saving the world is to send the whole world to heaven before the planet becomes unsuitable for living, but from Fate’s perspective it is literally the only way those souls can be saved from an eternity of suffering. His hobbies include saving war orphans and making sure they can live comfortably and happily for the rest of their lives. He has five adopted daughters. Regardless of the fact that some of his actions are misinformed, he always has everyone’s best intentions in mind and is, all in all, a good guy.

One of these people went on to create a non-profit organization that works to make the world a better place, sheltering orphaned minorities and helping the poor.

One of these people went on to create a couple hundred child soldiers and to execute a plan that ultimately puts millions and millions of people in danger, for the sake of one guy.

At this point it all of this already begs the question of what the fuck, but let’s dissect this even further.

So, Evangeline AK Fucking Mcdowell, a woman who, after many centuries of being miserable and having no joy or hope to hold onto, was finally able to make a life for herself with people who loved her, was then was forced to watch her decades-old comrades fly off into battle and meet fates worse than death. 

Then she finally joined the hero business so she could help her surrogate son, one of the only people left in her life that she could ever possibly have room left in her heart to care for besides Chachazero and Chachamaru. 

Then both her century’s long best friend and her son fly off into a heroic last battle and never return.

Her first moment in hundreds of years that she uses to do the right thing is a moment that completely and devastatingly betrays her. Evangeline has been given every single reason to go back to hating heroism as she always has, and every reason to be completely destroyed by this turn of events. There is no logical reality where the mentally grounded and well intentioned Yukihime we see throughout all of UQ Holder would exist. There’s no reason she would continue being a goody two shoes when heroic bravado is what ended the only happy segment of her long and painful life. It’s just dumb and weird. 

Her clingy attachment with Touta, the only thing she has left even resembling her late son, would make sense if it was actually portrayed like that instead of just her being a normal, nice, regular mom. But alas, Yukihime is so abstracted from her original personality she might as well have be another character.

And on Fate’s side of things, we have another 180 of moral compass.

There is no world wherein the Fate Averruncus of Negima would exploit a child as a means of paying off bills. There’s no world wherein he would do something that would lead up to that, nor where he would work with a company that condones such things. Fate is a man who, at ten years old, murdered his abusive brother to protect a child he barely knew, and his morals aren’t any worse than they were back then.

The reason Fate chose to go against his master’s will at the end of Negima, was not the result of some magical spell being lifted or other such bullshit as one would expect from a lesser story, it was the result of him realizing that the fate of the world could be a better one if he and Negi worked together. Because Fate has been raised from birth to pursue the most logical, rational option that would allow for as many people as possible to be happy. 

And there’s no goddamn way Fate would risk the world for Negi. Not the immediate world nor its distant future. He’s been willing to see his crush dead just for ticking him off once, if Negi told him after years of trust and friendship “Hey I’m going to be a threat to the world soon, kill me, ok?” Fate would stand by that request. He would be heartbroken, yes, but Fate has been groomed since birth to be a world-saving super soldier.

I just. don’t understand?? how this happened??? who thought this was ok?????

Again, if it were switched around, it would make sense. Eva is a bad person. Straight up. If UQ Holder had told me that she went full blown sociopath again after Negi’s assimilation into the Mage Of Beginnings out of a desire to save him that superceeds her concern for humanity’s wellbeing? Yeah. Ok. A bit extreme given that she was more of a detached stepmom to him than anything, but certainly less logically suspect than her starting a charity organization. And given the entirety of Fate’s characterization, that charity organization is exactly what I’d presume he’d do without any kind of sequel telling me that. The whole point of his character in the first place is that he’s a good person whose plan to save everyone and everything in the universe just so happens to involve pieces that are at odds with the hero’s goals (and also includes hiring murdery demons, but to be fair, if the demons are busy helping him save the world then that also preoccupies them from doing evil). And it’s not like UQ Holder has entirely forgotten about this but...child soldiers. Child soldiers. C h i l d  s o l d i e r s. That’s not. Conceivable. As being anything that Fate would have ever, ever participated in. He’d have turned the guy who suggested it to stone, dumped the guy into the ocean, given him immortality and unpetrified him so that he’d drown forever for even hinting at the idea of hurting a child.

It’s dumber than dumb, folks.